A Word About the Drawing Board Articles

In the near future I'll be posting some new articles in the Drawing Board series; I'm posting this article today partially so I can link to it from the rest of the Drawing Board posts, but also because I think it's important to restate.  These posts have attracted a lot of interest (in fact they were consistently the most popular ones on the old blog), so I want to clarify some things about what they are, and, more importantly, what they are not.
 

In my article on the Mandate, I explained the kind of decisions that the community will be making during the game's development.  These fall into two categories: high-level principles (the game should be modular in design), and specific end-user features (I want a button that lets me undo my last action.)  What connects these two categories is the game's architecture: the way in which specific features are organized into a unified system.  This architecture will emphatically not be designed by the community.  This project is based on the idea that we are hiring a professional to do work in their area of expertise, i.e. game design.  That means letting them do their job and deliver what we asked for.
 
Now, with that said... while we may not be professionals, many members of the community do have some great ideas about game design, and moreover, love talking about them.  So I don't want to imply that we shouldn't brainstorm about new concepts and post our thoughts and suggestions.  But I want people to remember that they are just that: suggestions.  The recent Cities XL debacle has a number of important lessons to teach about how not to develop a game, and one of the biggest is: Don't raise the expectation that listening to fan suggestions is the same thing as promising to implement those suggestions.  That leads to disappointment and anger from the community.  On this project we want to avoid that confusion, which is why there is an orderly, accountable and fair mechanism for organizing and gauging community preference (the feature voting board).
 
Which brings me to the Drawing Board articles. They fall roughly into two types: ideas for features, and ideas about game architecture. But they are only ideas, the author's personal brainstorms and suggestions, and nothing more.  I've made sure to include a disclaimer with every post, but let me say it again: I want to make it absolutely clear that there is no guarantee, implied or otherwise, that those ideas will be part of the final game.  That's not to say it's not a possibility, of course: In the case of the feature ideas, they will eventually go on the feature voting board along with everyone else's ideas for the community to vote on.  As for the more general design ideas, they are merely the author's personal suggestions, that the developers are free to take or leave.  But I sincerely hope readers will not construe them as promises about Metropolis's final form.
 
I apologize if this post seems a little strongly worded, but it's my belief that it was vagueness on this point which led directly to the feelings of betrayal and disappointment that followed the closure of the Cities XL forums.  I'd hate to see that kind of frustration and ill-feeling divide our community again.
 
So, with that out of the way, I do hope you enjoy the Drawing Board posts and that they not only entertain but perhaps prompt some great ideas of your own.  Happy reading!