Topic

About those Projects...

Some ramblings about projects as they stand today. :)

I loved projects initially.  They were the first real sense of community play we got in the game, and it was awesome.  I made a ton of friends and had a blast.  As with all things, there is a honeymoon and then reality sets in, so some of my disappointment can be taken with a grain of salt, but I think that projects can still be improved.

Can haz bug fix, plz?
When doing a task for a project, if you dialed yourself in for Max or for a number, n, of work units to contribute, when the task is complete, the project is not aware of this and lets you keep shoveling away, draining your energy.  Also, gthe sound of the tool continues and clicking Stop results in an error that it can't be stopped (so, you X out of the project to move onto the next work unit) I'm fairly certain there is a bug filed for this already, but this bug really ... bugs me! >:-D

The metal ingot contribution quest...
I didn't think this was a good idea when it was created and I think even more strongly now that it's a problem.  Whenever it comes to bulk contributions, some folks are hoarders and will just dump in 250-500 of something (planks, beans, ingots - been there, done that).  So, a problem is that the window to contribute ingots is small.  Also, not every project asks for ingots.  Last, it's getting more and more difficult to know when a project is in progress and needs something - this will be more difficult when Help goes away.  I get the point of the quest - allow folks to learn how to donate, but perhaps the quest could be more general (donate 10 of something you make to a project) and then a different quest for whatever metallurgy skill gives you the current quest.

The size of bulk contributions....
I don't know the reasoning behind the larger amounts for products. If I had to guess, it might have been to encourage more people to contribute or to draw out the completion time (the first one ever went by in a flash as I recall!).  I don't think this is working, if that was the intent.  There are some things projects ask for that are just too easy to hoard.  For those that most people don't hoard, in this last test I saw very few people going out to collect certain things and I saw a lot less group-harvesting. 

For example, Guano.  I believe at least twice last week, projects asked for Guano (500? 250?).  For the first, two of us contributed over 80% of the guano by trekking off to the caverns.  The other one, I started off to collect it and then realized I'd rather spend my time doing anything but, and the guano was quickly filled thereafter.  So, I don't think asking for huge quantities of something is getting diverse players to contribute.  If that's the goal, then the quantities need to be upped to 5000 or more, which would encourage teams to be formed to go get the stuff.  Planks are another example - you ask for 500 and that's the first thing to get filled up.

Some of this ties into an old horse I'll beat again, about whether to limit certain contributions to players of a certain level (so, if it asks for 500 cherries, only levels 1-5 can contribute).  I know this was vigorously lobbied against by many, so I expect the same resistance to my suggestion. :)  But I don't think it hurt anything when the tasks started being limited by level (only those with Tinkering V or MCI can donate work units, for example).  Although, maybe the lower levels have better things they ought to be doing than worrying about projects... so.

Community Building
This is what was awesome about projects, but less so these days.. and with no Help channel and more people, this might degrade even further.

At first, we all were gathered round the projects and it was all a real communal effort.  Who will go get what? Let's make a gathering party.  Who has this?  

This still happens, but less so and in a much more diffuse way.  It gets frustrating being half way across the world gathering items only to have people who aren't on the New Streets channel or who are and who just aren't communicating, come along and fill the contribution up.   In a sense, that's fine, but in another I felt just very solo the last few projects and it wasn't as much fun as the earlier times.  I wish there were a better way to organize contributions or to learn about projects.

Projects are the way for players to 'build' the world, but it's really all programmed, still.  We can't vote on what street we're building anymore, and projects build out at the spirits whim, not players.  An idea nagging at me, which I'll throw out there, is to have players form their own team through building permits.  Something like... someone gets a permit, get 50 players signed onto that permit and then petitions the bureucrocs to build out something in the Meadows or wherever.  Then, that team goes out and builds the thing.  More community, more coordination, more fun fun fun.  I dunno, it's base idea for others to say 'ugh, sucks' or flesh out.

Trophies
I like 'em, have a few pieces of 'em but... I dunno.  I keep feeling that a project achievement could be more cool than this, which sort of encourages people to not work together but to do it all themselves. I just haven't sorted out what that might look like.  Maybe others can.

---

At any rate, my feedback on projects so far is that I liked them better when there was more community coordination and engagement, I enjoy them less now that we can't choose the outcome of the street, and I'm tired of the projects asking for the same combinations of things time after time.  I've starting making my own 'quests' to replace working on projects, because the last few just haven't been very fulfilling.  The pity is, I grew to hate them before the game was optimized, and now that the game is optimized (yay!) so that it's at least playable, I found myself bored/annoyed with them.  Also, it feels like they shifted from communal happenings to more random solo people who happen to be at the same spot doing something.... it's just a lonely feel.

Posted 20 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Thanks zeeberk — I've only skimmed it at this point, but a lot of good feedback in there. We have let the feature stagnate for a while (lord, but there is always a million things to do). But we will be putting projects to work in other areas (building new structures, restoring areas mis-remembered by the Giants, smaller upgrades to particular parts of a street, etc.) and gradually it'll all get better.
    Posted 20 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When will the Giants start having a greater impact on the game environment? It feels as if they're a side thought at the moment - this will change right?
    Posted 20 months ago by Hburger Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would like to see the giants giving out quests, maybe after getting their emblem.
    Posted 20 months ago by tweetypie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really, really liked it when we had the ability to vote on what an area looked like. It gave a real sense of 'ownership' to project contributions. I myself have focused less on the projects since the reset and more on exploring other aspects of the world. 

    I really do think that setting the quantities higher will help, and does. Yes, many people hoard... but once their hoard is gone they have to rebuild it, as you pointed out. That means while you were out looking to collect still more guano, someone else finished things off.... so yes, it does diversify. And when the next project needs guano, neither of you will have a huge amount and someone else will. I did some of my best street projects because I'd built up a hoard of beans and planks... and this was when I had no clue what they were for. It's always been about having a stock of the right item at the right time to get a piece of the trophy. As for a trophy being 'it', it's pretty friggin hard to assemble one now and will take lots of time and patience, so I'd say that's a huge thing to look forward to.


    I've made some other suggestions elsewhere, like requiring harder to obtain items (how long would it take us to gather 500 emblems of Lem to get a Lem shrine on a street?), or placing certain 'noob' projects out there... i.e. you can't participate if you're over level X.... or have greater than Y in a skill. Frustrating, yes... but by proxy those limits already exist for the other side.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • IMO, the single biggest thing currently lacking is the inability to find out what is needed on a project. The way projects are now, it would be much more tolerable if there was a web page that we could see a current snapshot of what is needed, and which projects are active.

    It seems that the current dynamic, as indicated above, but far worse today, is people camping the project, waiting on the worker-bees to gather the rarest resources (guano, loam), and then jumping on the bandwagon once the next phase opens. Lather, rinse and repeat.

    While I certainly don't want to add to any type of 'unwritten rules' on this one, it makes projects almost intolerable. I want more people to be part of the projects, but if this how things are going to be for the near to mid term, at least throw us a bone with a status update mechanism.

    In short - WEB PAGE STATUS UPDATES. Please. Sugar on top.
    Posted 20 months ago by Joe Blow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Joe Blow
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have to agree with the projects; they haven't enthused me to join in, simply because my 1st intro to them really is the mteal ingot quest and I am never here in time to donate the 10 I need to.  By the time I get there (uk time) , I feel I've wasted time and energy when I could have been doing other things and as yet, I don't have anything else to contribute to them, so I've kind of given up on them for now.  This is about the only thing in the game, that doesn't really float my boat!

    ETA, in respect of the metal bar quest, maybe either the max needs to be vastly increase, or better still, limit each player to what they can donate when there is a quest linked to it.
    Posted 20 months ago by ♥joby♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +100 for zeeberk's suggestion of a team developing or coordinating a project. Or... if that's a bit complicated and you need the infrastructure in place as it is, how about having people get permits and sign up for projects, up to a certain number maybe, and then letting that group be wholly responsible. I could see that working more later when the world is bigger and there are more projects. But they need to be more clearly announced, and there needs to be more opportunity for more people to participate somehow.

    My own experience has been similar to zee's, although I have never had the experience of being totally involved with one because I came to this later. For me, at first, it was becoming hazily aware via the help channel that something was going on and then not being able to get near it because of lag. That fixed, I would then see via the help channel that x number of planks or bits of earth or whatever were needed and then, by the time I got there with them, they'd be finished. Then there was the one where all the tasks were at a skill way higher than I had at that time. This time, I've had more chance to take part, but it's kind of anti-climactic. Without hoarding, I never have enough of the things that are needed to make any real difference. I went in, contributed, and left. Like Zeeberk said, it's pretty much an every glitchie for him/herself operation, no community building. I did at least manage to complete the effing ingot quest this time!
    Posted 20 months ago by Tradescantia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh hai again...

    Thanks Stoot for the acknowledgement! <3

    So, last night around 10pm-Midnight MST I had this glorious reliving of projects past when the people in New Streets were communicating and coordinating items and work together.  I joined in a barnacle/jelly party for a time and it was FAB.  Just like old times.

    I log in this morning, see that the streets got very build out last night (go team) and then found... not too many people coordinating anything in New Streets, a lot of newbies joining New Streets to find out when a project needed the ingots, and a bunch of people camping, waiting for others to gather up those hoards of time consuming items, so that they could jump in on the work.  No one was telling the channel that work units were needed.  People were still out collecting things and not getting updates on the other people who donated in bulk.  It sucked.  Yes, it really sucked. 


    My feeling of suckage reached new heights when the project turned to the next phase and we learned that we needed pig plop.  I had a ton of produce on me and walked into the next street to feed a pig to get a ton of plopies and one of the campers came by, stood right next to the pig (so. yea, now I'm annoyed that someone is interfering with my clicks and not helping) and finally asks... "What are you doing?"  


    "I'm feeding a pig."


    "That takes too much time."


    Whereupon they promptly plonked themselves back down at the project to wait for the work units to begin.


    Now, I know this is just a game, and I'm not asking for anyone to moderating selfish oafs who don't heed unspoken rules they may not even know, but I do want to point out that it really killed the game for me.  It's hit and miss who ends up on a project - some groups are just totally awesome, you work together, connect as friends, laugh at missed scrapes or scoops.  Then there is a different sort of crowd who clearly aren't concerned about anything but getting rewards from projects (which were once negligible, but now we have trophies to fight over) which quickly makes this _not_ _fun_.


    Anyhoooooo just more feedback.  Take it as you may. I know it's hard to get emotion via a forum post, but I am having fun with the game.  But projects need some lovin'! Yay, you know that already, so thanks for listening.
    Posted 20 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What zeeberk said.
    All of it. Word for word.

    Also- please vary the contributions somewhat.  We're all getting bored of the jellisacks, barnacles, loam and guano.
    Can't we contribute carrots and chicks and stuff?
    Things that can't be bought from vendors (so I guess carrots are out) but employ other skills/ interests than feeding batterflies.
    Posted 20 months ago by Wrendolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "someone gets a permit, get 50 players signed onto that permit and then petitions the bureucrocs to build out something in the Meadows or wherever.  Then, that team goes out and builds the thing.  More community, more coordination, more fun fun fun."




    +a bazillion!  This is an extremely awesome idea, and would lead to a lot of community spirit. 
    Posted 20 months ago by Piece of Serenity Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "someone gets a permit, get 50 players signed onto that permit and then petitions the bureucrocs to build out something in the Meadows or wherever.  Then, that team goes out and builds the thing.  More community, more coordination, more fun fun fun."

    I'm not sure that this is fair to all the other players that don't happen to be in that group of 50. At least now, in principle, everyone has a chance to contribute.
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I ended up getting a permit, just to see if I could, wasn't sure what it was for. I don't think I'm up for co-ordinating it but if someone wants to volunteer to be in charge I'd be happy to give them the permit. Let me know, I would certainly sign it and be part of working on it.
    Posted 20 months ago by Gizmospooky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Regarding the projects: I'd like a feature where you can sign up to do a certain task/portion of the street building task with a time limit of x-number of Glitch days to complete said task. Would be useful for those people (me included) who don't necessarily have a ton of time to spend keeping up with the super-productive project people, but want to contribute even in a small way. Too many times I've been looking at what's needed on a project, spending 30-40 minutes gathering the materials to fulfill the item on the project only to be skunked by someone else! It's why I don't participate in the street building anymore...

    Here's how I'd do it:
    1. Have different sized tasks; tasks that an individual could take on, tasks for a small group (say 5 or less people) and tasks for a horde (6+ people).
    2. Limit the number of concurrent tasks that you can sign up for (say max of 5?) at any given time, including group and solo tasks.
    3. Time limit to complete the task you sign up for; smaller tasks have a shorter time limit, larger tasks have a longer time limit. Also have a task close after a certain period of time has passed since it was activated to prevent people from signing up at the last possible second to receive the bonuses from the hard work of others. Or close it when a certain percentage has been completed (say 10%)?
    4. Bonuses for completion of a task, not for how much one contributes. "Horde" tasks would have a bonuses for everyone who participates. The individual who ends up with the most bonus points on a project would determine the "top contributor", rather than  how much "stuff" they contributed. 
    5. Tasks for people with certain skills (as mentioned above). 
    6. Add a "current projects" page on the website where you can see what's needed and sign up for a task from there, rather than having to go to said street to sign up.


    This way, you can make the requirements/materials/work a bit more complicated, thus allowing more people to contribute.
    Posted 20 months ago by blogkitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Gizmospooky, I think you donate the permits to a project that is asking for them: you don't actually get to coordinate one.
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh, didn't realize it, if anybody hear's about one and lets me know I'll be happy to donate them. I don't always pay attention to projects, usually I'm far away and have found by the time I get there they often need things I don't have or skills I haven't obtained yet. I'll try to pay better attention to the new streets chatter.
    Posted 20 months ago by Gizmospooky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • For the first time, I contributed what I could, to a few street projects to see how they worked and what was needed to finish a road. I must say, at this point in time, I will probably not be a part of the street projects anymore for some of the reasons mentioned above. It took the third project before I could donate my ingots. Pretty much had to camp out in the world and wait for a new project to begin so I could get them donated. Saw a need, went to find items, half way to world to collect items, message came up that it was filled. As for getting a permit and 50 friends together, sounds nice, unless you are a newbie or someone who is not very social in game. Very easy for these people to get over looked. I like the idea of being able to donate an item, but maybe not to a specific project. So, we might have a building where we can donate ingots, one for food, one for guano etc etc. Once a quota has been filled in each area, a project will be completed. (very basic idea here) Or, as someone mentioned, you sign up to fill a requirement in x amount of time.
    Posted 20 months ago by Soymocha Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Soy, same thing happened to me, and probably many more. I ended up donating the items to a shrine.  Love the idea of a drop off point for items, or sign up sheet.  Hope something akin to this can be implemented.
    Posted 20 months ago by welshcorgi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There already is an informal "getting 50 friends together" to work on a project thing going on with the new streets group. Anyone who's interested can join in and coordinate via the chat channel. I see no reason to force a hard limit on how many and which players can donate to any specific project. This would definitely make me not want to contribute at all, as I tend to like to work on things when I feel like it, and not go to the effort of getting a formal group together that does things at a specific time (especially if I need to focus on one thing for a long period of time, as RL frequently takes me away).

    I was starting to lose interest in putting in a couple things that I happened to have in my inventory every once in awhile (if a project even needed anything I had while I was there), but last night I had good enough timing to get to a street project when its 3rd phase of gathering items was almost completed, and I was able to join the group there for the first time in helping with the labor phase. I felt like I'd actually contributed something meaningful, and sharing in the excitement of the other players was alot of fun.

    One thing that I find irritating about the donation part of it, is that it often requires large numbers of things that are very hard to find, like loam. That takes the longest to fill up, and searching fruitlessly for empty patches isn't fun for me.
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i like the idea of signing of for a particular task for a project - that way you aren't working away at something that gets completed while you are doing it...maybe you are assigned that task and for one glitch day. Seems reasonable to me. It would also make it easier for more people to contribute - there could be a limit to the amount of items one person could contribute per task and / or a limit to the number of tasks a person can do / request to do in one glitch day.

    i don't think it would be a bad thing if completing the new streets took a little longer - especially if it is to a new area or somewhere that looks a little different - give more of a chance for everyone in the game to find out what's going on and create a little anticipation for it.
    I think this will be more important as the game area grows and the projects get further and further away from the start points. Also as more and more people play. We have to find a way to make "community" things that worked well with 200 testers work well with a lot more players..
    Posted 20 months ago by Mimi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Being a relative newbie, this discussion is fascinating to me. I  have the Ingot Donation Quest, but spent the 3 days trying to figure out how to donate. I was told via Help to check the New Streets Group. Maybe there's more than one, but the one I found was 5 months old. 

    So, I decided to find a dead-end to see what this is all about. I found one and the whole thing looked fascinating (BTW, great job to everyone who's contributed to building out this very impressive world), but as a newbie, it also looked very insular. I like the suggestions above of a level-limited quests and donation buildings. 


    The project I found, needed some items I had stored in my house. I went to get them, then went back and they were fulfilled. I am not sure of any easy way to find out about projects or what is needed in any particular project. The idea of camping a project doesn't sound fun to me. At the moment, I'm more than willing to dump my ingots and delete that quest.
    Posted 20 months ago by Jarhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • After missing out on a lot of projects, I finally started contributing this week, and the initial excitement gave way to a certain amount of disillusionment, mainly because it was just a bit crazy and frenzied and taking too much out of the rest of the game-world.


    I'd agree with the mechanical and group-mentality stuff that might need tweaking: perhaps a permit structure, perhaps a centralised warehouse/drop-off point for building materials (Loam Depot?), and perhaps an adjustment to the benefits that accrue from projects, with a cap on contributions instead of incentives to hoard and dominate particular phases.
    Posted 20 months ago by Holgate Subscriber! | Permalink
  • New projects opening up right after old ones close is extremely hectic: one could spend ALL of their game play on group projects if they wanted to... Maybe that's the desired result, and some people would like this, but it's making my interest in them wane a bit.... Each project seems a bit less important when there's ALWAYS three at a time to split my time on. I don't know if that's a permanent state or not, though.
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Here’s how I think Project tasks can be made more enjoyable for more people. It's very similar to blogkitten’s idea above, but far simpler and I think more balanced. In short: task/contribution pledges with an X hour time limit to completion, with a (small) penalty for not completing them.

    Example scenario: a Project has a need for 500 ingots, 1000 planks, 500 burgers, and 3 action items of 600 each.


    I'm a player with e.g. 100 planks, 50 burgers, no ingots but a ton of metal, and a desire to really help out on this Project I just came across. So, I contribute all my planks, all my burgers, and I smelt all my metal into ingots. There’s still 480 ingots, 900 planks and 450 burgers that need to be contributed. By now other players have come across the project too and are starting to contribute, and there's nothing I can do (item-wise) without first gathering more stuff. But, I don't want to risk going on a gathering spree only to come back and find it all fulfilled. 


    Solution: I make a pledge for a portion of a task that I plan to contribute. This reservation can be for only one or two of the tasks currently open (depending on how many total tasks are available), and not be for more than 25% (or up to 50%?) of the task. In this example case, we'll do 125 burgers.


    I choose the burgers task, then pledge to make/contribute 125 burgers to this project. I cannot pledge for more, because that would be unfair to other players, but now these 125 burgers appear as "tentatively fulfilled" to all other players (meaning they can't fulfill them in my absence), and I have, say, one hour of real-world time to complete this pledge. The time limit would be variable, depending on the difficulty of the resource unit. 


    So now I go and spend my next hour getting the resources together and frying up some burgers for the project. I get back to the Project location and make my contribution. Meanwhile, other players did the same and/or did direct contributions (of things they had on hand), and now there's no more need for any items. So, the action tasks have become available, and I make a pledge to contribute 150 of one of the action tasks. That way, I ensured myself of having a contribution, but someone who, for example, has a higher skill level in some of the actions can make a larger contribution to the project by being faster.


    This process also discourages camping for the actions, because the action tasks won't become available when stuff is pledged but not yet delivered, and when they do get delivered, the pledger can immediately book up a portion of the actions. And even if the pledger doesn't deliver, it means someone else has to go and get the items. (and if the pledger didn’t deliver, then they simply lose out on their reservation, plain and simple—same for restaurants in the real world, for example).


    Another thing to consider is making it possible to pledge for a higher percentage of action tasks if you have contributed more of the items. Say I actually donated all 500 of the burgers all by myself—I can now pledge to a full 50% of a certain action task, making it even less appealing for people to camp out only for the action tasks without contributing items.


    It should also be that you are limited to pledging to one project at a time, only. That way + the time limit will really discourage people from hoarding tasks to themselves across various projects. You'll still be able to be a major contributor, but you have to be super hyper-active about gathering & making contributions and pledging to do more. And if someone is doing that, shouldn't they deservedly BE the major contributor? Because this way, ANY player can still walk up to the project (if it's not almost completed, of course) and pledge a very real contribution amount and make that contribution, no matter how active you might have been and are still being.


    I think with a pledges system like this, Projects would be vastly more enjoyable for all the people who are interested in contributing but are increasingly discouraged by the campers, and it will be the campers who instead get discouraged from camping.


    Put another way, the bad practices (camping, hoarding) are discouraged, and the good practices (actively contributing & gathering) are rewarded. Better design. I think the Giants would approve it very much.
    Posted 20 months ago by KuraFire Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The only time I enjoyed the New street Building Projects was when I accidently came upon them.The fun for me was opening my bags to see if I had any of the listed items to contribute. It was an spontanous event and that made it memorable and fun for me.
    .I would also like to see an alert if we continue building projects as we are now so that everyone is aware there is a build in process.Maybe a news flash or something similar so we can fulfill quest related tasks.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tilly TrinkleHouse Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This last test was the first time that I got to participate in any of the projects (I think I actually got in on 2 of them or maybe it was 2 times on the same project)...and probably my last as I did not find it to be interesting or any fun for me (sorry Devs). 
    Like others on here have said, by the time I found anything that was needed, it was no longer needed (altho I did end up with a piece of trophy from one of them that I got to do some digging on - doubt if I'll ever get anymore of those since the street projects don't really appeal to me :( )
    I think they are a good thing tho, for those who do enjoy them.

    I also think that upping what's needed for them can be a fine line to walk.
    In FS, they tried to help the newbies and people who were in different time zones out by upping the food donations needed for the canopies (because "all the good stuff" would be filled very quickly and in beta the food part of it was the 1st thing to be filled, so the new players couldn't fill the canopy "quest" to donate 50 items very easily ...not enough lux built up to buy from totems but roots were easy to come by) and ended up over doing it. We would sometimes have to wait for a week + for the canopies to reset due to the food donation requirement being set too high which, in turn, caused a lot of people to lose interest in them and so slower donations and...yah...vicious cycle ensued :D


    I also don't know what the point of my post actually was...but thought I would join in here rather than lurking for a change :P 
    Posted 20 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This last test was also the first time I got to contribute to any projects. I didn't find it a particularly communal affair. On arriving, I tried to talk to people through the local chat, but got no responses. I assumed that this was normal. I did enjoy it, but as DizzyDazz says as a spontaneous event. I doubt I'd camp out at a project, but would certainly be more interested if there was a communal feeling about it, and some organisation. 
    Posted 20 months ago by Disco Dolly Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This test I finally contributed to the projects but it was more of a "i came across it and randomly had something it needed in my bag" situation.

    I think the subway stops getting closer to where the projects are will really help - sometimes the length of time it takes to get somewhere makes it hard to enjoy - especially if you have to collect something from a far away region.

    I found this time around that the amount of people "camping out" near the project vendor actually made it difficult to navigate the area - they are in the way to click and it definitely increased my lag time...which i am more than willing to tolerate when people are actually playing and less excited about when they are afk just standing there for hours on end.

    I still think the best solutions are: (& many mentioned above, paraphrasing)
    - glitch run info on home page about projects - where they are, status updates *what's needed*
    - higher amounts of items will be needed as the number of players increase
    - limit the percentage you can contribute of any one item at any one time either via assignments or flat out limits
    - limit the ability to contribute to items that are only for lower level players (as the higher level items are automatically limited to higher level players..) to lower level players and/or limit the amount that can be contributed to something when it is required by a quest...perhaps only people fulfilling the gold ingot quest can donate the gold ingots...

    Finally I just want to note - it is not the end of the world if a project gets stalled for a day while players look for items, new people log on, new quests are assigned etc - all this does is give more people an opportunity.
    Posted 20 months ago by Mimi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Disco Dolly: if you join the "new streets" group, they are sometimes organized enough on the group chat channel to be useful. People probably weren't monitoring the local chat because most players use that one.

    @KuraFire: Thanks for the well-thought out suggestion! However, I'm afraid that pledges might have the opposite of the desired effect, causing a small number of people to monopolize the projects even more than they already do, and making it harder for others to participate. 


    Imagine getting to the project a few minutes after the phase began. You have nothing in your inventory that is needed except 100 planks. But you can't donate those because several people who were camping out waiting for the project to open donated everything they had in their inventory at the time, then immediately pledged to get the rest. Now, they can go and collect items at their leisure while you're completely left out. It would be pretty infuriating to see that the project needs 100 planks, but you can't contribute it because someone else has already pledged it. It would probably be irritating to everyone else too to see that that's all that's left to the next phase, but they have to wait around for Bob Whatshisname to take his time wandering around the world looking for them (maybe getting side tracked along the way--he doesn't care, as long as he gets his planks in). This would be compounded if people who donated more items got preferential treatment on the amount of work they could do in the next phase, effectively shutting out many of the players that came in to the thing late.
    Posted 20 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I wish there was a way to show the active projects on the map (would be great if you could click them to get an update of what was needed so that you could make sure you could contribute). I was working on one and we did a buddy teleport, 1st time I had done so, and we were able to pick up items from home and get back quickly. I think being able to set another teleportation point will really help w/that.
    Posted 20 months ago by Gizmospooky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Blogkitten & @kurafire - I totally agree. I'd love the ability to say "I'm getting this" and have the street spirit somehow wait a few game days for my contribution instead of letting someone else contribute this in the meantime. It takes too long to go and get the items and get back - by the time you've arrived with the items there's no point having them. If there were more projects at once you could maybe find another project to donate to, but instead you're just left with a pile of crap that's useless until you stumble across another project that needs it.

    @shepherdmoon - Maybe a way to combat this would be to only let people pledge a smaller amount of an item... And to not let pledges amount for more than 50% of what's needed. Maybe also limit people to one pledge at a time.

    @Gizmospooky & @Joe Blow & @Mimi - Yes, totally. It would be cool to have job boards around the place which let everyone know exactly what stage all the projects were up to and what each of them required. Maybe with certain street spirits? Or one in each region? With the bureaucrats? Maybe next to the subway stations or something? Or as a "Newspaper" given to people on the subway? It would be cool to see "Guano Collectors Wanted - 300 required for Tower East" or whatever.
    Posted 20 months ago by Smange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • (Jarhaven: when people talk about chatting in groups, they generally don't mean on the website. They mean that when you join a group, you then automatically get an in-game option of joining that group's chat. So yes, the New Streets group looks old on the site, but the chat is happening during the games in the New Streets chat window instead of the Help chat window. If that makes any sense.)

    I have to agree that the only collaborative work that's been fun for me in the game has been the coordinated barnacle parties. I did not enjoy the projects, which seem to feature a lot of hectoring, idle camping and hoarders dumping 6k items when I only have a measly 10 pieces of dirt or whatever. Now that I finally got the ingot quest done, I doubt I will bother trying to help out with any more streets. But if anyone wants to go scraping or digging, I'm there!
    Posted 20 months ago by Helcat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • (1) People want to be able to contribute to a project. They get frustrated when they go off to gather materials and somebody else comes along and donates what they were gathering. 
    (2) More people should be able to participate.

    As you can see, #1 interrupts #2. What's the difference if someone is "camping out" and you want to make sure that you can contribute what you were gathering? This thread has different solutions to protect different interests. I think that they will be hard to reconcile.
    Posted 20 months ago by Mac Rapalicious Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Anyone can participate.  Anyone can camp out.  Anyone can collect items beforehand and donate them when the project calls for them.  If you aren't at a high level yet, collect peat, dirt, loam, beryl, guano, etc.  Recent projects have called for all of these things, and have been geared toward lower-level players. 
    Posted 20 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So here's an idea: What about one testing cycle, they try out various methods of streets projects given here, different ones on different projects? Hmm, that could be really weird and tricky to coordinate. Okay, how about this? They could choose, say, three of the ideas given (KuraFire's combined with Smange's where half is pledged but half is available first come first served is one that interests me particularly; another is limiting it to a player only being able to contribute to one project per game day; another is having groups be responsible for one project, etc.)...and then spread out over three beta tests, run the streets projects that way, one idea per test. They could let us all know on the updates page which project method is being tried out this test (a simple pane above the running inane chatter would suffice). Then we could all provide feedback about which method worked or didn't work and for what reasons. Or someday down the road, different projects COULD be run by different methods, giving everyone a chance to contribute in whatever way pleases them. Heck, we're in testing...why not do a comparative test?

    And I offer that as someone contributed to a lot of streets projects for a variety of reasons...and I liked being able to contribute and try to get the trophy bits here and there (I love pretending in my own head that Niikse Kook is "my" street because I very luckily managed to be the top contributor, pretty much because I'm an insomniac and was in the right place with the right supplies at the right time and hardly anyone else was bothering with that one). But oh my goodness, to keep up with them, I did feel as if I could hardly do anything else during the game. And I LOVE the rest of the game...AND the streets projects. Made me feel a bit frantic, I agree. So I would almost actually welcome being limited somehow on how many projects or contributions I could do. I'm very curious to see how they tweak the projects and very confident that they will be tweaking them.
    Posted 20 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Kurafire--thanks very much for the well-thought out response, I think it made a lot of people think. However, I do see some holes in the plan :)
    I too think this might have an opposite effect than what's desired. First of all, it encourages the idea that projects are there for personal benefit, rather than community growth. The point of street projects is to expand the world, not ensure people get rewards. Also, this could easily become annoying because if someone pledged for, say, 50 cherries, and then waited until the last minute to turn them in, everyone else would be delayed, even if they had the materials needed. It would, as shepherdmoon rightly put It, be infuriating to have to wait around for some pledger when the items were right there. Projects are sort of a first come, first serve system - if you have the materials, great, if not, next time.

    Thank you! :D
    Posted 20 months ago by Cupcake Subscriber! | Permalink