Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In Develepment #2004-1: Changes to the Official Forum Take 2
I tackled this poor move in another thread (GOOD IDEA TH, spread out our efforts to stop this!), but I wanted to add another item that will likely come as a result:
Thread hijacking of any RED name thread. I imagine someone has thought of it, but I have seen this in other forums.
What essentially happens is when open communication is restricted, the only way to get your message out is a blatant hijack of any thread that is created by the powers-that-be. So a developer may post a focus thread about melon consumption, and get instead thousands of rants, complaints and odeas about vehicles, the lack of galactic civil war, etc.
RbT
Closure of the Discussion forum is just flat out WRONG.
Shoveling us all off in to our respective corners just further fragements the community that so many of us see as ailing or failing, depending on your point of view.
"Discussion " should be just that, for us, the players, the CUSTOMERS, to discuss any and ALL things Star Wars Galaxies related. When it comes to the other forums, I wholeheartedly applaud some new, more focused forums.
If the removal of the Discussion forum is a veiled attempt to reduce or remove backlash from dissatisfied customers, you are going in the wrong direction.
isycz1 wrote:
Raster wrote:
Closing down the discussion forum is nothing but a way for you to seperate the communy and herd them to thier seperate servers. The benefit of this is obviously to slow down the spread of discontent with this game and keep information about game bugs from spreading so quickly throughout the different servers. Your trying to silence the community and filter each server into its own tiny box that you can watch and censor. Lets face it. The discussion forum is where everyone complains about the problems they have with SWG and the last thing SOE wants is complaints out in the open for everyone on every server to read.
Precisely. Discontent breeds more discontent. This was a painful lesson learned by Everquest. The closure of the discussion forum was inevitable. It should never have existed in the first place. I am happy to see it go but I am disappointed that the SWG devs did not learn from SOE's past mistakes. It does not bode well for the future of SWG.
Hmmm.
"Closing down the discussion forum is nothing but a way for you to seperate the communy and herd them to thier seperate servers."
Where have I heard this before. Or something similar. Ah,
"How will the emperor keep control without the bureaucracy?"
"The regional governors now have direct control over their territories"
--- (Star Wars IV - A New Hope)
"Discontent breeds more discontent. This was a painful lesson learned by Everquest." Let us for amusement look at human history. Near term history. The world at one point recenty (~200 years ago) had a structure which did NOT include community input. Any discontented folk were kept quiet by many means including isolation from each other. The King decided what got discussed and when. Then a bunch of discontented people heard of a new land. The land was different in that it was new and far away from the King. As time progressed the discontented population grew and eventually formed a new kind of communication that fostered and encouraged EVERYONE to have a say. These people thought it so important that everyone have a chance to speak where they could be heard by ANYONE who wanted to listen (whole decertation could be done on this point alone
) that they made it a key part of the agreement between them. Flash forward ~200 years. (much discontent skipped ) That country is now the most powerful and dangerous country in the WORLD (still quite full of discontent btw). That power did not come by silencing or separating discontented people (sometimes from their heads 
) It did not come by killing those who did not agree with those 'in power' It came by organizing flows of communication and having representatives listen to 'the people' and the 'people' having the power to vote who can represent them (and there are people who are discontented with that and can and do say so).The moral here is that discontent may breed discontent but that is NOT in and of itself a bad thing. Cutting off the flow of information including discontent IS.
Everything that has been suggested about the new forums looks good except the removal of the general discussion forum. We need (and will create one way or another) a way to communicate with others that we need/want to. It can be here where SOE can at least know about the discontent or on a third party server. It WILL happen. SOE you need to hear this information even at the risk of discontent spreading. You must make 'business' decisions on what you do about the discontent but to try and separate it (even by accident) and then not look at it where ever it appears IS the mistake. EQ made the same mistake. They removed that forum. Don't make the mistake again. (At least find out where it moves to and watch it there.) But would it not be so much easier to provide 1 place to focus your attention on and encourage free flow of ideas (including discontent) there. Then you could have just a few people sort thru the posts for the valuable information. Remember that even a fool may have a good point from time to time.
Or just tell us you dont care and get it over with. We will whine and moan And you may find that the Emperor in SW made the same mistake the King(s) in RL did. You would not wish to do the same. There are other worlds.
-Indene-
P.S. And for those of you who would whine that 'freedom of the press' is for those who can afford a printing press I direct your attention to the lowly web page. Not many left who can NOT afford this big public place to air even the most wild discontent. And there are those who are discontented about that
Thunderheart wrote:
4. The SWG Discussion Forum will be removed to help focus game development discussions and make sure that community suggestions, comments and contributions are catalogued in forums that will be read and tracked by the development team. Please use your Galaxy forums for general SWG discussions.
We want to keep the best parts of the SWG discussion forum, so we encourage comments about what other types of forums would be a benefit to the community with the knowledge that they will not get developer attention.
umm... 99.999% of the topics on these forums are related to SWG in general, not a particular galaxy. How will someone from Kauri know that there is a really good debate on Topic XYZ going on in the Starsider forum???
what about when you want to talk to people from ALL galaxies? We still need one place where everyone from all galaxies can congregate and have discussions/debates.
Don't expect everyone to parouse through all 20 galaxy forums. I for one do not have that much time.
For the most part, this looks really good.
I have a few suggestions:
- A forum where people can create threads about what they'd like to see in the game.
Things not related to the Galactic Civil War. Things that effect multiple professions. An example is combat droids. The devs are now talking about putting them in the game. I believe that the idea was generated by players. The idea would not have gotten as much support if it only existed in the Droid Engineer forum.
- A forum where people can create threads about things that are in the game that they'd like changed.
This would for suggestions about changing the user interface, inventory management, transportation, how to improve the general combat system, ways to improve the in-game economy, issues with houses and player cities, etc.
The forum would not be about bugs. Bugs would go on the Technical Support forum.
The two forums I've described above should onlyget developer attention on the more lenghty threads with a lot of player support. Short threads that die quckly do not need to be viewed by the developers.
- A forum that is more of a free-for-all.
This forum would act as the game's water cooler. People from allgalaxies and all professions can meet there. It should be moderated, but people should not expect any developer to read the forum.
- The "In Development" process should be broken down into three phase.
Thunderheart wrote
"In Development: The next stage is "In Development". When a game development topic reaches this stage, it means the design document is being produced and will be posted for community comment. At this point, the community can see what was included, what has been designed and it will be open for discussion. The difference at this stage is that this is the "polish" stage of design. The "blue sky" is gone and now the focus is to tweak, fill in gaps, uncover problems. No sweeping changes will be made unless something critical has come up and jeopardizes the integrity of the design. Any "big" changes made to design ideas will have to have very strong community support to be considered."
The change to this would be:
Phase One:
After recieving the " neat package," designers would sketch out how they would impliment it, coming up with a general direction of how to realize the ideas. This would be before the "polish." The sketch would be submitted for review before tons of work had been done. There would be an extension of the"blue sky" period for a few more days to a week.
This would allow the players to pan the proposed execution of the ideas they helped create if they don't approve with the proposed execution. It would also allow players to give their seal of approval to the designs they like. We don't need to see code or anything terribly concrete in this stage. Just a general, non-vague gist.
This way, the designers would not waste time and effort (and money) on things nobody wants.
Phase Two:
Then the developers wouldreally get to work on the design, fleshing it out and making it more concrete,taking into account what went over well and what didn't.
Phase Three:
The rest of the design phase would proceed as stated, being brought back to the players once again for a final review. This is when "no sweeping changes" could be made, because tons of work would have been done by this point. As stated, "any 'big' changes made to design ideas will have to have very strong community support to be considered."
The next phase would be the In-Test phase, as described.This would include an annoucement that the new changes and features will be on Test Center soon.
Discussion about the new changes or features would then move to the Test Center forum.
VorantasBorotva wrote:
Lets see the guy who made the game using peach baskets? Or the guy who was taught by a great line of historic coaches who root back to Naismith not that this is the place for the discussion but OBVIOUSLY Jordan. I get the analogy but bad example. Most of the rules and gameplay have completely changed since the game was invented.
I know it may not be the best example but I wanted to make a point. I do not expect any sort of reply but I do want to initiate some consideration of the point I tried to make.
VolatileMan wrote:
R2DADROID wrote:
For the most part, this looks really good.
I have a few suggestions:
- A forum where people can create threads about what they'd like to see in the game.
Things not related to the Galactic Civil War. Things that effect multiple professions. An example is combat droids. The devs are now talking about putting them in the game. I believe that the idea was generated by players. The idea would not have gotten as much support if it only existed in the Droid Engineer forum.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
- A forum where people can create threads about things that are in the game that they'd like changed.
This would for suggestions about changing the user interface, inventory management, transportation, how to improve the general combat system, ways to improve the in-game economy, issues with houses and player cities, etc.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
The forum would not be about bugs. Bugs would go on the Technical Support forum.
The two forums I've described above should onlyget developer attention on the more lenghty threads with a lot of player support. Short threads that die quckly do not need to be viewed by the developers.
- A forum that is more of a free-for-all.
This forum would act as the game's water cooler. People from allgalaxies and all professions can meet there. It should be moderated, but people should not expect any developer to read the forum.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
So you mean like a general discussion forum?
Just curious.
VolatileMan
sorry but just to clarify:
general discussion forum is for "general" discussion, which could include little Johnnys post about "my dog died today"
what we need is an "SWGDiscussion" forum (kinda like the one they want to get rid of) which can encompass issues that relate to more than one profession, more than one galaxy, game features in general, etc etc etc.
VolatileMan wrote:
R2DADROID wrote:
For the most part, this looks really good.
I have a few suggestions:
- A forum where people can create threads about what they'd like to see in the game.
Things not related to the Galactic Civil War. Things that effect multiple professions. An example is combat droids. The devs are now talking about putting them in the game. I believe that the idea was generated by players. The idea would not have gotten as much support if it only existed in the Droid Engineer forum.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
- A forum where people can create threads about things that are in the game that they'd like changed.
This would for suggestions about changing the user interface, inventory management, transportation, how to improve the general combat system, ways to improve the in-game economy, issues with houses and player cities, etc.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
The forum would not be about bugs. Bugs would go on the Technical Support forum.
The two forums I've described above should onlyget developer attention on the more lenghty threads with a lot of player support. Short threads that die quckly do not need to be viewed by the developers.
- A forum that is more of a free-for-all.
This forum would act as the game's water cooler. People from allgalaxies and all professions can meet there. It should be moderated, but people should not expect any developer to read the forum.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
So you mean like a general discussion forum?
Just curious.
VolatileMan
Exactly.
lorildeh wrote:
VolatileMan wrote:
R2DADROID wrote:
For the most part, this looks really good.
I have a few suggestions:
- A forum where people can create threads about what they'd like to see in the game.
Things not related to the Galactic Civil War. Things that effect multiple professions. An example is combat droids. The devs are now talking about putting them in the game. I believe that the idea was generated by players. The idea would not have gotten as much support if it only existed in the Droid Engineer forum.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
- A forum where people can create threads about things that are in the game that they'd like changed.
This would for suggestions about changing the user interface, inventory management, transportation, how to improve the general combat system, ways to improve the in-game economy, issues with houses and player cities, etc.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
The forum would not be about bugs. Bugs would go on the Technical Support forum.
The two forums I've described above should onlyget developer attention on the more lenghty threads with a lot of player support. Short threads that die quckly do not need to be viewed by the developers.
- A forum that is more of a free-for-all.
This forum would act as the game's water cooler. People from allgalaxies and all professions can meet there. It should be moderated, but people should not expect any developer to read the forum.
You mean like a general discussion forum?
So you mean like a general discussion forum?
Just curious.
VolatileMan
sorry but just to clarify:
general discussion forum is for "general" discussion, which could include little Johnnys post about "my dog died today"
what we need is an "SWGDiscussion" forum (kinda like the one they want to get rid of) which can encompass issues that relate to more than one profession, more than one galaxy, game features in general, etc etc etc.
The board is already a SWG discussion forum;
read the description;
"The purpose of this board is for all discussion regarding design issues and ideas in Star Wars Galaxies."
dnm998 wrote:
The board is already a SWG discussion forum;
read the description;
"The purpose of this board is for all discussion regarding design issues and ideas in Star Wars Galaxies."
The problem my friend is its a "one-way" street. Only the Devs decide what to talk about. Communication is supposed to be a "two-street" in my humble opinion.
And even though we have forums left for us to initiate threads the question is will the Devs every visit those boards and ingage in "open communication" with us?
Volatileman
VolatileMan wrote:
dnm998 wrote:
The board is already a SWG discussion forum;
read the description;
"The purpose of this board is for all discussion regarding design issues and ideas in Star Wars Galaxies."
The problem my friend is its a "one-way" street. Only the Devs decide what to talk about. Communication is supposed to be a "two-street" in my humble opinion.
And even though we have forums left for us to initiate threads the question is will the Devs every visit those boards and ingage in "open communication" with us?
Volatileman
I think you think I was relplying to your post. My reply to your post was "Exactly".
The above reply you have quoted was a reply to lorildeh's post.
"You mean like a general discussion forum?"
Ok. I will post again to clarify:
Three seperate forums:
Forum 1:
Player Suggested Big Picture/ Idea Wish List Forum
- A forum where people can create threads about what they'd like to see in the game.
Things not related to the Galactic Civil War. Things that effect multiple professions. An example is combat droids. The devs are now talking about putting them in the game. I believe that the idea was generated by players. The idea would not have gotten as much support if it only existed in the Droid Engineer forum.
This would be moderated and threads would have to fit in with the gist of the forum or be locked.
Devs would only look at the threads with the most support. We would be told as much. Devs would respond every once in a while saying something like "great idea, and we will try to keep it in mind. However, we can not make any promise at this time about when or if ever this feature will be implimented."
Perhaps this forum would have its own correspondent to bring the best ideas to the developers, so they don't have to read it all that often.
Forum 2:
Player Suggested Changes to Current Features
A forum where people can create threads about things that are in the game that they'd like changed.
This would for suggestions about changing the user interface, inventory management, transportation, how to improve the general combat system, ways to improve the in-game economy, issues with houses and player cities, etc. Devs would only respond to the most wanted changes. Anything that does not fit in with the theme of the forum will be locked.
The forum would not be about bugs. Bugs would go on the Technical Support forum.
Perhaps this forum would have its own correspondent, or have the same correspondent as Forum 1.
Forum 3
Cantina
- A forum that is more of a free-for-all.
This forum would act as the game's water cooler. People from allgalaxies and all professions can meet there. It should be moderated, but people should not expect any developer to read the forum.
You cannot shepherd an online community of this side, you have tried it before and failed. You decided to not have a Questions forum so everything would go into the galaxy forums and that decision cost you, and your community, a Game Guides forum because that got co-opted to be a Questions Forum. Thus you still have the unwanted Questions forum and you lack a much-needed dedicated Game Guide forum.
Your current attempts to shepherd discussion away from Discussion is identical to your attempt to shepherd questions from the Questions forum and the result will also be identical. One of the new forums that you create, probably the one you least expect, will become the new Discussion forum. You can try and rigidly police the new forums, closing thread after thread, but you tried that with Game Guides also and the results were predictable.
I suggest not doing away with the current Discussion forum as the most likely result will be that you will end up with one anyway and will get a reputation for trying to stifle communications by doing away with the forum that held the most criticism. This action will be counter-productive to your attempts to build a reputation as a provider of quality customer service.