What do you guys think needs added to Rimworld for it to be considered done?

[Avarice]

Topic ^

We can all think of a million ideas/suggestions we would like to see added, but what do you guys think absolutely must be in the game for you to consider it done?

For me, it's the communication with nearby villages. One option for diplomacy seems empty and pointless, we need more meaningful communication options here. Right now it seems like a broken feature.

[Darkfire23]

Everything now seems to be falling into place with the additon of animal taming.. But i agree with you and diplomacy lacks and i sometimes feel rather isolated in such a big world by the lack/ limited communication with other factions and colonies. Other than that its an amazing game filled to the brim with content. Thank you Tynan for this product.

[Kegereneku]

Hum...
Myself I would be at a loss to justify new features addition if...
- there was ~hundred of events.
- there was themed storytellers.
- there was some open Endings.
With the above, things like improved tech-tree or diplomacy would feel more optional than missing.

Rimworld Key strength is IMO replayability with different condition, so I would feel sad for missing that unique opportunity.

[magicbush]

Topic ^

We can all think of a million ideas/suggestions we would like to see added, but what do you guys think absolutely must be in the game for you to consider it done?

For me, it's the communication with nearby villages. One option for diplomacy seems empty and pointless, we need more meaningful communication options here. Right now it seems like a broken feature.

Diplomacy agreed, as well as children(I could do without, but it's a colony!), content and bug fixes(more weapons, more random events, research options, etc, beta period basically) and I would be very happy.

[CheeseGromit]

Agree on faction diplomacy and interaction. That's number one on my list.
Specifically more ways for the relationship with a faction to degrade. It's pretty easy to make friends with everyone, I'd like that to be more dynamic.

The other thing on my list is a better ending and/or ways to prolong the game once you're 'done' with a map.

[Tynan]

Nothing, of course. The creator of a game decides what the vision of the game is. He decides what the target is to be hit. If he hits that target by fulfilling all stated promises, the product is done. In RimWorld's case, we passed that already so I'm just adding bonus content here.

You can wish for more content in any game. You can criticize it for being too small, the same as any other criticism. But you can't arbitrarily decide whether it's 'done'.

It's the creator's right to decide what to create. It's the consumer's right to decide whether to buy it. Neither party has any right to take away the rights of the others. A creator can't force a consumer to buy his product (though many try). A consumer can't force a creator to make what they want (though many try). Neither has any moral obligation to accede to the other's wishes.

Saying otherwise essentially means that you think that the creator doesn't have a choice of what to make. It would mean that a creator is morally obligated to fulfil not his own vision, but that of other people, lest he be accused of 'abandoning' a game. But he isn't. You can't, from the outside, force moral obligations on someone like that. You can't erase a creator's vision and overwrite it with your own. That's not your right. Your right is to decide whether you want to buy what's presented.

I've seen this quite a bit these days for some reason. e.g I heard some people accusing the Banished creator of 'abandoning' his game. But Banished was never in early access, and no features were ever promised besides those in the final game, and every feature in the game was fully-rendered, and AFAIK what bugs were there were fixed in reasonable time. So how was it 'abandoned'? It wasn't - not at all. It's just a game that could have been a bigger game, but which the creator decided wouldn't be. You can criticize it and say it sucks, but you can't say it's unfinished or accuse the creator of 'abandoning' it. That's a personal charge of moral violation - something very different from criticism on quality.

It's like calling those short Pixar movies 'unfinished' because they're only a few minutes long, and they could be much longer. Maybe you wanted them to be longer. Maybe they could be longer. But they're not unfinished. They are what the creator decided they would be, and nobody else can steal that decision from a creator, because it's nobody's right to force a vision on the creator.

As for RimWorld, I'm adding more stuff and I'm happy to hear everyone's ideas of what to add. But there's no place here to state that the game isn't 'done' unless I do X. That presents it like an obligation I'm morally bound to undertake - but I'm not.

And also, just as a practical matter, if you look at this thread and others like it, everyone has their own personal wish list. Trying to do them all is infeasible. Which means that presenting these as "things that absolutely have to be in the game before I consider it done" essentially means I'm standing there in a circle of 100 people demanding I dance 100 different dances, each ready to denounce me as a 'game abandoner' if I don't satisfy their personal decision of what the game "absolutely" has to have. It's an impossible standard to satisfy, because it's based on the fallacy I described earlier.

I think this thread would be better cast as a general suggestions request thread.

[Jaxxa]

I agree, unless they have promised features that are not in yet, or major bugs, it is done when the people making it say it is done.
I think a better way to word the topic would be something like "What would you like to see before Rimworld is done?"

I do have some ideas about diplomacy that I would like to see that I will be writing up and posting in suggestions section.

[SSS]

I feel like this would be a non-issue if OP had worded the topic title as "What do you guys think needs added to Rimworld for it to feel done?", since that's what's relevant from a consumer perspective.

Consumers want what consumers want. Any project released for money (a "product") is generally acknowledged as for the consumer- which is not to say the creator loses their creative rights, but it does open up the creator and their product to criticism, including criticisms concerning how complete the product feels. One consumer's opinion influences another's buying decision. It's been that way for a long time.

From there, it's simply a matter of the way people say things. For example, many things we say are opinions, but we don't place "in my opinion" in front of every applicable statement because it is needlessly formal/wordy/politically correct. In a similar manner, many people use "is" in cases that aren't necessarily literal. I could say "Pizza is disgusting" and (usually) everyone would realize that I'm not making a factual statement despite the use of "is".

What I'm getting at is that creators shouldn't take criticisms of their work so personally if they're presenting to the public. If it's for you alone, or if you don't like criticism, then it doesn't need to be presented to others. In other words, it shouldn't be a "product"; it should merely be a "creative work". When the creator happens to be a businessman, rather than getting offended at criticisms, I think it would be more beneficial to take criticisms and the voicing of opinions as information on what the consumers want. What said person does with that information is, of course, up to them.


The better-worded version:

1. A creator saying "this is/isn't finished" has a different meaning from a consumer saying "this is/isn't finished". The former refers to vision and the continuance of work on a creative work. The latter refers to consumer satisfaction with a product.

2. Creative works and products are two separate classes of projects with sometimes-contradictory elements. Some projects are only one or the other, but when a project is both, it inherits the attributes of both.

3. Though it is the right of a creator to create (an attribute of a "creative work"), it is the right of the consumer to judge (an attribute of a "product").

Thus:

4. When a project is both a creative work and a product, the consumer cannot force the creator to abandon his vision, but the creator cannot force the consumer to stop judging it either.

and

5. The best case scenario in said hybrid situation would be for the creator to only weigh the judgements of the consumer as heavily as the money that comes from the product. Some care about it more and some care about it less- neither perspective is necessarily wrong.

[Tynan]

It's not about taking anything personally. It's about the nature of the criticism.

"Pizza is disgusting" is a statement about personal preference. "This pizza is disgusting" is just a statement about the quality of the product. "I was served an unfinished pizza" is a statement that the creator didn't do something he was obligated to do. It's an entirely different kind of criticism which by its very nature is aimed at the creator's moral standing. When you're served get a bad pizza you just walk away unhappy. When you're served an uncooked pizza you go to the kitchen and demand your money back.

SSS, where you are right is that sadly, in a lot of gaming discussions these days, people blur away the distinction between "this game isn't done" and "I wish this game had more content". They use one set of words when they mean the other (which I think is what everyone in this thread above so far did). But these mean two very different things. So I guess I'm just asking you guys not to blur away that distinction. If you're writing wish lists - say so! Because as I discussed in my last post, the alternative is infeasible and guaranteed to lead to charges of betrayal and abandonment in the end. I just want to stop those memes from proliferating before they start, and not become a victim of extremely imprecise language which eventually bleeds back into peoples' beliefs about the reality of what 'done' means.

[SSS]

What you're not taking into account, I think, is that there's a difference between a pizza and a painting: A pizza is usually a product. It is for the consumer through and through. On the other hand, a painting is usually a creative work. It is for the creator alone.

With a pizza, I can see whether it's baked or not. I can see whether the appropriate toppings are present. I can see if the crust is cracker-like and thin or bread-like and thick. I might like more or less cheese, different styles, and so on. Whether the pizza is finished or complete depends entirely on what I want. I might even want an unbaked pizza. The level of completeness is entirely up to me, the consumer, because the pizza is a product. It's created for me.

However, with a painting, it doesn't matter what I think unless the creator wants to know. Whether the strokes or big or small; whether it takes up the whole canvas, half of it, or a small portion; whether a small or large number of colors are used; the creator decides what is right or wrong, and at what point it is complete, because it is a creative work. It's created for the creator.

Thus, we have two unique forms of completeness, that that is decided by the consumer, and that that is decided by the creator. What is complete to the creator and what is complete to the consumer are potentially two different things. Thus, when you have something that is both a creative work and a product, you have two different meanings behind "complete". A project can be complete as a creative work (the creator's decision) and incomplete as a product (the consumer's decision), or vice versa.

These decisions are both within their respective party's rights.

[Tynan]

I think this 'product/creative work' distinction is incoherent and not useful.

From one side: RimWorld is a product created for all of you. I'm not faffing about with my own 'artistic' impulses doing what I want and then you all just happen to like it. I do what I think will work well and please players. I make promises and then work to fulfil them.

And even in the most 'creative' works, creators are bound to their promises. A painter commissioned to do a portrait won't get paid if they only do half the canvas. They agreed to do a portrait of a certain size, and that is the standard of 'done'.


From the other side: "Whether the pizza is finished or complete depends entirely on what I want." simply isn't true. Whether the pizza is finished depends on whether it matches what you ordered. If the shop advertises a pepperoni pizza, and you order it, you can't just decide while it's cooking it that it absolutely must have anchovies on it as well, otherwise it's unfinished. The same goes if you want anchovies in your head, but they don't offer it, so you order a pepperoni. They promised you a pepperoni pizza, and that's what you'll get, and it'll be done. You have no recourse to complain over the lack of anchovies because that was never agreed upon, just as you have no resource to complain over Banished not having combat because that was never promised (just an example).

In either case, the definition of 'done' is the same: whether the product matches what the creator promised. The nature of the work is irrelevant.

[Aristocat]

But many games are actually abandoned and unfinished, if we didn't had money grappers at first place we wouldn't yelling "UNFINISHED GAME" at first place. In the case of Banished, I think people said more about it's boring and repetitive, which is true, if it wasn't boring and repetitive people wouldn't said unfinished neither.(also you can't tell me what to say. tynan is reincarnation of Hitler.)

Also what people expected is world simulator, where every single pawn has personality, legacy, who killed who and there should be hundred of colonies and millions of people, and you should able to invade and slaughter them all or start as a adventurer and visit ruined colonies, join pirate and plunder or whatever you want. It might be "finished" in developers sight but to people, it just another incomplete DF clone. ("RimWorld - basically the sci-fi Dwarf Fortress" - Tynan - http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131168.0)

Current game is fun, but I wouldn't say it's "Complete", "Work of art" or "Near Perfection", in other word, game will never completed until tynan die.

[SSS]

You turned the painting into a product by having it be bought. I used paintings as an example of a creative work because they often are not sold. Once it's being sold, it's a product (whether or not it is also a creative work) and contains the product type of completeness.

A project can be more for oneself or more for others. The importance of the creator's decision versus the consumer's decision only depends on how much the money matters, and even beyond that, (to digress for a moment) I don't think neglecting to fully please the consumer necessarily implies a moral breach on the part of the product provider. If I order a pepperoni pizza and it is a couple pepperonis short of what I would like and is a bit skimpy on the cheese, that doesn't mean the product provider did something morally wrong (unless they knowingly tried to cheat the consumer). It's only wrong if the content provider grossly failed at providing what was promised.

This is why I tried to make it clear in a recent conversation of ours that I am not trying to vilify you nor demand a refund.

To come back on point, you are correct when you say a product must only meet what was ordered. I indeed can't demand anchovies if I didn't order them. Nor should I complain that the pizza was baked if I didn't specify that I didn't want it baked. This is why what the consumer is getting needs to be made as abundantly clear as possible before they buy the product. When it isn't made clear enough, there comes a disagreement over the completeness of the product betwixt the consumer and product provider.

To apply it to our situation:

If Rimworld is indeed complete as a product (even though it may not be as a creative work, since you want to continue working on it), then why is it still being presented as an alpha on the main Rimworld page? Why not do a full release on Steam?: The answer is that you may work a lot more on the game (i.e. until the game is complete as a creative work). However, you're saying that that content is a "bonus" or "more than the full release" (product-wise), not the full release. By continuing to present Rimworld as an alpha, you're leading consumers to believe Rimworld is an incomplete product, which then affects the consumer's idea of what is promised. It is "more"- an undefined "more", but a "more" nonetheless. By refraining from defining that "more" and deciding as you go along, you cause your consumers to do the same. Thus you've placed yourself in an impossible situation until either (a) the game is officially and in advertisement presented as complete or (b) you define the "more" so that consumers have no room to claim the final product isn't actually a complete product (regardless as to whether it is as a creative work).

By leaving everything is such a state, you're potentially creating more and more consumers who feel they haven't been given a complete product, not due to malignant intent or lack of responsibility on your part, but due to a poor representation of what is promised.

In short: What the product provider is promising needs to be made abundantly clear in all avenues.

Edit: You see, I actually have a very different idea of what Rimworld is supposed to be when it is complete when compared to Aristocat, many others in this thread, and most likely you. This isn't because everyone is being unreasonable; it's because we haven't been given a clear idea of what Rimworld is supposed to be, which is actually your responsibility.

[Tynan]

Indeed. People will make assumptions about the future based on alpha status alone. They're wrong to do so, but they will do it. I'd say as a marketing strategic analysis, SSS you're spot-on with your concerns. I wouldn't say that this means that alpha status implies that anything is actually promised in particular. It's the difference between "what is a good business decision", "what will people assume", and "what are your actual obligations".

I do wish I could provide a precise roadmap of what will go into the game and when it'll be done. That would be amazing. I just can't because I don't know! So I'm sort of stuck with a game where I know I want to add more stuff, but I really have no idea how much or how long it'll take. I'm not willing to take the huge risk of guessing what'll go in and promising it to everyone; I've been wrong in my predictions way, way too often. So that leaves us here, with people assuming all sorts of future paths, and me constantly trying to manage those unjustified expectations towards something more realistic. I guess this is pretty much the steady state of it; I don't really see a strategic pivot that would solve these problems without creating worse ones.

I'm seeing this with other games too. e.g the No Man's Sky guys seem to already know that they're going to get boned by people's self-assumed expectations of their game. It must be brutal. It's like what happened in this thread times a hundred.

[SSS]

I can see where you're coming from about the roadmap, and I actually think the lack of one makes this more fun even for the consumers, to a degree. It's just that I don't think you did a very good job presenting the game to someone who hasn't bought it yet:

I think making it clear on the main page that you consider Rimworld feature-complete despite being in alpha, or expressly disowning any implications given the status as an alpha would solve virtually everything. It's important that it's on the main rimworldgame page though, since that's where the new/potential consumers are. It doesn't mean much if you don't find out until after you've bought.

I don't think I would be saying anything (or nearly as much) if that was the case when I bought Rimworld. That part of the risk, that there are no expressed or implied promises, would have been presented up-front and the only person I could blame is myself.

Alpha status is just something that people tend to take as an implied promise even if nothing is explicitly promised. By disowning any implications before someone buys, it could save you a lot of unfavorable claims. There's just no argument left.