58 replies to this topic

[Scout Derek]

Ive been seeing ALOT of talk of how MWO should have more gamemodes or should have more variety in mechs. Or in maps.
Why not let us help out? Why not allow us the tools that the devs have to show off what we have in mind? On top of that, I think we can get alot further into this game if the community is allowed to connect to the developers. Remember how they say when we play that teamwork is success? How come we don't do that when making the game?

[Burktross]

Because that'd be too easy! :^)

[darkkterror]

Burktross, on 25 December 2014 - 01:25 PM, said:

Because that'd be too easy! :^)

Uuhhmm...it's actually not. Unless you think that user-made content would spontaneously appear in the game with absolutely no dev attention required (which it wouldn't).

[Raggedyman]

Scout Derek, on 25 December 2014 - 01:20 PM, said:

Why not allow us the tools that the devs have to show off what we have in mind? On top of that, I think we can get alot further into this game if the community is allowed to connect to the developers. Remember how they say when we play that teamwork is success? How come we don't do that when making the game?

Because if they give away the tools they are giving away the means for anyone to go and make another game with them. It would be incredibly bad business, and that is before you have the problems of turning the professional grade tools into something a meaningful portion of the community would be able to use to any decent level -or- the outbreak of requests for new things to be added to the tools set.

As for contact with the developers: they already have it, it's just that it isn't that one on one because there are just so many more players than developers. Trust me, they do read the comments and the forums and they look at how people are playing the game and they are always going "how can we give the community what they want as best as is realistically possible". It's just that they need to do it for the community as a whole, rather than individuals or vocal groups.

[Sandpit]

darkkterror, on 25 December 2014 - 01:33 PM, said:

Uuhhmm...it's actually not. Unless you think that user-made content would spontaneously appear in the game with absolutely no dev attention required (which it wouldn't).

Especially since it's a pvp mmo and everything has to meet balancing requirements

Map making maybe.
Nothing else.

[Scout Derek]

Okay, just looked back and thought of this: client that you log into and can only make on it, say for example, maps. You cannot pull any files from the file folder from it else face a hefty fine for doing so. Just a thought put together from scratch just now.

[Raggedyman]

Sandpit, on 25 December 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

Map making maybe.
Nothing else.

Even map making is a nightmare for balance and QA. It's so easy to have a broken map, and the difference between a worthwhile and okayish map is astronomical. You also need to convince enough people to play non-EXP/CBill granting rounds on the maps to be able to get a real feel for them, both quality and popularity, which is unlikely given the grind already in the game

[Raggedyman]

Scout Derek, on 25 December 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

Okay, just looked back and thought of this: client that you log into and can only make on it, say for example, maps. You cannot pull any files from the file folder from it else face a hefty fine for doing so. Just a thought put together from scratch just now.

Nice notion but once the files are on your PC then they are get-at-able. Plus you would have to have whoever signs up for it agree to a meaningful contract to make it likely to have any fines enforced (very different to a 'click yes' set of T&Cs).

[Dark DeLaurel]

Raggedyman, on 25 December 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

Even map making is a nightmare for balance and QA. It's so easy to have a broken map, and the difference between a worthwhile and okayish map is astronomical. You also need to convince enough people to play non-EXP/CBill granting rounds on the maps to be able to get a real feel for them, both quality and popularity, which is unlikely given the grind already in the game

The PC FPS genre has been making maps since Quake 1, people will help test out maps. Especially now days where the author can make flyby videos, etc to generate interest.

Everyone here is making it sound like map making is a godlike skill. As long as the person making the map understands game balance and can figure out the tools there is a high probability that Q&A will have minimal work to do other than polish which I even doubt that.

Edited by Dark DeLaurel, 25 December 2014 - 02:06 PM.

[Ra-ul]

I don't think that it would be as easy as to share tools (which are licensed btw.). Those who would be able to help out normally have those tools in one or the other form (3D modelling toolset, Photoshop, Cry SDK ...). It would be rather a question of defining/publish requirements for community content to be included (polycount, texture map resolution and mechanisms etc) in order to have game-ready assets for the devs to include as in-game content with least possible effort. But even then I guess it would be hard for them to make sure nobody used 3rd party material like textures, thus violating copyrights by including it in a commercial product.

Edited by GraySho, 25 December 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[Shismar]

Sandpit, on 25 December 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

Especially since it's a pvp mmo and everything has to meet balancing requirements

Map making maybe.
Nothing else.

Map making for sure and and also UI modding.

But PvP is not a valid argument here. Many excellent PvP games had heavy modding up to full conversions. Counter Strike maybe the first, DotA not the last. Often the mods were crucial to the success of a game.

Of course PGI would need to control which modifications are allowed into the MC based gameplay. Current MWO if you want. The modding play ground player data basically being a copy of the MWO player data with no influence on MWO data.

It can be done, Cryengine is 9,90€ per monthly subscription at Steam. PGI would need to put quite some work into providing assets and setting up a testing and vetting process. Maybe they can now. I'd be happy to see what the community comes up with!

[Raggedyman]

Dark DeLaurel, on 25 December 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

The PC FPS genre has been making maps since Quake 1, people will help test out maps. Especially now days where the author can make flyby videos, etc to generate interest.

Everyone here is making it sound like map making is a godlike skill. As long as the person making the map understands game balance and can figure out the tools there is a high probability that Q&A will have minimal work to do other than polish which I even doubt that.

Games like Quake, and CS have the advantage of not being a persistent world, as well as a significantly larger player base, so getting people to play new layouts is far easier. something like TF has persistence but it's less critical/controlled than in MW. I'm not saying you can't get people to try them BTW, just that if they aren't giving advancements like a regular game map would then it's far harder to get people to spend their time on it.

As for "godlike skill": nope, but the vast majority of player made maps I've seen / played are at best mediocre and the 'good ones' normally favour a specific type of gameplay rather than the 'good for all folks' considerations that a QA team would need to think about.

[Iqfish]

I made multiple maps for COH 1 and have some experience with the CE SDK.
We also have a guy that is quite good with the SDK.

There were already threads in 2012 where people made full blown maps but yea.

[Dark DeLaurel]

The Q&A team has already failed in having maps that allow all types of fighting. It's even been said by PGI they want more brawling to be done.

Your persistent world comment is out of place, as the invasion maps mean nothing to the changing planets.

Not everyone wants to get rewarded for testing, a lot of units would do the bulk of the testing and then from that point on it wouldn't take much to get others to help test. Worst case we get the same crappy terrain hit boxes and small obejec9we currently shoot instead of the enemy or get stuck on. At best a few in the community will crank out some great maps that will be better than the PGI ones.

I've played a lot of user created multiplayer maps over the years and I would say it's an 80/20 good/bad split. We also had the ability in MechWarrior 4 to create maps and the community did a fairly good job and no one was complaining about testing some of them as long as they were a known member of the community.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Allowing the players to make maps would be awesome lol. Company of Heroes got massive amounts of replayability through playermade maps. That game is PVE/PVP and it has just mounds upon mounds of maps made by players.

[RG Notch]

Dark DeLaurel, on 25 December 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

The PC FPS genre has been making maps since Quake 1, people will help test out maps. Especially now days where the author can make flyby videos, etc to generate interest.

Everyone here is making it sound like map making is a godlike skill. As long as the person making the map understands game balance and can figure out the tools there is a high probability that Q&A will have minimal work to do other than polish which I even doubt that.

So how many modern F2P games allow player made content?

[Vassago Rain]

Dark DeLaurel, on 25 December 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

The PC FPS genre has been making maps since Quake 1, people will help test out maps. Especially now days where the author can make flyby videos, etc to generate interest.

Everyone here is making it sound like map making is a godlike skill. As long as the person making the map understands game balance and can figure out the tools there is a high probability that Q&A will have minimal work to do other than polish which I even doubt that.

Videogames are hard.

RG Notch, on 25 December 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

So how many modern F2P games allow player made content?

The ones that aren't bound to consoles or F2P.

[FupDup]

Vassago Rain, on 25 December 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

The ones that aren't bound to consoles or F2P.

TF2 is F2P and well over half of its content is user-created...

[RG Notch]

Vassago Rain, on 25 December 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

Videogames are hard.



The ones that aren't bound to consoles or F2P.

Hence why I asked about F2P games, almost like that was the point.

[Gremlich Johns]

In the time that the players coded and put out MW:LL, they had more maps than MWO that really worked. AND had tanks, artillery, battlearmors, aerospace and VTOL s.