User Submitted content?

Development
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Hi there!
Symbol Here

I know this has been discussed before, but i figured we should do one again (for the sake of being updated and stuff)

As some of you know, Tony talked about how he’d love to have (it seemed to me like he did) a way for users/fans to submit small changes to the game like fixing typoes of submitting models and code.

I guessthees kind of things ae always somewhat lingering in everyon’s mind, and lets try to get our opinions out

First of all, lets see some Pro’s and Con’s

Pro —

1: it will speed up development
Since the users are contributing by fixing and adding content(under the Dev’s moderation) it will reduce the workload the Devs have to go though and will speed up progress

2: diverse&quality content
There are a lot of people that will contribute, and if so, collectively, they will create more diverse and creative content (more content)

3: engagement
Fans and Users that are able to directly contribute to the game will likely become more and more engaged (generally a good thing)

Cons: —

1: Legal issues
Though likely thees issues will be pre-announced and be alerted to the submitter there’s always a possibility of something going wrong

2: Dominance
Some ‘more experienced’ ceatores might take a big upper hand in the content creating realm and discourage new creators from chiming in (this could also discourage mod creators)

3: Too much content
Besides the fact that there could be way too many submissions than to be evenly looked at; content that wern’t pland from the beginning, when there’s a lot of it, could become hard te balance (some becoming useless or over-powered)

There’s probably more than that on bolth sides, but for now; that’s all i can think of
So do comment with more of eithe if you have any
And let’s really dig into this subject since it’s really a big thing

Me? Personally i support this kind of content submition
If i’m correct, ‘Trove’(another voxel game) took user created models for the weapons and i belive also skins and i’m not noticing any big issues there (not that i’ve played the game recently)

But besides that, i belive that if the risk is small enough; it’s worth taking some potentially brilliant submittions in the cost of the little risk.

This isn’t like a Vote thing
At the end; it’s the Devs that make the call
But it’ll be good the share our opinions

Pleas do leave your opinions as replies and let’s dig into this subject!

Symbol Out!

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Hey @Hyrule_Symbol, thanks for posting this. I’ve seen some back and forth on this topic, and thought I’d muddy the waters with my own two cents by responding to some of the points.

The Diverse and Quality content is probably a bit optimistic.
Certainly there will be some UserGeneratedContent which is of particularly stellar quality, and we will all love it, but as pointed out in your Cons section, even if they aren’t allowed into the game, there will also be a lot of crappy submissions, which Radiant will have to weed through, looking for the gems. This is not as much effort as making it all themselves, but it is still extra work. Additionally, one of the big issues we may face down that path is inconsistency. Even quality mods can be done in different ways, and we should expect to encounter some frustration in things working differently between a particular UGC versus another.

To the Engagement, I agree wholeheartedly. Giving fans the ability to directly contribute significantly improves engagement and retention. Over the course of my career, I’ve seen at least a dozen games survive long after the developer went belly up (Hopefully not Radiant’s fate :frowning: ) due to their strong mod communities.

Regarding legal issues: One of the big objections I’ve heard is how it is ethically questionable to take and use someone’s work without paying them. Let me address this with a few points
A: There is no moral dilemma if someone voluntarily gives you code. It’s called a gift, and you need not pay for it.
B: If you modify someone else’s code base, that code belongs to them. That’s how IP works, the license you have, to play the game and view the code, retains ownership over derivative works. So if you fix a bug, you are giving them your time certainly, but the code is already theirs.
C: The only legitimate complaint is from the viewpoint of the job seeker, as in “Isn’t it taking work away from someone that Radiant could hire” And from a Union standpoint that’s an excellent argument. So that will mostly boil down to do you believe in Unions? But either way I would point you to my final point:
D: Testers… think about that for a bit.

To everyone complaining about user submitted bug fixes cheating someone out of pay, what do you think you are doing by even playing an Alpha game? Did you forget that QA Testers are part of the development cycle? Either have some integrity and boycott open Alpha/Beta testing on all games, or sit down and shut up.

I personally have no issue with it as long as the expectations are clear. I am okay not getting paid for my testing or any other contributions because I feel the value I get back is worth my time.

Moving on, To the Dominance issue. I agree this could be a problem, however I think we can counteract it to some degree by working on some solid Modding workshops, to teach interested people in an interactive way how to make new content. Not sure where to get that rolling per se, but I think that would help a lot.

General Disclaimer: I am not God, and am occasionally wrong :slight_smile:

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i like the idea of more things getting into the game sooner, but there are still many problems as to how that would be made.

For trial, i suggest a vote system where the players can submit game assets, code changes and other things, and the players vote if they want that implemented on the game.

For start i would like to see the system starting with easy to do things like new buildings blueprints for the design tools, and after some time, if that works other things can be put to vote too

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im on memige site ^^ if someone volunteer to help its complete ok to take his stuff. for your info because of seek gems under all items … thats correct but also easy to take … Polls :wink: like for example my old thread which mods should be constantly ingame :wink: a list of mods a poll and when the creators say it ok - fin :blush:

http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/mods-that-should-be-added-to-stonehearth-as-standards/16822

the list could be maked wiki so that everyone can add a mod under the exisiting list ^^

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Fair enough, offloading the vetting itself to the community (ala greenlight) could certainly take the strain off of the Radiant team

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As far as i saw the system when i added the mods even the some core things likes rayas children are used trough a modfile. Soi guess its a good way to go when creating content.

I think i totally like the poll way as it shows what people would like the most.
I hope that they will do such a thing in some point.

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Alright, so I watched @Ponder’s stream last night (not live), and I was very excited to hear that he is open to the possibility of this. There has been some great discussion thus far, but I think we need to separate this into two distinct discussions. I believe there is a big difference between bug fixes and new content, and each point deserves different discussion.

##Bug Fixes
Let me start off with I am 110% in favor of a system that allows users to submit bug fixes to Team Radient. As was brought up on the stream, many times the error is quite minor, and the fix is immediately clear to anyone who is remotely familiar with the code. Something like @Beatrice’s fix for the misplaced voxel in the fine comfy bed, or a typo in the en.json file in locales, (or the example last night of a missing default animation) - these are things that aren’t adding anything major to the game, are easy for the devs to review, and simple to merge into the code base.
###How to accomplish this?
This is the part that needs greater discussion. I think the best way (my opinion here) would be to make the non-engine components of the game public on Github (ie. anything that ends up in a smod when the game is compiled) and allow users to submit Pull Requests. In order to submit a Pull Request, TR could require users to sign some type of CLA (Content Licencing Agreement) that makes it clear that they are contributing the code of their own free will, acknowledge that they will not be paid, and waive their IP rights to the code. Then a user could submit a Pull Request, TR can review, communicate with the user if necessary, and then merge right into the code base.

If this is to work well, there would need to be clear documentation on how to submit code/models, what is accepted, and coding/commenting styles (to keep everything consistent). I think a great example of a project that uses this method (and does so with success) is Discourse (the forum software we are using right now).

###Performance Improvement/Fixes
This area sort-of falls under Bug Fixes, but is a bit greyer of an area. While a bug fix will generally have a clear and concise solution (move voxel over by one, remove typo in json file), performance related stuff can be a bit more subjective. Additionally, some of the needed fixes might fall into C++ code that is part of the engine, and thus not viewable on Github. I would tend to say this is not an area users should be touching too much, better to write up a detailed report in the #support:performance category.

##New Content
So this idea has been discussed at length before:
http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/idea-contribute-your-art-models-etc-to-stonehearth/16265?u=jomaxro
I think that new content should not have such a direct route into the game as bug fixes does. If a user wants to add something to the game, they should follow the existing route and make a mod. If the mod is popular among the community, it will likely be seen by the devs here on the Discourse. If they like it a lot, they can contact the user and ask if they can integrate it into the game. Should the user accept, credit will be given as such. If not, the devs are of course free to develop it themselves, and ideally would still give some acknowledgement to the original creator.

By keeping new content as mods, it helps avoid issues 2 and 3 from @Hyrule_Symbol’s post. There would be no “Dominance” as experience creators would continue to create mods as they see fit, and it would be up to TR to request integration if they want. It would also limit “Too much content” as TR would control the flood gates, not the users making the requests.

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for bug fixing: i think it should be the normal way like make a thread … or pm radiant (this is the way i usually use and this works very fine - but this could be because its me and they know me :wink: )

for the new content: we are on the same boat - because of this a poll and the community can decided if they like them or not :wink: but im pretty sure everyone wants to see the stonehearthcafe and brewerymod content ingame xD

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so @jomaxro has make my thread to wiki - so everyone can post now their beloved mods who should be ingame … if we have enough then we can make a poll :smiley:

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Thanks for this thread! We’ve been having a lively discussion here at Radiant HQ regarding just how (and when) we want to go about enabling community contributions of various sorts.

We have the beginnings of a plan… but we’re not quite ready to reveal all just yet. We’ll be back to you all soon with our approach.

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