This is an open question. The intent is to provide SD with some insight toward the vital ingredients for their next great FPS.
What is the best way to support custom content?
Can too much freedom be a bad thing?
How important should stock gameplay be?
What has and hasn’t worked in previous titles.
I’ve got my own opinions based on what I’ve seen over the years, but I’ll wait until we get some discussion going. Post away!
Can too much freedom be a bad thing?
The question kind of answers itself.
Nonetheless, I’m a fan of well made custom maps, but not to the point where every server im joining i have to download a whole set of new maps, or new mods or new skins etc. UT99 was like this back in the day. ET eventually turned out like that too.
How important should stock gameplay be?
I think stock gameplay from the perspective of pub play is important.
The typical pub player has a hard time having to learn the nuances of 1 game, let alone 100 variations of the same game.
When promod came out for etqw, competitive players had to relearn the game with its own rulesets.There were a few where their skill didnt translate, which i personally found really interesting.
Thats from the perspective of the player. From the devs perspective, it depends on whether they are using a stats site and whether they are using that stats site as a way of keeping players playing long term. Same goes for any sort of ranking system. The only problem here, custom map servers not attracting players, because they dont record stats.
What has and hasn’t worked in previous titles.
I thought ranked servers in etqw worked. Others will disagree with that though.
[QUOTE=Boktor;397831]This is an open question. The intent is to provide SD with some insight toward the vital ingredients for their next great FPS.
What is the best way to support custom content?[/quote]
IMO something like the Steam Workshop where custom content can be centrally hosted (and downloaded) while also maintaining some control. For example SD could select various custom maps to be included with standard rotations without the palavar of integrating it officially or people having add stuff all over the place. You could call it Pub+ mode.
Can too much freedom be a bad thing?
Of course, the signal to noise ratio can be very frustrating. The answer however is not to shoot the radio operator.
How important should stock gameplay be?
Depends how complete it is. SD have in the past been quite poor at releasing an encompassing stock experience. However if there is a solid stock experience then it should be identifiable to the players. I’d propose off the top of my head that you could have ‘Pub’ (fixed Svars, maps, no mods), ‘Pub+’ (limited Svar changes which are advertised, maps plus authed custom maps, no mods) ‘PubX’ (any maps, mods or Svars).
[/quote]What has and hasn’t worked in previous titles.[/quote]
Ranked servers for official content only killed motivation for a lot of the user base in ETQW. Access to content is also critical, joining a server with a custom map should just download the map and play. Which also makes me consider map sizes, if possible it should be possible to use existing content to create maps and so limit map sizes.
While we’re talking about downloading, nothing, EVER, should impact the default installation of a game. Any custom content needs to be part of a custom folder/mod.
As mentioned above, nothing annoys me more than picking ‘Best Dedicated Server’ in L4D2 and then getting some infinite ammo, low grav modded server. Let people know what experience they’ll be getting before joining a server.
That’s probably enough from me. For Now!!! 
[QUOTE=SockDog;397847]For example SD could select various custom maps to be included with standard rotations without the palavar of integrating it officially or people having add stuff all over the place. You could call it Pub+ mode.
…if there is a solid stock experience then it should be identifiable to the players. I’d propose off the top of my head that you could have ‘Pub’ (fixed Svars, maps, no mods), ‘Pub+’ (limited Svar changes which are advertised, maps plus authed custom maps, no mods) ‘PubX’ (any maps, mods or Svars).[/QUOTE]
I was also thinking about something like this. It would be ideal if there were a system that could maintain the integrity of the stock game, but still promote custom content. Content wouldn’t be restricted, but managed cleanly. Something like this built-in to a server browser would be a dream.
I am a huge supporter of custom maps. IMO, developers cannot make content fast enough to keep me interested in the “stock experience” barring a 20 map launch. If a game is really good and I’m playing it a couple of hours per night, then I need new maps to keep me at that euphoric level past 3 months post launch.
I have no problems with lots of variety in servers. The worst mods and maps die off quickly. If I don’t like the mod/map the server is running, I’ll just find a new server. However, I do prefer to know if a server is running a mod before I join. Instead of ranked/unranked have Vanilla/Custom server choices.
I refer to Wolfenstein: ET to make my point, it’s still played more today then brink is 
Custom maps + custom mods are important!
[QUOTE=Paul;397865]I refer to Wolfenstein: ET to make my point, it’s still played more today then brink is
Custom maps + custom mods are important![/QUOTE]
Nobody hardly plays ET anymore though.
Okay 
I wasn’t there but I can’t say that ET has lack of players. More played than most free FPS games
ET is so fragmented that it’s not a nice place for new users to join. Community content is great, but over time it shatters and does more harm than good for attracting new meat.
What is the best way to support custom content?
Can too much freedom be a bad thing?
How important should stock gameplay be?
This is why developers need to take a more hands on approach to supporting it properly, bunging out an SDK and some SVARs isn’t acceptable any more. It’s a matter of communication and interface, when you leave players in the dark about what experience they are going to get you’re setting them up to be disappointed.
I’d also repeat one of my favs. Leaving it up to the community to create new modes just opens the floodgates. Instead of one CTF mode common to all versions of the game you now invite 5 versions to duke it out. Likewise for a comp-mod, DM/TDM, KotH etc. Sure resources are limited but sitting back and expecting everything to be handled by the community is inviting turmoil. At least identify what appeals to your core audience and then know you’ve got a product with legs of it’s own rather than 8 spidery community driven appendages all walking in different directions.
I noticed that. I tried to get into ET last week but every server I joined (even those advertising “No Downloads”) had me downloading loads of mods, only for the game to crash as soon as I join a team… Gave up after that.
Just separate map / mod / shiny stuff (skins/gfx/ui)
Allow auto download for map and mod, because you need them to play on the server, but do not allow autodownload for skins which are just cosmetics, if you want a skin or an ui you go on a master server and dl them.
To sum it up, allow the flexibility of ET with some restrictions to avoid the mess, but dont go with ranked server PLEASE! this is the best way to 1) screw custom contents, 2) make some cupid GSP to charge more for a ranked service (which is basically easier to do than a custom because you cant fiddle with the server settings as much…)
Well I think my point is pretty clear, it might not be THE solution, but its something worth trying
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, please no never ever. I know you’re saying something like Steam workshop, but I think this point needs to be made:
The thought of trying to make custom content for a game engine sitting in silly cache files in steam’s silly filesystem with VAC bans explodinating all my games because I was tinkering with a multiplayer game trying to figure out how to do something makes my skin crawl.
The beauty of ETQW was that (for example) I could make a complete copy of the game filesystem, rip open some pk4s, change some stuff about, see if it worked, and then understand how the addon.conf files worked and what ETQW wanted of me to minimise the pure restarts (or eliminate them entirely, depending on how deidcated you wanted to be about it). I could just go in and change stuff without worrying about some stupid DRM. Learning to make custom content is hard; adding an extra level of obfuscation on top is just going to cripple things.
The whole ‘official’ thing is something I never have been able to get my head around. The advantage of custom community-made content is the turnaround time on fixes and development. There’s no point making stuff officially sanctioned if I’m going to make it obsolete next week with a fix.
So you make it a hall of fame? And then you get a whole bunch of people who won’t tread outside that implied seal of quality and urgh. Players need to get used to the idea that they’re the arbiters of quality, and that that means trying stuff out and helping to making bad content better until it’s good. Anything that damages that concept is going to cripple the development of custom content.
I think things ETQW could have used (and some other rambling) are:
The ability to set a resource load list (like the addon.conf, but with custom scripts too) on the server as a temporary file. Instead of needing to assign a fixed campaign to trigger loads of all the resources and consolidate reloads, just let the server specify what it needs in an ickle temp file that you download when you want to connect.
Probably also have the loaded components of that file displayed on the server browser, maybe with some sort of hash, so when I’m viewing a server I can see what it has loaded.
Pure restarts are an issue. I guess it depends on what kind of in-game setup you want. Do you want to have people jumping between servers running different custom campaigns without hassle? Do you want people to be able to play different custom gametypes/modes without hassle? Ideally I’d be able to do both, without needing to reload the whole game every time I switch.
Modding tools need to be available asap, if possible on/slightly before launch, so people can hit the ground running. Strong example files/prefab resources are very handy for getting stuff out quickly early on.
The game needs a critical mass of players willing to try custom content. That means the game needs to have staying power sufficient to hold a large enough userbase as the custom content scene grows and gets better. The comp scene is good for this, so maybe do that hardcore thing this time round.
And yeah, /ignoreskin /ignoresoundpack options.
[QUOTE=shirosae;398270]No, no, no, no, no, no, no, please no never ever. I know you’re saying something like Steam workshop, but I think this point needs to be made:
The thought of trying to make custom content for a game engine sitting in silly cache files in steam’s silly filesystem with VAC bans explodinating all my games because I was tinkering with a multiplayer game trying to figure out how to do something makes my skin crawl. [/quote]
No definitely Steam, just for you though, because you love it so. Are you on Steam yet? I can give you a game if you want to give it a try.
From my understanding Steam Workshop put a nice front end on the creation and distribution side to avoid a lot of the unnecessary filesystem stuff, which anyway you look at it is a pretty poor way to get mods and maps working.
But yes. The point was more that there needs to be a way for the game to show content, allow it to be rated by users, given some kind of seal of approval by the developers and never ever need for you to leave the game to download, install or remove it.
The beauty of ETQW was that (for example) I could make a complete copy of the game filesystem, rip open some pk4s, change some stuff about, see if it worked, and then understand how the addon.conf files worked and what ETQW wanted of me to minimise the pure restarts (or eliminate them entirely, depending on how deidcated you wanted to be about it). I could just go in and change stuff without worrying about some stupid DRM. Learning to make custom content is hard; adding an extra level of obfuscation on top is just going to cripple things.
This isn’t a problem with Steam but more the distribution method of the game. L4D2 for example has it’s files wide open, you can pull out all the audio wavs (the witch tune plays on my phone when the wife calls!). It’s so open you even have stuff like Garry’s mod which is build totally over the top of accessing Valve content.
What’s needed for this kind of stuff is a proper SDK package, again, not being a fanboy here it’s more my limited experience, but Valve is reasonably good at getting these out so you can do what you want to the files via a proper interface.
The DRM (Steam) can be an obstacle but it’s also there also to ensure integrity of the game files so that things just don’t get broken. Simply doing a verify cache will usually fix any broken/corrupt files. Not so sure on the VAC bans, I can’t imagine it worries too much about client side stuff that aren’t outright hacks but then I could be wrong.
The whole ‘official’ thing is something I never have been able to get my head around. The advantage of custom community-made content is the turnaround time on fixes and development. There’s no point making stuff officially sanctioned if I’m going to make it obsolete next week with a fix.
I’m more looking for a middle ground. The thinking is a way to give content a thumbs up by the developers thereby promoting it through the community but without the developers needing to get hands on with it, take it over outright or taking responsibility for it. IMO a lot of custom content fatigue results from sorting the **** from the ****hot. So lets drop the term ‘official’ and say a ‘Tapir Approved’.
And of course this shouldn’t impact things like updates on the maps/mods. The idea is to allow the quick freedom but minimise the choas.
So you make it a hall of fame? And then you get a whole bunch of people who won’t tread outside that implied seal of quality and urgh. Players need to get used to the idea that they’re the arbiters of quality, and that that means trying stuff out and helping to making bad content better until it’s good. Anything that damages that concept is going to cripple the development of custom content.
Yes this is a risk but I think a worthy one. There is nothing stopping SD from promoting some more obscure stuff and actually driving players to try something new. My point is I actually trust SD a bit more than a herd of players to pick something that doesn’t just satisfy a single need, do you know how often I run into infinite ammo, low gravity customer L4D2 servers? They’re frigging horrible and dull yet people actually build these things just because they can and I have to bump into them because they’re hiding amongst the generously donated third party servers which are quite normal.
I think things ETQW could have used (and some other rambling) are:
The ability to set a resource load list (like the addon.conf, but with custom scripts too) on the server as a temporary file. Instead of needing to assign a fixed campaign to trigger loads of all the resources and consolidate reloads, just let the server specify what it needs in an ickle temp file that you download when you want to connect.
Probably also have the loaded components of that file displayed on the server browser, maybe with some sort of hash, so when I’m viewing a server I can see what it has loaded.
Pure restarts are an issue. I guess it depends on what kind of in-game setup you want. Do you want to have people jumping between servers running different custom campaigns without hassle? Do you want people to be able to play different custom gametypes/modes without hassle? Ideally I’d be able to do both, without needing to reload the whole game every time I switch.
Modding tools need to be available asap, if possible on/slightly before launch, so people can hit the ground running. Strong example files/prefab resources are very handy for getting stuff out quickly early on.
The game needs a critical mass of players willing to try custom content. That means the game needs to have staying power sufficient to hold a large enough userbase as the custom content scene grows and gets better. The comp scene is good for this, so maybe do that hardcore thing this time round.
And yeah, /ignoreskin /ignoresoundpack options.
Don’t disagree with this. Things need to be easier, clearer and not break the experience. I think a few points are unique to ETQW and hopefully something SD can address as they build up a new game on a new engine. Seems they’re sold on being a service driven developer, so they’ll need a service delivery game before they even think about actual gameplay.
I’ve had a steam account since it was beta, though I stopped using it for years. More recently I’ve been using it for Sonic Generations and Deus Ex:HR.
It’s still annoying, but Sonic is fab enough to offset the inconvenience.
[QUOTE=SockDog;398296]The point was more that there needs to be a way for the game to show content, allow it to be rated by users, given some kind of seal of approval by the developers and never ever need for you to leave the game to download, install or remove it.
<snippety>
I’m more looking for a middle ground. The thinking is a way to give content a thumbs up by the developers thereby promoting it through the community but without the developers needing to get hands on with it, take it over outright or taking responsibility for it. IMO a lot of custom content fatigue results from sorting the **** from the ****hot. So lets drop the term ‘official’ and say a ‘Tapir Approved’.
And of course this shouldn’t impact things like updates on the maps/mods. The idea is to allow the quick freedom but minimise the choas.[/quote]
If SD are doing what I think they’re doing, and they really do decide to make a PC FPS as a long-lasting project and continue to develop it, then this sort of thing might work out. It strikes me as kinda risky, though.
[QUOTE=shirosae;398297]I’ve had a steam account since it was beta, though I stopped using it for years. More recently I’ve been using it for Sonic Generations and Deus Ex:HR.
It’s still annoying, but Sonic is fab enough to offset the inconvenience.[/quote]
Not to get into a Steam “discussion” but have you experienced these problems recently. I think they’ve improved a fair bit since way back when.
If SD are doing what I think they’re doing, and they really do decide to make a PC FPS as a long-lasting project and continue to develop it, then this sort of thing might work out. It strikes me as kinda risky, though.
AAA games are kinda risky too and as we’ve seen they’re peppered with compromises and restrictions. SD may have set themselves up with Brink but I’ve seen, as predicted, comments on the Rad Soldiers news pieces talking about how people felt burnt by SD or that they don’t trust them again. They took a pretty big hit in the credibility department there. I know they can spring back.