48 replies to this topic

[Insects]

Cryengine has map creation toolkit, $10 a month via Steam.
May not be compatible with the older/customized version used by MWO though?

Terrain and plonking rocks and buildings and ships down is pretty simple.
Actually designing those models and their textures is very time consuming, but it is unnecessary, more map variations using the same objects is fine for now.

Just randomize some terrain on a big map (hold the smoke, steam, fire, lava, water CPU hogs), get drunk and drop a little city here, a shipwreck on that hill over there, yeah whatever its all cover after the 20th gamegame and still makes more sense than half the lore and someone will probably write a mini novel explaining how it got there. Big map has less balance issues because teams have a lot of choice in where they move to. Beta it for a week and drop some 500m long lobsters in that valley to do whatever.

[Ghogiel]

joelmuzz, on 11 February 2015 - 01:35 AM, said:

Cryengine has map creation toolkit, $10 a month via Steam.
May not be compatible with the older/customized version used by MWO though?

Yeah. We would probably have to DL CE3.4-5 or there abouts because current CE material and lighting model has changed quite a bit. And it would be best to use the same RC.exe for export as well. Newer ones might change some of the data blocks in the files.

[Lily from animove]

which pure online game does this?

[pyrocomp]

In parallel topic
http://mwomercs.com/...snow-redundant/
Came an idea that for now some retexturing and simple adding day/night/etc variants for each map would be great until since map pool is small and decorations seem repetitive. Allowing community members alter base maps (Terra Terma Frozen and Alpine Blizzard as reference) solve problem of playability control (PGI provides initially good enough for them map) at least partially. And later there are public tests... So the idea of community involvement is viable enough.

[Insects]

Yeah like drop a bunch of buildings/storage tanks in the middle of caustics crater and a crashed plane and some boulders on the hillside. Drop the temperature a bit.
90% same map but will play very different with the extra cover.

Diversity in the random queue better than the exact same maps every time.

[PurpleNinja]

Last time I saw this type of discussion, devs pointed out some legal issues.

[pyrocomp]

Link? And if variants of existing maps sine with tool, doodle and texture sets provided then what legal issues?

[Raggedyman]

Mumuharra, on 10 February 2015 - 04:06 PM, said:

What I really do not understand is why the devs do not use the still existing and still enthusiastic (but small ) community and give them a mod tool to create maps for mwo.
The most successfull games I remember had a great modding community and lived through many years so.
Is this idea bad for business (than at least I could understand the devs manner) or why?

User Generated Content is a complicated issue, especially in a continuous environment game like MWO, so there is a lot more to it than just giving out the tools for people to make maps with as you have to work out how to incorporate those maps into the game.

For example, do you put them into the actual queue rotation? Well if you do then they have to be of a certain grade (both technical and playable) before they go in (so PGI would have to set up a review process, which would involve more QA staff and a lot of 'misses' from duff contenders) and even if they were up to grade they would be 'needed' (as in 'adding something extra to the game, rather than being a variant'). You would also have the issues of ownership and recompense for the work put into by the initial creator, because as soon as money or rewards get involved people go crazy.

Or you could have an 'experimental' queue built into the game, with submitted maps being available to play. This could work and give people a means to test out other peoples ideas, however you wouldn't be able to have them being part of your stats/rewards/general game continuity due to the potential for people to gain through abusive design or lose through bad design. Imagine dropping into a map where team A will always slaughter team B because of how the map is made, or randomly falling through a hole in the earth 30 seconds into the round. Not fun. And that's before you get 'troll' maps, which I will leave to your own imagination as to how unpleasant you can be with an environment. Also not a great way to get them played that much, because people won't be clocking up rewards so won't be trying them out that much (whilst still taking up space/run time on the servers).

Now none of the above is insurmountable or impossible to solve, and there are loads of other options you can have which have their various pros and cons (and this is before you have the issue of converting a games design studio bit of map creation software into a consumer grade bit of software). I'm just pointing out why it isn't as simple as letting folks make maps and plugging them into the existing game.

[pyrocomp]

Raggedyman, on 11 February 2015 - 04:52 AM, said:

User Generated Content is a complicated issue, especially in a continuous environment game like MWO, so there is a lot more to it than just giving out the tools for people to make maps with as you have to work out how to incorporate those maps into the game.

For example, do you put them into the actual queue rotation? Well if you do then they have to be of a certain grade (both technical and playable) before they go in (so PGI would have to set up a review process, which would involve more QA staff and a lot of 'misses' from duff contenders) and even if they were up to grade they would be 'needed' (as in 'adding something extra to the game, rather than being a variant'). You would also have the issues of ownership and recompense for the work put into by the initial creator, because as soon as money or rewards get involved people go crazy.

Or you could have an 'experimental' queue built into the game, with submitted maps being available to play. This could work and give people a means to test out other peoples ideas, however you wouldn't be able to have them being part of your stats/rewards/general game continuity due to the potential for people to gain through abusive design or lose through bad design. Imagine dropping into a map where team A will always slaughter team B because of how the map is made, or randomly falling through a hole in the earth 30 seconds into the round. Not fun. And that's before you get 'troll' maps, which I will leave to your own imagination as to how unpleasant you can be with an environment. Also not a great way to get them played that much, because people won't be clocking up rewards so won't be trying them out that much (whilst still taking up space/run time on the servers).

Now none of the above is insurmountable or impossible to solve, and there are loads of other options you can have which have their various pros and cons (and this is before you have the issue of converting a games design studio bit of map creation software into a consumer grade bit of software). I'm just pointing out why it isn't as simple as letting folks make maps and plugging them into the existing game.

There is a test server already and people there wishing to try and tools for banning people to have means agaist trolls. Again, ownership is a strange thing. The map submission can be formulated as you being gifting that intellectual property to PGI with all following results. This issue's been adressed many times in many cases (and not only in games), many ways to go around (GPL?) with no need to invent new one.
So problems are solvable. Does the time required to install all this going on PGI side will be worth the result? That is an interesting question. And, as been said above, start strictly with existing map variants (day/night) to see on the test batch how it can go.

[Ursh]

I would create an urban map with multiple elevation levels, sort of like some of the halo maps, where you never know which building someone is going to shoot out of, with lanes for sniper/sharpshooters, but also plenty of areas for brawlers to infiltrate by tunnel or by moving from cover to cover.

Just an example. It would be fun for me to create maps that other players could vote on and test on the...wait for it....test server.

The realism wouldn't be there, but in the future it's highly unlikely one infantryman wouldn't be able to pack a missile powerful enough to cripple a battlemech, so realism is a bit moot.

[Raggedyman]

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

There is a test server already and people there wishing to try

Indeed, but that is for the purposes of trying out changes that the developers are expecting to go in, rather than speculative maps that could maybe go in, so is not a solid indication on the levels of players who would try out UGC maps. I'm not saying that a UGIC test server would be technically impossible, just asking if that the usage would support it's running or development costs.

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

and tools for banning people to have means agaist trolls.

If someone can make a disposable account and post an abusive chunk of content then they will, all you can do is set the determination levels you find acceptable or hire people to moderate things.

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

Again, ownership is a strange thing. The map submission can be formulated as you being gifting that intellectual property to PGI with all following results. This issue's been adressed many times in many cases (and not only in games), many ways to go around (GPL?) with no need to invent new one.

Legally its a walk in the park, however it's the social 'people going crazy' thing that I'm more talking about. Things like "noes, I made that map and X stole the idea!" and "how dare developer not give cookies for our contents!" and other fun things that you can T&C till the death of the stars but people will still go mental over.

[Axeface]

I would love to get my hands on the assets but it would just be for fun, an online deathmatch game can't really support modding unless there is some kind of private server functionality that doesnt keep stats.
Could be used for tournements and other private shenanigans - could even maybe be used as a way to offer pgi maps and a place where they could test them out, maybe some would be good enough to be included in the game.

[pyrocomp]

Raggedyman, on 11 February 2015 - 05:19 AM, said:

Indeed, but that is for the purposes of trying out changes that the developers are expecting to go in, rather than speculative maps that could maybe go in, so is not a solid indication on the levels of players who would try out UGC maps. I'm not saying that a UGIC test server would be technically impossible, just asking if that the usage would support it's running or development costs.

Yes, runnig costs for test server is another set of questions, and the costs are different matter. Actually, costs and cost-effectiveness in a matter the devs should know, but they keep silent. Pity.

Raggedyman, on 11 February 2015 - 05:19 AM, said:

If someone can make a disposable account and post an abusive chunk of content then they will, all you can do is set the determination levels you find acceptable or hire people to moderate things.

Or set a rule not to copy to test server an account that was less than a year old/has less that 300 matches played/etc. The problem may be adressed differently without much load on moderators.

Raggedyman, on 11 February 2015 - 05:19 AM, said:

Legally its a walk in the park, however it's the social 'people going crazy' thing that I'm more talking about. Things like "noes, I made that map and X stole the idea!" and "how dare developer not give cookies for our contents!" and other fun things that you can T&C till the death of the stars but people will still go mental over.

Ah, this is an eternal unsolvable issue lurking in darkest conners of humans mind, but ... difine that as trolling and ban out. Ferro ignique.

[Insects]

PurpleNinja, on 11 February 2015 - 02:40 AM, said:

Last time I saw this type of discussion, devs pointed out some legal issues.

Yeah I think the major problems are peoples dramatics, and people violating some other games copyright in their map.

You can get people to sign over the rights, but the problem is that if they have "been inspired" a little too much by some other games map and it isnt detected it can get nasty in future when competing company claims copyright infringement for clone of their IP.

Employee created content is much safer because there is more control over telling them not to clone/inspire/tribute some existing map.

[LordSkippy]

1) Set up a section of the website where users can post and download user made map, with a rating system.

2) Add a "custom map" option in the training grounds that allows players to load user made maps.

3) Add a "custom map" option in private lobbies that will load the map for all players in the lobby.

4) Anytime a user made map is loaded, display a warning that the map is user made and may not be balanced or may contain bugs, use at your own risk.

5) Review highest rated user maps for possible inclusion as an official map, with any needed bug fixes and balance changes. Possible rewards for getting a map approved.

You open a path for users to do a large part of the map development, play testing, and debugging. You also keep the maps out of general rotation, since they are only available to those that specifically loaded them in training grounds or private lobbies.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Lily from animove, on 11 February 2015 - 01:59 AM, said:

which pure online game does this?

Star Trek Online does it, some of the submissions are actually pretty good, 90% are total and utter garbage however, it's called The Foundry and I've seen some really good work there. I typically see stuff that should never have been released.

LOTS of people KNOW how to make the perfect map, just ask them, they'll tell you.

I made maps for Quake 2, Tribes and Tribes 2, most of my maps were specialized for league play, so the general public didn't really like them, which is to be expected, leagues don't play like John Q Pubbie does, not by a long shot. Typically I had 100 hours into any map I released, certain maps took well over 300 hours total(scripting, creation of custom models and textures, play testing), but on average, 100 hours for a good solid map that's fun to play and looks good. I didn't mind spending that time to make good maps, but most maps released by the general public are at most 20 hours of work, and it shows. They look like crap, they play like crap and there's clipping issues, bad/missing textures, and typically the map favors 1 side, which is usually the side the creator tends to play oddly enough..go figure right?

People like to tell us how they could do this or that better than the devs of whatever game, problem is, most of them don't have a friggen clue about how you create anything not left in a toilet.

Do we have some talented creative people playing MWO? Yes, we do, and we could see some really great maps from them. But first someone would have to sort through the dross. PGI doesn't have the time, although they do seem to have the inclination. And the community isn't the best choice for that, cliques tend to throw the rational decision making out, they dismiss anything by someone they don't like and praise their own works to the heavens. I've seen horrible maps, intended to BE horrible maps, win due to such actions in other communities just to show the power of a certain clique(Goonies anyone?).

Legal issues are a non-issue, STO has been doing it for years without any legal problems, they have a nice EULA which makes it clear that the submission makes your creation their property regardless of any laws in your locale which might otherwise supersede that, you agree to this or your submission isn't used.

One thing to remember, takes a lot of time to create a good map, and usually 2-4x as much time to vet it and make sure it's not buggered up somewhere. Players are good at finding ways to get places map designers never intended them to reach, and they are good at finding those misaligned surfaces, textures, or whatever that the designer didn't notice that detract from or even break the map totally(holes in the world can be impossible to 'see' in the editor but easy to fall into ingame). And once you've tested a map for 40 or 60 hours, you generally don't want to see it again for a while...

[Raggedyman]

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 05:49 AM, said:

Yes, runnig costs for test server is another set of questions, and the costs are different matter. Actually, costs and cost-effectiveness in a matter the devs should know, but they keep silent. Pity.

I'd love it if they talked openly about it, but it is one of those commercial issues that could do them a lot of harm/financial inconvenience if it got out. Plus as soon as you start giving people details on those things there would be a resounding "and you charge us HOW MUCH!!" as the 10p opinions rain in.

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 05:49 AM, said:

Or set a rule not to copy to test server an account that was less than a year old/has less that 300 matches played/etc. The problem may be adressed differently without much load on moderators.

Okay, this is something I have direct professional experience with and I can 100%, pound to penny, guarantee you that "if you build it they will troll". Those barriers will not stop people from trolling, they will only reduce a small portion of fly-by-night trolls from throwing up a couple of 'interestingly' shaped maps. However they will reduce a large amount of the potential map creators from sharing their work, and cause a lot of the community to complain because the majority of the community will be thinking "But I'm not a jerk about these things so why should i be inconvenienced whilst trying to help the community!" (when, to be fair, the vast amount aren't jerks).

Again, not insurmountable (other than the troll thing, expect if people let me start playing around with mind rays...) but things that need to be considered. Which goes back to my original point (and post to the OP) that the making of the maps is actually a relatively minor portion of having community maps put into the game.

Edited by Raggedyman, 11 February 2015 - 09:07 AM.

[pyrocomp]

Well, are you trying to convince me that community made maps are a kind of undertaking manageable by no one but few outstanding dev teams? I age that trolling and intentionally bad to the level of public insult content may be a problem but banning is in place so only initial surge would be rough. I believe in your experience but there were quit a number of projects that used community generated content.

As for initial filters... How much of experience is needed to understand the ways MWO games go? First 400 NASCAR seems a good tactics.

Edited by pyrocomp, 11 February 2015 - 09:31 AM.

[Bobzilla]

Even with all the potential problems that could arise from this, i'll bet it would still produce better maps and faster than PGI going it alone.

[Brody319]

Once again we don't technically need people to make every map in the engine. just need a few reference photos and an overview. then the devs can make it using those resources.

yea it would probably ease the burden a bit if they required a fully made map, but when you start making a map, you have an overhead view, a few images of key locations, then you start making it.