Curse

kaldak · Sep 18, 2007, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Anet, I realize it takes alot of effort to create new models of armor, weapons, pets, etc. So why not let the community make new ones for you? I'm sure many players have the skills and would be happy to.

You would lay out some specifications that the 3d models would have to adhere to, and then allow players to submit fully skinned 3d models. You could choose which ones are of high enough caliber and place them in the game with only minimal effort.

It would be a controlled sort of modding that would keep generating new content (and keep players hooked on GW till the sequel comes out) while still running everything thru you so that it could stay fair and balanced.

So how bout it? Please....

Mr. Fahrenheit · Sep 18, 2007, 08:16 AM // 08:16

If players can send ideas to Anet daily then IMO that would be a bad idea.

But maybe a contest for each profession every 3 months or so...that would be nice.

ember2inferno · Sep 18, 2007, 08:32 AM // 08:32

/notsigned.

Restricting a contest for those only with good skills with 3D Design, would suck.

bamm bamm bamm · Sep 18, 2007, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Yes, yes, yes. Yes, let people design their own weapons. No, 'modding' is the wrong angle to approach it. Create an engine for the procedural design and texturing of weapon meshes, and Keep It Simple. A new weapon could be seeded on every loot drop, with it's name ('celestial', etc) only referring to the texture style. How awesome would that be? It could be extended to armours too. I know this stuff is a huge pain in the arse to implement, but come on guys, it would make a great selling point. Hey, if Hellgate: London can convincingly handle randomly generated instances, you guys can do this.

Goldleader · Sep 18, 2007, 04:27 PM // 16:27

I agree with the idea. The "design a weapon" contest has proven to be a fun one to watch (I don't send in designs, but I look forward to seeing what people create).

There were some angry posts about how bland the new GW:EN armor was. I would image having a contest might help, but I don't think people need to send in 3d designs. Hand drawn armor should work, just like it did for the weapons contest.

Vlatro · Sep 18, 2007, 08:51 PM // 20:51

While I like the idea, there are some problems that would first need to be addressed.

1) Aesthetic quality of submissions.
Just because someone can create a model and skin for items, doesn't mean they have artistic talent. Poorly designed items can take a lot away from the game experience.

2) Inappropriate submissions.
How long would it be (a matter of minutes I'd guess) before rangers have "Naked lady" pets, and warriors carry a "Sundering Buldging Erection Hammer of Fortitude"?

3) Compatibility
How much clean-up work would have to be done to prevent collision problems with weapons going through the character's hand rather than in it? What are the appropriate scale constraints? How much time will tech support spend turning away people with "why won't my Maya export work" type questions?

4) Acceptable volume of submissions
We cant have 100 patches a day from people submitting minor variations of the same item. When everyones dat file is 100Gb, there's a problem.

The only answer is to screen submissions. That means Areanet would likely have to hire at least one if not more full time employees to review submissions, as they would be flooded. This gives rise to another set of problems:

A) Forum flaming
Forums like the ones here at guru would be filled with posts complaining "My submission was rejected and I don't know why, it looks good to me." "It was rejected for being offensive, but it wasn't." "I submitted my item a week ago and know one's reviewed it yet."

B) Cost
There would have to be someone to moderate and support the modding base. There would have to be someone to screen submissions. There would be a surge in tech support calls.

So, as was mentioned earlier, the best way to facilitate that type of community involvement is to host periodic contests, as an ongoing submission system could create problems. A limited number of winners will be accommodated, everyone else... too bad.

Everyone of the problems I addressed, (and many I'm not even going to get started on) could be handled well if considered right from the games inception. 2+ years into it however, it's a little late to be having this discussion. GW2 might be a different story, but the original Guild Wars would not be a good place to test pilot such a system.

If 3d Modeling is your thing, there is nothing stopping you from using those skills in the current "Design a Weapon" contest. Just submit your render as an image file, or print it out and mail it in. Feel free to tell them what program you designed it in, and tell them the model is available if they choose it as one of the winners.

An alternate idea:
To maintain conformity to standards and compatibility, weapons could be made customizable in the same way Guild Capes are. if we had 10 different hilts to choose from, 10 different blades, 10 different pommels, they could effectively introduce 1000 new sword combinations while using only 3% of the resources it would take to make 1000 new from scratch. By making weapons and armor dyable with a separate Highlight, Shadow, and a base color, the possibilities for combinations grows massively. 10 basic colors, mixable up to 4 at a time in a region is 10,000 color combinations for any one region. If we look back at the sword example, with 3 separate models (10 hilts, pommels, and blades) that make up the item, each with 3 colorable areas that equals
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations. And that's just swords, working from a base of 30 total models.

The beauty of this method is that individual components could be reused among different weapons. A hammer haft and a staff wrapping may use the same model, just a different skin. individual components could be introduced regularly without much effort.

Still a massive project for any dev team, but easier in the long run if they intend to continue adding new weapon types.

Vulkanyaz · Sep 19, 2007, 07:51 AM // 07:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vlatro

To maintain conformity to standards and compatibility, weapons could be made customizable in the same way Guild Capes are. if we had 10 different hilts to choose from, 10 different blades, 10 different pommels, they could effectively introduce 1000 new sword combinations while using only 3% of the resources it would take to make 1000 new from scratch. By making weapons and armor dyable with a separate Highlight, Shadow, and a base color, the possibilities for combinations grows massively. 10 basic colors, mixable up to 4 at a time in a region is 10,000 color combinations for any one region. If we look back at the sword example, with 3 separate models (10 hilts, pommels, and blades) that make up the item, each with 3 colorable areas that equals
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations. And that's just swords, working from a base of 30 total models.

The beauty of this method is that individual components could be reused among different weapons. A hammer haft and a staff wrapping may use the same model, just a different skin. individual components could be introduced regularly without much effort.

Still a massive project for any dev team, but easier in the long run if they intend to continue adding new weapon types.

+1

- customisable weapon names would be cool too (with word censors, of course

)