I agree with some of the posts saying 95% of the maps wouldn't be usable, but the other thing to keep in mind is that there are probably a dozen or more community members who used to make high-quality maps for Mech4 or MW:LL. For free... because they ******* love Mechwarrior and want it to succeed.
Even if the community only produced 2 quality maps every 2-3 months, that still doubles the rate that we're getting new content. There's only 6 maps in-game right now, and the lack of new content is probably the biggest source of player burn-out.
8
A Sincere Message For Pgi To Consider
Started by Tice Daurus, Mar 25 2013 11:57 AM
188 replies to this topic
#102
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 08:02 PM
Tice Daurus, on 25 March 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:
logical question
LEGAL NOTICE: they can't accept our content, and WE can't really pass it on due to CRYENGINE's small print... especially on the Community side of things
it basically says that any party cannot receive financial compensation for their work... in any way:
let's say that the Community makes a map via CRYENGINE and sends it off to PGI for submission... for PGI to accept the map they would have to get RID OF THE MONEY ASPECT OF IT... yes, they would have to make everything free (all the hats) due to not PGI's contract, but the Community's contract/EULA when using CRYENGINE.
the minute that Map is sent to PGI and MWO (which has monetary transactions and is on CryEngine) we get into very hot Legal water, since MWO is out for profit, and by the wording on the Free Crytek SDK toolkit, it seems that even if the Community gives items for free, the other accepting party neither can compensate (MC or hard currency) or accept the community's work for fear of breaking one or both contracts, especially THE COMMUNITY'S.
PGI won't touch it because CRYTEK is adamant about their proprietary software being used for unlicensed profit. so for a community to actually be able to send work to PGI, everyone who works on it must pitch in to buy the CRYENGINE license.
what PGI could do is request an unlimited licence and shell it out to people for free, but the cost of doing that would be astronomical and both PGI and CRYTEK are unwilling to negotiate.
I sent literally 50 letters to Crytek's legal department about community made items in money-making games... guess what! no replies... no replies for all of them, I think they went to the trash bin or the spam folder.
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FOOTNOTE: the UNREAL engine (last time I checked) did not have this problem, since both the free toolkit and the Paid-forlicense is somewhat compatible, so if we did make a map or an item and sent it off, we would not get hard currency ($$$) but a Hat or Credits or something else.
Source is basically Valve's Proprietary software so they can do whatever the hell they want to do with it, (which means Workshops and Cash prizes)
#103
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 08:06 PM
Not to **** on a good idea, because I do think it's a good idea, but I doubt PGI would entertain this at this time. I am a proponent for user generated content, and some obvious ones are benign items like cockpit schwag, paint schemes, decals, etc. which I hope PGI can include soon.
I see a lot of people saying it's ridiculous the cost of creating the maps. Let's go with an average of $150,000 to create a map, 7 people, and 12 weeks of development. My assumption is that the $150,000 is a mix of costs related to total employee costs (salary, benefits, etc), equipment needs, and location costs (rent, power, etc). All of these things factor into the "cost" of doing something. If a team spends 3 months doing something, all of that added together is the doing business cost of creating that content. Most software companies run these types of numbers before doing something, because your potential return on doing that work better be higher (or if it is a need to do thing that isn't tied to product revenue such as technical debt, covered by another development initiative).
Let's say the team is made up of 3 engineers, 2 designers/artists, and 2 QA. So let's assume an average yearly salary of $50,000 for those 7 people (maybe $70,000 for a lead engineer, $60,000 for the other two, $45,000 for the artists, and $35,000 for the QA folks). So per week, there's about $6,727 total salary for that team of 7. Over 12 weeks of development, that's about $80,000 in just salary alone. Add in cost of benefits, workspace costs, etc. and you get to $150,000 pretty quickly.
So if we designed it instead of PGI, it should be cheaper, right? Maybe, but maybe not by much. PGI is responsible for that content. Even though a user designed it, PGI still has to test it, fix or request fixes be made, etc. It's not as simple as designing a map and throwing it up. I'm sure they test (or try to) every inch of the map to check for problems, stuck mechs, etc. In addition, i would guess a lot of the art assets are not unique to that map. Buildings, destroyed mechs, etc are used more than once. Once the map is build, I'm also sure they're running unit and automation tests on the development work so as changes are made, automated regression tests run to check for problems that the change would have made on the map as a whole. Someone still has to do all of that. So if you took off one or two people from this, you're really not saving much when you account for time and effort to learn and check a map you didn't make, which would by assumption take much longer than content you created yourself.
We're also not accounting for potential features in these maps that we don't know about yet, such as new game modes that have been designed in.
I see a lot of people saying it's ridiculous the cost of creating the maps. Let's go with an average of $150,000 to create a map, 7 people, and 12 weeks of development. My assumption is that the $150,000 is a mix of costs related to total employee costs (salary, benefits, etc), equipment needs, and location costs (rent, power, etc). All of these things factor into the "cost" of doing something. If a team spends 3 months doing something, all of that added together is the doing business cost of creating that content. Most software companies run these types of numbers before doing something, because your potential return on doing that work better be higher (or if it is a need to do thing that isn't tied to product revenue such as technical debt, covered by another development initiative).
Let's say the team is made up of 3 engineers, 2 designers/artists, and 2 QA. So let's assume an average yearly salary of $50,000 for those 7 people (maybe $70,000 for a lead engineer, $60,000 for the other two, $45,000 for the artists, and $35,000 for the QA folks). So per week, there's about $6,727 total salary for that team of 7. Over 12 weeks of development, that's about $80,000 in just salary alone. Add in cost of benefits, workspace costs, etc. and you get to $150,000 pretty quickly.
So if we designed it instead of PGI, it should be cheaper, right? Maybe, but maybe not by much. PGI is responsible for that content. Even though a user designed it, PGI still has to test it, fix or request fixes be made, etc. It's not as simple as designing a map and throwing it up. I'm sure they test (or try to) every inch of the map to check for problems, stuck mechs, etc. In addition, i would guess a lot of the art assets are not unique to that map. Buildings, destroyed mechs, etc are used more than once. Once the map is build, I'm also sure they're running unit and automation tests on the development work so as changes are made, automated regression tests run to check for problems that the change would have made on the map as a whole. Someone still has to do all of that. So if you took off one or two people from this, you're really not saving much when you account for time and effort to learn and check a map you didn't make, which would by assumption take much longer than content you created yourself.
We're also not accounting for potential features in these maps that we don't know about yet, such as new game modes that have been designed in.
Edited by tuokaerf, 25 March 2013 - 08:07 PM.
#104
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 08:06 PM
Buffalo Six, on 25 March 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:
Please tell me you didn't add the tinting to the side canopy glass! Hellcat was a good one in the game. Our problem was that Oleg had moved on to his BoB epic with modeled bolt heads on the AA guns......so we were on our own other than the Swedes who could guide the guys through the tools......some of those emails were epic after a run through the Google translator from Russian into Swed into English....lol
LOL! Nope... The cockpit glass I submitted got "improved" by Roman (Can't remember his last name) Believe you me I wasn't the one who smeared Vaseline all over the windscreen!
#105
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 08:08 PM
MonkeyCheese, on 25 March 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:
I really hope they work out the paperwork side of this so that they could own user created content, imagine having like 50-100 different maps one for each planet that we battle over.
theyve said itll be one fight to take one planet... yeah I was dissapointed too
#106
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 08:09 PM
gavilatius, on 25 March 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:
LEGAL NOTICE: they can't accept our content, and WE can't really pass it on due to CRYENGINE's small print... especially on the Community side of things
it basically says that any party cannot receive financial compensation for their work... in any way:
let's say that the Community makes a map via CRYENGINE and sends it off to PGI for submission... for PGI to accept the map they would have to get RID OF THE MONEY ASPECT OF IT... yes, they would have to make everything free (all the hats) due to not PGI's contract, but the Community's contract/EULA when using CRYENGINE.
the minute that Map is sent to PGI and MWO (which has monetary transactions and is on CryEngine) we get into very hot Legal water, since MWO is out for profit, and by the wording on the Free Crytek SDK toolkit, it seems that even if the Community gives items for free, the other accepting party neither can compensate (MC or hard currency) or accept the community's work for fear of breaking one or both contracts, especially THE COMMUNITY'S.
PGI won't touch it because CRYTEK is adamant about their proprietary software being used for unlicensed profit. so for a community to actually be able to send work to PGI, everyone who works on it must pitch in to buy the CRYENGINE license.
what PGI could do is request an unlimited licence and shell it out to people for free, but the cost of doing that would be astronomical and both PGI and CRYTEK are unwilling to negotiate.
I sent literally 50 letters to Crytek's legal department about community made items in money-making games... guess what! no replies... no replies for all of them, I think they went to the trash bin or the spam folder.
---
FOOTNOTE: the UNREAL engine (last time I checked) did not have this problem, since both the free toolkit and the Paid-forlicense is somewhat compatible, so if we did make a map or an item and sent it off, we would not get hard currency ($$$) but a Hat or Credits or something else.
Source is basically Valve's Proprietary software so they can do whatever the hell they want to do with it, (which means Workshops and Cash prizes)
This is only true for maps made using the CryEngine. It's possible to make heightmaps/static meshes and fully build out levels without ever opening CryEngine, then importing it.
All other objects completely ignore CryEngine, as they're developed in 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, zBrush, photoshop, etc.
Quote
Not to **** on a good idea, because I do think it's a good idea, but I doubt PGI would entertain this at this time. I am a proponent for user generated content, and some obvious ones are benign items like cockpit schwag, paint schemes, decals, etc. which I hope PGI can include soon.
I see a lot of people saying it's ridiculous the cost of creating the maps. Let's go with an average of $150,000 to create a map, 7 people, and 12 weeks of development. My assumption is that the $150,000 is a mix of costs related to total employee costs (salary, benefits, etc), equipment needs, and location costs (rent, power, etc). All of these things factor into the "cost" of doing something. If a team spends 3 months doing something, all of that added together is the doing business cost of creating that content. Most software companies run these types of numbers before doing something, because your potential return on doing that work better be higher (or if it is a need to do thing that isn't tied to product revenue such as technical debt, covered by another development initiative).
Let's say the team is made up of 3 engineers, 2 designers/artists, and 2 QA. So let's assume an average yearly salary of $50,000 for those 7 people (maybe $70,000 for a lead engineer, $60,000 for the other two, $45,000 for the artists, and $35,000 for the QA folks). So per week, there's about $6,727 total salary for that team of 7. Over 12 weeks of development, that's about $80,000 in just salary alone. Add in cost of benefits, workspace costs, etc. and you get to $150,000 pretty quickly.
So if we designed it instead of PGI, it should be cheaper, right? Maybe, but maybe not by much. PGI is responsible for that content. Even though a user designed it, PGI still has to test it, fix or request fixes be made, etc. It's not as simple as designing a map and throwing it up. I'm sure they test (or try to) every inch of the map to check for problems, stuck mechs, etc. In addition, i would guess a lot of the art assets are not unique to that map. Buildings, destroyed mechs, etc are used more than once. Once the map is build, I'm also sure they're running unit and automation tests on the development work so as changes are made, automated regression tests run to check for problems that the change would have made on the map as a whole. Someone still has to do all of that. So if you took off one or two people from this, you're really not saving much when you account for time and effort to learn and check a map you didn't make, which would by assumption take much longer than content you created yourself.
We're also not accounting for potential features in these maps that we don't know about yet, such as new game modes that have been designed in.
I see a lot of people saying it's ridiculous the cost of creating the maps. Let's go with an average of $150,000 to create a map, 7 people, and 12 weeks of development. My assumption is that the $150,000 is a mix of costs related to total employee costs (salary, benefits, etc), equipment needs, and location costs (rent, power, etc). All of these things factor into the "cost" of doing something. If a team spends 3 months doing something, all of that added together is the doing business cost of creating that content. Most software companies run these types of numbers before doing something, because your potential return on doing that work better be higher (or if it is a need to do thing that isn't tied to product revenue such as technical debt, covered by another development initiative).
Let's say the team is made up of 3 engineers, 2 designers/artists, and 2 QA. So let's assume an average yearly salary of $50,000 for those 7 people (maybe $70,000 for a lead engineer, $60,000 for the other two, $45,000 for the artists, and $35,000 for the QA folks). So per week, there's about $6,727 total salary for that team of 7. Over 12 weeks of development, that's about $80,000 in just salary alone. Add in cost of benefits, workspace costs, etc. and you get to $150,000 pretty quickly.
So if we designed it instead of PGI, it should be cheaper, right? Maybe, but maybe not by much. PGI is responsible for that content. Even though a user designed it, PGI still has to test it, fix or request fixes be made, etc. It's not as simple as designing a map and throwing it up. I'm sure they test (or try to) every inch of the map to check for problems, stuck mechs, etc. In addition, i would guess a lot of the art assets are not unique to that map. Buildings, destroyed mechs, etc are used more than once. Once the map is build, I'm also sure they're running unit and automation tests on the development work so as changes are made, automated regression tests run to check for problems that the change would have made on the map as a whole. Someone still has to do all of that. So if you took off one or two people from this, you're really not saving much when you account for time and effort to learn and check a map you didn't make, which would by assumption take much longer than content you created yourself.
We're also not accounting for potential features in these maps that we don't know about yet, such as new game modes that have been designed in.
This is why I said user created maps would come last (if at all). They require the most infrastructure and labor on the part of PGI. Other items are very easy to verify and include. Maps are an absolute pain.
Edited by S3dition, 25 March 2013 - 08:17 PM.
#107
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 10:05 PM
gavilatius, on 25 March 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:
LEGAL NOTICE
Wouldn't that only work in money-based things?
I mean, there's a difference when the user creates a bobblehead which then PGI sells and when the user creates a map that everyone can play. Noone is selling those maps, after all.
#108
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 11:12 PM
Adridos, on 25 March 2013 - 10:05 PM, said:
Wouldn't that only work in money-based things?
I mean, there's a difference when the user creates a bobblehead which then PGI sells and when the user creates a map that everyone can play. Noone is selling those maps, after all.
I mean, there's a difference when the user creates a bobblehead which then PGI sells and when the user creates a map that everyone can play. Noone is selling those maps, after all.
the thing is it seems that the legalities of the CRYENGINE are that no third party can profit off off the free SDK.If money is being made from the game itself even if the maps are free, the wording is configured in a way that even if it is a public/free piece of the game, because you are giving it (even for free) to a party (in this case PGI) that makes money, it COULD leave you (as a user of the CryEngine) in some very hot water.
there may be ways to circumvent the notice by making the map all on another software and then having PGI convert that file into something crytek compatible, but the biggest concern of that is once it touches CRYENGINE in any way shape or form, at least one party is responsible (in this case PGI). so even if we could, PGI would still not be able to take it.
Remember, the newest Cryengine is still under testing, so maybe after a few years the sanctions may be lifted
Edited by gavilatius, 25 March 2013 - 11:13 PM.
#109
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 11:21 PM
gavilatius, on 25 March 2013 - 11:12 PM, said:
the thing is it seems that the legalities of the CRYENGINE are that no third party can profit off off the free SDK.If money is being made from the game itself even if the maps are free, the wording is configured in a way that even if it is a public/free piece of the game, because you are giving it (even for free) to a party (in this case PGI) that makes money, it COULD leave you (as a user of the CryEngine) in some very hot water.
there may be ways to circumvent the notice by making the map all on another software and then having PGI convert that file into something crytek compatible, but the biggest concern of that is once it touches CRYENGINE in any way shape or form, at least one party is responsible (in this case PGI). so even if we could, PGI would still not be able to take it.
Remember, the newest Cryengine is still under testing, so maybe after a few years the sanctions may be lifted
that is the stupidest deal I have ever heard
#110
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 11:40 PM
I nearly **** my pants when I heard them say it takes them 250,000$USD to make 1 map.
HELLO?
ARE YOU ******* CRAZY?
HELLO?
ARE YOU ******* CRAZY?
#111
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 11:49 PM
xhrit, on 25 March 2013 - 11:40 PM, said:
I nearly **** my pants when I heard them say it takes them 250,000$USD to make 1 map.
Most likely the price associated with paying of devs during the massive development time of Tourmaline Desert.
That map has been in making since for ever.
gavilatius, on 25 March 2013 - 11:12 PM, said:
Remember, the newest Cryengine is still under testing, so maybe after a few years the sanctions may be lifted
They better lift that with games like Star Citizen coming down the line.
Edited by Adridos, 26 March 2013 - 12:05 AM.
#112
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Posted 25 March 2013 - 11:54 PM
Mechwarrior Buddah, on 25 March 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:
that is the stupidest deal I have ever heard
that is the price you pay when you want the "cutting edge"
#113
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 12:11 AM
Totally agree - I suggested exactly this back in closed beta, directly to Paul and Garth (back when they dared to venture onto the public teamspeak).
The response I got was, "Technically, no, because it's an MMO."
It really didn't make a whole lot of sense then, and it should be obvious by now that this could be a huge boost for the game.
Rather than stealing bad ideas from World of Tanks, PGI should steal good ideas from Valve.
The response I got was, "Technically, no, because it's an MMO."
It really didn't make a whole lot of sense then, and it should be obvious by now that this could be a huge boost for the game.
Rather than stealing bad ideas from World of Tanks, PGI should steal good ideas from Valve.
#114
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 12:18 AM
I am pretty sure this was mentioned on NGNG... if I remember right... they said it is something they would look into but it would take a lot of time for the lawyers to figure out?
But, yea, this would be amazing if they would allow the community to do some work.
But, yea, this would be amazing if they would allow the community to do some work.
#115
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 12:40 AM
alas it proberbly is the red fine print that stops outside party content being used in comercial games and or something or other. the idea has been around a long time and i reckon saddly it will remain an idea. shame is shamefull.
#116
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 12:55 AM
I say a reeeeeeeeaaaaaaly good idea that has been mentioned over and over again since closed beta.
A pity I don't remember any answers. ( Wasn't there a similar proposition in the 'Ask the devs' thread and they simply said 'nope it may be some day but not in short time' because...yea because what ?)
To boil it down: For every genius out there like the fan map developer shown by the PO there are a hundred misfits and guys who are on a, lets discribe this as permanent mental power save modus.
The sad sad truth is PGI would have to waste lots of time to sort such guys out, or dig through stupid how do I do my own maps posts.
A pity I don't remember any answers. ( Wasn't there a similar proposition in the 'Ask the devs' thread and they simply said 'nope it may be some day but not in short time' because...yea because what ?)
To boil it down: For every genius out there like the fan map developer shown by the PO there are a hundred misfits and guys who are on a, lets discribe this as permanent mental power save modus.
The sad sad truth is PGI would have to waste lots of time to sort such guys out, or dig through stupid how do I do my own maps posts.
Edited by The Basilisk, 26 March 2013 - 12:57 AM.
#117
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 01:34 AM
Hi, read the first post of this thread - and yes, that is something i would like to see.
It's a simple math, that user created content, re-designed of the PGI-Staff - will increase the amount of delivered Maps in the Future.
There is a Reason for example, why League of Legends exists (because someone modded this Game-Type).
I do not see the reason, why not sharing this with the community...
Can someone enlighte me ?
It's a simple math, that user created content, re-designed of the PGI-Staff - will increase the amount of delivered Maps in the Future.
There is a Reason for example, why League of Legends exists (because someone modded this Game-Type).
I do not see the reason, why not sharing this with the community...
Can someone enlighte me ?
#118
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 02:44 AM
Glowhollow, on 26 March 2013 - 01:34 AM, said:
Hi, read the first post of this thread - and yes, that is something i would like to see.
It's a simple math, that user created content, re-designed of the PGI-Staff - will increase the amount of delivered Maps in the Future.
There is a Reason for example, why League of Legends exists (because someone modded this Game-Type).
I do not see the reason, why not sharing this with the community...
Can someone enlighte me ?
It's a simple math, that user created content, re-designed of the PGI-Staff - will increase the amount of delivered Maps in the Future.
There is a Reason for example, why League of Legends exists (because someone modded this Game-Type).
I do not see the reason, why not sharing this with the community...
Can someone enlighte me ?
Ego *Legalities*Money
#119
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 03:03 AM
Glowhollow, on 26 March 2013 - 01:34 AM, said:
Hi, read the first post of this thread - and yes, that is something i would like to see.
It's a simple math, that user created content, re-designed of the PGI-Staff - will increase the amount of delivered Maps in the Future.
There is a Reason for example, why League of Legends exists (because someone modded this Game-Type).
I do not see the reason, why not sharing this with the community...
Can someone enlighte me ?
It's a simple math, that user created content, re-designed of the PGI-Staff - will increase the amount of delivered Maps in the Future.
There is a Reason for example, why League of Legends exists (because someone modded this Game-Type).
I do not see the reason, why not sharing this with the community...
Can someone enlighte me ?
Interesting that you mention League of Legends since they don't allow players to design maps, champions, skins, items, soundtracks, etc though they have tons of players in the community creating those very things.
#120
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Posted 26 March 2013 - 04:38 AM
Ok so here's the update...if we the community were willing to do this and help create maps as just a labor of love and just submit them out of the goodness of our heart and for the community and submit them to PGI, would there be any legal issues to contend with? If you personally do the work, say 20-30 hours of work to do the map, submit it to PGI, they like it and ask to take it from you with NO compensation and you said yes, legally, could PGI be held liable?
I'm thinking NO on this, but again I want to hear PGI's stance on this. If we can help them in any way possible, and this is doable in any way possible, why can't we do this?
I'm thinking NO on this, but again I want to hear PGI's stance on this. If we can help them in any way possible, and this is doable in any way possible, why can't we do this?
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