Thoughts on recruiting for a audience input project

[Callan S.]

I'm thinking in future of writing a short text based adventure. I'm not putting this is recruitment because I'm hammering out the idea - I'm thinking of running the project in this way: roughly outlining what options I am willing to/am able to put into the project. Then I have other participants who say what option they want from within that scope. They don't even have to do any programming or anything - what I'm looking for here are some people who'll commit to a month or two months of giving such feedback a couple of times a week.

Basically the benefit to me is that this keeps me in touch with an audience, which I find interesting. For some reasons over the years I have grown really tired of trying to invent things that others might play, by simply guessing what they might like to play. Of course generally one was stuck in that position because one is guessing how to draw in an audience. Here I would be recruiting for a two or three people to commit to act as audience for X amount of time.

As said, it'd be a basic game to start with, since I'm not used to this. But people don't have to do any coding, just choose what sort of options they'd like, from the scope of options I'm able to give, a couple of times a week. It's almost a little bit like table top roleplay that way!

Does that sound viable? Does anyone think they'd sign up for that?

[Jackolantern]

Instead of turning it into an inclusive thing that people sign up for, you could instead simply make feedback surveys. If you were wanting this feedback more during the planning and design phase (the only time where you would really be able to make drastic changes to the game without wrecking the project) you could make write-ups outlining important details related to a specific part of the design however often you wanted feedback, and pose a question or series of questions related to the write-up. The answers could be taken into account for the next phase of design, and more questions could be posed with the next write-up. If you waited to start this process when there is actually something to play, then a lot of the feedback would likely not be feasible, such as changing from class-based to skill-based in an RPG, for example. Then you could correlate survey submissions between sessions for people who have participated in more than one session to get a better feeling of what people want on an individual level.

I just think perhaps going with something you are basically signing-up to do every week or so may cap the number of people who participate or stay active in it, thus giving too small of a sample size to be actionable.

[Callan S.]

As said, I'd outline the scope of what options I am willing to/am able to put into the project. If 'classed based to skill based' isn't inside the scope I give, then they can't call for that option.

I get the feeling no one would fill in the surveys, leaving me with a cold project. I'd pay if one had a game that had a fair bit of daily traffic already, that could work.

While I think since other people manage to recruit a few folk to work with, I could recruit a handful to commit to telling me what, from a scope of options, they want. Atleast that way I know I'm coding something someone cares about.

[Jackolantern]

As said, I'd outline the scope of what options I am willing to/am able to put into the project. If 'classed based to skill based' isn't inside the scope I give, then they can't call for that option

I wasn't saying that people would suggest things outside of the scope of your concerns, but rather, was making a case that this kind of input would be most applicable during the planning and design phase versus having a "play alpha/beta then comment" setup. And I was only mentioning that to setup how in-forum surveys could work out