User created content?

[DeletedUser32389]

Many games have a system that lets players come up with additional content, I was curious how people thought that might work here. Yesterday I posted about how the watchtowers are ugly, and don't fit in with anything past the middle ages, yet I would hesitate to put redesigning them on any priority list for the developers...
What if the community could design them? I think we'd just need the max pixel dimensions for a 1x1, and a format for the designs to be submitted in. A player could choose to download and wear the new skins if they want to, but it's purely visual. Turn it off with a check box and reload your city and your back to default.
The first level of this idea would only work on PC, but if INNO liked the submissions and decided to work them into the game they would become standard for everyone across all the platforms.
Again, it's not something that I would ask inno to do, more like something that we ask if they can open up to the community. Allowing people to make their own building art, in addition to the city planner, would yield some very creative results around the world.
They could also hold design competitions here on the forum. Any opinions?

 

[DeletedUser]

Well, my first thought is one of recognition. Right now, if I visit a city, I can see at a glance what each building is and what it does. (After learning enough about the game, of course.) While uniformity can be a little boring at times, imagine going to cities each having the same building with a completely different design. Utter chaos. And Alabaster. Don't forget the Alabaster.

 

[DeletedUser32389]

Well, my first thought is one of recognition. Right now, if I visit a city, I can see at a glance what each building is and what it does. (After learning enough about the game, of course.) While uniformity can be a little boring at times, imagine going to cities each having the same building with a completely different design. Utter chaos. And Alabaster. Don't forget the Alabaster.

When you visit their city you wouldn't be able to see the skin they have loaded, that would only show up through their personal load on their computer. For you to be able to see their skin you would have to download it yourself, otherwise it would clog the games load order (every skin that everyone ever made) That said, if someone showed you a screenshot and you liked it you could download the skin and play with it for a while.

Also, because of the way this game works, I think any skin you have loaded would also show up in the cities of people you visit, as long as they have the requisite buildings

 

[DeletedUser29623]

Aren’t most mods made for games whose designers release their code? Inno doesn’t do that, probably because it would become too easy to rig things like FPs and diamonds

 

[DeletedUser32389]

Aren’t most mods made for games whose designers release their code? Inno doesn’t do that, probably because it would become too easy to rig things like FPs and diamonds

That's a valid point. This is for the visuals only, and in games these are saved separately from the engine that drives the math (and the sales)
The art files that define what the buildings look like are separate from the programming concerning what the buildings do, if that makes sense.

Picture a multi-layered PNG file. Each layer is a frame in an animation, and those frames repeat in a loop. This is how the animations for the buildings are built (in a nutshell). You can edit these source files without effecting how the game plays.

 

[Falconwing]

It seems like a whole lotta effort for a whole lotta nuthin, especially if no one but you can see the buildings new skin.

 

[DeletedUser32389]

It seems like a whole lotta effort for a whole lotta nuthin, especially if no one but you can see the buildings new skin.

All art is pointless to those that don't create or enjoy art... or is it?
Games like Skyrim have outlasted any predictions of their playable age with a great deal of credit being given to user created content.
Young people that are interested in games can be intimidated by where to start on building such a large endeavor. Games that allow the players to create in game assets create a spring board for these creative types, and propel them with confidence into the industry.

This is a question that I would pose to an Arbiter: does the code as it stands allow for asset replacement? Right now the game is completely incased in your browser, this whole idea would rely on loading (small) files from your local drive when the game starts up.

 

[DeletedUser22283]

Allowing (and of course, monetizing) user created content is a great sign that devs are willing to build a cooperative relationship with their player community. There are always 2 big hurdles to overcome in making this happen:
1) employee time must be spent creating the UI (or exposing the UI) for content creators and players to submit and/or utilize player created content
2) increased vulnerability to malicious activities must be anticipated and countered

It's the 2nd issue that plagues ALL games with exposed game/data files to the community. Those with high skill will datamine, possibly creating headaches for the devs by revealing info that they didn't intend for the community of players to know. Dataminers open the way for those with malicious intent to create loopholes, glitches, bugs, flaws and use them for selfish purposes.

Besides this, many MMOs would require months of effort to create a development pipeline that would incorporate user created content -and all they'd get in return is an unknowable chance that they could monetize the new content for the small percentage of players that want it in their game.

tldr; high risk, low reward

P.S. I'd love to swap out the art for many of the buildings in the game, if that was an option.