If it is possible to filter your searches for costum objects and it isn't encouraged too much to use costum objects, I suppose I'd accept.

I'd like to revive this discussion to discuss the whole options idea.

I've been seeing a lot of comments saying that if we open up the option to let people change whatever they want with their levels, then it will somehow ruin the game. And what I want to know is how.

I seriously don't understand the viewpoint behind these arguments, and I'm assuming that I just don't see whatever it is that everyone else is seeing when it comes to this idea. So please, explain this to me, guys. In the meantime, let me explain my thought process, so that we may further see eye-to-eye over this issue.

Concerns over this include: that it'll make making a level too complicated, essentially ruining the original simplicity of the level maker; that you'll have to wallow through pages and pages of options whenever you want to make a level; or that when you actually play the level, it'll be a big mess because the player will not have any idea on what to expect or what's going on. First of all, let me say that all of these concerns, while they are justified, all fall under the issue of presentation.

The presentation, not the concept, is what's causing all of the worries-- or at least that's what it looks to me (though, I will address some conceptual issues later in this post). The presentation is independent of the concept, and any issues that arise in regards to it do not necessarily mean that the concept is doomed, because these issues can always be fixed. First of all, let's look at all of these presentational issues individually.

PRESENTATIONAL ISSUES -- issues that easy to fix and are irrelevant the concept

Level Maker Simplicity?
Problem:
Some people think that if we give players access to tons and tons of options, they will be confused and disoriented. Everyone wants to be able to make a level in five seconds without having to deal with a ton of options. Also, no one's gonna want to bother with the game if it looks ridiculously complicated.

Solution:
I believe that it's possible to make the level maker ultra-simple while still finding room for all of the options for anyone who might want them. We can do this by building the level maker so that the program essentially ignores the fact that options even exist. Everything will look as easy-to-use as possible, with virtually no options in sight-- that is, until you look for them.

Instead of being able to customize any object on the go, any and all options will have to be accessed through the Custom Object editor, which will be like a sub-program within the initial level maker program. (The CO editor [lol "carbon monoxide" editor.... ] will also have to be well organized and presented to be easy to use, rather than throwing all the options at you, but that's something to worry about during the designing of the program). So basically, the only way to use a tile with some slight optional changes will be to go and make an entirely new Custom Object. After that, the Level Maker will treat your COs as if they were regular tiles.

With this idea, we can have Custom Objects without sacrificing any ease of use of the regular level maker. And by dumping everything into a "Custom Object Editor", the name itself implies that things will get more complicated if you go in there, but the beauty of it is that you're not forced to even look at a single option in there.

People will use this option too much?
This isn't really a presentational issue, but it's here because it's an issue that results from the presentation of this system.
Problem:
The concern is that people will overuse this option. Instead of coming up with creative ways to solve problems, they'll just make a tile that will solve all of their problems, leading to uninteresting levels and stuff.

Solution:
I believe that this is no longer a problem, actually, because of what I said before about the Custom Object Editor. Basically, the blatant separation of custom objects from regular objects changes the user's perception as to what these options should be used for. Because you have to make an entirely new object, I imagine that users will not heavily rely on custom objects much for most situations. Therefore, there really is no tendency to use this feature often.

Confusion when playing levels?
Problem:
Even if people aren't overusing this feature, it might still be confusing when you get into a level. How do you know if that steel crate really is a steel crate? How do we know that it's not gonna go flying up when you do something to it? Or that it's gonna bounce you back 20 feet if you touch it?

Solution:
First of all, now that you have to make an entirely new object, players are less likely to make a tile with the exact same appearance as a tile that already exists, unless they have mischievous intentions. Also, the player will more than likely realize that no one has ever seen this custom object before, and they might try to present it in a wise manner.

Furthermore, there should also be an accessible list of all of the custom objects in a level with their respective descriptions (written by the person who made them) so that the player won't feel hopelessly disoriented if they step into a level with a couple custom objects they've never seen before, even if the person who made the level did not take steps to make sure he/she presented their creations wisely to the player. This list should be accessible from the start screen and the pause screen, for quick reference.

CONCEPTUAL ISSUES -- where the real debate should be at

I just wanted to point out that whenever you use any of the arguments above as a reason to not do this idea, it's irrelevant because presentational issues can always be fixed. Whereas, the following issues are directly involved with the idea of added customization. With this area, it isn't as clear as a simple "problem vs. solution" thing. This section will be more about analysis...

Less Creativity and too much freedom?
First of all, it sound rather ridiculous to think that by adding more options, you could somehow take away from creativity, but the concern is that by giving you more freedom with what you can make, we'd essentially be heightening the standards for what would make a level "creative". For example, if someone made an elaborate trap in HATPC with some creative tile placement, someone might look at it and be impressed by the planning and placement of tiles. However, if you make the same thing in Aeon (don't worry, jell, I'm not implying that we're making a HATPC clone or anything ) but with less tiles, then maybe the same trap wouldn't be seen as so creative?

But then again, the whole reason why this "standard for creativity" would be raised is because you'd be able to do much more with the game, but it's not limitless. There will always be limits to what you can do with any game, and I guess getting past those new limits (as opposed to getting past HATPC's limits) will be what the new standard for creativity will be at. So technically, nothing's changed in that regards. What will change is an increase in the possibilities of things you can do with the game.

And this is the point of view of people who are already inside the game. If we look at it from the perspective of an outsider, it will ultimately come down to whether or not they had fun with the level. And the biggest reason I like this optional customization idea is that we can make more and more kinds of things to make levels that are even more fun to play. I mean, that's all that matters right?

Why I don't see a problem with "too much freedom"
We're making this game for the sole purpose of making it an amazing custom-level game. If we make the game too limited (not that I'm implying that our game is limited), then people could eventually get tired with it. But if you have a lot of freedom with it, you can experiment with the game all the time, and it'll last longer without people getting tired of it. This is why I really like this idea, and why I think it's absurd to let any of the presentational problems get in the way when taking this idea into consideration.

When I first presented this idea, CSD said that it really depends on what kind of game we want to make Aeon into. Clearly, an Aeon with Custom Objects will be much more community-involved and it will have much more creativity, because you'd be able to mess around with the engine much more than you normally could and hopefully make some amazingly creative levels from this.

It's this type of stuff that made HATPC so interesting for us and for so long: we were constantly messing around with its glitches and pushing its system to the limit, while figuring out new ways to do things with it. This is why some people wanted the Aeon Level Maker to include a section where you could go straight into the code and make their own edits-- they wanted to mess around with the game and find glitches and stuff. But suddenly, when I suggest a completely open system, where you can take advantage of not only the placement of tiles, but the entire engine that runs them, allowing you to mix and match together different tile functions and letting you do things never before possible or thought of-- suddenly, you guys become scared of taking advantage of the game. Somehow by "officializing" it, it becomes a problem rather than something that could potentially be fun.

Oftentimes, since I don't seem to agree with you guys too often, I usually think that it's my fault for being so bad at communication, and then that leads me to over-think all of this, just looking for a way to understand everyone else's points of view, and the next thing I know, I've gone and made a giant post like this. But now that I've written that previous paragraph, I'm not sure if I'm the one who can't see things clearly.

Why can't "classical" levels co-exist with "customized" levels??
When I think back to the past debates, it seems to me that you don't believe that fully-customizable levels can co-exist with regular levels. I honestly do not understand the reasoning behind this misconception, but I've noticed that some people have become more tolerable of the idea only after I stressed that you would be able to limit your level searches based on levels that do or do not have custom objects. Heck, now there's even this rather popular idea circulating that we should create two versions of Aeon: one without custom objects, and another with it. I have to be honest; I thought this was an absurd idea, and yet, it's been accepted by a lot of people, so now I don't know what to think.

But I really don't understand the logic behind this suggestion. I can only assume that it was based on some ideas that I just refuted under the "Presentational Issues" section of this post.

Dekudude also keeps saying that "bigger isn't always better", but it's not like my thought process in suggesting this was based on the idea of adding more and more stuff to Aeon to make it better somehow. From the beginning, I tried to visualize how adding this would affect the game as a whole--how it would change the attitudes about the game, how people would think of the game with it as opposed to without it, what kind of community it would develop--and it's because I liked what the game would become that I decided to suggest this idea. I'm not sure if I've done a good job explaining this (in the past or just now, even), but don't think that I'm just mindlessly throwing everything in hoping that it'll turn out better in the end. The reason I keep bringing this idea up over and over again is because I honestly think that Aeon would become a much better game with it.

I have my doubts about that.

How would the costum objects show in the level code? Will the objects first be uploaded to this site, and have the start of a level code say something like "character ¤ in the code stands for object #163397 from the database", where every time character ¤ appears in the code it will be replaced by object #1663397 from the database? That would mean the level maker and the levels would only work on this site. But if we want popularity, it would be best to also submit the game to sites such as Kongregate and Armor Games.

My suggestion would be similar to the two versions of Aeon idea.
First make Aeon with the single player mode, without all the custom options as we had been planning from the start. This version will be distributed to different sites. There should be an option for custom objects, but if you press it you get the message "This version doesn't support costum objects. Go to Interguild.org if you want to use costum objects".
Next make a pure level maker and player with costum objects, but without a single player mode. This version of the game will be purely for creating and playing user levels. This version will only be available on this site.

Yeah, that's one thing I was thinking about.  A toned down version of Aeon for other sites like ArmorGames.com and such.

I don't know if I've posted here before or if I even agreed with this idea, but I have a damn good reason why this should never ever be applied to the game. All tiles should be consistent: when you hit an arrow, you know where it's going/how fast and when you knock a boulder off a ledge, you know what's going to happen when it hits the bottom. If people could customise tiles, there would be horrible tile abuse in levels that trick the player into dying when they aren't expecting it. The entire community could collapse because of such annoying levels. Customisable colours on terrain and background: yes. Customisable anything-else: REJECT

Every game needs a strong degree of consistency and the ability to change the speed and direction of action tiles would murder the game completely and make it an unenjoyable experience. Please forget this idea forever.  

I agree with Jebby, but if costum objects do get implented, I would prefer it if it were like I suggested, with two different version.

Anybody care if I lock this topic? I'm in absolutely no mode to drudge this whole thing up again. I still have opinions, but I have no interest in restating them.

You know what I found the be the most interesting part of that Aeon Demo? Messing around with the options. Not only the fuchsia-flame backgrounds, but also the trampoline-style floors, the bouncing like a ball against the edges, lol. You could make a rocket-ship level by making gravity and terminal velocity negative.

I would try to debate with you Livio, but I'm still reading your hideously long post.

Anyways I REJECT your ideas , Livio.
I APPROVE OF "two versions of Aeon idea"

I just don't see how one can fit all sorts of whacky options into a simple level maker. It's like trying to explain how to make a grilled cheese sandwich with quantum physics. And I was thinking exactly what Jebby said, "there would be horrible tile abuse in levels that trick the player into dying when they aren't expecting it. The entire community could collapse because of such annoying levels". If we do have to go along with customizable stuff, make the two games like Jell said. Let us keep customizable backgrounds and terrains like Jebby said if we go with a straightforward option.

Edit: After finding Csd posted on me, I agree some options could be really fun, it's just how we become aware of certain options and how to simply set and enforce them in the editer. And no I wouldn't mind at all if this topic got locked. It seems like Livio is fighting a already lost battle.

I APPROVE of the ideas Livio stated - and I'd like to introduce you to one of our games on our site. It's called N. Now, remember the mod called Nreality? Jebby gave me +Karma for that post, so he might remember.

http://www.interguild.org/members/forums/topic.php?id=3873

Either way, that mod did one particular thing: It allowed custom content. Did that kill creaticity? No! It isn't used very much, but when it does it's always easy figuring out what to do with each new object. The map makers have put thought into their levels and their objects. Ckjr made some levels that were only playable with Nreality, because he created new objects.

While N and Aeon are two different kinds of games I think that we can still use this as an example - "Too much" customization does not kill creativity, every level is not filled with new objects - they're actually not used very often at all, also this: pretty much insures that the custom objects won't be too confusing for the player. One way to make it even easier to recognize a custom tile would be to add an option for the player, that would add some kind of mark on the object - for example the letters "CO" in a small font, or anything else - it doesn't really matter. When hovering the object with your mouse you could get additional information about the object (written by the cavemaker) and so on - the options are endless.

However, I still believe, despite how ridiculous I actually believe the idea sounds, that we might need to split the game up into two parts - one with custom objects and one without, for other websites to use. I APPROVE of this idea too.

Hmm, I don't think I've even considered putting the game on other sites. How exactly would that work? At first I thought of some kind of business deal where the two sites share revenue, but are you also talking about simply letting people embed this game on their site for free?

I'm not sure about it yet, but it'll be something like "xxx|18398|xxx" so that when the script reads the | character, it'll continue reading up to the next one, use then use that id number to call up the custom tile if it's in the database. Or maybe to save loading times, it'll define all the COs at the top of the code while applying new id numbers for each one, then have the code reference "xx|1|xxx" instead of ridiculously high ids, and this method would also allow us to make custom tiles that aren't uploaded to the database, but still included in the code. I dunno, we'll see when it comes time to code it.

btw, I'm just curious, how many of you actually read my post through the end? lol, I'm not asking it to be hostile, but yeah, I knew that no one would be too thrilled to read it. It's just that I wanted to address a lot of things individually...

One of those things was this very issue:
As I stated in my ginormous post, this would be a result of terrible presentation, not because of idea itself. Isa agrees with me in that we can easily avoid that. And besides, you've made the infamous assumption that people are so stupid that they will always make annoying levels, all the time. And then jell, you agreed with that! And remember HB? She made countless annoying levels once, but we never once blamed the game for allowing her to do that. And besides, jebby:

Well, it's not like I'm just saying the same things over and over again. I'm just responding to several arguments that I've been hearing throughout the site and saying why I think the logic behind them is flawed.

Yeah, for some reason, everyone's assuming that anything made from the CO feature would be pointless and ridiculous. But the whole point of this is to let people come up with really cool stuff that we never thought of, like that whole pinball idea. Sure, what they come up with might not fit into the theme of the game, but players don't really care about that. If it's cool, they'll like it. And if it's annoying, what the heck makes you guys think that it'll become popular and ruin the community because it became popular?

I've tried to explain that, and I think I've come up with a really good way to organize it all. Read the part of my post labeled "Level Maker Simplicity?". But if you guys just keep saying that this is still an issue, at least be more concrete about it and stop assuming that it's impossible to make this easy to use.

I don't know, maybe I am sounding ignorant. I'll start to question the simplicity of the level maker when it comes out. Because the more I debate, the less I agree with myself.

The assumption that people are going to make ridiculous/annoying/stupid levels is perfectly reasonable. Even if they didn't intend to, the differences in tiles would be completely confusing. As I said earlier: consistency is one of the fundamental laws of videogaming. And that's the troof.

but seriously, this is just an option! You're acting as if this system will totally uproot the use of regular tiles and regulars will all become obsolete to the point that no one uses them anymore, thus leading to total lack of coherence or continuity among the levels of the community. This is a false presumption and also pretty over-reacting. And I've already proved that this wouldn't turn out to be a feature that would be used very often:

And I don't really understand your point of view jebby. The issue you're talking about only seems to be a short-term issue, and yet you believe it's a long-term one. Sure, people might make annoyingly dumb levels at first if they don't know what their doing or if they're just experimenting with what you can do, but I don't see how it's possible that everyone will just keep making the same old stupid and annoying levels all the time. I dunno, I thought people were actually interested in making levels that were fun.

Or maybe you're thinking about a different target audience, like little kids whose idea of "fun" is to make the most annoying levels ever.

I am against custom objects, but I realised it would be pointless to say the same things over and over again, so instead I am now suggesting how it should be implented if you do.

And here is part of the FAQ in Kongregate about uploading games:

man, that's a long read. I would've just linked to the page. Or is it accessible only if you're logged in? But I was about half way through it when I realized that I was still only half-way through it. 0_o I'll look it up later, when I get more time.

well, the thing is that I just don't understand why your concerns are valid. I'm not asking you to keep repeating yourself, but to actually explain why you think what you think, especially when taking into account what I've been saying about it and why I don't think these concerns will be a problem.

I also AGREE with custom objects. Saying that people will mess up with a feature that can literally have no evidence of existence if you choose not to use it or include it in searches, is like being annoyed at the people that stay up till 3 AM playing loud music, even though they live hundreds of miles away.

Those pages are even longer. They also have content for normal gamers or members. But since you asked, here are the pages:

General FAQ: http://www.kongregate.com/pages/help#how
Contests: http://www.kongregate.com/contests
Revenue money: http://www.kongregate.com/pages/earn
API: http://www.kongregate.com/pages/kongregate_api
Installing API for AS 3: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/4/topics/3064
Content sharing (such as levels) through API: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/4/topics/50371

And this isn't about submitting the game to Kongregate, but I thought some easy tutorials on Flash would be useful:
http://www.kongregate.com/labs

There are a lot of places we could submit the game.

that's really cool all that API stuff

Wait a minute, you know we could technically still run the whole user-level feature from any site, while linking everything to the same database here. The only problem it may bring up is if sites like kongregate don't like how we might choose to run things like that on our site. Or maybe they will like it since it frees their server space? But then again, it's not like you're being told to go to interguild.org if you want to play user levels b/c Aeon should have a full level-browser built into it so that you can browse through levels right from the game window, which means that sites like kongregate wouldn't have much of a problem...

Actually, I don't think that last paragraph made much sense. It was mostly just me thinking out loud...

Even if we don't rely on the content sharing API, the regular one is good, since they can basically make badges for beating the game, getting all the gems, and also max-points highscores...

You don't get it, Livio - it doesn't matter whether people try and make annoying levels or not... the content of your game needs to be consistent. Otherwise people get mad and stop playing your game. I'll underline that to make sure you understand: the content of your game needs to be consistent. Otherwise people get mad and stop playing your game.

I'm trying to think of some tiles that could be exceptions to this rule and I'm going to have to borrow some ideas from my all-time favourite game: Rayman. Let's say there's a floating tile that goes between two platforms. You could customise the distance that it travels. You could maybe adjust the speed, but I think that could be irritating in some situations. That's all I can think of. If you're making a game that has similar characteristics to HATPC (not a clone), then you are making a game that is about trap-making and puzzle solving. If you could customise the physics of every object, there would never be any familiarity or, more importantly, understanding of each level you play. It's nice to start up a level and be able to apply knowledge and skills that you have learnt from previous experiences with that game. It gives you a feeling of control. If the game then bends the rules to make things confusing or seemingly unfair, you're going to get frustrated.

I think I can derive a simple rule from what I just said: allow limited customisation of the tiles that are already moving when you reach them, but don't allow customisation of the tiles that only change/move when you interact with them.

That Kongregate site sounds good for getting some attention for this game. I support the idea of putting the game on there at the moment.

but jebby, I think you're overestimating the use of the custom tile feature. The vast majority of user levels are going to be composed of the same standard tiles. Confusion resulting from inconsistency only happens when it's the other way around: if the vast majority of levels all use user-generated tiles and little use of standard tiles.

To prove my point that most levels will not use custom tiles:
1) The idea is that you have to create a brand new Custom Object if you want to change any options. This changes the user's perspective on what this feature is, and it really doesn't present itself as something that you'd want to use all the time, unless you've got a really good idea that you'd like to center your levl around
2) It's too big of a hassle to go an make new tiles every time you make a level. Everyone would much rather use the tiles that already exist if they feel like making a regular level.

So that's why I don't think it's practical to assume that the Custom Object feature will be used to such an extent that it will throw off the entire continuity of the game.

Now over the issue of confusion because tiles aren't consistent with each other, these are my reasons why this issue will be avoided:
1) When you use any customization, you will have to create an entirely new Custom Object. Because of this, users will not be likely to give their tiles the exact same appearance of an already-existent tile-- unless they have mischievous intentions. Therefore, when players do not visually recognize a tile, they think: "oh it's a custom object!", so they won't be frustrated if a tile falls up, instead of down.
2) When you play a level with Custom Objects in it, the game will be super clear when telling you that the level you're playing has Custom Objects in it. Not only that, but it will give you access to a list that has all of the Custom Objects within that level, including their appearance, their names, and a description of its properties written by the creator of the tile. Not only can you view this list on the Jump-to-Start screen, but also on the pause screen as you play the level. The purpose of this is to minimize any confusion or frustration.

As you can see, we can't be any clearer about what's going on with the level you're playing.

But why go through all of this trouble? Why is the Custom Object feature as awesome as I think it is?

Well, first of all, one of the most fun parts of HATPC was simply testing the game, finding its limits, taking advantage of the glitches and everything. You guys even insisted that the Level Maker program gave you direct access to the level code so that you could test around with the game and do things with it that weren't originally intended. Well, the whole Custom Object option is to grant you more access, so that you can take advantage of not just level code, but the entire game engine. So that you can do things far more creative than taking advantage of some simple glitches you may find. With this option you can combine all sort of different functions and abilities to create things that no one ever thought of. Wouldn't such a game accumulate a larger community of fans? It's not like they could ever run out of ideas with such a feature. There's always experimenting to do, new ideas and inspiration to find. Like what csd said, who would've thought you could make a little pinball thing with Aeon? And who knows what other kinds of crazy ideas we'll find with the other tiles?

I understand that you may think that this could lead to tons of other problems, such as confusion or overwhelming user interface, but seriously, all of these problems are avoidable. And I think I've come up with enough solutions to all of them so far. This idea has changed a lot to address all of those concerns and I think we have something here that truly works.

I might be the most annoying person in the world right now but: REVIVE!!!

Come on, the reason I keep reviving this thing is because you guys keep complaining about the same things that I'm trying to suggest solutions for. And yet no one's either supported nor refuted my logic. I know it's in a giant post that no one wants to read, but these lasts posts I've made were basically restatements of several parts of that giant post.

What's really annoying is that there's no real discussion here. You guys keep giving me the same reasons over and over again, no matter how many times I've tried to prove to you that these issues will be avoided. I'd wouldn't keep bringing this up if you guys at least tried to prove to me why my logic is wrong or something. It's not that I'm so stubborn that I don't want to see it the way you see things-- honestly, I've been doing nothing but addressing your points of views lately--but it's just that no one's even listening to me.

I don't really think what it comes down to is the pros and cons of the custom object idea. It's more about the type of game we want to make, and I think it's obvious that the type of game the majority of people want made is more HATPC-like than, say, a puzzle-platformer version of RPG Maker or Zelda Classic.

Custom Objects? Now you're talking Knytt Stories...