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General: The Future is Mod
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Dan Fortier returns this week for a special Friday edition of MMOWTF. This time around, Dan tackles the idea of player created mods and the possibilities for MMORPG gaming.
Once again that evil taskmaster Stradden has tasked me to continue my attempts at a coherent article. When he wasn't looking, I crumpled up the draft he approved and snuck this into the "Throughly proofread and Sanitized" bin. Only time will tell if this makes it to your monitor though. What kind of vile and horrific material would be worth the horrible beating with Canadian Bacon I will no doubt take for releasing it to you? Use your scroll wheel to find out if you dare!
Read the whole column here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Read the whole column here.
Author should do some fundamantal research before blathering out in public :
www.amazon.com/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167/ref=pd_bbs_9/102-6923214-5561715?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177705578&sr=8-9
Designing Virtual Worlds is the baseline for MMORPG designs. And it would have informed the author in detail about user-modified world content.
Not to mention the author's missing Saga of Ryzom entirely.
I sure wish the moderators of MMORPG would be more selective in the articles they post.
I wouldn't be surprised that if, in the future, you'll see companies touting "Run your own official shard/server!" in their MMO list.
Could you imagine the # of people who would kill to have a WoW server that was just people they approved to be there? Or edit the rulesets as they so desired?
A lot of you WoW haters would probably go back if there was a "Full Loot PvP" environment, right? How much would you be willing to pay for that?
It's definately a possible future in the MMO Industry. As new forms of revenue are explored you might see "Official Player Run" servers, and you might even find some MMOs try "Fully Player Run" servers.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
I was about to jump in and mention something about Saga of Ryzom, a game which I do not play, but it looks as if other like-minded people already got around to doing so. Glad there's a lot of us out there thinking the same sort of things.
But, though the author of the article may have missed a game that actually does this already, don't be too quick to scold him, my dear friends. He's doing a favor by continuing a discussion that is important, even if he isn't the first person to have this idea dawn on him. User created content and could and should find it's way into more MMOs because of the possibility to let more creative minds out there collaborate on making a great game. The execution of this idea is, of course, rather important because there will need to be strong editorial processes and qualifications for content from players to get implimented. Can you imagine this sort of thing if there were no quality control, and if everyone's MMIO experience were to be saturated with the least inspired and most poorly devolped content? It would dilute the enjoyment and in turn make the best of the bunch into needles within that haystack, diamonds in the rough.
There's got to be plenty more ideas on how player created content could be implimented into our favorite MMOs, so why not keep this discussion going with some more suggestions, ey?
I think this is what second life is trying to do also. hopefully we will see more of this kind of stuff in MMOs in the future.
-andy
And why not I ask? Wouldn't it be amazing is someone could do for MMORPGs what file napster did for music downloading. A open peer-to-peer scheme.
I dare to be different, and instead of flaming, or stating "The Saga of Ryzom" I will do what is intended, and actually discuss, so here I go. You're all welcome to join, whenever you like.
Personally I love modding, ever since the first day I sat down in Natural-Selection (a half-life 1 modification) I loved the idea of modding a game, NS took modding to a whole new level, it changed the mechanics, and even game-type, not just what things looked like.
So, how does this all pertain to MMOs? As was stated (without any full explanation, thoughts, or expansion) 'The Saga of Ryzom' did expand on this idea with their Ryzom Ring, and I was psyched about it, but sadly, it was not exactly what it could have been, and here's how I see it.
Yes, letting the player's create a scenario is great, yes, it is a step in the right direction, but they didn't do the RIGHT steps, they just jumped in a direction and hoped it would work. Player's want their creations to be open to the public, they want to create something amazing and let everyone know. They want to make it their own. For inspiration, I turn to the little sandboxes we call There, Second Life, and the like.
Looking at these 'life simulations' you can see that there is a large market of players who like to create content, and therefore mod the game. They create entire cities, from the clothing, to the buildings, to the advertisements. This is where we need MMO modding to head.
We know those people who whine for player cities, and the like, but it's never really a player city, it's always "you can put this model, this model, or this model." and I understand, it's not easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.
Now, I turn to 'Spore', Will Wrights latest and greatest, and I look at it. He has the idea right, nothing can be easily achieved with bulky models and texture files, we need algorithms. We need a complex editor that can translate your creations into complex algorithms that the game engine then translates into your own game models and creations. Seen Here. Everything you see in that video is a series of algorithms that are assembled to make the objects YOU want in your world.
Here, we see a simple solution, to a complex problem, and it's only one step of the way. But, if we look at the examples given, we can see the potential. Ryzom had the AI scripting to make interaction and NPCs in the cities work well, 'life simulation' games have the implementation of the player drive world, and with an algorithmic compression and model creator (therefore elimiating the use of outside software, which is a big plus) we can save bandwidth and memory because of the lack of having to load and tell to load a million files.
Those are just some of my thoughts on the subject, I have many more, but frankly, don't have the time to include them all.
Good article, and on most of your points, I agree very much
I like the idea
I think alot of players would like there own special rules server etc. This would allow also for storyline quests like some players have in NWN. Personally i would like to see more mmo's use more storyline quests that aren't purely slash and hack.
However i personally would want my own character system and item system.
Do you remember when all those rev engineered Ultima Online's were going. Most of the editors people showed me were awkward pieces of (censored). Most editors on most games are because they were used by people who were used to using software of that level of usability or they themselves had authored the software. To them using it is second nature and efficient.
When these same level of tools are made to be as user friendly as early windowed GUIs were compared to complex command line OS's, and they are made to be more flexible than just the current needs of the game, then you have BIG potential.
For example lets take the FPS Ghost Recon (the original). Editing it is no cake walk but largely can be done by one or a few people using pretty meagre hardware for a simple mod.If they work at it a small group of people can do a total conversion of the game with similar resources and a small amount of coding. Then look at the next generation of the same game, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Just to do the visuals of a mod is beyond many modders (for hardware, software, and knowledge reasons). For the large part you have to mod either existing graphic or gameplay assets, not being able to do your own. The main reason is the sophistication and difficulty in doing so.
Because of this there are still people who play and mod Ghost Recon almost a decade later and Ghost Recon: AW has 150+ mods and all of them are minor adjustments to the game.
I think the article is saying that if a MMO dev kit was given with a fully realized MMO and a user friendly editor and documentation that would let you create that world YOUR WAY or make a Parallel of the included world and if it was approved it could get officially linked, or let others independently link into their own "Rings" of shards, the MMO world would explode like FPS's and RTS's did when it happened to them.
IMHO
Mod-driven content is the way of the future to come, that I agree.
However, I feel with just a community of player-created MMOs is not enough. Look to persistent worlds such as Second Life, where everyone makes their virtual dreams come true. They are just 3D creation platforms, that's all. SL is no more a game than any of the other online 3D communities, which have always been with us since the mid-90's. There's a reason why MMORPGs got more famous than virtual communities, IMO. There's often people looking for something to do in those online, social communities; platforms such as SL lack a central game element to drive it.
Neopets is a good example of game-driven virtual community, where the content of the games are also linked to their world designs and storylines. While it does not exactly have mod-driven content or even 3D stuff, it does right what I feel games are meant to be in the future. Most important of all, Neopets is building its own element of artificial mythology (see examples below).
What MMOs need is a mod-community for content, and what online 3D communities need is a game-central idea to tie them together. We then top the marriage off with an engaging storylines using mythological elements (think artificial mythologies such Cthulhu Mythos, Star Wars Universe, Narnia).
If you want to do party line development or modding that would be OK, but if you wanted to start from scratch with your own direction, that would be OK too, just not to be on the official list of related games.
If they didn't do it that way they would have lots of good creative people creating great content that took allot of work just wasting their time if it wasn't approved.
If enough people were interested in these alternate worlds that they might go commercial or "not for profit" (just turning income into development) the developers of the original tools may have first dibs in on a entirely new game and may want to bring the inde developers of the content in or make some arrangement to commercially develop their MMO.
It is counter intuitive in business to give things away without immediate compensation, but like the farmers know, if you plat a crop of seeds, you are basically giving them away. Their is no guarantee come harvest time that there will be a harvestable crop. However if you plant enough seeds you are going to have a better chance of having a crop, and might have a bumper harvest at that.
Several things I see about this suggestion
- how do the developers guarantee the quality of the modded content, or is it just open slather like NWN where anyone can cerate what they like and slap it in - which is fine when its their own server, but not so fine when its someone elses. Soon you have a distorted jumble of pieces that dont make a coherent whole.
- How long will modders be happy making free content for a game where the developers are getting the monthly income.
Or do you have some sort of system where the developers test/vet new content and pay a onetime fee to the modder.
I agree with the author (and I hope) that customization continues in the direction in which players are not only able to design player houses and cities but customize instances and content as well.
I also completely agree with the author in regards to NW 1; it was easy-to-use as well as fun. However, I have found that Neverwinter Nights 2 was a real disappointment in terms of the toolset. The toolset must be user-friendly.
Great article and discussion.
Another advantage is that leased and / or modded servers could be password protected or even be unadvertised by the server browser in order to keep minors off of servers that they aren't intended to be on. With official servers, you're always running PR damage control. With Private servers, it becomes an enter at your own risk kind of thing.
The only downside to this setup is when the modders create a server that's actually better than the official stuff. At that point, you won't make as much money since no one will want to play on the official servers anymore.
"Why not develop a really great MMO engine that anyone could use to make their own world, then charge a monthly fee for the use of their servers for hosting your creation?"
Multiverse gives you the tools for free. The only catch is they get 10% of your revenue.
http://www.multiverse.net/