Helping in Development - Guide for all

[Captain Jack]

Ahoy!

This is a small guide to explain you, fully, how an idea becomes a feature in Pirates Glory with your contribution.

Step 1: The idea
This might be something you thought or something someone else did. The best place to share an idea is at Game Discussion. You can post your idea there or read the ideas of other players. If you like one, consider posting it, no matter how old the topic is. Deserted or duplicate ideas found at Game Discussion are either merged or moved into archives.

Step 2: Shaping the idea
Once a nice idea has been found, the game discussion can be used to expand on the idea and trying to give it a shape. A shape which could later be added into the game. You can read on ongoing discussions and express your feelings. Whether you like an idea or not. At such cases, it is always prudent to keep an index of how discussion flows, at the first post.

Step 3: Creating a suggestion
No matter the reception of your idea, once you have the basic shape and details of it, you are now able to create a suggestion out of it. You should do this at the Suggestions. If it is a law or voodoo idea, use the relative threads. If not,use the main suggestion thread. Once you create the suggestion, the old discussion should be moved to archives but should mentioned with a link inside the first post.

Step 4: Flourishing a suggestion
Whereas the discussion part is where you get/give help to shape an idea, the suggestion is more on the final touches to actually get it approved. The approval is yourself and the rest of the playerbase. You must keep the first post updated with all the suggestion details. This way a developer can read through it easily. During the suggestion discussion, three things may happen:
1)Approve
If the suggestion is approved (by the playerbase, you no longer need Captain Jack approval), you simply move it to the approved section. You can still contribute there and what is left is a)Prioritization (given by Captain Jack) and b)Implementation.

2)Disapproval
In case a suggestion is disapproved by the player base, you simply move it to the disapproved thread. Suggestion disapproved may not be suggested again for a space of 1 full year.

3)Stall
This is the most common status. Suggestions tend to stall either because there is not enough reasons to disapprove it or because not enough reception is given.


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Stalled Suggestions

Since this constitute the majority of the topics right now, a critical effort must be made to reduce the amount of stalled suggestions. The majority must either be approved or disapproved. This is something you can help into, simply by jumping into such topics and expressing your view.


Determining the status

The way to determine when a suggestion is approved or disapproved is through common sense. If three people want it, it means nothing. If 30 people want it, then obviously it has to be approved. If key players are against an idea, then there must be an arguments showcase. For critical issues, let the final choice to myself. For less critical issues, resolve it with simple voting where newbie players vote should not matter at all.

Moderators

To make all the above happen, we will move this load to forum moderators. Any player of veteran status (has been around at least a year) can apply for this. Moderators will act more like tools and less like authors. When a suggestion for example reaches an approved status, then the first available moderator will take the burden to move it to the appropriate thread.

Authors

Authors do not have to be moderators but moderators can be authors. An author, is a player who creates and managed a suggestion, either this is his own idea or someone else's idea. Not everyone is destined to be an author so if you have a good idea that you want to push forward, perhaps you should look for the right player to push it for you. This player will be the suggestion author and the one we will interact with at the final stage of implementation. In case the author is not the one with the initial idea, both players will be kept in communication.



For any questions, let me know here.
If you wish to help as a mod, send a pm IN-GAME (I tend to miss the forum ones) to #1

[Captain Jack]

The players in the Player Development Team will often wonder which are the coding capabilities of our team.

In general, we have no restrictions, we can create most things, if not all. This includes 3D graphics, 3D models of anything, etc.

So, the nature of the game should play the primary question to yourself and not whether or not we can code it. Chances after all, is that we do.
The second question you need to ask yourself, again before asking if it is possible, is whether what you want coded is actually worth the trouble and if yes, what priority it should receive.

A good example is graphical battles. This is not a case of capabilities or if it is worth it. It is a case where the game style does not support it. When a player can conduct like 20 battles in 3 seconds under the current system, what a graphical battle has to offer him? This would result in a different game, so such a request is not going to be ever implemented.

Another good example, is to have a graphical interface for Trade Routes, or at least a better than the current one. We even have a topic about it, which means that there is necessity too. However, creating such an interface would mean some serious development time. To compare the development time of this feature, let us say that we could create one mobile game in the same amount of time. What we would get in return in PG though? Does it worth to do it at this time? At the time of writing this, the answer is no. Because improving the interface for the game overall, should have a higher priority than this. So, this cannot be implemented now but it may be a good idea to implement it later, when the answer to the timing question will be YES!

So, to summarize, here are the 3 leading questions to ask yourself when poking around an idea:
1)Is it compatible?
2)Is it necessary?
3)Is the timing good?

If the answer to all three is yes, then this idea is a good candidate for a top priority.

[Captain Jack]

These forums are for limited usage.

They are intended for the following purposes:
-As a forum to organize those interested in helping in development.
-We will periodically post here things we need help with.
-If you have a question regarding how you can help, this is where you post.

Avoid posting here ideas/suggestions. Post them at relative threads.

This forum will be used primarily by the players Dev Team

Consider SUBSCRIBING to this forum as anything you post here, will not show up at latest forum posts in-game.
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