There are numerous MMOs that allow mod support, but it always affect your computer not the MMO's servers. So you might be able to make gathering locations easier to see, but that boss with 5 million HP will always have 5 million HP until the devs decide to change it.
And you mention something very important: They have mod support. It's already there, the game was designed with it in mind.
Star Trek Online does not. So it would first need to be build. We're again not talking about just a fan doing something nice for free to put into the game - we require the developers to first build mod support into a game that does not have mod support. We're asking about a project that is closer to something like the Foundry than "free support by fans".
And would these modifications allow you to create costumes or adjust existing costumes to fix bugs - but in a manner that only you yourself could see? Or alter the skeleton of a character model?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Having a legal copy of whatever programs there using would be part of the legal agreement
they don't have to open up assets to there internal game that would be crazy
The only thing they would and do need is art work
Ships
planets
buildings
plants
animals
maps
Items of this nature players would never be given access to the internal working of the game
period
Also and this is big The foundry
There doing it right now with the foundry for crying out loud
It doesn't matter if it's in the contract or not, Cryptic would still be responsible if it was found that the game had assets made with pirated software.
Also, foundry =/= volunteer work, or we'd be able to convert assets currently not available to us if we needed them. All the foundry is is a very limited version of the devs mission creator that allows us to create fan fiction, that's it.
And if they DID allow us to create art for them, just think of how much dev time would be wasted by idiots submitting boob planets and illegal "herb" plants?
Again, it's too much of a hassle with too much risk involved
It doesn't matter if it's in the contract or not, Cryptic would still be responsible if it was found that the game had assets made with pirated software.
Also, foundry =/= volunteer work, or we'd be able to convert assets currently not available to us if we needed them. All the foundry is is a very limited version of the devs mission creator that allows us to create fan fiction, that's it.
And if they DID allow us to create art for them, just think of how much dev time would be wasted by idiots submitting boob planets and illegal "herb" plants?
Again, it's too much of a hassle with too much risk involved
I agree to not agree with you :P:P:P
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
My company has some stuff done by paid external agencies, for example design templates that are basically svg files (and often don't boil down to more than a fancy texture). They deliver Hundreds of those each year, and making them work and look right in our software and for printing requires approximately 3 full time jobs (between the people that work out the contracts, describing the requirements and the people that test, catalogue and what not them). And this is by people that we actually hire and due to the contact have a guaranteed way of contacting and discussing problems with them.
Sorry, don't have time to read through the whole thread, but Mustrum pretty much nailed it.
We do standard, paid outsourcing work, to a company that specializes in outsourcing, and even that is of questionable benefit. Invariably, the amount of work necessary on our end is at least as much work as would have gone into making it ourselves. Once we're in a good rhythm with a given outsourcer, it gets better, but that takes a while. So . . . the idea of taking submissions from a completely unknown source is kind of a non-starter.
Modding is completely separate. A given player has to go out of their way to download and install a mod. And it is clear that mod is not made by the company that made the game. So if/when that mod sucks, the disappointment caused is not put onto the original company, but on the mod maker. Incorporating user submissions into our game creates a very large grey area where we would still be responsible if something sucked.
what I find interesting is here we are talking about helping the developers who A: don't listen to their fanbase or the fanbase of the IP and B: already supposedly has a group of players on a committee that's supposed to be doing just what you said in your post.
It's really sad that they've basically got figureheads in the seat over there and no one is taking these things seriously.
It's equally sad that now the number of players playing the STFs is almost exactly the same on the test server as it is on the live server. 0 most of the time yet these people still seem to think that everything is fine. Either they have so much insulation that they'll never realize that people are upset or they have some really great drugs in their hyposprays making them not care either way.
I never under estimate the power of fan base mods or creations added to a game.
Currently, I'm going through fan mission with Thief 2 which has hundreds of missions, which broke the barriers of the game engine along with HD graphical improvements. It puts the stock game to shame but the original was still pretty good.
There are many, many more examples out there, but from what I've seen, fan stuff has been outstanding and very impressive. And yes, it's free and you don't get paid for your work, but it's a great way to add to your portfolio when looking for a job in the industry.
In STO case, unless the game servers shut down and it becomes an offline game that you could play, it'll never happen unfortunately. I don't know of any MMO that would allow it to happen.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Everyone is always going to want different things from a game like this, to say otherwise is simply false, yet a game to please the millions is always going to have to make sacrifices to the minority. Then comes the business that must (for the most part) push forward instead of revisiting the past.
How do people imagine Cryptic would feel about letting us help them? Lets take the Caitian/Ferasan as an example for the moment; there's a whole topic dedicated to them getting a revamp in the Art Section, and there's some damn good ideas there, some of which would require reworking the Caitian/Ferasan skeleton for the game; would Cryptic ever allow an outsourced person (a fan/group of fans) to fix the Caitian/Ferasan model (free of charge) and then provide them with it?
In instances like these, Cryptic would provide a base guideline (ie; said mesh/skeleton cannot consist of more than x number of parts, and can't be any bigger file size than xmb/xkb etc, but allowing for the creative licensing to get them looking right.
This (potentially) opens up a lot of opportunity for ship texture fixes too. There's numerous ships with a variety of ongoing bugs that could be fixed by (respectfully) people that know what they're doing and have the time to do it.
* Would Cryptic ever allow us to help them?
* Would anyone offer to help, knowing that they'll get nothing in return (except maybe, community gratification?)
money does strange things to good people, it twists them into a horrible monster where it rules their lives. its the nature of the beast i liken it to the person being the ego and money being the arrogance, the more money you got the less sense you have.
as for you idea, that is entirely upto them if they want any help, but so far, they have shot every fanboy in the foot and punched every sheeple in the face and still getting away with it. so they do what they want, when they want and they certainly wouldnt allow this idea. what happens if the player in question who happens to do far better quality and shows how utterly amateurish these cryptic employees are. it maybe a success for the player when the mod is yanked because its that good, but it would also be a victory for common sense, but that would would be negative for cryptic because they got shown up and punched in the face in return. Hardly a ringing endorsement to cryptic in the end.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Because this is a horrible idea...there are way too many varibles to account for and the headache of trying to screen, approve, and incorporate each submitted mod could never be worth the return on investment.
As I believe Taco once said, "If you want to contribute, come work for us, and we'll pay you!" (Or words to that effect) Do it!
Of course, you will work on what Cryptic tells you to work on and not what you want to work on. Not sure if Cryptic currently allows work on side projects done on a dev's spare time.
Not sure if Cryptic currently allows work on side projects done on a dev's spare time.
Yes, they do; that is actually how most of the foundry additions get done. That said, a dev has now responded to this thread pretty much saying, "no" to the OP's question. There is really not much left to debate at this point.
Yes, they do; that is actually how most of the foundry additions get done. That said, a dev has now responded to this thread pretty much saying, "no" to the OP's question. There is really not much left to debate at this point.
That is why I said currently. They have done side projects in the past, but there is no guarantee that they are doing them now.
i just googled this.
there are mod tools for STO dating to 2012/13. as well as at least one mod that looks like it is being currently maintained.
though im not linking it as there is likely a forum rule about linking stuff like that.
which makes one thing clear. client side GFX mods are doable now as proved by them already existing.
my guess is its at the possible cost of your account being suspended if you are detected using them though.
no need to actually incorporate anything judging by the google results i just got.
which told me that what cryptic need to do to see mods for sto posted on the forums, is open up a modding section in the forum, and have a TOS to cover what will and wont result in an account being banned along with whatever legalese to allow claiming anything found to fit the catagory of "actually, this will save us some time *yoink*".
cause well... google for yourself.
Yeah... no. You're not the first to mention this on the forum. And that "one mod" you mentioned is probably the cause of a lot of bannings, and rightfully so. Because it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, it's not even good at what it does....
There were a few mods that did actually get discussed on the forum a while back, but, in one case, now obsolete because that functionality is now part of the game itself. Thus using a mod to do it is redundant.
But are they personal side projects that tacofangs wants to work on or side projects that Cryptic tells tacofangs to do when he is not working on a main project?
you also litterally referenced the thing i did at the end about clauses where cryptic could take stuff that would save them time.
Cryptic didn't actually use the code that the mod used though. Also Cryptic's version can be toggled at will, the mod had to be uninstalled to turn it off. I don't know the exact specifics, but IIRC the mod was for turning off parts of the sector space UI. Currently we have a "disable astrometrics" button for that. BUT, the core functionality is different. The mod actually replaced the overlays with something invisible. Cryptic's version is a toggle to stop DRAWING the overlays.
first off, i like the caitian and ferasan look in game they dont look that different.
Second i doubt they would accept any, lets face it we all have different ideas on what would make a game better and while some may like an idea others may hate it.
At the end of the day craptic probably believe its best they just make their own mistakes.
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
First it is important to understand that a Corporation can give two different companies a license to produce something and each of those licenses could have very different criteria - even though they are for the same type of project. So saying fans did mods for Armada does not mean the license Cryptic has would allow fans to do mods for them. Each license is as open or restrictive as the term limits of the license. So saying all you need for a fan to do to make it OK is sign an agreement is meaningless because it might not be just that simple. A perfect example of this is that the Alien Domain license allows for a Constitution Class while the STO license does not.
I would also point out that there are internal issues within CBS and Paramount which always need to be balanced. I have used this example before but it fits here too. Nick Locarno was a character from TNG - he was a cadet and leader of the Nova Squadron. The character was played by Robert Duncan McNeill. Nick Locarno was supposed to be in Voyager but because the producers did not wish to pay the writers of The First Duty royalties to use the character in Voyager the character's origin and name were changed and Nick Locarno became Tom Paris.
The point being that even if you want to do something in the game that is canon it requires a lot of legalese behind the scenes on CBS's part. They constantly have to balance what the STO license states with what and who would have to be paid to allow something to be used in the game. Because even though CBS owns most of the IP many of the guild rules mean that the actors, writers, and studio all get to profit from their creation and cannot be excluded. So writing a mod involving Nick Locarno seems like a very canon thing to do, but could be incredibly illegal.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
The easiest solution for them although a bit restrictive would be if they created essentially a starship & character creation foundry type thing where basically you could almost spore like create ships or characters using their available models and have them shown off either in a regular foundry mission or in some viewing lounge type thing.
This could also be augmented with a request or suggestion type system for new models and parts they could add.
This would pretty much bypass a number of concerns and help streamline the process of actually getting things in-game it would also help (with a voting system) the dev's kind of see what kind of aesthetic sense or styling that the player base seems to be leaning towards in new ship design and species/character.
A option to attach a drawing or such that would show what you would really like it to look like would be a useful addition as well.
The main use of such a system would be off-loading some of the workload onto people who while unpaid actually care about the game, while I can see the creation of the system costing a fair amount short term long term it actually has the potential to save money and depending also make it. The voting and suggestion system could essentially be used as a market research system for both STO and CBS it could aid in design for future shows while also helping the dev's narrow down what style's or design's are more likely to pay dividends if created and brought into the game. You basically have a potentially large group doing highly detailed surveys and helping you narrow down what people want.
Legality wise if they have designed the system and models to be used and have final say there shouldn't be any problem's as for the fan created idea's or items, realistically pretty much any terms of service agreement has the "anything posted becomes property of ____ and they can do whatever they want with it so neneer neener clause", there's plenty of ways to cover one's self legally I mean just think of it politicians essentially lie and commit a fraud against their constituents every time election season roll's around and how often do you see them do time for it ?
Comments
Star Trek Online does not. So it would first need to be build. We're again not talking about just a fan doing something nice for free to put into the game - we require the developers to first build mod support into a game that does not have mod support. We're asking about a project that is closer to something like the Foundry than "free support by fans".
And would these modifications allow you to create costumes or adjust existing costumes to fix bugs - but in a manner that only you yourself could see? Or alter the skeleton of a character model?
It doesn't matter if it's in the contract or not, Cryptic would still be responsible if it was found that the game had assets made with pirated software.
Also, foundry =/= volunteer work, or we'd be able to convert assets currently not available to us if we needed them. All the foundry is is a very limited version of the devs mission creator that allows us to create fan fiction, that's it.
And if they DID allow us to create art for them, just think of how much dev time would be wasted by idiots submitting boob planets and illegal "herb" plants?
Again, it's too much of a hassle with too much risk involved
I agree to not agree with you :P:P:P
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Sorry, don't have time to read through the whole thread, but Mustrum pretty much nailed it.
We do standard, paid outsourcing work, to a company that specializes in outsourcing, and even that is of questionable benefit. Invariably, the amount of work necessary on our end is at least as much work as would have gone into making it ourselves. Once we're in a good rhythm with a given outsourcer, it gets better, but that takes a while. So . . . the idea of taking submissions from a completely unknown source is kind of a non-starter.
Modding is completely separate. A given player has to go out of their way to download and install a mod. And it is clear that mod is not made by the company that made the game. So if/when that mod sucks, the disappointment caused is not put onto the original company, but on the mod maker. Incorporating user submissions into our game creates a very large grey area where we would still be responsible if something sucked.
This is why the Foundry is actually pretty great.
I wonder how well Valve's approach to crowdsourcing this for some of their games is actually working.
It's really sad that they've basically got figureheads in the seat over there and no one is taking these things seriously.
It's equally sad that now the number of players playing the STFs is almost exactly the same on the test server as it is on the live server. 0 most of the time yet these people still seem to think that everything is fine. Either they have so much insulation that they'll never realize that people are upset or they have some really great drugs in their hyposprays making them not care either way.
My favorite part of this post
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
no
Because they're a stupid junkie?
Currently, I'm going through fan mission with Thief 2 which has hundreds of missions, which broke the barriers of the game engine along with HD graphical improvements. It puts the stock game to shame but the original was still pretty good.
There are many, many more examples out there, but from what I've seen, fan stuff has been outstanding and very impressive. And yes, it's free and you don't get paid for your work, but it's a great way to add to your portfolio when looking for a job in the industry.
In STO case, unless the game servers shut down and it becomes an offline game that you could play, it'll never happen unfortunately. I don't know of any MMO that would allow it to happen.
money does strange things to good people, it twists them into a horrible monster where it rules their lives. its the nature of the beast i liken it to the person being the ego and money being the arrogance, the more money you got the less sense you have.
as for you idea, that is entirely upto them if they want any help, but so far, they have shot every fanboy in the foot and punched every sheeple in the face and still getting away with it. so they do what they want, when they want and they certainly wouldnt allow this idea. what happens if the player in question who happens to do far better quality and shows how utterly amateurish these cryptic employees are. it maybe a success for the player when the mod is yanked because its that good, but it would also be a victory for common sense, but that would would be negative for cryptic because they got shown up and punched in the face in return. Hardly a ringing endorsement to cryptic in the end.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Yeah something like that, but I think he said something about donuts too.
Of course, you will work on what Cryptic tells you to work on and not what you want to work on. Not sure if Cryptic currently allows work on side projects done on a dev's spare time.
Yes, they do; that is actually how most of the foundry additions get done. That said, a dev has now responded to this thread pretty much saying, "no" to the OP's question. There is really not much left to debate at this point.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
That is why I said currently. They have done side projects in the past, but there is no guarantee that they are doing them now.
They are, when they have the time.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
There were a few mods that did actually get discussed on the forum a while back, but, in one case, now obsolete because that functionality is now part of the game itself. Thus using a mod to do it is redundant.
My character Tsin'xing
But are they personal side projects that tacofangs wants to work on or side projects that Cryptic tells tacofangs to do when he is not working on a main project?
My character Tsin'xing
Second i doubt they would accept any, lets face it we all have different ideas on what would make a game better and while some may like an idea others may hate it.
At the end of the day craptic probably believe its best they just make their own mistakes.
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
I would also point out that there are internal issues within CBS and Paramount which always need to be balanced. I have used this example before but it fits here too. Nick Locarno was a character from TNG - he was a cadet and leader of the Nova Squadron. The character was played by Robert Duncan McNeill. Nick Locarno was supposed to be in Voyager but because the producers did not wish to pay the writers of The First Duty royalties to use the character in Voyager the character's origin and name were changed and Nick Locarno became Tom Paris.
The point being that even if you want to do something in the game that is canon it requires a lot of legalese behind the scenes on CBS's part. They constantly have to balance what the STO license states with what and who would have to be paid to allow something to be used in the game. Because even though CBS owns most of the IP many of the guild rules mean that the actors, writers, and studio all get to profit from their creation and cannot be excluded. So writing a mod involving Nick Locarno seems like a very canon thing to do, but could be incredibly illegal.
The easiest solution for them although a bit restrictive would be if they created essentially a starship & character creation foundry type thing where basically you could almost spore like create ships or characters using their available models and have them shown off either in a regular foundry mission or in some viewing lounge type thing.
This could also be augmented with a request or suggestion type system for new models and parts they could add.
This would pretty much bypass a number of concerns and help streamline the process of actually getting things in-game it would also help (with a voting system) the dev's kind of see what kind of aesthetic sense or styling that the player base seems to be leaning towards in new ship design and species/character.
A option to attach a drawing or such that would show what you would really like it to look like would be a useful addition as well.
The main use of such a system would be off-loading some of the workload onto people who while unpaid actually care about the game, while I can see the creation of the system costing a fair amount short term long term it actually has the potential to save money and depending also make it. The voting and suggestion system could essentially be used as a market research system for both STO and CBS it could aid in design for future shows while also helping the dev's narrow down what style's or design's are more likely to pay dividends if created and brought into the game. You basically have a potentially large group doing highly detailed surveys and helping you narrow down what people want.
Legality wise if they have designed the system and models to be used and have final say there shouldn't be any problem's as for the fan created idea's or items, realistically pretty much any terms of service agreement has the "anything posted becomes property of ____ and they can do whatever they want with it so neneer neener clause", there's plenty of ways to cover one's self legally I mean just think of it politicians essentially lie and commit a fraud against their constituents every time election season roll's around and how often do you see them do time for it ?