Goblin Squad Member
|
...we need to help them focus on making the game playable...
As Being pointed out, infrastructure laid in properly now can more easily support further development later. So very many things are going to be invisible to us players while being points of vital concern the the devs.
...they have not implemented that yet...
In this week's blog thread, Tork Shaw seems to disagree:
Thats crowdforging for ya! Thanks for your help!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
A recap on:
Q. What is crowdforging? What do you intend to crowdforge next?
Crowdforging is the three-stage system by which we provide you, our customers and supporters, with insight into the development process, gauge your desires and ideas on a holistic level, and then poll you on specific questions. The first element includes the development blog you're reading now: Goblinworks aims to bring an unprecedented amount of fan access to the development process by outlining what we're doing and why we're doing it, usually far in advance of implementation.This leads to the second element. Our forums allow you to discuss both your opinions on the systems currently outlined and ideas for where you'd like to see the development go in the future. We're reading the forums even if we don't always respond, and a lot of ideas posted there inspire changes to the development of Pathfinder Online.
Finally, we'll sometimes ask specific questions about implementing a particular system or about a choice of where to focus our development efforts in order to gain a better understanding of the community's interests. We may phrase this as an informal or formal poll, but the goal is to get the backing of a plurality of participating prospective players (try saying that three times fast!) before we make a decision.
Ultimately, Pathfinder Online is offering players the opportunity to give us input into the game development much earlier than most other MMOs do. You have the tools and the access to convince us to make deep and meaningful changes to the game while systems are still in the design phase, rather than after they've already been implemented and are hard to change. Once we have a live game that you can participate in, we aim to both maintain this level of participation for upcoming content and to allow you to have ongoing feedback as to whether systems are working as intended or need to be changed.
This seems to be the modus operandi atm. But I wonder in the future there will be more additional expansions to this process?
Perhaps:
- Progress bars on development features?
- Rating systems for solicited ideas?
- VIP members areas for discussion (Goblin Squad)?
- Polls for voting?
- Rewards for developing community or even game assets?
- Direct feedback on testing?
etc.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...we need to help them focus on making the game playable...As Being pointed out, infrastructure laid in properly now can more easily support further development later. So very many things are going to be invisible to us players while being points of vital concern the the devs.
...they have not implemented that yet...In this week's blog thread, Tork Shaw seems to disagree:
Thats crowdforging for ya! Thanks for your help!
Yes they can ask for feedback on things they wish to, but nothing has been stated as OFFICIALLY BEING CROWDFORGED yet till after the fact.
I highly doubt armor dyes and proper loot drops are of high concern to the devs right now. They have in fact commented in both threads, one saying that they have some stuff for Dyeing and the other saying get over it, Bears drop gold loot for now.
What I am telling everyone is to look at what the game really needs for EE and focus on that... For the sake of the game.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think your sentiment is appreciated, Xeen, and while I could certainly take umbrage sometimes with how you say some things (easily interpreted to be insulting: I really am not ignorant and have made significant investment to see that be true), nevertheless your consideration seems positive. I urge you, however, to presume that the developer will decide what to attend to and what to ignore. You could consider the forums a brainstorming session where it is more constructive to coax people into contributing their ideas than it is to make them shut their collective yap.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...OFFICIALLY BEING CROWDFORGED...
What does this mean, please? How will we be able to tell when it's official?
It seems to me that having conversations with the devs, as they're dev-ing, is all part of crowdforging. They say something, as in the blogs, we give input, they take it.
Sometimes what we say affects their thinking, sometimes not, and we all move on with our lives. One of the key tenets of brainstorming--which is closely related to crowdforging--is "there are no bad ideas".
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...OFFICIALLY BEING CROWDFORGED...What does this mean, please? How will we be able to tell when it's official?
It seems to me that having conversations with the devs, as they're dev-ing, is all part of crowdforging. They say something, as in the blogs, we give input, they take it.
Sometimes what we say affects their thinking, sometimes not, and we all move on with our lives. One of the key tenets of brainstorming--which is closely related to crowdforging--is "there are no bad ideas".
Hint, we have 2 threads that are stickied... Look at #2
I have nothing with you planning things out... I just hope the devs put their efforts into making the game run first, then adding the "extras" afterward.
Dont get me wrong, I think the loot should make sense as well as you do. I just dont see it as a game breaking design problem till OE.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
...OFFICIALLY BEING CROWDFORGED...
I don't think that means what you think it means.
When we go live, we'll be taking players into a really exciting phase of the game's development. Because we're making a sandbox game, not a theme park, we don't have to (and don't want to) have the game fully developed when players enter the world of Pathfinder Online. Instead, our goal is to open with a very carefully implemented set of basic features, and then iterate continuously to add new features and refine existing features based strongly on player feedback. The people playing the game at launch will essentially be helping us co-develop the game, and especially in that first year, the efforts of the Goblinworks team will be strongly influenced by the insights we're getting from the players.
Crowdforging is the development technique of opening with a very carefully implemented set of basic features, and then iterating continuously to add new features and refine existing features based strongly on player feedback. Selecting which basic features are implemented at the start of EE is most certainly part of crowdforging.
|
CEO, Goblinworks
|
Crowdforging is not going to be well defined. It's going to happen via ad hoc mechanisms and via controlled things like surveys and small group feedback. These forums are Crowdforging.
Xeen is absolutely right - our focus now is on very basic systems. If, why, and how a rat drops a coin is not core to that goal. And we don't lose anything in terms of future development if we don't focus on it now.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Crowdforging is not going to be well defined. It's going to happen via ad hoc mechanisms and via controlled things like surveys and small group feedback. These forums are Crowdforging.
Xeen is absolutely right - our focus now is on very basic systems. If, why, and how a rat drops a coin is not core to that goal. And we don't lose anything in terms of future development if we don't focus on it now.
I thought I read somewhere that is exactly what you had planned.
I was not intending to be harsh to everyone, I just think we are getting ahead of ourselves...
I also dont want to see everyone hype themselves up over stuff they will not see when they first join the game.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I also dont want to see everyone hype themselves up over stuff they will not see when they first join the game.
This has been an issue since the beginning and will continue to be an issue right up until OE if not beyond.
This is an ambitious project with a very open ended design spec, one of the dangers of crowdforging, so everyone will have there own little personal pet "NEED" most of which will not make it into EE, many of which will not make it into OE and some of which will never make it into the game.
Also keep in mind that the true challenge facing GW isn't to produce a game, that's done every day, but to produce a game in the most basic, bare bones and incomplete state that will be Early Enrolement that people will actually pay to play.
Add in the fact that the Pathfinder name itself has strong history and tradition of tabletop gaming, which they banked on to get the funding, meaning you will also have tabletop gamers coming here expecting PATHFINDER online (think Neverwinter using the pathfinder ruleset), not Pathfinder Online and you now have a potential second group of people trashing the release when they find out its Pathfinder, not PATHFINDER online.
Given everything they've got going against them lets not add to the load by debating trivial things and making mountains out of rat tails and hyping things up until they can only add to the disappointment when they don't show up on day 1 of EE, during EE or even for OE.
Yeah, it would be nice if loot made sense, critters drop critter stuff, people drop people stuff and the axe wielding gnoll with the shield dropped an axe & a shield, not a two handed greatsword and it would be great if GW could work in the most efficient manner both to get us to EE but also for future game development but rather then having a few people bicker, let them decide what the best way to proceed and have us offer new ideas and solutions, not problems, for them to consider.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I really think the purpose of these forums is to discuss the design choices made and described in the blog. But you have to have room for opinions and small talk also. Stating how you feel about some design choice and voicing your own opinion are at the core of these threads. Otherwise they'd just be horse s%#*. Of course when dealing with others politeness is the way to go.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I was not intending to be harsh to everyone, I just think we are getting ahead of ourselves...
I think that issue was about you basically shouting 'shut up' by telling everyone to "stop asking them to do stupid pointless things" and ending with a string of exclamation points that spanned half the screen. Without voice tone, that's probably going to be interpreted as anger.
Sure, this isn't a Minimum Viable Product topic, but much of what is discussed on the board isn't. If the loot tables are built in such a way that they can be easily changed later, then that's good enough for now. If the current plan would end up making it too difficult to edit later, then maybe they'll revise things to make it easier to edit. It's not about demanding all the features right now, it's about letting them know what we'd be interested in eventually so hopefully the path is left open enough to allow future exploration.
You seem to be interested in roguish stuff, so let's take an example more related to that. If they build the maps with the assumption that a 2+ meter wall or cliff is an absolute barrier, that could present a problem for adding the Climb skill later. We might end up with a weird situation in which newer maps allow climbing but it's disabled in older ones because vertical movement would render an obstacle trivial which was supposed to be a challenge. If they keep vertical movement in mind as a future possibility, hopefully they won't make assumptions in current builds that close off Climb for the future.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This sentence has no superfluous capital letters but on the internet it's definitely yelling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When we talk about how we want the game to be on the forums it's putting that information out there for the devs to see. Most of the time it's not surprising and they'll go back to what they've decided their priorities are.
Now and then we might make them think, "hmm we should keep in mind making that easy to implement later during EE" and every so often we might totally surprise them with some group consensus out of the blue. The only way we find out is by airing our ideas.