The Tavern

I just read this stickyat the Wesnoth forum, and thought it was really helpful, (I will post different titles now than I would have before). I realize that it probably doesn't have much relevance to YASD or Crazy Yuif, but it seems pretty. applicable to Game Design. If it is helpful to you, I'm glad.

Thanks, that's indeed some very good guidelines. If anyone wants to write something similar for crawl, that would be great.

I thought we were more about "keep it simple, stupid" when it came to rules? Wesnoth's forums are way bigger than ours, and I'm pretty sure their dev team is too (have you ever sat through the full credits for that game?!) so they have more a need for structure. Oh well, let's see how quickly I can trim down / rewrite this to be crawl specific.

This post serves the purpose of a first draft, open to revision and criticism. Once we like it, we can copy and sticky it.

------begin draft-------

Helpful posting Guidelines for Game Design:

The purpose of this sub-forum is discussion of improvements and changes to the game outside of the main dev wiki. As such, you should either be proposing some change to the game, or discussing and/or criticizing an existing proposal or game mechanic. Here are some guidelines.

This is not the place to report bugs. Bug reports go here.

When Proposing a New Idea:

Rule -1. Before proposing anything, please familiarize yourself with the philosophy section of the crawl manual. All suggested changes to the game should be in line with the stated game philosophy.

Rule 0. Make sure your idea is not on the List of Things that won't be Done.

Rule 1. Do a quick search of the forum, the dev wiki, and the change log. You don't need to be hyper-thorough, but please try and make sure your idea hasn't been posted elsewhere, or has been already implemented.

Rule 2. Proposal of a new idea generally warrants a new thread. It's all right if a new idea arises organically while discussing something else, but if you like the idea, don't try and hijack the thread. Move the discussion to a new one.

Rule 3. Give your thread a clear, appropriate title. This makes everyone's lives easier, especially anyone trying to do a search.

Good example: "Addition of Holy Cows as a Playable Race"

Bad example: "My idea", "How about this!", or "Mooooooo! <3". etc.

Rule 4. Criticism of existing mechanics, and the ideas of others, should be kept civil and constructive. "____ sucks!" is not constructive criticism.

Rule 5. Clearly explain the reasons why you think existing game elements should be changed or removed, or why your addition should be included. Declaring something "broken" is not enough- explain specifically how or how the mechanic detracts from the game. Explain how your change(s) would improve things.

Basically, lay out details and try and build a logical argument for your case. Illogical, or detail-less proposals will likely be ignored.

Rule 6. Write well. Proposals need to be clear in order to be understood- so the tone of your post should be more formal than normal, rambling forum chatter. Basically, your post should read like the work you used to do for your English professor, not like casual speech.

Rule 7. When someone else criticizes your idea (and someone will!), take it stride. Listen. Adapt your proposal if need be. Bow to the logic of others if there's a flaw in your own.

Do not belligerently make the same case over and over. There's nothing wrong with restating yourself, or clarifying if you think you've been misunderstood, or trying to make your case in front of a skeptical audience, but that's a far cry from refusing to admit when you're wrong.

Rule 8. If your idea is received positively, move your proposal to the brainstorming wiki for further debate, consideration, refinement and (hopefully) implementation. Discussion in this forum is just the first step, a proving ground if you will. Wikifying an idea makes it more official, and presents it to the devs who don't frequent the forum.

Rule Q. If all else fails, you can always throw your idea out in the generic brainstorming thread. We don't take things so seriously over there, and there's always the faint hope an idea will be picked up. After all, phase bats made it in!

-----end draft-----

Okay, I'm done. Surprising how much of that is the same as what I tell students trying to write lab reports. :p I tried as much as possible to put the crawl specific things first, and then pared down the Wesnoth rules to what I thought were the bare essentials (they were far more specific, and provided more details, but again, they're bigger and have a higher volume of posters throwing proposals around). I was originally gonna include a second part for guidelines on criticizing / discussing the ideas of others, but in the end I felt that was kind of belaboring the point.

Thoughts, comments, revisions?

Thanks a lot, this is a good start. I wouldn't call them rules though. I like the tone of wesnoth guideline. It isn't telling people how to write their post. It is giving advice for how to present an idea so that it can be understood an accepted.
For rule 5, I'd tell people to flesh out their proposal. Think of special cases, try to provide numbers and formulas. Complete and well though out proposals have a higher chance of making it in, because it leaves less work for the devs.
Rule 6 goes a bit too far imo. Just tell them to write clearly, not formally.

Any idea of what to call them besides rules? I get your logic- these are guidelines to try and get better posts, and save people from making common mistakes, and not something we enforce with a banhammer. But I like the hierarchical numbering, and "rule 0" reads better than "0".

I broke 5 into two rules, I think part of the problem was I was trying to say two things at once ("be specific" and "be logical").

----revisions----

Rule 5. Provide details, and flesh out ideas as much as possible. The more work you put into something, and the less you leave for the devs, the more likely your idea is to get in. Consider special cases and how your proposed changes interact with the rest of the game. Provide numbers and formulas when you can, and when it is relevant. You can even take this concept to it's logical conclusion, and submit a patch for the change yourself!

Rule 6. Proposed changes should be backed by reason. Present a your case logically: why do you think the part of the game needs to be changed? What is the reason this change is a good idea?

Good example: "We should add holy cows because they provide an interesting playstyle not available to any other race, they have a new and unique combination of racial aptitudes, and provide a flavorful counterpoint to both demonspawn and felids."

Bad example: "___ is broken".

Rule [s]6[/s]7. Use clear language, straightforward prose, and standard sentence and paragraph structures. Avoid rambling, unusual diction, running sentences or paragraphs together, quirky style, etc. if you want to be understood and taken seriously.

[All subsequent rules bumped by 1].

---end draft----

Is my new rule 6 too long? I don't know if I need the silly good example, I just really want to make a point that just throwing "it's broken!" without proof or an argument behind it is bad. Is the rule on clarity clear? It's hard to get "don't write crazy" across in a sensible way, without just linking to bad examples (which is mean and would be kind of a bad practice).

I would call them rules, and then explicitly state that 'they're more like guidelines, anyway'.

New rules 5 and 6 are good, I think, though I agree with minmay about the good/bad examples.

I would probably add another rule:

Rule N. Respect the other people on here. Even if they make a remarkably bass-ackward idea or brain-dead idea, don't be nasty to them (even if it would be immensely satisfying). People will listen to you much better if you don't start by suggest that they are a mentally deficient a-hole or something like it. The reason this is important is two-fold. First, this forum is pretty receptive and un-flamey, which is good for ideas, but as the population grows this attitude will be more and more difficult to maintain. Second, when people think that you don't dislike them, they think more clearly. Being nasty to someone puts them on the defensive and encourages them to make excuses and be stubborn about it OR stop suggesting ideas altogether.

Good example: I don't think your proposal will work because of Game Mechanics A and B, and because players would end up abusing your proposal by doing C or D. I think that for this proposal to make it into the game you will need to consider E, F, and G, which may take quite a lot of rethinking things.

Bad example: That's ridiculous. Your proposal is stupidly overpowered. You'd end up breaking the first half of the game AND introduce grinding.

However, respecting other people DOES NOT mean using polite tea-and-crumpets English or refraining from telling someone they are wrong (just be sure to distinguish between the bad idea and the person you are respecting).

Granted, some people are a-holes who won't listen to reason and will keep proposing stupid ideas and endlessly defending them, but those are for admins to handle (and admins can handle them more easily because they can lock topics and ban people.)

Being respectful and polite to other people is already in the general forum rules. I'm not sure it needs to be repeated in the "submitting ideas guideline". Or maybe that kind of things can't be told too often

Minmay's completely right. I should rework that example.

Good example: "___ seems overpowered in situations where ___ because it allows players to ___." For extra credit: "I think this could be resolved by [details]..."

Bad example: "___ is broken."

The hard thing here is I either have to be vague, find a legitimate complaint about a game feature (which is harder to do, and will become obsolete once it's fixed), or invent a fake game feature to complain about, which will be broken by design (which goes a bit against what I'm trying to do- it's hard to give constructive, useful criticism against something that's obviously grossly unbalanced).

Regarding dolphin's suggestion: Well, I did tell them to be civil and constructive with criticism, and you are basically restating our general rules on how to play nice with another. But maybe it's worth restating. I think what you've got right now is a little long for a list of rules, though. Maybe par it down to something simpler like:

Rule 10. Respect others, and their ideas. Remember that basic etiquette and the forum rules still apply.

Or actually, instead of making a whole new rule, I could just add it on to rule 4. It's kind of the same idea.

Any more commentary? How are we feeling about these?

Okay, there hasn't been any activity in this thread for a few days, so I'm posting an updated draft with all the changes so far. If no one else offers any more improvements, I'll copy this to a sticky.

------begin draft-------

Helpful posting Guidelines for Game Design:

The purpose of this sub-forum is discussion of improvements and changes to the game outside of the main dev wiki. As such, you should either be proposing some change to the game, or discussing and/or criticizing an existing proposal or game mechanic. Here are some guidelines.

This is not the place to report bugs. Bug reports go here.

When Proposing a New Idea:

Rule -1. Before proposing anything, please familiarize yourself with the philosophy section of the crawl manual. All suggested changes to the game should be in line with the stated game philosophy.

Rule 0. Make sure your idea is not on the List of Things that won't be Done.

Rule 1. Do a quick search of the forum, the dev wiki, and the change log. You don't need to be hyper-thorough, but please try and make sure your idea hasn't been posted elsewhere, or has been already implemented.

Rule 2. Proposal of a new idea generally warrants a new thread. It's all right if a new idea arises organically while discussing something else, but if you like the idea, don't try and hijack the thread. Move the discussion to a new one.

Rule 3. Give your thread a clear, appropriate title. This makes everyone's lives easier, especially anyone trying to do a search.

Good example: "Addition of Holy Cows as a Playable Race"

Bad example: "My idea", "How about this!", or "Mooooooo! <3". etc.

Rule 4. Criticism of existing mechanics, and the ideas of others, should be kept civil, constructive and respectful. "____ sucks!" is not constructive criticism. Basic etiquette and the forum rules still apply.

Rule 5. Provide details, and flesh out ideas as much as possible. The more work you put into something, and the less you leave for the devs, the more likely your idea is to get in. Consider special cases and how your proposed changes interact with the rest of the game. Provide numbers and formulas when you can, and when it is relevant. You can even take this concept to it's logical conclusion, and submit a patch for the change yourself!

Rule 6. Proposed changes should be backed by reason. Present a your case logically: why do you think the part of the game needs to be changed? What is the reason this change is a good idea?

Good example: "___ seems overpowered in situations where ___ because it allows players to ___." For extra credit: "I think this could be resolved by [details]..."

Bad example: "___ is broken."

Rule 7. Use clear language, straightforward prose, and standard sentence and paragraph structures. Avoid rambling, unusual diction, running sentences or paragraphs together, quirky style, etc. if you want to be understood and taken seriously.

Rule 8. When someone else criticizes your idea (and someone will!), take it stride. Listen. Adapt your proposal if need be. Bow to the logic of others if there's a flaw in your own.

Do not belligerently make the same case over and over. There's nothing wrong with restating yourself, or clarifying if you think you've been misunderstood, or trying to make your case in front of a skeptical audience, but that's a far cry from refusing to admit when you're wrong.

Rule 9. If your idea is received positively, move your proposal to the brainstorming wiki for further debate, consideration, refinement and (hopefully) implementation. Discussion in this forum is just the first step, a proving ground if you will. Wikifying an idea makes it more official, and presents it to the devs who don't frequent the forum.

Rule Q. If all else fails, you can always throw your idea out in the generic brainstorming thread. We don't take things so seriously over there, and there's always the faint hope an idea will be picked up. After all, phase bats made it in!

You might want to also include http://crawl.develz.org/trunk/changes.txt, since it has stuff that isn't on mantis, and vice-versa.

Two thumbs up for the Guidelines!