How much influence should fans have on game developers

[Monad]

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/how ... evelopers/

Interesting article, I urge you to read. Many points there applies to Pangaea aswell. Mostly I liked the last quote:
"Good developers listen to their fans. Great developers know when not to."

[Quintoz]

Read it and as in most of theese interviews it's a way for a guy who can't handle being confronted for doing something stupid to shoot back and try to make people feel sorry for him. Sorta like in every balance discussion on this forum. "NOT HAPPY WITH WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR YOU?" etc.

[Monad]

You didn't read it.

[Quintoz]

It sucks when you do something that you think people will love and it turns out they don't but if you ask what the people want BEFORE you make it you wont waste your time and give them what they want.

[Simmo]

It sucks when you do something that you think people will love and it turns out they don't but if you ask what the people want BEFORE you make it you wont waste your time and give them what they want.

Imo its that kind of line what GMs ignore for sure. (dont know why but ive seen it!)

[Monad]

It sucks when you do something that you think people will love and it turns out they don't but if you ask what the people want BEFORE you make it you wont waste your time and give them what they want.

Let me quote the whole phrase from the end of the article which I agree 100%:

“While fan input is important and useful, being a slave to it is a recipe for disaster. Every recent MMO that I have played has fallen victim to this, and see-saw game/class balance is the result. As the story goes: ‘Hey developer, this is Rock. Nerf Paper. Scissors is fine. Good developers listen to their fans. Great developers know when not to.”

We listen to the players many times. The most recent example is I made a poll how you want the piety penalty to be handled. Or another example is the dungeon changes I made to Salos for example based 100% on players requests. But this time I agreed with them. We listen to players when the changes affect everyone in same way and are not prone to be messed up with subjective opinions – which without ill-intentions you players naturally have instead objective opinions.

When we don't listen to players are situations when your opinion would effect in a wrong way to the shard. Like it or not, that's how the game environment works the best way. I hope you see the logic behind it though. That's what the article is trying to tell.

[Tyrion]

The immediate thought that comes to my mind is the following article, regarding the different positions that exist for a gaming environment even without a budget. The cornerstone for developers is that they develop and that they fall into a specific category. The main thing that seem to be missing from Pangaea atm are: developing. I'm sure some people want to be a GM thinking they can make some lasting change or impact positively, only to be dissapointed when they pass the threshold. There are some stark similarities but also completely different circumstances that exist between other games and Pangaea, most of them are common sense and easy to spot.

"It’s a balance. If you’ve got your head in the sand, you’re crazy; if you’re completely democratizing your design and trying to please everyone, it’s probably going to be pretty bland." - Good point

"The parts of the game where we’re doing something artistic or new, that’s our business. Literally. We’ll test it out on people and we’ll make sure it has the intended effect, but it’s up to us to decide what we want you to experience. It’s totally fine for an audience to criticize that experience but if they don’t like it, that doesn’t necessarily mean we owe them a favor." - Good point.

"Provided developers know when to listen and when not to, fan input is a definite positive." - Excellent point.

"Games are an interactive medium and that is a strength. Furthermore, modern games can be changed, tweaked, and improved post-release. These are strengths of the medium that movies, books, etc. do not enjoy. We should embrace these strengths not run away from them." - Valid point.

"While fan input is important and useful, being a slave to it is a recipe for disaster. Every recent MMO that I have played has fallen victim to this, and see-saw game/class balance is the result. As the story goes: ‘Hey developer, this is Rock. Nerf Paper. Scissors is fine.’ Good developers listen to their fans. Great developers know when not to." - Great point.

[Tyrion]

It sucks when you do something that you think people will love and it turns out they don't but if you ask what the people want BEFORE you make it you wont waste your time and give them what they want.

Don't agree with that at all. . .

"A game that pandered to every fan suggestion would probably never get released. Most fans lack a full understanding of how games are actually made, and many of their requests would be virtually impossible to fulfill. However, there’s no reason developers can’t compile a list of the most popular requests, cross reference them with existing design ideas, and accommodate the cream of the crop. The quality of some fan suggestions is actually very high." - Even if this is done, not all groups are going to be satisfied.

[Tyrion]

We listen to the players many times. The most recent example is I made a poll how you want the piety penalty to be handled. Or another example is the dungeon changes I made to Salos for example based 100% on players requests. But this time I agreed with them. We listen to players when the changes affect everyone in same way and are not prone to be messed up with subjective opinions – which without ill-intentions you players naturally have instead objective opinions.

I cannot even begin to argue this line. I agree 100% that you guys take the feedback given and weight the pro's and con, maybe more objectively than players are capable of doing.

When we don't listen to players are situations when your opinion would effect in a wrong way to the shard. Like it or not, that's how the game environment works the best way. I hope you see the logic behind it though. That's what the article is trying to tell.

My issue with this line is that, you take feedback from a specific group and then nothing occurs or we're told to wait for Wille (even when there is no indication that it would affect others negatively OR other scripting possibilities exist). I'm sure Wille wouldn't be against the idea of having some help if it was for a benefit of the shard. Example 1: making improvements to cities, Example 2: supporting / protecting new players, Example 3: placement of NPC (which supports example 2).

Saying NO to valid requests w/o considering the RP benefit that could result at the effort isn't blackmail it's encouragement to further Pangaean RP. Immho, enslavement to illogical arguments and being afraid of accusations of hypocrisy as well as "player favoritism" has paralyzed staff from even doing things that make sense any more. If that article is proof of anything, it's that, you won't satisfy everybody, but so long as they aren't directly being negatively affected by a change they may not like, it can be easily dismissed: especially if they cannot present valid argument(s) that holds merit in either points or examples for consistency in their claims.

[Monad]

The immediate thought that comes to my mind is the following article, regarding the different positions that exist for a gaming environment even without a budget. The cornerstone for developers is that they develop and that they fall into a specific category. The main thing that seem to be missing from Pangaea atm are: developing. I'm sure some people want to be a GM thinking they can make some lasting change or impact positively, only to be dissapointed when they pass the threshold. There are some stark similarities but also completely different circumstances that exist between other games and Pangaea, most of them are common sense and easy to spot.

I understand what you're saying but I have to disagree with lacking the developement. Developing isn't just a one man's quest on deciding something and then implementing it. Here's a small brief of how the developing on Pangaea works in which all GM's/Admins/scripters and even players are part of:

Phase 1 – Conceptual idea

• - why and how it works
  - lacks details
  - request for approval from other staff members
  - this can be idea on ideas section on the public forums or most often ideas of our own on GM forums which are meant to be secrets until implemented for obvious reasons

Phase 2 – Content and testing

• - next phase after the idea is approved among the staff
  - more details
  - ideas for fixes
  - revises
  - developement progresses and changes in scope and direction are explored

Phase 3 – Confirmation

• - final reviews and agreements to the final draft

Phase 4 – Implementation

• - added to to-do waiting for scripting

Right now we are lacking the phase 4 without doubt, it's not secret and it's a problem we're aware of and trying to fix. But on our forums there are lot of living documents or ideas which are most in the phase 3. Of course succesfull developing requires all the phases, but if something doesn't get implemented, doesn't mean there is no developement going on at all. Just wanted to shed some light on that.