HTs on Global/Implementing new features

With 500k customers, there's simply no way we can add a feature or make a change without some of you not liking it. But as you and me want this game to develop, there will be times when we can't make everyone happy every time. You'll like most changes, you'll maybe dislike one or two of them and there will be things you don't care at all about. And most of the things you dislike from the beginning you'll adopt sooner or later and start treating them as normal.

When reading the above, you'll maybe understand why we can't make all new features optional (as this feature). The list would be enormously long and creating a risk feeling you're not playing the same game as another user. So, we must draw the line for what can, and what can't, be optional somewhere.

Most things in this game will remain the same, but not all things. This feature is a part in a very important project making the game easier to adopt for newbies. Just because you and me had to find the info ourselves it's not unnecessary to make some things easier to adopt.

Finally, does this make us not listening to you (the community, our customers) at all? Of course not. We listen to what you have to say and take all of it under consideration when developing the game. But as I said above, we can't make everybody happy if we want to continue to develop the game. And we want to continue doing so.

Well, in order to develop a game like Hattrick you got to have a vision to what game you want to create (which of course also is based on what game our users want). Some ideas fit the vision, some things may slightly change the vision and some things don't fit the vision at all. But a vision is a must. That said doesn't mean we don't listen, but you're right that we can show that we're listening in a much better way.

Let's say, 1 user wants one feature, and 499k other, you liked first one, which you would choose? If both ideas are good and possible to implement, why not both?

Second point - there are no doubt more important questions to users than to ask about match time, isn't? I think match times are very important. But as I said in my earlier post, we could use the poll system more often than today.

First of all, let me just say (again) that Hattrick is not, and will not be, run after democratic decisions. This doesn't mean we don't listen to your opinions or what the community feels about different things, cause we really take that under consideration when making our decisions.
Why not a real democracy then? Well, someone already answered that one earlier in this thread: Because users don't have all information needed in order to make a decision what's best for the game. Secondly, in order to develop a game there has to be a vision for what you want to create, it's the most important thing. Without a vision you're lost, but what's also important is that you can't have two (or more) different visions. But as all Hattrick users, naturally, don't have the same vision it would mean that all decisions would be based on 500k different visions. Such decisions are not healthy at all for a game like Hattrick (and many other things as well).

That stated we have failed to make you all aware that we listen to what you have to say. We listen, but most of the time we do only just that, not also recognizing that we need to tell you that we listen. Polls are one thing that can be used to improve the communication between developers and users, and polls can be very powerful. The "problem" with polls is that they may give everybody a feeling that the outcome of a poll is what will automatically happen next (depending on the questions asked of course), and then we're back on the above (decisions based on 500k different visions and opinions).
But I certainly hope I (we) can find a way to use polls more regularly, on certain topics and for certain issues, because polls are democratic in the sense that every vote counts equally and that they may be used even by people that do not visit the conferences regularly. We could then use the polls as advice to take under consideration when making our decisions. This is a real challenge, to find a poll system that would work well, but it is something we would like to try

Finally some words about your prediction, an opinion I don't share. What many people seem to forget is that we have increased the income side a lot during the last seasons, for example:
- Increased ticket prices
- Increased sponsor money
- More generous fan formula (which is made even more generous to new teams)
- More generous spectator formula
Apart from this, salaries for new teams are lower today because of the new salary formula.

But in order to keep this an interesting game, we also have to increase costs - because if getting money was easy this game wouldn't be as interesting anymore. I understand your concern and your opinion, but I don't agree in it. :)
I think we'll see more new teams/users staying in the game and finding the game more interesting and challenging now. And I don't expect to see more bankrupt teams either. If I'm right - time will tell.

Anyway, I think I've made myself clear on our views of this, and related(?) ones, topic now. Maybe I shouldn't have "hidden" this answer this far back in the thread, but sometimes you can't choose.