Fed II Star - January 29, 2006

OPENING THE SUGGESTION BOX

If you've ever sent an email to feedback@ibgames.com with a suggestion for something you would really like to see in Fed II, you've probably received a letter in reply that says something like this:

Thank you for your suggestion. We will add it to the list of ideas to be considered.

If you think that looks like a standard letter, then you're right - it is. But it's not a brush-off. It doesn't mean:

Thank you for your suggestion. We will file it in the trashcan.

We really, honestly, genuinely do want to get ideas from players. Some of the best features in Fed in the past have come from player suggestions. But speaking as the person who answers the mail, it is not my job to decide whether a suggestion is actually feasible or not. It is my job to acknowledge your email so you know it didn't get lost or eaten by the internet dog. An idea might look fantastic to me, but not be possible for some technical reason I am unaware of. Or I might think an idea is stupid, but actually there's a germ of a good idea in there somewhere which I just haven't noticed. I don't know. I'm not a game designer.

The job of deciding whether to do whatever is suggested in the email is for Alan Lenton, who is a game designer, and the programmer who has to do the work. He makes the decisions about what actually goes into Fed. He already has a long, long, long list of stuff that has to be done to Fed. This ranges from the urgent and important, such as sorting out how you can upload your planets to the game automatically, to the desirable but not urgent, such as ship fighting. He has to decide when he looks at a player suggestion whether it's such a great idea that he wants to do it right away, or it's good but not urgent so should be added to the list of things to do - and whereabouts on the list it should be added; what priority it should be given. He also takes into account how difficult it is to implement an idea. Something that is a fantastic idea but that involves a month's work isn't going to get done any time soon, whereas something trivial that only takes an hour's work may get slipped in when Alan just needs a break from whatever he's working on.

So please, keep on sending in your suggestions, but don't be down-hearted if you don't get an enthusiastic reply telling you what a wonderful idea it is!