When a TW2 moderator admits they have users pockets in mind

[DeletedUser894]

Direct question for you Cannibal. Why won't Innogames release a high level development plan, so that the players can see what is coming in the short, medium and long term? Transparency is the key to trust in an organisation.

lmao

 

[DeletedUser894]

this thread i really do not understand... if tw2 can see our packets.. why does it matter? We're playing under there server, there rules, you don't like it then GTFO, they have the right to see our messages, armies... location...

please tell me why this thread is still alive and confusing me!?

 

[DeletedUser299]

I think you are confused because you have misread the word 'pockets'.

 

[DeletedUser894]

I think you are confused because you have misread the word 'pockets'.

most likely so.

 

[DeletedUser2185]

Plans change a lot due to the amount of funds available for projects, then you have certain features that are good in theory but wont work when coded. There are many changes that go from planning to production, sure a roadmap would be good to have, but if its not followed and changed often, why have one.

I agree that I would love to see what they have planned as well, but like I said above, things change often.

 

[DeletedUser486]

Perfect example would be the end game feature, which is still in concept phase, and has been admitted by the higher ups that it should never have been placed on the wiki.

 

[DeletedUser299]

But the fortress end game is still planned - albeit long term - is it not? I don't see the harm in releasing a high level roadmap. Its not like it will be legally binding.

The reason for having one is involvement Cannibal- thats all. It lets those of us who are interested get a bit more involved during the times when you're waiting for a build to finish or coins to mint. I have no problems if plans change for justifiable reasons. If an account management feature was planned but priorities had to change due to a bug, well that's fine, but there is no harm in being transparent about it. At least we know they are thinking about some of these features - at the moment we have no idea and it doesn't help with the future involvement in the game, for those of us who care. For those of us who do care, the game is more than just logging in to play. We take it seriously!

I also think the devs are failing to address some of the key issues with the game that makes it not fun. Account management, speed of play mid game onwards, abuse of co-op. These things are ruining worlds at the moment, old and new. All of the world wins so far have been a joke - created by mergers and players who'd rather take the easy way out. Why play in the first place if you don't actually want to play? I just don't get it. I think there was an example recently where the forum section was discussing the win condition for a world only a couple of months old! It really is insane - but what is being done about it? Nothing.

 

[DeletedUser2185]

What about me?

Anyway a roadmap is good, but if they dont stick to it, there no reason for one. This is something that happens with all games, things change in time and ideas evolve, so what they started with will not be the end result.

 

[DeletedUser299]

What about you what?

Re the roadmap - of course there is a reason for one! It allows players to see what may be coming, have some fun discussing future features. And yes if things on the roadmap get dropped for no justifiable reason, then it allows players to hold devs to account.

You have never worked in public services have you. It is all about transparency, trust and consultation these days.

 

[DeletedUser3016]

Holding dev to account for things that are no lomgerlonger planned is probably the exact reason that there is no road map. Some things seem logical in concept but just don't work in practice. Can you imagine waiting for a much anticipated release of something that then turned out not to work? With all of the different markets available, the debs wouldn't be able to make statements about everything, and could end up with more trouble than it is worth. Just trying to think logically here, rather than a mod

 

[DeletedUser2185]

What about you what?

Re the roadmap - of course there is a reason for one! It allows players to see what may be coming, have some fun discussing future features. And yes if things on the roadmap get dropped for no justifiable reason, then it allows players to hold devs to account.

You have never worked in public services have you. It is all about transparency, trust and consultation these days.

One, dont assume about what I have done and what I have not done. Customer Service has been my job for many years in my capacities, so Yes I have worked and know its good to inform that public.

Second, I am saying this one last time, since you seem to ignore my comments. Road maps are good, however, they are a bad idea if the developers have a tendency to change plans every few weeks. Meaning, that it would be useless to you, if what they outline will eventually change and not be coming out as a feature you want or like. Then you would complain and say something like "Inno has promised these features, and again dissapointed the player base by changing ideas around and not informing the public". Do you think the devs have time to update a roadmap all the time, just so you have a piece of mind?

 

[DeletedUser299]

Second, I am saying this one last time, since you seem to ignore my comments. Road maps are good, however, they are a bad idea if the developers have a tendency to change plans every few weeks. Meaning, that it would be useless to you, if what they outline will eventually change and not be coming out as a feature you want or like. Then you would complain and say something like "Inno has promised these features, and again dissapointed the player base by changing ideas around and not informing the public". Do you think the devs have time to update a roadmap all the time, just so you have a piece of mind?

If the developers are really changing plans every few weeks then this just goes to show how haphazardly they are managing this game. There is clearly in that case no strategy being developed or no long term direction. No wonder the game is the way it is.

I think games such as these that encourage and elicit a certain level of input from the player base should have a transparent roadmap - and yes, that does mean that the devs have to try and stick to at least an outline plan and spend some time thinking about strategy, long term development, and how those are communicated.

I think you think I'm asking for something that is unreasonable. What is unreasonable is expecting (or desiring) players to stick around for 12 month, a year, 2 years, without having an idea where the game is going.

 

[DeletedUser1323]

If the developers are really changing plans every few weeks then this just goes to show how haphazardly they are managing this game. There is clearly in that case no strategy being developed or no long term direction. No wonder the game is the way it is.

I think games such as these that encourage and elicit a certain level of input from the player base should have a transparent roadmap - and yes, that does mean that the devs have to try and stick to at least an outline plan and spend some time thinking about strategy, long term development, and how those are communicated.

I think you think I'm asking for something that is unreasonable. What is unreasonable is expecting (or desiring) players to stick around for 12 month, a year, 2 years, without having an idea where the game is going.

Dan, if you were given a business plan that was going to fail without a doubt and lose money by going down the road, would you still follow it, because you "had to"? That is a business decision as much as a is it feasible feature to implement question. Companies have to pivot and change focus almost weekly because the market is not going to respond to the product or feature as designed. No demand = no product. Insufficient demand = not enough pain to produce a product to fix it (means losing money to do business). A private business has the right to keep stuff... lack for a better word... private, it is at their sole discretion on what to produce or not, and that is not even at the TW2 team level, this could be coming from higher up the Inno food chain about what they can or cannot do.

 

[DeletedUser299]

The things is jehzir, is that innogames pretend to want player input. They created these forums, the mods, the suggestions area - all supposedly to elicit input from the players on ideas and future development for the game yes?

Yet it's all a one way street.

We make suggestions about what works and doesn't work, where the problems are, and yet we have no idea what Inno are doing with any of these suggestions or whether they are simply ignoring them.

So whilst I totally agree that a private business has the right to keep things private, actually what we see here is a game that on the face of it seems to have a degree of community input, yet in reality does not because of a lack of communication the other way.

 

[DeletedUser]

I disagree, alot of suggests i put forward have been added (still waiting on mass recruit spies though)

 

[DeletedUser2193]

Hmm, ignored the thread due to the title...

Business is business, I think one of the first principles of that is that you are always limited and cant do everything due to limited resources. I have no clue how much money they make but I would imagine if hiring more people that would fix/upgrade things and that would pay itself off they'd definitely do that, they aren't dumb. But you have to think outside just fixing one bug or making a feature. Maybe hiring someone now when something needs fixing and then having too many people and having to let someone go is not the way they want to go, (I have no clue how convenient it would be to hire some freelance programmers or something). Now ill exaggerate. If they hired 20 new developers fixed all the bugs and released all the new features in one month. Yeah maybe they'd get more customers and someone would stay longer but it wouldn't pay itself off in long run, the game wouldn't get a huge boost in sales due to the few fixed bugs or new features. People would still quit and complain and ask for new features.

Though I kind of want to talk about the roadmap.
The way I currently see things are (being on the beta server too). Just new stuff appears. Sometimes really without an announcement. I get that things change and some things dont work, but I believe it would be good to say. "We're planning a mass unit recruit system and it will roughly do this this and this look like this. is there anything you'd like to see in it?", because now all the feedback we can give is after it coded and I believe its much harder to change something then. Yes maybe this forum wouldn't be a place to ask that as players would assume everything asked here will get implemented and they'd have to deal with frustrated people then, but why not in the beta forum?

 

[Tlatoani.moct]

...
Innogames should not have a mod system in place where there is ultimately no authority. Because the mods have an illusion of responsibility that does not exist. It is simply poor customer service.

Now, does any of this actually matter? Well no. Lets be honest here, this isn't your electricity supply or water supply, car insurance or banking. Its a game. An increasingly frustrating one at that. I am increasingly amazed that so many players can be bothered to stick around. The intelligent ones have clearly already quit.

Okay. I stumbled onto this thread today. It was amusing to read the posts made by DD. What really gave me a good laugh was the last sentence above. We recently won EN5: Eremitage. Although he posted the above in April, I believe he stuck around until it was clear his tribe wasn't going to win the world. Then, he probably went inactive for a few weeks. Now it looks like he's back. Since coops cannot mint coins, he must have returned to the game because his account has been nobling villages like crazy. Yes, he's sticking around after the world has been won!! Guess he doesn't count himself among the group who "clearly already quit."

 

[DeletedUser2185]

Hmm, ignored the thread due to the title...

Though I kind of want to talk about the roadmap.
The way I currently see things are (being on the beta server too). Just new stuff appears. Sometimes really without an announcement. I get that things change and some things dont work, but I believe it would be good to say. "We're planning a mass unit recruit system and it will roughly do this this and this look like this. is there anything you'd like to see in it?", because now all the feedback we can give is after it coded and I believe its much harder to change something then. Yes maybe this forum wouldn't be a place to ask that as players would assume everything asked here will get implemented and they'd have to deal with frustrated people then, but why not in the beta forum?

Liam who is the CM for that Community announces things in the Game updates section as soon as he hears about them, or did you mean something else?