Couple of points, then it's lock-time. I've been away all day and come back to this crazy huge thread:
1. I never called anyone a name. I specifically said the player was demonstrably
not a dolt, so I was confused as to why a fairly simple new feature was "complex." it was actually a compliment, albeit a slightly backhanded one. My confusion was as to why he was confused, since I knew he was very smart from past conversations. Reread the original post if you don't believe me.
2. Keith's comments were meant in jest, but perhaps were ill advised in a thread this heated. Specifically his "not negotiating with terrorists remark" is referencing a US idiom that I think is apt. But that doesn't translate well to other cultures, I realize. The comment doesn't actually mean someone is a terrorist: it actually means "we won't give in to the other side in an argument just because they issue ultimatums and shout." And that is indeed our stance. We're won over by logic alone, not by repeated angry restatements of the same position.
3. Sometimes there will be disagreements in a game designer / customer relationship. And you know what? That's okay. But know what else? The game designer always has the final say, for better or worse. We do as much work as we can to be accommodating and listen to customers. Perhaps more than any other development shop. But fact is, being an indie company, we're experimenters. We tinker. We try things no one else has tried before. We go our own way. Sometimes this makes a subset of the customer base angry, while others approve. In these cases we go with our own best judgment and keep collecting data. If something turns of to be horribly disliked by everyone, or even a majority, then we keep trying to change it for the better, or we eventually take it out. Evidence I submit to you: ship-type bonuses, permamines, astrotrains, golems, and so forth. We listen. But we don't immediately drop what we're doing when a customer or two disagrees with something. Otherwise we'd be unable to really ever experiment. And we might as well work at a AAA studio. We're indie developers because we like to make the games we want to make, not because we like being issued orders. There's no faster way to anger even a good-natured indie than by trying to order them around.
4. In a strategy game, balance trumps individual playstyles. That sometimes makes the proponents of a playstyle unhappy, but the alternative is the eventual death of the game.
5. Similarly, in AI War, options for the player trump simplicity. I have the secondary networks because I believe they are the best way to give options while still doing a BIT of you-can't-turtle dictation, without being too complex to understand quickly. This is my best judgment at the time. Nothing I've read yet has seemed like a better solution to me. A number of players seem perfectly happy with this, and a fair number even seem to like it. A vocal minority of about 3(ish) players seem to really hate it. These are valued and core members of the player base, which is always unfortunate, but at the moment I still don't see any solution that is better. Hence no change. And since those people 1) won't even try the new design, and 2) just keep repeating the same arguments while getting angrier and angrier, it seems unlikely they would take the time to understand what I actually implemented and why well enough to suggest something better. Each post suggesting changes has some gross misunderstandings of what I'm trying to accomplish and why various alternatives are unsuitable. I've explained my position and reasoning in depth many times, but people seem to skim that text and offer their own rebuttal, just simply rephrased. Put yourself in my position: what do you do? In my case, I have to say "I'm sorry we can't agree on this at the moment," and move on. Otherwise things just kind of grind to a halt.
6. Please, for the love of Pete, be nice to us. We listen to you. We give you free stuff all the time. What more do you want? The hostility with which many discussions are opened: implying we must be some sort of idiot to have X solution, and suggesting that an idea of yours is SO much better, is not a good way to start a conversation. We're reasonable people, but there are limits. We feel we've earned a certain amount of respect, and that if you don't understand why we implemented something that was clearly our intent to implement (i.e. not an accidental bug), the problem may be that you haven't considered as many variables as we have. Making us defend it as if it were a thesis, while refusing to try it and issuing ultimatums is something no other developer I know of would put up with. There would be bans. Us? We try to work things out, because there are often good points in there and we hate ever angering customers. But when people are determined to have it their way and won't even listen to our ways, that's a big problem. We're closer to the game, we have to consider all playstyles and not just your own, and we have to consider the future evolution of the game rather than just where it is right now. This is hard work. Sometimes we make missteps. At the moment I don't believe this is one of them. But regardless of what you believe, there's no reason to get nasty or superior. Even if you happen to be more qualified (ahem), there's no reason to do that. We don't say "we're the game designer, we always know better than you," do we? That really makes you angry when other developers show that attitude to you, right? Think about how we feel when you turn around and give us the same attitude. It makes an otherwise pleasant job close to unbearable. It's also the reason a lot of game designers won't speak with the public: they hate always being second-guessed. I actually really like being second-guessed, because you guys come up with some clever stuff I'd never have thought of. But only when it's done in a respectful, constructive fashion. Just remember I've come up with a lot of clever stuff you never would have thought of, too. There's no reason for anyone to get all superior on either side.
Feel free to start a new thread on the topic at hand. But please leave out the ultimatums and the super-angry-without-trying-it. That's just not doing anything except being the true time sink.
EDIT: Cleared out all the big typos in this post from my having keyed this in on the iPhone.
