From: Jérémy Rosen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> we need a "gameplay" leader or "balance" leader or somehow someone who has authority on changes that affect the gameplay itself. Dragonking, Noy, and Soltion have been doing that for some time, but I think it's important to point out that Gameplay changes also nned a central authority. I have hit a wall when changing slow in that no one felt it was their change to commit something like that... Bye Boucman
I think that the problem here is that we (as the MP devs) feel that we do not have the responsibility to make these changes because of its affects on Single Player balancing in Campaigns. When we worked up to V1.0 we wanted to completely redo lvl 2 and 3 unit costs so that they reflected a more realistic balance. However we were essentially barred from doing so because at the time DK and I didn't understand the affect that it would have on Single Player campaigns. This happened yet again when we were trying to rebalance scout units for each faction. If we didn't have to take SP aspects into consideration then we would feel responsible for this aspect of the game and make changes that suited our beliefs.
Now my point isn't to complain that SP is infringing on our ability to alter key aspects of gameplay. Although it was said once that Balancing concerns I think 90% of the Balancing and gameplay changes we have proposed passed through with little argument, so generally it works. Slow was a difficult compromise, because it was not only that SP and MP devs differed on the subject, but everybody had a different vision of how it should work. Its not suprising that the new implementation isn't exactly what was initially proposed because its got the hallmarks of a very difficult compromise.
I think for gameplay/Balancing (two different concepts that bleed into each other) that the current compromise works quite well. I think SP and MP developers have been able to strike a balance that enables wesnoth to maintain both aspects of the game and I hope this can be maintained. I think that MP has in the past year taken a commanding role in determining the direction of most gameplay aspects of wesnoth. I think this is generally a good thing, and should continue. One thing I think that could be strengthened though is a more formalized communication channel for members of these two subcommunities.
Maybe a sub-email list devoted completely to gameplay aspects may be helpful to ensure that people know which changes are coming up. This I think may be more for the benefit of campaign designers (because MP devs are a small bunch) so that they aren't confronted by a situation two months after the decision was made on #wesnoth-dev where aspects of their campaign become completely unbalance. However I don't think that a "perfect" balance can ever be struck between the two quarters, but we can at least mitigate any potential problems. Despite these quibbles though I think we have been quite successful at maintaining a good balance, and I don't see why this can't continue in the future. I think there is room for MP Devs to take a more active role in defining gameplay though, and I think we can do so without ruining the balance either.
However, when Serious problems do crop up between the two aspects, we do need someone to adjudicate. This is why I think Dave's suggestion that a second leader be nominated is all the more vital. I agree with Bartek that it would be nice if that person plays the game, because this would help, but it isn't a vital quality either.
Noy
