33 replies to this topic

[RG Notch]

I think their strategy is paying off, they clearly never intend to use player created maps, but what good does that do the tell people straight out that they won't. This way they can say they are "looking into it" or whatever and those who want to waste their time trying to make maps are happy and think that if they keep making the same arguments since CB suddenly IGP will change their mind. No one gets hurt, we don't have to deal with amateurish maps, and the map makers think are kept happy thinking they may one day get to make a map.
Why change this situation where everyone is some what happy? Why would they officially say they won't take maps when that would make some people angry when you can keep stringing them on to no one's detriment? I say you keep "looking into it" devs and you map makers keep working on them. This thread is perfect evidence that is all the devs need do. Don't 100% close off this avenue, but don't ever accept anything.

[MrPenguin]

RG Notch, on 12 April 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:

I think their strategy is paying off, they clearly never intend to use player created maps, but what good does that do the tell people straight out that they won't. This way they can say they are "looking into it" or whatever and those who want to waste their time trying to make maps are happy and think that if they keep making the same arguments since CB suddenly IGP will change their mind. No one gets hurt, we don't have to deal with amateurish maps, and the map makers think are kept happy thinking they may one day get to make a map.
Why change this situation where everyone is some what happy? Why would they officially say they won't take maps when that would make some people angry when you can keep stringing them on to no one's detriment? I say you keep "looking into it" devs and you map makers keep working on them. This thread is perfect evidence that is all the devs need do. Don't 100% close off this avenue, but don't ever accept anything.

Well, its possible. Just very unlikely.

[RG Notch]

MrPenguin, on 12 April 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

Well, its possible. Just very unlikely.

Exactly, see this is what I'm talking about.

[FrOdO]

RG Notch, on 12 April 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

Exactly, see this is what I'm talking about.

Ahhh, this guy again. Knows it.

[Tice Daurus]

Regardless if this opens a can of worms for PGI or not, PGI does owe us the truth. If they don't want the players to create maps, then they can say so themselves, and it ends the discussion. But for right now, I have to take it on good faith that PGI saying that they are looking into it MEANS that they are seeing if this is a viable option or not, if it will cause problems or not, or whatever the case maybe.

I say I feel we can give them some time on this, but it was my goal to see if we can help PGI in any way possible. Give them some time to have their lawyers and people look at this and see if it's viable to make this work. The worst that can happen is PGI says "No it would cost us too much for reasons XYZ, thus we'll be responsible for creating the maps." Or they could say, "We can't do it at this time because of the cost to get the software is too much thus we cannot allow player to create maps...at this time."

All I'm asking for is PGI to see if they can respond further, clarify some questions, and see if we can help them clear some hurdles for them. If we can, kudos. If we can't, then we can't, we move on and that's that.

I'm just a bit puzzled as to why people are trying to put the kabosh on this idea and me asking some questions to PGI and me trying to help is all. I mean, if I can help make this work and help everyone out, what's the harm?

[Kristov Kerensky]

User submitted content is always a risky thing, and it's not something you typically see in MMOs for a variety of reasons, which were actually touched upon in the AtD answer.

Legal issues..you know, just because a contract is legal and valid in Canada doesn't make it legal and valid in some OTHER country. The Unseen is a great example of just how bad it can get when laws in a country don't quite match the laws in other countries. Now imagine someone sends in a map and then later decides to sue because PGI is making money off it. The contract they signed with PGI isn't valid in their home country, so...HG vs the world anyone? Some MMOs allow user created content, but those same MMOs are also always aware of how that can come back and bite them. PGI would probably like to take user created content at some point..but right now..the legal issues are just too much to deal with on a project that's not even seen it's 'official release' yet.

Vetting those user created submissions..oy vey, NOT something I would want to do again..yes, I've done it, and you know what? Give me some dull rusty spoons and I'll give myself a vasectomy before I vet user created content again, it's just SO much less pain. 99% of user created content is absolute trash, not worth the time it took to NAME it, much less create it. And it's not so simple as having 1 or 2 people view them and check them real quick. We're going to a 12v12 format soon, so all submissions will need a team of 24 people testing them. No, seriously, that's how you TEST team based maps, you put full teams on them otherwise you will NOT find the problems with them, I learned that many years ago making maps for league play, you either put full teams on and test or you don't bother submitting them because you and a friend will NOT see the forest for the trees. Really, it's not a simple little 'hey Bob, another map, lets check it real quick and get it out today' thing, it's a 'oh man, another one...ok, I need 23 of you to jump in here with me..hey, GET BACK HERE!...damnit!'...my SRM brothers got more then a little PO'd with me at times due to this fact, they were my lab Rats, and flaws I couldn't see solo or with just another player on, we could see real quick with 2 full teams on the map.

These factors alone, not including things like cost of distribution, which PGI has to eat, and other issues, really make user submitted content not a big thing on the radar. Too many downsides, nowhere near enough upsides.

[Lukoi Banacek]

You know where this would have been great to ask the devs?

Ask the Devs 36. The Devs don't have time to dink around with every forum post in general discussion. They centralized and streamlined the process for a reason. Just copy/paste this into the next ATD man, would have a higher chance of getting seen and dealt with.

[Ranek Blackstone]

Tice Daurus, on 09 April 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

[b]

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.

Various map functions like lighting draw power from the CPU and GPU at different rates. Dynamic shadows and lighting, for instance, are not kind on a computer. Particle effects like flames also draw heavy on the computer as well. And you know someone out there with bleeding edge hardware would make a map that takes his rig to the limit before posting it, and all the rest of us would sputter and burn because we can't keep up with all the stuff we'd be forced to render at once.

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

Distribution of content would be how the map got disseminated to the us from the maker. For most games, you get the map online off a site like rapidshare or something, and put it in your maps folder. Done deal. MWO though uses a match maker system, so you'd have to upload it to PGI, who'd have to make players download it when they go to play it. Depending on what the player has for bandwidth and the size of the map file, this could take a minute or two. Plus PGI has to pay THEIR ISP for all the bandwidth this would be using as well, which could get expensive.

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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?

Not sure what this means, exactly. I THINK it has something to do with the small numbers adding up fast in a limited environment. The more maps that enter the rotation, the more maps we need to keep local (and the more maps PGI would need to pay to store). The more maps we keep local the larger the footprint we have on our HDDs. I remember browsing through my map folder in Warcraft 3 back in the day and realizing I had 3 gigs of user created maps on my HDD, which while cool, was larger then Warcraft 3's install foot print.

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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.

Mostly copyright infringement. While community map makers wouldn't be making money off the map, PGI would be hosting them into a for profit game, which would make them libel for copyright law violations, and thus the target of lawsuits if it came to light your map is a blatant copy of something from another game.

[Ryvucz]

They said no.

When they say yes, they will let us know.

Is that hard to grasp, or should I make a chart?

[Tice Daurus]

Ranek Blackstone, on 12 April 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

snip for answers....

Ranek, thanks for answering this stuff for me. I can see what the problems are now for this and it makes a lot more sense and what the hurdles are for both PGI and the users. It helps to put this more in perspective, even though it's not PGI answering it, it makes more sense to me.

Ryvucz, on 12 April 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

They said no.

When they say yes, they will let us know.

Is that hard to grasp, or should I make a chart?

No it's just too hard to grasp. Go ahead and make the chart and I'll expect it in the next five minutes.

On a side note, dude, don't be that guy. Don't be an a-hole. I'm just trying to help everyone here, and I've had nothing but the best of intentions so we can get some more answers for this. I'm perfectly willing to listen and be reasonable like anyone else, I just don't need you being a d-bag here.

[MrPenguin]

Just let it go OP...

Ryvucz, on 12 April 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

They said no.

When they say yes, they will let us know.

Is that hard to grasp, or should I make a chart?

Me thinks someone should jettison this thread to the area of the forum where it belongs.

Edited by MrPenguin, 17 April 2013 - 08:08 AM.

[Tice Daurus]

MrPenguin, on 17 April 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

Just let it go OP...

Me thinks someone should jettison this thread to the area of the forum where it belongs.

I've let it go. My questions were answered by Ranek, and I'm satisfied with the answer I was given, even though PGI didn't answer it, I'm cool with it. As far as I'm concerned this can be locked now. I just don't get why people are acting like like a d-bag toward me when I'm just trying to help and get some answers.

But you're right...time to let it go. Trolls will be trolls.

Mods, requesting this be locked now before other people start jumping in here and becoming more antagonistic here...

[Ryvucz]

Tice Daurus, on 17 April 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

No it's just too hard to grasp. Go ahead and make the chart and I'll expect it in the next five minutes.

On a side note, dude, don't be that guy. Don't be an a-hole. I'm just trying to help everyone here, and I've had nothing but the best of intentions so we can get some more answers for this. I'm perfectly willing to listen and be reasonable like anyone else, I just don't need you being a d-bag here.

>brokenimage.jpg<

That's all stuff we really don't need a bunch of details on.

Things change a lot during coding, and we'd get more "ERMERGHARD, WE WUZ PROMESSED!" if things didn't pan out as stated.

If it's not mentioned in a Command Chair post, Ask the Devs or Announcements, we don't need to know.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Tice Daurus, on 17 April 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Mods, requesting this be locked now before other people start jumping in here and becoming more antagonistic here...

* Poof! *