Reddit Style Voting for Six Month Plan

Hamma · 2013-01-24, 12:52 PM

I don't like this at all. Votes are exploitable, popularity contests are not the way to decide the six month plan. Let people discuss, read the feedback and decide how to proceed.

This sort of crap is to easily influenced by large groups of people and influential individuals.

The Zerg already decides the outcome of the game IN game.

Rahabib · 2013-01-24, 12:57 PM

Sony had this for the playstation network (probably where they got it from). However 99.9% of the suggestions were ignored. However, the really popular ideas were actually good ones. The dumb ideas trend for a few days then fall off.

Problem is, top things on this will be "make x more like PS1." Be ready for #1 idea to be "lattice" :P

stordito · 2013-01-24, 12:58 PM

Maybe we should wait and see how the thing is handled first?

Sunrock · 2013-01-24, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I don't like this at all. Votes are exploitable, popularity contests are not the way to decide the six month plan. Let people discuss, read the feedback and decide how to proceed.

This sort of crap is to easily influenced by large groups of people and influential individuals.

I have to agree. But I'm not surprised at all to see this from SOE. I have always suspect that all there best game designs have been by random luck more then intention.

Javelin · 2013-01-24, 12:59 PM

So basic democracy is not your thing?

..influenced by large groups of people

Why would what the majority wants be a bad thing? Why should small sections of a group have more influence over larger ones?

ZaiRoX · 2013-01-24, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

This sort of crap is to easily influenced by large groups of people and influential individuals.

Just like any other demographic election?

AnamNantom · 2013-01-24, 01:01 PM

Like I said on twitter, I hope the SOE guys only use this feedback as a tool. That, they, like a good Constitutional Republic (not Terran, mind you) remember that the sheep have machine guns, that two wolves do NOT determine what's for dinner, if you catch my drift.

They are the caretakers of Planetside 2 and we are it's citizens. Democracy by popular vote is flawed, Constitutional Republics are the best!

Rahabib · 2013-01-24, 01:02 PM

I think the major problem is, we are not seeing the data they are seeing. its good to have a suggestion, its another to implement a poor one because it doesn't fix the real problem.

maradine · 2013-01-24, 01:02 PM

Game design is not a democracy. It's execution of a creative vision. Woe to the world where this is no longer the case. While I understand the drivers that have put them here, I'm pretty sure this isn't the way out.

Javelin · 2013-01-24, 01:05 PM

We get to participate in this games future, and that's bad?

Crator · 2013-01-24, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by Javelin

So basic democracy is not your thing?

Why would what the majority wants be a bad thing? Why should small sections of a group have more influence over larger ones?

Don't use Reddit that much myself. How easy is it to create an account? Couldn't one just create multiple accounts to up the vote for an idea? This sound exploitable.

maradine · 2013-01-24, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by Javelin

We get to participate in this games future, and that's bad?

We weren't participating before?

FridayUK · 2013-01-24, 01:11 PM

Hmm interesting (aww poor PlanetSide Tracker getting made redundant!?).

I understand your concerns and how vocal / popular people can influence others disproportionately (magnifying what may already be a skewed opinion; based on the sample of people voting). I also note that you've mentioned about trying to explicitly avoid airing many strong opinions to specifically avoid doing that with respect to PS.

Personally I'm a big fan of having visibility of community feedback and the actual popularity of ideas; certainly versus "trying to post the number of threads about something" - which dominates a lot of forums and is hard for rational discussion and reasonable people to compete with.

I think if there is enough feedback *and* the metrics are good enough it can be a really good way to judge what a community is thinking about a topic, in a way forums can make difficult. I have lot of sympathy with the encouragement of higher value responses though; in particular in preference to encouraging low value comments. Stuff like the "MBT dedicated gunner" post (originally from PSU, reposted by the author on PST) are great examples of a case well argued, and it's not the only one.

Getting both of those right is tricky though - and does really require more rating options and tools than just up / down votes. Long term observation of many responses and smart questions (of the sort okcupid.com does) can be really useful though.

While I might be sad to make PST redundant, I'm really interested to see what they've been working on. I hope they can keep it less official forum and reddit like (because that's catered for already) and a bit more structured & designed to promote quality feedback.

Edit: Would caveat the above by agreeing whole heartedly that feedback should always be taken with a pinch of salt and agreeing that the wise "benevolent dictator" approach tends to lead to better products.

Javelin · 2013-01-24, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Crator

Don't use Reddit that much myself. How easy is it to create an account? Couldn't one just create multiple accounts to up the vote for an idea? This sound exploitable.

We haven't seen the system yet , so how could we have a real discussion about it.

Originally Posted by maradine

We weren't participating before?

And this is another form of that. The listening to loudest voices is not the only way to get feedback on something.

Crator · 2013-01-24, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Javelin

We haven't seen the system yet , so how could we have a real discussion about it.

And this is another form of that. The listening to loudest voices is not the only way to get feedback on something.

True. But does it hurt to ask questions?