This week on Video Game Tuesday I’m taking a look at one of my favorite things in video games. It’s Player Generated Content!

What is Player Generated Content?: It’s stuff made by players using tools provided to them by the developers of the game. This can range from custom maps in a game like Halo to full blown custom mods with custom models and rules like DotA in Warcraft 3!

Why is it so cool: It can add hours of fun game time to the game, in fact some of my favorite times playing Warcraft 3 and Starcraft were playing custom maps like Angel Arena or Fastest Map Ever respectively. Grifball was another favorite game mode of mine, which was a custom mode in Halo 3, before becoming a full on game mode by developers in later games.

Why it can be bad: Sometimes the tools the developers give us aren’t enough to make decent game modes by ourselves. Other times they think they can pad gameplay hours with the expected player generated content. I don’t mind them giving us the tools to make cool things, but I don’t want them to advertise that as a feature that will add hours of game time.

Player Run Events: This isn’t Player Generated Content as much as it is a communal event planned by a person or group to take place in an online game. I took part in one just the other day on Final Fantasy 14 which was quite fun. It was a hide and seek game in one of the capital cities that offered pretty amazing prizes, from vanity items like swimsuits, to some of the best crafted gear in the game or even a run through some of the hardest content in game by one of the servers best raid teams.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!

For those interested in what Player Run Events are like check out this blog!