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bjanu
Member Posts: 122 Bounty Hunter
Probably all agree that things are not as good as we would like them to be. I have seen many discussions about it and many complaints. What i haven't seen is enough of proposed solutions and feedback to the ones proposed.
What i noticed when i was reading the forums is: devs are doing things that would bring net income. This of course leaves little time to anything else like bug fixing, balance testing, user interface developing etc.
What would i suggest:
a) It seems you have a resource problem, basically not enough workforce to take all up at once without losing development speed of new context, and to maintain workforce you need money.
Solution - introduce donations.
This would be similar to the way non profit organization works, for example:Wikipedia or kickstarter.
I would offer it implemented like this:
Assemble a team dedicated to the task, with no other priorities.
1. Collect feedback from forums about bugs.
2. Asses how much time and resources you need.
3. Make a plan of whats possible to be fixed and how fast.
4. Make a zen store offering/donation request required for the work to be completed.
5. Gather the donations
6. Provide results - fixes.
In best case scenario they would always have a working spot not spending your resources getting things that players want done.
In worst case scenario they can be resigned to other work while the support is lacking.
However This would only work on the basics of good will. Any attempt to abuse it would render it useless as trust is needed in order for this to work.
Personally i would rather provide support to game this way (knowing where my money goes to and knowing how that impacts game) than buying items that i can earn while playing.
b)Use the brand to your advantage: D&D is a game that allows you 2 roles - the player and the game master. Therefore it attracts people of both types.
How can you use it to your advantage?
1.If you have a problem you can always use the network of brains in the forum to solve it. For example:
You are lacking a good interesting mechanics to a boss monster - start a suggestion forum section > create a request tread > wait > filter out the offers>use the best>lose nothing.
2.Use the ideas of people in game as a seeds for new concept.
Check out the foundry>collect ideas>get permission> develop further based on that> reward people in game for their initial ideas for positive feedback.
C.Go semi open source - offer some of the developing to the community. This is the age of technology - there are many people who knows how to code at-least a bit. So why not to try to find the gems among the players.
Implementation:
1. Tutorial to documentations of the game engine, scripts or language you use to develop the game.()
2. A way to implement testing runs - offline game launcher separated from the real game.(there is foundry already should not be hard)
3. Maybe a test server for new updates. (so other people could filter some out)
3. Gather the developed codes or pieces. ()
4. check them>test them> implement the successful ones.
This could potentially result in the fixing of simple things like a better user interface, texture bugs, maybe even power/feat bugs etc.
D. Strengthen the communication with community.
You don't need to invest to this much, a bit of devs and managers time would do.
Create chain of feedback in forums that would act as a filter - respond to the problems that agitate the community the most. A set number of questions to be answered by authorities per week for example. A net of ranked forum moderators would filter out the the spam leaving out only the most important ones. If you give the community the reign of the forums - you don't need to waste your resources therefore i don't see how this could be negative.
These would be things that i would suggest now. What do you think guys of these ideas? Maybe you have some better ones?
What i noticed when i was reading the forums is: devs are doing things that would bring net income. This of course leaves little time to anything else like bug fixing, balance testing, user interface developing etc.
What would i suggest:
a) It seems you have a resource problem, basically not enough workforce to take all up at once without losing development speed of new context, and to maintain workforce you need money.
Solution - introduce donations.
This would be similar to the way non profit organization works, for example:Wikipedia or kickstarter.
I would offer it implemented like this:
Assemble a team dedicated to the task, with no other priorities.
1. Collect feedback from forums about bugs.
2. Asses how much time and resources you need.
3. Make a plan of whats possible to be fixed and how fast.
4. Make a zen store offering/donation request required for the work to be completed.
5. Gather the donations
6. Provide results - fixes.
In best case scenario they would always have a working spot not spending your resources getting things that players want done.
In worst case scenario they can be resigned to other work while the support is lacking.
However This would only work on the basics of good will. Any attempt to abuse it would render it useless as trust is needed in order for this to work.
Personally i would rather provide support to game this way (knowing where my money goes to and knowing how that impacts game) than buying items that i can earn while playing.
b)Use the brand to your advantage: D&D is a game that allows you 2 roles - the player and the game master. Therefore it attracts people of both types.
How can you use it to your advantage?
1.If you have a problem you can always use the network of brains in the forum to solve it. For example:
You are lacking a good interesting mechanics to a boss monster - start a suggestion forum section > create a request tread > wait > filter out the offers>use the best>lose nothing.
2.Use the ideas of people in game as a seeds for new concept.
Check out the foundry>collect ideas>get permission> develop further based on that> reward people in game for their initial ideas for positive feedback.
C.Go semi open source - offer some of the developing to the community. This is the age of technology - there are many people who knows how to code at-least a bit. So why not to try to find the gems among the players.
Implementation:
1. Tutorial to documentations of the game engine, scripts or language you use to develop the game.()
2. A way to implement testing runs - offline game launcher separated from the real game.(there is foundry already should not be hard)
3. Maybe a test server for new updates. (so other people could filter some out)
3. Gather the developed codes or pieces. ()
4. check them>test them> implement the successful ones.
This could potentially result in the fixing of simple things like a better user interface, texture bugs, maybe even power/feat bugs etc.
D. Strengthen the communication with community.
You don't need to invest to this much, a bit of devs and managers time would do.
Create chain of feedback in forums that would act as a filter - respond to the problems that agitate the community the most. A set number of questions to be answered by authorities per week for example. A net of ranked forum moderators would filter out the the spam leaving out only the most important ones. If you give the community the reign of the forums - you don't need to waste your resources therefore i don't see how this could be negative.
These would be things that i would suggest now. What do you think guys of these ideas? Maybe you have some better ones?
Post edited by bjanu on
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Comments
Console ports take a lot of time and personell. You can bet the reason NWO has starved for content and bug fixes the last 6 months are directly due to the console port.
As for your solutions - I'm sure the biggest hurdle when looking at any of these proposed ideas is going to be the contract with PWE. This maybe a "free to play" game but you can absolutely believe it's a "for profit" business.
Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene
Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice
Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee
Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
However my proposals are based on the good will of the community. Therefore they are the ones that should not be abused - therefore non extra profit.
For example - solution a) possible abuses would be trying to milk players out - leaving more bugs intentionally so community would be forced to play that they could be fixed. However if people would notice this the model would not work. So these solutions should be made only self sustaining - not directly based on profit. Why? Because the product of the solutions would increase the quality of the game, and that would increase the net income. Meaning you get profit anyway.
If you enjoy it support it. Yes, it's free to play but it's not free to create/maintain.
That with ability to donate to the priority of my choosing would be brilliant - you make a list i buy a drop box for the one feature i like, you go implement that feature if enough donations are collected if not it's on hold till it is.
What makes you think that just because the game earns more money with donations the devs would do something else instead of earning even more money by continuing what has been proven to work?
Two problems with your theory:
1. There is no point where Cryptic will say "we earn enough money, now lets do something else".
2. You seem to think that NW does not already turn a big profit for Cryptic and that they need more income to not lose money with it.
I also want to point out that it's also not a simple "dollars and cents" issue - you could dump a billion dollars on the devs' lap, and you still wouldn't see a change over night - it takes time to train new people and develop new content, and bringing in new skilled talent isn't as simple as conducting an interview...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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