Wave Design - A New Approach

[IAmBatman]

Now that we've voted to pare the X-Men set down to just the 11 figures, we've opened the door up for a new approach to Wave design that Griffin and Hahma and I have all been talking about behind the scenes, and that I think would serve the goals of the project very well.
I know I'm a bit of a control freak sometimes (sorry, sorry), but I really want to step back from that and allow for more "ownership" for this project. Of course, with ownership comes accountability.
Instead of me mapping out wave after wave of thematic boosters, I think what I call the "ala cart" approach is just what we need to make the C3G really go.
Here's how it would work:

Each Sidekick or Hero would have the ability to start new threads. The first posts of those threads would then be their responsibilities to update (though I could help as well, where needed).
In these threads, heroes or sidekicks could post the first drafts of new designs. These designs could be for any of the following:

Heroes
Squads
Glyphs
Scenarios
Maps
Optional Rules Additions
Destructible Objects

Basically anything we as a group might ever want to collaboratively design, playtest, and release.
Now, these wouldn't just be a chaotic, devil-may-care creative frenzy. There have to be some ground rules for these types of things.
And here they are:

1) There's a "first come, first serve" rule. That means if Hahma has posted a thread with a rough draft for Wolverine, if Spidey posts a thread with a rough draft for Wolverine 5 minutes later, I'm going to lock it, and we're going to go forward with Hahma's. First come, first serve.
2) Each can only have one active design thread at a time. This will prevent people from just overloading other members with playtesting burden while pumping out design after design, and it will also encourage more people to get involved with playtesting what they design, if only so they can make themselves able to post more designs sooner. (And designing is really the thing that gets the motors running for all of us, right?). This will also force us all to prioritize. If you can only have one thread active at a time, that means you have to choose whether it's more important to you to get Thor out first or Danger Girl (and it's up to you). Or if it's more important to you to get our a new unit or a new map or scenario or rules addition. Basically you choose to design what's the biggest priority for you, but you're also aware that the level of interest you manage to generate for what you initially designed can make or break your ability to pass it through the entire process and get designing something new anytime soon.
3) An active design thread is defined as one that has not been put through the entire process. What's the process you ask? Well let me spell it out for ya. :-)
First you create a rough draft. In order to be a rough draft eligible for the "first come, first serve" policy, your first post must include the following:
Base stats
A title and subtitle
Powers and power text
An estimated cost
A comic art picture
A figure picture (usually heroclix, but other appropriately scaled figures are acceptable).
Obviously if you're designing a map or scenario or rules addition, etc., instead of a unit, the requirements are a bit different. But don't post a design thread on a map unless you're ready to post a virtual scape file, and don't post a design thread on a scenario unless you have an approved map to go along with it and a rough draft of the scenario rules written up, and so on.
I'll be giving you no guidelines on what units or other things to choose to design. It's completely up to your choice. But, again, the community's interest is needed to push something through the entire process, so you might want to take their temperature on something before starting a thread.
Which brings me back to the process. After the initial rough draft is up, there's the collaborative design phase. During this phase, the Guild will discuss the unit/etc., and we'll come together on a consensus about any changes we feel need to be made, etc. These might be small tweaks and they might be changes of each and every thing you designed for your rough draft. That's the way of the C3G - collaboration until it hurts. :-) So nothing new there. This is one of the key things that will always separate us from NM24 - we have no need or responsibility to respect the original vision as this is something we'll all be taking ownership for ultimately.
The collaborative design phase culminates in a vote to move the unit/etc. on to the playtesting phase.
However (this is important to note) the process for your design does not end once it gets to the playtesting phase. At this point it still must go through playtesting, get feedback and have any necessary changes, be passed with a final cost vote after playtesting, be put on to a card, have any final edits made to the card, and be voted for placement in a release before you're able to design something new.
What this will do, hopefully, is create cheerleaders for each unit who will eagerly push their initial designs onward as they change and grow, and will teach us all the importance of staying the course through the entire process.
Another thing it will do is put the ball back in the court of those willing to playtest. Just want to design and don't want to/can't playtest? That's OK. I won't hold it against you. But I also won't ask a dedicated playtester to prioritize on your design if it's something he's less interested. Playtesters will be able to choose to playtest what they want when the want, with no prescribed wave releases, and once we have 10 units/w/e to bundle together as a wave, we'll have a release, as mishmashed and Heroscapey as that may be. This will prevent playtesters from ever feeling like they're grunts being dictated to.
Ultimately this "ala cart" approach will allow us all to work on what's the biggest priority to us without losing the collaborative feel we want or the standards of quality.
Griffin will be making an update soon detailing the minimal requirements for playtesting of each of these types of things you can design (units, maps, glyphs, scenarios, rules additions, DOs) soon.
So ... what do you guys think of this potential new approach?

[Balantai]

I really like the new approach, but I am in favor of some general categories. For instance, next release could be Avengers, Gotham City, Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, etc. This way our releases still have some sort of theme.

[IAmBatman]

I don't know - honestly I like the idea of everyone being able to work on what they're really the most passionate about. That way the people who love Indie stuff don't have to wait to design it. Same with the people who favor DC over Marvel or vice versa. I like thematic stuff too, but maybe we'll be able to find themes out of the mishmash we pass, or maybe we'll end up making design decisions based on what others are designing if we like themes. I'd kind of like to keep it open ended and see where it goes naturally. The last thing I want at this point is for people to be designing characters they don't know anything about or care anything about just because someone assigned it to them (and then they have to playtest them too? ick).

[Balantai]

I don't know - honestly I like the idea of everyone being able to work on what they're really the most passionate about. That way the people who love Indie stuff don't have to wait to design it. Same with the people who favor DC over Marvel or vice versa. I like thematic stuff too, but maybe we'll be able to find themes out of the mishmash we pass, or maybe we'll end up making design decisions based on what others are designing if we like themes. I'd kind of like to keep it open ended and see where it goes naturally. The last thing I want at this point is for people to be designing characters they don't know anything about or care anything about just because someone assigned it to them (and then they have to playtest them too? ick).
But I think that's kind of the point of your first come first serve logic. If you don't have any interest in an Indy figure, you don't have to create one. You can sit back for a bit, relax and just give imput. Nobody's forcing anyone to create a character with your new rules. I just feel that a theme will keep public interest at its greatest.

[IAmBatman]

No one's forcing you to create anything you don't want to, sure, but should anyone be preventing you from creating something you really want to in the meantime?

[NecroBlade]

I'll probably be burnt out a little after the X-Men set, but if this allows us to work "at our own pace," so to speak, I'm game.

Not that I had anything against creating things set by set, but I'm not opposed to working on what we want, when we want either.

[IAmBatman]

And I think you make a good point that this will help lessen the feeling of being burnt out, because we won't feel pushed to do so much at once and so many things we're not necessarily as interested in personally.

[A3n]

I like the proposed approach as it would allow me to get involved in the creation also. But I, like Balantai, would still like to see themed releases even if not everybody is working towards this release. For instance I could be working on a superman (just as an easy example) & the rest work on X-men so you see that there is say 8 X-men ready that could make a set so announce that the next release would be an X-men release & that you need say 4 more characters that you want volunteers to design. I still work on my superman but obviously it won't go through as fast but when another theme can be made out of what people are working on then a little focus is turned towards that. So you see I have a Superman & somebody has a Brainiac 5 so then suggest that if there is an interest for anybody to do any other characters for a Legion of Super Heroes release.

Cheers

[IAmBatman]

Maybe the theme thing is something we should play by ear then? I'm really trying to be less prescriptive about these things and to spend less time in committee making decisions rather than designing and playtesting and releasing (the three things this project is really all about).

[GreyOwl]

I like the new approach, too. I think there should be a provision in the process to withdraw a design. For example, if I design a figure and put it out there and nobody wants to playtest it, and I can't do it myself, I don't want to be stuck forever without being able to do anything else. I should be able to withdraw it and replace it with something else.

One other thing. This new process seems like if I do ALL the work for a figure I want, I can get it through the whole process without anyone's input (as long as nobody else is interested). If I make some obscure figure that nobody cares about, and I playtest it and everything, it would be done. That doesn't seem right.

I also think at least part of the playtesting (over half?) should be done by someone that is not the creator.

[IAmBatman]

GreyOwl - a couple things.
1) I absolutely agree with the withdraw option. If you post something and no one cares, you shouldn't be stuck with that. That should absolutely be part of this.
2) Our playtesting standards require at least three separate playtesters for units and at least two separate playtesters (sometimes more) for non-unit creations. Add in the fact that the majority of the heroes will need to approve the passing of the custom to the playtesting phase, the passing of the custom with its final cost after playtesting, and the final passing of the custom in print with any edits, and this will never, ever be a solo venture where one person can pass something through the process by himself. You'll need the approval of at least 4 (or more if our numbers go back up again) heroes during three stages in the process and (depending on what you've designed) you'll need the work of at least one other playtester (and more often two). So hopefully this clarification alleviates those fears.

[GreyOwl]

2) Our playtesting standards require at least three separate playtesters for units and at least two separate playtesters (sometimes more) for non-unit creations. Add in the fact that the majority of the heroes will need to approve the passing of the custom to the playtesting phase, the passing of the custom with its final cost after playtesting, and the final passing of the custom in print with any edits, and this will never, ever be a solo venture where one person can pass something through the process by himself. You'll need the approval of at least 4 (or more if our numbers go back up again) heroes during three stages in the process and (depending on what you've designed) you'll need the work of at least one other playtester (and more often two). So hopefully this clarification alleviates those fears.

Sounds good! :)

[IAmBatman]

Oh, I should mention, if we choose to go this route (and so far everyone seems in favor) then it'll start just as soon as anyone has put all of his X-Men figures through the process. Meaning that once you've pushed your two for this set (or one, in Hahma's case) through, you can go ahead and start a new thread.
Though we might want to hold off on that and wait until the whole X-Men set is done ... after all, I wouldn't want people without X-Men to design stealing all the good units right off. ;):-P

[GreyOwl]

I think it might be best to wait until the X-Men are finished.

[IAmBatman]

Yeah, you're right. That way we'll stay motivated to get it all wrapped up and not get distracted by anything else.
Let's get World's Finest Large Expansion wrapped up and released :-P and the X-Men units wrapped up and released, and we'll be good to go on this new approach.

[NecroBlade]

:word:

[A3n]

Let's get World's Finest Large Expansion wrapped up and released :-P and the X-Men units wrapped up and released, and we'll be good to go on this new approach.
Yes, let's.

[Griffin]

This is the best thing for us now I think. I do agree with GO, lets get through the X-men figs first and then start this new path, but all in all, this is going to be efficient, fun, casual and non-stressful, and fun. Yes, twice as much fun.

[GreyOwl]

Glad you're having fun! :)

[Griffin]

Glad you're having fun! :)
Oh yeah! :D

[Hahma]

I'm very much in favor of this new approach. I think it should help get some product out there faster, yet keep the integrity of C3G.

Fortunately for all involved, the playtesting requirements will be lessened to a degree and will be much more manageable, while retaining the standards of C3G.

Regarding themed releases, IMO if they work out that way fine if not then fine. The Marvel Master Set wasn't themed, so what precedent or standard are we trying to follow? The World's Finest theme was really tied to scenarios. I mean, is Joker really hanging out with Darkseid, Grundy and Count Vertigo?

If there would be a theme, who is going to choose it? Is someone going to say that only such and such Avengers should be released at a time because "thematically" so in so wasn't an Avenger when so in so was?

Also, personally, I don't care about Teen Titans, why should I be forced to spend a significant amount of my time working on an entire set that I never have any intention of playing? However, I wouldn't have a problem playtesting someone else's Teen Titan unit, as long as I can work on creating a Daredevil card that I want to play with and playtest a Storm card that someone else creates (my daughters love Storm), and then playtest a Robin card that someone creates so he can enjoy playing Robin with Batman sooner rather than wait for two years.

If someone wants to do Fantastic Four, then they can work their butts off to get say Johnny Storm done as their first creation, then after it passes, work on Invisible Woman etc. etc. If they concentrate on FF for their creations or even if someone else chooses to do one too at the same time, then the FF can get out sooner than by waiting 2+ years by doing pure themed units. There's nothing to say that people can't agree to work on a certain theme for their units, thus getting them out sooner.

Ultimately though, if someone doesn't want to do or can't do anything except chime in on the creation process, then they don't have the right IMO to dictate to me which figures I have to spend my time playtesting.

I agree that we need to wait for the X-Men set to get finished before getting started in this new direction.

One thing that excites me about this new process is that Sidekicks get to get create units. The more people that can get involved, the more units will get created and thus be played with by fans. Isn't that what we're really about, getting superheroes and villains out there to play with that we know are put through the C3G ringer? I want to be able to go down to the basement and pull out some superhero figures and some cards and play a game just as I would do for Classic HS. I want to know that there has been passion and integrity in the hero Army Cards that I pull out to use.

[Spidey'tilIDie]

Couldn't agree more Hahma.

My only concern is the "Ready, Set, GO!" feel of starting after we finish X-Men Master Set. Might I make a suggestion? Personnally, I am not sure I am ready to design a card well enough to go thru the C3G ringer, so may I offer my services to pull numbers out of a hat this initial time? Any Heroes or Sidekicks who wish to be included would PM me, then in either alphabetic or order of PM I would draw numbers out of a hat. Then whoever gets one could state the custom they wished to create and then we go from there. Second chooses their character, etc. Whoever is done first gets to claim their second "victim" first. Seems the fairest way with so many of us in different timezones, with different schedules. Any feelings or comments on this suggestion?

[Griffin]

Couldn't agree more Hahma.

My only concern is the "Ready, Set, GO!" feel of starting after we finish X-Men Master Set. Might I make a suggestion? Personnally, I am not sure I am ready to design a card well enough to go thru the C3G ringer, so may I offer my services to pull numbers out of a hat this initial time? Any Heroes or Sidekicks who wish to be included would PM me, then in either alphabetic or order of PM I would draw numbers out of a hat. Then whoever gets one could state the custom they wished to create and then we go from there. Second chooses their character, etc. Whoever is done first gets to claim their second "victim" first. Seems the fairest way with so many of us in different timezones, with different schedules. Any feelings or comments on this suggestion?One of the beutiful aspects of this system is: if you don't want to work on a unit "right now", you don't have to. This system eliminates the unneeded pressures of being a member here.
Oh, I am definitely going to be picking the units that I want, am ready for, and can make acceptable to be passed by the rest of the community with out 2 months of controversy (Green Lantern:shock:). But I want to pick em.:D

[Spidey'tilIDie]

No, I agree on the picking them. This was more of a way to start a line, or a Queue as I believe they call it overseas. (sp?) I am just afraid that people will get their toes stepped on and get angry and quit participating. So, to summerize, my suggestion was for order instead of chaos after X-Men is done.

[Hahma]

Couldn't agree more Hahma.

My only concern is the "Ready, Set, GO!" feel of starting after we finish X-Men Master Set. Might I make a suggestion? Personnally, I am not sure I am ready to design a card well enough to go thru the C3G ringer, so may I offer my services to pull numbers out of a hat this initial time? Any Heroes or Sidekicks who wish to be included would PM me, then in either alphabetic or order of PM I would draw numbers out of a hat. Then whoever gets one could state the custom they wished to create and then we go from there. Second chooses their character, etc. Whoever is done first gets to claim their second "victim" first. Seems the fairest way with so many of us in different timezones, with different schedules. Any feelings or comments on this suggestion?

Great idea Spidey. I think that would be the most fair way to get the ball rolling for the initial custom choices.

[GreyOwl]

The other nice thing about this method is that anyone can take a break without holding up other people.

Not that I want to take a break, but some people may have other actual interests or something. ;)

[Spidey'tilIDie]

The other nice thing about this method is that anyone can take a break without holding up other people.

Not that I want to take a break, but some people may have other actual interests or something. ;)

What could possibly be more important than Heroscape and C3G?

[GreyOwl]

Well, I personally couldn't think of any but I thought maybe someone could. ;)

[IAmBatman]

The other nice thing about this method is that anyone can take a break without holding up other people.

Not that I want to take a break, but some people may have other actual interests or something. ;)

Nope, you're the only one who can't take a break under this system. ;) You're still doing the art on all the cards! :-P (you and your darn templates ... you're indispensable!)
And I guess I don't mind being queued up the first time around since after that we'll naturally order ourselves based on when our initial creations are completed.

[NecroBlade]

Sadly, this (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=7982300) is the only clip I could find of what I wanted, though the relevant bit is 10 minutes in.

[IAmBatman]

OK, so here's the procedure for withdrawing an attempt and moving on to a new card if you can't push it through the process:

If you don't think the interest is there, shoot me a pm or ask in the thread to withdraw and I'll lock the thread. At that point, you'll be able to start a new design thread whenever you like. Then if you ever want to go back to the other figure and try again, you can start a new thread for that figure and reference the old, locked one whenever relevant (or others can take up the torch and try to push their own version of that figure through).

[A3n]

I really don't think a lottery would be needed just a firm go ahead once the X-men expansion is done. As it's probably long odds that 2 of us will pick the same custom to do. Then as Bat's said first in first served.

Also I would like to suggest that we could open it up to not just side kicks & C3G that can only do the creative side but all fans but it would still be C3G team that would be critiquing it each step of the way. This might bring some more community excitement/involvement to what is produced. Obviously we would set guidelines that each person would have to agree to before wasting our time, maybe like a member would have to sponsor their participation. Maybe a thread where non members put their case forward first & if a member likes it enough they would sponsor their idea.

Cheers

[LMB]

I think I'd like to become involved in this. I was always more of an indie guy myself but Little LMB loves the Marvel & DC stuff. I'm not sure where you guys are with all the C3G stuff, but I know my little guy would love to see Red Hulk and Anti-Venom in our Marvelscape games. Let me know where I can help out and I'll try to take up the slack. :)

[GreyOwl]

Also I would like to suggest that we could open it up to not just side kicks & C3G that can only do the creative side but all fans but it would still be C3G team that would be critiquing it each step of the way. This might bring some more community excitement/involvement to what is produced. Obviously we would set guidelines that each person would have to agree to before wasting our time, maybe like a member would have to sponsor their participation. Maybe a thread where non members put their case forward first & if a member likes it enough they would sponsor their idea.


This might complicate the voting process, though.

[Hahma]

I think I'd like to become involved in this. I was always more of an indie guy myself but Little LMB loves the Marvel & DC stuff. I'm not sure where you guys are with all the C3G stuff, but I know my little guy would love to see Red Hulk and Anti-Venom in our Marvelscape games. Let me know where I can help out and I'll try to take up the slack. :)


Glad to see the interest LMB:D We're kind of finding our way with this new direction, so when we figure it out, we'll let you know. But for now you can read through various C3G threads to get yourself familiar with what we're about and some of the procedures.




Also I would like to suggest that we could open it up to not just side kicks & C3G that can only do the creative side but all fans but it would still be C3G team that would be critiquing it each step of the way. This might bring some more community excitement/involvement to what is produced. Obviously we would set guidelines that each person would have to agree to before wasting our time, maybe like a member would have to sponsor their participation. Maybe a thread where non members put their case forward first & if a member likes it enough they would sponsor their idea.


This might complicate the voting process, though.

I'm not against having other fans involved, the more the merrier. However, I think that initially we might consider keeping the first draft of customs limited to the Heroes and Sidekicks until we get a feel for how it goes. It's new territory and if we have 20 new customs threads going at once, it might get crazy and bog things down. I would suggest that at least initially, that we keep it as is but encourage all fans to help in the creative process and perhaps even playtesting. We can gauge the seriousness of those wanting to join in by the way they participate. Once we get a flow going and know what we're doing we can open up the first draft customs to others that have shown sincere interest and not just fly by night people that aren't really serious.

[NecroBlade]

:word:

[IAmBatman]

Yeah, I'm with Hahma on this one.
To use our friend LMB here as an example - I love your enthusiasm, dude, and I hope you stick around and participate. That said, we've been at this awhile and I think that we're at a point where people have to "prove it" before we'll just let them take the helm on any major projects. To me, that means becoming a Sidekick first. There's really no reason for us to ever limit the number of Sidekicks we have. If there are 100 people who show passion for the project and participate on a regular basis and they want to be Sidekicks, then by all means, I'll make them Sidekicks. But they have to fulfill some of that criteria first, IMO.
And what does one have to do to become a Sidekick? First and foremost, show me this is something you actually care about enough to participate in it regularly. If you've been posting in the threads and participating and offering suggestions and critiques and maybe even playtest results, then when it comes to step two, I'm going to be open arms. If you've posted once in a C3G thread and mostly just read beyond that, I'm going to tell you to wait a bit and show me what you've got first.
Which brings me to the second step - ask if you can be a Sidekick. All you need is for one Hero to propose you be a Sidekick and we can put it to a vote and get you signed up, and then I'll update the threads to reflect this and get you your cool C3G Badge. Like I said, if you show you're into this project and will be really willing to pitch in, I have no problem adding a ton of Sidekicks. But I'd prefer not to let just anyone start a thread who hasn't at least shown that, because I don't want tons of halfway interested people starting threads (not calling anyone out on this - purely hypothetical, but it does happen) and then disappearing and leaving us twisting in the wind when we've devoted some hours to the project they're directing already. Earn your stripes and you can direct a design thread. I have no problem with that, but I'm not in favor of just opening it up to complete chaos. :-)

[GreyOwl]

I agree with all of the above, Bats.

Just one question...can sidekicks start new design threads? Your post makes it sound like they can't, but I thought someone mentioned earlier that they could...

[IAmBatman]

Sidekicks absolutely can. That's why I'm stressing people becoming Sidekicks first. Sidekicks are people we all approved having around who've shown commitment to this project. If you're one of those people, by all means, I want you to be able to design and start design threads. It's random guy who posts once and then disappears I'm wary of. Everyone starts somewhere, so that wasn't a shot at LMB. I hope we'll see plenty of posts from him to come and plenty of participation as well. I just want to see people earn their stripes a bit (i.e. become Sidekicks) before starting any Design threads.

[GreyOwl]

I couldn't agree more!

[Hahma]

I think Bats is saying that someone needs to show some things before they can become a Sidekick and then as a Sidekick they can start a first draft custom thread.

Edit: Dang that was a quick ninja Bats! :D

[IAmBatman]

And I was pretty wordy there too! :-P

[Hahma]

Yeah, well those fingers must have been a blur on the keyboard. I'm no slouch myself at typing, but you must have be Flash-like. :D

[IAmBatman]

With great power ... comes greatly inflated post count ...

[Hahma]

O ye of great power :D

[whitestuff]

So this was what all that 'ala carte' stuff was about...

Man, I really need to stop going in holidays... :)

[IAmBatman]

So you figured it all out, huh? :-) I was planning to get back here and try explain it better, but looks like I won't have to now (tried to be as detailed as I could in the first post of the thread!).