Board of Istari***

[Crazyfingers]

Was thinking of the future of MMO's. I had an idea pop into my head while checking on my cousin's dogs.

A Board of Istaria Membership. Cost 100 bucks. Percs include 6 months subscription and a membership to a discussion board. The Tulga team states their vision of the game and future changes to meet those visions. Members hash out which features and changes in order of priority. A poll is set up to decide which feature/change should be worked on first. Members vote. Whatever feature/change wins the most votes goes up for debate on how to implement it.
Members debate it out over pages and pages of discussion. Once the debate hits the 'brick wall' point. The impementation of the feature/change goes up for a vote. A poll is set up with the available implementation options. Members vote.
Whatever implementation wins begins to be worked on by the dev team.
When developers are ready for another feature/change they come to the boards and ask the members to start the process again.

To me itsa win/win situation. Adds much needed money to the game NOW, and allows players to be a part oftheprocess.Would onlybe necessaryto add a newBoardMembersforum with a poll system andsomesort of legal agreement wrote up by a lawyer that members would have to agree to.

Its democratic, fun, and would add some much needed revenues.

NimKhazad

[Valornyx]

Whilst I think that some of these ideas have merit .. I'm not sure that the BEST way of developing a game is through democratic process. Ithink that it is important - even crucial - for the devs to have a clear understanding of what the playerbase wants, but ultimately the descisions have to belong to the design and dev team.

It may work here in Hz at this point in time where a good number of the players are at least open-minded enough to see shortcomings in areas that do not affect them. For me an example of this would be confectioners - since I don't really care one way or another about that class (as it is now anyhow) - but I can see needs some lovin'.

If, though, the Hz playerbase does manage to grow - having a bunch of L33ts deciding where the game goes would definitely kill it faster than SOG on New Brommel.

[Crazyfingers]

oh, didnt realize there was L33ts still playing horizons. Maybe some other small gaming company will give it a shot.

NimK

[Seranthor]

NimK,

Sounds like it has merit to it... tell us more.

[IndyMan]

So for 100$ I get 6 months of sub time AND I get to blow off the CNF class since I have no interest in being one ?

I am sure all the CNF's would just love for me to be voting to let them swing in the wind. [6]

[Crazyfingers]

Well if thats how you wanted to vote. Then yes you could blow off confectioners.
Doesnt mean the other 500-1000 folks would. Maybe it would be a broader feature/change that reworked problem classes that was up for vote, which I would presume Confectioner would be one of them.

Vote whichever way floats your boat. But the majority rules.

NimKhazad