Why not start a Q&A for devs on this site?

xSlideShow · 2011-10-06, 02:58 AM

Was wondering, why not start a Q&A on this site... I mean devs check this site regularly. Why not start another sub forums for a question and answer?

Where people can post their questions there and others can post links to information if their has already been an answer give.

Why should this be done? It would settle some of these debates if the devs could maybe expand some of their explanations of how certain systems work in PS2. This would allow for those questions to be answered. It would also allow for an easy search of PS2 information and increased discussion of certain changes/implementations.

I understand that the devs are currently cannot disclose some information. However that is easily solved by just saying, "We cannot disclose information pertaining to this subject at this time."

Also some one could gather all of the current Q&A's from the different websites and add them to the forum. Just to start it off, I understand that we already have much of this in the The Planetside 2 Information Thread v2.0

Hamma · 2011-10-06, 09:59 AM

A cool idea, and it's actually been discussed/suggested by others. At this point I don't think this can become a reality, with the phase of development PlanetSide 2 is in there is a very specific marketing plan. The devs do come over here from time to time and comment in threads and they also read plenty of threads they don't comment in and still more devs don't login.

Possibly a post release thing but it's not something we will see prior I don't think.

Also we are working hard here to try and get some additional things for the community so try and hang tight

NapalmEnima · 2011-10-06, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

The devs do come over here from time to time and comment in threads and they also read plenty of threads they don't comment in and still more devs don't login.

In a google+ conversation with @PurrfectStorm, she told me that only the leads were allowed to post here. This was in one of here Extra Life threads on g+. She wanted to thank folks here for their donations, but May Not.

I doubt she's the only PS2 dev that lurks here.

I think the policy makes sense, though I suspect they'd have granted her an exception for that particular instance. Rather than keeping everyone up to speed on What We Can Reveal, they keep the attendance in those meetings relatively low so everyone else can Do Their Jobs and Build An Awesome Game (perhaps using the odd suggestion made here).

Hamma · 2011-10-06, 08:02 PM

Aye it makes sense - I am just psyched that we are a place any of the devs can post

Have to keep control on the team and info released, awesome they are involving PSU much more.

Along these lines, we want to bring back AGN Ask The Devs or even a community Ask The Devs of some sort among other things. But we have to wait like everyone else for these goodies

Tapman · 2011-10-07, 04:32 AM

What Hamma said.

Planetside 2 discussion is already a Q/A forum for the devs, I am confident that they answer as much as possible as often as they are allowed.

In a corporate environment, especially during what my guess is for the current development stage, they have very few things that at this point conceptually agreed upon, approved by lower management, technically created by programmers and then artists with approval along the way, and then finalized by upper management to be something in the final game and whether/when it could be released as marketable material for their fans on the internet. I have been keeping up on Planetside 2 news since the survey and based on the interviews and information we have received thus far, I am estimating that the team is currently about midway through the development process, still creating a lot of the meat of the beast like Vanu vehicles and weapons. I would guess we get a date for Beta before the end of the year.

The cool thing is though, once the game is released they are going to be heavily involved with the community over their 3-year plan, I imagine that the devs will be in much more discussion with the forums to a certain extent. I would imagine that after the game is released, activity on PSU is going to increase dramatically and the Planetside 2 section will have to be broken down into more categories and one could be created for development discussion that could be frequented by SOE.

xSlideShow · 2011-10-07, 08:13 AM

Originally Posted by Tapman

What Hamma said.

Planetside 2 discussion is already a Q/A forum for the devs, I am confident that they answer as much as possible as often as they are allowed.

In a corporate environment, especially during what my guess is for the current development stage, they have very few things that at this point conceptually agreed upon, approved by lower management, technically created by programmers and then artists with approval along the way, and then finalized by upper management to be something in the final game and whether/when it could be released as marketable material for their fans on the internet. I have been keeping up on Planetside 2 news since the survey and based on the interviews and information we have received thus far, I am estimating that the team is currently about midway through the development process, still creating a lot of the meat of the beast like Vanu vehicles and weapons. I would guess we get a date for Beta before the end of the year.

The cool thing is though, once the game is released they are going to be heavily involved with the community over their 3-year plan, I imagine that the devs will be in much more discussion with the forums to a certain extent. I would imagine that after the game is released, activity on PSU is going to increase dramatically and the Planetside 2 section will have to be broken down into more categories and one could be created for development discussion that could be frequented by SOE.

See you just gave me permission to spam questions on this forum. I'm going to now.

Tapman · 2011-10-08, 05:06 AM

Originally Posted by xSlideShow

See you just gave me permission to spam questions on this forum. I'm going to now.

I specified that it was for Planetside 2 Discussion area. If you want to make a thread with all of the questions you have, go for it! They could be added to a list of questions to ask the next time they do a twitter Q/A, or you might be lucky enough to have a dev respond in the thread. Don't hold your breath for that though.

Traak · 2011-10-08, 06:11 AM

How about we start a thread with questions, and Hamma or someone can triage the questions to put on the Ask the Devs forum, that is locked to anyone else but the devs.

That way the devs don't have to wade through piles of stupid questions like "Will rubber ducks be properly implemented?"
"Can VS MAX's have OS guns?"
"Why do I still like chocolate?"

The community needs a spokesman. Without it, devs have to waste too much time sifting through rubble to find something valid.

Respect their time.

Hamma · 2011-10-08, 10:52 AM

I already do that just not via a forums system.

Lartnev · 2011-10-09, 09:17 AM

With the Twitter Q&As and the forums the devs can choose to answer questions about topics they are ready/willing to answer. The problem with a Q&A forum is that there would be a perceived obligation for the devs to answer all of the questions just because some of them have been answered. People would get upset that their questions weren't getting answered and then the devs would get upset by those people and would stop answering any questions at all.

With the current system the devs are free to answer the questions on the forums when they can (and the dev tracker already highlights these for those short on time), or invite questions about topics they are ready to expand on (as has been the case with the Twitter Q&As). It's a nice consensual system which benefits both the developers and the community.