If you just despise the one piece then don’t play it. Don’t play any games that allow it. Move on. Be sure to put the “fixed” Hood, Bolzano, Zuikaku, et al on that list too. I’m sure they added nothing to the game for you either.
So what are you proposing? More public input on the unit selection? More public input on card development?
I think we can agree the Team has a great responsibility, if it really believe its moving the Forum and Game forward; as i would hope as close as possible to the designer.
I believe all the teams have done that well; to try and make this as short as possible we know the outline of a new deck The Nations; the units in each nations; the type of units in each nation; and any new nations or universal units, along with Red vs Blue responsibility.
I could never understand why the Forum can't suggest units to fill these needs; example if the team says USN this deck needs two capital ships you pick from the best suggestions, team suggestions included; this is not a complete open event of swing fest losing control.
I also believe the units selected by the Team to fill the Deck should have some values discussed in open Forum mostly cost and SA's Final decision the Teams. I don't see how this does not create more participation in the Forum.
To me the most troubling thing about expansion is the redoing of Original Units; we know they are an errata problem that no one can really fix. Most you can deal with, some yes need a fix, but if any thing should be part of the Forum it should be which ones and how.
Last but not least is the surprise units; some say they need it; agree upon it; but the larger this number becomes i can't see how it helps Forum activity.
I know its one players opinion, and really not going to change much; but were i disagree with Weeds is that last Decks total debacle [saying not a way i would have started the process], ended up with some strong leadership along with a lot of forum input and it turned out pretty well, even with some units that i'll agree with him should not have been put in the game.
If you just despise the one piece then don’t play it. Don’t play any games that allow it. Move on. Be sure to put the “fixed” Hood, Bolzano, Zuikaku, et al on that list too. I’m sure they added nothing to the game for you either.
Of course i wouldn't play with those or even some poorly done expansion units;; Unryu comes to mind. I didn't think that was the point; but i guess some people will always see things in a different light. Must be that generation gap thing No disrespect intended.
I think you and I are on the same page on what should/shouldn't be done with the cards. A few differences, but not much. We almost totally disagree on what is practical/doable for the card development process. I guess you and I have a very different view/experience with humanity and its behavior, especially in large groups. That isn't likely to change for either of us at our age.
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Having been on the last 3 dev teams and the PT team for DeckB before that I can say that the thing that has hurt the process most is the shrinking community. The game is out of print for a LONG TIME now. We pick up a few players here and there - latecomers that we love to have - but the thriving community is down to a struggling core. The third deck really started to have some reaches in it card-wise, but for all that still turned out very very good. Reveals were exciting, there was still a large community outside of both the dev and PT teams that was enthusiastic about the reveal and the approach of new cards and it really made a difference. It helped too that shapeways was new and there were lots of options being added all the time.
The 4th deck turned out well, but was a mess developmentally. Shinentai and weeds and Raevski, and everyone else involved with that 4th deck and getting it through the process both in team and in public deserve medals. But by being an all "open" deck EVERYONE on the forum had input, and as is necessity in a project with limited resources both card-wise, space-wise, and time-wise some peoples' ideas got squelched, overruled, criticized, or just plain ignored - and we lost people over that. And there was a collective loss of enthusiasm because of it. The heretofore private exhaustion about endless debates over minutia were now open and shared by all in that forum instead of just in selected few team members - and we lost people over that - they just didn't care that much or they couldn't take it anymore. And in addition, since every card was known both what unit it was going to be long before actual development, and then as development occurred what SA's were going to applied - there was no real sense of anticipation for the deck's release. The cards were already there. Some people liked the community approach, but overall it took away the mystery and mystique from the whole process. And while it involved the community it also exhausted it.
Deck 5's process was a compromise approach between the two methodologies and was "mostly" successful for what it was, but I think that significant community losses and loss of interest dragged the process immensely. Decks A-B had 12 month timelines for completion, Deck C had a 10 month window, Deck D tried to stay in 12 months and failed (I recall it being about 16 months or so), and Deck E went almost 2 years (and suffered a BOARD switch AND Shinnentai's disappearance from the project).
I don't have the answer, but I do think a new approach is needed if there is going to be a Deck 6. Maybe the picture needs to be a bit less clear from the start. The community dev challenge for USS Indiana is pretty cool. Could that be done for 72 cards? Who picks the cards? How many open at once. Too many too quickly and it will just be burnout. Or people will only comment on the sexy picks (BB's and pet aircraft projects) and junker DD's will be underdeveloped or overdeveloped (Deck D's big problem). Too few and the process will putter to a finish with few who care and even fewer buyers.
A lot of the E community input threads were very sparse in terms of input. They went something along the lines of “We should do this SA.” “Oh, yeah, do that.” Others just had a list of suggested SAs from one poster and a couple of people saying they agree or disagree with maybe another suggested SA or two thrown around. To have something meaningful with which to build a card, optimally there would be a more substantial dialogue with more depth and more participants. Otherwise the process is worse than what the team can do. Two or three people typing a couple of sentences vs. 5-10 people bandying about various ideas and their rationales, obviously the more due diligence done on a project (to a point) results in a better product. That said, it does take a bit of a tougher skin and acceptance of the task which means understanding that there will be hard feelings and disappointment inherent in participation.
How about if the team lists what they think the game needs. The forum list their suggestions for each slot and then the team chooses the best candidate/s and develops it. This way the units are forums suggestions but we don’t know what we’re getting until the reveal.
was4, on principle it does sound good to have the community make a list of choices for the slots in the card set. The problem with doing that is balancing out unit selections among the nations and unit types in the set and keeping an eye on the impact of making those choices on future projects. If we put all the available capital ships in one set, for example, that hurts potential future set viability.
I see absolutely no issues with turning the whole deck design process over to the design team (including unit selection). If you want input, volunteer to be on the team. Having gone through game design an open forum generally causes splinter groups, takes longer, and will ultimately drive people away more often than garnering interest. It is also bad for a design team to air their dirty laundry in public, which in an open forum is everyone. I applaud the past teams and knowing what effort and sweat goes into it, I'm more than willing to just playtest and/or volunteer to write some of the card info.
I think if the design team can occasionally give us hints and/or previews of cards through the process it will keep interest up... probably higher than the forum bickering about an SA on a specific unit. There is nothing to say that the design team can't ask for input from the forum, but I'm willing to put my faith in the design team, especially since I think some of the best units came from the teams when no input from the forum was given.
I'm probably in the minority on this one and not even an overly vocal minority.
At best I think the forum should be allowed to vote on a single Axis and Allied unit to be included (from a list provided by the team) in the set.
Something along the lines of what Brigs & SWO are doing. Ideas welcome and help improving where possible on a card.
Too many cooks and all that springs to mind.
It seemed to me the public picking of the last deck seemed to unravel a bit and some votes were just throw on to something that was gathering momentum and so 'must be worth it'. Possibly swayed by who had said what as well, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, anything to speed the process back up as I think the drawn out process definitely led to some stagnation, resignation and possibly hallucination!. Although admittedly a lot of the slow down seemed to come later in the process.
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"We went out, got our arses kicked, then came back again"
Something along the lines of what Brigs & SWO are doing. Ideas welcome and help improving where possible on a card.
Too many cooks and all that springs to mind.
It seemed to me the public picking of the last deck seemed to unravel a bit and some votes were just throw on to something that was gathering momentum and so 'must be worth it'. Possibly swayed by who had said what as well, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, anything to speed the process back up as I think the drawn out process definitely led to some stagnation, resignation and possibly hallucination!. Although admittedly a lot of the slow down seemed to come later in the process.
Spot on sir. The Brigs & SWO project not only produces some great cards but seems to foster a friendly development environment.
I think you and I are on the same page on what should/shouldn't be done with the cards. A few differences, but not much. We almost totally disagree on what is practical/doable for the card development process. I guess you and I have a very different view/experience with humanity and its behavior, especially in large groups. That isn't likely to change for either of us at our age.
If your talking about me; I agree with you on the first two issues; I think father time has given us both enough experience with human behavior to deal with its ups and downs.
Being a Union Rep for a lot of years has taught me a lot about large groups; yes;; most times you expect more from it than you get. Back to the game and expansion; i can see the advantages of tighter control and can also see the advantages to the Forum with a more organized approach to deck input;
I thought I spelt some of my views pretty clearly in this matter; but for example reading the comments [which i have no idea were they got that from] on several of my post, and the lack of interest by others which is more concerning; it seems the disconnect definitely continues; so as the French say C'est la guerre.
I'm a purest love the originals think expansion has added lots of good units, a few that could have been better and better for future expansion, and than the why bothers.
Replacements or Operational Units as the Teams like to call them are another ball game, to me its too bad the Forum never had more of an opportunity to debate some ideas on the subject. I think it would have opened up a whole new world of capital units to the game.
I think you and I are on the same page on what should/shouldn't be done with the cards. A few differences, but not much. We almost totally disagree on what is practical/doable for the card development process. I guess you and I have a very different view/experience with humanity and its behavior, especially in large groups. That isn't likely to change for either of us at our age.
If your talking about me; I agree with you on the first two issues; I think father time has given us both enough experience with human behavior to deal with its ups and downs.
Being a Union Rep for a lot of years has taught me a lot about large groups; yes;; most times you expect more from it than you get. Back to the game and expansion; i can see the advantages of tighter control and can also see the advantages to the Forum with a more organized approach to deck input;
I thought I spelt some of my views pretty clearly in this matter; but for example reading the comments [which i have no idea were they got that from] on several of my post, and the lack of interest by others which is more concerning; it seems the disconnect definitely continues; so as the French say C'est la guerre.
I'm a purest love the originals think expansion has added lots of good units, a few that could have been better and better for future expansion, and than the why bothers.
Replacements or Operational Units as the Teams like to call them are another ball game, to me its too bad the Forum never had more of an opportunity to debate some ideas on the subject. I think it would have opened up a whole new world of capital units to the game.
Whoa! That explains a lot. If you could survive being a Union rep for a lot of years you are have a lot more patience with humanity than I have.
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