Short intro:
I think we all know the feeling of annoyance when we want to explore the city, walk up to building doors, and see the message "Door locked". This unfortunately still relates to 90% of Night City, and is something I think the entire playerbase wishes was different.
But how could CDPR actually make this a reality? So much work is too much to ask for a developer team, obviously. But you have a dedicated playerbase with a spiking modding scene. Here's my proposal to how you can collaborate with your community to make this happen.
Proposal:
CDPR will host seasonal events, where anyone from the community is able to decorate and mod a room, a floor, or an entire building if they so choose. Then on the deadline, all the community modded interiors and building spaces will be announced publicly for everyone to vote on a selection of the best works, which CDPR devs can then test in-game to verify framerate stability and other gameplay and aesthetic related matters, to then finally choose a selection of decorations that will be updated into the live game. Each upload will feature a reference to the creator who made it, and they will receive an exclusive access to that space in some form that is gameplay relevant (could be designated as owner of the space and have unique features accessible such as personal npc smalltalk dialogue or whatever).
Once user decorations have been chosen, the dev team can then do the very final touchups and optimizations if needed.
Results:
Slowly over multiple seasons, more and more districts in Night City would be populated by the players themselves, and the sense of community and exploration would be able to grow significantly - while the city would feel more alive and diverse because it actually pulls on tastes and choices of a large group of real people with their own unique takes on what the Night City experience could be like.
Incentives:
Any further incentives granted to the chosen community members who reach most votes or best feedback from the devs can be discussed internally, or just leave it plain as a simple passion driven community event that is overseen by the dev team. There are so many resources to pull from in this player community, and enabling these resources to pour their efforts into a dedicated formula for the actual game itself and not just the standalone modding scene, is just what the game needs in order to grow organically.
To garner even more attention, the developer feedback and testing can even be streamed online so players get the direct feedback and dev thoughts to create a further two-way bond between players and devs, and also help future environment artists to take note on what to implement and what to improve in their future proposals for CP77 environments.
Types of decoration (as inspiration):
Massive scale (4-8 person) : A major corpo office building / Cyberware lab facility / Apartment complex / Mall
Large scale (3-5 person) : A Casino / Large corpo penthouse / Car&vehicle dealer / Military corp facility
Medium scale (1-3 person) : A rooftop rave club / Restaurant & Diner / Shooting range / Floor office space
Small scale (1-2 person) : A small hotel lobby / drinks&food bar / Coin wash shop / Car garage / Grocery store
Tiny scale (1 person) : A single room apartment / small Office space
TLDR (example):
1. Establish event seasons (1-3month periods per season)
2. Developers publicly announce buildings that are designated for the event
3. Community creates game environments for those designated buildings
4. On season deadline all community created environments will be open for public voting
5. After a given voting period, developers take into consideration the top voted game environments and test them for in-game compatibility.
6. If an/multiple environment(s) is chosen, developers will polish and optimize last details and implement into the live game as a part of future patch releases/updates.
I think we all know the feeling of annoyance when we want to explore the city, walk up to building doors, and see the message "Door locked". This unfortunately still relates to 90% of Night City, and is something I think the entire playerbase wishes was different.
But how could CDPR actually make this a reality? So much work is too much to ask for a developer team, obviously. But you have a dedicated playerbase with a spiking modding scene. Here's my proposal to how you can collaborate with your community to make this happen.
Proposal:
CDPR will host seasonal events, where anyone from the community is able to decorate and mod a room, a floor, or an entire building if they so choose. Then on the deadline, all the community modded interiors and building spaces will be announced publicly for everyone to vote on a selection of the best works, which CDPR devs can then test in-game to verify framerate stability and other gameplay and aesthetic related matters, to then finally choose a selection of decorations that will be updated into the live game. Each upload will feature a reference to the creator who made it, and they will receive an exclusive access to that space in some form that is gameplay relevant (could be designated as owner of the space and have unique features accessible such as personal npc smalltalk dialogue or whatever).
Once user decorations have been chosen, the dev team can then do the very final touchups and optimizations if needed.
Results:
Slowly over multiple seasons, more and more districts in Night City would be populated by the players themselves, and the sense of community and exploration would be able to grow significantly - while the city would feel more alive and diverse because it actually pulls on tastes and choices of a large group of real people with their own unique takes on what the Night City experience could be like.
Incentives:
Any further incentives granted to the chosen community members who reach most votes or best feedback from the devs can be discussed internally, or just leave it plain as a simple passion driven community event that is overseen by the dev team. There are so many resources to pull from in this player community, and enabling these resources to pour their efforts into a dedicated formula for the actual game itself and not just the standalone modding scene, is just what the game needs in order to grow organically.
To garner even more attention, the developer feedback and testing can even be streamed online so players get the direct feedback and dev thoughts to create a further two-way bond between players and devs, and also help future environment artists to take note on what to implement and what to improve in their future proposals for CP77 environments.
Types of decoration (as inspiration):
Massive scale (4-8 person) : A major corpo office building / Cyberware lab facility / Apartment complex / Mall
Large scale (3-5 person) : A Casino / Large corpo penthouse / Car&vehicle dealer / Military corp facility
Medium scale (1-3 person) : A rooftop rave club / Restaurant & Diner / Shooting range / Floor office space
Small scale (1-2 person) : A small hotel lobby / drinks&food bar / Coin wash shop / Car garage / Grocery store
Tiny scale (1 person) : A single room apartment / small Office space
TLDR (example):
1. Establish event seasons (1-3month periods per season)
2. Developers publicly announce buildings that are designated for the event
3. Community creates game environments for those designated buildings
4. On season deadline all community created environments will be open for public voting
5. After a given voting period, developers take into consideration the top voted game environments and test them for in-game compatibility.
6. If an/multiple environment(s) is chosen, developers will polish and optimize last details and implement into the live game as a part of future patch releases/updates.
