Forum suggestion - Developer answer of the day

burkaanc · September 2014

atm the communication between players and devs isnt good, devs sometimes post something, but its kind of random answer in random thread. its understandable cause it would take some time to go through all threads.

They should implement Developer answer of the day unofficial forum feature, it would work smth like this:

1)ppl make topics about stuff that interests them, nothing changes here

2)there is added forum feature that allows registered users to mark(similar to thread rating system in some forums, there are many ways to implement this) topics(or posts) they are interested of getting a dev comment on, 1 vote per topic, unlimited topics

3) once a day votes are reset and mods forward the topic(or post) with most votes to devs and they answer as soon as they have time(within some 2~3 days probably) ofc there are questions they cant answer(future content etc.) then the next topic with most votes is chosen

charononus · September 2014

The only thing that drives me nuts about the communication is the lack of answers about whether things are wai or not. For example if weapon enchant necrotic damage is wai for fury SW's. It can be argued either way atm, and until the dev's answer this it's up in the air. If we could get a known problem list for things like this it would go a long way imo.

burkaanc · September 2014

that is why i want smth like this added, since now most answers are about some less important issues, i know they cant answer all questions(no time, not allowed to or whatever) but it would give us a chance to get some answers. and 1 answer/day would take like 15~20 min max to prepare

zebular · September 2014

I like this idea also. We'll make sure CM Akromatik takes a look at this thread when he's in the Office next, so please feel free to give your constructive feedback on this idea, folks! Thanks!

Safe travels,
Archmage Zebular of Mystryl
PWE Community Moderator

melodywhr · September 2014

doesn't this already exist with the dev tracker?

i can't see forum voted questions being answered specifically because sometimes they cannot answer specific questions due to non-disclosure.

charononus · September 2014

melodywhr wrote: »

doesn't this already exist with the dev tracker?

i can't see forum voted questions being answered specifically because sometimes they cannot answer specific questions due to non-disclosure.

I think the problem that the OP has, is that some things don't feel like they're being answered, not about non-disclosure but about if things are wai, bugged, etc. Currently the only way that we get anything answered about if things are wai or not is if we get one of you mods interested and you try to get the answers. Known issues shouldn't be part of a non-disclosure agreement.

burkaanc · September 2014

melodywhr wrote: »

doesn't this already exist with the dev tracker?

i can't see forum voted questions being answered specifically because sometimes they cannot answer specific questions due to non-disclosure.

there are mostly answers to random questions there, this would allow community to ask specific questions about stuff that is important to them.
if Devs cant answer due to non-disclosure or other reasons - then they can say it and the next most popular question is answered.

arabatur · September 2014

Interesting idea that I hope will be implemented, as some disclosure would be nice. However if the dev's don't respond to queries about game mechanics, I just assume things are WAI(for better or as it usually appears, worse) or they are unable to comment.

Unknown · September 2014

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burkaanc · September 2014

magenubbie wrote: »

Maybe such questions can be offered in the form of polls so the devs can quickly see which questions are the ones the community would like answered most. Even when it's a question they are considering not answering, with enough people "asking" they might be persuaded to give an answer after all. Even if it's just "due to X reason, we can't disclose the workings of Y". When answered, they can be moved to a "solved/answered subsection for easy reading.

my idea was that readers nominate threads/posts by pressing a single button under the post(kind of like reputation in some forums) that would need a new forum feature, but there should be a bunch of plug-n-play solutions for the board. if you like the post and agree with poster - press a button and he gets your vote(1 vote/post but u can vote under any number of topics/posts) that might increase quality of posts, you would need to write a good, constructive post to get enough ppl to vote for it

single question thread would be hard to read through, and would require person specifically asking it to Devs, i want every great post having a chance of being answered, no matter where it was posted. Devs could answer in the same topic the question was asked, and ppl who dont read that topic could read it in Dev tracker anyway. Maybe an additional sticky topic where mods could repost all the answers along with questions sorting by month or smth

polls would need a lot of managing, it would be easier to add a new feature to forums than managing it with polls, polls would work if mods/CM chose the questions and u got one answer, but it would require a lot of work to go through all the good posts that are made by players

Unknown · September 2014

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burkaanc · September 2014

magenubbie wrote: »

Reputation systems are based on accounts, not posts. That's why I suggested using the poll feature instead and save them the trouble of having to make mods for the forum, which can be quite time consuming to make. I was merely giving an option to speed up the process. Of course adding a mod to increase a post's value would do it as well.

similar to rep not exact rep system, i just mentioned rep cause its most often used target for systems like this

rep is just an item in forums database, you can tie it to player who got it, to player who gave it, to post that got it, to day it was given or however u want.

for a professional it shouldnt be hard to add this, even i could probably do it with the help of google(though i might crash and burn the server in the process

)

eldarth · September 2014

burkaanc wrote: »

my idea was that readers nominate threads/posts by pressing a single button under the post(kind of like reputation in some forums) that would need a new forum feature, but there should be a bunch of plug-n-play solutions for the board.

Kiss of death. Not going to happen -- they wont even fix long (looooooooooooong) standing forum bugs. Implement a new feature? Not likely.

zebular · September 2014

burkaanc wrote: »

if Devs cant answer due to non-disclosure or other reasons - then they can say it and the next most popular question is answered.

Asking for a question a day is probably a bit much. However, this is how I envision something like this working:

I see something like "The Weekly Response" being more viable. How this could work would first take about a week to get going (Questions Thread), then another week to set up (Polling Thread), so we're looking at a 2-week set-up process followed by weekly turn-outs.

We have a dedicated thread were players post their constructive and reasonable questions.
We have a Weekly Poll Thread where 10 random questions are chosen from the thread's posts numbers.
On Thursday Nights, these 10 questions are verified to be worthy questions and if they make the cut, they will get placed into a new thread as a Community Poll that Runs for one Week. If a question is found unsuitable, it will be scrapped from the Question thread and a new random question will be drawn until a suitable question is picked.
On Fridays the, 10 chosen questions will be placed into a Poll (Polls can only have 10 options at this time, so that is why I went with that number) and will run until the following Thursday.
On Thursday afternoon, the top three questions with the most votes will be submitted to the Developers. If they cannot answer a question submitted to them, that question will be scrapped from the Question Thread and the next highest voted question will be submitted, repeating until they have three questions that can be answered.
On Friday, the three questions will be posted in their own dedicated "The Weekly Response" thread. The three questions that were answered will then be removed from the Question thread and placed into an Archived thread, so they aren't randomly chosen in the future.

So, basically we're looking at having the following threads:
Permanent Sticky: The Weekly Response - Dev Answers!
Permanent Sticky: The Weekly Response - Community Questions!
Temporary Sticky: The Weekly Response - Question Polling! (Replaced Weekly)
Normal Thread: The Weekly Response - Questions Archive! (Locked)

To save on space, I'd also propose a dedicated Subforum be added to General, or just an additional forum following General, that will only house these types of threads made by the Community Staff.

I hope that made sense.

chaoscourtesan · September 2014

I like the idea, and have no issues with the post above mine.

I'd suggest that something is done to prevent a flood of 'why?' questions (even if it is just a lead-in statement on the sticky.) I mean who really cares why? And most times they may not be able to provide any meaningful answer to that, for a lot of different reasons, and any answer would just trigger arguments and counterpoints that would ultimately lead nowhere.

I won't further waste your time with my own suggestions.

burkaanc · September 2014

that would probably work, but its a lot of work for smth that could be solved with a small addition to the forum

it would make u manually go through a bunch of questions(and there would be many many that wouldnt qualify), sort them etc. forum addition would do it for you automatically and i doubt it would be hard to add for a forum admin(but im an IT person so i mostly prefer IT solutions to manual labor)

as added bonus the programmed solution would allow Dev team to instantly see trending questions

PS. i think the questions shouldnt only be serious and/or game related

rashylewizz · September 2014

That would be a good idea.

burkaanc · November 2014

i know the age of the thread, but has there been any progress on this ?

zebular · November 2014

From what I was told, this is something that just wouldn't be possible anytime soon, due to the nature of checks and balances, and all the jazz that goes with a MMO based on a huge IP. What I gather for this reason is that we'd end up with like one answerable question or something that would just make players more upset, rather than happy.

For example, "You said this and then this happened! You lied!" Far too many people do not realize that in an MMO Industry, NOTHING is ever set in stone and when they read words by Developers, they somehow believe that to be the be's all, end's all and the gods forbid things don't turn out how they said...

Forum suggestion - Developer answer of the day

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