Agile Development and the Forums

Because we are using an agile development process that produces monthly releases, it just dawned on me that our forums are not structured correctly.

The bulk of our forums are continuous. This causes a lot of repeat conversations and necroed posts.

What I believe we should do is restructure the forums so that each month we have a "Current Release" and we have an "Archive" section.

The Town Hall can remain static because it introduces new players to the game, and maintains special announcements. But the remaining sections (especially General Discussion and Game Features) should be archived each month because we're "moving on" to a new release. This will allow the development team to read through less feedback that is simply outdated, and allow player to focus on current (not past) concerns.

Please consider.
@Berek

 

We have a release 44 section for feedback and bugs. We also have another section for pre-alpha archive which contains all the previous releases.

I don't think the structure of the forum is an issue, people posting things in the wrong section of the forum is the issue.

 

We're certainly open to new ideas and suggestions for improving the forums too! There are a few issues with repeatedly refreshing some of these areas I can identify, but let's think on it some more and see what we can come up with...

Meanwhile, since you've brought it up, any sections we're missing entirely, or perhaps don't need at all anymore?

 

Sure.

While we're thinking about it. Here's a great use case: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f.../mining-is-broke-when-will-it-be-fixed.92172/

Mining is broken? We've been in release 44 for less than 24 hours. It's a discussion that is being carried over from the previous release and may not have any relevance to release 44 at all. Or maybe it's still something that people wish to talk about. Either way I'd love to see more demand and less supply (so to speak).

I don't believe so. For me it's more about keeping discussions topical and relevant to the current release. General Feedback and Game Features are essentially only valuable in the context of what release we're in.

 

Something I was wondering, would it be a possibility to get something like an Artists' Exchange section? A lot of people here are involved in various creative pursuits where they might benefit from sharing experience and resources with each other, plus it could facilitate more fan-generated PR for the game by helping people who want to make websites and livestreams and the like.

I have a lot I'd be willing to contribute to such a section, and am probably not the only one.

 

But to also respect the original post, I also agree that the current structure is somewhat unwieldy to keep up with. Perhaps a less admin-intensive solution that might help is the lock posts automatically after a certain amount of time feature.

But also having additional areas to transfer people's verbal energies in creative, constructive directions they can act on themselves with currently available or shared community resources might help reduce some of the clutter by keeping more critical discussions free of excess opinions being generated just from people being bored without a clear channel of other, more fun SOTA related activities to pursue instead.

 

Currently, I would put that under "Player created resources" probably, but you're right that it doesn't seem to quite fit there and would benefit from it's own section.

 

Oh, also there's a certain category that exists under the Game Features heading in Dev+ that is not mirrored in the public Game Features section. I won't say the name of it here in case its public omission was intentional, but if it was just an oversight, that particular category might be a better housing for some of the current discussions going on General Discussion, benefiting both the interested participants who want to do a lot of deep-thinking along those lines and the non-interested passersby who would rather avoid deep-thought stuff in the general area.

 

And maybe a Store Credit Marketplace for out-of-game items to give players a place to donate some of their own goods and services to further things they want to build in game and provide more cashflow for official development without convoluting the current in-game marketplace area to facilitate it?

 

All great ideas, including one I've heard a few times about a Rent section of the marketplace forums. I have to set some time this week to go thoroughly over the forums here to see what we can do.

 

One thing that would greatly help the feedback forums is a short sticky post that is easy to read and that says what the devs are focusing on for the next release, and also maybe what parts of the game we should focus feedback on, and also maybe what they don't want feedback on

I know reading the patch notes is a must, but for some people having it clearly repeated there in a simpler form would be a definite plus.

 

I'm going to respectfully disagree, sometimes what they may WANT feedback on may not be what they NEED feedback on. If something's bothering a significant number of players, that feedback is important. I'd hate for that to get lost under a reading of that kind of notice as "shutup and eat what we're feeding."

 

You got me wrong here... its rather that devs might know about some issues and have a notice each release that repeats "known issues" but also "issues that have been overdiscussed".

Some issues like my desire for a siege perilous server has been discussed for a long time, it does get redundant so maybe it isn't useful to repeat the thread every release.

Like for example if the devs have said in a previous thread "we know dialogs are lacking, but that isn't the priority until a much later time".

And deary, even if we had that notice on top you can bet people are still going to make double and triple threads and not really listen to it, it just will help certain players know where to focus so they don't lose time when their goal is to help AMAP.

 

I understand your point. The problem is that oft what is INTENDED and what is COMMUNICATED aren't the same. While some would ignore it, others wouldn't, and still more (who disagreed) would likely use it to attempt to silence those whose ideas they didn't like. I think the problems it causes outways the benefits.

 

But isn't it already happening ? Even with Richard's own ideas ? Things are being silenced, we need to set our priorities straight and the best way is at least to attempt to communicate a common focus.

We are flying deary, our hopes are up there with the stars.

But then Chris comes in and saves the day, because when you always have your head up there... lol... sometimes you crash too hard to get back up.

We'll still go out of our way to get our dreams to come true, but thats how forums work and its also why its so uncomfortable at first.

Thats where I come in I guess... not that I'm too happy about it but it seems I'm needed in that respect if only to remind yall that its important to expose people who attempt to silence feedback as a community, all voices need to be heard ; just not a thousand times.

 

It would be nice to know if there are specific areas that the devs want feedback on, or have all the feedback they need on a specific area.