Some thoughts on improvements to the game

[lch]

It isn't hard to pat each other on the shoulders here and say that we're all big pals and great guys, and everything is wonderful. That's not only quite easy, but also very reassuring and condescending. Lots of room for doing so, too. But I don't really see why that would be needed.

Newbies, yes, those will receive a lot of good will and encouragement. Unless they come here with a bad attitude. But apart from a few examples of know-alls, that started on the wrong foot, most people come here with questions, or they say "I want to do X", or "I have made X, here it is".

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

There are always more ideas than results.

Naturally. For every successful, completed project, there are many failed projects, a lot of canceled projects, an enormous amount of planned projects that never emerged. If we're talking ideas, there are myriads. I'm not a gardener, but I don't want to see the endless forest of possibilities, where it's uncertain if things ever make it. It's confusing, at best.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Id rather have the semi-productive ideas than the non-productive help if I had to choose.

If I'd have to connect words, I'd always pair up "help" with "semi-productive" and "ideas" as "non-productive". Everybody has ideas. It's not like there was any shortage because anybody is lacking the ability. It's different if somebody would actually be asking for ideas, of course.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Anyway Im not sure that holding back the ideas is a good idea.
Altho it does have a drawback of lost credit.

If they stay at the idea level, they're debilitating. Especially if others see that those ideas are not getting realized, then something seems wrong. Especially if ideas repeatedly fail to get realized, people get the impression that nobody really bothers about realizing them.

There's lots of obvious applications that come to mind, and I'm not the only one who can come up with "Wouldn't it be nice if..." / "Wouldn't ... be cool?", but as long as there's no indication that it isn't more than a fantasy, claiming credit for those things seem preposterous, even though the achiever in question could honor it out of his good will, of course. If somebody gives even a half-assed attempt at realizing the ideas that he brought forward, this would become a better world. It could entice others to try and make something similar, or do better, to enhance that effort in some areas, or to pick up where that person stopped later. That's what leads to progress.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Not to mention the projects done out of spite for the original persons refusal to do "such a simple task".

I'm trying to do that, and it practically never, ever works. Maybe it works if you try it often enough, after the 1000th time. I can spite all I want. I can spite, beg, order, ask, compliment people to work on something that I want, and it doesn't work - the only thing that does seem to work well is living by example.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Im not sure if we would have CBM, or SemiRand, or a pbem server. Or map generators (even the in-game one), or the many map modification utilities.

Those are all things from Dom2 times or maybe even earlier, before I got here. Those have produced spin-offs and successors. I think the in-game Dom3 map editor wouldn't have necessarily come into existence if the Dominions community wouldn't have come up with a similar software in the first place. Not saying that JK borrowed from the code, but I'd assume that he probably was inspired by the effort.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Are you sure that the utilities for checking status on online games, or score charts, or backups would have just appeared out of the blue without someone requesting it?

Since those are all things that I have been working on: Yes, I am very sure of that. Those things are obvious applications, and since I was hosting multiplayer games I thought "Hey, this would be cool to have for my users, and I know that I can do it." Nobody asked me to do that, and I am unaware of the existence of any such things, server-wise. So I sat down, wasted a week or more of work on those things, and came up with a product. I have heard from others that it was inspirational for them, too, and enticed them to try out and create things from some ideas of their own - the best compliment I can think of.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Im probably biased or dont fully understand what the wealth of worthless ideas was.

Often, demands masked as helpful suggestions. I don't have anything against ideas, and I'm encouraging people to realize their ideas, and offer my help to them when I can. Which happened often. I'd just be very wary to continue complimenting people that do no else than cough up ideas and then - nothing. The danger is that they might get too used to that.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Dragar

I don't think it ever hurts to put ideas up, whether or not they are implemented. First rule of brainstorming is not to stifle any ideas, no matter how impractical they seem. If 100 ideas are put forward and out of them 1 great one is picked up and implemented by someone, then they are all worthwhile.

Or alternatively, the 99 poorly thought out/unfeasible ideas more or less bound to bear no fruit act as noise to drown out the one good idea. It's completely possible for those coming up with ideas to at least partially filter the useless stuff themselves, even if they aren't going to actually do any of it (god forbid). At least then there would be less noise.

As an example, I fill a productive role here. I am far less likely to catch that one good idea (a mythical beast) which is better than any ideas I personally have (or I wouldn't work on it, obviously) if it comes from the source of 99 previous useless ideas.

Bottom line is coming up with ideas (even good, well thought out ones) is much, much easier than actually realising them. I know people don't want to hear that, but it's true. On top of that the people who are actually productive seem to have /better/ ideas in the first place, since they actually know what can be done. If I'm out of ideas for mods I know who I'll ask first - they're all modders.

[Illuminated One]

I really don't see your point(s).
Yes, actually modding things in is more productive and harder to do than just having ideas. So? There is no need for being productive here, everything said or done on this forum is just for fun (or at least it should be). If someone steps up to do anything that he or someone else proposed that's nice, but in no way compulsory. Neither is it neccessary to know what cannot be done (besides that's a relative term).
If the thread somehow annoys you just don't read it (and I don't buy it that the 99 unimplementable ideas hinder you implementing a good one, when you make pretty clear that you wouldn't dare think of ever doing something that came up on threads like this). If it is against forum rules the mods can close it. Problem solved.

Besides I don't view all of these ideas as just some hints about what should be implemented into dom. They might start a train of thought going somewhere else, or show preferences, point out problems, etc (which might be useful if someone else would be making his own game). And yes, even in that context 99% are useless - but then, it's everyone's own decision if he tries to make something out of it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yeah Im not sure either.
Its not as if slowing the idea threads would increase modding.
Maybe its commentary on the quality of the ideas being posted?
Or how they are posted (daybream, discussion, request, wishlist, whine)?

I would consider CBM to be the top example of a popular mod that sprung from requests and has been fueled by discussion of desired improvements in the game. Or maybe no_indie maps. Llamaserver? The various save-game utilities? Im guessing that something like MegaGame (all nations in one game) is an example of one that got done but not the right way? Or SemiRand?

[Sombre]

I'm not complaining about this thread. If people want to talk about this stuff they're welcome of course. The only time it's irritating is when it comes up in threads where it probably shouldn't (such as in many mod threads) or it is coupled with this whole "someone else should do this" "my job is to provide the ideas" attitude. Having been at this forum a couple of years, I've gotten a little tired of people posting about things they want in the game and how someone should add them, then not listening when they are told how easy it would be for them to add them, or contribute something useful.

Obviously when I say 'productive' I mean I contribute something to this community, for fun, which lengthens the lifespan of the game and leads to more people having fun with it. It's not work, I don't need thanks and I don't expect people to do it if they don't find it fun. But I will continue to roll my eyes at people who consistently talk big and do nothing, while asking others to do what they want.

The 99 bad ideas have already caused me to stop listening. That's the whole point. I started out trying to help people realise their ideas with mod commands, play options and so on, but after a certain amount of time you learn to recognise when people are just jabbering away about nothing. That's worth criticising, frankly. If everyone did it we would barely have a community.

[llamabeast]

It annoys me Gandalf when you say (as you frequently do) that the LlamaServer arose from a community discussion, or from one of your suggestions, because unless my memory has failed me it didn't. It was just an obvious opportunity for useful automation (I could never imagine having the patience of the people who ran PBEM games by hand), and I thought it would be fun to try. You did help me with a command line command for starting new games which has proved quite invaluable (and which I appreciate), but that is different. Sorry to say that, but it annoys me - unlike Sombre I don't really mind people saying a lot of stuff and not doing it, but it is somewhat grating people taking implied credit for ideas they didn't even suggest.

If my memory has failed me of course, which it sometimes does, I apologise.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I would consider CBM to be the top example of a popular mod that sprung from requests and has been fueled by discussion of desired improvements in the game.

I'd just like to point out that, as much as I've tried to get discussion going on specific CB changes, out of all the CB changes maybe 5% have been related to discussions on the forum. So while I certainly value all the input I've received (especially to tell when some change has gone too far), I would hardly say it is what fuels the mod.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

It annoys me Gandalf when you say (as you frequently do) that the LlamaServer arose from a community discussion, or from one of your suggestions, because unless my memory has failed me it didn't.

Nahh. The thought of Llama server was more the comment about promised credit lines. Not a big deal. Luckily Im not one who does things for credit. But thanks for remembering.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I would consider CBM to be the top example of a popular mod that sprung from requests and has been fueled by discussion of desired improvements in the game. Or maybe no_indie maps. Llamaserver? The various save-game utilities? Im guessing that something like MegaGame (all nations in one game) is an example of one that got done but not the right way? Or SemiRand?

CBM benefits from the discussions of a relatively restricted group of players who have a good sense of what can be done and what would work. It is still largely authored by qm, who puts in the actual work involved. It has nothing to do with the kind of 'brainstorming' I'm talking about. You'd have to ask qm to see if he finds those kind of posts useful - I see no evidence of them in cbm though.

NI maps were conceptually created by edi who mentiond offhand what setting the poptype too high would do. I shared a couple of map files I'd applied this theory to, because I personally found them enjoyable, not as a response to other people talking pie in the sky. A couple of other guys made scripts to NI any map in response to the map files I'd put out.

llamaserver is basically Llama's hard work. Like cbm it probably benefits from tweaks suggested by people who actually know what they're talking about. I assume llama ignores people who make silly requests and describe fantasyland ideal utilities.

SemiRand I'm not very familiar with, but I'd say once again it didn't benefit from half baked ideas with no grounding in what's possible.

Frankly I think you're just being ridiculous with those examples. None of them were born from the kind of useless brainstorming I'm talking about. You act as if I'm saying there can be no ideas from discussion, no tweaks suggested by users of mods and utilities, no response to a perceived want or need of the community.

[lch]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

It annoys me Gandalf when you say (as you frequently do) that the LlamaServer arose from a community discussion, or from one of your suggestions, because unless my memory has failed me it didn't. It was just an obvious opportunity for useful automation (I could never imagine having the patience of the people who ran PBEM games by hand), and I thought it would be fun to try.

This is kind of off-topic, but I have to add that I had similar plans for a fully web-automated Dom3 game server (I still do), though as a non-PBEM server, and I had been working on it infrequently, when your game server popped up and monopolized the market. Which is perfectly fine, since it's good for the player community and you doing it saves me a lot of time and trouble to maintain it, which I can put into other projects instead. That's one such "obvious application" that I was speaking of, which doesn't require that one carefully reads through dozens of suggestions to think about. A lot of things that popped up over time could be expected. Some other things popped up which I wouldn't have thought about, too, of course, as somebody else can be creative and have the required motivation and determination to realize something, too.