Garo Hertee
Eclipse Industrials
Quantum Forge
2
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Posted - 2011.09.26 10:04:00 -
[1] - Quote
Eli Strange wrote:I enjoyed your post, and I did +1 the post. However, I hope you mean that CCP will reprioritize FIS to the front, and not abandon WIS. I do think they have great potential in WIS, but I do agree that they need to shore up FIS before moving into the flashy content.
I completely agree. CCP is never going to make everyone happy, especially since we have represented in the playerbase the very extremes of opinion from "You've been promising WiS for years, give it to us now" to "This is a FiS game and time spent on anything else is a total waste." The key is balance.
For good or ill, WiS is now with us. Personally I looked at it for a whole 10 minutes then elected to turn it off. Why? It's eye candy and it's nice but there's no actual gameplay in it for now. For now. As far as I can determine, this is what was intended of this first release, a stepping stone to getting beyond the door to establishments and having some gameplay in WiS. Personally, I'm still hopeful, although I like the feature mentioned in the recent devblog to choose whether to stay in your ship or enter your CQ when you dock. That's at least a nod to those who have no interest in WiS.
While I agree with the CSM's statement in general, I think that now WiS is a game feature, it should continue to be worked on. It shouldn't be worked on to the exclusion of everything else and I understand it isn't. It looks to an outsider as if it is currently the main thrust. The problems with FiS and other game mechanics have been with us for much longer and maybe they should be the main thrust instead for a time. Balance. Don't stop WiS development but downgrade it.
In my opinion, the reason this has come to a head is that the balance has been wrong for a number of years. I like the stuff CCP have been doing but I think it has been done in the wrong proportions. To correct a problem which has been rollercoasting along for that long will take some drastic action now, but it should be a temporary course correction. Don't consider any new features right now, focus on fixing existing content and iterating on shiny new content which was previously released. At a later stage, start to put some resources back into new features again. This I believe is the way to win back the respect of the players and see healthier trends in subscription numbers.
As for crowdsourcing, the most recent one was the first I had taken part in. I don't think anyone is selling it as being perfect, but it is a useful tool, which will become more useful if more people take part. Maybe I'm just thick but I had to read the voting instructions twice to figure out how it was being done. Keep this simple to get the best participation. We can all see how the crowdsourcing results can be skewed, CCP and the CSM can see that too. The results are just another feedback method for CCP to take into account in their decision making, not the sole one.
In summary, keep new features out of the picture until the problems with development focus are back on track, a bit less WiS (but not a complete halt), a bit more FiS (fixing long-established problems) and this game should continue to get better and better.
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