Player created content - Suggestion for the future of ESO

Gidorick

@Heishi‌ Most modern games use pre-made tile sets that are connected together. Even Skyrim had this. I think there would need to be some dumbing down of the tools so created levels are as bug-free as possible. The grid that was in the video you showed would be a good idea, ensuring two spaces always line up correctly. I’m sure this is one of the way’s the kit used by ZOS would differ from the Community Creation Kit. I also really like the idea of the whole LBP style of resource points. That would definitely be needed from people making gigantic quests that would be way too much for the system.

My initial thought was to have community levels attached to way-shrines but, while I think this would be serviceable, part of the reason for the concept is to give people are reason to revisit old zones, to give Tamriel more quests and more life. The ability to send players around the map is a huge plus to making Tamriel a viable place to run around.

@miahq, While the game is very “theme-park” in its design, the systems that exist, coupled with these suggestions could make ESO more of a sand-box type experience. I love the idea of having sell-able items but I’m not sure ESO is the right type of game for that. Allowing players to create custom armor sets to sell in a real-world cash shop or through an in game merchant for game-gold would be awesome!

The kit would be pretty self-contained. The only suggestion I had that included information from outside the kit would be the motif creator, but I would imagine ZOS could include an “armor builder” so there is absolutely no outside information coming in.

No doubt there would be guilds that would create a level to act as their guild hall and I think that would be perfectly fine. That actually raises the thought of people being able to create “public” spaces that are simultaneously used by multiple un-grouped players. That would be pretty cool but might be a bit much to ask, technically speaking.

miahq

Gidorick wrote: »

@Heishi‌ Most modern games use pre-made tile sets that are connected together. Even Skyrim had this. I think there would need to be some dumbing down of the tools so created levels are as bug-free as possible. The grid that was in the video you showed would be a good idea, ensuring two spaces always line up correctly. I’m sure this is one of the way’s the kit used by ZOS would differ from the Community Creation Kit. I also really like the idea of the whole LBP style of resource points. That would definitely be needed from people making gigantic quests that would be way too much for the system.

My initial thought was to have community levels attached to way-shrines but, while I think this would be serviceable, part of the reason for the concept is to give people are reason to revisit old zones, to give Tamriel more quests and more life. The ability to send players around the map is a huge plus to making Tamriel a viable place to run around.

@miahq, While the game is very “theme-park” in its design, the systems that exist, coupled with these suggestions could make ESO more of a sand-box type experience. I love the idea of having sell-able items but I’m not sure ESO is the right type of game for that. Allowing players to create custom armor sets to sell in a real-world cash shop or through an in game merchant for game-gold would be awesome!

The kit would be pretty self-contained. The only suggestion I had that included information from outside the kit would be the motif creator, but I would imagine ZOS could include an “armor builder” so there is absolutely no outside information coming in.

No doubt there would be guilds that would create a level to act as their guild hall and I think that would be perfectly fine. That actually raises the thought of people being able to create “public” spaces that are simultaneously used by multiple un-grouped players. That would be pretty cool but might be a bit much to ask, technically speaking.

Oh, trust me. I'm certainly on the side of making it into more of a sandbox and less of a theme park, along with most anything that can push it in that direction. I just don't think that's the model zos has decided on, unfortunately. It might have an elder scrolls name, and a bit of an elder scrolls feel when it comes to the controls, but so far the game itself has been very much just a traditional MMO. I mean the world is there-- at least a fraction of it-- there's just not a lot of reason to ever go back to an old zone once you've passed that level. So in practice, it just ends up being complete theme park and no real sandbox. Which I admit, I really want to see change

HeroOfNone

Gidorick wrote: »

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

@Gidorick‌
I was think more if you were a member of the thieves guild in one town you could get one set of quests, but the guards faction might get another. Or as you say, when visitin daggerfall you could find a quest for your faction. If you chose to let someone live as well maybe you could get more quests as well, but choose to let them die and others might open up. This would give your actions more value in game, but not totally cutting you out of quests. Maybe you could go down a darker path instead of the noble one. Maybe be a bit more greedy which precludes you from certain quests because the town hates you. With player created quests, the advantage of more quests and a variety of ideas helps foster branching story lines

The ability for quests to give additional quests would be great! I think there would be some creators that would end up making epic stories that would rival anything ZOS could come up with. Creators could create characters that would span across multiple of their quests. What people are able and willing to make is pretty amazing.

To be fair to ZOS, branching stories are a lot of work, with the potential to double your quest work each time you diverge. But in the hands of fans hopefully they won't all end in a three button choice like some game developers XD

wookiefriseur

Well thought out.

Reminds me a bit of player generated stuff in Star Trek Online.

Gidorick

Patros wrote: »

Well thought out.

Reminds me a bit of player generated stuff in Star Trek Online.

Really? I had no idea that game had player created content! I'll have to check that out!

Edit: I checked it out! Star Trek Online is a Perfect World game so I'm guessing it's a lot like Neverwinter's Foundry. So yes! Very much like that, except I think world integration is an integral part of this concept. Giving players a reason to revisit old locations.

But yes, The Foundry system in Perfect World games is very similar to what I envisioned. They've shown us it CAN be done.

HeroOfNone

Gidorick wrote: »

Patros wrote: »

Well thought out.

Reminds me a bit of player generated stuff in Star Trek Online.

Really? I had no idea that game had player created content! I'll have to check that out!

Edit: I checked it out! Star Trek Online is a Perfect World game so I'm guessing it's a lot like Neverwinter's Foundry. So yes! Very much like that, except I think world integration is an integral part of this concept. Giving players a reason to revisit old locations.

But yes, The Foundry system in Perfect World games is very similar to what I envisioned. They've shown us it CAN be done.

But you want to make sure not to repeat the mistakes of the past. As I discussed with the potential issues, foundry became a breeding ground of mediocrity and grinding. If ZOS implements the system like this, quality control is key. Good quality means more content can be made canon, adding in value.

In the foundry workshop however none of that happened, content flooded the market, and it was directly affecting the live server, rather than PTS. That was probably one of the bigger issues with the system, second to the game's cash shop and F2P model.

a.grespinrb19_ESO

Given I'm Lazy i didn't of course read the post cause it was really long, anyone ming making a summary in like 10 lines or so please?

HeroOfNone

a.grespinrb19_ESO wrote: »

Given I'm Lazy i didn't of course read the post cause it was really long, anyone ming making a summary in like 10 lines or so please?

Player generated quests, writs, areas, and custom motifs through a ZOS sanctioned editor you'd subscribe to use. To make sure the quality remains high there would be testing and rating on the PTS server, with ZOS QA, and a path to make it canon with the lore folks. Additional topics included concern about not requiring additional downloads or disk space (like with skyrim mods) and a few different quest systems like mission boards and faction/branching storylines.

Gidorick

Summary points:
1: Allow players to make custom quests using any interior space that requires a load screen.
2: Allow Custom created dungeons and caves and NPCs.
3: Allow multiple different types of quests to be created (solo, group, leveled, pvp)
4: Distribute these quests through different vendors depending on quest location and quest type.
5: Quests can be rated and may get Canonization, if they met the criteria.
6: Allow community motifs and armor to be crated, submitted, and voted on by the community and the best gets released by ZOS.
7: Require a $5/month license to be a creator. Allow creators to earn their game subscription through the creation program.

That about covers it!

Shinozuka

Hello everyone,

I love and SUPPORT fully the idea of letting the players create content. This was brought up in Beta actually. Late Beta.

I loved the idea then. Still do.
But I see no reason to make it so the Devs would have to babysit/approve the content.

First, I see why it is a concern. To be sure the content is within the lore boundaries.

Lets say someone makes it so NPC 1 says " Yep, I just got in from Hoth. I found this cool lazer"

Wait... Hmm.. Something lore breaking there

But, I still say Do it like the foundry in Neverwinter :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw3P9EAx0II (11 min)

http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Foundry

Which is similar (I think) to Star Trek Online. As Neverwinter and STO use same engine if I understand correct.

My idea is Create an app to let us make content. Have an interface in game to choose/run player made content. You can vote (1 to 5 star) on the content after you complete it. And have a ticker Yes/No is this lore breaking. If you do NOT want to do quests that break lore simply do not run lore breaking quests.


I think EVERY MMO needs this feature nowadays. Run the latest patch dungeon 30 times and bored? Make your own content.

HeroOfNone

Shinozuka wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I love and SUPPORT fully the idea of letting the players create content. This was brought up in Beta actually. Late Beta.

I loved the idea then. Still do.
But I see no reason to make it so the Devs would have to babysit/approve the content.

First, I see why it is a concern. To be sure the content is within the lore boundaries.

Lets say someone makes it so NPC 1 says " Yep, I just got in from Hoth. I found this cool lazer"

Wait... Hmm.. Something lore breaking there

But, I still say Do it like the foundry in Neverwinter :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw3P9EAx0II (11 min)

http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Foundry

Which is similar (I think) to Star Trek Online. As Neverwinter and STO use same engine if I understand correct.

My idea is Create an app to let us make content. Have an interface in game to choose/run player made content. You can vote (1 to 5 star) on the content after you complete it. And have a ticker Yes/No is this lore breaking. If you do NOT want to do quests that break lore simply do not run lore breaking quests.


I think EVERY MMO needs this feature nowadays. Run the latest patch dungeon 30 times and bored? Make your own content.

While I agreed with the idea at beta, the hang up I always got into was when to implement an idea like this. With changes to the veteran system coming, the champion system, and the balancing of quest and grinding XP a bit more, this idea can take ground and avoid being the quick leveling tool it was in Neverwinter.

As for the rating system, no arguments against it, but I still recommend that be done on the PTS server and we leave only approved cannon content on the live server. A minimum level of quality is an important factor that really would elevate this and distinguish it from Neverwinter and Star Trek, which carry with them a lot of exploits and a cash shop.

ArconSeptim

Well just make it single player and thats it...

Gidorick

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

As for the rating system, no arguments against it, but I still recommend that be done on the PTS server and we leave only approved cannon content on the live server. A minimum level of quality is an important factor that really would elevate this and distinguish it from Neverwinter and Star Trek, which carry with them a lot of exploits and a cash shop.

I really like the PTS proving ground idea. It would make it so only the creme of the crop came to the live server, and console players! It would make the end experience more refined and would REALLY encourage creators to not make junk.

wookiefriseur

Yeah, content generated for the sole purpose of exploit farming XP or gold is the main issue I see here too. There could be an XP/h limit for player generated scenarios or something like that. The ZOS staff could then at their own leisure canonize or highlight player generated content.

I like the PTS part very much. It allows initial quality control by players to filter out the worst ones. With character templates you're very flexible at testing the content. Also the very crappy scenarios would be available on PTS only, so you'd have to go there to have a good laugh. PTS population would increase a lot.

PS: The more I think about your idea the better it gets.

• General training areas (we'll just make training dummies ourselves, if we don't get any ^^)
• Training camps (avoiding aoe, blocking, interrupting, healing, and so on)
• Class specific solo challenges
• Group trials with timers / revive counters and top lists
• open RP-Phases in Buildings (instanced like public dungeons)

Even a very limited system of this kind would make the game a lot more TESIII-V'y

Gidorick

Patros wrote: »

Yeah, content generated for the sole purpose of exploit farming XP or gold is the main issue I see here too. There could be an XP/h limit for player generated scenarios or something like that. The ZOS staff could then at their own leisure canonize or highlight player generated content.

I like the PTS part very much. It allows initial quality control by players to filter out the worst ones. With character templates you're very flexible at testing the content. Also the very crappy scenarios would be available on PTS only, so you'd have to go there to have a good laugh. PTS population would increase a lot.

PS: The more I think about your idea the better it gets.

• General training areas (we'll just make training dummies ourselves, if we don't get any ^^)
• Training camps (avoiding aoe, blocking, interrupting, healing, and so on)
• Class specific solo challenges
• Group trials with timers / revive counters and top lists
• open RP-Phases in Buildings (instanced like public dungeons)

Even a very limited system of this kind would make the game a lot more TESIII-V'y

You and I think a lot alike! The below is from an earlier post:

Gidorick wrote: »

...Many of the possible issues could be mitigated through capping systems. Caps on possible experience & gold earned from each player quest would prevent grinding exploits. Maybe each creator is given X number of gold and XP per month to use (100K xp / 10,000 gold) with each of their levels capped at a much lower level (20k xp / 2000 gold)

Lore friendliness could be managed through a strict system where content could be reported for many things, including Blatant Disregard of Lore. Get reported enough and the content would be removed. The creator would be given the reason it was removed and could submit an appeal to have the level reviewed by ZOS. Have too many quests removed due to reporting, the publishing capability will be revoked for a month. Have your publishing revoked more than 3 times in 1 year, your creator's license is suspended for 6 months. A strict system like that would quickly weed out those who wouldn't take the system seriously...

They could also have diminishing returns for Community levels to where each level that's played with in a time frame returns a lower percentage of the total possible XP/Gold of the level than the one before it. This could also be done by the level so that if there Is a particularly lucrative and easy level each time it's played by the same player it rewards much less.

There are MANY ways this could be dealt with... hopefully some day!

MornaBaine

This would be absolutely amazing. The ability to create actual game content for your guild would be a dream come true for me.

Shinozuka

I agree with all the ideas here. Great ideas. I like the idea of putting it on the PTS. I obviously would want quality over quantity. My only fear is if the Devs feel they would need to eyeball every potential player made creation first, that makes the process time consuming.

I do like the idea of being reported for breaking lore. I like that a lot.



Truth be told, I liked the foundry and used it for creating a couple quests. Nothing 5 star. I was just getting my feet wet. I liked playing the other player made quests. Some were great, some were crap. You just gotta chuckle and say Umm ok then.

Hey, if this was real popular that would be GREAT. And if the Devs want to sift through all the submissions and cherry pick some great. But I think its one of those things where I have a feeling to get an editor of sorts we would be uploading them and the community decides what is 1 star and what is 5 star and what is lore breaking.

Firellight

I would like to see armour and clothing variations, texture packs, ENBs, and basically the entire Skyrim arsenal.

The problem, though, is that if players could implement anything they wanted, the game would break. We need to make sure that goofy and not-amazing submissions are separated from projects that are award-winning. ZoS would have to offer a sort-of publisher staff member that will judge people's submissions, generally accepting NPC submissions, but not so much with quest submissions. This may discourage inexperienced modders, even if whatever interface ZoS provides is user-friendly.

I do like to experience submissions that are not published. We could have a warning before using them that the content may not lore-friendly.

A bigger problem for ZoS, which is actually a good thing for players, is that modding capabilities open more doors for private server developers. If any private server group had a decent vision for an updated ESO, ZoS' official server would be in competition with its own game.

AlexDougherty

aecburky02_ESO wrote: »

from my experience when the community is given the ability to create.. they do AMAZING things.

They also do some awful things too, skyrim mods that simply didn't work for example.

It sounds like a good idea, but this is an MMO they won't allowing us to simply upload content, at most they would allow us to submit it for their review, and possibly allow it in. But they wouldn't pay for it, you would be giving it up for free, no profitting.

Which would probably lead to some idiots trying to sue, which is why it probably will never happen.

Gidorick

AlexDougherty wrote: »

It sounds like a good idea, but this is an MMO they won't allowing us to simply upload content, at most they would allow us to submit it for their review, and possibly allow it in. But they wouldn't pay for it, you would be giving it up for free, no profitting.

Which would probably lead to some idiots trying to sue, which is why it probably will never happen.

I don't think that would happen. There are other MMOs out there that have very similar concepts and I don't there are any issues with creators asking for compensation... and in the above concept the creators that make the best content could earn time off their subscription... which would be a sort of compensation.

Layenem

I meant to comment on this the other day. I apologize for being so late to this topic lol... I really hope ZOS is paying attention to this one. Are there concerns? Of course there are, duh. Are there concerns when you release an MMO? Yep. Does that stop them? Nope.

I think the benefits of this type of system far outweigh the concerns. On top of that, the concerns can be countered with a lot of QC additions by ZOS, which would be a lot easier to add in some auto QC and then staff QC checks to ensure only low potential exploitable content enters the game.

As I initially read your post (OP) I immediately thought of WoWStar's zone wide quest system where you'd que in with a group and have the whole space to yourself. You'd make choices and the zone would adapt and adjust to those choices. (Don't remember what they were called, don't care what they were called.)

If players could CREATE stuff like this in already existing content space that would be amazing. ZOS could add in some auto filters to negate some exploit potential, and anything that passes those filters goes to a live team in ZOS to sift through the code and play the content once or twice to get a feel for any issues. At that point it's on the players to hold some form of integrity. I do like that I've seen far more integrity from the mass amount of players who will quickly call out and chide hackers and exploiters and let ZOS ban them without concern (after ZOS and other companies have done their own due diligence and investigation pointing towards exploiting and cheating). I think that is going to be required in helping to restrict some of the exploits and cheats that could happen here.

After that ZOS just needs to keep the metrics on how many people run the content and what the average gain ratio is for particular data (exp, loot, rare loot, etc...) and ensure that any information that is out of the normal pool of data is investigated quickly and dealt with accordingly.

Kraven

I'm a fan of such an idea. I think some of it might be asking for too much, such as player created motifs or having content canonized.

On the other hand, a dungeon creator has a ton to offer ESO. By implementing a voting system where enough down votes sends content to be reviewed by ZOS to be removed if inappropriate and the most well received by the community gets an in game reward. I'd suggest probably a monthly cycle, allows plenty of time for word of mouth to spread among the community of some of the best content created.

By keeping it in the realm of Oblivion the options are endless, for types of creations made. However, I suggest that the rewards be based on a system and not determined by the creators. Much to easily abused if players can create breeze content with best items or most monetary rewards. I suggest base the reward on the difficulty and allow that to be scaled by the creator. So that if you scale difficulty to max, but are fighting easy targets the reward would reflect it. Vice versa if you scaled difficulty to super simple yet were fighting nothing but large creatures the reward and xp gained would reflect the ease. I'm sure you would end up with some just made for grinding, but at least this is instanced removing the grinding from the open world quest areas where they are now.

Such an idea brings in a ton of content with minimal effort by ZOS. Well...minimal once the system was designed and implemented. Games like NWN and EQLandmark prove that players have an interest in this type of system.

Putting it behind a pay gate...Personally I really dislike this idea. I myself am not a creator, have never attempted such but if I wanted to a pay gate would put me off of the idea.

Gidorick

Layenem wrote: »

I think the benefits of this type of system far outweigh the concerns. On top of that, the concerns can be countered with a lot of QC additions by ZOS, which would be a lot easier to add in some auto QC and then staff QC checks to ensure only low potential exploitable content enters the game.
.

This. So much this.

Gidorick

Kraven wrote: »

I'm a fan of such an idea. I think some of it might be asking for too much, such as player created motifs or having content canonized.
...
Putting it behind a pay gate...Personally I really dislike this idea. I myself am not a creator, have never attempted such but if I wanted to a pay gate would put me off of the idea.

Yea I tend to shoot for the "most outrageous, but still plausible" concepts. See my Skooma suggestion for another example of this:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/141857/skooma-concept-suggestion-moved-crom-crafting-discussion#latest

I completely understand not wanting the system behind a pay gate. That would mostly be to dissuade tomfoolery. We would have only the people that REALLY wanted to create quests for ESO making things. I do think the PTS idea is better though. Give everyone the tools and let the community sort it out... literally!

Lord Xanhorn

With the communal brain power of just everyone on this thread, all these issues can have solutions. I would be sooo much more into this game than I already am if I knew this was coming in the pipeline. Champion, Justice, and any other system would pale in comparison.

HeroOfNone

Given the recent B2P announcement, this is a perfect crown sink idea that would provide additional content with out creating a P2W situation.

Shunravi

heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »

Given the recent B2P announcement, this is a perfect crown sink idea that would provide additional content with out creating a P2W situation.

With the failsafes discussed in the thread, yea, this would be perfect for crowns.

Gidorick

Indeed it would! I could even see having to pay 50C to play the same quest more than once a day or have creators pay crowns to access certain style sets. Maybe even a way for creators to earn Crowns based on their ratings or have players buy community motif items with Crown and give the creators 10% of the profit back in Crowns.

It could work well!

HeroOfNone

Gidorick wrote: »

Indeed it would! I could even see having to pay 50C to play the same quest more than once a day or have creators pay crowns to access certain style sets. Maybe even a way for creators to earn Crowns based on their ratings or have players buy community motif items with Crown and give the creators 10% of the profit back in Crowns.

It could work well!

Thinking on this though, are players going to be willing to pay for playing just the quest? Or does there need to be incentives to do it? The 2 ways I can see it playing out are:

Content creator creates a quest and area. They then submit the quest for 100 crowns (thus they had to spend money at some point). It's reviewed and approved and enabled for a month for players to run through.

1. Players play it and rate it, paying nothing. The submitter gets a portion of crowns depending how many liked it and gave it a favorable review.
2. Players pay a crown amount with a chance at quest, dungeon, or trials drops, determined by a ZOS reviewer on the scale and difficulty. Higher rates can be equated to how many try and fail or take longer at a quest, sort of how vet DSA & SO gives better drops but has a high difficulty rate. The content creator stI'll gets a share of crowns
3. Same as #2, but folks get the quest free once a day or once a week, but need to pay crowns for trying it more than once in a day, with a 5 time play cap.

I think rewards for using the system are important, but we'really not offering something that can only be obtained through there nor can it just be farmed.

Storms_in_Argonia

I would love a tool and system similar to Neverwinter's Foundry. Perhaps a bit more robust and less buggy though . How to incorporate it into the new hybrid model... As the game is going buy-to-play...I don't think having a system entirely behind a separate paywall for b2pers would be good however. Maybe subs get larger quest creator slots (i.e. 50) and buy players only can make 5 quests/adventures. You would then buy more slots in the store. Regardless of account type you could play as many as you wanted. Missions in dlc zones would require sub or dlc purchase to create/use.