Originally Posted by
GM Oscuro
>>Future development plans go entirely undisclosed to the point where (for example) we don't even know if the new unarmed combat system will be monk-only, or general use.
This has been stated multiple times at Simucon and was repeated on the boards - anyone can use the armed combat system. Monks will just be the best at it because of higher successes and more options.
>>However, a recent pair of comments from Oscuro in a rogue development discussion -- I won't quote them here out of context
I don't know what the pair of comments are, but I'll paraphrase and say that I said it's unofficial dev policy to not post details about things we don't have approval for yet simply because we don't want players then considering it a promise, when it turns out it doesn't get the rubber stamp. How this isn't reasonable is beyond me.
>>I think I managed to earn the simultaneous enmity of Sirina, Ildran, and Oscuro; something which I regret.
I don't think you've earned our enmity. I know I've certainly formulated an opinion of your posting style - that you consider yourself infallible and when presented with anything your disagree with or are skeptical about can be coarse and rude about it, but you do have valuable input and quality ideas on occasion and I would prefer you post them than not.
>>On the positive side, a few of my suggestions have led directly to some mechanics changes over the past several months.
>>I -- and basically any player without a backchannel connection to a dev GM -- no longer have a significant impact on the mechanical development of the game,
First, read those two sentences again to yourself. That's right, they're contradictions. You say yourself that you've had suggestions lead to mechanics changes but that players can't have suggestions lead to mechanics changes. Huh? What exactly is the complaint then? That you can't vote by popular demand balancing details of the game? There are so many background aspects that players don't and can't know that it doesn't translate properly to let them be able to choose things. And game development is not a democracy. However, the majority of things we implement in the game ABSOLUTELY come from player suggestions.
Off the top of my head, here are some things players suggested on the boards that got implemented:
1) ANALYZE verb saying if an item can be lightened or deepened.
2) EXP verb displaying if you have an RPA available
3) Changing 1750 so it adds to the duration to the spell you can cast with it just like a scroll/magic item would.
4) In QC is an addition to INVENTORY FULL that displays if an item is marked to be unsellable or not.
5) The Cunning Defense CMAN
6) Changing Combat Movement and Combat Focus to be passive (YOUR suggestion, but we added our own dev touch to it by not taking the stamina cost off the top).
7) Evade Mastery was from player requests.
The list goes on.
A recent situation where players had a significant impact on development...
Estild and I came up with a spell idea, Crusade that was to take up the current Divine Wrath slot and we'd move DW to 335 and make it stronger. We're still planning on doing the latter (with some additional suggestions to details that players made), but we're reconsidering what to put in 319 since there was a lot of disagreement to the usefulness of Crusade for Clerics. So, even though we had approval for Crusade, we scrapped the idea b/c players didn't like it. This is a direct counterexample to your claim.
Also, I posted the details about Divert before I coded it. I listened to player input - most things were positive, so I went forward and coded it. Now it's in QC. This is not the process we take with everything, but when we're flexible on an idea, then we most certainly want to hear what players have to say before we code something. But we always want to hear what players say after we code it; we may be less flexible then, like we wouldn't scrap the idea entirely, but some details are probably open to changing.
>>and nor can I (we?) garner answers to even simple queries in the majority of cases.
Many instances of questions going unanswered is that the people reading them don't know and it's not a simple look up. Some things we're not at liberty to mention yet, either. And frankly, we're not going to answer every query because we have a limited amount of time to dedicate to the game and many of us would like to spend that time actually coding stuff for use. That said, I feel that for things under my jurisdiction, I've been good about answering questions or giving reasons why I wouldn't.
>>This is a statement which I'm sure a number of staff members would be quick to refute, but I feel that it is accurate.
Nice way to try to prove your point. "Staff does it wrong and if they disagree and try to say way, then they're just proving they're wrong!"
I honestly think your departure from the boards is just because not all of your ideas were embraced by me and the Rogue community and that upsets you. But I think it's ignorant to think that they're not considered at all - especially since I said that I liked some of them. I think you're just upset that you're disagreed with and this is an easy way out.
Take a break for a few days, then come on back with your ideas. You may not realize they're valued, but they're always read and they're always considered.
= - GM Oscuro - =
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