Player Council Application is open.

[Flavia]

I know Hafeal already posted a list of what was seen by the PC this year in Turbine’s Forum.

But here is my take on my tenure there.

Why I post it here instead of the main forum ?
I’m giving details on things that might be skitting very close to the NDA.

One year of PC :

Things that got killed : ( most of the council was against it… if not all )
– Changes to the Listen Skill ( no you really do not want to know the details )
– XP Bank ( once again you really do not want to know )

Things that earned a high priority flag due to widespread approval :

– Mirror of Glamering
We all agreeed that it was a great idea… That’s why it was unfinished and buggy at first, since we were unanimous ( something rare ) Turbine released it before it was ready.
– Healing Amplification Changes. ( ok, Severlin caught us in a corner with that one… We were told it was mandatory for the Barbarian Changes, so it wasn’t much a choice… But we agreed to be cornered since the math resolved nicely )

Things that got approved as a workaround to an issue :

– Heart Seed
It’s the best we could get out of Turbine…
They wouldn’t relent on the BtC Commendations, but they came with the Seeds to alleviate the issue.

Things that went back and forth :

– U22 Treasure
– U23 Treasure
– U24 Treasure
– Guild Ship Amenities
– Bards Changes and Swashbucklers
– Guild Levels and Guild Decay.
– Crystal Cove Items ( Initially it only augments were planned… then Turbine killed the Augments for the Items )
– Armor Changes
– Paladins Changes
– Harper Tree ( Yes, the rumor is true initially it had trapsmith tucked somewhere in T2; This was killed )
– Barbarian Changes.
( though I’m still not happy with the changes… Barbarian should out DPS any other class… and damages should be applied once the fight end… But I’ve been overuled )
– Festivuult Cookies

Things that hit a rock :

– Epic Vale and Epic Greensteel.
The issue here is that the PC killed Vale without Greensteel ( I was in the group ).
Turbine does not want to obsolete Thunderforged and Especially doesn’t want anything to compete with the forthcoming Sentient Weapons, so it’s not easy…
Suggested : Epic Greensteel Augments ( in various forms ), No Weapon Epic Greensteel Items, …

It seems that they finally decided that Epic greensteel and Sentient Weapons will be common… It’s going to be up to the 2015 council to do it right now.

– Knight Class. ( supposed supporting class for the armor changes, but it was so like a Fighter/Paladin that it just got killed in the end. )

Things Tested :
– Lamania character copy tool.

Bugs :
– Double Login we nagged Turbine so much about that one that they incorporated some of the Preloader code in the launcher to fix it.
( seems they are unable to fix the issue they have with the dat files )

Failures: ( topics brought up by PC members to a totally unresponsive Turbine, as in don’t bother trying to bring up your pet topic, they won’t care, they are just orlling out their plan )

– An overall review and revamp of all the crafting systems.
We started on that, I even pulled out my visio files from my NWN coding time and then the rug was pulled from under the PC in the form of Thunderforged….
Yet another independant, not related to anything else crafting system. That just killed the thread.
– Un-Ghostbanning of Loot.
Turbine has been unresponsive on that one…
– Knowing exactly what the Player Council is supposed to be about.
We all hoped it was a more than what it is.
What it really is : a Focus Group that gets to get informations on parts ( that important ) of updates before the coding starts. Since it’s important it bears to be repeated : We never saw all the stuff contained in any update… we always saw only parts of them. ( Typical example: U24… we just saw the Items, and we had no clue about where they were going to be added )
– Purple ‘Headache inducing’ Haze : we tried to kill that one… hard…
– Bravery Streak ( note : we never tried to kill it outright, but to replace it by something more forgiving that allowed people to join parties on Normal/Hard with no important drawback )
– Racial and Base Class Enhancement Trees… Sorry Turbine doesn’t listen even when we beg for them.
– Building an endgame… Well it’s not really a failure, as it’s slowly building. Endgame will be LVL 30…
Once they have finished turning old stuff into Epic and brought The Temple in game. At least we managed to make Turbine understand that it’s better to prepare for it ( thus all the LVL 30ish quests ) than to run after it.
– Getting a few open forum ideas implemented… Even with the full council behind them. ( Item Collector [ in any form from the thread ] comes to mind, but I could have given a complete revamp of the character sheet too as example )
– Strings Table DID errors… they just can’t be killed. ( officially they are in the Tough and Long To Fix Bug category, personally after some rumaging into the dat files I understand why they ends up there )

So So Things:
– Akamai Netsession
While we didn’t manage to kill it outright we did manage to make it an optional thing.

Being in the PC means that you’ll be asked regularly to give feedback on various topics, feedback is not mandatory, if there’s topics where you don’t think your feedback will help ( for example : I didn’t give any feedback on the Paladin and the Armor Up threads, as I was clueless and useless on those topics ). But it’s important to regularly participate in the forum posts.
( we had a few members that never participated and Cordovan is going to hunt the lurkers down this year )

You’ll get general topics ( things like what do you think of Temple of the Elemental Evil as our next Classic Dungeon ) and topics on tiny details
( what are the Named buckler/small shields that sucks for their level )

One important thing to remember is that the Player Council is a Feedback Focus Group, the PC doesn’t have any power in deciding where to lead DDO.
If the PC is unanimous, an idea might get killed (yes Turbine can still jump over the PC if they want to), and you will not get to see everything from a given update. ( that’s a point we asked them to change… As we got caught flatfooted a few times [last example : Champions] and got flamed without any clue why. )

You’ll get flak from (almost) everybody in The Vault, as well as some from the Forum. So prepare your Trollblock Full Plate. ( or your dragonskin, or you impervious guts )

Now I think it’s something interesting to be in, as it gives an idea of what the thought process is for DDO development. I just hope that the DDO ship will be more steady this year than it was for me… we saw 3 producers come and go… and well lately we did openly wonder if there was a captain on the ship.

We ( the 2014 PC ) have already been told that all our threads would be archived and that the next Council will not be able to see them, so you’ll have a blank slate and no idea what to expect… up to a point. You can still ask the 2014 PC what to expect… and I’m certain some of us have saved some of the threads to give an idea of how things were discussed.

Last : there’s probably an IRC channel that will be set up… find a way to always lurk in it… Sometime that’s where important discussion happens as as the regular Turbine Lurkers are Vargouille and Steelstar ( with Kookie, Cordovan and Severlin as irregular lurkers ). It’s not something mandatory – only 5/6 of the 2014 PC was in it at best, and just 4 most of the time – but that’s where some detailed things were talked and changes were done really fast.

[Lisa]

XP Bank? Arrww go on, I’m really curious to know why that one was hit on the head

[Flavia]

Well because it’s not what you think it is…

Personally I didn’t care… But some were violently opposed to it.

In all honesty, it could have been abused easily, but the idea really needed some refining.

Oh that reminds me that I missed one in the Killed section :

– 20th list ( No you really really really DO NOT want to know about that one )

[Molfein]

Hi Sylf,

Thanks for the detailed report out. It was good to have a Spellsword on the PC, though sounds like it was some pain as well as pleasure. Consider your year of penance served (from me anyways). As for forums, that reminds me why I never get onto the DDO ones 🙂

Cheers,
Gleip

[Flavia]

The DDO forum is tame… The wild forum is The Vault, you’ll need to have guts or a dragonskin to survive there.
( and even, The Vault is tame and childish to what could be seen in Usenet 20ish years ago… Flamewars….

[Author]

Posts