189 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

I support the OP 100%.

Choice of a council - by whatever means it happens, I don't care - needs to include as Mr. Bill said a diverse cross section of the playerbase, not a group from any one segment. These people need to have a solid grasp of game mechanics, and participate in various levels of play - that is, not just competitive high end play. This, because the game plays very differently at other levels, and those people matter just as much.

Focus is required. It's not enough to post forum polls, nothing will work out that way. 100 players will have 200 suggestions, that doesn't help anything get solved.

I can't recommend Koniving enough. He needs to be involved in this. And Homeless Bill.

[phalanx]

I totally agree with Bill's proposal for how we get the ball rolling. Not only does it mitigate the problem of trolls or special interest groups "rigging" the change for their sole benefit(My brother played a game where a Gaming Clan that won a tournament was allowed to advise on further development and influenced development as such that they won every subsequent tourney for the next 2 or 3 years).

I would also recommend that 1 of the "slots" in the Council go to someone who has quit playing(but has NOT been banned). My reasoning here is that there may be some players who quit because they felt that the Devs were not considering player input. This move would definitely be a factor in bringing such persons back to the Game("Oh look, they want our input. Yay!").

I also think that they should make sure that there is diversity across regions(NA,EU,Oceania) so that the final shape of the Council is a "Republic"(as Bill mentioned) that best represents as much of the types of MWO players as possible.

THIS is a signal that Russ was serious about improving communication and was not blowing smoke out of his rear lower torso at the Town Hall.

Let's do it right People.

[Wintersdark]

Homeless Bill, on 12 September 2014 - 03:14 PM, said:

I think it's 100% this. He's giving us exactly what we wanted to show us, "It's not that easy, you morons."

It's going to be incredibly difficult to hit any sort of consensus, but that's why I want to organize this as efficiently as possible. It's a hell of a hill to climb, but we can do it. We've at least got to show that we can competently form a council and put out a proposal. Even if the community or they reject it, we have to be able to do that much.

Well, Bill, as I said elsewhere, I have no idea how I can help, but I'm 100% behind you and will do whatever I can. I'm not going to post a lot in these threads to keep the noise down, but feel free to ask whatever you need.

[1453 R]

Koniving, absolutely. Nobody else in this game has a better handle on the needs and concerns of new players than he does. It may not be as pertinent in an ECM discussion as it would be for a general council, but we still need the new guys to be heard and Koniving's the best spokesman they could ask for.

I also wish to emphasize - again - that we cannot dilly-dally with this. We need to agree on a plan of action inside a week (note, not the final ECM proposal, but a plan on how we'll go about putting together the final ECM proposal) and then get it done. We have to be effective as well as united, and taking eight months to build a player consensus is not effective. We need to get our task group assembled and get to work if we want to show Russ and Piranha both that we're the sort of valuable resource they should be tapping more often.

Edited by 1453 R, 12 September 2014 - 05:53 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

DocBach and Koniving have my votes as well. And I cannot forget Homeless either.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 12 September 2014 - 05:52 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

If we want to 'elect' a council of sorts, it needs to be done right and with the help of some moderators.

Ergo, there needs to be an Official Nomination thread (heavily moderated so only nominations are allowed) preferably pinned and started by a moderator, with a week or a little less before turning it over into a vote.

Right now we have the what always happens with any major topic, 5 different threads about the same subject and it makes it more of a hassle to keep up. Keep it simple, start an official thread, have it pinned, argue, done.

[Decep-Qi-Kons]

I like the RADAR rework section of this thread
http://mwomercs.com/...99#entry3417099

[Valore]

Also something to consider, its good that you have this point up:

Quote

Design by republic - not design by democracy

But I'd like to ask how this is going to be handled. I'm a competitive player, so naturally I'd like things balanced higher up the ELO scale. However, I also understand that certain changes to make things 'balanced' for competition/high end play also make things less fun for the 'average' player.

(Let's not even go down that embarassing route of remembering how PGI also has in the past managed to make the game both MORE unbalanced, and LESS fun...)

So how are we going to approach this? What sliding scale of 'fun vs competitive' are we going to balance for?

LRMs are a prime case. They're absolutely rubbish and useless in competitive play. Yet there are a million threads calling for nerfs because pub groups get massacred by them. How would we proceed in situations like those?

[Ted Wayz]

Funny when people say "X" needs to be fixed without mentioning all the interrelationships that will be affected by it. X leads to Y leads to Z unless all critical outcomes are considered first. And sometimes Z is way worse than X.

If you are going to make your bed don't forget the mint.

[Khobai]

Quote

If we want to 'elect' a council of sorts, it needs to be done right and with the help of some moderators.

Ergo, there needs to be an Official Nomination thread (heavily moderated so only nominations are allowed) preferably pinned and started by a moderator, with a week or a little less before turning it over into a vote.

Right now we have the what always happens with any major topic, 5 different threads about the same subject and it makes it more of a hassle to keep up. Keep it simple, start an official thread, have it pinned, argue, done.

The whole thing is a travesty/sham.

Just because 20-30 people vote for you on the forums, that somehow qualifies you to represent a community of thousands of players? Am I the only one that sees the insanity in that?

We dont need a council to discuss whats wrong with ECM and how to fix it. The last thing we need is a small percentage of the player base misrepresenting the wishes of everyone else.

Edited by Khobai, 12 September 2014 - 06:36 PM.

[Valore]

Khobai, on 12 September 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

The whole thing is a travesty/sham.

Just because 20-30 people vote for you on the forums, that somehow qualifies you to represent a community of thousands of players? Am I the only one that sees the insanity in that?

We dont need a council to discuss whats wrong with ECM and how to fix it. The last thing we need is a small percentage of the player base misrepresenting the wishes of everyone else.

While you have pertinent points, we can't have our cake and eat it.

PGI balances terribly, we give them grief.

Now they want to bring in SOME outside feedback, we... give them more grief?

This is a step in the right direction. Have your reservations by all means, but we should give this a try before dismissing it.

[Khobai]

Quote

Now they want to bring in SOME outside feedback, we... give them more grief?

This is a step in the right direction. Have your reservations by all means, but we should give this a try before dismissing it.

You know what else was outside feedback? Ghost heat. That was a player idea. And its one of the most derided balance decisions ever implemented in this game.

[Valore]

Khobai, on 12 September 2014 - 06:44 PM, said:

You know what else was outside feedback? Ghost heat. That was a player idea. And its one of the most derided balance decisions ever implemented in this game.

I'm pretty sure outside feedback was 'this pinpoint accuracy and mass alpha madness is killing the game (and all the pubs)'. Which isn't untrue or inaccurate.

Ghost heat was their ham fisted fix. Hopefully we can avoid that this time around.

Edited by Valore, 12 September 2014 - 06:48 PM.

[1453 R]

Khobai, on 12 September 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

The whole thing is a travesty/sham.

Just because 20-30 people vote for you on the forums, that somehow qualifies you to represent a community of thousands of players? Am I the only one that sees the insanity in that?

We dont need a council to discuss whats wrong with ECM and how to fix it. The last thing we need is a small percentage of the player base misrepresenting the wishes of everyone else.

Actually, the last thing we need is yet more ineffectual chaff where eight hundred players put forth three hundred ideas and generate twelve hundred pages of flaming scorched-earth total warfare.

We need this to be concise, useful, effective, and quick. Total democracy is none of those things. It's a useful barometer of what's wrong but a horrible way to figure out how to fix it. For that, we need a focused task group able to cut through the bullscheiss and get things done. A reasonable solution pumped out over the next month or two, which shows that the community is able to band together and act effectively and decisively when Piranha gives us a real chance, is infinitely better than a perfect solution decided on a year from now, long after Piranha's gone back to not listening to us.

Trust me man, I get it. Nobody, but nobody, but nobody wants to be left out in the cold, or even feel like they got left out in the cold. It hurts me more than I can say that I'm largely useless to this entire process, but the process itself, this chance Piranha's giving us, is more important than me. it's more important than me, it's more important than you, it's more important than Homeless Bill even. it's more important than any one single player who wants their voice to be heard, and it's more important than anything else that we organize a proper response to Russ' challenge and get some real work done. We all need to pull together in this, the same way we all pulled together for #saveMWO.

If that means you and I both yield the floor to the people most likely to be able to put together a single, unified proposal that Piranha can act upon, then that's just what we need to do. We can console ourselves with the fact that if this works, ECM will be much improved, and from that improvement in ECM, improvements in LRM performance and the entirety of the Information Warfare pillar can flow. This is our foot in the door, man. We need to make the absolute most of it, not let it mire down in endless, worthless 'debates' like everything else the forum-at-large does.

[MischiefSC]

I've made some requests to see if some heavily moderated threads can be arranged to help with this.

We'll probably hear something by Monday hopefully. There's a lot of stuff being discussed and I'm excited about all of it. We don't need to just 'get it all worked out' tonight. Plenty of people won't have even seen the forums yet.

[Livewyr]

Khobai, on 12 September 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

The whole thing is a travesty/sham.

Just because 20-30 people vote for you on the forums, that somehow qualifies you to represent a community of thousands of players? Am I the only one that sees the insanity in that?

We dont need a council to discuss whats wrong with ECM and how to fix it. The last thing we need is a small percentage of the player base misrepresenting the wishes of everyone else.

I think you are missing the point where the selected players are just refining the idea with the community. (Being in charge of changing points based on community feedback.)

Final representation is by Mass community Poll.

[Prezimonto]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 12 September 2014 - 03:37 PM, said:

I think we need to exclude banned users out of the gate, simply from a transparency perspective. They are more than welcome to contribute through proxies, but the representatives need to be accessible and visible on the MWO forums.
Which brings up a second point, term limits. how long does a council seat last? Certainly there has to be an opportunity for new players (or returning players) to join the council.

I would argue until a current member resigns. This job is going to suck, feel unrewarding, and be a lot of work. They'll mostly burn out within a few months to a year. Let the current council vote on replacements, with some kind of standing option to override for a truly popular candidate.

[1453 R]

There shouldn't really be a standing Council as such. The format of a goal-oriented task group, whose job it is to deal with the one single issue they were voted/assembled to handle, and then dissolving back into the general populace until the next task group needs to be formed is a much smoother way of doing things that would avoid player burnout, as well. We shouldn't be treating this as holding elections for a public office, we should be looking at it as assembling a team to handle a project given to us to solve.

That way people feel less like there's an Elite Ruling Class set above them, players can shuffle through the goal-oriented task groups as their desires, skills, and specialties warrant, and most importantly each one has a set, definite goal to work towards rather than simply being a more selective version of the usual forum clutter.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 12 September 2014 - 07:15 PM, said:

There shouldn't really be a standing Council as such. The format of a goal-oriented task group, whose job it is to deal with the one single issue they were voted/assembled to handle, and then dissolving back into the general populace until the next task group needs to be formed is a much smoother way of doing things that would avoid player burnout, as well. We shouldn't be treating this as holding elections for a public office, we should be looking at it as assembling a team to handle a project given to us to solve.

That way people feel less like there's an Elite Ruling Class set above them, players can shuffle through the goal-oriented task groups as their desires, skills, and specialties warrant, and most importantly each one has a set, definite goal to work towards rather than simply being a more selective version of the usual forum clutter.

The problem will be the process of recreating the group every time we have an issue like this. I get the feeling it would simply be much less of a hassle to just have a standing committee. Especially considering how many controversial subjects there are outside of ECM, and more to come Im sure (Paul 'normalizing' all the things being one of them).

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 12 September 2014 - 07:20 PM.

[Tombstoner]

The group would be composed of people wiling to spend the time parsing all the information into one document. No small task. Not pressing one idea vs. another but to keep topics on track and start new sub threads as needed. This a pure player driven endevor to herd a bunch of cats. You really must be a dedicated fan to consider atempting this.

The only problem i see is connecting with the non forum user. That is a critical apsect of Russ's proposal. its not just the frequent forum users that needs to come to concensus, its ~80% of the active player base. It dosent have to be a minimum of 80% but a serously large chunk of players. I messaged Russ with an idea to add in a player feed back option that pops up in game. It would be player enabled so they would have to opt in but it would pop up a feed back survay asking players simple questions like... did you like this map, yes/no and why. should we adjsut heat weapon valuse up, down. is NARC lasting too long. if ECM is changed to A-, B-, C- what would you prefer and why. this is waht we are thinking please go to the web sight and tell us how you feel...We are listening and your opinion maters to us.