Habluka, if I had to listen to you it seems like you are talking about a near-to-mature gaming project that has millions of players day by day.
I'm not complaining about the release times, but regarding why those releases are lasting. I also run a free project called STALKERHispano, but that is not a reason to don't listen my users or give them support/adequate answers. As in almost any free project, you don't need to be a part of the dev team to improve the code, that's why there is a role named 'collaborators'. Dev team MUST be a group of people that can give at least 30-60 minutes per day to the project, however their main goal is to assure the continuity and stability of the project (game in this case).
About stability, I may have not explained it well. I was proposing to give a strong communicate to the community like: "guys this is how we think the game is better, please stop popping around with balance anytime you get pwned by a certain weapon and brain storm new ideas for the game".
Regarding features discussion... you see? If it where from you, we won't even test them to see if there are positive feedback or not, how will the project improve then? How we will ever know what features works best and which works worse if we don't even try them? Are we wizards? If a Team Damage on/off is on next release for server owners you will surely have were to choose playing, hence, where's the problem? Same with 'eSports features', make them, then we see if they were worth it or not.
About PR, by your purpose there are high chances to listen two far different opinions of the project regarding who you are talking with, which you must agree with me can create confusion and lack of credibility regarding the project. Moreover, the game will benefit to have someone specialized on give media coverage, by reaching more potential users.
As you said, fans are - I might say they use to be - subjective, that's why you have to make a polls (not a forum one, but serious targeted poll/survey/opinion poll), to recognizes the general opinion about a certain matter.
The idea of helping communications between clans, it's just to create a sensation of movement in the game. The closest number of players is exactly what AC have to exploit so they can use the players/clan activities to show newcomers how things are going. Just about people not having to see the same exact homepage from month to month. Remember, activity raise activity.
On the last part, which belongs to site discussion, what about giving a reason for 'no'? What's worse on people navigating the site in their own language or able to register with their Facebook account (or Google PlusOne, Twitter, etc.)? And regarding ads, again, why 'no' ads? What if we can bring enough money from ads to sponsor a CDN network, a server in each continent/country or perhaps make T-Shirts that later can be sold again on the behalf of the game? Is that so bad? Warsow even have ads into its own maps :) As a free project, I can't understand why any won't support the project by just having Google Adwords on the bottom of your site... it's just an egoistic behaviour.
Regarding some other stuff pointed by Jamz that I couldn't fill on my previous post for Habluka:
- In-Game warm up is needed to prevent good pc players to spawn much before than users with low pcs (of course, this applies for matchmode only, in public there is no a real need of it). Plus, it can be useful to introduce limited breaks during the clan matches in order to sort disconnections or other urgencies of people playing (yes, people use to stop playing and wait but time is still running).
- Regarding SVN and testing, I personally don't participate just because I have not the feeling that my efforts are going to be worth it (due to stuff already commented about devs and community feelings). I can't speak for other, but it may be not only me.
- About money, I've never said any dev have to become rich from the game. As my grandpa said when he was living: "Money is much easier to spend than to earn". I am more than sure that we can find 'where to spend' the money if the project has an adequate budget (i.e. prizes for contests and/or competitions, better infrastructure, extra services, etc.)
- I don't think the 'leader' should be a coder, so it can best allocate his time to manage, administrate and motivate the team, as by the nature of the project common objectives/decisions should still be taken by the overall team. Similar as our structure at ED, I'm the higher ranked member, but I can't take decisions on my own that affects all the Clan, and even less that can affect a certain department, however I'm in charge to verify that things are been done well.
- Standardization allowed Ford to step from creating 10 cars per month to 10000 cars per month, that's why it has become important to accomplish certain standards. In the case of software, it approach to newcomers to something they should already know with great returns in terms of players acceptance. Having or not having the possibility for server owners to switch on and off team damage, is not differentiating a game from another excepting from the possibilities and flexibility that it offers. As for the servers tools, think on an application as RCon for CoD, by which you don't need to be in the server to admin it (In case it already exists, it should be packed within the package or at least in the same section of downloads).
- Exactly, I was referring to live feeds :) but of course it can be extended.
- I was referring to multilingual interface not subforums. This means, for example in Spanish 'Previsualizar Post' instead of 'Preview Post' if I wish to navigate the site in Spanish, simply that.
Anyway, despite our different opinions, thanks to Habluka and Jamz to join this interesting discussion, I really appreciate to be able to discuss this matters with the rest of AC folks.
GGz!
I'm not complaining about the release times, but regarding why those releases are lasting. I also run a free project called STALKERHispano, but that is not a reason to don't listen my users or give them support/adequate answers. As in almost any free project, you don't need to be a part of the dev team to improve the code, that's why there is a role named 'collaborators'. Dev team MUST be a group of people that can give at least 30-60 minutes per day to the project, however their main goal is to assure the continuity and stability of the project (game in this case).
About stability, I may have not explained it well. I was proposing to give a strong communicate to the community like: "guys this is how we think the game is better, please stop popping around with balance anytime you get pwned by a certain weapon and brain storm new ideas for the game".
Regarding features discussion... you see? If it where from you, we won't even test them to see if there are positive feedback or not, how will the project improve then? How we will ever know what features works best and which works worse if we don't even try them? Are we wizards? If a Team Damage on/off is on next release for server owners you will surely have were to choose playing, hence, where's the problem? Same with 'eSports features', make them, then we see if they were worth it or not.
About PR, by your purpose there are high chances to listen two far different opinions of the project regarding who you are talking with, which you must agree with me can create confusion and lack of credibility regarding the project. Moreover, the game will benefit to have someone specialized on give media coverage, by reaching more potential users.
As you said, fans are - I might say they use to be - subjective, that's why you have to make a polls (not a forum one, but serious targeted poll/survey/opinion poll), to recognizes the general opinion about a certain matter.
The idea of helping communications between clans, it's just to create a sensation of movement in the game. The closest number of players is exactly what AC have to exploit so they can use the players/clan activities to show newcomers how things are going. Just about people not having to see the same exact homepage from month to month. Remember, activity raise activity.
On the last part, which belongs to site discussion, what about giving a reason for 'no'? What's worse on people navigating the site in their own language or able to register with their Facebook account (or Google PlusOne, Twitter, etc.)? And regarding ads, again, why 'no' ads? What if we can bring enough money from ads to sponsor a CDN network, a server in each continent/country or perhaps make T-Shirts that later can be sold again on the behalf of the game? Is that so bad? Warsow even have ads into its own maps :) As a free project, I can't understand why any won't support the project by just having Google Adwords on the bottom of your site... it's just an egoistic behaviour.
Regarding some other stuff pointed by Jamz that I couldn't fill on my previous post for Habluka:
- In-Game warm up is needed to prevent good pc players to spawn much before than users with low pcs (of course, this applies for matchmode only, in public there is no a real need of it). Plus, it can be useful to introduce limited breaks during the clan matches in order to sort disconnections or other urgencies of people playing (yes, people use to stop playing and wait but time is still running).
- Regarding SVN and testing, I personally don't participate just because I have not the feeling that my efforts are going to be worth it (due to stuff already commented about devs and community feelings). I can't speak for other, but it may be not only me.
- About money, I've never said any dev have to become rich from the game. As my grandpa said when he was living: "Money is much easier to spend than to earn". I am more than sure that we can find 'where to spend' the money if the project has an adequate budget (i.e. prizes for contests and/or competitions, better infrastructure, extra services, etc.)
- I don't think the 'leader' should be a coder, so it can best allocate his time to manage, administrate and motivate the team, as by the nature of the project common objectives/decisions should still be taken by the overall team. Similar as our structure at ED, I'm the higher ranked member, but I can't take decisions on my own that affects all the Clan, and even less that can affect a certain department, however I'm in charge to verify that things are been done well.
- Standardization allowed Ford to step from creating 10 cars per month to 10000 cars per month, that's why it has become important to accomplish certain standards. In the case of software, it approach to newcomers to something they should already know with great returns in terms of players acceptance. Having or not having the possibility for server owners to switch on and off team damage, is not differentiating a game from another excepting from the possibilities and flexibility that it offers. As for the servers tools, think on an application as RCon for CoD, by which you don't need to be in the server to admin it (In case it already exists, it should be packed within the package or at least in the same section of downloads).
- Exactly, I was referring to live feeds :) but of course it can be extended.
- I was referring to multilingual interface not subforums. This means, for example in Spanish 'Previsualizar Post' instead of 'Preview Post' if I wish to navigate the site in Spanish, simply that.
Anyway, despite our different opinions, thanks to Habluka and Jamz to join this interesting discussion, I really appreciate to be able to discuss this matters with the rest of AC folks.
GGz!