User Content 2.0 
02/13/2008 | Devlog | | Discuss
Greetings, fellow Pirates of the Burning Sea! I’m Marion “van Ghent,” and I have some exciting news to share about the User Content program which many of you know, love, and make incredible use of. But first I should introduce myself and, for those new to our community, give a brief introduction to User Content and what it means for the game—and for you!
I’ve been Flying Lab Software’s “User Content Specialist” officially for a little more than a year now (and quite unofficially, for several years more). That means that whether you want to build a ship model for the game, or submitting your own flag or sail under which to sail, I’m here to help point you in the right direction! Here’s how you can get involved.
Ships
Building a ship model for the game is a challenging but intensely rewarding way to make your mark on the Burning Sea. We’re always looking for more ship classes and talented 3D modellers to build them, whether you use free software such as GMax or top-of-the-line software such as Maya. If you have access to these tools and ship plans from circa 1660-1740, and equal stores of patience, talent, and time, start by posting a thread in the Shipwright Discussion forum. You’ll be guided through the process by myself and our community-grown Ships Steering Committee (KrisWood, LiMuBei, and Michael O’Dwyer), who you’ll recognise by their forum tags and their ever helpful advice.
Once your ship is declared seaworthy (usually after a few months’ care and feeding and a couple Committee reviews), we’ll send her off to DevCo to be converted to the game format and tuned to fit into our ever-growing ship progression. Both staff and community have set the bar quite high for historical appropriateness and technical precision in ship models, so once yours has made it into the game, you’ll have something you can be quite proud of—and that all players who build a copy will be able to enjoy.
Flags and Sails
While less daunting than making a 3D ship model, making your own 2D Flags and Sails still carries its rewards—and its challenges! As with ships, flags and sails are held to a high standard for appropriateness to the period and use of color and texture: not only do we want you to be proud of your work, but we want it to add to the game’s ambiance. While only you, the User Content submitter, will be able to buy your flag or sail from the in-game Customization Vendors, everyone should be able to enjoy seeing it—or fear it, for the right reasons!
The best place to start is the Flags and Sails Forum, where a whole helpful community can give you good advice on how to realise your flag or sail idea. A good first step is to read our flag and sail guidelines, where everything you’ll need to know is spelled out clearly. Then post your design in the forum for critique. You’ll hear both from the community and from another group of dedicated and artistic volunteers, the 2D Steering Committee (Emwsand, Sadet, and Toshiro). We truly wouldn’t be where we are without their helpful attitudes.
Once you’ve perfected your design and are confident it follows our guidelines, you can then submit your flag or sail for voting. Currently, you just need 5 or more votes to receive a rating, at which point it enters the review queue, to be personally reviewed and critiqued by Flying Lab staff. Right now this can entail a bit of a wait (two to four weeks), but we’re poised to make some tremendous changes to this part of the system, which I shall introduce with no further ado!
User Content 2.0
2D User Content has been phenomenally successful over the last several years—in some ways, too successful! While we still want to review flags and sails personally give focused feedback where needed, within the next month or so we’ll be introducing some changes to help streamline and even out the process. Here’s what you can look forward to in User Content 2.0:
• “Kitten Wars” style voting—instead of giving each flag a 1-5 rating, you’ll compare two flags or two sails and pick the one you think is the best. You’ll then be shown instantly another pair to rate. Once a submission gets a certain number of “hot” votes, it’s sent to the Devs for final approval. On the other hand, if it gets passed up for other submissions too many times, it will be sent back to you for more work.
• Even distribution of votes—the User Content system will randomise what flags or sails you see and rate, so everything should benefit from equal community scrutiny.
• Rewards for participation—the more flags and sails you rate, the more you’re entitled to have in review at any given time, up to a suitably comfortable limit. It will “cost” votes to submit a design, so for every flag or sail you want to submit, you’ll need to rate other submissions.
• Less waiting—you should know within a few days whether your flag or sail is ready for the game, and if not, receive useful feedback to help it get there.
• Email response when your flag or sail has been reviewed or approved.
• Focused feedback—while FLS Staff will still review and if necessary critique flags and sails above a certain number of “hot” votes, content that almost meets this threshhold will receive critique from both staff and the 2D Steering Committee.
• No more “Nice work, 5/5, vote for mine too” comments—community critique will be focused in the Flags and Sails Forum, where you can revise your designs to your heart’s content without changing where it stands in the queue. You’ll also be able to embed your design directly into your forum posts, so others can see and comment on your work.
• Instant feedback if your work falls outside of technical spec—you’ll be told right away if your flag or sail is the wrong size, format, or delves into unhappy areas of the color palette.
• Better protection for your individual work—flags and sails will be displayed with an integral background, so it will be much harder to simply “copy and paste” others’ designs and resubmit them as your own.
• Easier, clearer ways to report content that doesn’t follow our general community rules (such as copies of others’ flags and sails).
Of course, that’s just what you—the Flag and Sail designer—will notice. Behind the scenes there are many additional administrative changes geared towards making our system easier for staff to work with, which should be a boon for everyone.
If you have any questions on how things will look in User Content 2.0, feel free to ask in our forum. And in the mean time, happy drawing, everybody!
—Marion “van Ghent”
02/13/2008 | Devlog | | Discuss
