The players first

[Scott]

Should game changes require to be accepted by the community before being merged?

Share opinions.

[Jeb]

Needs an abstain option.

The way I see it is that there aren't many games that go through a "community review" process, namely larger games. Those same games are also undergoing dramatic change (expansions, revamps, etc).

[Ikarrus]

It depends. It's not always the best option.

We would still be stuck with the old clunky UI if erro had not pushed it through. Even when the players were polled again whether or not to change it back, everyone wanted to keep the new one.

We need to listen to what the players want, but we also need to be careful not to let them crush ideas before they had a chance to try them out. The community as a whole can be very resistant towards changes that would be beneficial in the long run.

Playtesting is the best way to go about this. hg's speed change was initially met with mass vitriol, but it became more popular after players had the chance to try it out and get over the initial shock of change.

[bandit]

There needs to be a "maybe" option. Specifically my opinion is "mostly no, but yes for massive sweeping changes to large swaths of the game" (new cult, new ling, etc.) It doesn't even have to be asking the community's opinion so much as giving an advance heads-up for those who don't follow github.

And yes, more playtesting = more better

[MisterPerson]

I'm still unhappy mute AI was killed. It's a good change damnit!

There's times where a community vote is appropriate and times where it's not. Additions will always be approved by the community. Removals will very rarely be accepted and need to be pushed through anyways. Tweaks, now tweaks are the kind of thing that should be voted on either before or after the fact.

More announcement would be great, and VistaPOWA already has a pull-request announcement bot that will send messages in-game to people when new pull requests get made. Should help a bit with the information propagation problem.

[Rockdtben]

If you would like to be part of the process please idle and participate in the chat on IRC #coderbus.