Hi Dark, Yes, very true. Expantion packs are definitely the way to go when it comes to developers continuing an existing product as well as giving them something to release between new products that may take months or years to create. there is also the personal aspect here to consider. This may seam a bit selfish to some, maybe, but I know a lot of developers don't really like end users drastically altering their games. Many have put in place encrypted sound files, don't include level editors, and other such methods of fully customizing the game or expanding it. This is probibly largely do to the fact that by allowing these changes anyone can replace the sounds, levels, enemies, and other such elements with their own creating something else never intended by the developer. Well, in my own way I am not all that different. I've been a huge Star Trek fan for my entire life, and have watched, read, and listened to just about everything Star Trek imaginable. As a result I have a vast amount of first-hand knowledge of the Star Trek universe. Coming from that background and perspective I want my own Star Trek game to stick to the Star Trek cannon as closely as possible. I would be extremely disappointed to download some user created missions that deviates from the Star Trek cannon, or download custom sounds for the game that wouldn't be true to the Star Trek series. For example, I can imagine someone replacing the sound of the Enterprise's phasers with the sound of the Defiant's phasers. Someone might really think that was totally cool. For me, though, I would find it a major turn off. I wouldn't like that at all. An issue like that would simply be a matter of personal preference, and since it is my game I would encurrage people not to alter my game in that way. However, if I leave it open to customization drastic changes in plot, sounds, whatever are bound to occur that I might not agree with or even like and therefore wouldn't necessarily want just anyone to change the game. However, I also see their side of the debate as well. A lot of gamers don't have an ounce of programming skills, and wouldn't even know where to begin in creating there own games. One way they can do this quickly and easily is by customizing an existing game. Although, it might not be a totally new game the soundpacks, new speech files, whatever can drasticly change the game and make it seam rather new. For example, a game like STFC might have all of the sounds, music, and speech files replaced with those for a Star Wars fleet simulator. A cool idea to be sure, but might not be how the original author imagined his/her game being used by the public at large. I myself would have mixed feelings about such an alteration to my game. Bottom line, as I see it level editors, mission parcers, etc are great ways to expand the game, but I've seen plenty of times where that ability can take the game in a completely different direction from the one intended. Either that or end users do something rediculous that the author of the game might not approve of. Case in point. Many of us have been big fans of Lone Wolf for several years, and I have personally been a fan of the mission parcer. However, there have been several missions, which I shall leave nameless, i thought were just down right stupid or rediculous. As a result I deleted them from my Lone Wolf folder and never intend to put them back on my system again. Others I really loved and play constantly. As a gamer I see the Lone Wolf mission parcer as a good thing and a bad thing. It is great when a really good mission designer comes along and creates good missions to play, and equally bad when someone puts together something that is basicly crap. By restricting the public from adding their own custom missions whatever to a game is a two edged sword. You certainly filter out all the crappy missions that might be created as well as some truly awesome missions. It is a hard decision to make.
Smile. On 6/11/10, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > While fan created missions wqould be nice, i'd be happy with you writing > expantion packs of say 10 missions each for the game and selling them as > extras myself provided that this would be possible with your various other > projects. > > As we've said before, expantion packs are a great way for a developer to get > the most out of one game, and for players to have a larger, more complex > experience playing.. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
