33 replies to this topic

[Tice Daurus]

Quote

Shively: How much effort has been going into Community Warfare, and could you briefly elaborate on what you expect it will bring to the game?
You said at PAX that, of course, every planet in the Inner Sphere probably isn't going to be represented (as it'd be too costly and too labor-intensive, most likely). However, in the past couple days, there's been a surge of forum activities from fans, pushing forth the question of user-created content. In order to fill the void, would PGI be willing to consider turning to the community for map creation? If not for CW maps, what about for Assault/Conquest matches? In addition, the CryEngine suite has the ability to randomly generate maps based upon certain parameters. Could this be a solution to the problem of CW map implementation? Could "unexplored" planets be represented by a randomly-generated map, or could battles on planets take place at different, randomized locales, with the best of whatever number of battles taking the planet/territory?
A: Randomly generate maps do not offer a quality gaming experience. A lot of design effort goes into planning each map for specific lanes, choke points, types of gameplay modes, match length etc.. etc.. Also performance is a major concern. A randomly generated map would still take months to bring from 0 to complete.
As for community generate maps or any content for that matter, we are always looking at ways to find synergies here. Right now the largest impasses are: quality of content, performance of content, distribution of content (remember this game is free to download, yet we still pay for the delivery costs up-front), installation size, rights of content, monetization of content, and tax laws.

First off, I wanted to thank the DEV's for taking the time to answer Shivley's question as it pertained to my thread regarding player based map content and helping PGI create user based maps.

However, in posting this, it's brought up some more questions that need to be answered and I was hoping to get some type of clarifcation to better help PGI and the players in general to solve some the concerns.

First question...Quality/Performance of content...what exactly would be some guidelines from PGI that could be posted here so that the players have some ideas what would be for them to consider when creating a map and submitting it to PGI? If you could list them here, it would help the players greatly so that they know what's going on.

Second question...I'm not 100 percent following what you mean by distribution of content. Could you go into this further to explain it?

Third...installation size...what would be the rough estimates of size would you be looking for so you can better help the people making maps go with as a rough guideline to follow perhaps?

Fourth, could you cover what exactly are your concerns with rights to content, monetization and tax laws so to further explain it so maybe we can help with this? I know some of the people here have said that as long as they get recognition that the map they submitted was their work like in name only, that they would be willing to do the work for free and give all rights to submitting their work so that it would help PGI.

If we could get the DEV's to answer this a bit further, this would help both PGI and ultimately the players get more content, PGI would save both time and money, and it would help PGI's bottom line dollar in the process.

[Tice Daurus]

Bumping so I can hopefully get a Mod to see this and notifiy a DEV to respond to this if possible please. Also already sent messages to Bryan, Garth and Russ to see if we can get some answers to this.

[Stone Profit]

Theyre not gonna let users create maps. Let it go.

[Lord Ikka]

As long as the map itself is distributed for free, tax laws and monetization don't factor in. Have the community member sign over rights when subitting a map, and boom- no issues there. Hire a tester/put a map creator on testing content submitted to make sure quality/performance is up to snuff and re-write any problems. Might free up some talent for other work, and the community is a larger pool for creative ideas.

[Viper69]

I wouldn't be surprised if they sell maps for MC.

[Moromillas]

The maps follow a specific design plan. They try to incorporate all kinds of things to have a good gameplay experience, cover, choke points, lookouts, obstacles, paths, etc. You can see examples of this with the existing maps. Random generator doesn't really cut the mustard, and user maps can take a lot more time to fine tune for gameplay. Yeah I spose you could make maps, but not as good as the ones that cater to this sort of gameplay.

[Tice Daurus]

Stone Profit, on 10 April 2013 - 05:02 AM, said:

Theyre not gonna let users create maps. Let it go.

I'll let it go when the DEV's say that they are not going to accept player created maps and that it's going to be futile to continue at that point. So far they have said that they are considering it, thus this is NOT a lost cause yet. Until then I'll keep seeing what I can do to assist both PGI and the players here to see if we can help both sides to get this done if possible.

Lord Ikka, on 10 April 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

As long as the map itself is distributed for free, tax laws and monetization don't factor in. Have the community member sign over rights when subitting a map, and boom- no issues there. Hire a tester/put a map creator on testing content submitted to make sure quality/performance is up to snuff and re-write any problems. Might free up some talent for other work, and the community is a larger pool for creative ideas.

I was thinking this as well. If this were to happen, it would free up a couple of problems right there and then.

Moromillas, on 10 April 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

The maps follow a specific design plan. They try to incorporate all kinds of things to have a good gameplay experience, cover, choke points, lookouts, obstacles, paths, etc. You can see examples of this with the existing maps. Random generator doesn't really cut the mustard, and user maps can take a lot more time to fine tune for gameplay. Yeah I spose you could make maps, but not as good as the ones that cater to this sort of gameplay.

I agree random generated maps won't cut it, but I don't agree that the player created maps would be considered substandard. I think if we can have the DEV's give us some advice as to what they are looking for, the players could create some maps that are on par of the same quality if given a chance and if the DEV's were to tell us what they are looking for. And advice they could give us would further help both sides in the equation.

[Syllogy]

Some of the potential pitfalls of user made maps are as follows:

• All Maps, Models, and Textures must be original and/or Copyright Free (This is the big one since most mappers don't create their own models AND create their own textures, and all 3 of these would need to be checked by PGI staff to ensure they don't get sued for infringement)
  
• All parts of the map must be sound (no falling through maps, or missiles flying through objects)
  
• All maps must be extensively balanced and tested, and extensively tested again by PGI staff.
  
• All maps must conform to the same standards as the other PGI-created Maps (Scale, Form, Temp Coding, 3x3 Design, etc)

These are just off of the top of my head, and these alone will exclude 90% of the hobby-level community map creators out there.

The best thing you can do if you really want to make Community Maps is get to work, meet all of copyright and design requirements, and post some demo videos on the forums.

Edited by Syllogy, 11 April 2013 - 05:32 AM.

[Moromillas]

Tice Daurus, on 11 April 2013 - 05:23 AM, said:

I agree random generated maps won't cut it, but I don't agree that the player created maps would be considered substandard. I think if we can have the DEV's give us some advice as to what they are looking for, the players could create some maps that are on par of the same quality if given a chance and if the DEV's were to tell us what they are looking for. And advice they could give us would further help both sides in the equation.

No way, an absolute ***** tone of money goes into those maps. Below that is a given.

[drinniol]

Plus a ton of money goes on the hardware to host the maps. If you really truly think you have the capacity to do in your spare time what PGI pays people to do, why aren't you asking about a job already?

[Tice Daurus]

Moromillas, on 11 April 2013 - 06:10 AM, said:

No way, an absolute ***** tone of money goes into those maps. Below that is a given.

Ok this was discussed before in my last thread so I'll recap the answer for this:

When they first started the creation of maps for this, they were building the code for this from scratch. New map creation means a lot of trial and error when it comes to the coding of these maps. That means a crapload of OT in order to get it right. So the first couple of maps...probably lots of OT until they could figure out the standard parameters of what TO DO and what NOT TO DO.

And that's my guess on this. Now that they know what to do and what not to do, maps should cost less to make, however, there probably still is development costs to pay the artists, designers and coders in order to create a map, hence current costs today.

drinniol, on 11 April 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

Plus a ton of money goes on the hardware to host the maps. If you really truly think you have the capacity to do in your spare time what PGI pays people to do, why aren't you asking about a job already?

Some people might want to ask PGI if they can do that. I'm not discouraging it, but there are some people who want to do this so why not try and help open a door for them to do so?

Edited by Tice Daurus, 11 April 2013 - 06:30 AM.

[Moromillas]

Tice Daurus, on 11 April 2013 - 06:28 AM, said:

Ok this was discussed before in my last thread so I'll recap the answer for this:

When they first started the creation of maps for this, they were building the code for this from scratch. New map creation means a lot of trial and error when it comes to the coding of these maps. That means a crapload of OT in order to get it right. So the first couple of maps...probably lots of OT until they could figure out the standard parameters of what TO DO and what NOT TO DO.

And that's my guess on this. Now that they know what to do and what not to do, maps should cost less to make, however, there probably still is development costs to pay the artists, designers and coders in order to create a map, hence current costs today.

Not really, you still have to pay the various artists etc that go into making the map for X amount of time. Yeah, it might take a little longer depending, but all in all it'll still be around, maybe 250 thousand per map.

By comparison, the size of the team, the amount of experience, the work that goes into it, far outweighs that of user maps.

[Tice Daurus]

Moromillas, on 11 April 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

Not really, you still have to pay the various artists etc that go into making the map for X amount of time. Yeah, it might take a little longer depending, but all in all it'll still be around, maybe 250 thousand per map.

By comparison, the size of the team, the amount of experience, the work that goes into it, far outweighs that of user maps.

But I'm not talking about the artists drawing the maps for artwork. That cost should be constant and stay the same. What I am talking about was the initial first couple of maps that they created the artwork was roughly the same, however the OT costs came from troubleshooting the netcode and clearing the errors and the bugs on the map which caused initial problems at first, which ran up OT costs and made the map more expensive in initial costs.

Now that they have an idea what to look for and they know what to do, the costs should be LESS per map.

And I do think user created maps would help them overall because the player could submit their artwork and their maps, and PGI could go over them with a QA team to make sure that they are ok with no bugs or problems. They wouldn't have to pay an artist for the map, and the major majority of the work would be done for the map, leaving PGI with less overall costs. And again, I do understand that the quality of the map might be called into question, but that would be for PGI to decide if they would require a better quality map aka more work from the player working on the map.

[Phoenix Gray]

Dear Devs,

Your response in clarification of your previous expansion upon your explanation of your original comments requires an expanded clarification in explanation thereof. Please respond.

[Jace Lancer]

Sure, there's a lot of crap or hobby maps out there, buy it's like most of you have never seen a quality user made map made by someone who just wanted to make one. They just need to release a map editor that comes with the textures and models we're allowed to use, ala valves hammer editor. There will be someone out there that can make something great.

distribution *could* be mitigated by something as simple as a torrent solution.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Lord Ikka, on 10 April 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

As long as the map itself is distributed for free, tax laws and monetization don't factor in. Have the community member sign over rights when subitting a map, and boom- no issues there. Hire a tester/put a map creator on testing content submitted to make sure quality/performance is up to snuff and re-write any problems. Might free up some talent for other work, and the community is a larger pool for creative ideas.

Not that simple.

[Tice Daurus]

Phoenix Gray, on 12 April 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

Dear Devs,

Your response in clarification of your previous expansion upon your explanation of your original comments requires an expanded clarification in explanation thereof. Please respond.

Ummm, yeah. Something like that.

Jace Lancer, on 12 April 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

Sure, there's a lot of crap or hobby maps out there, buy it's like most of you have never seen a quality user made map made by someone who just wanted to make one. They just need to release a map editor that comes with the textures and models we're allowed to use, ala valves hammer editor. There will be someone out there that can make something great.

distribution *could* be mitigated by something as simple as a torrent solution.

I would think it could be a good idea if PGI could help us out with this. I know it costs more for PGI to get something set up for something like this, but overall it would be worth it because allowing us to help them create maps and stuff that could be approved via PGI.

Tickdoff Tank, on 12 April 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

Not that simple.

Nothing right now is simple, which is why I invited PGI to come here and discuss it so that we could find some common ground on both sides to see if we can get the ball rolling on this to help both us and PGI on this issue.

Edited by Tice Daurus, 12 April 2013 - 06:25 AM.

[Moromillas]

Tice Daurus, on 12 April 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

Now that they have an idea what to look for and they know what to do, the costs should be LESS per map.

No, not really.

[MrPenguin]

Lord Ikka, on 10 April 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

As long as the map itself is distributed for free, tax laws and monetization don't factor in.

It is not that simple.
And you left out a ton of legal jargen.

Edited by MrPenguin, 12 April 2013 - 06:46 AM.

[MrPenguin]

Tice Daurus, on 12 April 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

But I'm not talking about the artists drawing the maps for artwork. That cost should be constant and stay the same. What I am talking about was the initial first couple of maps that they created the artwork was roughly the same, however the OT costs came from troubleshooting the netcode and clearing the errors and the bugs on the map which caused initial problems at first, which ran up OT costs and made the map more expensive in initial costs.

No, it would go up because they would have to test the player made maps about 3x more and convert it so that it actually works in the game. Then they have to do a lot of legal documents so that the original creator doesn't end up suing them into oblivion. And no, taking the guys "word for it" is not close to good enough.

Then, you have to keep in mind that because of cryengines 3 contract and how it works. You cannot put a map in a licensed game thats being sold in some form or another (F2P falls into this categorie) using a non-liscenced version of cryengine 3.

So the guy making custom maps has to buy the license to make the maps for Mechwarrior: online. And that's not something some unemployed dude working on mods in his basement could ever afford.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. This is a much larger pain in the *** then you think it is.