1) Featured games earn like 10,000 Cryptic Points.
2) Each hit on your game gets you 1 Cryptic Point.
Something like that. This way it's not actual money. The only way I could see actual money being factored in would be if we made C-store items which is unlikely.
CPoints are actual money, for Cryptic. But I do like the idea of rewarding people who make featured episodes. Sort of like an ingame contest.
that would be akin to energy credits or even emblems in STO. if you look at the thread in the Foundry subsection (Likeness Rights) what people are "demanding" is a way of being PAID, mostly by CPoints, which is ridiculous.
Being paid in C-store points is a bit silly and I don't see that happening,
A simple UGC store with some kind of new UGC uniform, ship trophies, rare BOFF's etc..
Or maybe the higher your rating, the more mission items you unlock, Making your missions more unique then the people who are new to it.
Or maybe a UGC c-store with its own currency and items.
Guild chat: hey, can everyone please do my mission and then do it again with your alts? I want some free Cryptic points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeah this is a terribad idea imo. I do HOWEVER like the idea that say your mission gets like a set number of playthroughs, you receive an accolade or something. definitely not something as tangible as CPoints
1) Featured games earn like 10,000 Cryptic Points.
2) Each hit on your game gets you 1 Cryptic Point.
Something like that. This way it's not actual money. The only way I could see actual money being factored in would be if we made C-store items which is unlikely.
Cryptic would never do this or any other MMO.
UGC is about giving you more to do in game, not getting handouts for the C-store.
Being paid in C-store points is a bit silly and I don't see that happening,
A simple UGC store with some kind of new UGC uniform, ship trophies, rare BOFF's etc..
Or maybe the higher your rating, the more mission items you unlock, Making your missions more unique then the people who are new to it.
Or maybe a UGC c-store with its own currency and items.
I don't think its own store is likely, but MAYBE something similar...you could get "UGC points" or something like that that would allow you to purchase certain CStore items, maybe even UNIQUE items to "UGC points"
UGC is about giving you more to do in game, not getting handouts for the C-store.
I don't think they'd EVER allow the whole "1 point per play" idea, but rewards for "featured UGC" are a good idea, whether that be CStore points or even a unique item, I dunno.
CPoints are actual money, for Cryptic. But I do like the idea of rewarding people who make featured episodes. Sort of like an ingame contest.
Not directly.
Cryptic only loses money giving a person C-Points if that person would otherwise buy C-Points, themselves. If they never would, Cryptic wouldn't have lost anything.
Guild chat: hey, can everyone please do my mission and then do it again with your alts? I want some free Cryptic points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What's wrong with that? That means the content is being played and those people have something to do in STO. That's the point of UGC, you know... giving people something to do. But I do agree that 1cp per playthrough is too much and therefor too open to abuse.
UGC is about giving you more to do in game, not getting handouts for the C-store.
People having more to do (by being able to play UGC) benefits Cryptic. It's in their interest for their players to have something to do; it encourages existing players to stay and is a selling point to attract new subscribers.
I don't think it's uncalled for at all for authors to get some reward proportionate to how much playtime their mission(s) offer other players.
The proposal I came up with in the UGC forum was for a .5cp "payment" for every hour of playtime their missions receive (each playthrough capping at half hour to avoid idler abuse). The amount of CP, amount of time, and per-playthrough time cap can of course be tweaked.
The idea is to keep the payment very small in increment so that it takes hundreds or thousands of playthroughs to actually result in a meaningful number of CP. That helps eliminate the profitability of third-party gold seller-like companies gaming the system, as well as fleetmakes making a substantial impact. If time is only counted once per mission per character, it greatly reduces the potential for abuse again.
I think UGC should follow the same rules of open source software. If you want to create it for everyone else to consume, go ahead. But you do it for free. Cryptic should spell that out in advance. Creating episodes is for your entertainment only.
I personally won't do any of the UGC missions for the first couple months. I'm going to wait until one of the more active players puts together a guide of the better episodes before I start going through them. Mainly because I don't want to play garbage episodes. And if Cryptic starts paying for UGC that is what we will get, garbage episodes. You think B'Tran is bad...
I think UGC should follow the same rules of open source software. If you want to create it for everyone else to consume, go ahead. But you do it for free. Cryptic should spell that out in advance. Creating episodes is for your entertainment only.
Which rules are you referring to?
When i think open source rules I think of "free to use in free products". You can use the open source software as much as you want but you can't turn around and make a profit on the application that's using that open source software.
If that's what you mean then it's already impossible to see UGC as open source software, since the UGC system itself is embedded into a commercial product that someone is making money off of.
If anyone could download STO and play the UGC for free, then I agree that no reimbursement is justified. But as it is, Cryptic profits on STO and what STO offers, which will include the missions we create. It's based on that, that I feel we deserve some sort of reimbursement.
When i think open source rules I think of "free to use in free products". You can use the open source software as much as you want but you can't turn around and make a profit on the application that's using that open source software.
If that's what you mean then it's already impossible to see UGC as open source software, since the UGC system itself is embedded into a commercial product that someone is making money off of.
If anyone could download STO and play the UGC for free, then I agree that no reimbursement is justified. But as it is, Cryptic profits on STO and what STO offers, which will include the missions we create. It's based on that, that I feel we deserve some sort of reimbursement.
I just meant any missions you create are open to the community. You create them on your own time with no expectation of reimbursement. Creating missions themselves are considered entertainment. That's why there is no reimbursement. Whether it's played by 10 people or 10,000 people, if you chose to create content you do it on your own time for your entertainment only.
Cryptic is not hiring you to do their content creation. They are giving you the tools to create missions of your choosing. But those tools will still pale in comparison to the tools Cryptic has and any mission you put together will not be as complex as the missions they can put together.
Valve is paying royalties to players who create items which get sold in the TF2 microtransaction store. (link)
I don't see why Cryptic couldn't do the same. The main difference is that TF2's business model is selling copies of the game and making money through the microtransaction store, while Cryptic (I expect) makes the bulk of their income through monthly subscriptions and supplements it by selling copies and with the C-store.
Personally, I think writing missions would be much more interesting if there was the potential to get paid for your work if you do a great job. If people knew they could get paid for creating masterpieces, we might see some truly incredible missions get built (once the tools are well enough developed).
Valve is paying royalties to players who create items which get sold in the TF2 microtransaction store. (link)
I don't see why Cryptic couldn't do the same. The main difference is that TF2's business model is selling copies of the game and making money through the microtransaction store, while Cryptic (I expect) makes the bulk of their income through monthly subscriptions and supplements it by selling copies and with the C-store.
Personally, I think writing missions would be much more interesting if there was the potential to get paid for your work if you do a great job. If people knew they could get paid for creating masterpieces, we might see some truly incredible missions get built (once the tools are well enough developed).
No. I doubt it'd work here.
For one, those items in Team Fortress were made with unique art assets (requiring skilled labor to produce in 3Dsmax or similar software), something you aren't allowed to do with Foundry (the devs have stated we can't create our own models in Foundry).
Factor in that 99.999999% of games don't pay their modders, level designers, etc. - especially when those people are reprogramming the game or generating new art assets.
Not too sure on whether UGC content can be made private to just fleet or team play, there was some mentionof his. If so what will Cryptic do to stop players running their own charging fee for access to content created by UGC.
Step right up, kill a 100 romulans with a spoon then get 10 minutes free with 7 of 9, only 750K EC and a cap 3 shield..
Factor in that 99.999999% of games don't pay their modders, level designers, etc. - especially when those people are reprogramming the game or generating new art assets.
Those 99.999999% of games don't make a profit on the work of those modders, level designers, etc. With TF2's items being purchased through their store, it makes sense for some of that to pass on to those who made the content.
Same with STO. You need to pay to access the content we're creating, and some of that should pass on to those who made it.
I recall back in the 90s when they use to have retail packs of maps for games like Doom, Doom2, etc., the people who made the maps got money. Myself and others on a local BBS were actually offered $120/map for inclusion into a Duke Nukem 3D retail map pack.
CafePress is similar as well. Users make content and put it on the merchandise. CafePress makes money through the base price of items. Users can add a markup to make money for themselves.
The principle remains the same. If a company makes profit on the creative work of others, those others should get some sort of reimbursement for their efforts.
However, as far as I know it's only something we're thinking about doing, and plans have yet to move beyond that point yet. What do you guys think of something like that?
Thanks,
Stormshade
What I'd like to see is Cryptic taking the Best Of The Best from UGC and making them part of the "real game" so that they are no longer subject to any reward restrictions.
What I'd like to see is Cryptic taking the Best Of The Best from UGC and making them part of the "real game" so that they are no longer subject to any reward restrictions.
I agree.
Star Trek fans invented Fan Fic. We were writing it before there was even an internet to distribute it on. I've seen guys handing out small books that they typed up by hand with their Fan Fic stories at Star Trek conventions.
Typed by hand. This was back before personal computers, much less the internet. Probably before many of you were born. One guy told me that after he typed up all 200 pages of his story he made copies with the hand-cranked mimeograph machine at the college that he worked at.
This doesn't mean that all of the UGC missions will be great, or even good. But it does mean that a lot of Star Trek fans are excellent writers, so there's a lot of potential for a lot of great stories.
The principle remains the same. If a company makes profit on the creative work of others, those others should get some sort of reimbursement for their efforts.
The principle would be the same if the mechanics were the same:
TF2: there's a store where you actually purchase items made via custom highly, skilled art assets by players.
NWN: no store but plenty of people bought the game if only to access the content people made on their own time.
STO: is not selling UGC content nor is highly skilled labor involved in creating UGC missions.
UGC requires significantly less work to assemble and is not sold via Cryptic.
You've drawn a specious analogy from too dissimilar examples.
I am ok with an accolade just for show, but I have to say no to c-points as that is a form of money to some extent and no to special powers connected to an accolade as that sets up an unfair advantage system.
In other words it is like what was mentioned earlier, fleets promoting content then their people start getting game altering accolades and then they start trying to insure the rest either do not get access to those abilities or have an extremely above and beyond tough time on getting them due to rating system abuses.
The same scenario could be applied if money / c-store points where involved.
Not to mention the possibility of buying ratings for your content.
Let's be clear, I am not saying that will absolutely happen, but I have yet to see that it can't happen.
Game altering items should remain gotten the old fashioned way, running through content.
So No on accolades with special powers ,No on c-points, and yes to just regular accolades and trophies.
If Cryptic wants to do a featured episode or even feature one in the game as part of the game I am fine with that also, that is still different than passing out game altering / potentially game altering rewards.
What I'd like to see is Cryptic taking the Best Of The Best from UGC and making them part of the "real game" so that they are no longer subject to any reward restrictions.
I totally agree with this. Ever since they announced the UGCE, I've thought that is what Cryptic was eventually going to do with the best episodes. I think it would be a really good idea.
(Also, just for the sake of the topic of the thread, I say no reimbursement should be given. I think having others playing my episodes (and me playing others' episodes) is compensation enough.)
STO: is not selling UGC content nor is highly skilled labor involved in creating UGC missions.
Mhm. Yes.. it is. You can't play it for free. You need to pay the STO subscription fees in order to play it.
So yes... Cryptic is selling our UGC content right alongside all the content they've made.
If the STO client had a single-player mode and you could play UGC through that without having to connect and without having to have a subscription, then I would agree with you. Then it would be like community-made content for the Sims, or Oblivion, or Fallout--you'd download it for free and you'd play it for free. But that's now how STO works. You have to pay in order to access the UGC content.
Mhm. Yes.. it is. You can't play it for free. You need to pay the STO subscription fees in order to play it.
So yes... Cryptic is selling our UGC content right alongside all the content they've made.
If the STO client had a single-player mode and you could play UGC through that without having to connect and without having to have a subscription, then I would agree with you. Then it would be like community-made content for the Sims, or Oblivion, or Fallout--you'd download it for free and you'd play it for free. But that's now how STO works. You have to pay in order to access the UGC content.
You needed to pay a subscription fee to access CoX and SWG too and both of those had UGC... so...
plus, they more accurately reflect STO's model than TF2 or NWN.
(Also, just for the sake of the topic of the thread, I say no reimbursement should be given. I think having others playing my episodes (and me playing others' episodes) is compensation enough.)
And that's fine for you, but why deny reimbursement for all other authors? If there were notable costs or risks then I'd see a reason not to include it, but so far those dangers seem manageable.
I guess I don't understand why people are against it. I can understand people not caring if they get a reward, but that doesn't explain why they don't want a system in place to provide it. The question isn't if you want compensation; it's if all developers should get it.
My wife and I often donate to Goodwill, but we don't apply the donation for a tax write-off. That's our choice. I'd never make the argument that nobody should be able to.
You needed to pay a subscription fee to access CoX and SWG too and both of those had UGC... so...
So... what?
Just because they didn't do it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
plus, they more accurately reflect STO's model than TF2 or NWN.
The specific model is irrelevant. What it comes down to is a company profiting through the sell of, or subscription-access to, the content created by its users. The precedence has been set in the gaming industry since at least the 90s to compensate content authors in some way, in such situations.
And that's fine for you, but why deny reimbursement for all other authors? If there were notable costs or risks then I'd see a reason not to include it, but so far those dangers seem manageable.
I guess I don't understand why people are against it. I can understand people not caring if they get a reward, but that doesn't explain why they don't want a system in place to provide it. The question isn't if you want compensation; it's if all developers should get it.
My wife and I often donate to Goodwill, but we don't apply the donation for a tax write-off. That's our choice. I'd never make the argument that nobody should be able to.
Okay, I'll rephrase then.
I don't think any creators of UGC missions should get any reimbursement. Quite simply, the satisfaction of telling a story (and/or being told one by someone else) should be ample compensation. It just feels greedy to me for someone to expect additional items or money (real or electronic) for something that is totally voluntary and not necessary in order to enjoy the game.
Since you obviously have such a problem with it, then simply don't use the UGCE and don't play any of the episodes created with it.
Besides, since the Foundry will be coming out after the Enterprise Pack (which includes the NX-Class, which you have said shouldn't be in the game) comes out, you won't be playing the game anymore, so I fail to see why you're concerned about this topic at all.
I believe that Foundry mission authors should not be paid.
I believe that Foundry missions should be allowed to be added to the game's fiction (with some dev polish).
I believe this works best, especially for an licensed IP - or else CBS/Paramount/Cryptic would need to go back to the drawing board for licensing agreements if a monetization component were added.
I'd gone on more but there's an NDA and I don't want to discuss specific reasons why Foundry shouldn't be monetized (It relates to my third one and what missions the fans of the game will find popular and how that conflicts with my third criterion).
I don't think any creators of UGC missions should get any reimbursement. Quite simply, the satisfaction of telling a story (and/or being told one by someone else) should be ample compensation.
By that logic the creative exploits of authors, artists, singers, etc., shouldn't yield compensation either. The satisfaction of telling a story, or creating a work of art, or a song, etc. should be ample compensation.
Since you obviously have such a problem with it, then simply don't use the UGCE and don't play any of the episodes created with it.
Besides, since the Foundry will be coming out after the Enterprise Pack (which includes the NX-Class, which you have said shouldn't be in the game) comes out, you won't be playing the game anymore, so I fail to see why you're concerned about this topic at all.
It's not about me. I doubt I'll ever make any UGC the rate things are going, then I doubt mine would ever be good enough to earn me much of anything, anyway.
The issue is, as I have said in various threads, a company profiting on UGC without due-compensation being given to the authors. I find the practice incredibly unethical, and I'm frankly astounded that so many people here willingly accept Cryptic making money on their work without some form of scaled compensation. If not for themselves they should at least want it possible for others.
By that logic the creative exploits of authors, artists, singers, etc., shouldn't yield compensation either. The satisfaction of telling a story, or creating a work of art, or a song, etc. should be ample compensation.
All of this takes place within a licensed work: using licensed art assets and sound effects. This changes it dramatically from TF2 - where Valve owns the license.
I cannot go out and publish my own Star Trek book and expect compensation for the copies I sell. I'd be violating copyright law as I haven't entered an agreement with the licensor for rights to sell derivative works. Everything in this game is a derivative work.
If expressed in Creative Commons terms, all your UGC missions are allowed to be created under these terms:
Attributive - Noncommercial - Share-similarly
Attributive: You must attribute the original authors of the work, whose rights fall under licensing agreements with CBS and Paramount
Non-Commercial: You cannot make money off this licensed work (all UGC is derivative of STO which is a licensed derivative work of those involved with the Star Trek IP at CBS and Paramount)
Share-similarly: If anyone makes a derivative work off yours, you cannot switch the terms. You play in our yard with our IP, you must share your contributions to the IP with the other kids.
That said, wait until Open Beta or when it goes live, the EULA should clarify everything for you.
All of this takes place within a licensed work: using licensed art assets and sound effects. This changes it dramatically from TF2 - where Valve owns the license.
I cannot go out and publish my own Star Trek book and expect compensation for the copies I sell. I'd be violating copyright law as I haven't entered an agreement with the licensor for rights to sell derivative works. Everything in this game is a derivative work.
If expressed in Creative Commons terms, all your UGC missions are allowed to be created under these terms:
Attributive - Noncommercial - Share-similarly
Attributive: You must attribute the original authors of the work, whose rights fall under licensing agreements with CBS and Paramount
Non-Commercial: You cannot make money off this licensed work (all UGC is derivative of STO which is a licensed derivative work of those involved with the Star Trek IP at CBS and Paramount)
Share-similarly: If anyone makes a derivative work off yours, you cannot switch the terms. You play in our yard with our IP, you must share your contributions to the IP with the other kids.
That said, wait until Open Beta or when it goes live, the EULA should clarify everything for you.
I understand copyright and authors' rights laws, which is why I've never cited them. I know we waive our right to the content by signing the EULA. That doesn't change the fact that Cryptic is profiting on the work of UGC artists with no reimbursement going to those authors. My arguments aren't based in law; they're based in ethics.
Interestingly... if STO were F2P or had a F2P mode that included access to UGC, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Odd how different discussions can intertwine.
Comments
CPoints are actual money, for Cryptic. But I do like the idea of rewarding people who make featured episodes. Sort of like an ingame contest.
Guild chat: hey, can everyone please do my mission and then do it again with your alts? I want some free Cryptic points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Being paid in C-store points is a bit silly and I don't see that happening,
A simple UGC store with some kind of new UGC uniform, ship trophies, rare BOFF's etc..
Or maybe the higher your rating, the more mission items you unlock, Making your missions more unique then the people who are new to it.
Or maybe a UGC c-store with its own currency and items.
yeah this is a terribad idea imo. I do HOWEVER like the idea that say your mission gets like a set number of playthroughs, you receive an accolade or something. definitely not something as tangible as CPoints
Cryptic would never do this or any other MMO.
UGC is about giving you more to do in game, not getting handouts for the C-store.
I don't think its own store is likely, but MAYBE something similar...you could get "UGC points" or something like that that would allow you to purchase certain CStore items, maybe even UNIQUE items to "UGC points"
I don't think they'd EVER allow the whole "1 point per play" idea, but rewards for "featured UGC" are a good idea, whether that be CStore points or even a unique item, I dunno.
Not directly.
Cryptic only loses money giving a person C-Points if that person would otherwise buy C-Points, themselves. If they never would, Cryptic wouldn't have lost anything.
What's wrong with that? That means the content is being played and those people have something to do in STO. That's the point of UGC, you know... giving people something to do. But I do agree that 1cp per playthrough is too much and therefor too open to abuse.
People having more to do (by being able to play UGC) benefits Cryptic. It's in their interest for their players to have something to do; it encourages existing players to stay and is a selling point to attract new subscribers.
I don't think it's uncalled for at all for authors to get some reward proportionate to how much playtime their mission(s) offer other players.
The proposal I came up with in the UGC forum was for a .5cp "payment" for every hour of playtime their missions receive (each playthrough capping at half hour to avoid idler abuse). The amount of CP, amount of time, and per-playthrough time cap can of course be tweaked.
The idea is to keep the payment very small in increment so that it takes hundreds or thousands of playthroughs to actually result in a meaningful number of CP. That helps eliminate the profitability of third-party gold seller-like companies gaming the system, as well as fleetmakes making a substantial impact. If time is only counted once per mission per character, it greatly reduces the potential for abuse again.
I personally won't do any of the UGC missions for the first couple months. I'm going to wait until one of the more active players puts together a guide of the better episodes before I start going through them. Mainly because I don't want to play garbage episodes. And if Cryptic starts paying for UGC that is what we will get, garbage episodes. You think B'Tran is bad...
Which rules are you referring to?
When i think open source rules I think of "free to use in free products". You can use the open source software as much as you want but you can't turn around and make a profit on the application that's using that open source software.
If that's what you mean then it's already impossible to see UGC as open source software, since the UGC system itself is embedded into a commercial product that someone is making money off of.
If anyone could download STO and play the UGC for free, then I agree that no reimbursement is justified. But as it is, Cryptic profits on STO and what STO offers, which will include the missions we create. It's based on that, that I feel we deserve some sort of reimbursement.
I just meant any missions you create are open to the community. You create them on your own time with no expectation of reimbursement. Creating missions themselves are considered entertainment. That's why there is no reimbursement. Whether it's played by 10 people or 10,000 people, if you chose to create content you do it on your own time for your entertainment only.
Cryptic is not hiring you to do their content creation. They are giving you the tools to create missions of your choosing. But those tools will still pale in comparison to the tools Cryptic has and any mission you put together will not be as complex as the missions they can put together.
I don't see why Cryptic couldn't do the same. The main difference is that TF2's business model is selling copies of the game and making money through the microtransaction store, while Cryptic (I expect) makes the bulk of their income through monthly subscriptions and supplements it by selling copies and with the C-store.
Personally, I think writing missions would be much more interesting if there was the potential to get paid for your work if you do a great job. If people knew they could get paid for creating masterpieces, we might see some truly incredible missions get built (once the tools are well enough developed).
Wow, nice find. Not something I'd equate to or find applicable with UGC in STO, but it shows the direction this kind of concept is taking.
For one, those items in Team Fortress were made with unique art assets (requiring skilled labor to produce in 3Dsmax or similar software), something you aren't allowed to do with Foundry (the devs have stated we can't create our own models in Foundry).
Factor in that 99.999999% of games don't pay their modders, level designers, etc. - especially when those people are reprogramming the game or generating new art assets.
Step right up, kill a 100 romulans with a spoon then get 10 minutes free with 7 of 9, only 750K EC and a cap 3 shield..
A whole new micro economy :eek:
Those 99.999999% of games don't make a profit on the work of those modders, level designers, etc. With TF2's items being purchased through their store, it makes sense for some of that to pass on to those who made the content.
Same with STO. You need to pay to access the content we're creating, and some of that should pass on to those who made it.
I recall back in the 90s when they use to have retail packs of maps for games like Doom, Doom2, etc., the people who made the maps got money. Myself and others on a local BBS were actually offered $120/map for inclusion into a Duke Nukem 3D retail map pack.
CafePress is similar as well. Users make content and put it on the merchandise. CafePress makes money through the base price of items. Users can add a markup to make money for themselves.
The principle remains the same. If a company makes profit on the creative work of others, those others should get some sort of reimbursement for their efforts.
What I'd like to see is Cryptic taking the Best Of The Best from UGC and making them part of the "real game" so that they are no longer subject to any reward restrictions.
Star Trek fans invented Fan Fic. We were writing it before there was even an internet to distribute it on. I've seen guys handing out small books that they typed up by hand with their Fan Fic stories at Star Trek conventions.
Typed by hand. This was back before personal computers, much less the internet. Probably before many of you were born. One guy told me that after he typed up all 200 pages of his story he made copies with the hand-cranked mimeograph machine at the college that he worked at.
This doesn't mean that all of the UGC missions will be great, or even good. But it does mean that a lot of Star Trek fans are excellent writers, so there's a lot of potential for a lot of great stories.
The principle would be the same if the mechanics were the same:
- TF2: there's a store where you actually purchase items made via custom highly, skilled art assets by players.
- NWN: no store but plenty of people bought the game if only to access the content people made on their own time.
- STO: is not selling UGC content nor is highly skilled labor involved in creating UGC missions.
UGC requires significantly less work to assemble and is not sold via Cryptic.You've drawn a specious analogy from too dissimilar examples.
I am ok with an accolade just for show, but I have to say no to c-points as that is a form of money to some extent and no to special powers connected to an accolade as that sets up an unfair advantage system.
In other words it is like what was mentioned earlier, fleets promoting content then their people start getting game altering accolades and then they start trying to insure the rest either do not get access to those abilities or have an extremely above and beyond tough time on getting them due to rating system abuses.
The same scenario could be applied if money / c-store points where involved.
Not to mention the possibility of buying ratings for your content.
Let's be clear, I am not saying that will absolutely happen, but I have yet to see that it can't happen.
Game altering items should remain gotten the old fashioned way, running through content.
So No on accolades with special powers ,No on c-points, and yes to just regular accolades and trophies.
If Cryptic wants to do a featured episode or even feature one in the game as part of the game I am fine with that also, that is still different than passing out game altering / potentially game altering rewards.
I totally agree with this. Ever since they announced the UGCE, I've thought that is what Cryptic was eventually going to do with the best episodes. I think it would be a really good idea.
(Also, just for the sake of the topic of the thread, I say no reimbursement should be given. I think having others playing my episodes (and me playing others' episodes) is compensation enough.)
Mhm. Yes.. it is. You can't play it for free. You need to pay the STO subscription fees in order to play it.
So yes... Cryptic is selling our UGC content right alongside all the content they've made.
If the STO client had a single-player mode and you could play UGC through that without having to connect and without having to have a subscription, then I would agree with you. Then it would be like community-made content for the Sims, or Oblivion, or Fallout--you'd download it for free and you'd play it for free. But that's now how STO works. You have to pay in order to access the UGC content.
You needed to pay a subscription fee to access CoX and SWG too and both of those had UGC... so...
plus, they more accurately reflect STO's model than TF2 or NWN.
And that's fine for you, but why deny reimbursement for all other authors? If there were notable costs or risks then I'd see a reason not to include it, but so far those dangers seem manageable.
I guess I don't understand why people are against it. I can understand people not caring if they get a reward, but that doesn't explain why they don't want a system in place to provide it. The question isn't if you want compensation; it's if all developers should get it.
My wife and I often donate to Goodwill, but we don't apply the donation for a tax write-off. That's our choice. I'd never make the argument that nobody should be able to.
So... what?
Just because they didn't do it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
The specific model is irrelevant. What it comes down to is a company profiting through the sell of, or subscription-access to, the content created by its users. The precedence has been set in the gaming industry since at least the 90s to compensate content authors in some way, in such situations.
Okay, I'll rephrase then.
I don't think any creators of UGC missions should get any reimbursement. Quite simply, the satisfaction of telling a story (and/or being told one by someone else) should be ample compensation. It just feels greedy to me for someone to expect additional items or money (real or electronic) for something that is totally voluntary and not necessary in order to enjoy the game.
Since you obviously have such a problem with it, then simply don't use the UGCE and don't play any of the episodes created with it.
Besides, since the Foundry will be coming out after the Enterprise Pack (which includes the NX-Class, which you have said shouldn't be in the game) comes out, you won't be playing the game anymore, so I fail to see why you're concerned about this topic at all.
I'd gone on more but there's an NDA and I don't want to discuss specific reasons why Foundry shouldn't be monetized (It relates to my third one and what missions the fans of the game will find popular and how that conflicts with my third criterion).
By that logic the creative exploits of authors, artists, singers, etc., shouldn't yield compensation either. The satisfaction of telling a story, or creating a work of art, or a song, etc. should be ample compensation.
It's not about me. I doubt I'll ever make any UGC the rate things are going, then I doubt mine would ever be good enough to earn me much of anything, anyway.
The issue is, as I have said in various threads, a company profiting on UGC without due-compensation being given to the authors. I find the practice incredibly unethical, and I'm frankly astounded that so many people here willingly accept Cryptic making money on their work without some form of scaled compensation. If not for themselves they should at least want it possible for others.
I cannot go out and publish my own Star Trek book and expect compensation for the copies I sell. I'd be violating copyright law as I haven't entered an agreement with the licensor for rights to sell derivative works. Everything in this game is a derivative work.
If expressed in Creative Commons terms, all your UGC missions are allowed to be created under these terms:
That said, wait until Open Beta or when it goes live, the EULA should clarify everything for you.
I understand copyright and authors' rights laws, which is why I've never cited them. I know we waive our right to the content by signing the EULA. That doesn't change the fact that Cryptic is profiting on the work of UGC artists with no reimbursement going to those authors. My arguments aren't based in law; they're based in ethics.
Interestingly... if STO were F2P or had a F2P mode that included access to UGC, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Odd how different discussions can intertwine.