Turbine has hinted in interviews recently that they are interested in exploring sensible means to include User Generated Content (UGC) into their games. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be seeing a LOTRO UGC SDK (Holy Acronym, Batman!) any time soon; indeed such a system could be reserved for a new game which was built from the ground up to accommodate UGC. Although, if any MMO screams for such an SDK, it’s DDO. [SDK? Or UGCDK? Ugh... I'm getting a headache.]
In any event, Turbine just put up a job posting for a UGC Engineer position:
Tags: MMO GamingJob Summary
The User Generated Content Engineer will play a key part on a small team dedicated to inventing new technologies and approaches to letting users create content for MMO worlds. The ideal candidate will bring a strong background in C++ programming, a passion for creating polished and intuitive user interfaces and the entrepreneurial drive to help us create a new paradigm for how users interact with virtual worlds.
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Ok…although not a fan of LOTRO, DDO fascinated me, even though the game itself left me wanting something more.
If DDO went this route it could make that game something people would look at again.
Very Interesting.
It’s Turbine… :$
UGC is a huge risk and it would take a huge investment. Games like NWN(#) could get away with this because there was no subscription fee and they didn’t host the servers so they didn’t have to guarantee quality. If Turbine allows this, they’re going to have to put an infrastructure in place to be able to test, review, balance, adjust and the host the user added content. This isn’t going to be like NWNVault…
White noise… think about it.
Even in the FPS realm, there were a lot of people building maps (or single player missions) so there was a lot of good stuff but even more complete crap.
Heck, even I made a mod and a few single player levels (and some multiplayer levels) - which is saying something because I’m a lazy sack of…
Quality is always an issue with UGC, plenty of games have proved that in the past and YouTube proves it today.
If the UGC begins as something as simple as player-created quests, the input system could be via drop-down menus or similar to the Wizard101 chat system (the normal system, not Dictionary Chat) so that the quest dialogue not only has correct spelling, but also can’t go into risqué or l33t territory.
If we eventually get a full SDK to, say, create a full DDO dungeon quest with scripted events, etc. then some type of quality control infrastructure will need to be put in place. Who decides which content is good enough to go live? Turbine can hire staff, or could pull a CCP and use a community-elected committee, or a combination. Where to actually host the files can become an issue as well, though I can come up with a few different ideas. Not sure how valid they would be in the long-term, since for MMO’s at least, UGC is uncharted territory to a degree.
Well
What about a separate server as well. This way players who do not wish to “test” such data need not mess around there,
I agree with the “crap” conundrum, as I have played NWN, NWN2, and in persistent worlds.
If a specific pattern is followed for the mod creators, we usually can see BETTER stuff than the original devs ever dreamed of.
Players know what they want more than devs who give us what we want. I never am one to turn my back on another persons creativity.
No, a UGC server wouldn’t work, especially if word got around that SL-quality UGC was the norm. I can just see the town crier: Stormreach attacked by squadron of giant flying kobold penises!
Turbine has QA for dev-released content, it’s only fair that UGC should also have a QA process in place. It’s one thing to DM your friends and have flying kobold penises, but it’s another in a T-rated MMORPG where thousands of people of all varieties are exposed (pun intended) to that content.
Besides, players like to feel their opinion matters, or like they have some tiny degree of input. If Turbine were to have a community QA committee I think that would go over very well with the DDO community in particular, especially after the recent removal of the Weekly Dev Activity (WDA) program because “something” is being worked on that they can’t discuss for PR reasons.
I think Openedge1 meant a server for testing your UGC. Think about it… you have this development tool and create something but how do you test it?
Now maybe they give you software to instantiate a personal (local/temp) server to test with (which won’t impact their servers) or you get a test server.
But, getting the community to approve or sign off on content gets tricky… so yeah, they’d almost need a UGC test server where people can upload their UGC to so others can test/try it out.
Like you (Scott) said, it would depend on the controls they have in place and how much room you get to develop your content. It’s a non-issue if they’re pulling from the community for storylines, plots and quests… just a lot of reading.
Oh, yeah a UGC testing server would be necessary. Sorry, I jumped the gun and thought UGC-only (tested or untested) server for everyone.
Everyone keeps saying how Turbine has incredible in-house tools, so if they’re going this route — and I’ll say again DDO just screams for this — it would be great if they’d take their tools, polish them up, water them down (ie. cripple them so we can’t use raid bosses, unique items, etc.) and release them.
Here’s a thought: despite that we all love freebies, as part of the QA program what if Turbine required a (paid) membership to a Content Creation Club very similar to how Microsoft is doing with their XNA program?