I'll be so shameless and post some other games content here. I know, I'm evil.
Valves "Perpetual Testing Initiative"
Everyone should instantly get what I am playing at.
But I'll elaborate anyways, trying to keep it short. Wall of texts seem to scare some people, after all.
I saw this Promo Trailer and the first thing that came to my mind was "Why is almost nothing of this in the game?"
The Levels have all kinds of neat things:
- Space - look at how big the plattforms are
- Design - you can see a bunch of "traps" and monster placement that actually makes sense
- Items - Headgear is quite fancy there
But what is it at the moment? The Clockwork right now is linear and narrow, the space you are given is restricted as good as possible. Of course, it makes it more difficult if you can't kite, but it's a cheap way to make something challenging. Like, tieing your hand behind your back. What else? The current levels seem to work after the principle "just throw as many enemys at them as possible". I think "Just add more monsters" to be a really cheap way out. Instead of making the monsters stronger, faster or just making entirely new ones, the solution is "just add so many skeletons until they HAVE to get hit".
Another thing is, the Clockwork is repetitive. As hell. They scramble the plattforms together to make a "new" level, while the single rooms themselfs have been played so often you recognize them the moment you set food on them. Nothing new, nothing interesting.
While we can't do anything about creating new monsters, we COULD do something about the design, IF we are given the means. Of course, we'd want to revive the Clockworks with that, so it shouldn't be a "design your own level"-thing. What I have in mind is something where you can create ONE room. You can make it an arena, a trap passage, whatever you feel like. Of course you can control which monsters spawn at which place (they'd give no loot). That one you can test as a single room. If you like it, then you can once a week / month / year submit the room, so that OOO can decide to implement it in their level building. That way, the Clockwork would really change every time you set foot in it.
But there's more! OOO could get his grabby hands on your money by selling you expansions! You can only make and save one room, but would like to make two, or three connected rooms? Pay them! You'd like to make a giant arena that takes a minute to cross from one end to the other? Pay them! You'd like to spawn special monsters? Pay them!
Money! Money everywhere!
And also, content.
http://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Yohoho_Tools
The Island/Scene editor has been used to add player content to the game (most notably islands for the Cursed Isles Sea Monster Hunt).
I thought Spiral Spy was a level editor, but it isn't.
I can't tell you how much I love this concept. Even if room-by-room, OOO stands so much to gain by releasing a user-friendly level editor. Contests and having an easy to update clockworks, being the obvious selling point (Oceanus Presents: Pimp your Wolver's Den! Top three winners may appear in the clockworks). Then factor a subscription to use, as you noted, or more micro-transactions.