Community development.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 7:08 pm

I was wondering if the players who play the game might have some more input in the games development. what i would like to see is perhaps something like a vote or a pole regarding content. an example would be ummmmmm??? ah the next warp-in perhaps give 2-3 options of ships and let the people vote for what ship they would like to see next. even if we dont get the ship we vote for it would be some kind of interaction with the Community or perhaps something like...ok here is 2 avatar options ....vote for which one you would like to see next , or something else that does not give away there plans for the game or alter there plans.....well i guess im just trying to say is a little interaction with the Community would be nice.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 7:19 pm

The devs interact with the community here a lot.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 7:22 pm

give one example of  Community development.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 7:26 pm

well the only example i could find was bug reporting......but that's only fixing what is already in the game.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 7:36 pm

Dude, this community is constantly requesting new features.  Some get put in, but most are already on the todo list.   The Devs comment on them all the time.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 7:56 pm

I think what Cyrax means is more polls in general, as many of the ideas in the forum are assimilated into our plans for Fleet Ops. We have some ideas for future polls, but at the moment they aren't that close .

posted on February 27th, 2012, 8:13 pm

Star Trek fans are a passionate lot, and those of us who game are often deeply interested in the ships and technology -- and thus, we all have our own interpretations of how they should be represented. I could imagine that if the Developers really threw open the floodgates to the degree that I think cyrax88 is advocating, it'll be more a recipe for chaos than anything.

Having said that, I recall some examples of collaborative development -- I can't find the exact thread, but I'm sure there was a call for opinions on a model design (Excelsior-II I think?).

posted on February 27th, 2012, 9:11 pm

ah yes

I think what Cyrax means is more polls in general, as many of the ideas in the forum are assimilated into our plans for Fleet Ops. We have some ideas for future polls, but at the moment they aren't that close  .

you just said it better then what i said.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 9:13 pm

Dude, this community is constantly requesting new features.  Some get put in, but most are already on the todo list.   The Devs comment on them all the time.

Only on new stuff they haven't thought of, the devs don't listen to things like add a new race or add the galaxy class they just refuse to add it because it apparently conflicts with their story, or changing the vorchas weapons to be more cannon. They sometimes listen to new ideas but only small ones and they don't discuss older ones they have already decided wont be in it. So the game isn't community driven at all

Its all fine and good to say well add it your self.... well in fact its not fine and good who ever says that is a prat you cant play with people if you have that unless they also download and add it and that's an impossibility with new players since its hard enough getting them to play the official fleet ops release so if it isn't distributed with the patches it isn't going to be played.

posted on February 27th, 2012, 9:57 pm

Only on new stuff they haven't thought of, the devs don't listen to things like add a new race or add the galaxy class they just refuse to add it because it apparently conflicts with their story, or changing the vorchas weapons to be more cannon. They sometimes listen to new ideas but only small ones and they don't discuss older ones they have already decided wont be in it. So the game isn't community driven at all

I'm going to go through point by point here.

Adding a new race is very hard work, similar in scope to a TC though slightly smaller. And the most called for one, the Cardassians, were virtually destroyed over the course of DS9 anyway.

The Galaxy class and other frequently requested ships were put in through the warp-in system, which was specifically made for that kind of purpose; adding ships that don't fit with the era but are popular.

The Vor'cha's weapons were depicted very differently from episode to episode so how do you define canon in that case?

Other features that the community has suggested that have been added or have been confirmed to be added in the future are Grey Mode, a revamp of the mixed tech system, SOD based weaponry, changing a large amount of code back to stock for ease of porting, and synergistic effects with weapons and specials. How is that not an example of being community driven?

posted on February 27th, 2012, 10:50 pm

I dont usually comment but if you want more community activity or polls ect. start it up yourself like others have said devs are on all the time replying to posts and so does a lot of the community. Im check forums every day for interesting and fun arguments, suggestions, random videos being posted.

[ray320]

posted on February 27th, 2012, 11:32 pm

Last edited by ray320 on February 27th, 2012, 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Cyrax, I think what your getting at is doing somthing like this?

Excelsior Design Poll

Certainly something like this would be cool, but only if it fits into the devs plan.  And it think it best be limited to smaller things, such as certain graphic designs, perhaps various ship textures.  Things that are decided more by preference, not major game changing things. 

[Tryptic]

posted on February 27th, 2012, 11:34 pm

Last edited by Tryptic on February 27th, 2012, 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think the problem is more that there are a lot more of us than there are Devs.  Sure they can read over the forums occasionally, but they can't keep up and respond all the time.

It's frustrating when the players have an 8-page balance discussion that never has any responses from the devs, or when a response does come and it's curt and uninformative.  I expect I've received about 1 sentence from a dev for every 4-5 pages of suggestion posts.  If you compare this to a professional game that's actually not bad, but for a small community it may be below average, who can say?

It would be nice if they would go ahead and throw a "yes," "no," or "maybe" in some of our posts, then we could feel more loved.  Right now I can't really feel the love on these forums  :rolleyes:

EDIT: Woah, that's a really cool post you got there ray...from 2007.  I would love to see things like that again.

posted on February 28th, 2012, 12:09 am

Tryptic i do agree with you mostly i mean idk what they do with the time but i could see that the devs rather than respond on a daily basis they take a day to work on nothing but an upcoming patch or something came up in there day to day lives and couldnt get on at all but cyrax88 was saying that he felt that there was a lack of any community involvment or so thats how i precived his post. at least towards the develoment of the game. and i was just saying that since the devs dont start anything that he could and the rest of us could get involved. truthfully if its a popular or good topic/poll the devs will eventually get involved.

posted on February 28th, 2012, 1:14 am

Collectively we do read the threads - individually whether we respond or not is highly dependent on whether it is appropriate to do so and whether there is time . I can only speak for myself, but I look through all the threads: however, responding to everything is not really a good way to go about promoting community discussion (nor is it the best use of time considering all the testing that has to be done...). If all one ever did was say "good idea" "no" "yes, I like it" "this is planned already" that would either put people off, kill the discussion, or perhaps change the meaning of the topic to "please the developers" - rather than coming to a community consensus, which usually produces interesting ideas.

Similarly, many ideas are quite nice - but are not possible or desired - it would be quite some pain if our  response was in the negative. It's not the community's role to determine if something can't work due to the present state of the engine: that's just begging to narrow ideas and eliminate discussion. Too much management is just as bad as too little

Of course, if you want direct answers you can always ambush me on Tunngle or Teamspeak, as I am usually lurking there .