A Guide to Making Suggestions
lilboy98
Join Date: 2009-05-15 Member: 67414Members
Join Date: 2009-05-15 Member: 67414Members
<div class="IPBDescription">One simple guideline</div>Don't read this if you don't want to feel a bit disappointed about your ideas... and please don't forget this is my own opinion. Ignore it if you wish, but for those of you seriously interested in improving the game, read this.
***Suggestions should MOSTLY be about tweaking mechanics that ALREADY EXIST, or introducing new mechanics that IMPROVE CURRENT mechanics.***
In detail:
The truth of game development is that most developers will read your suggestions for a new mechanic/element, but will not implement them 99% of the time unless there is an extremely high demand for that feature or if it relates to improving an EXISTING mechanic. Developers would like to focus on what they already have and make sure those things work, first, before adding anything new.
So before you suggest a brand new mechanic, think about it and see how it will change the game.
Does it add a new layer of gameplay to the mechanics? Then it most likely won't be implemented, especially if it's for an indie studio. They don't have the manpower to plug in tons of features at a high rate, so they would like to focus on what they already have.
Is it a small suggestion like changing the color of an item? Might be implemented, but most likely not if it doesn't do anything special and will become a waste of resources.
This guideline generally goes for a majority of game suggestion forums for any game.
Bottom line - When games ask for 'suggestions for improving the game', it usually doesn't mean suggesting completely new features/elements, but to improve what currently exists in the game and what can be done about them to make the game more fun and enjoyable. This can also be called 'polishing', but of course if the game is fully polished, new features/elements are welcomed.
***Suggestions should MOSTLY be about tweaking mechanics that ALREADY EXIST, or introducing new mechanics that IMPROVE CURRENT mechanics.***
In detail:
The truth of game development is that most developers will read your suggestions for a new mechanic/element, but will not implement them 99% of the time unless there is an extremely high demand for that feature or if it relates to improving an EXISTING mechanic. Developers would like to focus on what they already have and make sure those things work, first, before adding anything new.
So before you suggest a brand new mechanic, think about it and see how it will change the game.
Does it add a new layer of gameplay to the mechanics? Then it most likely won't be implemented, especially if it's for an indie studio. They don't have the manpower to plug in tons of features at a high rate, so they would like to focus on what they already have.
Is it a small suggestion like changing the color of an item? Might be implemented, but most likely not if it doesn't do anything special and will become a waste of resources.
This guideline generally goes for a majority of game suggestion forums for any game.
Bottom line - When games ask for 'suggestions for improving the game', it usually doesn't mean suggesting completely new features/elements, but to improve what currently exists in the game and what can be done about them to make the game more fun and enjoyable. This can also be called 'polishing', but of course if the game is fully polished, new features/elements are welcomed.
Comments
<u>It also needs a lot less whitespace. That's something that bothers me.</u>
~~Sickle~~
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=739" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=739</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80329" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....showtopic=80329</a>
These are good guidelines to follow.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=739" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=739</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80329" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....showtopic=80329</a>
These are good guidelines to follow.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those are good links, but they're for the NS1 forums and not everything applies to the NS2 I&S forum.
To the OP: your heart is in the right place but there are a couple more things to consider:
<ul><li> NS2 is not NS1 and, as a result, we don't know much about existing features</li><li> This forum is almost purely academic. The devs don't look at it often anymore because they have the all ideas they need for their game already.</li></ul>
If you want to avoid bad blood, which is not the goal of many posters on this forum anyway, I recommend thinking about two things before you post and make sure they're included in your ideas.
1.) Would this feature be easy for a new player to learn and make sense in the context of the game?
2.) Would this feature provide more options to the players and be used at the highest levels of play?
If the answer is no to either of those questions then your idea needs work and may even be unworkable in the context of NS2. You can still suggest your idea, but recognizing its shortcomings and asking for input will go a long way towards avoiding "ur idea iz bad and u shud feel bad" types of posts.
Also less whitespace, <b>lilboy98</b>, and text formatting, <b>briktal</b>, would be appreciated.
I like it when I see an idea that was posted here make it into the real game. Hard to tell if we prompted it though. For example, I believe some of the Onos system, specifically the shield, spawned from related ideas from here.
I wouldn't say it's entirely dead, but I will say that now your idea had better be whoopingly awesome for the devs to add it in. And trust me, most of the whoopingly awesome ideas have been said already, and we don't even know if all of them made it in. hm... actually, they can't all make it in since several directly conflicted with each other. meh, you get the idea.
I posted this up at 5am or 6am... from waking up at 4pm. Clearly I wasn't clearly thinking clearly. Now the word clearly sounds clearly weird to me.