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[Michael]

Yeah.  An additional major problem with it is that since you only get three votes, people tend to not vote for anything that's low on the list, because it's "throwing your vote away".

Interesting.  If anything I'd feel voting for the present top ten would be throwing votes away.  One vote spent on the bottom can make a massive change in the relative ranking of the chosen suggestion.

Honestly, I probably would consider "Workshop Material Selection" (currently 4th place) to be at least as valuable as my own "extra chair for liason" suggestion.  But I don't think the vote would make any difference.

People have been talking about setting up a better system forever, but...

A straightforward fix would be to change it so that each voter gives an independent rating for each suggestion.  That would take up much more database space, however.

Another simple idea is set a limit on how long a suggestion may hold the #1 slot without being acted on by Toady.  If the limit is reached, the suggestion would be moved to a separate unranked list and would no longer accept votes. "Yeah, we know you want it badly, but looks like it's not going to happen.  So let's see which of the other ideas is most important."

[Aquillion]

Yeah.  An additional major problem with it is that since you only get three votes, people tend to not vote for anything that's low on the list, because it's "throwing your vote away".

Interesting.  If anything I'd feel voting for the present top ten would be throwing votes away.  One vote spent on the bottom can make a massive change in the relative ranking of the chosen suggestion.

The issue is that when Toady decides to do some fan requests, he generally takes the top X from the list.  (What else is he going to do?)  This makes the position of things near the edge of the top 10 much more important than anything else in the list.

But the real issue there is that you can only express your opinion on a tiny number of things on the list, and the list just keeps getting bigger.  You need to be able to express your opinion on all of them to get a better result.

Another simple idea is set a limit on how long a suggestion may hold the #1 slot without being acted on by Toady.  If the limit is reached, the suggestion would be moved to a separate unranked list and would no longer accept votes. "Yeah, we know you want it badly, but looks like it's not going to happen.  So let's see which of the other ideas is most important."

Hrm.  I disagree.  The previous top 10 spent years there before Toady finally felt that he had everything in the game in a good place and could spend a while specifically working on those (actually, IIRC, it was partially because he wanted the big long-delayed release from before to be better-received.)

Most of the time, though, I suspect that the way it'll work is that Toady glances over the list and does things there when he happens to be working on something else in that area of the game or code.  So something could wait at the top of the list for ages, then suddenly get done because Toady is now working on a related topic and it makes sense to implement this or that fan req related to that area while he's at it.

But that's just me reading tea-leaves about how I assume it goes.

[NW_Kohaku]

But since it doesn't control him, and moreover there are a lot of badly wanted changes he doesn't want to do, the result is that the system clots up, with an unchanging top ten.  There are probably suggestions in there that would be implemented quickly if they were spotlighted, but they get no votes because most of the people who want them have three "clot" suggestions they want even more badly.

People have been talking about setting up a better system forever, but...

A straightforward fix would be to change it so that each voter gives an independent rating for each suggestion.  That would take up much more database space, however.

Another simple idea is set a limit on how long a suggestion may hold the #1 slot without being acted on by Toady.  If the limit is reached, the suggestion would be moved to a separate unranked list and would no longer accept votes. "Yeah, we know you want it badly, but looks like it's not going to happen.  So let's see which of the other ideas is most important."

If he doesn't care about or do what is on the Eternal Suggestions, and just does whatever he feels like, then what good will changing the voting system do?

Thus far, if Toady reads what's on the ESV at all, he fulfills the ones he either was going to do anyway, or that he thought was a good idea, and decided to do.  You can accomplish that with just the suggestion forum alone, the votes didn't matter at all.

You could move all the voting items up or down the list all you like, but if the order of the items doesn't matter, how does getting the order of the items in a "better order" make a difference?

[Michael]

If he doesn't care about or do what is on the Eternal Suggestions, and just does whatever he feels like, then what good will changing the voting system do?

I wasn't suggesting that he ignores ES entirely, just that there are some suggestions he isn't interested in.  If these suggestions are all that is on the top 10, then he ignores it and goes back to useless stuff like sprawl and nightcreatures.

If we can get those suggestions that are doomed by the "Toady filter" out of the way ahead of time, we might see some progress the next time he checks the top 10.

Note that this isn't the same as just asking Toady to look at 11-20 instead of 1-10.   Because of all the people who expend all three votes in the current top 10, the relative ordering of remaining suggestions does not consider their input and is thus distorted.

[Jeoshua]

It would be nice if there were a section where Toady could give his thoughts as to whether the ideas on the list have any chance of being considered, now or in the future.

For example, if the number 1 slot was something like "Dwarves should eat Elves", and Toady was against it, it would be nice to mark it as such, so we could all move on to another suggestion.  On the other hand, if the suggestion was something Toady WANTS but isn't planning on putting into the game until later, that would also be nice to know.

[Kogut]

Toady commented at least one suggestion in ESV but nowadays this list is completely ignored.

[Zesty]

Toady commented at least one suggestion in ESV but nowadays this list is completely ignored as far as I can tell.

Fixed that for you.

[Kogut]

[1]Even things done "by accident" were not removed from the list

[aepurniet]

what would be nice if toady looked at the actual gameplay and tried to make that fun again.  the initial learning curve is hard, and discovering all the features of this game is sooo much fun, but after a while i started noticing glaring holes in the gameplay.  it would be nice if those could be addressed.  the holes are where actually playing the game seems like tedium.  i personally dont think they will be fixed, and toady will keep adding features to make up for it.

my completely ignorant (im a programmer, but i havent seen his code) opinion is that a lot of the code on this project is approaching spaghetti.  and that some of these simple requests arent so simple. 

[Elone]

my completely ignorant (im a programmer, but i havent seen his code) opinion is that a lot of the code on this project is approaching spaghetti.

Damned spaghetti. Following that, the programmer gets tired, and leaves his app a vaporware. Worse yet, once they stop working on it completely, they wont release it into community either, because they are so scared of someone seeing the work up closely! Seen this so many times. I forecast the same with DF, before it even reaches Beta. Or if it ever reaches Beta, it will be because it was pushed forth to give a feeling of progress.

And yeah, how many people will be motivated to keep donating with him going at this sort of pace?

[Ethicalfive]

my completely ignorant (im a programmer, but i havent seen his code) opinion is that a lot of the code on this project is approaching spaghetti.

Damned spaghetti. Following that, the programmer gets tired, and leaves his app a vaporware. Worse yet, once they stop working on it completely, they wont release it into community either, because they are so scared of someone seeing the work up closely! Seen this so many times. I forecast the same with DF, before it even reaches Beta. Or if it ever reaches Beta, it will be because it was pushed forth to give a feeling of progress.

And yeah, how many people will be motivated to keep donating with him going at this sort of pace?

ADOM for example? Thomas now want's to build basically an ADOM-lite for the iphone *facepalms* Don't mind anyone who cares about seeing JADE happen(though, I may never have found DF if he had..).

I still have faith that Toady was at a point when he started DF that his programming habits were developed enough to avoid spagetting his code, though im sure there are some exceptions in there that probably require rewrites, I doubt he's painted himself into a corner.

I'll keep donating while he continues to program, weather he implements any suggestions is entirely up to him.

[NW_Kohaku]

my completely ignorant (im a programmer, but i havent seen his code) opinion is that a lot of the code on this project is approaching spaghetti.

Damned spaghetti. Following that, the programmer gets tired, and leaves his app a vaporware. Worse yet, once they stop working on it completely, they wont release it into community either, because they are so scared of someone seeing the work up closely! Seen this so many times. I forecast the same with DF, before it even reaches Beta. Or if it ever reaches Beta, it will be because it was pushed forth to give a feeling of progress.

And yeah, how many people will be motivated to keep donating with him going at this sort of pace?

You know the term "Alpha" is completely meaningless on a game that's been playable for 5 years, right?

Actually, I think Toady is moving pretty fast, considering what sorts of things he is programming.

I mean, yes, it's going to take him about a year to get through the Caravan and Army arc, and maybe some more of the Adventurer stuff before he gets around to the ESV things, and I really do want to see him get around to it, but it's not like he's just sitting with his thumbs up his ass, here. 

He's producing procedurally-generated cities at the moment, and hopefully, we'll see him continue to make refinements of this code to make some truly organic-looking cityscapes for us to explore.  He's even throwing in absurdly spacious sewers and catacombs and undead, just for cliche traditional adventuring material. 

Take some time to enjoy either the game as it is now, or else to enjoy some of the other things in life, because this game has been in development for years, and will continue to be in development for years.  DF will still be here when you get back, and you'll probably enjoy the surprise of what popped up while you were gone a little more that way, too.

[Elone]

Yes, I have been thinking precisely of ADOM and JADE. Neither will Thomas continue working on it, nor will he give the project to some trusted fans who will, well, continue working on it... nor will he just admit that he wont work on it anymore, and release to public. I dont understand this. It's one thing if something is grown to your heart, but another to jealously keep it from growing, never letting it improve anymore, by your hand or another's.