well lets assume that crypic makes all quality missions and are not a concern for now
That leaves the UGC missions..so ok, how do we get quality? For public consumption
(what folks play on thier own private holodeck is thier own concern)
you filter what comes out.
ok, how can we do that?
one of three ways
1. have one person (or very few) decide
2. have a larger group decide
3. have the masses decide
1# Have a very select group of folks decide what is public, was is not
Positive - you will have consistancy
Negative - very few new missions (they can only review stuff so fast)
2# Have a large group decide
Positive - more new missions
Negative - Who is in the group and can a large group agree?
3# Have the masses rate them and the best will rise to the top
Positive - allows the most new missions and will illuminate, over time the best
Negative - it will take a while before a good mission gets noticed
all 3 have thier good points and bad points
I will not state my preference, but there are the choices
In principle I don't have a problem with that idea, but it doesn't scale. Someone who makes one mission of poor quality gets a free month? Too much reward.
An expansion to my proposal sort of covers this, though. If you were rewarded in C-Points that scaled with how much the mission was played, and if you could buy a month's subscription on the C-Store, you could effectively buy yourself free game time if your missions are popular and contribute enough to the game. Since $15 equates to 1200 C-Points, that's how many you'd have to earn... give or take.
It also has the side benefit of turning "Time Cards" into "C-Point Cards", which expands their usefulness. Got a friend who likes to buy ships on the C-Store? Buy them a C-Point Card worth $15. Or they can use it to buy game time. Either way. More flexible.
I think your suggestions/ideas are very reasonable and fair. I do hope they offer something like this. In addition to the creative energies beyond a good story (the rights of which will be given away) the time and effort spent on using the tools themselves should be enough for some level of compensation.
There's been talk about integrating a type of "featured episode" for community authored episodes as well. Were this to happen, the "featured community authored episode" would most likely get bumped to the top of the ratings list, and have a special icon next to it in the search results page for the duration that it is featured.
You would still need to search for a community authored episode, and you would start the episode the same way you would any other community authored episode.
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
I think that's a fantastic idea Stormshade.. I also think that after a few weeks we all (user and Cryptic) are going to be absolutely blown away by what people manage to come up with once the flood gates are open Hopefully fistfulls of fresh ideas once we have the tools will give Cryptic dev's a lot of new ideas for their own eps too.
A kickback of some free store points if your episode is selected as a 'featured episode' is a nice way to pay it back ot the community to, as much as the OP's post seemed like a joke, there is some good karma that would come out of 'you gave us an awesome mission, that the other players love, so here's something in return' .. It would also probably get a lot more people involved in Foundry, as theyd be trying to out-do each other to be on the top of 'this weeks list'
As I've said before, the reimbursement we seek isn't to substitute the simple desire to create. It's to offset the fact that Cryptic is making money on our creative works.
The problem is that it's unethical for Cryptic to make money on authors' work, which they're inherently doing by requiring a subscription to access it. If all someone wants to do is play the FanFic missions we make, they have to pay Cryptic monthly to access it. If the authors are compensated for their efforts then the ethical problem diminishes.
Here's an example.
Someone writes a series of FanFic UGC missions based on a storyline they've worked out with a friend. Their friend wants to experience it but doesn't have STO, and they really have no interest in STO otherwise. They buy STO and sign up for a monthly subscription to play the UGC missions taking place based on the storyline they've helped create.
That means that person would have bought STO specifically and totally on the basis not only of UGC, but a single author's UGC.
Now, of course, Cryptic is entitled to profit. The UGC content is using their art assets, server resources, engine, etc. But it's that UGC content that brought them to the game, without which Cryptic wouldn't have made that profit at all. It's that UGC content they've played and has provided them with entertainment.
The author isn't entitled to to at least a small percentage of that "profit"?
Generalize that example to the greater game and the lines certainly blur, but UGC remains a selling point for the game. And if someone is creating missions that are entertaining Cryptic's subscribers, why shouldn't Cryptic reimburse them for making the game better for those subscribers? We're actively helping Cryptic get and keep subscribers, and in turn make money. It seems completely reasonable to me that some of that should trickle down.
Why does he buy the game when he just can try the mission with the friends account????
They might as well. It's already possible for them to make a quantifiable profit on the content we make. They might as well yank the popular missions and put them in the C-Store for a higher profit margin.
I wonder if people would still be insisting we don't deserve reimbursement if that were to happen.
That won't happen. But if they do, that is great. More money to make more content for the game.
That means that what we make in the UGC system that goes on to be playable by subscribers is a part of the product Cryptic is selling and making profit on.
Whether they're sold in the C-Store or as part of the sum total of the game, Cryptic is getting money for it. The challenge is in quantifying how much our missions contribute to that sum total, which you can do by monitoring how much time is spent playing them.
Take a look here. I've run through a sample of the math to determine the potential value-add of a single mission and how the value of the reward scales proportionately.
It seems like you would be pleaed if the UGC never came to the game. If you are pushing Cryptic to pay you money to use a tool they created to be used internaly in Cryptic, then that will happen. Why start this complain when they give us something that we want?
it would be nice if Cryptic rewared some of the good ugc authors over the long run, but I wouldn't expect anything like c-store points or lifetimes or anything. Creating the missions is fun. For me, it's part of the game, not work. It allows me to tell a story and add my own perspective to Trek lore in a very small way. And, I get to share that with others.
That is what is rewarding. If there was some kind of adsense attached to it, we'd see spam go through the roof.
I think he's got a point. You say there's a capitalist born every second but unfortunately that's the world we live in. It's not our fault the world revolves around money. Of course we'd like nothing better than to have the means to churn out content for what is probably our favourite sci-fi franchise ever? Am I wrong? without the need for recompense, but the farmer doesn't give away his chickens and his cows for free so we can't.
It is unethical for a company to blatantly make money out of content put together by a third party (in fact is it illegal? Plaigarism? I don't know, but that's not the point so...) the point is... if you pay peanuts, you get monkies, and maybe the odd elephant, but if you want quality you're gonna have to pay people enough money to give up their day jobs and do it full time.
Now before anyone accuses me of implying their UGC is gonna suck, I'm not. The point about that is how quickly could you make that epic project if you didn't have a day job and were doing it full time? Weeks instead of months I expect.
In the creative industry directors and producers will often go to great lengths to get people to work for free. It strikes me as greedy on their part. A lot of really talented people end up never realising their full potential because higher ups just want to take advantage of their creative gifts and take credit for pulling everything together. (In general, I'm not talking about people at Cryptic specifically).
I'm still curious how a legal problem could exist.
Cryptic gave a batch of C-Points to everyone shortly after launch. If they're going to legally be seen as currency because you can buy them for dollars, then logically that would have been seen as Cryptic giving a "gift" or "payment" to all players. And as far as I know there was no legal reaction to them doing that.
By farther extension, if C-Points are recognized as having a real monetary value, so must all of the items you purchase in the C-Store with them. So when Cryptic offers you the means to get an item in-game that you could otherwise only get through the C-Store, isn't that also Cryptic giving you something of monetary value through their game?
It just seems to me that if there were a line of legality, Cryptic would have already crossed it a long time ago.
I didn't get these "fantom" C-points you are talking about. And I pre-ordered the game, and I started playing when I got the game.
Not entirely true, since I was in the closed beta (not long, since I was one of the last persons to get in).
By that logic we should never have threads telling Cryptic what we want.
And besides, I'm not playing STO since they're putting the NX class in it. That was the last straw for me. I wish I had the chance to explore the UGC engine and make content for others to play, but Cryptic already burned that bridge by making the game a ridiculous hodgepodge of nonsense.
As for those who use the UGC system regardless of reward, well... sad fact is the vast majority of future users probably don't even realize they're making money for Cryptic. Cryptic hasn't exactly been up front about that. And why should they be? It's in their own interest to keep us ignorant of the fact that we're contributing to their paychecks with no reward. It's like tricking a population into voluntary servitude. It's one thing to knowingly volunteer your time for others' profit, but another thing entirely to do so unknowingly.
What does kind of disturb me is what will the rate of Cryptic content after UGC? They're already slow as dirt when it comes to new content, and they seem to be backing off the weekly schedule already. After the current one ends we'll not see another until January (I don't want to hear holidays as an excuse, I don't get them off from my place of business), and dtstahl is talking about a poll to see if people would mind them being slowed down for 'quality' purposes.
I didn't expect weeklies would be able to fly forever, but I didn't expect them to be caving on them this fast. Guess they're looking to UGC to be lazy...I mean, fill in.
I sure as hades wouldn't mind them slowing things down for quality purposes.
It seems inevitable that, after UGC Cryptic are gonna either dwindle off ST:O all together, citing the fact we have the means to make our own adventures, or they'll release updates so infrequently they might actually pull a rabbit out of the hat and blow everyone away in 6 months time. Or it'll go the way of Stargate Worlds.
there could be some sort of reward system in game like for users who create a certain number of high rated missions they get trophies or maybe some sort of special items or something?
It might be a good idea to have some sort of system to reward good content creators
To be honest i think the higher rated content creators should be rewarded with free game time as it is true that the content creation system will (if done really well) provide a bigger selling point for the game!
Though i really don't care if the tools are done well, i would be willing to pay a monthly fee for them alone if i know i can get good feedback in the game and be able to review and play others missiions too.
as yes you have free non monthly options for level creatiors and such.. but the problem with "mod tools or Level editors" in non mmos is that so far (aside from the spore mission creator and content system which was cool but limited) is that you have to go to websites to download the maps and then review them and import them into the game
with STO you do not have to do that, all the content will be able to be selected and reviewed in game! and plus it will add to your playing experence as
(i hope as with city of heros) you will be awarded experence as well to be used in leveling.. or something.
Either way though i am not worried too much about that :-)
come on people, think about this, dispite the fact that they are giving us the tools to make our own adventures, your not paying to make content "FOR THEM" your making it for yourself and choosing to share it. improving the game for your own experiences. any reward for creating content would most likely be looked on by the majority of the players as favoritism at this point, just as nearly EVERY c-store item offered that was suposedly for certian individuals who pre-ordered or got cryptic some more subscriptions...
borg bo
riviera tribble
galaxyX
ext.
there are only a few items that actualy haven't gone to the c-store...(most likely... YET)
in either case, its all about the improving your own experiences in the game.
you want rewards for your work? then do the real work for it, plan it out and do your story or arch in writting, copywrite the idea and watch... your story/arch most likely won't get added, you'll recieve nothing and your back to where you started.
1st: cryptic has to worry about royalties themselves with cbs and paramount, witch means in order to get any bonus/reward would mean they would also have to worry about the content you make as a royalty as well.
2nd: your not paying to make the content for them, your paying for the "PRIVLEGE" to develop a story or episode for your own enjoyment.
3rd: last but not least, Name ONE mmo or game company that has even offered one of its subscribers a royalty or offered to buy the idea from them, i can't think of any, and the closest that anyone has come was INTEL buying offset software, the designers of "project offset" whitch by the way was rather inovative but ultimatly was only bought so intel could use the tech and scrap the game.
Wow...the whining, complaining, and trolling on this forum well never stop amazing me. The Community asked for a UGC tool so we could share our stories with the community. It is not here for us to get paid for making the content. If you don't like making content and not getting paid for it, then there is a really simple solution. DON'T MAKE IT. No one is pulling your arm or demanding that you author missions and content. You do so of your own free will and by using the tools given by cryptic, you are therefore agreeing to provide this content free of charge. Simple as that. Deal with it! Move on!
Wow...the whining, complaining, and trolling on this forum well never stop amazing me. The Community asked for a UGC tool so we could share our stories with the community. It is not here for us to get paid for making the content. If you don't like making content and not getting paid for it, then there is a really simple solution. DON'T MAKE IT. No one is pulling your arm or demanding that you author missions and content. You do so of your own free will and by using the tools given by cryptic, you are therefore agreeing to provide this content free of charge. Simple as that. Deal with it! Move on!
multiple props to the two of you, im glad someone has as much common sense as me on this particular subject. these were two of the points i was trying to make in my previous post.
mmk, so i was reading one of the MMO news sites covering UGC in STO and there was concern over whether it was FAIR for devs to implement a feature that was essentially charging people a monthly sub to develop content for them.
yeeeea, i don't think that's happening, the devs won't head to the beach once UGC comes out... (they can't... dev skin vaporizes on contact with sunlight)
some guy in Texas with a $139 tricorder replica won't be crafting our weekly episodes on a Mountain Dew fueled fanfic spree (he'll be in the Cryptic office)
BUT i think there will always be the possibility that someone will create something so kick-TRIBBLE that the devs will integrate it into the game (like a sticky... in the forum of our hearts...)
Sooo if this situation comes to pass would the creators get a lil sum'n sum'n? like C-Moneys?
I used to run a Star Trek roleplay group on SL, with our own region, and builds. I've already seen some content alluded to here(it's no surprise that at least one person at Cryptic was aware of our presence). There is nothing legally wrong with Cryptic doing this, as we do not own the Star Trek IP. We are allowed to create stories and such within their IP because we don't get a profit, and it is protected speech. But, simply because they are based off of the Star Trek IP, we do not have ownership.
I cannot write a book based in the Star Trek universe and sell it without the IP holder's consent. I cannot sue when they use a similar story(though, I have seen situations where you could claim writer's royalties when it comes to on screen episodes).
Comments
What is more important ?
Quality ?
Quantity ?
prob. a bit of both would be nice.
well lets assume that crypic makes all quality missions and are not a concern for now
That leaves the UGC missions..so ok, how do we get quality? For public consumption
(what folks play on thier own private holodeck is thier own concern)
you filter what comes out.
ok, how can we do that?
one of three ways
1. have one person (or very few) decide
2. have a larger group decide
3. have the masses decide
1# Have a very select group of folks decide what is public, was is not
Positive - you will have consistancy
Negative - very few new missions (they can only review stuff so fast)
2# Have a large group decide
Positive - more new missions
Negative - Who is in the group and can a large group agree?
3# Have the masses rate them and the best will rise to the top
Positive - allows the most new missions and will illuminate, over time the best
Negative - it will take a while before a good mission gets noticed
all 3 have thier good points and bad points
I will not state my preference, but there are the choices
I think your suggestions/ideas are very reasonable and fair. I do hope they offer something like this. In addition to the creative energies beyond a good story (the rights of which will be given away) the time and effort spent on using the tools themselves should be enough for some level of compensation.
@fatherfungus I find your avatar strangely alluring
I think that's a fantastic idea Stormshade.. I also think that after a few weeks we all (user and Cryptic) are going to be absolutely blown away by what people manage to come up with once the flood gates are open
A kickback of some free store points if your episode is selected as a 'featured episode' is a nice way to pay it back ot the community to, as much as the OP's post seemed like a joke, there is some good karma that would come out of 'you gave us an awesome mission, that the other players love, so here's something in return' .. It would also probably get a lot more people involved in Foundry, as theyd be trying to out-do each other to be on the top of 'this weeks list'
Why does he buy the game when he just can try the mission with the friends account????
C-points is cash.
Well, that is not true. None from Cryptic has said that. UGC missions won't cost any more money than the monthly fee you already pay.
That won't happen. But if they do, that is great. More money to make more content for the game.
It seems like you would be pleaed if the UGC never came to the game. If you are pushing Cryptic to pay you money to use a tool they created to be used internaly in Cryptic, then that will happen. Why start this complain when they give us something that we want?
Couldn't agree more. Nicely put
It is unethical for a company to blatantly make money out of content put together by a third party (in fact is it illegal? Plaigarism? I don't know, but that's not the point so...) the point is... if you pay peanuts, you get monkies, and maybe the odd elephant, but if you want quality you're gonna have to pay people enough money to give up their day jobs and do it full time.
Now before anyone accuses me of implying their UGC is gonna suck, I'm not. The point about that is how quickly could you make that epic project if you didn't have a day job and were doing it full time? Weeks instead of months I expect.
In the creative industry directors and producers will often go to great lengths to get people to work for free. It strikes me as greedy on their part. A lot of really talented people end up never realising their full potential because higher ups just want to take advantage of their creative gifts and take credit for pulling everything together. (In general, I'm not talking about people at Cryptic specifically).
I didn't get these "fantom" C-points you are talking about. And I pre-ordered the game, and I started playing when I got the game.
Not entirely true, since I was in the closed beta (not long, since I was one of the last persons to get in).
Then why are you here?
But you won't make missions if you don get payed?
You are really starting to confuse me.
I sure as hades wouldn't mind them slowing things down for quality purposes.
It seems inevitable that, after UGC Cryptic are gonna either dwindle off ST:O all together, citing the fact we have the means to make our own adventures, or they'll release updates so infrequently they might actually pull a rabbit out of the hat and blow everyone away in 6 months time. Or it'll go the way of Stargate Worlds.
Time will tell.
It might be a good idea to have some sort of system to reward good content creators
To be honest i think the higher rated content creators should be rewarded with free game time as it is true that the content creation system will (if done really well) provide a bigger selling point for the game!
Though i really don't care if the tools are done well, i would be willing to pay a monthly fee for them alone if i know i can get good feedback in the game and be able to review and play others missiions too.
as yes you have free non monthly options for level creatiors and such.. but the problem with "mod tools or Level editors" in non mmos is that so far (aside from the spore mission creator and content system which was cool but limited) is that you have to go to websites to download the maps and then review them and import them into the game
with STO you do not have to do that, all the content will be able to be selected and reviewed in game! and plus it will add to your playing experence as
(i hope as with city of heros) you will be awarded experence as well to be used in leveling.. or something.
Either way though i am not worried too much about that :-)
Something like "Oracle of the Federation" or Seer of the Empire". Have to wait and see, thresholds may be smaller or larger.
I imagine there will many terrible attempts at writing but out of a few hundred or thousand we may get a pearl!
If it gets played that much I'd be more than content with 2 English pence per play =]
borg bo
riviera tribble
galaxyX
ext.
there are only a few items that actualy haven't gone to the c-store...(most likely... YET)
in either case, its all about the improving your own experiences in the game.
you want rewards for your work? then do the real work for it, plan it out and do your story or arch in writting, copywrite the idea and watch... your story/arch most likely won't get added, you'll recieve nothing and your back to where you started.
1st: cryptic has to worry about royalties themselves with cbs and paramount, witch means in order to get any bonus/reward would mean they would also have to worry about the content you make as a royalty as well.
2nd: your not paying to make the content for them, your paying for the "PRIVLEGE" to develop a story or episode for your own enjoyment.
3rd: last but not least, Name ONE mmo or game company that has even offered one of its subscribers a royalty or offered to buy the idea from them, i can't think of any, and the closest that anyone has come was INTEL buying offset software, the designers of "project offset" whitch by the way was rather inovative but ultimatly was only bought so intel could use the tech and scrap the game.
How many people do you think play this game? make it 500.
multiple props to the two of you, im glad someone has as much common sense as me on this particular subject. these were two of the points i was trying to make in my previous post.
I used to run a Star Trek roleplay group on SL, with our own region, and builds. I've already seen some content alluded to here(it's no surprise that at least one person at Cryptic was aware of our presence). There is nothing legally wrong with Cryptic doing this, as we do not own the Star Trek IP. We are allowed to create stories and such within their IP because we don't get a profit, and it is protected speech. But, simply because they are based off of the Star Trek IP, we do not have ownership.
I cannot write a book based in the Star Trek universe and sell it without the IP holder's consent. I cannot sue when they use a similar story(though, I have seen situations where you could claim writer's royalties when it comes to on screen episodes).