Introducing the Planetary Vanguards

@Culverin

Ok. Knight just explained that way better. I thought it was Facebook blocking, where they don't see you exist.

what agenda? sounds like needless cynicism to me...

It may be cynicism, but if you paraphrase what was said in the introductory post:

• Uber want to take a 'hands off' approach to the forums
• Vanguards assume a 'communications manager' role between the developers and the rest of us.

The implication being that they have some stronger or more direct line of communication with the developers than we do, which could possibly be abused and in a more overarching sense goes against the "community built" concept of the game development.

The game is so far into development now that it's probably inconsequential and I would sooner just let them do their jobs in private to be honest. Nevertheless, put me in the "this is a bad idea" column.

I think people are reading into this too far..
We are nothing more than an extended 2 way communication system.
We don't have any power to use and abuse.
The badge is nothing more than an indication that we can give you "Correct Relevant" information from the developers.
If people use the badge in a personal way to acquire inside information or to harass someone they would be exited/kicked from the 2 way communication system.

It's actually quite the opposite I would imagine. Early development is far more focused on engine building and getting necessary features in place. Middle to late development is where the key design of the game itself takes place. Things like unit rosters, balance, desired gameplay. This is where the community involvement should really step up.

Congrats guys, I believe this is quite a good idea.

I was hoping something like this happens eventually, so the devs can get a nice distilled report sometimes on feedback. Forums like this one also tend to become a bit cluttered with useless topics, and it's also good if we have a couple more reliable sources of info. Helps keep discussions on track.

Thanks for your contribution!

I appreciate the scepticism some people have on this, and indeed this is symptomatic of the whole reason this group exists in the first place. We need to be fully transparent in order to gain the community's trust and to make sure that we can be held to account.

We sent a letter to Uber on Monday 25th November, having spent the previous weekend collaboratively drafting and carefully wording it using Google Docs. Throughout this time, all signatories to the letter were discussing people that we could invite to assist us in writing it and to give the letter as big an impact as possible. There was a lot of negativity on the forums at this time, so people who were actively trying to facilitate positive communication were more likely to spring to mind than others.

The topic of the letter, as has already been mentioned, was communication. At the time, we'd all been 'in the dark' about Uber's progress on the game and general forum morale was a bit low. This was at the height of the 'will they delay the game, there are so many features missing' debacle. Basically, in the letter, we tried to suggest ways in which Uber could improve the effectiveness of their communication with the community without having to devote more time to it and thus losing out on development time. It should be noted that the formation of a formal group was not one of those suggestions - this came up later on in the discussion that followed.

There's a bit of debate as to whether we should publish the initial letter in full - I feel we should in the interest of transparency but as you can appreciate, the letter contains a fair amount of constructive criticism, and we'd quite like the Vanguards to start off on a more positive note.

However, it's important that the community can hold us to account, so I've attached our full code of conduct - all Vanguard members have signed a copy of this document and agreed to abide by it. If you see any of us acting out of place, call us on it.

The one area I feel we should not be 100% transparent is in how we decided on the original signatories to the letter, and how we select any additional people going forward. In particular, I feel that discussing an individual's eligibility to be a Vanguard in public opens the door for ad-hom and personal attacks, which I think we'd all rather avoid.

At the end of the day, we're here to help improve communication between the community and Uber, not stifle it. There is no hidden agenda, we just want to make it even easier to get ideas heard, tested, brainstormed and, in some cases, implemented. We have a very broad range of personalities, opinions and expertise even within the Vanguards, so we will hopefully be able to provide a balanced and fair sounding board for any concerns and ideas that you have.

I hope we can continue to worth with Uber and with the rest of the community to make community involvement with the development of the game an easy and effective process.

I like the principle behind the Planetary Vanguards. Hopefully it will facilitate better dissemination of correct information and avoid the growth of misinformation/misconceptions.

What I am not sure about is your choice in members. I appreciate you have been transparent in your selection process and on the face of it I understand why certain people are now Vanguards. That said, while I am most certainly not going to name names, there are Vanguards who often communicate in a manner which I find myself hard pressed to call "polite and courteous".

My problem lies in the authority the 'Planetary Vanguard' badge suggests to a forum new-comer. It says this person has authority here and that they are important. So the new-comer posts, but soon finds themselves on the receiving end an impolite/abrasive response from one of these 'Vanguards'. Are they going to want to post again after that? Probably not.

You state in your rules that Vanguards must communicate in a polite and courteous manner, and avoid personal attacks. Avoiding personal attacks doesn't seem to be a problem for most people, but communicating in a polite and courteous manner maybe much more of an issue.

I think all the Vanguards should hold themselves to the same standards that the devs/mods set; I don't think I've even seen an impolite post from either of those groups. If any individual fails to meet those standards, they should be ejected.

That's what it says in the code of conduct. If you feel that some people have been abrasive in the past, then those days are over. If you see someone from our group being unpleasant, then PM one of us, and we will deal with it.

If anyone is impolite or abrasive then i agree they should not be a vanguard as it does go against the code of conduct.

I think this vanguard things are useless, because it classifies the community to hard! If somebody post something good and after him a vanguard post something the previous post would be ignored ( yes obviously the "vanguard" post would maybe be good too but it comes to principle)... So everything worked perfectly without vanguard, lets see in the future... I only want to say that.

Brilliant. I personally had no problem with people being abrasive or impolite in the past, it doesn't say anything in the forum rules about communicating in a polite manner (just don't be an ***). I just think if you carry the Vanguard badge you should be held to a higher standard because of the authority that badge implies.

Still, I'll be interested to see just what you mean by 'deal with it', I wonder if you will be as iron fisted about your rules as I hope. The sceptic inside me definitely feels you guys will be doing a lot of slapping wrists.

i see your point,
But i don't think people should see our point as being the "be all and end all" of a topic.
All opinions on the forum are very important, we are only assisting in sorting out most common opinion and helping bring that to the developers attention.
If a vanguard was to be shooting community ideas down then they would be going against the code of conduct and should be exited from the group.
We are not a group for putting ideas down, we are only here to bring relevant information to the community.
Or better facilitate 2 way communication.

wir sind nur hier, um Zwei-Wege-Kommunikation imporve.
wie mein Versuch, meine imporve Deutsch

No, absolutely not. A Vanguard's opinion on something has no more weight than any other forum user. However if people are speculating about something then you can place weight on information we make clear as something confirmed from the Devs:

Interesting, what posts in this thread do you feel suggest "draconian measures"?

i think that was in reply to FXelix's statement about a vanguard over riding peoples post's or opinions or people not being heard because a vanguard post's just after they do.

We have no administrative rights,
We have no power to tell people not to post opinions,
We are no higher in rank than a new member to the forum,
We are not GODS (I wish we were .. .lol ),


We can help bring correct information to you
We can alert the developers to common issues and "Hot Topics",
We can drink coffee or tea (Personally i prefer coffee),

It's not a secret club and no special privileges come with the title,
We are only assisting in 2 way communication...