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Features and Ideas Revisted
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Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#1 - 2012-12-31 18:58:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Xercodo
Edit: Tl;dr: 3 sections, ideas, plans, completed projects; voting system; votes divided between player, dev, and CSM; hot topics regarding how an idea or plan should be changed should be moved to top regardless of whether it's supported or hated; devs should be able to post special dev notes regarding things like an idea has been cleared to have a plan made or how the idea has technical implications.

===============================================================================

We all know that the Features and Ideas section of the forums is regarded a grave yard for good ideas, regardless of whether or not the ideas are acknowledged or used by CCP, mostly because we wouldn't know if they were used or not. Largely because we don't look in that forum to begin with unless we have an idea or because the few times we DO visit there are hardly any CCP posts.

What I'm thinking we need is an amendment system similar to the one we use on the state level here in America in the sense of there being refined explanations and implications for each change for us to better understand things that are more technical, and in the simple mechanic of voting.

What we need is an entirely new page for ideas and projects to be implemented to EVE. A page that should be fairly easily integrated into CCP's design style and provide great clarity and transparency to us players.

The concept is this: A page separated into 3 main sections, Ideas, Plans, and Completed Projects. Each section would display the top 5 topics on the main page with a link to view the full list of course.

As you might imagine, the Ideas section will be for players and devs alike to propose ideas to the game. The Plans section will be where CCP displays their plans for ideas already cleared to be implemented, and the Completed Projects will be for specific features that have been \carried through the idea, plan, implementation, process.

In the Ideas section there will be 3 divisions: Player ideas, Dev ideas, and CSM ideas. This way there should be a easy way to see what the players think, what the CSM thinks and how the devs think and give a rough categorization of what things each group think should be changed or fixed. Maybe the players want POSed fixed but the devs want to change corp hanger mechanics first and the CSM have something entirely different in mind.

Each of the ideas in the Ideas section should be able to be voted on, regardless of which party the idea came from, again with votes being divided between players, CSM and devs. The votes should include 3 options for each idea. For, Against, and Modified For. You should be able to vote for these ideas without having to post anything and work similarly to the forum like system. However, there still should be a comment section for feedback on the idea and for the people who vote "Modified For" to specify how they would change the idea to something they would be in more support of.

The Plans section would work similarly but be only have new topic posted by devs of course since these would be plans devs have already agreed upon. This section would be to ensure that nothing bad makes it into development before it happens. Certain parts of the introduction of CQ with Incarna, the inventory in Inferno and the fleet hanger changes in Retribution would have benefited greatly from something like this letting players raise red flags on key features being changed.

The Completed Project's purpose would be mainly for feedback on features that have made it all the way through the process and are already live. This way devs can categorize the feedback for specific features instead of having one massive feedback thread for the entire expansion.

For all three sections there should be the ability to vote on specific comments so that people that all agree on revision can show their support for the change without needing to make a post themselves. And the comments with really high positive or negative posts should be moved to the top so that it's clear to a new reader what the controversy over an idea is all about.

And finally the devs need to be able to post their own special comments. Normally the dev comments would be mixed in like forum threads do now with their blue tag to make them stand out. But besides that there also needs to be a system that allows devs to highlight large issues to the readers. These sort of special dev comments should automatically be moved to the top and probably have a different color of text assigned to them.

In the end, a player should be able to goto this page, find a topic in the idea stages, see that a bunch of players support it, a bunch of other players support it provided a mechanic was changed, and CCP also supports it but have a note that it would take a while to implement or would require code rewrites.

I know it'd take the web team considerable planning and work before anything like this happens but what do you all think?

The Drake is a Lie
Simetraz
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2 - 2012-12-31 19:09:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Simetraz
I remember CCP stating that they go into the ideas portion and pull out what they think is relevant when the design team asks for it cause they are working on a certain section of the game.

I believe my wording is pretty exact on the response. (please correct me if I am wrong)

So what you have is a person who decides for the designer if something is relevant before the designer even see it, and that is only if the designer requests ideas on a certain section.

That is very much a circular bin.
Now with the stellar councel now in the mix to also provide input to CCP well.
I only post ideas in there now just for spite, and it is a rarity at that.

And to look on the other side of the coin trying to sort through that mess of a forum would be a complete nightmare anyways.

So yes your idea or something like it should have been done some time ago if anyone was serious about getting ideas from the community. But nothing has changed so in a way that is really the answer.

Oh last thing if CCP was serious the first thing they would have done is make rules for the subject so they could do a subject search and pull items quickly and cleanly.

EVERYBODY KNOWS
Rengerel en Distel
#3 - 2012-12-31 19:11:47 UTC
I believe they need a forum like that, because it covers them legally if they use your idea. Having a better system in place in that forum wouldn't be bad though.

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.
War Kitten
Panda McLegion
#4 - 2012-12-31 19:13:36 UTC
Problem is, everyone with an idea thinks theirs is good.

Most of those people are wrong.

Game design isn't done by democracy for very good reasons.

I don't judge people by their race, religion, color, size, age, gender, or ethnicity. I judge them by their grammar, spelling, syntax, punctuation, clarity of expression, and logical consistency.
Randolph Rothstein
whatever corp.
#5 - 2012-12-31 19:18:04 UTC
i have played many games over the years and only miniscule portion of players suggestions - even the good ones -made it in the game

if i wanted to guess the harsh truth is that gaming companies dont care at all and forum is there to make you believe you have some sort of influence

so even tho your idea is fine and makes sense im very pesimistic if there is will to make it happen

but good luck promoting it Blink
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#6 - 2012-12-31 19:21:14 UTC
War Kitten wrote:
Problem is, everyone with an idea thinks theirs is good.

Most of those people are wrong.

Game design isn't done by democracy for very good reasons.


Well that's why we'd have a separation of votes. Even if all the players like it we could see that the most devs have voted against it with some special note as to why.

Eventually all the good, well thought out, ideas will rise to the top with the cream :D

The Drake is a Lie
Randolph Rothstein
whatever corp.
#7 - 2012-12-31 19:23:37 UTC
Xercodo wrote:
War Kitten wrote:
Problem is, everyone with an idea thinks theirs is good.

Most of those people are wrong.

Game design isn't done by democracy for very good reasons.


Well that's why we'd have a separation of votes. Even if all the players like it we could see that the most devs have voted against it with some special note as to why.

Eventually all the good, well thought out, ideas will rise to the top with the cream :D


if there were votes it would turn out that 99,9% of suggestions are vetoed by devs - thats bad PR
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#8 - 2012-12-31 19:36:19 UTC
Randolph Rothstein wrote:

if there were votes it would turn out that 99,9% of suggestions are vetoed by devs - thats bad PR


Yeah but knowing the devs they're very open to new ideas and are as eager about new ideas and changing EVE for the better as we are, that's kinda how they got their jobs most of the time xD

If they veto an idea they'd have good reason for it.

The Drake is a Lie
Randolph Rothstein
whatever corp.
#9 - 2012-12-31 19:42:38 UTC
Xercodo wrote:
Randolph Rothstein wrote:

if there were votes it would turn out that 99,9% of suggestions are vetoed by devs - thats bad PR


Yeah but knowing the devs they're very open to new ideas and are as eager about new ideas and changing EVE for the better as we are, that's kinda how they got their jobs most of the time xD

If they veto an idea they'd have good reason for it.


im not disputing that but you know how people are,they dont care that in reality 99 out of 100 suggestions are either garbage or unrealistic

they will read 99% of suggestions turned down by devs and big article in gaming magazine - "Eve devs doesnt care about players ideas"
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#10 - 2012-12-31 19:50:41 UTC
Randolph Rothstein wrote:
Xercodo wrote:
Randolph Rothstein wrote:

if there were votes it would turn out that 99,9% of suggestions are vetoed by devs - thats bad PR


Yeah but knowing the devs they're very open to new ideas and are as eager about new ideas and changing EVE for the better as we are, that's kinda how they got their jobs most of the time xD

If they veto an idea they'd have good reason for it.


im not disputing that but you know how people are,they dont care that in reality 99 out of 100 suggestions are either garbage or unrealistic

they will read 99% of suggestions turned down by devs and big article in gaming magazine - "Eve devs doesnt care about players ideas"


Then perhaps they can spin it show the good side.

"EVE devs incorporate player ideas into design system" and have them play the sympathy card with the writer saying "yeah there a bunch of silly dumb ones, but what you gonna do it's the internet, we're just happy to finally give the few good ideas the recognition they deserve"

The Drake is a Lie
War Kitten
Panda McLegion
#11 - 2012-12-31 19:50:53 UTC
Xercodo wrote:

If they veto an idea they'd have good reason for it.


And if you were their manager, or supervisor or even co-worker, you might get to hear the reason.

As just a customer armed with an opinion and will to express it, you're not near important as you think you are. Your ideas, and the 756 others posted that week, many of them duplicates of the ideas from the month prior, are not all going to be worth the time to read, reply to and veto.

It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice it would bog down the developers or whomever else got tasked with slogging through all the amateur game idea posts.

I don't judge people by their race, religion, color, size, age, gender, or ethnicity. I judge them by their grammar, spelling, syntax, punctuation, clarity of expression, and logical consistency.
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#12 - 2012-12-31 19:58:31 UTC
War Kitten wrote:
Xercodo wrote:

If they veto an idea they'd have good reason for it.


And if you were their manager, or supervisor or even co-worker, you might get to hear the reason.

As just a customer armed with an opinion and will to express it, you're not near important as you think you are. Your ideas, and the 756 others posted that week, many of them duplicates of the ideas from the month prior, are not all going to be worth the time to read, reply to and veto.

It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice it would bog down the developers or whomever else got tasked with slogging through all the amateur game idea posts.


Oh yes certainly. But I'd imagine that in that way it can be treated the same way the current Features and Ideas is treated. The same way devs silently lurk the forms and make occasional posts (I know you're there Punkturis) they could do the same with F&I.

It's been said before that devs actually do occasionally poke around F&I on their own time but they just hardly ever post to prevent people from thinking that CCP has committed to implementing it or forever rejecting it.

And even if the player ideas end up not being touched much this system would still benefit their development cycle system greatly by letting them get early feedback from ideas the devs themselves and the CSM have and catching the problems for planned implementations and collecting feedback for live features.

The Drake is a Lie
Khador Vess
Pandemic Horde Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#13 - 2012-12-31 19:58:50 UTC
Software design by comitee doesnt usually works in simple projects let alone something as complex as this game. trust me ive spent nearly 20 years as a software engineer i know this to be true.

I agree it would be good if players have a place to put up their well thought put ideas for the obvious flaws to be hightlighted in a constructive way and the effects to be reasoned out... but the dev team should not be bound by what some guys alts here or there think is a good idea.... the csm is the apropriate mechanic here i feel. find a rep who has an interest in that area of the game and ask them to champion your idea...

ideas and suggestions are like ass holes. everyone has one and most of them are ******, occasionally there is a nugget.
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#14 - 2012-12-31 20:21:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Xercodo
Khador Vess wrote:
Software design by comitee doesnt usually works in simple projects let alone something as complex as this game. trust me ive spent nearly 20 years as a software engineer i know this to be true.

I agree it would be good if players have a place to put up their well thought put ideas for the obvious flaws to be hightlighted in a constructive way and the effects to be reasoned out... but the dev team should not be bound by what some guys alts here or there think is a good idea.... the csm is the apropriate mechanic here i feel. find a rep who has an interest in that area of the game and ask them to champion your idea...

ideas and suggestions are like ass holes. everyone has one and most of them are ******, occasionally there is a nugget.


Oh yes I understand that. What I'm proposing is a better categorization for the ideas and to better convey clarity both toward CCP and from CCP so that we can see what's going on and what might be feasible or not. The ideas the players come up with would only be suggestions that the devs can take or leave as they want and in the case where they see a good idea they want to carry through with they would have a system to let us know what their personal opinions are.

"This is a good idea but first we need to take care of [technical issue]."

"We don't see why not, we'll look further into the viability of this idea after I raise it at the next meeting"

Think of it like a EVE version of lego cussoo that got the lego rifter all the fame it did. Perhaps we change the rules to have the ideas not require any action unless it hits 200 supports or support by half the CSM or by a handful of devs.

And of course the feedback on dev ideas and plans would have to fit within their existing time slots. If their planning period of a new expansion lasts a month or a few weeks then feedback should only be able to be posted during that time and of course a news item should be posted highlighting new plans having be released to ensure anyone that cares to give feedback can within the time period.

We want this new system to be as unintrusive on their existing development process as possible while giving it all the benefits.

The Drake is a Lie
Sentamon
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#15 - 2013-01-01 01:45:07 UTC
Best ideas make me more powerful and rich.
Worst ideas make me less powerful and rich.

There, I've summed up player ideas.

~ Professional Forum Alt  ~
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#16 - 2013-01-02 17:07:11 UTC
Sentamon wrote:
Best ideas make me more powerful and rich.
Worst ideas make me less powerful and rich.

There, I've summed up player ideas.



uh, we thank you for your input?

The Drake is a Lie
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#17 - 2013-01-02 20:06:07 UTC
Any devs in favor of such a system? :3

The Drake is a Lie
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#18 - 2013-01-05 22:37:55 UTC
Bump?

The Drake is a Lie
Solhild
Doomheim
#19 - 2013-01-06 00:12:59 UTC
Xercodo wrote:
Edit: Tl;dr: 3 sections, ideas, plans, completed projects; voting system; votes divided between player, dev, and CSM; hot topics regarding how an idea or plan should be changed should be moved to top regardless of whether it's supported or hated; devs should be able to post special dev notes regarding things like an idea has been cleared to have a plan made or how the idea has technical implications.

===============================================================================

We all know that the Features and Ideas section of the forums is regarded a grave yard for good ideas, regardless of whether or not the ideas are acknowledged or used by CCP, mostly because we wouldn't know if they were used or not. Largely because we don't look in that forum to begin with unless we have an idea or because the few times we DO visit there are hardly any CCP posts.

What I'm thinking we need is an amendment system similar to the one we use on the state level here in America in the sense of there being refined explanations and implications for each change for us to better understand things that are more technical, and in the simple mechanic of voting.

What we need is an entirely new page for ideas and projects to be implemented to EVE. A page that should be fairly easily integrated into CCP's design style and provide great clarity and transparency to us players.

The concept is this: A page separated into 3 main sections, Ideas, Plans, and Completed Projects. Each section would display the top 5 topics on the main page with a link to view the full list of course.

As you might imagine, the Ideas section will be for players and devs alike to propose ideas to the game. The Plans section will be where CCP displays their plans for ideas already cleared to be implemented, and the Completed Projects will be for specific features that have been \carried through the idea, plan, implementation, process.

In the Ideas section there will be 3 divisions: Player ideas, Dev ideas, and CSM ideas. This way there should be a easy way to see what the players think, what the CSM thinks and how the devs think and give a rough categorization of what things each group think should be changed or fixed. Maybe the players want POSed fixed but the devs want to change corp hanger mechanics first and the CSM have something entirely different in mind.

Each of the ideas in the Ideas section should be able to be voted on, regardless of which party the idea came from, again with votes being divided between players, CSM and devs. The votes should include 3 options for each idea. For, Against, and Modified For. You should be able to vote for these ideas without having to post anything and work similarly to the forum like system. However, there still should be a comment section for feedback on the idea and for the people who vote "Modified For" to specify how they would change the idea to something they would be in more support of.

The Plans section would work similarly but be only have new topic posted by devs of course since these would be plans devs have already agreed upon. This section would be to ensure that nothing bad makes it into development before it happens. Certain parts of the introduction of CQ with Incarna, the inventory in Inferno and the fleet hanger changes in Retribution would have benefited greatly from something like this letting players raise red flags on key features being changed.

The Completed Project's purpose would be mainly for feedback on features that have made it all the way through the process and are already live. This way devs can categorize the feedback for specific features instead of having one massive feedback thread for the entire expansion.

For all three sections there should be the ability to vote on specific comments so that people that all agree on revision can show their support for the change without needing to make a post themselves. And the comments with really high positive or negative posts should be moved to the top so that it's clear to a new reader what the controversy over an idea is all about.

And finally the devs need to be able to post their own special comments. Normally the dev comments would be mixed in like forum threads do now with their blue tag to make them stand out. But besides that there also needs to be a system that allows devs to highlight large issues to the readers. These sort of special dev comments should automatically be moved to the top and probably have a different color of text assigned to them.

In the end, a player should be able to goto this page, find a topic in the idea stages, see that a bunch of players support it, a bunch of other players support it provided a mechanic was changed, and CCP also supports it but have a note that it would take a while to implement or would require code rewrites.

I know it'd take the web team considerable planning and work before anything like this happens but what do you all think?


Yes please.
Solhild
Doomheim
#20 - 2013-01-06 00:18:14 UTC
On the Elite Dangerous Kickstarter project, 641 people have donated at least £300 each to be part of a development ideas forum. In fact, only 113 spent £300, the rest donated figures as high as £5k each. There are other ways of doing this.
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