Best Way To Get Your Suggestions Implemented in Clash

Our open design philosophy means that even passers-by can participate in the development of The Clash Of Civilizations. I think it will be a much better game for all the constructive criticism and great ideas we'll get because of that. For those of you who have some ideas you'd really like to get into Clash, I thought I would make some suggestions. If you follow this approach you're much more likely to actually see your ideas get into the game.

Probably the most important thing is to know the current state of discussion before making suggestions. Your ideas will help out a lot more if you can explain how they fit into what we currently have, or alternatively how they are better than what we have now. Only by knowing what's there already can you pitch your idea in the right context. Most of the models for areas in the game have already been locked in at a high level. We had to close off discussion on the very basics that some point, or we'd never make any progress. However, there's currently a lot of room in the area of specific implementations within the constraints we've already agreed upon. And also, I have to say it, some of the things we've already agreed upon may turn out to be dogs ;-). There are approaching 3000 posts on the forum discussing various aspects of the game, and a huge amount of documents on various areas of the project on the Clash Web Page. I don't expect you to read it all first ;-). But do take at least a look at the web page to see basically what's going on. After that you might want to check out the area appropriate for your suggestion before you post. All areas have a link to the current discussion thread from the relevant part of the web site. Otherwise you may spend all your time coming up with great ideas we've already had ;-) or at least discussed. I know most of these threads are quite long, but you can always call up the right one and use your browser's search capability to find whether we've discussed what you're thinking about.

Another great tool that Apolyton gives us is forum search capability. On the page that shows all the Clash threads in the upper right part of the page is a link to their search engine. If you want to make a suggestion, or find out what's been discussed in a particular area, the search tool is really helpful.

Finally, there's simply browsing the thread titles. If you set the box under "Post new topic" on the main Clash Forum to say "show all topics" instead of "...from last 10 days" you'll see the whole forum first page, and can access pages 2 and up (older topics) near the bottom right of the forum.

Once you find a thread where your idea belongs, please post it there rather than starting a new thread. Future readers of those threads will thank you! It will also make life a lot easier on the people running the area. Only if you have a suggestions that goes off in a seriously different direction from the previous discussion should you start a new thread.

I wish I could respond to every post individually. Right now I do it when I don't feel like coding, and that works when there's just a few posts. But when things are lively I can't post that much or I'd lose a lot of time that I think is better spent in design and coding. However, I will do my best to publicize the ideas that I think are really good, and get them implemented.

Mark Everson