New GDD Guidelines and Discussion


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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 18th January 2016, 15:13

New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

I posted a new version of the GDD guidelines. Suggestions and criticism are welcome, though these mostly just restate what was already there.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Monday, 18th January 2016, 16:51

make clear, GDD is for proposals only

because you come there without a proposal and you're begging to get CYCed. It is sad that if you want to discuss game design and don't have a specific "fleshed out" proposal, you have to post in what is basically the "off-topic" subforum. GDD guidelines have to be read *carefully* to see this, since it's so counter-intuitive. Its current name makes it very unfriendly to people who think they can go there to discuss game design and, surprise-surprise, the forum is not for discussing game design!

There's already active shuffling of threads from GDD to CYC and back. It's odd when OP presents but does not push ideas that are meant to prompt discussion and gets promptly Yiufed, but some threads/posts get geedeedeed purely based on responses (e.g. a PSA ended up in GDD). Why tempt mods with the prospect of exposing a thread to impudent derailing and other indignities? The current dynamic of CYC is suboptimal to both those who wish to discuss mechanics with an eye out for future changes and those who wish to go off-topic and poop-joke.

Tavern is idiosyncratic in that the real design discussions take place in the off-topic forum. Maybe this is a blessing to be treasured? Well if so, we should augment it to make it really stand out.

I have noticed some devs automatically appreciate posts more when they make effort to suggest improvements. That's not a position I agree with, but if that's the overwhelming attitude, might as well make it policy.

Just renaming the wretched misnomer to Game Development Proposals is probably easiest option.

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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 18th January 2016, 17:51

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

HG, I've moved your topic here; let's centralize discussion on GDD here, even though I understand you're making a broader point than just the guidelines. To that end, I've renamed the topic, and I'd encourage people to share what they think. I hope, either way, that I've made those guidelines less confusing, HG.

As to the substance of your point though, HG, I think the mods are just trying to do helpful organizing work, not trying to police quality. The previous guidelines talked about how there was no "appeals process" for GDD mod actions, but I don't see any problem with people PMing the mods if they have an issue with a move. e: I also don't see a problem with expecting people who want serious discussion to bring a serious OP to the table, whether they have a concrete proposal or just a topic of discussion.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 18th January 2016, 18:04

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

Despite what to me comes across as an overly acerbic tone in hg's post, I do agree that a more accurate name for gdd would be "game development proposals" I suspect simply renaming the existing forum with no other changes to guidelines or rules would more clearly communicate both the purpose of, and expected content posted in, said forum.

As a plausible side benefit, we might also at some point then Co-opt the name "game design discussion" for a forum with more inconcrete discussions of game design which might or might not give rise to actual proposals. (Which, I think, is an often incorrectly expected by new participant topic for a forum with that name) and thereby reserve cyc as a more purely silly place.
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 18th January 2016, 18:27

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

Siegurt wrote:As a plausible side benefit, we might also at some point then Co-opt the name "game design discussion" for a forum with more inconcrete discussions of game design which might or might not give rise to actual proposals. (Which, I think, is an often incorrectly expected by new participant topic for a forum with that name) and thereby reserve cyc as a more purely silly place.

I think the last thing we need is some forum that fits in between GDD and CYC; that will just create even more organizational weirdness. I'd much prefer just leaving posts in GDD instead of moving them to CYC, honestly. I'm not the only mod, though, and I think some of my colleagues disagree.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 18th January 2016, 18:48

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

Yes I have seen both sides of that argument, I am fairly ambivalent about it myself.

There is a segment who would like to have a place for a reasonably serious discussions about the game, which aren't fleshed out or complete, and there is another segment who feels cyc can serve this purpose adequately, and that segmenting the discussion space causes more confusion and overhead.

Regardless of how one sits on that argument, I think the point about the name of gdd and it's implications to new users is valid (whether to create a secondary in-between thing is a separate discussion entirely)
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Tuesday, 19th January 2016, 02:28

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

How is it acerbic to want taverners to not be misguided on what GDD is about? Is it any less acerbic to put them in the crazy corner for not reading GDD rules until they understand that the GDD forum is not about design discussion? New GDD guidelines are less ambiguous than ever thanks to archaeo's rewrite - it's about proposals.

Siegurt wrote: cyc can serve this purpose adequately, and that segmenting the discussion space causes more confusion and overhead

You may be right, add one more forum and you'll have THREE tiers of GDD.

Also some threads start absolutely silly and replies give it weight.

It might not hurt, though I'm not sure, to grant silly and serious icons to slap onto your thread, maybe :P :geek: , next to (or instead of) the (rather meaningless) :oops: :mrgreen: .

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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 20th January 2016, 13:33

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

I don't think that GDD has to be reserved for proposals. I sometimes use it to gather feedback about upcoming or recent changes, for example. But it definitely helps those devs who read GDD to have it mostly contain on-topic and focused discussions, whether or not those discussions are about a specific proposal.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Wednesday, 20th January 2016, 16:16

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

I don't see that example as fundamentally different from a proposal, the main difference being you coded and pushed the change before proposing it, rather than after proposing it. One consequence, of course, is that the change is automatically fleshed out enough to belong in GDD, since it's already in the game and thus no more decisions need to be made for it to function. e: it's not always clear why the implemented change or feature is necessary, but oh well, no OP is perfect.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Friday, 5th February 2016, 18:35

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

Just make it so GDD posts that aren't proposals need to have a decent level of effort. Ie, not just stating the problem, but suggesting lines for improvement, and stating WHY it is a problem in some depth.

Dungeon Master

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Post Saturday, 6th February 2016, 18:18

Re: New GDD Guidelines and Discussion

One thing I think is true and that a lot of people who attempt to post on GDD don't acknowledge (especially certain prolific posters) is that for something to get implemented, it needs consensus. And really, in practice it needs consensus among the devs. I'm describing this as an outside observer, so maybe the devs wouldn't exactly agree with me (though I've seen dpeg say similar things), but this seems to be what it takes, including when they make changes themselves. Of course, GDD is not the place where consensus actually happens, even though a lot of posters (again, including certain prolific posters) act kind of like it is, leading to occasional weird dynamics.

Most of the rules are heuristics aimed at not wasting anyone's time on things that will simply never achieve consensus in this way, for one reason or another, or would have a long way to go before this bar is met because of non-specificity, or because the poster is being an ass, not listening to feedback, etc. Complaining about posts getting CYC'd because of these rules is sort of missing the point -- my take is that it is a signal that for any version of the idea to go anywhere, the poster would have to drastically rethink their approach towards what it would take for there to be consensus around the idea.

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