Masterwork Tools
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🕑 Added 2017-07-31 20:37:00 +0000 UTC I'm concerned about how the voting system has turned out since I first put it into place. I wanted to ask you, the patrons, how you feel about it, and which of my approaches here you would like to see moving forward.The biggest problem is the size of a set. To have a complete set, we are looking at (for internal):
- floors
- walls
- corners
- doors (possibly more than one door type)
- windows
- diagonals
- curved
- corridors
- pillars
- perhaps half height of these all
Along with all the OpenLock shapes:
- rectangular
- angled
- curved
- doors (possibly more than one)
- windows
So that's at least 14 releases to get a set out, which means if every release was focused on the set, that would be three and a half months per set. However, because I know people like variety, I release something for the voted tileset every other release, and release something different or novel for the other releases (like the arcane archway, magic circles, earth shrine and mausoleum). This means it's more like 7 months to get the basic 14 parts of a tileset out.
I have some ideas regarding what I can do, but rather than make a decision, I thinkthis is something that you should have a voice in.
So here are my ideas:
1) I could keep things basically like they are now. If you are happy with how things are going, this would be what you would want to vote for. Moving forward, I would continue to work on a tile from the votes every other week, and I would drive toward completion of the set before moving on.
2) Rather than fill out a whole set, I would focus on a smaller subset of tiles that are the most critical. I would aim for 4 to 6 tiles that give the most flexibility -- probably something like: floor, wall, corner, door, window, OpenLock wall. I would add additional subsets to be voted on that cover some of the other use cases, and those would be voted on separately. So maybe a second set that does: curved, diagonal, OpenLock curved, OpenLock diagonal, OpenLock door, OpenLock window and a third set with the remaining parts.
This would mean I would complete a smaller set in 2 to 3 months and move on to the next voted-for item faster, but the sets would be less complete before I moved on.
3) I could try to work on more than one set at the same time. This would make the tilesets take longer to get out, but I could produce tiles from more than one set at the same time. Currently, cobblestone roads is the next-highest vote getter, so this would mean interleaving cobblestone roads and ruined until one finished. This would make it take longer for a set to get out (now getting closer to a year), but at least two would be coming out at a time.
4) Rather than keep a general vote around like I have in the backer site, I could move to doing a vote when a tileset is complete. This way it would be more clear when the vote is shaping what is going into the pipeline. This would probably take awhile to implement, because I would need to rewrite the part of the backer site used for voting.
I know some of these can be combined, but Patreon's polling doesn't give me the ability to do multiple answer. If you want more than one, pick the one you most want to see and add a comment. If you have other ideas, toss them in the comments. Thanks!
5) Voting on what's coming out might not be a big deal to you. If you would prefer I just try to do my best to come up with cool things and release them, that's an option too.
Comments
Masterwork Tools
We'll get a test of that with the next release. I used a diagonal in the Earth shrine and I have the rest of the diagonal ruined set almost finished
Matthew Meyer
That makes a lot of sense. I like that idea.
Masterwork Tools
That's close to what I intended with #2 - a small basic set, but then the ability for people to vote for sets that extend that set. The OpenForge Encounters thing I started doing last week does give me a platform for releasing additional tiles for a set without it being quite so planned.
Masterwork Tools
Thank you :-)
Masterwork Tools
I'm considering doing the reduced set, because a tileset just really isn't useful without some basics, but adding new bits as I do rooms. Use a diagonal, then release the other diagonal sizes the following week.
Gene & Linnea
I like the depth of a complete set, and the slower pace doesn't bother me. I admit though, I've never voted for one set over another. I'm just trying to keep up with my print schedule and painting! :-)
Patrick Richert
What about a hybrid approach where you work on a set, but release tiles as they are finished? So as you work, say for an openlock set, you release the floor tile when it's done, a wall, and then bundle them up as a complete set when they're all finished? You would get tiles out quickly for people who don't mind it piecemeal, and then get the whole set out for people who don't mind waiting. Just brainstorming here, since I don't know the particulars about how it all comes together.
Isaac Howard
I vote for the smaller sets, but would also like for the voting to be less frequent aka #4.
Christian Ravn
My biggest concern for OpenForge at the moment is burnout and the bus factor. You're doing an incredible job for the community by releasing all of these open source tiles for free and you're pretty much the only person doing that on a large scale. My opinion is that you should work on the things that you want to. Votes are good to see which sets would be well received, but by the end of the day most of us only give a couple of bucks every month for work that takes hours and hours. So the option I would have voted for is "look at the votes and see if there is some cool things to do that you would enjoy, then do that ". I pledge money because I think that what you're doing is awesome, not because I want to decide on how you should go about helping the community. Keep up the great work.
Kevin Warner
I value a complete set over lots of variety of surface. Pragmatically having one stone set and one cave set that I can build anything with and set dress as needed is more practical than printing and storing a bunch of visually incompatible sets for niche purposes. I'm pro the agile mentality "start finishing stop starting" If you saw the recent dwarven forge kickstarter, I found the depth that possible in one set to be very compelling, and would let me make more useful stuff than incomplete sets in a variety of surfaces. Once you have the full base sets by all means then go do specific one offs!
Matthew Meyer
I'm less concerned about getting a "full" set than I am about seeing some cool pieces. I really liked what you did last time with posting a dungeon room. It's a lot more striking to the imagination to see a room like that, rather than just a collection of tiles. I would prefer more things like that, whatever set they belong to, than worrying about completing tile sets.
Masterwork Tools
I plan to continue doing the other stuff every other release. The basic tiles make doing the other stuff easier, by giving me more canvases to paint on so to speak. Like I could focus on the special elements of the earth shrine instead of base tiles. I think this makes the basic tiles and special projects work together well. A positive feedback cycle.
Kevin Rank
I'm of two minds. It seems to me, you have enough tiles that other sets can take the place of the "full" set, if needed. So, I am kind of partial to smaller sets. It may be worth asking after doing a small set, do you all want this extended and do the next small set tier. And in theory, we could go through the small sets all the way through. I honestly look forward to the other stuff, more than the main stuff.
