User Generated Content Suggestion

[Athracht]

Howdy, Cmdrs!

A quick idea for something that I would love to do, and I imagine I wouldn't be alone. It would be cool if we had some sort of portal where we could submit our own player-recorded radio chatter. Would be a way for Frontier to flesh out the atmosphere a bit with little overhead, and a chance for us player folk to get something into the game. Frontier could even provide scripts for us to record for submission. Just the run-of-the-mill chatter we hear near stations and such. Maybe recordings could even be bound to given stations or systems. Think of the variation in voices and accents (and languages!) it could bring into the experience. Would be fun to hear fellow Cmdrs making landing requests and so forth. It might make the world feel a little more inhabited!

Just my 2 yen!

Straighten up and fly right,

Athracht
o7

 

[AdmiralXanos]

I'd be happy if they allowed us to write up some new coms dialog. Add some variation to the empty hold remark or alternatives to the wedding barge. but yeah voice chatter would be cool also.

 

[hradec]

Hi there... i'm Hradec (Cmdr Hradec)! I'm new here (being playing elite for a month now), but this is something that really interests me and I like to give my 2 cents!

Such a feature would require extra arms (actually ears lol) at Frontier to "triage" the submissions and decide what can or cannot go into the game. That means some budget needs to be allocated to support that, so user content is not as "free" for the company as one could imagine. Actually can be quite problematic and time consuming!

Imagine a game like "Super Mario Maker", which is a game made for users generate content. Most of the user submitted content is totally utter garbage!! Nintendo has people to triage the content and select the best ones to show as suggestions when you want to play, and even those sometimes can be awful! Granted that are a few gems there... really well done stuff that looks like professional levels... and others that are completely unexpected and genius, like levels that actually play music instead of gaming! Those gems are amazing since users are creating things that Nintendo didn't even imagine... and that's really awesome!

Off course, "Super Mario Maker" is a game designed for user content creation, and there's no "big picture" in it... anyone can do anything and it's fine! Elite is different... Frontier has a story behind the game (which in my humble opinion is pretty cool), so if they let users create content, it must be carefully checked to make sure its not pollution, which would actually make things worse!

Having said that:

1. Frontier could pick and choose actual players that are really interested in create "proper" content, and give "submission permission" for just then. Something like users with special privilege flag in the system which, essentially, means they are trustworthy, and don't require much supervision. The cons of this approach is that you end up with a limited number of contributors, the triage is waaay less but still exists, and a lot of new people who could add constructive content to the game, may not be able to.

2. Frontier could allow anyone to send material, but put a vote system in place, so players could actually flag content which doesn't contribute to the cinematic! That way anyone can do it, but if a certain number of player vote against it, it's dropped from the game.

personally I like the 2o. option... it requires some budget to develop the submission system, the pipeline to integrate the content in the game automatically, and the voting mechanics. But after that, it virtually doesn't require "triage" done by Frontier. It would become "By the user, for the user" content!


I think Elite could benifit a lot from user content. There's tons of people who loves the game, and would love to contribute, which would enrich the game tremendously!


Beyond just audio:

I would love to see some cinematic tools released. Frontier probably have the tools to create in-house cinematics, like the comander's chronicles they did some time ago. I would LOVE to see some tools to allow cinematic content creation like that!

People is already creating beautiful content on youtube by just crudely recording gameplay... imagine if they could setup predetermined camera shots, cuts, dolly and pan movements to the camera. Imagine if they could access the content they already encounter in the game to setup those shots... like planets, thargoids, other ships, stations... imagined if they could position those "assets" in place, choose the animation they want and synchronize that in a timelime with the camera movents... imagine if they could setup animation clips for they own hollowme (from a few pre-animated ones), so when the camera shoots then (the hollowme), it would "act" like they want...

And after all that, you could save, open and export your little cinematic to mp4/mov to edit, add effects, audio, music and upload to youtube!

Just imagine the beautiful content we would see...

It's just being able to make videos like minecraft players do using minecraft engine and assets!

my 2 cents!

cheers...
-H

Ps: sorry it got so long... But I've worked in the game industry and currently in the VFX industry... I'm very passionate about content and creation!

 

[Athracht]

Great input. Curation would indeed be a must, and that would put a burden on fdev, but I do think it would be a cool feature. I remember that some years ago, the "Radiolab" podcast put out their own phone app, which included a feature that allowed listeners to submit a scripted sponsor intro for use in the show opening. It was simple and seamless. It would be nice if Frontier could do something like that. But, honestly, I was imagining submissions by people like me, who have decent recording equipment and some experience with making sound clips and such. But I imagine that Frontier, like most game developers, have to-do lists and bug reports miles long and such a thing would be forever cooling on the back burner, if even considered. Just my own pipe-dream!

 

[hradec]

Great input. Curation would indeed be a must, and that would put a burden on fdev, but I do think it would be a cool feature. I remember that some years ago, the "Radiolab" podcast put out their own phone app, which included a feature that allowed listeners to submit a scripted sponsor intro for use in the show opening. It was simple and seamless. It would be nice if Frontier could do something like that. But, honestly, I was imagining submissions by people like me, who have decent recording equipment and some experience with making sound clips and such. But I imagine that Frontier, like most game developers, have to-do lists and bug reports miles long and such a thing would be forever cooling on the back burner, if even considered. Just my own pipe-dream!

I think you're onto something, really! It's clear that a game so HUGE like Elite needs more content, and it's not a surprise to me to see how much of the current content in the game seems "hidden" from new players like myself.

I was only able to find out about the guardians upgrades because I watched a youtube video!! That's not nice... I'm not the type of person who goes on youtube to find out how to quickly progress in a game. I like to enjoy, discover, figure things out by myself, etc. I'm old school.

I started watching youtube just because I like ObsidianAnt voice (man, what a deep voice that guy has! lol), but I was really surprised to see how everyone playing the game ended up finding out about those things (guardians, thargoids, etc). It makes me wonder how much content is just there, waiting to be found yet!

It would make a lot of sense to hear comments from other players about stuff they are finding IN GAME!

Maybe inside GALNET (which would make GALNET a MUST GO PLACE when you log in, opposite to what it is today... where you look there to get some aleatory information that may or may not indicate something!)

Although it will be some work, I think Frontier could benefit LOADS from it since it would be less frustration about content... and less weight on their back to provide it!

For example, a week ago I was destroyed in the Deciat system 3 times by some other players... I ended up switching to solo player just to finish some missions to get some credits. I would love to WARN everyone in the game about my experience in that system, at that time, so other newbies like me would be careful!!

Something like Lori drivers talking over radio about what they are encountering on the road ahead, so the drivers behind could be prepared!! How awesome would that be!!!

And in a "automatic voting system" as I suggested, that would be extra extremely useful content coming from players, helping other players, without the involvement of Frontier.

You known what? To make things even simpler, Frontier could actually add support inside Elite to watch youtube videos and to hear podcasts in Galnet!
So people recoding videos/podcasts to some service like youtube, twiter, etc; could add an extra TAG in their videos which Elite would use to filter in the media to show in Galnet! How cool would that be!

Frontier could actually generate a per/player pre-generated tag with an embeded key in it, which Elite would parse to make sure the content is coming from actual players... Then it can show on Galnet with the proper commander name. That way, Frontier can revoke the key if someone abuses (like spamming galnet with junk) and Elite wouldn't show content from that player anymore!

That way, instead of leaving elite to watch search and watch a youtube video about Elite, it's already there!!
You can add to your playlist and watch/hear it while you're waiting to get to that planet 115000Ls from the main star!! lol

Elite could play the video on the side of your ship dash, for example... a small little floating window, like a hologram screen, on top of your dash!! That would be fantastic!!!

The other day I was playing in VR, and had to take my oculus go off to watch Obisidian video on how to unlock the guardians upgrades. It was a "take it off, put it back... take it off, put it back" really annoying gaming session!! Not good!

Again... I really think you're onto something, matte! I hope Frontier is "watching" this thread!

Lets keep poking then!

or maybe we should write a plugin!! (I code for a living, but I have no idea if that's possible in Elite! lol)

cheers...