Backlog + How to make suggestions (or not) - read first!

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
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Logistics
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This forum is for initial write-ups for any sort of suggestion for Terasology (Destination Sol has its own sub-forum), supporting projects, and so on - if it is in an appropriate format. This is to keep the chaos down a bit :)

We have a separate backlog board in Trello (and also for DestSol) - you can vote on suggestions there (as well as rate individual threads here).

Different kinds of suggestions exist and work differently. Some common things reported may not even be a suggestion, so think about it before posting. And of course search first (forum, all core project issues, all module issues - may require GitHub login) and check the backlog to make sure it doesn't already exist.

If you like an idea rate its top post - if popular enough the rating details will show in the forum index. Likewise cards in Trello with more votes will be moved to the top.

Disclaimer: Making suggestions here or elsewhere doesn't automatically give the suggester any special claim on that idea - think of them as belonging to the community with whomever designs/implements it first likely getting to pick the details. Still, anybody else can do it too and do it their way. Work talks louder than words :coffee:

Types of stuff:
  • New thread. Detailed, unique, interesting ideas that somebody has already thought about a fair bit. Good for further discussion, design, and so on. Gets an appropriate thread prefix status (see status below) and may later get promoted to a different forum for implementation
  • Backlog. Tiny one line creative suggestion for a core project or module that sounds like a good idea but has little to no added details. You can use this thread for submitting one liners (or asking about them) and occasionally they'll be moved to Trello or somebody interested can start a design thread.
  • Not useful. Random thoughts or weirdly specific additions to an otherwise generic backlog item that serve no valuable purpose. These just clog up stuff.
  • GitHub issue. Bugs go there. Important prioritized feature requests might go there, but should be made by contributors who know what they're doing :)
  • Existing thread. Enhancements to existing content don't usually go on GitHub, and may go into an existing thread (Core Projects, Modules, or here in Suggestions) or perhaps a new one - when in doubt ask in an existing thread.
Examples:
  • "There should be dragons!" Backlog (until somebody wants to make a more useful write-up)
  • "There should be yellow dragons!" Not useful (at least not until somebody asks in the dragon thread what colors they should come in)
  • "There should be dragons and here's a write-up on dragon anatomy, behavior, abilities, and how that all applies directly to a plan to implement said dragons in Terasology". New thread (yay!)
  • "Dragons crash the game when condition X is met". GitHub issue - bug
  • "To support dragons we need feature Y added to the renderer". GitHub issue - important feature
  • "Dragons should have sharper teeth than currently". Existing thread - improvement
Status prefix
  • Suggested (or not set - blue) - new suggestion just posted, needs some attention to evaluate the idea
  • Design (green) - somebody is actively trying to figure out if/how we can do this. We need to keep an eye out for these going inactive and if so flag inactive, archive or backlog. Hopefully it'll mature to where it'll promote to the Art, Core Projects, or Module forum for more work
  • Inactive (red) - this was actively being worked on to become an interesting feature but the contributor seems to have gone missing or lost interest. At least some design work has gone into this, we like the feature, and we would love for somebody to pick it back up.
  • Backlogged (yellow) - suggestion is reasonable but is waiting for somebody to pick it up for design or implementation. Thread doesn't need further attention (adding details is fine) until there's a volunteer - it isn't a critical feature and/or little to no work has been done on it
  • Archived (dark gray)- two possible causes, in either case some review or work was done and it is no longer needed for live discussion or in the backlog.
    • May not have been a great fit, at least without some dedicated volunteer who really wants to make it happen
    • The item was completed and didn't have a different forum to go to / no longer has needed long-term thread content
  • Dupe (light gray) - already have a better thread for this elsewhere (be sure to post a link in the dupe thread)
Posts made in this thread will be processed occasionally and moved/deleted.
 
Last edited:

ArgentWolf

New Member
In the module selection screen, it doesn't look like there's a way to view active dependents of the selected module (modules which have it as dependencies). Yesterday I was trying to make a world equivalent to Minecraft's creative mode, so I wanted to disable hunger+thirst and durability, but it was hard to tell what was keeping those mods enabled. I ended up going one by one through the list looking for the module in the dependencies section.

Could we perhaps add a section below "dependencies" in the info box listing which active modules depend on it?

I don't know how it should be presented, but my first thought is a reverse dependency tree, with immediate dependents listed at the top level and then their dependents underneath them. Possibly even colored to represent manual/automatic state, like the main list does.
 
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