Creatures Caves

Yeah, I know what you're thinking - what's this got to do with Creatures?

Fishing Cactus has said, in regards to third-party addons for C4: "we?re looking at what Valve did with Team Fortress, allowing users to produce and distribute content in the game and actually support that process. There are very good ideas there and we?ll be looking in that direction in the coming months."

So I'm kind of curious about Team Fortress's addons system now.

Team Fortress 2 was released in 2007, and in 2008, Valve released a bunch of community-created maps in an update.

(Speculating wildly here: METAROOMS!

)

The "Mann-conomy" was the launch of a real-money, in-game shop (in 2010). Their FAQ on this makes for thought-provoking reading. Players weren't forced to buy "bundles" of currency. Items that were bought were not able to be traded or crafted. Official and third-party items were available in the shop, and community members received a percentage of sales on the items they made. Players were not forced to spend money to remain competitive in the game, and it didn't become harder to get freebie items. Items could be gifted.

In 2010, the "contribution site" was unveiled, where players could submit weapons, hats, items and avatars. (Avatars... adoptions? breeds?)

Now for something a little more disheartening: The "contribute feature is exclusively for model design. The TF2 team will take your submitted content and incorporate it into the gameplay in a way that makes the most sense for TF2.", (although there is a suggestion box in the forums, apparently) and "Lawyer Stuff: Naturally, we really should not have offensive items or hats in the game." So, nothing really game-changing or "offensive" is available through this system. How this might translate to C4, I'm not sure. :/

The TF2 Contribution Site Legal Notice should also be interesting, although I'm kind of glazing over at it already.

It seems that content has historically been put out in sets of 'packs' - apparently to allow for beta-testing prior to release. Not sure if this is still true?

The ability to "craft" was introduced - mix up items in your inventory to make more useful items. (Quirky cookies?)

Last July, the game became free to play - and the developers promised that despite all revenue now coming from shop items, they would continue to release freebie packs. They attribute their decision to go 'free-to-play' to creating a big community, saying a big community helps make the game.

Trading items has been recently introduced.

Also, there's a wiki about TF2.

So... what does this mean for C4? Has anyone played TF2, and can tell us more about the system they've got there?