New Year resolution

[Mimir[IS]]

I had a thought that going forward you (meaning the Devs) should remove yourselves from the day to day drama of the forums. I would also suggest you change/hide your PM status. The rationale behind this is as follows;

1. We have GMs that handle the day to day in game issues. (Another added just last week)
2. We have the Advocate (and possibly multiple) to take the player's concerns to the powers that be.
3. We have Beta testers who could take a more active role in day to day question and answers (when on line)

Removing direct access from us (mostly me) would allow you all to not get directly involved it the pissing matches, name calling, and general disrespect that is going on on the forums.

If I remember correctly the devs in live would sometimes get on line and it was a special event.. sort of like the gods have graced us with their presence. But overall access to them was limited, and I think that is how it should be.

Comments?

[Warlock[IS]]

I agree! mostly spend my days locked in a dark basement room with just the flashing light coming off the servers that dominate most of the space.

Have lost many of my social skills and my inter-personal ones are gone as I do not interact with people any more. Can hardly spell words right unless I proofread with Google although very comfortable with "if", "then", "else", "try", "catch" and "begin" just to mention a few but the ones I like the most are "exit" and "shutdown" last one especially when I want to upset my co-workers

[Daywolf]

Sure! Totally agree ...when you graduate from EMU dev or even indie dev on to AAA dev and more so loaded down with NDA'a. If you like forums, participate in forums. This is your hobby, not your 9-5 job ...er or 5am-11pm job if you were stuck in the AAA.

[Mimir[IS]]

LOL

What I suggested was to hide the fact that you are a DEV, make a new character and go incognito when you need that human companionship. Pop in as a DEV every now and then if you need the pain. [img]https://forum.enb-emulator.com/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif[/img]

[Daywolf]

[quote name='Mimir' timestamp='1325358561' post='50708']
LOL

What I suggested was to hide the fact that you are a DEV, make a new character and go incognito when you need that human companionship. Pop in as a DEV every now and then if you need the pain. [img]https://forum.enb-emulator.com/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif[/img]
[/quote]
Oh yeah that too, but I don't think that is as important, I mean that is what GM's are there to do. It's just they don't need to be loosing dialog with the players altogether, after all this is an emu/hobby game and really the devs are a part of that community just as much as the players/testers that don't contribute code or art assets - though some may at some point.

I do see players asking for devs to solve their in-game problems a lot, and I don't think that is a good usage of development time when the GM's are or should be trained well enough to file appropriate bug tickets with the devs (or feedback on filed tickets they encounter) while being able to resolve most in-game matters. Even in indie games, most that dev don't use tags in-game to show their position or contribution to the project, because yes there is always someone on to tie them up. And I have seen indie projects that where they did tag and it was/is constantly pulling them away from playing - or testing as they should be doing most times - as often devs like to dev, and should, even more than actually playing the game.

Forums present a well enough dialog, even as exampled by the current PW thread which seems rather productive regarding the issues and presented solutions. I'm sure you have seen AAA game/support forums where policies were put into place to remove the available dialog opportunities between developers and players and left to a small handful of representatives, which in turn seem to turn the course of further game development away from what the game community enjoyed, into something that would become bland, uninteresting or turning towards the footsteps of another game all together (trying to emulate it e.g. WoW cloning ..or SIMS cloning if you know what I'm referring to hehe).

But as for tagged in-game participation, that seems to still be a case of personal choice, whether they want to or not, all the time or not at all. I mean it's still a viable way to get input and understanding to the matters at hand, but in that case a GM or Adv can or should suffice as well.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

I solve that problem easily in one of two ways:

The command in-game to hide my dev tag, or two, by telling them I'm busy with something and they need to file a support ticket. The latter doesn't always get the best response, but frankly I'm too busy to support individual in-game issues.