Hi. I'd like to announce a new system we're calling the "Player Contribution Corps", or PCC. This is a subset of the paid VO userbase which will have access to certain tools, like the Mission Editor and so on. Any paid user can join, this isn't an elitist thing, you just have to be responsible / trustworthy, and have good english diction (mostly because we can't handle editing a gazillion poorly-written missions). There's more information in the application that I'll link to at the bottom of this post.

Basically, the PCC is intended to encompass a lot of player-involvement programs, starting with the mission editor, which let people be more directly involved with content creation for the game. The Mission Editor, for those who are not aware, allows one to write missions for the game (I used it to make the recent tutorials). You can get immediate feedback and try them out on the Test server, and then submit them for developer-approval. If they make the cut, they'll get propogated into production.

This is an experimental program, of course, but we're pretty optimistic about it. The mission editor is not a trivial thing to use, and we don't have it fully documented yet: more documentation will be appearing on the PCC site as time goes on. But, it is by far the friendliest face we've managed to put on the mission-creation process to date.

Anyway, if this interests you, please read the application intro *THOROUGHLY*. Don't skim it, it's fundamentally important that everyone who applies understand how this system works. I also want to emphasize the relatively high standards that we'll be employing for production missions. Stuff like our current Killing Spree / "Bots are annoying" mission would not make the cut ;). Make as many silly missions as you want to learn the editor, but don't submit anything for approval that isn't well written, polished and tested. Story-driven trees of missions (missions which lead to missions which lead to missions) are preferred over single odd ones. If anyone wants to submit storylines to me for approval before writing the actual mission, that's fine, send me an email (john at guildsoftware dot com).

As a final note, the mission editor is currently only tested in Firefox. It may work in other browsers, your mileage may vary. We aren't going to spend a lot of time trying to make it compatible with everything else.. Firefox is available for all VO platforms.

Also: the application process makes a mention of an email when you're approved. The email response isn't yet functional, so instead just check back to the PCC url periodically to see if you have access. Do make sure your account-listed email address is correct and up to date though, as we may use it for other PCC-critical announcements and stuff.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/pcc

P.S. If our few mission-editor experienced people would like to write up a "making missions" guide in a post or (better) on vo-wiki, I'll be happy to link to it in addition to the documentation I intend to write.

rockin!

first hint:
set dom.max_script_run_time in about:config to some higher value (100-200 should be okay). The mission editor is slow as hell and you'll get anoying warnings on moderately complex missions otherwise.

Hm. Looks interesting. I'll sign up if only to gain an appreciation of the other folks who, I'm sure, will actually be successful in creating missions.
A 500-word essay is required! This'll be good.
[EDIT] 499 words on the dot. Just submitted. [/EDIT]

Less than 500. That's even better, since it requires that you can communicate clearly and concisely. Bad news for me, I tend to be long winded.... also, I would need to renew my account.

*less* than 500 words. Lol, an essay... I guess it's the only way to find out if someone can write well. XD I'm sure you'll have fun reading them.

Awesomeness, Incarnate.

This is fantastic Inc. My only issue is the one concerning the auto-drop if a sub runs out, and having to reapply. I pay month by month, and sometimes drop off for a month, then come back the next one, or sometimes I simply miss the pay date and am unsubscribed for a day or two.

If initially accepted would it be fairly certain that I would be accepted again upon re-applying? Perhaps it should just apply to people who end up being unsubscribed for so many days out a set period of time?

Awesome. This is really exciting! I've been looking forward to directly contributing content since I played with the first incarnation of the mission editor.

Mmm i am more active then 25 hours :P

But that can change in Jan :( I may join then the army and have only access to the computer at weekends.....mmmm

Oh well its not yet Jan so I may give my little bits in it ^^ Good plan

I love the idea. I can't wait to see what the PCC comes up with. :P

Hrh, is it just me, or does anyone else feel like doing a 500 word l33t sp33k essay? Oooh oooh, or pirate talk! :>

Like the idea though, and can't wait to see what missions actually make it to production.

yodaofborg, I was actually tempted to make something entirely out of web comic quotes (including many l33t sp33k ones from MegaTokyo). I won't though; the reading and real submission will come later today from me - have to finish some grad school stuff first (a chapter to read, a short program to write, 2 classes to attend, and an interface to design... well, maybe this will come tomorrow...).

Sweet! I added a vo-wiki page to build on for the PCC: http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Player_Contribution_Corps

I also echo Gavan's concern about having to reapply after any subscription lapse.

I was going to submit my application essay with horrible grammar, misspellings, and no paragraph breaks. As a joke, of course. But at the last minute I relented and "Got Serious™"

I have a mission on the test server if anyone wants to try it out. It's just an experiment but seems to work well. I made some changes so it's really hard right now.

You can pick it up in the Latos Orion station. It's called "Pirate Hunt". I finished an earlier version and it worked perfectly. I made some changes and haven't tried to complete the new version yet because I have to run off to school. If it doesn't finish, I'll fix it tonight.

Again, it's just a test mission I made to see how it all works, so don't be too critical! I figured I'd let everyone take a look at it since it might be the first one.

I have one set up as well... general idea is this:

Take a squad of 5-6 TPG Warthogs through Greyspace, starting in Latos N-15 and stopping in Sedina and Odia to battle some unrats.

There's a surprise at the last stop, assuming the mission works properly of course.

The mission is called "Greyspace Patrol", if my memory serves right.

bah humbug, im not going to sign over all my rights for nothing. if i spend 200 hours making some story/character i dont want some corporate behemoth swooping in, buying out guild, and whoring my work out on g4 "tech tv" by some assclown wanna be actor trying to 'break into the game' with their hipster bedhead haircut that took 2 hours in makeup, and their teleprompter zombie speak inflection that wouldnt even merit a morning zoo job at a clearchannel radio station.

"and now an indepth interview with the star of the new movie" (ie, and now, watch this f@#$ commercial and pretend you are watching some interesting intellectual discussion. because youre not, you stupid sucker 18-35 year old morons with your parents credit cards. i will lol all the way to my cocaine dealer while i axe another 200 workers from my tv channel because i feel like it and it gives me an insane adrenaline rush to f@#$ up the lives of hundreds of people."

think king quest. think command and conquer. think ren and stimpy. think 'wing commander'. no, best yet, think of ursula k leguin and scifi channel's "earthsea". think think people think!

I dunno, maybe it's just because my application essay was "Really really awesome," but the "Whoa, what's going on here?!" link doesn't seem to work anymore. That is, it points to a missing page.

Edit: works fine on zarniwoop.

ananzi, I agree it sucks with "big companies" running over the smaller ones.. But I really don't think guild is gonna be bought up anytime soon :/

Now if only the "Define NPC Config..." action had been implemented. :-D