Hi everyone,

I am excited about Voxatron, checking blog everyday, looking forward to alpha and I have a question regarding that matter.
But firstly, let me note that I am from Czech republic, have learned my english at school and on the internets, so sry if I hurt you language sensibilities.

Voxatron is undoubtably a game with potential. I think that the difference between it being a great and godly game could be in the approach to user content.
You see, the posibility to create your own worlds is probably the reason many of us are here, but this function has two problems, that are usually not widely acknowledged.
First is, that there are not that many people, that are willing to create a thing so big and devote so much time to it, that it is really worth downloading by others. The second problem is, that there usually is still so many of these people and their great mods, worthy of playing, that the field is very fragmented and orientation is difficult, more so because some of the mods are the wishes fulfilling kind, that are not making the game anymore challenging or interesting.

I saw this situation in the Fallout 3 and vegas modding communities and I think that it is a expression of a general function. The problem here is preciselly in the fact, that each modder is there on his own and can only pull off a project of certain size. Also ordinary people would love to make a few maps, but are not going to finish big projects. And I see that the biggest loss are the people, that would love to devote themselves to a certain element - lets say map building, but are not interested in others, scripting and vice versa.

I do not think this is necessary. I think we are by our human nature able to work in communities, I think many of us like more to take part on a huge work, than doing ourselves something mediocre. Why did we not than already, unite in any way, on other occasions? The problem is in distribution of authority. Basically, there is a need for somebody that would make this happen, take care of the project and responsibility, manage the people, someone to become the authority on this.
The feeling of entitlement to authority comes from two things. Either from your certainty of ability, earned by experience in the field, that makes you someone who knows what he talks about, or by being a bit naive and submitting to your ambitions, blind to the problems and responsibilities. But people who have the first kind of authority do not usually aspire to lead, because it is really not worth it in the end.

And even if they wanted to lead a bigger project, they still feel to be on the same level as others with same amounts of experience and so the field is still a ecosystem of competing works.

Words like authority and management sure sound lifeless and no fun at all, but they do not have to be. In this instance I think there could exist a hierarchical system of management, that would be fun for everyone and would allow even a guy that wants to devout fed dozens hours to playing with the editor a chance to be a part in a big work, widely played, a small part, but still a meaningfull one.

Because playing with editors is fun, but in the end it feels a bit meaningless, if you do not reach the level of complexity, that makes it interesting for others.

The solution of the problem lies in an act, performed by the creator of the game, the highest authority, that would divide the responsibilities between people that want them and give them official support. Only by this act, there could be an effort, to make something that stands alone above others, even if wacky and chaotic and strange. the point should be moving the competition into the work and limit it, instead between projects. The point should be making one chaotic user created project, instead of users creating singular projects in chaotic unregulated environment.

The only challenge is to invent such regulating frame, so that it ensures maximall efficiency of integration of user submitted work, while leaving maximum freedom to imagination and intentions of the user.

I in no way suggest, that people should be dettered from working on their own project. The whole point is creating a environment of work on singular project, very helpful and open to newbies, so there would be a chance to make your work count and supported from official authority, so it would grow quickly and could become a leader and growing project.

The idea of freedom in creating has its limits, it can be a misleading one. We are never fully free, we are humans limited by our abilities and time and other things. We can only feel the joy of accomplisment only if our work is meaningfull. The intention of leaving maximum freedom to the users is noble, but would be a waste not to give a meaningfull alternative to those, who do not need really that much freedom, that need help but can also help others. It would be a waste not to send a message that if you want, your work of any kind is welcome in an official project under the management of experienced people, for a price of abandoning a bit of freedom you can not really use.

There are numerous question about how this structure of work would be best organized, but there is something that has to be made clear first.
The official support is necessary. I do not think, that I am a person that could pull this off even with it. So the problem has to be understood, acknowledged and dealt with, or judged as unimportant and forgotten about. The responsibility/authority is held by the author of the game.

And so, this is my question. How will the user submitted content work? Completelly free of organization? Is it a good idea?

Hi Oldow

Thanks for the interesting post. I should start by saying I have no idea how this whole Voxatron lark is going to pan out, but as a general strategy I'll roll out features gradually (including BBS features), see how people use them and what's needed, and use that to inform the direction of the project. The first release will allow players to make static models and them in a map along with standard (not-redefinable) monsters. There's still a lot you can do with that, but it seems like a relatively straightforward place to start.

So, here's my current take on how this will work:

How to create stuff that is worth others downloading

I don't think Voxatron levels need to be particularly large or sophisticated to be enjoyable. On the simple end of the scale, I'd group it with designing levels for Lode Runner or Arkanoid. It's possible to draw in some walls, sprinkle some monsters in and it will still be fun.

I think it's valuable to have a large number of quirky, personal, rough levels & models kicking around. That's the kind of kindling that culture feeds on. So I don't want to do anything to make that more invisible than it needs to be. To start with I won't have any kind of rating system, but will instead feature levels and hope that other users will pick out selections of levels they find interesting.

How to focus on a particular type of thing

There are two ways to share things in Voxatron. You can post individual objects (or sets of them), and whole levels. So if you're only interested in designing models it's completely fine to ignore the rest of the game and post just the models as if you were posting pixel art or something. The same goes for monsters later on -- it will be possible to script and/or draw the frames of animation for a monster and post just the monster. In all cases, the file format is a png that shows a large render of any object inside the file, so you don't need other player to actually load it in the game to get the idea across.

How to structure contributions to larger projects. And about freedom/authority

First of all, I think it's totally possible for one person to make something amazing. It doesn't take long to build stuff out of low resolution voxels. But I do hope that some interesting collaborations will happen and will try to support that process.

There are two roughly categorisable ways that collabs happen, and I think it's totally possible to have both of them:

1. Unplanned (bottom up)

Person A makes a bunch of plant models just for fun. Person B makes a bunch of animals with characteristics behaviours scripted in. Person C likes the behaviours but doesn't like the programmer art, and makes nicer animations for them. Person D makes a zoo. Person E forks the development of the zoo and adapts it as a scene in their zombie survival level.

The things I need to do on my end to allow this to happen are to make the different components shareable (as I described above), and resolve any issues of authorship and reuse. For the later, I'll make it a requirement of posting on the BBS that the content is released under a creative commons license with no attribution required (but expected as a common courtesy).

2. Planned (top down)

This is where someone or a small group has a particular vision and recruit people to implement it. In this case, I think it's totally up to the people involved how they want to proceed. They can do it privately, sending png resources back and forth, or post them to a WIP sub-forum to show their progress. The WIP content and final post would be subject to the same CC license and reuseability as in 1.

TLDR:
Organisation will happen mostly implicitly, I'll evolve the game & BBS tools to helps this process, and try to keep everything shareable and reuseable as possible.

Question

I guess the question for any players is how you feel about submitting any content under a creative commons license. Too strong? It would be just for anything posted on the BBS -- otherwise it's totally possible to develop a Voxatron level and sell it as a separate product, for example.

Interesting posts, here's my 2 cents:

I think you should have a certain censorship to content. Especially since it would be so easy to create various types of models and levels. Maybe follow a loose version of review-and-rating whereby submitted works are either 'approved' or 'pending' (split by download location). Approved content will be safe for you and me and kids, pending works are to be used at the user's own risk.

Regarding larger scale/combined efforts. You could use the unplanned approach and on occasion submit a themed competition which will garner a small group of individuals to collaborate and achieve specific content in a specific direction. Example: Best "Blue Moon Jungle Map" will get featured in the next update.

A creative commons license for officially approved content does make sense. Commercial 3rd Party mods?, sure, why not.

yeah, I see what you mean lexaloffle, its probably better, to let it go freely its own way. The community will surelly develop measures to cooperate and create a rich culture.

Its only that this thought of creating a frame, that makes users contribute to the richness and functionality of the game itself has been bugging my mind for a long time. It would mean taking the position of a leader too, ordering people around and I guess it is not that nice idea in practice, because it feels just too much as a manipulation. I know it is not worth it. But I think the generall idea is worthy of our thoughts. One person can make a great game. But what would happen, if some aspects of the game were made by all users (theoretically, not here)?
The open culture of contributors has its problems, but in the end is probably more enjoyable. I believe, it will accomplish great things.

Thank you for your time, and clear answers. I like how you combine in a whole of your personality an imaginative and analytical principles, making wonderfull colorfull dragons and then describing stuff in such analytical clearness. Not very often to see, much luck with your work. I feel terrible for keeping you away from coding. Thanks for this inspiring piece you are making.

Raxar - can you imagine anything offensive, anything hurtfull, that is made in the engine of voxatron? Remember we are on the internets, porn is all the time just two clicks away, much worse things lurk in the darkness. If people submit stuff, there will be great things and there will be lame/very simple testing things. It would be good to have a tool to recognize, but I do not thing it should be censorship, I believe community can manage this on its own.
Also to your second suggestion. What would it be for? So you would have few great maps on a certain topic and it would be fun, as contests use to be.
Now, what if there was instead something like - guys, I have a great great story written by mr. A. Writer, we need these locations - a desert, bedroom....plus creatures - an evil teapot, schizofrenic giant pencil... and now whoever makes the best gets implemented.
So you would have a number of such contests you are proposing, but for a purpose of a story. I think project like that would be neat and the community would be able to make anything really, any great project with ingenuity, care and awesomness, if the game gives tools. Now, imagine that you have a good writer and make the story super long, like a character escaping from prison, going through different adventures. And you do one chapter a month. In a year, this thing is freaking huge. Then you could sell it (we suppose its organized by owners of game), its almost all comunity work, you could donate the money to charity and everybody is happy. I agree that including comunity work in the updates would be a great way to promote the creative character of the game. The possibilities are endless.

So far the game focuses around the main character but essentially this voxatron game could become a universe of sorts. Now that im very much into drawing pixel based 2d retro games i can see that drawing in voxels will be like stepping through the looking glass. If your engine is totally solid then i would happily work with the voxatron engine as a game engine. This is what dreams are made of. If eventually we get to make monsters, characters and objects then it becomes like a giant non-fixed universe. Its definitely mindblowing.

Even if thats a wee way off i hope one day i get to make a fishy blo0wing bubbles :D