Meta: GDD purpose & intro topics

[njvack]

If you think I was bad you should read some of ebarrett or minmay's post history (although I think they've been going somewhat soft of late ...) Anyway I've posted my fair share of bad to terrible ideas in this forum and received just as bad or worse in return; you have to not take things too personally around here. To be honest this forum should come with a warning to that effect.

Well, counsellors are generally expected to be a little less abrasive -- though I tend to feel that's more important in the advice boards than GDD.

Combining/revamping the "Feedback or Ideas? Please read!" and "Helpful posting Guidelines for Game Design" threads may be warranted now that GDD has found a "voice." Though: do people read those topics?

[Galefury]

I read them, I'm sure many others did too. I'm also sure many did not.

I don't really see the point of having two intro topics. But I think having one is good.

[galehar]

Yes, combining the 2 intro topics sounds good. Maybe add a warning that the forum has a high noise/info ratio, that a lot of bad ideas are posted and reception can often be harsh.

[mumra]

I was being fairly tongue-in-cheek with my comment

However, I just looked at both the stickied topics; mageykun's is basically a more complete version of galehar's, and written in a list form which always helps humans to parse things better. My main criticism is there's quite a lot to read and could perhaps be condensed; but on the other hand it's very entertaining and well-written.

Guiltily, I'm not entirely sure if I ever read either topic before now; I probably did read galehar's, but mageykun's didn't even exist when I first registered. But there's certainly no need to expect people to read two separate topics when they register (three including the general forum rules).

[Davion Fuxa]

Yes, combining the 2 intro topics sounds good. Maybe add a warning that the forum has a high noise/info ratio, that a lot of bad ideas are posted and reception can often be harsh.

I'd probably just post a general warning that any idea you put forward may lead to a harsh reception.

In regards to a new intro thread anyhow, I would suggest the following should be done:

The Philosophy section should be added into the intro thread, either in full or in a shorten block with a link leading to the full piece, as the first post in the thread. If it is important to read and you want posters to read it before starting a new thread, then don't just drop a line with a link to it as there are obviously people not reading it.

A Second Post with a list of instructions should also be posted on creating new threads and answering criticism, feedback, and suggested revisions. Either under that list or as a third post, another list of instructions should be posted on replying to a thread.

Intro thread should be locked and only Moderators should be allowed to edit, or the topic should have a lot of reserved posts set aside. The benefits of locking the thread is that only the Administrator and Moderators can post in it, leaving the riff raff that comes form normal posters out of it . The benefits of leaving it open but with lots of reserved posts is that the reserved posts can be edited when needed and normal posters can offer occasional feedback or other useful material that is related or semi-related to helping people understand the rules, philosophy of the game, the people behind the game, etc.

[njvack]

Ganked from close combat thread:

I was under the impresion that for anything you propose to be taken seriously, it had to go through all the steps of discussion and community feedback, as in forum->wiki->approval etc. How does it exactly work?

It doesn't work like that. If you want you idea to be added to crawl, you either have to convince a developer to code and commit it (this is very hard), or you have to code it (might be hard) and convince a dev to try it out and commit it (if the idea is really good and your code is okay, this is not that hard). If your idea is good enough without feedback from the tavern or wiki that's great. Discussing it to death is just a waste of everyone's time. However if it's not good enough, having it shot down or improved on the tavern is useful.

Note that the new Cj spells, newnewvaults, inception, really almost all the recent code additions from contributors, had little to no tavern discussion. They were discussed on IRC or in the patch submission issues on mantis, and probably also in some non-public ways. What they have in common is that people with good ideas who can also code put a lot of work into them. Asking in ##crawl-dev or ##crawl often provides much more useful feedback than asking on the tavern, partly because developers tend to be much more willing to change the game than most players. Of course IRC might not be a useful communication channel for you, because everyone who wants to talk or listen needs to be online at the same time.

I think this brings up a worthwhile point: Game Design Discussion is not a place where people propose ideas and then devs decide which of those ideas they want to implement. It's primarily a place where people discuss game design (in particular, with regards to Crawl) because talking about game design is fun.

Yes, a few ideas have made it from the tavern to the game, but those are the exception.

[mumra]

I think this brings up a worthwhile point: Game Design Discussion is not a place where people propose ideas and then devs decide which of those ideas they want to implement. It's primarily a place where people discuss game design (in particular, with regards to Crawl) because talking about game design is fun.

This is an excellent point and should possibly be the first rule of the intro thread.

[njvack]

OK -- I'll try and write something in the next couple days.

Galehar: do you think it would be OK to link folks to the dev mailing list? I'm a little leery of sending folk there and lowering its SNR, but if it's invite-only for posting, maybe that's not a worry.

[galehar]

Galehar: do you think it would be OK to link folks to the dev mailing list? I'm a little leery of sending folk there and lowering its SNR, but if it's invite-only for posting, maybe that's not a worry.

If you do, state clearly the goals of the mailing list: discuss recent or upcoming changes. This is for stuff actually happening, not general game design discussions.

[Grimm]

Bump for this. The recent minor friction in Aztec Gold shows that a revamping of the intro item is needed. I fully agree with the proposals and further propose that the title of the intro post be made stronger, e.g. "How to post a game design suggestion", something that implies that the way described is the way it must be done.

[njvack]

Yeah. I've been teh lazies but I'll actually write something up soon.

[Grimm]

Idea: restrict posting and possibly commenting rights in GDD. Say, no new posts until 6 months on the forum and 100 posts in other sections, no commenting until 3 months on the forum.

[Davion Fuxa]

Idea: restrict posting and possibly commenting rights in GDD. Say, no new posts until 6 months on the forum and 100 posts in other sections, no commenting until 3 months on the forum.

Post Count requirements simply cause people to spam, make garbage posts, or otherwise partake in discussion they rather wouldn't. Time restraints also ignore the fact that someone could be a Veteran Player who only just signed up on the forums. No amount of preparation or waiting will make posts in GDD better, and it isn't like we are getting some happy-go idiot jumping in to GDD to spam his ideas or comments that such requirements would be needed for that either.

That said, I can think of some ideas that may be viable in regards to Restricting Posts. Something to note in regards to BountyHunterSAx recently is that he posted 6 New Topics in quick succession. Had he posted less he probably wouldn't have gotten mad at minmay and called him out - something to note about minmay is that his snarky one-liners are usually limited to 1 post per topic. I would make this more of a guideline in how to post though.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Ideally I'd have bundled multiple ideas into one topic - but I've already been specifically told that it's better to post multiple topics for multiple ideas. While I have absolutely no problem being told my ideas are bad or terrible -- I'd like to think I'm quite receptive to constructive criticism. You'll note throughout my posting history that I readily changed my opinion on my own ideas whenever someone proposed a change I thought better. I do get irritated with cryptic non-feedback. Particularly when it fails to address what's actually been posted.



But that's all besides the point. I posted ideas for things that might be fun in the game {Dragon's Den, Crypt-unique, Improved Deck GUI (like a book), HolyBrand spell, Mimic-Unique, etc.} because I saw that people who had ideas they thought might be fun to discuss being put in the game discussed it here. If this is the wrong forum for it then it's the wrong forum. Maybe when I'm done studying for my Step 2 I'll try my hand at lua and writing my own damn patches.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, coding takes energy; as someone with a major in CS I totally get that. I won't hassle with ideas until I'm willing to put in the coding myself. Peace.

-AHMAD

[Grimm]

Jeez minmay you don't have to cut my ideas down in such a-- wait those are good points.

I posted ideas for things that might be fun in the game {Dragon's Den, Crypt-unique, Improved Deck GUI (like a book), HolyBrand spell, Mimic-Unique, etc.}

The Deck GUI idea sounds like it could be a winner. You're a solid member, BHSA, please take the rough and tumble all in good faith.

[njvack]

Yeah -- I didn't mean to say "don't post ideas to GDD unless you're willing to code" so much as "GDD is a place for talking about the merits of design ideas; you need to be prepared for folks to say 'this is bad.'" BHSA, you're doing fine.

DF and minmay have pretty well covered my thoughts on post requirements for GDD. I don't think there's a problem in the number of posts from new players.

[mumra]

I posted ideas for things that might be fun in the game {Dragon's Den, Crypt-unique, Improved Deck GUI (like a book), HolyBrand spell, Mimic-Unique, etc.}

Don't be discouraged - in particular the Dragon's Den post has sparked off a good discussion and got two other people (nicolae and myself) interested in doing some coding for it (at least once I've finished on two other fairly sizable projects!) As long as you are acknowledging feedback (and here I am not saying that all feedback is automatically correct...), your thought process and self-critique when coming up with ideas will improve. If you are studying computers academically with a view to writing games then this process will help you there as well - comments in this forum might sometimes be blunt but largely they will be raising real issues that you might have missed.

[BountyHunterSAx]

*grins* Thanks. I'm not studying programming for the sake of game design - i've already completed a BioInformatics degree an am now in medical school. Rather, I've always had an interest in game programming and game design as it's a natural hobby. The games I've made thusfar are smaller projects though and most certainly not roguelikes in execution. I didn't post here until I'd read the instructions, but perhaps should have lurked more.

Anyway, back on topic, what I would say is that it's fine for a response to be curt, short, snippy, and harsh - people, and myself first, need to learn to deal with that. But any objection has to also add information or clarification. Responding to a post saying "No." or "How about we just don't do this at all?</sarcasm>" gives nothing back to the poster. Responding with "No, skeletons are meant to be easy enemies to kill; that's why animate skeleton is a lvl 1 spell" at least provides SOMETHING to think about.

--> A person who posted an idea obviously believes it's a good one -- even if they're willing to be told it's not and to trust others' judgments on that as I am. If you want to tell them it's a bad idea it behooves you to give a reason WHY the idea is bad so they can look at their proposal, put the pieces together, and fix it, or drop it and improve their next suggestion with their enchanced understanding of the game.<--

Ex: People explained that imbue with radiance (a charm spell to give holy to a weapon) is thematically jarring since holy in crawl is not just a light-enchantment but a deity's enchantment (TSO, in fact). Others, that holy is actually a much STRONGER damage output brand and so making this spell available would mean forcing a player to cast it all too frequently. Guidance like that can improve a player's grasp of Crawl in a way that cynicism does not.


People have already weighed in on post-restrictions in GDD, and said anything I'd have said better than I could have. I will say that post-quality should be important though. While this forum does see decent traffic, it's not over twenty topics a day - not even close - and while many suggestions aren't necessarily good quality, I have yet to read a topic and felt "Man, this guy needs to improve his post/post-quality." I'm thinking case-by-case basis PMs at this point are probably sufficient as the rules seem to be doing their job.

-AHMAD