Dont whine about stuff, just tell how you would do it.

[Dutch_NS]

The 1 thing that can kill of the game if they start to listen to all the whiners.

The no Rez discussion, dont just type bah that sucks i hate it.

The Veil shadowworld for stealthers, givf your feedback.

I got killed by a Valewalker when i was semi AFK on my solo caster boehoe.

Or we got Mezzed and Bombed by 8 people when our 100 man zerg was taking a keep boehoe.

The TDD dps class has a better skill then I have etc etc etc.
---------------

My points is, dont whine about something, come with a decent solution to what you see is the problem, explain how you want to fixs this problem.

We dont want the endless whining again like we had in Dark Age of Camelot by most people, nerf 9 sec Dragonfang nerf Doublefrost, nerf Hib group Purge, Nerg midgard aoe stun.

Just tell the Devs why you dislike something, if you get an answer by the devs you can do 2 things: Suck it up and dont whine anymore about it, or come again with some arguments how you see it.

If we all stick to this instead of the endless whining, this game could became great.

 

[Niroth]

I got hit by the point end of a sword, boohoo

 

[Mkilbride]

It's not whining.

We're supposed to build this game with CSE. Right there in the development. Of course, this doesn't mean they'll listen to us in all things, but it does mean they'll listen.

Mark Jacobs has very openly said he plans a very open design process. i.e, lots of forum polls on what people think of certain features, what should be changed, what shouldn't, and the like. It's going to be a community funded, and crafted game.

 

[acron^]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee

The best thing MJ can do is to not listen to anything anyone says until he has something in our hands. Then he should take feedback and iterate. He is a professional game designer. We are players. Games designers know what players want. Players only think they know what they want.

IMO.

 

[Mkilbride]

I didn't say he's going to bend over for us and give us everything we want.

Merely that he is going to allow us to develop the game alongside them. No one has done this before, because everyone uses the same argument you've used. So it's not been done. We don't have any actual evidence that it's bad. Logically it looks like a bad idea, but who knows?

MJ said the thing he is looking forward to most is building the game with the backers of CU.

 

[old.Tohtori]

First rule of game design; bring me problems, not solutions.

Meaning that you tell me what's wrong and I will fix it.

 

[Aeis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee

The best thing MJ can do is to not listen to anything anyone says until he has something in our hands. Then he should take feedback and iterate. He is a professional game designer. We are players. Games designers know what players want. Players only think they know what they want.

IMO.

+1
Though, some players actually know what they want, but everyone think they are smart enough. So the problem would be who to actually listen to. As long as Mark remembers the foundations of this game and do some sorting based on arguments, that wont be a problem.

 

[Talivar]

Boohoo i cant one shot a mage

 

[Dutch_NS]

It's not whining.

We're supposed to build this game with CSE. Right there in the development. Of course, this doesn't mean they'll listen to us in all things, but it does mean they'll listen.

Mark Jacobs has very openly said he plans a very open design process. i.e, lots of forum polls on what people think of certain features, what should be changed, what shouldn't, and the like. It's going to be a community funded, and crafted game.

But there is a difference between feedback and (Whining) Ranting about stuff. Like example:

Hope there is no fucking mezz i hate beeing mezzed. <-- Rant
I hope there wont be anymezz because it would imbalance most of the fights. <-- feedback

Thats what im trying to say

 

[professor nomos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee

The best thing MJ can do is to not listen to anything anyone says until he has something in our hands. Then he should take feedback and iterate. He is a professional game designer. We are players. Games designers know what players want. Players only think they know what they want.

IMO.

That is the lamest cop out regarding individual agency, I have heard this side of a Madison Avenue advertising firm. I really wont go into the various underpinnings as to why people are not such simple cultural dupes but people are far more reflexive than that.


Game Designers know the Game they want to make. Players think they know the Game they want to to play. Its the Game Designers job to either a) design a game that is intuitive to learn or b) communicate clearly to the players what they will need to do to be successful.

 

[acron^]

That is the lamest cop out regarding individual agency, I have heard this side of a Madison Avenue advertising firm. I really wont go into the various underpinnings as to why people are not such simple cultural dupes but people are far more reflexive than that.

Totally disagree. Bread and circuses. Having worked in creative industries my entire life I can pretty safely assert that the recipient rarely has a clue what it is that they want. Which is why design is a skill that takes years to accrue. I literally cringe every time I see some one write "So, I had this great idea and I emailed it to MJ."

Game Designers know the Game they want to make. Players think they know the Game they want to to play. Its the Game Designers job to either a) design a game that is intuitive to learn or b) communicate clearly to the players what they will need to do to be successful.

Being able to design something players want to play is totally orthogonal to creating a decent user experience. You seem to be confused about that. Games designers know about user experience, engagement, balance, risk vs. reward, usability, etc. whereas players are the equivalent of an untuned piano - capable of making noise; occasionally you might get something that resembles a tune.

MJ will be hearing to a lot of terrible ideas, I have no doubt.

 

[Species]

The actual development is best done by the company with minimal influence of outside people (imo).
mostly because about every subject there's about 20 different opinions, you try implement that into development, not easy!
Ofcourse is 98% of the people involved lean towards a certain opinion, it would be wise to listen.
But thats really rare.

 

[Tanos]

Partly agree. There are many examples out there that designers can horribly fail to meet customers needs and expectations. And there are many studies that proofed the power of community based approaches for idea generating. But for sure, some things have just to be decided and discussions have to be let in the right direction. You get feedback on the level you asked your questions. Getting a lot of possibly not thaaaat good ideas is the price to pay if going with KS.

 

[Coldbeard]

Labelling something "whine" is an easy way to quell all discussion though, don't want to end up going down that road either.

 

[Jairon Kalach]

Partly agree. There are many examples out there that designers can horribly fail to meet customers needs and expectations. And there are many studies that proofed the power of community based approaches for idea generating. But for sure, some things have just to be decided and discussions have to be let in the right direction. You get feedback on the level you asked your questions. Getting a lot of possibly not thaaaat good ideas is the price to pay if going with KS.

It's true that community based approaches are great for idea generation. However, this does not mean you take the democratic approach on idea acceptance. The best idea is likely not the one that the majority would accept. Software users tend to have tunnel vision on detail-level problem, without realizing that whole system overhauls can fix their problem and give them additional benefits.

Let me rephrase OP slightly, and perhaps bring it back to the point they were trying to make:

Suppose MJ were to start a post and say, "I'm thinking of leaving Rez out of the game. What do you think about this?"

The response: "No rez sucks, we need rez" certainly answers the question... However at that point it forces MJ to start driving down the chain of "why's" to get to the meat of the concerns. After spending some time in the rez thread, this is what the concerns seem to be:

Con:
Long run time after a small amount of "action" will suck the fun right out of the game.
Organized groups need all team members, so not being able to rez even a single member causes the whole team to spend their time regrouping, and out of the action.
The ebb and flow of battle based off of being able to pull of an ICR is an enjoyable/memorable part of group play dynamics.
Rez gives an advantage for disorganized small-teams vs low-skill disorganized zergs
Concern over the death runback will cause players to feel they have to be too cautious in their gameplay.
Could excessively punish front-line players.
Significantly increases the pressure on healers.

Pro:
Ensures that attrition becomes part of keep battles.
Ensures that death isn't taken lightly.
Enables small-man hit&run tactics to be effective vs zerg
Makes Pyrrhic victories meaningful.
Eliminates res-blobs.
Prevents a team from being able to res themselves across the map, making access to deep enemy territory a singular event.

Okay... So then, after mining for this list, the dev team can then construct a system that hits most of those points. However, if the starting point in conversation is "No rez sucks, we need rez" they have to work a lot harder to get to that list. And I know that the majority of backers can at least take their responses beyond that first step to itemize their actual concerns.

In the end, though, I'm relatively certain that MJ will manage the interaction to ensure that they get exactly the level of feedback they need, and the community doesn't need to worry about it, beyond learning how to communicate their concerns effectively.

 

[boxfetish]

Totally disagree. Bread and circuses. Having worked in creative industries my entire life I can pretty safely assert that the recipient rarely has a clue what it is that they want. Which is why design is a skill that takes years to accrue. I literally cringe every time I see some one write "So, I had this great idea and I emailed it to MJ."

Being able to design something players want to play is totally orthogonal to creating a decent user experience. You seem to be confused about that. Games designers know about user experience, engagement, balance, risk vs. reward, usability, etc. whereas players are the equivalent of an untuned piano - capable of making noise; occasionally you might get something that resembles a tune.

MJ will be hearing to a lot of terrible ideas, I have no doubt.

This is probably one of the most spot-on posts I have read here or on the kick-starter comments about anything. We are a sounding board for MJ/CSE, nothing more. We will not have access to all of the information that they will have, nor do we have 15 years of experience developing MMORPGs. The worst thing MJ could do would be to let us decide game features with polling or voting. Developing an MMO is not a virtual democracy simulator, nor should it be.

 

[BloodOmen]

First rule of game design; bring me problems, not solutions.

Meaning that you tell me what's wrong and I will fix it.

^ This

 

[Tanos]

Having seen the power of community projects and many successfull projects heading towards this i just can not agree. Many of us have at least 15 years experience of playing MMORPG and some might even have professions close to the field. There will be a lot of terrible ideas for sure. But there might be some really interesting, inspiring or innovative ones, too. And again, there are plenty of examples out there where designers where terribly wrong with their idea about what users want. It must not be democratic or community driven, but you should also not waste the potential just for claiming your state "as a professional designer".

 

[Jairon Kalach]

Having seen the power of community projects and many successfull projects heading towards this i just can not agree. Many of us have at least 15 years experience of playing MMORPG and some might even have professions close to the field. There will be a lot of terrible ideas for sure. But there might be some really interesting, inspiring or innovative ones, too. And again, there are plenty of examples out there where designers where terribly wrong with their idea about what users want. It must not be democratic or community driven, but you should also not waste the potential just for claiming your state "as a professional designer".

I don't think anyone is saying that you should not share your ideas, good or bad. What a few of us are saying is that just sharing your most basic emotional reaction isn't helpful, instead you should share why you have that emotional reaction and other ideas you have.

 

[professor nomos]

This is probably one of the most spot-on posts I have read here or on the kick-starter comments about anything. We are a sounding board for MJ/CSE, nothing more. We will not have access to all of the information that they will have, nor do we have 15 years of experience developing MMORPGs. The worst thing MJ could do would be to let us decide game features with polling or voting. Developing an MMO is not a virtual democracy simulator, nor should it be.

I dont disagree with anything that Acron or you have noted about the problematical nature of attempting to please all and falling to please any.

Where I found fault and continue to find fault was the assumptions of Game Designer infallibility.

Having worked in creative industries my entire life I can pretty safely assert that the recipient rarely has a clue what it is that they want.

Being able to design something players want to play is totally orthogonal to creating a decent user experience. You seem to be confused about that. Games designers know about user experience, engagement, balance, risk vs. reward, usability, etc. whereas players are the equivalent of an untuned piano - capable of making noise; occasionally you might get something that resembles a tune.

Firstly, please do not pretend that at 27 years of age you've lived long enough to state without irony "my entire life."

Secondly, I can accept the tautology that good Designers are good at design. I can accept that as a collective, the audience of players appear cacophonous.

What I can't accept is the ontological assumption that Game Designers are magnanimous benefactors nor can I accept the base assertion that Players are inherently plebeian.

For if the former proposition were true, every game would be amazing and if the latter proposition were true, none of us would be able to engage in this very debate.

Now to reiterate my position, Game designers have the right to design the game they want to design but their craft is an interactive one, not simply a communicative one. As such, they must be able to include at least the idea of an audience in their design.

Ultimately, I agree that MJ/CSE should not run the development of CU as a democracy. Additionally, I agree that I too cringe every time a well meaning backer emails MJ with "a great idea." However I cringe less because I have an assumption about the the idea's value and more because I am sympathetic towards the fact that MJ finds himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

 

[Aada]

Nerf 9 second Dragonfang, what else was there to add? an OP ability that gave infils a better reputation then they deserved, there were only a few slash infils and they got more respect from me then a DW inf whoring that ability.

Honestly if i rolled an inf instead of an NS/SB i'd have been rolling the rps like no tomorrow, 9 seconds? hehe free kill if purge wasn't up.

 

[BloodOmen]

Most infs ran max Dodger back then with Thrust was so easy to get Dragonfangs off.

 

[Tanos]

I don't think anyone is saying that you should not share your ideas, good or bad. What a few of us are saying is that just sharing your most basic emotional reaction isn't helpful, instead you should share why you have that emotional reaction and other ideas you have.

Your are absolutly right. And you know that this hasn't worked in the internet for the last 20 years. If you have the ability the comment right after a situation occured you feedback is mostly emotional

And "nerf 9 sec dragonfang" does not say anything about your problem. Maybe you just loose because you fail to use your own abilities right. A "correct" feedback in sense of this thread would be something like: The Infil is the only Stealther having such a long stun as reactional that happens really often and has few problems in spending the points in it because he basically got more spec points.

 

[Mabs]

people are clearly forgetting Mackey.. which is what happens when people with a vested interest in 1 side get to influence design decisions

 

[Jairon Kalach]

Your are absolutly right. And you know that this hasn't worked in the internet for the last 20 years. If you have the ability the comment right after a situation occured you feedback is mostly emotional

It does in certain parts, where people hold themselves to a different standard and the community upholds that standard. I expect this will be the case on backer's forums, given that it will be a "professional" (of sorts) forum.

 

[boxfetish]

Now to reiterate my position, Game designers have the right to design the game they want to design but their craft is an interactive one, not simply a communicative one. As such, they must be able to include at least the idea of an audience in their design.

I would hope everyone (including acron^) would agree with the above statement. In fact, I don't believe there is anything anyone said that contradicts it. I would imagine that we are all not so far apart on what we believe.

Ultimately, I agree that MJ/CSE should not run the development of CU as a democracy. Additionally, I agree that I too cringe every time a well meaning backer emails MJ with "a great idea." However I cringe less because I have an assumption about the the idea's value and more because I am sympathetic towards the fact that MJ finds himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

I don't believe the position will be as difficult for him as it might seem. He has demonstrated (in my opinion) the patience of a saint while interacting with us, and I also personally believe he has a natural talent for making game development a communal process; ostensibly giving us all exactly what we "want" without straying from his foundational principles or making bad design choices (even if they might be popular ones).

This is exactly what a great designer does. Gives the client a superb product that conforms to optimum design principles while simultaneously having the client believe that all the choices and decisions were their own. This is done best without any sense of infallibility and without dismissiveness or condescension.

 

[br1te]

Everyones the bloody expert aye? some with their heads up their own arses to boot

as long as skill is the overriding factor and its not some dumbed down kiddie shit, it will be good to play... but i cant imagine being in a zerg farmed by a single group is much fun even if your stupidity is asking for it... so the question is... have they decided to make a game thats as fun and rewarding as daoc used to be, or make a game to appease the masses?

 

[BloodOmen]

The game still has 3+ years of development, there is more than enough time to help mold the game, submit feedback on what you like/don't like and what you think could help the game in specific areas, whether that be Solo, Group, Zerg - balancing all 3 fronts will be hard for them if not impossible in some areas and inevitably keeping everyone happy will be 99.99% impossible.

The best thing people can do is wait until they start putting out more class/rvr info and give feedback accordingly.

 

[professor nomos]

This is exactly what a great designer does. Gives the client a superb product that conforms to optimum design principles while simultaneously having the client believe that all the choices and decisions were their own. This is done best without any sense of infallibility and without dismissiveness or condescension.

In general well said.

However, in the spirit of the rapprochement we've established, I'd like to explore the two statements above.

I will note that I never once argued that designers were actually infallible rather that they were presented as such. I will note that the MJ who leads CSE is not the quite the same MJ who lead Mythic (if the rumours I heard of his temper were true). I firmly sure that the MJ we saw during the KS is farily "real."


While I do not disagree that design has characteristics similar to authorship, I still generally reject the players as dupe or even mere passive reader. Reading/Watching has different relationships with the Author than Players/Users do with Designers.

Now mind you, I do not reject the notion that some players interact with games using very little reflexive thought. Rather I agrue that there some players (such as ourselves) who are able to see the shortcuts, the compromises and the tradeoffs a designer makes in the design process.

Why does this matter? In part its as you've already noted, that "[MJ] has a natural talent for making game development a communal process." As such, while some players will be focused only on implementing their own personal visions others who are possessed of a more holistic approach are able to make allowances for the good of the overall game.

In part its because its important to have a strong conceptualization of agency at all times but perhaps none are more important then when engaging in an interactive activity.

 

[Muylaetrix]

take DAoC as a blueprint and discuss reasons to do things differently from there imho.