Zool Community Development Roadmap
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I am considering setting up a subforum for the community to help me with developing various elements of the CoA game world.
The idea would be to try and maximise the (small amount of) time I have to work on things that are a balance of, most interesting for me, and most important to the community.
This would probably mean that the MOST important thing to the community might not get worked on first (by me at least) but out of the things I find interesting, the community would have a big say in what I worked on first.
So it would balance out me not going crazy with you guys being less in the dark, and more able to have influence on (what at least one DM) works on.
This wouldn't be 'supported' by the team, it would be my own personal project.
All 'new' systems, and balance issues would ultimately go through the teams usual vetting processes, this would just give you a look into what I am doing, not the team.
I would likely do something like:
Create a bunch of topics - New systems - Fixes - Tweaks - Misc (to come up with them without thinking)
Then within those, have details of the things I've been working on (or some of the things, at least) and what state they are at, and likely what I would do next, and if I needed things testing, and a VERY VERY ROUGH estimate of how long I think it will take to get to the next stage in development.
I'd then have discussion topics open to the community to talk about specific things being worked on, and throw ideas around.
I'd then have a list of things I am happy to work on, and put up a poll for the community to vote on what I would put the most time into next.
I've put up a poll to state your interest in me even doing this.
Also, there is no gaurantee this will even happen :) )
Anyway, vote away, and discuss too. This is in general discussion for that reason.
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I voted yes, however….
I foresee people telling you how unimportant something you work on or how it sounded much better before you started it then after it came to existence...
And I fear you might just decide not to do this shit anymore and live the happy life of space-pirates or whatever.So... are you safe doing this? :)
Don't get burnt out, we need you here! -
AronFF pretty much nailed it.
I don't know if you'd be open to the idea, but what about some sort of CoA Git styled project with features you'd like to see and asking people for contributions– it wouldn't have to be full systems or areas or anything. Like 'hey, I'm making a new spawn system with these parameters, someone mind cooking up the scripts for it? It needs to do these things: x y and z.
I know you're basically opening the floodgates with such a thing, but rather than having people develop systems they think the server will need only to have it get shot down by DM's and the effort wasted. There's a lot of people that might not be able to devote a ton of time to developing stuff for the server, but they might be able to spend 20 minutes writing a script that changes the colors or visual effects of a baddie or something, or make a small interior area for a quest.
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I'm with AronFF on this too:
It makes you very open to criticism; as much as I would love to believe that we are all loving and supportive individuals, sometimes people make 'helpful' comments which turn out to be quite hurtful.
As to Sushie's suggestion:
I have no clue about scripting in NWN, but I used to play a MUDD where I would code colours into a block of text for a GM or another player; I know how rewarding it is to see something you made used in a game.
For my own two cents:
This may take up more time than it saves because you need to manage it, update it, read and consider the suggestions, etc.
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We've tried this before with the new spell alterations. Unfortunately, what people think is a good idea and what's actually a good idea tend to diverge significantly. Not that some ideas aren't theoretically good, but often players have no idea what is even feasible in NwN and what isn't; or that the idea sounds way better in their heads than it ever would in practice.
Another issue I've found is that players can get defensive when their ideas aren't implemented, as if the team can do it but is choosing not to. This isn't the case, often some things just cannot be done in NwN no matter how much even we want it. Or that they are very narrow in scope and require large amounts of effort to script. Or they cater to a very specific style of gameplay employed by the suggestion maker and not to the server at large.
Give it a shot, contributions are certainly welcome, but filtering through the maze of ideas is going to be a long process. Don't get burnt out.
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Thanks, I did expect this would be the main issue, because I know you dudes love my awesome self ;)
Essentially, I envisioned it as a sort of Dev diary, where people can toss ideas around based on the parameters I was setting.
Slushies idea is cool, and I could probly try something like it.
As for it taking more time. It might, but it also might be more interesting as well. Could also be motivating.
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I say go for it, we all know that you have a hard time of it, and criticism can remain civil so long as people keep that in mind.
It might even motivate me to 3D model for you Zool chan
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I didn't mean to be negative, if it turns out to be motivating it's cool!
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So yes
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I didn't mean to be negative, if it turns out to be motivating it's cool!
Didn't see it as negative, saw it as discussion dude :) and you being concerned about me etc, which is a nice thing.
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As for it taking more time. It might, but it also might be more interesting as well. Could also be motivating.
Try it out then. If it motivates you, then awesome! Motivation is usually the hardest part of getting anything done.