Can we have other means of information beside Twitch Q&A sessions?
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It looks like lately the only way to find out what's planned for Fractured is watching Twitch Q&A sessions. This is the one from yesterday. I appreciate the work that goes into that, but the problem is you present important upcoming information about the game which can only be gained by watching a 3h+ video in english, which can be summed up in a lot less anyway. Some people have problems with english (reading is easier than listening, especially when you can use Google translate), some simply don't have the patience to go through such a long video. I'm not asking for lengthy content pills as we had before, but can we maybe have a short summary of what's discussed?
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I agree.
Mostly on the fact that it feels like im an online meeting again and i'm just tired of that 'zoom session' feel to it.
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+1 +1 to @Razvan's point.It's great to have a variety of content providers interested in the game, but making players dependent on any platform OUTSIDE of the official game website/forum seems like a seriously debilitating choice.
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all the videos should be transcribed! it'll make thing easily searchable, easier to translate and easy to point to when someone ask.
not to mention the audio quality might not be there. dont rely on the community to provide it, it's something the CM could be doing!
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I have to jump in for Dynamight at this point.
Never forget, they are just a hand full of people developing a really big game out of a vision, we all like much. This Developing and fullfilling our needs is very time consuming.
It is quite easier to talk for 2 Hours about precising your path and roadmap, than to write down this for a news or Journal.
They already said, there will be an updated Roadmap and reworked or new Spotlights.
But writing this take time.Also, we are in 2020, we don't write that much anymore, we stream as much as possible.
But it is not a new phenomenon, in the past often Devs talked about their progress on Cons first time. The Community made the informations flowing.
So it is up to us, if we want to get this informations from the Stream to the wide public. We just need to find someone in our Community, who is willing to listen the Stream-Records and make a nice Summary out of it for the Forum.
We have previously summarized Q&As (and in parts translated), so why not now?
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@Razvan said in Can we have other means of information beside Twitch Q&A sessions?:
Just to say, about the question itself, what i wrote above.
But yeah, i wish too, to get more continuously content pills with small insights to the special Roadmap Points for it.
But even if i would expect more social interaction and communication, i know, thats not what "i payed for"In my opinion, they give us quite much informations, especially the important ones.
So i do not see a lack of communication. Rather than that a quite good one.
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@Kralith
I agree with you, but what I mean is that at the end of the Q&A session, Prometheus could make a very short summary of what he talked about because. For example, for the last Q&A we'd have about 7 of these:- this is the planned towns locations and resource spread on Myr -> https://i.imgur.com/VWZqMOw.jpg
- your diet has to be diverse (not only wolf meat) because otherwise you suffer debuffs
- we expect big zergs to be a thing, but we have thought of systems to limit monopolies and prevent a large guild from having more than maybe 4 towns
- ...
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@Razvan Upcoming plans for the game should definitely be in written format, at least as like a summary, however, imo videos should be the secondary communication channel. Videos are of course nice, but trying to find information from those feels really bad and the information will just drown there.
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@Razvan as was said, even small summaries take time. Time away from things like developing the game, and responding on the forums to direct questions. The Q&A sessions on Stream are just a supplement to the Roadmaps and Developers' Notes we get periodically, but every time they stop to write one of those, it takes away from their valuable time being dedicated to making the overall game better. At least they take the time to do a Q&A stream to touch bases, AND Prometheus is also seen posting in the forums daily it seems, not to mention discord.
Give the devs a break, their communication on this project is way better than 99% of the projects out there, while still making mad progress towards a very unique game.
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@GamerSeuss Actually written updates of the progression is quite standard procedure in game development in general. Therefore, it is nothing too special to ask here as well.
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But we're getting them, more of them than most games who actually have some momentum in development. What they are ALSO doing is providing Q&A streams as supplements to those written updates. This game developer is crazy on the ball when it comes to keeping us informed really. I've been Beta-Testing since EverQuest and DaggerFall came out, way back when, and honestly, this is the best communication/progress ratio I've ever seen, especially given the scope of this project.
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@GamerSeuss But we are not getting updates in written format which is the concern of this thread at first place. Or perhaps you can point from where we can read about the content of recent Q&As.
Perhaps at start there was a good amount of written information available, nowadays there is hardly any, and e.g. the latest Feature Spotlight article is over 2 years old already which is kind of long time ago.
I have personally very different experiences from gaming development and unfortunatelly Fractured is not even close how much information other gaming studios provides updates to the community. EverQuest and DaggerFall are kind of bad examples, because those games presents totally different times. Today transparency is the thing, especially with games which have been funded by the players, therefore, people are more interested of the development and the progression in general, and because of that people will be also more demanding.
Videos as the only place to gather information is really bad because the information will also drown there. Most of the people will not found those ever and it is multiple times easier to refer written information rather than videos.
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Its nice to have variety of sources, and text information is definitely useful, even if videos are nice to watch.
But here at this point community can jump in as well. Anyone who thinks another way of presenting an information could be nice and has a nice idea about how to present it in additional way is more than welcome to jump in.
Im sure devs will appreciate it. And the rest of community as well.
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No, there isn't a transcript for the recent Q&A. Like I said, the video information is supplemental and done so they don't have to interrupt the actual work they are doing on the game in order to type out constant written updates. WHEN they have something important to spread to the community, it goes up as a News Article, gets sent out as an Email, and gets posted in forums and discord threads.
Case in point, we may not have transcribes of the recent Q&A (and any regular member who watched the video is more than welcome to step in and provide such a transcript if they feel their time is best spent doing so) but we do get a detailed report every time they do a bug patch, with its own thread in the forums. That is a written update, more, it is the kind of written update that we, the Alpha Testers/Backers need at this stage of the game.
A lot of other games in this modern era have practically done away with written updates almost altogether in favor of Video updates and interactive chats/forums. You want to talk about a different climate of the community from Daggarfall and EverQuest, the current Paradigm is to update people via video updates, to interact with your backers and testers in forum threads, and via discord channels, with only truly major concerns maybe making it to written form (and often, those are compilations done by another member of the individual testing community/backers, not done by the developers)
They are a small team of developers, their time is better spent on the game, then on writing up constantly for our edification. As a Kickstarter Project, backed in that way, as long as they are in-line with their roadmaps, and when not in line and on schedule, they update said roadmaps, they are fulfilling the necessary communication requirements in writing for us. All the Video and Chat/Forum updates (now the Paradigm) are actually bonus update material. Yes, there may not have been a new Developer's Journal in the last 2 years, that only means that from the Developers' standpoint, there haven't been major developmental decisions in regards to the target of the game made as of yet. Right after the Alpha test ends, just like with all the previous tests, they will do a Survey, AND THEN they will give us a Written update, including the results from the surveys they received.
I think these developers are doing a splendid job, especially for not having a 'community manager' for awhile. (Thanks Spectre for stepping up in that regard) and I am quite thankful for the Q&A sessions that give me not only more information, but if I manage to tune in during this live Q&A, gives me direct influence on what topics are to be covered.
You also need to think....during an Alpha Testing phase, the Developers don't want to overly influence your feedback on the testing too much, so they have to be careful what they release at this time, so as not to bias the results they need from the actual testing being done.
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I decided to have a go at transcribing the latest Q&A. It was a nice diversion from working on the wiki. It's the full conversation. If someone wants to summarize, go for it
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@kellewic Dude, awesome work.
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Very nice!
