Public design document

[Facethief]

I think this forum may benefit from a look into the development process of the game. To this point, a publicly available design document, however simple, would help players gauge how their suggestions should fit into the game, reducing the number of belligerent arguments over whether or not the idea would/should be implemented. This document would also help mod developers create mockups for things that they would like to see implemented in a way that could be easily implemented.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

There is a roadmap. Is this what you were looking for?

As for how it fits into the game, there should be a number topics that should be answered:

1. How does this improve the game?

2. What, if any, problems/issues does this fix?

3. What are the drawbacks of this? None is not an acceptable answer, just because having no drawbacks means the idea wasn't well-thought out and means the suggester might not be open to discussing the drawbacks of their Super Amazing Awesome Idea!

4. How does this help players manage their time?

5. How does this affect exploration/story progression?

6. Describe, in detail, how this suggestion should work with the current gameplay mechanics.

Unsatisfactory answers should be met with rabble-rousing and pitchforks.  

[Facethief]

20 minutes ago, traugdor said:

There is a roadmap. Is this what you were looking for?

No. The roadmap shows what the developers plan to add, but not why.

20 minutes ago, traugdor said:

1. How does this improve the game?

2. What, if any, problems/issues does this fix?

3. What are the drawbacks of this? None is not an acceptable answer, just because having no drawbacks means the idea wasn't well-thought out and means the suggester might not be open to discussing the drawbacks of their Super Amazing Awesome Idea!

4. How does this help players manage their time?

5. How does this affect exploration/story progression?

6. Describe, in detail, how this suggestion should work with the current gameplay mechanics.

This, however, is more of what I would like to see. A list like this pinned on this forum would probably go a long way toward deterring certain types of arguments (we both know what I’m talking about). There would, of course, be those who ignore the guidelines, but they’d be a step in the right direction.

[Thorfinn]

17 minutes ago, Facethief said:

The roadmap shows what the developers plan to add, but not why.

True, but that is dynamic. It's changed many times since I started, and often without completing those items. A good example is Alchemy has been renamed Herbalism. Maybe it involves a little reading between the lines, but it's pretty plain that the game is moving away from magic. But even a design document would likely not include a "why". I know I never did. I just specified what features I wanted in the system and the programmers implemented it, albeit often with a lot of hand-holding. But that was an internal thing, decidedly not for customers or even the marketers or they would start promising it to the customers.

Is there an example of a detailed design document targeting end users in any early access game? Or any software, for that matter?

Edited June 30, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

But even a design document would likely not include a "why". I know I never did. I just specified what features I wanted in the system and the programmers implemented it, albeit often with a lot of hand-holding.

The why is usually covered by the client liaison and the business analysts before the programmers are ever even contacted. The why is not needed to make the feature, it *is* however needed to understand the nature of the feature so that adequate documents can be drafted to fulfill the intend of the feature, rather than what the client initially stated.

If the client says, "I want a rope swing", then a very simple rope swing will be installed. But if they said, "I want a rope swing because I want to swing over Niagara Falls", then you can hopefully start to understand that this swing isn't going to be hanging from any old tree... Same basic statement, but the scope of the project has changed so much that the bill for the project is now completely unrecognizable as a result of one simple statement that answered the question of "why?". 

[Rudometkin]

4 hours ago, traugdor said:

There is a roadmap. Is this what you were looking for?

As for how it fits into the game, there should be a number topics that should be answered:

1. How does this improve the game?

2. What, if any, problems/issues does this fix?

3. What are the drawbacks of this? None is not an acceptable answer, just because having no drawbacks means the idea wasn't well-thought out and means the suggester might not be open to discussing the drawbacks of their Super Amazing Awesome Idea!

4. How does this help players manage their time?

5. How does this affect exploration/story progression?

6. Describe, in detail, how this suggestion should work with the current gameplay mechanics.

Unsatisfactory answers should be met with rabble-rousing and pitchforks.  

I think this is a fine idea, except for requiring #4.

4. How does this help players manage their time?

Not every good suggestion is meant to help players manage their time, so it is a loaded question.

Overall great roadmap for suggestions.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 minutes ago, Rudometkin said:

I think this is a fine idea, except for requiring #4.

4. How does this help players manage their time?

Not every good suggestion is meant to help players manage their time, so it is a loaded question.

Overall great roadmap for suggestions.

I think once you've at least finished Chapter 2 of the story, you'll understand why this is here. It's very much needed for those who are serious about the lore. However you may note that I said they *should* be answer not that  an answer is required.

Edited June 30, 2025 by traugdor

[Rudometkin]

24 minutes ago, traugdor said:

I think once you've at least finished Chapter 2 of the story, you'll understand why this is here. It's very much needed for those who are serious about the lore.

This still doesn't resonate with me. Regardless of how much time the story takes, it would be odd to say people should answer how their suggestion helps players manage their time, considering their suggestion could be, say, "There should be more colors for clay pots", for example.

 

24 minutes ago, traugdor said:

However you may note that I said they *should* be answer not that  an answer is required.

To be fair, you also said "Unsatisfactory answers should be met with rabble-rousing and pitchforks." I'm trying to avoid getting pitchforked as much as I can.  

Edited June 30, 2025 by Rudometkin
Typo

[Thorfinn]

OK, I never developed software under contract. It was either spec or cost-plus.

It's really fun to see how the style has evolved over the last while. If you go back to the early days of the forum, there are frequent polls to see what should specific feature be added next. There's still some of that, but they are often multiple choice. Probably for good reason. Some of those resemble nothing so much as herding cats. Which is still with us...

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Rudometkin said:

Regardless of how much time the story takes, it would be odd to say people should answer how their suggestion helps players manage their time, considering their suggestion could be, say, "There should be more colors for clay pots", for example.

That's true, but I don't think it's quite what he is getting at. Some of these answers have to come from someone other than the person making the suggestion. How does this tie into planned development, for instance, is not something we can answer.

But it's actually pretty easy to see how people like to manage their time. Go to the ModDB and see how popular various ideas are. Even if one is not a coder or even a script kiddie, he can still extrapolate from those things that are popular, and those which are niche.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 hours ago, Rudometkin said:

This still doesn't resonate with me. Regardless of how much time the story takes, it would be odd to say people should answer how their suggestion helps players manage their time, considering their suggestion could be, say, "There should be more colors for clay pots", for example.

Perhaps a better question would be, how does this affect the time it takes to do xyz in game (eg. makes it take less time/more time/same if ignored but gives better rewards for time investment, etc)

Also there is a HUGE time sink known as Chapter 2 so if there is something that's going to require a LOT of time to do properly in the game, then players are going to want to know in advance so they can plan for it, like prepping fields for a long journey (say 30,000 blocks of total travel to just give a ballpark estimate).

And yes I know it doesn't resonate with you because you haven't completed the story.  And for that reason, I don't think you understand the real implications of what I'm saying.