Game Development: Le Petit Fix

[venatorvenator]

You being happy with your LARPing is undeniably outweighs some random whoever suffering from griefing

One thing doesn't exclude the other. It could have been made so that placing survey flags on claimed land requires tresspassing.

[spectacle]

Allowing only verified and subscribed accounts to vote, or doing a poll lottery with random accounts selected as voters. For me either one would be fine.

Game design should never be a democracy, it needs vision not consensus. It may seem like the devs are listening to a vocal minority sometimes, but I have faith that Jorb & loftar know their game well enough that they can tell the difference between people who are pointing out genuine issues and people who are just whining.

[borka]

it needs vision not consensus

hear hear

[Sevenless]

Well said spec.

[MagicManICT]

There's a difference between admonishing someone and screaming at them. I've never found the latter to be conducive to good results.

It is if the result you're looking for is a desensitized drone doing the bidding of the commander. After all, the military have perfected this.

Allowing only verified and subscribed accounts to vote, or doing a poll lottery with random accounts selected as voters. For me either one would be fine.

Because a poll tax has proven to be highly effective in selecting things in the past, right?

Then again, everyone gets to say what they think anyway, and polls are just that. They're effectively meaningless around here. Ideas get picked up because the devs like them, not because players vote for them.

[LadyV]

Players have a role in development by voicing displeasure and new ideas. Anything else should be left o the developers as they truly have more knowledge on how it works and what we use than us. We only see our perspectives.

[Kelody]

I personally don't mind most changes. What is frustrating for me is seeing important features being changed because 6 players spammed the forum with complaints and you agreed with them instead of relativizing the issue or discussing other options.

What are you referring to? The metal change, and the fact that we left what we consider to be sub-optimal formula in the game due to complaints?

More generally I try to be attentive to feedback. Some things are not on my radar, and if they are not then it is very likely that I will respond to a complaint that seems well formulated. I do like to believe that I am not a complete doormat in terms of what gets past me, however.

I'm still mad at the survey flag being limited because only 2 players complained. But the same is true with archery and animal nerfing, and other C&I topics I don't recall. I don't think I've seen more than 12 people give their opinion on the armor penetration thread either, and yet you mentioned you want to implement it.


Lots of players gave their opinion on the metal update and it's not the same thing. You could have made a poll though, especially because the timeframe was too narrow and many were left out.

Many changes are made to prevent abuse, not because of complaints. While they are unpopular, leaving them in is worse. I do think they 5 flag limit is restrictive, but alts help. Implementing new ideas and system changes might not be popular, but I'd rather a few bad ideas mixed in with many good ones than no progress. The bad ideas will be eliminated or modified over time. I do think the devs are doing quite well for just the 2 of them, far better than many games with far larger staff that don't release half as many fixes or improvements.

[venatorvenator]

Ideas get picked up because the devs like them, not because players vote for them.

It's known, however, that they have changed their minds a few times after community complaints, so vocalizing one's opinion does matter to some extent.

My point was not that this should be a democracy, but rather that there should be a more efficient way to measure the players' feelings and opinions, and then making decisions according to that. Say what you want, but knowing how all of us are receiving the updates and playing the game - really knowing, not just reading the forum -, is essential to maintain and expand the playerbase. There are many who never use the forum, or who do but who cannot express themselves in English and therefore don't post. I believe everyone has to gain if something like this is implemented, because better input should lead to better decisions. But that's only my opinion on community management, and I'm not a mod here, I won't talk about this again.

[Tonkyhonk]

Ideas get picked up because the devs like them, not because players vote for them.

It's known, however, that they have changed their minds a few times after community complaints, so vocalizing one's opinion does matter to some extent.

My point was not that this should be a democracy, but rather that there should be a more efficient way to measure the players' feelings and opinions, and then making decisions according to that. Say what you want, but knowing how all of us are receiving the updates and playing the game - really knowing, not just reading the forum -, is essential to maintain and expand the playerbase. There are many who never use the forum, or who do but who cannot express themselves in English and therefore don't post. I believe everyone has to gain if something like this is implemented, because better input should lead to better decisions. But that's only my opinion on community management, and I'm not a mod here, I won't talk about this again.

its not about vocalizing ones opinion but convincing devs with ones opinion. if it was truly about vocalizing opinion, this game would have been already not subscription based.

[MagicManICT]

My point was that everyone already gets to express opinions here, paying or not. What good is a poll going to do? If someone doesn't like something so much, they'll figure out a way to throw the results. Restricting it to paying members won't do any good, either. I realize you don't want to make it a "development by democracy," and it would be a way to get a general mass opinion on something that may get developed. I've seen a few devs pull it off pretty well.

One of the recent games I've been playing is using an influence system where you get a point each day you log in and can spend some or all of your points to influence a design decision the devs would like public input one. Whether a person gets more points by spending on the game, I don't know, as I haven't seen much in the game I want to spend for (yet).