Ramblings on a Future without GM, with Action Points and Skill Trees

[Molly]

In all fairness; Once warned me from start about his way of working. Which is to code and test intensely during a short period, and then be inactive for a couple of weeks, until next coding spree arises. I have no problem with that, as long as some interesting code comes out of it, and it has. Each have their own method of work and I am not going to tell anyone when and how they should do things. Instead I think we should be grateful for the things that actually are produced.

It's another thing that worries me more.
During the last months, (and earlier too), our Forums have been very active, and a lot of ideas and suggestions come up. Some of those involve a total upheaval of our current system, others obviously need a lot of work, coordination and testing, yet others are possible to implement with a reasonable amount of work without interfering with the rest of the system. Some require the cooperation of both builders and coders, others are more pure coding, but require input and testing from players.

Here is what bothers me about this:

A lot of ideas get tossed around, many of them have potential. In some cases there even seems to be a total concensus that they should be implemented.
Then time passes, our coders have limited time or interest, or other things pop up that need to take precedence.

Then new ideas about new things pop up and get tossed around, and suddenly the earlier ones that did have potential are buried and forgotten. It's even hard to drag them up from the forums, since they are spread over so many different places, sometimes in a thread that started about something totally different.

So what we need is an easy reference that allows us to call up the ideas that most people seemed to like.

I'm going to start a new thread called Priorities, and list all the ideas that I remember and liked myself on it. Then I'll make it sticky, so it is easy to find. Others can add to the list and/or comment my choices, but I don't want the thread to grow into one of the usual megathreads, filled with even more ideas. That discussion should take place in other threads, and if it happens anyhow I'll just split the thread. The original list should be kept simple and short, easy to find and to return to.

[Tor]

Molly, your idea of a sticky priority list sounds like something that is sorely needed. Thanks.
I also agree with your statements regarding the people working on the coding.

[Once]

On the other hand, the maps are immediately actionable and could be a great way of making the world more user-friendly for new players.

Fixed.

[Prometheus]

Another concern is that we have a couple of active voices and not many of other voices. Or the other voices get beat down by the active voices (I'm not going to name names you know who you are And the attitude if you don't post your opinion doesn't count is bull as well. We need to encourage input and not worry about being beat down by the louder voices.

And that is the true problem of balancing things. You have one group who want things one way and damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead and the heck with anyone else posts or says. And we have others who might want to post but doesn't want to get ran over by the this is the only way group as well.

And then you have the coders who tend to go off on their own tangents and we don't talk to each other. I think we need to have coder meetings so we can keep tabs on each other so we don't step on each other's toes. So for example Once is working on gypsy's, I'm sort of working on gypsy's. This could cause issues. Which is the biggest issue we have as coders is that we tend not to talk to each other much. It doesn't mean we don't talk to each other it is just we are more independent coders.

And we need to respect each other on posting as well. Calling someone an idiot or blowing off an idea because you don't agree with it isn't the right way of handling it. Not everyone can debate well over a forum. We all need to be patient and try to understand what other people are trying to express.

Prometheus

[Once]

What exactly is your goal with these postings? Your desired outcome isn't exactly clear. If there's some process you're suggesting, I'm not quite seeing it.


That said, with regards to other coders, anyone who dislikes one of my changes is free to roll it back as long as they understand it. You won't get much argument from me. I don't get attached to the work I create, I see this as a destructive process, like chiseling at stone to make a statue. There's often more opportunity lost to an unwillingness to act than is ever lost to bad actions. You miss every shot you don't take.

If you're worried I'm going to step on your toes or get in the way of your plans then put your plans out there and take steps to achieve them. If you don't have the time to take steps to achieve them at the very least people will be able to see your idea. If they disagree with your idea, at least it's out there and had the opportunity of being implemented. Who knows, you might just find someone doing the dirty work for you though .

-Once