READ ME Introducing a new forum format: Brainstorming Collection

[Vaeri]

Dear Humans and Elves,

Without making any change to the current process of idea submission (here), I'd like to introduce a new format that would allow the forum community to brainstorm about one certain topic at a time in one thread, instead of discussing one idea in one thread.

This approach is not better that the usual one, but something we want to try out in order to make it more easy for you to bring your thoughts to the idea forum.

Usually we submit the ideas that went through the whole loop of discussion-vote-cm poll. Now we'd like to submit our brainstorming collection instead.

At the same time the brainstorming will create chances for you to win in-game rewards!

Why a brainstorming collection?

The Beta community not only want to be the first to get any news about the game and try out things first as soon as possible. Many bugs don't make it to the live markets thanks to your reports.

In the essence, the Beta community wants to conserve and improve the player experience for Elvenar.

By submitting a brainstorming collection, the Elvenar Team has a source to check that can help them to create new events, buildings, features, etc. in their own brainstorm process. Here it is not about improving what already exists in Elvenar. Instead, we want to focus solely on new stuff.

(Anything that already exists and needs to be improved is something we should continue to discuss in the regular idea threads as you know them, since these ideas need special attention.)

Let's have a look at how the brainstorm process will look like:

Idea submission

Instead of discussing and rating certain ideas in the thread right at the beginning, everyone can add as many ideas as they like to ONE thread without thinking about whether the idea has the qualities we are usually looking for when submitting ideas for our CM poll.

Of course, any idea submitted should fit the topic and needs to be in accordance to our Forum rules.

Bringing all ideas together

After one week of brainstorming we close the thread for idea submission and edit the first post accordingly to bring all ideas together in one post.

The table we might use for this will include a short description for each idea, the author, and any details shared by the author (link to post).

Voting

You probably agree that the ideas need some order to reflect the community's standpoint on the ideas submitted.

That's why we will create a poll - everyone will have votes to select the ideas that they think are the best (number of votes available = 25% of all ideas).

To make voting for their favourite ideas more interesting, we will randomly choose three voters and grant them in-game rewards for their participation. Details on the rewards will be shared when we start the first brainstorming.

Contest

The more rewards the better! We will also reward people who created a detailed concept for their idea:
We'll grant in-game rewards to the person who created the best concept (we would do a separate voting for this after we successfully voted on the best ideas). Again, more details later! Stay tuned~

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Do you have any questions or suggestions about the Brainstorming Collection? Any specific topic for the brainstorming you'd like to see?
Let us know your thoughts in this thread! We would like to start the first brainstorming on Monday. Then we will announce the first topic of the brainstorming.

Kind regards,
Your Elvenar Team

 

[DeletedUser4235]

Sooooo, we all have one week to come up with as many new game features as possible, that we'd like to see in the game? Then a poll. Then another poll. Is there going to be an in-game announcement when this happens? It seems like only a dozen or so people come to this forum regularly. That doesn't seem inclusive to everyone who plays on Beta.
How do you randomly select who wins a reward? How often are we allowed to have a "brainstorm session"?
This really seems like something your inhouse team should be doing as their job, taking the time to look through all of the forum ideas on each server. Not something a few beta players should come up with for them.
It's not a bad idea but seems too complicated. We already have the ideas and suggestions section...now we have to first know whether we can post there or wait for a brainstorming session... and instead of having a single post on one idea, it has to be pooled with and then polled with various other ideas. Doesn't seem fair.

 

[Brummbaer]

An interesting thought.

Is the plan to start from scratch, or will there be a look back at the unanswered ideas of the past?

A review could be very beneficial because there are a lot ideas only with a comment of a very small part of the community, also new members in the forum have a chance to see what happens in the past.

Or, do we have to open the "old" onces again?

 

[Vaeri]

Thank you for your feedback @Akseli !

ooooo, we all have one week to come up with as many new game features as possible, that we'd like to see in the game?

A session is planned to be one week long at the moment (7 days) but we could think of adding more days to it. Fortunately, we are done with one brainstorming + votes in one month.

Is there going to be an in-game announcement when this happens? It seems like only a dozen or so people come to this forum regularly. That doesn't seem inclusive to everyone who plays on Beta.

We should be able to notify the players via in-game messages.

How do you randomly select who wins a reward? How often are we allowed to have a "brainstorm session"?

We can check who voted. By using an online tool, we will select the winners randomly.

This really seems like something your inhouse team should be doing as their job, taking the time to look through all of the forum ideas on each server. Not something a few beta players should come up with for them.

Usually, most ideas players are sharing are concentrating on improving the features we already have. The reason is because they are inspired by playing Elvenar and seeing what is missing/needs improvement. But with the Brainstorming, we are specifically looking for ideas that players usually not share for certain reasons (e.g. pessimism, commentary about the idea being bad/not fitting).
With Community Suggestions, we are telling the development team exactly what we want to have. With the collection we share after the brainstorming, we create something that is targeting to inspire the game designers of Elvenar. That's why collecting all ideas from all forums and throwing them at the game designer's table works only so-so.

It's not a bad idea but seems too complicated. We already have the ideas and suggestions section...now we have to first know whether we can post there or wait for a brainstorming session... and instead of having a single post on one idea, it has to be pooled with and then polled with various other ideas. Doesn't seem fair.

The brainstorming won't replace or change the current way of how we share ideas. Instead, it's more like a contest that players can join to if they like. It's understandable that you might think that players "will wait for a fitting topic before sharing the idea" and that the ideas poll against many other ideas seems to be unfair.
But instead, the ideas you come up with during the brainstorming have a different target group than the Community Suggestions and will help the game designers in a different way. Community Suggestions are for improving the present, Brainstorming Collections will help to improve the future.

Community Suggestions: The suggestions are final ideas that are planned of getting implemented because the Elvenar Team agrees with the community that a certain aspect of the present game needs to be implemented.
Brainstorming Collection: The suggestions are inspiration for the game designers' own ideas and therefore influence the future's additions to the game with community feedback before the game designers eventually find something we may like.

 

[Vaeri]

An interesting thought.

Is the plan to start from scratch, or will there be a look back at the unanswered ideas of the past?

A review could be very beneficial because there are a lot ideas only with a comment of a very small part of the community, also new members in the forum have a chance to see what happens in the past.

Or, do we have to open the "old" onces again?

We should absolutely review existing ideas and add them to the brainstorming thread. We think that the collection can be a second chance for ideas that are getting lost because CMs aren't suggesting them.

 

[Katwick]

Do please consider posting a list of anticipated topics. Hopefully folks will wait for the Topic that's the best fit for their pet idea.

Furthermore, creativity works best when you're only vaguely aware of a problem, rather than focusing on it. Folks often don't even realize that there IS a problem until someone suggests a half-vast fix.

 

[Dorfl the Clay]

to brainstorm about one certain topic at a time in one thread, instead of discussing one idea in one thread.

Could you please elaborate what is the difference between "brainstorm about one certain topic at a time in one thread, instead of discussing one idea in one thread"????

 

[Vaeri]

Do please consider posting a list of anticipated topics. Hopefully folks will wait for the Topic that's the best fit for their pet idea.

Furthermore, creativity works best when you're only vaguely aware of a problem, rather than focusing on it. Folks often don't even realize that there IS a problem until someone suggests a half-vast fix.

We can't post a list of anticipated topics yet, first we would try it out once and see how it goes!
And if someone has a specific idea, that player shouldn't be afraid and share the idea anyway. Even if it doesn't get polled in the forum, we can still add it later when there is a fitting brainstorming for it (second chance).

Could you please elaborate what is the difference between "brainstorm about one certain topic at a time in one thread, instead of discussing one idea in one thread"????

In our usual thread, someone suggests one idea (in one thread) and then it's discussed by players in the same thread.
In the brainstorming, we are using one thread for collecting ideas. These ideas won't be discussed (instead, we concentrate on collecting ideas).

 

[Prueba2]

Dear Team,
please, could the next Brainstorm Collection be about issues that Community thinks need to be amended/corrected instead of new Features or Events?