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DaletheGood

Suggestion for compiling suggestions

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Been thinking about this for a few days, but with the recent update from Keenan regarding the post-Exploration focus of the devs, specifically:

  

On 9/4/2022 at 4:47 PM, Keenan said:

we need to focus on fixing issues, increasing quality of life, and most importantly, addressing issues that prevent new players from getting into the game.

 

I think that we as the active players of Wurm, should compile all of the suggestions and fixes we've been clamoring for over the last however many years. This way, we could remind the devs about suggestions and fixes that have been asked for but have maybe fallen down the suggestion wurmhole so to speak. It'd also give the community a chance to upvote the ones that need the most attention.

 

My thought was that we create 3 threads, one for fixing issues, one for increasing QoL, and one that addresses issues preventing new players from getting into and staying with the game. Those threads should NOT be for debating the various intricacies of said suggestions, but rather a way to vote for the ones we as a whole would like to see. I of course see the first two, fixing issues and increasing QoL, as being easier to keep on track, while the new player experience will probably devolve into our usual bickering over minutiae and the usual splits in the community, i.e. NFI/SFI and PvP/PvE. But maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised by y'all.

 

These threads should not be for additions of brand new features to the game, like a rework of uniques, new armor/weapons, whether or not to connect the clusters, or bringing in airships, etc. but pulling from the already vast library of QoL suggestions and fixes that need to be addressed.

 

My vision is that each post in the thread address one particular issue and those with the most likes get moved to the top of the list. That way the devs can see what issues the majority of players who visit the forum are interested in. Now, obviously the majority of players unfortunately don't visit the forums, or at least don't comment in this forum, as I usually just see the same 30 or so people in here. But possibly we can attract a larger percentage of players to at least vote with a like with something like this.

 

Here's how I see it working for say the Fixing Issues thread: Post 1, fix all the missing keybinds. Post 2, standardize the colors and textures for the various wood-types across the different furniture so that a cherrywood wardrobe looks like it's made from the same wood as a cherrywood dining table. Post 3, enable priests to chose what negative trait to remove from animals. Post 4, make the Temple into something other than a ? bag. etc, etc, etc.

 

Then, instead of debating the various positives and negatives of each item, plus adding some remotely relevant addition to that suggestion, we all vote or not vote on it. In a couple months we should have 30-40 or more in each category, and we could tally up the votes and have a list for the devs of what WE want addressed in the game.

 

What do you all think?

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I think it's a neat idea on paper, but there's a few factors I'd like to raise:

This most important one is providing a list for developers. Nothing in this forum is a contract between player and developer to produce content. Developers can like ideas, tweak them, put them aside for later, or just reject them. They aren't required to explain why to every post, and they shouldn't be expected to. Their job is not reading the forums. 

2. Competing standards. This forum isn't hard to search, it's easy to see what's been suggested with clear titles (and tags if people use them), and it doesn't need a comprehensive list of all the suggestions in it. There isn't a problem of lack of finding suggestions. 

C. Popular voting does not mean its a) a good idea, b) fits the vision for the game, and c) feasible. Relying on a popular vote is like claiming development of a game is a democratic process, it's not. Suggestions are a cauldron of high level ideas that developers can look through if they are working in something, there's nothing requiring them to do anything from them and not should there be. 

iv) differences of opinion. Players will disagree, from the time long past that one person said "I think x" people immediately started thinking they were wrong. That's going to happen here, always has, always will. The idea of extra work going into a thread to just keep it to the titles is just creating the thread list again, but this time in a thread. 

*lastly, and this is a personal one, based on my experience from working on these forums. It's just going to cause more frustration from players "we take all this time building a list and the devs haven't put it in!" there's a lot of great and well thought out ideas in here, but this isn't where the majority of developer planning comes from, and the whole section in and of itself sets unrealistic expectations that suggestions in here have any potential impact on the game in the future. More ideas have come from city Hall threads or bug reports than here, and that's not a bad thing. This is for players to discuss ideas, not for devs to implement ideas. It's sad seeing someone post a suggestion, constantly call it out in freedom chat, and just work themselves up to the point of bitterness because it never was implemented. I'd rather see the suggestions board go than see that happen with more people. 

 

Anyways, that's my bit, thanks for coming to my TED talk

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Yeah, I understand your points Arch, and no, the developers are under no obligation to take our suggestions onboard when deciding what new ideas to implement. Yes, it is frustrating to players to have suggestions that are popular with the community have no action taken by the devs for years. Maybe that could be a change implemented under the "attract and retain new players" part of the devs stated goals for the next round of development.

 

As for the forum not being hard to search part: No, it's not hard to search, assuming that the post contains the specific wording you are looking for. But with us all being human and there being so many good suggestions over the years, it is hard to remember all of the ones you'd like to see implemented, even if you're a dev. So, having a list of the most popular suggestions over the years that are only dealing with the three categories they've laid out as what they're focusing on might be helpful to them.

 

If the devs are not taking into account this suggestion forum when deciding what to implement into the game, then why have this forum? Was this forum designed and/or sanctioned by the devs or just put here by some moderators to declutter other parts of the forum and kind of shove the ideas of the player base into a corner to be ignored? If it was sanctioned by the devs, then one would hope they'd peruse it occasionally. And if they do, then how would they know which ideas are the most popular with the community? They certainly couldn't just look at number of replies as that would only return the most contentious ideas.

 

My main thought with this suggestion was that as a player base, we all have our pet ideas that we'd like to see implemented in the game. These are usually based on suggestions we've seen either on this forum, discussed in-game, or mentioned on other threads in the City Hall, etc. These ideas have a tendency to fade from memory as we play the game and as the ideas fade onto the back pages of whatever forum we saw them on, until someone revives them, or we run into the issue in-game. Since the player community is bigger than the dev pool, I thought it'd be a chance for us to search thru old posts and bring those ideas back to the forefront, so that on the off-chance that the devs do take into account our desires, they'd have them in one place, and not have to do the searching themselves.

 

Maybe this is all a pipe dream, and as you kind of said, an exercise in futility. The only other option, that I see, is that this suggestion forum will be inundated with a revival of thread after thread of old issues that need fixes, a rehashing of our pet peeves with QoL, and even more contentious arguments about how best to get and retain new players and bring back old ones. I thought that having the players bring all of these into a couple of common threads might reduce the clutter and give the devs a single point to look at what the players want and hopefully take those wishes into account.

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I am pretty sure there is a team read all the suggestions, and pick the one that they think its good to the devs. Their responsibility is to make sure the people don't think they are ignoring people's suggestion.
This is a social seduction game about how to make the devs to think the suggestion is good for whatever their goals are.

The suggestion category is a great place to demonstrate Bandwagon effect. It comes from the desire to 'fit in' with peers. It is obvious especially in the PVP group and other social group like unique slaying group, etc.

The devs like to hear the reasons behind the voting of +1 and -1 according to the suggestion guideline. Debating create more reasons behind reasons.

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43 minutes ago, Archaed said:

Please don't seduce the developers, they scare easily 

lol

 

thread is a bit 2 much tl;dr, suggesting to keep things short and on point to prevent skipping it entirely

 

imo.. we just need new and current things as QoL, things that bother you everyday, right now, post anything new.. as old qol threads are either addressed in some sort of way, obsolete or pointless, not all qols will make sense since few changes were made to actions and mechanics over the years

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2 hours ago, Archaed said:

Please don't seduce the developers, they scare easily 

If they got scared, that means the person play the game badly.
The top tier person usually are the one who seduce them without making them aware of being in the game.


The word seduce have multiple meanings. Lets focus on this meaning according to a dictionary with an example.

  • attract powerfully.
    "the melody seduces the ear with warm string tones"

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