Well, here it goes.
It has come to my attention that suggestions are going INCREDIBLY slow. I realize it is going to be about 9 months until my first idea is even looked at for approval. That annoys me, but I decided I could deal with that. Then Hazzamon’s suggestion was reviewed, and it had been so long since she had posted that she was no longer an active member. That is crazy. She didn’t just go away overnight, she stayed for a while. People have good ideas, but when all three of their slots are filled up those ideas have to sit in the back of some word document. Around the same time there was the poll for when PF will put up dexes, and it was brought to my attention that making dexes was difficult.
I looked at the staff and realized that the main focus is putting together the dexes. Nobody, I mean NOBODY, had the sole job of reviewing ideas, which made me realize that there was no review team. The reason things were going so slow is because the same people did ALL the reviewing and ALL the dex making. That is inefficient. Nintendo doesn’t expect Ken Sugumori to do concept art, spiriting, and writing the game code. His specialty is concept art and that's what this does.
I don’t know if this is the best way to solve this, but this was the best idea I came up with. It is pretty general and has holes in it, but I think it might be able to work.
My idea is that there would be a team of 3-5 people (I’m not really sure how many, but 3-5 seems like a good range) whose entire purpose would be to go through a suggestion and compile a list for the rest of the staff. The list would look something like this (although it could be very different)
Small Fixes to be made if this idea is accepted. Some of them include:
-> Name check - pretty much if the name is good or not.
->Reality Check - Is this pokemon 3 times heavier than wailord for no reason? Why would a fire iguana live near lakes? And fixes
->Dex check - Do the dexes have proper grammar? Are they two short/long?
->Movelist check - Does this pokemon learn horn drill at level 5? Leer at level 70? Are all the moves acceptable on that list?
-> Maybe other things that I can’t think of right now.
Ideally the team would check each other and be trusted by the staff so these suggestions would take two seconds for the staff to look at
Major Questions: A list of things that need to be reviewed by the staff such as (but not limited to)
-> This pokemon knows volt tackle, but it is a fighting being surrounded by electricity. Should we allow it to learn this exclusive move because it is so suited to it?
-> Other major questions that would significantly change the idea (type change, major movelist change)
These questions would have potential answers from all members of the team, but the staff would take their time reviewing these because they would be MAJOR changes.
Yes or No?
Each member of the team would say yes or no and give their reasons.
These ideas are tentative, but I believe they would help. This would make it so that the staff would spend maybe 15 minutes looking at a suggestion that is well thought out. They can then focus their work on the concept art, spiriting, etc. so we can get the beautiful dexes faster as well.
Also, note that since I am suggesting this idea I have resigned myself to NOT be on this team. I am not self serving and I don’t want anybody to think I am trying to make myself more important, so I forfeit my right to be on the team.
A KEY part to this working is trust. If the staff doesn’t trust this team, then there is no point in them existing.
As far as the test, I would create a few mock suggestions with specific things wrong in them. Give them as a test and see who catches things. This might not be the best idea, so this bit can be scrapped.
I am unsure if the team should remain anonymous to the community or not. There are advantages to both sides.
So yeah, that's my idea. Feel free to tear it to shreds. I’d much rather have the final idea look nothing like this and help speed up suggestions than having the final idea stay the same and not speed things up.
Thanks for reading this whole long thing, I hope it wasn’t a waste of time
-SoR
It has come to my attention that suggestions are going INCREDIBLY slow. I realize it is going to be about 9 months until my first idea is even looked at for approval. That annoys me, but I decided I could deal with that. Then Hazzamon’s suggestion was reviewed, and it had been so long since she had posted that she was no longer an active member. That is crazy. She didn’t just go away overnight, she stayed for a while. People have good ideas, but when all three of their slots are filled up those ideas have to sit in the back of some word document. Around the same time there was the poll for when PF will put up dexes, and it was brought to my attention that making dexes was difficult.
I looked at the staff and realized that the main focus is putting together the dexes. Nobody, I mean NOBODY, had the sole job of reviewing ideas, which made me realize that there was no review team. The reason things were going so slow is because the same people did ALL the reviewing and ALL the dex making. That is inefficient. Nintendo doesn’t expect Ken Sugumori to do concept art, spiriting, and writing the game code. His specialty is concept art and that's what this does.
I don’t know if this is the best way to solve this, but this was the best idea I came up with. It is pretty general and has holes in it, but I think it might be able to work.
My idea is that there would be a team of 3-5 people (I’m not really sure how many, but 3-5 seems like a good range) whose entire purpose would be to go through a suggestion and compile a list for the rest of the staff. The list would look something like this (although it could be very different)
Small Fixes to be made if this idea is accepted. Some of them include:
-> Name check - pretty much if the name is good or not.
->Reality Check - Is this pokemon 3 times heavier than wailord for no reason? Why would a fire iguana live near lakes? And fixes
->Dex check - Do the dexes have proper grammar? Are they two short/long?
->Movelist check - Does this pokemon learn horn drill at level 5? Leer at level 70? Are all the moves acceptable on that list?
-> Maybe other things that I can’t think of right now.
Ideally the team would check each other and be trusted by the staff so these suggestions would take two seconds for the staff to look at
Major Questions: A list of things that need to be reviewed by the staff such as (but not limited to)
-> This pokemon knows volt tackle, but it is a fighting being surrounded by electricity. Should we allow it to learn this exclusive move because it is so suited to it?
-> Other major questions that would significantly change the idea (type change, major movelist change)
These questions would have potential answers from all members of the team, but the staff would take their time reviewing these because they would be MAJOR changes.
Yes or No?
Each member of the team would say yes or no and give their reasons.
These ideas are tentative, but I believe they would help. This would make it so that the staff would spend maybe 15 minutes looking at a suggestion that is well thought out. They can then focus their work on the concept art, spiriting, etc. so we can get the beautiful dexes faster as well.
Also, note that since I am suggesting this idea I have resigned myself to NOT be on this team. I am not self serving and I don’t want anybody to think I am trying to make myself more important, so I forfeit my right to be on the team.
A KEY part to this working is trust. If the staff doesn’t trust this team, then there is no point in them existing.
As far as the test, I would create a few mock suggestions with specific things wrong in them. Give them as a test and see who catches things. This might not be the best idea, so this bit can be scrapped.
I am unsure if the team should remain anonymous to the community or not. There are advantages to both sides.
So yeah, that's my idea. Feel free to tear it to shreds. I’d much rather have the final idea look nothing like this and help speed up suggestions than having the final idea stay the same and not speed things up.
Thanks for reading this whole long thing, I hope it wasn’t a waste of time
-SoR
