Gameplay: Player created content

[Figment]

The reason for this topic is that a lot of other games allow and support modding. The UI in particular is often modded in other games and in some cases the game itself supports these mods by distributing them to the players. This allows for a lot of added content to be created or tweaking to the player's personal preference.

In some games, quests can be created by the players to create new content, FarCry has a map creator to create new multiplayer levels, so has Command & Conquer for years. Now, I'm not saying we could be creating maps, but I am saying we could create content for maps (buildings, deployable structures, etc) and also thinking of cosmetics like skins and perhaps even unit and weapon designs.

Paradox Interactive took it a step further as a modification of their Europa Universalis III game became a stand alone spin-off game published by PI (Magna Mundi). This cuts development cost drastically.

What kind of content could players that can code and mod create for PlanetSide and what would be an appropriate distribution channel and ratification route if this were ever possible?

[Immigrant]

As a guy who probably loves modding just as well as playing games I would like PS2 to allow modding to some extent. However everything would need to be developer/community approved. For starters I would be happy if we could design your Outfit emblems to show on your body armor or sleeves in-game. However there is always the question of taste (by this I mean to prevention of profanities on any language, advertising of non-related RL services and products and out-of-place content) as well as quality of user-made content. This would require for everything to be approved manually and would take a lot of time and effort.

[MacXXcaM]

This is a rather great idea. I'm supposing by modding you mean including it into the main game not making up a real mod aka second game world?

If it had to be developer approved I can imagine crazily good stuff. Nice idea!

[Gonefshn]

How would you balance and moderate player created content in a competitive and persistant FPS game? Being able to change your UI could easily lead to people pulling up a competitive edge becuase of modded content. And if you let people create weapons or things that are physically in the game world how would this be moderated??

Sounds cool but I can't imagine this working out.

[MacXXcaM]

Speaking only about visual stuff like models or skins. It might work

[Talek Krell]

It would have to be heavily vetted by SOE and the Devs. The idea as I see it is essentially to allow the community to do some of the legwork. A dev team usually has more ideas for a game than they have time to implement them, so permitting passionate community members to carry some of that weight can result in more features in the game for everyone.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Gonefshn

How would you balance and moderate player created content in a competitive and persistant FPS game? Being able to change your UI could easily lead to people pulling up a competitive edge becuase of modded content. And if you let people create weapons or things that are physically in the game world how would this be moderated??

Sounds cool but I can't imagine this working out.

You seem to misunderstand.

If the game supports UI's provided by the players - as in: you can select the UI style in game - then there's no such thing as a competitive edge.

Regarding weapons and units, similarly they'd have to be dev and playtest tested and approved. That includes quality assurance, like TRay checking (as with anything else) if the art is good enough and fits the leitmotives, while others check if the UI works, there are no bugs, etc. But it could cut away a lot of the resources. Even if existing concept art is modeled by players for cosmetic options, it could save a lot of time and money, while the official devs can work on things that require more time and effort.

For buildings, I'm mostly thinking layouts, though if you have a building editor with stock art and textures, it would be possible to model that too.

[Gonefshn]

I was thinking on terms similar to WoW mods and UI enhancements. Imagine people building better reticles or things that help show where a cannons arc will land helping you aim. As long as you cant add elements like that i guess it's ok

[Figment]

That could be an edge. The mods in wot sometimes have a similar effect, though mostly due to the official ones only recently having been improved.