I find the map, etc. discussion to be an interesting illustration of
the essential conservatism of PBEM gamers. *Any* change that the GMs
make will be criticized; of course, it doesn't follow that any change is
actually good 
Yes we've found that. As Gavin said after a year most people get used to the changes - but we want to make those changes reasonable, timely and good. Note criticism is useful for us - I don't personally enjoy being attacked (who does?) but that goes with the territory and I have a thick skin.
One flaw of forums like this is that they tend to give inordinate
weight to a relatively small number of folks who feel strongly about
something.
I generally make sure I weight such opinions. I get a few players who are vocal in their opinions and lots of that information is useful and we act on it.
I also compare it to politics and other marketing subjects - basically if you get it right very little comment, if you get it wrong lots of comments.
It *might* be worth having Harly do a survey of their gamers - say,
selecting 1/10 of the players at random and offering them a carrot
like a free turn in exchange for some detailed feedback on recent changes.
Unfortunately we can't afford to pay a free turn for that information. Most players who do anything for us (programs, reviews etc) do so for much under the market cost in the "real" world.
I would think that this would be handy for Harly, and having some hard
data on what the typical users like/dislike would quantify some of the
objections, etc.
We've generally got a good feel for what players want and ask for feedback a lot. We are happy to listen to critique (whether praise or otherwise). If we've got it right then that's useful to know, if we've got it wrong that's also useful to know. For most people it will be somewhere inbetween most of the time (we actually find that those are overtly praising to us have a tendency to drop out after a year - too keen! - and those who are more critical have a personality more able to take knocks and changes in lifestyle so stick with us!)
We've basically hovered around 60 games running concurrently (was increasing until we got clobbered by tax and that hit our player base, and after that it's been climbing again - compare that with GSI and Allsorts who had a big decrease in players over a similar period - 25% over 4 years).
Personally, I feel that the payoff for something like Palantir in
terms of the improved quality of play for typical teams is quite high,
That's the hope.
and color is welcome (and, if anything, overdue).
Mostly positive feedback on this. We've reduced the size of the file (now 60k on average cf 40k before) and will work on the printing out for b&w (hopefully later this week) so that it is clearer and then I feel that it would have dealt with most of the problems this has thrown up.
But it would be quite interesting to see what the overall base feels about this.
Yes - if anyone would want to do a questionnaire that we can print in Bree that would be fun and useful. Personally I find the way people interact and approaches to diplomacy fascinating...
Clint
