Renegade
27.12.2009, 22:58:48
For those who don't know, the Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
I am convinced this principle applies to Ares as well - while many people may submit the odd feature request every now and then, there is likely a core group of a handful of modders who will most actively use Ares.
However, on the bugtracker, you can't really filter by "actual interest of Ares community". We can't judge by a feature request whether it comes from someone who would use Ares for the rest of his life if it had that one feature, or if the requester has long since forgotten about Ares.
Hence, I would like to invite you, who you are Ares's core community at the moment, to actually go on the tracker and comment on the feature requests. Say if you would like something to be implemented, say if you don't want us to waste time on that request, comment on the proposed implementation, make enhancement suggestions, etc.
Point being: If we have 300 requests which all look equal, there's no guarantee our selection of features will be pleasing to the majority of the core community. In all honesty, with all features looking equal, it's most likely we'll just pick the ones which we, personally, find most interesting to work on, and which aren't too complicated.
If I have to choose between an issue that takes 500 hours of work for something I don't care for, and one that takes 1 hour of work to do something I find awesome, why tackle the 500-hour-issue?
However, if there were features which had numerous commenters saying "I also want this feature", we could much easier detect which features are wanted how much, and give priority to features anxiously awaited by the majority of the core audience.
Make no mistake - a large number of votes is not a guarantee a feature will be implemented, since the more complex things get, the more likely it is Westwood's engine will stand in the way, and we need a certain amount of fun ourselves to stay motivated, so there will always be issues being worked on just for fun - but a large number of comments makes the difference between an issue being drowned out by a dozen others, and it being noted as a highly anticipated feature.
It's a question of knowing what the community wants, rather than deciding from personal taste at a given moment.
Basically, it's the difference between
This is really more of an encouragement than anything - work will be done either way, and we'll always find issues to work on. It's just that I want everyone to understand that the easiest way to ensure the issues most interesting to the community are actually implemented is telling us they are interesting to you.
We are very willing to try to implement the issues most wanted by the community - if we actually know which those are.
I'm not talking about stuff like "make savegames work" or something. Those are a given. Of course we'd all like that. I'm talking about the normal, random, generic feature request. As of the time of this writing, there are 150 either new or acknowledged, unassigned feature requests.
Based on what metric should we choose which of these 150 is the one the community would most like to see asap, if you're not telling us?
The fact that there are comments at all on an issue does not help this particular problem. Take issue 588 for example. Sure, it has two comments, which is more than many others - but these two comments are utterly worthless to determine whether this feature is actually wanted by anyone but the requester. That's not to say they're bad. Quite the opposite. It's good they exist, it's good the request's technicalities are discussed, and it's better those comments exist than if they didn't. It's definitely a good thing these comments were made. But neither of them makes a statement for or against the issue as a whole - they only discuss how to implement it under the assumption it will be. As such, we can't use them to judge if that particular issue is worth our attention or not.
Therefore, my request: Judge. Go on the bugtracker, participate, help us choose which feature requests to focus on.
All you really have to do is go here and state your opinion. If you think a request sucks, say so. If you offer sexual favors if we do one, say so. If you see problems, say so. If you recognize a request as a duplicate or otherwise related to others, say so - being able to resolve multiple issues through one implementation is always an incentive!
Opinions are like assholes: Everyone has one. We want to hear yours.
P.S.: While you're at it, feel free to add tags to issues...easier to find related ones that way.
I am convinced this principle applies to Ares as well - while many people may submit the odd feature request every now and then, there is likely a core group of a handful of modders who will most actively use Ares.
However, on the bugtracker, you can't really filter by "actual interest of Ares community". We can't judge by a feature request whether it comes from someone who would use Ares for the rest of his life if it had that one feature, or if the requester has long since forgotten about Ares.
Hence, I would like to invite you, who you are Ares's core community at the moment, to actually go on the tracker and comment on the feature requests. Say if you would like something to be implemented, say if you don't want us to waste time on that request, comment on the proposed implementation, make enhancement suggestions, etc.
Point being: If we have 300 requests which all look equal, there's no guarantee our selection of features will be pleasing to the majority of the core community. In all honesty, with all features looking equal, it's most likely we'll just pick the ones which we, personally, find most interesting to work on, and which aren't too complicated.
If I have to choose between an issue that takes 500 hours of work for something I don't care for, and one that takes 1 hour of work to do something I find awesome, why tackle the 500-hour-issue?
However, if there were features which had numerous commenters saying "I also want this feature", we could much easier detect which features are wanted how much, and give priority to features anxiously awaited by the majority of the core audience.
Make no mistake - a large number of votes is not a guarantee a feature will be implemented, since the more complex things get, the more likely it is Westwood's engine will stand in the way, and we need a certain amount of fun ourselves to stay motivated, so there will always be issues being worked on just for fun - but a large number of comments makes the difference between an issue being drowned out by a dozen others, and it being noted as a highly anticipated feature.
It's a question of knowing what the community wants, rather than deciding from personal taste at a given moment.
Basically, it's the difference between
- Deglobalize ICanHasCheezBurger= (0 comments)
- Make corkscrew lasers, plz! (0 comments)
- THIS IS IMPORTANT (0 comments)
- Add flag to make Tanya naked (0 comments)
- Enable two turrets on ships (0 comments)
- Please add ExplodingChronoMonkey=yes (0 comments)
- Random IEs in 0.5.436! (0 comments)
- Deglobalize ICanHasCheezBurger= (1 comments)
- Make corkscrew lasers, plz! (2 comments)
- THIS IS IMPORTANT (0 comments)
- Add flag to make Tanya naked (69 comments)
- Enable two turrets on ships (10 comments)
- Please add ExplodingChronoMonkey=yes (3 comments)
- Random IEs in 0.5.436! (8 comments)
This is really more of an encouragement than anything - work will be done either way, and we'll always find issues to work on. It's just that I want everyone to understand that the easiest way to ensure the issues most interesting to the community are actually implemented is telling us they are interesting to you.
We are very willing to try to implement the issues most wanted by the community - if we actually know which those are.
I'm not talking about stuff like "make savegames work" or something. Those are a given. Of course we'd all like that. I'm talking about the normal, random, generic feature request. As of the time of this writing, there are 150 either new or acknowledged, unassigned feature requests.
Based on what metric should we choose which of these 150 is the one the community would most like to see asap, if you're not telling us?
The fact that there are comments at all on an issue does not help this particular problem. Take issue 588 for example. Sure, it has two comments, which is more than many others - but these two comments are utterly worthless to determine whether this feature is actually wanted by anyone but the requester. That's not to say they're bad. Quite the opposite. It's good they exist, it's good the request's technicalities are discussed, and it's better those comments exist than if they didn't. It's definitely a good thing these comments were made. But neither of them makes a statement for or against the issue as a whole - they only discuss how to implement it under the assumption it will be. As such, we can't use them to judge if that particular issue is worth our attention or not.
Therefore, my request: Judge. Go on the bugtracker, participate, help us choose which feature requests to focus on.
All you really have to do is go here and state your opinion. If you think a request sucks, say so. If you offer sexual favors if we do one, say so. If you see problems, say so. If you recognize a request as a duplicate or otherwise related to others, say so - being able to resolve multiple issues through one implementation is always an incentive!
Opinions are like assholes: Everyone has one. We want to hear yours.
P.S.: While you're at it, feel free to add tags to issues...easier to find related ones that way.
Forum Rules
(01.06.2011, 05:43:25)kenosis Wrote: Oh damn don't be disgraced again!
(25.06.2011, 20:42:59)Nighthawk Wrote: The proverbial bearded omni-bug may be dead, but the containment campaign is still being waged in the desert.
mt.
. But, okay, I see now it is wanted, I'll see to adding my 2 cents throughout then.
thank you two 
