Keep community informed on new development

[patrickaa317]

Start including in the dispatch the things that the developers are currently working on or will be soon. Even if it's high level details such as "a bunch of minor annoyances/clean up coming soon" or "adding a new special option game type, any guesses to what it is?". Maybe even a rough ETA, i.e. "expect updates to the gamefinder approximately mid-August".

I think we all would like to know what's in the pipeline and this will draw excitement around it.


Or even better yet, maybe have the developers give the community the chance to provide input. Something such as "Which of the below would you be most interested in getting implemented? (dates are estimates based on no major issues/etc)"
- Forum updates ready by 1st of September
- Unlimited Adjacent forts by middle of November
- Multiple invites at a time by 1st of October
- Archiving ranks by 1st of January
- Infected Neutrals by 1st of January
- 12 player games by mid-2014

This would really get the community motivated on getting to suggest what should be worked on, the developers/suggestions mods/admins could work together to pick out some small, medium, and large projects to be voted on.

[blakebowling]

You must not follow me on Twitter.

On a more serious note, I do try to spoil things from time to time, to give the community a feel for what I'm working on. The problem with this is that development priorities can shift rapidly, and features that have been discussed may end up being delayed. It's not an issue of keeping the community out of the loop, it's an issue of not disappointing anyone when occasionally we aren't able to go through with things as planned.

The threads in Submitted Suggestions (yeah, I know it's a bit dusty in there) are a good place to start, when looking for things in the developer's eye.

[Butters1919]

There is always this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=187564

Oh wait, that's not being used.

Never mind.

[patrickaa317]

You must not follow me on Twitter.

On a more serious note, I do try to spoil things from time to time, to give the community a feel for what I'm working on. The problem with this is that development priorities can shift rapidly, and features that have been discussed may end up being delayed. It's not an issue of keeping the community out of the loop, it's an issue of not disappointing anyone when occasionally we aren't able to go through with things as planned.

The threads in Submitted Suggestions (yeah, I know it's a bit dusty in there) are a good place to start, when looking for things in the developer's eye.

Yeah I don't follow you on twitter, nor do I even have a twitter account to follow you from. Though this has been the best reason anyone has given me to get one...

I completely understand the shift in priorities and I think most of the community would as well but a question I have around that is what is the reason for the shift? Is it the new dev you are working on isn't seeing to be as needed as much, thus put towards the bottom of the pile; or simply more of an urgent issue has gotten your attention for a bit?

I know there are threads in the submitted suggestions but there are 53 threads in there, with a wide range of ideas.

[blakebowling]

You must not follow me on Twitter.

On a more serious note, I do try to spoil things from time to time, to give the community a feel for what I'm working on. The problem with this is that development priorities can shift rapidly, and features that have been discussed may end up being delayed. It's not an issue of keeping the community out of the loop, it's an issue of not disappointing anyone when occasionally we aren't able to go through with things as planned.

The threads in Submitted Suggestions (yeah, I know it's a bit dusty in there) are a good place to start, when looking for things in the developer's eye.

Yeah I don't follow you on twitter, nor do I even have a twitter account to follow you from. Though this has been the best reason anyone has given me to get one...

I completely understand the shift in priorities and I think most of the community would as well but a question I have around that is what is the reason for the shift? Is it the new dev you are working on isn't seeing to be as needed as much, thus put towards the bottom of the pile; or simply more of an urgent issue has gotten your attention for a bit?

I know there are threads in the submitted suggestions but there are 53 threads in there, with a wide range of ideas.

Sometimes things are moved down because of long time estimates or because of lack of impacts. Sometimes things are moved up because urgent things are discovered.

I'll try to continue to spoil things on twitter, and if you don't have an account, the twitter feed is viewable on the homepage.

[patrickaa317]

Sounds good, thanks Blake.