Systems: Developer Idea Priority Queue

Sirisian · 2012-06-13, 03:27 AM

The business model right now has skins, weapon unlocks, and possibly memberships which are fine for gaining revenue. However, some of us might not be interested in personal non-gameplay features that we can unlock. So new gameplay features are what some of us might be interested in.

Okay, so the developers are going to have their 3 year plan that they said they will be unveiling when the game releases. It could be simply a list of 100 features they plan to implement with a specific order or out of order. Now this three year plan might implement things which some of us want more than others. You might be thinking I'm talking about allowing crowdfunding at this point, and yes, but keep reading.

What I'm suggesting is the ability for players to influence the priority order of developer ideas. (Not player ideas). So the implementation would be developers will be listing all their ideas and concepts on a priority queue within the game or outside of it on their website. They might start with a developer set priority if the developers deem the milestone important. Like adding a new vehicle with a specific explanation might start at a set value of 5000 in the list. So we'd all see a list of every idea the developers want in the game, so how would player influence this list?

It would be completely separate from the game and resource system. Players would essentially crowdfund an idea. If you liked a particular idea you would be given the ability to add station cash to that idea to push it up in priority. There would be no system for downvoting an idea, so essentially the most well funded (not essentially best) ideas would filter their way up the list.

SOE would get the money if they implemented the idea. (Technically when you buy station cash they already have your real money) . At any point in time the developers could revoke an idea from the idea queue which would return the station cash to the players who invested in that idea. This allows developers to gain feedback on what players want and would allow them to quickly rank ideas in a profitable way.

Some obvious criticisms of this system. It allows someone that is wealthy to invest a lot of station cash quickly into an idea pushing it above any other ideas. The system would be 100% anonymous (unless some opt-in option was allowed) so players wouldn't know it was happening unless such a transaction was marked as Anonymous with an amount. The other potential problem is there is a maximum wallet size limit. So any investment into ideas would potentially still count toward the total since they could be given back at any point. Ideally in theory the majority with enough people would beat the weighted opinion of one person.

The other semi-obvious criticism is that SOE's developers understand the direction of the game better than the players, so forcing their hand in anyway with the development of the game (even if it's just the order they do things in) will be unnecessary.

The pros are that for people that don't care about memberships or skins it would allow them to invest in ideas instead. For a F2P game this sounds like a novel form of crowdfunding. However, there's a view I've seen before that "SOE is too good to be crowdfunded" in such ways. That is a company of its stature should use other business models. This might be one of the biggest hurdles in many people hold this view (which a few do as this idea was brought up by myself and another person on different occasions when discussing other business models).

Would you guys support such an open and transparent system for priority queuing developer ideas? (Remembering developers would in the end still have the final say in anything since they're the ones adding ideas and concepts to the list). As an example if they put vehicle animations low on the list and people pushed it above every other amazing idea they proposed we'd see vehicle animations first. (Just as an example since it's a classic community discussion point).

This is probably going to be one of the more controversial threads I've made since judging from the IRC reception the range is from "like it" to "interesting" to "unnecessary". (I think I've already played devil's advocate enough in the past few paragraphs, so I'll just post it and sit back for a while).

Maltodextrin · 2012-06-13, 07:09 AM

I feel like your second self-criticism is the more important one.

We are not developers. We are not programmers. We are not team leads or directors. We're customers. I've worked on the receiving end of customers. Customers don't know shit. It's not their job to know shit. It's their job to convey what they want from the project, and leave all the rest of the project to the people who actually do know shit.

The fact of the matter is, those ideas are queued up in such a way for a reason. Ideally, because it represents the most efficient way of getting things done in terms of personnel management, difficulty of implementation, how nice it's going to play with other things, etc.

What happens when a top-funded idea is found, for whatever reason, to simply not be feasible within the framework of the game? What about when some pipe-dream of an idea planned for 3 years out suddenly finds itself hurtling towards the front of the queue, forcing more pertinent changes, updates, and fixes lower down the line?

What about ideas the devs want to use to surprise us? Are they just listed as Secret Idea 1, Secret Idea 2, etc?

The devs should listen to their customers, yes. But they should not be directly at the customers' beck and call. We know what we want them to do, but the know what they need to do, and what they can do.

Fafnir · 2012-06-13, 07:10 AM

The other semi-obvious criticism is that SOE's developers understand the direction of the game better than the players, so forcing their hand in anyway with the development of the game (even if it's just the order they do things in) will be unnecessary.

This.

Let them do their thing. They listen to us (see: killcam) and they basically develop PS2 for themselves too. Forcing their hand in any way is simply unnecessary. Also it's a bad idea, because players are not designers. We don't know what we really want. Designers do, because it's their job.

Talek Krell · 2012-06-13, 06:36 PM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

The other semi-obvious criticism is that SOE's developers understand the direction of the game better than the players, so forcing their hand in anyway with the development of the game (even if it's just the order they do things in) will be unnecessary.

This is the issue that immediately leaps to my own mind. People can generally be expected to know what they want but often not what they need.

That should be easy enough to guard against though. If the list only includes optional things and not changes that would have fundamental game impacts then...well the metaphor that comes to mind is that you can pick which part of your dinner to eat first, but you aren't allowed to skip to dessert no matter how much you whine.