Goonhub
02-02-2025, 07:14 AM
Okay, this post is mostly around suggestions for Discord on spriting/coding/player projects. Posted in Admin Feedback, since it's really up to Admins/Devs to decide on these, but requesting feedback from anyone
Also, the whole topic is tricky in regards to time availability, I'm trying to not suggest direct time commitments here but I think some is inherently needed
~~
1. Better availability notice for coding/spriting in Discord
People looking to code something needing sprites may need someone to sprite for them or the other way around, but there's no good way to request this at the moment other than either
1. Pinging specific people (which is a strong way to guarantee a yes/no response) or
2. Putting a request in the coding/spriting channels (which often there will only be a response if someone who is checking discord daily sees it and is interested)
This leads to some projects being incompletable due to one of them missing
I think it would be more helpful to do one of the following:
1. Add an "Available for coding" or "Available for spriting" role to Discord for people to take, where pinging that role will let those available see if they're interested
2. Add a channel thread or Player Project posts dedicated for coding/spriting requests
3. Add a "Code help requested" or "Sprite help requested" GitHub label, so that people can easily add it to a PR they have in draft or in work
2. More dev involvement in player project approval/disapproval
Looking at player projects, while this is more of a smaller thing, I don't believe there is enough/proper use of the Dev Approved tag. There are some posts, like constructible atmospherics, as well as Flockmind, that haven't used this tag. You could say this is more of a pedantic issue, but if not being used properly, why does the tag exist?
Additionally, I think there should be a Dev Disapproved tag, or more solid involvement in dev disapproval, of projects. While maybe disappointing to receive a disapproval on your project, I think it would help those working on a project know that their project just isn't the best for the game, rather than spending weeks waiting for a response that may never come, or arbitrarily pinging devs that may only provide their response, without the whole dev team providing a unified approval/disapproval.
There are many projects in the Discord right now where people have started them and then they just "staled". Though, this is the player projects channel in Discord where people can get more solid feedback on their projects and may spend significant time working on them, I feel this is the exact place where devs should be providing direct feedback, not just when pinged directly but in general. Additionally, I feel there's more of a problem in that devs may provide feedback, but is more of a individualized "not too interested" or "think this could be better in regards to xyz" response from devs, rather than a formal "Approved with xyz changes" or "Disapproved"
To help with this, I think there could be at least
1. A "Looking for Dev Approval" tag for players to add to projects, for devs to add a Dev Approved or Dev Disapproved tag to replace it with, when the player is ready. However, for this to work, there needs to be an active and formal "Approved" or "Disapproved" involvement in projects
~~
Also, to add to my personal experience in the above. I recently started a project "Space Phoenix Antagonist", which I've coded somewhat and made a PR for. I am not calling out the developer here, nor am I mad at them, but I started coding this because I pinged a developer for their input and they told me that it would at the least be good for a playtest (I was expecting an event like was how one was held for brainslugs). It took me 3 days to code. However, instead, I've been waiting close to 2 months now for a formal playtest. If you check the thread history for this project the past 2 months have just been me pinging devs asking for a playtest. I have no knowledge whatsoever of any testing that was done for this by devs/admins, which there has been at least some, and the feedback has not really been provided to me on improvements that need to be made. Nor has the developer who I originally pinged for input been involved with testing this.
While the essence of lack of interest (maybe? I don't really know) in this is not a problem, the problem is how it's gone.
I'd be lying if I said that I wanted to discontinue this project, because I really don't and I want to finish it. However, it feels like a terrible experience (as well as being this involved on something I'm not even a formal dev for) to work on something like this. As a contributor, how am I supposed to feel about working on projects of similar scope? I feel like I've done everything required and expected beforehand for a project of this nature (except maybe for not pinging multiple devs??) but yet the outcome has been not great so far
This post isn't meant to be emotional or anything, it's just my personal observance of what I've worked on and of how things go in Discord. Thanks for reading and consideration.
Also, the whole topic is tricky in regards to time availability, I'm trying to not suggest direct time commitments here but I think some is inherently needed
~~
1. Better availability notice for coding/spriting in Discord
People looking to code something needing sprites may need someone to sprite for them or the other way around, but there's no good way to request this at the moment other than either
1. Pinging specific people (which is a strong way to guarantee a yes/no response) or
2. Putting a request in the coding/spriting channels (which often there will only be a response if someone who is checking discord daily sees it and is interested)
This leads to some projects being incompletable due to one of them missing
I think it would be more helpful to do one of the following:
1. Add an "Available for coding" or "Available for spriting" role to Discord for people to take, where pinging that role will let those available see if they're interested
2. Add a channel thread or Player Project posts dedicated for coding/spriting requests
3. Add a "Code help requested" or "Sprite help requested" GitHub label, so that people can easily add it to a PR they have in draft or in work
2. More dev involvement in player project approval/disapproval
Looking at player projects, while this is more of a smaller thing, I don't believe there is enough/proper use of the Dev Approved tag. There are some posts, like constructible atmospherics, as well as Flockmind, that haven't used this tag. You could say this is more of a pedantic issue, but if not being used properly, why does the tag exist?
Additionally, I think there should be a Dev Disapproved tag, or more solid involvement in dev disapproval, of projects. While maybe disappointing to receive a disapproval on your project, I think it would help those working on a project know that their project just isn't the best for the game, rather than spending weeks waiting for a response that may never come, or arbitrarily pinging devs that may only provide their response, without the whole dev team providing a unified approval/disapproval.
There are many projects in the Discord right now where people have started them and then they just "staled". Though, this is the player projects channel in Discord where people can get more solid feedback on their projects and may spend significant time working on them, I feel this is the exact place where devs should be providing direct feedback, not just when pinged directly but in general. Additionally, I feel there's more of a problem in that devs may provide feedback, but is more of a individualized "not too interested" or "think this could be better in regards to xyz" response from devs, rather than a formal "Approved with xyz changes" or "Disapproved"
To help with this, I think there could be at least
1. A "Looking for Dev Approval" tag for players to add to projects, for devs to add a Dev Approved or Dev Disapproved tag to replace it with, when the player is ready. However, for this to work, there needs to be an active and formal "Approved" or "Disapproved" involvement in projects
~~
Also, to add to my personal experience in the above. I recently started a project "Space Phoenix Antagonist", which I've coded somewhat and made a PR for. I am not calling out the developer here, nor am I mad at them, but I started coding this because I pinged a developer for their input and they told me that it would at the least be good for a playtest (I was expecting an event like was how one was held for brainslugs). It took me 3 days to code. However, instead, I've been waiting close to 2 months now for a formal playtest. If you check the thread history for this project the past 2 months have just been me pinging devs asking for a playtest. I have no knowledge whatsoever of any testing that was done for this by devs/admins, which there has been at least some, and the feedback has not really been provided to me on improvements that need to be made. Nor has the developer who I originally pinged for input been involved with testing this.
While the essence of lack of interest (maybe? I don't really know) in this is not a problem, the problem is how it's gone.
I'd be lying if I said that I wanted to discontinue this project, because I really don't and I want to finish it. However, it feels like a terrible experience (as well as being this involved on something I'm not even a formal dev for) to work on something like this. As a contributor, how am I supposed to feel about working on projects of similar scope? I feel like I've done everything required and expected beforehand for a project of this nature (except maybe for not pinging multiple devs??) but yet the outcome has been not great so far
This post isn't meant to be emotional or anything, it's just my personal observance of what I've worked on and of how things go in Discord. Thanks for reading and consideration.
