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Hekata

Artisan
I wonder who Sasha is, as this "meeting with the developers" I havent seen any developer yet unless it's Sasha.
Jonas is the Product Manager, the one who greenlits ideas. so blame him for the new tournaments.
Steffi is Lead CM
Tom is Community Management Specialist (steffi's right hand)
And then Sasha is the big asterix to me. Is he the lead game developer? is the the one that has to "design" things?

Othewise this "developer meeting" has no developer in it o_O
Might be that in fact Elvenar has no devs and it's the FoE team that just tweaks a bit their stuff and uploads it here*. It certainly would explain a few things :D

*just kidding ofc
 

Pauly7

Magus
Things that majorly affect the game (like once or twice a year) in my eyes deserve a bit more love. Someone who is actually involved in making major changes to the game could spend a half hour writing down thoughts and decisions made, give reasons for what has happened and why and answer some of the major questions regarding the topic? Is that really too much asked?
With that you get to one of the most important questions. No one is overlooking that. Perhaps by having a better channel of communication with the people we can communicate with then we can get a little closer to improving that situation. Perhaps not, but it's a matter of faith, as you said earlier, and whether people are ready to give up trying.
 

Timneh

Artisan
Quite a long time ago i was told by the then CM that it was part of the CMs job to forward all ideas and questions to the devs, i have no reason to think this does not happen but the problem is when nothing comes back in response to those ideas and questions. It might help a bit if the CM told us the response they get from the devs even if they have to tell us sorry but i got no answer from the devs on this subject, any kind of answer would be better than silence.
 

anonglitch

Co-Community Manager
Elvenar Team
@Timneh sometimes, even the developers need time. As we all know, not all requests can happen. However, the developers study this throughout and ponder on implementing a said idea or not, how, and when. However, there are a lot of suggestions and ideas since there are several Elvenar servers with players who bring ideas :)

So please, bear with us. As you well said, the job of a CM is to transfer all ideas to the developers, regardless of what these ideas are (unless it has been suggested before.) And they do not fail to review every single one of them :)
 

Timneh

Artisan
@Timneh sometimes, even the developers need time. As we all know, not all requests can happen. However, the developers study this throughout and ponder on implementing a said idea or not, how, and when. However, there are a lot of suggestions and ideas since there are several Elvenar servers with players who bring ideas :)

So please, bear with us. As you well said, the job of a CM is to transfer all ideas to the developers, regardless of what these ideas are (unless it has been suggested before.) And they do not fail to review every single one of them

I know all that but there is never any fedback about those requests so for all the players know those requests might have been thrown out but we never get to know that.
There was an idea put forward on the Beta forum that was accepted a few years ago. The Beta players were told it had been accepted and then nothing else was said about it for a long time so one of the players asked what was happening and the CM there told the player to stop asking about it. If it is part of a CMs job to get answers to questions that CM should have put the question to the devs and reported back and not tell the player to basically shut up. The devs are always saying that they want feedback from players but the players never get any feedback from the devs.
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
@Timneh sometimes, even the developers need time. As we all know, not all requests can happen. However, the developers study this throughout and ponder on implementing a said idea or not, how, and when. However, there are a lot of suggestions and ideas since there are several Elvenar servers with players who bring ideas :)

So please, bear with us. As you well said, the job of a CM is to transfer all ideas to the developers, regardless of what these ideas are (unless it has been suggested before.) And they do not fail to review every single one of them :)

I applaud the intent behind this, but I wonder whether a more selective approach might work better for everyone. To take a current example, there have been lots of ideas and suggestions etc. arising from the tournament changes. Many of these (including several for me) have had broadly the same intention (e.g. to balance or mitigate the effects of the formula). It may not matter to us which idea (if any) gets implemented, as long as the underlying issues get addressed somehow.

From the developers point of view, I'd imagine that if the volume of suggestions gets too large, then individual proposals can each be afforded little attention and may easily be disregarded. A sticky thread in the Beta "Ideas and Suggestions" forum indicates that there they hold a poll on each suggestion - and the amount of support it receives determines whether it is taken forward. I think that an approach like this helps add weight to those ideas taken to the devs, and make it much more reasonable for us to expect a substantive response from them.

I would like a system which demonstrably works for everyone (players, devs and CMs) and have hopes that the initiative which Simaril is taking (described earlier in this thread) will help promote this.
 

cwgiii

Shaman
Being a project manager across many fields (including software development in an agile environment), I have encountered and used a tool called a punch list. This can come in many forms. But something as simple as a spreadsheet (Google Doc, or similar) can consolidate ideas and feedback in an extremely concise and efficient way.

This can be broken down by topic, like tournaments, quests, mini games, etc. Individual ideas / suggestions / development efforts can be listed with status indicated (like: accepted, rejected, under consideration/review, in development, QA, Beta, etc.).

Benefits:

Provides communication between all parties involved
Provides accountability that items are actually viewed and addressed
Keeps information in a single place as a reference
Consolidates ideas to prevent duplication or keeps options / versions well documented
Keeps all parties updated on status and changes
Can actually be used as a historical decision tree to document precedence for consistency
Many others, I am sure.


Just a thought.
 

cwgiii

Shaman
I think part of the frustration comes from a perception from players that ideas are simply dumped into a black hole. Even a note that something has been officially rejected (hopefully with some sort of reasoning) provides a feedback signal that many crave.

I think another point of frustration is that players may feel their ideas get convoluted / twisted through the "game of telephone".
Ex: What I think may not be exactly what I wright, may not be exactly what you read, may not me exactly what is communicated through to a developer, and on, and on. There is a famous Dilbert cartoon somewhere (in PM circles) showing a swing being developed and how messed up it can be interpreted all along the chain.

And, of course, no information or lack of information, generates the paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorist in all of us.
 

cwgiii

Shaman
I think this is the link to the Dilbert cartoon I was thinking of:

 

OldHag

Necromancer
@Timneh sometimes, even the developers need time. As we all know, not all requests can happen. However, the developers study this throughout and ponder on implementing a said idea or not, how, and when. However, there are a lot of suggestions and ideas since there are several Elvenar servers with players who bring ideas :)

So please, bear with us. As you well said, the job of a CM is to transfer all ideas to the developers, regardless of what these ideas are (unless it has been suggested before.) And they do not fail to review every single one of them :)

So when will I get a response to my suggestion for a tidier inventory?

Are they considering it? already working on it? having trouble implementing it or just not bothering with it?

For myself personally, I'd like to see some kind of response when ideas and suggestions are posted, starting off with whether or not an idea/suggestion is viable, if not, then I won't suggest it again......as far as I'm aware, the only people who will know whether an idea is possible to implement would be the devs.
I'm not sure how the devs can develope a game for it's players if they won't/don't talk the players, not really sure why communication with their customers/players is not part of their job.

I would agree with @Gargon667 - in that the majority of their developement money/time is being spent on the mobile app, which pretty much means those of us on pcs are not being catered for, any longer.
 
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anonglitch

Co-Community Manager
Elvenar Team
Hey, @OldHag, please be aware that the developers already received this suggestion, and they are studying it. Since developers receive all the feedback from all worlds, it takes some time to go through everything and get a final answer, in this case, about the inventory.

They are considering it still since they did not give us a straight answer yet. Trust them, they bother with all suggestions, unless it was made before, and denied.

They communicate with us, and we communicate with all of you. It is the main purpose of these forums, besides having fun! Developers do care, and we can prove it with all the suggestions they listened to. Some suggestions can't just happen, and when it's the case, they notify us to let you all know.

I will check with them now if there are any updates about this.

The app is precisely missing some features, and several app players claim the developers are only working on the web. However, please be aware they are working both. One other reason that suggestions might take a little more.
 

Timneh

Artisan
Unless things have changed they have 2 development teams, one for the browser game and one for the app game. Maybe sometimes things are more difficult for one game than they are for the other and sometimes some things just can't be implemented on one or the other i.e i was told the system for neighbourly help from the world map on the app can not be implemented on the browser game.
 

Wowwie

Soothsayer
This has been going on for years it is well known you either got the the US forums on Live and its always posted first on Beta German forums to find out anything and the forums on the German was actually Beta DE server forums
Beta players on other servers have just now learned of this issue also
So not just En server
you are finding out just like the rest of us
DE Beta Forums page will translate
 
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C-Nymph

Necromancer
This has been going on for years it is well known you either got the the US forums on Live and its always posted first on Beta German forums to find out anything and the forums on the German was actually Beta DE server forums
Beta players on other servers have just now learned of this issue also
So not just En server
you are finding out just like the rest of us
DE Beta Forums page will translate
Not sure I understood anything you said there (please try using punctuation marks next time), apart from it always having been like this. That is however not an excuse for it to never have to change in the future.
The link you gave leads to the exact page I started this thread with, what was your reason for reposting it? I’m sorry, I am afraid I am having trouble understanding the point you’re trying to make... :/
 

Laurelin

Sorcerer
@Wowwie : I'm also not sure what you are trying to say in your post above:
This has been going on for years [...] Beta players on other servers have just now learned of this issue also
So not just En server
you are finding out just like the rest of us
Are you referring to a new issue of some kind when you say:
Beta players on other servers have just now learned of this issue also
... or are you re-stating the original point, i.e. that the DE Server received the 'report' about the September CM Meeting whereas other Servers did not?

I'd be grateful if you could please clarify. Many thanks.
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
My thoughts are to create a dedicated thread to bring forward some of the things we can mention regarding the game development, this I hope will not be too boring as from initial decision for a change to creation can take many months to even get as far as testing.

There is no rush of course, but has there been any progress made with this idea ?

Thanks
 
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