Yesterday Planetside 2 released a new "Road Map" system in their forums, I personally think this is a great idea for all mmo's, I think getting this kind of feedback is so important and really shows that developers care about their game, and the positive or negative feedback from a games community.

Do you feel the same, or should developers stick to their vision using the "not until we think it's ready" ? (as we all know the community opinions can be all over the place )

Basically a "Road Map" is used in development to show what & when a feature is being developed.

In Planetside2 case they have made it public and allowed the community to comment on each portion of the road map, this gives them feedback on the features being considered for deveopment.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?forums/roadmap.59/

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Originally posted by mmoski
Yesterday Planetside 2 released a new "Road Map" system in their forums, I personally think this is a great idea for all mmo's, I think getting this kind of feedback is so important and really shows that developers care about their game, and the positive or negative feedback from a games community.

Do you feel the same, or should developers stick to their vision using the "not until we think it's ready" ? (as we all know the community opinions can be all over the place )

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I am not following the game as it does not interest me at all (not a FPS gamer at all), but maybe this is a good idea?

Nope. Devs shouldn't disclose any roadmaps because any changes to it would cause needless stir among the fans. Also, when has a developer "not cared about their game"?

Thanks for the link :)

I suppose some will find this info good for following along the process of design.

A requirement for MMOs? I don't think so.

It is a nice service that SOE is providing for those interested, but I would hesitate to make it a requirement or even a stick in which to measure other companies process.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Nope. Devs shouldn't disclose any roadmaps because any changes to it would cause needless stir among the fans. Also, when has a developer "not cared about their game"?

Well yeah "cared about their game" is subjective, depending on if the vision was a success or a failure. Just my opinion, but caring about your game is as much the development of your vision as it is providing features and functionality that are in alignment with the community, even more so with an MMO, if you create something in your vision, and it fails you cease to have an MMO, I'm sure that people on this forum can name a few disastrous changes to games that ended with the games death.

Originally posted by mmoski

Originally posted by Quirhid

Nope. Devs shouldn't disclose any roadmaps because any changes to it would cause needless stir among the fans. Also, when has a developer "not cared about their game"?

Well yeah "cared about their game" is subjective, depending on if the vision was a success or a failure. Just my opinion, but caring about your game is as much the development of your vision as it is providing features and functionality that are in alignment with the community, even more so with an MMO, if you create something in your vision, and it fails you cease to have an MMO, I'm sure that people on this forum can name a few disastrous changes to games that end with the games death.

The high profile "disasterous deaths" (overstatement) have been cases of poor management. Nothing to do with vision or caring about the game. Most of the low profile ones have perhaps been too "visionary" meaning likely too idealistic or simply unrealistic. The rest, again, poor management.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by mmoski

Originally posted by Quirhid

Nope. Devs shouldn't disclose any roadmaps because any changes to it would cause needless stir among the fans. Also, when has a developer "not cared about their game"?

Well yeah "cared about their game" is subjective, depending on if the vision was a success or a failure. Just my opinion, but caring about your game is as much the development of your vision as it is providing features and functionality that are in alignment with the community, even more so with an MMO, if you create something in your vision, and it fails you cease to have an MMO, I'm sure that people on this forum can name a few disastrous changes to games that end with the games death.

The high profile "disasterous deaths" (overstatement) have been cases of poor management. Nothing to do with vision or caring about the game. Most of the low profile ones have perhaps been too "visionary" meaning likely too idealistic or simply unrealistic. The rest, again, poor management.

Umm... Star Wars Galaxies had one vision of the game that was changed and then it lost all of its subscribers and shut down.  Had Lucas Arts (or whoever you want to blame) cared about the existing game and it's fans, the vision wouldn't have changed...

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by mmoski

Originally posted by Quirhid

Nope. Devs shouldn't disclose any roadmaps because any changes to it would cause needless stir among the fans. Also, when has a developer "not cared about their game"?

Well yeah "cared about their game" is subjective, depending on if the vision was a success or a failure. Just my opinion, but caring about your game is as much the development of your vision as it is providing features and functionality that are in alignment with the community, even more so with an MMO, if you create something in your vision, and it fails you cease to have an MMO, I'm sure that people on this forum can name a few disastrous changes to games that end with the games death.

The high profile "disasterous deaths" (overstatement) have been cases of poor management. Nothing to do with vision or caring about the game. Most of the low profile ones have perhaps been too "visionary" meaning likely too idealistic or simply unrealistic. The rest, again, poor management.

So your saying something like the major change to star wars galaxies in the third expansion, which players left the game in mass and also asked for refunds of purchases, was a management issue, and it had nothing to do with the design and implementation of features and functionality to the game.

Whereas my opinion is, if a community driven "Road Map" was used that could have been totally avoided. :D

Originally posted by grimfall

Originally posted by Quirhid
 

Umm... Star Wars Galaxies had one vision of the game that was changed and then it lost all of its subscribers and shut down.  Had Lucas Arts (or whoever you want to blame) cared about the existing game and it's fans, the vision wouldn't have changed...

To my understanding, SWG was losing subs, so the execs tried to salvage some by shifting direction. It is perfectly understandable why they would do that. Either way, I don't count SWG among the high profile titles - certainly in its later years.

The game is hardly a failure if its vision does not go inline with yours. To think so is juvenile. Its tough to be in a minority but you have to accept your fate. Otherwise you'll blow a gasket.

Oh, and SWG wasn't a failure, was it? I'm pretty sure it made profit. And it stayed on for a long time. Everything ends eventually. A game is not a failure simply because it gets shut down ,c'mon

I don't see a roadmap as a requirement as there are some real downsides (eg: players failing to understand the difference between an attempted project and a delivered project), but it certainly gives my inner project manager warm and fuzzy feelings when I see one.

Informing your players of your future plans for your game is nothing new in the MMO industry.  They have just released more information than most games tend to do.  Traditional MMO development knowledge says it is better to wait until you know you can deliver on a promise than to try to get players excited about your future plans.  This is because when they fail (not if) on just one item, players will turn against the game.  Do it enough times and the game will go downhill fast.

I think this road map system is nothing more than an attempt to get players excited about the game.  It might not be performing as expected financially and this could attract a few more dollars to tip it past whatever metric they are using.

This is a fantastic idea. I really hope it becomes a standard in MMOs.

here is the correct link by the way: http://www.planetside2.com/roadmap