(07-02-2018, 06:03 AM)Gardarik Wrote: + 1 to Sombra's point.
Being the leader of a faction that applied for officialdom I can share insight on why we applied for officialdom in the first place. The answer is to have an RP "vote"/"say" on the development of the story of the faction. The RP of discovery is so appealing as compared to other games (say, ESO that some members of the community play) is because you can actually have an impact on the development on in-game world, i.e. dynamic story. One can model diplomacy, inner politics, warfare scenarios, research, you name it. All other benefits of the officialdom, like perks or special ID lines are not the goal themselves, they are means of achieving the primary goal of RP impact. I do realise that there are PvP official factions and trading factions that are not seeking RP impact, usually. Yet even military PvP factions like Mike said want to win a war if they fight, official traders, IMHO, can request a perk of increased profits for certain goods/routes as a return of stocks inRP, whatsoever.
In this regard, small rewards will not solve the issue - logging for the sake of logging and not playing is something very detrimental to server's atmosphere. Either money or scidata will only contribute to logging for the sake of logging, it is not a solution. IMHO, to contribute to the latter what we might benefit from is:
- progressing of the stories. If the story moves nowhere, well, then there is no that appealing dynamic story I have mentioned;
- more RP events, not just mindless pew that can be arranged any time in Connecticut. Or, if it is a pew like that, let it have an RP consequence;
- possibly, more diverse perks for official factions making them truly unique and worth applying for and putting your time into developing the RP of your character/faction. Otherwise, one can just comfortably play as an indie/unofficial and be good without losing nothing.
The main point, though, is story progression. I do realise that the Admin team is not a pantheon of omnipotent gods and can not follow the endless demands of the community. In many cases, however, the players drive the story themselves and the team just need to slightly assist them by, say, editing infocard (possibly, even written by the player and, if is adequate, can be implemented) or announcing some developments via announcer tool. Internal political changes even less so require admin interference, maybe just a verification. IMHO, we need less events with the cultists wherein everyone just rushes for the data and often disregards RP, but more inter-factions events.
I know that the suggestions are not panacea and have drawbacks. I am just sounding my opinion.
P.S. it would be nice if a science faction in-RP can somehow get bonuses out of being a sci-faction. Generating scidata is an option, although a boring and imbalanced one. Maybe a perk to create/use unique equipment, reducing tech-nerf or just some other distinctive in-game features.
First of all as a member of a story development chat I figured you'd know better than to insinuate that the storyline/progression was handled by the administration. It isn't.
Secondly, the biggest problem we've had in the development team in regards to progressing the story is actually making sure faction leaders aren't completely mad about it progressing. I'm an OFL myself, and for years I lobbied for more power for factions in regards to development influence. Now that this has happened, all I really see is people not being able to agree on anything at all. I do agree that we need more RP events, and maybe tie in a sublevel of the story which can be directly affected by the community and doesn't directly impact the development level storyline, but trying to mesh the two together really just does not seem to work. That's the system we've been trying to adhere to for the past three years, and it has consistently resulted in achieving 3 things.
1: Bland, milquetoast, 'safe' updates with very little in the way of actual meat or progression, just surface level things to make it appear that the plot is moving forward when in reality barely anything happens.
2. Long, drawn out debates in regional development chats between different OFLs and developers which continues endlessly, because everyone wants things to happen their own way, resulting in needlessly long update cycles.
3. Faction leaders feeling as if they have no power anyway, the exact same complaint we had before they were ever included in regional chats.
I think it's important that people remember what the term developer means. A developer is someone who develops the game, and when we make decisions, that is okay. We're allowed to. We're supposed to. We actually don't need your input. While I certainly think pleasing everyone is a nice idea, it is in no way a realistic one.
If factions want to have a more profound impact on the story, there are a number of things they can do which will make us more likely to implement their ideas, and I'll list them off here.
- Be polite. This one is really, really huge. I know I'm known for being a very abrasive person but this is almost always in response to someone attempting to slander the development team on some level, usually because they didn't get their way or we made a decision that we did not like.
- Understand that the development team is doing their job, not shirking in, by actually having a plot and developing it. You might not like it. You're not always going to. If we never made decisions that people disliked, we'd be playing Vanilla, not Discovery.
- Be proactive in communicating your long term plans for the faction. If we know what your plans are well in advance we can help weave them into the story instead of contacting you right before a development cycle without any knowledge of what you really want. Faction status reports coming back would be excellent for this purpose.
- Integration of sub plots as mentioned earlier that factions can impact without affecting the overarching storyline.
- Be patient, and wait for the Gallia arc to resolve. We currently have a plan that could wrap the Gallia arc up once and for all in a matter of months, but it would be contingent on us not going in circles with faction leaders again. Half the server is calling for more story progression and more war, and the only new war, Kusari and Rheinland, was stonewalled for months in a regional development chat. 4.90 Part II could've been out two or three months ago if not for that. The reason this point is important is because once Gallia is less of a superpower, we can allow factions to have a much greater impact on the story without derailing things. The region of Gallia, without actually saying what happens to it, could actually be used as a testbed for giving the factions that inhabit it more sovereignty over the direction of their own factions.
Imo, the very best thing we can do to get more people logging is to implement more passive gameplay mechanics. More ways of making money, more stuff to do, more dynamic interaction with the environment, even if it isn't on a story level.
None of what I wrote above matters until the current development team proves itself to be competent.
(07-02-2018, 06:03 AM)Gardarik Wrote: + 1 to Sombra's point.
Being the leader of a faction that applied for officialdom I can share insight on why we applied for officialdom in the first place. The answer is to have an RP "vote"/"say" on the development of the story of the faction. The RP of discovery is so appealing as compared to other games (say, ESO that some members of the community play) is because you can actually have an impact on the development on in-game world, i.e. dynamic story. One can model diplomacy, inner politics, warfare scenarios, research, you name it. All other benefits of the officialdom, like perks or special ID lines are not the goal themselves, they are means of achieving the primary goal of RP impact. I do realise that there are PvP official factions and trading factions that are not seeking RP impact, usually. Yet even military PvP factions like Mike said want to win a war if they fight, official traders, IMHO, can request a perk of increased profits for certain goods/routes as a return of stocks inRP, whatsoever.
In this regard, small rewards will not solve the issue - logging for the sake of logging and not playing is something very detrimental to server's atmosphere. Either money or scidata will only contribute to logging for the sake of logging, it is not a solution. IMHO, to contribute to the latter what we might benefit from is:
- progressing of the stories. If the story moves nowhere, well, then there is no that appealing dynamic story I have mentioned;
- more RP events, not just mindless pew that can be arranged any time in Connecticut. Or, if it is a pew like that, let it have an RP consequence;
- possibly, more diverse perks for official factions making them truly unique and worth applying for and putting your time into developing the RP of your character/faction. Otherwise, one can just comfortably play as an indie/unofficial and be good without losing nothing.
The main point, though, is story progression. I do realise that the Admin team is not a pantheon of omnipotent gods and can not follow the endless demands of the community. In many cases, however, the players drive the story themselves and the team just need to slightly assist them by, say, editing infocard (possibly, even written by the player and, if is adequate, can be implemented) or announcing some developments via announcer tool. Internal political changes even less so require admin interference, maybe just a verification. IMHO, we need less events with the cultists wherein everyone just rushes for the data and often disregards RP, but more inter-factions events.
I know that the suggestions are not panacea and have drawbacks. I am just sounding my opinion.
P.S. it would be nice if a science faction in-RP can somehow get bonuses out of being a sci-faction. Generating scidata is an option, although a boring and imbalanced one. Maybe a perk to create/use unique equipment, reducing tech-nerf or just some other distinctive in-game features.
First of all as a member of a story development chat I figured you'd know better than to insinuate that the storyline/progression was handled by the administration. It isn't.
Secondly, the biggest problem we've had in the development team in regards to progressing the story is actually making sure faction leaders aren't completely mad about it progressing. I'm an OFL myself, and for years I lobbied for more power for factions in regards to development influence. Now that this has happened, all I really see is people not being able to agree on anything at all. I do agree that we need more RP events, and maybe tie in a sublevel of the story which can be directly affected by the community and doesn't directly impact the development level storyline, but trying to mesh the two together really just does not seem to work. That's the system we've been trying to adhere to for the past three years, and it has consistently resulted in achieving 3 things.
1: Bland, milquetoast, 'safe' updates with very little in the way of actual meat or progression, just surface level things to make it appear that the plot is moving forward when in reality barely anything happens.
2. Long, drawn out debates in regional development chats between different OFLs and developers which continues endlessly, because everyone wants things to happen their own way, resulting in needlessly long update cycles.
3. Faction leaders feeling as if they have no power anyway, the exact same complaint we had before they were ever included in regional chats.
I think it's important that people remember what the term developer means. A developer is someone who develops the game, and when we make decisions, that is okay. We're allowed to. We're supposed to. We actually don't need your input. While I certainly think pleasing everyone is a nice idea, it is in no way a realistic one.
If factions want to have a more profound impact on the story, there are a number of things they can do which will make us more likely to implement their ideas, and I'll list them off here.
- Be polite. This one is really, really huge. I know I'm known for being a very abrasive person but this is almost always in response to someone attempting to slander the development team on some level, usually because they didn't get their way or we made a decision that we did not like.
- Understand that the development team is doing their job, not shirking in, by actually having a plot and developing it. You might not like it. You're not always going to. If we never made decisions that people disliked, we'd be playing Vanilla, not Discovery.
- Be proactive in communicating your long term plans for the faction. If we know what your plans are well in advance we can help weave them into the story instead of contacting you right before a development cycle without any knowledge of what you really want. Faction status reports coming back would be excellent for this purpose.
- Integration of sub plots as mentioned earlier that factions can impact without affecting the overarching storyline.
- Be patient, and wait for the Gallia arc to resolve. We currently have a plan that could wrap the Gallia arc up once and for all in a matter of months, but it would be contingent on us not going in circles with faction leaders again. Half the server is calling for more story progression and more war, and the only new war, Kusari and Rheinland, was stonewalled for months in a regional development chat. 4.90 Part II could've been out two or three months ago if not for that. The reason this point is important is because once Gallia is less of a superpower, we can allow factions to have a much greater impact on the story without derailing things. The region of Gallia, without actually saying what happens to it, could actually be used as a testbed for giving the factions that inhabit it more sovereignty over the direction of their own factions.
Imo, the very best thing we can do to get more people logging is to implement more passive gameplay mechanics. More ways of making money, more stuff to do, more dynamic interaction with the environment, even if it isn't on a story level.
None of what I wrote above matters until the current development team proves itself to be competent.
(07-02-2018, 06:50 AM)Durandal Wrote: @Xalrok is lead developer, but a lot of our responsibilities are shared. I don't think we're understanding each other, language barrier.
I understand you.
If you have the same responsibilities (as you said), then to whom and what are you going to prove? Your value for the players? You do not have to prove anything to anyone, your primary task is to make the mod better and only (it's part of the developer's task, right?)
It's better to think the whole team why the mod loses online, what it's worth to do to boost online. Listen to the ideas of players and give your comments. Is it difficult - to go and spend an hour or two on analyzing someone's ideas to give assessment?
I think Durandal's answer was more of a sarcasm, Mike, and fully justified. The community is always bragging about what to do to the server, often blaming the devs. While the devs are same people as we are and take care of the server because they kindly choose to. They don't get any monetary remuneration out of it while the work itself requires a lot of time, mental effort and emotional stability. I saw myself how messy the Skype chat on the development of a single Sirius region was, how much drama any suggestion caused and how people started hating each other for some pixels.
We here, Durandal, do not indent to offend you or criticise for the stuff we don't like. We are just concerned about our dear server and suggest our vision of helping it, given that this vision is always limited in some way and lacks the whole perspective of the dev team as to the limitations. Cheers for the dev team, you have our trust!
Nothing I said was sarcastic, and while I appreciate the sentiment and nice words, we're well aware that we certainly do not have the trust of the community at large. Going about fixing that is going to require a lot more than vague notions of "listening to more player input", or simply ruling the place with an iron fist and not taking advice at all. I've already tried to reach compromises to some extent and be more transparent in our decisions, but sometimes it feels like it will never be enough.
(07-02-2018, 07:04 AM)Gardarik Wrote: I think Durandal's answer was more of a sarcasm, Mike, and fully justified. The community is always bragging about what to do to the server, often blaming the devs. While the devs are same people as we are and take care of the server because they kindly choose to. They don't get any monetary remuneration out of it while the work itself requires a lot of time, mental effort and emotional stability. I saw myself how messy the Skype chat on the development of a single Sirius region was, how much drama any suggestion caused and how people started hating each other for some pixels.
We here, Durandal, do not indent to offend you or criticise for the stuff we don't like. We are just concerned about our dear server and suggest our vision of helping it, given that this vision is always limited in some way and lacks the whole perspective of the dev team as to the limitations. Cheers for the dev team, you have our trust!
Just understand, I have nothing against the developers do not have, but you yourself see the situation: good administrators leave, then return, and they do not take to the post back. We had excellent administrators: Spazzy, Dimon and many others. KingBoo made a great event against the Nomads. The first two left the game just because they do not see the motivation (Dimon is still playing, but not as often as I think). KingBoo is now barely showing an asset ( but anyone leading IRG|, isn`t? ).
Look at the game as a simple player. Include logical thinking and think what certain factions can and can not do. For example, I have already mentioned the topic that pirates can not have capital ships, but they can successfully sabotage the warships of the House where they are.
Yes, pirates would lose their capital ships, but this would increase interest in the factions, because now they say: "The xenos do not have a line of ships, help them!" And the Xenos themselves can not do anything to create a line of their ships?
For example, why did Malta and Crete receive capital ships? Battleship or Dreadnought is the highest technological branch of any advanced (!) House, which has enough resources, people, technology. For a capital ship to be, it must be maintained. Nobody thinks about what you need to create a capital ship, than you will fill it and how many need fuel for it ( H-Fuel, MOX etc. ).
For example, I do not understand how Harmony have 3 battleships? They do not deal with piracy, I do not see any active supplies from Unioners (so that it was straightforward in the delivery-style forums at Marshall). But to collect a gank-another - this we can right now. Collect a huge fleet of capital ships, the appearance of which in Harmony for me - a dark secret - we are without ceremony, in the faction there is an asset, why not?
The same situation with the Hellfire Legion - I still can not understand, guys, where you take resources for as many battleships as it was yesterday in the New Hampshire system. Just explain - where do you get the fuel, materials for supply and repair? In Liberty, this can be explained: trade unions, supply of fuel from GMG etc.
(07-02-2018, 07:15 AM)Durandal Wrote: Nothing I said was sarcastic, and while I appreciate the sentiment and nice words, we're well aware that we certainly do not have the trust of the community at large. Going about fixing that is going to require a lot more than vague notions of "listening to more player input", or simply ruling the place with an iron fist and not taking advice at all. I've already tried to reach compromises to some extent and be more transparent in our decisions, but sometimes it feels like it will never be enough.
Be a real leader and do not be afraid of anything. I ran into a squall of criticism, playing in the sixth fleet (I'm still playing there), but I was not scared of this and continued to play. When you are developing, you should understand that there will be criticism, you must be able to justify your point of view on the game, and not try to seek a compromise.
To say to some toxic players: "Ok, we will do as you want" - this is one thing. And to say: "No, it seems to us that this will be more correct, because..." - is another, there is a discussion. The more people express their views on updates, the better it will be for you.
Again, I respect the developers' actions regarding what they did for the mod. But this uncertainty, which I see right now - if you continue to be afraid of something and doubt something, then the server will be impossible to bring back to life, as we remember it in the past.
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Spoiler![[Image: fPxh782.png]](https://i.imgur.com/fPxh782.png)