Idea: Contribute your art/models/etc to Stonehearth?

As Long your mods will be added as normal stuff im statisfied xD

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And who said the opposite?

It’s true that at some point the thread derailed to something along a contest but that was just a reminiscence of our old modeling contests and because people also wanted to filter submissions somehow, but I don’t think it was actually a proposal, just a random idea “if” we got the chance to give our opinion on submitted models.

That’s true. I guess Yang will keep doing placeholder art for the moment :sweat_smile:

The thing is that they encourage us actively to use Stonehearth to our heart’s content; giving us the opportunity to submit models could cause the game to increase the gameplay faster (more entities → more content) and they could focus on adding the missing functionalities (e.g.: ranged combat). As you say, it’d probably be more time consuming for Tom, and the style should be maintained. (However, we have an exception: the 2D art will change considerably from now on, as Allie has really different style from Tom’s old splash screens).

The community is greatly involved with Stonehearth, but it’s difficult to please everyone (that’s why mods exist). I will stay neutral regarding this topic, as I can see the pros and cons easily, this is a good discussion. Worse case I guess devs can do a little test with limited “bounty board” (2 or 3 items). And depending on what they see they can decide to keep it with the idea or to stop.

Edit->Slight derailment:
1st) What does art / models / etc refer to in the topic’s title?
And 2nd) In the Kickstarter there were reward tiers that allowed to name or propose your own monster to the game, if my memory doesn’t fail me. Any news on those? Just curious.

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You are answering yourself! The problem is your “if”. A contest is just a very bad idea and should really being avoid.
And just to make it clear, it’s not that I don’t like contest, it’s simply because most people don’t have time or real interested to understand a specific style or art. A simple nightmarish (for SH) example would be a barrel; guess which one would win between a squared barrel and a rounded barrel? :confused:

And indeed concerning your Kickstarter interrogation, it’s true it would be unfair for someone who paid for such privilege to see someone who didn’t been able to do so.

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I think the idea of getting the community to contribute is a great idea.
I don’t think a prize/competition is needed.

Just the fact that your work has been included in the game is reward enough, and perhaps with a credit somewhere - that allows personal ego stroking and also for aspiring game developers, something to put on the CV that can be verified. A win:win all round.

Just keep the whole process as simple as possible, and keep the decision making on what gets included in-house, otherwise you open up a hornets nest of politics. How you reach that decision in-house, and if you want to reach out for a community opinion on some occasions, should be your decision and yours alone, and not something that ends up requiring pages of terms and conditions to be written / accepted nor opens you up to trolling from a disenchanted one or two.

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I agree with some of your points, @Froggy. But ironically, you’re bringing up a concept in music and culture I’m researching right now stemming back from Romantic traditions–it’s known as “immortalizing the ‘work’”. Essentially, it’s the concept that the ‘idea’ behind a work can never be achieved/met and that all attempts to produce it fail–it first seriously came around with Beethoven (does that make Tom Beethoven? That’d be kind of a neat story, actually).

But Tom himself has shown just how much his style’s constantly changing, even now. He’s always getting new ideas from the community, especially as seen in streams where we’re all giving him feedback and suggestions. It’s already a style that’s heavily influenced by the community, and that’s something to be proud of–it’s difficult to incorporate not only your own ideas into something, but numerous other people’s, many of which (such as myself) are not known beyond a name on the screen. That’s impressive.

By no means should such “bounties” supersede Tom and the team’s authority, and given what I’ve seen from them, I don’t think that would happen. They aren’t asking for everything in the gameworld, namely just a few pieces here and there. And if Tom wasn’t comfortable with incorporating other people’s items, I don’t think he would extend the offer (plus, Radiant had been already thinking about it prior to the concept being brought up).

And let’s not mince words, @Froggy. You’ve certainly captured a good deal of charm and appropriateness with your builds that wouldn’t feel too out-of-place in the Stonehearth world. Quite a few people have (@Pandemic also comes to mind). And honestly, there’s no guarantee that the style will stay exactly the way it is now–case in point, are we really going to have squared wheels just to reinforce the blockiness of Stonehearth? Sure, we’ve joked about it, but not only is that going to be harder to create in a “realistic”/useful way, and ultimately, I worry that people outside the joke will see and think it a limitation or flaw on either the game or the artist.

As a final statement: While fitting the style should definitely be encouraged, I don’t think the goal of such a contest should be “reproduction” of it–the strength of Stonehearth comes from its active developers and community. Be open-minded, but goal-oriented.

(and seriously, have a little more faith in your own work, @Froggy!)

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This thread has a lot of really good discussion, but there’s so much speculation. Why not just gather up a dozen or so models that need created, dump them in a sticky on the Discourse, and let people give it a shot? The worst that could happen is that there aren’t enough submissions or they are too low quality or they differ from the theme too much. If it looks promising, write up the legal “we own your stuff” jargon and formalize it a bit.

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@Atralane,

I’m still kind of newbie over here so reading your words, I probably miss how much Tom’s style have changed. But since I’m here, I’ve been quite astonished (and pleased because it’s courageous to go on a style that is not common) to see how Tom is straight on the subject of the squared design. Not only he is always commenting on this during his modeling sessions (see lately the oven) but the last models are confirming even more this design with for example the desert’s trees or with the weaver’ spinning wheel which is
 a square. So I guess the squared wheels where not a joke at all!

And with your last comment we see why this idea is naive and so bad. People will always discuss what should not be. On the contrary of what you pretend, a model for the official game must follow some strict rules, that’s part of the basic things to get a coherent world. Tom’s was talking about this with colors too and how the palettes should be coherent on a whole family of objects. And if you look closely the streams, you can note a few more rules like false shadows and lightnings.

On the contrary of the default game, mods are the place for liberty and creativity. But on this topic we are discussing official models. Let’s not mix things.

You say you worry about people seing this design as a flaw (a limitation would be stupid, who could imagine today a professional who could not daw and code circular stuff!), but you should not. A strong design is the guaranty to create a product different than the ocean of dĂ©jĂ -vu. So ok, it is much more confortable to do like everybody but doing this you will never shine. I, on my side, I’m confidant, TR is doing the right choice and from what I read, the feedback is very good.

PS : And really I don’t think Froggy have any faith problem in his capacity to product good stuff!

Yes, the spinning wheel is square, but older designs for actual wagons–wheels that need to be driven on–were shown to be circular. The fact that the spinning wheel isn’t having contact with the ground allows for more artistic liberty.

I mentioned people seeing something as a flaw or limitation because technically, Stonehearth is a crowd-funded game from a new team. Yes, Tom, Tony, and the others have experience working in the gaming market, but currently crowdfunded projects, Steam Greenlight, etc, are oftentimes negatively received due to a large market of ultimately poor-quality games or projects that never fully finish (Spacebase DF-9, Cubeworld, and Towns are a few examples that come to mind where the concept seemed promising but either fell apart or was too flawed to even work at its final state). It’s completely realistic to expect people seeing Stonehearth for the first time see a square wheel and think the team behind the game didn’t know what they were doing.

Actually, mods and the base game aren’t that far apart. Just look at @Froggy’s mod work and how closely it was involved with the game. If I’m not mistaken, the Cook was partially based off of his work (among a few other things). So “mods” aren’t as distant as you may think!

(Neither do I! the message was meant as earnest reassurance etiquette, considering his talk about “failing to meet the style”.)

I’d love it to be like this–sweet and simple. We’re not looking for Tom’s successor!

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I kinda think that is why He left it so open ended. So that way they could get a feel if this would be a good thing, or more hassle than it’s worth.

TBH I would tackle this whole thing in a different way -

Have TR just pick a handful of ppl that have a good grasp of thing’s and how the Team works and be done with it.

Off the top of my head I would pick 5 or10, Give them a list and have them go at it, Make someone available from TR to answer questions if needed (mumble or skype or what not), Sign this if you agree to the terms.

Give a Extra special thanks in the credits
 Done!

No different then having private testers really


Yeah, This is different than my initial post. That post was commenting on everything that was being discussed and just having a unlimited amount of ppl submitting art/models/etc,. ‘etc’ being the grey area it the Title of the post.

citizens needs ability to decide when they are not move , “where can i place ladder” they need to think this

I personally think it would be good for really basic items. Such as furniture, major game art should be left to Tom.

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I would totally be down for this! o.o

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Is there still any interest in this? I would definitely contribute.

Lol, I could see a little tinder-esque program for Team Radiant to view our submissions.

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