Creation tools, you’ve got to love them, right? Well, apparently this isn’t the case, as I found out when discussing the subject with Dan and Josh from the news team and Colin (we haven’t discovered what he does yet). A reliable source tells me that he sets up community events and things but there’s no way I’m believing that one. You’ll notice a distinct lack of Murdo in this debate, as he’s abandoned us to take a trip to France! Dan and Josh almost make up for it, though. Almost.
Josh: As long as it isn’t horrendously complex, I do love to dabble in a bit of creation (LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, for example) but I don’t have the hours and hours to put in to make something really worth publishing. I think the real benefit of user-generated content, even if the tools are more complicated than an Eastenders storyline, is that there’s likely to be a decent community putting out stuff that manages to keep the game alive long after you’re done with the included content.
Dan: Creation tools – such as those found in LBP – leave me in awe, yet I really dislike using them. What it boils down to is a matter of time – working, writing and family life means that all I want to do is sit down and play a game. Creation is fine as long as there’s something there for people who don’t want to do it.
Blair: I love creating characters (such as the Mods in ModNation) and designs in games like Forza 3, but I don’t enjoy creating levels and tracks as much. ModNation made it easy to create tracks, which made me enjoy it a bit more but I prefer to work on a more two-dimensional plane, with stickers rather than items. I really hope they have a custom Sackboy creator in LBP2, trying to make some characters in the first game was a pain.
Dan: I also like ham.
Blair: I like ham with cheese on a toastie – it’s lovely.
Dan: Good man!
Josh: I think it really is a case of the time people have, with the advent of this generation, everyone expects polished gaming experiences and so putting together a level in LBP for example takes a fair while. Just quickly cobbling together maps in TimeSplitters on PS2 before I jumped in and played with my friends ranks as one of my fondest gaming memories
Blair: Yeah, I really love that feeling you get when you make your own level or map and then play on it with friends.
Colin: I’m personally not a fan of creation in games, the systems are often too time consuming for my liking. The system in MNR was perfect for me, everything was quick and relatively easy to do. I don’t want to spend hours on end creating a character or a level. I understand why people like pouring hours into levels, characters, storylines or whatever and seeing something they made in the game but the rewards don’t justify the time or effort for me.
Dan: OK, let me throw this out there – who thinks 80 percent of the options in LBP are a waste of time? I do.
Blair: Definitely not 80 percent! Nowhere near… have you seen some of the stuff people have created? They have obviously used nearly all of these tools, and it’s always better to be diverse than have things missing.
Josh: I saw that list of things they were adding in LBP2, and I can see potential uses for them but it just makes things even more complicated.
Dan: Yeah but in reality, what percentage of people actually make stuff of that calibre?
Blair: There’s a few people who have used the majority of these tools on one thing but it’s not about using them all at once, it’s about the tools being diverse and expansive enough to cater for any kind of creation. LittleBigPlanet does this well.
Josh: I do jump into LBP from time to time, and some of that stuff people have made really impresses me. It’s really a shame that LBP2 won’t be launching with support for Move in the creator, because it would make things so much quicker and easier.
Dan: I’m not sure how much faster Move would make navigating the menus.
Josh: I’m thinking navigating round your level rather than the menus, really; at the moment you have to use the pad to fly Sackboy around, whereas you could just flick with Move. I don’t know, I think I’m just becoming a Move fanboy – it can do anything!
Blair: Anything… apart from PlayTV!
Josh: Ah yes, the big glowing-balled remote can’t do TV.
Dan: OK… guys… get back on track!
Josh: I think LBP has really carved its niche as a “creators’ game”. As for just sticking creation tools into everything, it really doesn’t always fit. In large part this is due to the complexities of creating with a controller – Far Cry 2 had an impressive map editor but it was so difficult to use.
Dan: So what you’re saying, Josh, is that you stick your tool in to everything, but it doesn’t always fit?
Josh: Yeah, that’s basically it.
Dan: You Stud.
Blair: That brings me to another point – I was talking to a friend and he said he didn’t care for LBP as it was just about creation. I then went on to explain to him about the bazillion levels that are already on there and the story mode; it’s definitely not just a game where you have to create.
Josh: Oh yeah, it has the rest as well but if they’re spending half the game’s development time working on the creation tools, and only <10% of the people that buy the game are actually using them, is it really worth it?
Blair: It’s worth it alone for the levels that other people have created.
Dan: I’ve not been on for a while – how many are proper levels and not just spam ‘get certain trophy’ levels?
Josh: The LittleBigWorkshop and the PS Blog LBP Roundup articles always point out great levels. But half of them, whether recreations of acrade games or whatever, are just something where you see it and think “Hah, nice concept” but you have no real urge to go out and play them.
Dan: Right – we’re focusing a lot on LBP. Are there any other games that scratch your creation itch?
Blair: As I’ve already said, I love creating liveries for cars in Forza, I think that system works really well and it’s a great, simple way of graphic design. I’ve seen some amazing stuff on there. ModNation was good, but I couldn’t see the point in creating tracks when all the top ones were regurgitated from Mario Kart.
Dan: One of my favourite creation experiences was from old wrestling games. The create a wrestler modes had just enough depth without becoming overbearing. Character, moves, attire – it was all brilliant! Things now just seem far more complex.
Colin: The create modes in WWE games are too complicated now for my liking. I liked the system in the old Smackdown series as it was so simple but now the game has become more complicated with a large amount of move choices. Also with the addition of Finisher, entrance, storyline and video creation it is much more complex than it used to be. The features added are great but they are just done in a way that requires more time and effort than I like to put in.
Josh: I said earlier that I had great fun with TimeSplitters’ level creator, and Super Smash Bros Bawl on the Wii has a pretty good one too. I think for me, it’s more fun building something with my friends and then playing that, than just making something for my own enjoyment, or to publish online.
Then, as we brought it to an end, something miraculous happened, I received some of Murdo’s thoughts on why he doesn’t use creation tools and what he’d like to see in the future. In true debate style, I’ve responded to him and made a mini-debate out of it!
Murdo: I never use these features. It’s not because I dislike them though, they are great for creative people but I find it all too complex. ModNation Racers and LittleBigPlanet have some excellent community creations, some better than the developers’ but I can never crack the tools in the same way. When I buy a game, I don’t want to spend my time building levels to play, I want them there for me, ready to explore. Thankfully, these tools are limited to the genres which they suit but I hope we never see these in titles such as Uncharted or InFamous. The entire image of each character would be ruined by this. I do, however, hope we see mod tools appear in FPS shooter games on consoles, like Call of Duty. PC gamers have long enjoyed custom maps and weapons, but consoles have been overlooked. Let’s hope this is the next generation of “Play.Create.Share” to appear.
Blair: Some great points there, Murdo. I agree that it would ruin games like InFamous or Uncharted, but perhaps a ‘create your own power’ type thing would be suitable. As for mods for online games, like Call of Duty, I’ve seen some of these in action on the PC and they work really well. Notably an entire zombie mod and a Star Wars mod for Call of Duty 4, which worked really well but took a lot of time with modelling and coding. I can’t imagine this transferring to consoles unless the next generation was more open.
Anyway, we’ve all shared our opinions on this, so we’d like to hear what you think. What does Creation mean to you?
Eldave0
I’m personally in a similar boat. I loved playing LBP thanks to the strong community and their impressive levels, but I don’t have the time or patience to put something together myself (its for that reason I won’t be getting LBP2 unless they have really simplified it).
Having said that, the level creator in the Timesplitters games was perfect. Whilst it wasn’t as feature rich, it did mean that you and your mates could decide there and then to create a level and it would be ready to use in under 5 minutes.
Eldave0
oh and as a sidenote, I hated every aspect of Modnation Racers apart from the creation tools ;)
KeRaSh
Oh noez! Another Stewie Avatar. This was such a distinct feature of Bunimomike’s posts…
bunimomike
The world is truly at an end. Two Stewies!
DuffyBox
We just need two more and they’ll start singing…
tantalus_blank
so which one of you is bitch-Stewie? :p
Flaming Turkeys
Hmm sminteresting, Eldave0 joined before bunimo…ITS A CONSPIRACY!!!
bunimomike
Tantalus – awesome reference! Haha. :-)
Flaming Turkeys – when you see my TSA points count, it’s even stranger! I have better things to do, don’t you know. *looks around shiftily*
maniulo
I like it when the creation tools are as powerful as possible, not to use them myself but because it means there will be great user-generated content. I must’ve played at least a thousand LBP levels, of which 75% were cool. In Modnation, the custom tracks are often not so good.
Bilbo_bobbins
Sorry, I can’t read these ones blair, it’s too long for me to concentrate. I know what you are saying though. Personally, I love the create side of things, but when I get down to it, I don’t have the time. Modnation Racers is excellent, I love it, but then since I work, I don’t have time to create stuff and hope people might play on it. LBP I wont be getting this time around, it was fun on SP but online it was a lagfest and I couldn’t be bothered to take 24hours creating a level.
mynameisblair
It’s fine, we know we made it a bit long, but that was because there was 4 of us and Murdo put his thoughts in too, just share you’re opinion and thats fine :)
You don’t have time for a lot of things, eh? ;)
Bilbo_bobbins
too much time reading stuff on the site lol. I have a concentration span of a gnat.
cc_star
I like playing other people’s creations if they’re of a high enough quality, which is extremely rare.
I find the internet’s rule of 90% shit 9.9% alright and 0.1% brilliant, applies to anything user created – just look at blogs, YouTube vids and LBP levels to see what I mean.
I found doing anything meaningful in LBP was either far to difficult or took far longer than I had time available, for actually playing games.
I’m not a fan of creating anything myself, when I play a game which includes customisation features I just hammer X until I’m shooting someone in the face, I cba with all that stuff.
My daughter loves it though and spends hours dressing up Eyepet or dressing up people on her DS.
Far Cry 2 had a level creator, worked in a similar way to ModNation’s… So I don’t see how it can’t work across genres, with that in mind there’s no need for 3rd person action games like Uncharted to miss out., you just include landscape painting tools and then lots of things to add stuff like bad guys respawn points, puzzles and stuff
But you can count me out of creating stuff – I’ll be the one playing it
maniulo
I have played lots of mods and total conversions for Quake 1 and Quake 2, that was a lot of fun and there was a wonderfully active and creative community back then. Don’t really see that happening for console games though.
Manorhowze
I love creating things in games and would like to see more of it in games but only if done the right way. Timesplitters and V-Rally (I think it was the sequel which had the track editor) were games that I sunk a lot of time into, both in the creation side and the normal game.
On Timesplitters I had a series of levels that you could play through like a story and I spent weeks making them all, the only down side is there was no way to share them back then.
Codies Music series also had many months of my life sunk into it and I would love to see that resurface on the current generation machines. The amount of samples and loops you could fit onto a blu ray could make it a lot better than the original games.
cc_star
LBP2’s Sequencer is reportedly very powerful, when it was added as a tool in the 11th hour, it caused the team to go back and use it to recreate the levels they had already created. You can even time things like camera’s panning and events to the music like a character appearing – as well as creating 100% music based stuff
Manorhowze
Cool, hopefully it will be a bit easier to use than in the original as I struggled with the musical elements. Some of the stuff that people made with it though was amazing.
gordon_strange
I emailed codies 18 months or so ago about the music series returning. I had similar thoughts to you, in that the power of the ps3, with the capacity o blu ray, could create An amazing piece of software, that would be as powerful as say pro tools, or ableton (ableton on ps3 would be my drEam) but they politely told mr the series wouldn’t be returning to this gens consoles. It was a really nice email as well.
On a side note:
gordon_strange
Damn iPhone. Grrr. On a side note: I really don’t like these “conversation” pieces. It just feels a bit lazy, and almost a bit like “hey chck us out with our craaaazy conversations, we are solo funny”
I’m sure that’s not the intention, and I appreciate the work that goes into any piece you guys write, but that’s just my feelings x
mynameisblair
That’s fine dude, but we just thought it was a good way to discuss our feelings and we have fun while doing it.
It’s actually more work that just having a conversation, we have to edit it all together and filter out the useless parts and more! I actually enjoy it as it allows me to work with members of staff that I don’t get a chance to work with when doing my solitary articles, and it’s a nice change from sitting and writing on my own. And that’s just my feelings :)
Hey, if you can think of anything to make it ‘work’ better for you, I’m all for feedback!
bunimomike
It’s like a Late At Night panel but in the daytime. Not as much ominous intrigue but I can always surf with the lights off.
Either way, I like it. Maybe you could put the whole thing in podcast form! Hintutty hint hint. ;-)
cc_star
Loose Women?
sesameseed
Oh yes! Join the growing masses of support for a new iteration of the Music series! I’ve even started bugging Codemasters about it!
Create, share, remix… Bliss!
gordon_strange
a podcast version would work for me! and like i say its only my opinion, and opinion’s are like dirt pipes….
create share remix, would be amazing, especially if they intgrated something like soundcloud, it could be a revolution in electronica!
DuffyBox
I remember on Timesplitters I had a level you completed by guiding Strudel through an assault course to open a door. Simple editor with great depth if you looked.
Daywalker
I love creating in LBP. My levels (Although with a disjointed storyline) are quite complex with levers, buttons, time events, and so many mechanisms that all you can see are those bloody annoying green wires. I find it great fun yet challenging, and that’s why LBP is brilliant. It does take around 30 hours to make one fully working though…
PoorPaddy89
I’m shocked that you can write an article on creation and not even mention the sims!! shocked to my very core! :P
Daywalker
Love The Sims. I forgot about that one. Great fun, and really good creation.
PoorPaddy89
I’ve come back to sims 3 now i have a tasty computer. So good :)
DuffyBox
I used to enjoy creating mazes for my Sims to navigate. Good times.
mynameisblair
What’s the Sims?
;)
Danza Di Fuoco E Ghiaccio
The Sims is just insane I’ve yet to buy the other expansions and still its so addictive on pc. There has to be more simulations were you are in control creating the world there just isn’t enough.
DrNate86
I had forgotten about the Timesplitters level creation, I loved making maps on that! I think creation tools really add to a game, as you really can keep playing the game forever. Even if it is something simple like being able to create your own character, it immediately stands out to me. I would even like a “create your own missions” feature in games like Uncharted if it was done well. The problem with some of them is they are too hard to use (at least with my shrivelled brain). Some people have made some stunning LBP levels, but I never had the time or the motivation to pour hours into learning the in depth creation aspects. On the whole though, as long as it has been well thought out, and not flung in last minute, I think some aspect of user creation can improve any game, even with games like Army of Two where you can just make your own masks. I love being able to put my own personal touch on a game.
teflon
Creation is impossible to dislike because it’s a two way process. You first need someone to create something. It could be you, it could be someone else, it doesn’t matter, it just needs to be made. Once it is made, you just need people to play it and enjoy it.
That’s why LBP is great. Even if you don’t care about creating stuff, you just need to be able to play other people’s levels and you’ve suddenly extended the length of the game twenty times over. The difficult part is cutting the chaff from the wheat and getting to the really good levels.
I’d suggest playing games with Yogh_Wayne… He always manages to find the best levels out there.
yogdog
agreed with yogh, he always finds the best levels in our late night lbp sessions :)
he’s a great person to talk to as well, spent half my time on psn playing games with him lately :D