Hello all!

As you may know, Warzone has a Uservoice forum for tracking feature requests. It's at http://warlight.uservoice.com. This helps save me a lot of time, since I get feature requests every day and therefore it acts as a tool to help aggregate the data of what players really want me to work on.

For more than a year my primary task has been to finish the Unity app. Before starting it I did a sweep of every idea on Uservoice with at least 4 votes, and incorporated as much into the app as made sense. Now that the Unity app has been released, I'm about to go mark a bunch of ideas on the forum as complete, and will start to pay closer attention to UV again to plan future features.

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Let's talk about mods and Uservoice ideas. Now, I understand that mods are a member feature, so not everyone can use them, but they'll still serve an important role for proving new features.

What I mean by that is, when possible, new features should be created as mods first. That way we can play and experiment with the feature, and if we find it fun, then we can add it to the core game. This is safer than adding a feature to the core game directly, since that takes a lot more effort.

Therefore, we can come up with some rules for what feature requests should exist on UserVoice:

First, if your idea cannot be implemented using the mod framework, then it's OK to submit to it UserVoice. You can either word it as a normal feature, or word it as an idea to expand the mod framework to support it.

If your idea can be implemented using the mod framework, next determine if a mod already exists to accomplish it. If a mod already exists, then it's OK to submit it to UserVoice as an idea to convert a mod into a built-in feature. Note that these type of ideas will only be considered if the mod is already pretty popular.

If your idea can be implemented using the mod framework, but no mod exists yet, then it's not appropriate to submit to UserVoice.
The next step in getting your idea to become reality is to get it created as a mod. UserVoice is not the appropriate place to pitch to mod developers, as UserVoice is aimed at pitching your idea to me. Instead, if you can't create the mod yourself or need help doing so, try the Warzone Programming forum.

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Lastly, does anyone want to volunteer to help moderate the Uservoice forum? I could use help closing duplicate entries and keeping things organized.

Let me know your thoughts, or if you have ideas on a better way to manage it!

Edited 12/5/2017 06:59:10

Seems like you need some of the following:

-A Uservoice moderator that knows the difference between ideas that can be implemented to a mod and those that can't.
-A system to track what mods should be put into the core of the Warlight game. You mention putting this into the Uservoice, but why not just a ranking system for the mod within the game, especially if you're not planning on implementing non-popular mods.

but why not just a ranking system for the mod within the game

The idea of Uservoice is that people get to vote on how they want me to spend my time. If some players want me to turn mod "X" into an official game feature, and others want me to add a feature like in-game chat, I need a way to weigh how high the demand is between those two features. Putting both ideas on Uservoice allows me to compare them fairly.

I could write my own ranking system and integrate it into the game and stop using Uservoice completely. But I don't see a reason to do this as it works OK.

It would be cool if you deleted the uservoice suggestions which will never be implemented. I don't have votes anymore cause i used them for features which are important to me but are apparently not fitting your roadmap. I think there are quite many votes blocked like this which could be redistributed.

My suggestions/concerns:

• We need a UserVoice sub-forum where people can advertise their ideas and gather support. Most people use the General sub-forum today and the thread is in public view for about 2-3 days after which it gets buried. This leads to redundant ideas as players cannot find similar/better ideas quickly.
  
• Are you confident that there is a good enough pool of developers who will create mods? I'm not convinced there are enough programmers for this model(Feature request > Mod> UserVoice > WZ feature) to work. I may be totally wrong of course.
  Also, what does a player do if no one wants to implement their idea and they have no programming experience? I'm a bit afraid of this model as players who don't have programmer friends should still have their voices heard.
  
• Would it be possible to quantify what mod gets converted into a UV feature? I realize that you have used UV as a feedback mechanism as opposed to the main driver for new features. However, it is a bit disheartening to see some features with a lot of votes be neglected, over other features which no one has suggested. Obviously being an indie dev, you should have the freedom to implement features as you see fit. However, if we could agree that if a certain threshold is met, the UV request gets high priority, it would encourage people to be more involved and try to convince others.
  
• Personally, I have been on WZ for about 4 years now. I love taking on side-projects and using APIs to make CLOTs or help others automate leagues. However, the mod framework doesn't excite me too much for the sole reason that usage is very low. I think this is because of the member-only requirement which restricts the audience and the mods never become mainstream.
  I would suggest setting a cap on the #games a player can create/play in(instead of the member only requirement). Maybe, we could keep the mod game count a constant and accordingly structure the limit. Give more #games to members if need be(or allow members to create and others to play).
  

Edit: I'll volunteer to help with UserVoice moderation if needed.

Edited 12/5/2017 08:16:03

It would be cool if you deleted the uservoice suggestions which will never be implemented

Ideally that's already done. I review the top ideas every once in a while and have already closed the ones that I know I'll never do.

There are a lot of ideas with less than 6 votes I haven't reviewed thoroughly, so there still might be some.

I don't have votes anymore cause i used them for features

You can move your votes around as much as you want. You don't need me to take action, go move them if they don't reflect what you want me to be working on.

We need a UserVoice sub-forum where people can advertise their ideas and gather support.

I'm a bit torn on this since, if people advertise and gain support for their ideas, it means the votes on that uservoice item aren't accurate.

Consider two ideas. One is simply submitted and lives on its own merit, and the other is submitted but then advertised to a large group / friend network / forum / etc. The latter idea will get more votes since it had more exposure. But in reality, does that mean more people want the feature? No, it means it had more exposure. Therefore, maybe the first idea is the one that actually has more desire, even if it has fewer votes.

I want to compare ideas as equally as possible, so the whole "advertise their ideas and gather support" works against that goal.

I'm not convinced there are enough programmers for this model(Feature request > Mod> UserVoice > WZ feature) to work

There's already 10 times as many mod developers as there are Warzone developers (1). If somoene can't even find a mod developer to implement their idea, and they aren't dedicated enough to be willing to learn to implement it themselves, is it really a desireable enough feature for me to justify spending time on?

it is a bit disheartening to see some features with a lot of votes be neglected, over other features which no one has suggested

I can understand that. But at the same time, Warzone is a business and we have to ensure the game stays alive. If I worked only on the highest voted feature, the game would surely die, as nobody would have voted on features that make money like ads or membership. Features important to new players also don't get as many votes, like tutorials, but these features are essential. Uservoice votes are, therefore, just one factor that goes into choosing the next feature.

I think this is because of the member-only requirement which restricts the audience and the mods never become mainstream.

I have a plan for this. Mods are a very new feature, and they will be a bigger part of the game going forward, but for now they're in their infancy and as such are limited to a smaller audience.

Edited 12/5/2017 08:23:44

I think that transparent comments from Fizzer on the uservoice list every now and then and uservoice moderator(s) that know(s) the game in and out (such as MotD) would help a lot. Especially if both parties communicate.

I understand the concern about a specific sub-forum. Maybe a (much) more visible position for "Suggestions/Roadmap" or something like that with a link to uservoice would be good.

It was a while since I visited uservoice and I wondered where to find it. The link through help and wiki was cumbersome and -above all- not valid: http://warzone.uservoice.com/ (worked after I changed WZ back to WL).

Edited my comment because I only now realise that there are already sections with "planned", "completed", and "declined" projects. That's great actually!

Edited 12/5/2017 08:56:25

-A Uservoice moderator that knows the difference between ideas that can be implemented to a mod and those that can't.

If dabo1 does not nominate himself here, I think he's worth the effort of reaching out to.

One is simply submitted and lives on its own merit, and the other is submitted but then advertised to a large group / friend network / forum / etc.

'cept you can't really level that playing field the way you want to. Due to the 10 vote limit, I don't think anyone visits Uservoice that often. Votes on there don't just reflect what people want- it reflects what people saw, what they randomly searched, etc. Lots of luck involved. And stuff does get advertised outside- like on the Discords.

You can really only level the playing field the other way, by creating a controlled, specific place where all Uservoice suggestions have the ability to advertise themselves. Right now the situation is that a lot of great Uservoice ideas aren't going to get seen by much people just cause Uservoice as a platform is kind of out of the way, and you can see this with all the duplicate Uservoices that get created 'cause the original ones didn't get sufficient exposure to have a shot at succeeding on their own merits.

I also don't think the distinction between succeeding due to exposure vs. succeeding due to its own merits makes a whole lot of sense. Games get advertised; Warlight, Conquer Club, and other online Risk-like games all have "Play Risk Online Free" on their homepage title and that's presumably for the sake of exposure. Doesn't mean Warzone hasn't beat all those other games out on its own merits. Proper exposure really only helps ideas/etc. succeed on their merits rather than by chance.

Edited 12/5/2017 09:44:16

If dabo1 does not nominate himself here, I think he's worth the effort of reaching out to.

I could try but I can't guarantee that I find the time every day(but it should work most of the days) so if Fizzer wants I could try it.

Edited 12/5/2017 12:16:30

I think the entire uservoice usage is garbage. It's a barrier to voicing suggestions that alienates 99% of the playerbase. Most players never even us the forums - they certainly aren't using uservoice.

The only good way to get feedback is through the site itself, not from a third party site that will only ever get a tiny minuscule portion of the community to touch it.

A forum to advertise uservoice suggestions is a good step in the right direction, but frankly I think even that's not good enough. Something like ranker.com would likely work much better - where people could directly rank ideas in order of their importance, and could specifically denote which features are merely not priorities as opposed to things they'd prefer never be implemented.

Edited 12/5/2017 15:17:29

I'll volunteer only if there aren't enough qualified/passionate volunteers since I'm not a mod dev.

Getting regular players to natuarally look at uservoice, the forums, blog posts, map of the week, clans, etc is impossible because of their placement in relation to the main game. If I remember correctly, you said most new players join/play solely on mobile. Those players wont see anything but what you put in the app. I believe I saw somewhere you said you were going to bake some of warzone.com into the app, and that's the only way to get more than the same 20 people voting in uservoice. If the app had a main tab that was a dashboard of blog posts, new uservoice, and 'hot' forum posts, then normal players will gravitate to them.

I see many great people already have volunteered :) Nevertheless, I would be happy to do it aswell.

When it comes to Uservoice, I think that a similar suggestion to that someone made for maps some time ago. Every time a new map gets published it should get a thread on the forum.

For uservoice, I would apply this; let's say if a item gets 10 votes it gets a official thread on the forum. Given the current number of new ideas on uservoice with more then 10 votes there should't be an issue of just having this in the general forum (if there turns out to be a need, then by all means a sub-forum is justified). The main reason of doing this, as have been pointed out by others, is that the new ideas are getting different exposure.

Trivia: A famous P. website uses user-voice.

Edited 12/5/2017 17:35:58

I think that a similar suggestion to that someone made for maps some time ago.


That was me, and you can find it @ http://warlight.uservoice.com

I don't mind helping out with uservoice. I want to start learning Lua and the mod framework during 2018.

I agree with MOTD that there should be a subforum to discuss uservoice stuff, lot of ideas need community feedback to get ironed out into something feasible, and that forum thread should be read properly before the idea is implemented.

Contrary to what Fizzer claims i don't think ideas that are popularized by forum threads are being carried into popularity by folks making a ruckus, plenty of new ideas pop around all the time and people ask others to vote for them, but only a few really obvious ones take traction and collect a lot of votes. I think Fizzer should improve on how he responds to uservoice, moderators would be useful, i already do a little of that work writing comments when i look around uservoice, pointing out dupes, flagging things that are already implemented and should be closed. But the feeling i get is that Fizzer doesn't go through uservoice that often, so it's normal that the community feels it's a bit of a wasted effort to participate there. This announcement and call for moderators is a positive step to improve that though.

I would suggest a monthly livestream where Fizzer goes through the list of uservoice and answers / discusses / explains priorities of things. So people would have better expectations of what is on the roadmap, what can be done with MODs, and where they should be investing their votes. Would also be a nice channel for people to pitch new ideas and get immediate comments from others (and Fizzer) if it's something worth submitting to uservoice or not.

I don't mind being made moderator of uservoice, but i can't commit to checking it more then once or twice a month.

Edited 12/6/2017 00:01:49

I just went through a good bit of the Uservoice ( https://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warzone-features ). There are about 800 idea requests and only some of them are replicates or already implemented additions. The majority of them are either unreasonable for the amount of input required or would be considered low priority because of how small the change is or how low the popularity is. The problem with merit-based popularity is that I don't think many people get through a few pages of ideas though.

As for feedback changes:

• So I am all for a moderator, a significant scale back is definitely needed to make the uservoice less intimidating
  
• I think the comments for each idea is sufficient for discussion of the idea
  
• I opt for easier to find directing to the uservoice, i was thinking a button or small section on the community dashboard, possibly at the bottom of the forum section with a "Have new ideas for warzone and want them to be heard? Share here!" link
  
• I would like the livestream idea ps mentioned, but I understand that may be consuming
  
• I could help clean up some of the uservoice but I fear I do not have enough understanding of the warzone framework to determine if some additions are feasible
  

As for the mod implementation process:
First concern is that many people posting ideas would not exactly know whether or not it can be implemented with the mod framework and they will not post in the right place. Not sure how much flexibility the uservoice website allows - whether or not you can add different categories/subpages(for mods vs normal features, and a mod -> normal feature category) or buttons (with link like: "Need help finding where to post?") to our domain. If possible it would help organize a lot and both parts of the process could be done on the site.
If not though, I think a "Mod Ideas" subforum could be helpful, separate from CLOT/Programming. It seems as if a large amount of current uservoice ideas would be implemented via mods first and not as built in features or interface changes to the game, so I fear there would be a lot of mod requests flooding out non-Mod threads.

And for current mod status:
I have tested several (some I found problems with but that is not my point). My problem is that even with it available to all members, I still have difficulty filling game seats. I feel like if we want the mod -> normal feature ideas to get a lot of support on uservoice, more people have to have access to them. I suggest make mods available at a certain (possibly very high) level. Or maybe if mod -> normal feature ideas required less votes for implementation than other feature ideas, that could work.

Thanks for all the restructuring lately! ;)

In my opinion, uservoice is quite essential for warlight cause it is an excellent way to post now feature ideas altho the voting system could be improved. With the system, I think of, you could give every post one vote. One example for that is the Video Indexer Service of Microsoft https://cognitive.uservoice.com/forums/598144-video-indexer altho it is used as a forum, but I think it could be adapted to warzone.

Another useful improvement would be to add the following subforums on uservoice(mod, mod framework, forum, core game, tournament, API) to get a better overview of the suggestions(also used at Video Indexer).

And the last suggestion would be to switch from warlight.uservoice.com to warzone.uservoice.com cause it is confusing for new players who don't know that the game was called warlight before.

Mods are a very new feature, and they will be a bigger part of the game going forward, but for now they're in their infancy and as such are limited to a smaller audience.

:)

One of the big issues with mods being member-only is open seat games are impossible to fill. My proposal is to maintain a list of members that are willing to play with mods, like I did here:
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/285875-remake-advanced-diplo-mod-members

But this list needs more visibility. Can someone rename that thread to say something like "List of members that are willing to play with mods" or something like that.

This is without adding any more work to Fizzer. But it gets tedious to invite 39 people to a game, then having to manually check between who accepted and who did not in order to remove them from the game and get the game started.

Speaking of Mods, I added a list of mods to the wiki page and started doing a description for some of them. Can use some help create pages for the other ones:
https://www.warzone.com/wiki/Mods

Edited 12/7/2017 02:16:50