My understanding is that games that are released with a toolkit were designed with that toolkit in mind. The toolkit was released with the game. I'm thinking of Morrowind, Oblivion and the latest Neverwinter Nights - I'm sure there are many more. You didn't try to retrofit a set of tools to a released game. I'm not saying it couldn't work, just that I've never seen it.
I also don't know of any MMO game that comes with a set of tools that lets you make content. I'm talking an MMO game here, something with game and story elements, not a sandbox like Second Life. Second Life was specifically designed so users could create content, and it's a "sandbox", - there is no game content. The only MMORPG that I know of that let users create their own quests was Ryzom, and sadly, Ryzom is either shut down or going to be shut down soon.
On - will user created content work? - I think it's complicated. First of all, no matter what we do in the game now - no story arc we can create changes anything. I can't run my own story with a character I create, and, for example, release a new age as part of my story, or even give someone a new object! Nothing I can do, from a story perspective, changes anything in the game. User created content sure as heck doesn't work now - OK, it does if you like to roleplay, but nothing about the game changes.
Next, as far as I can tell, Cyan is really picky about their characters. If you try to roleplay as Yeesha, or say you saw Yeesha when you didn't, not only does this tend to annoy other players, but, as far as I can tell, it annoys Cyan. Players (my observation) seem to want to know what the "official' characters and story are. Either you educate the players (and I think you'd need to do that in-game), and/or you do something to make those "official" characters look special in the game.
On gameplay, remember in the old days when "gameplay drove story"? You know, you solved a puzzle and you got a new age, maybe a journal (not a favorite fo mine, but it was something). The whole episodic content seems to violate that concept. Perhaps a better way of saying it is that Uru is two separate games. In the puzzle part, you solve puzzles to get new ages, and learn more of the story. In the episode part, it's sort of an interactive play, if you are lucky enough to attend. You watch what is going on, and sometimes you get to ask questions. if you aren't there, there's no repeat gameplay - you lose.
If we, as players, get to add characters who tell a story, I'd like something to be changed in the game, as a result of that story, and I'd like it to be repeatable to all players, even if they weren't right there at the time.
I regard this a different from fun socialization stuff, such as the D'ni Olympics, the concerts, the parties all that - those are great, but different from story arcs.
_________________ mszv, amarez in Uru, other online games, never use mszv anymore, would like to change it Blog - http://www.amarez.com, Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/amareze
Last edited by mszv on Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
|