The List's organization

[Trifna]

This thread is about logistic pertaining to the Civ IV List.

1-
Hey, we'll need to organize this thread about the Civ IV wishlist so that that it doesn't become a big mess. First, is someone making a compilation so that it is all put in its place? Second, should we make a few threads, each one discussing a different aspect (economy, troops...)?

How SHOULD it be organized to be optimal?

2-
The List done with Civ III had, I think, one weakness: how could the developers know what players gave more importance to? Perhaps some way of puting some hierarchy into the ideas could be helpful. Some of these things are easy to implement AND crucial while some others are more complicated and accessory.


PS: I also agree with Jon Miller on page 2 of the wishlist and mostly disagree with the ideas he quoted :P

[Solver]

Just get Yin back from wherever he is and to work on this!

[Nikolai]

I agree with Solver.
But as for the organization, the way you proposed Trifna, with several threads, is how it should be done IMHO. IT has been done like that for all the mods made for Paradox games, and as I've understood it, that has worked perfectly good.

It could be an idea to let one person have the responsibility for each section when it comes to the compilation of the list, and then have a person over everyone that has responsibility for organizing the different parts into a good product and acting as a boss for getting the project going forward.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Solver
Just get Yin back from wherever he is and to work on this!

Wasn't that one of the reasons most things in the list were ignored?

[Trifna]

Nikolai: Ok, well for my several threads, I lurned that it seems that I'm the only one willing to put some time on something still not announced :P

Thanks for saying me how it works optimally, and here's one thing I believe could be better:
Let's simply put some priorities. Perhaps a five stars system or something...

[Asmodean]

My idea was for several threads from the start, but I didn't want to clog up the entire forum with threads for this, untill I knew that people want to do this.

And I guess a PM to Mark is in order, before we do that

Asmodean

[Trifna]

Nice
Then let the thinking begin! :P

Do you have any way to show what is seen as priorities and what is considered less important?

[Asmodean]

Well, I was thinking that since this is going to be a monumental task, we'd have category managers for each category. The manager is responsible for his/her own thread - i.e. collecting ideas, and presenting them in a comprehensive format.

I have gotten the go ahead from MarkG to make threads for every category, but before we do that, I think we should have a sign-up thread, where would-be managers can express their interest in different categories. The category managers can then make their own threads for ideas.

Tomorrow I will take all ideas from the ideas thread, and make word documents for each category, so that each category manager wont have to comb through the same thread. Seems kinda redundant to me

I also expect to make the sign-up thread tomorrow, so that we can get this show on the road

Asmodean

[Trifna]

After, perhaps we should make a bunch of polls to know how is quoted each idea. One (or many) poll for economics, for diplomacy, etc.

I think that it could be very very useful for Firaxis people, no?

[Asmodean]

Problem is that it would be incredibly time consuming to do a poll for every item in the list. Not to mention the fact that it would clog up the forum with tons of polls.

But I agree with you that some sort of polling would be nice to have.

Let me think on a way to do this, OK

Asmodean

[Jon Miller]

we should do it as the civ3 list

as a list of ideas

not as some sort of design doc for a game

they are the ones designing the game, we are just throwing ideas there way (because sometimes we might think of something they haven't)

as far as volunteering goes, I am against it

I think we should just ahve threads that Firaxis, if they choose, can read and see what different people here think

JOn Miller

[Trifna]

Jon, I think that Firaxis will like ALOT more soemthing that is organized as much as possible instead of doing the compilation themselves (which they wont: time is $$ for Firaxis too).

The more we can do for them, the more they'll be able to go ahead.

[Jon Miller]

but I still maintain that we are not trying to make a design doc

I am sure that I am not trying to

if someone wants to clean up the suggestions, fine by me

but making a design doc is something totally different than suggesting ideas

it is actually totally different

with one, firaxis gets a bunch of ideas that they can weigh and decide what works best with their vision, with the other there are only a limited number of ideas that are all linked and might not fit at all with firaxis's vision

Jon Miller

[DarkCloud]

Hmm... organizing the list... did you want something organized like the list on this site:

http://home.att.net/~civgames/ideas.html

We could always build off of this- or of course, we could do it in a completely new way

[Trifna]

One thing I think could be beneficial would be some "must ameliorate" sectors. For example, it could be:
spying
stack units
colonization