Communication is Key for Supporters
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I am not here to bad mouth this game or its developing team. I am here however to shed a little light onto a subject that doesn't seem to be getting attention.
Communication
Let us all be straight shooters on this... Trying to figure out what the Dev's are struggling with or are trying to work on for us to get our hands on is rather difficult. I have seen the population in game at well over 1,000. Now days the population is becoming very low which is actually the reason for a lot of in game mechanics not "working as intended". If the Community was better informed of current challenges and setbacks that are presenting a problem I'm pretty sure the majority of us will understand and not be so quick to bail or complain. In addition to that if there was also an idea of what the team is currently working on or tinkering with, and your supporting community was being updated you might find much better reviews from various sources. It is sad that the gaming community is so fast to flame a game that isn't even in a launched version, and we quickly forget that we paid for a game filled with things needing to be worked out and new mechanics and content provided.
This all boils down to the player base is needed as much as the developers in order to be as successful as possible for both the players and the group running the show. If we keep our expectations realistic and support each other with much needed communication the reviews should get better over time. The company will start making more money from new sales, and better content being pushed into the game.
I know my words are simply just that however like it or not there is some very real truth in them. I certainly hope we start seeing better feedback from the dev's, and we as the supporting community can give these guys the support needed to release the game we all paid to have delivered.
I wish you all the best, and look forward to playing this game with you all!...
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I have been harping on this since Beta began in April. The biggest issue is that the communication is managed by Gamigo and Gamigo doesn't care about the players. The devs are busy doing dev things. Trying to fix a broken game, that they broke. Solve this dilemma, and we can move forward. Let it be the way it has been, we are in for disaster...
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Actually, despite what a lot of people have said, I think the Devs have been pretty clear on what information they need from us.
Bug reports
Exploit Reports
Suggestions.There really isn't much feedback that they can get from us other than that, and there isn't much feedback they can give to us. The fact is, finding bugs mainly means they need to know as much about a given bug's situation as possible to nail down what causes one. Everything else they are doing is stuff we wouldn't see anyway, so there isn't really additional information they could give us.
They took down the Roadmap, more than likely to put up another one with adjusted timetables in order to keep us informed, but we have to let them get the new one out.
They have had some catastrophic cascading bugs, but much of that was caused by the Wipe also wiping some of the previous hot-fixes, and the increased Server load they weren't prepared for, combined with a bunch of all new content (Terra) all at once.
If we try to give the Devs as much info as possible, when a bug does happen, including things like how long you were online before the bug, what location in game you were at, what exactly you were doing before the bug happened, what were you doing when the bug happened, etc... these are the bits of information they need to tackle bugs.
Yes, some of these bugs are the same ones we dealt with when Aehren came out, that's what I mean by the Wipe clearing out some of the Hot-fixes. Some of those need to be rebuilt, but made into more permanent fixes.
They are also still working on new content (which likely does not take away from fixing bugs, as generally that's 2 different teams and skillsets)
The big thing some people also need to realize is that just because we prioritize something, and they prioritize something, when it is a bug fix, they can't magically make it happen. It may be the #1 priority, but that doesn't mean that's what gets fixed first, simply because the worst bugs are the hardest to track down and fix.
Example in point, on Terra, there are large rocks blocking some of the Tree Bridges. This map they already said was procedurally drawn, which means getting rid of these rocks is not a simple matter of just deleting an asset. They would either have to re-procedurally draw Terra, or they have to scrub through the end product code and find where that rock is drawn and reverse engineer it out of the code, replacing it with a clear patch of ground. Without knowing what their tool for map building is like, I cannot say how hard that is, but obviously it is not a simple fix.
I know that Jacopo has called a 'meeting' of as many of the large Guild Masters as possible, this is more than likely to get more detailed feedback from them, as representatives of the biggest organized groups in the game. Possibly this is in regards to Siege Mechanics and Troublesome GvsG spells/skills/abilities. This is proof that Jacopo is trying to communicate his needs.
Communication is absolutely key, but also remembering that not only aren't we seeing what's under the hood, also some of what's under the hood isn't to be shown to us anyway. Us knowing wouldn't help matters in this regard.
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a bug report doesnt mean jack when the exact same bugs keep cropping up. Yeah i know, blah blah bugs always keep coming back unintentionally blah blah
If the same exact bugs happen on Terra, that happened on Arehen, that were reported and fixed, yet the exact same issues came back...THEN WTF ARE WE EVEN DOING HERE???
Bugs get found, reported, and fixed. That's the end of the cycle. New bugs are then found and the cycle repeats until hopefully, finally, you've managed to quash 97% of at least the repeaters.
We aren't moving forward. We are regressing. and that's doesn't bode well
Some of the same bugs of the top of my head
- Settler/party/guild bug. Unable to join, or leave if if you were one of the lucky few
- Harbors not working outright, or more specifically, wagons through harbors.
- Logs falling through the floor.
- Logs floating in the air. (this one i think is new to Terra, or at least ive never seen in Syndesia)
- Farms not working right.
Glaring, unacceptable oversights on Terra
Impassable bridges (still not fixed, was "promised" after last weeks patch that would in next (todays) patch. With admin powers probably wouldn't take that long to double check this.
Unable to process meat specific to Terra. I mean seriously? You put a new continent down, with all new lovely critters, and you don't even bother to make sure the meat can be used?
We all get small dev house. We all get there's only so much that can be done. But that excuse is rapidly wearing thin when we can't even progress forward.
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After reading the other replies to the original post I felt like I should write an example of what I am talking about so that if a member of the Dev team sees this they might understand better...
Example of Community Follow Up
Good Afternoon Factured Community,
Here is a look at some of the ideas and challenges that we are working on and trying to fix and make the game run smoother for us all.
Let's discuss the all too well-known bridge issues we are having on the Wildfolk side of things... We are currently trying to tackle this issue that is being talked about and have had a few snags with the way the patch is reacting on the test server. We plan to have this issue resolved for the most part in the patch to fix it which we hope to have out by the end of the month. Please keep in mind this could be delayed should another issue arise before releasing the patch.
On another note we have been having a blast playing with the new portal mechanic on the test server and feel like you will all certainly enjoy seeing this much awaited part of the game being put into play. As things are right now it seems to be working smoothly on the test server and we hope to release this amazing new content next Friday.
Thank you all for your continued support and we look forward to growing together along this wild ride!
Fractured Dev Team
- This is not a perfect example however it is a simple one...
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@Taintedsteel Personally, I agree completely. But, realistically... I have not seen much communication. Doc, I love u man, but.. ya you one of the few in that boat you got right now my friend.
The game is great, yes some setbacks and stuff, but if gamigo would have/let the CM's do their jobs things on consumer end would be much better.
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Remember, for legal responsibility reasons, even 1 paragraph of explanation takes a Developer away from Development for as much as half a day or more.
This is because anything they say in an official statement can be thrown back at them later.
That 1 paragraph has to be reviewed, evaluated, discussed, and then looked over by an editor.
Every one of these paragraphs suffers through this, OR they bring more problems than they solve.
Also, we are the "test server". They have made it clear they intend for us to drive the development of the game, so little or no pretesting is being done. We're it!
What would help the game development, then, would probably be to add a pre-test environment, and then invite several of the Alpha Access players access to this environment who have shown they are good testers by submitting good, usable bug reports and have spent sufficient in-game time to show their value in such a test environment.
Jacopo has been the main one to take a break from Development and respond directly to us. There probably isn't a better choice around, as he's the CEO and Lead Dev in all this, but he is a Dev, and his time could be better spent at his work terminals.
There are things the Devs could add to help, certainly. Things such as an "Unstuck" function in game, but again they need to code that and make sure that it's not abusable in-game as well.
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The point that you all of you are missing is there is a system in place to inform us and respond to our thoughts and concerns and suggestions. It is called The Community Manager. I need say no more...
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@GamerSeuss said in Communication is Key for Supporters:
(...)They have made it clear they intend for us to drive the development of the game, so little or no pretesting is being done. We're it(...)
And that's a misunderstanding. People barely read any such announcement/statement and simply approach the 'game' with their expectations (from experience with similar phrased products). If their expectation isn't meet, best case, they simply leave (you can see the massive decline in player numbers on Steam charts), worst case, they leave a negative review and leave. Like it or not, DS has to generate revenue, they can blame the customer, but that won't get them sales.
As you mentioned, there is an easy (somewhat industry standard) solution to this problem, that has been suggested time and again, a closed test server prephase with selected testers that are aware of what participating in a test means, willing to and skilled enough to report problems.
If you're not applying this method and instead have an unaware, high expecting public face-tank such issues, you have to live both with the comments and consequences.
