The Future of the Dota 2 Workshop
mod
Hey guys, I wanted to create an open discussion about the state of the workshop, where it is and what direction it's possibly heading. I'd like to hear the community's stance on it, things people would like to see, etc. I'll start off to spur some discussion.
Workshop Format
The first thing I'd like to talk about is the workshop format itself (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?appid=570). It's been around for a while now with no apparent changes or improvements to the layout or functionality. There's a lot more users now from what I can tell, and there's certain features I'd like to see implemented to help improve usability.
- Set Grouping
Obviously at the top of my list is the ability to mark items as a 'set'. Maybe they can get a different border or a special visual flair on the thumbnail to let viewers immediately know there's more than one item for that thumbnail.
- Visibility/Exposure
Another thing, while I don't have a solution for (but maybe someone has an idea), is the handling of the top weekly. It seems that if you don't get any momentum within the first day or two, you can pretty much count yourself out in terms of getting any attention or votes. It's not even about getting positive votes, just anyone seeing it at all. There's some great stuff out there that gets unfortunately glossed over because it's not on the front page for weekly. Someone mentioned a really neat idea where, basically, while you're waiting for a match or even on the website itself there's just a group of 3-5 items that pop up, you vote on each, then it feeds you some more. It might be a cool way to expose more items to the community for voting instead of letting a select few snowball or at the will of strong-armed marketing.
- Animation
Next, now that kinetic gems and custom animations are a thing, it would be great to not only add a filter for gems/animations on the workshop page, but an official upload route for hero/item custom animations.
- Multi-Upload ?
Lastly, but not not separate from my previous note, is that if we're going to see more tiered items, it would be cool to have a way to upload them together. I know we can do this by collection, and I guess it could be solved by the set merging thing, but I thought I'd throw it out there. It would just be nice to not have variants (not even just sets) crowd the much sought after 'most popular' page.
Going Forward
Now, with workshop suggestions out of the way, I'd also like to touch on where we are headed as far as Dota 2 items are going.
- Variants & Color Swaps
What is everyone's stance on the idea of variants or color swaps? This is something you can see super apparent in TF2 now, but how do you feel about making 6-7 versions of an item? Take a recent item I did for example: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195733491
Let's say I want to do a brown version, a red head version, a longer-stache version, a bigger beard one. Is this acceptable? Where's the line where it becomes to much or annoying? Is there a line?
I know TF2 has a color-swapping system... is this something we're interested in? Do you think it will fit the game or art style to have a rainbow assortment of variants per item in the future? Are we OK with that possibility? Click for Example
- Lore and Theme Retention
Next, I am curious about how far one can stray from a characters' natural theme or appearance. From what I've noticed a lot seems to be based on votes, but not always. Using my previously linked Invoker item as an example again - Do you guys think it would be OK to change something like the heroes' hair color? Or is that an example of something untouchable. Brunette Lina? Black haired Invoker?
- League/Big Ticket items
Lastly I want to talk about ticket items, player sets, community sets, and the like. What is the general consensus for these? It's undoubtedly the direction we will continue to head as Valve already mentioned they want a way for the community and pro players to be sort of self-sufficient, and this is another avenue where they can get some revenue to continue playing, do more tournaments, etc. I think it's a wonderful way to do it but I do have some concerns.
More specifically I'm speaking in regard to the quality of the items. There has been some debate here before about certain items but my question is 'Should there be a minimum quality in order to be accepted?' And if so, where does that lie? Is it right to tell a league 'no' to their courier if it's not up to certain standards, regardless of if they're happy with it and want to use it?
There's more to talk about in this realm but I'll leave it to you guys if there's something you feel strongly about, please bring it up and we can discuss it in this thread.
Feel free to touch on one or all of these topics, I'm genuinely interested in what you guys have to say and am looking forward to growing the Dota 2 community workshop together.
Thanks for your time!
Workshop Format
The first thing I'd like to talk about is the workshop format itself (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?appid=570). It's been around for a while now with no apparent changes or improvements to the layout or functionality. There's a lot more users now from what I can tell, and there's certain features I'd like to see implemented to help improve usability.
- Set Grouping
Obviously at the top of my list is the ability to mark items as a 'set'. Maybe they can get a different border or a special visual flair on the thumbnail to let viewers immediately know there's more than one item for that thumbnail.
- Visibility/Exposure
Another thing, while I don't have a solution for (but maybe someone has an idea), is the handling of the top weekly. It seems that if you don't get any momentum within the first day or two, you can pretty much count yourself out in terms of getting any attention or votes. It's not even about getting positive votes, just anyone seeing it at all. There's some great stuff out there that gets unfortunately glossed over because it's not on the front page for weekly. Someone mentioned a really neat idea where, basically, while you're waiting for a match or even on the website itself there's just a group of 3-5 items that pop up, you vote on each, then it feeds you some more. It might be a cool way to expose more items to the community for voting instead of letting a select few snowball or at the will of strong-armed marketing.
- Animation
Next, now that kinetic gems and custom animations are a thing, it would be great to not only add a filter for gems/animations on the workshop page, but an official upload route for hero/item custom animations.
- Multi-Upload ?
Lastly, but not not separate from my previous note, is that if we're going to see more tiered items, it would be cool to have a way to upload them together. I know we can do this by collection, and I guess it could be solved by the set merging thing, but I thought I'd throw it out there. It would just be nice to not have variants (not even just sets) crowd the much sought after 'most popular' page.
Going Forward
Now, with workshop suggestions out of the way, I'd also like to touch on where we are headed as far as Dota 2 items are going.
- Variants & Color Swaps
What is everyone's stance on the idea of variants or color swaps? This is something you can see super apparent in TF2 now, but how do you feel about making 6-7 versions of an item? Take a recent item I did for example: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195733491
Let's say I want to do a brown version, a red head version, a longer-stache version, a bigger beard one. Is this acceptable? Where's the line where it becomes to much or annoying? Is there a line?
I know TF2 has a color-swapping system... is this something we're interested in? Do you think it will fit the game or art style to have a rainbow assortment of variants per item in the future? Are we OK with that possibility? Click for Example
- Lore and Theme Retention
Next, I am curious about how far one can stray from a characters' natural theme or appearance. From what I've noticed a lot seems to be based on votes, but not always. Using my previously linked Invoker item as an example again - Do you guys think it would be OK to change something like the heroes' hair color? Or is that an example of something untouchable. Brunette Lina? Black haired Invoker?
- League/Big Ticket items
Lastly I want to talk about ticket items, player sets, community sets, and the like. What is the general consensus for these? It's undoubtedly the direction we will continue to head as Valve already mentioned they want a way for the community and pro players to be sort of self-sufficient, and this is another avenue where they can get some revenue to continue playing, do more tournaments, etc. I think it's a wonderful way to do it but I do have some concerns.
More specifically I'm speaking in regard to the quality of the items. There has been some debate here before about certain items but my question is 'Should there be a minimum quality in order to be accepted?' And if so, where does that lie? Is it right to tell a league 'no' to their courier if it's not up to certain standards, regardless of if they're happy with it and want to use it?
There's more to talk about in this realm but I'll leave it to you guys if there's something you feel strongly about, please bring it up and we can discuss it in this thread.
Feel free to touch on one or all of these topics, I'm genuinely interested in what you guys have to say and am looking forward to growing the Dota 2 community workshop together.
Thanks for your time!
Replies
Amazing dream feature: have the model preview integrated to the workshop. I know this would be hard to do outside of the game client running, but that goes to my next point. How cool would it be if instead of low rez gifs and screenshots the end user could click a button and see the model on the hero similar to preview in the in-game store. Again hard without the game client, but come on, pipe dreams...
Last point for now. Why is the workshop not completely integrated to the game? It would be nice if the workshop had deeper integration in the game itself. Users could browse submissions from the client, no community overlay, and then this could support having a preview mode so users could get a much better idea of the final product long before it hits the stores.
Maybe Valve would not want to go this far as in the end they make the final call. :poly121:
but as far as changes go I just want to be able to change the thumbnail without having to go in game and resubmit the damn thing
They've added some more integration with the most recent patch. Now when you select a hero it gives you a window showing sets available for that hero. You can purchase them directly from there too. It's a little touch of great exposure for sets that are no longer at the front of the Store.
I'd love to see the uploading process steam lined. Uploading a full set can be a laborious task when you take into consideration the advancements people have now made standard on the workshop. Not only do you have to concept, model, rig and texture an item but now you most also provide promotional art, thumbnail art, multiple shots from different angles and so on. Perhaps a way to upload an item that includes an automatically generated mockup from set angles and views within the game? I often see items with amazing rendered thumbnails and promotional art but the in game shots are either non existent or from angles not normally used by the default camera.
Also, new heroes added to the importer. It's been a long time since many of the older heroes have been broken down but still haven't been added to the importer.
About, tournaments, 3rd parties.
I think the issue here is that Valve wants dota 2 as an esport to grow, so they will ultimately be more lenient and inviting when items are tied to these third parties. To reject a sub-par items is kind of hard, because these organizations invest their own money into the price pool, etc. Though, w/ some conversations, Valve has made it clear that they want all 3rd-party submissions to go through the workshop as part of the aprooval process.
This method ofcourse has flawsss, because believe it or not 9 times out of 10, if someone doesnt like something they see on the workshop.... they just wont vote on it, rather than thumbing it down... which is why some of these sub-par submissions get through the workshop w/ a 5 star rating... So to fix this is problem requires on the community as a whole too... If you dont like something, downvote it and move on.
This is the Dota store though, and not the workshop.I agree it is great for itema already added, but I meant more so that the workshop was integrated more like the store is. right now the workshop is only accessible through the community overlay in-game. If the workshop was deeper integrated then it would allow for more features like a hero preview, and be easier for end users to access. This could also allow for what bounchfx mentioned where the users are shown random workshop items that they could vote on while a game loads.
As a recent participant I have to say that the Workshop experience is a bit bitter-sweet. On one hand, getting community feedback and comments is really great, as it gives a really nice read of what people like or want, and why. There is also some constructive feedback in the comment pages, which comes to me as a very good surprise. However, there are indeed some issue with the system.
- Workshop pages speed
Quite simply, browsing it through Steam is a real pain ! The browser is very slow, which is fine for regular Store browsing but way too sluggish for browsing pages and pages of items. For instance, there has been a fantastic courier being released just recently on Nov 16th :
Forest Faun Courier - Toot by pixelherder
Yet because of the "most recent" system it is buried on page 2 of the "most recent" category, which basically makes it invisible to anyone casually browsing the workshop from within Steam since latency is too big. Considering the time and effort it took to create, I think it is not really fair to the creator(s), since items that can take something like 2 days to make are pushing it down. Of course, browsing the Workshop in Chrome solves the issue, but I don't think that many players do that. Same goes for the ingame Shop for approved items.
Now of course this does not mean that it won't make it to the game, as Valve has the final say ; but in the meantime, the artists who put their guts into crafting that item are left in the dark. Which leads me to my second issue.
- Official feedback on user-generated content.
The above issue of artists not getting feedback or votes on the recent page coud easily leveraged by Valve, without making many changes to the Workshop and Store - just a little but of community management would do wonders.
For instance, they could have some sort of feedback loop in place, to send at least some feedback on pending items at regular intervals informing content creators about the state of their submissions. Now of course it would take time for them to do so *but* considering that they are taking a 75% cut I think that is the least they can do. For instance, they could review all workshop content every other week or so, send feedback on the 1st and 15th of each month, and make the date known to the workshop artists. Or something like that.
To put things in context : I saw a Broodmother set made by friends taking 10 months to be accepted (!!) and the red panda courier by JFletcher, while being the highest rated item of all time, did not even make it to the 3 Spirit update after 6 weeks of workshop presence. I think that is a big issue ... to a point where it might actually cool down the enthusiasm of content creators. I know it certainly cools mine down
- In short :
The concept of user-generated content submission is really great ; and of course, there is great compensation to be made from it. But it is a mistake to think that artists are just "in for the money". Artists are in for the exchange, the pure joy of knowing that people are enjoying a creation and feeling happy with it. And then move on to the next art piece, riding the wave of good vibes ! I feel like in its current state the Workshop is undermining that, and I am not sure if Valve realizes it.
On one hand, they say they say that community generated content is awesome ; but on the other hand, there is no communication on how things are curated, which I think is a dangerous position given that there is indeed a lot of free time (and thus, money) involved on the artist's side. As soon as they decide to monetize the work of the community, they put themselves in a position where they have responsibilities further than just sharing the money eventually generated from it.
What do you guys think ?
I think that's been one of the biggest issues..The communication aspect you talk about just doesn't seem possible with Valve having such a small team on Dota 2.
I've had many people I've worked with leave the workshop scene after seeing their submissions (Which did really well in the workshop) sit in the workshop 6-12 months. It would be nice to see Valve invest in a community/workshop support team for a game like this.
The promo PSD is one step deeeper tho, and that is kinda dumb for sure. I ended up skipping that step altogether, as it seems too dangerous : a large upload like that could easily mess up the proper delivery of the more important model files.
Oroboros : that's very interesting to hear. In a way I wish that this was acknowledged a bit more by Valve ; for instance, they could have both the submission date and the approval date stated on item pages. It would make the process a little bit more transparent to begin with.
Also, do you know if these people who left after a while got any feedback from Valve whatsoever ? Either positive or negative. Because I think that when it comes to art, getting a sense of closure is very important. It's often better to just move along to the next thing, than having art linger like that for while in an "pending" state. At least that's how I see it
The only thing I'm hoping for is the rise of the Kinetic Gem being a tool for animators to create more things for the workshop. Being limited to just couriers and wards is ok, but some more flexibility would be great. :thumbup:
I'm excited about it. Waiting for workshop requirements be refreshed.
- Variants & Color Swaps
It's hard to say. TF2 and DOTA2 have different cameras. In TF2 we can see the characters closer and detailed. I remember Vitoddo saying his problems to making a weapon for PA on the set for Alliance.
- League/Big Ticket items
"Is it right to tell a league 'no' to their courier if it's not up to certain standards, regardless of if they're happy with it and want to use it? "
Yes. I don't know who created the We Play TV's courier but this courier is terrible. She doesn't have any animation.
After that, the workshop should go through a complete overhaul with many good things already suggested by the community.
Also, make it faster please, takes forever to load anything.
Anyway, thats what i think needs to be done.
I want this.
I think you misunderstood, the way I understood the change in color was changing to fit color schemes. For example, the battle banner, why not make the letters more orange or yellow or warm up the wood.The color textures would have to be provided by the author to prevent a furion staff being hot pink.
I couldn't agree more with that! The sight of new released heroes (that are visually "completed such as Timbersaw and Elder Titan) not available itches me so much. Sooner or later we might run out of fresh ideas if there's no incoming updates on workshop (Even players can get bored of the same heroes before the Three Spirits update)
Thank you Kunkka (the artist who brought up this sweet idea) for creating an opportunity to submit Loading Screens! As much as I feel excited, I'm having mixed feelings regarding this issue. Question is, how large the range of visual styles is acceptable in the community? Will Valve and the community prefer the highly detailed, gritty, edgy CGHub finishing, which is a standard for the game art industry? Don't get me wrong I'm not the kind who bashes at styles (I love all sorts of beautiful paintings), but I feel concerned over the fact that "style" might play a huge factor here.(instead of technical skills, visual composition, colours etc) What do you guys think?
I feel hero colours shouldn't vary too drastically, so far AM with black hair (Burning's set) and white hair (Kunkka's set) are fine for me as his original purples are still dominant. Something like the old Navi AM, white and red clothes, is totally out.
It'd be great to hear feedback on the Workshop visibility issue from folks who have worked on the TF2 side of items. TF2 itself have stagnate for some time now, Halloween event aside. There are plenty of amazing items that are lost in the depths of the Workshop, and I fear the same for Dota 2 eventually. I understand Valve can't be selling 20 sets and 3 chests every month, but the "backlog" is getting pretty bad. Broodmother's Steelweb set was from Dec 2012...
Given enough time, it'll start to mirror the same visibility problems from today's App Store. Grouping sets up will definitely help, but I think there's a better trick to borrow from Tumblr:
Endless scrolling. Everything will be first page, anyone casually scrolling will see a looot of items.
Hopefully, Valve gets the feedback and knows what to do.
so ideally that'd mean there's a lot more flexibility for them
The downside is, I think loading screens will never take off in the trading communities, and will not be coveted items. You have people who buy cosmetics to show them off. The sharing draw is gone, the "showing off" draw is totally out.
The thing is, cosmetics get seen while the user is playing the game - it's actually a part of the game. Loading screens only get seen if you want to sit there and wait for the game to load - I imagine a lot of users alt-tab to other activities, or maybe run off to get a drink before the game starts. Not to mention the fact that games run 30-50 min long, while loading times are maybe 15 seconds. People come to play dota - cosmetics enhance and improve the in-game experience. Loading screens influence the overall experience, but only a peripheral part of it.
The other thing that kind of kills loading screens is that anyone can replace the in game loading screen already, with any of the wallpapers that gets posted on r/dota2.
What dota integration brings is convenience... and maybe availability? (Skeptical on availability since a small file would probably be available for manipulation on the workshop page, and people can always dig up the raw file and share them.) Would the convenience be enough to encourage people to spend money on it? I'm skeptical. Maybe if it's cheap enough, like a token dollar or two, people can be convinced to throw down to support the artists.
Along comes a pro player Anti-Mage set, has a blindfold, and gets put into the game days after upload. Why were the others rejected, low quality? Not part of a set? Or the fact that pro players are getting a high priority?
I would hate to be one of the people that made a Anti Mage blindfold, what did they do wrong apart from not being involved with a pro, they will never know thanks to no feedback from valve?
@ hopgood - more broken down heroes is a must. There's so many more great heroes I know we would all love to contribute items for. It's only a matter of time, I know it must be a ton of work, but it has been a while since we've seen a new one. I think Abaddon was our latest?
@ kite again - It would be fantastic to have the workshop itself integrated into the client if possible. It's a huge part of the game and I think it goes beyond simple monetization since it includes the community so heavily.
I like that valve keeps this stuff pretty out of your face while playing, but having a tab in-game to view and rate items would help expose the workshop to more players. Though I'm sure the new 'these sets are available' will help a great amount.
@ Pior - I agree, their biggest 'failing' right now is the lack of communication. It would be wonderful if they had someone dedicated to talking to the workshoppers as well as the regular community. It would help so much, even just if they had a little checkbox that said 'hey, you're item is flagged for addition in the near future', instead of having the anticipation eat you up and lose motivation.
@ Frump - that's nice, but not everyone was in said session where they asked that we email them feedback. I know they've been around Reddit and some probably lurk here, but seeing as a lot of requests have gone by the wayside I thought it might be nice to consolidate and get more of the communities thoughts. I'll shoot him an email to hopefully get some eyes on this thread. Thanks for the suggestion!
@ Bernoully - this probably worries me most of all, is that the backlog will just get too intense and massive that the current rate of submissions will far outpace their delivery. It kind of already does. At the same time, I dont think they want to oversaturate the market every week, so it must be a really tough balance for them. The quality bar should only be going up (not with the intent to exclude people, but only to avoid things like the beaver and penguin couriers). Visibility within the workshop is definitely an issue and I'm glad so many people are touching upon it in the thread.
@beetroot, foxclover - I think loading screens are a neat idea. It allows graphic designers and illustrators to contribute, and not everyone is going to want to manually swap out their files even if they're able. I think if they're priced at 50-99 cents they might do quite well as an impulse buy.
@ Plant - this is another huge concern of mine. Seeing so many wonderful sets that sit dormant on the workshop for months, and then a pro set is submitted a week prior and immediately gets in. I understand that it's tied to a specific player but boy if it sure isn't a huge buzzkill to everyone not given those opportunities.
I can't confirm it, but I have been approached by organizations who have said "it's a guaranteed entry". Now, you can't take that as truth, it's mostly hearsay really since the organizations can simply be making this up to soothe negotiations.
But, given some of the entries into the workshop, an eyebrow can be raised about quality control on items associated with third parties and pro players. When the members of the dota 2 workshop are all in agreement asking the question "Could this submissions have passed though the workshop successfully without a third party?" You know there's a problem.
The workshop has two really large problems that I think we can all agree on;
We need better organization in the workshop, meaning sets get bundled together into one icon rather then each as an individual item. And we need better communication from Valve.
The Workshop really is a fascinating place. I think the problem is that Valve wants it to be community driven, but also monetizes it and controls it. Is it really possible to maintain a healthy system while having it both ways ?
The other interesting thing is that rarity (and slow implementation of cosmetics) can actually create hype and might be one of the reasons why items sell so well once they come out. But I wonder if such a system is really compatible with the artistic aspect of the workshop. What I mean by that is that, if it becomes more of a business than a real place for art and strong community, it might cause people on the content creation side of it to loose interest because the business (and the lack of communication around it) is not the reason why they wanted to contribute in the first place.
@Plant - I know that feeling haha, I made that AM blind helm set about 2 months ago or something. And once I saw Tvidotto's set I knew that my AM set was never going in. Not that it was likely to go in with the way things are going, but seeing as Valve sometimes takes ages to add sets there was still a little hope. Disappointment I suppose is the apt term.
I like a lot of the ideas here - the workshop could definitely use more organisation. Maybe another feature that could help is an "items you might like" similar to youtube's "other videos you might like". It could help views filter down from the most popular front page items to less viewed items. A lot of times (especially with sets) one or 2 items get all the views, but I keep looking at them and thinking that after a certain point all those views are kinda wasted. Wish I could "transfer" them in some way haha.
- biggest thing that is bugging me atm is "guaranteed" entry in to the workshop with 3rd party sponsors. i can understand both sides of the fence to a degree but it worries more than being accepting of it. The items made for any third party should be held to the same voting standards as everyone else on the workshop.
- increased communication from valve would be great. Any feedback they can give would be great. There is a lot of items so its not gonna be always possible for every item.
- sets grouped into an icon is cool, especially prevalent when 6+ items fill up the front page due to outside marketing tactics.
- i got friends that play dota heaps but when i mention the workshop they have no idea how to get to it or that it really exists. It would be great to have some way players could easily see the workshop in game. a tab at the top under store perhaps? or i think as bounch mentioned random ones poping up for you to vote on while u wait could be cool . anything to bring more player exposure to the workshop to vote on what is good/bad is great.
- yep would love to see more heroes available to make items for as mentioned.
- YES!
Personally, I vote for doing something like this;
It works well for the advertising ingame items already get, and the quiz at the end is also engaging. So something like that seems like a pretty good fit to me.
Borrow from the Greenlight system, ask the question directly, "would you buy this if it were in the store?" Pull upvote/downvote data from that. Remove the ablity to comment, instead, simply just provide a yes or no answer with the option to skip, while also including a "view on workshop" button where they could leave a comment if they'd like. In a five minute period a player could possibly make his way though all the new submissions for the week.
If anyone wants to continue building on that idea you're more then welcome to, I think I might also go ahead and post this in dota2.dev just so it gets around. I think the idea has ground to stand on.
That is a golden idea! :thumbup:
-Something else I would also like to see that pertains to the Store directly is the removal of ALL esport/third-party from the regular store. And instead moved to the "pro shop". I don't mind them being on the top sellers, but being seeing a $15 Alliance Legendary Skin next to a $3 Queen of Pain seems a bit unbalanced (on the sets tab of the store, not top sellers). Especially when most of these third-parties have a marketing team behind them pushing the new items. And I know this is something they considered because just after the large patch I noticed a tab in the pro shop called "Pro Sets" It didn't work and it was shortly removed afterward. If I had to take a guess, they're testing how they work in the regualar store, and eventually we'll see them moved into that tab where they can compare the metrics.
Bonus pic:
Still not sure what that accomplished.
It looks like most of the topics are already on the table, to add a few thoughts/ideas.
The ability to group sets on the main workshop page or at least re tool the current collection section so that its on par with single items. For example - sets are created during the item submission process, within the game client, just like single items. This would eliminate randoms creating sets of random images and cheapening the entire space.
I would love to see more hero's available. It would be fantastic to see a bunch, or the remainder of the hero's become available and to hold another official polycount contest in conjunction with the release.
Communication with Valve, however much i value Valve feedback i understand why its a tricky area, and why its not happening.
Although not ideal i feel a set of form letters or responses could hit a reasonable middle ground and offer at least some minimal feedback.
For example
Your item has been reviewed and will not be considered for addition.
Your item's have been reviewed and will not be considered for addition in the current round but have been flagged for re review at a later date
Your item has been reviewed and will be submitted to the test client for testing
This could potentially be expanded upon
will not be considered for addition due to - Overall quality
will not be considered for addition due to - Style
will not be considered for addition due to - Silhouette
Or any other regular issues, or combination of issues etc.
Also love the Random voting ideas, the image Andrew put together for the waiting screen is fantastic and would be great.
good point was thinking bout something similar the other day.
As to some suggestions, as everyone has said, more communication from Valve would be great. Especially when it comes down to WHEN/WHY/HOW an item is accepted. Like why did it take so long for that Broodmother set to get in but in the last update there were a bunch of recent sets put in too? Is there just so much stuff in the backlog it gets lost? Theres plenty of filters in place to help sort items.
Also echoing adding more Heroes. It seems recently that some new heroes get added to the Workshop fairly quickly. Bristleback, Tusk and Abbadon are all in the Workshop but Elder Titan still isn't... Hopefully the Spirits follow soon..
Awesome, thanks for the update! I sent him an email as per Frump's suggestion but hadn't heard back, so I wasn't sure if I got spam filtered because of the email I used (just set up bounchfx[at]gmail), or a typo on my part. I also wonder if this might be good to share on the dev.dota forums as well, as not all of them wander here? We've had awesome suggestions so far and it's great hearing the thoughts of other community members.
This as well, when was the last time we even had a update of the workshop roster? I think it's time.
For instance, this would prevent an artist (or even, a team of artists doing a collaboration) from spending too much time on something that the community ultimately finds controversial. Now of course it shouldn't be a hard rule, as things can slide a bit between the concept stage and final asset ; therefore nothing should prevent an artist or a team to release only final, game ready pieces for submission. But it might help in cases when a piece is considered "borderline" and someone wants some kind of validation before going ahead.
A good example would be the female mustache joke on the recently submitted Crystal Maiden set. Now of course it is a bit of a special case since the set got accepted anyways, but the kind of comments coming from the community indicates that many people might be against it ...
Now that I think of it tho, nothing prevents someone from submitting a piece of concept art as a workshop item, even today - all it takes is dummy geometry and textures, and the "item" can go through just fine and then get suggestions and comments. I actually did something similar by mistake when I was submitting last week and it was interesting to see that people were totally cool with commenting on a piece of concept art alone. But it is true that it might make the workshop even more crowded than it is now. Yet something tells me that if there was no money or implementation "hammer" in place, like for games where there is no monetization of user-created content, this wouldn't be a problem at all.
Anyways, that's just an idea
At the end of the day, more community manager presence from Valve would really be great, and might solve all these concerns and issues instantly without having to change the current system at all. The interesting thing is that there is already a system in place for that, with the special dev section in the workshop comments. All it takes would be for Valve to use that tool a bit more, with the persons in charge of curating submissions taking the time to get involved a little bit earlier in the process.
Seen that way, it might actually take *less* of their time. I suppose that discussions on which items or sets to accept can get pretty passionate at Valve ; if such discussions were taken care of earlier on thanks to communication with the artists, it would make the decision of including this or that item in a patch much more straightforward and "mechanical", since the big legwork would have been taken care of already thanks to feedback and discussions in the dev section of the comments.
Now of course nothing should be taken from granted, and there needs to be curating at the final stage anyways : the final model needs to fit the quality standards. But if it doesn't, then it is a matter of reworking it and making it fit, as opposed to starting everything again from scratch
I kinda feel like this could just lead to more heartache. Even though artist's all want/need feedback, I think some (maybe many) people that are rejected and get a reason of 'Silhouette' will instantly turn around and tell themselves, 'well, if I just make the silhouette more appealing this thing will get accepted.'
Like for example, I got a comment from Valve on one of my more recent submissions, and even though it plainly says in the developer comment section that communication with Valve doesn't guarantee your item will be accepted, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I told myself 'if I make these changes, it will end up in a chest'. But, in the end, if it doesn't end up in one, I'm going to wish I'd never been contacted because I did the extra work to make the changes and resubmit.
Does that makes sense?
I DO think, however, that more broad based communication from Valve would be just plain awesome. Something like they did with the Polycount contest, but obviously not so indepth. Maybe just a single offshoot of the blog every month or so that highlights an item and talks about what they like about it and why it was accepted.
I really like this as well. Especially since they have the code in place with Steam Greenlight, I think it'd be great.
Now obviously hindsight is 20/20 and it may not be feasible for the team to not only do their work but write regular blog posts about it. Given the reaction from the community on certain issues, they may not want to.
I've also been contact by Valve on various occasions in relation to items I have made.
- I was asked to adjust the neck line of my Bloodseeker helm so it wouldn't clip with some other additional cosmetic items. That was done and I believe it is in the new Ember Chest
- I was asked if two separate weapons with the same theme for one character could be made into a bundle. Few patches have gone by and I haven't seen any progress on that.
- I was also asked to rework the set I made for the Polycount contest last year. Initially it was just to correct some rigging problems but I felt the whole thing needed an overhaul. It's been up on the Workshop for a bit now but missed out on inclusion in the most recent large patch.
Your mileage may vary and I am always thankful for feedback from Valve on anything I create. But, I would love to see, as mentioned above, some more broad insight into the art teams development and why some sets stand above others so that future items can adhere to that same standard.
I feel much of the driving innovation has come from workshop contributors themselves which is an amazing thing to see. Evolving sets, Custom Animations on items, Custom summons, Custom wards. Who knows where to go from here?
The only issue is that it seems like not everyone has access to perks like custom animations on their items or sets, and it's been strange to say the least.
To bring up an example we were asked to do an item to be given out a tournament in Korea and were asked how to spice it up. The answer was custom animations, which they thought was a great idea. We put in a lot of work for the Tusk axe called 'glacial shard', which came with a proposed custom animation pack.
The goal was to take it to the next level because it was being created in partnership with a bigger company..And of course we all wanted to set that quality and innovation bar high like we've seen others do with great success.
Original submission here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=189083397
It was accepted, but with no animations whatsoever and no marketing. Sold as an uncommon single item. A few days later TviDotto's Alliance set went in with a full custom animation set, which left me scratching my head. I'm not pointing fingers (I'm very happy for Tvidotto), but this is an example of the communication issue and the types of scenarios that befall creators when it's absent. We were never told what's wrong, and never were able to contact anyone to get clarification.
We instead were contacted by plenty of people unhappy that these anims never made it in after buying it, and to say the least it's embarrassing and discouraging when I don't know what to tell them. Going ahead it just makes me wonder if it's worth the risk to put in the extra work if scenarios like this will play out again, leaving creators stranded with nobody to reach out to.
I even noticed Robo/DotaCinema's latest set put a disclaimer regarding particle FX on that new chest they submitted because they're unsure as to whether Valve will implement anything. It makes sense following a few examples like these, but should it be this way?
I rarely talk about workshop stuff but I do feel that this was one of those negative experiences brought on by lack of communication worth sharing. Despite all this I still love the workshop and I just want to see it improve.
That was really quite a headscratcher. I hope Valve can find a way to bring those animations in as a new Kinetic Gem.
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Another thought I had today has to do with the new socketing system: if Gem particles becomes available to the Workshop (as Kinetics eventually will), that'd open up new possibilities and hopefully, would cut down on Valve's workload so they can attend to numerous lingering issues. After all, some particles such as Crystal Rift aren't very popular as others, shouldn't users be able to at least vote for the effects they like?
Just food for thought!
I think Oroboro's example really hits the nail on the head for me, the uncertainty potentially leading to unexplored ideas or updates and also inspiring artists to work toward quantity at the expense of quality.