I recently decided that, with the infocards of most of the bases my faction uses being outdated, and the monumental task of updating infocards that plagued the latest version (according to what I heard), I decided to re-write them myself. If only for my own personal satisfaction and as a way to keep tabs on what has changed with that base.
Now, there is a slippery slope involved in writing infocards for the faction you help run/are a part of, but the fact of the matter is, only those who run the faction have any real motivation to keep their lore updated.
I would appreciate it if the devs would allow official factions to write their own infocards, subject to review/approval.
It seems to me that it would be far less work reviewing written info-cards than writing them from nothing (provided the English is legible), official factions will feel involved, and they wont be blind sided by infocard additions that have no basis in the player RP, such as the Harris infocard that appeared last patch.
I think that would fix many problems, but only under the condition that only those infocards which the devs say need updates are written, in order to prevent unnecessary spam for those meant to review them.
I recently decided that, with the infocards of most of the bases my faction uses being outdated, and the monumental task of updating infocards that plagued the latest version (according to what I heard), I decided to re-write them myself. If only for my own personal satisfaction and as a way to keep tabs on what has changed with that base.
Now, there is a slippery slope involved in writing infocards for the faction you help run/are a part of, but the fact of the matter is, only those who run the faction have any real motivation to keep their lore updated.
I would appreciate it if the devs would allow official factions to write their own infocards, subject to review/approval.
I think it best that people simply file a dev request if they're simply attempting to submit fixes for outdated cards.
(01-10-2020, 03:00 AM)Markam Wrote: It seems to me that it would be far less work reviewing written info-cards than writing them from nothing
It generally isn't less work.
(01-10-2020, 03:00 AM)Markam Wrote: and they wont be blind sided by infocard additions that have no basis in the player RP, such as the Harris infocard that appeared last patch.
Having factions submit fixes for outdated content is not going to stop the development team from progressing the plot. You were blindsided because this was a story development, and as discussed many times we are not obligated to spoil the story before it appears in the game world via updates.
The CR, for their part at least, were informed that this would be happening. Though I suspect their new leadership will most probably deny this due to Discovery's historically shoddy line of succession.
@TheShooter36 and @Havok certainly both knew that the CR would be setting up shop on Harris.
I don't want to make this about the Harris infocard, it was just an example.
"why don't you just submit a dev request"
I could, but is this kind of official faction involvement in infocards welcomed by the dev team? It would be nice for the devs to come out and say hey, community, you love your factions and we know you do, please help keep the mod and lore up to date and submit infocards, and we will process them.
Would this not make them feel more involved? I do not think this message is being felt by the community.
And no, I am not suggesting you give up the right to over rule changes based on story.
Things are the way things are because asking people to do work for us is slippery slope that often involves poor writing, poor conduct on behalf of the submitting party (everyone wants their faction to "win", after all), and the simple fact that encouraging people to do this is going to result in us having to say "no", more often.
Having to say no, and having to explain the why behind the no, more often than not in my experience leads to even poorer relations, slower development, and a perception of double standards.
It's also entirely possible that I'm wrong, and that we've been on the wrong course, and we ought be doing exactly as you suggested. A lot of it boils down to the fact that despite not being a people person, for the majority of the past year I've been forced to become the forward face of the staff, and I honestly have not enjoyed it much. This has changed a bit since we have gotten a more active GM team, but GM is still GM and story is still story.
I would truly love it if we could bring aboard some more writers who would be willing to engage with the community without being strongarmed into giving in to their demands, or advocating the abolition of the development team in lieu of an entirely player driven narrative. People to bridge the gap, not reinvent the wheel.
(01-10-2020, 04:26 AM)Durandal Wrote: I would truly love it if we could bring aboard some more writers who would be willing to engage with the community without being strongarmed into giving in to their demands
I'm curious by what you mean by this. For the most part, I've had a negative view of story devs due to the constant side-railing of the development of pre-existing vanilla factions. I would like to know what exactly you want out of this, and what you think of finishing complete development of these NPC and correlating player factions. Perhaps my indignant attitude was misdirected.
Don't need to abolish development team driven story. But the finer details of the story should be left up to players in my opinion.
The conflict with the Coalition is a perfect example of this. Development wanted (and this was conveyed to us) that Bretonia and the Coalition be hostile to one another. Faced with the inevitable, players came up with a suitable excuse for this conflict to start, and enacted it.
Now what I would be suggesting here, is that the players involved be given a chance to articulate this through infocards/news articles.
The issue with Harris which again I do not want to argue about, is that players, faced with development that said "Harris will be CR" (which we knew and I am not arguing), decided that instead of Bretonia being angry about this, a political solution to save face be presented. This was Roleplayed in a thread in which Bretgov and CR agreed that Bretonia would lease the planet to Crayter, not admitting that Crayter had annexed the planet, but creating a short term solution which prevents a conflict neither side wanted. The infocard presented to us last update made it sound like Bretonia was mad, and Crayter had back-stabbed it.
This is not to say that the story devs are pushing be averted due to player demand, but rather portrayed in a different way. The end result can be as the devs demand, and we fight Crayter over the planet, but using a reason that we conduct and not the devs.
This was as it was in the Gallic war, for instance how the Harlow was moved to Cortez, now it feels like even the small moves we have no control over.
I'm not sure if I can be clearer, as this is an issue something on our side of the fence is inherently familiar with, but it's totally alien from the community end.
What I'm trying to expound upon here is that the story team's role is to direct Discovery's narrative and when possible, integrate player actions into that narrative if they do not have a negative impact on the course of the story or the gameplay of the mod.
We're very capable of doing the backend part of that, which is moving a story team written narrative forward and providing a filter for feasible vs unfeasible community submissions. What we're not good at is holding a dialogue of any sort with the community. We're not good at receiving those ideas, and we're not good at explaining why they are rejected. There are a lot of factors at play here but the key one are that the story team is largely comprised of introverts who want to do their work and don't show face in public when their position is already one that takes a good deal of time and energy out of them.
Interfacing with the people of this community takes an enormous mental toll. That's not intended as an insult; it would be the same anywhere else where passions run high. So one of the things that we desperately need is people who are willing to work with the movers and shakers on the community end, who are primarily but not always OFLs. Not people to take OFL demands, go to us, and say "the community demands this, and so it must be done."
What we need are people who are willing to come to us with the community's wants, hold a conversation with us where we can go "okay, that can't happen in that way because of reasons X or Y, if Z alterations are made it might be feasible." And then report back to those faction leaders.
We don't have that, and so right now, it is taking a very heavy toll on everyone involved. There have been so many discussions over trying to set this sort of thing up over the past year, but almost all of them crash and burn at or even before take off. The trick is finding someone who doesn't consider the development team to be an enemy, or some kind of monolithic "other." Someone understanding of our design ethos and limitations, and willing to work on our terms as envoys to the community.
Previous efforts have met early demises because the kind of people volunteering for these roles are almost without exception members with ulterior motives. We don't need people with agendas, or trying to reinvent the wheel and force change. Just people genuinely willing and able to lend a helping hand.
Ironically, @Markam was always a candidate for this position. Maybe it's something he'd be interested in now that he's no longer dealing with the rigors of moderation, although gods, I still wish he had not resigned.
(01-10-2020, 06:31 AM)Durandal Wrote: What we need are people who are willing to come to us with their wants, hold a conversation with us where we can go "okay, that can't happen in that way because of reasons X or Y, if Z alterations are made it might be feasible." And then report back to those faction leaders.
The last conversation I attempted to have in the story chats ended with a great deal of accusations and undue suspicion being pointed my way. Even though I wasn't responsible for the written request that had been produced, and had only been given a copy of it after submission. As much as I agree with the points being raised, the Development team is as exhausting to interact with as the community is. And the process of discussion takes an equally heavy toll as accusations are flung back and forth, and any form of indignation to this is used as justification for disapproval thereafter.
Most of us get it, and even if people don't I've been attempting to make it abundantly clear that the Development team isn't a bunch of boogeymen, and that more often than not people seem to turn you into a scapegoat regardless of your involvement. So as much as I'd love to conclude this post with a guarantee that reasonable dialogue can and will occur, I'm still barred from the venue of said dialogue by virtue of personal disagreement.
The offer of help regarding infocard contributions still stands. I'm capable of being professional if people are willing to look past their personal opinions of me.
(01-10-2020, 06:49 AM)Reeves Wrote: As much as I agree with the points being raised, the Development team is as exhausting to interact with as the community is.
I dedicated a fair portion of that post I wrote outlining that the team's backend lacks a frontend, and that our backend is not made of people persons, who ought not be peopling. Apologies for the absolute trashfire of the sentence there, but my point is that this is what happens when people who ought not be peopling are forced to... people.