@neutrino A better way to go about overall game design!

Right now I see all of us spewing ideas out about everything and making a mess. Obviously we should keep doing it because of some of the stuff people have come up with.

but to you the developers, Give us like a list of current 'design problems' that you are facing or want input on, in a topic as they come around, pin it in the forum and let us all discuss it in a single place. When we get to the bottom of the problem and have some general direction, close it out and tell us what you think.

Sounds good? :O

Yeah, ask us shmucks what we think. Many of the suggestions on the forum are things which are suggested every time and rejected every time for good reason, like "Utterly random YOU LOSE weather, nobody could possibly be irritated by randomly losing", "F2P grindfest plix, even though the game is obviously not funded that way and the fanbase aren't F2P people at all" and "I'm an awesome script kiddie, program how I say, never mind that you're an experienced developer and should know what you're doing!". People suggest and ask for things they think might be cool, they don't actually think about it, and they don't consider the impact on other segments of the population or the rest of the design. In the general case, of course.

If you were to ask the general population about a design decision, you'd spend so long filtering out the crap that it's debatable as to whether or not the signal was worth the noise. It's like Sturgeon's Law, but even worse.

Whilst I think it's important for the developer to communicate with the fans, especially with the whole crowd-sourced funding thing, I also think that it would be highly unwise for them to actually base their decisions on fan request. I mean, the game is their creative vision. If I wanted to make my own game, I'd go do that, I wouldn't pay Uber to do it for me.

Hear, hear.

lol..

/thread

Well some of us, do know what they are talking about XD

/brag

Uber should also be able to pick the sensible ideas from the less sensible ideas,
along with the community dismissing the really terrible ones.

But still, their call.

I also see it as a way for us to stay informed with the game progress and then discuss it in general, you know it is there game but who knows what someones brilliant idea might help them out.

But what's guaranteed to happen is our valuable money being spent so that some poor guy who would really rather be, y'know, working productively on the game, has to sit here and read through every bit of awful.

Some of us pledged our money with the understanding we'd be engaging the devs in discussion.

Well, later on I think this will be limited to the beta suggestion forums. So that is a lot less people and when the beta is out, more concrete responses from people.

:lol:

Don't forget that time in discussion is time spent not making the game...

I'm pretty sure they're all grown-up enough to perform their own time management and make the appropriate division labour.

At this point, having the constant churn of ideas that's going on right now is probably a good thing, since it lets the developers hear what the players would like to see in the game.

However, I expect that as Planetary Annihilation moves into active development, the amount of attention the forum gets will drop, and for good reason. They need focus on development, not listening to every single suggestion that crops up on the forums.

They won't stop listening, of course, but their priority will rightly be development.

IMO, its one thing for the devs to sit back and let us throw around ideas, but there's a completely different set of expectations when the devs ask for ideas. The latter only leads to disaster and butt hurt among the community. Understand that I'm not even going into the effects on the game.

And you are, Neutrino and a couple other Über employees have been posting in quite a few threads.

Discussion =\= Game Developpement

Mike

Isn't that the $10,000 tier on Kickstarter?

But they listen to all of us and our ideas. And thats great. No answers/posts doesn't mean they don't see what we think.

Please don't misinterpret my comment as a gripe that the currently level of developer engagement is insufficient.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

It wasn't. Just saying for the people you mentioned

The forum has been incredibly useful so far. First off we are getting the best of breed ideas that have been battle tested for 15 years. There are just some things that are no-brainers and you guys are good about bringing that stuff up.

I've also found that the polls are incredibly useful. For example on more factions vs units, wreckage etc etc. If we are on the edge about something a poll can easily shift opinion.

There is a *ton* of stuff that comes up that's not going to happen in this game. There's no reason to pick on particular ideas though as the community seems to do a good job of straightening people out and getting them on board.