Character Interactions:Player Generated Items

[B-rad]

I'm considering using an in-game currency aside from the base gold counts that will act as something to promote creative players to become more popular and wealthy at the same time.  In this interaction, players will be able to purchase from each-other different cosmetic equipments that they themselves have created.  A new headpiece here, a new dress there to complete a custom outfit.  If my method works properly, custom-built content for characters will be able to be produced in this manner.

I believe that a simple system of layered clothing and placement mechanics where items are placed over a player's body on multiple layers (similar to how Terraria works), will be more than sufficient to get the desired outcome as far as character customization is concerned.

So if say, completing a moderately difficult gauntlet of challenges nets you 2 Orbs (name not final), then you can place your design for the item online for approval for maybe 5,000 Orbs.  This would stop new players from posting junk and putting the same thing up on the site several hundred times.  If you've ever seen the Steam Workshop page for Scribblenauts Unlimited, then you know what I mean.  This need to grind to be able to post one piece of work will be what causes some to have a moment of hesitation before posting that object that, for all intents and purposes, is no more than a wooden sword with a strange nipple-shaped apparatus on the back, or a re-color of a Master Sword somebody saw on the Spriters-Resource website.

The approval process would be a way for the community to approve appropriate items that don't break any rules like profanity or nudity.  It would also give a system to give tags to weapon skins and what-not.  This could be encouraged with a system of rewards that range from in-game gold to a couple of Orbs for completing so many approvals.  Popular Tags during approval process would be how the weapon would be searchable in the database, such as "Axe" or "Sword"
*Idea from Zack*  "Have a slot machine at the end of 10 approvals."
If we go with the Slot Machine idea, there would be a limit of how many approvals could be done in a day, as well as a need to ensure quality of approvals as some players would simply mash the submit as SFW key in order to get their free slot spin.
*Making the approval process available on mobile devices would greatly increase the number of players actively approving items*

After the approval process where the item is approved several times and is accepted as "SFW", then the item will be available for purchase from other players, and given it's own unique ID#.  If the item is approved SFW, and then turns out to be NSFW, then there will be consequences up to and including banning, depending on the offense, for both the creator and approving parties.

There may need to be several stages of approval rating that will counteract an age-gate setting.  If say a 13 year-old player with his age-gate activated views an item that is has not yet received 500 SFW ratings, he will only see a basic sword or axe model, but after it's approval is finalized, he would see the user-created item the way it's meant to look.  This 500 SFW rating would determine that 500 players have deemed this item Safe to View.

If an item reaches an average of 40% NSFW after becoming approved, it will be thrown into a "Questionable" category and put up for review by an official.  It will then be left up to the official to give a final verdict on "yes" or "no" and have the creator change the item into a more reasonable appearance or remove it and refund Orbs so that the user can try again later.

I am torn between the idea of characters being able to trade Orbs, and so for now, I will not allow it.  It may, however, be available to players who complete certain requirements like playing in X number of matches while being over a certain number of days old, proving that they are an active account.  This would make Sweat-Shopping for Orbs harder to do.  (Sweat Shopping is a very real thing)

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Any input on this from you guys?  I'd like other ideas as far as things I could do to ensure this method is viable, and if not, ways to fix it so that it would be.