Quite mixed opinions on this update, then. Having had a read through, there's quite a few valid questions here that I hope I can answer.
Regarding concerns about devaluing REPs
I think it's too early to tell if this will be the case. It's been fairly common to receive complaints that staff don't give out REP often enough, and hopefully teachers may be able to bridge that gap. Concerns about REP being too common are valid though - this didn't work out well a few years ago, though if I recall correctly it was mainly due to one or two teachers in particular heavily abusing the power, which got it stripped from the rest of the teacher team. This is a different team in a different time, and we're hoping it'll turn out differently and we can find a better balance. If not, we've taken some steps to mitigate this, such as much better tracking of REP being given out and more thorough training on this to teachers. It's entirely possible that we're wrong and this was a bad decision to take, but time will tell. I'm hopeful this will be a positive change, especially given the much improved communication between admins and teachers we have now.
The buggy doesn't fit CityRP
In a sense, it doesn't, no, and it's fair to be worried about this. That being said, an awful lot of our content doesn't fit a regular city, and this was at least something interesting to try. Some staff felt that it would be an addition that added a new goal to try for, being something a little unique and fun. It might well be. It could also be abused and constantly used, but we've had this concern with several cars and stranger vehicles we've added (especially some of the ludicrously rare supercars or military vehicles) yet overuse is often only an issue for the first few days.
I also think it's a good idea to stretch what's normal a few times, just to see if it is an improvement or not - you often won't know for sure until you've tried and there has been some time for people to get used to it. It could be that the buggy becomes a fun little side-feature that people bring out sometimes, for events, or raids even. It could also go poorly - if so, it's not as if all changes are permanent, and it can be reviewed and removed.
Why not the suggestions?
Not everything we do is a player suggestion; some are staff suggestions so that they're more of a 'reveal', but we do aim to have the majority of updates be based on player feedback and suggestions. Problem is, not everyone wants the same thing and there can be quite a lot of difference between the suggestions, some going in quite different directions. I remember quite well one of our community feedback questionnaires regarding interactive or derma systems being preferred, and the split was almost exactly 50/50 - either way, you'll upset someone.
That being said, that's no excuse to not work on community suggestions, and they should rightfully be a priority. For the past several weeks (perhaps longer now), we've been bringing in player suggestions for further staff review and planning, normally a few a day. Doctor Internet in particular has been doing great work here. These have been building up and many form the basis now for updates the devs will be working on.
(Oct 4, 2017, 04:59 PM)F orceGhost Wrote: [ -> ]There are hugely popular suggestions, including rep item suggestions, from 2015-2016. Why did something that wasn't suggested by any player take priority? We all know it takes time and needs planning, and we're not asking for half-finished or unplanned updates. We're simply asking to be informed of what's work-in-progress and kept up-to-date. I don't see a reason why you can't keep the community up to date on upcoming updates.
First bold point: we do try to prioritise player suggestions, and in particular form the basis of our overall update plan based on several suggestions. However, sometimes we like to release small updates that weren't in suggestions - or at least not highly discussed - simply for the surprise factor. Most updates should not be like this, but I think there is certainly room for some that are. There are so many suggestions that if they always had priority over staff suggestions, we would never be able to do staff ones.
Second point: I would actually love to do this more. Problem is, we've been burned several times on this over the years. Updates have been announced in advance, and then a problem occurs - either it's not feasible in a given time-frame, or a dev leaves, or just drops the project. It shouldn't happen, but sometimes it does, and then we're left in a really awkward position with announced updates that don't happen, and players can get upset when we then start working on something else that what they were expecting. It's not ideal, but our current preferred solution is to follow a mix of both public and internal suggestions, and to have the media team just prepare good announcements for the larger updates. Perhaps if there was a more chill environment when we messed up and things didn't go to plan, the team as a whole would be more comfortable with this approach. Maybe one day.
I hope that clears things up for people. We'll definitely be watching feedback to this update closely - entirely possible that the naysayers are right and we made a mistake here, maybe not. We'll see.
tl;dr there were several reasons why we went with this, we're not ignoring suggestions and are actively reviewing several a day for devs to work on, but are also doing some private updates. We're monitoring teachers closely and it's a different situation. Nothing is final and these updates can all be reverted if we did make a mistake here, but time will tell.