I generally like Sharps idea to simplify along the lines of
1. Problem 2. Solution 3. Potential Risks
I'm also finding it hard to read through the slabs of text, I'd prefer a succinct summary. Detailed Descriptions and slabs of text, no matter how valuable and worthy of sharing, are best appended to the body of text that is targeted toward the general population (like in all good business cases or a reports), perhaps the spoiler function thing in this forum could be used to append the "slabs" to the main post and still leave a summarised post that is easy for the plebs like me to read.
The only problem with this is that by formatting the CDP this way it becomes a "Problem Solving" forum rather than an open forum for creativity and new ideas.
I guarantee that if someone had an idea that wasn't solving a "problem" but was either a brand new idea or even simply an improvement on an area that already works, if they posted it under a "Solution to Problem" pro forma, then it would be about 3 minutes before someone jumped in and started a flame war about "priorities" and how "why fix something that isn't broken".
Such policing of the forum might put people off posting such ideas, and the CDP could lose potentially valuable input.
I've been guilty of falling into that mode of thinking, talking about "priorities" in other CDPs, and I was wrong to do that. I believe that with a CDP on the CDP, we should look to more than just the layout of the ideas, but also use this opportunity to make clear the scope of the CDP going forward.
Broken things are the most immediate priority, that should be obvious, but that doesn't mean that ideas about new facets of the game, or improvements to existing (working) facets be disregarded by labelling the format as "Problem" and "Solution". Such ideas and suggestions may become part of the long term goals that the "fixes" can be aimed towards achieving.
I just don't think we should limit ourselves in such a way.
Unless, of course, I've completely misunderstood the purpose of the CDP... and we actually are here to simply fix things and identifying opportunities for future growth is for another day.
And YES, of course we should TRY and limit our word count. Or at the very least summarise a 4 page wall of text into something that scans well and holds the readers attention.
While studying Design Thinking, I complained to an instructor that the devs I was working with were limiting their customer engagements to online forums and refusing to do any proper research because they "don't have time". The instructor agreed with me but pointed out that ANY engagement with actual customers is better than the devs sitting in their office and pulling ideas out of their bottoms. In my view and experience, the CDP is exactly that same old song and dance...a poor, limited substitute for proper design process, be it Design Thinking, User Centered Design or any other UX methodology that is known to work effectively.
I feel the CDP is a time-suck for everyone involved and time that you, Chris, and the devs could and should spend on more effective means of customer engagement. My feedback on CDP is: stop and work differently, preferably with an experienced expert/coach advising you. (Not angling for a job here, I am retired and have no contacts to give you. It's just me standing on the sidelines cringing at what I see and going *Noooo...Why are they doing this?!?!?!?*)
I understand that CDP is something that you feel has worked before, and I respectfully point out that it doesn't mean it is an ideal means of getting useful input from the community.
On a personal note, once my CDP VIP feedback was one sidedly ommitted from the CDP thread for being off-topic, when clearly it was not, I left the program. That was, in my view, highly unprofessional. Rule #1 of engaging with customers is listen and do not argue or defend. Even if you think the customer is wrong. Ask WHY and try to understand. Otherwise, you are simply limiting yourselves to the info you want and expect and that is just a waste of time.
I have posted about having alternate ways to give feedback ideas before, but at the time it was a bit off topic so got moved. Now its seems like a more appropriate time
I am an extremely shy person. Its very hard for me to come to the forums to post. When admitting this previously, I was told that it "was the internet" and game forums were some of the least friendly places. I do not accept that I should have to don the "garb of the troll" in order to participate in constructive feedback in a game I loved and played for years. (you have my permission to create this item in-game :P)
You had mentioned that it would take a lot of convincing that people that didnt participate in the CDP could offer useful feedback. I would like to say, that I am confident that my knowledge of the game would rival any other player in the game. I run a guild and pride myself on being able to answer any question someone puts out to me. We have/had (mod 16 almost killed us off) a website where we posted regularly as well and an extremely active discord. I am also a long time gamer, playing MMOs since they were just MOs, in the times of MUDs.
Point of me saying all that? Shy people are knowledgeable, passionate, and spend money too but find it more difficult to participate. Chris, I realize you were mostly talking about voting when making this statement, and I would agree it's not the best way to get feedback but, to this point, there should be other avenues of feedback available.
Ideas relating to improving feedback: 1. CDP could have two "versions" in the forum. -The first thread could be the more formal thread. People follow the dictated format to the best of their ability. I would propose turning off comments, if possible. Posts could be broken off as needed and new threads started. -A second thread could be for people to debate and discuss their ideas until their little hearts are content. This would be an area that could be scanned by the devs but would be sort of a secondary level feedback.
2. I would like to see an in-game feedback system. Currently, there is an in-game feedback but its mostly used for reporting bugs. I would like to see it expanded so that you could submit ideas. Not all ideas a player has necessarily needs to be a whole forum post. Example: im riding through summer festival and see an npc wearing a blouse i think is cute. I would submit ingame that i was interested in a way to purchase said blouse.
This could also be used for people to submit ideas for those shy players that find it hard to throw themselves at the mercy of the forums. This would still involve some effort on the players part so would potentially provide more useful feedback than a voting system.
If an idea is liked and further feedback is needed, then the dev team could put it to the community.
Side-note to this feedback. In other games you can actually submit compliments this way too. I think we have fostered a lot of negativity and it would be nice to have a way to give the devs a pat on the back when we run across something we like. That also helps them know what people are noticing/thinking/liking as they roam through the world.
It has been said here that there is no prize for being the best CDP member.
..but in a way there is. We either keep the status quo, or fight to be heard in the hope of something better. And there are forces aligned on both sides.
It has also been said that some long time posters here already know what the posts are going to be, who will post them, and what group they will agree with or dispute. Thats because these forums have been dominated by the same small groups for years. These arguments have mostly been had before. New ideas that are added in earnest are general steamrolled and nuanced thoughts ignored to promote one of these forum's traditional beaten horses.
Look at the results from the last cdps.
They boil down to.. upkeep and/or reduce complexity of structures already in the game. Then consider a few additions only one of which involves any kind of new player facing system. This isn't a lot of creativity for a monthes worth of proposals, 20 + pages of writing, and argument.
Chris you may not feel like you're a 'teacher' in this whole scenario. But you are the bringer of a whole new, welcome, but completely different emphasis to these forums. That is something they havent seen in perhaps 6 years. And the gatekeepers to this little fishbowl of fame aren't giving up their reign easily. You're dealing with some serious 'survivor bias' here, and the ones that have survived have been influencing the terms of the conversation here and circling their wagons to defend what they see as their territory. Instead of arguing the point many of the others have left for other pastures. I decided to post this after mostly swearing off posting in a CDP again, only after seeing your resetting of the conversation earlier.
IMO bringing people back into the fold here is necessary to reinvigorate the pool of creativity and the conversation around new ideas. that we can all see has been seriously drained. Myself, I've pondered leaving to other games where most of my friends have landed over the past year. I may not have access to the much of the business side, but from my own knowledge of guildy spending habits, the feeling of alienation and exclusion has cost you thousands of dollars that would have been spent on NW. But I keep coming back on the off chance that Chris's influence will bring back or even better, create anew some of the game we all miss. ..and hopefully more beyond.
Can CDP do it? Maybe some piece of it.. but its gotta be more than a template for posting here in these forums. Its going to take a whole new way of doing things, opening lines of communication, and showing people that they won't just be shouted down by the passionate fury of the great and the exalted.
Proposal for CDP ------------------------------------------
1st. A regimented RFP (request for proposal). You have suggested formats, so no more on that here. Importantly initial proposals must be 1 way communication from the proposer to the devs. They then cull the herd via their own metrics.
There are those of us that have ideas, many many that may be good, maybe just not for this game. We don't have access to the 'business side', metrics, or what 'most people do', and many don't have coding knowledge to know what is feasible. We can only base our ideas based on our own scope of experience here. The only ones that can deem an idea worthy or toss it for impracticality are the devs.
Also this avoids 'old arguments' and personal feuds re-arising to poison a otherwise potentially good idea. The posters are notified that their idea was reviewed, and thats it.
2nd. The ideas found worthy of looking at from above are moved on to level 2. The proposals are first sent to the original author, reworded by the devs according to their understanding of them. This avoids known styles from de-anonymizing.
The original author is notified that his idea is in level 2 and gets first read of the summary. They get 1 chance to rewrite and redirect in case the summary didn't hit the core idea.
After rewrites (if necessary) ideas that still pass as acceptable to the devs are posted to a new thread for public viewing and comment.
CDP runs as it has in the past from level 2 onward.
Further more widespread effort of promotion for this process and change of communication needs to be made. Use of in game mail, emails to our registered emails, updates on social media, surveys for general guidance, and web posts for broadcasting.
---------------------------------------- end of proposal
Then perhaps people like me can feel that there is hope for a fun game in the future and I can get back to playing instead of writing essays. Actual proposal section limited to 297 words.
Why you not give sample, one of staff in house messages.
Why we even bother to make new format, if we can simply use staffs format.
Aslo we would know how much we should go with our comments.
This current CDP topic is about finding best format which would work best for staff and community.. So I would like to hear/see some of staffs sample here too. Staff are part of CDP too. TIme to them say something. After all you guys will have to read all these messages.. So we should know what format is better for you too.
Best regards: Hades
======================================================================== “The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. Gustave Le Bon. ==================================================
One thing that engineers and specification editors do which could be employed here is:
There is an introduction or general explanation and topic headers which can be formatted or loose. When getting into the nuts and bolts of any suggested changes.. they use the "IS" and "S/B" (should be), and then "comments". Perhaps this system would be helpful.
Example: IS: CDP is hard to read and follow and appears too much like a wall of text.
S/B: CDP should use an "IS" & "S/B" condition when possible. The body of a post should use links or spoilers when necessary, to contain its size to less than half of a typed page in length.
Comment:Rules need to be simple or only experts will use them. We want to encourage participation. Encouraging color formatting (optional) may help too. Most people dont know how to change text color so short examples could be linked to on the leading developer post. Maybe we want to discourage troll-like 'pot-shots' that some make like making a post that only says "Terrible idea, will destroy game." "obviously an idiot" "get good".... etc.
Limiting to a prescribe format could prevent someone from bringing something vital to the devs attention. Should you implement a, Problem->solution->impact, format someone who sees the problem clearly but has no idea how to fix it, they stay silent or are disregarded because they only have step one.
That would also leave out vague but possibly useful feed back. say some where to say "Divine nut scrambler feels weak as a power." but its numbers are high, it has a short cool down but no one finds it fun. You have clues to fix it in the sentence. "feels weak" what are other factors that contributed to game feel, especially in powers? Visual and sound effects. Then suddenly the power can be salvaged by maybe remixing the audio a bit.
There was this one video about a world war 2 shooter where within one patch the Tommygun when from being called weak to being considered OP even though both times it was identical in stats to the MP40, and the only change was a fresh sound file.
a way around this could be 2 threads running concurrently Like "CDP x-subject: General feedback" and a "CDP x-subject: Pitches and proposals"
a place for free form feed back can always prove useful.
Ego etiam cupo recrari et amari diu post mortem meam I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
While studying Design Thinking, I complained to an instructor that the devs I was working with were limiting their customer engagements to online forums and refusing to do any proper research because they "don't have time". The instructor agreed with me but pointed out that ANY engagement with actual customers is better than the devs sitting in their office and pulling ideas out of their bottoms. In my view and experience, the CDP is exactly that same old song and dance...a poor, limited substitute for proper design process, be it Design Thinking, User Centered Design or any other UX methodology that is known to work effectively.
I feel the CDP is a time-suck for everyone involved and time that you, Chris, and the devs could and should spend on more effective means of customer engagement. My feedback on CDP is: stop and work differently, preferably with an experienced expert/coach advising you. (Not angling for a job here, I am retired and have no contacts to give you. It's just me standing on the sidelines cringing at what I see and going *Noooo...Why are they doing this?!?!?!?*)
I understand that CDP is something that you feel has worked before, and I respectfully point out that it doesn't mean it is an ideal means of getting useful input from the community.
On a personal note, once my CDP VIP feedback was one sidedly ommitted from the CDP thread for being off-topic, when clearly it was not, I left the program. That was, in my view, highly unprofessional. Rule #1 of engaging with customers is listen and do not argue or defend. Even if you think the customer is wrong. Ask WHY and try to understand. Otherwise, you are simply limiting yourselves to the info you want and expect and that is just a waste of time.
Sorry you feel this way. No idea why your post was removed nothing to do with me. Note this isn't customer engagement, this is collaborative development. Thanks for your advice but I will stick with this proven methodology that I and others have and continue to practice to great effect.
Why you not give sample, one of staff in house messages.
Why we even bother to make new format, if we can simply use staffs format.
Aslo we would know how much we should go with our comments.
This current CDP topic is about finding best format which would work best for staff and community.. So I would like to hear/see some of staffs sample here too. Staff are part of CDP too. TIme to them say something. After all you guys will have to read all these messages.. So we should know what format is better for you too.
I am going to take a break from CDP I think for today and tomorrow. Sorry folks.
=========== Will do Hades. Probably Monday.
Chris
Take your time Chriss, have a good rest, clear your mind. Also I think everyone in community should take small break too. Some rest is always good, allow to clear mind and latter look to problem/situation differently.
Will see you chriss latter..
======================================================================== “The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. Gustave Le Bon. ==================================================
I have posted about having alternate ways to give feedback ideas before, but at the time it was a bit off topic so got moved. Now its seems like a more appropriate time
I am an extremely shy person. Its very hard for me to come to the forums to post. When admitting this previously, I was told that it "was the internet" and game forums were some of the least friendly places. I do not accept that I should have to don the "garb of the troll" in order to participate in constructive feedback in a game I loved and played for years. (you have my permission to create this item in-game :P)
You had mentioned that it would take a lot of convincing that people that didnt participate in the CDP could offer useful feedback. I would like to say, that I am confident that my knowledge of the game would rival any other player in the game. I run a guild and pride myself on being able to answer any question someone puts out to me. We have/had (mod 16 almost killed us off) a website where we posted regularly as well and an extremely active discord. I am also a long time gamer, playing MMOs since they were just MOs, in the times of MUDs.
Point of me saying all that? Shy people are knowledgeable, passionate, and spend money too but find it more difficult to participate. Chris, I realize you were mostly talking about voting when making this statement, and I would agree it's not the best way to get feedback but, to this point, there should be other avenues of feedback available.
Ideas relating to improving feedback: 1. CDP could have two "versions" in the forum. -The first thread could be the more formal thread. People follow the dictated format to the best of their ability. I would propose turning off comments, if possible. Posts could be broken off as needed and new threads started. -A second thread could be for people to debate and discuss their ideas until their little hearts are content. This would be an area that could be scanned by the devs but would be sort of a secondary level feedback.
2. I would like to see an in-game feedback system. Currently, there is an in-game feedback but its mostly used for reporting bugs. I would like to see it expanded so that you could submit ideas. Not all ideas a player has necessarily needs to be a whole forum post. Example: im riding through summer festival and see an npc wearing a blouse i think is cute. I would submit ingame that i was interested in a way to purchase said blouse.
This could also be used for people to submit ideas for those shy players that find it hard to throw themselves at the mercy of the forums. This would still involve some effort on the players part so would potentially provide more useful feedback than a voting system.
If an idea is liked and further feedback is needed, then the dev team could put it to the community.
Side-note to this feedback. In other games you can actually submit compliments this way too. I think we have fostered a lot of negativity and it would be nice to have a way to give the devs a pat on the back when we run across something we like. That also helps them know what people are noticing/thinking/liking as they roam through the world.
Hi Myrinx,
I totally understand where you are coming from. I would like to point out that I was specifically talking about polls here:
You had mentioned that it would take a lot of convincing that people that didnt participate in the CDP could offer useful feedback.
We employ a three pronged approach in terms of Strategy, Tactics and Execution. Specifically the team (experience, skill set, problem solving capability), analytics (all kinds from micro to macro) and then the CDP (discussion, ideation, and seeing the game through your eyes). I totally beleive that over time and through working sessions like this current CDP the membership will become more diverse in personality and communication type. Yesterday I feel was a really good discussion and I thank all of those involved and especially Sharp, and Theraxin for us all being able to have a mature conversation on the CDP as it applies to a broader audience.
Many members have mentioned an in game system, mainly for advertising the CDP. I would recommend we talk about it from your standpoint too.
Public apology to Chris if my words in PM came across as a threat. They certainly were not meant as such. I hope that was cleared up in PM too. I will post some further feedback about the CDP later, just wanted to get this out here ASAP. I have nothing but respect for Chris and what he is doing.
I would like us to strive toward a word limit (be concise) at the very least in Phase 1. Chris
@cwhitesidedev#9752 Hey Chris, i was wondering if it could be possible that someone could summarise the different ideas/suggestions in phase 1 before phase 2 starts? Part of me and i hope many others, learns immensely from other suggestions and then expanding on those suggestions. I believe in an evolving discussion but i am against CDP participants to be arguing over their suggestions. Disagreeing and agreeing doesn't necessarily result into evolving of a discussion. What does is the constructive feedback, and whilst such heated discussions have some feedback, the rest of the 90% is actually argument for the sake of argument. If you don't like a suggestion, I believe you should tell your reasons (don't even need to quote most of the time) and move on and whilst being guilty of the same, i do believe i should strive to limit the number of my posts and word limit when necessary but i hope i have touched upon several suggestions in my posts. The current problems i see with the CDP are of course the volume of replies which most comments have focused on but also what about the below situation:
Sometimes i just don't have the time to read the CDP and by the time i do, the CDP has progressed to few dozens of pages and that's where i think to myself "do i have the energy"? I am sure many others are in the same shoes, and whilst i can only speak for myself, what i need in this situation is a summary of different kind of ideas to expand on or to get the general gist of the CDP's progression. In the same way, any insight from you or the staff would be great, because i can see which suggestions meet your viability criteria. I will state again, not all good suggestions are healthy for the game, most of these suggestions cannot possibly consider the resources, the expense and the availability of expertise required to perform such feat. In short, can we have a search function to search for specific person's comments only?
In previous initiatives I have been part of like our CDP members of the community would do summaries every 3 pages. in fact if you look around you can see topics of previous initiatives that are the same as this one (-:
On one of the games the group put forward more proposals for self organisation. I don't expect team members to spend to much time on the CDP outside of focus on their areas prior to implementation and I do most of my work on it at lunch, night and weekends. I don't know that I can commit to a summary every three pages even though I know it works really well from seeing it in practice. Nor would I expect any other CDP member to do this. If we reduce the amount of argument for the sake of it and Focus on no discussion during Phase 1 I think that will help a lot.
Regarding the parsing of suggestions you can see what we as a collaborative group consider worthwhile moving forward with in the Proposal section. The problem with the proposal section (ironically) is that discussion carries on afterwards and the proposal gets lost. I will lock the forum once the proposal goes up moving forward so you can see it is the very last post. Also we need better book marking for phase switches. By the way you can also cross reference the proposals with the roadmap here (I am sure you are aware of it https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1254143/neverwinter-2020-high-level-road-map ) . Please just bear in mind that everything is intent and subject to change. We have a team paradigm now that unless we are happy with the execution of content, experience, systems and mechanics we will hold it back until we are happy with it.
Thanks for taking the time to post Sobi.
Chris
P.S: I have now moved all proposals to the end of each CDP topic for ease of reading.
IS: CDP has no logical way to index or file each suggestion for future reference.
S/B: Each suggestion should have a subject, preferrably written by general category to specific category, separated by commas.
COMMENT: The subject entries are the title basically. They let the reader know what the suggestion is about. It also allows someone who is not an expert to file suggestions by category at any date, using either numeric orders, or a combination of subject-date-name. All subjects would be assumed to be within the context of neverwinter. There is no need make a subject titled: Everything, Earth, Neverwinter, CDP, format. This system would be short and sweet and let developers later find things like SUBJECT: Skills, Assassin, Deft Strike
While we are it, here is the Summary below of the most common suggestions discussed.
To introduce a Stack exchange like forum where replies within the CDP thread can have comments within them, and those comments are to be collapsible. Some have pointed out that in-depth replies should have a summary and the in-depth body to be collapsible. The reasoning is that long, complicated and in-depth suggestion can more often confuse players rather than help them to understand the objective of the suggestion. So if for example, we can encourage players to collapse 80% of their in-depth comment, leaving 20% of summary outside; whilst any any critiquing on that specific comment to also be collapsible, then this would kill two birds with one stone.
Other simpler suggestion discussed is to introduce a twin forum, where one is used for critiquing like the current CDP threads are used as and the other basically contains summaries of all the different suggestions. Personally, the Stack exchange is superior in my eyes. One suggestion advised to Split the CDPs more aggressively into subtopics once those emerge but this can make following a single CDP (that has been broken into subtopics) difficult to follow as a whole. Another interesting idea was to separate phases 1, 2 and 3 into separate threads. Phase 1 will be all about gathering as many suggestions as possible (as above, to limit critiquing at this stage) and phase 2 will be critiquing the suggestion and then phase 3 for popular suggestions. One person has pointed out that this could mean that late participants would miss out on their suggestions during phase 2.
There has been some discussion about introducing a word limit or limit number of posts per day for each member, but the above two suggestions tackle this issue sufficiently. Even so, striving to reduce your word limit and the number of posts is more healthier for the CDP than vice versa.
There has been some dissent regarding voting posts to be completely abolished and others suggesting that it helps CDP members to agree without having to comment. No one will argue that bad suggestions, regardless of how many upvotes they have received (due to outside influence) will be filtered. In regards to good suggestions, my personal intake is that the dev team would have discussed each suggestion internally and thus regardless of how popular a suggestion is, it must have met their viability checklist. As long as the developers consider each suggestion regardless of its number of votes, the outside influence should be but very limited.
Some dissent also in regards to having an established format for all replies and people disagreeing that this limits freedom and confuses people. Personally, the more stringent the rules, the less diverse the population.
Some comments have suggested for there to be a CDP advertisement on the game launcher or to email all players about the CDP or to encourage guild leaders to spread awareness and some have advised to move the CDP to non-Neverwinter controlled medium. No one disagrees that this would not be beneficial for the CDP but Chris has hinted that a small influx of players is more healthy and approachable for him, due to the volume of the replies that a big CDP community would bring. Diversity isn't necessarily the most number of participants, so there does stand a point. As long as the CDP members represent the different categories of gamers, then that should suffice for the scope of the CDP in general. Thefabricant has some a useful brief outline of different types of players on his first comment at page 1 (expand the first spoiler).
Another suggestion is to close the thread during phases so a summary can be made for the next phase.
Locking the CDP during the proposal section so they do not end up being lost.
Lastly, some help with referencing and i propose numbering of comments to be more visible.
I definitely must have missed some suggestions, so i hope others can add on to this list every so often.
While we are it, here is the Summary below of the most common suggestions discussed.
To introduce a Stack exchange like forum where replies within the CDP thread can have comments within them, and those comments are to be collapsible. Some have pointed out that in-depth replies should have a summary and the in-depth body to be collapsible. The reasoning is that long, complicated and in-depth suggestion can more often confuse players rather than help them to understand the objective of the suggestion. So if for example, we can encourage players to collapse 80% of their in-depth comment, leaving 20% of summary outside; whilst any any critiquing on that specific comment to also be collapsible, then this would kill two birds with one stone.
Other simpler suggestion discussed is to introduce a twin forum, where one is used for critiquing like the current CDP threads are used as and the other basically contains summaries of all the different suggestions. Personally, the Stack exchange is superior in my eyes. One suggestion advised to Split the CDPs more aggressively into subtopics once those emerge but this can make following a single CDP (that has been broken into subtopics) difficult to follow as a whole. Another interesting idea was to separate phases 1, 2 and 3 into separate threads. Phase 1 will be all about gathering as many suggestions as possible (as above, to limit critiquing at this stage) and phase 2 will be critiquing the suggestion and then phase 3 for popular suggestions. One person has pointed out that this could mean that late participants would miss out on their suggestions during phase 2.
There has been some discussion about introducing a word limit or limit number of posts per day for each member, but the above two suggestions tackle this issue sufficiently. Even so, striving to reduce your word limit and the number of posts is more healthier for the CDP than vice versa.
There has been some dissent regarding voting posts to be completely abolished and others suggesting that it helps CDP members to agree without having to comment. No one will argue that bad suggestions, regardless of how many upvotes they have received (due to outside influence) will be filtered. In regards to good suggestions, my personal intake is that the dev team would have discussed each suggestion internally and thus regardless of how popular a suggestion is, it must have met their viability checklist. As long as the developers consider each suggestion regardless of its number of votes, the outside influence should be but very limited.
Some dissent also in regards to having an established format for all replies and people disagreeing that this limits freedom and confuses people. Personally, the more stringent the rules, the less diverse the population.
Some comments have suggested for there to be a CDP advertisement on the game launcher or to email all players about the CDP or to encourage guild leaders to spread awareness and some have advised to move the CDP to non-Neverwinter controlled medium. No one disagrees that this would not be beneficial for the CDP but Chris has hinted that a small influx of players is more healthy and approachable for him, due to the volume of the replies that a big CDP community would bring. Diversity isn't necessarily the most number of participants, so there does stand a point. As long as the CDP members represent the different categories of gamers, then that should suffice for the scope of the CDP in general. Thefabricant has some a useful brief outline of different types of players on his first comment at page 1 (expand the first spoiler).
Another suggestion is to close the thread during phases so a summary can be made for the next phase.
Locking the CDP during the proposal section so they do not end up being lost.
Lastly, some help with referencing and i propose numbering of comments to be more visible.
I definitely must have missed some suggestions, so i hope others can add on to this list every so often.
As for summaries, I've taken it on myself to expand upon the summary I made for the rewards and progression CDP. Both the PVP CDP ideas are in there and also the CDP CDP ideas.. both in seperate tabs of course.
I will try to keep it as up to date as I can as long as we are working with the current format
As for summaries, I've taken it on myself to expand upon the summary I made for the rewards and progression CDP. Both the PVP CDP ideas are in there and also the CDP CDP ideas.. both in seperate tabs of course.
I will try to keep it as up to date as I can as long as we are working with the current format
Reading your summary I feel the need to restate what I actually meant to propose
1) Improve scoping of CDP's. This does not have to mean making them smaller, but a clearer statement on the boundaries may suffice in increasing ideation focus. 2) Along with a no debate phase 1, implement a no debate/no explanation top 3 voting before going to phase 2 and only bring the top X (10?) items to phase 2 for debate. 3) Use a different medium or barring that, significantly improve the current setup. the many suggestions on a different thread setup cover a lot of it.
I think the CDP program can work, but we're all still learning the ropes and how best to work with it. A couple of random thoughts before I get to sleep:
1. I think one thing we're struggling with is the breadth of topics. For example, "rewards and progression" covers a whole lot of ground. If I think in terms of a conference (not that I've been to a lot of them), it makes me wonder, "okay, so how can we break this up into more manageable pieces, like separate roundtable discussions": low-level progression, tutoring of new players, relevance of lower-level campaigns (and their rewards), and so on. That's not to say that those things don't interact, but maybe it's worth having separate threads for different aspects of the overall CDP that's active at the moment.
2. Thinking about how the CDP's have gone thus far I keep thinking, "what I would do for a whiteboard!" Whenever I've been in a brainstorming session, we used it to capture ideas from the group, note potential issues, side-effects, or areas for further investigation. If the subject was a thorny one we'd write DO NOT ERASE and go back to it in a follow-up meeting. It would evolve as our knowledge grew about the thing we were working on and provided a quick visual way to recall where we were when last we met on it without needing to go to someone for a brain dump. Also, seeing everything captured in a simple visual often led to better insight as it kept us from getting lost in the weeds of a discussion. Sometimes someone would get an action to capture it in a better format (think PowerPoint, Visio, Excel, or whatever else was appropriate for the subject). This would then be distributed to the group for use in the next meeting.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
So CDP worked wonders in other games. I will have to trust your word on it. It does not work for Neverwinter. Nothing in CDP is suited for Neverwinter. Not the formatting, not your wooden language comments, not -the group- suggestions. . Do you know what type of player misses from - the group- ? Search how many D&D players gave up on bringing suggestions. . I understand that you must not be a classic D&D player. I understand that not all players must be D&D fans. But Neverwinter is the place for D&D type of players and many are even if they did not played tabletop. .
I think its time to realize that Neverwinter will never be more than an action mmorp with storylines influenced by D&D.
> @magdalena#1708 said: > @wilbur626 > > Neverwinter is to this point respecting D&D settings, mobs, actions, some combat, races, classes, adventures, campaigns etc. > Your suggestions does not even take them into consideration at all. > > Have you read the part- type of player even though they might never played tabletop-? > > It is a player type. One able to create worlds in his head, to undestand other people imagination in few words, to adapt to other people actions, to invent solutions on the spot and take enjoyment from the interaction. > > 10-12 years old children can be great of playing D&D, some accomplish adults at the peak of their life can not. > We are not clones, we do not have the same personality, we do not enjoy the same things. Games we play reflect that fact. > .
How does nw:o’s combat system respect D&D combat?
All the other aspects you mentioned I choose to combine in the word “storylines” as they do nothing at all to influence actual gameplay
Have you considered the actual gameplay only being a tool to experience what you call storylines influenced by D&D? I am pretty sure that there are sone people playing NW mainly because of that.
I enjoy the combat, and I know nothing about D&D, but I can totally see how people play a pretty old MMO thats advertised like that because of it. Pretty much the same thing as card players being excited about Magic Legends...
Hi, it is a little strange to suggest this in a place where you discuss improvements and evolution of the game, but...
I like CDP idea - a part of a forum where someone from the company actually engages players in a discussion about some specific topics. On the other hand, there is already a Feedback Section on this forum. So, if CDP stays in as an actually functioning section, I would suggest to remove/rename the Feedback Section - as it only diverts some ideas to a corner that no-one pays attention to. Not everything people put there is a pure rant. And I have seen even some reasonable suggestions there - however, I have never seen those implemented. (generally, I doubt any developer actually surveys that section at all)
Summary: If CDP will not vanish into the thin air, the feedback section should. Rants will probably naturally migrate to the General discussion,... and CDP might get more ideas from the players that actually waste their good intention it a wrong section atm.
Lets get back no on topic please. As clearly defined in the proposal for CDP 1 and 3 and in the road map we will be investing in large narrative driven experiential arcs, episodic delivery where the world/experience evolves, multi tiered content in terms of challenge so more players have access to narrative/experience, and more of a focus on horizontal content outside of mods. All intent and we will work together on the execution as we move forward (I expect high demand for CDPs on these areas once we start deploying episodes- I don't think we will get them to a point whereby we are all happy with them this year. We will see)
So in regard to what I have read so far regarding formatting and best working practices I would propose the following:
1: Phase 1: Posting of Ideas and related questions (not discussion). 2: Phase 2: Discussion but not argument for the sake of it with more management of conversational direction and topics by me. 3: Phase 3: Top 3 with a single sentence of why for each line item. Conclusion: Proposal
Regarding Phase 1 Format: Heading (Idea number)>Goal>Player Value Proposition>High Level Functionality/Description>Concerns and Considerations (Try to limit to 400 words) (Spoiler functionality is welcome should a member want to provide more detail in any of the above headings)
Overall Best Working Practices Chris, Julia and Kreatyve to be more aggressive on off-topic posts and disrespectful posts. More focused topics (but please note CDP 3 was intentionally broad due to the fact it is a child of CDP 1 and we have begun work on CDP 1 in relation to Mod 20 and prior and therefore timing is key).
Question:
Many of you want a clearer delineation between phases but I don't think it is a good idea to create new threads for each phase simply because of the amount of clicks required to reference data. On the other side the formatting options aren't great here so what other ideas do we have to show clearly where one phase ends and one begins.
Note this isn't a summary it is a proposal. So with that in mind what am I missing, what do folks disagree with in the proposal etc.
Thanks
Chris
Post edited by cwhitesidedev#9752 on
3
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Regarding Phase 1 Format: Heading (Idea number)>Goal>Player Value Proposition>High Level Functionality/Description>Concerns and Considerations (Try to limit to 400 words) (Spoiler functionality is welcome should a member want to provide more detail in any of the above headings)
Can I recommend if you are going with that format, rewording that format to:
Objective
Why
How
Risks
It is the same format, but it is easier to read so from a "language accessibility" point of view, there is less confusion about what is meant by it.
Many of you want a clearer delineation between phases but I don't think it is a good idea to create new threads for each phase simply because of the amount of clicks required to reference data. On the other side the formatting options aren't great here so what other ideas do we have to show clearly where one phase ends and one begins.
Note this isn't a summary it is a proposal. So with that in mind what am I missing, what do folks disagree with in the proposal etc.
Thanks
Chris
I do recommend adding in the 1 idea per post rule, so if players have multiple ideas they split them into multiple posts, just to make the delineation between ideas easier during phase 1. If I have some idea of how to more clearly show the split between phases that does not involve splitting the thread, I will comment on it later.
Regarding Phase 1 Format: Heading (Idea number)>Goal>Player Value Proposition>High Level Functionality/Description>Concerns and Considerations (Try to limit to 400 words) (Spoiler functionality is welcome should a member want to provide more detail in any of the above headings)
Can I recommend if you are going with that format, rewording that format to:
Objective
Why
How
Risks
It is the same format, but it is easier to read so from a "language accessibility" point of view, there is less confusion about what is meant by it.
Many of you want a clearer delineation between phases but I don't think it is a good idea to create new threads for each phase simply because of the amount of clicks required to reference data. On the other side the formatting options aren't great here so what other ideas do we have to show clearly where one phase ends and one begins.
Note this isn't a summary it is a proposal. So with that in mind what am I missing, what do folks disagree with in the proposal etc.
Thanks
Chris
I do recommend adding in the 1 idea per post rule, so if players have multiple ideas they split them into multiple posts, just to make the delineation between ideas easier during phase 1. If I have some idea of how to more clearly show the split between phases that does not involve splitting the thread, I will comment on it later.
Comments
I guarantee that if someone had an idea that wasn't solving a "problem" but was either a brand new idea or even simply an improvement on an area that already works, if they posted it under a "Solution to Problem" pro forma, then it would be about 3 minutes before someone jumped in and started a flame war about "priorities" and how "why fix something that isn't broken".
Such policing of the forum might put people off posting such ideas, and the CDP could lose potentially valuable input.
I've been guilty of falling into that mode of thinking, talking about "priorities" in other CDPs, and I was wrong to do that. I believe that with a CDP on the CDP, we should look to more than just the layout of the ideas, but also use this opportunity to make clear the scope of the CDP going forward.
Broken things are the most immediate priority, that should be obvious, but that doesn't mean that ideas about new facets of the game, or improvements to existing (working) facets be disregarded by labelling the format as "Problem" and "Solution".
Such ideas and suggestions may become part of the long term goals that the "fixes" can be aimed towards achieving.
I just don't think we should limit ourselves in such a way.
Unless, of course, I've completely misunderstood the purpose of the CDP... and we actually are here to simply fix things and identifying opportunities for future growth is for another day.
And YES, of course we should TRY and limit our word count.
Or at the very least summarise a 4 page wall of text into something that scans well and holds the readers attention.
I feel the CDP is a time-suck for everyone involved and time that you, Chris, and the devs could and should spend on more effective means of customer engagement. My feedback on CDP is: stop and work differently, preferably with an experienced expert/coach advising you. (Not angling for a job here, I am retired and have no contacts to give you. It's just me standing on the sidelines cringing at what I see and going *Noooo...Why are they doing this?!?!?!?*)
I understand that CDP is something that you feel has worked before, and I respectfully point out that it doesn't mean it is an ideal means of getting useful input from the community.
On a personal note, once my CDP VIP feedback was one sidedly ommitted from the CDP thread for being off-topic, when clearly it was not, I left the program. That was, in my view, highly unprofessional. Rule #1 of engaging with customers is listen and do not argue or defend. Even if you think the customer is wrong. Ask WHY and try to understand. Otherwise, you are simply limiting yourselves to the info you want and expect and that is just a waste of time.
I am an extremely shy person. Its very hard for me to come to the forums to post. When admitting this previously, I was told that it "was the internet" and game forums were some of the least friendly places. I do not accept that I should have to don the "garb of the troll" in order to participate in constructive feedback in a game I loved and played for years. (you have my permission to create this item in-game :P)
You had mentioned that it would take a lot of convincing that people that didnt participate in the CDP could offer useful feedback. I would like to say, that I am confident that my knowledge of the game would rival any other player in the game. I run a guild and pride myself on being able to answer any question someone puts out to me. We have/had (mod 16 almost killed us off) a website where we posted regularly as well and an extremely active discord. I am also a long time gamer, playing MMOs since they were just MOs, in the times of MUDs.
Point of me saying all that? Shy people are knowledgeable, passionate, and spend money too but find it more difficult to participate. Chris, I realize you were mostly talking about voting when making this statement, and I would agree it's not the best way to get feedback but, to this point, there should be other avenues of feedback available.
Ideas relating to improving feedback:
1. CDP could have two "versions" in the forum.
-The first thread could be the more formal thread. People follow the dictated format to the best of their ability. I would propose turning off comments, if possible. Posts could be broken off as needed and new threads started.
-A second thread could be for people to debate and discuss their ideas until their little hearts are content. This would be an area that could be scanned by the devs but would be sort of a secondary level feedback.
2. I would like to see an in-game feedback system.
Currently, there is an in-game feedback but its mostly used for reporting bugs. I would like to see it expanded so that you could submit ideas. Not all ideas a player has necessarily needs to be a whole forum post. Example: im riding through summer festival and see an npc wearing a blouse i think is cute. I would submit ingame that i was interested in a way to purchase said blouse.
This could also be used for people to submit ideas for those shy players that find it hard to throw themselves at the mercy of the forums. This would still involve some effort on the players part so would potentially provide more useful feedback than a voting system.
If an idea is liked and further feedback is needed, then the dev team could put it to the community.
Side-note to this feedback. In other games you can actually submit compliments this way too. I think we have fostered a lot of negativity and it would be nice to have a way to give the devs a pat on the back when we run across something we like. That also helps them know what people are noticing/thinking/liking as they roam through the world.
..but in a way there is. We either keep the status quo, or fight to be heard in the hope of something better. And there are forces aligned on both sides.
It has also been said that some long time posters here already know what the posts are going to be, who will post them, and what group they will agree with or dispute. Thats because these forums have been dominated by the same small groups for years. These arguments have mostly been had before. New ideas that are added in earnest are general steamrolled and nuanced thoughts ignored to promote one of these forum's traditional beaten horses.
Look at the results from the last cdps.
They boil down to..
upkeep and/or reduce complexity of structures already in the game. Then consider a few additions only one of which involves any kind of new player facing system. This isn't a lot of creativity for a monthes worth of proposals, 20 + pages of writing, and argument.
Chris you may not feel like you're a 'teacher' in this whole scenario. But you are the bringer of a whole new, welcome, but completely different emphasis to these forums. That is something they havent seen in perhaps 6 years. And the gatekeepers to this little fishbowl of fame aren't giving up their reign easily. You're dealing with some serious 'survivor bias' here, and the ones that have survived have been influencing the terms of the conversation here and circling their wagons to defend what they see as their territory. Instead of arguing the point many of the others have left for other pastures. I decided to post this after mostly swearing off posting in a CDP again, only after seeing your resetting of the conversation earlier.
IMO bringing people back into the fold here is necessary to reinvigorate the pool of creativity and the conversation around new ideas. that we can all see has been seriously drained. Myself, I've pondered leaving to other games where most of my friends have landed over the past year. I may not have access to the much of the business side, but from my own knowledge of guildy spending habits, the feeling of alienation and exclusion has cost you thousands of dollars that would have been spent on NW. But I keep coming back on the off chance that Chris's influence will bring back or even better, create anew some of the game we all miss. ..and hopefully more beyond.
Can CDP do it? Maybe some piece of it.. but its gotta be more than a template for posting here in these forums. Its going to take a whole new way of doing things, opening lines of communication, and showing people that they won't just be shouted down by the passionate fury of the great and the exalted.
Proposal for CDP
------------------------------------------
1st. A regimented RFP (request for proposal). You have suggested formats, so no more on that here. Importantly initial proposals must be 1 way communication from the proposer to the devs. They then cull the herd via their own metrics.
There are those of us that have ideas, many many that may be good, maybe just not for this game. We don't have access to the 'business side', metrics, or what 'most people do', and many don't have coding knowledge to know what is feasible. We can only base our ideas based on our own scope of experience here. The only ones that can deem an idea worthy or toss it for impracticality are the devs.
Also this avoids 'old arguments' and personal feuds re-arising to poison a otherwise potentially good idea. The posters are notified that their idea was reviewed, and thats it.
2nd. The ideas found worthy of looking at from above are moved on to level 2. The proposals are first sent to the original author, reworded by the devs according to their understanding of them. This avoids known styles from de-anonymizing.
The original author is notified that his idea is in level 2 and gets first read of the summary. They get 1 chance to rewrite and redirect in case the summary didn't hit the core idea.
After rewrites (if necessary) ideas that still pass as acceptable to the devs are posted to a new thread for public viewing and comment.
CDP runs as it has in the past from level 2 onward.
Further more widespread effort of promotion for this process and change of communication needs to be made. Use of in game mail, emails to our registered emails, updates on social media, surveys for general guidance, and web posts for broadcasting.
----------------------------------------
end of proposal
Then perhaps people like me can feel that there is hope for a fun game in the future and I can get back to playing instead of writing essays. Actual proposal section limited to 297 words.
Why you not give sample, one of staff in house messages.
Why we even bother to make new format, if we can simply use staffs format.
Aslo we would know how much we should go with our comments.
This current CDP topic is about finding best format which would work best for staff and community.. So I would like to hear/see some of staffs sample here too.
Staff are part of CDP too. TIme to them say something. After all you guys will have to read all these messages.. So we should know what format is better for you too.
Best regards: Hades
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
There is an introduction or general explanation and topic headers which can be formatted or loose. When getting into the nuts and bolts of any suggested changes.. they use the "IS" and "S/B" (should be), and then "comments". Perhaps this system would be helpful.
Example:
IS: CDP is hard to read and follow and appears too much like a wall of text.
S/B: CDP should use an "IS" & "S/B" condition when possible. The body of a post should use links or spoilers when necessary, to contain its size to less than half of a typed page in length.
Comment: Rules need to be simple or only experts will use them. We want to encourage participation. Encouraging color formatting (optional) may help too. Most people dont know how to change text color so short examples could be linked to on the leading developer post. Maybe we want to discourage troll-like 'pot-shots' that some make like making a post that only says "Terrible idea, will destroy game." "obviously an idiot" "get good".... etc.
Should you implement a, Problem->solution->impact, format someone who sees the problem clearly but has no idea how to fix it, they stay silent or are disregarded because they only have step one.
That would also leave out vague but possibly useful feed back. say some where to say "Divine nut scrambler feels weak as a power." but its numbers are high, it has a short cool down but no one finds it fun. You have clues to fix it in the sentence. "feels weak" what are other factors that contributed to game feel, especially in powers?
Visual and sound effects. Then suddenly the power can be salvaged by maybe remixing the audio a bit.
There was this one video about a world war 2 shooter where within one patch the Tommygun when from being called weak to being considered OP even though both times it was identical in stats to the MP40, and the only change was a fresh sound file.
a way around this could be 2 threads running concurrently Like "CDP x-subject: General feedback" and a "CDP x-subject: Pitches and proposals"
a place for free form feed back can always prove useful.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
Chris
Chris
Chris
Also I think everyone in community should take small break too. Some rest is always good, allow to clear mind and latter look to problem/situation differently.
Will see you chriss latter..
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
I totally understand where you are coming from. I would like to point out that I was specifically talking about polls here:
You had mentioned that it would take a lot of convincing that people that didnt participate in the CDP could offer useful feedback.
We employ a three pronged approach in terms of Strategy, Tactics and Execution. Specifically the team (experience, skill set, problem solving capability), analytics (all kinds from micro to macro) and then the CDP (discussion, ideation, and seeing the game through your eyes). I totally beleive that over time and through working sessions like this current CDP the membership will become more diverse in personality and communication type. Yesterday I feel was a really good discussion and I thank all of those involved and especially Sharp, and Theraxin for us all being able to have a mature conversation on the CDP as it applies to a broader audience.
Many members have mentioned an in game system, mainly for advertising the CDP. I would recommend we talk about it from your standpoint too.
Thanks
Chris
On one of the games the group put forward more proposals for self organisation. I don't expect team members to spend to much time on the CDP outside of focus on their areas prior to implementation and I do most of my work on it at lunch, night and weekends. I don't know that I can commit to a summary every three pages even though I know it works really well from seeing it in practice. Nor would I expect any other CDP member to do this. If we reduce the amount of argument for the sake of it and Focus on no discussion during Phase 1 I think that will help a lot.
Regarding the parsing of suggestions you can see what we as a collaborative group consider worthwhile moving forward with in the Proposal section. The problem with the proposal section (ironically) is that discussion carries on afterwards and the proposal gets lost. I will lock the forum once the proposal goes up moving forward so you can see it is the very last post. Also we need better book marking for phase switches. By the way you can also cross reference the proposals with the roadmap here (I am sure you are aware of it https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1254143/neverwinter-2020-high-level-road-map ) . Please just bear in mind that everything is intent and subject to change. We have a team paradigm now that unless we are happy with the execution of content, experience, systems and mechanics we will hold it back until we are happy with it.
Thanks for taking the time to post Sobi.
Chris
P.S: I have now moved all proposals to the end of each CDP topic for ease of reading.
IS: CDP has no logical way to index or file each suggestion for future reference.
S/B: Each suggestion should have a subject, preferrably written by general category to specific category, separated by commas.
COMMENT: The subject entries are the title basically. They let the reader know what the suggestion is about. It also allows someone who is not an expert to file suggestions by category at any date, using either numeric orders, or a combination of subject-date-name. All subjects would be assumed to be within the context of neverwinter. There is no need make a subject titled: Everything, Earth, Neverwinter, CDP, format. This system would be short and sweet and let developers later find things like SUBJECT: Skills, Assassin, Deft Strike
Lets start on phase 2 where we discuss solutions.
@cwhitesidedev#9752 I hope the below is of some help.
While we are it, here is the Summary below of the most common suggestions discussed.
To introduce a Stack exchange like forum where replies within the CDP thread can have comments within them, and those comments are to be collapsible. Some have pointed out that in-depth replies should have a summary and the in-depth body to be collapsible. The reasoning is that long, complicated and in-depth suggestion can more often confuse players rather than help them to understand the objective of the suggestion. So if for example, we can encourage players to collapse 80% of their in-depth comment, leaving 20% of summary outside; whilst any any critiquing on that specific comment to also be collapsible, then this would kill two birds with one stone.
Other simpler suggestion discussed is to introduce a twin forum, where one is used for critiquing like the current CDP threads are used as and the other basically contains summaries of all the different suggestions. Personally, the Stack exchange is superior in my eyes. One suggestion advised to Split the CDPs more aggressively into subtopics once those emerge but this can make following a single CDP (that has been broken into subtopics) difficult to follow as a whole. Another interesting idea was to separate phases 1, 2 and 3 into separate threads. Phase 1 will be all about gathering as many suggestions as possible (as above, to limit critiquing at this stage) and phase 2 will be critiquing the suggestion and then phase 3 for popular suggestions. One person has pointed out that this could mean that late participants would miss out on their suggestions during phase 2.
There has been some discussion about introducing a word limit or limit number of posts per day for each member, but the above two suggestions tackle this issue sufficiently. Even so, striving to reduce your word limit and the number of posts is more healthier for the CDP than vice versa.
There has been some dissent regarding voting posts to be completely abolished and others suggesting that it helps CDP members to agree without having to comment. No one will argue that bad suggestions, regardless of how many upvotes they have received (due to outside influence) will be filtered. In regards to good suggestions, my personal intake is that the dev team would have discussed each suggestion internally and thus regardless of how popular a suggestion is, it must have met their viability checklist. As long as the developers consider each suggestion regardless of its number of votes, the outside influence should be but very limited.
Some dissent also in regards to having an established format for all replies and people disagreeing that this limits freedom and confuses people. Personally, the more stringent the rules, the less diverse the population.
Some comments have suggested for there to be a CDP advertisement on the game launcher or to email all players about the CDP or to encourage guild leaders to spread awareness and some have advised to move the CDP to non-Neverwinter controlled medium. No one disagrees that this would not be beneficial for the CDP but Chris has hinted that a small influx of players is more healthy and approachable for him, due to the volume of the replies that a big CDP community would bring. Diversity isn't necessarily the most number of participants, so there does stand a point. As long as the CDP members represent the different categories of gamers, then that should suffice for the scope of the CDP in general. Thefabricant has some a useful brief outline of different types of players on his first comment at page 1 (expand the first spoiler).
Another suggestion is to close the thread during phases so a summary can be made for the next phase.
Locking the CDP during the proposal section so they do not end up being lost.
Lastly, some help with referencing and i propose numbering of comments to be more visible.
I definitely must have missed some suggestions, so i hope others can add on to this list every so often.
Chris
I will try to keep it as up to date as I can as long as we are working with the current format
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GwyrMjtnzzYmfFFy8_98el-Oe3PsTRtQRY1S5eiyync/edit?usp=sharing
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1) Improve scoping of CDP's. This does not have to mean making them smaller, but a clearer statement on the boundaries may suffice in increasing ideation focus.
2) Along with a no debate phase 1, implement a no debate/no explanation top 3 voting before going to phase 2 and only bring the top X (10?) items to phase 2 for debate.
3) Use a different medium or barring that, significantly improve the current setup. the many suggestions on a different thread setup cover a lot of it.
1. I think one thing we're struggling with is the breadth of topics. For example, "rewards and progression" covers a whole lot of ground. If I think in terms of a conference (not that I've been to a lot of them), it makes me wonder, "okay, so how can we break this up into more manageable pieces, like separate roundtable discussions": low-level progression, tutoring of new players, relevance of lower-level campaigns (and their rewards), and so on. That's not to say that those things don't interact, but maybe it's worth having separate threads for different aspects of the overall CDP that's active at the moment.
2. Thinking about how the CDP's have gone thus far I keep thinking, "what I would do for a whiteboard!" Whenever I've been in a brainstorming session, we used it to capture ideas from the group, note potential issues, side-effects, or areas for further investigation. If the subject was a thorny one we'd write DO NOT ERASE and go back to it in a follow-up meeting. It would evolve as our knowledge grew about the thing we were working on and provided a quick visual way to recall where we were when last we met on it without needing to go to someone for a brain dump. Also, seeing everything captured in a simple visual often led to better insight as it kept us from getting lost in the weeds of a discussion. Sometimes someone would get an action to capture it in a better format (think PowerPoint, Visio, Excel, or whatever else was appropriate for the subject). This would then be distributed to the group for use in the next meeting.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
> @wilbur626
>
> Neverwinter is to this point respecting D&D settings, mobs, actions, some combat, races, classes, adventures, campaigns etc.
> Your suggestions does not even take them into consideration at all.
>
> Have you read the part- type of player even though they might never played tabletop-?
>
> It is a player type. One able to create worlds in his head, to undestand other people imagination in few words, to adapt to other people actions, to invent solutions on the spot and take enjoyment from the interaction.
>
> 10-12 years old children can be great of playing D&D, some accomplish adults at the peak of their life can not.
> We are not clones, we do not have the same personality, we do not enjoy the same things. Games we play reflect that fact.
> .
How does nw:o’s combat system respect D&D combat?
All the other aspects you mentioned I choose to combine in the word “storylines” as they do nothing at all to influence actual gameplay
I am pretty sure that there are sone people playing NW mainly because of that.
I enjoy the combat, and I know nothing about D&D, but I can totally see how people play a pretty old MMO thats advertised like that because of it. Pretty much the same thing as card players being excited about Magic Legends...
it is a little strange to suggest this in a place where you discuss improvements and evolution of the game, but...
I like CDP idea - a part of a forum where someone from the company actually engages players in a discussion about some specific topics. On the other hand, there is already a Feedback Section on this forum. So, if CDP stays in as an actually functioning section, I would suggest to remove/rename the Feedback Section - as it only diverts some ideas to a corner that no-one pays attention to.
Not everything people put there is a pure rant. And I have seen even some reasonable suggestions there - however, I have never seen those implemented. (generally, I doubt any developer actually surveys that section at all)
Summary:
If CDP will not vanish into the thin air, the feedback section should. Rants will probably naturally migrate to the General discussion,... and CDP might get more ideas from the players that actually waste their good intention it a wrong section atm.
Happy Sunday!
Lets get back no on topic please. As clearly defined in the proposal for CDP 1 and 3 and in the road map we will be investing in large narrative driven experiential arcs, episodic delivery where the world/experience evolves, multi tiered content in terms of challenge so more players have access to narrative/experience, and more of a focus on horizontal content outside of mods. All intent and we will work together on the execution as we move forward (I expect high demand for CDPs on these areas once we start deploying episodes- I don't think we will get them to a point whereby we are all happy with them this year. We will see)
So in regard to what I have read so far regarding formatting and best working practices I would propose the following:
1: Phase 1: Posting of Ideas and related questions (not discussion).
2: Phase 2: Discussion but not argument for the sake of it with more management of conversational direction and topics by me.
3: Phase 3: Top 3 with a single sentence of why for each line item.
Conclusion: Proposal
Regarding Phase 1 Format:
Heading (Idea number)>Goal>Player Value Proposition>High Level Functionality/Description>Concerns and Considerations (Try to limit to 400 words) (Spoiler functionality is welcome should a member want to provide more detail in any of the above headings)
Overall Best Working Practices
Chris, Julia and Kreatyve to be more aggressive on off-topic posts and disrespectful posts.
More focused topics (but please note CDP 3 was intentionally broad due to the fact it is a child of CDP 1 and we have begun work on CDP 1 in relation to Mod 20 and prior and therefore timing is key).
Question:
Many of you want a clearer delineation between phases but I don't think it is a good idea to create new threads for each phase simply because of the amount of clicks required to reference data. On the other side the formatting options aren't great here so what other ideas do we have to show clearly where one phase ends and one begins.
Note this isn't a summary it is a proposal. So with that in mind what am I missing, what do folks disagree with in the proposal etc.
Thanks
Chris
- Objective
- Why
- How
- Risks
It is the same format, but it is easier to read so from a "language accessibility" point of view, there is less confusion about what is meant by it. I do recommend adding in the 1 idea per post rule, so if players have multiple ideas they split them into multiple posts, just to make the delineation between ideas easier during phase 1. If I have some idea of how to more clearly show the split between phases that does not involve splitting the thread, I will comment on it later.Chris