Post by: Toady One on September 13, 2008, 04:43:25 pm
zagibu was heroic enough to provide the above php script. You can add new suggestions and vote for your favorite three. You can change your votes at any time. You can also edit or delete suggestions that you add. There are bound to be questions about merges, splits, which suggestions/categories are valid, what to do when a suggestions is completed, whether or not you agree a suggestion is completed and all that sort of thing, which is what this thread is for. However, when you add a suggestion, please link it to a forum thread if possible, so that the really particular discussions can be carried out over there.
If there's a strong consensus on something, message me and I can post some rules here. If the person that posted a suggestion seems to be gone for a significant period of time and it needs to be edited or deleted, message me as I have the power to edit/delete any suggestion. I don't anticipate this being a burden on me, but if it becomes a burden, we can figure out how to assign some maintainers to the page.
How you guys use the new page is up to you. I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it, but since I don't know php and zagibu is a heroic and busy person, things will probably progress slowly. I think it should work out, but if you have concerns about the whole idea, please air them here promptly. The tabulation process is very hard on the people that have volunteered to do it manually in the past, so I'd like to try this partially-automated solution.
Post by: Draco18s on September 13, 2008, 04:49:40 pm
*Cough* zagibu, you need to sterilize your database inputs, it won't take an apostrophe in "doesn't."
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 13, 2008, 05:04:40 pm
zagibu has become a legendary forum crafter.
edit: Any way I can claim admin rights for the Guilds suggestion?
Post by: Draco18s on September 13, 2008, 05:14:43 pm
edit: Any way I can claim admin rights for the Guilds suggestion?
I'd have to delete my entry. There's no real need though, all admin vs. user rights over entries are who's allowed to edit the description.
If anyone would like to make my descriptions better (just about everything on there at the moment was written by me) just let me know, I can either change it or do a "transfer" (you make a new one, I delete the old).
Oh, and I finished adding everything with 3+ votes (and any 2 vote ones that sounded decent, which was most of them) to the list.
Post by: Tormy on September 13, 2008, 05:16:31 pm
Post by: Impaler[WrG] on September 13, 2008, 05:57:44 pm
Post by: Davion on September 13, 2008, 06:07:12 pm
Post by: Wahnsinniger on September 13, 2008, 07:13:24 pm
Post by: Toady One on September 13, 2008, 07:14:30 pm
Post by: Tyrving on September 13, 2008, 07:22:11 pm
Post by: zagibu on September 13, 2008, 07:45:11 pm
Just don't get too angry, if votes get lost from time to time, during the first week or so.
Now, concerning Tyrving's problem, this has also an origin in the version differences. Originally, I used subqueries to calculate the votes from the assigned users, but the MySQL version over here couldn't handle it. So I introduced a decoupled field, which is updated seperately at each votechange. Maybe the multi-user problematic is coming up now, and I have to use transactions. Not sure...
I have to think of something first that can improve the debugging situation.
Post by: Toady One on September 13, 2008, 07:51:04 pm
Post by: Draco18s on September 13, 2008, 08:03:33 pm
Post by: Davion on September 13, 2008, 08:11:58 pm
Post by: Toady One on September 13, 2008, 08:13:43 pm
Post by: Blacken on September 13, 2008, 08:30:07 pm
Your version of mysql shouldn't matter, should it? (And where it does, why not dev locally on your own box with the same version as Toady has?)
This script can't be all that complex, and I'd think that using something more intelligent than raw MySQL fiddlery in PHP would be easy enough, and useful enough, to put in. Were I you, I'd look into PDO (http://www.php.net/pdo); it's in PHP5 core.
Post by: FuIru on September 13, 2008, 09:38:23 pm
DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php)
...
To avoid vote account spamming, you need to have posted enough to exit Escaped Lunatic status (8 posts). I'm not sure if I'll stick with that or not, but it's the way things currently work. I know some people will probably be more interested in voting than chatting on the forums, but safeguards are also likely needed to avoid corrupting the process.
Is there a way for us lunatics to at least view anything on that page? At least to see what it is all about without spamming posts to the forum for the 8-count? heh
Post by: i2amroy on September 13, 2008, 09:39:48 pm
Aww, just go ask some questions on the forums.DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php)
...
To avoid vote account spamming, you need to have posted enough to exit Escaped Lunatic status (8 posts). I'm not sure if I'll stick with that or not, but it's the way things currently work. I know some people will probably be more interested in voting than chatting on the forums, but safeguards are also likely needed to avoid corrupting the process.
Is there a way for us lunatics to at least view anything on that page? At least to see what it is all about without spamming posts to the forum for the 8-count? heh
Post by: FuIru on September 13, 2008, 09:44:07 pm
Aww, just go ask some questions on the forums.DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php)
...
To avoid vote account spamming, you need to have posted enough to exit Escaped Lunatic status (8 posts). I'm not sure if I'll stick with that or not, but it's the way things currently work. I know some people will probably be more interested in voting than chatting on the forums, but safeguards are also likely needed to avoid corrupting the process.
Is there a way for us lunatics to at least view anything on that page? At least to see what it is all about without spamming posts to the forum for the 8-count? heh
Yah, but then I'd have to go search to be sure my question hasn't already been asked, and then that doesn't tell me if it's something already up on this site. :)
wee, 5!
Post by: Osmosis Jones on September 13, 2008, 10:56:33 pm
Post by: penguinofhonor on September 13, 2008, 11:43:29 pm
Also, this rules. Best thing ever. Toady, can you delete anything because you're an admin? Because that's sweet because you can delete stuff after you do it.
Post by: Toady One on September 14, 2008, 12:07:58 am
Post by: penguinofhonor on September 14, 2008, 12:21:13 am
Edit: BEHOLD
Support the Supavote (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php).
Code: [Select]
[size=3][color=green]Support the [url=http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php][b][u]Supavote[/u][/b][/url].[/color][/size]
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 14, 2008, 12:40:41 am
Yeah, I can delete stuff, but a lot of the things up there aren't finishable so much as they can be done up to the point that votes start to drift off of them. I imagine some people will camp out on underground diversity forever no matter how much I do, he he he.
You have absolutely no idea ;) I'm gonna update a new category "implemented features" to put all the stuff that was done, and start taking suggestions for new stuff/changes to stuff etc.
but I did slap a big
Quote
Aspects of this suggestion have already been included in the Dev notes. Unless you are just rabid about UD (like I am) go back and cast a vote for something else that deserves the attention!
on the thread to try to dissuade campers. I'll add one to the poll entry if need be.
And when you say "Okay, I'm done with UD for the time being." I'll yank down the poll entry, let the thread simmer in the forums for a while, and reintroduce it as UD Pt. II when it has some actually new content.
So, no, it won't be sitting there hogging space for the next two years. But yes, you will never hear the end of it.
Post by: Jirou on September 14, 2008, 04:26:49 am
Post by: Tormy on September 14, 2008, 05:38:39 am
Yeah, I can delete stuff, but a lot of the things up there aren't finishable so much as they can be done up to the point that votes start to drift off of them. I imagine some people will camp out on underground diversity forever no matter how much I do, he he he.
I am wondering why is that on the list at all [Underground diversity], since you are working on that part already... ::)
*edit*
Maybe I spoke too soon.. ;D
You have absolutely no idea ;) I'm gonna update a new category "implemented features" to put all the stuff that was done, and start taking suggestions for new stuff/changes to stuff etc.
Post by: WCG on September 14, 2008, 07:43:24 am
I know I can add this as a separate suggestion, but announcement improvements sort of fit together, don't you think?
Bill
Post by: Great Cthulhu on September 14, 2008, 09:10:51 am
Now I need to become a Bay Watcher... Guess I need to find some more bugs to report. ;)
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on September 14, 2008, 10:14:27 am
In this way players would be able to say what they don't want to see in the game. For example: I don't want harder farming and will gladly vote against it.
Post by: Shades on September 14, 2008, 10:27:48 am
How you guys use the new page is up to you. I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it, but since I don't know php and zagibu is a heroic and busy person, things will probably progress slowly.
I know it shows the names of the votes but it could do with highlighting your own votes in some way. Either colourise the links to your own name or alter the background for those choices.
Post by: Torak on September 14, 2008, 11:13:49 am
Post by: Draco18s on September 14, 2008, 12:10:19 pm
Great poll! One question: Can we change "Center on announcement" to also include some management of what is announced? Nothing too elaborate, but it would be really nice to select which stones get announced when discovered and which don't (for example).
Done.
Post by: G-Flex on September 14, 2008, 01:04:01 pm
I've noticed a lot of democratic suggestion threads, and honestly, I think people put too much faith into the idea.
I mean, I get the point of checking out what kinds of suggestions people want the most. But I don't think it's necessarily going to result in the best possible suggestions, for a few potential reasons (some of which I'm probably wrong about, and some actual reasons I probably haven't considered).
For one, the more cool-sounding/trendy suggestions can snowball votes pretty easily.
Secondly, the people who play a game aren't necessarily people who develop games, and don't necessarily know how to best implement a change or fix a problem. This includes me! So you end up with suggestions that are too specific, or too broad, people tend not to take feasibility into account, or whatever.
Also, there's the basic fact that popularity doesn't necessitate quality or anything like th at.
I don't even think I'm actually trying to argue against suggestion voting. I just think it can only be taken to a certain level of relevance/seriousness. At least it can give an idea of what people want.
Post by: Erom on September 14, 2008, 02:03:08 pm
Because the development of DF is over-time and donation based, it actually models something similar to an MMORPG- continuous pay for continuous development. For that reason, like an MMO dev, Toady has a vested interest in pursuing the aspects of his project that are most likely to generate donations (so long as they don't compromise his game design, of course).
Personally, I'm really thrilled about Toady putting this page up, and I think it really shows what a quality dev he is.
Post by: Nethras on September 14, 2008, 02:52:59 pm
And yes, I did specifically register for the forums so that I'll be able to see that page and vote in the near future :P
Post by: G-Flex on September 14, 2008, 03:23:55 pm
Also, I totally didn't mean what I said as a criticism of Toady. I think he does a great job with all of this, including community interaction, and the amount of feedback he gives us concerning development is excellent.
Post by: Christes on September 14, 2008, 03:27:28 pm
Yeah, if you do more with them then they'll become less of a priority. All you have to do is improve them whenever they start rising to the top. That will keep people pretty happy.
Most likely, someone will register to vote for underground diversity and then vanish.
Post by: Veroule on September 14, 2008, 03:43:31 pm
Another extremely useful thing the new page does is to provide a link to suggestion topics. This helps to keep all the thoughts and debate about a given suggestion in one place. While Toady might not use any single item in the entire topic, it is likely that someone will have said something of use. As always Toady is the one that decides on what actually makes it into the game. Seeing a hundred different thoughts about a given issue can help to create a working solution.
Giant ramble:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 14, 2008, 05:37:05 pm
Yeah, if you do more with them then they'll become less of a priority. All you have to do is improve them whenever they start rising to the top. That will keep people pretty happy.
Most likely, someone will register to vote for underground diversity and then vanish.
A lurker's vote is still a vote. Toady also stated early in the first Top10 that he was skeptical about accounts made to cast a single vote.
The only way I can think to combat what you are fearing is what I wrote a few posts up: When Toady says "I'm done with UD for now", I'm going to remove the entry until the list of ideas has regained some freshness. Poof!: All the accrued phantom votes vanish.
As someone else said above, Toady is going to look at all the ideas. All this voting does is say "Toady, X number of people think you should read this entry/thread". A great idea with 3 votes is far more likely to be implemented than an awful idea with 91.
Post by: Tormy on September 14, 2008, 05:42:38 pm
Yeah, if you do more with them then they'll become less of a priority. All you have to do is improve them whenever they start rising to the top. That will keep people pretty happy.
Most likely, someone will register to vote for underground diversity and then vanish.
A lurker's vote is still a vote. Toady also stated early in the first Top10 that he was skeptical about accounts made to cast a single vote.
Oh please...this is a game, do you really think that some people would just create 20 accounts and vote for X suggestion? That would be pathetic. :-X
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 14, 2008, 05:52:48 pm
Just like I did 8). (just kidding of course...or am I?)
And I would have gotten away with it, it it hadn't been for those meddling dwarves!
Post by: Toady One on September 14, 2008, 05:57:21 pm
Oh please...this is a game, do you really think that some people would just create 20 accounts and vote for X suggestion? That would be pathetic. :-X
He he, we've had pathetic trolls in the past. I wouldn't put it passed some of those guys. This isn't about the people here. A spammer could come in and suggest shoes over and over or something.
I've updated the script to allow guests and escaped lunatics to view but not vote. I think I managed it, and I tested it out, but it's quite possible I screwed up or forgot to check for something.
Post by: Tormy on September 14, 2008, 06:00:18 pm
Oh please...this is a game, do you really think that some people would just create 20 accounts and vote for X suggestion? That would be pathetic. :-X
He he, we've had pathetic trolls in the past. I wouldn't put it passed some of those guys. This isn't about the people here. A spammer could come in and suggest shoes over and over or something.
I've updated the script to allow guests and escaped lunatics to view but not vote. I think I managed it, and I tested it out, but it's quite possible I screwed up or forgot to check for something.
Oh... :-X
..in that case this change [guests and escaped lunatics cannot vote] is most welcome Toady. :)
Post by: Christes on September 14, 2008, 06:39:02 pm
Yeah, if you do more with them then they'll become less of a priority. All you have to do is improve them whenever they start rising to the top. That will keep people pretty happy.
Most likely, someone will register to vote for underground diversity and then vanish.
A lurker's vote is still a vote. Toady also stated early in the first Top10 that he was skeptical about accounts made to cast a single vote.
Totally, but I was more referring to people who come and go and forget about the voting system. Then their votes will forever be logged on UD or whatever, even after we have satisfied the original reason they voted.
Post by: SirPenguin on September 14, 2008, 07:57:01 pm
Post by: Toady One on September 14, 2008, 08:04:49 pm
They are here (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=23687.0) and here (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24215.0) if you wanted to look at the discussions and so on.
Update: Another version up -- your vote will be highlighted, guests can't view the page (zagibu raises bot issues) but ELs still can view, and the numeric vote tallies should be correct.
Post by: Draco18s on September 14, 2008, 09:45:29 pm
Totally, but I was more referring to people who come and go and forget about the voting system. Then their votes will forever be logged on UD or whatever, even after we have satisfied the original reason they voted.
So when Toady says "I'm done with UD" and the vote option is removed...
Oh wait, those votes are gone. Even if UD gets re-added, it won't come with those 60 votes.
Post by: Christes on September 15, 2008, 12:32:12 am
Totally, but I was more referring to people who come and go and forget about the voting system. Then their votes will forever be logged on UD or whatever, even after we have satisfied the original reason they voted.
So when Toady says "I'm done with UD" and the vote option is removed...
But like toady said, vague things like UD will never be finished.
Uh where's the new vote? I don't see it.
Post by: Impaler[WrG] on September 15, 2008, 12:47:50 am
Quote
But like toady said, vague things like UD will never be finished.
I we can 'declare' it done at some point and wipe the votes, then if people demand yet more of the same we re-make and people must yet again vote for it as they are essentially asking for a different thing (level 2) and its appropriate for that to be voted on as a new item.
By nature the suggestions are a bit nebulous, if they weren't we wouldn't need to link to discussion threads. If something like UD gets some love in the next release Toady can declare it done though in all likely hood only a small number of the many ideas from that thread will have been implemented, we can simply edit the thread checking off the 'done' stuff and resubmit it as a suggestion.
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 15, 2008, 12:54:09 am
And when you say "Okay, I'm done with UD for the time being." I'll yank down the poll entry, let the thread simmer in the forums for a while, and reintroduce it as UD Pt. II when it has some actually new content.
Key there is "for the time being", as in when he removes it from the dev_notes or tells me to remove it from the poll.
And like Impaler so rudely ;) wrote while I was making this post: The community can always strike it down.
Post by: Aquillion on September 15, 2008, 02:14:33 am
But like toady said, vague things like UD will never be finished.I think that whenever a version is released that substantially addresses the point of a particular vote-item, that item should be wiped clean. Yes, it'll be a pain and it might not recollect all the votes it had before, but consider:
If Toady already addressed it once, he knows there's heavy demand for it. Wiping it and having it shoot right back up to the top tells him more than just leaving all those old votes -- it tells him there's still demand for it. Leaving it at the top doesn't tell him anything.
It's not a popularity contest, so we shouldn't worry about being "fair." The point is to provide information to Toady; I think wiping votes under circumstances that radically change their underlying assumptions (like, say, having massively more underground diversity added) tells Toady more in the long run than maintaining the totals as eternal monuments or whatever.
Also, I'm not sure allowing people to edit their suggestions after other people have voted for them is a good idea. I mean, I'm not seriously implying that anyone would suggest something popular, then suddenly edit it into "ADD GRAPHICAL 3D DORF PORN", but it still seems strange.
Post by: Toady One on September 15, 2008, 02:34:44 am
Also, I'm not sure allowing people to edit their suggestions after other people have voted for them is a good idea. I mean, I'm not seriously implying that anyone would suggest something popular, then suddenly edit it into "ADD GRAPHICAL 3D DORF PORN", but it still seems strange.
Yeah, I dunno. If a discussion thread is later created for a suggestion, say, and then linked in, I think it's very good to be able to do that without wiping the votes. On the other hand, if there's some sort of actual change to the suggestion, it should probably be wiped, and editing can only occur if the original suggestion maker is active. I'd just as soon see how it goes. Votes aren't permanent and the results aren't locking anything in, so there's not a lot of real harm that can be done as we sort this out.
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 15, 2008, 03:40:15 am
I think that whenever a version is released that substantially addresses the point of a particular vote-item, that item should be wiped clean. Yes, it'll be a pain and it might not recollect all the votes it had before, but consider:
If Toady already addressed it once, he knows there's heavy demand for it. Wiping it and having it shoot right back up to the top tells him more than just leaving all those old votes -- it tells him there's still demand for it. Leaving it at the top doesn't tell him anything.
It's not a popularity contest, so we shouldn't worry about being "fair." The point is to provide information to Toady; I think wiping votes under circumstances that radically change their underlying assumptions (like, say, having massively more underground diversity added) tells Toady more in the long run than maintaining the totals as eternal monuments or whatever.
I find myself in complete agreement, especially the parts I highlighted.
Maybe it is just being used as an example a lot, but I am getting the vibe that people want the UD entry removed now. I assume that is on the basis of its origins in zagibu's Top 10 list (which was completed), and its references in the dev notes. I really don't think that is in the spirit of what this system is for, but I'll do it if enough people ask.
I just want to point out the danger of such precedent: removing a popular suggestion that has not yet been implemented.
If you don't like how affects the apparent pecking order, just pretend it is not there. UD losing 70 votes (some of which are probably register-postx8-vote), does not mean that your favorite topic is going to gain any.
And if you don't like vague suggestions that have no absolute end point, we need to remove the following:
Farming Improvements, Improve Mechanics, More Detailed Religion, Stats Improvements, Improved Resource Management, Full Gfx Support, Improved Site Finder, Improve the Morale System, Stockpile Improvements, Improved Trading Interface, and Interface Improvements.
Post by: Shades on September 15, 2008, 05:40:04 am
That way people can vote for both suggested new features and which area(s) they would like to see changes in at the present time.
Post by: MaxVance on September 15, 2008, 06:12:08 am
Post by: Hyndis on September 15, 2008, 06:50:41 am
Awesome work, and an amazing tool. I'm sure Toady won't be slavishly following the voting for suggestions, but it is a great way to gauge the interest in the community. Wiping votes from time to time would also help hugely in keeping the list fresh. If the votes are left there forever, you could get someone who posts a vote for something, loses interest in the game, but a year later his vote is still cast for something. Whereas with wiping votes on, say, new versions, dev milestones, on season change, or whatever, and the same things attract the votes, then community interest in that particular topic is both current and ongoing.
That said...engraving constructed walls and floors would be awesome, after all, we can already carve fortifications into constructed walls. ;)
Post by: chris_acheson on September 15, 2008, 01:11:53 pm
To avoid vote account spamming, you need to have posted enough to exit Escaped Lunatic status (8 posts). I'm not sure if I'll stick with that or not, but it's the way things currently work. I know some people will probably be more interested in voting than chatting on the forums, but safeguards are also likely needed to avoid corrupting the process.
Aw, I'm a lurker. Oh well, here's comment #6...
Post by: popotam on September 15, 2008, 01:23:47 pm
If it wasn't for the Ethernal Suggestion thingy, I wouldn't ever register - I'm not much into internetz fora.
Post by: Dakej on September 15, 2008, 01:49:27 pm
edit:
What if you're not allowed to edit the title of a suggestion, just the description? That would allow people to add in details without changing the nature of the suggestion.
Post by: Draco18s on September 15, 2008, 02:32:00 pm
UD losing 70 votes (some of which are probably register-postx8-vote), does not mean that your favorite topic is going to gain any.
Two things:
I checked out 27 of the voters on UD (the entire bottom line/most recent votes plus some at random) and only found 3 with 8 posts, 2 with 11, and about 4 more with <50. I don't think it's a serious issue.
And if it is, when the category goes *pop* due to completeness, the 50 or so actually active users will move their votes (and if all of them are legit, then all of them move their votes).
Post by: Zemat on September 15, 2008, 02:32:37 pm
Thanks zagibu!
Post by: Nethras on September 15, 2008, 03:52:59 pm
If a particular suggestion gets removed from the list, will you get your vote back if that was one for which you voted? If so, perhaps it would be useful to have a counter of how many votes you have remaining.
You can change your votes at any time, so yes, you can get the vote back :)
It may not be as obvious as a counter would be, but this version does highlight your name in the lists of supporters, so you can scan through to see if they're still there. Most of the voting items seem unlikely to disappear outside of being fully complete (the small suggestions) or a major release though, so noticing new DF features you've always wanted may be your best indicator to go vote again.
What if you're not allowed to edit the title of a suggestion, just the description? That would allow people to add in details without changing the nature of the suggestion.
Sounds good to me, other than spelling/grammar corrections a change of the title seems likely to indicate a significant enough change to warrant a vote wipe. If people were to actually do something as stupid as change a suggestion to "add dwarf porn" or to put that in as a new suggestion, the required number of posts to create a suggestion could be made higher than that to vote, and trouble makers banned.
Post by: Hyndis on September 15, 2008, 03:59:01 pm
This tool rocks my socks!
OMG MUST GET SOCK!
*runs out into the field of battle*
Post by: FuIru on September 15, 2008, 06:38:36 pm
Post on the "-" thread in adventure mode forum.
Sure, AFTER I do this, I find out that I can now view as an EL. And of course, this post I think gets me out of that level, too, so meh.
Post by: FuIru on September 15, 2008, 06:57:23 pm
If a particular suggestion gets removed from the list, will you get your vote back if that was one for which you voted? If so, perhaps it would be useful to have a counter of how many votes you have remaining.
You can change your votes at any time, so yes, you can get the vote back :)
It may not be as obvious as a counter would be, but this version does highlight your name in the lists of supporters, so you can scan through to see if they're still there. Most of the voting items seem unlikely to disappear outside of being fully complete (the small suggestions) or a major release though, so noticing new DF features you've always wanted may be your best indicator to go vote again.
Hmm, I'd suggest sending an email to people who have a vote cast for an item that TO marks complete, but really that'd just be me trying to be lazy about regularly checking updates to EV or DF releases.
Post by: Neoskel on September 16, 2008, 01:04:46 am
Post by: BatCountry on September 16, 2008, 01:11:49 am
For instance, the suggestions seem to run the gamut from the crazily complicated (Kingdom mode) to the probably fairly easy (Owned barracks, Improved fish processing, Auto center).
I wonder would people still vote as heavily in favor of some of these suggestions if they know it would take months as opposed to a week or two?
(standard disclaimer, I didn't vote for any of the suggestions mentioned, mine run the gamut from stupidly complicated to probably more complicated than it sounds.)
Post by: i2amroy on September 16, 2008, 01:20:40 am
How about a "doability" score on these suggestions, based on how easy the suggestion would be to implement?That would be cool if Toady could just stop by every once and a while and give a very brief estimation of how long something would take. Not taking into effect any errors, unforeseen circumstances, or other crazy things, but just how long he would think something like that would take on average. Then it would give people more understanding of what they were voting for. Heck, even a 1-10 rating of difficulty, with one being a quick and easy fix, and 10 being something that might take months would work fine.
For instance, the suggestions seem to run the gamut from the crazily complicated (Kingdom mode) to the probably fairly easy (Owned barracks, Improved fish processing, Auto center).
I wonder would people still vote as heavily in favor of some of these suggestions if they know it would take months as opposed to a week or two?
(standard disclaimer, I didn't vote for any of the suggestions mentioned, mine run the gamut from stupidly complicated to probably more complicated than it sounds.)
Post by: Toady One on September 16, 2008, 02:37:20 am
The script has been updated again -- Escaped Lunatics can now vote (ie everybody with a forum account). zagibu wrote up a thing that highlights voters in the list for me based on post count, so it should be easy to see if the vote is really being skewed in an unlikely way.
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 16, 2008, 04:24:12 am
I'm always hugely eager to hear any feedback you might have on a suggestion (mine or otherwise). I've been tempted to try to get you to do a yes/no/maybe/hell-no on the UD thread, but I guess we'll just have to see what you like/can do.
I'd avoid a strict 1-10 evaluation method. You might say 3 meaning hard to code, and you might say 3 meaning I really don't like it. Quick 1-4 word impressions is probably better. Hard, long to do, don't know, next release etc. It be really nice if zagibu could write a method for you to put that directly in the entry - everyone could see it, never lost in a thread, easy for you to update, etc.
Post by: Muz on September 16, 2008, 04:39:45 am
What I don't like is that nobody voted for the same things as me :P
Post by: BatCountry on September 16, 2008, 10:11:31 am
I'd avoid a strict 1-10 evaluation method. You might say 3 meaning hard to code, and you might say 3 meaning I really don't like it.
I actually wouldn't care if the 3 was for "don't like it and don't want to do it" or for "really complicated and not a high priority." The point would be to indicate which suggestions could likely get done in less time than others.
The value in making a 1-10 vote would be that you could bubble "easy" suggestions with few votes to the top so that the most popular ones would end up at the bottom - this would save the problem with menu voting - the ones near the top are always the ones with the most votes because people don't scroll down - it all sounds delicious.
The result is a somewhat more representative and democratic system where people scroll past the suggestions they don't care about to find the ones they do without skewing the bias toward the first few suggestions.
Of course, that might be rather complicated to code. ;D Would be a somewhat ugly SQL query. I run a college paper website, so I'm rather fond of playing with data; I don't mean to make more work for anybody. :-X
Post by: qwertyuiopas on September 16, 2008, 08:17:18 pm
Post by: Maggarg - Eater of chicke on September 17, 2008, 01:40:35 pm
Oh no! D:
Indecision time!
All the options are so useful!
Post by: Tormy on September 17, 2008, 07:06:51 pm
I'd avoid a strict 1-10 evaluation method. You might say 3 meaning hard to code, and you might say 3 meaning I really don't like it. Quick 1-4 word impressions is probably better. Hard, long to do, don't know, next release etc. It be really nice if zagibu could write a method for you to put that directly in the entry - everyone could see it, never lost in a thread, easy for you to update, etc.
Well, I guess we will figure this out from the dev logs later on. Toady probably already knows what to implement in the upcoming weeks/later on, and its not really neccesary that we must know about it. ;) [..well it wouldnt be bad if we would know a bit more about the plans of course! ;D]
Actually what I am wondering about is this: Toady will implement the most popular suggestions in the upcoming months [lets say top 3] probably, but whats gonna happen after that? He will code in the next 3 most popular suggestions, or some suggestions will be ignored/postponed?
Post by: Impaler[WrG] on September 17, 2008, 08:28:33 pm
P.S. I'm noticing that more concrete and utilitarian items seem to be gaining and even surpassing some of the more feature based suggestions, for example Hauling has moved ahead of Underground Diversity, Religions have dropped substantially. I think this is good and reflects the true will of the fan base, the feature additions tend to be desired most heavily by the hard-core crowd who were naturally the first to vote, more casual players (these are relative terms mind you) are more interested in making the games controls, Interface and basic playability better. I'm in that camp as well so perhapse I'm a bit biased in my interpretation but overall I'm still very pleased.
Post by: Zemat on September 17, 2008, 08:39:40 pm
My only concern is that even if Toady implements some of the most voted suggestions they won't be removed because some people will insist on improving them more. Specially if the original suggestion was too vague to begin with. See for example the Improved Hauling one: There are many ways Toady could try to satisfy this one but I suspect people will never be satisfied by any hauling solution.
Note: I know I voted for that one too. But I'll be satisfied with any improvement over dwarves carrying one single seed at a time to plant.
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 17, 2008, 09:09:18 pm
Wiping it and having it shoot right back up to the top tells him more than just leaving all those old votes -- it tells him there's still demand for it. Leaving it at the top doesn't tell him anything.
I'm noticing that more concrete and utilitarian items seem to be gaining and even surpassing some of the more feature based suggestions....I think this is good and reflects the true will of the fan base....I'm in that camp as well so perhaps I'm a bit biased in my interpretation but overall I'm still very pleased.
Yep, sounds biased to me ;). It might have something to do also with the continuous discussion by a minority against broad feature suggestions, or maybe my concessions to them in the form of plastering everything but "Don't vote for UD" on the thread, entry, and in my postings.
People should vote for what they want, should update their votes frequently, and not try to "win". We don't need to factionalize (is that a word?) the community.
I'm just picking on you Impaler, because you had the best post to quote from. You know from several threads I admire your creativity. I've even got two votes parked on small enhancements I want to see.
Actually what I am wondering about is this: Toady will implement the most popular suggestions in the upcoming months [lets say top 3] probably, but whats gonna happen after that? He will code in the next 3 most popular suggestions, or some suggestions will be ignored/postponed?
From his previous responses to the community I'm betting that at the same time he finishes a first quick pass at UD, he'll throw in one or two of the easier-to-do minor enhancements. Next wave of development will probably see some hauling improvements.
He's already got a full plate doing what he thinks the game needs, so I'd be willing to bet he'll frequently end up working towards a partial implementation of the really popular hard ones, and a few that when he reads them, he thinks "I know how to do that right now."
So time wise I'm guessing 60% Arc work, 25% big suggestions, 15% small suggestions. the priority has to be on arc work.
Post by: Draco18s on September 17, 2008, 10:06:32 pm
My only concern is that even if Toady implements some of the most voted suggestions they won't be removed because some people will insist on improving them more.
Of the ones I control, when the feature is implemented I will delete the vote, then re-create it with a note saying: "your votes are wasted here" and then periodically delete it again to keep those votes cleared (this is in an attempt to prevent other people from creating the vote and having votes attributed to it).
Might be unnecessary, as Toady holds the same deletionary power over ALL the vote topics.
Post by: jellyman on September 18, 2008, 03:12:00 am
Post by: Exponent on September 18, 2008, 10:31:15 am
Any chance of adding 'order more than 4 items' to the 'Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants' suggestion?What do you mean by "order more than 4 items"? The trade agreement screen only has 5 values, and you could call them 0 through 4, but I'm pretty sure that they do not correspond to the number of items requested. Rather, I'm reasonably confident that they refer to your demand, with the highest setting merely indicating an abstract notion of "high demand", and the lowest setting indicating "no special demand". I almost always get more than just four items when I set something to the highest level in the trade agreement.
Post by: Xether on September 18, 2008, 11:17:00 am
Post by: Tormy on September 18, 2008, 12:18:21 pm
Actually what I am wondering about is this: Toady will implement the most popular suggestions in the upcoming months [lets say top 3] probably, but whats gonna happen after that? He will code in the next 3 most popular suggestions, or some suggestions will be ignored/postponed?
From his previous responses to the community I'm betting that at the same time he finishes a first quick pass at UD, he'll throw in one or two of the easier-to-do minor enhancements. Next wave of development will probably see some hauling improvements.
He's already got a full plate doing what he thinks the game needs, so I'd be willing to bet he'll frequently end up working towards a partial implementation of the really popular hard ones, and a few that when he reads them, he thinks "I know how to do that right now."
So time wise I'm guessing 60% Arc work, 25% big suggestions, 15% small suggestions. the priority has to be on arc work.
Yeah Othob, this sounds good indeed. Arc work should be top priority always. I like your numbers also, 60% [Arc work] - 40% [Implementing suggested features] sounds reasonable enough.
Post by: i2amroy on September 18, 2008, 07:54:46 pm
Post by: Veroule on September 18, 2008, 08:10:33 pm
Small, easy things will probably be done as time permits in each release. The major changes will be appearing in the Cores and Bloats, and then done when an Arc requires them.
Of course that is all just a guess on my part.
Post by: Necro on September 19, 2008, 09:51:56 am
Post by: Chrispy on September 19, 2008, 11:54:57 am
Post by: Draco18s on September 19, 2008, 02:11:18 pm
But yeah, something to randomize what suggestions are seen would be nice.
Post by: Tormy on September 19, 2008, 03:58:39 pm
Would there be a way to vote *without* seeing who else has voted, and randomizing the order of the entries as well?
You think that some players are being influenced because of the current voting system? [IE. some escaped lunatic will vote for the most popular suggestions for example?] Well in some extreme cases this might be true, however I doubt that this should be a problem at all...
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 20, 2008, 12:25:38 am
I also like to peruse the lower end from time to time to see if there are any I want to support. If they were random, I'd have to look at each and every entry, instead of just scrolling to the bottom.
Overall, I think a random list would be an interface nightmare, but perhaps an initial blind poll (no names/#s) might help. In that one instance, random would be good as well.
Post by: BatCountry on September 20, 2008, 02:13:02 am
Would there be a way to vote *without* seeing who else has voted, and randomizing the order of the entries as well?You think that some players are being influenced because of the current voting system? [IE. some escaped lunatic will vote for the most popular suggestions for example?] Well in some extreme cases this might be true, however I doubt that this should be a problem at all...
Popularity bias is probably less likely in the case of this voting than the appetizer menu effect:
Everything looks good, and you tend to be unconsciously biased towards the first few items on the list. People who are impulsive will most likely vote for the first fun sounding options and never reach lower options on the list, which just exaggerates the scores of the things at the top of the list.
Post by: Tormy on September 20, 2008, 08:00:40 am
Would there be a way to vote *without* seeing who else has voted, and randomizing the order of the entries as well?You think that some players are being influenced because of the current voting system? [IE. some escaped lunatic will vote for the most popular suggestions for example?] Well in some extreme cases this might be true, however I doubt that this should be a problem at all...
Popularity bias is probably less likely in the case of this voting than the appetizer menu effect:
Everything looks good, and you tend to be unconsciously biased towards the first few items on the list. People who are impulsive will most likely vote for the first fun sounding options and never reach lower options on the list, which just exaggerates the scores of the things at the top of the list.
Yeah this makes sense indeed...Perhaps we should not be able to see the numbers of votes + the voters at all? Its enough if Toady can see that I suppose.
Either way, Im fine with everything, I am happy that we have a master voting system like this. ;)
Post by: Footkerchief on September 21, 2008, 03:17:08 am
Post by: i2amroy on September 21, 2008, 03:20:18 am
3 votes is starting to look pretty limited. Wouldn't it make more sense to let each voter give a thumbs up/down/neutral to each suggestion?That would be cool, plus it would also allow some of those new suggestions to gain a foothold, as currently almost no one actually scrolls down to the bottom and looks at the suggestions that are way down there. This means that any new suggestion will not get voted for, even if it is really cool.
Post by: Mikademus on September 21, 2008, 01:09:05 pm
I mean, I get the point of checking out what kinds of suggestions people want the most. But I don't think it's necessarily going to result in the best possible suggestions, for
You're arguing against the Delphi Effect here: in any population, the most given answer will tend to be the best answer of the ones given.
Though not an absolute law, it has great prognosticative power in and social-scientific or knowledge-based field.
Post by: Keldor on September 21, 2008, 04:36:56 pm
http://www.chaospro.de/scripts/vote.php (http://www.chaospro.de/scripts/vote.php)
Post by: Tormy on September 21, 2008, 05:27:07 pm
Just to throw this out there, but here's a particularily nice example of how to give each item priorities for the suggestion list:
http://www.chaospro.de/scripts/vote.php (http://www.chaospro.de/scripts/vote.php)
Hmmmm this is looking very good indeed. :)
Post by: G-Flex on September 21, 2008, 08:50:08 pm
You're arguing against the Delphi Effect here: in any population, the most given answer will tend to be the best answer of the ones given.
Though not an absolute law, it has great prognosticative power in and social-scientific or knowledge-based field.
What makes you think this applies to a video game? Yes, I'm arguing against the premise that the most-given answer is going to be the best one, because in a creative field that is patent bullshit.
This is hardly even a "social-scientific or knowledge-based field". It's deciding what should go into a video game.
I provided arguments for why the most popular answer isn't necessary the best, and if you'd like to actually argue against that, go ahead.
[EDIT]
I also just looked up the Delphi Method and it's generally done with actual experts in the relevant fields. Also, anonymously. Also, in a feedback-based anonymous peer-review system. It's just a way of getting decent consensus out of experts in a field, in a more structured way. It has nothing to do with what we're doing here whatsoever, and bears little similarity, and wouldn't apply anyhow, especially since this, as opposed to being a scientific problem with a "right answer", is a creative/artistic endeavor by a single person.
Post by: i2amroy on September 21, 2008, 08:55:20 pm
Maybe a randomization if you have never voted, but I like to check to see how the vote is going from time to time. I really don't want to have to read/scan the entire list to see if Guilds has gone up or down.What if there was a setting that would put the suggestions in order for you. Some button you could press and it would unrandomize it.
I also like to peruse the lower end from time to time to see if there are any I want to support. If they were random, I'd have to look at each and every entry, instead of just scrolling to the bottom.
Overall, I think a random list would be an interface nightmare, but perhaps an initial blind poll (no names/#s) might help. In that one instance, random would be good as well.
Post by: CJN on September 22, 2008, 11:29:20 am
Post by: Draco18s on September 22, 2008, 03:36:58 pm
So, if Toady adds a feature, and the corresponding suggestion item is deleted, are those that voted on it sent a message that they might want to recast their votes?
Any I delete I will IM everyone who voted. It's an easy copy-paste from the voting to the PM system.
Post by: Fikes on September 22, 2008, 05:17:07 pm
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 22, 2008, 06:29:38 pm
Toady is working on something right now that may affect your suggestion (or even fill it)
Quote
09/18/2008: Nothing interesting to report. Currently going over screens, etc. updating to the new position system. Then it'll be on to using the new structure to implement some changes to how squads work, which will hopefully address some long-standing issues with the military.
Never forget to read the Dev notes (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html)
Post by: Mephansteras on September 23, 2008, 11:45:45 pm
Anyway, why not break the suggestions into 3 categories:
Major changes: large categories like 'Religion', 'Underground diversity', etc.
Minor Changes: Small or tightly scoped changes to existing elements, such as 'Allow traders to bring sand/water/rough gems', 'milkable animals', etc.
Minor additions: Small or tightly scoped additions to the game, such as: Training Dummies, Rope ladders, etc.
The idea being that if everyone gets one vote in each category, we avoid the "Everyone votes for the big categories, since that has more stuff they want' syndrome. It also means that Toady gets an idea of the smaller changes that he can add in that would be most appreciated. He can then do those as a break from the larger arcs.
Thoughts?
Post by: Granite26 on September 24, 2008, 10:07:44 am
It's not like only 3 of the things are going to get done, it's an informal straw poll to show the dev where the primary interest is.
Post by: Gauphastus on September 24, 2008, 05:04:11 pm
My other votes went to improved pathfinder and sparring weapon switching.
Glad you guys managed to get this going. Now it should be much easier for you to decide what pieces the people want updated.
Very good, gentlemen.
Post by: Othob Rithol on September 24, 2008, 06:17:01 pm
Who really cares if the votes at the top tend to get more attention from the people who can't be bothered to read all the way down? The people that DO read through will get to pick the second tier applications, which will be where the trickle votes go to after the top tier (beneficieries of the 'appetizer effect') get knocked off. More people feel like their vote counted, etc etc.
It's not like only 3 of the things are going to get done, it's an informal straw poll to show the dev where the primary interest is.
Frankly I think there are a lot of people looking a gift horse in the mouth.
+Iron Caps+ off to zagibu fro spending the time first, to organize the first Top10 poll, and secondly to make such an excellent tool so nobody ever has to do that (run a suggestions poll thread) again.
Bravo!
Post by: zagibu on September 25, 2008, 04:27:04 am
Also, it has gotten hard to use worktime for private things. They recently installed surveillance in our offices, and although I have already been able to access the cameras' built in webfrontend, there doesn't seem to be an option to feed it with a looped track of me working furiously. I guess they are just used as eyes, and are connected to a camera server somewhere, that does all the work. Now I just have to invent a reason to enter the server room (again)...
Post by: Footkerchief on September 25, 2008, 05:21:30 am
Post by: zagibu on September 25, 2008, 09:38:32 am
Post by: Tormy on September 25, 2008, 09:51:19 am
You know, I would actually love to work on some of the suggestions that have been made in this thread, but it's currently impossible. I work during the day, and in the evening, I'm studying computer science at the university. The only time I currently have are the weekends, and I usually have to do "homework" then. But maybe I can do something this weekend, as the amount of homework we got this week is pretty small, yet.
Also, it has gotten hard to use worktime for private things. They recently installed surveillance in our offices, and although I have already been able to access the cameras' built in webfrontend, there doesn't seem to be an option to feed it with a looped track of me working furiously. I guess they are just used as eyes, and are connected to a camera server somewhere, that does all the work. Now I just have to invent a reason to enter the server room (again)...
No worries, the poll system is good enough, and thanks for it! :)
Post by: Align on September 25, 2008, 02:20:37 pm
You're hacking your office so you can help DF? That...
...That sounds exactly like something the people here would do.
Post by: zagibu on September 25, 2008, 02:52:32 pm
Post by: BatCountry on September 25, 2008, 05:02:21 pm
Can just drop it in a pastecode site and pm me if you like. Though honestly, I do think it's fine as it is.
Post by: zagibu on September 25, 2008, 06:02:47 pm
Post by: Draco18s on September 26, 2008, 12:19:57 am
Quote
Improving the game
# Improving the game in all possible ways.
Post by: JujuBubu on September 26, 2008, 03:43:57 am
Post by: Tormy on September 26, 2008, 07:36:33 am
Ok, I have to ask, who's bright idea was it to add this?QuoteImproving the game
# Improving the game in all possible ways.
LOL, quite constructive suggestion..... ;D
Post by: Muz on September 26, 2008, 07:49:27 am
Ok, I have to ask, who's bright idea was it to add this?QuoteImproving the game
# Improving the game in all possible ways.
LMAO. Sorry, I found that very amusing.
Post by: Draco18s on September 26, 2008, 02:15:14 pm
Somebody who did not knew where to put his third vote ?
It has 0 votes.
Post by: BatCountry on September 27, 2008, 12:23:15 am
Somebody who did not knew where to put his third vote ?
It has 0 votes.
Democracy works?
Post by: IndonesiaWarMinister on September 28, 2008, 09:00:33 am
[IWM has been struck down]
Ok then, can someone delete that? We need more time before the 'apocalypse'
Post by: Erom on September 28, 2008, 12:57:41 pm
Post by: MiamiBryce on September 29, 2008, 01:17:35 pm
As a career programmer myself, I like to have detailed lists of issues to work from. You can't irritate me more than asking for something but not give me any specifications. So I bring this up as a professional courtesy.
When I've had an issue with DF, it was a very specific case. For example:
- I processed Rope Reed leaving 4 or so seeds. This caused one-dwarf-per-seed to rush into the room, grab a seed, and carry it three steps to the seed stockpile I placed by my farmer's workshop.
...and then there's have what I would expect to happen:
- I would expect one dwarf to rush into the room and move the seeds to the seed stockpile.
...but I have thoughts about how this could work statistically:
- If there are x number of same-typed tasks (like Move Seed to Storage) where the items and the storage location are all within a certain range of each other one dwarf will queue up several of the tasks. Since DF players really enjoy tweaking how their dwarves work the RAWs are a good place for the thresholds that would be used in such logic. Something like SINGLE_DWARF_JOB_QUEUE_DISTANCE=5, SINGLE_DWARF_JOB_QUEUE_MAX_CT=4 would allow dwarves to queue up moving up to 4 empty bags from a kitchen to a bag stockpile if the distance from middle of the kitchen to the middle of the stockpile requires 5 or less moves.
So, this could then be refined to:
Improved Hauling
- Single Dwarf Job Queueing
- I processed Rope Reed leaving 4 or so seeds. This caused one-dwarf-per-seed to grab a seed and carry it three steps to the seed stockpile I placed by my farmer's workshop.
- I would expect one dwarf to move all the seeds to the seed stockpile.
- If there are x number of same-typed tasks (like Move Seed to Storage) where the items and the storage location are all within a certain range of each other one dwarf will queue up several of the tasks. Since DF players really enjoy tweaking how their dwarves work the RAWs are a good place for the thresholds that would be used in such logic. Something like SINGLE_DWARF_JOB_QUEUE_DISTANCE=5, SINGLE_DWARF_JOB_QUEUE_MAX_CT=4 would allow dwarves to queue up moving up to 4 empty bags from a kitchen to a bag stockpile if the distance from middle of the kitchen to the middle of the stockpile requires 5 or less moves.
- Job Item TSKing
- I queued a rock table to be built expecting to get a dirorite door. My mason grabbed an olivine rock that was further away from the workshop than the diorite in the stockpile adjacent to the diorite.
- I would have expected him to take the stone from the stockpile adjacent to the workshop rather than what was closest to him when he decided he'd get around to building the door.
- When TSKing an item for a job a dwarf should pick the item of that type closest to the workshop he will be working in, not closest to him when he decides to build the workshop. This, of course, would be limited in use until pathing/distance calculating to be fixed.
So...I thought I'd just throw those out there as examples. They're very specific things which can be tested for and checked off a list. But the really good thing about them being separate items is we can decide each one's individual importance because, quite honestly - I having a wheelbarrow ain't gonna do us a darn bit of good when we have 4 dwarves with wheelbarrows run into the room to move 4 seeds, rather than 4 dwarves without wheelbarrows. Therefore I wouldn't vote for wheelbarrows themselves until "Single Dwarf Job Queueing" was in place.
Thoughts?
Post by: Mephansteras on September 29, 2008, 01:57:55 pm
Best thing to do would be to get a Unified Hauling thread going, starting with what you posted there. Then we just have to have the vote link to that thread, which becomes the forum for all hauling related suggestions.
Post by: Chrispy on September 29, 2008, 02:10:42 pm
Post by: Zwergner on September 29, 2008, 02:26:59 pm
i.e. as an example, let's say I think concentrating on hauling at this time is a horrible idea (not saying I do, this is an example). I can express my opinion by rating it a -1.
IMO rating rather than voting is a better way to evaluate how you feel about something.
Post by: MMad on September 29, 2008, 03:35:29 pm
I'm wondering if we don't need to improve the granularity of what we are asking for. What, exactly, does "improved hauling" entail.
[...]
So...I thought I'd just throw those out there as examples. They're very specific things which can be tested for and checked off a list. But the really good thing about them being separate items is we can decide each one's individual importance because, quite honestly - I having a wheelbarrow ain't gonna do us a darn bit of good when we have 4 dwarves with wheelbarrows run into the room to move 4 seeds, rather than 4 dwarves without wheelbarrows. Therefore I wouldn't vote for wheelbarrows themselves until "Single Dwarf Job Queueing" was in place.
Thoughts?
I totally agree with the specifics of your hauling suggestion (you really should make a separate thread for brainstorming about hauling, btw), but I wonder if the point of this suggestion voting thingy shouldn't more be to give Toady an overall idea of what most people perceive to be the larger problem areas, and then let him figure out how he wants to improve it. Not least of all because noone else really knows how much of the game works, and any very detailed suggestion is likely to be unworkable on some point or another.
I agree that more details about the perceived problems and proposed ideas would be nice, but I think we should take care to remember the subtle difference between saying "this is what I think you should implement, in this way" and "this is what we think you should improve, and here are some ideas about solutions that might work". If nothing else, it's more fun reading the latter kind of suggestions. :)
I guess my main point (hidden as it is under much rambling) is that sometimes it's easier from a design perspective to have clearly defined problems; once you understand what the problem is, suggestions get a proper context and you can weigh them against other possible solutions that come to mind.
Also, note that this isn't aimed at your suggestion in particular - it sounds very sensible - but just a thought I've had about the nature of useful suggestions in general.
Post by: Draco18s on September 29, 2008, 11:29:39 pm
I'm wondering if we don't need to improve the granularity of what we are asking for. What, exactly, does "improved hauling" entail.
Quote
Wheelbarrows, mine carts, stacking, all goes here.
Try searching wheelbarrows (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=search2;params=YWR2YW5jZWR8J3wwfCJ8YnJkfCd8NXwifHNob3dfY29tcGxldGV8J3x8InxzdWJqZWN0X29ubHl8J3x8Inxzb3J0fCd8cmVsZXZhbmNlfCJ8c29ydF9kaXJ8J3xkZXNjfCJ8c2VhcmNofCd8d2hlZWxiYXJyb3c=), mine carts (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=search2;params=YWR2YW5jZWR8J3wwfCJ8YnJkfCd8NXwifHNob3dfY29tcGxldGV8J3x8InxzdWJqZWN0X29ubHl8J3x8Inxzb3J0fCd8cmVsZXZhbmNlfCJ8c29ydF9kaXJ8J3xkZXNjfCJ8c2VhcmNofCd8bWluZSBjYXJ0), stacking (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=search2;params=YWR2YW5jZWR8J3wwfCJ8YnJkfCd8NXwifHNob3dfY29tcGxldGV8J3x8InxzdWJqZWN0X29ubHl8J3x8Inxzb3J0fCd8cmVsZXZhbmNlfCJ8c29ydF9kaXJ8J3xkZXNjfCJ8c2VhcmNofCd8c3RhY2tpbmc=), and the various numerous ideas that come up under HAULING (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=search2) for the obvious choice.
Yes, I checked each search. Each link above used the search terms that make up the text of the link and each link contains AT LEAST ONE relevant thread on the first page. Hauling in fact has 10 or more depending on if you count duplicates and semi-related items.
Post by: Erom on September 30, 2008, 10:01:38 am
That said, I think the tool as is is sufficient - I'd rather have time rolled into DF rather than the DF suggestion tool.
Post by: BatCountry on September 30, 2008, 10:43:11 am
Guess I should give more credit to the average smarts of the Dwarf Fortress user. :-[
Post by: MMad on September 30, 2008, 05:02:28 pm
At the very least, I'd like to be able to vote negatively instead of positively, even if I still only get three votes. For example, I've voted for the two things that are most important to me in this game, and now I feel more strongly against some proposals than I feel in support for any of the remaining ones.
If there is some kind of negative vote added, I think it's important to make it count as "I really don't want this stuff in the game" instead of "I don't think this is important right now". Otherwise it might unnecessarily muddle the water with "political" voting.
Post by: Align on October 01, 2008, 03:29:43 pm
IMO rating rather than voting is a better way to evaluate how you feel about something.The only problem is that the majority of people will vote kneejerk reaction-style, and it just ends up as a binary yes/no, which is useless.
Post by: Granite26 on October 02, 2008, 10:38:33 am
IMO rating rather than voting is a better way to evaluate how you feel about something.The only problem is that the majority of people will vote kneejerk reaction-style, and it just ends up as a binary yes/no, which is useless.
Or even more fun, vote up for their 3-4 pet projects and against things that will delay them, leaving everything with net 30 votes against..
Post by: MetBoy on October 02, 2008, 01:59:11 pm
Also, the limitation of 3 votes forces people to sit down and THINK about which they want to see most, without being as agonizing a decision as choosing where to place one vote.
Post by: jellyman on October 04, 2008, 09:52:23 pm
I wouldn't begrudge other's the chance to experience a more complicated farming set, but if enough people feel the same way I do I would think Toady could take it into account by either making it an option, or moddable. Or thinking about why some of us (assuming I'm not alone) are opposed to more complicated farming. My personal objection is that I don't want an increase in micromanagement required to deal with an aspect of the game I consider boring. Maybe if other automation features are improved to reduce overall micromanagement this objection would not matter any more.
What I'm getting at is that I think allowing negative votes could be allowable, but I suggest they do not affect overall ranking of suggestions at all. But it does allow Toady to see if an idea is controversial so he can consider whether to implement the change in such a way to try and keep everyone happy. Or decide he can't please everyone and go ahead anyway.
Post by: Draco18s on October 04, 2008, 10:00:05 pm
Post by: Foa on October 05, 2008, 04:34:31 pm
All of my farming suggestions have included no to very minor amounts of management, from "do nothing" to "crop rotation" (that everyone does anyway so that they have more than one kind of booze and more ingredients for cooked food, as well as cloth, etc.) for the lazy-inclined.Crop ratios, yes?
I'd like to petition, for channeling depth control, for irrigation, and fish game purposes.
Post by: Draco18s on October 05, 2008, 05:06:20 pm
All of my farming suggestions have included no to very minor amounts of management, from "do nothing" to "crop rotation" (that everyone does anyway so that they have more than one kind of booze and more ingredients for cooked food, as well as cloth, etc.) for the lazy-inclined.Crop ratios, yes?
I'd like to petition, for channeling depth control, for irrigation, and fish game purposes.
Crop ratios? I was talking about rotation: Winter plump helmets, spring sweet pods, summer cave wheat, and fall pig tails (if I'm remembering planting seasons correctly).
Post by: Othob Rithol on October 06, 2008, 08:15:32 am
A good example is having a "tend crops" task that must be completed before a plant matures. Another, albeit slightly more setup-time gobbling, is to require most crops to be watered during their growth...meaning a farmer has to take a bucket, fill it, and dump in on the tile. Irrigation projects would just reduce the distance the farmer has to go to get water, but would not ultimately be required.
Post by: Tormy on October 08, 2008, 03:52:51 pm
Example: Tamable unicorn - Why not?
So, I must ::) again.
Post by: Toady One on October 09, 2008, 05:23:17 am
- Posts are now given numeric ranks for reference.
- The votes that you've cast will be displayed above the list, with links so you can jump to them quickly.
- The lists of supporters have been hidden. I can still see it for puppet-detection-purposes.
- There's an icon that hotlinks a suggestion creator's profile to enable discussion over links/descriptions and so on, as that seems to come up often enough. From what I saw up there, I don't anticipate that privacy would be a issue, but let me know if there's a problem with this.
- There is now a field where I can enter notes. I don't know how often I'll get a chance to use it, but it's there. I expect I'll mostly use it for quick notes on whether or not an idea is feasible or other issues I have that might then be discussed in the linked thread if there's one available.
- There's an option to clear all of the votes for a suggestion, usable by the suggestion creator and myself. I expect this'll come up when I finally get around to handling parts of the more general ones, or if the creator makes a large change to the description. There are currently no plans for emails/PMs if votes are cleared, but I'm open to the PM idea if that's feasible and people think that would be useful (and zagibu isn't busy -- he's already done more than enough). I don't want to mass mail from the boards, but PMs seem less spammish (you can turn the email-on-PM off in your profile).
Post by: Tormy on October 09, 2008, 10:18:01 am
Post by: alfie275 on October 09, 2008, 10:50:28 am
Post by: Tormy on October 09, 2008, 11:19:43 am
Um if a suggestion ive voted for gets put in the game or becomes unneccessary do i get the vote back?
Yeah, that is for sure. :)
Post by: korora on October 09, 2008, 11:22:17 am
Post by: plstcflsh on October 17, 2008, 02:41:39 pm
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26308.0 (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26308.0)
basically, it would use the existing chracater stats to generate conversations between dwarfs, and thus relationships and opinions. Additionally, the character interacts w dwarfs by 'talking' to them, and the dwarfs offer more personalized feedback on their jobs, etc.
ideally the system could be adapted towards all sentient creatures in SoA2, and even non sentient creatures to an extent. i can see it horribly maiming FPS, tho.
Post by: zagibu on October 17, 2008, 02:57:38 pm
Post by: plstcflsh on October 17, 2008, 03:08:54 pm
Post by: Erom on October 22, 2008, 01:35:21 pm
My hosting company has notified me that the site is making too many sql connections, but hasn't given me any other information I can decipher. My guess is that it's the voting script and/or the server move, so I'm taking down the script for now.Sadness! I hope you can get your server woes soothed!
Post by: Toady One on October 22, 2008, 07:07:37 pm
Post by: zagibu on October 29, 2008, 11:59:13 am
Post by: Tormy on October 31, 2008, 04:07:33 pm
If your suspicion returns to the script, tell me, and we can investigate it's sql connections...
I am pretty sure, that it wasn't the script what caused the problems. :) I think I know that what was it, but it doesn't matter now at all.
Post by: winner on November 02, 2008, 09:34:43 am
Post by: Tormy on November 02, 2008, 09:42:47 am
I'm curious what you know that it was.
Its very possible that the database error [-> number of SQL connections] was related to the low number of IO tokens. [io_tokens value ideally should be close to max]
One of my friends had the same problem with his forum.
Post by: varkarrus on December 08, 2008, 04:53:00 pm
Post by: zagibu on December 08, 2008, 05:27:47 pm
Post by: Footkerchief on December 08, 2008, 05:34:28 pm
Post by: Tormy on December 08, 2008, 05:40:24 pm
I am just wondering, what will happen once Toady coded in the new underground features for example. That suggestion will be removed from the list? [Probably not all of the suggested underground features will be implemented, so that is why I was wondering.]
Post by: Granite26 on December 08, 2008, 07:56:34 pm
This thing was a great idea, but it's stagnated because people only get 3 votes. If idea A has 10 diehard supporters and is hated by everybody else, and idea B is universally liked but too small to get people to change their votes, idea A will be ranked higher despite B being more deserving of the attention. If people could vote +1, -1, or 0 (same as no vote) on EACH idea, and the ideas were ranked by the sum of all votes, the popularity of a suggestion would be much more accurately represented.
I disagree, I think that it's stagnated because the vote turnover has been low recently. After this mega release there'll be a huge influx of fresh votes. (Plus I dislike the subtractive system, because people tend to be pro development in their areas and anti development in others.)
Post by: Align on December 08, 2008, 07:58:34 pm
Whoa! :o 141 suggestions on the list so far.Yeah, removed. It can be re-added for further voting if people feel unsatisfied.
I am just wondering, what will happen once Toady coded in the new underground features for example. That suggestion will be removed from the list? [Probably not all of the suggested underground features will be implemented, so that is why I was wondering.]
Post by: Othob Rithol on December 09, 2008, 02:55:52 am
Whoa! :o 141 suggestions on the list so far.Yeah, removed. It can be re-added for further voting if people feel unsatisfied.
I am just wondering, what will happen once Toady coded in the new underground features for example. That suggestion will be removed from the list? [Probably not all of the suggested underground features will be implemented, so that is why I was wondering.]
Yeah, I've already vowed to yank UD off the list as soon as Toady says "first pass at UD done" with a release. You might want to be patient however, as I'm only swinging through here maybe once a week.
If I go afk for a while, this is formal acknowledgment that Toady and/or anyone else with authority will/can remove UD in my absence without so much as the slightest hint of whining on my part.
Post by: Silverionmox on December 09, 2008, 08:12:45 am
Broad categories are good to signal where players get their kicks, but everyone has specific ideas what's more important within those categories.. ultimately it probably will give a greater sense of accomplishment to push specific ideas.
Post by: Tormy on December 09, 2008, 08:15:18 am
Post by: Granite26 on December 09, 2008, 10:33:37 am
There are a lot of topics in the vein of "Improved x". I would encourage everyone to at least put one or two votes on very specific suggestions, so it'll be clear when these are implemented and then those votes can be applied elsewhere.
Broad categories are good to signal where players get their kicks, but everyone has specific ideas what's more important within those categories.. ultimately it probably will give a greater sense of accomplishment to push specific ideas.
I dunno, I'd think that any time a few features got added to an area that would count...
Suggestions that should be cleared this go round: (based on what I've read in dev_next)
(254) UD
(100) Sparring Weapons (may not be sparring weapons, but I think the deadly will be handled)
(21) Stats Improvement
(5) Assign rooms to Noble positions
(3) Gender Differentiation
(3) Life Cycle
(Not that everyone will think enough was done, I'd anticipate a significant number of votes going straight back into the same catagories as a 'good, but we want more' vote)
There's also still 1000+ items left, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a few of the logistics issues cleared up.
Post by: Draco18s on December 09, 2008, 01:34:21 pm
Yeah, I've already vowed to yank UD off the list as soon as Toady says "first pass at UD done" with a release. You might want to be patient however, as I'm only swinging through here maybe once a week.
And I'll be doing the same thing with the suggestions over which I have control.
(They'll then be put back up with a description of "you're wasting your votes here, please don't do that.")
Post by: Granite26 on December 09, 2008, 02:48:35 pm
Post by: Silverionmox on December 09, 2008, 04:37:58 pm
Post by: Granite26 on December 09, 2008, 09:58:45 pm
For things like UD, I imagine this means that anything that gets done will mean that a full suite of things get done. (not going to spend time adding 1 new UD thing when it'd be more efficient to add a dozen, i.e. 4 times as long for 12 times the content). Basically it's perfectly valid to say 'hey, touch this'
The other half of them are things like improved hauling where a minority of people want one or the other implimentation specifically, but most people are just pointing to a hole in current gameplay and are open to numerous suggestions. (I guarantee you there'll be a less than a quarter of the mining carts suggestions when dorfs carry more than a few things at once). Again it's valid to say address the issue to which these are the solutions.
my .02 at any rate (in this case .02/post)
Post by: Jude on December 09, 2008, 10:29:31 pm
Post by: Draco18s on December 10, 2008, 01:48:22 pm
You seem to be implying that you think 'even more underground diversity' or 'impliment it more fully in the way I want it' is a waste of a vote.
No, I'm not saying that. What I want people to do is spread their votes around. "We saw some of this, lets see something else."
After another release or two I'd mod the description back again. The reason I'm recreating the thingy-to vote for is so that:
a) it's still in the list
b) still under my control, so that:
c) someone else doesn't create it instead in the hopes that it'll get all those votes back again immediately
Post by: Granite26 on December 10, 2008, 02:23:27 pm
Post by: Othob Rithol on December 10, 2008, 08:35:44 pm
Seriously, I was actually somewhat offended to have to coordinate a trade off of one of my suggestions that was added to the list by someone else. The originator of the idea should be the one with control. In the case where there is no clear originator, then anyone that cares enough should suggest it. However, just squatting is counter productive.
Post by: Draco18s on December 10, 2008, 11:32:36 pm
Post by: Fieari on December 29, 2008, 02:50:10 pm
Post by: zagibu on December 31, 2008, 05:19:16 pm
Post by: Huey on January 02, 2009, 03:33:47 am
Anyway, we shall see what the next release will bring about. And in the meantime, if I think of something cool, I will add it to the list.
Post by: Footkerchief on January 02, 2009, 03:48:17 am
One vote of three cast, and it was for corpses as containers. Is a good suggestion, and would streamline a lot of hauling issues as well. It sort of fits in with carts/containers for hauling and keeping the bits inside the coffin for relocation purposes, but rather than vote 3 times for essentially the same sort of an issue...
Anyway, we shall see what the next release will bring about. And in the meantime, if I think of something cool, I will add it to the list.
Maybe I should make a new suggestion -- I made that one originally, but then I came up with a better version for this thread (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28937.0).
Post by: skysmitty on January 12, 2009, 11:42:01 pm
I also like the parent-child idea to break up large conceptual suggestions into smaller, more meaningful priorities.
Post by: eerr on January 14, 2009, 03:04:14 am
perhaps it should allow people to order a large list of these priorities, each with his or her own unique list from 1-10.
which is then used to derive what people want.
Post by: i2amroy on January 22, 2009, 12:56:00 am
I'm wondering if it might (eventually) be more fruitful to reconfigure the voting into something like a "Single Transferable Vote" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote)system - in essence where people rank their votes. A voter's first priority would be worth 1 point, his second 1/2, his third 1/3, etc. You could even set it up so people get "unlimited" votes, just that every additional vote is worth 1/X. This would probably yield a more accurate result as to what people want as immediate priorities and as long term visions.
I also like the parent-child idea to break up large conceptual suggestions into smaller, more meaningful priorities.
This idea is cool, but it would probably be easier if instead everyone got like five votes and the first one was 5, than 4, than 3 and 2 and 1, that way the voting page itself didn't have to deal with all of those weird fractions.
Post by: Granite26 on January 22, 2009, 11:14:17 am
Post by: Draco18s on January 22, 2009, 02:49:16 pm
Not that I like the fractions idea, but... math is what computers are good at, y'know?
Actually...fractions are really difficult for computers, especially things like 1/3 or 1/9. Doesn't store in binary very well (1/9th in decimal is .111111 repeating, in binary the same thing happens: .000111000111 repeating; even nice fractions like 1/5th are repeaters in binary: 00110011...). A tiny tiny amount off after where the end of a Double gives significance to is truncated and lost.
Post by: Granite26 on January 22, 2009, 03:46:02 pm
Post by: i2amroy on January 25, 2009, 09:32:45 pm
Post by: Faces of Mu on January 25, 2009, 11:34:28 pm
Would there be a way to vote *without* seeing who else has voted, and randomizing the order of the entries as well?You think that some players are being influenced because of the current voting system? [IE. some escaped lunatic will vote for the most popular suggestions for example?] Well in some extreme cases this might be true, however I doubt that this should be a problem at all...
Popularity bias is probably less likely in the case of this voting than the appetizer menu effect:
Everything looks good, and you tend to be unconsciously biased towards the first few items on the list. People who are impulsive will most likely vote for the first fun sounding options and never reach lower options on the list, which just exaggerates the scores of the things at the top of the list.
I think these are serious issues. I didn't bother to vote for any suggestion that was more than a fifth of the way down the list as I expected my votes to lose power the further down the list the suggestion was.
Later suggestions will hardly get a look in. I wonder if, after the next release, whether Toady should give a two week window (or x amount of time) for players to list suggestions and then it gets locked so that there is a limited number of suggestions and that all suggestions a more likely to get a look-in?
Post by: Faces of Mu on January 25, 2009, 11:48:21 pm
I'm wondering if we don't need to improve the granularity of what we are asking for. What, exactly, does "improved hauling" entail. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything other than the general description of the voting item but I swear I read it somewhere on these forums. I figure the list has to exist somewhere.
...
So, this could then be refined to:
Improved Hauling
- Single Dwarf Job Queueing
- I processed Rope Reed leaving 4 or so seeds. This caused one-dwarf-per-seed to grab a seed and carry it three steps to the seed stockpile I placed by my farmer's workshop.
- I would expect one dwarf to move all the seeds to the seed stockpile.
- If there are x number of same-typed tasks (like Move Seed to Storage) where the items and the storage location are all within a certain range of each other one dwarf will queue up several of the tasks. Since DF players really enjoy tweaking how their dwarves work the RAWs are a good place for the thresholds that would be used in such logic. Something like SINGLE_DWARF_JOB_QUEUE_DISTANCE=5, SINGLE_DWARF_JOB_QUEUE_MAX_CT=4 would allow dwarves to queue up moving up to 4 empty bags from a kitchen to a bag stockpile if the distance from middle of the kitchen to the middle of the stockpile requires 5 or less moves.
- Job Item TSKing
- I queued a rock table to be built expecting to get a dirorite door. My mason grabbed an olivine rock that was further away from the workshop than the diorite in the stockpile adjacent to the diorite.
- I would have expected him to take the stone from the stockpile adjacent to the workshop rather than what was closest to him when he decided he'd get around to building the door.
- When TSKing an item for a job a dwarf should pick the item of that type closest to the workshop he will be working in, not closest to him when he decides to build the workshop. This, of course, would be limited in use until pathing/distance calculating to be fixed.
I would like Improved Hauling to also include pitted stockpiles. I would like to be able to place a stockpile over an edge and have dwarves throw the nearest qualified item over the edge and have the item end up on the floor below. That way dwarves on the surface could toss objects to the workshops below. This is really only valid so long as objects don't suffer damage from falls.
Then, to stop dwarves doing this in an endless cycle we could just place a stockpile where the objects land. If we wanted those objects to be tossed over another edge (say for a cascade effect to work around rooms and floors) we just get the next pitted stockpile to (t)ake from the previous stock pile and dwarves would be able to move them from one floor to the next.
Anyone know if objects take damage from falls? If so, and they take a minute or negligible amount from 1-z fall, this would still be useful.
If people like this idea, can the suggestion be changed to show this?
Cheers!
Post by: Draco18s on January 26, 2009, 12:41:53 am
Later suggestions will hardly get a look in. I wonder if, after the next release, whether Toady should give a two week window (or x amount of time) for players to list suggestions and then it gets locked so that there is a limited number of suggestions and that all suggestions a more likely to get a look-in?
After the next release many many of those huge top votes will be deleted and remade (with a note: "don't waste your votes here, it's already been done for now, pick something else").
I control 16 of the top 30 / 14 of the top 20 / 7 of the top 10.
Post by: Silverionmox on January 26, 2009, 06:27:40 am
I think these are serious issues. I didn't bother to vote for any suggestion that was more than a fifth of the way down the list as I expected my votes to lose power the further down the list the suggestion was.On the contrary, you can really make a difference there. Twenty votes don't mean much for the first ten spots, but it really makes a difference down the list. Some suggestions have been gaining votes one by one, and it will at the very least put them in a good poll position after the votes of the handled suggestions are reset.
Also, I think Toady is just as, if not more likely to put in a suggestion with few votes, but easy to implement than a suggestion with a lot of votes that will be a bitch to code.
Finally, campaigning a bit to give a suggestion that deserves it some attention can't hurt.
Post by: zagibu on January 26, 2009, 01:21:43 pm
I think the biggest problem is the sheer amount of suggestions. Maybe categorization could help.
Post by: Granite26 on January 26, 2009, 02:36:07 pm
If a popular suggestion gets an extra bandwagoner who might otherwise have voted for something he wants more, what's the real cost?
Clearing UD votes will change the outlook more than any optimization of presentation possibly could
Post by: Silverionmox on January 26, 2009, 05:21:08 pm
Post by: TinyPirate on January 29, 2009, 02:00:08 am
1) I'd like to be able to play in the same region as a friend, and between us, send each other trade liaisons (at some big cost and hassle). Think Dwarf Fortress with a bit of Harvest Moon? I like a little multiplayer, even if it's meta-multiplayer. No need for the multiplayer to be synchronus.
2) Better control over sparing vs. warfare military weapons/kit. 'Nuff said. Think this may be on the list etc.
Post by: G-Flex on January 29, 2009, 10:01:12 am
Any form of multiplayer is a long, long way off, and the only type you're ever likely to see is the kind of meta-multiplayer which you just mentioned, and even that is ridiculously unlikely, and if it does happen it would be extremely low priority. Currently the game can't even handle history advancing during gameplay or a fortress still existing as a settlement after you abandon, never mind two active ones at once. :P
Not that it's an inherently bad idea or anything.
Post by: TinyPirate on January 30, 2009, 02:11:11 am
Post by: Sowelu on February 12, 2009, 03:35:28 pm
Post by: Toady One on March 14, 2009, 05:13:51 pm
Post by: Jadael on March 20, 2009, 10:22:12 am
You're given two choices, chosen at random, and you pick which one you like better. This continues until you've compared every combination of things.
With enough people doing this, you end up eventually with a prioritized list of every single item.
Just throw all the dev notes in there and let it sort itself out.
If I could find the website, I'd link it, it had an explanation of how the algorithm worked.
The reason this would be good for this purpose is because there are HUNDREDS of items. Picking your favorite three just isn't efficient. By the time I read through the whole list in this poll, I can barely remember a third of it.
EDIT: Hrm, I THOUGHT it was the xkcd guy, but a casual search of the blag didn't turn anything up. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Post by: Silverionmox on March 20, 2009, 10:27:25 am
Post by: zagibu on March 21, 2009, 05:40:56 am
I'd rather see a voting system something like Randall Munroe's Beautiful Image rater.Comparing every item with every other item doesn't lead to x!, as I thought first, but to x^2 / 2, roughly, which in the case of 100 items is ~5000 compares. Still too much to be feasible in this case (but of course nowhere near x!, stupid me).
You're given two choices, chosen at random, and you pick which one you like better. This continues until you've compared every combination of things.
With enough people doing this, you end up eventually with a prioritized list of every single item.
Just throw all the dev notes in there and let it sort itself out.
If I could find the website, I'd link it, it had an explanation of how the algorithm worked.
The reason this would be good for this purpose is because there are HUNDREDS of items. Picking your favorite three just isn't efficient. By the time I read through the whole list in this poll, I can barely remember a third of it.
EDIT: Hrm, I THOUGHT it was the xkcd guy, but a casual search of the blag didn't turn anything up. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Post by: Jadael on March 21, 2009, 07:45:49 am
I'd rather see a voting system something like Randall Munroe's Beautiful Image rater.Comparing every item with every other item doesn't lead to x!, as I thought first, but to x^2 / 2, roughly, which in the case of 100 items is ~5000 compares. Still too much to be feasible in this case (but of course nowhere near x!, stupid me).
You're given two choices, chosen at random, and you pick which one you like better. This continues until you've compared every combination of things.
With enough people doing this, you end up eventually with a prioritized list of every single item.
Just throw all the dev notes in there and let it sort itself out.
If I could find the website, I'd link it, it had an explanation of how the algorithm worked.
The reason this would be good for this purpose is because there are HUNDREDS of items. Picking your favorite three just isn't efficient. By the time I read through the whole list in this poll, I can barely remember a third of it.
EDIT: Hrm, I THOUGHT it was the xkcd guy, but a casual search of the blag didn't turn anything up. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
I disagree, the website I mentioned - it may be down now, I can't find it anywhere - managed to create a sensibly rated list of thousands of images. It doesn't require that every voter vote on every possible combination, just that enough combinations are voted on by enough voters.
EDIT: www.thebestpic.net seems to be the same idea, but it doesn't seem to be very old, it's only got 67 images uploaded and 3000 votes.
EDIT 2: Apparently this is a Ranked Pairs Condorcet method, for which you can find many free Perl and CGI scripts, and probably PHP. The first result is a Python script.
This website (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/andru/civs.html) is a free online service for running a generic Condorcet poll, which gives you a ranked list of every candidate at the end. However, it requires each voter to order their list of candidates by hand, and then submit their ranked list. With as many items as there are, that would be unwieldy.
Post by: zagibu on March 21, 2009, 02:59:15 pm
You're given two choices, chosen at random, and you pick which one you like better. This continues until you've compared every combination of things.
I don't think that many people would like a system where you can't directly vote for your favourite things.
Post by: korora on March 21, 2009, 03:11:55 pm
Post by: Silverionmox on March 21, 2009, 04:33:31 pm
Hmm, then I might have misunderstood the concept you were explaining here:The ones here would be willing to go through a few hundred permutations on a regular basis, I think.You're given two choices, chosen at random, and you pick which one you like better. This continues until you've compared every combination of things.
I don't think that many people would like a system where you can't directly vote for your favourite things.
Post by: Jadael on March 21, 2009, 05:08:21 pm
Hmm, then I might have misunderstood the concept you were explaining here:The ones here would be willing to go through a few hundred permutations on a regular basis, I think.You're given two choices, chosen at random, and you pick which one you like better. This continues until you've compared every combination of things.
I don't think that many people would like a system where you can't directly vote for your favourite things.
Well that's sort of the point. It forces people to examine combinations and think, "Hmm, which one of these would I like better?," instead of just going, "I NEED GRAPHICS/TUNNELERS/MINECARTS/ROCKET SHIPS BLARGH."
Post by: Draco18s on March 24, 2009, 11:20:42 am
Post by: Jadael on March 28, 2009, 04:10:17 pm
I went looking for a quick implementation I could toss up on some free hosting, but was unable to find out that was already written for that purpose, at least as far as I could tell.
Hmm, I can find a few scripts that tank already-ranked ballots and spit out a winner, but nothing like the example of thefairest.org; that website does describe how it works though.
Post by: Draco18s on March 30, 2009, 08:43:41 am
Post by: Puzzlemaker on April 27, 2009, 10:48:28 am
Post by: Aquillion on May 17, 2009, 05:11:38 pm
Minor suggestions never make it anywhere, because people only get three votes, and naturally want to use those votes for things that would make a big difference... which are, generally, large-scale improvements.
But that's a pity, because many minor changes that look like they'd be comparatively easy to implement drop to the bottom.
So... why not give everyone unlimited votes? Yes, sure, things would end up with very high numbers, but I think people are smart enough to not vote for everything (since that's basically a vote for nothing...) Or replace it with up/down voting on everything.
I mean, sure, you might end up with people voting down everything except the one thing they want or something silly like that. But overall I think that it would give a better picture than what we have now... nobody is voting for the minor-but-nice ideas, so only the broad sweeping changes are drifting to the top. With up/down voting, anything that looks easy and uncontroversial would also drift to the top, since nobody is likely to vote against it.
Post by: zagibu on May 18, 2009, 10:49:00 am
Post by: Thanshin on June 03, 2009, 11:20:40 am
i.e.: In the time improved hauling is implemented, a large amount of smaller changes could be done.
For that I'd suggest:
1 - Making a flat list, no votes.
2 - Politely asking Toady One to estimate an effort cost for each item (from 1 to whatever he considers is the hardest suggestion).
3 - Politely asking Toady One how much effort cost could get into a single version.
4 - Letting people vote that many points among the items.
Trivial Example:
1: Four items: A, B, C and D.
2: Toady One assigns costs: A=6, B=8, C=4, and D=2.
3: Toady One estimates a cost of 12 can be build into a version.
4: People distribute 12 points among the items.
In this simple case the results would only be ACD, BC or BD, but with more items it works better.
Post by: Granite26 on July 15, 2009, 02:17:26 pm
I went through the suggestion list, and these are the ones that appear to have been addressed sufficiently to clear. (Some of them may come back in a 'do more!!!' sort of way, but still). Basically, anything where the POINT was resolved or touched, even if the method wasn't used. For instance, with all the new stuff, #66 Training dummies should be marked off, although people that REALLY WANT training dummies could resubmit.
4. (229) Designate Safe Area
11. (119) Automatic switching to sparring weapons
33. (24) Owned Barracks
40. (18) Stats Improvement
44. (14) Doctors/Hospitals
55. (9) Gender Differentiation
66. (8) Training dummies
83. (5) Life Cycle
108. (3) Detailed Statues
138. (2) Distinguishable Champions
142. (2) Improving the game
147. (2) Scars and prosthetics
151. (2) Taking control of squads.
160. (1) Emergeny Mode/Signal
174. (1) Tamable unicorn
186. (350) Underground Diversity (Closed)
May be resolved
54. (9) Assign rooms to Noble/Administrative positions
(I think this is part of the new positions?)
42. (15) Watch command to follow actions of a particular dwarf
(This one has been declared 'useful' and 'probably needed', but I don't recall it being worked on.)
That's roughly 10% of the suggestions currently up there, from a broad selection of difficulties and popularities. Ignoring the suggestions that are basically their own arc, it's also a good chunk of the total votes.
Post by: Draco18s on July 17, 2009, 01:17:38 pm
Post by: Granite26 on July 17, 2009, 04:59:32 pm
I just wanted to say 'Wow! that's a lot of what we've asked for!'
Post by: Draco18s on July 17, 2009, 06:24:03 pm
I would wait for the release... Getting people to vote for 'newer' stuff before they see the new stuff seems like it would lead to poor decision making. Plus, I would never dream of taking away the feeling of fan service granted by allowing Toady to kill 400 votes worth of requests on a release.
I just wanted to say 'Wow! that's a lot of what we've asked for!'
No, they aren't gone yet. They've just been edited to indicate that the issue will be removed as the requested feature will be in the next version. I won't actually be removing the vote until the release.
And what I'll actually be doing is removing and recreating the request, albeit with a description of "don't vote for this, your vote will be wasted, this is a placeholder item to prevent the creation of a duplicate item. This is to prevent a feature that was previously worked on from gaining continued popularity despite the fact that Toady has indicated that no feature will be worked on twice in a row." Or something along those lines.
Right now the voting item is only depreciated as the issue has been worked on and people can begin moving their votes, if they so wish.
Post by: Granite26 on July 18, 2009, 09:56:51 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 18, 2009, 10:50:33 pm
Yeah... see... that still seems like it's robbing some level of satisfaction, but that's me, and I don't mind playing mind games with people
It's not satisfaction robbing. I've been planning on doing this (and have stated as such multiple times) since the voting page started, that's why I own nearly all of the top 60.* I was no the originator of the ideas, I just populate the system with the first two dozen ideas so that things could get started; I got there first.
The point is, that after the next release any items that have been completed shall be cleared of votes. I would IM all of the voters, informing them to re-allocate their votes, but alas, the list of names was removed, so I can not.
*Slight exaggeration. I own some 27 suggestions, 7 of which are top 10 (and all the top 5; 18 in the top 40).
Post by: Toady One on July 19, 2009, 03:27:45 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 19, 2009, 04:12:58 pm
I think the added emphasis should bring enough attention back here to get people to revote if their votes were dropped.
Yepyep. And the reason for creating the dummy vote ideas is to prevent things being the top item for several releases. The idea is still around, it's just not active.
Post by: G-Flex on July 19, 2009, 09:03:55 pm
Hopefully something like a dev log announcement and an announcement here will catch most people once the release comes up. Since the releases after this one are going to figure in the top 10 suggestions and so on, I think the added emphasis should bring enough attention back here to get people to revote if their votes were dropped.
May I ask why the top ten specifically?
I definitely understand going for what's been oft-suggested, but I've always thought that using the democratic votes of the general public has been sort of a sketchy idea when it comes to game design decisions, and a lot of good suggestions get overlooked for various reasons.
Post by: Draco18s on July 19, 2009, 09:32:03 pm
*Improved Hauling
Currently a big issue.
*Workshop Material Selection
Regain some functionality from the 2D version
*Standing production orders
Because when you run out of barrels booze production stops and it's hard to make sure it gets running again when your 10,000,000 booze gets drunk. Big issue for many players
*Designate Safe Area
Major issue
*Job Priorities
DAMN TRADER! STOP HAULING FURNITURE!
*Improved (Speed Up) Pathfinder.
Biggest source of lag in the game
*Improved Mechanics
Currently "power" generated from windmills and waterwheels isn't used for much of anything. New features!
*Return of the Guild Masters
More 2D functionality
*Farming Improvements
Because as is farming is crazy easy and not terribly realistic. Farming in the 2D version was actually a challenge.
*Auto-mining
Less micromanagement is always a good thing.
Many people want these issues fixed or features added, some of them were lost after the 3D upgrade. Personally if just those 10 things were added/fixed I'd actually be pretty happy with the game.
Post by: Toady One on July 20, 2009, 03:53:40 am
Hopefully something like a dev log announcement and an announcement here will catch most people once the release comes up. Since the releases after this one are going to figure in the top 10 suggestions and so on, I think the added emphasis should bring enough attention back here to get people to revote if their votes were dropped.
May I ask why the top ten specifically?
I definitely understand going for what's been oft-suggested, but I've always thought that using the democratic votes of the general public has been sort of a sketchy idea when it comes to game design decisions, and a lot of good suggestions get overlooked for various reasons.
I've been using short-hand lately I guess, but I originally said and continued to mean that I would look at the top 10 suggestions seriously, think about the underlying problems/desires that many players have associated to those suggestions, and then think about how they might be addressed. I don't intend to cede design or design priorities to a popular vote, but I think the suggestion vote is a good way to see what matters most to people playing the game. If some internet meme had topped the vote or something, I would ignore it entirely, and if something like electricity or steam power or rifles had topped the vote, I'd probably have put up a note much earlier on about why I didn't think I'd be going there. As it stands, I think the top 10 are pretty good, although they do maybe highlight the problem with the voting system in terms of broader objects having a bit of an advantage, and I don't think I'm going to do everything exactly as stated in the voting item/associated threads.
I'm looking at the top 10 specifically because these are the suggestions with the most votes, and determining the overall desires of people playing the game is the function of the voting system that the regular suggestions forum can't provide. I still read all of the suggestions that are made here, and I'm not denying them before I look at the top 10, but the top 10 are popular and therefore merit a look. I'm sure I've overlooked things, but I feel I've been very thorough in my reading and categorization of the suggestions made here.
The next set of releases (hopefully I never have a single release wait remotely as long as this for a long, long time) are going to cover several things, as far as we've decided so far, in no particular order:
1) Improved sieges in dwarf mode
2) Adventurer skill use, adv entities and some town dynamics
3) Improved adv cave exploration
4) Whatever comes out of looking at the top 10 suggestions
I'm sure the suggestions made here in their entirety, as well as our own ideas, are going to impact 1-3 as well as whatever comes out of 4.
In addition, back to the issue of letting a popular vote decide priorities, sometimes I just don't have strong priorities when it comes to certain issues. For instance, say I wanted to work on dwarf mode a bit, and I wanted to pick between better mechanics and putting guilds back in. Sometimes I'm really into working on something, and sometimes there's a natural order, and sometimes it just doesn't matter that much. In the case I just mentioned, where I don't have a strong preference and there isn't a strong natural order, a popular vote works as well as anything, so as it stands, mechanics improvements before guild improvements would be fine. And they'd both end up done anyway.
Post by: G-Flex on July 20, 2009, 04:49:05 am
I think I was just interpreting you a bit too literally earlier. Sometimes my brain takes a vacation like that.
Post by: zagibu on July 20, 2009, 03:51:42 pm
I know, I already promised something during spring break, but then came BlackSash, and I didn't want to compete with his work. But it's gotten a bit silent in his thread, if I'm not mistaken...
Post by: Granite26 on July 22, 2009, 10:14:53 am
Have you considered wiping the items you have on the list that you are working on and listing them at the top of the vote page (or a link to the FotF thread)?
Have you considered wiping the over-broad suggestions (Improved Hauling, I'm looking at you) and creating a list of more specific issues? Alternatively, do you think you have a good grasp of what people are REALLY asking for, and where the middle ground is between that and what you want to do?
Post by: Neonivek on July 23, 2009, 05:53:44 am
Quote
Have you considered wiping the over-broad suggestions
Hmmm Ill have to come up with an oppinion. One problem with over-generalised suggestions is that they will effectively be on the list forever or be reborn constantly.
Post by: Granite26 on July 23, 2009, 07:47:05 am
Hmmm Ill have to come up with an oppinion. One problem with over-generalised suggestions is that they will effectively be on the list forever or be reborn constantly.
Yeah, I'd be the last person to suggest someone saying 'I want more stuff underground' or 'I want to fix medical care' was being overbroad, but some of the suggestions are lumping different problems together (Improved hauling has wheelbarrows and arrow stacks for cryin' out loud) and while they may be related in that they both solve one perceived problem, they are more generally totally different areas of development, and solve completely different ancilliary problems. I have trouble believing that a supermajority of the people voting for improved hauling would be happy with a single, small subset of the proposed items. (explicitly unlike UD or medical care)
Post by: Silverionmox on July 23, 2009, 10:48:50 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 23, 2009, 06:59:16 pm
Improved Hauling, I'm looking at you
Improved hauling is a generalist topic, not a topic like "more underground diversity." Improved hauling happens to be many suggestions trying to address the same problem, only one or two of them need to be done in order for the request to be marked as "completed forever" (at least until something crops up that means we need even more efficient methods of moving stuff around).
Underground diversity on the other hand is a giant list of suggestions that all have to be done (or at least, a very large subset). The more items completed the better.
Post by: Granite26 on July 24, 2009, 08:50:41 am
Improved Hauling, I'm looking at you
Improved hauling is a generalist topic, not a topic like "more underground diversity." Improved hauling happens to be many suggestions trying to address the same problem, only one or two of them need to be done in order for the request to be marked as "completed forever" (at least until something crops up that means we need even more efficient methods of moving stuff around).
Your "completed forever" is what worries me. There are people voting for improved hauling because they think it'll let them restack their bolts or because it'll let them use mining carts to haul all the rocks out to pretty their mine. Either of these two suggestions would justify clearing improved hauling, but a person who voted based on wanting one fixed would not be happy with the other solution and, in fact, would be extremely upset with an indication that their concern had been fixed and marked completed forever, with authoritative forumgoers telling them they were wasting their time trying to bring it back up.
Your idea of what improved hauling means may be solved by either, but I don't think you are in a position to tell other people that what they mean by improved hauling is fixed, even if BOTH solutions get added.
Post by: Christes on July 24, 2009, 11:02:36 am
Post by: Toady One on July 25, 2009, 04:38:18 am
Have you considered wiping the items you have on the list that you are working on and listing them at the top of the vote page (or a link to the FotF thread)?
I haven't considered lists or anything like that, and the wiping was going to be done after the release when attention would be brought to the voting again. I'm open to suggestions, but I don't want something that I need to manage too often, especially as new suggestions can be posted and aren't necessarily easy to pick out immediately.
Quote
Have you considered wiping the over-broad suggestions (Improved Hauling, I'm looking at you) and creating a list of more specific issues? Alternatively, do you think you have a good grasp of what people are REALLY asking for, and where the middle ground is between that and what you want to do?
I know there's an issue with overbroad suggestions that mean various things to various people, and if I remember, we didn't really have a resolution for that. I don't want to wipe out the top vote getter without some care, though it would be helpful somehow if each topic had a vaguely similar character in terms of scope and specificity. I'm not sure that's possible though.
In any case, as I said in my other post, I'm not going to look at the actual content of the suggestion necessarily so much as the underlying problem or issue it's going after. I think in most cases it's pretty clear what people are after, and in each of the cases up there at the top, I don't think I even need to seek out a middle ground, because a solution that fits in with the project goals should also alleviate the problem. With ones like "improved hauling" and "full graphics support", it's quite possible that the voters within one suggestion are voting for very, very different things, of course, and all I can do is address a subsection of related problems for a while. Upon a release, if the votes are reassigned or wiped and a similar topic doesn't rise back up to the top, that'll be that.
Post by: Draco18s on July 25, 2009, 11:11:41 am
Improved Hauling, I'm looking at you
Improved hauling is a generalist topic, not a topic like "more underground diversity." Improved hauling happens to be many suggestions trying to address the same problem, only one or two of them need to be done in order for the request to be marked as "completed forever" (at least until something crops up that means we need even more efficient methods of moving stuff around).
Your "completed forever" is what worries me.
You aren't getting it.
1) "Completed forever" was in quotes to indicate that there's always room for later improvement. Forever isn't. Admittedly completed "forever" would have been better.
2) You failed to recognize the difference between the two examples I was showing. One contains many things, not all of which need to be done, and one thing that is nebulous and wants more and more and more.
Post by: Granite26 on July 25, 2009, 11:29:53 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 25, 2009, 04:58:44 pm
Yes, except you are the one posting suggestions with giant 'don't vote for me' tags.
You still don't get it. They'd be removed, recreated, marked as "don't vote," then another release happens, then changed back. It's to have those people vote for other things, once another release happens they can come back. It's only to shuffle the votes around for ONE release. After that, if people still think it's an issue, they can vote for it.
Post by: Granite26 on July 25, 2009, 05:25:43 pm
Post by: Draco18s on July 26, 2009, 12:01:56 am
From page 2:
Yeah, I can delete stuff, but a lot of the things up there aren't finishable so much as they can be done up to the point that votes start to drift off of them. I imagine some people will camp out on underground diversity forever no matter how much I do, he he he.
You have absolutely no idea ;) I'm gonna update a new category "implemented features" to put all the stuff that was done, and start taking suggestions for new stuff/changes to stuff etc.
but I did slap a bigQuoteAspects of this suggestion have already been included in the Dev notes. Unless you are just rabid about UD (like I am) go back and cast a vote for something else that deserves the attention!
on the thread to try to dissuade campers. I'll add one to the poll entry if need be.
And when you say "Okay, I'm done with UD for the time being." I'll yank down the poll entry, let the thread simmer in the forums for a while, and reintroduce it as UD Pt. II when it has some actually new content.
So, no, it won't be sitting there hogging space for the next two years. But yes, you will never hear the end of it.
Post by: Granite26 on July 26, 2009, 08:53:28 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 26, 2009, 12:08:12 pm
Post by: Beardless on July 26, 2009, 01:31:55 pm
*Not an actual democracy. Votes are for advisory purposes only.
**In your estimation. Other people have different opinions and value systems. They probably have reasons for how they vote. Please respect that.
Post by: zagibu on July 26, 2009, 04:12:52 pm
Some things I have in mind are extensions to the simple list, like panels for the newest suggestions and a random pick. Also, vote accumulation over a certain time period could be interesting (think "hot" suggestions), or how a suggestion has lately fared in the global perspective (up or down).
Another idea is to incorporate different voting mechanisms into the list. Some people seem to prefer being able to give votes on all suggestions (including negative votes), and another request was a comparative algorithm, that queries the user to answer a series of "which do you like better" questions on two randomly picked suggestions.
The main idea is to not replace the current system, but to add the new functionality along it. Think different tabs/pages for the different voting mechanisms. This should also be an interesting experiment, to see which suggestions rank how in each different system.
And of course, some UI improvements might also be needed.
Post by: Aquillion on July 26, 2009, 10:45:25 pm
With up/down voting, simple uncontroversial suggestions would tend to drift to the top, which I think is better given the overall purpose and use for suggestion votes.
Post by: G-Flex on July 27, 2009, 12:53:36 am
You can't just upvote all the things you like and downvote all the things you don't, because almost EVERYTHING in the suggestion box (or at least the sane things, the ones that are worth considering in the first place) are things that people are going to want eventually.
It's less a question of "which suggestions do you like/dislike" and more a question of "which suggestions do you like more than the rest".
Post by: Footkerchief on July 27, 2009, 12:55:23 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 27, 2009, 11:26:12 am
You can't just upvote all the things you like and downvote all the things you don't, because almost EVERYTHING in the suggestion box (or at least the sane things, the ones that are worth considering in the first place) are things that people are going to want eventually.
Agreed
Quote
It's less a question of "which suggestions do you like/dislike" and more a question of "which suggestions do you like more than the rest".
"Here are two suggestions, which do you want more?"
It's not "one versus all" it's A vs. B, A vs. C, A vs. D, B vs. C, B vs. D, and C vs. D individually.
Post by: Neonivek on July 27, 2009, 11:36:53 am
There are many good reasons for this system as opposed to one where downvotes could harm an otherwise popular suggestion.
Post by: corvvs on August 02, 2009, 08:40:04 pm
Post by: Granite26 on August 03, 2009, 09:05:45 am
I just noticed, "Incorporate combat text" (currently #61) should be marked as resolved - combat reports and control of the message spam is already in the next version.
In theory, Toady's in charge of the clearing, and intends to do so at the release. (In reality, some people are deleting their suggestions when the work gets announced, or near complete, or whatever)
Post by: Topace3k on August 03, 2009, 11:02:14 pm
Post by: Silverionmox on August 04, 2009, 03:50:50 am
Additionally, it might help to avoid the general "Improved xxx" suggestions. With specific suggestions it's much easier to determine whether they have been addressed or not.
Post by: Mr.Person on August 04, 2009, 12:40:26 pm
Post by: Felblood on August 07, 2009, 11:25:40 pm
I think having more than 3 votes would be fine. Perhaps each person should have at least 5, perhaps 7?
I disagree.
This about gauging priorities, so forcing people to decide what's most important is a good thing.
Post by: Silverionmox on August 08, 2009, 05:09:39 am
There are plenty of suggestions, so that will still leave us with enough differentiation after everyone voted. Or votes could be distributed how the player wants (eg. 4 votes on one subject) so people can push one thing really hard or support a number of suggestions they would like a bit.I think having more than 3 votes would be fine. Perhaps each person should have at least 5, perhaps 7?
I disagree.
This about gauging priorities, so forcing people to decide what's most important is a good thing.
Post by: corvvs on August 10, 2009, 07:08:59 pm
Also, I added the visible movement between tiles suggestion to the list.
Post by: Draco18s on August 14, 2009, 12:39:56 pm
Also, I added the visible movement between tiles suggestion to the list.
...Limitations of the graphics engine aside...
Post by: Faces of Mu on September 14, 2009, 05:34:57 am
In hindsight, I'm still glad we've got this system here. :-*
Post by: Draco18s on September 14, 2009, 08:44:42 am
5 or 6 of the things above it reduce annoying micromanagement in fortress mode, three add things directly to fortress mode (more content/challenge), and two are detail things (one of which is so often requested).
Other great ideas far down the list:
#21: rope ladders (building down)*
#41: doctors and hospitals*
#42: underground diversity*
#45: less noise (building chairs shouldn't cause "disruptive noise" in a 32x32x32 cube)
#74: true arena
#90: magic
*going in in the next version
Post by: Footkerchief on September 14, 2009, 12:22:17 pm
Dear dear. How did Adventure-mode skills get so low? Do we not need more things to do between releases? What about voting for things that increase Df's longevity, things that multiply the possibilities to the greatest extent? :'(
It's not really worth voting for since it's already on dev_next (http://bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_next.html) and has been selected, along with sieges and the top 10 ESV entries, as a priority for releases after the upcoming one: (http://bay12games.com/media/b12_call_1_transcript.html)
Quote from: DF Talk 1 Transcript
This also turned out, as far as the timing of 'when are we going to see this kind of thing', there's the return of the guilds, or I don't remember exactly what it's called, up in the eternal suggestions voting up on the suggestions list and it's doing pretty well. I said I'd take a look at the top ones there for next time - now by next time I mean the next series of releases because I really hope I never have a release this long again, it's going to be over a year - so in the short term we're going to be looking at this stuff, it's not like it's just something I'm talking about; we're going to look at this along with the adventurer's skills stuff and the improved sieges; job priorities; improved hauling; I don't remember if improved farming is up there; increased tile support for graphics ... whatever things were up there that people wanted we're going to be looking at.
Post by: zagibu on September 19, 2009, 02:45:29 pm
Post by: Footkerchief on September 19, 2009, 03:28:13 pm
How bad would it be if the new script also meant a wiping of all votes and/or suggestions? I can probably avoid it, but it would help the new design if I could start completely anew.
Wiping votes a while AFTER the next release isn't such a bad idea, but it took the current top 10 a while to work their way up there. Are you planning to change the way votes are allocated? I can't imagine the suggestions themselves would be that hard to carry over?
Post by: zagibu on September 19, 2009, 05:06:50 pm
It wouldn't be terribly hard to reference and modify the old tables. I just thought it would be a good occasion to relaunch the whole affair and purge the dead weight that has been accumulated during the past year. A lot of the current suggestions don't even have a linked discussion thread, so there is probably a lot of potential for purging. A vote purging could also be necessary to make the results of the "pick3" voting directly comparable with the other voting methods.
But yeah, I also realize that some people might not like having to re-vote for or even re-create their suggestions. Maybe I should leave the suggestions and votes alone and add the new script along the old one, instead of replacing it.
Post by: Footkerchief on September 19, 2009, 05:16:42 pm
I just thought it would be a good occasion to relaunch the whole affair and purge the dead weight that has been accumulated during the past year. A lot of the current suggestions don't even have a linked discussion thread, so there is probably a lot of potential for purging.
That's true. Some people are being proactive about marking obsolete suggestions for removal, but a purging might still be in order.
Post by: zagibu on September 20, 2009, 10:15:30 am
I'm not sure whether this would lead to a pronunciation or an attenuation of the current voting assignments...
Post by: Footkerchief on September 20, 2009, 01:51:25 pm
I'm also considering to change the "pick3" voting method (the one in the currently active script) to a simple vote for your favourite suggestion, because pick3 is a subset of the new "distribute" voting method, where people can support any number of suggestions as strongly as they like.
Isn't the "favorite suggestion" also kinda subsumed by the direct compare mode, though? The three methods you mentioned before (direct compare, up/down/neutral, and fractions/distribute) sound like an ideal solution to me.
Post by: Toady One on September 20, 2009, 01:56:48 pm
Since the votes have gained some official importance for the next series of releases, I don't think the current votes should be purged unless they are saved in some way. Of course, I could just do that, and use those as the list I'm working from while the new systems attract votes.
Post by: Footkerchief on September 20, 2009, 02:19:55 pm
Quote
The Borda count is a single-winner election method in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. The Borda count determines the winner of an election by giving each candidate a certain number of points corresponding to the position in which he or she is ranked by each voter. Once all votes have been counted the candidate with the most points is the winner. Because it sometimes elects broadly acceptable candidates, rather than those preferred by the majority, the Borda count is often described as a consensus-based electoral system, rather than a majoritarian one.
Quote
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is the American English term for a voting system used for single-winner elections, in which voters rank candidates in an order of preference. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate's ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next ranking on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated.
Quote
The Condorcet candidate or Condorcet winner of an election is the candidate who, when compared with every other candidate, is preferred by more voters. Informally, the Condorcet winner is the person who would win a two-candidate election against each of the other candidates. A Condorcet winner will not always exist in a given set of votes, which is known as Condorcet's voting paradox.
(various systems that fit this description) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_criterion#Complying_methods)
Apparently it's a nontrivial problem, in regard to both voting theory and computational complexity. (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=883108)
Incidentally, the up/down/neutral method could also have some problems with voters playing the system, assuming down votes are just subtracted from up votes -- there's no incentive to vote neutral on anything.
Post by: Toady One on September 20, 2009, 02:52:52 pm
Hmmm.... maybe you can only have as many down votes as you have up votes? Maybe that's too much like direct compare. If there are no down votes, but just up and neutral (so it's a pick-as-many-as-you-like method), maybe that's different enough from fractional voting. The lack of normalization is what makes it complementary to the fractional method rather than inferior, I guess.
Post by: Footkerchief on September 20, 2009, 03:10:24 pm
If there are no down votes, but just up and neutral (so it's a pick-as-many-as-you-like method), maybe that's different enough from fractional voting. The lack of normalization is what makes it complementary to the fractional method rather than inferior, i guess.
Yeah, that sounds ideal.
zagibu, the direct compare method would be cool, but if it turns out to be a boondoggle we can probably do without it. Thanks for continuing to work on this, by the way.
Post by: Toady One on September 20, 2009, 03:52:28 pm
Say we take the 1-2 rating system (up/neutral).
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10
Voter 1: 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Voter 2: 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 2
Voter 1 is doing the game, as it were, or maybe just has a strong preference, while Voter 2 is going by general preference.
However, is anything lost if we allow:
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10
Voter 1: 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Voter 2: 2 1.5 1 2 1.5 2 1.5 1 1.5 2
Voter 1 is still doing the same thing they'd be allowed to do in any rating system, with the same effect, and Voter 2 is expressing their preferences better. It's in a 1-2 scale, but this is just a rescaled 1-3 rating system (that is, up/neutral/down = 2/1.5/1 = 3/2/1).
I could very well have missed something, but if this is correct, then a 1 to 10 or even 1 to 100 (perhaps too clunky) rating system is always more informative than an up/down system, even taking cynical voting into account.
Speaking of trying to game the system, I remember one site had a 1-10 system and would divide down the value of somebody's votes during summation if they had a high standard deviation (since they are just voting high-low), but that might be a little rough, he he he.
Post by: Silverionmox on September 20, 2009, 04:01:01 pm
Post by: Toady One on September 20, 2009, 04:04:17 pm
I'm not sure what direct compare gets you... maybe an average of those two visions, sort of. If direct compare uses an ordered list for each voter, then it's like a fractional vote where everybody has to smear their amount out in the same proportions (but on different items of their choosing). This reduces the "what I want most" feeling and injects some of the overall game feeling into the final results. There's a tradeoff between forcing people to pick one thing over another and letting them tell you how much they like something in and of itself without having to devalue anything, but I'm not sure how to understand the final result for direct compare in terms like "what people want now" or "the overall finished game".
Post by: corvvs on September 20, 2009, 10:29:16 pm
Yeah, I think the two voting systems will complement each other well in that way. I expect fractional voting will end up looking more-or-less like the current list (since 3 votes restricts you to a few options), whereas a, say, 1-10 rating system would give us a completely different list based more on the overall sense of what people want the game to be, which will be interesting to see.
I'm not sure what direct compare gets you... maybe an average of those two visions, sort of. If direct compare uses an ordered list for each voter, then it's like a fractional vote where everybody has to smear their amount out in the same proportions (but on different items of their choosing). This reduces the "what I want most" feeling and injects some of the overall game feeling into the final results. There's a tradeoff between forcing people to pick one thing over another and letting them tell you how much they like something in and of itself without having to devalue anything, but I'm not sure how to understand the final result for direct compare in terms like "what people want now" or "the overall finished game".
I think direct compare is the most useful in terms of getting at the heart of what is the most interesting overall but also the most complicated to process.
A two step system would be the way to do it, I think.
First loop, for each individual person sort voting items by preference. Now turn those into point scores (signed - the median item voted on is set to zero points. items lower are assigned a negative number based on distance, higher items are given a positive number. The total range should be dependent on thenumber of total voting items, regardless of the number of votes cast by each individual; that way the person who only cast 3 votes still gets his highest rated item at +127 while the person who compared all 255 items at some point in the voting also has their highest item at +127).
Second loop, tally preferences for each item by adding everyone's individual scores. Higher scores are what have been consistently voted as more important than other features.
Complications can arise when one person votes such that item A is preferred over item B which is better than item C which is better than item A. This can be fixed by rigging the questions so that items are never compared to items of sufficiently different rank so as not to allow those answers. Once an item has been voted on for the first time by a given voter, only allow him to compare it to items immediately surrounding it in rank, or items not yet voted on by him.
Another solution would be to allow the totally random questions and force all items involved in a loop like that to zero points, but I think it's better to force the questions to extract meaningful answers.
Post by: Granite26 on September 21, 2009, 09:38:17 am
I'm leaning towards an X votes (3-10) for different things (so you can't load up) IF you do want to load up, I still think arbitrary cuts is more mathy than useful... Just use 100 votes and leave it at that. (Programmer says: make the number of votes a variable and multiple votes for one thing a checkbox)
combined with a Up/Down/Apathy (with shown counts, so you can tell controversial stuff from general apathy). Scores should be -X, 0, and +Y. X and Y don't need to be the same, but X(dislike) should be less than the 'no opinion' or 'hasn't voted' options, and since 'hasn't voted' should be 0, X needs to be less than zero for the summation.
And instructions for how vote-advice will be interpretted (Up/Down is vision, quantified votes is timeline) would be useful, so people knew how it was going to be looked at. Especially if its a 'timeline will be interpreted for work required'.
Edit: Edit for clarity
Post by: zagibu on September 21, 2009, 12:39:54 pm
I think that the fixed votes methods (pick1, pick3, pick10, whatever) result in a more or less exponential curve, were few top suggestions attract most of the votes and the rest has to be content with a lot less. This is because people are forced to choose a subset of their preferences, and then they choose those that are also popular among others, because these have the highest chances to top the list. What I'm not sure about is whether more votes increase or decrease the steepness of the curve (probably decrease).
The fractional method and the up/down or /up/neutral/down voting should produce a much flatter curve, because here, people can vote for any number of things. Of course, the fractional method could turn into a pickX farce, because people realize that the more things they spread their vote on, the less power each single item receives. The up/down method though is different, because each up is 1 vote, so it doesn't make sense to vote for only your favourite thing. It's more like a dual/triple partition of the list into things you like, things you don't care about (if neutral vote is included), and things you dislike. It might be pretty hard on some suggestions.
The direct compare method on the other hand is hard to predict. With our 200 suggestions till now it would lead to max. 20000 comparisons PER USER. with 1000 Users voting, this would lead to 20 millions entries in the db. This means it won't be possible to dynamically calculate the rankings on every page load. So it will definately be necessary to calculate a ranking already at the comparison level (like add 1 for every "win" in a pair).
I have the feeling that the direct compare method would be the most accurate in representing the demands of the community, because it kind of let's everyone construct their private ranking, then calculates the average of those lists. Also, it honorates hard work, because those who do more compares also have a stronger influence on the total outcome.
What I also thought of was a fractional ranking, where the total weight of a person's vote is determined by their forum post count...maybe in some limits, but maybe also direct (so that Granite26's vote would be equal to that of over 3000 newbies...wouldn't you like that, mate?).
Post by: Granite26 on September 21, 2009, 01:00:20 pm
As far as the direct compare goes, in this context it doesn't make sense to worry about circular results (Prefer A to B, B to C, and yet C to A), so direct is equivilent to an ordinal ranking system per player, with is O(NlogN) if you use a quicksort algorithm to generate questions (460 questions?), especially after you generate your 'generic rating'. As far as storage, you'd only need to store 200 ordinals (uints) for each user.
This only works if you agree that it doesn't make sense to prefer improved sieges to improved hauling, improved hauling to improved graphics, but yet prefer improved graphics to improved sieges.
Edit 2: - Up/Down also allows you to see the difference between the sexy stuff people get excited about and the simple engine stuff that everybody just wants to show up. Perhaps show 'average vote' as a variable in the multiple vote system?
Post by: Draco18s on September 21, 2009, 03:50:30 pm
One of the teens came up with this ingenious idea, lugged everything out to a parking lot and had each person come by at a different time and do the following:
Grab something and move it that way it you want it more because of its monetary value (X) and that way if you want it due to sentimental value (Y). Move it in the other direction for not-wanting it or considering it of no value. He then measured the locations of all the stuff from each person and used a computer program to figure out who should get what stuff.
One of the questions he was asked as, "what if someone puts everything in the far corner of the parking lot?" "Then it's as if they made no choice at all: they want everything equally, so it doesn't matter what they get."
Based on this, ever suggestion could have two types of vote:
1) Good idea/Bad idea ("this should be in the game because it makes the game good," e.g. more flexible RAWs, more creatures, a use for soap)
2) I want this idea/I don't want this idea ("this is my pet, I want it because I think its cool," e.g. more realistic mining, poop, better wood use, harder/realistic farming)
And they could have a sliding scale 1-10. Ideally, items rated highly on the #1 scale are core items, #2 scale things are bloats and powergoals (reqs are half-and-half). The #2 scale is for how passionate a user is for wanting to see that feature, whereas the #1 scale should be more reflective of how it effects vanilla gameplay (being able to disable and dodge traps in adventure mode is something that's needed but might not be highly desired for some users because they primarily play in fort mode, and want to see more realistic mining or farming, whereas for someone else, they might think that realisic farming is not only desirable but necessary for a proper challenge, but also sees the need for adventure mode trap dodging, but is indifferent (a 5 on the 1-10 scale) about when the feature comes).
What the math has to do is find the average location on the XY plot based on the input (each user's input scaled appropriately to a bell curve--if someone rates everything a 8 with a single 2, then on average they've rated things as a 5, except one item as a 1) and give it a score, the higher the score is on both scales would indicate a higher priority on the dev list.
It separates out why people want different features and finds the features that the game needs while supplying features that people desire.
Post by: zagibu on September 22, 2009, 05:42:51 am
Post by: Granite26 on September 22, 2009, 09:49:18 am
Post by: Draco18s on September 22, 2009, 11:28:58 am
Hmmm, I'm not sure what the use of the 2 dimensional scale is, if you compress it to 1 dimensional again.
Nono, it stays as a two dimensional scale the whole time. The end output has each suggestion having an X and a Y value and can be plotted on a Cartesian grid.
Quote
Also, I guess everyone would vote their things highest on both scales, regardless whether it is a "needed" or a "liked" thing.
Voting everything high is the same as voting everything low: you have no preference.
Spoiler: "Example" (click to show/hide)
I'm not using exact math there, nor a very large sample. But the idea is to look at each person's data set and find the standard deviations and adjust the data appropriately to get a normalized data set. Someone who votes only 4/5/6 (down vote/neutral/up vote) would have their data internally represented as 1/5/10 when compared to other voters.
(I am not implying that a user's votes are not changed visibly to them, as every new vote would alter the internal representation.)
It's in a person's best interest to vote using the whole spectrum available, but the system compensates for users who don't, so that a 4/5/6 d/n/u is exactly the same as a 1/2/3 and an 8/9/10, as well as preventing an abuse of the system (i.e. voting all 10s). It attempts to separate out why a user wants a particular feature, and while all users might not use the want/need axis the same way, there should be enough variation to give the output a range showing which features are highly desired and which are needed more quickly.
Post by: zagibu on September 23, 2009, 04:42:17 pm
Post by: zagibu on September 27, 2009, 04:41:58 pm
I've also completed the thumbs up/neutral/down rating mode. I'd say I'm 30% done overall.
This reminds me of some book I read where this family was trying to sort out all of the stuff that an elderly couple left behind.I thought some more about this and it seems to consist mainly of two things: a second dimension (the use of which I find questionable) and the relative order of a person's votes (like a personal ranking of the things). This relative order is already covered in the fractional vote process. So we will have a one-dimensional version of your suggestion at least. It's also what I'm implementing next.
One of the teens came up with this ingenious idea, lugged everything out to a parking lot and had each person come by at a different time and do the following:
Grab something and move it that way it you want it more because of its monetary value (X) and that way if you want it due to sentimental value (Y). Move it in the other direction for not-wanting it or considering it of no value. He then measured the locations of all the stuff from each person and used a computer program to figure out who should get what stuff.
One of the questions he was asked as, "what if someone puts everything in the far corner of the parking lot?" "Then it's as if they made no choice at all: they want everything equally, so it doesn't matter what they get."
Based on this, ever suggestion could have two types of vote:
1) Good idea/Bad idea ("this should be in the game because it makes the game good," e.g. more flexible RAWs, more creatures, a use for soap)
2) I want this idea/I don't want this idea ("this is my pet, I want it because I think its cool," e.g. more realistic mining, poop, better wood use, harder/realistic farming)
And they could have a sliding scale 1-10. Ideally, items rated highly on the #1 scale are core items, #2 scale things are bloats and powergoals (reqs are half-and-half). The #2 scale is for how passionate a user is for wanting to see that feature, whereas the #1 scale should be more reflective of how it effects vanilla gameplay (being able to disable and dodge traps in adventure mode is something that's needed but might not be highly desired for some users because they primarily play in fort mode, and want to see more realistic mining or farming, whereas for someone else, they might think that realisic farming is not only desirable but necessary for a proper challenge, but also sees the need for adventure mode trap dodging, but is indifferent (a 5 on the 1-10 scale) about when the feature comes).
What the math has to do is find the average location on the XY plot based on the input (each user's input scaled appropriately to a bell curve--if someone rates everything a 8 with a single 2, then on average they've rated things as a 5, except one item as a 1) and give it a score, the higher the score is on both scales would indicate a higher priority on the dev list.
It separates out why people want different features and finds the features that the game needs while supplying features that people desire.
Edit 2: - Up/Down also allows you to see the difference between the sexy stuff people get excited about and the simple engine stuff that everybody just wants to show up. Perhaps show 'average vote' as a variable in the multiple vote system?What do you mean with average vote in the multiple vote system? An average of the up/neutral/down vote total per item? I thought I'd better not display this, because it could hurt some people's feelings when they get -345 or something on their suggestion...
Post by: Footkerchief on September 27, 2009, 04:55:06 pm
Post by: zagibu on September 27, 2009, 05:14:49 pm
I also re-read the posts I didn't quite understand before, and I'd like to address two things:
Playing the system is less important here than in e.g. an election, because the output of the voting is a ranking, not a single winner. I doubt Toady will ever get influenced by this ranking so much that he focuses his whole devtime on the top suggestion. Also, what I haven't mentioned yet, the rankings are separate from the voting lists (which are randomly ordered), so playing the system as a side-effect of lazyness should be ruled out.
The neg/neutral/pos system has an important technical difference compared to the rating scale system: You only have to store ups or downs, because you can go with -1, 0 and +1 respectively. If you have a positive-only scale, you either have to store all ratings, or you start the scale with 0, which means extremely disliked will be the default value.
A rating scale system might also be interesting...maye if progress on the other things is faster than expected...
Post by: Footkerchief on September 27, 2009, 05:27:23 pm
The neg/neutral/pos system has an important technical difference compared to the rating scale system: You only have to store ups or downs, because you can go with -1, 0 and +1 respectively. If you have a positive-only scale, you either have to store all ratings, or you start the scale with 0, which means extremely disliked will be the default value.
Yeah, this comes back to the question of whether or not the final number (votes up minus votes down, presumably) has any absolute meaning, or is just something you use to rank the entries. Toady was assuming (I think) that it doesn't have absolute meaning. I'm still not sure. There's certainly some psychological significance to some people, like in your observation that an entry with a score of 0 seems "extremely disliked."
Post by: Draco18s on September 27, 2009, 07:51:58 pm
Number of Votes + Up ranks - Down Ranks.
A popular voted suggestion, even one with lots of down votes, would still have a higher absolute value than a suggestion with no votes.
This does end up making an up vote worth 2, a neutral worth 1, and a down worth 0.
Post by: Footkerchief on September 27, 2009, 07:57:25 pm
Post by: Neonivek on September 27, 2009, 08:56:46 pm
Post by: zagibu on September 28, 2009, 12:32:57 am
Solution to the up/down/neutral absolute value issue:Yeah, and that's the problem. Unrated suggestions having lower votes than negatively rated ones. Also, I'd have to select another column in the DB query to retrieve the number of votes per item, which isn't hard, but is unnecessary, if you use the -1, 0, +1 system.
Number of Votes + Up ranks - Down Ranks.
A popular voted suggestion, even one with lots of down votes, would still have a higher absolute value than a suggestion with no votes.
This does end up making an up vote worth 2, a neutral worth 1, and a down worth 0.
Post by: Draco18s on September 28, 2009, 12:45:21 am
Wait a minute... doesn't that make Negative votes the equivilant of -2 and Possitive ones a +1?
-1 + 1 = -2?
Post by: Footkerchief on September 28, 2009, 12:49:41 am
Yeah, and that's the problem. Unrated suggestions having lower votes than negatively rated ones. Also, I'd have to select another column in the DB query to retrieve the number of votes per item, which isn't hard, but is unnecessary, if you use the -1, 0, +1 system.
Read that last line in Draco's post again -- the system is really just ((-1, 0, 1) + 1) => (0, 1, 2). Bad notation but hopefully you get the idea. So you don't need an extra column either (not that it matters, this forum software has to be doing all kinds of crazy joins and subqueries all the time anyway).
Post by: Neonivek on September 28, 2009, 12:54:43 am
Wait a minute... doesn't that make Negative votes the equivilant of -2 and Possitive ones a +1?
-1 + 1 = -2?
Well here is the actual math
(-1)-(+1) = -2
Since voting 'No' effectively removes a neutral vote and adds a negative vote.
Post by: Footkerchief on September 28, 2009, 01:05:34 am
Post by: Neonivek on September 28, 2009, 01:07:26 am
It doesn't do that. It adds 1 because every vote adds 1, then subtracts 1 because it's a thumbs down. Try to think about one person's vote by itself, without worrying about whether it "negates" another vote.
But then... Voting down does absolutely nothing but serve to make possitive votes crazy.
Alright how about this
A Down vote does nothing
A possitive vote adds one
Keep voting limits. (No point in Neutral votes anyhow. Just don't vote)
Post by: Draco18s on September 28, 2009, 03:09:58 am
Also:
Well here is the actual math
(-1)-(+1) = -2
Since voting 'No' effectively removes a neutral vote and adds a negative vote.
Where did you get that math?
Number_of_Votes is a positive integer, equal to #Up + #Neutral + #Down where #Up, #Neutral, and #Down are all positive integers.
A positive number plus a positive number minus a positive number (where the first one is larger than the sum of the other two) will always be a positive number (assume that 0 is considered positive).
Thus a singular vote would be counted thus:
Vote Up: #Total = 1, #Up = 1, #Neu = 0, #Down = 0.
1 + 1 + 0 - 0 = 2
Vote Neutral: #Total = 1, #Up = 0, #Neu = 1, #Down = 0.
1 + 0 + 1 - 0 = 1
Vote Down: #Total = 1, #Up = 0, #Neu = 0, #Down = 1.
1 + 0 + 0 - 1 = 0
Post by: Granite26 on September 28, 2009, 09:00:41 am
Edit 2: - Up/Down also allows you to see the difference between the sexy stuff people get excited about and the simple engine stuff that everybody just wants to show up. Perhaps show 'average vote' as a variable in the multiple vote system?What do you mean with average vote in the multiple vote system? An average of the up/neutral/down vote total per item? I thought I'd better not display this, because it could hurt some people's feelings when they get -345 or something on their suggestion...
That's really two thoughts there...
1: Stuff that is contentious will have a lot of up and down votes. Stuff that is boring will have a lot of don't cares. They will have the same ranking (score) but are very different.
2: On the 'voting multiple times' side, it would also be interesting to see the difference between 10 people using 10 votes or 100 people using 1 vote. (although it sounds like you are getting ride of the multiple votes for 1 thing?)
I think you'll lose a LOT of interest in the voting if you don't let people see the results, hurt feelings or not. I'd actually be impressed if someone could get a -350 score.
I'd like to reiterate that 'don't care' should have the same value as 'didn't vote', while a the negative should be less. Unless you want the options to be 'really like', 'it's ok but don't rush', apathy (no vote), and 'nevar!!!!!!!'
Post by: zagibu on September 28, 2009, 04:03:45 pm
Post by: zagibu on October 04, 2009, 06:19:07 am
Also, I'm not sure whether to allow negative ratings in fractional mode. By doing so, it would become similar to thumbs rating, while otherwise it is similar to pickX mode.
Post by: BlckKnght on October 06, 2009, 06:46:14 pm
First, it needs to avoid too much of a "positive reenforcement" effect on highly voted suggestions. I think we have a lot this in the current voting system because the highest voted results are listed first when new voters come to look at the ideas. This is problematic when voters have a limited number of votes because they are likely to see suggestions they like near the top. Even if they read all the way down the page, they probably won't have any votes left to give to the ideas there (and many won't even look). The ideas that are near the bottom of the list may never get serious consideration on by more than a few dozen very persistent contributors, even if they are better ideas than ones high up in the list.
The Second issue is that old suggestions should not automatically outrank newer ones. If an idea is posted on the day after the new voting system goes live, how will it compare with a slightly better suggestion that gets posted six months later? Some of the voting systems suggested on this thread appear to have effectively zero chance that the a new suggestion will ever overtake one with a long history.
While there are surely many ways that we could avoid those issues, I have one favorite, which has only received a brief discussion:
The idea is to avoid the direct evaluation of suggestions, and instead have voters compare two ideas to each other (the pair would be chosen randomly). When a user comes to vote, they'd be presented with two idea and asked which they'd like to see Toady One work on first. After making their selection, they'll be given another pair of suggestions, and could keep voting for as long as they want. A variation on one of the Condorcet vote counting methods can turn the collection of relative preferences into a ranking of all of the suggestions. The rankings would be shown on another page (not the one where the voting takes place), though the position of the suggestions that were voted on could also be shown immediately after a user's vote is recorded.
This system avoids both of the issues I raised above, because it does not show ideas in any order (avoiding a feedback effect) and allows new ideas to be compared with older ones on an equal basis (avoiding historical inertia). It also allows voters to contribute without requiring them to spend a lot of time trying to evaluate every idea that has ever been suggested. Some users might only enter one or two relative preferences, while others might enter their preferences on dozens or even hundreds of pairings (with N suggestions there will be N*(N-1)/2 pairings, so it's doubtful that anyone will get to all of them). One final advantage is that suggestions that are duplicates of each other could easily be identified by putting that as one option on the voting page. Whereas duplicate entries tend to work against suggestions in most limited votes systems, it won't hurt anything in a comparison system.
Post by: Draco18s on October 06, 2009, 07:12:11 pm
I would have put it up myself, but I don't have access to php/MySQL and didn't feel like converting the algorithm out of python into something usable.
Post by: martinuzz on October 15, 2009, 09:08:57 am
Post by: Xombie on November 23, 2009, 06:40:37 am
You not going to get kingdom mode or meteor storms any time soon but unstoppable game and no "You have struck alunite!"-pausing is something really can be done next version(i think). Really think of people who playing DF right now not just your grandchildren.
Also suggestion on the list itself:
1) It either too long or 3 votes isn't enough.
2) And I would be pleased to place ALL my votes on same thing(see above).
edit: 3) Use Okkama's razor. Alot. For example we have "Improved Hauling" and "Carry Multiple Items". And winner is Chrispy with his priceless "Improving the game". WTF really?
Post by: Footkerchief on November 23, 2009, 11:48:56 am
Elect "Messages control" FFS!
You not going to get kingdom mode or meteor storms any time soon but unstoppable game and no "You have struck alunite!"-pausing is something really can be done next version(i think). Really think of people who playing DF right now not just your grandchildren.
It's already in for next version -- you can disable auto-pause for everything except a siege arrival (that'll probably be taken care of when Toady is doing siege improvements soon after the upcoming release).
Post by: Neonivek on November 23, 2009, 12:12:13 pm
Improving the game? What you mean like we are already?
Though we still need a better way to get rid of suggestions. I still see many suggestions with messages like "Resolved" or "No longer and issue" (and some that don't but that have been added or will soon) that are still on the list with plenty of votes to spare.
Post by: Silverionmox on November 23, 2009, 12:33:32 pm
Post by: Neonivek on November 23, 2009, 12:49:15 pm
Post by: Xombie on November 24, 2009, 07:45:46 am
those guys doing their best to improve DF
207. (0)"Koratbomenlds" - Ratmen have bred with kobolds! Huzzah!
Post by: SkyRender on November 24, 2009, 09:04:28 pm
The basic idea I have is that every Dwarf has maybe 9 (or at least 3) different setups you can have them use, with a single hotkey press on the Preferences/Labor menu causing the game to load them up to one of their user-saved presets. When you get right down to it, this is basically in intermediate step between fortress-wide orders and individual Dwarf orders.
On that note, I would also love to see the ability to pick a specific job on the Jobs list and assign a given Dwarf that task as their next priority once they're free. To the point that it'd auto-enable any appropriate labors when you do and force them back to that task after any vital ones (Eat/Drink/Sleep) until it got finished or canceled. But I'm sure that has been suggested in some form already.
Post by: Silverionmox on November 25, 2009, 07:25:38 am
Here's a practical suggestion I've not seen yet: hot-swappable preference profiles for Dwarves. While it's nice that you can enable or disable any labor for any Dwarf at any time, it would be even nicer if you could automatically set them up to do (or not do) a certain set of labors as needed. This is especially true of brokers, who seem to think that the lowest task on their priority list is trading at the depot (to the point that, even with all labor disabled, they'll still opt to haul items to the depot before they opt to trade!).I suggest that you suggest your suggestion on the suggestion forum proper rather than in a thread dedicated to issues with the eternal voting list of suggestions.
The basic idea I have is that every Dwarf has maybe 9 (or at least 3) different setups you can have them use, with a single hotkey press on the Preferences/Labor menu causing the game to load them up to one of their user-saved presets. When you get right down to it, this is basically in intermediate step between fortress-wide orders and individual Dwarf orders.
On that note, I would also love to see the ability to pick a specific job on the Jobs list and assign a given Dwarf that task as their next priority once they're free. To the point that it'd auto-enable any appropriate labors when you do and force them back to that task after any vital ones (Eat/Drink/Sleep) until it got finished or canceled. But I'm sure that has been suggested in some form already.
Post by: Hectonkhyres on November 28, 2009, 05:29:40 pm
I suggest that you suggest your suggestion on the suggestion forum proper rather than in a thread dedicated to issues with the eternal voting list of suggestions.Your suggestion has caused an overflow error in reality. The game Dwarf Fortress is now a MMORPG based on the cooking show Iron Chef. Congratulations.
Post by: G-Flex on November 28, 2009, 07:13:52 pm
I would play the hell out of that.
The question is which skills Chairman Kaga has, and which ones are at Legendary.
Post by: Chrispy on December 06, 2009, 12:36:51 am
And winner is Chrispy with his priceless "Improving the game". WTF really?
Well, I realize that the voting list is SERIOUS BUSINESS, but I broke form and did a gag suggestion. ;-)
Post by: Christes on December 06, 2009, 05:07:56 am
Post by: Draco18s on December 06, 2009, 07:25:37 am
The best part about that suggestion is Toady's note about it.
"This suggestion is very broad."
Post by: Xombie on December 15, 2009, 08:47:09 am
Just FYI, Bay12 doesn't stand for "bay for 12 year olds"And winner is Chrispy with his priceless "Improving the game". WTF really?
Well, I realize that the voting list is SERIOUS BUSINESS, but I broke form and did a gag suggestion. ;-)
Post by: Neonivek on December 16, 2009, 04:49:19 am
It is to me that the Suggestion forum and by extension the Eternal Suggestion voting (in fact even more so) should remain with some level of seriousness.
While in no way does this mean suggestions cannot be comical or presented so in such a fashion, it goes without saying however that frivilous, pointless, and overall disruptive suggestions shouldn't be and that claims of humor doesn't change the fact.
Besides "Improve the game" is hardly a joke as it is on the internet without any of the accompaning style, context, or subtly to make it work. So it comes off as cheap and even childish due to its lack of quality anyhow. Though if you want me to sum it up
1) You cannot derive inflection or tone from your suggestion
2) You cannot derive humor from your suggestion except through assumption
3) Your suggestion is blunt and intrusive
and those are the reason why even on a level of humor it doesn't hold up. In fact it is closer to trollish then humorous due to the scrutany the game development often falls under.
Post by: zagibu on December 16, 2009, 07:30:58 am
Post by: Neonivek on December 16, 2009, 07:37:46 am
I think it's funny. I mean, come on, give him a break. Toady would have deleted it long ago, if it bothered him.
I am only giving longer criticisms of his joke in light that he justifies his actions under the banner of "It is only a joke" and says so in possibly the second most aggrivating way I can think of.
Post by: zagibu on December 23, 2009, 01:49:50 pm
Here is a small demo of what I mean, tell me what you think of it: http://www.speedshare.org/download.php?id=925B92A911 (don't click on the giant orange download button, as it just opens an ad popup...scroll down and use the regular button).
Yeah, I'm sorry about the hosting, my server is down at the moment, and I've just used the first free upload service I've found with google. If you know a better way to share it, feel free to do so.
Post by: Dame de la Licorne on December 25, 2009, 11:56:43 am
Although this method works well with short(er) lists, I'd like to see how it operates with the really long list of eternal suggestions. My main fear is that it would get very unwieldy with the ~200 suggestions, and not everyone would be patient enough to go through and rank every single suggestion. Maybe you could add an option to end the ranking process early, for those of us who either don't have either the time or the inclination to go through and rank every single suggestion?
There is also the issue that people may want to change their rankings at a later date, have you thought at all about how to allow that (if at all)? (Sort of ties in to the previous question).
All-in-all, good work with putting together something of the sort and continuing to improve it :)
-Dame de la Licorne
Post by: zagibu on December 25, 2009, 06:37:52 pm
I'm not yet sure how to process the user-rankings into one final table, will have to put more thought into that, before I start coding. It'll probably not be as simple as computing the mean rank and sorting by that.
Post by: Footkerchief on December 30, 2009, 02:49:14 pm
Post by: zagibu on January 03, 2010, 10:24:22 am
Post by: Mel_Vixen on January 24, 2010, 04:08:26 am
Post by: Draco18s on January 24, 2010, 02:02:38 pm
Hmmm looks like point 193, 171, 167, 133, 113, 76, 46, 42(without prothetics) are coverd by he next release? But i am not entirly sure.
76 (which I "own") isn't completed yet. He's got something real basic, which isn't covered by either BLOAT221 or BLOAT224.
Post by: Aquillion on February 01, 2010, 06:18:46 pm
So, I've been working on the new script for a while now. I've decided to scrap the idea with the different voting methods and instead allow personal ranking of all suggestions. The basic idea is, that you load the suggestions once, then let the user build his own personal ranking on the client side, and save the list at the end.Yeah, I think I'd like to see something that gives people a way to vote things down in addition to just voting things up; rating each suggestion would be perfect (especially since right now, you can only expression your opinion at all on a few things, and voting for really low-ranking suggestions often feels like a waste.)
I've noticed that several fairly controversial suggestions (making farming and mining more complicated and difficult, say, which I know I at least would leap at the chance to vote down as hard as possible) tend to get near the top, because the current system has no way for people to express strong dislike for a suggestion.
Post by: JanusTwoface on February 03, 2010, 05:24:15 pm
Not to belittle your work, zagibu. Your code is neat. Just something to look into for ideas.
Post by: zagibu on February 03, 2010, 05:50:33 pm
BTW, new version is still in the works. I was kind of busy the last weeks with uni-stuff, but should have some time to work on it the next few days.
Post by: JanusTwoface on February 03, 2010, 05:55:30 pm
I didn't actually read into the limitations. You're correct, 100 voters per month would be kind of worthless. Mainly, how there interface is put together. Just something to look at for ideas...
The sppedshare link is currently down btw. (At least for me). Could you double check that?
Post by: zagibu on February 04, 2010, 06:23:34 am
Post by: CobaltKobold on February 09, 2010, 05:39:29 am
I've noticed that several fairly controversial suggestions (making farming and mining more complicated and difficult, say, which I know I at least would leap at the chance to vote down as hard as possible)Ich auch.
Post by: zagibu on February 09, 2010, 08:36:40 am
Is it still too tedious to order the positive and negative ones? A ranking system generally doesn't allow equivalently ranked items, but maybe it could be extended thusly? I'll put up a demo of what I mean tomorrow or the day after.
Post by: Shades on February 09, 2010, 08:56:22 am
Post by: zagibu on February 09, 2010, 04:40:59 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on February 09, 2010, 05:01:23 pm
Post by: Shades on February 09, 2010, 05:03:11 pm
Yeah, that's the basics. But then, vote up how? +1? +10? A max + per suggestion or in total? How about -?
I assumed just a range, however you do it doesn't matter too much, 0 to 10 defaulting on 5 works. If you want to make it so everyone doesn't vote max for everything they want then just allow one vote at each value other than 5 (ie 0-4 and 6-10). For display you just show it by average.
Post by: Aquillion on February 09, 2010, 10:12:23 pm
How about 10 points to distribute to whatever you want (from 1-10 points per item) so people can either vote for lots of stuff or put more votes on things they really want. Then do the same for negative points, so people can either vote no on a bunch of stuff or vote NO on something they really don't want?No, not that. Having a limited number of votes to distribute would be a bad idea; that's part of the problem with the current system. People should be able to give feedback on every single suggestion if they want.
The problem with "only X votes" is that that leads to only big, sweeping changes going to the top, while small, simple, clever changes sink to the bottom because they don't catch as much attention. It's very important that users have unlimited votes.
Post by: Shades on February 10, 2010, 04:37:19 am
The problem with "only X votes" is that that leads to only big, sweeping changes going to the top, while small, simple, clever changes sink to the bottom because they don't catch as much attention. It's very important that users have unlimited votes.
Then just allow everyone to rate any idea they like from zero to ten. Or better yet to be able to rank them in order.
That way you avoid the all my fav ideas are 10 all the ones I don't like are 0 issue.
Post by: Aquillion on February 10, 2010, 05:11:46 am
Also, it breaks down as new things are added (how are old rankings that don't include the new suggestions handled?)
I would say keep it simple: People can vote each suggestion up, vote it down, or stay neutral on it. And they can change their vote later.
I suppose some people might vote one suggestion they like most up, then vote every other suggestion down. But I can't imagine that happening too much -- you're going to see more than one you like, generally. So over the course of an entire population of voters, it should produce fairly good results, at least compared to most of the other options.
Post by: Shades on February 10, 2010, 05:16:26 am
Post by: Footkerchief on February 10, 2010, 09:12:50 am
Ranking them in order doesn't work, because that requires people have an opinion on every single idea (and some people may just want to come in, voice their support / opposition for one specific idea, then leave.) I mean, the list is very long; we can't expect every voter to read the whole thing.
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)
Post by: Shades on February 10, 2010, 09:24:23 am
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)
But it's so inefficient.. should have been triangular.
Post by: zagibu on February 10, 2010, 11:53:29 am
Ranking them in order doesn't work, because that requires people have an opinion on every single idea (and some people may just want to come in, voice their support / opposition for one specific idea, then leave.) I mean, the list is very long; we can't expect every voter to read the whole thing.
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)
Unranked is more like "don't care". If someone absolutely hates a suggestion, he would have no opportunity to express that.
Post by: Shades on February 10, 2010, 11:59:03 am
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)
Unranked is more like "don't care". If someone absolutely hates a suggestion, he would have no opportunity to express that.
[/quote]
Why not? no reason unranked has to be the lowest rank?
Post by: Footkerchief on February 10, 2010, 01:04:53 pm
Ranking them in order doesn't work, because that requires people have an opinion on every single idea (and some people may just want to come in, voice their support / opposition for one specific idea, then leave.) I mean, the list is very long; we can't expect every voter to read the whole thing.
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)
Unranked is more like "don't care". If someone absolutely hates a suggestion, he would have no opportunity to express that.
I don't follow. Unranked does express "don't care" in an instant-runoff voting system, as far as I can tell. Are you saying that that's a shortcoming of IRV?
Here's an article that covers other types of voting systems, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system) including rated voting (think 1-10).
Post by: Aquillion on February 10, 2010, 01:34:25 pm
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)No, they can't. I can't come in and meaningfully say "I love this one suggestion" or "I hate this one suggestion" (with no comment on any other suggestions) using ranking. It also makes it a massive pain to rank a new suggestion, because you'd have to go back and redo all your ratings to insert the new thing.
My feeling is that the vast majority of users are going to care (negatively or positively) about only a small number of suggestions. This makes ranking useless -- you can't rank one suggestion.
Ranking is a system devised for coming up with one clear winner among a reasonable pool of candidates that everyone knows about from the beginning. It's useless for our purposes.
Vote up, vote down, vote neutral is best for our purposes, definitely. It's much more suitable to having a huge number of options, and it's much easier to rate new things as they come in, individually, without going through your whole list of rankings. We don't need a perfect system to show ideal preferences; we just need one that shows which things are generally-liked by a good number of users.
Post by: Footkerchief on February 10, 2010, 01:38:12 pm
They can just leave them unranked. Y'all don't have to reinvent the wheel here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)No, they can't. I can't come in and meaningfully say "I love this one suggestion" or "I hate this one suggestion" (with no comment on any other suggestions) using ranking.
My feeling is that the vast majority of users are going to care (negatively or positively) about only a small number of suggestions. This makes ranking useless -- you can't rank one suggestion.
You leave an item unranked if you don't care about it. If you hate it, you rank it, but lower than the ones you like. The counting algorithm ensures that whenever an item you like and an item you hate are in direct contention, your vote will always go to the one you like.
It's not the best system for expressing extreme negativity, it's true, but we don't have to limit ourselves to one system.
Post by: Aquillion on February 10, 2010, 01:46:27 pm
You leave an item unranked if you don't care about it. If you hate it, you rank it, but lower than the ones you like. The counting algorithm ensures that whenever an item you like and an item you hate are in direct contention, your vote will always go to the one you like.Yes, but what if I only have an opinion about one or two items? What if only a small number of people have any feeling about certain items?
My feeling is that that is how many people will be.
What if new things are added later? How can I express my opinion on them easily, without having to go back and change my prior votes? Rereading the entire page and reconsidering all my rankings to fit in one new idea doesn't make much sense.
Post by: Shades on February 10, 2010, 04:08:42 pm
Yes, but what if I only have an opinion about one or two items? What if only a small number of people have any feeling about certain items?
My feeling is that that is how many people will be.
What if new things are added later? How can I express my opinion on them easily, without having to go back and change my prior votes? Rereading the entire page and reconsidering all my rankings to fit in one new idea doesn't make much sense.
Why is that a problem? you don't need to re-rate anything, only rate the new item if it interests you.
Are you thinking we mean ranked in order? so 1 at rank 1, 1 and rank 2 and so on? because we are talking about individual ratings now.
Post by: Aquillion on February 10, 2010, 05:09:09 pm
Are you thinking we mean ranked in order? so 1 at rank 1, 1 and rank 2 and so on? because we are talking about individual ratings now.Wait, what? I thought Footkerchief was talking about Instant-Runoff Voting. IRV requires that you put the things you're voting for in a specific order (so, yes, 1 at rank 1, 1 at rank 2, and so on.)
IRV is only intended for elections where you need someone in first place, and where all the candidates are known at the time of the voting. It isn't really very useful for our purposes.
Likewise, you said:
Quote
Then just allow everyone to rate any idea they like from zero to ten. Or better yet to be able to rank them in order.What did you mean by that? "Rank them in order" doesn't seem to be a feasible option for a system where people may only want to express a preference on one thing, or where new items may be added as time passes.
That way you avoid the all my fav ideas are 10 all the ones I don't like are 0 issue.
Post by: zagibu on February 11, 2010, 11:31:07 am
The only thing bad about this system is the fact that it discourages people to vote for many things, because individual support of a suggestion decreases as the number of supported suggestions increases. But I think this can be countered by making the fractions decrease non-linearily. Lets discuss using the following example:
User A assigns 100 points to suggestion 3. This adds 1.0 to this suggestion (100/100).
User B assigns 1 point to suggestion 1 and 3 points to suggestion 2. In the linear system, this would result in 0.25 being added to suggestion 1 and 0.75 to suggestion 2.
In the system I propose, however, these fractions would be scaled by a small amount over 1, so that in total, User B's vote would result in more points allocated totally. The scaling factor should increase with number of suggestions supported, maybe something like 1 + (rated suggestions / total suggestions), or scaled versions of that. Or maybe someone has a better idea for a scaling factor...I'm actually not very good at designing such formulas.
The second-best method I currently see gives everyone 100 points to assign, and a max of 10 points positive or negative per suggestion. Or variants of that.
Post by: Silverionmox on February 11, 2010, 11:41:03 am
Post by: Aquillion on February 11, 2010, 12:11:19 pm
But the small clever improvements that can be implemented easily are the most useful suggestions, in general. So my feeling is that it's better to chose a voting method that doesn't force people to choose between suggestions; it's better to let them indicate every one they like.
Post by: Shades on February 11, 2010, 01:14:54 pm
Likewise, you said:QuoteThen just allow everyone to rate any idea they like from zero to ten. Or better yet to be able to rank them in order.
To which you pointed out the floor in ranked voting and I agreed your idea worked with the one exception
doesn't let you distinguish between 'this is a good idea' and 'this is awesome do it now' kinda views.
and we moved on, at least I thought we did :)
So my feeling is that it's better to chose a voting method that doesn't force people to choose between suggestions; it's better to let them indicate every one they like.
I agree, but It would be nice to see some kind of focus on things people really liked over things they just thought was a good idea.
Likewise there is the possibility of a badly worded title idea being voted down without people bothering to read the rest of the idea. And we should probably avoid that.
Edit: fixed quote tree.. I should check before posting
Post by: Aquillion on February 11, 2010, 05:00:00 pm
I agree, but It would be nice to see some kind of focus on things people really liked over things they just thought was a good idea.Eh. The things people (as a whole) really like will drift to the top because they will get a lot of support.
Likewise there is the possibility of a badly worded title idea being voted down without people bothering to read the rest of the idea. And we should probably avoid that.
Now, needless to say, people voting up a suggestion on one glance is every bit as bad as people voting it down (since you're basically pushing other suggestions down and, in a system with limited votes, ignoring other suggestions.)
But ultimately, I feel the system has to let people vote at a glance. I mean, look at the sheer length of the ideas list. It is essential, for the better or worse, that people have the ability to vote things up or down based on a quick look, because it's simply not possible to go in-depth on every single one. I mean, sure, if everyone took forever to read a detailed essay on every one, that'd be great, but it's much more important to ensure that every single suggestion gets a fair shake at feedback.
Right now there's a huge number of things sitting at the bottom with single-digit votes (or even no votes at all.) Most of those aren't bad suggestions, it's just that since people only get a few votes, they never reach that point.
So aside from giving people the ability to vote at a glance, and to vote both up and down (essential to let them give "quick input" and to get a more valid result for controversial suggestions), it is important that people not be limited in the total number of things they can give input for.
Small narrow suggestions are never going to get any support or interest in the face of huge sweeping requests; we can see that, generally, in the current list.
Post by: Osmosis Jones on February 11, 2010, 10:39:29 pm
Post by: zagibu on February 12, 2010, 09:21:55 am
Post by: BlckKnght on February 23, 2010, 11:50:08 am
Those sites were created by Randall Munroe, the author of the comic xkcd, and he explains the ranking algorithm (in general terms) here: http://bestthing.info/algorithms.html (http://bestthing.info/algorithms.html).
I think our suggestion list could be sorted with that algorithm, asking the voters:
"Which of these two suggestions would you like Toady One to work on first? Please consider how long each one might take to implement while making your decision."
Post by: Gazz on February 28, 2010, 05:05:19 pm
Right now there's a huge number of things sitting at the bottom with single-digit votes (or even no votes at all.) Most of those aren't bad suggestions, it's just that since people only get a few votes, they never reach that point.I think that's due to a lack of consolidation. 200+ items and 3 votes.
Take the issue "jobs" for instance.
There are at least 7 or 8 entries asking for various aspects of "jobs" to be improved. Sometimes they are even doubling up, such as "Auto-Mining" also mentioning issues that are included in "Automated zones of treecutting and plant gathering".
So which one would you pick with only 3 votes?
There is also an entry for "improved Hauling" and "Improve Hauling to Workshops".
One is #1, the other #225. Why exactly is one of them so unimportant?
Both are effectively about... "Hauling".
Same problem.
And then there's the human herd instinct.
Why vote for somethingthat currently has 2 points to it when I could vote for something borderline related that has 200? My vote would be on a winner item. It may not be what I want but the vote wouldn't be "wasted" on a loser.
That's not what voting is for...
In order for people to vote for the things they really want, the votes must have weight. All votes.
So... what if all these entries would have a tag added so they could be evaluated by the script?
It would list how many "jobs" improvements had been asked for and how many "crafting" improvements.
That would put some sort of value into all the low-order suggestions because even if that particularly tiny aspect of "jobs" was not in the top ten, it
would increase the significance of the general area "jobs".
Every vote would actually be useful instead of merely vanishing into the eternal oblivion of #50+
Post by: teloft on February 28, 2010, 05:50:37 pm
http://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy
I hope this will be useful.
Example:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Gazz on February 28, 2010, 05:54:46 pm
Post by: teloft on March 02, 2010, 08:11:36 pm
And Skuggaping smorgasbrod does what?
Some elements of it do rating/voting for Suggestion, and other make it easy to follow up on and group similar suggestions.
As you noted, it is a smorgasbrod so there is a lot of stuff on it that is not related to voting..
Post by: zagibu on March 03, 2010, 07:10:52 am
Post by: Footkerchief on March 03, 2010, 02:49:45 pm
There are many external tools, which could be useful, but all I've seen so far lack SM forum integration.
Does it really need that much integration, though? Does ESV's current level of integration go any farther than pulling the user ID out of the session?
Post by: zagibu on March 04, 2010, 06:31:02 pm
Post by: dorf on March 09, 2010, 08:27:05 am
We nominate/gather some suggestions from the community.
We vote for our favorite ones.
We don't reveal the results until the voting ends.
Pros:
- We get rid of redundant suggestions and the "human herd instinct".
- Suggestions can be easily transferred to the next voting round
Cons:
- For this to be effective, we'd have to limit the nomination and voting time period from eternal to a month or so.
- Once the nominations are final, the voting starts and no more suggestions can be added.
- The votes would be cleared before each voting round.
- We'd probably have to limit the amount of suggestions and/or the summary.
I think this would work great, if we didn't already have 200+ suggestions. :-X
But since I came this far, I'll just click the "Post" button and wait for comments.
Post by: zagibu on March 09, 2010, 01:46:37 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on March 09, 2010, 02:41:04 pm
Post by: dorf on March 10, 2010, 07:58:58 am
How long would you design a period? A month?We'd tailor the time periods to Toady's needs.
And what happens with monthly winners?The results will be forwarded to Toady.
Might be a bit boring if the same top10 suggestions win every month. Maybe remove them and have an end-year voting of all top suggestions?Yeah, you pointed out a good issue. Toady will probably implement 0 - 2 suggestions, depending on difficulty, priority, workload, schedule and so on.
Perhaps we could remove the suggestions that received most of the votes (sure winners) and recycle the others.
End-year voting doesn't seem necessary, except Toady would explicitly want that. I see the winners as suggestions that the people REALLY want in, sooner or later. And so, they would be permanently added to Toady's TODO list, if he would agree to this.
I feel the nomination phase is also important here.
Do we exclude the suggestions that fared poorly in the previous voting rounds?
Do we set up some rules for nominating a suggestion (i.e. the suggestions MUST be well defined, not be too broad, not overlap with others, have a descriptive title and a concise summary...)?
Assuming we'll impose a limit... how do we decide which suggestions to put in, once the amount of suggestions exceeds the limit?
Post by: BlckKnght on March 10, 2010, 05:13:24 pm
Periodic re-voting could be interesting. How long would you design a period? A month? And what happens with monthly winners? Might be a bit boring if the same top10 suggestions win every month. Maybe remove them and have an end-year voting of all top suggestions?
Um, this seems like we're going backwards. Isn't periodic (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=23687.0) voting on (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24215.0) suggestions (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=6128.0) exactly what the eternal voting system was created to replace? Why would we want to go back to the old way?
Post by: Footkerchief on March 10, 2010, 06:01:26 pm
Post by: dorf on March 11, 2010, 07:40:08 am
Post by: zagibu on March 11, 2010, 12:45:19 pm
Periodic re-voting could be interesting. How long would you design a period? A month? And what happens with monthly winners? Might be a bit boring if the same top10 suggestions win every month. Maybe remove them and have an end-year voting of all top suggestions?
Um, this seems like we're going backwards. Isn't periodic (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=23687.0) voting on (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=24215.0) suggestions (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=6128.0) exactly what the eternal voting system was created to replace? Why would we want to go back to the old way?
The script was created to reduce the amount of manual labor involved in these suggestion gathering endeavours. The problem the current system has is that nobody knows how many "dead" votes hang in there. A periodic reboot (maybe longer periods than months) would reduce this problem a bit.
Post by: bluea on March 11, 2010, 08:29:28 pm
"I voted this week" = full credit.
"I voted last week" = 95%
"This month" = 90
"This season" = 70
"Last six months" = 50
(Or pick a faster depreciation, whatever.) If you're hyper-partisan, you can revote all you like for the same thing and always have your vote count 100%. But even just once a month or so gets you -most- of the way there. And you vote still counts for something even if you're infrequent.
Things like:
Code: [Select]
12. (176) [Resolved] Designate Safe Area
Would automatically be migrating lower and lower. (People re-voting would see "Resolved" and the additional notes. The 176 votes that are still there are many months old at this point.)--
On a separate note:
Would it be possible to for the user-facing form to have a checkbox (or something) that allows some sort of feedback on whether an item should be [Resolved]? With the possibility of submitting URLs?
Like item #20: Rope Ladders. No, they aren't going to be in this release. But the major game impact is the ability to build down - and that is going to be in (IIRC). An automated note such as:
Code: [Select]
27 people claim that a significant fraction of this development item should be considered RESOLVED,
and this URL has been provided as reference.
That isn't a "Revote now!" instruction so much as "Rethink the importance of this entry after reading this."
Post by: Draco18s on March 11, 2010, 08:48:16 pm
Things like:Code: [Select]12. (176) [Resolved] Designate Safe AreaWould automatically be migrating lower and lower. (People re-voting would see "Resolved" and the additional notes. The 176 votes that are still there are many months old at this point.)
FYI, I own that one, and any other I've marked as "resolved" will be deleted and re-added as "completed" (thus clearing the votes) once the new version comes out. It doesn't stop people from voting for it even then, but would indicate to people that it was recently dealt with and likely will not be getting attention in the near future.
I would also PM the voters--if I knew who they were--asking them to re-cast their votes.
Post by: G-Flex on March 16, 2010, 03:19:34 am
Quote
35. Milkable animals
Fix milking so that non-vermin creatures can be milked.
I would post on its thread, but there is none.
Post by: Draco18s on March 16, 2010, 01:43:42 pm
FYI, this should be marked as Resolved now:Quote35. Milkable animals
Fix milking so that non-vermin creatures can be milked.
I would post on its thread, but there is none.
PM this guy (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=13099). The only ones actually marked as [Resolved] are ones I own.
Post by: G-Flex on March 16, 2010, 08:42:47 pm
Oh well, I sent him a PM regardless.
Post by: Draco18s on March 16, 2010, 11:45:36 pm
Damn, he hasn't been active since March.
You mean like 2 days ago, right?
Last Active: March 15, 2010, 10:43:44 PM
Post by: G-Flex on March 17, 2010, 12:06:04 am
... Don't ask me why.
Post by: Deimos56 on March 17, 2010, 01:00:42 am
But then again, I seem to do things like that all the time.
Post by: CobaltKobold on March 17, 2010, 10:11:16 am
Understandable. I forgot what month comes next briefly and thought Toady might be releasing near my birthday.Next month would be...Slate.
But then again, I seem to do things like that all the time.
Post by: Two-legged rhino lizard on March 17, 2010, 06:18:16 pm
Post by: zagibu on March 18, 2010, 01:18:54 pm
But you are wrong anyway, because most real people use this system: http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/learning-chinese/month.htm
Post by: CobaltKobold on March 20, 2010, 02:44:25 pm
If you count all the dwarves in all the worlds all us DF players ever created, then, yes, the Dwarven calendar is more popular than any other.Batch worldgen would have words.
But you are wrong anyway, because most real people use this system: http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/learning-chinese/month.htm
Also 1/0, but that's getting excessi'ely offtopic.
Post by: MaDeR Levap on March 30, 2010, 04:47:01 pm
- 95 (now we have castes, this allow life cycles)
- 42, 180, 226 (proper medical care is implemented now)
- 33, 38 (military revamped - now they are retarded 5-year old, wonder what now will be? slighty retarded 7-years?)
As for now, these issues are clutter.
Oh, and one suggestion - after voting, voted issues should be in different background color and clearly marked (say * or similiar)when looking through list again.
Post by: Footkerchief on April 02, 2010, 12:44:03 pm
- 95 (now we have castes, this allow life cycles)
Nope, the caste system currently does not allow an individual to change from one caste to another, i.e. metamorphose. That's coming later, so the entry is still valid.
Post by: penguinofhonor on April 04, 2010, 07:27:50 pm
The suggestion could still become specific to metamorphosis.- 95 (now we have castes, this allow life cycles)
Nope, the caste system currently does not allow an individual to change from one caste to another, i.e. metamorphose. That's coming later, so the entry is still valid.
Post by: Silverionmox on April 14, 2010, 11:56:39 am
Designate Safe Area
Automatic switching to sparring weapons
Center on announcement
Gen Skill Ranking
Dwarf Inventory Management
Improved Quiver Filling
Owned Barracks
Doctors/hospitals
Stats improvement
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Training Dummies
Meeting area subcontrol
improved fish processing
Gender differentiation
Detailed statues
Balance range weapons
Improving the game
distinguishable champions
Messages control
Underground diversity
"Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants": sand is, but are water and/or rough gems sold? Can't check right now, the damn thing keeps crashing irreproducibly.
Post by: Footkerchief on April 14, 2010, 12:22:50 pm
Training Dummies
Gender differentiation
Balance range weapons
Those definitely aren't done. The first two will probably get more popular now that there's a framework for them, and the "Balanced Range Weapons" one specifically mentions the machinegun-like firing rate, which is still present.
"Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants": sand is, but are water and/or rough gems sold? Can't check right now, the damn thing keeps crashing irreproducibly.
I believe rough gems are, but water isn't.
Post by: Silverionmox on April 14, 2010, 01:37:10 pm
Gender differentiation is partly done (castes, appearances), although nowhere near finished indeed. It might benefit from some reformulation.
Post by: Footkerchief on April 14, 2010, 01:46:28 pm
Post by: Draco18s on April 14, 2010, 02:01:37 pm
"Training dummies" is marked as [resolved] by its owner, probably because safe training was more important to him than the actual dummies.
I own it, and that's pretty much why. It's not my suggestion, but one that I added to the database. The reason for the suggestion was averted with the new combat drills and training weapons, so its not needed anymore.
Post by: Beeskee on April 14, 2010, 05:42:27 pm
Post by: Hondo on April 21, 2010, 05:20:10 am
I'm wary of solutions which involve more menus with weird interfaces.
Post by: SoulSkorpion on April 25, 2010, 06:27:59 am
Post by: Osmosis Jones on April 25, 2010, 08:00:39 am
I wish Toady would add multithreading. It's really not that hard to do if you can split up the work to be done (at a guess pathfinding would be a good candidate), and would make performance so much better. Especially with a nice clean library like boost::thread. Hell, I'd even share code I've written if it'd help.
The fact that the game has not been built to be multithreaded means any attempt to do so would require a complete overhaul of the code, which would take a very long time. Time which could be better spent doing other things.
Also, Toady doesn't know enough about multithreading to do it himself, and he is very much unlikely to share his code to others to let them do so.
Post by: SoulSkorpion on April 25, 2010, 09:23:20 am
Quote
The fact that the game has not been built to be multithreaded means any attempt to do so would require a complete overhaul of the code, which would take a very long time
Well, yes and no. It depends how the code is structured already. Say for example there's a loop that looks like this:
Code: [Select]
//pseudocode
for each dwarf
{
dwarf.update();
}
Say update() takes a while to run, maybe it's working out the dwarf's current activity and/or pathfinding to get there.With some decent thread management code, you can change it to this:
Code: [Select]
//pseudocode
for each dwarf
{
threadManager.QueueTask(dwarf, dwarf::update);
}
wait for threads to finish
...where ThreadManager::QueueTask gives the function to one of the threads.
Of course you need to write/use-a-library-of the thread management code, but my point is that you don't necessarily have to make sweeping changes to the code. You just parallelise slow bits to speed them up.
[edit]Oh, and it doesn't take long to write a thread management library either. Mine's taking me about a week all up.[/edit]
Post by: Shades on April 25, 2010, 09:42:28 am
[edit]Oh, and it doesn't take long to write a thread management library either. Mine's taking me about a week all up.[/edit]
Alternatively, rather than reinventing the wheel you could just use something like TBB, your example in particular is well suited for it.
Of course which well tested, fast and efficient library to use would depend on how you structure your code.
Post by: SoulSkorpion on April 25, 2010, 10:13:48 am
Well, yes. I just brought it up to illustrate that multithreading stuff doesn't necessarily take ages to implement. I'm rolling my own as an exercise. Obviously if Toady's ever going to use multithreading he should use someone else's library.[edit]Oh, and it doesn't take long to write a thread management library either. Mine's taking me about a week all up.[/edit]
Alternatively, rather than reinventing the wheel you could just use something like TBB, your example in particular is well suited for it.
Post by: Draco18s on April 25, 2010, 11:26:02 am
Quote
multithreading
For the love of....
It's been discussed, in threads more relevant to it than this one (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=search2;params=eJwtzEsKgDAMhOG7uHHrxvOUmgxU6UPSVBF6eFNx98-3GM-XzwTuc1_61DcZtVrVUG5HJZ0RCrNBbTtA6kqOzy9F1EoQ8d385HgXY0alIfBCwXZqUXcNAs8v_Ewvbg..). Go post there. Or better yet, read those posts about why it won't happen and STFU because it's not going to happen.
Post by: Footkerchief on April 25, 2010, 11:29:10 am
Post by: Shades on April 25, 2010, 02:01:08 pm
Well, yes. I just brought it up to illustrate that multithreading stuff doesn't necessarily take ages to implement. I'm rolling my own as an exercise. Obviously if Toady's ever going to use multithreading he should use someone else's library.
Always the best way to learn something I find :)
It's been discussed, in threads more relevant to it than this one (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=search2;params=eJwtzEsKgDAMhOG7uHHrxvOUmgxU6UPSVBF6eFNx98-3GM-XzwTuc1_61DcZtVrVUG5HJZ0RCrNBbTtA6kqOzy9F1EoQ8d385HgXY0alIfBCwXZqUXcNAs8v_Ewvbg..). Go post there. Or better yet, read those posts about why it won't happen and STFU because it's not going to happen.
And it will be discussed again and again and again like many other subjects as new people bring it up, and each time I'll make the same points I did last time it was discussed. Also it will happen eventually as individual cores aren't getting faster quickly enough but I agree it won't happen any time soon.
Cool it down please.
We are all cool and happy bunnies :) don't mind us.
Post by: Draco18s on April 25, 2010, 03:12:38 pm
It's been discussed, in threads more relevant to it than this one (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=search2;params=eJwtzEsKgDAMhOG7uHHrxvOUmgxU6UPSVBF6eFNx98-3GM-XzwTuc1_61DcZtVrVUG5HJZ0RCrNBbTtA6kqOzy9F1EoQ8d385HgXY0alIfBCwXZqUXcNAs8v_Ewvbg..). Go post there. Or better yet, read those posts about why it won't happen and STFU because it's not going to happen.And it will be discussed again and again and again like many other subjects as new people bring it up, and each time I'll make the same points I did last time it was discussed. Also it will happen eventually as individual cores aren't getting faster quickly enough but I agree it won't happen any time soon.
But not in this thread. That's my point.
Post by: Shades on April 25, 2010, 03:48:41 pm
But not in this thread. That's my point.
Fair enough, you know what threads need though is a way of forking off a conversion sensibly.
Post by: SoulSkorpion on April 25, 2010, 08:08:11 pm
It's been discussed, in threads more relevant to it than this one (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=search2;params=eJwtzEsKgDAMhOG7uHHrxvOUmgxU6UPSVBF6eFNx98-3GM-XzwTuc1_61DcZtVrVUG5HJZ0RCrNBbTtA6kqOzy9F1EoQ8d385HgXY0alIfBCwXZqUXcNAs8v_Ewvbg..). Go post there. Or better yet, read those posts about why it won't happen and STFU because it's not going to happen.And it will be discussed again and again and again like many other subjects as new people bring it up, and each time I'll make the same points I did last time it was discussed. Also it will happen eventually as individual cores aren't getting faster quickly enough but I agree it won't happen any time soon.
But not in this thread. That's my point.
Take a chill pill.
I decided to post here rather than bump a long-dead thread to or start a new one precisely because it has been discussed before. Isn't a thread about voting for suggestions everyone's a heard a hundred times already exactly the place to discuss them?
Post by: Draco18s on April 25, 2010, 11:24:48 pm
Take a chill pill.
See my avatar.
Quote
I decided to post here rather than bump a long-dead thread to or start a new one precisely because it has been discussed before. Isn't a thread about voting for suggestions everyone's a heard a hundred times already exactly the place to discuss them?
No actually, this is a thread about the fact that the eternal voting system exists, it is not a place to discuss the various suggestions, that's why they have their own threads.
In fact, bumpting threads is welcome.
Quote
BEFORE POSTING A SUGGESTION
* Check our development pages. You can find everything in one place at this link.
* Search for an existing thread.
WHEN REPLYING TO A SUGGESTION
* Try to make a contribution. If you like a suggestion, say why you like it and try to refine it if possible. If you don't like a suggestion, say why and be civil about it.
* Be respectful. If you don't intend to show respect, do not post. If there is a problem, use the "Report to moderator" button on a post in the thread. Do not handle it on your own.
* New posters will not always follow the guidelines above, but if you aren't making an honest effort to be helpful, do not post. The best option is to ignore redundant threads entirely, especially if somebody helpful has already replied.
* Joking around is fine up to a point, of course, but don't be abusive or derail somebody's thread entirely.
Post by: SoulSkorpion on April 26, 2010, 05:32:50 am
Post by: Shades on April 26, 2010, 05:36:03 am
Don't patronise me, I can read the big, prominent rules text just fine. It doesn't say anything about bumping threads.
QuoteBEFORE POSTING A SUGGESTION
* Search for an existing thread.
Although it doesn't outright say it, it does imply bumping threads rather than starting new ones. One of the few forums where it's a sensible idea really.
Post by: Christes on April 26, 2010, 07:13:07 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Back on topic, I didn't realize graphics support was up to 5 now. I haven't looked at this in a while.
Post by: Zombie on April 30, 2010, 12:32:27 am
Post by: Pilsu on May 04, 2010, 04:58:06 pm
Post by: thvaz on May 04, 2010, 06:28:22 pm
I wish the voting allowed 10 options or even 5. Top 10 is what is being looked at, being able to select only a portion of what I want to be in it seems lacking.
Vote in those that you want who aren't in TOP 10 then.
Post by: zagibu on May 04, 2010, 08:20:21 pm
I wish the voting allowed 10 options or even 5. Top 10 is what is being looked at, being able to select only a portion of what I want to be in it seems lacking.
Yeah, I know. I've already begun several times to update the script, but always either lost time or motivation...at the moment, I prefer spending my time actually playing DF. I might come back to it once I've seen everything there is to see in the new version.
Post by: Zombie on May 05, 2010, 01:43:29 pm
Ideally, you could shift the "votes" to "points" and give voters X amount of points to pour into whatever suggestions they like best. If we're simulating a personal top 10, then people would have 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 (or 55) points, whereas if we are simulating a personal top 5, people would have 5+4+3+2+1 (or 15) points. This would then allow people to give their own personal weighting to choices, but everyone else would have that same option so it should keep things relatively neat and tidy. Suggestions would then, of course, be ranked by point total.
With opengl getting in there, I'd personally pour all my points into full graphic support. ;P Oooh, or maybe just half and put the other half into that machinery one... :D
Post by: Footkerchief on May 05, 2010, 02:04:15 pm
Perhaps it could even have a weight system. We could designate our picks according to which number, to us, it is at. If it's top 5 or top 10, you then allocate the maximum weight to the choice in the #1 slot and minimum weight to choices in the #5 or #10 slot, whichever is last. This way we start to see some stand out far more than others as they'll have more #1 slotting if people really find them that important. As it is we sort of just say, "Yeah, this is nice." to three things and leave it at that, which helps Toady see what people are clamoring for but isn't very telling in the way of the importance the player base feels about the choices.
Ideally, you could shift the "votes" to "points" and give voters X amount of points to pour into whatever suggestions they like best. If we're simulating a personal top 10, then people would have 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 (or 55) points, whereas if we are simulating a personal top 5, people would have 5+4+3+2+1 (or 15) points. This would then allow people to give their own personal weighting to choices, but everyone else would have that same option so it should keep things relatively neat and tidy. Suggestions would then, of course, be ranked by point total.
Variations and elaborations on this idea have been discussed at various points in the thread. zagibu was even planning on implementing it at one point:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg390915#msg390915
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg582929#msg582929
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg770743#msg770743
Post by: RCIX on June 30, 2010, 12:36:52 am
Post by: Toady One on July 01, 2010, 03:23:43 am
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 01, 2010, 04:50:55 am
Post by: Pilsu on July 01, 2010, 06:13:56 am
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 01, 2010, 06:34:29 am
Deleting them all seems like a waste of time when you could just delete the redundant ones.
The thing is... while some suggestions are completely obsolete now (improved hauling), there's a lot of other that could still apply but wouldn't probably be suggested now he know the current roadplan, or would be suggested differently, or would attract different voters... For example: "More Detailed Religion". We know now dwarves with common beliefs would form groups. Does it count like more detailed religion? Or do we want more? Then there are other that could still apply, but that probably wouldn't be suggested now in the first place (we don't have "Room system defined Workshops" but be have moddable workshops which is something very similar... do we still want to keep this eternal suggestion or not?)
All in all, this makes deciding what to keep and what to delete a difficult task. I think it's better just to delete everything and thus force people to rephrase their suggestions with the new development plan in mind.
EDIT: It's not like we can lose the suggestions. They have all been mentioned here in the Suggestions forum, probably dozen times each, right?
Post by: Osmosis Jones on July 01, 2010, 08:06:47 am
Post by: Pilsu on July 01, 2010, 11:28:28 am
Your examples are pretty confusing. Do you mean Toady wouldn't know whether religion can be checked off after an improvement arc is done? Seems pretty simple to just delete the one thing and add a new option for the people who want more religion stuff. If it fails to climb the list, I wager we're good.
I think all a reset would accomplish is invalidate the opinions of voters who aren't active on the forums anymore.
Post by: Draco18s on July 01, 2010, 02:17:59 pm
Post by: RCIX on July 01, 2010, 06:53:44 pm
Post by: Silverionmox on July 03, 2010, 11:39:14 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 03, 2010, 07:25:17 pm
the list is pretty much ok except for the proliferation of improved <any large category> items.
Improved Hauling is a generic "do anything about it" kind of suggestion. For the most part there are a number of ideas on how to do that, but no one can agree what would be "best" (other than "here's some ideas, let Toady decide") but that everyone wants something done.
Improved Farming is actually pretty specific in that there are several related ideas for "soil quality" and needing more land/more dwarves/more planning in order to feed a full fortress, but that the forums can't agree on the details on which mechanic to use. But, again, everyone wants something done.
A quick look at some of the others many of them appear as much the same, a few are very specific, but have a generalized title, or are broad "do something about X" but "we'll leave the details to Toady" as opposed to "do it this way" with four more, contradictory "no, do it this other way." A popular implementation might not be the one Toady wishes to implement and he can't implement all of them.
Post by: Aquillion on July 04, 2010, 12:08:33 am
I'l prolly catch flak for this, but can the votes be cleared and the script modified to display the list of suggestions in random order? Because right now it seems to have a big case of "i vote for the first 3 suggestions"-itis.It's not just a matter of people blindly choosing the first few and not bothering to read the rest. The current system encourages people to only vote on things with high vote totals, because you only get three votes, and voting for something with 0 votes (or anything nowhere near the top 10, really) is pretty much throwing your vote away -- nobody will notice the extra vote, so it's not going to raise the item at all; and you only get three, so people naturally want to spend them where they will matter (mainly, trying to make a distinction between the stuff that actually has high totals.)
Which is problematic, because it tends to lead towards people using their few limited votes on the biggest, most sweeping suggestions they can. If you have a suggestion for, say, some very small specific relatively easy change, very few people are going to spend a vote on it when they could instead spend that vote on "TOTALLY OVERHAUL HAULING" or "ADD THIS MASSIVE PLOT-ARC" or "IMPROVE EVERYTHING IN ALL WAYS."
The real problem is the limited number of votes.
Post by: RCIX on July 04, 2010, 02:37:40 am
Post by: Silverionmox on July 04, 2010, 04:08:15 am
I agree that there are good reasons for voting on large categories, but it has the effect of making the eternal voting list very static and the information value very low. It could be avoided by having a main list of general categories (what needs attention) and sublists of how to improve these categories. More votes could workl, but I think the top ten will still be mostly static and imprecise.the list is pretty much ok except for the proliferation of improved <any large category> items.
Improved Hauling is a generic "do anything about it" kind of suggestion. For the most part there are a number of ideas on how to do that, but no one can agree what would be "best" (other than "here's some ideas, let Toady decide") but that everyone wants something done.
Improved Farming is actually pretty specific in that there are several related ideas for "soil quality" and needing more land/more dwarves/more planning in order to feed a full fortress, but that the forums can't agree on the details on which mechanic to use. But, again, everyone wants something done.
A quick look at some of the others many of them appear as much the same, a few are very specific, but have a generalized title, or are broad "do something about X" but "we'll leave the details to Toady" as opposed to "do it this way" with four more, contradictory "no, do it this other way." A popular implementation might not be the one Toady wishes to implement and he can't implement all of them.
Post by: Draco18s on July 04, 2010, 10:26:02 am
I agree that there are good reasons for voting on large categories, but it has the effect of making the eternal voting list very static and the information value very low. It could be avoided by having a main list of general categories (what needs attention) and sublists of how to improve these categories. More votes could workl, but I think the top ten will still be mostly static and imprecise.
If you can figure out how to make that work, by all means, write it up.
Post by: Aquillion on July 04, 2010, 11:49:21 am
I agree with more votes needed though, maybe 10?No, I think that any method with limited votes would be a bad idea. People should be able to, in some fashion, weigh in on every single thing on the list. If you add more votes, you'll just extend it a bit further down, but you'll still end up with the same effect, where people will go for the biggest most impressive stuff first.
Post by: RCIX on July 04, 2010, 04:39:57 pm
Post by: RCIX on July 05, 2010, 03:04:33 am
Post by: Pilsu on July 05, 2010, 08:47:51 am
And ultimately, we're being asked what we want worked on first, not what we want in specifically. Linking a suggestion to a specific official thread would just make make it a shopping list, not a general direction we want the game to go in.
Post by: JanusTwoface on July 05, 2010, 12:56:23 pm
Ok, i did a little thinking/looking, and what we really need is the ability to vote directly on suggestion topics. I found this mod for the SMF, which ought to do pretty well. http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1890
While the link you posted does look interesting, I don't see how that would help the Eternal Suggestion voting. Basically, it looks like it could hide comments that people don't like and possibly add a reputation system for the voters, but how would it help sort out individual ideas?
Post by: Silverionmox on July 05, 2010, 05:11:15 pm
I'm programming impotent, sorry. It's not conceptually difficult, just separate voting lists (one main, and one for each item on the main list) with some moderation to decide what goes where... Basically, it's the current list with the appropriate items grouped under their overarching list.I agree that there are good reasons for voting on large categories, but it has the effect of making the eternal voting list very static and the information value very low. It could be avoided by having a main list of general categories (what needs attention) and sublists of how to improve these categories. More votes could workl, but I think the top ten will still be mostly static and imprecise.
If you can figure out how to make that work, by all means, write it up.
Post by: RCIX on July 05, 2010, 07:01:41 pm
It offers a system to search (and hopefully sort) based on votes, and you don't need the reputation aspect, so you stick it in the Suggestions board as a replacement to the Eternal Suggestion Voting. People vote on suggestions, then Toady just sorts by votes and picks the best ones out that way.Ok, i did a little thinking/looking, and what we really need is the ability to vote directly on suggestion topics. I found this mod for the SMF, which ought to do pretty well. http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1890
While the link you posted does look interesting, I don't see how that would help the Eternal Suggestion voting. Basically, it looks like it could hide comments that people don't like and possibly add a reputation system for the voters, but how would it help sort out individual ideas?
Ever occur to you that maybe the list is static because more people are interested in spending their few votes on pathfinding and other seemingly important improvements instead of trivialities? 10 votes is all it needs to leave room for choice. We don't need to start spamming votes left and right on every issue.THe problem is that people are voting on what amounts to a large subset of "IMPROVE MORE EVERYTHING", which isn't terribly specific for Toady. With 10 votes, people would still use most of their votes on the very generic topics and the specific suggestions wouldn't be very voted on.
And ultimately, we're being asked what we want worked on first, not what we want in specifically. Linking a suggestion to a specific official thread would just make make it a shopping list, not a general direction we want the game to go in.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 05, 2010, 11:55:48 pm
In fact, is there anyone besides RCIX who really hates the ESV? It seems like he's just sore that his suggestions aren't going to be popular enough to make it to the top of the list, so he's just trying to destroy the list, instead.
Post by: RCIX on July 06, 2010, 02:29:20 am
What i see is a list of 100+ suggestions, maybe 10 or 20 i like, and i get 3 votes. I also don't like the list because it's kinda hard to read and doesn't really feel organized. And yes, i think that if more people saw my suggestions more, then i think they would be more popular. So sue me :P you'll also notice that I'm not the only one thinking that something needs to be done with the list...
Looking at the list, i see 4 fairly general suggestions, just out of the top 10: More mechanics! More farming! More graphics! More pathfinding!
Post by: G-Flex on July 06, 2010, 04:05:17 am
In fact, is there anyone besides RCIX who really hates the ESV? It seems like he's just sore that his suggestions aren't going to be popular enough to make it to the top of the list, so he's just trying to destroy the list, instead.
I don't hate it, but I don't think it's as reliable a metric as people seem to think.
For one, it's obviously not a proper random sampling of players; you're more likely to get suggestions from certain groups than others, like people who spend a lot of the time on the forums, and you're less likely to get suggestions from, say, people who are so turned off by some aspect(s) of the game that they would never even see it, or wouldn't care. Obviously, different groups like this can have different priorities.
There's also no differentiation with regards to how broad/narrow a suggestion is, or how easy/difficult it is to implement. This matters for the following reason, as well as for the fact that if you can only have three things, you're going to choose the broadest and largest changes, which can't even really be effectively ranked on the same scale as more piecemeal ones that nonetheless can be quite important.
Some suggestions will simply be more attractive than others regardless of how good they are. Vague, broad suggestions often tend to be a lot sexier, for the stated reason and because your mind fills in more details itself the way you'd like to see them, and some are important but simple and dry enough in terms of what you'd see in gameplay that the suggestions themselves sound boring.
The fact is that we're not even ranking things within the same category here. We have large wishlist-style items like "Improved Pathfinding" and "Improved Hauling" alongside even larger and more wishlisty things like "Kingdom Mode" (a whole new gameplay mode!), and more minor suggestions like placing ramps on the edges of water features instead of cliffs, or separating out armor and clothing in stock listings. We vote on all of these with the same pool of votes, which only really works if they all have the same value, but obviously they don't.
There's also the simple fact that you can't expect users of software (including games) to necessarily understand the impact of a change they propose. I think this is obvious enough reading what some people thought (and what a few still think) of the material/body system changes. For example, one of the lower-ranked suggestions with three votes is "Carry Multiple Items", which sounds rather minor, but if you read what Toady's said about such things recently, the implications for stacking, workflow, etc. are actually fairly major.
I'm not saying that the Eternal Suggestions list is useless, just that it shouldn't be taken as gospel, and I feel like some people are getting to the point where they almost are.
Post by: zagibu on July 06, 2010, 05:21:15 am
The current system has two mechanisms that could be used to counter the problem a bit. Firstly, Toady can comment suggestions. If a suggestion would take a major code overhaul, or stands against his vision of how to further develop the game, he could make a remark that would maybe scare a few voters off.
The second mechanism is the linkage to the forum and possibility to edit suggestions. If in a forum debate the suggestion is found to be not very specific, because supporters all have different opinions on how exactly it would work, the creator of the suggestion could go back and modify the suggestion entry to reflect the dispute. But that would require people to take responsibility for their suggestions and accept critisism. Also, many suggestions in the ESV are currently unlinked, which is a joke, if you think about it. How can someone support a suggestion there is no debate about?
I think the ESV has a different problem. It is just too static. If you'd clear all votes now, it would take a week and the list would be in a "final" form, with only marginal changes of position at the bottom. Also, it amasses votes from dead people.
I would really like to write a new version, but it's just impossible at the moment. When I had time and motivation, the new version of DF came out. Maybe there will be a small time window after the exams.
Post by: RCIX on July 06, 2010, 05:23:39 am
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 06, 2010, 08:51:00 am
People here are cynical aren't they?
What i see is a list of 100+ suggestions, maybe 10 or 20 i like, and i get 3 votes. I also don't like the list because it's kinda hard to read and doesn't really feel organized. And yes, i think that if more people saw my suggestions more, then i think they would be more popular. So sue me :P you'll also notice that I'm not the only one thinking that something needs to be done with the list...
Looking at the list, i see 4 fairly general suggestions, just out of the top 10: More mechanics! More farming! More graphics! More pathfinding!
Obviously, you haven't even read those suggestions before slamming them (yes, MORE time spent pathfinding is what we're looking for), but that's, OK, I'm catching that pattern from you.
No, I just can't help noticing that this little crusade of yours started when I told you that you shouldn't be posting 4 "new" suggestions a day, especially before you read the wiki to understand what the topic is, or even tried just playing the game, before you tried going out of your way to "convince" people to change something, only to insult them if they didn't agree with you, or assume that if they otherwise didn't, it was because they had yet to be gifted with the privilidge of reading your writing while you, yourself, are completely unwilling to read anything anyone else writes. (As I have said before, such an attitude towards others shows a fundamental lack of respect for me and everyone else on the board.)
Even IF you hate those top ten (because, say, you haven't played the game long enough to understand what sort of FPS hit the pathfinding problems cause, or you haven't had enough dwarves to understand the GUI problems with trying to track over a hundred of them at a time), then, as Toady himself said, he's actually taking those top ten and putting them into his schedule for working on them right now, and as such, will no longer need to be up there, which means that your "MORE CONSTRUCTION" or "MORE PLANT" suggestions will be several spaces closer to the top.
The Improved Farming thread, for example, is a very long-running thread that has very well-developed ideas refined by the arguments of many people pushing those who participated in it to defend their suggestions against criticism and scrutiny, while doing the same for others, and required people to actually suggest means for implimenting those suggestions, and it has had many of the same ideas that you shallowly just mention in the "More Plantlife Thread". Perhaps we should be encouraging people to read the thoughts of others before letting people write down their own suggestions, since that is the difference between trying to write your suggestions so that they would garner the support it needs to climb the ESV, as opposed to simply trying to shout out as many suggestions as you can in the hope that you bury everyone else's suggestions back a few pages, since that is the difference between a debate and a shouting contest.
For one, it's obviously not a proper random sampling of players; you're more likely to get suggestions from certain groups than others, like people who spend a lot of the time on the forums, and you're less likely to get suggestions from, say, people who are so turned off by some aspect(s) of the game that they would never even see it, or wouldn't care. Obviously, different groups like this can have different priorities.
I'm not sure who, exactly, you are saying is being excluded, here. If we are talking about peopel who are scared away from the game, and hence the forums, because of some aspect of the game, then they aren't going to be voting on anything, no matter what voting system we use, so there would be no point in changing anything to accomidate them. If you are talking about people who play DF, but who never use the forums, on the other hand, I honestly wonder how many of them there are?
There's also no differentiation with regards to how broad/narrow a suggestion is, or how easy/difficult it is to implement. This matters for the following reason, as well as for the fact that if you can only have three things, you're going to choose the broadest and largest changes, which can't even really be effectively ranked on the same scale as more piecemeal ones that nonetheless can be quite important.
Umm... I like the inter-breeding suggestion, which is a fairly small one. I like several of the things at the top of the list, but don't feel the need to vote for most of them, because I know that they have far more votes than suggestions lower down on the list, and hence, there is little risk of them slipping down in the polls without my vote.
I would see this more as a sign that many people are generally happy with the game, or trust Toady to impliment the things they want in the game without their suggestions, and simply want priority put upon things like the ability to haul multiple items at a time, or optimizing code to preserve FPS.
Some suggestions will simply be more attractive than others regardless of how good they are. Vague, broad suggestions often tend to be a lot sexier, for the stated reason and because your mind fills in more details itself the way you'd like to see them, and some are important but simple and dry enough in terms of what you'd see in gameplay that the suggestions themselves sound boring.
The fact is that we're not even ranking things within the same category here. We have large wishlist-style items like "Improved Pathfinding" and "Improved Hauling" alongside even larger and more wishlisty things like "Kingdom Mode" (a whole new gameplay mode!), and more minor suggestions like placing ramps on the edges of water features instead of cliffs, or separating out armor and clothing in stock listings. We vote on all of these with the same pool of votes, which only really works if they all have the same value, but obviously they don't.
Of course, this only holds if Toady follows a strict and mechanistic determination of which suggestions go into the game based on an arbitrarily decided number of top-ranking suggestions, instead of using his own judgement on any given suggestion. I don't speak for Toady, but if something is ranked 19th, and takes him only 10 minutes to program, we might just be seeing that before something ranked 9th that takes him a year and breaks saves to impliment.
I'm not saying that the Eternal Suggestions list is useless, just that it shouldn't be taken as gospel, and I feel like some people are getting to the point where they almost are.
This is a place for suggestion and debate. Saying that there is something with any given subject is necessarily followed by the question, "So how can it be made better?" I am hardly opposed to the very concept that the ESV be changed or improved, but I always try to confront any idea with its possible negative ramifications, and questions its assumptions. Good suggestions should weather such punishment, and all but the worst can be re-examined to become good.
There's also the simple fact that you can't expect users of software (including games) to necessarily understand the impact of a change they propose. I think this is obvious enough reading what some people thought (and what a few still think) of the material/body system changes. For example, one of the lower-ranked suggestions with three votes is "Carry Multiple Items", which sounds rather minor, but if you read what Toady's said about such things recently, the implications for stacking, workflow, etc. are actually fairly major.
Which is, if anything, a reason to push for a system that encourages smaller numbers of suggestions that are more thoroughly debated, since that is what increases the chance of people bringing such things up into the thread.
Post by: Draco18s on July 06, 2010, 09:38:15 am
Many good things.
Well said.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 06, 2010, 10:29:40 am
...which means that your "MORE CONSTRUCTION" or "MORE PLANT" suggestions will be several spaces closer to the top.
In this, I am arguing against the notion that something like the suggestion to optimize the pathfinding code is being demeaned as a "MORE FOO" suggestion. The incredibly resource-intensive nature of the game is, as many people point out, one of the greatest weaknesses of the game, and "the leading cause of fortress loss". Many players actually take extraordinary measures to try to reduce the CPU toll that things like pathfinding and fluid mechanics take upon a fortress, so that they can still enjoy the game. This is a major, and entirely valid concern, and not something that is as simple as "MORE PATHFINDING, LOL".
In fact, if we are to be reducing anything to a "MORE FOO" suggestion (edit: and frankly, given the apparently very loose constraints of what qualifies as "MORE FOO", almost anything can be described as "more" of something) the "More Plantlife Thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60738.0)" is actually headed in the thread as "a thread for the suggestion of an expansion of plantlife." (Which sounds an awful lot like "More Plantlife" to me...) It isn't even a serious attempt at fostering discussion, just an attempt to build the longest list possible. That seems just slightly hypocritical to me.
Post by: Draco18s on July 06, 2010, 10:36:35 am
That seems just slightly hypocritical to me.
Only slightly?
Post by: Pilsu on July 06, 2010, 11:08:56 am
Also, many suggestions in the ESV are currently unlinked, which is a joke, if you think about it. How can someone support a suggestion there is no debate about?
Pretty easily if the title and description are clear and easy to understand. Reading the debate is unnecessary.
Also, it amasses votes from dead people.
Is there a single reason their votes are worth less if they don't regularly post anymore?
Saying that people vote for farming improvements because it's broad is an unsubstantiated fallacy. Repeating it ad nauseum won't make it ring any truer. Your dwarven lipstick suggestion or whatever it is is losing on it's own merits. People simply want farming improvements over whatever specific little things you have in mind! Voters not being able to choose a top10 in a poll that focuses on the top10 is the only real criticism thus far.
Post by: zagibu on July 06, 2010, 01:06:25 pm
Also, many suggestions in the ESV are currently unlinked, which is a joke, if you think about it. How can someone support a suggestion there is no debate about?
Pretty easily if the title and description are clear and easy to understand. Reading the debate is unnecessary.Also, it amasses votes from dead people.
Is there a single reason their votes are worth less if they don't regularly post anymore?
Saying that people vote for farming improvements because it's broad is an unsubstantiated fallacy. Repeating it ad nauseum won't make it ring any truer. Your dwarven lipstick suggestion or whatever it is is losing on it's own merits. People simply want farming improvements over whatever specific little things you have in mind! Voters not being able to choose a top10 in a poll that focuses on the top10 is the only real criticism thus far.
Yeah, maybe I mistyped what I meant there. I see how you can easily vote for unlinked suggestions, but this is exactly the problem. The small entry on the ESV list doesn't provide enough information. Everyone will form an individual idea on the specifics, and, as can be seen in the threads of some of the suggestions that ARE linked, these ideas can clash so hard that the original suggestion should be split in several to make everyone happy.
Amassing of dead votes is a problem, because new df versions might make suggestions obsolete, or even counterproductive, blocking valid suggestions from rising to the top. This could in theory be countered by regular vote purges, or if the suggestion creators would act responsibly.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 06, 2010, 01:12:28 pm
Amassing of dead votes is a problem, because new df versions might make suggestions obsolete, or even counterproductive, blocking valid suggestions from rising to the top. This could in theory be countered by regular vote purges, or if the suggestion creators would act responsibly.
Well, if we have a mass vote purge, it should probably have one of those "News" announcements up at the top so that people know they have been purged. Having those vote purges on the occassions that suggestions from the top ranks are integrated would make the most sense, as it would be the time to start re-casting those votes, anyway.
Post by: einstein9073 on July 06, 2010, 04:10:11 pm
Spoiler: oops, nm (click to show/hide)
Post by: MaDeR Levap on July 06, 2010, 04:19:56 pm
Post by: RCIX on July 06, 2010, 05:13:19 pm
All i want to do is improve the game; if i come off as demanding or anything, i don't mean to. And regarding why i'm "spamming" suggestions, that's just what i do. I like to come up with new ideas for things, and i don't generally expect opposition on things because i don't always think them through. But on this board it seems that there's a 1-a-day maximum on new suggestions despite not seeing any notice of such things around.
And the only reason the "more plantlife" thread is the way it is, is because i haven't had the time the past couple of days to polish it more. Is that a crime?
And i have played the game, and i do see the need for improved performance. I also would like something to be done for hauling, though i'm honestly not sure what (carrying multiple things sounds like a stopgap solution). If i "slammed" a suggestion without examining it fully, i apologize. Like i said before, i don't alwways think through things. Too bad that gets you into a ton of trouble here.
I make 1 (just one) suggestion based on a misunderstanding, and now all of my efforts are based on that (which, by the way, did get something useful out of it)? Yeah, that's real fair.
but I always try to confront any idea with its possible negative ramifications, and questions its assumptions. Good suggestions should weather such punishment, and all but the worst can be re-examined to become good.I see this a lot from you, and not just for suggestions. You've met several of my topics with extreme negativity, making me think that you think that i'm just out to destroy this community. I'm not. I'll say it again: i'm a tad on the impulsive side.
If this is just how you come off, and you don't really mean to be this upset at me, then it's all good.
Post by: Draco18s on July 06, 2010, 05:14:46 pm
well never mind. I just tried the EXACT SAME THING AGAIN and it worked this time. :|
It should have been the first choice. I haven't played with "wipe votes" but I think it means that all of the votes on the selected suggestions are removed (suggestion creator only). Edit and Delete suggestions are likewise creator-only. Something must have bugged out the first time.
Post by: G-Flex on July 06, 2010, 08:17:56 pm
I'm not sure who, exactly, you are saying is being excluded, here. If we are talking about peopel who are scared away from the game, and hence the forums, because of some aspect of the game, then they aren't going to be voting on anything, no matter what voting system we use, so there would be no point in changing anything to accomidate them.
I'm not saying it's something with a viable alternative, just that it is a flaw with the current system. Yes, it's still relevant to point out flaws that can't be fixed, because you need to take those flaws into consideration when interpreting the data.
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Umm... I like the inter-breeding suggestion, which is a fairly small one. I like several of the things at the top of the list, but don't feel the need to vote for most of them, because I know that they have far more votes than suggestions lower down on the list, and hence, there is little risk of them slipping down in the polls without my vote.
In other words, you have to engage in political-style vote-distribution instead of just plain voting for whatever you'd vote for if you didn't previously know how many votes things had otherwise. You're basically just pointing out that, for reasons of how the system works, you cannot vote completely honestly.
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Of course, this only holds if Toady follows a strict and mechanistic determination of which suggestions go into the game based on an arbitrarily decided number of top-ranking suggestions, instead of using his own judgement on any given suggestion. I don't speak for Toady, but if something is ranked 19th, and takes him only 10 minutes to program, we might just be seeing that before something ranked 9th that takes him a year and breaks saves to impliment.
Oh, I know, but users might not use such judgement when viewing things for themselves.
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This is a place for suggestion and debate. Saying that there is something with any given subject is necessarily followed by the question, "So how can it be made better?" I am hardly opposed to the very concept that the ESV be changed or improved, but I always try to confront any idea with its possible negative ramifications, and questions its assumptions. Good suggestions should weather such punishment, and all but the worst can be re-examined to become good.
I wasn't intending to give concrete suggestions on how to improve the current system. I was attempting to point out its flaws in order that its data might be more accurately interpreted (or, more likely, pointing out how difficult it is to consider them to be "accurate").
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 06, 2010, 08:46:19 pm
I'm not saying it's something with a viable alternative, just that it is a flaw with the current system. Yes, it's still relevant to point out flaws that can't be fixed, because you need to take those flaws into consideration when interpreting the data.
... But still irrelevant.
How, for example, can we take people who aren't willing to play or comment on the game into account? Who gets to determine what the non-voters secretly really meant to have voted for? Does this mean I can just assume that somewhere out there, there's a few million people who agree with me, but are simply being driven away by the fact that they hate DF and don't want to play it, and try and use this to out-weigh the will of the actual players who are involved enough to be voting and suggesting? ("Wii motion games are really popular right now, so obviously, we need to have motion sensor and voice-recognition technology integrated into DF to completely replace the interface with spastically jerking your body like a stranded fish at the menu to select things, and screaming out commands at your monitor to direct dwarves who will do whatever they damn well please as your only means of so-called control!") I somehow doubt that strategy would be appreciated.
In other words, you have to engage in political-style vote-distribution instead of just plain voting for whatever you'd vote for if you didn't previously know how many votes things had otherwise. You're basically just pointing out that, for reasons of how the system works, you cannot vote completely honestly.
So a system is flawed because understanding its mechanics leads to being better able to use that system? (You'll have a tough time at DF if you don't game the system, you know...)
Yes, we could, theoretically have an infinite number of votes so we could vote for each one if we wanted, but if I gave it to every single one, then the purpose of the ESV, whose limited number of votes forces you to prioritize, would be defeated.
If you want to argue against the goal of prioritization, on the other hand, we're talking about an entirely different argument.
I wasn't intending to give concrete suggestions on how to improve the current system. I was attempting to point out its flaws in order that its data might be more accurately interpreted (or, more likely, pointing out how difficult it is to consider them to be "accurate").
Well, ultimately, if any one system would be completely optimal in all situations, any debate over it would largely be trying to re-invent the wheel, anyway. That means we have to compare possible solutions for the imperfect solution that best fits the need, and as such, a lack of alternates that can compete do not make a system perfect, but do make comparison to a non-existant hypothetical a little on the fruitless side.
Post by: G-Flex on July 06, 2010, 08:59:57 pm
I'm not saying it's something with a viable alternative, just that it is a flaw with the current system. Yes, it's still relevant to point out flaws that can't be fixed, because you need to take those flaws into consideration when interpreting the data.
... But still irrelevant.
How, for example, can we take people who aren't willing to play or comment on the game into account? Who gets to determine what the non-voters secretly really meant to have voted for?
You keep misinterpreting me.
I am not saying that the faults within the system can be fully accounted for or counteracted by any means. I bring them up to make it clear what those faults may be and where, and to point out that the ESV is necessarily flawed and incomplete and should not be relied on beyond a certain token amount.
That's it. I'm not trying to fix it, because a lot of the things I mentioned simply couldn't be "fixed" to begin with.
So a system is flawed because understanding its mechanics leads to being better able to use that system? (You'll have a tough time at DF if you don't game the system, you know...)
No, it's flawed because the conceit of the system is to vote for the three things you want most, yet in practice this winds up not being the case.
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but do make comparison to a non-existant hypothetical a little on the fruitless side.
Have you ever looked up anything about, say, statistics and polling? Considering this stuff is important even when there is no alternative, because acknowledging the flaws of the system used necessarily affects how you interpret the data.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 06, 2010, 09:38:16 pm
You keep misinterpreting me.
I am not saying that the faults within the system can be fully accounted for or counteracted by any means. I bring them up to make it clear what those faults may be and where, and to point out that the ESV is necessarily flawed and incomplete and should not be relied on beyond a certain token amount.
That's it. I'm not trying to fix it, because a lot of the things I mentioned simply couldn't be "fixed" to begin with.
...
Have you ever looked up anything about, say, statistics and polling? Considering this stuff is important even when there is no alternative, because acknowledging the flaws of the system used necessarily affects how you interpret the data.
Which again means "irrelevant".
No, it's flawed because the conceit of the system is to vote for the three things you want most, yet in practice this winds up not being the case.
So, it's flawed if I vote for the things I want most, which would be the things that are at the top, since that is "Vote for the top-itis", and it's also flawed if I vote for the things nearer the bottom that I don't want neglected.
I'm starting to get how this game works with you.
Post by: G-Flex on July 06, 2010, 09:41:36 pm
Which again means "irrelevant".
It's not irrelevant for anyone actually looking at and interpreting the votes, which is obviously the entire point or else voting wouldn't be done. I've already explained why, and I'm sure anyone else reading this can understand that. I'm not going to explain that again.
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So, it's flawed if I vote for the things I want most, which would be the things that are at the top, since that is "Vote for the top-itis", and it's also flawed if I vote for the things nearer the bottom that I don't want neglected.
I'm starting to get how this game works with you.
Yes, it's flawed either way. The system isn't perfect, and the way you vote will both reflect that and fail to completely account for it. I honestly don't see what's hard to understand about that.
Post by: Draco18s on July 06, 2010, 11:52:16 pm
Yes, it's flawed either way. The system isn't perfect, and the way you vote will both reflect that and fail to completely account for it. I honestly don't see what's hard to understand about that.
A system can't be flawed in both (mutually exclusive) directions at the same time.
Post by: G-Flex on July 07, 2010, 12:05:33 am
Yes, it's flawed either way. The system isn't perfect, and the way you vote will both reflect that and fail to completely account for it. I honestly don't see what's hard to understand about that.
A system can't be flawed in both (mutually exclusive) directions at the same time.
It's... not.
In this case, it's flawed in the sense that voting honestly doesn't work (which negatively impacts the main conceit of voting), and voting more strategically/politically sort of works but necessarily winds up misrepresenting what you actually want to some degree.
Post by: Draco18s on July 07, 2010, 12:12:46 am
In this case, it's flawed in the sense that voting honestly doesn't work (which negatively impacts the main conceit of voting)
Doesn't work for whom?
Post by: G-Flex on July 07, 2010, 12:15:25 am
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 07, 2010, 05:47:13 am
Honestly, I can't be bothered to read three hundred minor suggestions that are for the most part just different takes on the same issue. I hate people spamming the Eternal list with minor things because it makes the list almost unusable. It's so large that when I'm in the second half, I don't even remember the suggestions from the beginning. How can I prioritise then? IMHO, the max. number of suggestions for the list to be user-friendly would be a couple of dozens, not hundreds. If you are concerned about usability of the list, G-Flex: it's length is a major issue. Wiping the whole list and starting anew would have the added benefit of making it small and readable again.
Voting for threads here in the suggestions forum would be even worse. There's eight thousands of them, you can't be serious!!!
With all respect, G-Flex, you examples I couldn't disagree with more. "Carry more items" is a horrible suggestion that only makes the list more convoluted, and is better served by "Improve hauling". "Separate bags from boxes" is a horrible suggestion that would better be included in a larger "rework the stockpile categories" or something. Also, I can't possibly vote for something as small as "carry more items", because it doesn't really solve the overarching issue of bad hauling, and as an isolated suggestion it's almost meaningless. The reason why the top rating suggestions are so popular isn't only because they're broad, it's also because they're well thought-out and useful. They usually link to a massive thread full of minor suggestions and a rich discussion, while also allowing some space for Toady's creativity - the popular Underground Improvements and More Mechanics are great examples. I really wish everyone would take the time to back up their suggestion by a forum thread with a well-thought system, nuances, etc., instead of posting each detail separately. If there's any problem with the current suggestion system, it's that people don't put enough effort into their suggestion before posting.
That being said, I wouldn't force any official limit on the broadness of suggestions. Let it flow naturally, the bad, small ones will naturally drop where they below - down to the bottom.
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The current system seems good enough to me. If there's anything I would do aside from wiping it, it would be:
- Force linking suggestions to a thread here. You wouldn't be able to post a eternal suggestion without posting a thread here first. This could actually prevent some people from spamming the list.
- Allow more votes. I still think limited votes are good, because we want people prioritising, but considering how many suggestions we have, perhaps increasing the number of votes to 5 would be nice. 10 seems like to much, to be honest. The number should be limited enough to force you to pick only a handful of favorites.
Post by: RCIX on July 07, 2010, 06:03:15 am
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 07, 2010, 06:13:59 am
How is, just to name a few, Bloodline naming, Paint stuff, Sand Fluid Physics, Wildlife Repopulation, Ceramics and Cement, or a winch different takes on the same suggestion?
I haven't said these examples are bad, have I?
They all sound like valid suggestions and as I've said, I wouldn't limit the broadness of suggestions nor forbid any. But what could happen is that someone comes up with a suggestion like "Better family mechanics" and links it to a topic with many sub-suggestions, one of which would be Bloodline naming. The larger suggestion would then steal most, if not all, voters of the smaller one. Which is good!
EDIT: Because more though-out systems and complex suggestions are more valuable than random one-liners.
EDIT2: Even better would be to delete the smaller suggestion after that, to prevent list bloating.
Post by: RCIX on July 07, 2010, 06:33:52 am
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 07, 2010, 08:15:41 am
But the problem is that then you can choose to vote for, say, the sand suggestion, or this "better family stuff" suggestion. A lot of people will think "i only have 3 votes, so i want to make them count -- i'll pick the giant suggestion!". That's what we're trying to avoid.
Why? I don't see a problem in it.
Post by: Draco18s on July 07, 2010, 08:30:30 am
I was working off what NW_Kohaku said - that simply voting for what you like best isn't the way to get things done, because some things wind up overrepresented.
Uh. That's not a failing of voting for what you like, because it's a failing of people strategically voting and "some things wind up overrepresented."
That's my point. If everyone votes for "things they like" somethings cannot end up "overrepresented."
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 07, 2010, 09:05:35 am
But the problem is that then you can choose to vote for, say, the sand suggestion, or this "better family stuff" suggestion. A lot of people will think "i only have 3 votes, so i want to make them count -- i'll pick the giant suggestion!". That's what we're trying to avoid.
Why? I don't see a problem in it.
To elaborate: it's allright that people vote for the larger suggestion. It forces you, as a person who wants their suggestion to "win", to spend more time preparing your suggestion, to elaborate, to provide more details, to come up with a broader solution or system, to moderate a discussion where people send additional details, etc... generally to spend more time thinking about your suggestion before you post it, and making it more appealing than a one-liner. Which is a good thing! It's an eternal suggestion, and deserves more attention after all.
EDIT: For example, I think the reason why interface didn't get to the top 10 is there's no good eternal suggestion for it. There's quite a lot of too specific and minor ones I didn't even bother vote for, even though I'd like the interface to be improved, and then a single "Improve an interface" which is too general and doesn't even have a forum thread, so I can't decide whether it's good or bad (so apparently, more generic isn't always better). Now that we have the Interface Overhaul thread with a plenty of material, I'm confident a generic interface improvement would be a top suggestion.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 07, 2010, 02:55:12 pm
Toady can work half a year on stuff from any thematic idea collection thread, and afterwards there will still be enough people that didn't see their specific favourite idea implemented to keep it in the top ten. Don't get me wrong, the thematic collections are the best the forum has to offer; but it's Toady who decides which arc to work on next. As such, they are not useful in an eternal suggestions ranking.
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 07, 2010, 04:05:34 pm
The trouble with generic vs. specific suggestions in the list is this: the generic suggestions will stay in the top ten until the game is finished. Smaller, specific suggestions can be implemented or ruled out by Toady, and that's it: room for new ideas.
Toady can work half a year on stuff from any thematic idea collection thread, and afterwards there will still be enough people that didn't see their specific favourite idea implemented to keep it in the top ten. Don't get me wrong, the thematic collections are the best the forum has to offer; but it's Toady who decides which arc to work on next. As such, they are not useful in an eternal suggestions ranking.
I dare to disagree. I think if you wiped the eternal suggestions now after DF2010 and then posted an "Improved Undeground", which used to be a very popular suggestion, it would't come up in the top 10. Sure, some people would still vote for it, which would mean they're still unhappy with the new underground, but most would propably move somewhere else. The same goes for the current top10 - i think most voters, seeing the list of features planned for the nearest future, would move to other suggestions. And those who'd remain in "adventurer skills" would basically be saying: "not enough adventurer skills, we want more!" Which is allright, but they'd hardly break the top 10.
EDIT: Looking at the current top 10, I think most of them would'n even get reopened when finished. I mean, you can't keep making "full graphics support", or "standing production orders" or "auto vein mining" or "workshop material selection" for all the eternity. Once they're done, they're done.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 07, 2010, 04:36:38 pm
Post by: RCIX on July 07, 2010, 05:59:45 pm
The real problem with large vs. small suggestions is this: it forces people to choose between an interesting large suggestion topic and an interesting small one. Since many people have your attitude, they'll probably pick the big one, because they both only have a few votes and think that few will pick the smaller ones anyway, so why waste a vote on something no one will notice..The trouble with generic vs. specific suggestions in the list is this: the generic suggestions will stay in the top ten until the game is finished. Smaller, specific suggestions can be implemented or ruled out by Toady, and that's it: room for new ideas.
Toady can work half a year on stuff from any thematic idea collection thread, and afterwards there will still be enough people that didn't see their specific favourite idea implemented to keep it in the top ten. Don't get me wrong, the thematic collections are the best the forum has to offer; but it's Toady who decides which arc to work on next. As such, they are not useful in an eternal suggestions ranking.
I dare to disagree. I think if you wiped the eternal suggestions now after DF2010 and then posted an "Improved Undeground", which used to be a very popular suggestion, it would't come up in the top 10. Sure, some people would still vote for it, which would mean they're still unhappy with the new underground, but most would propably move somewhere else. The same goes for the current top10 - i think most voters, seeing the list of features planned for the nearest future, would move to other suggestions. And those who'd remain in "adventurer skills" would basically be saying: "not enough adventurer skills, we want more!" Which is allright, but they'd hardly break the top 10.
EDIT: Looking at the current top 10, I think most of them would'n even get reopened when finished. I mean, you can't keep making "full graphics support", or "standing production orders" or "auto vein mining" or "workshop material
selection" for all the eternity. Once they're done, they're done.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 07, 2010, 08:55:39 pm
People should not just be throwing out every idea they have, hoping that if they throw out enough, maybe one of them might be listened to by accident.
People should be reading other people's suggestions, and then trying to improve them. That is why "little suggestions" should really be encouraged to be intigrated with "big suggestions" - so that people can improve upon the suggestions of others.
Post by: RCIX on July 07, 2010, 11:09:51 pm
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 08, 2010, 10:59:34 am
EDIT: And you can of course post small suggestion. Toady is known to read and note every single suggestion in this forum. The problem we're talking about is that small suggestions rarely get enough votes in the eternal voting system(*), which I still don't perceive as a "problem".
(*) Or do they? See "Automatic vein digging" which is a very small suggestion.
EDIT2: OK, actual small (narrow) suggestions now (defining "narrow" as something that can be explained by only a couple of words)
2. (869) Standing production orders
4. (676) Workshop Material Selection
5. (494) Full graphics support
7. (403) Auto-mining
8. (373) Job Priorities
12. (220) Integrated Dwarf Foreman
16. (159) [Resolved] Designate Safe Area
17. (140) Yearly Status Report
18. (134) Allow engraving of constructions
That's about half of the TOP20! Where the heck is the problem? It almost sounds like you are complaining only because your small suggestions weren't those small suggestions that made it to the top.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 08, 2010, 02:15:58 pm
But there are good examples indeed, Designate safe area in particular: even though it was solved as part of a larger system (burrows), it can still be crossed off, while implementing one idea of a collection doesn't give that visible result.
Last but not least, having smaller goals is also nice for Toady, release cycles like the last that drag on forever are unpleasant.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 08, 2010, 02:54:05 pm
Last but not least, having smaller goals is also nice for Toady, release cycles like the last that drag on forever are unpleasant.
I don't know, I kind of liked having a stretch of time without updates. It meant having an up-to-date wiki, rather than still having to go back to the last version of the wiki to see the information, and having to make an educated guess as to whether it still would hold true or not. It meant having third-party tools that could focus on improving their services, rather than keeping up with changes.
Besides, I would kind of like to see Toady try to impliment full ideas rather than little snippets of ideas. The new materials system, where just about all the materials had dummy entry values is an example of how Toady tends to put things in without really finishing implimenting them (or having cheesemakers without the ability to milk animals in the last version). On the one hand, I don't mind Toady using players as beta testers, but at the same time, I think this player-driven rush to get whatever random scraps of code we can out of Toady, just to have the latest thing, is a rather negative aspect of this community.
Frankly, I'm still waiting and playing around with the edges of this game until I see a release in this version that I think is stable and well-supported enough to acutally play my first "real" fort of this version.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 08, 2010, 04:35:55 pm
In a game so interwoven as DF, the loose ends are inevitable IMO. At least as long as it's in alpha. It isn't even in beta, where you can expect an unbalanced and unpolished but mostly complete game. With smaller changes, it's also easier to get feedback, to fix bugs and to see what specific parts work or not. Toady is free to cover a bunch of smaller suggestions in a big sweep (as he did with burrows and entrance dance/safety zone/military orders), though. And for those reasons small suggestions are a better fit for the eternal suggestion list.
Post by: RCIX on July 08, 2010, 05:47:44 pm
Post by: Pilsu on July 08, 2010, 05:51:46 pm
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 08, 2010, 08:30:11 pm
This still doesn't answer my question: what do we do with the small unrelated suggestions (like Longer Chains or my Paint Stuff suggestion)? thow it in a "misc suggestions" suggestion, or just not suggest them at all?
I believe the answer to that was that things like "Longer Chains" or "Paint Stuff" are probably never going to become top-the-charts popular on their own, as it would apply to the desires of such a small percentage of the voting base. It would likely, however, be better to suggest things as part of a broader sweep, such as the Improved Mechanics thread, which really explored the way that we could have automated systems in DF to take advantage of the power system.
This is, in part, why I am frequently mentioning in many of these smaller suggestion threads that modding should be able to replicate many of the suggestions, and that we should encourage Toady to give us more flexibility in the raws, so that we can produce these sorts of things ourselves, as giving us the tools to make a thousand little suggestions come true ourselves is better than hand-picking a half-dozen little suggestions to be hard-coded.
This would, in fact, be one of the strengths of the ESV system as it stands: by making people prioritize, it tends to promote suggestions, even small suggestions, that have the broadest demand.
That said, once again, Toady at least attempts to read all the suggestions on this board (although the more the board gets flooded with redundant suggestions, the more and more he'll likely get behind,) and he is an intelligent and capable person who can recognize when some ideas are fairly easy to impliment and would make at least a smaller portion of the playerbase happy for minimal cost to himself, or can simply throw in something because he just plain likes the idea himself.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 09, 2010, 12:28:50 pm
Post by: NW_Kohaku on July 09, 2010, 12:41:29 pm
The way it seems to be going is that Toady chooses which arc/theme to work on, and then picks up fitting small suggestions from his own notes, important and bookmarked threads from the boards, and the eternal suggestion voting. The big compilation threads are already known and bookmarked; there is no need to give them extra attention in the voting list. In addition, let Toady choose the order of the arc he'll work on himself: that's a matter of design rather than player whim. It's also pointless, since all the arcs will be worked on eventually. Smaller suggestions however, risk falling through the cracks. Especially the older ones: a small suggestion made somewhere in a thread in 2007 is completely forgotten by now if Toady didn't make a note the first time (even in a compilation list it's buried between other stuff); if it is in the voting list, it can potentially get a new life when other items on the list are completed and people are looking for new cool ideas to vote on.
But that again ignores the effect of prioritization. ESV doesn't simply ask you "which of these ideas do you like", it asks you "which of these are the three ideas that you most want to see done very soon?"
This is the difference between simply having a thumbs up or down, and having only a limited number of votes so you have to pick the most important suggestions to you. People arguing against ESV seem to never really address this design goal.
It's one thing when there seems to be another "Seige Weapons" thread every other day, it's another when wheelbarrows attracts 10% (or whatever the actual fraction may be) of the total votes in the ESV.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 09, 2010, 04:19:40 pm
Post by: Pilsu on July 10, 2010, 08:45:22 pm
10 votes is all we need to give smaller stuff a chance.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 11, 2010, 03:15:08 am
If you broke up improved mechanics into smaller sections, it'd just eat up a bigger chunk of the top 10.Yes, but then we can say it's implemented or it's not implemented. Collection thread will linger forever. And let's face it, Toady has already planned the next three arcs to work on. ES voting won't change that. He can always squeeze in a few smaller items, however.
Post by: Draco18s on July 11, 2010, 11:06:42 am
If you broke up improved mechanics into smaller sections, it'd just eat up a bigger chunk of the top 10.Yes, but then we can say it's implemented or it's not implemented. Collection thread will linger forever. And let's face it, Toady has already planned the next three arcs to work on. ES voting won't change that. He can always squeeze in a few smaller items, however.
Look, there's nothing wrong with group suggestions. When something gets done the creator should mark it as "completed for now." The people who voted for it should vote for something else and let the group suggestion linger at the bottom so Toady can work on other things.
Even if people don't do this, Toady already plans on ignoring those suggestions for a version.
There's an entire string of posts about it (starting here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg281587#msg281587) and continuing here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg282466#msg282466)) already.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 11, 2010, 11:19:14 am
Post by: Draco18s on July 11, 2010, 11:22:35 am
Toady chooses the arcs and the direction of the development himself, he ignores the collections in the ESV, as you say. That's what I mean when I say that collections aren't useful to put in an ESV list.
No no no no no.
Toady looks at the list and sees Underground Diversity and More Machines in the top 10, so he works on them and releases a version.
A few votes get reallocated, but the two suggestions remain in the top 10.
Toady looks at the list for some stuff to work on for the next version and skips those two items, works on something else, and releases a version
Things shuffle around a bit, but the two suggestions remain top 10.
Toady looks at the list and sees Underground Diversity and More Machines in the top 10, so he works on them some more and releases a version.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 11, 2010, 01:23:22 pm
To a certain extent, this is matter of strategy of people who think it's more important for the ESV suggestions to "win" the vote rather than to communicate your desires clearly. As it is there are sufficient discrete items in the ESV to have some use, but in any case, it's up to Toady to indicate how useful the ESV is. As you say, he'll skip the broader suggestions - which is fine for me, because I didn't waste my vote in a suggestion that covers half the game.
Post by: Jiri Petru on July 11, 2010, 02:55:52 pm
And that's not to mention how would you handle it technically? Any idea for a real implementation of suggestion limits? Who would judge what is small and what is large? How would you set the rules? Where would the dividing line between small and large be? Even if you managed to answer all of this, you'd find out everyone feels it differently and that people keep posting what you consider as a "large" suggestion. Who would moderate it then? Toady wouldn't.
I say, leave things develop naturally. Don't set any arbitrary limits. It's the easiest and (IMHO) even the most effective way.
---
Quote from: Draco18s
Toady looks at the list and sees Underground Diversity and More Machines in the top 10, so he works on them and releases a version.
A few votes get reallocated, but the two suggestions remain in the top 10.
Toady looks at the list for some stuff to work on for the next version and skips those two items, works on something else, and releases a version
Things shuffle around a bit, but the two suggestions remain top 10.
Toady looks at the list and sees Underground Diversity and More Machines in the top 10, so he works on them some more and releases a version.
The two would stay because people who voted for them have already stopped caring and don't bother to come back and relocate their votes :P Really, the list needs periodical resets even if it is just for deleting "dead" votes. I personally am for periodical wiping of the suggestions too, to delete "dead" or "abandoned" suggestions.
Post by: Draco18s on July 11, 2010, 03:43:00 pm
The two would stay because people who voted for them have already stopped caring and don't bother to come back and relocate their votes :P Really, the list needs periodical resets even if it is just for deleting "dead" votes. I personally am for periodical wiping of the suggestions too, to delete "dead" or "abandoned" suggestions.
Back when it was originally a concern (see page 2 of this thread) the votes would be cleared, and then under the assumption that it managed to ranky highly again Toady wouldn't work on it until he'd released another major/semi-major version recognizing that people wanted "more" of whatever it was, but not working on it in order to take a break.
So that still boils down to: Toady implements a few specific items... but not the ones people want, but the ones Toady thinks they might want. That's not efficient, the ESV is a way to communicate the desires of the community to Toady, after all.
Or you know, create a top ten that had items that weren't ones he worked on recently by grabbing items #11 and #12. >..> Its not like he'd go, "well, of the top 10, I just worked on two items, so...I'm going to do #23, #46, #112, and number #116 and none from the top 10."
The EVS is "what people want to see next." If they just got something, they can wait to see even more.
Post by: RCIX on July 11, 2010, 06:34:17 pm
The EVS is "what people want to see next." If they just got something, they can wait to see even more.Then those suggestions are just eating up space and it makes it harder for Toady to know what we would want instead of those. And just taking from a little lower on the list isn't going to work; maybe players would vote for something low on the list right now but it would go up high if they had a free vote.
Post by: Draco18s on July 11, 2010, 07:15:01 pm
Then those suggestions are just eating up space and it makes it harder for Toady to know what we would want instead of those.
No, not really. The goal is to clear them of votes (dropping them to the bottom of the list) and discouraging people from voting on them.
Quote
And just taking from a little lower on the list isn't going to work; maybe players would vote for something low on the list right now but it would go up high if they had a free vote.
Wait, what? That makes no sense.
Post by: RCIX on July 12, 2010, 04:40:23 am
Ok, think about this:QuoteAnd just taking from a little lower on the list isn't going to work; maybe players would vote for something low on the list right now but it would go up high if they had a free vote.
Wait, what? That makes no sense.
You have 2 suggestions, A and B. They each have 500 votes and occupy the 3rd and 4th slots on the list. There are also a few other options, C/D/E/F, which a lot of people like but few vote on due to other more interesting at the time suggestions. Now, one of two things can happen:
* A and B are worked on, but since not everything from them are implemented, they still retain a lot of votes, and now the list is in a cluttered state (people are wasting votes on something that won't get worked on for a long while instead of a suggestion that has potential)
* A and B are split into their components along with people getting more votes, which means that more votes will be freed up for C, D, E, and F to rise to be suggestions that will be implemented soon.
Post by: Draco18s on July 12, 2010, 10:30:10 am
(people are wasting votes on something that won't get worked on for a long while instead of a suggestion that has potential)
You keep missing the "completed items, even ones that could have more, get their votes cleared, get marked as '[COMPLETED] Please put your votes somewhere else, as putting them here they will be considered wasted'" bit.
Emphasis on "considered wasted."
Post by: Silverionmox on July 12, 2010, 03:29:37 pm
With small suggestion, the only real effect is that people vote for things in the first part of the list and don't bother reading more.The real effect is that small suggestions disappear when completed or rejected, and they do so fast, keeping the list in flux and bringing newer suggestions to the top.
Besides, people do find small suggestions to vote on: I've kept track of a few suggestions and I've seen them climb slowly, vote by vote from zero to nearing the top 20. Even as we speak there are small, new items being added and voted on. While the big ones clutter the top of the list for years.
Quote
Someone argued for opening the list to more players. Enforcing small suggestions only would have the exact opposite effect - making the eternal voting more elitist.Does not happen, people find the small ones. Especially when the big ones aren't there to suck up all votes forever.
Quote
And that's not to mention how would you handle it technically? Any idea for a real implementation of suggestion limits? Who would judge what is small and what is large? How would you set the rules? Where would the dividing line between small and large be? Even if you managed to answer all of this, you'd find out everyone feels it differently and that people keep posting what you consider as a "large" suggestion. Who would moderate it then? Toady wouldn't.Just have another list with the big themes/arcs. (Items only added by mods, limited number of items). People who want to urge Toady to work on a big theme can do so there. The ESV we have now can stay as it is with a big note that collections will be ignored and you can vote for that in the other list.
Quote
The two would stay because people who voted for them have already stopped caring and don't bother to come back and relocate their votes Really, the list needs periodical resets even if it is just for deleting "dead" votes. I personally am for periodical wiping of the suggestions too, to delete "dead" or "abandoned" suggestions.Not all people have always enough time to check the ESV... Let votes be wiped when the suggestions are implemented, that'll keep the list up-to-date. Temporarily absent players are players too.
Post by: Pilsu on July 12, 2010, 09:27:39 pm
Post by: Draco18s on July 13, 2010, 12:00:57 am
We're not voting for what we want in, we're voting for what we want worked on. If anything, specific things don't belong in the list as they actively try to control Toady's creative work.
Again, someone hits the nail on the head.
The ESV should be closer to Power Goals than specific Requests. Let Toady decide the best way to make farming more Fun. Let Toady decide how to make the underground interesting (and he did, and in ways that no one even thought of).
Post by: Silverionmox on July 13, 2010, 12:38:02 pm
Post by: Draco18s on July 13, 2010, 01:36:55 pm
He'll still do that (for example, solving the entrance dance and a few other entries by implementing burrows). The advantage is that these suggestions can unceremoniously be ditched and make place for new ones in the list, or let the others ones rise.
So...you're suggesting that completed suggestions be removed? How about they will be when either the creator or Toady gets around to doing it.
Like. Gasp. No one thought of THAT before.
The problem is letting people know that the list had stuff removed and people need to make sure that all of their votes are still being used.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 15, 2010, 01:20:59 pm
If the list is dynamic, i.e. stuff changes place and/or is removed more often, people will check it more often and they'll see whether their votes are being used or not.
Post by: Draco18s on July 15, 2010, 01:25:19 pm
Removing suggestions that are done is indeed the intention. Because suggestion collections will never be done, they'll never be removed.
I've already addressed this point (at least) twice.
Post by: Silverionmox on July 15, 2010, 01:34:27 pm
Not to my satisfaction apparently. :) Let's leave it at that.Removing suggestions that are done is indeed the intention. Because suggestion collections will never be done, they'll never be removed.
I've already addressed this point (at least) twice.
Post by: Draco18s on July 15, 2010, 02:21:23 pm
Not to my satisfaction apparently. :) Let's leave it at that.
What part of "removed, have their votes cleared, and re-added as a placeholder" doesn't count as "sufficiently removed from the list"?
At some point people will consider the suggestion done. The reasons why "under/aboveground diversity" keep coming up is because DF contains all of like 100 different animals (30 of which are monkeys and the remainder are fish).
Post by: azmodean on July 30, 2010, 02:02:33 pm
At some point people will consider the suggestion done. The reasons why "under/aboveground diversity" keep coming up is because DF contains all of like 100 different animals (30 of which are monkeys and the remainder are fish).
Don't forget the elephants :)
My first two embarks had herds of elephants, I was terrified as I had just read the boatmurdered saga. I was rather disappointed at their lack of killing all of my dwarves, although I did have one bit of FUN, when I captured one in a cage, and then set it to be slaughtered, resulting in my animal handler being thrown across a room and exploding against a wall.
Post by: Draco18s on July 30, 2010, 02:05:48 pm
At some point people will consider the suggestion done. The reasons why "under/aboveground diversity" keep coming up is because DF contains all of like 100 different animals (30 of which are monkeys and the remainder are fish).
Don't forget the elephants :)
Oh yes. Skelephants and skeagles. And skarp, too.
Post by: mnjiman on August 21, 2010, 03:33:06 am
ty.
Post by: Draco18s on August 21, 2010, 10:00:12 pm
end game content added.
1) I think you missed the point of this thread
2) End game?
Post by: Knigel on September 12, 2010, 03:22:08 pm
Post by: jei on September 17, 2010, 02:43:23 pm
* Multithreading support
* 64bit native DF
* Job Priorities
Also, some of the suggestions are doubles, such as Trading options or remembering the trade agreements. I'd vote for that too if I could. Insensible "repeat same thing again" tasks for the player should be eliminated. But current biggest problem with DF is the FPS loss that you get, or at least I do in all my forts ever since 2010. Seems it started to happen with blood spatter, Parts of it may have been fixed, but I think some big clog is still there that causes at least my forts to grind down to unplayability by their year 5.
Multithreading or giving path finding to second CPU could bring a lot of additional juice.
Also some of the voted suggestions have already been implemented, afaik.
Post by: Adn88 on September 19, 2010, 03:06:01 pm
Multi-threading support
Standing Production Orders
Workshop Material Selection
Multi-threading would be a huge help because almost all new computers today have at least a dual core processor and it would really speed things up.
Standing Production orders would be helpful because it takes away some of the annoying micromanaging you have to do to keep certain things in stock that you can't just set to continuously produce due to potential resource shortage (ie booze)
However, I think that the Workshop Material Selection would be the best thing right now because i've found that it can get annoying when trying to make something out of magma safe material but your dwarf keeps making it out of limestone.
Post by: nogibator on September 20, 2010, 01:28:07 pm
Give us real running rivers and lakes on all underground layers.
Post by: Draco18s on September 20, 2010, 01:45:15 pm
Hey Toady, you have code for river generation on surface, why underground don't have any rivers, only miserable pools of water?
We did for a while, but they spawned from no where and vanished into bottomless pits. They sucked all living things down eventually, so they weren't very interesting by the time the player found them.
Post by: Stworca on October 03, 2010, 03:42:23 am
Quote
* Improved (Speed Up) Pathfinder.
* Standing production orders
* Workshop Material Selection
I'd vote for Improved (Speed Up) Pathfinder. 3 times if it was possible tho :)
Post by: Granite26 on October 04, 2010, 09:31:57 am
The link to Granite26's suggestion list on the original post is still linking to what I'm guessing is the old wiki instead of df.magmawiki.com
Not sure i follow. Is this somerhing i should fix?
Post by: Knigel on October 11, 2010, 02:34:16 pm
The link to Granite26's suggestion list on the original post is still linking to what I'm guessing is the old wiki instead of df.magmawiki.com
Not sure i follow. Is this somerhing i should fix?
No, it was a link in Toady's post.
More importantly, I posted this in the wrong thread. I was talking about the OP in the other stickied thread, "Suggestions Forum Organization".
Post by: Silverbel on October 17, 2010, 09:07:47 pm
*waves from the bleachers*
We want a pitcher! Not a belly-itcher!
Post by: i2amroy on October 22, 2010, 02:15:27 am
Post by: Draco18s on October 22, 2010, 08:27:27 am
I was just looking at the eternal suggestions voting page and I noticed that there are still a couple of topics that have been marked [RESOLVED] and have yet to be deleted. Not to sound insulting, but they have been like that several months now and I doubt that any votes on them are going to be relocated any time soon. I personally am in favor of deleting them and freeing up some more room in the top 30.
Thanks for reminding me. I meant to do that when 31.13 came out, or whichever version it was.
Post by: Jiri Petru on October 22, 2010, 09:23:27 am
1) Toady repeatedly stated that he doesn't want to work with other people
2) There are people who would vote for interface but not for the abstraction because they know of 1)
I think a simple rename to "improve the interface, any way you deem suitable" should suffice. We could also link it to this thread with general interface suggestions (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.msg534385#msg534385).
Post by: Draco18s on October 22, 2010, 10:17:42 am
Wow, Draco, you can manage the voting list?
No, I can only manage the ones I added, and I--being one of the first users--added about 30 items that were popular at the time.
And I'm not joking (http://i53.tinypic.com/102ktfl.jpg). That's the top suggestions, everyone in green is one I added (I've got 8 of the top 11).
(Edit: votes cleared from the 4 [resolved] items I own)
Post by: Silverionmox on October 24, 2010, 01:22:28 pm
Wow, Draco, you can manage the voting list? Any change we could rename the "abstract the interface" suggestion to something more general, because:I don't think it's out of place: after all, the raws are there for editing; presumably this suggestion aims at something in the same vein.
1) Toady repeatedly stated that he doesn't want to work with other people
2) There are people who would vote for interface but not for the abstraction because they know of 1)
I think a simple rename to "improve the interface, any way you deem suitable" should suffice. We could also link it to this thread with general interface suggestions (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.msg534385#msg534385).
Post by: Di on October 29, 2010, 01:44:54 pm
There's plenty of outdated suggestions.
For instance:
Center on Announcement
Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants
Dwarf Inventory Management
Owned Barracks
Civilian weapons
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Meeting Area Subcontrol
Oh my.. Even "Doctors/Hospitals" is still there almost on top.
Post by: Draco18s on October 29, 2010, 02:13:59 pm
Post by: Silverionmox on October 31, 2010, 04:23:50 pm
Hey, is anyone monitoring that list?
There's plenty of outdated suggestions.
For instance:
Center on Announcement
Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants
Dwarf Inventory Management
Owned Barracks
Civilian weapons
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Meeting Area Subcontrol
Oh my.. Even "Doctors/Hospitals" is still there almost on top.
I went through it a while ago. See this comment and the few following:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1165971#msg1165971
And I still haven't seen any rough gems sold in caravans, nor water.
Post by: TolyK on November 05, 2010, 03:24:48 pm
Post by: Sowelu on November 05, 2010, 03:32:47 pm
Post by: TolyK on November 07, 2010, 03:04:18 pm
so I was right in my assumption.
wow only 3 votes?
I put in about 23 when I first tried :-\
Post by: zilpin on December 31, 2010, 06:15:37 pm
Going through the list, I'd say time is due for an admin to wipe the slate clean, and let people submit new.
That is the best way to get community attention to something that now appears to be dead as it stands.
Post by: Silverionmox on December 31, 2010, 07:12:58 pm
Post by: Naros on January 13, 2011, 08:54:44 pm
Post by: Durian Hohlades on January 13, 2011, 09:16:17 pm
*cheers* ^^
Post by: Silverionmox on January 14, 2011, 05:36:06 pm
Post by: Kogut on January 20, 2011, 02:20:16 pm
Source Code - is not valid suggestion
Improving the game - is just completely useless
--
from previous post
"Dwarves buyable with embark points. 7 dwarves" is a duplicate of "Additional embark options" and should be removed. :)
Post by: Zaranthan on February 04, 2011, 01:54:18 pm
Improved Mechanics - I love doing stuff with power. Having more stuff to do with power is awesome.
Remember Trade Agreements - A total convenience feature, but a major one for some of us. I make dozens of requests every year for animals, exotic foods, rare metal and stone, and other things that are hard to produce large amounts of locally. I make the same requests every single time.
Standing Production Orders - Stockpiling a thousand of every plant and booze type is easy. Keeping empty barrels around in such a situation is not.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 04, 2011, 02:13:12 pm
You do know that there's no point in voting for the first and third of those ever since Toady made the new Dev Page that included those things because of popular demand, right? There's no point in putting your votes in for Toady to do something he's already said he would do.
Post by: Thundercraft on February 04, 2011, 08:09:03 pm
Going through the list, I'd say time is due for an admin to wipe the slate clean, and let people submit new.
That is the best way to get community attention to something that now appears to be dead as it stands.
Umm... You do realize that people can change their 3 votes later if they change their mind or if one of their voted suggestions become obsolete? Right?
Deleting votes, even after period of time has passed, basically means that their vote did not count. And I'd suspect many voters would not think to check back, only to discover that all votes had been reset... :o :( I'm sure there's more than a few votes by fans who've not participated much on the forums in months or years, so some might not find out about the reset to resubmit their votes.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 04, 2011, 08:17:43 pm
Post by: Draco18s on February 04, 2011, 08:47:27 pm
Umm... You do realize that people can change their 3 votes later if they change their mind or if one of their voted suggestions become obsolete? Right?
Deleting votes, even after period of time has passed, basically means that their vote did not count. And I'd suspect many voters would not think to check back, only to discover that all votes had been reset... :o :( I'm sure there's more than a few votes by fans who've not participated much on the forums in months or years, so some might not find out about the reset to resubmit their votes.
Hence why you only need to delete the votes on completed items.
Post by: Jiri Petru on February 04, 2011, 09:26:01 pm
Post by: Kogut on February 05, 2011, 05:21:38 am
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 05, 2011, 10:55:41 am
The point of ESV is to tell Toady which problems are most severe, or items are most wanted as to get about a thousand people's votes. He's already said, "OK, I'll do the 10 with the most votes right after Adventurer stuff, Caravan Arc, and Army Arc," which is exactly what the voting was for. Why would you wait until after it is in the game to change your vote?
Post by: Kogut on February 05, 2011, 01:13:35 pm
How are you sure that the implimented ones are going to be purged?
Quote
DO NOT VOTE. This item has been completed and still exists as a placeholder. Train military to novice before sparring with others.
Post by: Draco18s on February 05, 2011, 01:38:10 pm
How are you sure that the implimented ones are going to be purged?QuoteDO NOT VOTE. This item has been completed and still exists as a placeholder. Train military to novice before sparring with others.
That might be one of the 16 that I "own." I think I'm the only one doing that (though there might be one other person).
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 05, 2011, 02:23:45 pm
And you can't get the people who put those suggestions up there to change them because many of those people who put them on the list no longer even visit the forums or potentially even play the game anymore.
Post by: Jiri Petru on February 05, 2011, 08:17:25 pm
Or it should, anyway... one year from now, Dwarf Fortress will be so different that many voting items will become obsolete - some because they will have been implemented, other because something similar will have been implemented and they will become unattractive.
I still think starting from scratch is inevitable in the long run. Right now the list is so long and incomprehensible that noone will ever bother to read it whole.
Post by: Silverionmox on February 06, 2011, 08:16:54 am
I think we should simply accept the fact that it is nothing else than "archived votes from 2009". The top10 items have been noted and Toady has a lot to work on. Once he'll get neat the completion, there will presumably be a new round of voting from a clear slate.One of the causes of the staticness of the list is the hugeness of many top items: there are a lot of collection threads there, or things that don't have an obvious practical solution (improved hauling, for example). If there were more small things like "Eggs, eggs, eggs", then the top ten would be realized faster, items could be striked off faster and the whole thing would be more dynamic. That doesn't prevent Toady from picking the easy, small ones, but it would seems as if he ignored the list ordering... and voting would seem pointless again. Also, any Improved x item will be there forever because improvement is always possible.
Or it should, anyway... one year from now, Dwarf Fortress will be so different that many voting items will become obsolete - some because they will have been implemented, other because something similar will have been implemented and they will become unattractive.
I still think starting from scratch is inevitable in the long run. Right now the list is so long and incomprehensible that noone will ever bother to read it whole.
Finally, is there a link to the voting list somewhere on an accessible place? I think many people find it once, but don't bookmark it so they don't look at it afterwards.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 06, 2011, 09:03:30 am
Post by: Zaranthan on February 06, 2011, 11:35:34 pm
Short story long, people who are new to a forum don't read the stickies. They don't read the FAQs, the gigantic red flashing "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING" links, the front page of the wiki, nothing. The first six topics of the forum could be spelling out exactly what they have to say, they'll still make a new topic about something that's been argued into the ground a hundred times before. When you boil down the population of a game-centered forum, you get three basic groups:
1. People who like the game. These people won't hang around the suggestion or bug reporting forums, because it gets their hopes up. They'd rather just enjoy what they have and support the developers in other ways, be it writing fanfic, publicizing their favorite indie game, donating to the cause, what have you.
2. People who don't like the game. These people will hang out in the suggestion and bug reporting forums perpetually whining about how their particular pet peeve hasn't been fixed yet. Usually because their peeve is either unsolvable (inexperienced players "ruining" the game, a core mechanic they disagree with, etc.) or infeasible (multithreading support for pathfinding, make the game an MMO, make the game a Facebook app, etc.). The stickies won't stop these folks either, because they believe their opinion is worth more than that of the people who do the heavy lifting.
3. People who are new at the game. These people don't hang around anywhere in particular, they just click something that seems like it's relevant to what they want and post a question in full earnestness. The fact that their question has been asked and answered a hundred times is lost on them, because they don't know WHERE the faq even is. They don't know the wiki exists.
Basically, stuff like this is like foul weather. You can either stand in the rain and scream at the heavens, or grit your teeth and bear it. Nothing you can do short of genocide on a heretofore unimaginable scale is going to stop it. And even then, it'll just be a delaying action. People will stop voting for improved health care because there's nobody voting on anything because they're too busy scavenging for canned food.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 06, 2011, 11:47:55 pm
I also read the stickies (well, sticky), that's where I found the ESV thing the first time, and where I always go to link back to it. I also made sure to read the rules section at the top of the forum before posting my first time, since I was nervous, and wanted to make sure I wouldn't be breaking the particular rules of the forum.
Plus I learned the game by reading the wiki for a few days first before really playing because I really enjoyed just reading about how all the systems in the game worked, and wanted to make sure I understood something well before I tried doing it, myself. My first fortress lasted to getting my queen and having some water reactors, and only ended because I moved on to other forts.
I think your catagories might stand to be expanded a little bit. :P
Post by: TolyK on February 07, 2011, 12:01:37 am
1. Press "?" for in-game help
2. Visit the forums at bay12forums.com for help
3. Visit the wiki at magmawiki.com for help"
for a first run of the game. That way folks could be like, "oh thanks I can actually play this game now that I know where to get help!"
Post by: Kogut on February 07, 2011, 02:43:22 pm
It is in game.
@sb is reporting bugs, suggesting things - and it is supposed to be sign that sb dislike game?
Post by: Naros on February 13, 2011, 08:40:26 pm
Toady's said that things regarding the Eternal Suggestion Voting didn't work out as expected.
That is, that people can close their own completed or outdated posts, or that they can contacted to do so.
Clearly this didn't take into account people who just went inactive .. so we're left with entries for Eggs and Doctors, even though they're already implemented.
Post by: Kogut on February 14, 2011, 05:34:59 am
Post by: Nopkar on February 14, 2011, 05:51:44 pm
Post by: Puzzlemaker on February 18, 2011, 04:44:27 am
Post by: Drunken on February 20, 2011, 10:04:01 am
Post by: Granite26 on February 21, 2011, 09:55:14 am
Post by: EmperorJon on February 24, 2011, 05:44:36 pm
People requesting -
Faction standing in Adventurer mode (Exists, obviously unaware)
Hospitals (From 07, not been marked as done or obsolete or anything. XD)
Just to let you know, that's 2 I saw on a quick skim. I know you're all busy people. Sorry for wasting your time. ;)
Post by: Kogut on February 24, 2011, 07:00:28 pm
Eggs, eggs, eggs.
Owned Barracks
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Meeting Area Subcontrol
Factional Standings in Adventurer
Doctors/Hospitals
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 24, 2011, 07:10:31 pm
Toady isn't cleaning this stuff up (and maybe doesn't have admin access to it, since someone else set it up), the people who posted those aren't cleaning them up and most aren't even around anymore, and the guy who actually set this whole system up is gone now, too, I think. The whole voting system needs a reset, since everyone who participated stopped watching or caring, and the ESV is just frozen in the state it was in a year ago.
Nobody's doing any maintainance on this at all, so it doesn't really matter, nothing's going to get done.
Post by: Granite26 on February 24, 2011, 08:42:56 pm
There's enough stuff in the queue now to last another year or two. Once that (inc. the caravan arc) gets finished, I expect we'll see another version of this come out.
We have the luxury of airily talking about what all we want. Toady has to actually make a plan and do some of it.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 24, 2011, 09:23:03 pm
After the year and a half of wait for 31.01 to come out, it's taken about 9 months of nothing but bugfix releases for Toady to actually start working on adding something new into the game again. (And people are complaining that he has put stuff into the game again, since they still want him bugfixing.)
We need that Hauling rewrite desperately.
But again, this just underlines why nobody's going to bother to do anything with the ESV. It doesn't matter at all. The same things are going to be in the same positions five years from now, and who knows if they'll even be done by then.
Things like bees get put in because they're fast and simple and don't really do anything. Things like hauling that are hard to code get shoved to the back of the line.
If you actually want your suggestions to get to the top of the list, and for Toady to work on it just because it's popular, then pull up a chair and smoke 'em if you've got 'em, it's gonna be a looooooooong wait. This is a very long-term game we are dealing with.
Post by: Granite26 on February 24, 2011, 11:56:03 pm
Post by: Kogut on February 25, 2011, 02:52:29 am
Quote
We need that Hauling rewrite desperately.Ekhm. Why?
Post by: Draco18s on February 25, 2011, 08:41:30 am
QuoteWe need that Hauling rewrite desperately.Ekhm. Why?
This one seed! It is so heavy! It takes up my entire capacity to carry items!
Post by: Granite26 on February 25, 2011, 08:43:15 am
1: no mechanical advantage available for large things (donkeys, mine carts, dollies)
2: no collecting multiple objects going to the same place(herbalist is the best example)
3: no 'on your way' tasks (dwarf heading to mine brings along food for the food pile down there.)
4: general pathfinding issues.
These are all really tough problems to solve with an fps friendly algo.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 25, 2011, 08:50:09 am
QuoteWe need that Hauling rewrite desperately.Ekhm. Why?
There are plenty of efficiency reasons for having stacking and hauling, so that dwarves can put a stack of 5 plump helmets together with another stack of 5 plump helmets in order to conserve space in the stockpiles, or having to go back and forth from the fields carrying each seed to and from the fields individually, or making looting the goblin corpses a matter of the entire fortress population each running out into the battlefield to pick up one sock each while the iron breastplates lie unclaimed until the next siege.
Aside from the obvious immediate uses of having dwarves capable of carrying and storing multiple items together, it is necessary in the long term to allow DF to break away from its materials rut of everything costing 1 wood, 1 stone, or 1 plant, or 1 metal. Make a barrel out of wood? That costs 1 wood. Want to make a ceramic pot, instead? The clay is free, but the fuel costs one wood. Material cost-wise, it's all just 1 wood.
Costs in stone are pointless, since they're so abundant as to be a benefit whenever you can get rid of the stuff. Farming is so easy that plants like food and booze and cloth are functionally free, as well.
That makes metal and sometimes wood the only resources of any scarcity or value.
The hauling rewrites are a prerequisite to almost any serious work on the industrial workings and economy of Dwarf Fortress, because it lets you finally start making one thing cost more materials than another thing without making that cost "3 metal for a table" when 1 free stone does just as well.
Post by: Kogut on February 25, 2011, 08:59:05 am
I see that 'on your way' may be nice but I have no idea how to make efficient algorithm (n log n or better) to solve it.
Herbalists are begging for fix but it is not "desperately" thing - it is not game breaking/FPS annihilating/crashing/stupid more than cage traps, food for entire fort from 3 tiles/dodging or military training.
Post by: Granite26 on February 25, 2011, 09:44:05 am
Post by: Kogut on February 25, 2011, 09:50:55 am
Post by: Granite26 on February 25, 2011, 12:03:51 pm
And no, all that happened was a muliplier got added in some places for amounts.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 25, 2011, 12:38:36 pm
Same time it happened with threads.
And no, all that happened was a muliplier got added in some places for amounts.
Yeah, I remember seeing a message that I was "1000 units of thread" short on trying to make a bag or something, and thinking it must be a bug at first.
Plus, once I made some super-sized dwarves to experiment with something, and they wound up making axes and such that were 65 tons of steel, but only took one steel bar, and had values in the millions. (And even though they were tremendously strong, they were weighed down by their 20-ton pig tail socks, and as such moved at a glacial pace unless I ordered them to go naked.)
The size of the raw material has nothing to do with what you create with it right now. Hopefully, one day that will be fixed, and you will be able to use fractions of a bar of steel, but to do that, you need hauling and stacking fixed.
Post by: Sowelu on February 25, 2011, 05:10:12 pm
See, here's my opinion. It should be okay to lose some significant FPS for some major intelligence upgrades. If the FPS drops by half, but your dwarves start combining four trips into one, then you've come out ahead. If your miners stop being dumbasses that trip over each other in an OCD effort to make sure that each of six tunnels are always exactly the same length, no matter how far apart they are, and who dare not take two seconds to mine the stone that another dwarf across the fortress has claimed, then you've come out ahead. Things would get done SO much faster. You wouldn't notice the FPS drop most of the time, because in terms of REAL LIFE time, you would get results sooner.
Post by: Kogut on February 26, 2011, 01:45:24 am
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 26, 2011, 12:00:02 pm
It is not "the FPS drops by half", it is "the FPS drops to 1/n of old FPS" where n is quantify of dwarves. (or even "the FPS drops to 1/(n*n) of old FPS")
I'm going to have to ask you to explain where you came up with those numbers. The only way that sort of complexity would make sense is if the entire pathfinding routine would have to take place per every other pathfinding creature in the entire map, which makes absolutely no sense.
Post by: Kogut on February 26, 2011, 12:21:45 pm
We have route from A to B. [for example single sock moved from A [battlefield] to B [trade depot]]It is not "the FPS drops by half", it is "the FPS drops to 1/n of old FPS" where n is quantify of dwarves. (or even "the FPS drops to 1/(n*n) of old FPS")
I'm going to have to ask you to explain where you came up with those numbers. The only way that sort of complexity would make sense is if the entire pathfinding routine would have to take place per every other pathfinding creature in the entire map, which makes absolutely no sense.
We want to detect routes likes A->X->Y->B, without huge additional cost.
To find routes like this it is required to make pathfinding A->B and A->X->Y->B for every possible pair of X->Y. [sock moved from X1 [battlefield] to Y1 [trade depot], sock moved from X2 [battlefield] to Y2 [trade depot], seed moved from X3 table to Y3 stockpile etc]
So with n jobs, single planned results in pathfinder running n times instead of one check.
Result: pathfinding running n^2 times for n jobs, instead of n times.
[I assumed that number of jobs is liner vs number of dwarves, but "where n is quantify of dwarves" can be changed to "where n is quantify of jobs"]
Post by: Granite26 on February 26, 2011, 02:13:24 pm
____
I did think that there's often a stack of craftdwarf output at the craft workshop, all going to a single stockpile, so there's a freeish optimization there.
EDIT: Not O^2, it's more O= n*pathfinding cost which is... hard to pin down
Post by: Silverionmox on February 26, 2011, 08:04:56 pm
1. collect the items (choosing a point, preferably central or somewhere where already are multiple items.
2. restack; group similar items (eg. gems, food); fill containers
3. haul the new stacks
Alternatively, let a player designate an area (as a kind of traffic designation; or as a kind of stockpile, either general or per category) as central depot, where all stuff outside burrows is hauled to first, before further distribution to workshops or stockpiles. That would make cleaning up after a siege, storing the stuff of the latest caravan and hauling ore all easier.
Post by: Draco18s on February 26, 2011, 09:07:54 pm
Result: pathfinding running n^2 times for n jobs, instead of n times.
[I assumed that number of jobs is liner vs number of dwarves, but "where n is quantify of dwarves" can be changed to "where n is quantify of jobs"]
You didn't even try to optimize. You're checking every dwarf and every task, rather than being able to exclude some tasks based on criteria (say, "only tasks within 5 horizontal tiles of the A->B path"). You're trying to imply that this new functionality would be performed in the least efficient and most brute force way imaginable.
Post by: Granite26 on February 26, 2011, 09:43:58 pm
Result: pathfinding running n^2 times for n jobs, instead of n times.
[I assumed that number of jobs is liner vs number of dwarves, but "where n is quantify of dwarves" can be changed to "where n is quantify of jobs"]
You didn't even try to optimize. You're checking every dwarf and every task, rather than being able to exclude some tasks based on criteria (say, "only tasks within 5 horizontal tiles of the A->B path"). You're trying to imply that this new functionality would be performed in the least efficient and most brute force way imaginable.
I don't think there's an optimization that'll make an order of magnitude difference. Even culling on distance is still going to send you pathfinding through the fort. Say what, you pathfind to where you're going, then look everywhere within X (ACTUAL) spaces of where you're going for an object that's to within X squares of the path further on? Then you've got to check to make sure you can get there only going 5-10 steps out of your way? (no walls, etc) Then you've got to redo that every few steps, just to make sure your plan still works?
Yeah, ugly, even with optimizations.
Post by: Draco18s on February 26, 2011, 10:08:16 pm
Result: pathfinding running n^2 times for n jobs, instead of n times.
[I assumed that number of jobs is liner vs number of dwarves, but "where n is quantify of dwarves" can be changed to "where n is quantify of jobs"]
You didn't even try to optimize. You're checking every dwarf and every task, rather than being able to exclude some tasks based on criteria (say, "only tasks within 5 horizontal tiles of the A->B path"). You're trying to imply that this new functionality would be performed in the least efficient and most brute force way imaginable.
I don't think there's an optimization that'll make an order of magnitude difference. Even culling on distance is still going to send you pathfinding through the fort. Say what, you pathfind to where you're going, then look everywhere within X (ACTUAL) spaces of where you're going for an object that's to within X squares of the path further on? Then you've got to check to make sure you can get there only going 5-10 steps out of your way? (no walls, etc) Then you've got to redo that every few steps, just to make sure your plan still works?
Yeah, ugly, even with optimizations.
You don't check through walls...
....You know what, never mind.
I'm not even going to try debating this with you, as clearly any solution is not good enough in your eyes.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 26, 2011, 10:16:49 pm
Damn, I kind of went long, and made another giant rant. I guess it's fine if I went and made a topic for the thing, then, though...
Well, it's this thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78413.0).
EDIT: Oh, crap, while writing it, I got ninja'd 4 times...
Post by: Granite26 on February 26, 2011, 11:02:40 pm
, Ninja isn't the term... Maybe hared...
______
Result: pathfinding running n^2 times for n jobs, instead of n times.
[I assumed that number of jobs is liner vs number of dwarves, but "where n is quantify of dwarves" can be changed to "where n is quantify of jobs"]
You didn't even try to optimize. You're checking every dwarf and every task, rather than being able to exclude some tasks based on criteria (say, "only tasks within 5 horizontal tiles of the A->B path"). You're trying to imply that this new functionality would be performed in the least efficient and most brute force way imaginable.
I don't think there's an optimization that'll make an order of magnitude difference. Even culling on distance is still going to send you pathfinding through the fort. Say what, you pathfind to where you're going, then look everywhere within X (ACTUAL) spaces of where you're going for an object that's to within X squares of the path further on? Then you've got to check to make sure you can get there only going 5-10 steps out of your way? (no walls, etc) Then you've got to redo that every few steps, just to make sure your plan still works?
Yeah, ugly, even with optimizations.
You don't check through walls...
....You know what, never mind.
I'm not even going to try debating this with you, as clearly any solution is not good enough in your eyes.
I'm not saying there's not a good enough solution, just that saying that I can't think of any optimizations.
How do you know it's through a wall until you try to pathfind to it? I mean, step 1: draw a straight line, but even then, shouldn't they walk around a pillar to get there? How far should they walk around? That's your path distance (I used 5 - 10) that you have to check before deciding it's not close enough to on the way.
Sure, you aren't checking the distance for every other (hauling) job, but you are checking the distance to the ideal path (trivial math), twice and then checking two length 10 paths. You're doing this for (up to) all jobs on the path.
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 26, 2011, 11:10:40 pm
I think if you're writing something that takes two hours
, Ninja isn't the term... Maybe hared...
... I did a lot of thread searching and reading and linking and wrote a godawful amount of text, OK? :-[
I'm not saying there's not a good enough solution, just that saying that I can't think of any optimizations.
How do you know it's through a wall until you try to pathfind to it? I mean, step 1: draw a straight line, but even then, shouldn't they walk around a pillar to get there? How far should they walk around? That's your path distance (I used 5 - 10) that you have to check before deciding it's not close enough to on the way.
Sure, you aren't checking the distance for every other (hauling) job, but you are checking the distance to the ideal path (trivial math), twice and then checking two length 10 paths. You're doing this for (up to) all jobs on the path.
Didn't I just create a topic to keep this discussion out of this thread? :-\
I even mentioned this exact thing, and how much complexity it has.
Post by: Draco18s on February 26, 2011, 11:12:50 pm
Lets say this is our map. * are the path, T is a Task Object.
.*......
.*......
.*..#...
.*..#T..
.*..#...
.*..#...
.*......
.*......
If we count diagonals as 1 space, then T is 5 away from the path (go around the wall on the top). So we want this to be included, but we don't want to run an A* check on it (and by definition, every other task on the map).
What can we do?
Well, we do this: find every square adjacent to the path, and every square adjacent to that, etc. until we have 5 deep and note every task that falls inside that area. Essentially we're doing a limited distance flood-fill.
1*12345.
1*12345.
1*12#45.
1*12#5..
1*12#5..
1*12#45.
1*12345.
1*12345.
Voila. And if the object is in another room not direclty accessible, then the item isn't categorized:
1*12345.
1*12345.
1*12####
1*12#T..
1*12#...
1*12####
1*12345.
1*12345.
Now you have a list of every task that is inside some boundary distance of the dwarf's desired path. Some tasks have a starting point and an ending point ("fetch quests" and for those you need to check the starting point and the ending point with the requirement that the start location is closer to the dwarf's starting location (and vice versa) which you can do through normal distance calculations (no need to do a path-find distance, as we already know that both points are within 5 of the existing path).
Post by: Granite26 on February 26, 2011, 11:17:31 pm
Post by: NW_Kohaku on February 26, 2011, 11:20:14 pm
Post by: Kogut on February 27, 2011, 04:32:50 am
Post by: Puzzlemaker on March 04, 2011, 08:17:21 pm
Post by: Granite26 on March 04, 2011, 10:38:16 pm
Anything new would go on the end of that list, and probably after another arc (Right now, the schedule is Caravan arc mixed with the vote stuff near the end or as it makes sense)
Given that, do you think there should be an evergreen document for people to say what they want a year or so from now? Or is it smarter to let him work through the Caravan arc and the bug fixes, and take stock of where we are then?
Post by: Kogut on March 05, 2011, 04:23:07 am
Has the eternal suggestions basically been dropped?Yes - mainly due fact that DF has ideas for 50 developers for 20 years.
Post by: SombreNote on March 21, 2011, 03:09:56 pm
I love all these ideas pertaining to monster generation, and monster behaviors, it is just that pretty much none of the ideas people have come up with will work until hospitals are efficient and effective, and training military is not such a pain.
I would love DF to be a game where people are able to get into more scraps, but as of now, it is just so deadly and irritating most of the time. "Urist McSusceptible Stubbed his toe and died of in infection". One big improvement would be to take a page out of other game systems, and make getting dropped easy, but dying of wounds hard. This would be kind of like going negative in D&D. It would serve the function of letting dwarves get beat down, but you would have the chance to nurse them back to health, sometime later. Of course there would be many beasts that are pretty much sure to kill you out right (e.g. demons, magma. etc.), but the vast majority of bad guys (e.g. gobs, trolls, and FB) might be perfectly content moving on when they knock out an enemy for good. Who knows why, it might just be because they want to keep the meat fresh before they eat it, and they might not have time for a while.
This system works really well in a lot of games, but as of now in DF when you are dropped by a bad guy, you are 99% dead. It makes sense for the dwarven genre to have dwarves take a really long time to die. And this will give feather emphasis in the functions of hospitals.
Post by: Draco18s on March 21, 2011, 03:39:31 pm
If you want that idea actually IN the voting system you're going to have to add it. And in any case, this thread is not the place to discuss the merits of a suggestion.
Post by: Silverionmox on March 22, 2011, 06:03:38 pm
One would expect a selection mechanism to become more important then, not less.Has the eternal suggestions basically been dropped?Yes - mainly due fact that DF has ideas for 50 developers for 20 years.
Post by: Kogut on March 23, 2011, 03:19:54 am
We have one and this mechanism is called Toady ("Hm, I would like to add many types of grass").One would expect a selection mechanism to become more important then, not less.Has the eternal suggestions basically been dropped?Yes - mainly due fact that DF has ideas for 50 developers for 20 years.
Post by: Khym Chanur on April 09, 2011, 08:57:51 pm
EDIT: Also, "Fix Cooking Exploit" (#225), "Allow cycling through site finder results" (#208), "Doctors/Hospitals" (#57).
Post by: Kogut on April 10, 2011, 01:49:12 am
DONE:
Eggs, eggs, eggs.
Owned Barracks
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Meeting Area Subcontrol
Factional Standings in Adventurer
Doctors/Hospitals
Isn't "Message control" (#230) currently implemented in 0.30?
EDIT: Also, "Fix Cooking Exploit" (#225), "Allow cycling through site finder results" (#208), "Doctors/Hospitals" (#57).
And "Incorporate combat text"
Post by: Kogut on April 13, 2011, 03:40:33 pm
Eggs, eggs, eggs.
Owned Barracks
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Factional Standings in Adventurer
Doctors/Hospitals
"Message control"
"Fix Cooking Exploit
"Allow cycling through site finder results" (#208)
"Incorporate combat text"
Balanced Range Weapons (?)
Rename
Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants -> Ability to buy water from merchants
Post by: zwei on April 29, 2011, 07:29:18 am
Post by: Zaphod on June 09, 2011, 03:28:45 pm
They could be placed in one of those thins that has a yoke attached to a big wheel where they walk around in cricles to power various devices. I feel this would be very dwarfy.
Post by: Thundercraft on June 09, 2011, 05:05:37 pm
...animal power devices. In various forts I have captured and tamed large and powerfull creatures (elephants for example).That's an interesting idea and it sounds rather dwarfy. But if you want it badly, why not go to the DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php) page, and from the pull-down menu at the bottom of the page choose "create new suggestion"? Even better, start a new thread in DF Suggestions (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?board=5.0) area about your idea. [BTW: Elephants and other large grazers (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Pasture) would not work for this purpose because they have to eat grass constantly (24/7) or else they starve. Either Toady would have to make grazing a lot more lenient, or you'd have to limit this to smallish grazers or carnivores.]
They could be placed in one of those thins that has a yoke attached to a big wheel...
Anyway, this thread is not for making suggestions and such suggestions will probably get ignored:
This is a thread about the voting system, not the voting system itself.
If you want that idea actually IN the voting system you're going to have to add it. And in any case, this thread is not the place to discuss the merits of a suggestion.
Post by: Areyar on June 19, 2011, 09:05:51 am
Some circumstances cause a virtual waterfall of message spam, for instance one of my current dwarves has lost both arms, now instead of learning how to use her feet or teeth instead, she keeps reporting that action X is cancelled: too injured.
An option to either ignore the cancelled, too injured or messages from the dwarf in question would be appreciated. (about tenth suggestion i'd vote on.) :)
Post by: Draco18s on June 19, 2011, 09:34:29 am
Is there already a suggestion to ignore some event messages (a)?
You could try the Ctrl-F function of your browser. It's #234.
Post by: Thundercraft on June 19, 2011, 05:34:30 pm
Some circumstances cause a virtual waterfall of message spam, for instance one of my current dwarves has lost both arms, now instead of learning how to use her feet or teeth instead, she keeps reporting that action X is cancelled: too injured.As stated in the post above yours, this is not the thread to voice game suggestions. And, yes, it's easy enough to use a browser's CTRL+F search. But you could choose the "create new suggestion" option on the actual Eternal Suggestion Voting poll (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php) to make it an official suggestion for everyone to vote on.
An option to either ignore the cancelled, too injured or messages from the dwarf in question would be appreciated.
That said, you may be interested to know that init settings already exist to modify how certain game announcement and combat report messages are handled. It's possible to make some of them less annoying and perhaps even turn some off entirely. Unfortunately, it looks like "too injured" is not adjustable.
To see what I'm talking about, go into the "...\data\init\" folder inside your Dwarf Fortress game directory and open the 'announcements.txt' file. (BTW: I recommend making a backup copy before changing anything.)
Post by: Nikow on June 22, 2011, 01:08:43 am
Post by: Draco18s on June 22, 2011, 09:53:55 pm
This is a thread about the voting system, not the voting system itself.
If you want that idea actually IN the voting system you're going to have to add it. And in any case, this thread is not the place to discuss the merits of a suggestion.
Post by: zwei on August 22, 2011, 06:42:45 am
It is best system of votes, often suggested for presidental ellection as it allows "compromise" candidate with which most of voter would be satisified to gain huge traction.
Here, I thik that there are many items could have higher following than current top-10, but since people have to drop them for "big" suggestions, they get ignored.
Post by: Draco18s on August 22, 2011, 10:17:30 am
Here, I thik that there are many items could have higher following than current top-10, but since people have to drop them for "big" suggestions, they get ignored.
Just looking at the top 10, even if people were allowed more votes (up to and including "vote for everything") they'd remain:
Improved Hauling
- Given that hauling is the most time consuming task for dwarves, this would still be up there. If it weren't for hauling, a lot of projects would get done faster. This isn't a "big" suggestion per say, it's just undefined, as us--the players--don't know how the system can be improved.
Standing production orders
- The largest headache for the player is dwarves running out of booze because they canceled the "make booze, repeat" order because there weren't any brewable plants because there weren't any farms active because there wasn't any storage space so the player stopped planting new crops and forgot about it. This would still be a top-10 item. This is a moderately sized, but ill defined suggestion, as while we have ideas, it's up to Toady to figure out how HE wants to implement it.
Improved (Speed Up) Pathfinder
- The largest source of fort death: Low FPS. See item #1, which it goes hand in hand with (fewer hauling operations -> less pathfinding)
Workshop Material Selection
- This is not a "big" suggestion, but rather a return to the materials selection choices we had back in v0.23. This would still be a top-10.
Full graphics support
- Large, high support, would still be a top-10, and currently being worked on to some degree.
Improved Mechanics
- This is a large suggestion, but one that's well warranted. "Powered" objects are few and we want more point to them. Likely would remain top-10.
Auto-mining
- Rather nitch suggestion, really, but everyone wants it. Designating just that ore vein is a pain in the ass. Would remain a top-10.
Job Priorities
- Not a large suggestion, would actually take very little coding. Fairly nitch, but highly useful. Alleviates some player micromanagement pain. Would stay top-20 for sure.
Abstract the Interface
- Probably never going to happen, regardless of changes to the voting system and would likely stay high up (top-20)
Adventure Mode Skills
- Currently being worked on. Large, broad, and well warranted. Adventure mode is kind of boring right now without the ability to create stuff. Would still stay top-10 in all likelihood.
Post by: zwei on August 25, 2011, 08:31:46 am
On the other hand, i can easily imagine likes of:
Wildlife Repopulation
Persistent trade good tags
Remember Trade Agreements
or so gain a lot. Suggestions that you ignore in favor of big ones because you have to be focused on them, but which most people would say "yep" and be happy.
Out of at least 1347 people who voted, i can easily see some of lower rated suggestion to get at least current #10 popularity (338 votes).
Some suggestions are small, but also uncontroversial and low-hanging fruit to boot.
Just for reccord, if i was able to vote for as many items as i can, I woud only vote for 4 top-10 items, not having any desire ot have others implemented.
Also, right now, voting for any item that is not in top-10 or which has at least some votes seems to be pointless - throwing your votes away, one could say.
Post by: Draco18s on August 25, 2011, 09:50:18 am
Yes, but that is because you have to choose, so you choose your biggest itches.
Which is the point. It's all about what's most important, not about what's most popular.
Quote
Some suggestions are small, but also uncontroversial and low-hanging fruit to boot.
Toady's already gone through and implemented some of those. Here's a quick list:
DONE:
Eggs, eggs, eggs.
Owned Barracks
Incorporate combat text
Specific weapon selection
Factional Standings in Adventurer
Doctors/Hospitals
"Message control"
"Fix Cooking Exploit
"Allow cycling through site finder results" (#208)
"Incorporate combat text"
Quote
Also, right now, voting for any item that is not in top-10 or which has at least some votes seems to be pointless - throwing your votes away, one could say.
Not really. Personally I have 11, 12, and 187 voted for. Once I see any kind of "yay" or "nay" from Toady regarding those two issues (#11 and #12) I'll reallocate them, though, as I did with my previous 3rd vote (putting it into Sawmills). Farming improvements is kind of my pet item and dwarf foreman (or similar) functionality within the game would ease many issues.
Toady does look at the lower items on the list, looking for low hanging fruit, or other items that should be more important, but are newer and thus less voted upon.
I should also note that I control 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 (as well as 11, 12, 15 and 19, and 19 other, smaller entries, including four at the bottom marked [FIXED]1), and once those items are completed (or even partially addressed), their votes will be cleaned causing other issues to rise to the top. The issues will still have the ability to be voted for but the item itself will essentially be a null vote ("This was worked on recently, please vote for something else").
1These four items were at one time in the top 20. Underground Diversity (not mine) was also closed. It had 350 votes when it was cleared, making it about #10 (and look at how much more awesome it made the game).
Post by: Toady One on September 05, 2011, 07:00:50 pm
Post by: plynxis on September 07, 2011, 05:17:44 am
Quote
Ability to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants
we can do that already - buy sand bags and rough gems (i think). water can't be bought, but since we don't have a way to use contained water (other than dumping buckets of it) i'd say it can not only go into a suggestion by itself, but it would also be good to ask the original poster who suggested it if they think it still has a point (water would be really heavy to carry in large amounts and it only matters if you have large amounts of it - and then only for some cleaning/hospital stuff/pond filling or muddying).
there's 49 votes on this that could be redistributed.
Post by: Draco18s on September 07, 2011, 10:32:36 am
um i just noticed suggestion #38 is obsoleteQuoteAbility to buy sand/water/rough gems from merchants
we can do that already - buy sand bags and rough gems (i think). water can't be bought, but since we don't have a way to use contained water (other than dumping buckets of it) i'd say it can not only go into a suggestion by itself, but it would also be good to ask the original poster who suggested it if they think it still has a point (water would be really heavy to carry in large amounts and it only matters if you have large amounts of it - and then only for some cleaning/hospital stuff/pond filling or muddying).
there's 49 votes on this that could be redistributed.
Good catch. Votes cleared. :)
Post by: plynxis on September 07, 2011, 02:37:31 pm
#32 (duplicated in #237)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#59
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#281
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#270
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#253
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#252
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#84
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#81
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The following pairs seem to be essential duplicates of one another or inclusive of one another without conflicts, maybe votes should be merged(?):
dwarf emotional status in unit list etc.
#70 & #197
3d designation
#254 & #61
custom biome raws
#279 & #304
ropes and pulleys
#308 & #58
starting off with more dwarves at embark and options related
#227 & #56
player controlled imprisonment
#203 & #255
resuming worldgen after ending a game
#136 & #209
rebellions
#135 & #305
books
#92 & #114
workshop raws
#75 & #206
cleaning
#54 & #99
Interestingly, i didnt find triplets, only pairs.
#51 practically exists through DFMP
just a comment here
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
some entries of particular note (that dont really belong on that list):
#238 is a good suggestion but by being on the list it contradicts its own goal and purpose. it doesnt belong there
#193 another interesting suggestion, discussed many a time on the forum AFAIK. still doesnt belong on the list
#149 lol?
#108 seriously?
honestly, i tried to be strict and objective/impartial when looking at these but there are like 200 suggestions in that list that serve no purpose, either because they contradict core aspects of the game and the idea behind it or serve little to no actual purpose and implementing them would change practically nothing for players. some are downright ridiculous (such as #257 by someone who posted like 3 times in 2009 - no offense dude but simulating molecular structures would be supercomputer level computing), others are just mishmashes of stuff the suggester wants rather than solid straightforward suggestions that someone else can actually relate to and feel like voting for - i think some cleanup is in order, maybe an announced trial period for all suggestions that are low in votes or really old and have few votes (like 5 or less), at the end of which they get disabled and their votes cleared, just like implented ones (though it might be a very bad idea as well). i think it would be way easier to grasp the actual body of meaningful suggestions that way, giving Toady a much easier job. It would also make posters read more suggestions before just clicking on the first 10 or 15 (honestly what kind of madman would read 300+ suggestions? :P). I think its obvious people don't read all suggestions or search for keywords, evident by the duplicates and inclusive suggestions. Some are intentionally close to others, but differ on details the suggester considered important - those are ok i think.
Categorization and classification as major/minor would help about 5000% percent. Maybe even identify partially satisfied suggestions. I dont know php but i would be willing to give improving the script a shot - i intend to learn it anyway. If that's not doable, i could still make an effort to create categories and classify suggestions so that the original author can easily figure out what needs to be added to the script and the admin can also easily move/re-add suggestions.
I havent read this entire thread and i'm not going to sift through 42 (interesting number) pages so if these comments have already been made lots of times already and i'm just repeating old stuff (or if i'm being annoying), just tell me to shut up and i will :P
edit - i just read draco18s post just before my first one on this thread. i'm an idiot and i should've read the thread.
Post by: Draco18s on September 07, 2011, 03:48:42 pm
Post by: sizeak on September 07, 2011, 04:47:51 pm
Post by: Draco18s on September 07, 2011, 05:45:51 pm
Who wrote the voting page? IMO it could do with an overhaul
zagibu was heroic enough to provide the above php script.
Post by: Drevlin on September 07, 2011, 05:57:11 pm
I'm asking this because the thread was opened in 2008.
Post by: SuicideJunkie on September 07, 2011, 10:15:19 pm
Ok i dont want to be a nuisance or be a smartass with this but, since i was looking at the list anyway and there was at least one obsolete suggestion, i thought i'd just take another look just in case there's more to clean up. here's the results (and sorry for the wall of text crit)Last I checked, the combat preferences were limited to choosing Charge vs Strike vs Wrestle, and not specific attacks, like "Only use my wooden training axe on toes" (IE: don't randomly decide to shield bash the helpless victim's head in while I hold the movement key to attack and train up skills)
#278Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Or perhaps setting it to only make slashing sword attacks against lower body, useful when you're caught by boogeymen at night.
Post by: zwei on September 08, 2011, 06:03:17 am
If given chance, I would implement:
* Well, implement ... do major cleanup, per what plynxis outlined
* Better voting system - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting (basically, anyone can vote as many things as he can)
* Redesign page a bit to fit into look and feel of rest of the site.
* Possibly split suggestions to two categories - "Major system overhaul" and "Simple adition"
Post by: plynxis on September 08, 2011, 06:13:47 am
Last I checked, the combat preferences were limited to choosing Charge vs Strike vs Wrestle, and not specific attacks, like "Only use my wooden training axe on toes" (IE: don't randomly decide to shield bash the helpless victim's head in while I hold the movement key to attack and train up skills)
Or perhaps setting it to only make slashing sword attacks against lower body, useful when you're caught by boogeymen at night.
forgot to mention i fixed this in my post
lol looks like lots of volunteers for a refit of the suggestions script - maybe recruit all of us into the project and segment it to get it done faster? after we agree on what we need to add/change ofcourse.
Post by: thistleknot on November 09, 2011, 11:56:22 am
Post by: Draco18s on November 09, 2011, 12:05:53 pm
I submitted a few suggestions I thought were cool, and I see there at 0 even though I voted for them (they were at 1). For example: veins span z levels
Top of the page, where it says "Your votes:" what does it list?
Post by: thistleknot on November 09, 2011, 01:37:19 pm
I have voted for these other ones. However, when I return, I find them at 0.
I revoted, so it shows
* scalable walls/ladders for sieges
* traps placable on walls/cielings rather than just floor tiles
* veins span z levels
Will return later to check it out.
I think I get it. If I vote on an individual one later, it resets my old votes.
Well, I returned and tried to vote for all the ones I wanted (that have 0), and it says I have too many selected. So for sure, they are being reset.
Post by: Footkerchief on November 09, 2011, 02:19:38 pm
Post by: Draco18s on November 09, 2011, 02:25:38 pm
I think I get it. If I vote on an individual one later, it resets my old votes.
Correct. For if you have 3 vote for, and you checkbox 1, and hit "vote" what are your three votes? 2, 3, and 4? 1, 2, 4? 1, 3, 4?
You have to vote for all three at the same time.
Post by: thistleknot on November 09, 2011, 04:26:37 pm
Post by: Draco18s on November 09, 2011, 04:29:54 pm
that still doesn't explain why my old voted items are dropping to 0.
If you remove your votes from them, then you haven't voted for them, therefor they have 0 votes.
Post by: thistleknot on November 09, 2011, 05:00:25 pm
Post by: Draco18s on November 10, 2011, 12:34:38 am
You have three votes. No more. Deal with it.
Post by: thistleknot on November 10, 2011, 08:52:37 am
Quote from: Bay 12 Games Forum
Regarding the suggestions thread -- please don't fight on the forum, especially in a stickied thread. If there's a problem developing, just report it instead of becoming part of it.
Toady
I'm sorry. I was out of line.
Post by: friendguy13 on February 12, 2012, 12:32:23 pm
Post by: Draco18s on February 12, 2012, 04:42:30 pm
The bottom of the list has gotten really cluttered with "[FIXED]" suggestions and could use some cleaning up.
Nope, those are supposed to be there. The point is that after a version or two, people can start voting for them again, if they think it needs more work. But as those items are very recently fixed (some I believe are in the version Toady is working on and not yet released).
They're placeholders.
In fact..."Rivers and Ponds need sloped sides" needs to be marked as fixed and its votes wiped.
DONE.
Post by: plynxis on February 21, 2012, 11:11:49 am
65. 3D Designations - added in .34.01 I think - haven't played in a long time.
69. Aging, births and deaths after world generation. - correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this why worldgen in .34 takes so long?
86. Specific weapon selection - I think the military equipment screen allows you to do this since .31
------------
Some other stuff I noticed
7. Vein Auto-Mining: Toady already has this planned in the Development section of the site
59. Doctors/Hospitals: According to Draco's post from November, this is done.
56. Owned Barracks: Like #59
154. Improving the game: Even Toady found this one problematic, maybe it needs to go.
183. Fix Cooking Exploit: Like #59
Ok I stopped at about 220something cause its a bit tedious and i just came back from work, wanna do something more interesting :P
laterz
Post by: Draco18s on February 21, 2012, 11:40:10 am
65. 3D Designations - added in .34.01 I think - haven't played in a long time.
Correct
Quote
69. Aging, births and deaths AFTER world generation. - correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this why worldgen in .34 takes so long?
Emphasis added to the request to highlight its issue.
Quote
86. Specific weapon selection - I think the military equipment screen allows you to do this since .31
Don't know.
Quote
7. Vein Auto-Mining: Toady already has this planned in the Development section of the site
And?
Quote
59. Doctors/Hospitals: According to Draco's post from November, this is done.
56. Owned Barracks: Like #59
154. Improving the game: Even Toady found this one problematic, maybe it needs to go.
183. Fix Cooking Exploit: Like #59
I don't own, can't fix.
Post by: Aquillion on February 23, 2012, 11:10:35 am
Post by: Draco18s on February 23, 2012, 11:27:21 am
Things that are planned but not currently implemented still belong on the list, since they let people express their preferences for what order they'd like to see stuff in.
Precisely.
Post by: isitanos on February 24, 2012, 04:56:28 pm
Post by: Footkerchief on February 24, 2012, 04:58:45 pm
Unless I'm missing something, it's impossible to link directly to a specific suggestion so the page scrolls down to it. Modifying the script so it adds anchors to each suggestion would be awesome - they already have a unique ID so it should be possible. (If zagibu doesn't work on this anymore, I volunteer to do it as a long term/do eventually project. Send me the script.) It would allow to send people from suggestion threads to vote on the related ESV checkbox.
I mentioned anchors a while back (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg784031;topicseen#msg784031) but yeah, I guess zagibu's not working on it anymore.
Post by: plynxis on February 25, 2012, 01:33:56 am
Post by: zagibu on February 25, 2012, 12:54:26 pm
Also, I wasn't gone, I check this forum almost daily.
Post by: isitanos on March 13, 2012, 04:24:31 pm
Toady has the code, ask him. Unfortunately, I've got too many things going on to work on the script.Done, I PM'd Toady. Other coders: feel free to ask him for the script as well, because I'm not sure I'll have the time to do this. If we're several people working on this, all the better. May the best/most motivated programmer win.
Also, I wasn't gone, I check this forum almost daily.
Post by: MehMuffin on March 20, 2012, 05:57:36 pm
Post by: zagibu on March 21, 2012, 01:57:22 pm
Post by: Kogut on April 01, 2012, 01:15:08 pm
Post by: Monkeyfacedprickleback on April 01, 2012, 08:11:02 pm
Post by: Telgin on April 01, 2012, 08:22:26 pm
He also mentioned working on fire AI at some point after that, but I'm not sure what that means precisely. Hopefully dwarves will be a bit more proactive about avoiding !!stuff!! and seeking out means of putting themselves out instead of setting more stuff on fire.
Post by: Waparius on April 04, 2012, 01:21:50 am
Post by: Kogut on April 04, 2012, 01:29:32 am
So what was the winner? Does anyone Know?
You can check link in the first post.
Post by: Five chickens on August 03, 2012, 12:23:54 am
Post by: Corai on August 03, 2012, 02:21:48 am
Post by: Draco18s on August 03, 2012, 07:44:32 am
OH CRAP, the spambots are getting smarter!
Spambots?
Post by: magmaholic on October 27, 2012, 06:27:14 am
MULTICORE SUPPORT MAN. YAYUS.
Post by: Mephansteras on October 29, 2012, 01:33:31 pm
seeing multithreading as 11th in the voting list made me wish more people knew what it is.
MULTICORE SUPPORT MAN. YAYUS.
I think the reason it doesn't get more votes is because it would require a massive overhaul of the game to put in, and during that time Toady couldn't really do anything else. So the overall development would stall for a very long time without anything new being added. Sure, performance would improve, but that's about it.
Personally, I'd rather have more features and less bugs than better performance, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way.
Post by: alexandrite on December 10, 2012, 05:48:08 pm
seeing multithreading as 11th in the voting list made me wish more people knew what it is.
MULTICORE SUPPORT MAN. YAYUS.
I think the reason it doesn't get more votes is because it would require a massive overhaul of the game to put in, and during that time Toady couldn't really do anything else. So the overall development would stall for a very long time without anything new being added. Sure, performance would improve, but that's about it.
Personally, I'd rather have more features and less bugs than better performance, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way.
Same.
Also, some technical stuff: Concurrency is difficult and bug-prone, it would require different code for each supported OS, and even modern games still only run two or three threads: Device I/O (network, hard drive, whatever), Game Logic, and Graphics. Offloading the entire game logic to a different thread would be negligibly helpful in this case, and even if the game logic were spread out into multiple threads (like one for pathing, one for fluid simulation, and one for everything else for instance) all the game logic threads would still have to wait on the slow one to finish before updating the state of the game. tl;dr: Even if pathfinding and fluid simulation were offloaded, the rest of the game would still have to wait for it to before finish a "tick" of the game could happen. It would be of minimal benefit for colossal effort.
Post by: Draco18s on December 10, 2012, 07:14:56 pm
Offloading the entire game logic to a different thread would be negligibly helpful in this case
Psst, it already is.
Post by: zagibu on December 10, 2012, 10:12:34 pm
seeing multithreading as 11th in the voting list made me wish more people knew what it is.
MULTICORE SUPPORT MAN. YAYUS.
I think the reason it doesn't get more votes is because it would require a massive overhaul of the game to put in, and during that time Toady couldn't really do anything else. So the overall development would stall for a very long time without anything new being added. Sure, performance would improve, but that's about it.
Personally, I'd rather have more features and less bugs than better performance, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way.
Same.
Also, some technical stuff: Concurrency is difficult and bug-prone, it would require different code for each supported OS, and even modern games still only run two or three threads: Device I/O (network, hard drive, whatever), Game Logic, and Graphics. Offloading the entire game logic to a different thread would be negligibly helpful in this case, and even if the game logic were spread out into multiple threads (like one for pathing, one for fluid simulation, and one for everything else for instance) all the game logic threads would still have to wait on the slow one to finish before updating the state of the game. tl;dr: Even if pathfinding and fluid simulation were offloaded, the rest of the game would still have to wait for it to before finish a "tick" of the game could happen. It would be of minimal benefit for colossal effort.
I think the idea is more that a problem is split up in subproblems that are then calculated in different threads. Pathing is a good example. Each path could be forked into an own thread, which would greatly increase the speed of producing a pathing result for the next game tick. But you are right, it is not easy to do, and if pathing isn't the bottleneck, it will actually hurt more than help, because the thread-switching of course means an additional overhead.
The game should be profiled to identify the problematic code locations, then these should be improved. Toady is probably a very good programmer, but I'm quite sure that there is still potential for performance improvements. Maybe, for some of the code, multi-threading will be the solution. Maybe not.
Post by: King Mir on December 12, 2012, 01:39:02 am
You could potentially. speed up things that don't have to happen every tick though. Provided that those things don't need the most recent information.
Post by: Taren on December 17, 2012, 07:54:42 am
Post by: Draco18s on December 17, 2012, 08:43:39 am
Are we allowed to post in old suggestion threads that are on the voting list? For ideas or to show support for them? Especially those that are higher up, otherwise can we reopen a topic ourselves? If we had something they might of missed or a workaround, or just anything to offer.
Please do. Try to add something more than "I like this" however.
Post by: Wastedlabor on January 10, 2013, 05:27:02 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php#vote40
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php#vote107
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php#vote162
Post by: Draco18s on January 11, 2013, 09:01:30 am
Shameless plug for my favorite underrated ones:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php#vote40
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php#vote107
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php#vote162
1) There are no anchor tags on that page, so those three links are functionally identical
2) Because things are sorted by popularity as soon as the order changes, your numbers are wrong
3) Congradulations* on voting for the one item that has no business being in that list as anything other than a joke ("Improve Everything").
*Intentional misspelling.
Post by: Wastedlabor on January 11, 2013, 12:33:06 pm
Code: [Select]
<a name="vote40" href="http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26985.0">Automated zones of treecutting and plant gathering</a>
Post by: Draco18s on January 11, 2013, 01:09:01 pm
watCode: [Select]<a name="vote40" href="http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26985.0">Automated zones of treecutting and plant gathering</a>
Code: [Select]
<tr>
<td><b>137.</b> (5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26985.0">Automated zones of treecutting and plant gathering</a></td>
</tr>
Post by: Mesa on February 16, 2013, 11:05:30 am
Never been using ESV (great acronym) before, so...
Post by: Draco18s on February 16, 2013, 12:36:22 pm
Apparently, I am a total dummy - how to add suggestions to the list? :/
Never been using ESV (great acronym) before, so...
Scroll to the bottom.
Drop down box.
Select "create new"
Click "go"
Post by: Thundercraft on February 16, 2013, 04:30:39 pm
seeing multithreading as 11th in the voting list made me wish more people knew what it is.
MULTICORE SUPPORT MAN. YAYUS.
I think the reason it doesn't get more votes is because it would require a massive overhaul of the game to put in, and during that time Toady couldn't really do anything else. So the overall development would stall for a very long time without anything new being added. Sure, performance would improve, but that's about it.
Personally, I'd rather have more features and less bugs than better performance, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way.
[snip]...Concurrency is difficult and bug-prone, it would require different code for each supported OS, and even modern games still only run two or three threads: Device I/O (network, hard drive, whatever), Game Logic, and Graphics. Offloading the entire game logic to a different thread would be negligibly helpful in this case, and even if the game logic were spread out into multiple threads (like one for pathing, one for fluid simulation, and one for everything else for instance) all the game logic threads would still have to wait on the slow one to finish before updating the state of the game...
I think the idea is more that a problem is split up in subproblems that are then calculated in different threads. Pathing is a good example. Each path could be forked into an own thread, which would greatly increase the speed of producing a pathing result for the next game tick. But you are right, it is not easy to do, and if pathing isn't the bottleneck, it will actually hurt more than help, because the thread-switching of course means an additional overhead.
The game should be profiled to identify the problematic code locations, then these should be improved. Toady is probably a very good programmer, but I'm quite sure that there is still potential for performance improvements. Maybe, for some of the code, multi-threading will be the solution. Maybe not.
[Emphasis mine] THIS! More than shiny new features, new creatures, multithreading, or even bug fixes, that's what I want to see. As for identifying problem areas, there's a list of player suggestions for improving performance in the Maximizing framerate (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Maximizing_framerate) article on the wiki. Of these, pathfinding is probably the biggest culprit - even though it often does not look like it. (See the research done on the Undump Engine (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=92241.0) and Micha's fort (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=109319.0) for evidence that the pathing involved in hauling and stockpiles is the real problem with items, not the sheer quantity.)
Multithreading sounds nice. But it would be a lot of work and I think the improvement would be far less than the expectations. Anyway, multithreading systems already take care of their OS and other background tasks while DF gets a separate thread. And if you run Dwarf Therapist, Stonesense, or other tools, there's also that...
With each release I hold out hope that Toady does something - anything - to improve performance. Granted, rather recently there was some progress in that direction. (Specifically: A memory issue, some contaminant issues, and fixing that old bug on clothing ownership (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=3942).) But considering how each major release adds tons of new stuff that the game has to do and keep track of, it's not nearly enough.
Consider the most recent poll on the Phoebus' Graphic Set (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57557.0) thread. It asks "What are your most common reasons for losing a fort?" The most common answer, by far, is "FPS Death"!
I'm pretty confident that the reason FPS death does not get more attention is because players have gotten used to starting over with reclaiming or a new embark and many don't consider that a big deal. And many forts do not last long enough for FPS decay to matter much. Losing may be fun (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Fun), but there's no question that FPS death is a lame way to lose!
Also, consider the discussion on the FPS issue on slow PCs: Worse than before (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=122441.15) thread. Opinions are divided, but the majority seem to suggest that the 0.34 versions are about as slow as 0.31 versions (even taking aforementioned improvements into account). And in the 2 years or so since 0.31, many players have upgraded to newer hardware. With such upgrades they should see a noticeable improvement... even though many do not.
It also mentions that, in terms of hardware upgrades, RAM latency is the biggest bottleneck in DF performance.
Post by: Flesh Render on February 17, 2013, 03:05:27 am
Post by: Draco18s on February 17, 2013, 10:44:58 am
What is about dwarf cavalry? :3
Dwarves don't ride horses, they're too tall and the dwarves tend to fall off.
Post by: Thundercraft on February 17, 2013, 12:34:14 pm
Invaders can use all sorts of critters as mounts, even things like giant cave spiders, cave crocodiles, and voracious cave crawlers. Heck, the cave crocodiles can still go amphibious and drown the goblin riders! ::)
Seriously, though, players have been waiting for the ability of dwarves to use mounts since forever. There's something dwarvenly epic about dwarves riding into battle on their war bears!
Post by: 10ebbor10 on February 17, 2013, 04:12:25 pm
((It wouldn't be very interesting if your war bear cavalerie suddenly decides to hang out in the meeting hall, wouldn't it))
Post by: Thundercraft on February 17, 2013, 07:09:02 pm
((It wouldn't be very interesting if your war bear cavalerie suddenly decides to hang out in the meeting hall, wouldn't it))What's wrong with that? :P
Actually, giving riders the ability to control a mount might largely be solved by putting the rider in charge of movement. For the most part, that'd be like treating the rider/mount combination as if it was merely a dwarf on foot (unless the mount can fly). And a mount / dismount option could be added to the squads or military screen. As long as the dwarf automatically dismounts when certain criteria are met (inactive, training, etc) and re-mounts when back on alert and on duty, I don't see the problem.
I wouldn't even mind seeing the occasional mounted dwarf go get a drink as they'd probably travel faster. (Though using a throne to eat at a dining room may be problematic.) Anyway, with proper scheduling, it shouldn't come up often as the militia can drink from flasks and eat rations from backpacks.
The only other problem I can think of is how grazing animals like horses need grass or moss to survive. So this would have to be solved somehow for grazer mounts. (Maybe allow the mounted grazer enough control to seek out local grass as long as there are no enemies nearby? Or give the mount a special backpack containing oats or something, which the rider has to refill whenever he goes on break?)
Post by: Beast Tamer on February 18, 2013, 06:44:35 pm
Post by: Bumber on February 20, 2013, 02:25:29 am
Mounts sound good, but the only tactical potential I can think of is having marksmen ride flying mounts.Increased size for charge attacks. Heavily equipped soldiers that can outrun enemy archers.
Post by: penguinofhonor on March 27, 2013, 03:48:05 am
Post by: Draco18s on March 27, 2013, 07:51:06 am
Are there any plans to restart or otherwise do anything to the votes? I'm not sure how many years it's been since a reset, and things might be outdated. I know my votes have been sitting in the same place since around 2010.
For the votes I control I've wiped them when a release comes out that included work on those topics.
(See vote numbers 393 to 399)
Post by: zwei on March 27, 2013, 08:09:55 am
Are there any plans to restart or otherwise do anything to the votes? I'm not sure how many years it's been since a reset, and things might be outdated. I know my votes have been sitting in the same place since around 2010.
I would definitelly support this. Improved hauling, numer 2, for example, is done. There are many items that should be purged or merged.
Also, voting system itself could be updated using this reset opportunity - voting for "as much things as you want to" for example.
It could even be brought up to front page after some small facelift.
Post by: Draco18s on March 27, 2013, 09:00:57 am
I would definitelly support this. Improved hauling, numer 2, for example, is done. There are many items that should be purged or merged.
When was that worked on? I don't remember seeing it.
Post by: zwei on March 27, 2013, 09:18:16 am
I would definitelly support this. Improved hauling, numer 2, for example, is done. There are many items that should be purged or merged.
When was that worked on? I don't remember seeing it.
Minercarts, Wheelbarrows, using bins to collect multiple items in one trip is all in game.
Post by: Draco18s on March 27, 2013, 09:20:53 am
I would definitelly support this. Improved hauling, numer 2, for example, is done. There are many items that should be purged or merged.
When was that worked on? I don't remember seeing it.
Minercarts, Wheelbarrows, using bins to collect multiple items in one trip is all in game.
*Search*
Huh, I did miss that somehow. Clearing votes!
Thanks for the heads up.
Post by: zwei on March 28, 2013, 09:41:05 am
I would definitelly support this. Improved hauling, numer 2, for example, is done. There are many items that should be purged or merged.
When was that worked on? I don't remember seeing it.
Minercarts, Wheelbarrows, using bins to collect multiple items in one trip is all in game.
*Search*
Huh, I did miss that somehow. Clearing votes!
Thanks for the heads up.
If you are in housekeeping mood, number 6 has outdated description - currently, mining skill only affects speed, so text related to ensuring that only legendaries mine valuable ores is nonsensical.
Number 9, multihtreading was repeatedly stated to never-ever happen.
Number 10 is partially done (butchery...) another part was already implemented, but not released yet (climbing, jumping)
23 retiting - implemented, unreleased
46 seems like it was implemented with new army management years ago.
50 is same as 9 - never-ever.
57 was done with new army, only it is assigned by squad itself, not by its leader.
63 is done - but hospital zone isntead of workshop, crutches, healing skills.
97 implemented, unreleased
98 is done.
121 is dupe of 63
224 is done.
------
After going throught most of the list, it feels like it is too cluttered and messy to matter anymore. I suggest:
* "reddit style" up vote/neutral/downvote with unlimited amount of items you can vote on.
* Sections/Labels:
- Major overhaul (development-arc grade suggestions like farming overhaul, takes months)
- Minor change (fairly big change or improvemens, like standing production orders, takes weeks)
- Trivial feature (basically, low hanging fruit and touch ups like death details view, takes at most days)
Mixing votes between trivial stuff and major is bad for both because it can not accuratelly measure what people would really like, especially if they have to choose between two.
* Some sort of vetting or filtering on what kid of suggestion is put here to prevent wild ideas that even their own poster abandoned - at minimum, thread with few replies that agree is good start.
* Ability to bring new ideas to more attention - new suggestion with no votes is doomed to be at botton of list which no-one reads.
Post by: Lav on March 28, 2013, 10:06:42 am
I mean, really, it's perfectly clear we do need better economy, better engineering, better armies, and definitely better everything else. We don't need to vote on such things.
So I would suggest restricting the list to feature requests only. Feature requests ("Traps should only be invisible to enemy when camouflaged, camouflage is an auto-generated Trapping job") can be compared and estimated, empty wishes ("I want better traps") cannot.
It would also be nice to group feature requests of a similar kind together. So there would be a "Traps" section, with multiple different suggestions regarding traps. Many of those suggestions will be mutually exclusive, but that's the entire point. As it is now, perfectly good ideas and suggestions may easily be ignored and overlooked because "there's already a suggestion for better traps".
Post by: Draco18s on March 28, 2013, 02:25:37 pm
If you are in housekeeping mood, number 6 has outdated description - currently, mining skill only affects speed, so text related to ensuring that only legendaries mine valuable ores is nonsensical.
I don't have control over any of those. I am the "owner" on a lot of them, but only because I hit the original suggestion voting threads and dumped their items into the system before anyone else did.
Post by: King Mir on April 04, 2013, 04:31:16 pm
97 is not implemented. Nor is it planned as such; time skipping may be possible in this or future releases, but Toady has said that re-abstracting the world post worldgen would be tricky and is not in the plans. So time skipping post woldgen would have to be much slower than worldgen.
Post by: Draco18s on April 05, 2013, 08:22:47 am
Multithreading isn't worth removing, because if it were, it would be added back in by somebody else.
When I originally conceived of vote clearing, the only way to do it was delete the entry and re-add it, actual vote clearing came later.
But that's why I edit them to say "don't vote for this, it's been addressed already, wait a version or two."
But yeah. Multithreating (and a few other non-functional ideas) would just get added back.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on July 23, 2013, 01:06:18 am
After going through most of the list, it feels like it is too cluttered and messy to matter anymore. I suggest:
* "reddit style" up vote/neutral/downvote with unlimited amount of items you can vote on.
* Sections/Labels:
- Major overhaul (development-arc grade suggestions like farming overhaul, takes months)
- Minor change (fairly big change or improvemens, like standing production orders, takes weeks)
- Trivial feature (basically, low hanging fruit and touch ups like death details view, takes at most days)
Mixing votes between trivial stuff and major is bad for both because it can not accuratelly measure what people would really like, especially if they have to choose between two.
* Some sort of vetting or filtering on what kid of suggestion is put here to prevent wild ideas that even their own poster abandoned - at minimum, thread with few replies that agree is good start.
* Ability to bring new ideas to more attention - new suggestion with no votes is doomed to be at botton of list which no-one reads.
I just went through the lot, and it was painful. Short of a replacement system, I'd suggest deleting every suggestion that isn't going to happen, everything with less than three votes, and everything that hasn't gotten a new vote since 0.34.11
Post by: Mohreb el Yasim on August 01, 2013, 01:25:07 am
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129279.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127615.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129327.0
should be added imho ...
so we could vote them ...
Post by: zwei on August 01, 2013, 04:57:55 am
After going through most of the list, it feels like it is too cluttered and messy to matter anymore. I suggest:
* "reddit style" up vote/neutral/downvote with unlimited amount of items you can vote on.
* Sections/Labels:
- Major overhaul (development-arc grade suggestions like farming overhaul, takes months)
- Minor change (fairly big change or improvemens, like standing production orders, takes weeks)
- Trivial feature (basically, low hanging fruit and touch ups like death details view, takes at most days)
Mixing votes between trivial stuff and major is bad for both because it can not accuratelly measure what people would really like, especially if they have to choose between two.
* Some sort of vetting or filtering on what kid of suggestion is put here to prevent wild ideas that even their own poster abandoned - at minimum, thread with few replies that agree is good start.
* Ability to bring new ideas to more attention - new suggestion with no votes is doomed to be at botton of list which no-one reads.
I just went through the lot, and it was painful. Short of a replacement system, I'd suggest deleting every suggestion that isn't going to happen, everything with less than three votes, and everything that hasn't gotten a new vote since 0.34.11
I have made subreddit thing: http://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress_esv
1) Post links to suggestion threads in this forum
2) Up/Down vote suggestions.
3) Profit from system where anyone can vote on as many items as possible and cast negative votes too.
Post by: Kogut on September 02, 2013, 09:49:08 am
Post by: shadowclasper on December 14, 2013, 02:12:50 am
Agreed.After going through most of the list, it feels like it is too cluttered and messy to matter anymore. I suggest:
* "reddit style" up vote/neutral/downvote with unlimited amount of items you can vote on.
* Sections/Labels:
- Major overhaul (development-arc grade suggestions like farming overhaul, takes months)
- Minor change (fairly big change or improvemens, like standing production orders, takes weeks)
- Trivial feature (basically, low hanging fruit and touch ups like death details view, takes at most days)
Mixing votes between trivial stuff and major is bad for both because it can not accuratelly measure what people would really like, especially if they have to choose between two.
* Some sort of vetting or filtering on what kid of suggestion is put here to prevent wild ideas that even their own poster abandoned - at minimum, thread with few replies that agree is good start.
* Ability to bring new ideas to more attention - new suggestion with no votes is doomed to be at botton of list which no-one reads.
I just went through the lot, and it was painful. Short of a replacement system, I'd suggest deleting every suggestion that isn't going to happen, everything with less than three votes, and everything that hasn't gotten a new vote since 0.34.11
But honestly, I think what would work better is to basically autoclear out the votes after a period.
If somebody doesn't go in say, once a year to renew their votes, then they're deleted from the system. Sounds good?
Post by: Chaos17 on February 18, 2014, 04:35:28 pm
Quote
After going through most of the list, it feels like it is too cluttered and messy to matter anymore. I suggest:
* "reddit style" up vote/neutral/downvote with unlimited amount of items you can vote on.
I like the deph of the game but some suggestions aren't fun to manage in the long run if you can't automated them after configuration.
I'm not asking that everything should be automated, no.
But withtout a propoer UI in can be painful to manage for example squads.
Post by: Melting Sky on March 08, 2014, 12:57:07 am
Anyway, I was just using the UI as a personal example of why I think some topics may get more or less votes than one might think at first glance rather than trying to start a UI debate about that here in the polling thread where it really doesn't belong.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on July 11, 2014, 02:30:19 pm
Post by: Adrian on July 11, 2014, 02:58:09 pm
Post by: Puzzlemaker on July 11, 2014, 03:40:42 pm
My vote goes to just resetting the whole thing.
I gotta agree with you on that, a lot of the suggestions are no longer really applicable/as high a priority.
Post by: Draco18s on July 11, 2014, 03:47:31 pm
(I have been clearing out votes on things I consider to have been "worked on recently" so other things can float to the top)
Post by: Puzzlemaker on July 11, 2014, 03:57:22 pm
The ones I control (i.e. created) that are still in the top-20 are all still valid and I don't think any/much progress has been made on them.
(I have been clearing out votes on things I consider to have been "worked on recently" so other things can float to the top)
There is a lot of flak still in the lower areas, and it's just good to clear out stuff like that every once and awhile. Just a quick cleansing and then an announcement to vote would do wonders I think.
Edit: At the very least, nuking all the suggestions with lower then 10 votes would probably be a good idea.
Post by: Draco18s on July 11, 2014, 04:10:48 pm
and then an announcement to vote would do wonders I think.
That is a lot harder than you'd think.
Also, I don't own most of them.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on July 11, 2014, 04:19:32 pm
and then an announcement to vote would do wonders I think.
That is a lot harder than you'd think.
Also, I don't own most of them.
I was thinking more if Toady nuked a lot/most of/all of them and then told people in the devlog to go vote on the eternal suggestions.
Post by: Adrian on July 11, 2014, 04:47:09 pm
Because not having any votes means that not even their creator finds them important anymore.
Post by: Lightman on July 11, 2014, 07:16:58 pm
My vote goes to just resetting the whole thing.
Agreed. I'd be happy to delete the ones I own but I think a full reset would be best.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on July 11, 2014, 07:38:18 pm
I'd re-add the top fifty or so afterwards, and anything else that seems like a unique good idea, but the whole list desperately needs a full reset.
Post by: Draco18s on July 12, 2014, 12:14:00 am
One of the things i'd like to see happen to the ESV list is that all entries with 0 votes get expunged automatically.
Because not having any votes means that not even their creator finds them important anymore.
Mmm...given that you can create more than you can vote for...
I mean, I "own" 20 different suggestions just because when the eternal voting system was new I took the previous voting system's nomination list and added them all to the EVS. If you scroll down to the bottom you'll see a bunch marked [FIXED] and "DO NOT VOTE". Those are all mine. They have 0 votes because I cleared them as the last version (two years ago) addressed those issues. After the next release I'll re-edit them back to "active" so that if they're still an issue people think needs to be worked on, it's there.
I also "own" 5 of the top 10, and four of the next 10.
Post by: Adrian on July 12, 2014, 10:46:13 am
Tarn already has notes on all of the subjects on the dev list, and it would let the community show him what they'd like to see fleshed out for the next release.
It'd also permanently prevent prevent 'brilliant' suggestions such as "Feces and urine", "Dwarf Fortress Online", and "Source Code" (which actually have votes), and "Koratbomenlds" (I'm not even shitting you).
Post by: PeridexisErrant on July 12, 2014, 12:36:28 pm
Or (and this is just a fringe idea) we could do away with community owned ESV entries and transfer the (sub)sections of the dev list (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html) to the voting system.
Tarn already has notes on all of the subjects on the dev list, and it would let the community show him what they'd like to see fleshed out for the next release.
It'd also permanently prevent prevent 'brilliant' suggestions such as "Feces and urine", "Dwarf Fortress Online", and "Source Code" (which actually have votes), and "Koratbomenlds" (I'm not even shitting you).
I like the sentiment, but losing suggestions like "move all the graphics options to a single file "g_init.txt" (making graphics packs much easier to use) would outweigh that.
Maybe split the suggestions into two parts: one derived from the dev list, showing what the community would like to see soonest, and a separate page for specific suggestions.
Post by: Talvieno on July 13, 2014, 09:00:11 pm
A lot of the options have already been implemented, and a few of them just seem like jokes.
Post by: dorf on July 14, 2014, 04:41:47 am
The verdict was always no.
Individual completed/invalid suggestions vote resets were fine, though. And Toady putting a reminder of ESV on his dev blog was also a thing.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on July 14, 2014, 05:13:21 am
It seems (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg688049;topicseen#msg688049) we had (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1367593;topicseen#msg1367593) the "reset" discussion (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1948805;topicseen#msg1948805) a few (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1948874;topicseen#msg1948874) times (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg2016319;topicseen#msg2016319)before (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg4134606;topicseen#msg4134606).
The verdict was always no.
Individual completed/invalid suggestions vote resets were fine, though. And Toady putting a reminder of ESV on his dev blog was also a thing.
I count four distinct times the topic has come up since 2008 (three are from Feb 2011, responses to each other). Given the sheer length of time, the hugeness of this update, and the age (and obsolescence) of some of the suggestions and votes - I do think a reset is finally due. Many suggestions could be re-created if that's a concern.
As long as the list isn't wiped clean, there's no chance of any significant change in it. It should be named "the 2009 voting, eternally preserved."
Post by: Talvieno on July 14, 2014, 06:28:12 am
It seems (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg688049;topicseen#msg688049) we had (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1367593;topicseen#msg1367593) the "reset" discussion (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1948805;topicseen#msg1948805) a few (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg1948874;topicseen#msg1948874) times (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg2016319;topicseen#msg2016319)before (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24818.msg4134606;topicseen#msg4134606).I don't mean a full reset, just the ones that don't make sense anymore.
The verdict was always no.
Individual completed/invalid suggestions vote resets were fine, though. And Toady putting a reminder of ESV on his dev blog was also a thing.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on July 14, 2014, 08:18:12 am
Post by: Adrian on July 14, 2014, 11:34:37 am
If only so we can have a central place to discuss related things.
Post by: dorf on July 15, 2014, 03:50:06 am
The poll is rank-based, so rearrange the options as you see fit (higher rank = higher priority).
If you'd like me to add/change options, that can be arranged.
I have also made a multiple-choice version but I thought we'd nominate a few options and vote on those later.
Post by: Adrian on July 15, 2014, 08:05:11 am
If it were multiple choice i would be able to just not vote for the things i don't like, but now i will vote for anything if it's above anything else.
My advise if to shorten the list or go with a multiple choice poll.
Post by: Shadowclaimer on July 15, 2014, 08:21:19 am
I've been wanting to do eternal suggestion voting for ages, but some things are so entrenched or so outdated flooding the list that its lost its usefulness. The game has changed drastically since the list was first made, its time to reset it and see where our opinions stand on the new version.
Honestly I think a reset should be done every major release (if he keeps the ~2 year release pattern.)
Post by: dorf on July 15, 2014, 08:27:00 am
It's great that you made a poll on it, but there's too much to choose from.It's rank-based, so you can simply rearrange the options by keeping the ones you value most, on top.
It seems a multiple-choice poll won't be necessary, since a lot of people want a reset.
Post by: Talvieno on July 15, 2014, 10:41:50 am
Post by: Puzzlemaker on July 15, 2014, 11:07:58 am
I think it makes the most sense to just go through and clean - not purge, not reset, not clear - just clean: the multi-suggestions cleared and split, duplicates combined, the ones that have already been implemented having their votes cleared, and the irrelevant ones removed. It would be a one-at-a-time thing, rather than dealing with just the first fifty, or all at once. The eternal aspect gets saved, and everybody's happy. If there was a way to alert people that their vote had been cleared, that would be good, too - it's been ten years since DF was first created, and a lot has changed, but not all.
I am conflicted. While this is a good compromise, there is a bunch of junk in there. It would take a bit of effort to clean it up. If Toady gave someone admin over it so they could help out and clean up the old ones, that would probably be best.
Post by: Talvieno on July 15, 2014, 11:13:49 am
Post by: Adrian on July 15, 2014, 12:05:39 pm
Because right now there's little to no reason to ever recast/rethink your votes no matter how much has changed since casting them, which means that the order of the entries now is roughly the same as the order they were in six years/two releases ago when ESV was introduced.
So if we're not going to go with a full reset i highly recommend the votes get at least periodically cleared. Maybe after every major release, or every year. Or enhance the ESV script to remove votes that are older than X months.
Post by: Talvieno on July 15, 2014, 12:16:21 pm
Post by: zwei on July 16, 2014, 03:49:08 am
* People come and go - what was really hot topic for forumers 4 years ago would now be meh, but it can still retain 100s/dozens votes to skew results. We still have suggestion for doctors and hospitals.
* Community has done major progress with out of game tools and some very suprising stuff, making demand for some features in vanilla df low to nonexistent, but it still retains votes. For example remote public DF servers which actually exist.
* DF itself has came a long way. And new suggestions relating to it current state have little chance to upstart because people need to sacrifice one of their three votes.
All of top 10 topics are from 2008 and 2009
All but 2 of topics with 100 votes are from 2008, remaining two are from 2010
All but 2 of topics with between 100 and 25 votes are from 2008/2009, only two are from 2010
Pretty much all of topics with one or zero votes are younger than 2011.
No new ideas get promoted. And I do not think that we have ran out of worthy ideas five years ago.
---
My proposed change:
* Redesign ESV page to be prettier and match main DF page, put link to it somewhere visible.
* Allow multiple votes (with some fancy ajax thing so that you can go down the list and check want/do not want) so that you do not need to sacrifice support for old suggestion to new ones.
* Clear votes from accounts have have not been active for (x amount of time). Do this periodically.
* (Optional) Clear all votes
* (Very optional) Clear suggestions.
Post by: dorf on July 17, 2014, 02:12:54 am
Top three ranked options from the poll are:
Purge: unwanted/unnecessary suggestions are removed
Consolidate: similar suggestions are merged into a single suggestion, huge suggestions are split into multiple suggestions
Purge Zero: remove only suggestions with zero votes or are below a threshold
Post by: Greendogo on August 16, 2014, 04:53:06 am
Lock forum members into their ten or so suggestions for about a week or two, post on the Blog about it, so by the end everyone has a chance to see what's going on and vote on their favorites from their personal assignment of suggestions (you could even use a ranked vote, since everyone has such a small number of things to vote on). Also, don't show them how many votes each suggestion has just yet, to prevent follower-bias.
Then at the end of the time limit/when a good distribution of suggestion pools have been voted on, unlock it, and eliminate any suggestions with zero votes (or those ranked consistently near the bottom, if a ranked ballot is used).
This will give a lot of suggestions visibility that might be currently buried by older more powerful and well connected suggestions and revert to the current system, saving the votes accrued in the process.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on August 16, 2014, 05:23:44 am
As long as the list isn't wiped clean, there's no chance of any significant change in it. It should be named "the 2009 voting, eternally preserved."
Three and a half years later, this is still true. My vote is still to start with a completely fresh slate; new suggestions for a new version. Anything worth recreating *will* be recreated, no worries on that front.
Post by: Dame de la Licorne on August 16, 2014, 05:38:32 am
I did a quick scan through the first few pages of the list (checking out those suggestions that have 100+ votes), and this is what I noticed (numbers are current rankings, but shouldn't change much):
#3 - Workshop material selection -> we can do this with dedicated stockpiles now, should be cleared of votes
#9 - Multithreading support -> will NEVER happen (from ToadyOne himself), should be cleared with an appropriate note telling people not to vote for it
#10 - Adventure Mode Skills -> most of the listed ones have been implemented, with more listed on the development page, so can probably be cleared
#23 - Retire a fortress -> implemented, needs to be closed and labeled as such
There are quite a few more suggestions below the 100-vote cut-off that I used which also need to be cleared, but for the most part they have less than 10, since they were apparently already cleared at some point. Clearing the four I've singled out would already allow a number of folks to reallocate at least one of their votes to something else (and allow 3 suggestions to move into the top 10, possibly the following: Farming Improvements, Realistic Mining and Guilds).
So, I'm in favor of someone (I hesitate to name Toady or Threetoe, given that they have so much else to do, though they would have the best idea for what to remove as [DONE] and have the least likelihood of spawning arguments) going through the list with each major release and marking items as either "implemented" or "worked on" and clearing the votes from those specifically, but not the others. If there is an announcement (e.g. on the devlog), then players could then go back and re-evaluate/re-assign their votes accordingly. I think that was originally the intent behind the eternal voting system.
-Dame de la Licorne
Post by: Adrian on August 16, 2014, 07:52:00 am
#3 - Workshop material selection -> we can do this with dedicated stockpiles now, should be cleared of votesI disagree.
Because while dedicated stockpiles definitely help with material selection, they also screw up job orders.
For example: If you que up 10 iron battleaxes to be made through the manager, those 10 axe orders get divided over all forges. Including ones that have not been given access to a stockpile containing iron bars. This leads to manager orders getting only partially done and never actually completing, and job cancellation spam when the weaponsmiths can't find any iron for that workshop.
Dedicated stockpiles are not a panacea for material selection, so i think the ESV entry for Workshop material selection is still valid.
Also, has the discussion on wiping the list ended? Because i still think it's necessary to do. What with so much having changed since it's conception.
Post by: Dame de la Licorne on August 16, 2014, 07:57:50 am
Note that for #3, I simply said it should be cleared, not closed/removed. That way, anyone who felt it still needed work could vote for it again. As opposed to fortress retirement which is clearly done (even though quite buggy).
-Dame de la Licorne
Post by: Draco18s on August 16, 2014, 09:25:38 am
Post by: Romegypt on August 23, 2014, 06:45:03 pm
Post by: Areyar on October 27, 2014, 09:18:03 am
Bonus for added risks involved in expeditions outside of that range.
Post by: Draco18s on October 27, 2014, 03:12:21 pm
I noticed a few of the items on there are outdated. Retiring a fortress for example. You may want to remove that and give the players that voted for it their votes back.
I'll offer you the same response last time someone mentioned that.
The ones I control (i.e. created) that are still in the top-20 are all still valid and I don't think any/much progress has been made on them.
(I have been clearing out votes on things I consider to have been "worked on recently" so other things can float to the top)
Post by: Wooster on December 04, 2014, 08:17:36 am
Post by: Draco18s on December 04, 2014, 11:26:14 am
Can someone edit this out?
Unfortunately no. Only Toady has the access to do that. Well, and Dwaref.
Post by: Wooster on December 04, 2014, 11:33:46 am
Who hasn't been active for nearly three years...Can someone edit this out?
Unfortunately no. Only Toady has the access to do that. Well, and Dwaref.
Didn't realise it was that restrictive. That is unfortunate. Never mind.
Post by: LordBaal on December 20, 2014, 10:14:11 am
Post by: PeridexisErrant on December 20, 2014, 08:32:32 pm
Not wanting to be repetitive, but really, a lot of those things are in the game already, if there's hardship editing this, why not make a new one updated to 2014?
As long as the list isn't wiped clean, there's no chance of any significant change in it. It should be named "the 2009 voting, eternally preserved."
Three and a half years later, this is still true. My vote is still to start with a completely fresh slate; new suggestions for a new version. Anything worth recreating *will* be recreated, no worries on that front.
It's time to wipe the whole thing and start over.
Post by: pisskop on December 23, 2014, 03:29:43 pm
Post by: PeridexisErrant on December 23, 2014, 04:52:37 pm
Anything worth recreating *will* be recreated, no worries on that front.
And until then, workflow plugin.
Post by: King_of_Baboons on December 29, 2014, 11:15:08 am
Post by: dorf on December 30, 2014, 09:05:59 am
Post by: King_of_Baboons on December 30, 2014, 09:56:55 am
Post by: shadowclasper on January 24, 2015, 05:25:14 pm
Post by: Bumber on January 24, 2015, 08:49:43 pm
Shouldn't job priorities be knocked off the list now that it's been implemented? Or did I misunderstand some of the previous patch notes?The list is pretty much obsolete. It's in desperate need of a cleaning or reset, but only Toady can do that (i.e., not going to happen anytime soon.)
Post by: Draco18s on January 25, 2015, 12:26:48 pm
Shouldn't job priorities be knocked off the list now that it's been implemented? Or did I misunderstand some of the previous patch notes?
I'll have to check if i control that one. (Edit: I do)
If you could past the relevant patch notes I'll give it a look when I get on a real computer.
Post by: shadowclasper on January 26, 2015, 12:54:25 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146696.0Shouldn't job priorities be knocked off the list now that it's been implemented? Or did I misunderstand some of the previous patch notes?
I'll have to check if i control that one. (Edit: I do)
If you could past the relevant patch notes I'll give it a look when I get on a real computer.
New stuff.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146734.0
Post by: Draco18s on January 26, 2015, 02:33:55 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146696.0
New stuff.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146734.0
Looks like significant improvement on that particular item. It also made significant progress on (what was #8) Job Priorities.
I've wiped both. :)
Post by: Putnam on January 27, 2015, 01:03:52 am
Post by: Draco18s on January 27, 2015, 09:16:34 am
Hmm. Auto-mining is now added to the game.
That one is controlled by Dwaref (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=6633) who hasn't been online since 2012.
Post by: LordBaal on January 27, 2015, 09:30:10 am
(http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltjtjinTF91qh59n0o1_250.gif)
Post by: shadowclasper on February 02, 2015, 12:14:52 am
seems like the system needs to be rearranged somehow to allow anybody with access to control anything rather than select portions...Hmm. Auto-mining is now added to the game.
That one is controlled by Dwaref (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=6633) who hasn't been online since 2012.
Post by: lethosor on February 02, 2015, 10:08:35 am
Post by: QuakeIV on April 02, 2015, 02:59:49 pm
Post by: Draco18s on April 02, 2015, 03:52:56 pm
Retire a Fortress is in, its #22 right now.
Owned by RandomNumberGenerator (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=18207), last active 2011.
Post by: vomov on April 09, 2015, 09:04:35 am
Toady has control over all suggestionsPerhaps Toady could clean up the whole suggestion voting system? A full reset with the removal of some or all options might be best, since some voters haven't been active in years, and their votes give a misrepresented image of what we would like to see in the game.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on April 09, 2015, 01:19:25 pm
Post by: LordBaal on April 10, 2015, 10:22:20 am
Post by: Brienne on April 16, 2015, 02:04:13 am
One of common interest in past civilizations is astrology/astronomy. People thought messages were hidden in sky, they tried to understands god(s) and watched stars, comets, eclipses... and "explained" them.
I guess it could fit with DF universe.
IG, astrology could give clues about what happens in the world, may warns about future siege, necro/FB attacks...
Astronomy could help for travels, caravans stuff (frequency for ex), trade, special conditions stuff (stars alignment allowed special alloys and dwarves could predict that)... Artists could leave/come for astronomic events, like celtic priest gathering during full moon night,... could give astro moods...
It may needs special buidlings (mirror, glass, books,...)
All this is related to knowledge and religion aspects Toady is working on.
I add this suggestion to http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php) as I don't see any post about it. (->"Astronomy and astrology")
Hope it gives ideas for future development.
PS: Toady, ThreeToe, thanks again for this game. Hours of playing, days of dreaming.
Post by: Aquillion on April 22, 2015, 02:24:32 am
Probably the best solution is for someone to create a new eternal suggestions voting page from scratch. It would require discarding all votes, but honestly, doing that every so often is not a terrible idea. Then once the new page picks up steam, it would be pretty easy for someone to point it out to Toady in one of the FotF threads so he can move the sticky to their new thread for it.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on April 24, 2015, 02:19:46 pm
Post by: lethosor on April 24, 2015, 03:14:24 pm
Post by: Puzzlemaker on April 24, 2015, 05:44:21 pm
I'm not opposed to setting up a new/improved page, if that's what's being discussed. It could be hosted on the wiki (although I'd have to consult Locriani about creating a new table/database for it). Of course, that would require a wiki account instead of a forum account, but the wiki's deploy process has the advantage of being more structured.
If you want to set that up, that would be awesome.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on April 24, 2015, 07:12:49 pm
I'm not opposed to setting up a new/improved page, if that's what's being discussed. It could be hosted on the wiki (although I'd have to consult Locriani about creating a new table/database for it). Of course, that would require a wiki account instead of a forum account, but the wiki's deploy process has the advantage of being more structured.
If you want to set that up, that would be awesome.
Absolutely, this would be fantastic. Wikis are a lot more resilient regarding people vanishing from the fanbase, and we could certainty stand to start over.
Also it might convince a lot of people to get an account on the wiki, which can only be good!
Post by: Adrian on May 12, 2015, 05:54:26 pm
I, for one, am already managing a dozen accounts that periodically need a new password and email verification. And that's just the informal, forum, and video game stuff.
The formal stuff for subscriptions, taxes, insurance, government and work would probably add another dozen to the list.
"Well it's just the one", people used to say to me. And now i've got two dozen logins to manage.
Having a wiki account is primarily useful for people planning on doing heavy editing work.
For anyone who just wants to vote on the ESV entries, the requirement of having a wiki account is just another hoop to jump through.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on May 12, 2015, 06:55:22 pm
As to the other stuff, (a) lastpass or similar; (b) many players don't have a Bay12 forums account, so this changes instead of adding to the requirement.
Post by: MDFification on May 21, 2015, 03:16:24 pm
Post by: Draco18s on May 21, 2015, 04:19:11 pm
I, for one, would at least like to see suggestions that have already been implemented removed. Seeing things with hundreds of votes that have in fact been added makes it kind of discouraging to add to the voting list - your suggestion will most likely skulk at the bottom of the list an appear unpopular solely because suggestions that don't need to be on the list anymore snowballed in the past.
I tried to do that, but I control very few entries. Just most of the popular ones at the time of the system's creation.
If you scroll to the bottom, all the ones marked "do not vote" are ones that I own and have cleared when they were implemented.
Post by: Devin on May 24, 2015, 11:41:00 am
While it'd be much more structured, and resilient against people disappearing, it's yet another account to manage.
I, for one, am already managing a dozen accounts that periodically need a new password and email verification. And that's just the informal, forum, and video game stuff.
The formal stuff for subscriptions, taxes, insurance, government and work would probably add another dozen to the list.
"Well it's just the one", people used to say to me. And now i've got two dozen logins to manage.
Having a wiki account is primarily useful for people planning on doing heavy editing work.
For anyone who just wants to vote on the ESV entries, the requirement of having a wiki account is just another hoop to jump through.
I recommend having a common username/login you use for your many unimportant website/wiki/etc logins. It's a security risk, but they're the unimportant things, so who cares?
Post by: Adrian on May 25, 2015, 06:34:22 am
I recommend having a common username/login you use for your many unimportant website/wiki/etc logins. It's a security risk, but they're the unimportant things, so who cares?I took a look at Peridexis' suggestion of using lastpass. After looking around a bit i settled on Keepass.
I spent about two hours reading documentation and setting stuff up, but now i can log into the Dwarf Forums by hitting Ctrl+Alt+a on the index (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php).
I can churn out randomized passwords of variable length and complexity ad nauseam, and the whole database is locked up behind a key file which i keep on an SD card stuck on my person and a master key which is the only thing i need to remember.
No longer being required to remember all of my login-password combinations is a lifesaver. Cognitively, anyways.
With that said i'm no longer opposed to having a second ESV list on the wiki. Though i would still prefer to keep the one on the forums, simply because Tarn and Zach need to have master read/write privileges.
(Alternatively, they could be given administrator privileges on the wiki)
Post by: TBeholder on December 13, 2015, 07:13:54 am
Post by: Zarathustra30 on January 08, 2016, 10:19:08 pm
Post by: lethosor on January 08, 2016, 11:18:28 pm
Post by: vomov on February 16, 2016, 04:21:09 am
If the person that posted a suggestion seems to be gone for a significant period of time and it needs to be edited or deleted, message me as I have the power to edit/delete any suggestion. I don't anticipate this being a burden on me, but if it becomes a burden, we can figure out how to assign some maintainers to the page.
Could somebody please ask Toady to bestow moderator privileges onto them, so we can make the suggestion voting work again? We've got 433 suggestions, of which I guess half are duplicates, and a significant fraction is implemented already. Rebooting the suggestion voting has been suggested, but this has not come off the ground, it seems.
Post by: Random_Dragon on March 26, 2016, 01:36:49 pm
Post by: vomov on March 27, 2016, 06:41:35 am
Why is this still a thing? The voter has likely been FUBAR for ages.Because only Toady has administrator privileges, and therefore he is the only one who can remove the suggestions.
Post by: pikachu17 on March 29, 2016, 10:21:22 am
Post by: Random_Dragon on March 29, 2016, 10:32:05 am
Because only Toady has administrator privileges, and therefore he is the only one who can remove the suggestions.
Sadly I suspected that, yeah. ._.
Post by: Dozebôm Lolumzalės on March 30, 2016, 10:10:16 pm
is this a place I can say a small suggestion? you know how in rumors when you want to tell people you killed that Cyclops, you have to go try to find it in all that "I was attacked by a bunny" stuff? but in ask for directions you can just type in the Cyclops name and come to the top of the list. so just add names as keywords to the I slew ____ stuffNo, it's not the place. But I will respond: you are asking for filter capabilities, correct? Already a suggestion, if not implemented.
Post by: Random_Dragon on March 30, 2016, 10:16:00 pm
Post by: Shonai_Dweller on April 02, 2016, 06:58:16 am
Basically, filtering by "conflict" and "fight" are literally the least useful rumor keywords in the game. But yeah, susually you have to make a new topic and a grand total of maybe two people will see it. :VLuckily one of them is guaranteed to be Toady...
Post by: Random_Dragon on April 02, 2016, 01:25:07 pm
Sweet zombie Jesus, so many suggestions that have already been implemented by now.
Oh, and of course the "can we piss yet" suggestion is there. It was inevitable.
Post by: Dozebôm Lolumzalės on April 03, 2016, 05:57:04 pm
Post by: Random_Dragon on April 03, 2016, 06:29:16 pm
Wait what? You say that filtering by "conflict" and "fight" is useless? Yeah, but he wants to filter by name, and that is already a thing. *why is this confusing it shouldn't be why is this even a thing*
Nyet. It's because ALL the fight rumors ONLY use the keywords "conflict" and "fight." This includes the "I was attacked by this guy" rumors (which no one has ever needed to spread) in addition to the more useful "I killed this guy" rumors. So no, you can't use names to narrow down your fight rumors to the ones you actually want to spread.
Post by: Dozebôm Lolumzalės on April 04, 2016, 12:11:12 am
Post by: Random_Dragon on April 04, 2016, 12:20:43 am
Oh! You mean you want to say "I killed Urist McColossus," but you can't just type in "Urist McColossus" in the filter text box, you have to type "conflict"/"fight" because that's the only filter keywords that are attached to the rumor, but they're also attached to "this bird flew at my head" and "I saw this bandit once"?
Exactly that.
Post by: Dozebôm Lolumzalės on April 04, 2016, 12:25:45 am
Post by: Random_Dragon on April 04, 2016, 12:27:26 am
Post by: n4m3l3ss on May 06, 2016, 03:59:06 am
DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php)
The link in the first post doesn't work, 404 Not Found. I wish Toady edited his first post to add the real link.
For those who don't know, the real one is: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php
Post by: Bumber on May 06, 2016, 04:04:05 am
I don't think there's any point. It hasn't been used in an eternity.DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/eternal_voting.php)The link in the first post doesn't work, 404 Not Found. I wish Toady edited his first post to add the real link.
For those who don't know, the real one is: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php
Post by: Nopenope on June 02, 2016, 06:03:34 pm
Post by: Bumber on June 02, 2016, 07:42:27 pm
It seems Toady does use it as the top suggested features have been regularly implemented lately (job priorities, standing orders, improved hauling, etc.). I for one still check it from time to time and wait for the amusing moment where "Full graphics support" will inevitably reach #1.Gelding and book binding are 96/97. Taverns are 56. 69 is hospitals.
Post by: MoonyTheHuman on June 02, 2016, 08:46:24 pm
Post by: Bumber on June 02, 2016, 09:38:28 pm
is there some sort of new link? old one 404'dCheck just a few posts above yours.
Post by: Draco18s on June 02, 2016, 10:13:28 pm
The link in the first post doesn't work, 404 Not Found.
For those who don't know, the real one is: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php
Post by: Grey45 on June 29, 2016, 12:03:08 pm
Post by: LordBaal on June 29, 2016, 01:01:01 pm
Why dwarf fortress still single-threading game? Single core performance stop increase 5 years ago, and game plan to be more and more heavy.Basically because is a hell to change a code so far down the road to multi-threading. And since Toady works alone it would mean months if not years of code updating only, no new features, which kind of keep the game (and donations) going and would mean in the end an stop altogether for the game. At least that's what I speculate. Perhaps he don't know how to do it, or simply don't want to do it at this moment or never.
Post by: Grey45 on June 29, 2016, 01:41:07 pm
I dont think so. Perhaps i not work in such big projects, and dont know anything.Why dwarf fortress still single-threading game? Single core performance stop increase 5 years ago, and game plan to be more and more heavy.Basically because is a hell to change a code so far down the road to multi-threading. And since Toady works alone it would mean months if not years of code updating only, no new features, which kind of keep the game (and donations) going and would mean in the end an stop altogether for the game. At least that's what I speculate. Perhaps he don't know how to do it, or simply don't want to do it at this moment or never.
By the way, why Toady work alone? Dont he want to brign dw to opensource?
Post by: Random_Dragon on June 29, 2016, 02:03:29 pm
I dont think so. Perhaps i not work in such big projects, and dont know anything.
By the way, why Toady work alone? Dont he want to brign dw to opensource?
Go see the discussion for the latest version: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=158868.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=158868.0)
Just getting 64-bit compiling is proving to be a nuisance, even to Toady himself. And while I do wish he'd open it up to Github so I'd have something worth doing on Github, I can understand his reasoning for not doing so yet.
Post by: jecowa on August 16, 2016, 10:15:49 pm
I noticed that "Retire a fortress" is a voting option, but that feature was added back in v0.40.01. "Center on Announcement" was added in v0.31.01.
It'd be kind of cool to see this list with notes added that indicate when those features were added.
Post by: PeridexisErrant on August 17, 2016, 12:31:46 am
Is the DF Eternal Suggestion Voting (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php) page still in use?
It's been dead since 2009, and the ~hundred posts above this are largely just discussing that :-\
Post by: LordBaal on August 17, 2016, 08:42:39 am
Post by: Draco18s on August 17, 2016, 10:32:38 am
And for some reason beyond comprehension it's not removed, replaced, updated.
That's because it is eternal. Right there in the name. ;)
Post by: Random_Dragon on August 17, 2016, 11:24:37 am
Post by: dorf on August 19, 2016, 07:40:35 am
Post by: hops on August 19, 2016, 09:57:46 am
Post by: lethosor on August 19, 2016, 10:53:49 am
I would like to point out that it appears that someone (maybe Toady) has purged a few implemented suggestions, such as "Job priorities" and "Standing production orders". There isn't much information about when that happened, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't in 2009.
Post by: Draco18s on August 19, 2016, 02:07:09 pm
I would like to point out that it appears that someone (maybe Toady) has purged a few implemented suggestions, such as "Job priorities" and "Standing production orders". There isn't much information about when that happened, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't in 2009.
That was me.
When the system first got introduced I was able to go in and create every single suggestion that had been in the recent forum-based winnowing polls at the time.
I took the stance that I would be able to manage those very popular suggestions such that when they got worked on, I could purge the votes, mark them as "complete for now" and get those people to reassign their votes elsewhere.
I also own (current) #2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 15, 42, 46, 47, 51, 74, 91, 94, 121, 122, 187, 193, 212, and 223.
I haven't been keeping up with the devlog (to the point at which I went in about a year ago to figure out where I left off and gave up), so I don't know the status of the game right now, but I'd be happy to go in and clear the votes from those if they've been worked on recently (or remove the "don't vote" 'flag' from any of the others).
Post by: umbrelladroid on September 07, 2016, 02:39:18 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on September 08, 2016, 02:01:05 pm
Post by: lethosor on September 08, 2016, 02:17:34 pm
Post by: umbrelladroid on September 09, 2016, 04:18:42 pm
Moving to 64bit sped up my game considerably.
is this in the newest lazy newb pack ?
Post by: Mephansteras on September 09, 2016, 04:20:55 pm
Moving to 64bit sped up my game considerably.
is this in the newest lazy newb pack ?
No idea, I just use the direct download from bay12.
Post by: Dirst on September 09, 2016, 05:00:31 pm
No, PE seems to be waiting until DFHack is available for it. Given the foundational changes to DF (new compiler, different bitness), it's understandable that DFHack is taking a while.Moving to 64bit sped up my game considerably.
is this in the newest lazy newb pack ?
No idea, I just use the direct download from bay12.
Post by: Durian Hohlades on November 29, 2016, 09:52:57 am
No, PE seems to be waiting until DFHack is available for it. Given the foundational changes to DF (new compiler, different bitness), it's understandable that DFHack is taking a while.Moving to 64bit sped up my game considerably.
is this in the newest lazy newb pack ?
No idea, I just use the direct download from bay12.
A WHILE? IAM GOIN INSANE :D
btw will 32 and 64 maps be compatible? Savegame wise world wise etc.
Post by: lethosor on November 29, 2016, 04:41:38 pm
btw will 32 and 64 maps be compatible? Savegame wise world wise etc.Yes. Although if you create a huge world in 64-bit that requires multiple gigabytes of memory to load, it probably won't load successfully in 32-bit DF.
(The thread for PE's pack would be the more appropriate place to discuss PE's pack, but a couple of people have been posting about 0.43.05 there already.)
Post by: Scoops Novel on December 13, 2016, 02:33:05 pm
Post by: Draco18s on December 13, 2016, 03:20:09 pm
OP link is broken.
Has been for a while. The new link is back about a page. But here it is again.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php
Post by: Random_Dragon on December 13, 2016, 03:37:08 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on December 13, 2016, 06:16:15 pm
Brothers and sisters, how about Github (https://github.com/Drakedude/Dwarf-Fortress-Suggestions)? Use the issue tracking as the suggestions board and the thumbs reactions as votes. If i can get Toady to sticky it i'll add the old suggestions.
Post by: Random_Dragon on December 13, 2016, 07:13:47 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on December 13, 2016, 07:54:53 pm
Post by: Random_Dragon on December 13, 2016, 07:58:47 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on December 13, 2016, 08:05:03 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on January 11, 2017, 10:16:33 am
Post by: Random_Dragon on January 11, 2017, 03:43:05 pm
Soooo, toady is worried about trolls, which i gotta admit is fair. Advantage of the now defunct suggestions ranker was that it colored votes according to post count. Sounds like we need another custom built utility (with more functionality), which hopefully shouldn't be too hard.
Good luck with that. Meanwhile I'll be here, irked about feature regressions that Toady's gone and forgot about. 3:
Post by: Scoops Novel on January 12, 2017, 04:29:53 am
Post by: ☼Another☼ on January 12, 2017, 10:16:57 am
Post by: MrLurkety on April 16, 2017, 09:15:14 pm
Post by: lethosor on April 17, 2017, 12:05:07 am
Sorry for wasting everyones time, but the link is broken. Change games->forums and forum->smf.This has been mentioned at least three times in the past four pages.
Post by: Random_Dragon on April 17, 2017, 12:53:38 am
Sorry for wasting everyones time, but the link is broken. Change games->forums and forum->smf.
It will never die. D:
Post by: Adrien2002 on August 05, 2017, 05:45:13 pm
About an eternal suggestion (if this topic can still be used for this purpose), I still wait for the BSD binaries, I'm a NetBSD user and I badly want this game natively to my OS.
Tarn and Zach, if you read these lines, you are the only one who can make this, the code is yours so we are only waiting after you !
I'll very gladly donate to DF but BSD users are ignored so I won't until things changes. For the moment, I'm sticking with linux_compat from NetBSD to keep playing this game.
Post by: Nambatyelca on September 15, 2017, 06:43:16 pm
Post by: lethosor on September 16, 2017, 10:43:56 am
I would like to ask about why my dwarfs seem to get stuck in a tree every time a KEA goes by :(. also wanted to mention that i had a game recently where i had 120 dwarfs and 66 of them were children i was getting about 7 adult dwarfs to 15kids per migrant wave. Amaizing game playing it right now just wanted to ask. also i have noticed a bug that when dwarfs are useing a step ladder when they go into the tree another dwarf takes the step ladder and puts it into the stock piles, and the dwarf is left stuck in the treeThis is the wrong thread (and subforum) for that. Questions should probably go in the "DF Gameplay Questions (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?board=7.0)" subforum. Bug reports should go on Mantis (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/my_view_page.php), but I'm pretty sure most of those have been reported already.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on December 02, 2017, 11:51:55 am
Post by: Draco18s on December 02, 2017, 12:48:29 pm
So what's the status on this? Is the eternal voting defunct, or is it still going to be used? Will completed topics ever be removed?
No one knows.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on December 07, 2017, 09:00:32 am
Post by: Llamageddon on April 17, 2018, 05:14:51 pm
Post by: alpha on May 01, 2018, 07:33:37 pm
If so, any plans of cleaning it up a bit? Even among top 10 entries currently there are already solved/implemented ones, so why not mark them as such and/or move them somewhere else?
Post by: Bumber on May 01, 2018, 07:50:39 pm
Is this voting thing still in use?Check 3 posts back. It feels like this question is asked on every single page.
If so, any plans of cleaning it up a bit? Even among top 10 entries currently there are already solved/implemented ones, so why not mark them as such and/or move them somewhere else?
Post by: eerr on August 05, 2018, 08:22:03 pm
Things that Toady mostly covered:
Workshop material selection
Auto-mining
Adventure-mode skills
Watch command for Dwarves, creatures and items
Megabeast Breeding(Yes, if you find enough dragons or hydras to breed, it can be done)
Unless someone has an objection, I think these five can be removed from the list.
I'm not counting cooking for an adventure mode skill, because it doesn't add anything mechanically unique.(making food last longer/stack)
Some of these suggestions are suitable for Future of the Fortress, so ask there if you want to know what Toady will make next.
Post by: Draco18s on August 07, 2018, 08:33:46 pm
Workshop material selection
I have control of this one. I haven't been following the dev updates/release notes. Mind quoting the relevant part so I can be sure I'm wiping the votes off something that's actually been addressed?
Post by: GenericUser on August 08, 2018, 08:37:49 am
It was, 02/10/2016, version 0.42.06.Workshop material selection
I have control of this one. I haven't been following the dev updates/release notes. Mind quoting the relevant part so I can be sure I'm wiping the votes off something that's actually been addressed?
Can set specific job material in job details
Post by: Draco18s on August 08, 2018, 11:40:32 am
It was, 02/10/2016, version 0.42.06.
Can set specific job material in job details
Cool, wiping the votes. I'm not going to mark it as "fixed" as it's been a few versions and there may be more work people want done.
Post by: PlatinumSun on August 10, 2018, 07:21:40 pm
So if someone saidelets make aquifers more realistic but also add in sprinklers and pipes. It would be split into too seperate suggestions to vote on. One for sprinklers and one for more realistic aquifers.
Post by: Draco18s on August 11, 2018, 02:53:57 pm
Only 3 votes. I would say 5 but no more than 5 would be better. Also maybe make it so you can type 100 chracter comments for each of your votes if you like most of the suggestion but not the whole thing. Unless you already break down all suggestions into there smaller components.
So if someone saidelets make aquifers more realistic but also add in sprinklers and pipes. It would be split into too seperate suggestions to vote on. One for sprinklers and one for more realistic aquifers.
This is the kind of comment that would have been more useful 5+ years ago when it was being built. :P
But the whole "leave a comment" thing is why suggestions (can) have forum thread links.
Post by: BigMacMcSurfDeck on April 02, 2019, 01:16:29 pm
I guess the list is unmaintained?
Post by: Draco18s on April 22, 2019, 08:44:04 pm
There's a lot of features in this list which are already part of the game. As previously noted automining but I'd like to add that x64 support has already been added.
I guess the list is unmaintained?
Super unmaintained.
I've done my best to maintain the items on the list I have control of, but that's remarkably few of the top 50 now.
Post by: Seradest on May 15, 2019, 12:59:16 pm
someone should delete things in the list that are already in the game.
Post by: Bumber on May 15, 2019, 07:24:45 pm
Post by: ArchimedesWojak on December 01, 2020, 10:22:17 am
Post by: rico6822 on February 02, 2021, 03:19:06 am
so this thread isn't being used anymore?
People will repost again, in time.
Post by: ArchimedesWojak on February 03, 2021, 02:24:23 pm
so this thread isn't being used anymore?
People will repost again, in time.
i understand
Post by: Draco18s on February 24, 2021, 06:13:41 pm
I think the thread should probably be locked by this point. The thing isn't being used or maintained, and all anyone ever does is ask about deleting implemented features.
I've done my best to manage the suggestions under my control, but it's relatively few.
I could probably go in and un-already-worked-on them all at this point, but it was mostly there to be like "hey, this saw progress, try highlighting other things for a while"
(Lol, my profile images are dead)
Post by: rico6822 on July 07, 2021, 08:14:25 am
I think the thread should probably be locked by this point. The thing isn't being used or maintained, and all anyone ever does is ask about deleting implemented features.
I've done my best to manage the suggestions under my control, but it's relatively few.
I could probably go in and un-already-worked-on them all at this point, but it was mostly there to be like "hey, this saw progress, try highlighting other things for a while"
(Lol, my profile images are dead)
Will you restore your images back to work?
Post by: Magmacube_tr on September 24, 2021, 11:45:38 am
I think the thread should probably be locked by this point. The thing isn't being used or maintained, and all anyone ever does is ask about deleting implemented features.
I've done my best to manage the suggestions under my control, but it's relatively few.
I could probably go in and un-already-worked-on them all at this point, but it was mostly there to be like "hey, this saw progress, try highlighting other things for a while"
(Lol, my profile images are dead)
Will you restore your images back to work?
We'll be taking that as a no, then.
Post by: gondor2222 on December 15, 2022, 11:17:33 pm
Post by: hedgerow on August 03, 2023, 06:13:43 pm
Gypsum Plaster.
Sprites.
Sound.
Console.
FPS.
Mode.
Post by: andreasng on December 27, 2023, 07:00:38 am
Post by: PlumpHelmetMan on December 27, 2023, 11:07:51 pm
humble suggestion. never lose the ASCII mode.... never.
I mean, was Toady ever seriously considering dropping it in the first place? Considering ASCII's been a cornerstone of the game since its inception and many fans still prefer it, he'd basically be shooting himself in the foot by doing away with it entirely.
Post by: mikekchar on December 29, 2023, 01:24:08 am