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Player generated content - CoX the second to try it?
So apparently now that NCSoft has bought CoX whole hog from Cryptic and is investing more money for more development Matt "Postitron" Miller is saying that CoX will be adding a feature for players to create their own content custom content:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/archives/2008/04/a_message_from.html
Read the 5th paragraph for the blurb that states players will be able to create their own missions and story arcs and let other play the content and rate it.
Saga of Ryzom was the first to try this with Ryzom Ring, but tragically that game is currently in Limbo and Ryzom Ring was not really released long enough for the market to see how it played out.
We don't really know the details yet so this is mostly speculation. But I don't see why that should stop us...
So will this work? Will it be used?
I wonder. I think in some games it might never get off the ground. In CoX there are a lot of people who do things for environment and RP and they will take part, just enough to make a ground swell and eventually some good stuff will get made.
I suspect player generated content is very much like a single/small player game mod community its takes a certain critical mass to be effective otherwise it fails miserably. But on the other hand when it works well you get great and varied things, better than most developers are capable of making.
Comments
SWG has it also with it's Storytelling feature. Also any good PvP oriented game where players can actually own / take over / defend territories has it's own form of player driven content. Lineage II was a good implementation of this.
Bren
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I really like CoX but I cant stay subscribed to it for very long. mainly because the content is so marrow in scope.
This "Build your own content" will probably be like the content thats already in the game.
Pick your mission map(cave, office, factory, etc) then pick your villain group(appropiate to level of course) and then pick the objective(kill all, kill boss, get item, escort).
They would have to go in a completely new direction to make it so this isnt crap. However, judging by what has been in the game for almost 4 years now my money is on crap.
I'll be honest, I feel the next true leap in MMO will be in the area of User generated Content. If you look at past online games dating back to MUDS, the game itself was more a framework. Eventually you saw games like MUSH, MOO, MUSE etc come out where the majority of the game was actually created by the players themselves.
I look forward to the time when we will see a lot more user input in the games themselves and not limited to the user iterface.
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Hi,
I really love that concept. I've seen it in Holic online, in that game you were able to create and build your own missions and/or dungeons. It really looked intresting to me. You can share your dungeons with other people and they will say if they like or not. It would be a great way for developers to see how their community would make its dungeons/quests that way the can keep that in the back of their head when making another quest or mission or dungeon.
Back in the day, some MUDs let the top players become godlike admins to create content for the game. This is certainly an area which needs to be explored in a bigger commercial game Like CoX. I support them completely in this experiment.
Neverwinter Nights has a slew of player-made modules; and provides a closer fit to the old-style pnp D&D that DDO does imo. User created content works great for story-based games... but I'm not completely sold on the idea working with an MMO... because of balance issues. i.e. Joe makes an adventure, pretty easy, and you do it, and everyone get's the sword of a thousand truths the end. So throw any meaningful pvp out the window if you got a game like that.
To make it work in an MMO, I think it needs be somehow built into the actions done by the character in game. Have some basic laws of physics and chemistry that result in real effects (that sword does +20 damage, but it's so freakin heavy you swing at most once every 3 seconds, etc). Or if you want to have a better chance to stealth, you can't be wearing a flowery red tie and jacket, etc. Stuff like that. Then over time, the devs just create more and more detail in the low level physics, and the players create the world with their in-game actions. (just my sappy idea on the subject)
If the system could randomly generate the loot and xp that the quest rewards it could avoid many of the possible balance issues, and if the xp and loot was a little on the low side people would probably only play them for the content instead of looking for an easy way to level/get uber gear.
That user rating system would be important too because there will be 100 crap quests for every good one, probably thousands.
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DDO Permadeath guilds
I think that this idea of balance is largely a myth in a PvE game. There are only two things that drive "balance", PvP and role-envy. For PvP it makes sense for PvE it I think tends to make games less fun and the soap opera of roles is largely disgusting to many.
If you look at CoX some power combinations or builds people have are way way worse than an optimized build. And various optimized build can perform very different functions.
Some people run powerleveling and farming maps solo that are set for a group of 8 or 6-7. These guys can't take any content in the game but they can certainly maximize xp and money gain.
The fact is that farming and powerleveling and "imbalance" already exist and for the most part do not really harm the game. Even the market is mostly workable.
Why not? Because most people simply don't do those things even though they are readily and easily available. And for those that do them, then good who cares?
How does it matter than Bob got to level 50 in 5 hours and Joe has 3 characters that have never even made to level 40 in 2 years.
Supposedly only 50% of the CoX population even has a level 50. And for the most the vast majority of people who even do a PL or farm get tired of it really quick. And some people actually just like doing it.
The funny thing is that people say the same thing on the CoX forums about some specific map construct being super popular for farming or people loading a map to farm Archivillain bosses. This already happens .
In fact I would venture to say that a forced grouping game like DDO is far worse than an "imbalanced" game like CoX at least the farmers and PLers do their thing in privacy and most normal people can play in peace. In DDO the zergers drag everyone else around and often don't even tell people what they are going to do. And they can be really snooty about it too.
Balance issues shouldn't be a problem if they play it smart. I haven't read up yet on CoX' plan on how to implement rewards within the UCC maps but know how it worked in the Ryzom Ring, or rather how they thought they about it.
There would be no XP or skill gain whatsoever while in the 'instance', you could acquire gear or items but they would stay within the map/dungeon upon leaving. Other than that, all gamemechanics work as on the main game. Hence you wouldn't have to worry about someone creating an XP farming ground or dishing out 'unbalanced' items to whomever.
I'm sure you'll start asking 'why bother if there's nothing to gain?'. Well first off I believe UCC is more about experiencing than instant gratification or progression; but that's just a personal opinion. The idea brought up for Ryzom Ring was to either award a set number of Experience catalysts (item to activate that let's you double gained experience for a short while in the normal game) dependant on time spent within the 'instance', to make up for the 'lack of XP gain'. Another idea was to let the creator of the map come up with a reward upon completion of the instance for all participants. Sadly neither of these got implemented before Nevrax went through it's final bankrupcy and Ryzom Ring development halted under GF France due to a shift in focus on gameplay issues and newer content. (at least as far as I know)
A nice addition they actually did manage to implement was Ring Points. Ring Points would buy you more content for your UCC maps and were earned by gameworld exploration or knowledge. Due to the sandbox nature of the game it meant new players weren't necessarily excluded from being able to max out on points and have all Ring content available to them. But it also meant you had to 'play' the game in order to 'progress' in the Ring. (the reason given was as to not spoil new player's experience of the gameworld when they hadn't even had a chance to yet).
No, because most players are incompatible with the concept of creating one's own content.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
Lol, Katriel, maybe so; I don't expect everyone wanting to be creative or actually pulling it of in creating coherent content. Perhaps it won't indeed be a big success, who knows? But CoX, as an established game, has probally a better chance of implementing UCC tools for an MMO than Ryzom had as a game that barely held on for years and for which the Ring was a desperate all out or nothing move.
Despite it's way smaller player base Ryzom had some of the most creative players around; but to no avail. The countless bugs the aplication still had when it went 'gold', coupled with half of the promised features missing (of which a fair deal were actually present during Alpha and Beta tests, but got ditched for whatever reason; not including the hosting issue)and the exodus of players after the final bankrupcy of Nevrax, meant it's demise.
I'm still deeply saddened by it, as I had great fun with the tools; I know you did as well despite hearing you yell all to often about the bugs and getting kicked offline, hehe, and so did others that enjoyed it and had stayed to see it through. But I hope CoX manages to make it apeal to a broader audience and hopefully bring forth a new age of MMO content.
I think you miss the point of player generated content (pgc)-- it's not about how many people create content but how many people will go ahead and use that newly created content. It only takes a few talented people to churn out some great stuff, especially since all pgc will be made available to every server. Given how the community rallies around various events, hosted as well as player run, plus the bubbbling creativity of the virtue server players, I expect it will be embraced well, assuming the tools are there to do it.
I don't have a lot of faith in user rating systems. Just look at the one on this site. I would never go by a user rating system.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I played many avatars to cap in CoX so I think it could be big here. The main thing is that in Ryzom player made content did nothing- no impact to main game. You couldnt level in the ring so was a waste for a skill-grinding game
The player generated content cant be treated like some sorta alien its gotta be apart of the game. If they treat it as equal and allow leveling and fast XP then it can work
Especially in CoX where players farm XP like no tomorrow. People love to powerlevel in CoX I had a char we PL'ed like all the way to cap. They are some mad farmers in CoX I can imagine players just setting up maps for easy farming and mad xp haha they got XP farming down to a science in that game (the players)
The villain Epics are finlally here I see wonder if they will be gimnped like pretty much everything else they'rve done red side
It is a lot more workload to develope for an entire game world as compared to user created content wich is usually more centralized into one aspect,such as a weapon or one map or one player model.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.