Council Reboot

    Gasboy

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    It will show the community what is actually achievable in the short term of the game - Schine already has a long term roadmap, they already know what direction they want to take the game in. Issues that arise will be communicated with Schine - we have a very vocal community.

    The community voting on features/additions that Schine lay out is to reveal what is possible in the short term. Revealing achievable goals and prioritising them according to what the community votes seems like a much better way to go about organising short term goals. Perhaps expanding on this and somehow gathering suggestions without the bias of a human council (perhaps a keyword/thread/tag sorting method to find popular suggestions)

    Robot council?
    But if the short term goals are part of the long term roadmap, then those short term goals will make it into the game whether people vote on them or not, yes? Or can players cause certain things to be dropped by not voting for them?

    This is the equivalent of bread and circuses to keep the players distracted instead of making them part of the actual process.

    And taking the "human bias" out of the process of picking and choosing ideas to present to Schine is rather disingenuous.

    Why even have voting again, if a "robot" council could sort the tags/keywords and find the popular things that could be just inserted into the game by Schine?
     

    AndyP

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    While I like the idea of the Council, and it is good in theory; I feel a major issue it had/has is the falloff of interest in the council members and the community. It seems like an unnecessary barrier between Schine and the community.

    I understand Schine does not have the time, energy or resources to be perusing through the suggestion forums. Finding issues and feature requests is time that could be spent on bugfixes, coffee and sleep.

    I propose, in order to discover the communities demand quickly; Make the community vote for features/updates instead of the council.

    So the process would go something like this:


    Major update release:
    • Update notes
    • Bugfix list
    • Videos, etc

    "... so now we should have [x] because [y]
    What would you like the next major addition to be? Vote here:
    (link) "


    The link will take you to a forum post or webpage to vote on the next feature, which should be decided upon by Schine.
    There should be 3-5 selections, you must set preference for all of them - this will provide information on what order the additions should be completed according to demand.

    This will ensure Schine still ultimately has control over what information they want to release to the public, as well as revealing a short term plan of game development, as well as involving the community by allowing them to directly influence the development pacing and short term direction.

    The additions that Schine list for voting should also come with an approximation the work involved, not an ETA, but the theoretical workload.

    I feel this would engage the community a lot more than a 7 person filter to it's voice.

    EDIT:
    I should make it clear that the additions Schine outline must be possible short term options.
    In theory a good idea,
    and if it would be possible to do that we would for sure go for that solution.

    However, Gasboy already mentioned one of the key problems in that:
    If we cant load off reading and filtering for specific suggestions to the council, we wont be able to keep up with them at all.

    And all our "short term" things are mostly driven by external factors.

    We have always 3-4 projects running that are on the way down this list:
    - planning
    - building samples
    - building assets
    - creating textures
    - creating 3d models
    - writing the code
    - testing the code
    - balancing the config for them
    - writing descriptions or adding and registering strings for possible text labels for translation
    (Not everything needs every step)

    But you can imagine, that any "decision" will need at least 3-4 weeks for coordinating and finishing it, even if its just a tiny grate type block the former council asked for in one of the meetings.

    So giving those options, would need them already 80-90% done, as we often discover requirements for other things that need to be updated/changed for our addition to work.

    Like having 20 puzzle parts with things we want to change, but each part has like 1-10 prerequisites that need to be filled before it can be used.
    Circular prerequisites that make it impossible to start somewhere without breaking existing things, are quite common. Its then our decision to find the best spot to break that ring.
    We cant give that to the community as they would need deep insights in plans we have, in terms of relations between systems and also understand the code side of all of those involved modules.

    So it is impossible to achieve good decisions with "voted" next steps. Unless we publish heavily biased data and examples to make the community decide the way, we can do it, without rendering the game 6 months unplayable before the missing puzzle part finally arrives. (ome may argue we do that anyway, but we try to minimise the damage/problems as far as possible!)

    With a dedicated council, we can put them under a NDA
    and let them come a lot closer to the real details, and find ways to get a feedback from the community.
    As they usually have a better view from the player side, than we have.

    We also want to host, support, promote and participate in community events, but do not have the time for planning and detailing them, or even building the locations (or find someone to do it, without complains about our choice...).

    Those events can also be a good place to get in touch with the community.
    And create opportunities to get feedback in a different way.

    Imaginary example for this:
    We want to improve on astronaut fighting,
    we tell the council about this and they create an event for this,
    knowing we want feedback on current weak and strong points.
    While testing the event arena with them,
    we may find problems we did not know about, and fix them before the event,
    and possibly even test the improvements while holding the event and gather specific data from the event.

    So while it is "just an event" for the community, it may turn out as cooperation between the Council and Schine,
    we can then have the Council present the results of the event and proposed changes we need to improve on that game mechanic.

    If Schine would host that event directly, we would not have the time to focus on the things that do not work well,
    or may end up with an arena that completely negates the problems we are looking for
    because it was built to compensate that by someone who ran events like this before.
    And then we spent a week on something that does not yield any useful information for us.

    - Andy
     
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    Raisinbat

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    Anything based on popular vote is going to be more roleplaying and aesthetics while ignoring gameplay. Why bother, just pile on beach balls and furniture like starbound did.
     

    Gasboy

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    Anything based on popular vote is going to be more roleplaying and aesthetics while ignoring gameplay. Why bother, just pile on beach balls and furniture like starbound did.
    So the council is about roleplaying and aesthetics and ignores gameplay?

    A little context, please?
     

    Raisinbat

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    So the council is about roleplaying and aesthetics and ignores gameplay?
    Popular vote = what most people on forum want
    most people on forum = roleplaying, aesthetics and star trek replica builders who have never played the game and have no idea how it works.

    For reference, see the entire power thread. Schine needs to be strapped to a chair and forced to read through it clockwork orange style so they can fully appreciate what they've created.
     

    Gasboy

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    Popular vote = what most people on forum want
    most people on forum = roleplaying, aesthetics and star trek replica builders who have never played the game and have no idea how it works.

    For reference, see the entire power thread. Schine needs to be strapped to a chair and forced to read through it clockwork orange style so they can fully appreciate what they've created.
    So are you replying to the OP or are you replying to Crusade?
     

    AndyP

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    Anything based on popular vote is going to be more roleplaying and aesthetics while ignoring gameplay. Why bother, just pile on beach balls and furniture like starbound did.
    I wont go far enough to say they will ignore gameplay, but thats the reason we want community representatives, and not forum votes for decisions.
    While the Council as representatives would have a good chance to come from actual communities
    (that are not "only on the forums")
    and gather a reasonable amount of votes to then represent their community playstyle and opinions.

    However, the power system is not part of this topic, so please stay on topic.
     

    DukeofRealms

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    I propose, in order to discover the communities demand quickly; Make the community vote for features/updates instead of the council.
    While suggestion filtering and opinions are nice, I don't think they are that valuable and are a waste of both the Council's and Schine's time. It's not satisfying for Council members, it provides little to no impact on the community in the council term (short term impact) and provides minimum value to Schine. Some Schine members will disagree with me about that. I would like to see suggestion filtering eliminated. However, we did see some usefulness in the last few weeks of the previous Council, where AndyP made some significant changes.

    Suggestion filtering was conceived by the first Council, while it is helpful, it's not very rewarding to Councillors or the community. This is why we're moving away from the Council being a representative of the community. Instead, the Council can have a meaningful impact on the game through the community itself. Through events (competitions, tournaments), community spotlights and community event promotions. These sorts of things provide meaningful and fun outlets for the community (gameplay), content and exposure to the great things our community members are doing.

    For example, running a NPC Faction Pack competition would provide an event for shipbuilders to participate in, while it wouldn't be content entering the game (like with our fleets competition), it could be for promoting and recognising community builds. Not only does it provide promotion for builders, but it also provides content for the community to use (downloads in the CC section).

    Another example would be a PVP event, provides gameplay for PVP players as well as an opportunity for video content, such as twitch streams and YT videos. Making good content for streamers to stream and ensuring that they are being exposed to the StarMade community increases stream views (encouraging streamers to stream more StarMade), provides video content for our community as well as further StarMade exposure, hopefully encouraging potential players to download the game and join in.

    There's plenty of things the Council can do that don't directly impact in-game content but do provide a valuable service to the community. This is the direction I think we should be taking the Council in.
     

    Calhoun

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    Popular vote = what most people on forum want
    most people on forum = roleplaying, aesthetics and star trek replica builders who have never played the game and have no idea how it works.

    For reference, see the entire power thread. Schine needs to be strapped to a chair and forced to read through it clockwork orange style so they can fully appreciate what they've created.
    Just FYI, Both Aesthetics and myself plan to run for council. One of the things we want to do is value and include both sides of Starmade, namely the PvP and Creative players. Ultimately, both are important, and both should be equally represented. We've actually collected a bit of a team who are experienced in all kinds of things to help keep us balanced and tell us where to shove it if it comes to that!

    Anyway, I have no doubt that the PvP side of the community will be represented no matter who ends up elected.
     
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    Aesthetics

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    Just FYI, Both Aesthetics and myself plan to run for council. One of the things we want to do is value and include both sides of Starmade, namely the PvP and Creative players. Ultimately, both are important, and both should be equally represented. We've actually collected a bit of a team who are experienced in all kinds of things to help keep us balanced and tell us where to shove it if it comes to that!

    Anyway, I have no doubt that the PvP side of the community will be represented no matter who ends up elected.
    Can confirm. While me and Calhoun will be running independently, we will be cooperating with each other and a wonderful campaign team if and when Term 4 rolls around.
     
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    While suggestion filtering and opinions are nice, I don't think they are that valuable and are a waste of both the Council's and Schine's time. It's not satisfying for Council members, it provides little to no impact on the community in the council term (short term impact) and provides minimum value to Schine. Some Schine members will disagree with me about that. I would like to see suggestion filtering eliminated. However, we did see some usefulness in the last few weeks of the previous Council, where AndyP made some significant changes.

    Suggestion filtering was conceived by the first Council, while it is helpful, it's not very rewarding to Councillors or the community. This is why we're moving away from the Council being a representative of the community. Instead, the Council can have a meaningful impact on the game through the community itself. Through events (competitions, tournaments), community spotlights and community event promotions. These sorts of things provide meaningful and fun outlets for the community (gameplay), content and exposure to the great things our community members are doing.

    For example, running a NPC Faction Pack competition would provide an event for shipbuilders to participate in, while it wouldn't be content entering the game (like with our fleets competition), it could be for promoting and recognising community builds. Not only does it provide promotion for builders, but it also provides content for the community to use (downloads in the CC section).

    Another example would be a PVP event, provides gameplay for PVP players as well as an opportunity for video content, such as twitch streams and YT videos. Making good content for streamers to stream and ensuring that they are being exposed to the StarMade community increases stream views (encouraging streamers to stream more StarMade), provides video content for our community as well as further StarMade exposure, hopefully encouraging potential players to download the game and join in.

    There's plenty of things the Council can do that don't directly impact in-game content but do provide a valuable service to the community. This is the direction I think we should be taking the Council in.
    Sound and feels like the council is tasked with promotional work...
     

    The_Owl

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    Just FYI, Both Aesthetics and myself plan to run for council. One of the things we want to do is value and include both sides of Starmade, namely the PvP and Creative players. Ultimately, both are important, and both should be equally represented. We've actually collected a bit of a team who are experienced in all kinds of things to help keep us balanced and tell us where to shove it if it comes to that!

    Anyway, I have no doubt that the PvP side of the community will be represented no matter who ends up elected.
    I thought that entire "running for council" lark was a joke

    dear god it's the american elections all over again
     
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    Ithirahad

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    While suggestion filtering and opinions are nice, I don't think they are that valuable and are a waste of both the Council's and Schine's time. It's not satisfying for Council members, it provides little to no impact on the community in the council term (short term impact) and provides minimum value to Schine. Some Schine members will disagree with me about that. I would like to see suggestion filtering eliminated. However, we did see some usefulness in the last few weeks of the previous Council, where AndyP made some significant changes.
    Whatever he did, that Phab queue of compiled minor features is excellent. I would assume that the Council will still be involved in a process like that, while their main functions are more like community management/promotional work?

    Popular vote = what most people on forum want
    most people on forum = roleplaying, aesthetics and star trek replica builders who have never played the game and have no idea how it works.
    If they're on this forum, it's probably because they play or played the game. If you mean that as in "done competitive-level PvP" then maybe?
     

    AtraUnam

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    Another council another chance too see if anyone is actually crazy enough to vote for me.
     
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    The whole idea of the Council is splendid, but it won't really work with starmade, because it all takes too long. Like "Oh, well, Councillors approved something I proposed 1 year ago. Beautiful. Call me when Schine implements it, perhaps, my grandsons will be grown up enough to play starmade at that time".
    Or "Councils are working as a PR department of Schine, but what can I really ask them, if the Schine team itself is not quite sure, what they are doing and at what time this gonna happen?".
    Seriously.
    There are only 2-3 questions most people are interested in: when major updates are coming and when starmade is out of alpha. You don't really need 7 people to answer those. You need 7 more programmers to freaking DO IT.

    In my opinion, community management is not an issue at this time for starmade, since the community itself is fading day by day.