Saturday, August 3, 2013

Some Reasonable Things

The current CSM has an initiative to get ideas for "reasonable" changes from the players.  They've taken suggestions and now they have voted on them, with 99 items (a few duplicates makes it more like 96) presented for players to vote on.  (Hey, why is my vote necessary?  Isn't representing player what the CSM is supposed to be doing?  Nevermind.)  The instructions for how to vote are in a guest devblog.  The CSM have a tool on their own blog facilitate voting.

I am sad that my suggestion did not make it.  Grrr, CSM, you suck.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on "reasonable" and my own voting.

First, this should should be a list of small things.  Stuff with high bang for the programmer-hour buck.  Consider #4: Comprehensive revamp of drone UI?  That might be nice, but it is too big.

Second, this is not development; it is refinement.  There should be little or no effect on game balance; some of these things (like #73: Add "distress signal" mission in space) are potentially very significant.  I am not voting for anything like that.  I do make a partial exception here, to vote for changes that (at least in my own fevered mind) we have already been promised by CCP.  I.e.: I want to be able to refit T3s in wspace including subsystems.  This is a substantial change, but since CCP have already promised it, I feel that voting for it is fine.  (#6: Changing T3 subs on POS SMA.)  Squeak, squeak; gimme grease.

I am only voting for changes to parts of the game that I use or have used, such that I know at least little about.  This is most of the list, of course, but not all.  Things like #1: Alliance Bookmarks seem like a good idea, but having never been in an alliance I don't know how important they might be.  I do know that the work required to implement something like that is non trivial.  So, it does not make my list.  I am sure if it is important other people can vote it up.

Finally, I dislike voting for underspecified ideas.  For example, #12: reduce jump clone cooldown.  "Reduce" could mean to 23 hours or to 2 hours, and those are very different.  I did finally vote for this one, hoping that CCP would interpret "reduce" to mean a modest reduction.  People play daily, often starting at almost (but not exactly) the same time.  Because of this, anything on a 24 hour timer is really much more inconvenient than one on a shorter timer, i.e. 20 hours.  Basically, if the average play session is 4 hours, then you want the timer to be 24 - 4 hours.  That way, no matter when you clone-jump during a play session, you can jump again at the start of the next session, and make thinking about clone-jumping a part of your login.

Anyway, without further ado, my picks:


22) Status indicator to show you when you're inside a warp bubble.
43) Give the user the option of "auto stacking" inventory in both cargo hold and hangar.
06) Changing t3 subs on POS SMA.
40) Make it possible to fit mods that you don't have the skill for (they go offline).
14) Show drone health even when they are in the drone bay.
15) In addition to 'Log Off' and 'Quit Game', add a button to take you directly to the character selection screen.
46) Fix the pulse of the of the cloak module activation (and similar modules) to a steady, bright glow and then add a bright flash-out if you are decloaked by something.
17) Allow ships to be boarded from a SMA anywhere in POS shields.
07) When an SMA or CHA is destroyed, the contents should drop.
54) Let player to create, save and re-use custom scan probe layouts.
94) Allow directors to remove items from a Personal Hangar Array at a POS.
99) Provide a Fleet Bonus Information Tab to the Fleet Management Interface.
12) Reduce jump clone cool down.
02) Remove pointless extraneous requirements such as having to leave your ship and pause your skill queue before jump cloning can take place. This should be done automatically as part of the clonejump process.


Von Keigai, 22, 43, 06, 40, 14, 15, 46, 17, 07, 54, 94, 99, 12, 02

If you want to ditto my vote, you can just copy the line above, change the character name, and paste it into the voting thread.


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