The problem with player-created content can be easily summed up: the number of people who think they have talent vastly outstrips the number of people who actually do. Perhaps for this reason, there were a lot of skeptics when Wish announced, some years ago, that they were thinking of allowing players to contribute quests to their games. According to this article, Horizons is close to implementing something like this.

Using a public copy of the game database, players and writers alike can use existing characters, enemies, and items to add or change their own quests. Tulga’s staff will evaluate these quests for quality before bringing the customized quests into the live game. These customized fan quests should certainly add a homespun dungeonmaster feel to the thousands of Tulga-crafted quests already in the game.

Will it work? Good question. Writing interactive fiction is easy, but writing good interactive fiction is very, very hard. Weeding out poor quality stuff will be very high priority. Dealing with how players feel about the rejection of their ideas will be a factor. Ensuring consistency will be paramount.

Still, if they can get enough submissions, there is a potential for free content there that cannot be discounted for a smaller MMO team. And there is certainly an audience of frustrated game designers that would love to have a chance to contribute to an MMO somewhere. If only one or two of the people who take part in Horizons’ system turn out to be rock star quality, the game world could profit vastly from it.

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