Development Philosophy and Community Servers

[Seigmoraig]

26 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

yes, I recognize that those stats are not specifically level 50 or incarnate builds, but I still think those numbers are very telling.

Except those stats ARE specifically level 50, while not specified as incarnate, the info from the march 2020 stats thread is only for level 50 characters

 

[Sif]

2 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

/eyeroll

 

A lot of pretentious assumptions, here.

I'm a software engineer that does both professional and open source work. I speak from experience. 99% people will be fine, but 1% being assholes is more than enough to ruin your day.

 

Hell, back on live I wrote a few programs for CoH, and, I still recall clearly, the first response for the first one was shitting on me for not filling their need. It was also used by a fair number of people all the way until shutdown.

[drbuzzard]

Sorry about the multi-post. It didn't indicate that it posted. Can't see how to delete the extras. 

Edited March 4, 2020 by drbuzzard

[drbuzzard]

Sorry about the multi-post. It didn't indicate that it posted. Can't see how to delete the extras. 

Edited March 4, 2020 by drbuzzard

[ScarySai]

4 minutes ago, Sif said:

I'm a software engineer that does both professional and open source work.

As am I, and I stated earlier that you are correct in a sense with the client-developer relationship.

 

But essentially calling the community at large mindless, unstable morons is uncalled for. Most are uninformed, few are educated, but only a handful are angry chimps.

Edited March 4, 2020 by ScarySai

[drbuzzard]

10 minutes ago, Septipheran said:

This is just a little bit disingenuous, and it could be that you're only speaking on your own behalf. If so, that's fine and feel free to ignore me. But I know that myself and others in my SG donate every time the window goes up and if we don't, it's because we missed the window. The servers are funded by the players, ie: us. If it's free for you, great. But it is not free.

You choose to donate. You can also choose not to donate and play for free. Hence it is free. 

 

The devs time is not compensated. The server costs are what donations are for. You have no claim, whatsoever, on their time. 

[Dynastyjay]

7 minutes ago, Seigmoraig said:

Except those stats ARE specifically level 50, while not specified as incarnate, the info from the march 2020 stats thread is only for level 50 characters

 

If you’re going to use one of the support ATs, make sure you look at the numbers for all of them. 
 

Out of 4 ATs which enable players to run support sets, empathy only appears to be a top choice for Defenders.

[Dynastyjay]

5 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

You choose to donate. You can also choose not to donate and play for free. Hence it is free. 

 

The devs time is not compensated. The server costs are what donations are for. You have no claim, whatsoever, on their time. 

The same way we choose to donate, the devs CHOOSE to volunteer their time. Nobody is forcing them and they’re well aware no monetary(or any kind) compensation will be given. So because every aspect of this game running right now is purely based on a choice, why not choose to be a little more engaging with the community who so graciously chooses to spend their hard earned money. Just a thought 

[_NOPE_]

37 minutes ago, OldestOne said:

The servers belong to the Homecoming Team, it is their decision what happens on it.

[roleki]

Maybe I'm a bit of an oddball, but I would rather see where the HC team takes this under their own steam, without direct input from the player base. 

 

Not saying they should ignore the playerbase, just, I think we should give the benefit of the doubt to people who cared enough about the game to give it a proper resurrection, given that such folk would probably have some pretty good ideas of their own without people like ME monkeying it up.

 

That said, they should hurry up and implement the -KB Accolade I suggested.

 

 

[_NOPE_]

16 minutes ago, Seigmoraig said:

Except those stats ARE specifically level 50, while not specified as incarnate, the info from the march 2020 stats thread is only for level 50 characters

 

Eh, I would take those numbers with a grain of salt. For example, 439 of those Force Field level 50s are my alts. 😉

[Septipheran]

2 minutes ago, The Philotic Knight said:

I don't think anyone disagrees with this point, and if this is the message that's fine. What I'm more confused by is the stated goal of this being a fan-run, community supported server. If that's what this is, then community feedback should be #1. If this is their world and we're lucky to be living in it, just tell us that. Don't act like we have a say and then set us up for bombardment if we try to share our opinions. 

[drbuzzard]

3 minutes ago, Dynastyjay said:

The same way we choose to donate, the devs CHOOSE to volunteer their time. Nobody is forcing them and they’re well aware no monetary(or any kind) compensation will be given. So because every aspect of this game running right now is purely based on a choice, why not choose to be a little more engaging with the community who so graciously chooses to spend their hard earned money. Just a thought 

 

I've seen the results of them choosing to be engaging in things like the attempt to address rage or the current dark melee changes. They appear to engage plenty and get grief for it already. 

 

Not sure if there's a backlog of coders lining up to add to homecoming, I don't know about that. I do know that donations get filled up in minutes, so there's certainly a surfeit of people willing to do that. I rather suspect the coders are a lot less common. I think they are doing a good job, and are pretty transparent about how things go. 

[drbuzzard]

4 minutes ago, Septipheran said:

I don't think anyone disagrees with this point, and if this is the message that's fine. What I'm more confused by is the stated goal of this being a fan-run, community supported server. If that's what this is, then community feedback should be #1. If this is their world and we're lucky to be living in it, just tell us that. Don't act like we have a say and then set us up for bombardment if we try to share our opinions. 

You seem to read community supported as community controlled. I've never seen that either stated or implied. 

[_NOPE_]

@Septipheran we DO have the ability to provide feedback. Here:

 

 

What we DON'T have is the ability to demand that we be obeyed. Even though we provide funds to the HC team, in the end, it's their servers, it IS their world. We're just lucky enough to be able to play on it. They could just as easily downscale the servers and run it the same way other community servers are run - with a much smaller fanbase, and pay for it themselves. They are big, because the majority of players, agree with what they are doing. The moment that's no longer true, you'll see player numbers dip substantially, and the monthly request for donations NOT be met within three hours of the request being made.

 

Actions speak louder than words. The HC team have shown that they are open to listening to player feedback, but the calls are ultimately theirs to make. They've shown this with their actions, accepting some feedback and not accepting others. And we've shown that we support this status quo, by our money and our time - our time on these forums, on Discord, and in-game.

 

If you don't like the status quo, you're free to speak your mind about it. However, I doubt that much will be changed from one person raising a ruckus. Those kinds of changes generally happen from a LOT of people raising a ruckus.

[Dynastyjay]

1 minute ago, drbuzzard said:

 

I've seen the results of them choosing to be engaging in things like the attempt to address rage or the current dark melee changes. They appear to engage plenty and get grief for it already. 

 

Not sure if there's a backlog of coders lining up to add to homecoming, I don't know about that. I do know that donations get filled up in minutes, so there's certainly a surfeit of people willing to do that. I rather suspect the coders are a lot less common. I think they are doing a good job, and are pretty transparent about how things go. 

I’m by no means trying to bash on the people volunteering their skills to help keep the game running, I don’t have their skills so I do my part by donating every month(and have done so consistently). There will always be a portion of the community who is ill-informed and lacks the common knowledge to give competent feedback; the dev team should know this and should be able to set those apart from those of us giving relevant and constructive feedback. I’m not asking to make decisions, I’m asking for more transparency. That’s all

[ScarySai]

14 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

I've seen the results of them choosing to be engaging in things like the attempt to address rage or the current dark melee changes. They appear to engage plenty and get grief for it already. 

Fixing what isn't broken for the former by nerfing double rage and removing a fantastic DC change in favor of a weird 15 second DoT due to irrational balance fears before shitcanning the whole thing, deserved the backlash they got.

 

Devs can have their ideas, but CoH would never have crawled out of the hole Jack left behind were it not for community feedback.

Edited March 4, 2020 by ScarySai

[Burnt Toast]

11 minutes ago, Dynastyjay said:

The same way we choose to donate, the devs CHOOSE to volunteer their time. Nobody is forcing them and they’re well aware no monetary(or any kind) compensation will be given. So because every aspect of this game running right now is purely based on a choice, why not choose to be a little more engaging with the community who so graciously chooses to spend their hard earned money. Just a thought 

And nobody is forcing you to donate or to play on HC - there are other servers out there. Your donation is a choice. 

If you fail to see the interactions that HC does with the playerbase - that is on you. HC has been and continues to be very involved with the general playerbase. 

You do know that these are volunteers who spend an enormous amount of their free time to write code/moderate/etc... and engage with the community right? 

As someone who has donated numerous times - I am quite happy with how much interaction the HC team has with the community - especially when it comes to beta testing etc. 

HC is actually just as engaging with the playerbase that Paragon - a completely paid staff... was.

 

People all upset because Electrical Affinity is not what they wanted pushed out right now - instead they want this or that - well... wait. There are other things being worked on as well. With a small volunteer team like HC they can only put out so much new stuff at a time. They are not some huge studio with paid staff doing this as their means of income. Using the fact that they rely on donations against them is cheap and disrespectful. 

 

[jubakumbi]

COH server runners are not required from my POV to write book reports, nor should they be, unless they feel like it.

The server runners can choose, or not, as they see fit to engage, or not, as they see fit, because they are just volunteers doing something they (hopefully) like doing.

It's their hobby, that happens to benefit a bunch of other people.

 

I say you take what you get and feel good about the fact they listen to anything we say at all, personally.

 

If you don't think they deserve money, then don't donate.

 

But really, this is not the first ask of this kind.

Just feel lucky that they will even allow us to rant the way we do here and keep the lights running.

It's obvious they play the game and listen to the masses, even if we don't all agree on the details, which is more than some fans can say about the MMOs they play.

 

Please don't try and make them write book reports just to have the playerbase tear them apart over the minutae and thus discourage further developement.

 

Please.

[ScarySai]

3 minutes ago, Burnt Toast said:

Using the fact that they rely on donations against them is cheap and disrespectful. 

That's a rather interesting spin on otherwise non-hostile phrasing.

 

Wanting to work with and to better understand the designer mindset isn't an attack on the devs.

Edited March 4, 2020 by ScarySai

[drbuzzard]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Fixing what isn't broken for the former by nerfing double rage and removing a fantastic DC change in favor of a weird 15 second DoT due to irrational balance fears before shitcanning the whole thing, deserved the backlash they got.

 

Devs can have their ideas, but CoH would never have crawled out of the hole Jack left behind were it not for community feedback.

 

I think my case about engagement was just made. 

[ScarySai]

Just now, drbuzzard said:

 

I think my case about engagement was just made. 

If your case relies on us blindly accepting everything, when specifically asked for our feedback, then it's a bad case.

[Burnt Toast]

13 minutes ago, Dynastyjay said:

I’m by no means trying to bash on the people volunteering their skills to help keep the game running, I don’t have their skills so I do my part by donating every month(and have done so consistently). There will always be a portion of the community who is ill-informed and lacks the common knowledge to give competent feedback; the dev team should know this and should be able to set those apart from those of us giving relevant and constructive feedback. I’m not asking to make decisions, I’m asking for more transparency. That’s all

They are already very transparent. Not sure why you think they aren't. What more do you want them to do... tell you every idea they are discussing? That would be an absolute trainwreck and a collosal waste of their time. What SPECIFICALLY do you think they should be communicating more? 

[Dynastyjay]

3 minutes ago, Burnt Toast said:

And nobody is forcing you to donate or to play on HC - there are other servers out there. Your donation is a choice. 

If you fail to see the interactions that HC does with the playerbase - that is on you. HC has been and continues to be very involved with the general playerbase. 

You do know that these are volunteers who spend an enormous amount of their free time to write code/moderate/etc... and engage with the community right? 

As someone who has donated numerous times - I am quite happy with how much interaction the HC team has with the community - especially when it comes to beta testing etc. 

HC is actually just as engaging with the playerbase that Paragon - a completely paid staff... was.

 

People all upset because Electrical Affinity is not what they wanted pushed out right now - instead they want this or that - well... wait. There are other things being worked on as well. With a small volunteer team like HC they can only put out so much new stuff at a time. They are not some huge studio with paid staff doing this as their means of income. Using the fact that they rely on donations against them is cheap and disrespectful. 

 

You simply restated what I said in that post, and I’m sure you didn’t make it past that post before you became so enraged you just had to quote me and tell me how disrespectful I’m being. So let me say it again. I AM NOT DISSING THE DEVS. Now that I’ve made that clear once again; there is a difference between being engaging and being transparent. Not once have I denied the level of engagement from the HC team, both on the forums and in game(I’ve experienced it first hand). What I am saying, is that the level of transparency could use some work. If I’m being cheap or disrespectful by “using” the fact that our donations help run the game, then how is it any different saying “they own it, shut up and be thankful.”

[jubakumbi]

Just now, ScarySai said:

If your case relies on us blindly accepting everything, when specifically asked for our feedback, then it's a bad case.

To use your words, Feedback and Deserved Backlash are two very different things, combined with the Jack hate and the thought that the community fixed the game, does show some pretty aggressive dev hate to me.

 

Just sayiin'.