Posting Weekly Updates

[Dorag]

Lets jump straight to the point, I'm talking to you, BM devs, directly.

We're all aware that:

• Publishing an imperfect video to the public has negative impact
• Some content has to remain secluded to the Insider Forum for the people who contributed
• You want to remain in that private section, as to not unveiling incorrect/unfiltered information and promises to the general public.

Having said all that, there's still a public out there
And that public cannot stay a hundred percent uninformed and blindfolded.

Without any further unnecessary explaining - as I'm sure you know it all,
I'll proceed to show you the features of Weekly updates and explain my proposition.


Weekly updates are very dynamic - you can form the update on your own terms, with your do's and dont's, considering any limitations you may have, you have control on the content you deliver to the general public, may it be text only, pictures, or videos, you choose what to write/show and as such, to adjust the level of transparency over certain things you intend to discuss in your updates.

I am certain you understand in every way how people must be feeling by now, due to lack of communication, as justified as it is, just like looking for love - people need a spark of hope, a hint of that feeling once in a while to keep looking for it, or else they will abandon it.

I truly believe, with all of my heart, this spark is Weekly Updates, it will at least, keep the public informed, aware, in contact, and not feeling left out in the shadows or locked in a vault, for just an hour at max of your time, weekly.

I, and the entire public standing before me, will gladly accept text-written weekly updates.​

To the Community:
The community may discuss this proposition as this is feedback forum and I have no right to take away your freedom to give feedback, criticism, or your approval, I will gladly take it assuming you've read and understood all of the points, so think before you post.

For the Devs:
I expect an answer which will approve/disapprove or atleast put my suggestion, into consideration, with valid reasoning, it will be much appreciated as always, and I have much respect to you for that, I'm waiting for a replay.

 

[Scarecrow]

I can defintaly see where you are coming from mate. Personally, i don't mind it that much, because i know all that time goes straight into development. However, using you're "Looking for love" metaphor, i agree that its like being married to someone who always works. You know you love them, you know she loves you, but when work always comes first then the sparks in the realtionship will start to fade.

Ok, that did sound kinda weird, but im sure everyone knows what i mean. Bottom line is, i do agree with you, but it's no biggy for me, really.

Edit: Besides, recently, i think we've gotten a nice bit of updates from the devs, and we've been communicating.

 

[Parco]

this again? havent this been discussed enough already? there is a public video coming soon and you know what they say; a picture is worth a thousand words. with 30 frames per second and 5min long thats 9 million words, better than weekly text based updates isnt it?
back to the point, as much as everyone would love more updates it still requires some time to write them and edit them, filtering out what information would be useful for the public and not. this would take up to an hour or two, and if they were gonna release every week and they use on the average one and a half hour, they would have used around 33 hours just writing updates until they release the game in march. in my opinion i think those hours would have been better used on the game instead.

 

[fluffydino2000]

Yeah, I have to say that I've felt the communication increasing lately. From what I can tell there's been an official update about every two-three weeks recently. Sure, they're not about things people likely want to here all the time, but they are there. And the amount of response on the forum lately has been pretty high too.

If somehow they could fit weekly updates into there schedule and not sacrifice any game making time, I'm sure they would. I also think that parco's point, serious or not, is very valid. Hearing that they've added a new weapon type every week and done some work on the AI framework isn't all that interesting. A video of what they've achieved over two months is much much more interesting. Something else that's more interesting than a list of "we did these" is discussion about the direction of certain features with the devs. I honestly don't care if they've made some new weapons, I care about how they'll work. If we struck up a discussion about how we wanted the different kinds of melee attacks to work, we'd get a response, I assure you. But they don't have time to try and anticipate people's specific queries and then work them into a weekly update when something new is announced in it.

What might be nice, is the kind of thing Starbound has. It shows which members of the team are working on what aspects of the game. This in itself though would take time to create so again probably isn't worth while.

Spoiler: Woo

300th Message!

 

[Komuflage]

I dunno, in one way I do agree, weekly updates would be really nice, and most likely it would make more people interested in the game.
But at the same time, it's 6.5 months left to May, and the release will probably be mid/late may, so around 7 months left of development.
Now there is a public video on it's way, It'll most likely get a few more people interested.
After that we'll have Alpha and Beta, now if we're not under NDA at least in the Beta, I'm predicting that we'll at least have a few youtubers and streamers who'll upload/stream some gameplay. (I know I will if I'm allowed to)
This will most likely get another few people interested. After that, If bm wants to, it could be possible to create a "Best of Beta" (Ofc with a better name) which would be a 10-15min long video of "epic" moments from the Beta.
This would get another few people interested. After that, only a few weeks before launch, and when the game is nearly completed, BM could create a magnificent Trailer for the game. And if the manage to create a really good trailer at that time, I'm sure the hype will go up sky high.

Now by that time they've probably managed to get quite some fanbase.


Now my prediction is that this game will not sell millions of copy's, 2, maybe 3hundredthousands copy's, sure.
It won't sell that "few" because the game will be bad, but rather because it's the first game from an unknown developer.
However, I think the game will earn tons of awards. And in 10 years time, the "few" people who played it will be able to look back at it as one of the best RPGs ever.

Now this is ofc quite some prediction, but this is pretty much what happened to Total Annihilation. Only a "few" played it back in late 90's, only a "few" in the "00's" and now in the "10's" but it still won countless awards, and now ~16 years after it's release, it still got a "big" dedicated fanbase, and it's still widely considered to be one of the best RTS games ever made.


Also to get back to topic a bit, I survived ~1year without weekly updates, I can survive another ~7.
So like Scarecrow say, "it's no biggy"

 

[Madoc]

This topic keeps coming up and is becoming in itself a time sink as well as just tiring and upsetting.

The game is in development, you don't normally show a product to the public until it's finished, for very good reasons! We've released a tonne of very informative material on the game and its design, we release updates when it seems appropriate and we share a fair bit of information and media with people who follow us on the insider forum. We really don't need uninformed people who don't understand what we're doing looking over our shoulder and judging us. For every person in the general public who follows the project with interest there's a million others who know nothing and will ruthlessly criticise what is unfinished work.

Marketing material for games is not only based on a finished product, it's often outright fake and makes the game look even better than it really is. Often significantly more money is spent on marketing and presentation than the game itself, and we're talking tens of millions of US dollars here. We can't afford marketing and this is the only image our game gets.

Most people have no idea what the reality of most of what we do is, it's tedious, difficult, frustrating work and not at all exciting. The end product might be exciting but the extremely lengthy process of developing it is most certainly not. Nobody would understand or care about what we do on a daily basis. You already know what we're aiming for. We go through seemingly endless periods of hard work with a distant goal and nothing to show for it until we get there. Because we do have backers who made this possible we do what we can to tell them something about this and try to make it sound interesting. It is not easy to clearly explain your vision for a game and design choices in detail. The people who follow us more closely have formed a nice supportive community, we enjoy sharing what we can with them and they help us be more enthusiastic about our work every single day. The public is just irrelevant at this stage.

 

[Rod_Lightning]

I just want to say, as an inside forum dude, I'm content on what's being shared by the devs. People are used to all the other kickstarters that got absurd amounts of funding who put out weekly 'updates'. 80% of the time it's just trivial shit that is purposely fed to 'the public' to keep them quiet.

 

[fluffydino2000]

I think every time this topic comes up from now on, I might just quote this post and link to all of the other dev response to them to alleviate this time sink. It is very true that currently, all weekly updates would do is make an unnecessarily large amount of people aware of the game now. That can wait till late beta. All those people would do is come on here and make more threads about the lack of videos or screen shots. It's unnecessary.

Everyone, who knows about this game now, falls in two categories, those who believe in the team and those who don't. If you don't, then be pissed off at yourself that you backed when you shouldn't have. It's not the teams job to cater to your expectations. Then, go and feel silly about being pissed off when you're pleasantly surprised in May. Nothing is going to change about the pace of information about Sui Generis until the alpha comes out.

 

[Dorag]

...

Hello Madoc, thank you for replaying, I created this suggestion seeking your replay to clearly understand your point when it comes to why the general public isn't receiving updates, and if it will at all, thank you for taking the time to post here, I understand exactly what you're getting at, It's important that people will realize your point - It's not just videos that will attract the masses of uninformed mindless critics, but text can misleading too and It's hard to put your progress into words.

I'd also like to add that I and many other non-backers and backers alike appreciate the tedious journey you go through every day from dawn to dusk in your grand efforts to produce this piece of art.
I'm sure in future occurrences I and many others may refer people here when they bring up this issue, thank you for stating it so transparently, my mind and many other's is at peace now, and we will keep supporting you all along the way.

Good luck BM.

 

[Komuflage]

then be pissed off at yourself that you backed when you shouldn't have. It's not the teams job to cater to your expectations.

Little harsh, don't you think?

 

[Scarecrow]

Little harsh, don't you think?

Nah, its not that harsh really. It wasn't aimed at anyone specifically.

But one thing Dorag, you could actually have searched this up and find the reasoning behind it. The devs themselves have explained it many times, and many forum members have told others why as well. Not saying like "Oh you bad bad man Dorag". Just sayin, you know?

We should soon consider making a sticky about this, lol.

 

[Komuflage]

Nah, its not that harsh really. It wasn't aimed at anyone specifically.

We should soon consider making a sticky about this, lol.

Can easily seem that way though, well nvm, I'm not the one to decide what people post

Updated my sign to contribute to the cause.

 

[Scarecrow]

Can easily seem that way though, well nvm, I'm not the one to decide what people post

Updated my sign to contribute to the cause.

Bye bye Aristotle, hello Komuflage's cause!

 

[Dorag]

...

I've only created this to get a solid answer, once and for all.
Making his post a sticky is a good idea!

Updated my sign to contribute to the cause.

The link refers to the wrong post, this is the right one, I upgraded the template, great Idea Komuflage

 

[fluffydino2000]

The signature thing is a very smart idea. And I didn't mean it harshly at all, even if it came across like that. I was just trying to say that backing and kickstarting is ultimately a risk. And if you don't think you're getting what you deserve then it's your own fault for taking the risk.

 

[crashingtingler]

Thank you Madoc. Very well said.

 

[Fawz]

I'm with Madoc on this. Developing a game is a long, difficult and challenging process. It's nice and important for the community to be kept in the loop with the game's progress seeing how invested the backers are.

However there is no need to shift focus from Development to marketing. The Devs are already doing a great job of communicating with the fans on the forums (Mostly the Insider forums). The Kickstarter blog updates are few and far between, but when they come out they have a substantial amount of information. We already know a public video is being worked on right now, and that an Alpha release is planned before the game's release next year.

I hope people can stop making unnecessary demands from the Devs to stop making the game and instead talk about it. There's a good amount of information and footage already available and most importantly an active community you can share your interest of the game with.

 

[Oona]

The signature thing is a very smart idea. And I didn't mean it harshly at all, even if it came across like that. I was just trying to say that backing and kickstarting is ultimately a risk. And if you don't think you're getting what you deserve then it's your own fault for taking the risk.

BM never promises exhaustive updates anyway (at least, as far as I remember).

 

[Pilluminati]

Even if they cared about public image, I wouldn't want weekly updates.
Reasons?
-Wasted development time
-The added pressure to show off something when not always possible which could result in rushed solutions

I'm seriously starting to wonder whether people understand that they've backed a game, not a blog.

 

[Parco]

backing a blog uh, is this actually being done somewhere? if not why not start now, how about paying me to write something for you guys? for each $ a month i get i will write 1 word weakly, just for you guys