Content Development Roadmap

Content and general development discussion, including quest scripts and server code. TMW Classic is a project comprising the Legacy tmwAthena server & the designated improved engine server based on evolHercules.


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This forum houses many years of development, tracing back to some of the earliest posts that exist on the board.

Its current use is for the continued development of the server and game it has always served: TMW Classic.

_Cordo_
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by _Cordo_ »

Okay, I can comprehend that. Now, to get the back stories for each. You may already have these.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by wushin »

I planned on using the current NPCs that craft items as the main stories base and to go from there.

The Blacksmiths and Fletchers in Hurnscald, Both the potion makers in the area, Hetchel the silkweaver,
a furrier was planned in Nivalis, Pachua does leather, Terranite Blacksmiths, etc.

The majority of these quests will enable the player to level or create new recipes or use new skills. For
the profession NPCs the story lines will stick with whats going on regional but be geared towards that
profession.

Such as Pachua is going to encourage a leather worker to Kill Snakes and the Furrier in Nivalis would ask
for wolves or yetis or something.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by _Cordo_ »

Alright, I see where you are going in regards to back stories. You're extending the role of the current NPCs to fill the void of the back story. I comprehend that and it is reasonable.

You suggested foraging as an occupation for the alchemist only. What I comprehend though is you could feasibly be a general forager. That is to say you forage, or rather as is known commonly farm, whatever is needed for other players. A forager could say gather white fur, herbs, iron ore, coal then set up as a shop to sell these.

Which really does not add much of anything to the over all story line of the game really if you think about it. Players can already do exactly this, even without use of a ManaPlus client. There is even a forum thread MarketPlace which allows this to happen.

I do not see any change here. Are you going to let the players learn a skill such as weaving, instead of having the player take materials to an NPC to let the NPC weave? If not, you really are not offering much by way of creating professions in my humble opinion.

If you're giving players the ability to learn these skills a challenge is faced in the coding back end I'm sure. Will the developers be ready to deal with the issues regarding players learning these new advanced skills? What will the issues be?

You'll need a database to keep track of who knows what first of all. That involves creation of algrithms and capacities to deal with looking up a player's skills, level of skills and so on. Ultimately, that could even require another server, simply dedicated to that particular database.

Are the developers and admin on board with such extra processes? Will the game remain free to play considering this creates more effort, which likely will cause some to ask for payment in some form? Honestly, has that been considered?

I understand there may be some who will do the extra work out of love of the hobby. I also understand there are some who may not. What I am asking here is asked as means to comprehend how you've thought this out, if you have.

I want to see where a person could write to, what scope is needed. From the looks of it so far, there is not much to give in the way of help. I mean the need of back stories seems to be null, moot. There does not appear a need to offer character stories either, as it seems to be simply a catch as catch can kind of thing planned.

Would love to get behind you on this. Do not think I can. That may be fine, too. It may be that I'm not meant to get behind you, either by your intentions, or merely fate. I am not seeing how this will work out well, or at all. But I may have blinders.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by wushin »

No each profession has a gathering profession. Foragers only gather small potion items; herbs, clams, etc. Mining gathers coal, ores, etc. Tanning gathers leather from hides, etc. Not that other profession won't need items gathered or crafted to make other items. No 1 profession will gather everything. the NPCs for crafting are merely the "Craft" objects you need to be near; forges, alembics, looms, etc. The NPCs involved in Professions while either; Train you up in your profession or send you on a quest to learn a recipe. In addition, Profession skill levels are going to be tied to character level so there is a minimum level to acquire higher skills levels and stronger recipes.
are you going to let the players learn a skill such as weaving,

Yes that exactly whats planned. Allowing a choice of 2 from 8 professions a character can learn.
You'll need a database to keep track of who knows what first of all. That involves creation of algrithms and capacities to deal with looking up a player's skills, level of skills and so on. Ultimately, that could even require another server, simply dedicated to that particular database
TMWA already does have a skill system. The professions are set-up to show up under their own skill tab called "professions". There is no need to add anything to the server code.
Are the developers and admin on board with such extra processes?
Yes, it's mainly longtime active players asking for this.It's not anything extra work wise asides from the initial scripting of the professions which I've already done. Whats left is extracting recipes from current quests and writing new recipes where NPCs didn't already have recipes for.
Will the game remain free to play considering this creates more effort, which likely will cause some to ask for payment in some form? Honestly, has that been considered?
The game will always remain free. We are a 503 (c) non-profit involved with Software for the Public Interest This project will, as long as I have breathe in me, remain Free and Open Source. The project is run by many who believe in keeping this game free and open.
say gather white fur, herbs, iron ore, coal then set up as a shop to sell these.
The exact system you complained about happening is what TMW does currently in-game. Anyone can gather everything needed. Thus rarely does anyone goto someone else for materials or reagents other then maybe coal. The point of professions is to put more resources into players hands so they do sell more and move money and resources among each other. Currently the economy is quite stagnant.

I've been working on the skills/professions framework for about 2 years now, I'm pretty certain the mechanics are fine. I agree it's hard to see it without it being on a server. It's such a divergent to how TMW does anything typically, but it's a step in the right direction. Let me explain why professions.

Professions accomplish some major things:
1) Chars are limited to types of materials they can produce by be limited to 2 professions.
1a) Makes alts a more valuable resource to level as it increases the profession count & thus types of material player has on hand.
2a) Players will have to trade or interact more to gain resources. This increases the social aspect and economic aspects of the game.
3a) Adds alternative action when grinding. By moving part of the resource collection out of the monsters and into NPCs your harvest diminishes boredom and the effects of simple bots or semi-afk grinders.
4a) By putting the more valuable nodes in areas with tougher monster & PvP enabled areas access is controlled in ways other then just base level or base skill of character as outside elements can "kill" you before you can finish gathering.
2) Economics
2a) By allowing players to control the supply and demand through their own character actions they will augment the drop rates when they are bad. example: Coal is currently the most often farmed as you need a lot of it. It's on the ManaMarket becuase it fetches a nice price and semi-tolerable to farm. The price of Coal in game fluctuates but so does the supply. Currently a large set of items are unobtainable this way and thus can not enter the economy.
2b) Multiple paths for farming. As few real options exist for acquiring wealth and resources currently; Its red slimes, coal or rares.
3) No one yet has a profession.
3a) Old players & New players will start on a pretty even ground.
3b) Helps lower levels level better and less boring.

The amount of code added increases the current content by about 8 fold. It requires very little change on the server data. The majority of the additions are the new NPC "nodes" or "craft objects". Quests in-game will still allow anyone to complete them, but going forward there will be profession specific quests. The NPCs added are being worked on being added via a script method so it's not a complete pain in the butt. The NPCs for professions are already in game and can be changed slightly with a function call to become a "trainer" in a profession.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by _Cordo_ »

wushin wrote:No each profession has a gathering profession. Foragers only gather small potion items; herbs, clams, etc. Mining gathers coal, ores, etc. Tanning gathers leather from hides, etc. Not that other profession won't need items gathered or crafted to make other items. No 1 profession will gather everything. the NPCs for crafting are merely the "Craft" objects you need to be near; forges, alembics, looms, etc. The NPCs involved in Professions while either; Train you up in your profession or send you on a quest to learn a recipe. In addition, Profession skill levels are going to be tied to character level so there is a minimum level to acquire higher skills levels and stronger recipes.

[*]
Okay. This is where I get lost. You say the NPC will act as trainer. So you're saying they teach a player to build a loom, a crucible, forge and so on? If not, you still have players tied to an NPC each time they desire using a profession.

"I can craft a shirt but I need to go to NPC X to use their loom."

That to me does not really change up the game mechanics, compared to a player learning to build their own forge, becoming a blacksmith. If they merely learn the tradecraft, they are not really artisians but still foraging serfs.

Yes that exactly whats planned. Allowing a choice of 2 from 8 professions a character can learn.

[*]
*nods* Got that. Each player can be up to 8 different professions.
TMWA already does have a skill system. The professions are set-up to show up under their own skill tab called "professions". There is no need to add anything to the server code.

[*]
Ah. I was not aware of that not having ever set up a server. Have only seen the client end and to limited degree the basic workings of some admin/scripting.
Yes, it's mainly longtime active players asking for this.It's not anything extra work wise asides from the initial scripting of the professions which I've already done. Whats left is extracting recipes from current quests and writing new recipes where NPCs didn't already have recipes for.

[*]
Right, I follow what you're saying there. To me it reads as though you're going to have the NPC give the player a foraging list. "I need x of y to create z, go fetch. I'll teach you how to make z." And here again, I get lost. You seem to not teach players to build tools, just items or products from tools. But you may be teaching to build tools and I'm not seeing that. If I am failing to see it, my apologies.
The game will always remain free. We are a 503 (c) non-profit involved with Software for the Public Interest This project will, as long as I have breathe in me, remain Free and Open Source. The project is run by many who believe in keeping this game free and open.

[*]
Fair enough. One thing, something I tell my nephews too. "It's a game, it stops being fun, walk away." There's no point to grant excessive feality, such as swearing a life to a game. Trust my experience in this regard. Any game will eat you up, spit you back out if you let it. None are worth that. Only love is ever worth that, or the life of one you love. Let those who love all others go off and fight the dragons, it's what we do. You guys just keep spinning the tales. ;)
The exact system you complained about happening is what TMW does currently in-game. Anyone can gather everything needed. Thus rarely does anyone goto someone else for materials or reagents other then maybe coal. The point of professions is to put more resources into players hands so they do sell more and move money and resources among each other. Currently the economy is quite stagnant.

[*]
Yes, I can agree with a stagnate economy in game. I had an idea regarding guilds and a dynamic economy once, tried fleshing it out over with Land of Fire. A scripter there thought it might be doable. We just could not manage to get it fleshed out. Change was resisted. And I'm not trying to resist the change you're pushing for here, with these professions. May seem I am. Think of it as me seeing if you're ready to leap out the plane. "Got that chute buckled? Your webbing secure? Got a good knife?"
I've been working on the skills/professions framework for about 2 years now, I'm pretty certain the mechanics are fine. I agree it's hard to see it without it being on a server. It's such a divergent to how TMW does anything typically, but it's a step in the right direction. Let me explain why professions.

Professions accomplish some major things:
1) Chars are limited to types of materials they can produce by be limited to 2 professions.
1a) Makes alts a more valuable resource to level as it increases the profession count & thus types of material player has on hand.
2a) Players will have to trade or interact more to gain resources. This increases the social aspect and economic aspects of the game.
3a) Adds alternative action when grinding. By moving part of the resource collection out of the monsters and into NPCs your harvest diminishes boredom and the effects of simple bots or semi-afk grinders.
4a) By putting the more valuable nodes in areas with tougher monster & PvP enabled areas access is controlled in ways other then just base level or base skill of character as outside elements can "kill" you before you can finish gathering.
2) Economics
2a) By allowing players to control the supply and demand through their own character actions they will augment the drop rates when they are bad. example: Coal is currently the most often farmed as you need a lot of it. It's on the ManaMarket becuase it fetches a nice price and semi-tolerable to farm. The price of Coal in game fluctuates but so does the supply. Currently a large set of items are unobtainable this way and thus can not enter the economy.
2b) Multiple paths for farming. As few real options exist for acquiring wealth and resources currently; Its red slimes, coal or rares.
3) No one yet has a profession.
3a) Old players & New players will start on a pretty even ground.
3b) Helps lower levels level better and less boring.

The amount of code added increases the current content by about 8 fold. It requires very little change on the server data. The majority of the additions are the new NPC "nodes" or "craft objects". Quests in-game will still allow anyone to complete them, but going forward there will be profession specific quests. The NPCs added are being worked on being added via a script method so it's not a complete pain in the butt. The NPCs for professions are already in game and can be changed slightly with a function call to become a "trainer" in a profession.

[*]
*nods & winks* "Okay, looks like you're good to go!" *pats your helmet, steps out of your way*

I think though older players who will have storages full of items, may be at an advantage. They can hit the ground running as it were.

Squirrel pelts go for 25gp each. That means 400 pelts would get 1,000gp. Yes, I did the math, thought about it as a means to attaining some gp. Realized the game on the TMW server's drop rates was really crappy for even that. They rather drop acorns, grass seeds, herbs. I might kill 400 squirrel to get 1 pelt. Such drop rates make it so that players simply choose to not bother.

They will go ask others for trading, buying. If they rather not ask, they just don't play. That is about where I am. And drop rates too can easily be fixed as far as I'm aware. Will they be? I have my doubts, even if your professions seek to augment them. I may be wrong. We'll see.
_Cordo_
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by _Cordo_ »

BUMP, Bump, Bump.

Also cleaned up some of my previous posting. Somewhat expected further conversation. I forget over here in main's forum as in game, there are all sorts of cliques and clique protocols.

"Oh, I won't read double quoted messages."

So, hopefully more discussion can be had. If there is nothing forthcoming from wushin, I'll consider the conversation over from my end at least. It will affirm my perceptions are correct, because there's no suggestion otherwise.

Well bump anyhoo.

Okay. This is where I get lost. You say the NPC will act as trainer. So you're saying they teach a player to build a loom, a crucible, forge and so on? If not, you still have players tied to an NPC each time they desire using a profession.

"I can craft a shirt but I need to go to NPC X to use their loom."

That to me does not really change up the game mechanics, compared to a player learning to build their own forge, becoming a blacksmith. If they merely learn the trade craft, they are not really artisans but still foraging serfs.

*nods* Got that. Each player can be up to 8 different professions.

Right, I follow what you're saying there. To me it reads as though you're going to have the NPC give the player a foraging list.

"I need x of y to create z, go fetch. I'll teach you how to make z."

And here again, I get lost. You seem to not teach players to build tools, just items or products from tools. But you may be teaching to build tools and I'm not seeing that. If I am failing to see it, my apologies.

Yes, I can agree with a stagnate economy in game. I had an idea regarding guilds and a dynamic economy once, tried fleshing it out over with Land of Fire. A scripter there thought it might be doable. We just could not manage to get it fleshed out. Change was resisted. And I'm not trying to resist the change you're pushing for here, with these professions.

I think though older players who will have storage full of items, may be at an advantage. They can hit the ground running as it were.

Squirrel pelts go for 25gp each. That means 400 pelts would get 1,000gp. Yes, I did the math, thought about it as a means to attaining some gp. Realized the game on the TMW server's drop rates was really crappy for even that. They rather drop acorns, grass seeds, herbs. I might kill 400 squirrel to get 1 pelt. Such drop rates make it so that players simply choose to not bother.

They will go ask others for trading, buying. If they rather not ask, they just don't play. That is about where I am. And drop rates too can easily be fixed as far as I'm aware. Will they be? I have my doubts, even if your professions seek to augment them. I may be wrong. We'll see.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by wushin »

_cordo_ I appreciate your enthusiasm about helping and offering advice. I'm not making sense as this is not easily explained to someone without knowledge of the TMW server script languages. As when I say NPC, I mean script. As all NPCs, Shops, Mobs, are all scripts and callable via scripts. If you would like to understand what my code in Professions, please feel free to read up on How-To develop & Script Language. We are very open to change and have modified a lot of the code. Please feel free to watch and read the forums and wiki and join IRC. Get a feel of what we do and how we work and come back and read my posts. It does seem like it would be "easy" but making changes like these are incredibly complex.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by _Cordo_ »

wushin wrote:_cordo_ I appreciate your enthusiasm about helping and offering advice. I'm not making sense as this is not easily explained to someone without knowledge of the TMW server script languages. As when I say NPC, I mean script. As all NPCs, Shops, Mobs, are all scripts and callable via scripts. If you would like to understand what my code in Professions, please feel free to read up on How-To develop & Script Language. We are very open to change and have modified a lot of the code. Please feel free to watch and read the forums and wiki and join IRC. Get a feel of what we do and how we work and come back and read my posts. It does seem like it would be "easy" but making changes like these are incredibly complex.
I have some knowledge of the scripting, in fact did read over your scripts. It still appeared that you were not teaching players to build tools, rather to rely upon NPCs as in game Non-Playing Characters, like Nicholas the blacksmith in Hurnscald. If you do that, to me it seems nothing more than continuing to give players forage lists, let the player return to the NPC to craft an item. That to me does not seem a profession. Players would still be doing as players do.

What I believe would be easy would be altering a percentage rate number in a database on the server. For example you may bump up the rate of squirrel pelts dropped by squirrels. Say at present they only drop at a 5% rate, it could be bumped up to say 10/15%. And I know it can easily be done because Pihro on Land of Fire used to do it, reload the server. It took him all of five minutes and really did not upset much of anything.

I suppose what makes it difficult here is cliques, egos. It is a simple altering of a field in a database, rebooting a server. From what I gathered of it from conversation between Pihro and one of the scripting players on that server, it did not require a degree in neuroscience. All it does is give players better odds of getting drops, or making odds worse for players getting drops. But i may be speaking out of line. Don't really much care. :)

My knowledge of the scripting whilst limited, included helping my wife create a script for a quest involving players learning to build rafts. We kept running into issues about how the C coding was a pain in the rump due to not properly handling moving sprites or something. Funny thing being my wife designed turtle graphics, loaded a script to make a turtle move, talk to players. The C coding handled "moving" pixels just fine.

We knew it did but merely accepted our "defeat" as there was no need to continue arguing against cliques, egos. We too had ideas similar to yours. We foresaw exploring more than 3% of the maps of this "world" of game play. I really do not see that happening any longer and due in large part to cliques, egos.

This is why I continue to remain frustrated, bored, tired of the game no matter which server it is on.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by wushin »

no, I've not edited any of the NPCs for professions as of yet. Just added the ones to facilitate testing the professions. Main quest givers who currently craft items will only be rewarding the player with the recipe that allows them to make it not the item itself. You will need to get the recipe in order to craft those specific items. New recipes will be learned upon leveling a craft, completing certain quests, and from rare drops. New items will be added to fill in the gaps of what NPCs don't yet make.

These ideas are pretty standard as I'm borrowing from http://www.uo.com/Crafting and http://www.wowwiki.com/Profession as they are pretty much the standard of how professions work. Brief MMOPRG Crafting history

Still not getting what you mean by letting players build stuff, because that is exactly what the recipes https://github.com/wushin/tmwa-server-d ... ecipes.txt do. If you mean any where any time, that is a crazy thought as bots will decimate the economy. As no limits would sink pretty much any non-botter.

Well except changes can't "just be done" trust me, I changed the tree in Hurnscald once to fit the others in the area and nearly got lynched by the community.

There are no cliques here in development. There are those that do and those that do not. If you expect the people spending there free unpaid time to do your bidding because anyone said so, this is never going to happen. I'm a lead content dev and I cannot even order anyone around or make them do my bidding because I say so. I have to spend an enormous amount of energy first coding an example that might just get rejected or make an incredible detailed example or lengthy monologue or etc. to convince them to help or make a change.

Join IRC, we will show you how to develop the code and make commits. Any of any of the other servers will vouch I'm the one of the most active liberal developers willing to work with and accept commits. My main thing is If you want to see change in the game you have to be the one to make the change. All the devs currently have a bunch of stuff they wanted changed and are working on changing. The current team of active developers is a total of 6ish people, with about another 10 people who heavily help with various other functions. They all also donate their limited free time. Anyone willing to learn and help is always welcome to join us as we can always use the help.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by _Cordo_ »

wushin wrote:These ideas are pretty standard as I'm borrowing from http://www.uo.com/Crafting and http://www.wowwiki.com/Profession as they are pretty much the standard of how professions work. Brief MMOPRG Crafting history

Still not getting what you mean by letting players build stuff, because that is exactly what the recipes https://github.com/wushin/tmwa-server-d ... ecipes.txt do. If you mean any where any time, that is a crazy thought as bots will decimate the economy. As no limits would sink pretty much any non-botter.
And this is exactly what I had meant. The players will not be allowed to create anywhere in game. They must return to an NPC to create the item.

Botting is allegedly not allowed in the game. If it is done then the GMs are supposed to stop it. Are they not doing that? If not why not? Are botters that advanced?

The issue of botting should not hinder the idea of players creating items anywhere in game. If it does then, maybe it seems the GMs and adminstration staff are not holding up their end of things for whatever reason/s. And there is where you'll likely find the cliques, egos.

On this server I have seen around 50 players or so. Any rationale why a forum poll cannot be used to gain concencus regarding changes? This was something done on other servers, still seems to happen at times. Changes occur without lynch mobs because the players request them.

That is what GMs and adminstration do when seeking to keep the game about players, having fun. I understand everyone is volunteering and respect that. Why insist I do not? This argument continually seems used by those attempting to cause diversion.

At any given what I see of your ideas here seems to be good save for not allowing players freedom to create anywhere in game. Surprise, people can agree to disagree maturely. You seem to tow the line of the cliques/egos, or at least act in manner which seems conducive of such, to me. So I disagree with you on changes being easy or complex, on wether or not players should be able to create anywhere in game or not.

How would botters decimate the economy if botters are not allowed in game? That tells me botters are allowed. If so, you're not having the rules followed even by those alleged to enforce them. If so, you've got cliques/egos going on. This is clear logic.
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Re: Content Development Roadmap

Post by wushin »

On Botting
On any scale the time it takes to get from NPC X to NPC Y consumes time. Time is the ultimate resource in any MMORPG. All players have it and spend it. Each player has a limited amount of time to spend. The time and effort to acquire and process resources is directly related to their value. The greater the supply the less the demand.

Next, the arrangement of NPCs throughout the world needed for the professions encourages a Hub and Spoke model for the content. This allows us to channel players into common areas for crafting and trade into hubs and the hubs to the questing & farming hubs.

Lastly, The Hub and Spoke model provides concise and easy ways to control how much time it costs a player to go from X->Y. Allowing the economy to be controlled by increasing or decreasing the time to go between X->Y.

Which if we remove the X->Y we lose a large amount of economic value of items in game and the challenge of acquiring them with it. This means the game becomes unbalanced.

Botting is against the rules, but we don't always have GMs on and the bots are advanced. They do get through, we often have mass bans put in place because of them. Dealing with bots and TMW takes up pretty much all the GMs & Admins time. Being Open Source the client is easily modified into an undetectable bot. Since any attempt at bot DRM in the client would be publicly visible via the Open Source Code there is nothing but metrics and GMs to stop them.

Hopefully though the
  • ModelMMORPG
research study can help us better detect bots and eliminate them all together. Traffic analysis and server logs are the best metrics we would like to use to further automatic detection of botting.

For TMW, botting is hard to deal with because so many people continue to do it and get away with it because our detection techniques are primitive and slow. Mainly we require a GM to be online and doing the botcheck rounds to catch bots. So no GMs usually means bots come online. Yes, the GMs switch about the hours they check, but still easy to pass or miss being detected.

On Development
On this server I have seen around 50 players or so. Any rationale why a forum poll cannot be used to gain consensus regarding changes? This was something done on other servers, still seems to happen at times. Changes occur without lynch mobs because the players request them.
We discuss changes with players and poll for certain additions. All these threads are about TMW Development Forum & open to be discussed with anyone. There are recent examples of exactly what you say:

In this thread the players where asked about a change Regarding Spiders.
One of the devs made a change on the test server. The community tested and spoke out against it. The dev and staff decided to not commit the change.

In this thread I asked the community how the art I was working on looked. Grass Set. I was asked to make several changes by community members offering constructive advice and the grass does look better now from their advice.

In this thread players we're given a series of potential songs to be picked from for the Fight Club music Fight Club Music Poll

Otherwise the Staff have been entrusted with following the path the project laid out 10 years ago & trusted to make the changes needed and wanted by the community.
One can never expect how much attachment the community can have to the little things, but this is why we have everything on the test server before it's committed and ask people to test.

Anyone can join the tester group that has a forum account. Login to forums -> User Control Panel -> Check radio button for tester -> Select Join on the bottom -> Submit. Testers receive PMs from the developers when changes need to be tested on the test server.

Once again, there are no clicks among the TMW project.
Anyone is welcome to come learn & work with us.
TMW staff provides support to help get started on making any change you want to.
I've never stopped or discouraged anyone from developing a change.
Even when the rest of everyone else had given up.

If you want to help, start a new thread with the changes you would propose and discuss them with the community.
It's the first step to any change being made.
The secret to getting all the important stuff done is doing nothing.
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