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Starglider wrote:I still find it sad that no MMORPG has usefully harnessed player-created (mission) content.

2 words; legal liability.

With the mess of copyright laws and contact laws across the world, accepting and-user generated content from outside the game-world (ie not a clearly derived work from your existing in-game content) is a legal mindfield just waiting to blow some's life apart.

Xon wrote:

Starglider wrote:I still find it sad that no MMORPG has usefully harnessed player-created (mission) content.

2 words; legal liability.

One long sentence
Pre-agreement contracts, you get mission creating tools, we get missions, the act of using the tools means you get no credit for what you make with them and we get all the credit. A specific EULA can be written up, the part about how the only thing you get is fame for your player generated content and not a damn dime more.

No the real issue is that most MMORPG's are far less staffed than you think. Your average MMO might have as much as a two hundred man team during development if you toss in testers and grunt coders. But once the game goes public that team goes way down. Normally those extra people go on to make content for the game or expansion packs. They do not troll forums looking for content ideas or even put together models.

Seriously, aside from fanfic level missions what MMO had an easy to use, easy to plug in engine where some fan out there could make his own MOB's and email them to the Dev team and get them in the next patch update? Sad to say MMO's don't yet come with Mod tools. If they did you might see player content making it in the game.

General Zod wrote:

LordOskuro wrote:Or what about a GTA-style open environment, where players are free to roam, or engage in factional warfare to defeat the evil forces of the Decepticons?! A Transformers MMO could be so awesome. But they'd screw it if they tried, of course.

Is it going to have the same boring "point-and-click" interface where nothing you do in the world actually matters because its going to get reset for the next batch of players who come through? If so then it doesn't really matter what kind of fluff you throw in it.

In all fairness, even though I don't play anymore, Warcraft has kicked that meme in the balls pretty hard in Wrath. They run multiple phases of entire zones now, so that when you do something momentous you enter a new phase of the zone with other players who've done that too. You can conquer territory, participate in assembling a fortress, all sorts of things along those lines, and it actually changes the zone as a whole. Obviously it's not involved in every little quest, but these days major storyline quests actually do change the game world. It's something I really hope to see more of in future MMOs, because it cracks the problem of player interaction in scripted storylines fairly neatly, and that's always been something the players had to 'yeah well...' past.

White Haven wrote: In all fairness, even though I don't play anymore, Warcraft has kicked that meme in the balls pretty hard in Wrath.

Heh, I love how Blizzard has managed to fool so many people. Now, don't take me wrong, I like what they've done, it's a bold attempt, and Blizzard, as usual, excels in its ability to have people buy into their "tricks".

But, in all fairness, what WotLK has done is add a mere cosmetic upgrade that gives the feel of achievement, but wich doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny (or a replay). Just do this, create a new DK, and roam around trying to find flaws to the instance. It won't take you long. Again, don't take me wrong, I greately enjoyed the DK introductory quests the first time through, and the effect is nice, I just don't believe what they've done is as revolutionary as they are claiming, in fact I don't think it is revolutionary at all, you can achieve the same effect on a NWN module if you like.

A viable way to have players impact the game world is by having user-created content, like the Cities on Shadowbane, the Supergroup Bases in CoH, or all the stuff you could build/own in Ultima Online. Creating a building has an impact on the game world, and destroying it has it too. Being the first to kill a boss and no one else being able to kill it ever... It's Gates of An'Quiraj all over again. Doing something, and seeing the results of your actions while players who haven't got to that point yet don't (via tricky instancing), it's just a cosmetic trick, as done by WotLK.


As for the Transformers MMO idea, think about it, you could desing the basic shape of your robot (face, mass, decorations) and then go about, scan a vehicle, and then tune the vehicle to your tastes. That would be a nice character customization. Just add factional warfare, some territory control and a few story quests, (and action-style controls, not point and click) and there you go. Also, have a Decepticon story quest be to kill Optimus, with the obligatory Autobot quest to rez him.

Mr Bean wrote:Seriously, aside from fanfic level missions what MMO had an easy to use, easy to plug in engine where some fan out there could make his own MOB's and email them to the Dev team and get them in the next patch update? Sad to say MMO's don't yet come with Mod tools. If they did you might see player content making it in the game.

Neverwinter Nights had all the necessary content creation tools and a decent content library in 2002. However the 'persistent online world' aspect never really worked as well as it could have - Bioware could have made a revolutionary MMORPG out of it, but chose to focus their efforts elsewhere.

How is the Lord of the Rings Online doing now. I tried a 30 day trial that cost a couple of pounds just for shits and giggles and it seemed okay, but I really can't see myself putting in the investment of time in one single game. Something they tried was that on release if you paid a single one-off £100 fee you got unlimited subscription time. Now thats fine if the game lasts any time but if it crashes and burns...well.

Jade Falcon wrote:How is the Lord of the Rings Online doing now. I tried a 30 day trial that cost a couple of pounds just for shits and giggles and it seemed okay, but I really can't see myself putting in the investment of time in one single game. Something they tried was that on release if you paid a single one-off £100 fee you got unlimited subscription time. Now thats fine if the game lasts any time but if it crashes and burns...well.

It costs along. Other then devote or hardcore of some games, or the wanders, or WoW...it's nothing special. It falls in that it is not a make a buck Korean MMO nor is it WoW. The few people I play with that have tried enjoy the new material and enjoy the game's community.

Most MMOs only die when it cannot maintain a subscription for a server, and those are rather old.

Me and a huge chunk of my Warhammer guild are playing Aion right now since the game has an English patch and whenever the company opens new servers you get two weeks of free play there. Honestly when this game hits North America EA will be shutting Warhammer down. So far the game has all the fun parts of Warhammer without the bugs and bad design decisions.
For example playing from Canada there is less lag playing on a server in China than there is playing War's North American servers.

Mr Bean wrote:No the real issue is that most MMORPG's are far less staffed than you think. Your average MMO might have as much as a two hundred man team during development if you toss in testers and grunt coders. But once the game goes public that team goes way down.

Yes; I recall that the gamers over at City of Heroes were surprised to find out that at one point the Dev team was down to 15 people. They are up to nearly 50 now though.

Mr Bean wrote:Seriously, aside from fanfic level missions what MMO had an easy to use, easy to plug in engine where some fan out there could make his own MOB's and email them to the Dev team and get them in the next patch update? Sad to say MMO's don't yet come with Mod tools. If they did you might see player content making it in the game.

That seems pretty much what CoH's Mission Architect is, except that you don't need to wait for the next update. Supposedly, it IS a version of what they use to make missions these days, and apparently much better than what they used to use. It's still limited; you can't make your own maps, for example; but it's a start in that direction.