My Design Team Concerns

[Lysander]

I’ve been on the design team for a couple of months now, and it’s been fairly quiet. I think everyone would agree the game as a whole has gone quiet - politics are quieter, even with the war on, and since NAPs are apparently back in style, they’ll stay quiet for a while. With Village gone with university and Alex MIA, the roadmap for updates is dead in the water.

 

I’ve begun airing my concerns with the lack of anything being done, specifically within the design team, in RON recently, and there were a good number of folks who felt similarly. Special shout-out to @His Holy Decagon, who’s been naming issues with a specific member of the design team that he and others have (we’ll get to that later).

 

There appear to be two primary sentiments on the design team right now, for the people that are actually active and have said something in the last two months. 1) “Nothing’s going to be coded, so why bother doing anything.” 2) “There’s no design team lead, so debate can’t go anywhere, so why bother doing anything.” I really don’t like either of these sentiments, for a couple reasons. 

 

No coding does mean not much will be implemented, sure. But if coding were to resume tomorrow, would you rather have a list of ideas the design team has already debated to say “here, work on these”, or nothing? I think waiting until development can start again, only to deadlock ourselves in debate for a couple of weeks and waste the coding time made available, is a terrible idea.

 

The design team lead frontier makes more sense. As I mentioned earlier, Decagon (who shall henceforth be referred to as Deca) is on I believe Day 5 of bringing up his concerns with @Lucianus in RON. The main points Deca has made are that Luci has stagnated debate on a lot of issues, which prevents a number of changes from going through, and that he overall was extremely biased and many people had a problem with how he approached design team work. I’ve attached an image with the meat of the argument below, although Deca is bringing up new points daily in RON, so you’re welcome to go check them out or review what he’s said.

 

 

I don’t want to single out Luci myself, because I haven’t personally had these problems with him. I do know, however, that there are at least five to seven people on the design team who have either a) never said anything for the time I’ve been present, or b) have come up basically against any proposed change. 

 

Nothing is going to get done without a design team lead, and credit belongs to @Keegoz for starting that push the other day. Appointing a design team lead now will allow that lead to organize the team, make changes and add structure ahead of time, and get a priority list together so that when development resumes, we’re not all sitting around twiddling our thumbs. A lead can also work to deal with concerns of past dev team members that left over specific individuals, potentially returning valued players and their insight to the team.

 

TL;DR @Alex, @Dr Rush, or somebody needs to make a call and put a lead in ASAP. Having someone just step up won’t work, as there are plenty of individuals who will only accept the authority when it’s formalized. I’d encourage all of you to join in sharing your concerns with the process publicly so there’s at least a chance things get better.

[Alan]

The design team for most of P&W's life has been active and presenting positive & interesting ideas to the public. More recently however updates and discussions seem to be dying as quickly as the will of the community.

A major concern of mine is there's no "progress reports" or "road maps" to assist the public in looking how the game is developed. Most "indie" games have a channel dedicated to just game updates and patches (and no not "Please Buy More Credits This Month"). Giving people an updates channel or even a monthly recap of things achieved would be way more interesting and show that the game is making continuous progress.

Another issue is it seems most good/solid ideas get swept under the rug without an indication of "why". More recently tags have been added to show what idea are being "discussed" but there's a clear lack of motion from the design team to point out issues and try to have legitimate discussions about these ideas. The design team seems to have 3-4 members based on activity but I know it's almost double/triple that size.

The past few updates though have been nothing short of favoritism for larger alliances. Spies becoming public information has made it easier for spy kill farming (Looking at Rose) and raising the City Build timer Cap from C10 to C20 is not "for game balance", it's for massive alliances to push billions into their members growth (or another excuse for people to P2W for their cities).

I'm perfectly aware that we don't own P&W. However it's still our game. Updates need to be positive for all levels of gameplay. Updates need to be spoken about and shown to be progressing. We need the design team to have clear and precise objectives to have them follow through to provide the game with the "interest boost" that @Alex is so desperately trying to achieve with mass advertising.

If you have a great alliance recruitment script but a terrible community you will not retain your members. Focus on the game and make sure the departments are running smoothly. Then you can be proud to have new players join.

[SlyWolf21]

It's moments like this where we have to remember one of the most wisest quotes ever uttered. 

"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade - make life take the lemons back! GET MAD! I don't want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager. Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons. Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down. With the lemons. I'm going to go get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!" - Cave Johnson

Be like CJ. Don't let the dev team give you lemons. You deserve more than lemons. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by SlyWolf21

[Velyni Vas]

The P&W community and loyalists deserve better from Administration. Give us progress, stability, and hope.

[Darth Ataxia]

10 minutes ago, Velyni Vas said:

The P&W community and loyalists deserve better from Administration. Give us progress, stability, and hope.

Your new empire?

[Ketya]

Big mistake to narrow down your ask to Alex to “a design team lead.” Why would that solve anything at all?

it only gives Alex the room to assign a lead and walk away from the game again.

You should have asked the VIP members to stop paying if the game continues to stall.

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

The design team felt promising years ago when it started.

Since then it's felt more and more useless and pointless over time, the current situation to me is just a public display and confirmation of what's seemed to be the case for much of its life now.

Honestly even if Alex or Village were around, I'm personally of the mind that most of PW's greatest issues lie in the very core of its being, the bedrock of spaghetti code as much as ten years old now. 

 

What I'm say is, I've been convinced to properly address such things would require, essentially, making an entirely new game outright. Nothing stands forever, no matter how solid it's foundation may have once seemed.

[Sphinx]

@Keegoz @Lysander @His Holy Decagon I think you 3 deserve a lot of praise for trying to lobby for positive changes to happen to the game. But I fear that despite the work you put in as long as Alex treats the game as a money-printing machine and consistently fails to put any effort into improving the game, then nothing will change for the better. 

I've long since given up any hope of meaningful updates happening to the game, but I hope people can put enough pressure on Alex that he'll start taking things seriously.... However unlikely this this. 

[Exalts]

I strongly believe that in times of stagnancy, waiting for a messiah to bring you out of your dormancy is not the solution. I've already said as much in different channels, but it doesn't hurt to coin it again.

What the design team needs is not necessarily an elected, official design team lead, what it needs is someone to step up and take the reins of the team, someone who can talk to both other members of the team, as well as the dev team. That person would have the undesirable albeit essential role of creating necessary discourse, hearing everyone's views, being able to separate personal bias from the task at hand, reaching agreement if not consensus (it seems in this case consensus is not an achievable objective), and discussing agreed upon changes with the dev team.

It's a tall ordeal, it's not fun, it's a lot of time to sink into a voluntary project like the design team, but it is essential all the same. You would be very surprised how easily people rally behind others just because they're stepping up when no one else will, even if that person doesn't have the fancy official design team leader title.

Be the change you want to see, or don't, you can hope for Alex to get out of hibernation and do something about it also. Don't be surprised if nothing changes if you choose to wait however.

 

Edit: I realize that this whole "step up!" notion is being rejected as a whole, but really, when you've been appointed to the design team, the understanding was that Alex delegated the role of driving the design of the game to you. Similarly to the dev team, they've been delegated with the mandate of pushing updates to the game, that the design team wishes to push through. You don't need Alex, you don't need an official lead. This will fall on deaf ears from some I'm sure, but you've got two options here: do nothing pending Alex doing something about it, which we all know is not happening anytime soon; or be responsible and try to do something in spite of the circumstances. Are you truly okay waiting for someone who may never do anything about it? If Alex doesn't address this until mid-2024, is that truly okay with you?

Edited November 2, 2023 by Exalts

[Keegoz]

13 hours ago, Ketya said:

Big mistake to narrow down your ask to Alex to “a design team lead.” Why would that solve anything at all?

it only gives Alex the room to assign a lead and walk away from the game again.

You should have asked the VIP members to stop paying if the game continues to stall.

The issue being, whenever a coder does get time to code something. We will have basically nothing for them to code for at least a few months.

Seems rather odd to waste this time we have now, not getting at least organised for whenever one of the coders gets time again.

17 minutes ago, Exalts said:

I strongly believe that in times of stagnancy, waiting for a messiah to bring you out of your dormancy is not the solution. I've already said as much in different channels, but it doesn't hurt to coin it again.

What the design team needs is not necessarily an elected, official design team lead, what it needs is someone to step up and take the reins of the team, someone who can talk to both other members of the team, as well as the dev team. That person would have the undesirable albeit essential role of creating necessary discourse, hearing everyone's views, being able to separate personal bias from the task at hand, reaching agreement if not consensus (it seems in this case consensus is not an achievable objective), and discussing agreed upon changes with the dev team.

It's a tall ordeal, it's not fun, it's a lot of time to sink into a voluntary project like the design team, but it is essential all the same. You would be very surprised how easily people rally behind others just because they're stepping up when no one else will, even if that person doesn't have the fancy official design team leader title.

Be the change you want to see, or don't, you can hope for Alex to get out of hibernation and do something about it also. Don't be surprised if nothing changes if you choose to wait however.

 

Edit: I realize that this whole "step up!" notion is being rejected as a whole, but really, when you've been appointed to the design team, the understanding was that Alex delegated the role of driving the design of the game to you. Similarly to the dev team, they've been delegated with the mandate of pushing updates to the game, that the design team wishes to push through. You don't need Alex, you don't need an official lead. This will fall on deaf ears from some I'm sure, but you've got two options here: do nothing pending Alex doing something about it, which we all know is not happening anytime soon; or be responsible and try to do something in spite of the circumstances. Are you truly okay waiting for someone who may never do anything about it? If Alex doesn't address this until mid-2024, is that truly okay with you?

There are some structural issues in the team. You can go ask former members about it, that truly needs the ability to moderate who is apart of the team. We could elect someone but there is a central issue as to why this change needs to happen.

The team choosing a lead (doubt it would even agree on that), would have effectively no power to deal with the current issues. Honestly if @Alex cannot or will not choose a new design team lead, then that is a sign that he has no intentions to move this game forward. I'll continue to wait and hope he gives a response.

[Exalts]

18 minutes ago, Keegoz said:

The team choosing a lead (doubt it would even agree on that), would have effectively no power to deal with the current issues. Honestly if @Alex cannot or will not choose a new design team lead, then that is a sign that he has no intentions to move this game forward. I'll continue to wait and hope he gives a response.

Then you must make your peace that it's possible the design team ceases to be. I can't claim to know what specific factors are making it difficult to do anything without a team lead although I get that some members of the team are being difficult. As tempting as it is to simply leave them out of the conversation if they are not interested in contributing, you and I both know it's not viable or realistic. Some authoritative figure may be needed, but I don't think you'll get Alex to cut on that matter, and I don't know if others like @Dr Rush have the authority to do anything about it either.

[Thalmor]

14 hours ago, Ketya said:

You should have asked the VIP members to stop paying if the game continues to stall.

Terrible idea.

Politics and War is a business. We play the funny haha city count go up spreadsheet Discord game, but Alex's approach and feeling towards the game is completely different from ours. The bulk of P&W's revenue, I imagine, comes from credit sales. To strip P&W of its revenue would only incentivize Alex to just pull the plug.

And maybe to some that's based because Alex bad or whatever, but I very much want to keep blowing up people's pixels for years to come. 

I do wish we had more features or reforms though. I also hope the stagnation we're going through breaks as well. I want to see the game thrive, so I can have more potential victims. 

[Krampus]

Alex has stated on numerous occasions he would focus on the coding aspect of game dev. Has anything come of that? He is hard at work, no doubt

[Keegoz]

2 hours ago, Exalts said:

Then you must make your peace that it's possible the design team ceases to be. I can't claim to know what specific factors are making it difficult to do anything without a team lead although I get that some members of the team are being difficult. As tempting as it is to simply leave them out of the conversation if they are not interested in contributing, you and I both know it's not viable or realistic. Some authoritative figure may be needed, but I don't think you'll get Alex to cut on that matter, and I don't know if others like @Dr Rush have the authority to do anything about it either.

I have, I'm not publicly calling for changes in threads etc. I have made comments internally about what needs to happen if things are to proceed. If they don't happen, then so be it. I won't be sinking time into it until the decision is made.

[Ketya]

8 hours ago, Thalmor said:

Terrible idea.

 

Don’t encourage more mediocracy 😂

It is OK for the game to go away as the stall continues. It will save us all time

 

People shouldn’t be paying for mediocracy.

[Alastor]

It would be nice to see Alex come back and be super active again.

[Arthur Wellington]

Or sell the game to a company that can put pro's on the further development if there is no more interest from the creator.

[Tartarus]

Not exactly related to the point of the thread, but I get cold feet at the idea of appointing a design lead considering the influence on the game if they have an active allegiance to an alliance. Suppose I could simplify that to say - the lead ideally should be completely unbiased, which was why I liked Pre in the role even if I thought various things about what he pushed through.

Whether you're actively involved in leading an alliance/high gov or you do reporting work. Idk, it's not something I've seen many people mention (apart from the various meming of Lucianus and his partiality) but it definitely is something that concerns me, no matter who does get appointed the team lead.