Splinter Topic: Overall Response to the Q&A so far

Azherae

Azherae wrote: »

I think Intrepid knows this and that's why Steven is doing another Q&A. It's a good way to disseminate lots of information about stuff that is 'closer to confirmed but less people are asking about' because us 'regulars' have 'learned not to ask' except in the 'analysis of disruption' phase.

Well, as an analyst (and I hope to be wrong here)...

I don't think it worked.

Note that this has absolutely no reflection on the quality of Ashes, their efforts, nor even the far-future engagement of people.

That out of the way, I would be interested in assessing what the better response to this should be overall from the 'effort' perspective. Is this a place where you'd double down on trying to rekindle engagement before the flood of other upcoming MMORPGs (some of which will supposedly hit before Alpha-2, potentially tainting reactions to A2 itself), or would you 'go dark' and continue as normal and bide your time until Alpha-2 or bigger updates are available before trying to get the spotlight again?

And if one did choose to 'double down', knowing that A2 is not soon, what would you even use to engage people at this point?

It's an interesting position to be in for many reasons, but it's also a really 'open ended' choice, so I'm quite interested to see what other people would think or do.

Of course if you disagree with the premise and think that the response 'numbers' were healthy and good, absolutely go ahead and chew me out for what would (at that point) be disingenuous framing.

Zeitlos

I think it's more a consequence of people riding a hype train that is outpacing juicy developer content.

I think the devs should continue to release their monthly updates, but also add on more Q/A sessions (say on a quarterly basis). All the while stressing the reality of the development phase we are in.

This is where we as a community and (and content creators specifically) can help to bring the hype train back down to a reasonable pace.

Ludullu

I'd say the q&a was somewhat pointless. I'm thankful for a more hardball choice of questions, but the answers were as standard as they get and we didn't really get any real new info. Which to me just means that they're not ready to properly answer such questions.

I'd prefer to remove monthly q&a completely and just have a quarterly big one, like friday's, or maybe even have one every 6 months. Just pick the most popular questions and give us updates on them (if there are any).

Caww

Steven is rightfully being careful in his responses to avoid being boxed-in regarding future directions, it's just the way it has to be when so much is still being developed. It does dilute the value of the information but at least the guy is trying to promote the transparency of the process and does seem forthright in his efforts.

Azherae

Caww wrote: »

Steven is rightfully being careful in his responses to avoid being boxed-in regarding future directions, it's just the way it has to be when so much is still being developed. It does dilute the value of the information but at least the guy is trying to promote the transparency of the process and does seem forthright in his efforts.

Just to clarify, I'm not faulting the attempt at all, nor do I think anything particularly negative about the method Steven uses for communication. Work gets done when it's done.

I'm moreso chatting about 'overall responses that a company like Intrepid might use' and the opinions of people on if they should or shouldn't use them.

For now I'll sorta-assume that your answer is closer to 'They should just keep doing the same thing because it's really genuine', but please clarify if you have some time.

Dezmerizing

I liked it a lot! I think AoC is going to be a near perfect mmo for me in the long run. Seeing Steven being so passionate about it just makes me happy!

I thought it was super fun to see him hang out with the community and give us a bit of information. c:

Noaani

My opinion on this is that Intrepid don't want to waste any potential "hype" - or engagement - that they could put to better use leading up to alpha 2.

I mean, basically everyone is going to try out at least one of the MMO's that are releasing between now and Ashes eventual release. The thing is, people will still most likely try out Ashes when it is released, even if they are playing another MMO at the time.

Basically, any engagement they generate now will be wasted in the long run.

Austrinaut

I liked it, there were some little tidbits of new info speckled in with the old, Steven's responses really showed the depth of thought, understanding, and care being put into these systems, and that he's gotten much better at minding his word choice during community engagement like this. Great questions from the three Q/A community members too.