User blog:Feltcute/A bunch of words about things

This was a lot bigger in the first take from this morning that I whipped up. But I decided to chop it down. Threshold and everyone else knows how much I believe in the concept of MGD and BFRPGs, my actions have spoken to that. I don't need to let those who don't share that enthusiasm keep me up, they're here for different reasons, and that's okay. I trust Threshold will not waver and stick to doing what he wants to do. Any further expression of my beliefs would be aimless and not beneficial to those reading.

I will however, go over some key points from the discussions that I read that I think people should be aware of and act upon.

A Breather
It's true, this was a long cycle of development, the side content and content improvements are taking a sizeable amount of time (with results to match said time, I think). Side content would benefit from getting sidelined a bit more. Though the town definitely is greatly benefiting from the attention for fleshing out what are staple characters, so it's not as if they were without reason.

A disclaimer of strong bias here from my background, but no technical nor mechanical change across v22, v22.5, and v23 was unnecessary. To preface, the game only got off the ground as well as it did because Threshold went in on making something playable and enjoyable first and foremost. You don't want to be balls deep in content-debt when making technical changes if you can help it. I understand if it's not a perspective players not deep into the MGD rabbit hole can share, and I certainly don't blame them for it. Players should be able to state they just want more content of pp in vv, and not be shunned for it. My only wish from that, is that people looking in know that Threshold is nothing but extremely driven, and is a man with many plans that he wants to make sure are up to expectations.

Long time bugs have been fixed, and will continue to be fixed. Given MGD went through a major system change, the introduction of new bugs shouldn't be unexpected, and Threshold has historically always done a good job avoiding bug-debt. If one wants to help that get better, Threshold can only fix if he knows it exists. Sending bug reports in as you spot them will make them get fixed faster, the player-base are the play-testers in what is a game in public alpha. Having watched #bug-reports on the discord for a while now, the only reason a bug ever doesn't get fixed is if he has a larger fix in mind, or he doesn't have enough information to work with to solve it, and thus requires more playtesting and robust reports. Never because he chose not to fix it.

I feel better now.

Growing Community, & Danger of Bubbles
The wonders of the MGD community is why I'm here, otherwise, I'd just be an idle fan. I love it a lot. I'm also always scared and worried when bad things happen, even if in retrospect they weren't that big of a deal. The looming threat of dangers that threaten what makes it so great get at me.

One of those things that scare me, are bubbles forming in what is already a small community. Bubbles being, sections of the MGD community with differing views and expectations that don't know how to jive together. Often consistent with separate choices of social media platforms. We don't really have any concrete bubbles that can be pointed to right now, just, the discord, and less hardcore community members giving their comments on the various of forums. Both are just as valid and as important as the other.

The Discord is, in truth, a vocal minority of some of the most involved members in the community you can meet with a crazy cool amount of dedication. The various forums can often bring in the opinion and enthusiasm of people that were otherwise lurkers, which usually always make for fun and exciting reads for me personally. A shout-out to L30 as that cool bridge of what's ticking inside the Discord on the most active one, he's great.

As it grows, I'm doing my best to do my part in ensuring it has a healthy and unified growth that avoids bubbles, though that's been a mixed bag of results. I hope other members will continue to do their best to avoid splits and be understanding of where others come from and what differing viewpoints they may have, and how that can be a strength. This community has done incredibly well, and continues to do so. Anything to keep it that way gives me great happiness.

Outro
To redouble my efforts, I will be establishing accounts on all forums to be better be there. Nothing crazy, I just wanna help people if I see something I know I can help them with. Specifically help, I don't want to be truly involved in conversations on there, that'd be encroaching on things I don't want to encroach on.

At some point I'd like to do another blog post about the rebirth system, level caps, depth vs intuitive design, and how it could influence the micro and macro gameplay loop. Given I don't expect the game to actually go in the direction I will be discussing, it'll be an exploration piece.

Of course, I will always prioritize my actual projects first and foremost, as that is the best way I can help.

EDIT: Considered cutting this section but I wanted it primarily as an address to the community on the dangers of chasing this kinda white rabbit. Threshold will do the right thing, I trust.

EDIT 2: Cutted the mod side note anyways because I don't want it to define the post. It's in the edit history for those who really want to read it, just know to not get too hanged up on whether or not mods should be introduced to the base game, it was about my community-focused worry stated in the previous edit.

Also removed the thing about ends as that lacked context on the definition of ends and BFRPGs, which led to discussions away from the main point and should've been cut. Apologies.