Noone learns about electrons by studying quantum mechanics initially. They usually start with a picture of electrons orbiting around the nucleus like planets around the sun. That's not a very accurate representation of where the electrons are, but it gets the conversation started. im guessing here but I would imagine that for every punk forum poster who threw EC in your face saying you were wrong, there were several others who followed your arguments about the topic with more understanding for having the issue presented to them in that format.
Oh, sure, for people who want to learn, it does serve as an entertaining and useful primer most of the time - I won't argue against that. But as a dev, the way it is presented does mean that I spend time a good amount of time explaining what they left out. And yea, sometimes they get something more from it, but it normally depends on whether the person was receptive in the first place and not whether or not they had watched an EC episode, so I can't really give them credit for that one. Still, if I had to choose whether EC exists, I think I'd prefer they do, because even if I am not 100% satisfied with this iteration, I think things like EC are valuable.
To derail this thread, here some theory-crafting: In 2009, I had the pleasure to play a WarCraft III map made by Jan Finis. The map is a great example of a concept I believe will be a major step in gaming industry: Open Innovation. Open Innovation means, that a game "stub" is provided, for which the users may submit new content (Finis 2009, p. 41). The bottleneck of game development is that creativity and time are limited resources. It is time-consuming to come up with interesting new content, and it is very time consuming to implement it. So, I think the future of gaming will be games, which are great to begin with (developers provide time and creativity) which allow the community to create new content (community provides time and creativity) I know there are some successful sandbox games, but, as far as I know, there is no successful high profile Open Innovation game yet. In other words, what I wish to see, is a moddable game, in which every good mod automatically (automatized or by authorization by the devs) becomes a part of the original game.
Minecraft is so extremely moddable that the modded extensions of various directions often have a diametral playstyle. I think that is even better than having one developing game: Instead of one-size-better-fits-all-or-else there is a plethora of games stemming from one root..
@Boozha: Minecraft is a great game, and certainly an inspiration. But as you said: It's a plethora of games, stemming from one root. I would prefer to have one single game instead, one world. Think a moment about who plays Minecraft. I admit I have never played it. But I have many friends who do, and I would say that none of them is a 'casual' gamer. They all spend a significant amount of time creating new content. I think, from a game developer's point of view, this kind of players would be a valuable resource if you could somehow encourage those players to create new content for your game, which would then be played by 'casual' gamers as well. @Ragic: Mhmmmm. I'm not perfectly sure. I was just in a mood for theorycrafting and what I said was just me envisioning the game I would like to make. For Pox Nora -- I think a map editor and a campaign editor would be a great start. Here some rough draft how a map/campaign editor could work: Campaigns cost 200 Owls, 2000 Gold. Creating your own Campaign costs n Owls, n*10 Gold (i.e. 200 Owls, 2000 Gold). Every player can purchase your Campaign for m Owls or m*10 Gold (i.e. 200 Owls, 2000 Gold). For every purchase, the creator of the Campaign is awarded some Gold.
Minecraft. Seriously. I don't personally play it but my brother does a lot so I've been seeing a LOT of mods and videos related to Minecraft. Minecraft seems great not simply because of it's base form, but because THERE ARE SO MANY MODS TO PLAY. Or ways to play a single mod. Also, to some extent, the Arcade feature in Starcraft 2 on Battlenet. Granted, these are not automated and they aren't forcibly integrated into the game, but I think it is better this way because it leaves the players with the choice of how to built them up.
Minecraft is the prime example of what I meant by "I know there are some successful sandbox games", but no casual game that allows the playerbase to improve it in a particularly meaningful way. Maybe I didn't express this well enough in my post. The map editor in WarCraft III was an important tool (DotA, LoL, Tower Defense Maps, etc.), but those maps are additional content -- not part of the content of the basic game. Modding is not the same as Open Innovation! Modding allows the community to take the existing game and allows them derive a variation of that game. What I would like to see is a system in which the community can actively help to enrich the basic game. Think of Diablo II. There were so many (great!) mods. See for example Median XL as an example for a mod with so much new content that it may be regarded as a game of its own. It still plays like Diablo in a way. Now imagine all mods together in one game: Dungeons and maps would tell new stories (there would be a narrative system to regulate what kind of stories you can tell -- in order to keep the world consistent); and there would have to be a system to keep all classes approximately balanced, etc.;
it seems to me a campaign/map editor would be the easiest and most obvious thing to add to pox.. the reason I asked for something further than that, is because I tried to envision a champ builder and how it would work. if you could build your own champs why would you need to buy theirs? would you only be able to mod champs you already own? how would others get to use it? so instead of finding my own way out of that forest I was hoping you had an idea about that already.
Its a great idea, but have you thought about rune art? And they would probably need to make a champion builder for players. And although fun, your idea would probably kill the lore (which isn't that prolific anyways, but still more original and better than many games' lores). It would be just awesome to put the ideas I (as in every pox player) have in mind into Poxnora, but I guess I'm lost in the same forest as you.
As Lushiris said, the main problem with self-made Champions are the rune art, the lore, and the builder (I think ...). For the question "why buy theirs?": You could apply the model from my post above. You would have to pay Owls to create a Champion, which would then be added to the Rune Store and the packs. Maybe you would get some gold every time your Champion is purchased. There are, of course, still so many problems with this idea that I doubt we will ever see such a thing. There would be too many new champions, the game would become too complicated as the number of runes would explode way too fast, and even with a good Champion Builder, some of the Champions would probably be outright broken. Maaaaaybe we might see a Champion Builder in a Campaign Builder. There you would tell your own story after all, and your Champions wouldn't have to be balanced. And if there were just a few pieces of new artwork and sprites available, you would see those in several different campaigns, but it wouldn't be a problem either.
I could see that. And if a particular player made map, campaign, or daily was shown to be popular it could be upgraded to the official rotation. Who knows maybe it could lead to a series of in depth tutorials for each faction/theme.
Maybe allowing the player to make a personal champion for campaigns... it wouldn't impact the game as Ragic envisions, and I see many ways people can exploit it, but don't they already do it now? It Would be a cute way of making money, but I'm not sure how much it would cost for DOG.
