The flying ability for our Utopian playground has inspired me to plan out a massive build. I am going to revitalize my Log Cabin project, but it may be limited to a 60x60 lot and my 120x120 lot will be something much more complicated. I haven't decided on a theme, let alone a design but I am reinvigorated to build now.
Kinda illuminates what I'm trying to get at... so if community feedback isnt what drives development, what does? Is it supporter revenue? Is that what is driving development?
He didn't say community feedback doesn't DRIVE development, he said it doesn't DICTATE THE ORDER of development. You have been here long enough to see that community feedback plays a significant role in what is done to improve EMC. The shop overhaul that Aikar had proposed was met with overwhelming negative feedback and so the entire thing was scrapped and a new more acceptable improvement was developed. Complaining about a Supporter Perk that took only moments to initialize is not even close to similar to the above mentioned discussion. Unlike other postings, this was not proposed for discussion and so many folks here have been wasting their time. Flying has a 50/50 divide. Either you are for it or against it. It isn't available in the Wild and is strictly applied to UTOPIA! You can't even own a residence on UTOPIA without paying for Gold or Diamond Supporter for at least 1 month!
Late reply here, but just wanted to say... the new flying perk really helps me and topdawg657 out a lot when working on the roof of our mansion. xD On another note, I think that the new flying perk will motivate diamond supporters to start building epic things on Utopia instead of trying to cram their epic builds in a 60x60 plot. lol Now Utopia town won't be so bald. So I see this as a very good thing. (Just my two cents there.)
But then only diamond and good supporters will be able to enjoy the builds, because regular members don't really want to get on utopia just to see buildings
There are several issues and (potential) conflicts of interest here that have been touched in many discussions in the past. One of the central questions is the "Community question" - if there really exists a community beyond a simple user group and where is this community on the priority list of Kalland Labs. You will frequently hear / read that "We listen to the community" - that implies that "we" is not the community. Of course. Examples: Would Justin and Jeremy tweak the EMC economy more in a way so that it suites the community and its development or more in a way that might bring more revenue? Would they waive a part of a possible profit for the sake of the community? Would they prefer long term members and community over fast money from new players? For example, also see Results - EMC Rule Enforcement and posts around. Is EMC just a video game in the first place, that kind of needs a kind of "community"? Or is it a community in the first place, that likes a game and needs servers? There is a set of interests common to the provider and to the user group. Server provider needs the "community": there is someone who wants to play with you, who would eventually care about what you do, there is a group where you can be known and accepted. So the answer to your question is - provided that the provider acts reasonably, not too greedy and with long term development in mind - that there will mostly be a trade-off between supporting the community and its development and trying to maximize profit. On the other side, when there really exists a strong and capable community, than it can / will organize itself and demand features and actions from the provider. How much community would you like today?
This shows we have at over 5000 active members been here for at least 3 months. If the community genuinely did not like an update... there would be a lot of noise against it. Twitch was not even accurate about the feedback on the shop system. There was not "overwhelming negative response". There were a lot of loud users who were opposed to it because they were the more vocal ones on the forums, but it was not overwhelming. They were still the minority of our user base. Id estimate less than 100 people were against the idea, that equates to likely 2-5% of the player base at that time. And most of those people only disliked it because they didn't understand it. The shop system plans didn't change because of overwhelming feedback, it changed because the feedback received inspired me to think of other ways to do it that would please the ones who were not happy. In other words, It was to raise the approval of the feature from 95% to 99%. We took extra effort to improve the approval to the maximum amount of the player base. It changed because we took the feedback and agreed there was a better way to implement it. Now, please show me where we are not doing things that are the best for the community? It's a good thing that we are willing to go against the vocal minority to please the silent majority. Everything you stated as the "better conditions" is pretty spot on what EMC is. Standing up for the majority of the community, long term road maps and development, listening to the community (IE: Becoming stricter on banning, which is something you appear opposed to -- so are you asking us to ignore community feedback?), favouring balanced gameplay over income << MAJOR. If you genuinely think we are making decisions based on bringing in more income, I encourage you to go to other servers and try them out. If we really wanted to make a ton of money and say screw the gameplay, we would do this: 1) Make Mod status purchasable for 500$ 2) Make Creative Mode purchasable for 50$/month 3) Disable redstone and other standard gameplay mechanics unless you are a supporter 4) Limit play time unless you are a supporter 5) Lower server cap to 20 unless you a supporter 6) unclaim your res every 30 days unless your a supporter ... and I could go on. I think it's pretty clear EMC is about providing a solid experience to our players. This solid experience might not be agreeable to some, and it is their choice to continue to play here if they do not agree with it. But our policies, standards, actions and plans have received lots of praise from the majority, and is obviously working for us. This fly update was done because it is very 'no-impact' change to the balance of survival AND the economy. This change is actually a benefit to the economy (Oh no, I'm turning into Eye_car and helping the economy!), through the fact that many people who have lots of rupees are now building large projects on Utopia... Which means vaulting them over (small rupee sink) and buying from other players shop. This was a good boost to the economy. As for Community, now utopia will have more players, giving the people on their more people to socialize with. That there is a boost to the community. And for supporters themselves, they now can feel the upgrade from gold to diamond is more worth it. Many Diamond supporters were only supporters for the sake of benefiting EMC. The perks themselves were not economically worth it. Now, users can feel like its worth it and help EMC at the same time. Now please, explain to us how we are not working for the community?
To answer the question of "Drive", its my enjoyment from programming things that please others, and delivering a solid product. Also, expanding my career. As for the real statement I said like Twitch corrected you on, I did say "dictates order". I control the order based on my current understanding of the state of EMC and its code. Stuff like our rapidly growing numbers and flaws in the current code? I know from my experience that without action, performance would be a problem that makes us lose the new members quickly. So I prioritize updates based on where I see they are needed first. Same goes with the buggy code. I'm not writing new code on top of bad code, only increasing the workload later to fix it. I will prioritize getting rid of the bad code and developing new, good code, then build the new systems (Dragon Tombs etc) on top of that. Then we have factors on like timing between releases. Not having new content for the players is a big deal, so I often will side step and work on something smaller to try to get it out to hold players over until the bigger picture comes (Dragon Tombs). Sometimes, things are under estimated. Like recently I started a new secret project and it grew bigger than I realized it would be. I was hoping it would be out to you guys already, but its not able to so it was side-burnered for now. then things like minecraft updates, they FORCE me to shift priorities. For example, the vault. If we were still on 1.2.5 I wouldnt be FORCED to work on the vault, but we are. ------- I think it should be pretty clear nothing I just said really has any business being under community decision. If it was, the quality of EMC would deteriorate immensely and it would destroy EMC. Running a professional, solid server is not an easy task. It requires skills and experience, things which are not something you typically find in your traditional minecraft server. It can't be 100% community driven in every single aspect, or else the experience you have is wasted when the community votes against your better judgement.
So I was mistaken in stating that the negative feedback was overwhelming. I should have proofread my statement. Aikar got it right through and through. Thank you Aikar, for stepping in and producing such an intelligible and straightforward dictation. I can only speak on behalf of my knowledge and experience from when I was a member of the Staff. I know very little of the actual coding in Java but I do know the immense amount of time and effort it requires and I commend you for all you do. I never mean to bug you when asking about updates, as I know they take much effort, especially when rewriting the code someone else developed exclusively for the majority of the project's lifecycle. I have nothing more to note here, as Aikar has appropriately and fully explained his side of the story based on active involvement in the development and maintenance in the EMC core. Back to complaining, if that is what everyone choses to do.... It seems to be simpler than accepting the efforts of those who work for no pay.
