Valator Uel
Caldari
Pax Minor Asylum
Confederation of Independent Corporations
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Posted - 2006.09.20 03:22:00 -
[1]
I've only been here for about 6 months and I can't stop by being amazed at what some players actually do. All these pictures of ships, planets, tools etc etc are simply amazing! Problem is someone posts about them and after a couple of days that post is drowned by nerf, lag and general whining posts. All this talent lost and forgotten...
On the other hand some things ingame never change, or you don't have the option of changing them. I'm not talking about things that affect how the game is played (as per the EULA), but visual aspects of the game that have nothing to do with game mechanics. CCP is limited to about 115 staff (if I remember reading that correctly), but why not put all these talented player artists to work? There are parts of the game that, in my honest opinion, should be customisable as they do not give you any advantages what-so-ever over another player. Things like:
- System Backgrounds
- Planet and moon skins
- Station skins/models
- Gate skins/models
- User Interface (buttons, text)
- Module images
The easy part is telling players they can come up with new "sets" of images for the above mentioned points... with the enthusiasm and dedication that some go through we'll definitly be getting some quality material. All these players need is (I suppose, as I don't know how the coding of the client works) a set of rules, formats and other technical details to make these "sets". By sets I mean you need for instance 10 different background images before being considered for submitted material.
The harder part would be sifting through and then getting these into the client. A team of either existing staff, ISD or even a new group could quickly go through these and select what is good and what are from wannabe artists (like me). I'm sure a player (like Chribba *cough* *cough*) would be willing to make a website for this... if it is too much work for CCP ;) .
Once a few good sets are found "all" we need is an option on the client to enable an image set. If this is too much coding then what about us downloading a *.stuff file (I assume images are stored there) made by CCP? Such a file could be downloaded from a place like eve-files (heck, I got 400Gb/month doing nothing) to save CCP's bandwidth.
Yes, the EULA states we cannot modify the client but there are certain things that really don't affect how the game is played and don't give anyone an advantage, yet such modification(s) could actually enchance our gameplay while CCP continue doing what they are busy with. I can also imagine the artists at CCP not particularly being enthusiastic about having their work become "optional" but I hope I'm wrong here, as the community can gain a lot from this.
In short what I'm trying to say is that some harmless player submitted material would give EVE another "coolness" factor and once the framework for this is done CCP have very little to do - the rest is up to the players. I've just come from retiring from a customised Ultima Online shard and sometimes player submitted material is really worth the effort of going through creating such a system.
I don't expect a Dev response from this (although it would be really really really REALLY cool  ) but what do you artists and programmers think about this? Would some of you be willing to either create art sets, review them, make a website etc? How possible is this with the Python language (too many modifications or simple cut 'n paste)?
Give us some love CCP, don't ignore us like you ignore Amarr :P .
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