User created content in FFXI.

[Akashimo]

Re: User created content in FFXI.

Akashimo, I wasn't talking literally sarutabaruta, I was talking about size and scope. This would be a dreamworld, the imagination, something which would be fiction inside fiction. Nothing in it would be real (or canon, obviously)-- none of the stories would explain anything in any sense more than fan fiction.

Would be good to see either way, long as its something new and makes it worth seeing.

[Prons]

Re: User created content in FFXI.

What about a maze where you're forced to play as a level 70 RDM and if you chose the wrong teleporter you have to fight maat?

[Ziero]

Re: User created content in FFXI.

That does sound like fun to see happen.

Few areas, NMs, and random items I want to see more of a history of would be; Gunsen Mines and why Juggler is in there, learning the details that is written within a Fomor Codex, reason behind Manipulator and the Dolls Gizmo you can steal from him, more info than what was known already about the mobs and NMs that inhabbit Sea and their relation to that after the war with the wyrms, and lastly what purpose does a region control in Sky serve, and what does the 4 nations know about it?

But you wouldn't learn anything about any of these as anything created in these user made things would be fan-fiction at best.

The only way I could see this working is if A) The downloadable dungeons are a single "Zone" and not too large (you could easily make multiple different areas in a single zone to give the feel of multiple zones). B) It was instanced content limited to single parties (the more people you have the more stress on the system) C) People could only make one zone at a time (again, you could easily put your lake house in one corner and a dungeon in the other and D) Most, if not all, of the graphics used to make these areas are pre-rendered graphics that you pick, choose, arrange and re-arrange to make a unique area.

The best comparison I can think of is the RPG maker for PS1. You could easily do multi-tiered dungeons, completely different landscapes, various towns and building and the like all on one file. You could still have all the NPCs and Mobs and Events and flags needed to build a storyline within this created world, and it would be spacious enough for numerous different environments, but it would still be compact enough for people to upload and download with minimal difficulty.

And just for the record, I think the annual art contest is a great thing from SE and I wish they did something similar for the males during the feast of the swords.

[Kitalrez]

Re: User created content in FFXI.

I think we should probably record this for posterity: I find Feba's trust in humanity disturbing and misplaced. Yeah, I didn't think I'd ever admit that either.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I can't buy your argument, I've seen too many user created levels and scenarios to the contrary. If there isn't some system for taking really bad ones away, I think it'll cause more problems than we can afford to make this idea workable. Banning's a solution, but we've gotta take GMs away from other problems to implement it. It already takes a long time to go from report to action, I don't see where this would be different. There needs to be some system in place that allows for weeding out, however.

The major reason I'm advocating expiring content is that you know for certain when a given scenario would be down. If you're the author, this allows you to implement all your fixes at once, rather than having to do them on the fly. In Ryzom, you had to ask people to leave the scenario, wait for them to do so, password protect it so no one else logged in, take the thing down, implement fixes, and reupload it. This was kind of an annoying process if you were running the thing more than a few hours a night. It sounds like we're going for scenarios you don't have to be online to run, that implies more work on the writer's end. You don't really know who's going to play all the way through and tell you about bugs or inconsistent dialogue and who's just going to rate the scenario down and head onto the next one. It would be nice to have some level of certainty as to when you could/should update a given project.

[Feba]

Re: User created content in FFXI.

If there isn't some system for taking really bad ones away, I think it'll cause more problems than we can afford to make this idea workable.

Alright. So explain to me how a system to report such things to GMs, combined with the ability to choose what to delete and when to delete it, AND the ability for SE to delete area packages remotely when they're banned isn't "some system to take really bad ones away".

Ziero, I had thought about using a tile system, and premade parts, but that would really be a huge loss in the system's capabilities. That should be an option, a way for those of us who aren't so good with graphics to use, so we can make our areas and tell our stories; but we shouldn't limit those who can do it. We'd lose too much.

If the author wants to make changes to their area, it would be much simpler to simply give them the option to delete it, automatically kick everyone out (we already do this with BCNMs, dynamis, assault, etc. it would be very easy to do it here) when it's deleted, and let them reupload it later. That's far less annoying to the artist/author than anything you've proposed. If I want to fix a major continuity problem in my storyline, why should I have to wait two weeks because my thing is popular, and in that time so many people wander across it that I become a laughing stock? And if I have a very small program that doesn't have any glitches, why should I have to reupload it every week?