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Democratic RPG Development

Started by novaflex 13 replies 3k views
Original Post
novaflex
novaflex
I've been toying with this idea in my head for a while and was wanting some comments. Basic idea: RPG content starts out crappy at release-time, but the client includes interfaces for improving content. Players may use these to edit content, then offer for vote or veto or get comments via an in-game forum. Accepted content versions then become available for clients to download/update. When players view info about stuff, they see credits to players that helped with the content. Some issues: - two players should not be able to work on one content item at the same time - a player should not be able to lock an item for update and never finish it, which prevents others from working on it (maybe 48 hours or something) - only a priviledged account should be able to modify certain aspects of content, like dimensions or center point, which would mess up other things like how it fits in inventory or how it is animated - only priviledged accounts should be able to get into parameters and redesign major things that effect game balance - even priviledged account work should be available for vote, at least by other priv accounts. - a new version of something that includes elements of content should only be able to include content already elected. - none of the in-progress content should appear in the IC parts of the game. - a moderator should be able to veto something that violates guidelines (like includes profanity or porn) even if the consensus thinks it's cool or funny and elects it. Content that could be improved: - sprites/textures (painting interface with frame animation operations, within boundaries) - animations (bone posing interface within various frames, within boundaries) - areas (interfaces to (re)place tiles or background objects within a part of the map, but must not result in blocking ability to move through area as before. - sounds (interfaces with vsti and vst tools to modify sound effects, within time limits) - music (tracker interface within time limits) - particles (parameter/behavior interface, within limits - AI (maybe an interface to prioritized event trees, for priv accounts only) Certain OOC testing grounds would allows players to see or hear the new content before casting their votes. There would still be IC ways to build stuff, of course, but the content displayed during that process would come from the OOC democratic process. Why in-game? - seems to me that if a game engine can show/play content, why not allow changing it? - allows players to be in the game, see something they think they could do better, talk about it via in-game chat, check if it's locked, lock it, mess with it while their buddies in the game can pop over and check it out in-progress. Is there currently a game with that much player access to content while in-game? Do you think something like this could be abused in other ways I haven't considered? Should this really be a separate client than the game engine to keep it from getting bloated?
tstrimp
tstrimp
Giving them the power to vote in custom content sounds like a sure way to have everyone in the community running around with vorpal blades of annihilation and armor of damage immunity.
Sirisian
Sirisian
Quote:
Original post by novaflex
Is there currently a game with that much player access to content while in-game?

Do you think something like this could be abused in other ways I haven't considered? Should this really be a separate client than the game engine to keep it from getting bloated?


Second Life is a game that has player built content and utilizes a powerful scripting engine for players.

Is this game an MMO, because if not what your saying seems trivial to the actual gameplay.

For an RPG to do this it would be nearly impossible to have it balanced, which wouldn't seem to matter if it isn't multiplayer, it just makes the game boring if the RPG factor and leveling doesn't matter.

In an MMO, Dynamic level design could be done and allow trusted player to create levels in the game or expand the game in real time. Items and enemies and such would have to be monitored for balancing issues and stuff.
novaflex
novaflex
Quote:
Original post by tstrimp
Giving them the power to vote in custom content sounds like a sure way to have everyone in the community running around with vorpal blades of annihilation and armor of damage immunity.


Being able to edit or vote for the look or sound of something wouldn't mean you obtain it. I suppose players could make a common/cheap object, like a regular small sword, look like an uncommon/expensive object, like the "vorpal blade of annihilation", but it would still act like a cheap small sword, would still be called "small sword" in title. Maybe there could be a priv level that allows a player to modify what an object can do, but the server admin wouldn't grant something like that to anyone outside their dev team.

Why do you think a consensus of players are likely to elect a common item that look like uncommon items? Do you think only a small subset of players would participate in voting, thus resulting in unpopular changes? And if that happened, would the common player base get more involved or give up and find another game to play? Would moderators be able to regulate this with their veto powers?
novaflex
novaflex
Quote:
Original post by Sirisian
Is this game an MMO, because if not what your saying seems trivial to the actual gameplay.


I think this could be used in MMO or non-MMO multiplayer games. Maybe even single-player game with online access for changes, but what makes more sense there is people modding games like they do now. For MO or MMO I think there should be one set of content, therefore no matter if the game has 1 world for all players, 10 mirror worlds for a thousand players each, or a p2p world set up for every 2-16 players per session, they would all access the same server for locking content for changing, forum communication, and voting. Designing the actual RPG, of course, would mean picking whether it's single, MO, or MMO and sticking with that.

Also what I'm describing is not much related to gameplay for unpriv accounts, except where the look and sound effects it (a brighter object might be easier to spot against the background, for instance)). I think it would mostly appeal to the artistic people within the player population, but it might also appeal to weird people who want to put a cute hello-kitty emblem on the "spiked demonic shield of fear" (which would have to either be rejected by the consensus or by a veto). Those who want to take part in areas that effect gameplay would have to become trusted by the admin. Of course, that in itself could become annoying ("please please please let me").

Quote:
Original post by Sirisian
For an RPG to do this it would be nearly impossible to have it balanced, which wouldn't seem to matter if it isn't multiplayer, it just makes the game boring if the RPG factor and leveling doesn't matter.


Yeah, some people would just play the game and never edit or vote on changes. They might get a little confused at times when one day something suddenly looks different (hopefully better).
Yomic
Yomic
For an idea like this to be more believeable (and very possibly more balanced) is make a skill, which is available to most if not all players, called item/weapon crafting. The way this would work would be: You must have certain items used to forge weapons and items. Each item would give the forged item/weapon +stats, glowy/spakly, etc... The higher +stats and better looking weapons would be easier for the higher level players to create because they would have the materials required to create them more readily available (through higher level mobs and in harder quests/dungeons). Also, each item/weapon would need a level requirement which is increased with the item's power, stats, and "prettiness".

That's my 2 copper's worth.

[edited for readability]
Spoonbender
Spoonbender
"Come and play my game. Uh, you'll have to bring your own art and other content..."

Sorry, I think it sounds cheap and lazy. What kind of game are we talking about? It *could* (and has been) incorporated into a MMO, but for anything else?

Most people play a game to experience the game the developers made. Not to see stuff they made themselves. If you can't make a proper game yourself, then you shouldn't. If all the player has to look at is his own homemade MS Paint textures, I really don't see this as a viable strategy.

And honestly, having a launch strategy that goes "start out crappy at release-time", that should get the alarm bells ringing.

In some cases it makes sense to allow players to extend a game (mods do that. Custom skins or models, or more wide-ranging, like Second Life), but under no circumstances should you use it as an excuse for not making the game worthwhile to begin with.

If you made a game that started out good, and could be further improved by allowing players to add content, then you might have something worth considering.
NonymousLurker
NonymousLurker
It migth be interesting to split your game into several instances/worlds/regions, each with their own user created and democratically selected content. This would allow to form multiple communities. You could have a more roleplaying community which would shun ultra-cool mega flashy flashy swords. But also the kind of community that likes these kinds of items.

You could set the number of worlds (and their intended audience) in the beginning or you could allow users to start (and perhaps branch off) their own worlds. The latter could become a kind of user generated CVS of worlds.

With users being able to join what ever world they want, you'll of coure run into griefing problems. Some evil users will try to invade a certain world trying to abuse the democratic process. An online browser based game, Nation States had a similar problem. This was their solution:
http://www.nationstates.net/pages/influence.html
novaflex
novaflex
In understand what you mean spoonbender and those are good points. Obviously a texture editor with little more to offer than ms-paint would suck.

I agree that providing crappy content would turn off those who just want to play games with great content, but I'm guessing it also would entice more players to try to beat it than providing great content. There's no selling point in the content provided but to some the ability to compete against others to make your own content part of a game could be a good selling point, especially if it is easily done because editing is integrated with the game. If such an audience is relatively small, then it could be a short term loss. But what if the artistic players turn it into something really good, then long term those who want to play a game with great content could start hearing about it and get curious to see what the community made.

One thing that might be interesting is instead of just allowing one person to compete against the previous version, to let multiple people compete on the same content at the same time, kinda like a game version of battle-of-the-bands.

I think NonymousLurker has a great point. You have the serious RP group that evolves content differently than the social group that considers it just another bunch of chat rooms. The former might actually evolve some old, weak, or crippled looking characters which only RPers love to play. The latter would evolve into barbies and kens with sparkly items. Then maybe the weird people could have a world where it's cool to run around with a sword that looks like a chicken, and a world for the powergamers who would evolve glitsy sparkly content.

Also, I've been thinking about the voting process. What if there are 1000 players changing 1000 things every few days at first. Who wants to vote that much? How could this be done better? One way is to extend the development time, check it out time, and vote time. Another is to shuffle the content presented to each player so they can vote on just some of them and the result is random samples, like polling.
ForD
ForD
Sounds a lot like the Contruction set for The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
NoStyle
NoStyle
Quote:
Original post by Spoonbender
"Come and play my game. Uh, you'll have to bring your own art and other content..."

Sorry, I think it sounds cheap and lazy. What kind of game are we talking about? It *could* (and has been) incorporated into a MMO, but for anything else?

Well isnt that Web-2.0-thingy supposed to have your work (creating content) done by your community? This Idea here sounds like RPG 2.0.
Quote:

Most people play a game to experience the game the developers made. Not to see stuff they made themselves. If you can't make a proper game yourself, then you shouldn't. If all the player has to look at is his own homemade MS Paint textures, I really don't see this as a viable strategy.

Well isnt that what all he modding communities are about?
I guess a lot of people bought certain games just because of the mods (HL/CS).
Quote:

And honestly, having a launch strategy that goes "start out crappy at release-time", that should get the alarm bells ringing.

In some cases it makes sense to allow players to extend a game (mods do that. Custom skins or models, or more wide-ranging, like Second Life), but under no circumstances should you use it as an excuse for not making the game worthwhile to begin with.

If you made a game that started out good, and could be further improved by allowing players to add content, then you might have something worth considering.


Agreed.
Take a look at Mount&Blade (www.taleworlds.com), great game, but a bit weak content wise in vanilla. The most content is avialbe as community created mods.
Even the only aviable MapEditor and Model and Texture Im- and Exporter are written by community members and there where unofficial Mod-Tools before the official ones where released.
If you have a great game, you won't have to worry about users to create content.
If you dont have a great game, well than you don't have a great game, so why someone should sacrifice his time to improve it?
aegrimonia
aegrimonia
it seems to me that having players make their own 'stuff' would cause the game to be hugely topheavy.. what player is going to sit around saying "dude.. what kind of wooden daggers can i create today?", or "yeah.. i want some more cloth pants.. i can't have too many of those".

most of all the content created will be crazy off the wall uber-powerful stuff.
_winterdyne_
_winterdyne_
The primary problem is going to be QA, in terms of quality and 'appropriate content'. The 'Hello Kitty' emblem on a shield might be totally inappropriate (though I kinda like the idea) for some games. This is always going to boil down to administrative decision. I simply would never trust players to make the choice for an MMO game where the content is effectively imposed on other players.

With some mechanisms it's possible to enforce construction rules that will guarantee a certain set of conditions (and the modular construction method I'm currently working on for buildings does this) - these you can throw to players and because you know 'how the parts fit' you can allow players to come up with some of the tens of thousands of possible permutations your system allows, and not have the result be rule-breaking or out of place. Spore, similarly when you look at it, allows construction from parts within a tightly defined rule 'space'.

I do quite like the idea of the competitive 'beta', where player-designed layouts are tested and voted on - but this should definitely be done 'out of game' and using a constructive method as above - this would be more like people designing NWN campaigns and players voting for which gets included in the next expansion pack. Regardless - testing should not have any effect on players' 'main' characters.

My 2p. :-)

Winterdyne Solutions Ltd is recruiting - this thread for details!

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