Devs require majority approval from community for major changes

[Binski]

Do you know why we don't have referendums that often in our cozy, ancient Western democracies ? It's because it's time consuming as all hell and you're likely to emerge with a 51% for and 49% against case nine times out of ten.

People have complained about the staff when the updates were too scarce. This was corrected through more regular updates.
People have complained when the updates didn't change much and story development was too long. This was corrected through more dramatic updates.
People have complained about updates being too dramatic. Leeds obviously springs to mind as a very personal connection.

Narratively, it was brilliant. Broken powerhouse is forced to make a hasty retreat following a devastating defeat, and ensures that its pursuers will be left bleeding and unable to give chase. It was also the climax of Gallia's descent to the dark side. Some have perceived it as heavy-handed (I count among those), but narratively, it was something. Something big that'll have cascading consequences on many people's roleplay over what remains of Disco's history.

Would this event have had any chance to occur at all if it had been submitted to community approval ? No, of course not. And you all know why : pixel power. Muh station IFF. Oh no it's Vanilla, don't touch it.

And frankly, bugger that. Asking everyone's opinion on everything, even major plot points, is the 100% guarantee of making everything stale, safe and boring, perpetually balanced. That's not a good story, that's an accountability ledger. Discovery Freelancer has always been about delivering a story for people to roleplay with. And good stories are dramatic, powerful. We don't love everything that happens in one, that's the point of a good story. Which is why I will forever disagree with a strong player influence over story development. Glassing Leeds was a bold story idea that was obviously bound to generate a lot of friction and anger, but it worked. It got people to talk about it, it generated activity and it will be a core point of contention between Gallia and Bretonia for years. I've been privy to the original plan of resolving the Gallic war ; it was boring, safe and put the emphasis on status quo. This was more aggressive, I didn't like it at first, and I'm still iffy about the creation of the Enclave for many reasons, but it turned out to be a fitting, appropriately apocalyptic conclusion.

So in making no one win, and forcing the players to do nothing about what was happening wasn't stale? It did end in a boring stalemate. Glassing Leeds was completely unrealistic, and only happened because you guys are so remantically obcessed with 'telling stories' and forcing the players to be peripheral participants or cannon fodder in your stories. The truth is, this place has been controlled for years by a few players that are quite happy with things for themselves, while the vast majority are unhappy. Thats the player base's worst nightmare come true when it comes to the fate of this place. The place stays frozen, except from a handful of people's opinions, and none of them seem to want to work on solutions because of ridiculous notions like written above. That typical opinion is exactly why this place has only gone downhill over the years.

Yeah Leeds generated a lot of friction and anger, but why was that the point? I think it generated a lot of satisfaction for the story devs and everyone who just went along with it. I'm willing to bet if it had been allowed, players would have come out in high numbers to save Leeds too. They glassed it to sasisfy people like yourself, to make it seem like it wasn't unfair to Gallia, and it was done to make it seem 'fare' for Bretonia because they were getting back the system either way. It ended with no real end in truth so you guys could weild oorp magic. Its funny that players will never get an RCR to glass a planet through, but in the interest of 'story', devs can do it and decide how story will go on an RP server years in advance. One mode is contrary to the other. Either we're an open ended game or we're not. Well, we're not but we're happy to make it seem the game is that way to get people to come here.

I wonder what activity it would have generated if it had all been open ended, with player driven outcomes to those battles. Epic stories can still be told, but we're playing a video game and not reading a 'choose your adventure' novel for a reason. Much can be left up to what happens in the world we use. Why does that not seem most logical to people? You'd think that would be the first thing anyone would do here. It seems to be a thing here that players care about these things, ITS FUN, that is until someone else's story must be told. Again, if players supported a common system, players would wind up happier more often.

The way the war ended was the exact boring, safe status quo ending you claim would have been the alternative. The Royal gauls were 'saved' by dev magic, and Leeds was 'glassed' by dev magic. Not as many of us care about a few people's idea of a 'brilliant' story and are more interested in the story the players would drive. That is more interesting by far, and when set up right the changes reflect what majorities want anyways. You're right when you say if it had been voted on, Leeds would still be there. Why does that seem so brilliant to go against that again? This is why, when things are determined in the actual game we play, instead of acting like the game couldn't handle it, things would make more sense to everyone after these situations when the dust settles.

The only way I'd accept Leeds being destroyed as realistic and fair is if there had been more RP about those destroyers beforehand, and there had been a chance, using the game, to actually stop them. Admit it, the only reason we don't set it up to do stuff like that is to keep a tiny amount of people in the staff happy. That's where the gravity well that's sucking on disco is hiding. Its a years long imbalance causing nothing but problems.

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The Further Exploits of Captain Antares (August 2015) │ (alt) JonasHudson
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