Idea: Modder Assisted Development.

[Phoynix]

You guys know people are gonna make new textures and the like for GrimDawn just like they did Titanquest.

So here is the question.
Why not put out mesh/textures for us to grab and start working on, Retextures is easy as pie and can add what appear to be completely new items/creatures to the game.

Of course for legal reasons you would need a document that defines such things as it has to be the persons own work, orginal and created only for GrimDawn.

It would work great with things such as.
Barrals that you want slightly randomised.
Unique textures for a Unique item.
Skeletons so you have mutiple textures so a horde of them dont look the same.

I think it could really add alot of content and it shouldnt be all that hard to set up a system to do it.
Im thinking a zip uploaded to a central server.
the Zip contains a TXT laid out in a specific format for parsing that includes the persons name.. the item retextured etc. + the texture.

Grimdawn+modded content together on release=WIN for the developers and Win for the customers.

[ASYLUM101]

As cool as this idea is, I don't think they'll do it for obvious reasons.

[Harlequin]

I like that idea. I really like it alot. However I dont think this will happen.
There are too many risks involved.

[Thander]

Well, I thought of that too, so lets hear Crate on the possibilities of any help, whether it be small textures and the like or any other help.

Perhaps later some smaller contests for alpha/beta/full participants, where the prize is that your stuff get's in an expansion and a honorable mention in the (competition) forums?

[Harlequin]

Of course everyone here would love to help.^^
If Crate says that we can help...ofc we would.
Like making small quests with the new editors?

[Rhis]

Nice idea in theory, legal and logistical nightmare in practice. =/

[ASYLUM101]

Originally Posted by Rhis

Nice idea in theory, legal and logistical nightmare in practice. =/

Yeah, releasing unfinished material that hasn't been sold yet unless you only release to certain members who have legendary/epic accounts, which might not stop them from releasing said material elsewhere.

Nice idea, just not worth the risks.

If it was a public mod, maybe it would work nicely. Otherwise...

[Kluga]

Not to mention that even disregarding the legal issues the devs would have to sift through all the textures submitted by us and decide what they want to use where and so forth...Would be really great if it could work though

[Phoynix]

Its not nightmare at all.

If its limited to just textures its extremly hard for someone to go rip off other work and then adapt to to a texture UV.

3d modeling sites sell models/textures and not yet has a single one been sued because some little so and so uploaded content and sold it that wasnt there own.

The Logistics of it just a server a zip file, a txt format parse file and texture and a viwer for quickly going over uploaded content.

The TXT file contains the mesh/path for you guys for the editor to read, the texture path/name of the new texture. The persons real name and a short discription of what the person was attempting and as they upload it add the IP of the uploader.
You just have a Mesh Viewer that reads the txt displays the mesh/texture and lets you decide if its useable or delete.
If kept it uploads the persons Name to a credit file for use in the game credits.

If its limited to people who have preordered in the event someone does use copyright material you guys can just point the copyright holder along to culprit. That person is guilty of fraud and you took reasonble steps to detect it, and were duped yourself. No one can claim for example that Skeleton retexture number 6 that had a coca cola emblem on its head reduced to 12 pixals in anyway actually increased your profits by detectable ammount. Removing it also with a patch isnt going to cause you guys problems.

Because its Digital distrubution, its little risk.

If it was hard copies - Discs, and you would have to do a recall if the company/person was really angsty about whatever it was.

[medierra]

Some sort of open contribution and release of tools would be impossible to manage.

In the past though I did also consider talking to one or two of the top modders from TQ to see if we could get some help with level / quest work. However, right now I just don't think I have time to manage even one more person in a collaborative effort. Any additional design help we bring on would be a trade-off of my time from design work to management. Then there is the potential for interpersonal issues, trying to figure out some sort of fair compensation, and all kinds of other things that could go wrong.

Right now the best course is to just keep pushing forward and not complicate things in any way that could create distraction.