I wish game companies would use their customers.

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I suppose the title isn't very specific, so let me be clearer:

I wish companies would make the basic building blocks of their games, for designing characters, clothes, quests, available to their player base.

Its a small subset, but a number of gamers love the chance to add to their favorite games. Looking at MODDB you can find some stunning projects, Morroblivion, Third Age Total War, The Dark Project, and a ton more. They build on a game to create something stunning in scope that is often better than the original.

On the league of legend forums people design new skins all the damn time, but the developers rarely release new ones.

Theres a wealth of untapped potential, and companies

Look at Neverwinter, the foundry is obscenely incredible, and is probably going to make a rather bland game a dedicated player base. Because if someone is willing to go to the trouble of writing and creating their own adventure, they are going to blow the generic story a game designer wrote out of the water. Player generated content keeps the game fresh.

(just remembered - custom maps on battle.net)

It would be simple to set up a quick audit system, and the result would be a wealth of player generated content to encourage devotion to your game from creators and players.

You could probably include several actors going through the IPA with all the aspirations using barely any memory, and then, with enough dedication, players could even add their own voice overs.

Damnit, I'm exhausted. I just wish there was a game that tried to create a really solid framework and allows players to flesh it out. As the focus on graphics has increased other aspects of a game seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Basically, I want a game I can really fall into.

GimmeGimmeGimme
 
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Are you not just talking about game editors.
A game editor will allow you to do all of the things you just mentioned.
I am using a fan made editor to extend Wizardry 8.
Might & Magic Legacy team have announced that they will be releasing such a tool that will comprise of 90% of the tools they are using to make the game.
Is this what you mean ?

Check out all the interviews here:

http://telp.org/mm9/tavern/mm9tavern.html
The Celestial heavens March 2013 interview is the one that tells about the editor.
 
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On the league of legend forums people design new skins all the damn time, but the developers rarely release new ones.

LoL is not RPG, it's f2p MMO where you play only for - skins .
 
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Are you not just talking about game editors.
A game editor will allow you to do all of the things you just mentioned.
I am using a fan made editor to extend Wizardry 8.
Might & Magic Legacy team have announced that they will be releasing such a tool that will comprise of 90% of the tools they are using to make the game.
Is this what you mean ?

Check out all the interviews here:

http://telp.org/mm9/tavern/mm9tavern.html
The Celestial heavens March 2013 interview is the one that tells about the editor.

In essence, yes, that's what I'm asking for. Ideally in a mmorpg. I have a feeling I was too tired last night to clearly write that.

LoL is not RPG, it's f2p MMO where you play only for - skins .

I apologize, I didn't mean to say it was, I merely meant it as another example of how a dedicated player base could be utilized to provided reams of content.
 
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LoL is not RPG, it's f2p MMO where you play only for - skins .
In essence, yes, that's what I'm asking for. Ideally in a mmorpg. I have a feeling I was too tired last night to clearly write that.



I apologize, I didn't mean to say it was, I merely meant it as another example of how a dedicated player base could be utilized to provided reams of content.

Huge legal issues there. The MMO company is out to make a profit. They can't just take player made content and release it. Ideally, they want a staggered release of new designs anyway - because it increases the value of that new design.
 
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It's harder to monetize content that you didn't create. Not to mention the balancing issues in an MMO of user-created content.

Along this line of thinking however, I'm sure there's room for a Neverwinter Nights 'esque platform through which players buy tools and/or access to server-side tools to make their own content. Combined with old Battle.net-like chat rooms with advertising, it could succeed. But it would likely never make money on the scale that we've seen with typical successful MMOs …and therein lies the problem of selling such a different and unambitious online platform to funding publishers.

Random thoughts.
 
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Huge legal issues there. The MMO company is out to make a profit. They can't just take player made content and release it. Ideally, they want a staggered release of new designs anyway - because it increases the value of that new design.

It's harder to monetize content that you didn't create. Not to mention the balancing issues in an MMO of user-created content.

Along this line of thinking however, I'm sure there's room for a Neverwinter Nights 'esque platform through which players buy tools and/or access to server-side tools to make their own content. Combined with old Battle.net-like chat rooms with advertising, it could succeed. But it would likely never make money on the scale that we've seen with typical successful MMOs …and therein lies the problem of selling such a different and unambitious online platform to funding publishers.

Random thoughts.

This is a genuine question, not a smarmy reply

Why? Why cant they release player-made content for their games? I'm not talking about raiding a vault to find a map and just throwing it on without asking permission, but using players interested in contributing to the game?

Its exactly what NWN is doing. Its part of what made battlenet so spectacular for SC and WC. Its similar to buying houses in UO, just on a larger scale. Much larger.

I'm not talking about a series of microtransactions where you buy one player made map at a time, but building a robust modding system that is build into the game and encourages player made contributions?

If there is a reason, I'd love to know the non-legalese reasoning, because it seems like something that is already happening. Hell, a strong modding community is almost a requirement for me to really enjoy a game nowadays.
 
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This cannot be something that hasn't been thought of, and so there is a reason why they are not doing.
Have you tried asking in the forums of one of the games where you would like this to happen ?
 
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This cannot be something that hasn't been thought of, and so there is a reason why they are not doing.
Have you tried asking in the forums of one of the games where you would like this to happen ?

Whens the last time you played a game and thought, "That's a stupid ass feature. Why in gods name would you want that?" Innovation is fairly rare, if you're making a big time product, most companies would rather stay relatively safe rather than risk abject failure.

I mean, I've played some game with abysmal writing that have killed my interest. You could probably contract a college English class to write a better for a pittance. ( not actually) But hiring a talented novelist, certainly doable. Seems to be rarely done. Why?

Its more of a general wish that several games would include the feature, particularly MMOs, than a desire for a specific game.
 
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I think it is blatantly obvious and simple business math - you need to maximize your return on investment.

For RPG fans this should be obvious - games have less and less branching, and as EA and others have said it makes no sense to spend money making content for no one. If you were responsible for financials of a company and knew that fewer than 5% of customers would use a feature that would require significant investment of time and money - you would hack that feature without thought.

The majority of games have no need to editors. This is because most games are played like summer blockbuster movies - buy, play for a bit, move on. Maybe get into some multiplayer, maybe revisit in a while for a nostalgia trip.

Us RPG fans who like to squeeze all possible content from a game are rare and folks like me who have many games I've replayed more than 25 times through the years are even rarer.
 
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I'd be perfectly happy with any gaming company using me - as long as they are willing to either pay me for my time and effort or allow me to sell what I produce.
 
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Center. You didn't answer my question as to whether or not you have tried asking the more relevant people about this.

Its more of a general wish that several games would include the feature, particularly MMOs, than a desire for a specific game.

There isn't a game that I think would benefit from avoiding this. I've never seen a game forum that was frequented by the game developers, and this question is invariably going to sound like, "Why isnt your game better?" to anyone reading it.
 
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Creating these open-ended game editors can be extremely challenging.
 
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