Quote Dear BioWare,



I understand that which I suggest is probably not attainable, but I would like to see a MMO developper that worked like a sort of kickstarter for modular content.



Eg: Community votes on featuresets they'd like to see implemented (eg. Guilds ships, open world space combat, podracing, pazaak, etc etc), then Bioware makes a cost/time and requirement asssesment, based upon that the (for the sake of an example) top four community features get a priority indication.



Now here comes the "weird part": BioWare ask for community contributions in order for BW to be able to implement the content. Going off of inhouse cost, a fraction of that could be contributed directly by the community, the first of the 4 top features gets funded (all four of the top community picks have had a cost/time/requirement assessment made) will be put into development first by a dedicated team (inhouse project team that contains all the skillssets needed to complete the project).



As more of the community favourites get funded, they will be put in a development queue, each of the features will have weekly progress reports to the community in order to acertain how far it is in it's development cycle. In addition, as it should be a highly iterative project, community feedback is also given by chosen members of the community that aggregate feedback from different interest groups (PVE / PVP perspective).



So in summary:

PHASE 1: Community voting on features

exhaustive list of four (4) priority featuresets that community deems have the most priority (and that they are willing to fund)



PHASE 2: BioWare in-house Assessment

Bioware assesses the requirements, cost involved, and time needed to complete each of the four (4) featuresets.



PHASE 3: Community feedback stage

BW indicates the featureset (requirements), cost, and time needed to complete each of the four (4) featuresets and communicates it to the community. Based on the requirements given community representatives give feedback on the current featureset and communicate that to BW.



Caveat: BW communicates the cost that it would like to see funded by the community, this does NOT include the total cost of the development.



PHASE 4: Community voting/funding

The community prioritizes each featureset, from 1 to 4. Based on the voting, the first (most popular voted featureset) will start it's funding process. Only after the funding goal is reached, will phase 5 commence.



PHASE 5: Start of development and weekly update/feedback collection

BW updates us on the development progress every week, and community representives gather feedback from the community and give it to BW. This feedback will be assessed by BW and taken into account.



Once development is far enough along (as in something can already be tested) it will be going onto a seperate PTS server where the content itself is tested by the community and developers.



PHASE 6: Featureset complete, repeat phase 4 for other featuresets

The featureset gets implemented ingame, and phase 4 is repeated to finish the other 3 featuresets. The content is first tested by the community on the PTS, and once it is bug free and feature complete, it will be implemented into the live game.



Eventually (after the four featuresets are completed and implemented into the game), the process repeats itself.





Why I think this is a good idea

I believe this gives us (the community) a chance to make the game we love grow, and have our feedback incorperated during the development process. It will result in a better and more feature-rich game that will benefit the community as a whole. If the community is large enough, and enough people are intrested in this, it could help eliviate some of costs associated with gamedevelopment and give a clear indication on which direction the community feels the game should be going in.



Maybe the funding part will not be needed, but I feel like it gives BW a direct indication of wheither or not there is any real demand for the featuresets voted upon. Pubs

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