The Proposals Board

Everything about Illarion that fits nowhere else. / Alles über Illarion was inhaltlich in kein anderes Board passt.

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Llama
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The Proposals Board

Post by Llama »

I think the 'keep almost-everyone out' idea didn't make much sense, looking back.

Since then the amount of threads in that board have been reduced GREATLY, but they're still being ignored and float to the bottom and die.

Given the game is to be enjoyed by all players, not just the ones who help the game - i think its reasonable to listen to other people's opinions.

So this is just a minor proposal - I know its possible.

The reasons stated was due to the board being filled up with rubbish proposals - so simple enough - give permissions to start new thread, only to the members et cet, and permissions to reply to threads to everyone.

That way, you still give the society a 'monopoly' on the suggestions (= the same amount of quality of suggestions), BUT, you let the rest of the game playerbase have their say on the proposed suggestions.

Its only a compromise, but I think we could work with that.

DISCUSS
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Alexander Knight
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Post by Alexander Knight »

If it does i'll even stop posting all the time
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Mr. Cromwell
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Post by Mr. Cromwell »

Considering that I suggested this to begin with, I obviously agree. ;)
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Thrym
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Post by Thrym »

Agreed. I miss being able to actually spend an amount of time reading that forum.
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Arvemor
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Post by Arvemor »

Woo! I concur. Er...agree.
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Rafael
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Post by Rafael »

I don't usually post in this things, but some matters had been hard to ignore from me.

First of all, I do agree with Hadrian suggestion, far better than not letting any suggestion being taken care.

Second, I do undestand the great amount of pressions GMs and Devs had been standing, and I udesntad how fed up they must be to be annoyed with suggestions that had been discussed time after time. Still, I do feel a strong feeling coming from them of annoyance to proposals that go out of their paths of thinking, so I'm saying politely that this game stands for great ideals, the ideals of a free game that is made by everyone, freely, and with the intentions of creating a supporting comunity and a nice rping eviroment. So devs, Gms, and specially old players be less harsh and a bit more open to suggestions, I'm sure that has demotivated more than one that had good ideas but felt that were going to get discarded from the first moment.

This is a suggestion, but perhaps a non gm player with free time should be assigned to keep an up to date of things already posted and discussed, at least at large matters like "dictance weapons" or "Magical system" and write a sticky about that, so if the newbie doesn't see that will not arrived anywhere he has no way to complain that his suggestion has been deleted. Aslo, some more transparery in what things are going to developed some would be good to avoid unnecesary proposals.

that are my 5 cents
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Tanistian_Kanea
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Re: The Proposals Board

Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

[quote="Hadrian_Abela"]I think the 'keep almost-everyone out' idea didn't make much sense, looking back.
quote]

have to get one thing off my chest: NOoooo.... really? who could have forseen this most unfortunate circumstance??? oh yeah... i said this was a bad idea from the get go.

as for the proposal. it is a good one.

to refresh everyone's mind my idea was to have one forum to brainstorm, then another forum for actually proposing a fleshed out idea (that is hey... what would you know, was created in the brainstorming one) so in otherwords all you would need to do is add a new forum. section. thing whatever it's called (idc). name it brainstorming. anyone who can currently post in proposals takes good/great/mediocre/essentric/whatever ideas that show up in brainstorming, and post them in proposals.

i do this way because even alex, get's the odd good idea (it's 1 in a 1000, but they do happen).

so crazy idea, whilst we could try one, why not both? or some frenkenstien piece together of them/other ideas?
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Achae Eanstray
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Post by Achae Eanstray »

I can't find the link/post but remember Estralis saying dev's won't look at a very long thread or something similar i.e. having original proposal then people posting may also not be desired depending on the length of the thread?

I KNOW that some PO's that have in the past had excellent ideas/feedback are not included in the ones that are allowed to post in the forum and would like an alternative.

A "brainstorm" forum would be nice but I wouldn't want
anyone who can currently post in proposals takes good/great/mediocre/essentric/whatever ideas that show up in brainstorming, and post them in proposals.
I can see where this would cause serious problems in the future if someone's idea wasn't moved to the proposal section.




Sorry I don't have a good proposal/alternative, am just throwing out these ideas hoping someone can come up with one.


Brainstorming:
Anyone can sign up to the forum whether you have a char or not. If that was possible to change i.e. have to have a char in order to post/not read the forum, then if the proposal board, or another board is misused, that char would be blocked from posting in it (if can be done). Realizing they can make another char fairly easily, if the board is misused again, the account will be blocked from posting in that forum?
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

I know the rotten tomatoes will fly my way, but I think a discussion board is not the right way to submit suggestions. The reason is that proposals are nothing to discuss about. We can discuss about which way the game should follow or what is wrong with the game and its features, but a proposal is something that stands for itself. Also, general discussions ("Magic sucks", "Make crafting more easy", "Bows blow!") don't need a seperate board.

Personally, I'd prefer to have a platform just like mantis for proposals. You can leave comments if you have to, a dev can immediatly take over a proposal or decline it. Accepted proposals can be put into a roadmap and you immediatly get status reports via email. So, I would delete the proposal board since it obviously failed.

Please note that currently, no big proposals will be accepted anyway. Every developer is busy with implementing old proposals or balancing out the game. So, no horses or tobacco, sorry. In the end, it is up to the developers(!) in which way they want to receive proposals. And the old way did not work, most proposals were not even read because of the high amount of rubbish, spam or "/signed"-like posts, matter of fact.

I'd like to close with the comment that we should give all this some time. It is not that the fact that the devs don't want to hear you ideas!
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Llama
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Post by Llama »

Estralis Seborian wrote:I know the rotten tomatoes will fly my way, but I think a discussion board is not the right way to submit suggestions.
Boo! *toss*
The reason is that proposals are nothing to discuss about. We can discuss about which way the game should follow or what is wrong with the game and its features, but a proposal is something that stands for itself.
I respectfully disagree. Discussions help expand the proposal, minimise silly mistakes, and show that the community agrees or disagrees with it. Its actually a good way of gauging whether the suggestion should finish off in the end product. When [hahaha]a dev then implements it[/hahaha] the discussion should be useful to him.
Personally, I'd prefer to have a platform just like mantis for proposals. You can leave comments if you have to, a dev can immediatly take over a proposal or decline it. Accepted proposals can be put into a roadmap and you immediatly get status reports via email. So, I would delete the proposal board since it obviously failed.
I would love for this to happen. I really do think somethign like this would make everything work more professionally. However until its implemented (sometime around the time when T pyxidis turns supernova and kills everyone), we shouldn't be trying to add duct tape to solve what you thinkis a failed system. Leave everyone the ability to talk until its fixed.
Please note that currently, no big proposals will be accepted anyway. Every developer is busy with implementing old proposals or balancing out the game.
But when we do have free developers, I believe that since the community in this case is the 'consumer', they should get a say in what goes in next. I KNOW that human nature doesn't work that way - if I'm forced to script in something I dislike, I will probably work less on it - but all modern development structures see the importance of having the "Stakeholders" in every part of development.
So, no horses
Llamas?
or tobacco
They wouldn't even implement tobacco...
And the old way did not work, most proposals were not even read because of the high amount of rubbish, spam or "/signed"-like posts, matter of fact.
And this 'corrected way' does not work either - since the amount of people who are likely to speak up if they notice a mistake just got culled greatly, and we only hear what the game-helpers want, not what the rest of the community wants.

And /signed just means that YES, this member of the community WANTS that to be implemented. So instead of designing a system which nobody ever likes (sickness system :) - was going to add wildfires too, but then martin would murder me) - you do somethign the community likes.
It is not that the fact that the devs don't want to hear you ideas!
They just don't want to hear your bad ones ;)
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Post by AlexRose »

Estralis Seborian wrote:I'd like to close with the comment that we should give all this some time. It is not that the fact that the devs don't want to hear you ideas!
"Those people who can't post are those who are not in the staff and not in the society"
"so those who obviously don't want to support Illarion directly."
"we do not really need the proposals of those who do not really care for that game. Because at the end 99% of their proposals is plain bullshit."
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HolyKnight
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Post by HolyKnight »

When I think about the dynamics of the original proposal board in theory it seemed like a rudimentary addition to a beta game. We all know that Illarion is constantly evolving because of the collaborative efforts put forth by the staff and the community. Obviously, the way the staff and community shape and impact this game differ drastically, but finding positive and more importantly effective ways to communicate is necessary to see Illarion become the best MMORPG avialable.

So when I think about Illarion the first thing that comes to my mind besides RP is the word free. Not only is the game/forum free but within the parameter of the "game world" you are free to be anything your imagination desires. Naturally the more players invest their time in the game the more they want to help shape it. Certainly there is nothing wrong with players wanting to see the game improved, but a myraid of obstacles are created in the process: lack of concise thought out proposals, long discussions that devs have no desire to read, players being discouraged, amount of content compared to number of devs, and other breaks in communication.

Since the creation of this game there have been glitches and bad installations, but there have also been immature and bad players as well. So just as a dev has the ability to adjust, augment, or remove a feature from the game we have the chance to do the same with the proposal board. It almost goes without saying that humans take for granted the things we have and don't care about the consequences until we lose something good. The proposal board was inherently a wonderful idea to stimulate the community and see what other players thought the game needed.

The problem for me and many others, however, was the lack of thoughtfulness and creativity to many of the ideas given. Don't get me wrong, clearly, we have a diverse player base from pre-teen all the way to old fogies and each would like to see different things from the game. Regardless of your age what I think is most important in having a successful proposal board is consideration for the devs.

The simple fact of the matter is that the devs are the ones that will or will not implement your proposal. Certainly the board could be open to the public if they follow a policy like this one (The one stuck to the top of the proposal board):
Achae Eanstray wrote: Elements of a Successful Proposal

General Considerations

* Relates to the purposes and goals of the game following the rules.

* Uses a clear, concise, coherent writing style, free of jargon, superfluous information(i.e. it's easy to read)

* Is organized in a logical manner that is easy to follow

* Shows a knowledge of the workings of the game and research into past proposals (is not repeating a proposal already denied).

* Is clear on how positively this will affect players enjoyment of the game.

The Proposal

* Has title that is appropriate and descriptive

* Has clearly stated goals and objectives that are not buried in a morass of narrative

* Suggests the needs to be met or problems to be solved

* Doesn't assume that reviewers "know what you mean"

* Makes no unsupported assumptions

* Preferably discusses potential pitfalls and alternative approaches

* Use of a poll to help keep the post organized and to a minumum.

Answering Proposals

* Keep in mind some may be impossible to realize due to graphic/script/time limitations or ultimate goals.

* The Dev's can't go through pages of replies, if you reply, keep to a minimum using the outlines above i.e. on topic, or start a new thread in another forum for long discussions.


This was taken from an executive site and altered to suit the game atmosphere, it is only an example to help focus on a good style of communication. (Possibly sticky?)
The only thing I would add to this proposal would be the requirement of a revision at the end by the poster when the discussion is over. Once the revision is made ideally the thread should be locked so a dev at his or her convenience can go back and not have to sift through garbage to find the meat. Like Adrian stated discussing the proposal is essential to insure it is looked at from all angles. That is why I would not be in favor of a mantis style proposal board but I would rather have that than none.

All in all whatever is easiest on the devs would be my vote.
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