Really great interview. They answered a lot of questions regarding their design philosophy and their goals with the game. A lot of the anger from some people seems to go back to the idea that the community should have a voice in what goes into the game, what gets cut from the game, and what gets changed in the game. The developers were clear that these aspects of game development are not the domain of the community. The community is here to play what is offered and to give their feedback which will help with balancing and adjusting the fun-factor of the features TFP decided to make part of their game.
I understand that some may feel that development should operate differently than that model but now that the facts are known straight from Rick, himself, and not just me saying it over and over and over these past years we can have an end to people complaining that they never agreed to a change or that there should be a community poll to decide if a change should occur. That is never going to happen. The community helps through feedback after playing what is offered by the developers. Glimpses and reveals about what is upcoming is not to give the community a chance to change the devs' minds, it is simply to satisfy our curiosity about what is coming and give us time to acclimate how we will adapt to the new meta.
Another sore point over the years has been the lack of a public roadmap and they explained why they don't subscribe to that model even though they are fully aware that other game studios do it. That being said they did offer a few core features they see as critical for the full release launch of their game (and shortly afterward) and I have listed those on the first page of this thread.
It was disappointing and a surprise to me to hear them say that bandits are not likely to make it into A21. I want to emphasize that it was a surprise to me because up until tonight it was close enough to go either way and it looks like they don't want to put in a partial unfinished version of them that isn't ready and so they are going to be in A22. I know this will cause reactions from the conspiracy theorists who say that bandits are smoke and mirrors and will never be in this game, to the streamer followers who predicted they would not be in A21 and will now gloat that they were always right, to the fans who still believe in bandits and trust that TFP knows best about when they are ready. I'm sure there will be lots of lively discussion on that count.
Finally, it was good to see them acknowledge their ongoing preparations for the console version and that they are aware of community desire for some kind of acknowledgement about the failure of the first title perhaps in the form of a discount of the new title by previous owners. They know that the community wants it and are willing to do it if they can get all stakeholders on board and a good methodology for making it happen. It was also good to hear that they are currently working on the console version as they also finish up the PC version.
Nobody believes Spring of 2023 for Alpha 22 right?
Lotsa knuckle rubs to Rick for saying that....
