Now that I'm really getting back into the Neverwinter Foundry a question has popped into my head in regards to other user generated content, specifically for the EQN Landmark people. After you build your house or statue or castle, do you hope that people come to visit? Do you hope that whatever you built will be ported into Everquest Next and used as part of the world even if say it is set on fire, destroyed, and maybe inhabited by evil creatures?
Just curious.
In NWO I'm finding that the biggest challenge from before is still there - getting people to play my maps. As I thought, making a shorter quest really helps the number of plays. My first quest which has been out for months and goes for one hour has a total of nine plays. My second quest which runs for around 17 minutes and has been out a week or so is up to 30+ plays and is eligible for the daily foundry mission reward.
It's not surprising then that there are "farm" quests that become so popular. Quests with literally no story, just a premade or blank map and a truck load of enemies to kill for the EXP or loot. I'm really thinking of doing a crusade against these (ranking them low or reporting for TOS violations) as they push down the better designed, more story orientated user content.
This seems to be an issue pervasive to most MMOs with user generated content. The same thing was happening to City of Heroes' Mission Architect, which I think is the direct ancestor of NWO's Foundry?
ReplyDeleteBasically, it seems that a big proportion of players in an MMO are achiever short-cut focused, whereas what constitutes a "good story" can be very varied, according to different peoples' tastes.
So something that can be sampled in a short time, and/or repeated quickly for loot/xp gets multiple play-throughs, while a long story chronicle may only get a few views, if that.
Aye. Hard to design stuff to try to cater for everyone. :(
DeleteI feel the same way about UGC farming missions, that they are against the "spirit" of user-generated content. However, they have just as much a right to be there as any other content simply because of different playstyles and what gamers enjoy. I play for story, but I feel this is becoming more and more the minority. Most MMO gamers find their fun in finding the best reward/time ratio possible, and UGC farming missions help this. They get to farm, kill a metric ton of enemies, and get a lot of rewards for doing so. It's more a question of your target audience.
ReplyDeleteI haven't yet made any UGC missions because of this conundrum. Who do you want your target audience to be? The majority of efficient gamers who just click through story? Or the minority that appreciates a good story? Is there a good balance? Is a Wildstar-esque approach best, where story is just given in small Twitter size snippets, but is still just a nice covering for KTR? Afterall, if all we have are the same reskinned 3 or 4 mechanics, the best missions are those that hide that fact the best, but still give us plenty of opportunity to gain loot.
Not sure they have the same right to be there in NWO's case as there are some pretty clear guidelines in the EULA. A simple story would really get most of the farms out of hot water but when I see things that are literally - just kill everything, no story, and has bonus mechanics to prevent mobs from retaliating... erm. Same goes for people that recreate stories like Wizards First Rule or Merlin. Yeah, not bad but that seriously comes from different intellectual property. *shrug*
DeleteOh yeah, I'm talking totally under the assumption that it's all clear with the EULA. If it breaks that, it just needs to be removed. :P
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