Curse

Adraeus · Jun 18, 2005, 08:26 AM // 08:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by IgnusDei

Adraeus mentionned in the petition thread that NCsoft wouldn't be able to hold on to it's stakeholders due to the fact that fan-made content would probably be terrible. And this is something i forgot to emphasize: maintaining art quality.

So this is my solution: A fledgling forge must first prove its ability to produce quality art by submitting a Masterpiece: detailed 2d art of the design, and then the fully tectured 3d model itself. If the folks at NCsoft like what they see, they give that forge its approval and support for making new content. If it undeniably sucks, or if there are too many active forges already, they simply say no.

Instead of a volunteer "forge", consider establishing a privately held video game content creation studio that specializes in various styles appropriate for different video games. Why? With a business plan, capital, and great marketing, a fledgling "forge" (as a company) can at least provide NCsoft's investors with a little confidence in the profitability of the "forge" avenue. Still, investors are risk-oriented and where you see "benefit" they see "potential for failure and risk of damaging their Return On Investment (ROI)." Unorganized fan-based efforts are perceived as unreliable in terms of stability, support, and quality. No sane successful businessperson is going to deal with volunteer freelancers who lack scheduling prowess. In the fast-paced world of game development, schedules rule. If you think "create new content as it comes" behavior is going to work, think again.

There are more factors which render this idea impractical. Here are some:

Technical requirements: Guild Wars content is setup a certain way, created a certain way, and formatted a certain way. Players don't know this information and cannot legally acquire it. For example, the maximum number of polygons allowed per model, and the minimum/maximum Frames Per Second (FPS) limits. Every studio has its own tome of technical requirements. Players do not have access to the the technical requirements rulebook and will never have access to it. Technical requirements are treated as top secret information available only to NDA-signed employees.
Software requirements: Guild Wars uses specific file formats and NCsoft uses specific, likely custom, software tools to produce the content for Guild Wars. NCsoft will likely never release this software as Guild Wars was not designed with player-created content in mind.
Quality requirements: all player-created content must be thoroughly tested by whoever does NCsoft's quality assurance. Quality assurance is one of the most expensive portions of the game development process, usually accounting for 1/3 of a project's overall budget. In addition, player-created artwork must strictly adhere to the Guild Wars style. Unless the player-artists in the "forge" are all Raphaels, fat chance this will happen. Everyone has their own way of doing things and idea of how things should look. The corporate atmosphere, given competent management, ensures that the company creatives create content according to guidelines, which players do not know.

Bottomline: This idea is not currently feasible. To make this idea feasible would be extremely expensive and would require much internal re-organization at NCsoft. If NCsoft needs people to help with content creation, they'll list open positions and hire prospective employees who satisfy the qualification requirements.

IgnusDei · Jun 18, 2005, 08:56 AM // 08:56

And the hard, bitter cold reality hits another dream right in the testicles.

Sigh.

Still, i'll submit the idea anyway. who knows? It might work out in some form or another.

As for establishing my own content studio, now that's an idea worth thinking about. hm....

EDIT:

but here's an angle to consider for the investors: There's a demand for new content (mostly centered around the personalization of a character), and i suspect it will grow. there's only so much the dev team can do, and it might not be able to keep up. As such, a lot of players probably will give up on the game itself and probably won't give the expansion packs a chance AND may well spread some bad publicity, effectively cutting up future profits and as such ruining investment. Since the Indep studios offer to help out with this problem FOR FREE, the investors might consider greenlighting managing them.

As for testing, well, i can't really argue with the costs, but i find myself scratching my head as to how much time and effort (and as such. money) testing out new models would take. A very ignorant and inquisitive mind would like to know.

Madan · Jun 21, 2005, 02:05 AM // 02:05

A way of involving the community through a standardized processes, towards the creation of new cosmetic content is a great idea. The possibility for customization would be much greater than what NCSoft would be able to generate alone.

Also, it would allow players to better express themselves in game. It may seem frivilous but for a game that is professed to contain RPG components(albeit not an RPG itself), it's absolutely imperative.

toastgodsupreme · Jun 24, 2005, 09:10 PM // 21:10

http://wiki.xentax.com/index.php/Talk:WIP_Guild_Wars

Looks like some people have been working on extracting shit from it. Who knows, maybe we'll see a mod'ing community if it turns out that we can replace textures and such.

Squirrl · Jun 24, 2005, 10:56 PM // 22:56

/Support

i think they need all the new things they can get because evryone looks the same....

johnnylange · Jun 24, 2005, 10:59 PM // 22:59

how about learning forging as an in-game trade skill? You could become a blacksmith and as your skill lvl goes up from practice you could make weapons and armor that are unique.

IgnusDei · Jun 24, 2005, 11:03 PM // 23:03

unique stats, yes. The models would have to come from another source, however.

IgnusDei · Jun 25, 2005, 05:49 AM // 05:49

gabby2600 claims that a similar system is in place eclusively for Anet. It's basically a server devoted to test out new additions made by Anet employees and tweak them to perfection before making them available to the public. This info apparently comes from and internal source. If that's the case, then the chances for making this a reality got even better!

IgnusDei · Jun 27, 2005, 07:03 PM // 19:03

first post updated.