Chapter 493 - GOG’s Creative Community (1/2)

April 20th, Wednesday…

At Tengda Games…

Hu Xianbin was at his desk, sipping on his coffee and racking his brains for a plot for Struggle.

Struggle’s research and development were happening at the same time. For now, Ruan Guangjian’s Halo Workspace was still working on the concept art for the characters.

After Hu Xianbin approved them, they would be outsourced to an art resource team for careful modeling. After that, the actors would go to a motion-capturing workspace to have their motions captured.

At the same time, Hu Xianbin had to think of a storyline for the game as soon as possible.

It didn’t look like an excessively complicated task. After all, Boss Pei had already given him a clear outline of the story. However, when Hu Xianbin sat down to get it done, he realized that it was more difficult than he had imagined

It was true that he could draw materials from regular life events like going to school, taking examinations, being hired, getting married, having children, and the like. However, it was precisely because he was surrounded by such events that it was so difficult to choose the most appropriate content.

There were billions of people in the world who were living completely different lives. The poor were miserable in various ways while the rich were prosperous in various ways. Which case study should Hu Xianbin choose to represent the poor and the rich?

Social strata were complicated. Some poor people were living in the sewers and in slum housing in the city. Some did not have clothes to wear or food to eat while others were in financial straits but could fill their stomachs.

There were many different kinds of poor people and rich people. Two people could both be referred to as ‘poor’, but one could find it extremely difficult to understand the other.

Thus, it was exceptionally challenging for the designer to represent an entire class of society with one individual in the game. If he went out of line, people might say that ‘that’s not how poor people live at all’. Then, the entire foundation of the story would collapse.

How could he keep the story realistic and yet cause the case study to be so general that it could resonate with an entire class of people…?

Hu Xianbin felt like he was facing an unprecedented challenge. Li Yada was no longer there to pave the way for him. He had to depend on himself now, and he was under immense pressure.

Just as he was racking his brains, Min Jingchao walked to his side and knocked gently on his work desk.

“The plan for GOG’s event is out. Do you want to take a look?”

Hu Xianbin shook his head. “I can’t handle that. You can take care of it. Anyway…”

He subconsciously glanced at Li Yada’s desk and said, “As long as Big Sister Li and Brother Bao are alright with it, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Min Jingchao nodded. “Yes, I already sent the plan into the group. They didn’t say anything.”

Hu Xianbin, “There shouldn’t be a problem, then.”

Min Jingchao felt more relaxed as well, and so she returned to her own desk. Her computer screen displayed a proposal: GOG’s Creative Community.

GOG’s official website contained an official forum at first. It was mainly meant for gamers to raise suggestions and feedback on problems. At the same time, it formed a part of TPDb as well.

Now, Min Jingchao planned to start a new board in the forum and name it ‘Creative Community’. It would be exclusively used to collect gamers’ ideas for new heroes.

Of course, Min Jingchao kept Boss Pei’s guidance in mind when designing this board.

“For most people, creativity could either be a treasure chest or shackles.”

While the gamers’ creativity had to be respected, Min Jingchao also had to be cautious about the ‘shackles’ effect. She had to avoid turning the game into an odd patchwork, which was neither fish nor fowl.

As the system designer, Min Jingchao had to exercise control over the game’s system balance. At the same time, Zhang Nan had to exercise control over the game’s artistic style. On top of that, with so many ideas being contributed, filtering and analyzing would be very troublesome. Thus, the designer had to foresee those problems and come up with a mechanism to deal with them.

Min Jingchao divided the Creative Community into several simple sections and designed a mechanism to sieve gamers who ‘liked’ similar items. This would minimize the amount of low-level work that the designers would have to do in the future.

In Min Jingchao’s mind, there were generally three types of heroes in GOG:

First, heroes whose IPs had been bought over. They had been modeled after their original concept art, and their skills had been designed based on the background story of the original character.

Second, heroes that had been designed and modeled based on internal employees or people who had made special contributions to the game. Modest was one example of such heroes.

Third, heroes designed by the gamers themselves.

Further, gamers could design two types of heroes: the type that emphasized on mechanism and gameplay and the type that emphasized on outward appearance.

There were specializations in the art industry. Most gamers would not think about a hero’s background story, appearance, and skills mechanism, much less the balance in the system.

Thus, Min Jingchao had to separate all of those items.

Therefore, the Creative Community was split into four sections: the IP Heroes Idea Pool, the Special Contributions Idea Pool, the Original Works (Mechanisms) Idea Pool, and the Original Works (Appearance) Idea Pool.

The officials would regularly post stickies on the IP Heroes Idea Pool to notify everyone of the newest character IPs that GOG had bought over. After that, gamers could raise ideas on skills design based on the existing images and background stories.

Outstanding employees, business partners, and gamers would be singled out in the Special Contributions Idea Pool. After that, gamers could start designing new heroes based on those people’s unique characteristics.

In the Original Works (Mechanisms) Idea Pool, gamers could brainstorm hero designs and plans that could benefit the game’s mechanism. For example, the game was lacking a roaming support hero at the moment. Thus, gamers could use this section to suggest skills that new heroes could possess. Other people or the officials could then fill in the gaps in the heroes’ concept art and background stories.

The Original Works (Appearance) Idea Pool would be the exact opposite. Gamers would only have to contribute concept art or background stories that they had created for new heroes, and other people or the officials could come up with the heroes’ skills.

All of the sections would have rich filtering and sorting functions.

For example, players would be able to sort the various suggestions based on different figures such as popularity, date and time, and the number of likes. They would also be able to interact with others’ designs by liking them, recommending them, laughing at them, or trampling all over them.

That way, gamers would get to do the initial filtration. New heroes would then be created in descending order of popularity among gamers.

Since they were going to crowdsource anyway and the gamers were going to be put in charge of the designing work, Min Jingchao decided to take it a step further and allow them to shortlist the works as well.

Of course, a company with high principles, like Tengda, would not freeload off the gamers’ creativity. To ignite gamers’ passion, Min Jingchao also designed a generous reward mechanism.

For all gamers: