It seems a given that since human habitated space is so vast and diverse with many different cultures, that local manufacturing companies would come up with many different designs and patents each reflecting the standards and needs of their system. One problem though, 3D modeling and texturing is hard, hard work.
The artists who pour their souls into making the already impressive ships and weapons in this game can only make so many things in a set amount of time and with a limited budget sometimes corners have to be cut. This is perfectly understandable, but there is a method that has proven itself to work over the years.
Community collaboration.
Game companies both tabletop and vidya have demonstrated quite succesfully that if you have a community that loves its game, and you give them the opportunity to contribute to it, they absolutely will. This has already been semi-implemented in Elite Dangerous for some time now. Fan-writers have been contributing to ingame news both local and galactic, player guilds like The CODE, the Fuel Rats, and the East India Company have established themselves into the lore of the Elite Universe, and even single CMDRs have through gameplay made names for them throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.
But one method that has proven itself time and time again is community content creation. Give some talented hobbyists the right tools, a platform to upload their works to, and a simple moderation team to make sure everything's kosher and voila! You have a near endless source of talented volunteers to vastly improve the diversity of pretty much everything
To recap, heres exactly what I'm suggesting.
Thoughts and criticisms are welcome.
The artists who pour their souls into making the already impressive ships and weapons in this game can only make so many things in a set amount of time and with a limited budget sometimes corners have to be cut. This is perfectly understandable, but there is a method that has proven itself to work over the years.
Community collaboration.
Game companies both tabletop and vidya have demonstrated quite succesfully that if you have a community that loves its game, and you give them the opportunity to contribute to it, they absolutely will. This has already been semi-implemented in Elite Dangerous for some time now. Fan-writers have been contributing to ingame news both local and galactic, player guilds like The CODE, the Fuel Rats, and the East India Company have established themselves into the lore of the Elite Universe, and even single CMDRs have through gameplay made names for them throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.
But one method that has proven itself time and time again is community content creation. Give some talented hobbyists the right tools, a platform to upload their works to, and a simple moderation team to make sure everything's kosher and voila! You have a near endless source of talented volunteers to vastly improve the diversity of pretty much everything
To recap, heres exactly what I'm suggesting.
- A creation kit to create models and textures compatible with the game, or if not that then a list of third-party program that work instead.
- A platform either ingame or on the Frontier Website where custom contwnt can be uploaded for approval.
- A moderation team to make sure content does not contain offensive/NSFW imagery or malware.
- Custom content could include anything from cosmetic items/textures for ships both livery and exterior, different styles of clothing, architecture for stations and planetary outposts, and/or differing models of weapons that could either be different solely from aesthetics or perhaps have a semi-randomized set of stats to encourage CMDRs to explore planets to find out who makes the best shooty-sticks.
Thoughts and criticisms are welcome.