CYC, GDD Intermediary


Here's where you can make suggestions for new forums & categories, voice your opinion about the forum, etc.

User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 793

Joined: Tuesday, 28th January 2014, 16:08

Post Sunday, 7th December 2014, 22:32

CYC, GDD Intermediary

It seems to me that a lot of players have ideas that they would like to present in a semi-serious (albeit casual) tone, but don't necessarily want all the inherent craziness CYC has to offer. If there was an intermediary between CYC and GDD this would solve (at the very least) some hurt feelings unintentionally caused by And Into in his attempts to keep GDD as clean and prim as possible. So, simply put, I would like to see a forum that encourages gameplay related discussion, without the stiffness of GDD or laxness of CYC. It would be a place to share or bounce around ideas without the goal of having said ideas implemented, necessarily.

I will admit that I acted on posting this idea because of a recent thread, but it is something I have thought about in the past.
If you are offended by something I've posted, just PM me. It probably wasn't intentional.

For this message the author Greyr has received thanks:
Aule

Barkeep

Posts: 3890

Joined: Wednesday, 14th August 2013, 23:25

Location: USA

Post Sunday, 7th December 2014, 22:39

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

I find that people discuss ideas seriously in CYC pretty often, especially if you set the tone in the thread with a reasonable OP and a request for serious feedback. Certainly, if you think someone is derailing a thread in *any* forum, including CYC, you can always report the post and/or PM a mod. I think we'd also want to consider the possibility that having multiple forums in which game design stuff is discussed, with 3 different gears of "seriousness," might actually make it harder for everyone (and devs in particular) to keep up with all the conversation(s).

All that being said, I'm open to the idea, if the community does really want a new forum.
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 793

Joined: Tuesday, 28th January 2014, 16:08

Post Sunday, 7th December 2014, 22:51

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

I find that people discuss ideas seriously in CYC pretty often, especially if you set the tone in the thread with a reasonable OP and a request for serious feedback.


Right, and I totally get that. I suppose it's a matter of convenience, the Tavern is mostly tame when you ask it to be. I do notice, however, that I find myself saying "Oh, it's CYC. Lemme say something stupid in an attempt to be amusing". Out loud, Obviously. I doubt that I am the only one.

I think we'd also want to consider the possibility that having multiple forums in which game design stuff is discussed, with 3 different gears of "seriousness," might actually make it harder for everyone (and devs in particular) to keep up with all the conversation(s).


It's something to considered. I figured with the advent of a new forum CYC would no longer be the place ideas go to (inevitably) die. So it would be taken out of the equation somewhat. That leaves two different gears... Not sure if that's a whole better, but it wouldn't be any different than it is now and at least the forums would be clearly labelled.

All that being said, I'm open to the idea, if the community does really want a new forum.


Definitely, mostly just spitballin' here.
If you are offended by something I've posted, just PM me. It probably wasn't intentional.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Monday, 8th December 2014, 11:53

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

The proposal would not solve the problem. The posters who react negatively to having their post kicked to CYC would react just as negatively to being kicked to a third forum placed elsewhere in the hierarchy. GDD is the place where a newcomer thinks important things get done by important people, and kicking them out makes them feel like they're specifically and personally being rejected from the group. The actual reasons why this is done and the fact that every poster is treated the same way don't matter, because they haven't seen the forum history leading up to this point.

That said, I wouldn't mind if the weapons-grade stupid was frowned upon even in the semi-serious CYC threads. A new poster with some terrible ideas isn't going to bother to learn how to act productively if every step gets him or her mobbed by the hyena pack.

For this message the author KoboldLord has received thanks:
duvessa

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 22

Joined: Saturday, 6th December 2014, 00:38

Post Monday, 8th December 2014, 23:18

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

KoboldLord wrote:The proposal would not solve the problem. The posters who react negatively to having their post kicked to CYC would react just as negatively to being kicked to a third forum placed elsewhere in the hierarchy. GDD is the place where a newcomer thinks important things get done by important people, and kicking them out makes them feel like they're specifically and personally being rejected from the group. The actual reasons why this is done and the fact that every poster is treated the same way don't matter, because they haven't seen the forum history leading up to this point.

That said, I wouldn't mind if the weapons-grade stupid was frowned upon even in the semi-serious CYC threads. A new poster with some terrible ideas isn't going to bother to learn how to act productively if every step gets him or her mobbed by the hyena pack.


Wouldn't mind if we dropped the psuedo-elitist attitude around here. Some new guy arrives on the forum, posts some idea (one thats doesnt step on the "design philosophy" mind you) he thinks is cool, ofc it is not fleshed out, not everyone has played this game for 30 years + is a dev himself + knows how to code it himself. Might as well make your own game if you went that far, but that's not the goal is it. Anyway, First reaction the 2-5 diehard players who have been into this game for 30 years show up and hound him down like he is some sort of vermin... "this idea is so so bad." No explanaitions given, just subjective criticism of the worst sort. I would be kinda salty too after a response like that too, why bother.

Oh and while we are on the subject... for the rare occassion that an idea makes it through the initial crossfire and gets fleshed out in discussion and ends up getting 1000 upvotes it doesnt get implemented for some reason. When the idea was made by one of the 5 or so veteran elite, on the other hand...

you can just cross out the stone soup part from the title and be done with it. the game is still enjoyable, I wont mind.

well why do i even write this you are just going to dismiss it anyway in your usual psuedo sophisticated tone that will roughly translate to: Brooooo u salty. Well that's because I am, it doesn't mean that my opinions aren't valid.

For this message the author Insular Community has received thanks: 3
Aule, damiac, duvessa

Barkeep

Posts: 3890

Joined: Wednesday, 14th August 2013, 23:25

Location: USA

Post Tuesday, 9th December 2014, 00:00

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Insular Community wrote:Some new guy arrives on the forum, posts some idea (one thats doesnt step on the "design philosophy" mind you) he thinks is cool, ofc it is not fleshed out, not everyone has played this game for 30 years + is a dev himself + knows how to code it himself. Might as well make your own game if you went that far, but that's not the goal is it. Anyway, First reaction the 2-5 diehard players who have been into this game for 30 years show up and hound him down like he is some sort of vermin... "this idea is so so bad." No explanaitions given, just subjective criticism of the worst sort. I would be kinda salty too after a response like that too, why bother.


Where has this occurred recently? In the exchange that spawned this particular thread, you had dpeg, duvessa, and Quazifuji take time to write some substantive feedback; duvessa's tone was perhaps curt, but not rudely so. After the OP dismissed these very real contributions, some other posters became snippy.

For people who really want to discuss the game seriously, I don't think it is too much to ask that the person who wishes to contribute something to the game reads the post entitled "You Must Read This Before Posting in GDD", which is stickied at the top of the Game Design forum, and/or read some of the other currently active threads in GDD to get a sense of the kind and level of conversation that happens there. Some highlights from the stickied thread:

Note that this forum is not where Crawl is being actively developed, and is not farmed for ideas by developers. Visit the dev wiki to see the actual development process. However some developers do read GDD and an idea posted here does have a chance, however small, of making it into the game.

Anything posted here will receive criticism that is sometimes quite harsh, so be prepared. If you want to minimise your chances of being criticised and increase the chances that your idea will be taken seriously, spend plenty of time familiarising yourself with other proposals both successful and failed, and read and understand every point in the list that follows.

When (not if) someone criticises your idea, accept it. Listen. Adapt your proposal. Admit when you're wrong. Do not belligerently make the same case over and over. [emphasis in the original, nota bene!] Basic etiquette and the forum rules still apply. If you feel a criticism is personal or unwarranted, use the report button or pm a moderator. Be advised that the forum benefits from a certain amount of astringent criticism of new proposals, and that whining on your part will weaken or destroy your case.


If you have an opinion or idea about the game and you put it in a form acceptable for GDD, it will nearly always get an honest hearing and consideration, and while that may be less than some would like, it is frankly a lot more than you find on most message boards.

What makes me salty is that people somehow think that merely having an opinion or idea about DCSS entitles them, not just to the due consideration they deserve (which is fine to expect), but immediate implementation with no questions asked. This shows staggering contempt for the people who actually volunteer their time to code this game, and one who adopts such a contemptuous attitude should not be surprised when that attitude is echoed back to them.

Btw the only person who posted in that thread and is also a developer is dpeg, who was supportive of hearing out the OP's ideas from the beginning, even when Gadrel deleted his suggestions after his first post was moved to CYC (because it literally was just two or three very brief (like the entire post was maybe 80 words in total) suggestions for spells without anything else).

It is a minority for sure, but some posters put up a very unpolished idea on GDD and then get angry when, like, everyone doesn't trip over themselves to give the OP a bunch of high-fives and affirmation. That's not what GDD is for, sorry. On the other hand, people who take the constructive ("negative" =/= "non-constructive") criticism well, nearly always find a patient and thoughtful audience. And if you really think you see a case where that's not happening, well, that's what the report button, or private messages (to mods or others), are for.

For this message the author and into has received thanks: 4
Insular Community, Lasty, mikee, Sar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 250

Joined: Thursday, 27th November 2014, 19:12

Post Tuesday, 9th December 2014, 01:55

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

The opening "Note" could do a better job of emphasizing that GDD is not an 'official' part of the development process. It's not even mentioned if you read the things in docs/develop/ (The Tavern is, but the Coding & Contributions subfora, not GDD!), which discuss how to contribute! A moreover is that it could probably be better emphasized that ideas are cheap, and the much harder work of implementing, testing, balancing, and translation is all done by volunteers who all have their own ideas too. (This phenomenon is not unique to crawl. Hang around any gamedev/design forum and you'll find oodles of 'i have this great idea but i need a coder' threads. The only difference here is that there are some coders hanging around working on the game already!)

The devteam is very encouraging of individuals who show up on crawl-ref-discuss or ##crawl-dev or mantis with patches or tiles or text or vaults, especially if you're willing to be humble and/or start small. No need to write a grandiose proposal for GDD and battle it through some longwinded discussion; just write patches and talk to the devteam about them!

The only example I'm familiar with: There's no thread for new-ambrosia where I suggested that it also give hp-regen, nor a detailed hashing out of hangedman's remark "confusion+mp regen tied together" (mandatory like now, or suppressible like old ambrosia), yet it's in the game, because I wrote a draft patch, tested it (badly, since it had a bug), PleasingFungus accepted it and made balance modifications (my original regen was way too OP), and then zxc232 (I think) noticed a bug once it was pushed live, which was then fixed. Watching mantis and (mostly) lurking in ##crawl-dev suggests that this is pretty nominal for smaller ideas; I don't have any big ideas (start small!) so I dunno about those, but my intuition is that it's probably a bad idea to have big ideas.

For this message the author ebering has received thanks: 7
and into, duvessa, Glenstorm, Greyr, Lasty, Sar, WalkerBoh
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Tuesday, 9th December 2014, 05:01

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

What about a third forum that posts get PROMOTED TO from GDD? Or does that require too much maintenance?
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Barkeep

Posts: 3890

Joined: Wednesday, 14th August 2013, 23:25

Location: USA

Post Tuesday, 9th December 2014, 07:19

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Those are good points, ebering. I'll try to post a new "amendment" to the stickied GDD thread in order to clarify the not always clear relationship between Game Design Discussion and actual DCSS development. (There is a relationship and some interaction, but as you point out, it is most definitely not the case that the Tavern is a hot-house for big ideas that get added to the game hastily, or anything like that.)

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 723

Joined: Monday, 9th June 2014, 13:39

Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 00:16

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Greyr wrote:It seems to me that a lot of players have ideas that they would like to present in a semi-serious (albeit casual) tone, but don't necessarily want all the inherent craziness CYC has to offer. If there was an intermediary between CYC and GDD this would solve (at the very least) some hurt feelings unintentionally caused by And Into in his attempts to keep GDD as clean and prim as possible. So, simply put, I would like to see a forum that encourages gameplay related discussion, without the stiffness of GDD or laxness of CYC. It would be a place to share or bounce around ideas without the goal of having said ideas implemented, necessarily.

Greyr wrote:
and into wrote:I find that people discuss ideas seriously in CYC pretty often, especially if you set the tone in the thread with a reasonable OP and a request for serious feedback.


Right, and I totally get that. I suppose it's a matter of convenience, the Tavern is mostly tame when you ask it to be. I do notice, however, that I find myself saying "Oh, it's CYC. Lemme say something stupid in an attempt to be amusing". Out loud, Obviously. I doubt that I am the only one.

Well, since I just recently made my own serious post in CYC that garnered not a single serious response, but a whole lot of tangential ribbing, I can vouch.

Is there anything more lame than picking on a typo in a discussion? I don't think so, and it happened not once, but twice.

Good post, Greyr.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 01:16

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Aule wrote:Well, since I just recently made my own serious post in CYC that garnered not a single serious response, but a whole lot of tangential ribbing, I can vouch.
I suspect none of the repliers realized it was supposed to be serious. I thought it was definitely a joke until now. Maybe if you added "[SERIOUS POST]" or something?

For this message the author duvessa has received thanks:
Aule

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 723

Joined: Monday, 9th June 2014, 13:39

Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 03:35

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

I don't believe you, because if you'd thought it a joke you'd have thanked it. :P

Anyway, this shouldn't derail this thread, but I don't know what could be considered un-serious about it, given the also-recent post about my Fe experiences in characters subforum. Plus, there have been other threads on the topic of felid redesign, even in GDD. Also, I have a very bad history of posting my ideas in GDD, so I thought I'd do it the right way this time. I admit, my luck is pretty bad, but damn that's a fail in so many ways.

I suppose that's why a thing like OP proposed makes sense?

(Also, tangentially, I think any post that references another poster's grammar should be deleted immediately and the poster given a warning. That's just basic netiquette. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's childish to make fun of them. Okayimdonenow)

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 03:57

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

You proposed to cut felids and replace them with something almost entirely unlike felids. It would've been an okay joke thread, but if you meant it seriously then that's dirty pool, and pretty rude to boot if you thought we would actually fall for it. If you want felids to be cut, flat-out say you want them cut. Nothing wrong with that; loads of people call for felids to be cut all the time, with good arguments or terrible arguments depending on the poster in question.

If you want felids to go away, make a thread explaining why. No need to bring up an unrelated species proposal.

If you want to make a proposal for a new catperson species, make a thread proposing your new catperson species. Currently-existing felids are an unrelated topic and therefore not relevant.

For this message the author KoboldLord has received thanks:
Arrhythmia

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 05:36

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Aule wrote:(Also, tangentially, I think any post that references another poster's grammar should be deleted immediately and the poster given a warning. That's just basic netiquette. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's childish to make fun of them. Okayimdonenow)
The 'I' in 'Okayimdonenow' should be capitalized and have an apostrophe after it.

For this message the author duvessa has received thanks:
Arrhythmia

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 723

Joined: Monday, 9th June 2014, 13:39

Post Tuesday, 23rd December 2014, 19:52

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Re: OP

This new forum could be named in the Tavern convention, "Open Mic Stage".

Yes, there will always be hecklers, but this would at least assert that amateurs can have ideas, too. In that regard, too, outright heckling should be considered beneath "counsellorship" and "barkeeping," imo. There's a larger problem if such bad manners are considered representative, I think.
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1891

Joined: Monday, 1st April 2013, 04:41

Location: Toronto, Canada

Post Wednesday, 24th December 2014, 07:36

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

IMO our current stable of "joke forum" and "serious forum" doesn't need "weird nether-forum wherein no progress is made and no jokes are allowed".
take it easy

For this message the author Arrhythmia has received thanks:
duvessa
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 793

Joined: Tuesday, 28th January 2014, 16:08

Post Wednesday, 24th December 2014, 20:23

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

Arrhythmia wrote:IMO our current stable of "joke forum" and "serious forum" doesn't need "weird nether-forum wherein no progress is made and no jokes are allowed".


That's not entirely accurate, I think. If an initially rough idea is honed into something interesting through conversation and makes it's way to GDD, then that's progress. Also, Jokes and total derailment are two different things.

Aule wrote:Re: OP

This new forum could be named in the Tavern convention, "Open Mic Stage".

Yes, there will always be hecklers, but this would at least assert that amateurs can have ideas, too. In that regard, too, outright heckling should be considered beneath "counsellorship" and "barkeeping," imo. There's a larger problem if such bad manners are considered representative, I think.


Well, I've never been good at naming things. Hence why my entire "High Scores" page is just Greyr repeated hundreds of times... Makes it hard to dig up specific character dumps. One time I spent, like, fifteen minutes looking for a certain High Elf dump that died in a particularly hilarious fashion to post here in the tavern. It got a couple of comments on it, but no outright LOLs or ROtFLMAOs, leading me to seriously reconsider my entire life and pattern of being. I've been pretty depressed about it. I caught myself looking in the mirror and not really knowing who was looking back. Anyway, people usually call me Lucien Michael Fatima or Luc for short.

tl;dr I have nothing more to add, really.
If you are offended by something I've posted, just PM me. It probably wasn't intentional.

For this message the author Greyr has received thanks:
Arrhythmia

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1205

Joined: Friday, 8th November 2013, 17:02

Post Monday, 29th December 2014, 15:16

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

KoboldLord wrote:You proposed to cut felids and replace them with something almost entirely unlike felids. It would've been an okay joke thread, but if you meant it seriously then that's dirty pool, and pretty rude to boot if you thought we would actually fall for it. If you want felids to be cut, flat-out say you want them cut. Nothing wrong with that; loads of people call for felids to be cut all the time, with good arguments or terrible arguments depending on the poster in question.

If you want felids to go away, make a thread explaining why. No need to bring up an unrelated species proposal.

If you want to make a proposal for a new catperson species, make a thread proposing your new catperson species. Currently-existing felids are an unrelated topic and therefore not relevant.


So then you could post something to that effect in the CYC topic, or simply not post in the discussion if you don't like it. Spamming a topic with nonsense because you don't like the discussion is extremely childish, and it was obvious in that topic that the OP was looking for a serious discussion.

We tell people not to post their first ideas in GDD if they're not well fleshed out, then if they post their non-fleshed out ideas in CYC, people spam it with stupid pictures, poems, and other crap. And it's usually the same few people that do it.

Only the mods are in charge of what other people can discuss on this board. Being an elite crawl player doesn't mean you get to decide what other people can talk about.

For this message the author damiac has received thanks: 2
Aule, Greyr
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 793

Joined: Tuesday, 28th January 2014, 16:08

Post Saturday, 24th January 2015, 00:06

Re: CYC, GDD Intermediary

*cough*
If you are offended by something I've posted, just PM me. It probably wasn't intentional.

Return to Suggestions & Criticism

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.