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The Issue With The Collaborative Development Program (CDP)
deadmano
Member Posts: 73 Arc User
So I have been following the CDP program closely ever since its inception and I’ve come to the realisation that, while it is a wonderful step forward, as it stands, it does not work nearly as well as it could. I’m writing this for all of those who are unable or simply do not wish to participate in the CDP for whatever reasons, some of which I’ll try to highlight below, because their opinions still matter.
The CDP Is Not Accessible To Everyone
There are people I have spoken to who have mentioned they are not interested in creating long-winded write-ups that may or may not be read or acted upon due to “years of empty promises”. There are also those who are simply “lazy” and do not wish to log-in to a forum to share their views by following a rigorous process of submission. Regardless of the reason, the CDP seems to skew in favour of those who are strongly opinionated and have the free time to voice themselves, and those few are the driving force behind the changes the game may or may not see, especially if the CDP continues to remain the primary polling system in place.
I say “few” because the first two CDP’s saw ~400 replies (many of which are replies by the original posters) with 12.4K and 13K views respectively over a two month period, whilst the latest one started on the 21st of January saw, as of this message, 82 replies and 2.7K views. I’d like to think that is nowhere near the Neverwinter population, across PC, PS4, and Xbox, and thus the opinions of the people are not actually truly being heard.
The CDP Is Less Effective Due To Conflict Of Interest Among Players
Another topic that was brought up when chatting with others was the fact that there were quite a few individuals who chose to simply not participate in the CDP as they were afraid of how others might react, what their friends would think if they went against something that said friend had wanted to see changed, etc. This resulted in them simply backing away instead of being part of a “conflict” situation, which we have seen quite a bit of, on the forums (albeit it does get moderated), the Reddit page, as well as in the Discords and even streams, and all this then leads to the “bandwagon” effect.
The Solution?
Keep the CDP going to gain ideas and store them for in-game polls, allowing EVERYONE to vote on what they feel is the best choice from several options. This does three very important things; 1) it promotes the privacy necessary for someone to share their opinion without fear of backlash as stated above 2) it is far more accessible as it is integrated directly into the game thus the metrics would be far more accurate to gauge player interest 3) it requires minimal effort from the player who can quickly cast their vote to help shape the future of Neverwinter.
Every poll should have a “none of these interest me” option so as to gauge if any of the choices actually matter to the community at large. Furthermore, to prevent abuse; polls should be limited to 1 vote per account and IP address, and the player needs to have an account older than 14 days of the polls release date.
I’ve always said that the changes brought to the game should reflect the majority; what is the point of bringing about changes if only a handful of individuals actually want said changes? Give the community what it wants at large, and don’t limit their voice. YES they can participate in the CDP, but will they? What about those who don’t or won’t? What of their opinions? You can’t say you wish to listen to the community if it becomes limited due to several factors in play; it starts turning into a clique at that point.
The CDP Is Not Accessible To Everyone
There are people I have spoken to who have mentioned they are not interested in creating long-winded write-ups that may or may not be read or acted upon due to “years of empty promises”. There are also those who are simply “lazy” and do not wish to log-in to a forum to share their views by following a rigorous process of submission. Regardless of the reason, the CDP seems to skew in favour of those who are strongly opinionated and have the free time to voice themselves, and those few are the driving force behind the changes the game may or may not see, especially if the CDP continues to remain the primary polling system in place.
I say “few” because the first two CDP’s saw ~400 replies (many of which are replies by the original posters) with 12.4K and 13K views respectively over a two month period, whilst the latest one started on the 21st of January saw, as of this message, 82 replies and 2.7K views. I’d like to think that is nowhere near the Neverwinter population, across PC, PS4, and Xbox, and thus the opinions of the people are not actually truly being heard.
The CDP Is Less Effective Due To Conflict Of Interest Among Players
Another topic that was brought up when chatting with others was the fact that there were quite a few individuals who chose to simply not participate in the CDP as they were afraid of how others might react, what their friends would think if they went against something that said friend had wanted to see changed, etc. This resulted in them simply backing away instead of being part of a “conflict” situation, which we have seen quite a bit of, on the forums (albeit it does get moderated), the Reddit page, as well as in the Discords and even streams, and all this then leads to the “bandwagon” effect.
The Solution?
Keep the CDP going to gain ideas and store them for in-game polls, allowing EVERYONE to vote on what they feel is the best choice from several options. This does three very important things; 1) it promotes the privacy necessary for someone to share their opinion without fear of backlash as stated above 2) it is far more accessible as it is integrated directly into the game thus the metrics would be far more accurate to gauge player interest 3) it requires minimal effort from the player who can quickly cast their vote to help shape the future of Neverwinter.
Every poll should have a “none of these interest me” option so as to gauge if any of the choices actually matter to the community at large. Furthermore, to prevent abuse; polls should be limited to 1 vote per account and IP address, and the player needs to have an account older than 14 days of the polls release date.
I’ve always said that the changes brought to the game should reflect the majority; what is the point of bringing about changes if only a handful of individuals actually want said changes? Give the community what it wants at large, and don’t limit their voice. YES they can participate in the CDP, but will they? What about those who don’t or won’t? What of their opinions? You can’t say you wish to listen to the community if it becomes limited due to several factors in play; it starts turning into a clique at that point.
4
Comments
I'll agree that any topic being discussed is at the mercy of being skewed since only a certain set of players use the forums.
But I'm not 100% certain that these "top 3 choices" at the end of CDPs are things that will be implemented in game.
To me, this is nothing more than a brainstorming exercise where the company will look at the top choices and decide if they like them and if they would be feasible to implement.
They want opinion and more importantly the reasons behind the opinion.
+1
CDP is really not binding by any means. Just one guy in a higher position asked for ideas - and actually tries to lead some dialogue. That is nice - but once again: even the best idea is just an idea. The path which developers will follow... probably depends on many more aspects than just "we have a nice idea".
I think it would be great to handle the responses as a "locked" format. Let me try to explain what I mean. (possibly outside the scope of the current technology being used)
So when a new CDP topic is started, the points the Devs are interested in the sub topics are static bullet points when the person replies to the post.
An example of this is, a question about dungeon rewards gets automatically placed into the reply. So all the person needs to do is answer or give their opinion about the question or comment. This keeps the format "cleaner" and if a person doesn't have an opinion about a sub topic they can just use some kind of standard response like "I have no opinion here."
This way every response is similar and it would be easier for the Devs to poor over the information feed back because each reply is structured exactly the same.
1. What do you think about X?
poster response.
2. What do you think about xX?
poster response.
3. What do you think about HAMSTER?
poster response.
Ect. So each sub topic is "forced" in the reply. This way the poster doesn't need to take time to structure their response "properly" in terms of formatting. Every reply will be the same formatting. The responses can be as long as the poster needs to explain their opinion or give examples as to why they feel the way they do about the question or comment.
The current system supposes that the person will take the time to format their responses accordingly and just by looking over the responses only about half if that actually follow the format request.
Polling in game may not get the carefully think it through answer. "Whatever! I just click one. I need to do my RQ. What!? I have just signed off my first born!?".
Polling may introduce unwanted rumour. Think about the VIP one. People in Facebook is "announcing" Cryptic is going to take the VIP key away, etc. and this is not even caused by a polling. "You must be stupid if you don't think it is their plan".
Polling may introduce undesired expectation. "There are 90% of us in their poll saying we want X and they are not doing that!!".
Polling does not make you to write down your reasoning. It may be "well, all of them are bad but this one may be the best of the worst".
The poll was not intended to replace the CDP, only augment it, so those who couldn't or did not wish to participate could voice their opinions on whatever the leading picks were that the team chose.
As for who the poll gets shown to, I did suggest only those who have played the game for at least 2 weeks be eligible, but that can be extended or improved upon. You could have a reminder instead that leads to the poll, which is on the home page UI, so it isn't in your face, which won't lead to erroneous votes.
These are all really well thought out possibilities!
Regarding the polling in game, see my response above.
With regards to unwanted rumours, that can and does happen already. The poll can clearly state that the options below are to help developers gauge interest but does not necessarily mean it will be added.
Regarding the expectations and a poll winning by a large majority; it makes you question, if that many people want said feature, then why is it not being added?
Regarding picking an option that is the best of the worst, as per my original post:
And futhermore, in my response above, you could take player feedback via an in-game form as well; I do feel the engagement would be far higher, and far more accessible.
I think the numbers would be very meaningful and just like you said have a not interested option is very important. What the elite, whales, the middle and the new players want are often vastly different. I think it's important that they all have a vote.
One last thing, I can tell you that maybe one in ten people I talk to in game even knows this forum exists. Crypic needs to push this place in game and not just in static places.
I play several other online MMO/MP games and at least once a week we will get a in game message/email letting is know what is going on and that sort of things. They need to PM every player and tell them this place is actually here especially new players and not just once.
The biggest fear i have with POLL is that, most players voting will probably have no idea what change will benefit the game in terms of financially and also in terms of longevity of the content. The CDP has room to grow as of yet in my humble opinion.
If we assume there are 8,000 to 10,000 players online daily, the forums seem to represent less than 1% of the game population. If the player base cannot take an interest in community and game development affairs, then I don't see how they can complain about the game or how Cryptic handles it. It is a simple philosophy of, having a right vote and not voting, a freedom to voice your opinion, and not paying attention.
Sending email polls and surveys out to these same users, I fear will just fall on deaf ears. Cryptic is trying their best to reach out with Live Streams and now the CDP. Live Streams on Twitch allow the users an hour to chat. But many only seem to show up for free stuff instead. I really liked the December stream where Chris picked out some tough questions to answer on his own accord and wasn't fed the questions. He was very intense looking at the monitor and obviously studying what the people were asking.
I really don't know how things could be more "accessible" to the general game community? Obviously Cryptic cannot take out a spot on the evening news to inform all the users about upcoming changes. I bet Cryptic could toss a mail into every user's mail box in the game and the majority will be deleted by the user without being read. How are the forums inaccessible to the people who signed up to play any game? If people want to know, they must come here and ask the questions.
The CDP seems to have (among others) the following primary goals:
- bring the new EP up to date, in order to make informed decisions. For this:
- find out what certain groups of players like or don't like, including the reasons why and how important it is to them
What the company actually does with the input, whether and how they take into account that some groups are underrepresented at the forums, what they actually can do (given the limited resources), is a different matter.
I for my part am impressed about the effort.
It takes a lot of time and resources to read through all CDP feedback, summarize the main results and discuss them in the team.
It is an investment into us players, that costs them real money.
CDP is effective at what it was designed to do, help the limited dev team,, brainstorm around in-game concepts and designs. It is a mass focus group.
And it is perfectly accessible to the players invested enough in Neverwinter to participate on the forums or follow them on social. There is no gateway to participation except some players might disagree with your opinion. Which is fine IMO.
No everyone has the same goals or expectation so we don't need to agree. We just need to share our thoughts on the topic and hope that Chris takes some notes here or there so that the community is invested in design.
The options in a poll structure are normally short & quick. If you look at some of the CDP input, people have written up lengthy background notes that support these ideas. You can't get that across in a poll whatsoever and without this information you get skewed results.