The notion of a Player Council is an unfortunate catch-22, to me at least.
In theory, it’s a great idea for cutting out noise and putting forth concise ideals that the developers, who have very limited time and attention for community input as it is, can get real data as opposed to a faceful of smoke. Developers
want player feedback and ideas, even Piranha (I think…
…), but anyone who posts here knows full well that any idea thrown out in GD is pretty much a p!ss in the ocean, insofar as actual relevance or attention goes. This sort of work is supposed to be a big part of what an official Community Manager does, though I have no information whatsoever on how much time Niko spends collating and proposing player ideas.
That said…if a Player Council goes through, and you’re not
on the player council, it’s incredibly easy to say to yourself, “Whelp, I may as well stop posting altogether because I’m not one of the Chosen Ones.” When the player base voluntarily signs away all their feedback rights to a subset of less than a dozen players, it’s
awfully hard to still feel invested in what those players are doing. Alternatively, those players will be hounded night and day by people
desperate to get their ideas heard and who’re
convinced that the only way to get those ideas heard is to badger a Player Councilman until the PC gives them a personal response. After all, the sheer act of creating and voting in a Player Council means that we’ve effectively agreed to surrender our right to be heard by Piranha directly to that Council. Whether or not the PC hears
us, on the other hand, is still pretty fiercely up for debate.
While I support the idea, as well as any idea that might get the players some more pull with Piranha, I’m afraid it won’t work nearly as nicely as even the mildest of expectations in this thread are hoping for. There’s no way in Hell a forum-elected Player Council will have any sort of veto or other development say
whatsoever, for example. None. Nada. Not even remotely happening, and for very good reason.
As well, I can’t think of a better way to ensure that respected figures in the forum community become reviled villains hated by all than to give them extra pull with PGI. I mean come on, just look at what happened to Niko. I don’t even know what he
did, but I know for a fact that people are bellowing for his head when, like, this time
last week he was The People’s Champion. Most of the dozen or so names frequently brought up for nominations here are already fairly controversial figures on the board; give them what amounts to a community manager’s position akin to Niko’s and I can
guarantee you that these folks will be worse than Hatlor, in the eyes of the community, by the end of the year.
If they’re willing to make that sacrifice to try and improve MWO, more power to them. We need to do
something. It will simply also be incumbent upon them, and upon the rest of us, to make sure that the community isn’t overworking these councilors to death clamoring for attention, and that these councilors are doing the work of the community and not the work of the councilors. This whole thing comes apart in flames and recrimination if people start figuring that the council’s not paying any more attention to them than Piranha was.
Us plebian non-Councilors need to do our part too if this is going to work, and for the love of all things decent in this world, we need to
stick a goddamned cork in the venom and vitriol. If we can’t talk to our own people civilly and with cool heads, then none of us are allowed to be surprised when our ideas don’t get anywhere.
P.S.: I motion that at least one seat on this council be filled by someone who is not, and ideally has never been, part of an active unit in this game. There needs to be at least one voice speaking from the experiences and viewpoints of Puglandia, someone who sticks up for us solo-dropping pug-queueing scrubs everyone else ignores. I…don’t actually know who to nominate for that position
. There’s not a lot of respectable and well-known folks who’re also true lone wolves. I almost want to volunteer for it myself, but I’m neither particularly well-known nor respected by those people who do know me, so that leaves that right out
Nevertheless, if there isn’t any Voice of the Masses in this particular council, then it’s a council which was assembled incorrectly.
P.P.S.: Koniving, IraqiWalker,
Bishop Steiner Homeless Bill, Adiuvo, and Roland. I have my differences with the last two – a
lot of them, some of them pretty deep – but both of them have made a real effort to be calm and reasonable spokesmen of the ultracomp crowd who’ve also actually acknowledged that the rest of us have a right to exist, and that makes them the men for the job in my book. Koniving is the undisputed lord of New Player Help which means he’s plugged in to what new players’ concerns and FAQs are in a way few other people are,
and Walker and Bishop are both pretty good barometers of what the general opinion in GD is. No solo Puglandia player in there (I’m personally in favor of 9 over 5, simply because it’s really hard to get a proper sampling of the playerbase in 5 guys), but it’d at least be a start, and I figure Bishop isn’t so far removed from Puglandia that he couldn’t keep his finger on it if he had to. Walker's a good barometer of how the general forum public is thinking who also has a rock-solid head on his shoulders, and frankly I feel really stupid for not thinking of Bill in the first place. That guy's one of the smartest and most capable folks I've seen on this board; I almost hesitate to nominate him as I honestly think he'd be of more use generating proposals for modifying ECM, but we need some serious Jimmy power behind this task force if people are going to buy it, and Bill's definitely put in the work.
Edited by 1453 R, 14 September 2014 - 07:56 PM.
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Bishop Steiner, on 12 September 2014 - 02:42 PM, said:
