PC The Offtopic, A17 thread.

I find your use of "trigger" offensive, distasteful, and uncalled for.
Also "face" and "homie". Please edit your message to cater to my nonsensically sensitive ego and skewed worldview.
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Ah yes, I culturally appropriated In Living Color actors... Damn.

 
Terminal Diseases confirmed for A17. :) :) :) :strawberry:
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Horray for the black plague and measles! I heard polio is making a comeback too. So, with no more vaccinations in the zombie apocalypse, we won't be seeing any more autism! Or maybe it was an anti vaxxer that started the zombie apocalypse in the first place. I could have sword one of these zeds looks like Jenny McCarthy

 
Thanks for your feedback. Just some points of clarification:
1) Nobody is entitled to the details of what goes on between the developers. Giving details of setbacks or of what the developers are working on is always going to be a rare occurrence. Companies enjoy their privacy just as much as individuals do. I've already seen several posts here and on Steam and thanks to some reposts from Reddit by some altruistic people I've seen the result of sharing the details of setbacks. While developers do appreciate those who understand and encourage them, there are a lot of responses that include ridicule, that accuse them of incompetence, and that try to use normal setbacks as a way to drag the studio's name through the mud. So typically, you are going to get a generic, "There were delays" and anything more than that really is a gift.

2) The word "immature" was not used to describe those who are hungry for news or frustrated that A17 hasn't come out. I was very specific about the people I used that word to describe and it is not the group you are describing so you probably need to read what I posted a bit more carefully. Nevermind. I'll restate it it here. People who read phrases like "It's my hope that..." or "It's just a guess" or "the estimated date is..." and process those phrases as "I promise that..." or "It's guaranteed..." or "the rock solid deadline is..." and then rant about how promises were broken and the devs lied are 100% immature and I'll add the words "ignorant" and "naive" to that as well. I'll double down on THAT all the day long. I don't even accept linguistics as an excuse. Not even google translate will screw up a word like "guess" and turn it into the Russian equivalent of "promise". I'm trying really hard not to say the s word here that ends in -pidity because I know that gets people bent out of shape...

The rest of of what you post is your opinion about what The Fun Pimps should do to fix their supposedly embarrassing and poor public relations which you are certainly entitled to share. Again, thanks for your feedback and for getting out of lurker status.
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Perhaps you should consider your own advice regarding 'reading a bit more carefully'. I used the words 'part of' reflecting a 'part of your community'. While I agree, no one is entitled by virtue of existence to anything, that is also not my argument. My point is that the mismanagement of interactions with your community is the source of such problems. As I said, it's all well and good to offer up insight on possibilities, but a flowing discussion on updates, changes, and problems is a level of transparency I've not seen from you Fun Pimps. Even your rambling above about 'trying not to say the S word', is just another symptom of an inability to cope with complex communication challenges. From a business perspective, it's not offering you anything of value to proceed as you have, and whether or not as an individual my advice is too brusque or perhaps in your opinion 'stupidity', if properly implemented, you'd gain much more value for your efforts. Consider a game like Empyrion Galactic Survival as a great example of interacting with a community. They post tangible update goals, not releasing too much information but balanced to gain customer interaction and hype. I highly recommend looking through some successful developer forums and considering the stylistic choices they make, both in reference to community interaction and toward how updates are performed.

For example, knowing that a large part of your community is not posting on this forum, you could do some simple math to consider the proportion of outrage that might result in your continued strategy of 'der.. it dun win it dun'. If you have say 5000 active accounts here, and 500 are outraged, you're looking at around 10%.. judging by your player statistics on steam, that seems about accurate. You've lost 50% of your active players since teasers about Alpha 17 began clumsily being announced since January. You had a gain of about 8% heading into the idea of Alpha 17 being released, and a drop this month alone of over 10%. You tell me there is no problem with the way you all talk to customers, and I don't think the evidence bears fruit in your favor.

I recommend having a meeting about each announcement you're going to make. Discussing each item to be publicly released is a way to make videos concise, fun, and to lessen the chance of having to make retractions. Releasing items like 'zip lines', Behemoth, etc.. and then retracting them is controversial. Until you're sure something is going to make it, it shouldn't be publicly discussed. Similarly, not bogging yourselves down with long public lists of 'goals' is in the same vein. This keeps the public off your backs, and reduces pressure.

Consider how much more informative it would be to have a meeting every month or two weeks, discuss the concepts you're adding, and then posting a development blog with a run down. Link this in your Alpha 17 update post. This becomes a defined clear picture of the process which can be consciously directed near release. Now players can somewhat watch your progress, and have a basic concept of the level of completion. Offering up constant teasers of 'maybe', rambling videos with later removed content, and then reverting to 'it's done when it's done' when people start asking questions, is just a masterful way to say 'shut the ♥♥♥♥ up' and to reduce the trust people have in you.

The goal of any business should be to generate revenue, and this is done by carefully manicuring processes and products to suit the customer base. 'If you're not growing, your dying' is a common statement in business. While your game has been out 5 years already, and made vast improvements, only yall can say for sure if you feel its run its course. I think yall can still gather several more heads of steam, if managed correctly.

https://steamcharts.com/app/251570

 
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Actually been down your way recently-ish. But yeh.
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So what does Guppy do besides average 12.3 post per day since April 2014?

- - - Updated - - -

Horray for the black plague and measles! I heard polio is making a comeback too. So, with no more vaccinations in the zombie apocalypse, we won't be seeing any more autism! Or maybe it was an anti vaxxer that started the zombie apocalypse in the first place. I could have sword one of these zeds looks like Jenny McCarthy
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is it confirmed? I don't see that anywhere.

something terminal or that required some major process to cure would be nice. like hard to find parts/ingredients and a chem station and a level XX player + science/medicine skills at the 10/10 to develop would be nice.

 
https://steamcharts.com/app/251570
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Thanks again for your thoughts. I think it is a mistake to ascribe recent drops in playing to poor PR. Most people who follow the game know that A17 is on the horizon and will require a wipe so any A16 playtime will be wasted in the sense that they will have to start over and lose their progress if they want to update. This has happened every time before an update. It even happens to Empyrion. Here is another Steam Chart that shows the comparison and you can see that both games have an overall upward trend although Empyrions is much slower despite their superior PR department...

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,383120#All

I agree with you that we all have room for improvement. I think your suggested steps are bit much and beyond what a small indie company is going to pay to do and since 7 Days to Die is succeeding well compared to Empyrion with what both companies are doing I don't see them going out of their way to change up things to the degree you outlined.

The telling moment will be when A17 releases. Will the graph skyrocket to heights not yet achieved or will it stay flat? If it breaks all previous records then the trend is still upward. You can't look at the last week of the data and say that there is a 10% loss and that is because of bad PR.

 
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Thanks again for your thoughts. I think it is a mistake to ascribe recent drops in playing to poor PR. Most people who follow the game know that A17 is on the horizon and will require a wipe so any A16 playtime will be wasted in the sense that they will have to start over and lose their progress if they want to update. This has happened very time before an update. It even happens to Empyrion. Here is another Steam Chart that shows the comparison and you can see that both games have an overall upward trend although Empyrions is much slower despite their superior PR department...
https://steamcharts.com/cmp/251570,383120#All

I agree with you that we all have room for improvement. I think your suggested steps are bit much and beyond what a small indie company is going to pay to do and since 7 Days to Die is succeeding well compared to Empyrion with what both companies are doing I don't see them going out of their way to change up things to the degree you outlined.

The telling moment will be when A17 releases. Will the graph skyrocket to heights not yet achieved or will it stay flat? If it breaks all previous records then the trend is still upward. You can't look at the last week of the data and say that there is a 10% loss and that is because of bad PR.
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Keep in mind that school started for many players over the last 3 weeks. Also College/University kids are having WTF moments trying to figure out what they need for the fall semester starting next week.

So Aug/Sept are always bad months for games - when I worked in the game group at MS it was never a good time for releasing anything. ideal release times for major games was right before Turkey Day, or right before Christmas, or right before summer.

 
Well my 2 cents , well even less if converted to U.S $ lol

Just a thread from the devs talking about A.I for example (the one you've done with Faatal is brilliant) without having to click through pages of mostly forum barflies comments. Last time i mentioned this i was meet without passive aggressive remarks from others ( not dev i dont think ) then my posts disappear while others talking about nothing to do with A17 or the game for that matter remain.

Anyway love the game, changes and artwork etc. Best change up ive seen , similar to what Stellaris did with 2.0 update. They weren't happy with core space travel mechanics so gutted it and started a new.

Thx

 
Releasing items like 'zip lines', Behemoth, etc.. and then retracting them is controversial. Until you're sure something is going to make it, it shouldn't be publicly discussed.
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Not sure what you are getting at. Exactly this policy was instantiated while they were making A17, probably because of ziplines and behemoth. Generally no features were disclosed until they were really in, to the detriment of every sensible forum reader who would have liked more detailed info. And also to the possible detriment of the quality of the end product, because a developer should always have the power to remove features in an unfinished product when they don't fit anymore (I'm sure if it comes to that they will remove features and weather the storm, so only a theoretical harm in this case)

And TFP has just done that for all of A17 (with the small exceptions of ornithopter and a tentative release date) and still you seem to be not at all pleased. Look at the first page of this thread, all the stuff there is confirmed to be in A17 and it was only disclosed and put there whenever the feature was in a state that it was sure to be in A17.

So, could you explain what your problem is with A17 development and not with "ancient history" of the development?

Consider how much more informative it would be to have a meeting every month or two weeks, discuss the concepts you're adding, and then posting a development blog with a run down.
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Are these "concepts you are adding" or "concepts nearly finished and you are sure are already working so well that they are in"? I guess the second or you would have contradicted yourself.

The level of detail for already disclosed features is something that could be better, but if for example TFP puts in a new weapon system, any details about that weapon system will likely change multiple times, all the way until A17 is released. So what is true for the feature itself (don't mention a feature until it is surely in) is true about any details of the feature. They can't give them to you early because they still might change, right?

and this is done by carefully manicuring processes and products
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Well said, but carefully manicuring is just orwellian newspeak for "having a filter" between development and customer that removes or reframes, not adds information. Don't you see that this can only lead to less instead of more information? Ever seen a communication from Electronic Arts that wasn't so whitewashed that you had to scrutinize it carefully to see what really was said?

 
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Empyrion is great... it has a lot of room to improve, just like 7DTD. Its not finished. Empyrion is all about crafting / building though.. with a massive rework for PoIs and such... the game could be consistently fun. I do enjoy picking it up here n there and try a new HV / SV / CV
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I heard A18 will add Zombies in Space.

 
Someone needs to see "The Omega Man"... or better yet "The Last Man on Earth"... or better still read the original 1954 novel "I am Legend".
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"The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price is the closest to the book. The "I am Legend" movie completely misses the point of the book.

 
"The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price is the closest to the book. The "I am Legend" movie completely misses the point of the book.
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Well... As long as it made money.

That IS the Hollywood mantra, right?

 
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