Player / Developer Interaction

[Josh]

In the recent PC Gamer, there is an article on the CSM (Council of Stellar Management) in EVE Online. If you haven't read it or aren't a subscriber I highly recommend it. That being said...

For those that don't know, the CSM is a peer-elected group of players that interacts directly with the game developers. Their function is to bring player issues to the developers. In essence, they are the voice of the players. They gather up the issues that the players have and present them to the developers. This means that if you (yes you, the one reading this post) has an issue, you have a very real probability of it being heard directly by the developers. At the least you know that there is a system in place that can afford this opportunity, unlike here where you have essentially zero guarantee of that happening. In fact, CCP flies them out to Reykjavik twice a year for face to face meetings to do just that.

CCP values the thoughts and opinions of it's players so much that the CSM has been given equal consideration with every other department in requesting development time for a project. In essence, this means that the CSM (and therefore the playerbase that it represents) has as much influence on development projects as all the other teams outside of the development team. Who better to drive the direction of the game than the players who play it?

In my opinion, this game would benefit greatly from something like this. To start, I believe that the developers are completely out of touch with the players with respect to many aspects of this game. They have a proven track record of making the same mistakes in design over and over again. I'm not going to get into that here, but I'm sure most of you can see that. With direct player input, I believe that this situation could be alleviated, if not removed altogether. Players would know without a shadow of a doubt that if their idea / complaint / suggestion has merit it will be heard by those that should hear it. Also, it gives the players a sense of "ownership" in the game. Additionally, it affords the development team what is essentially free labor. There are TONS of valuable ideas available from the players posted on these very forums every day. Why not take advantage of them? Many here have extensive experience in programming. Some are just good thinkers who come up with good ideas.

I'm not sure if the implementation would be exactly the same, but personally I like how the CCP rolls. Of course that is something that would have to be determined at a later date.

Thoughts? Opinions?

I'll leave you with a quote from the article I mentioned:

[this is in reference to the players meeting with the developers face to face]

"It's not easy to stand there and take a verbal lashing from your harshest critics, but instead of banning dissenters from the forum and retreating to their development cave to pretend that the naysayers don't exist like some developers do (you know who you are), CCP flew some of the most vocal critics to Iceland so they could understand their concerns, and every player respected them for it."

That's ballsy. And it makes total sense.

[Eladiun]

"It's not easy to stand there and take a verbal lashing from your harshest critics, but instead of banning dissenters from the forum and retreating to their development cave to pretend that the naysayers don't exist like some developers do (you know who you are), CCP flew some of the most vocal critics to Iceland then threw them into an active volcano."

That's ballsy. And it makes total sense.

Fixed it.

[Memnir]

I think it's a great thing for them to do, quite frankly. I'd be very happy to see something like this happen here.

But, that being said - I think the chances of it happening here are extremely remote at best.

[IronClan]

The question is where do they get their consensus from how do they know they're speaking for the actual player base as opposed to the highly motivated highly vocal minority of the player base that has the most ideas, desires and opinions, and the most get up and go to try and push those ideas?

[cardmj1]

I thought that was what Mournlands was for.. and for qualty testing.

[Daehawk]

We actually have Jerry with DDOCast that essentially does this. He has a segment called AskTheDevs. Players can write in questions that you want the Devs to answer and Jerry will ask them to them.

[Memnir]

I thought that was what Mournlands was for.. and for qualty testing.
Now that's the funniest thing I've read all day...

[Josh]

Fixed it.

Nice one. +1

[Josh]

I think it's a great thing for them to do, quite frankly. I'd be very happy to see something like this happen here.

But, that being said - I think the chances of it happening here are extremely remote at best.

I think I feel the same as you do. Which makes me a:

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/7/25/sadpandaneeds128614788256345848.jpg

The question is, why do we think this? Personally, I think it's because of the proven track record that the development team has shown to date. It can get quite discouraging.

[Josh]

The question is where do they get their consensus from how do they know they're speaking for the actual player base as opposed to the highly motivated highly vocal minority of the player base that has the most ideas, desires and opinions, and the most get up and go to try and push those ideas?

From what I gathered from the article the CSM polls on the forums, and in game. That way you cover all the bases. Everyone has an opportunity to speak. It's like voting. Everyone has the same opportunity to speak their mind.

It wouldn't be a very effective system if it prevented some from participating. That being said, the system is only as good as the amount of people that choose to participate. Just like voting.

[cdemeritt]

I thought we had this, and that panel consisted of Borror0

[Josh]

We actually have Jerry with DDOCast that essentially does this. He has a segment called AskTheDevs. Players can write in questions that you want the Devs to answer and Jerry will ask them to them.

Yes, I am aware of that. However, it's not the same as what the CSM represents. In the podcast, the developers get to cherrypick the questions they want to answer. This is not true player input IMO. The really tough, or inflammatory questions never get answered on the podcast.

And, the podcast is Jerry's thing if I am not mistaken. Turbine has no obligation to participate in it. In the CSM, developers have no choice but to listen. There's a big distinction between the two.

[Josh]

I thought we had this, and that panel consisted of Borror0

No, that's the death pannels that are coming due to government health care. Borrror0 is the head fiend on that thing.

[Eladiun]

Funcom had class reps voted by the forums for each class back in the AO days.

[Josh]

I think the bigger picture is not that CCP is listening to their players in such a manner, it's the fact that CCP did this of their own choosing. Nobody is forcing CCP to do this. They were smart enough to realize that the best interests of the game are the best interests of the players.

Even in MMO's if you don't give the customers what they want, they'll leave a lot sooner than if they are getting what they want. Obviously, this isn't a cart blanche type thing for the players to ram-rod ideas down the dev team's throat. It's an open forum to discuss player issues.

Because it's backed by CCP, it has real, tangible merit. To the best of my knowledge, this type of thing is unheard of in MMO circles.

[Josh]

Funcom had class reps voted by the forums for each class back in the AO days.

That's cool, I didn't know that. I wonder how much pull they had though. Remember, the CSM is afforded equal opportunity for developer time as all the other departments in CCP. That's real, tangible effect not just face time that amounts to nothing.

Good info though, thanks for sharing it.

[IronClan]

So can anyone cite some examples of changes that CSM has precipitated that may not have been Dev priority before they pushed for them, and the impact of those changes within that game?

The thing I mistrust is that players by in large only know what they would like FOR THEMSELVES and possibly like minded players, this doesn't actually translate into something that is always good for the game as a whole.

Designers even when they have a distinct disconnect with the player base -- and turbine has this disconnect (chances are they don't even know it) -- still probably do a better job of guiding their games and sticking with an overall direction and cohesive design; because a union sometimes can't see the forest for the trees, any more than a child can see that eating a whole package of cookies is a bad idea for them. Unions often do things that are actually BAD for it's members.

All that said, I am on the fence on this idea, I just have reservations that it would be something political and easily misused to push an agenda, of people who are the most motivated and outspoken on these forums. And the most motivated to vote or complete surveys etc.. That don't necessarily represent the best interest of the game. Or for that matter an actual majority of players. I mean whats to stop the heads of CSM from saying a pet idea has a 60% majority of the player base when the poll actually showed 30% voted for it and 30% indifferent and 40% against the idea? 30% + 30% well the for and indifferent outnumber the against! Or "hey it wasn't exactly a majority but we the leaders of the CSM know whats best for the player base, and we all like this idea so we'll pretend we got a majority for their own good...

I can think of several hot button topics that would derail this discussion immediately so I wont name them, but chances are anyone reading this knows a couple themselves... Do those intensely debated topics get pushed by a player union if the leaders of the union want it? Do they even bother with polls and if they do who's overseeing the accuracy of the polling or the wording of the polls?

Ask yourself this assuming you can think of at least one feature you like that a vocal group on the forums hates, how would you feel about that group being in charge of a DDO version of a player union?

As far as the feasibility of making a player union... well that's the simplest matter of all, the only thing needed to create it is just to do so... Get enough people to buy into it and it's unstoppable... And that's another problem with unions... once it's big enough there's not a **** thing anyone can do to stop it and you as a player have the choice of join and pay dues or be a scab and be excluded and discriminated against. :)

[Stormwine]

As far as how the CSM is chose they have a yearly election, people get one vote per account on a special page on their site.

Something that the CSM are directly responsible for. The top one that comes to mind is the Faction warfare. There are four races in EvE and after the first CSM gathering in Reykjavik a new facet of the game was added to enhance the PvP by creating "strongholds" in certain systems that could be fought over for sovereignty in that system. There were new faction ships that were added to the game as rewards for this. Plus the CSM has contributed greatly to the input of the new expansions that have come out since its inception. Like the creation of Tier 3 ships, and from what I understand new classes of of their two ships coming soon as well. I will say after playing EvE for 4 years now it was a great idea that has done nothing but enhance the game. As far as players that are chosen it tends to have a good cross section of the EvE player types. Which for EvE are the Pirates (pvpers), the hard core industrialists, the mission runners, and those that like to take part in the large alliances made up od several corporations (guilds) for the sole purpose of owning star systems, and galaxies. I say the only group that some times get left out are the Role players but the community as a whole does not forget them.

[Ethias]

I completely hated a system somewhat similar in DAoC, but it may have been how it was set up. In DAOC they had class representatives but they did not do equal amounts of pushing so their classes did not see equal attention in the whining >.> DAoC class leads had quite a bit of pull, but it may have caused as many problems as not having them in the first place.

Ok, anyway, I would not be opposed to a system like this for DDO but I also do not know if it is necessary. In many games (and I assumed it was this way in DDO?), the community manager people are supposed to be another link between player concerns and the Devs. I tend to think such systems have to be very closely watched so they do not end up dominated by people with an agenda they don't even realize they have. I personally believe any really good idea presented on these forums has a chance to be heard, either through direct developer notice (since some of them appear to browse & answer forums), or through CMs showing them it. Some players have remarked that Eladrin's latest puzzles are things players have directly requested... I tend to think having another group of players pestering the Devs could bring about some change in direction, but I'm not really certain; if they can ignore all the forum threads on issues which they OBVIOUSLY know exist since sometimes Turbine people post in them, I'm not sure what impact a group will have. But eh, what's the worst that could happen?

After all, it'd be pretty badass if we had one of the player council people have to resign because they were using knowledge of upcoming changes to gain advantages in game, like what happened in EVE. XD

[Stormwine]

I think the bigger picture is not that CCP is listening to their players in such a manner, it's the fact that CCP did this of their own choosing. Nobody is forcing CCP to do this. They were smart enough to realize that the best interests of the game are the best interests of the players.

Even in MMO's if you don't give the customers what they want, they'll leave a lot sooner than if they are getting what they want. Obviously, this isn't a cart blanche type thing for the players to ram-rod ideas down the dev team's throat. It's an open forum to discuss player issues.

Because it's backed by CCP, it has real, tangible merit. To the best of my knowledge, this type of thing is unheard of in MMO circles.

DDO also has a fanfest once a year in Iceland that I have been fortunate enough to attend. All of the developers show up to these and truly look for fan input on the game. Eve may not have the largest fan base but I would have to say its the most loyal. The problem is the majority of long term players is too teach new players through tough love. I cant tell you how many times I have been in my Alliances home system (which is low sec open pvp)just to see a player no more than a week or two into the game asking why did you kill me, and the answer from the player is "because it's low sec and I can, welcome to eve". But it is really great the amount of interaction between the players and Devs.

[Stormwine]

After all, it'd be pretty badass if we had one of the player council people have to resign because they were using knowledge of upcoming changes to gain advantages in game, like what happened in EVE. XD

That is the downfall to to much player Dev interaction, but way before the CSM one of the largest stories in EvE was a dev doing "special favors" for one particular Alliance, it was taken care of. But I similar things in EQ with gm's giving Uber gear to in game friends, its the nature of the MMO beast

[Mockduck]

I think the bigger picture is not that CCP is listening to their players in such a manner, it's the fact that CCP did this of their own choosing. Nobody is forcing CCP to do this. They were smart enough to realize that the best interests of the game are the best interests of the players.

Even in MMO's if you don't give the customers what they want, they'll leave a lot sooner than if they are getting what they want. Obviously, this isn't a cart blanche type thing for the players to ram-rod ideas down the dev team's throat. It's an open forum to discuss player issues.

Because it's backed by CCP, it has real, tangible merit. To the best of my knowledge, this type of thing is unheard of in MMO circles.

I thought CCP did this in response to issues where GMs were allying themselves with certain guilds and breaking company regulations about their powers? I remember there were serious ethical issues in Eve quite a while ago, prompting some GM staffing changes and the creation of this board. Over time, it's morphed into a part of community management. Cool stuff though!

I support this in DDO as long as our avatars can meet in the Hall of Justice:

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:JMeYaCt39OtiMM:http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/hall-of-justice.jpg

[Ethias]

That is the downfall to to much player Dev interaction, but way before the CSM one of the largest stories in EvE was a dev doing "special favors" for one particular Alliance, it was taken care of. But I similar things in EQ with gm's giving Uber gear to in game friends, its the nature of the MMO beast

Yes, I know. There were such stories in DAoC, too, about class leads & devs. The thing is, the more "secret" info you give to players, the more likely one of 'em is going to use it to their advantage. On the other hand, there are already such risks with Mournlands preview program... which kinda sounds like what this setup is in a lot of ways, but with Turbine picking the people and not the community.

EDIT: Which makes it nothing like what the CSM is, lol... but it'd be nice if the community was allowed to send certain people to Mournlands to test content and give player-drive feedback.

[IronClan]

Personally I wonder if unorganized player feedback especially on beta instances of the game like pre-patch servers etc. (Ulima Online did this by spawning a shard (server) that purely was for play testing upcoming changes and giving pre patch feedback) isn't already the best most organic unbiased way for Devs to get player feedback... But the Devs for reasons only they can answer don't always take the feedback.

(examples like bugs on Lamania making it into the publish and even into subsequent updates without fixes).

One thing about DDO, it's based on a long established rule set. Say what you will about it's trueness to D&D, and some of us feel it's a lot closer to D&D if not played like pure min/max powergamers than others, but it is based on a game that's been play tested more than any other game of this nature ever basically 40 years of playtesting and evolution... It is balanced a lot like P&P in that unlike many (most?) MMO's EVERY basic class is usefull and fun.. they aren't equal in power and this is exactly as it's supposed to be because P&P makes no bones about this not being a goal of the games mechanics.

IMO (I'm sure others will disagree) most of the "problems" in DDO are a direct result of either light implementation, or not implementing core D&D rules... I am fairly confident a lot of new players especially ones coming from NWN find some of these to be pretty annoying... however it's also obvious that if you changed or added some of those core rules, a lot of the more twitch oriented players would be very unhappy...

So who's right... who has the majority? Do we get rid of casting spells while jumping? Do we **** zergers off by adding a fatigue bar and sprinting only in short bursts? Lots of good twitch games have this (Counter Strike, Day of Defeat). Or do we make them rejoice by dumping Dungeon Alert and letting all the new players "deal with zerging this is DDO n00b" like the Eve example of a new player being ganked? I wonder if 51% of the player base dislikes zerging? Or maybe the majority loves zerging? Or speaking of ganked maybe 60% of the player base wants open PvP??? Does this player union then push for complete class balancing for PvP? D&D core class rules would have to be thrown away...

There are a lot of basic concepts here and it's not at all clear where the player base falls on them... what is clear is that the most motivated and most aggressive and vocal are also the most likely to try and be in positions of power... just like any union head or politician (same thing) the types of people you want speaking on your behalf are unfortunately almost never actually the ones who WANT to be elected to do it.

[Mindspat]

I thought CCP did this in response to issues where GMs were allying themselves with certain guilds and breaking company regulations about their powers? I remember there were serious ethical issues in Eve quite a while ago, prompting some GM staffing changes and the creation of this board. Over time, it's morphed into a part of community management. Cool stuff though!

I support this in DDO as long as our avatars can meet in the Hall of Justice:


That was the initial reason for it being created.

CCP is a ahead of the game. Those guys and gals rock! no, seriously, they really do rock: Permaband (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q)

:D

[Ethias]

That was the initial reason for it being created.

CCP is a ahead of the game. Those guys and gals rock! no, seriously, they really do rock: Permaband (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q)

:D

that's... lol, wow.

[Warlawk]

That was the initial reason for it being created.

CCP is a ahead of the game. Those guys and gals rock! no, seriously, they really do rock: Permaband (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q)

:D

Hah, good stuff!

I have to say I think that Shadowbane actually had a fantastic balance for dev/player interaction. They had a test server that was up almost all the time. It was usually down for a day when they would push new builds during each patch, and sometimes for a week or so after each patch while the next one was cleaned up to go from internal testing to live testing. It probably had less than a month of downtime out of each year. Now, the important part of the test server was that the devs were active on it. They would pop in and just randomly talk to people on the server. I recall starting a character there one time, I was like level 3 and AshenTemper whispered me to ask what I was making. The character I was rolling use one of the things they were keeping an eye on for that patch so he bumped me up to the level cap and asked me to PM him on the forums with my thoughts about it over the next few days.

Playing there I dealt directly with 3 different devs around a dozen times. Myself and a couple guildies found a nasty bug that allowed you to kill people inside a safe zone, and could be used to kill a LOT of people via AOE in a crowded area like a bank. We got to talk with a couple devs, walk them through the process and demonstrate it for them, then see it fixed in the next patch pushed to live. Very cool. (For anyone familiar with the game... druid earthquake had a long cast time, like 6 seconds. So you stand in the crowded safe zone bank and summon the druid. The druid starts casting his AOE while he is still out in the world, and accepts the summon. The AOE would go off even after he loaded into the bank in the safe zone and kill a bunch of people. It was tough to get the timing right, but could be done reliably with a bit of practice.)

Above and beyond this they had a "class lead" system where forum members were chosen (They could be nominated, or apply themselves) to represent each class and interact directly with the devs. I don't think they went so far as to fly them anywhere, but they had a dedicated set of forums, a number of live chat conferences and I believe some conference calls as well. The people considered for the positions were reviewed based on forum behavior and such to ensure they weren't just rabid nerf/buff zealots as well as reviewed for their in game guild membership to ensure they didn't associate themselves with guilds found to be involved in sketchy activities.

Overall it was a good system, and when the game changed ownership and that program ended, it really suffered for it.

[Josh]

Hah, good stuff!

I have to say I think that Shadowbane actually had a fantastic balance for dev/player interaction. They had a test server that was up almost all the time. It was usually down for a day when they would push new builds during each patch, and sometimes for a week or so after each patch while the next one was cleaned up to go from internal testing to live testing. It probably had less than a month of downtime out of each year. Now, the important part of the test server was that the devs were active on it. They would pop in and just randomly talk to people on the server. I recall starting a character there one time, I was like level 3 and AshenTemper whispered me to ask what I was making. The character I was rolling use one of the things they were keeping an eye on for that patch so he bumped me up to the level cap and asked me to PM him on the forums with my thoughts about it over the next few days.

Playing there I dealt directly with 3 different devs around a dozen times. Myself and a couple guildies found a nasty bug that allowed you to kill people inside a safe zone, and could be used to kill a LOT of people via AOE in a crowded area like a bank. We got to talk with a couple devs, walk them through the process and demonstrate it for them, then see it fixed in the next patch pushed to live. Very cool. (For anyone familiar with the game... druid earthquake had a long cast time, like 6 seconds. So you stand in the crowded safe zone bank and summon the druid. The druid starts casting his AOE while he is still out in the world, and accepts the summon. The AOE would go off even after he loaded into the bank in the safe zone and kill a bunch of people. It was tough to get the timing right, but could be done reliably with a bit of practice.)

Above and beyond this they had a "class lead" system where forum members were chosen (They could be nominated, or apply themselves) to represent each class and interact directly with the devs. I don't think they went so far as to fly them anywhere, but they had a dedicated set of forums, a number of live chat conferences and I believe some conference calls as well. The people considered for the positions were reviewed based on forum behavior and such to ensure they weren't just rabid nerf/buff zealots as well as reviewed for their in game guild membership to ensure they didn't associate themselves with guilds found to be involved in sketchy activities.

Overall it was a good system, and when the game changed ownership and that program ended, it really suffered for it.

That's good info man. Thanks for posting.

[Stormwine]

Eve also has a test serve that is up almost all of the time. They bring it down only to add the new content they test. But Shadow bane was also another great game. I had an active account on that game from when it went up till when it came down. I think I was actually up to 5 accounts once it went 100% free lol. Between my 2 comps I had all 5 running at once lol.

[chubbs99]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the description of the CCP, it sounds a lot like the job of Tarrant and Tolero are doing now. They read the forums to find out what we the players are talking about, and pass that information over to the Dev's and the people that matter.

The problem I see with the current set up though, is there is no transparency. We know our voices are being heard, but it seems as if the Dev's have just put us on mute sometimes. And aside from major out crys at stupid ideas (offer wall), We have no direct effect on anything they are planning at any given time. Its politics at its worst really. Turbine are our lord's and masters having absolute control over the game. T & T are appointed voices of the people. And we the people, make sure Turbine can claim to be powered by their fans by making sure to pay our due's and taxes (subscriptions & DDO store), cause with Fan's that big... Someone's got to pay the electric bill.

[Warlawk]

Eve also has a test serve that is up almost all of the time. They bring it down only to add the new content they test. But Shadow bane was also another great game. I had an active account on that game from when it went up till when it came down. I think I was actually up to 5 accounts once it went 100% free lol. Between my 2 comps I had all 5 running at once lol.

Heh, at one point I had 3 computers and boxed a full group of 10... but that was awkward to say the least.

This is a bit off topic... but shadowbane is being rebuilt from the ground up as an emu project. It is strictly volunteer work and they cannot accept donations as that could result in a lawsuit for trying to profit off the trademark. The team is literally rewriting the server side engine from scratch. They have the world server, the geography and building/terrain architecture in place as well as the basic combat engine in place. They are populating mobs and working out the power coding now I think. They've already done one stress test and let a bunch of people log in to test the stability of the servers and it all went smooth. Currently they have a small private test team to help them iron out bugs and such before they move on to a bigger beta test team. It will be completely free, though I do not expect it will be up for several months yet. Just google SBEmu and you can find the forums easy enough.

[Josh]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the description of the CCP, it sounds a lot like the job of Tarrant and Tolero are doing now. They read the forums to find out what we the players are talking about, and pass that information over to the Dev's and the people that matter.

The problem I see with the current set up though, is there is no transparency. We know our voices are being heard, but it seems as if the Dev's have just put us on mute sometimes. And aside from major out crys at stupid ideas (off wall), We have no direct effect on anything they are planning at any given time. Its politics at its worst really. Turbine are our lord's and masters having absolute control over the game. T & T are appointed voices of the people. And we the people, make sure Turbine can claim to be powered by their fans by making sure to pay our due's and taxes (subscriptions & DDO store), cause with Fan's that big... Someone's got to pay the electric bill.

This is a good point. There's no transparancy. They may say that they bring issues from the forums to the development team, but there's no way to verify that. Also, there could be the issue of bias with the people that are supposed to be doing that job.

I don't think that the system "as is" works very well at all. We need something much better.

The balls in your court Turbine. You have plenty of customers willing to step up to the challenge to make this game even better. The question is, are they?

[lutherl]

This really isn't a new thing. SOE has been doing something similar for years (example (http://www.thesafehouse.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-10729.html) of a after-summit report including a list of specific changes to be made based on summit feedback).

It's cool, sure, but in a way it's not much different than when players go to sponsored events like FanFaire.

[Josh]

This really isn't a new thing. SOE has been doing something similar for years (example (http://www.thesafehouse.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-10729.html) of a after-summit report including a list of specific changes to be made based on summit feedback).

It's cool, sure, but in a way it's not much different than when players go to sponsored events like FanFaire.

SoE's concept is similar, but the distinction I'd like to point out is that the CSM has equal access to developer time as everyone else. The players are prioritizing what gets added / fixed.. They're not relying in the developes to tell them what from their list is going to be addressed.

It's not just "here's our list of things that we would like addressed" and hope for the best.

[lutherl]

SoE's concept is similar, but the distinction I'd like to point out is that the CSM has equal access to developer time as everyone else.

Or at least that's what we're told...maybe I'm just in a cynical turn of mind, however.

[Josh]

Or at least that's what we're told...maybe I'm just in a cynical turn of mind, however.

That's what I read in the article. PC Gamer has always been a credible source, so I have no reason to not believe them. Especially since they sat in on the mettings between the CSM and the development team. I'm sure if the CSM felt they weren't getting the resources promised to them there would have been some backlash.

It doesn't seem like a dog and pony show from what I've read.

[Josh]

Yes, I know. There were such stories in DAoC, too, about class leads & devs. The thing is, the more "secret" info you give to players, the more likely one of 'em is going to use it to their advantage. On the other hand, there are already such risks with Mournlands preview program... which kinda sounds like what this setup is in a lot of ways, but with Turbine picking the people and not the community.

EDIT: Which makes it nothing like what the CSM is, lol... but it'd be nice if the community was allowed to send certain people to Mournlands to test content and give player-drive feedback.

Player driven content would be a very good thing for this game.

I imagine that the elected members of the CSM are under some kind of NDA. Not that NDA's are a perfect means of controling IP though...

[Josh]

That is the downfall to to much player Dev interaction, but way before the CSM one of the largest stories in EvE was a dev doing "special favors" for one particular Alliance, it was taken care of. But I similar things in EQ with gm's giving Uber gear to in game friends, its the nature of the MMO beast

The article in PC Gamer talks about this a little. The player who pulled the Woodward and Berndstein got banned for disclosing the developer's name on the forums. The developer was not fired to the best of my knowledge. I'm sure he must have received some kind of reprimand though.

Those kind of things are always going to happen, and are not limited to games.

[Josh]

That was the initial reason for it being created.

CCP is a ahead of the game. Those guys and gals rock! no, seriously, they really do rock: Permaband (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q)

:D

That is ****ing tremendous.

[Drfirewater79]

I love this idea ...

it makes more sense to have a company that is willing to fight for the issues for the players then have us try to get anything though to dev team ...

Players are often to involved and get quite heated especially when they think they are not being listened too (yes i am a memeber of the one+ infraction point a week club) ...

when we give good ideas to fix major issues in game ....... nothing gets mentioned .. .when we give bad ideas to fix major issues in game nothing gets mentioned ... eventually you just get ****ed and start throwing the poo around then bam thread gets closed before any answers are given ...

I think the idea of a intermediary is great choice for turbine to make ... and just give up on doing anything but moderating the forums and let the info getting and dev sharing come through a third party company so we have no one to hate on for it ...

only problem is they are just as likely to ignore good suggestions from them as well ...

[Magusrex777]

I am actually on an advisory council for software that our company uses. There are about 15 of us. We are administrators or owners of different size companies that use nearly all the features and have proven to be able to customize the software with a high degree of skill. They fly us out once a year to a warm location in the winter(last Year Vegas, next year Cabo :) They treat us VERY well. We give presentations about how we each think they can improve the software. They show us what they are working on. We have access to the owner of the company and all the lead developers of the various departments. One day we present, one day they present and we have brainstorming sessions at night and on the the third day in small groups. Much of what is in the next builds of the software come from these meetings.

I think Turbine could benefit from rounding up a diverse, small group players and picking their brains in person over a few days. Turbine, I am very good at this, pick me :) There is real merit in speaking with a small group of your customers on a very intimate basis. You will hear some things you do not like, but if you're serious about improving your product you need to hear these things. The nice thing is that face to face the criticisms are delivered politely and constructively. You can figure out who to choose based on how constructive they have posted or have given you feedback in a critical but constructive manner. I would start by removing anyone you have needed to discipline or reprimand from consideration, people like that would spoil the experience.

[Captain_Wizbang]

You know whats missing from this thread?
Some one from Turbine giving a response!
The chances of any direct input from us with game development are so far from reality that Vegas cant even put odds on it!

It has been demonstrated time and time again with whatever beta server we have!
Sure SOME things get fixed, but we are just there for reporting bugs! THATS IT!

Like I keep saying, the last good content was GH & Vale; until we see a real effort put back into game development, any and all thoughts we have is lost in cyber-space!
Lets hope the new patch/update/mod (whatever) hits the mark; or we wont see founders and 4 year players making posts here!
They will be playing Eve online, or some other game!

So, OP + 1 for another great idea,
We'll put that in the "will get to it" file!

[Rumbaar]

I long for the day when DDO can stand side by side with the awesomeness that is CCP. They've had their issues with Dev's in Alliances, etc. But their single shard and player interactivity is second to none!

Their API's and inner and outer player tools and interactions are something that all MMO's should strive for.

Now that DDO has the influx of players and $$$ I hope these things should come to pass.

[Rice]

I have a feeling that they read the forums and DO take some of the suggestions seriously.

However, I also have a feeling that is the extent of their relationship with the players. I don't think they actually *play the game on live servers* with their characters and have real-time interaction with the players. Sometimes, you need to experience things first-hand in order to realize what changes are needed if no words are going to change your mind.

I honestly don't think any of the developers play a level 20 (or more than 1) and raid on a consistent basis. If they DO, then they are simply being lazy about making changes. The developers need to actually *play their game the way the players do* instead of simply relying on sandboxing. What happens with sandbox testing the game is the result of the current pale master.

Of course this restricts development time, but it IS called *research* and development.

[Josh]

I have a feeling that they read the forums and DO take some of the suggestions seriously.

However, I also have a feeling that is the extent of their relationship with the players. I don't think they actually *play the game on live servers* with their characters and have real-time interaction with the players. Sometimes, you need to experience things first-hand in order to realize what changes are needed if no words are going to change your mind.

I honestly don't think any of the developers play a level 20 (or more than 1) and raid on a consistent basis. If they DO, then they are simply being lazy about making changes. The developers need to actually *play their game the way the players do* instead of simply relying on sandboxing. What happens with sandbox testing the game is the result of the current pale master.

Of course this restricts development time, but it IS called *research* and development.

Spot on IMO. I've thought this for many years now.

+1

[Josh]

I love this idea ...

it makes more sense to have a company that is willing to fight for the issues for the players then have us try to get anything though to dev team ...

Players are often to involved and get quite heated especially when they think they are not being listened too (yes i am a memeber of the one+ infraction point a week club) ...

when we give good ideas to fix major issues in game ....... nothing gets mentioned .. .when we give bad ideas to fix major issues in game nothing gets mentioned ... eventually you just get ****ed and start throwing the poo around then bam thread gets closed before any answers are given ...

I think the idea of a intermediary is great choice for turbine to make ... and just give up on doing anything but moderating the forums and let the info getting and dev sharing come through a third party company so we have no one to hate on for it ...

only problem is they are just as likely to ignore good suggestions from them as well ...

That's the beauty of the CSM, CCP gives them equal priority to any other group in the company for development time.