Player Generated Content

One of the games I am looking forward to is Neverwinter, the Online Game sequel to the Neverwinter Nights series. I'm a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons and MMORPG's, so this is pretty exciting for me. (Dungeons and Dragons Online is a whole different post) Now, one of the biggest features is the Forge system, where you can create and DM your own dungeons, placing them into the game world. How this is going to happen is not fleshed out yet, but it is from the same people who put together the Mission Architect system, or at least helped bring it into realization in City of Heroes.

Seeing the implementation (and subsequent abandonment) of that system in City of Heroes, I can't help but be worried. The MA system was abused to all hell, with players creating farm missions and leveling characters to max level absurdly quick. The project was ambitious, yes. They had plans for a Developer's Choice system as well as a story arc of the month and guest authors. All of these were shelved, the MA system (mostly) fixed to prevent farming, and has not been touched in a long time by the developers.

Am I worried Neverwinter may go the same route? Yes and no. As a main feature of the game at launch, I expect it to be supported and tweaked to prevent these sorts of things from happening. But at the same time, players always have a way of abusing the system.

But that's not the question I want to field. I'm curious how player generated content should be handled at all. I'm not talking Sandbox environments where players can interact with the tools already given, but being able to create their own content. Given the amount of farm missions I've found with no plot or point other than to level as quickly as possible, do players even deserve to have these tools available?