[idea] TEST Suggestions for SC

[I_MIKE_I]

Well, I don't know if you have noticed it, but the official Forums suck... especially if you try to make any kind of suggestion that requires more than two braincells, it's either going to get flamed or ignored.

So it's pretty much impossible to get anything like a constructive discussion there, let alone something a dev would stumble across and think it's a great idea.


My Idea is to make some sort of brainstorming in the TEST Forums and then present the outcome to the Devs... weither we manage to do it in a direct way (I doubt that... but it would be cool) or by posting the Result in the Forums and pushing it by various means (Bumping it, mentioning it streams etc.).

We'd do the brainstorming for 1 Week and then Submit/Post the result as TEST's Weekly Suggestion (unless we come up with a more fancy name).

So... what are your toughts on this?

 

[FluffyVonRage]

I think presenting anything as a 'TEST BRAND IDEA!!11one!!1' is possibly not the best way to get it pushed - i've a feeling a lot of people might immediately reject it out of hand as a 'omg test STFU' reaction - and there's also the danger of 'omg test favoritism' Though i suspect putting together a well thought out suggestion and directly contacting someone with it as a 'we had a think and have maybe a suggestion' could get some traction.

HAVING SAID THAT, I'm not really sure how the forum community views us as a group, so it'd be nice to try it and see what kind of backlash/reception it gets.

I'm in :D

 

[Printimus]

I somewhat agree with Fluffy,

Just because we slap a test logo on it, doesnt make it official. Have you not browsed our own forums? They have just as much good ideas and crap in them as the RSI forums. Whats stopping you from pushing/bumping your ideas on the RSI forums now?

 

[I_MIKE_I]

I somewhat agree with Fluffy,

Just because we slap a test logo on it, doesnt make it official. Have you not browsed our own forums? They have just as much good ideas and crap in them as the RSI forums. Whats stopping you from pushing/bumping your ideas on the RSI forums now?

The Idea is to publish our Ideas as TEST after we've brainstormed them, meaning coming up with a polished suggestion rather than just a raw idea.

Also, we'd push/publish those suggestions as TEST, rather than an individual bumping his thread over and over.

 

[Printimus]

The Idea is to publish our Ideas as TEST after we've brainstormed them, meaning coming up with a polished suggestion rather than just a raw idea.

Also, we'd push/publish those suggestions as TEST, rather than an individual bumping his thread over and over.

No no, I totally understand what you are trying to push, but I dont think there is any one single TEST that they will listen to. Its a collective community. If you truly have a good idea about something, they rest of the community will recognize it.

 

[CrudeSasquatch]

As i learned in Uni, it's best to have an idea before finally working on it. What's your idea?

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

There are little things going on all over the place. Rock Raiders for one, The Race Team and don't forget my little baby TWRL, the Test Weapons Research Laboratory:

https://testsquadron.com/threads/twrl-test-weapons-research-lab.8549/

How I would get our genius to the Devs i would not know.

What I really want to know is when Test brand pet-rocks will be available for our ships?

 

[I_MIKE_I]

As i learned in Uni, it's best to have an idea before finally working on it. What's your idea?

I do have plenty (a relative control mode for fleets or a way to fix turrets and so on) but the Thread isn't about a specific suggestion, it's about establishing a way for TEST to bring polished suggestions to the Devs, so they don't have to read trough a dozen sites of nonsense.

No no, I totally understand what you are trying to push, but I dont think there is any one single TEST that they will listen to. Its a collective community. If you truly have a good idea about something, they rest of the community will recognize it.

Not really... the official forums will quite likely make 20 sites+ of "i like" discussions about sandworm pets and what-not, but if you have something more difficult to understand, most people will just ignore it.

 

[Printimus]

Not really... the official forums will quite likely make 20 sites+ of "i like" discussions about sandworm pets and what-not, but if you have something more difficult to understand, most people will just ignore it.

You can't MAKE people pay attention to you.... Why would an official TEST post be any different? If you want people to start paying attention to you and taking notice, you gotta earn their respect and build up a trust. There's no easy way around this.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I agree with the above and would note to you, there is a group of outsiders CIG goes to for active feedback and ideas. They have all signed NDA's. I believe I have heard BoredGamer claim to belong to such a group so apparently CIG hears him out and considers his recommendations. You might like to contact BoredGamer and see if he wants to participate in this forum.

That said I would just note, it is ALWAYS a bad idea to handle feedback other than very carefully, and feedback mechanisms go awry very quickly. People who are in no way stakeholders but feel entitled to push their ideas often just won't let a thing go, so this needs to be handled very gently and with great wisdom or CIG will quickly learn to ignore it. The few can ruin this for the many.

But given all this I will contribute my notion that I believe it is unfair that the Vanguard has apparently been singled out that it alone cannot be equipped according to its owners' liking. I think all the guns should be swapable within their size class and I see no reason it should form an exception. Removing that ability effectively nerfs the most expensive fighter from too many uses. Likewise I think the Hoplite ought to form the new standard frame (meaning keep the new, larger door as common to all variants) and all other variants ought to have modules that can be swapped to create the different variants. In defense of this notion I would remind that much of the game for many folks is to create your own version of a ship, modified in as many ways as possible, and to remove the ability to make these mods needs VERY special justification that we have not seen.

IMHO.

 

[FluffyVonRage]

In defense of this notion I would remind that much of the game for many folks is to create your own version of a ship, modified in as many ways as possible, and to remove the ability to make these mods needs VERY special justification that we have not seen.

IMHO.

It's clearly a stripper pole.

Different guns would break it.

I hope?

 

[BUTUZ]

Brainstorming? We have brains?!!!

 

[Thalstan]

Lots of people have ideas. Some are great, some are horrible, most are in between. However, what some people forget is that this is the brainchild of Chris Roberts. From everything I have seen, there isn't a single aspect of this game he has not personally touched in some way. This is HIS game, not ours. He will make it according to what he wants it to be and that will be that. Now, if you have ideas on how to improve this game, go ahead and post them in the forums. By all means, you can try and get feedback from other players here, but honestly, you are going to get much of the same types of feedback here as you would on the official forums. Just because you are a Test member or even manage to get a group of 20 Testies to agree with you does not mean people (Test members, other players, and CIG) will accept your idea, my idea, or anyone else's idea.

If you REALLY want to impact this game, you have only two options. Apply to and get hired by CIG, work your tail off, and make such a huge impression with your skills and work ethic that they promote you to one of the very rare game management positions...OR...Work your tail off in the issue council, submitting new bugs, confirming others, etc on an almost daily basis, digging into when something occurs and that the likely trigger points/reset points are for that particular bug. Do it for a year with hundreds of new bugs and thousands of confirmations/invalid sets and you might be invited to sign an NDA and join the Evocati (MIGHT). This is a group that supposedly is much more in the know and is the first group that the devs go out to with proposed changes to test out. Those are pretty much the only way that the average Joe or Jane will be able to make an impact on this game.

TL;DR - if you are just reading this alone, the advice given won't really apply because you don't sweat the details. If you did, summary is Work HARD, prove yourself useful to CIG, and one day, if the wind blows just right, they may listen to one idea you have...

PS...one other way you might make an impact is to donate a TON of money to the game probably 100k+ USD....but this thought might just be my cynical reaction to the current US Presidential campaigns...

 

[I_MIKE_I]

You can't MAKE people pay attention to you.... Why would an official TEST post be any different? If you want people to start paying attention to you and taking notice, you gotta earn their respect and build up a trust. There's no easy way around this.

I don't want attention to me, I want attention to constructive feedback/suggestions that have deemed to be such by multiple Testies.

I was kinda hoping for TEST to work as a group to bring suggestions we've worked out as a group and publish them as a group, kinda like the Groups doing the TNGS things, but given the Feedback here, I guess I've been too naive.

 

[Crymsan]

Well I have a suggestion and I think there should be trade taxes. Clearly the game needs money sinks but that's not the main reason. Clearly the UEE needs taxes to pay for its fleet and is at war? Vandal?

Obviously fair mind people will want to help the war as much as possible and pay as much tax as they can to improve our chances of winning. Then there will be some who will recognise that if they can sell the products without paying the tax (bypassing the normal sales route) the ordinary man might not be forced into conscription so as to feed their family and the small loss in revenue will hardly pay for a Bengal.

 

[I_MIKE_I]

Well I have a suggestion and I think there should be trade taxes. Clearly the game needs money sinks but that's not the main reason. Clearly the UEE needs taxes to pay for its fleet and is at war? Vandal?

Obviously fair mind people will want to help the war as much as possible and pay as much tax as they can to improve our chances of winning. Then there will be some who will recognise that if they can sell the products without paying the tax (bypassing the normal sales route) the ordinary man might not be forced into conscription so as to feed their family and the small loss in revenue will hardly pay for a Bengal.

Aside from the fact that I tried to establish a way for TEST to discuss suggestions here and failed, I think Taxes are already planned in SC, for example when buying/selling ships for UEC.

As a German however, I have to say that some taxes make the Vanduul look less like monsters...

 

[Crymsan]

I can see no problems people discussing ideas (even if shit posting is my stock in trade) but developer input is something else.

Tax is a system designed to make you spend money on something you never would. Like politicians.

 

[Lythan]

The problem I ran into on the RSI idea forums was that generally, someone had an idea and about 5 people will post and say, "hey I like this too!" but all of these are generally people that don't post too much or are not high profile.

Then, there comes along one or two "veterans" with thousands of posts to their names and they simply say something along the lines of "Meh, I don't like it" And will repeat that until the thread dies.

Also, I think your idea is good and it filters out a lot of noise. A number of people here have presented you arguments on why they think it might not be a good idea. I believe that non of these arguments are solid enough to warrant dropping this idea completely.

To make this "think-tank" a success, perhaps it would be an idea to dedicate a group to this. "The mindcrackers" or "Headsmashers" :p
Simply to have a place where people can hold arguments towards a common goal (your goal).

That said I have a lot of ideas, suggestions and maybe some "concerns" too. I'm happy to throw them out there if such a group is created :)

 

[Crymsan]

For fairly obvious reasons the devs cannot favour any guild nor would I want that. This forum is a good place to discuss ideas. It is full of backers for the game with strong interests and different gaming likes ((I am not a fan of a death penalty system and FPS combined since death would seem a common occurrence in FPS (lack of consequence is not preferred however)).

So the main issue is only how you then present your ideas so that it gets noticed. Make a video post it on you tube and then reddit and only if you get backing will it get seen. Like all good ideas not everyone will think so (peanut butter is not for me!).

 

[Printimus]

The problem I ran into on the RSI idea forums was that generally, someone had an idea and about 5 people will post and say, "hey I like this too!" but all of these are generally people that don't post too much or are not high profile.

Then, there comes along one or two "veterans" with thousands of posts to their names and they simply say something along the lines of "Meh, I don't like it" And will repeat that until the thread dies.

Also, I think your idea is good and it filters out a lot of noise. A number of people here have presented you arguments on why they think it might not be a good idea. I believe that non of these arguments are solid enough to warrant dropping this idea completely.

To make this "think-tank" a success, perhaps it would be an idea to dedicate a group to this. "The mindcrackers" or "Headsmashers" :p
Simply to have a place where people can hold arguments towards a common goal (your goal).

That said I have a lot of ideas, suggestions and maybe some "concerns" too. I'm happy to throw them out there if such a group is created :)

I vote for the name "Brain Trust"
It's what the janitor used in Scrubs, the tv show.