Hi everyone.

One thing that was touched on at the last Mod Roundtable, but not really discussed in great depth was the issue of Mod Teams and thier forums.

Let me set the stage for my questions by giving an example of a Mod Team who definately listens to their community feedback:

I was lucky enough to have been able to participate in the very first public BETA of CounterStrike. The one with the single map that had a truck next to a burning barrel on one side, and a couple of high hills in the middle and a small bunker area on the other side. Only one or two keys were bound by default, and the buying system was very difficult to use. I registered on their forums and have followed things pretty much since then. One thing I've noticed over the past few years is that Gooseman, and the people he had running the forums, seemed to have an excellent method of being able to sift thru all of the various posts and suggestions, and being able to come away with the required feedback to make the Mod progressively better along the way.

I've also played other Mods and went to the forums for answers to specific questions, but never saw anyone from the team who actually posted there.

My Questions:

How many members of your team spend actual time reading or answering posts/questions that people take the time to ask on your forums?

How much consideration do you place on suggestions made by community members who post on your forums, and what methods do you use to validate or discount bug reports or suggestions?

And finally; How do you incorporate feedback that might be worthy of consideration into your design doc for possible future change....Who makes the call?

well all the mods ive been in, where very user close, the forums where allwys used by the mod team ....

At the 45th platoon mod forums we watch everypost, even the silly off topic ones.

At Tour of Duty, we decided very early that player feedback was of utmost importance. Those that stuck with us before our release, we put onto a beta test team, they have their own forum and are closely involved in what we're doing.

That doesn't mean that we ignore the public forums. Anyone who asks a reasonable question or has a problem will almost definitely get attention. Sluggo responds to just about everyone   and the team is willing to support and help foster a custom creation environment. I've helped a few people who've e-mailed me their maps so that I can help them with entity setups. Custom content people help a lot in your mods popularity and they also provide you with a pool of talent that you can draw from. All mods should encourage players to make their own models/map/etc in any way that they can.

Being a Mod, your community is everything. They are the ones you market to, they help you succeed and if you ignore them or treat them like idiots, they can make you fail.

I've seen too often on mods' forums where any suggestions are unwelcome and even constructive criticism get's a "What do you want from a free game?" response. I don't believe that's the way to make a mod and I'm glad that our team got together and agreed on this right from the start.

Yep, same at Dark Horizons. You might sometimes not get an answer within an hour, but within a day yes.

I read all the posts on my forums, reading the suggestions- alot of em are pretty coo  

I (and most, if not all of the other team members/beta testers) read all of the posts on the forum for reaction quake.  If I know an answer or the like, I'll reply.  If not, someone else from the team who understands the subject better usually does.  For posts that we figure other team members should have their attention drawn to, we often post links to the pertaining thread into the development IRC channels as well.

Its early days yet but I try to get the mod team looking on the forums once a week until things pick up