Toast, Can we compromise? No dates, for less fluff?

Hi Mrs. Toast. I was hoping we could compromise.

I feel that its best for the community if we generally know a bit more about the game's development processes, if we get a bit more information.

I don't feel that we necessarily need "dates" but I think we're due for a bit more insight onto how things are going then what we're currently getting.

At the end of the day a lot of us are in for quite a lot of money, and invested emotionally in a way that I think deserves at least some contemplation as to if we can get more accessible inside information.

I know there was a kickstarter backer tier for an inside track...but we were at that time, getting much more information and steven was completely unchecked like some sort of mad man!

Are you guys meeting your internal goals for progress this month? Has there been a problem holding back progress that you just completed solving? Have you all gotten icecream and been incapacitated for the evening?

There are a series of problems to be completed before launch, and they're innumerably reduce-able to steps that can be taken, is there such harm in telling us what step you've just passed? If you develop in sprints, what sprint you're on, and what your goal is for that sprint, and whether or not that sprint completed the goal?

I find that open communication encourages growth because trust can deepen the enthusiasm for the project's sense of genuine fluid progress and is appreciated by potential buyers.

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Comments

Wandering Mist

Just out of curiosity, what would you do with such information? Let's say Intrepid do what you ask and produce monthly reports on their progress for us, would that change your position at all? You've already invested the money and are unlikely to get it back, so having more information changes nothing for you.

I get it, you want to know what is going on. The thing is though that unless you are intimately familiar with all aspects of game design and what is going on at the studio, regular progress reports like you are describing are of very limited use to you.

At the very least, such reports would need to be rewritten in such a way that your average joe would understand, and that takes time. Time that could be spent actually working on the game itself.

Yes, open communication is a good thing, but at the same time we (the players) don't need to know everything that is going on. We don't need to know how many lines of code have been written this week, or how many coffee breaks the devs have taken. What's next? A 24/7 livestream of the studio just to make sure all the devs are working as much as possible?

unknownsystemerror

Yes. Livestream the office 24/7 and monetize it. And make sure to cover it all, so there is none of this employees hiding in the dead zones just so we can't watch them scratching various things and picking at others.

Wrote that in jest, but the more I think about it, if Steven is looking for more ways to monetize the game to offset costs before live launch that would be brilliant. Make people pay $15 for access monthly and get them used to that sub model. Would require minimal upkeep and costs. Basically just turn all the external security internal. Would be a hit. Instead of the Truman Show, they could call it the Sandal Show.

Azathoth

There are a lot of us that invested quite a chunk of money that believe IS needs to keep doing what they need to do, and that our money was not a purchase of stock. So we are not entitled to more information that what has been granted, or what will be told to us when.

All I care about is that the game is released, it has the features they promised, and that it is fun. Knowing what steps are being done between here and there does me little to no good.

I understand the want for more information, but it is not a need. Many other games, so that are still popular, didn't release much of value during the entire development, and people seemed to have been fine in the end with that.

Dygz

That's a Steven call; not a Toast call.
What we typically hear is that Steven did not give approval for info to be released.
We already know we have some articles in the pipeline that don't have approval yet.

I love having more info, but...
It's cool we're getting to play with pieces of the game so early.
Apoc testing is just two weeks away.

Wandering Mist

unknownsystemerror wrote: »

Yes. Livestream the office 24/7 and monetize it. And make sure to cover it all, so there is none of this employees hiding in the dead zones just so we can't watch them scratching various things and picking at others.

Wrote that in jest, but the more I think about it, if Steven is looking for more ways to monetize the game to offset costs before live launch that would be brilliant. Make people pay $15 for access monthly and get them used to that sub model. Would require minimal upkeep and costs. Basically just turn all the external security internal. Would be a hit. Instead of the Truman Show, they could call it the Sandal Show.

Yeah because what the devs need during a crunch period is even more stress from being watched by thousands of idiots who know literally nothing about what is going on......

Jahlon

Metrics are all bullshit, unless you are the guy using metrics to drive data-driven decisions.

Say the metric comes out in August and it says

Environment: 56% completed
Furniture Assets: 95% Completed

You as a consumer thing that its coming along nicely.

Next Month you see

Environment: 59% completed
Furniture Assets: 65% Completed

And you freak the fuck out because the 30% drop in Furniture assets. Then wild and rampant speculation goes on about how far behind they've fallen. You have no idea how much time, effort, energy its going to take to get back to 95% nor do you know why it fell.

Maybe the furniture if floating again and its going to be a few hours to fix, but responsible metric tracking says you mark them as incomplete because that is what they are.

I do agree with you with some stuff and it would be nice if they took a list of all the previous sold/promised cosmetics and made a chart of which ones are in progress for the month so that the community could get excited about what's coming down the pipe. People responded really well to the Quarrior and the Otter and the other bits and pieces we've seen.

Varkun

Steven did say on discord last week that they are working on all of the horse type mounts atm, well the ones from KS and monthly cosmetics. That made me kind of happy suggested progress is being made.

Yes, we all want more but the sandle god has to approve what we see so we just need to be patient. I honestly do look forward to the live stream each month just to see what they might show us.

Karthos

Mrs Toast?

She's obtained a commission and should be addressed accordingly!

Nagash

Karthos wrote: »

Mrs Toast?

She's obtained a commission and should be addressed accordingly!

Did you both assume Toasts gender? Toast is bread ^^

LieutenantToast

As Dygz mentioned, revealing specific details like that would likely be a Steven call, but I can certainly share your feedback on what you'd like to see with the team

Also as Jahlon and Varkun mentioned, one of the things we've been doing recently is taking those creatures and mounts that you all have seen from previous months, and showing you the process of creating them from concept > completion in-game, with animations and all! We hope you've been enjoying these types of videos, in addition to the development peeks behind the scenes during our monthly live streams.

As Apocalypse testing resumes on August 20 and we move forwards towards other phases of testing, we'll be sharing even more videos and blogs on our site and here on the forums to bring you along on the journey with us

sunfrog

Everything is fine. They're catching up on the cosmetic items, environment is ahead of schedule, programming gets back to alpha 1 at the start of September. All other systems are on time and awaiting new orders. It's like we had a flat tire but now it's fixed and Steven is sitting in the driver's seat about to turn the ignition key so we can get going again. Your money is safe. If we hit 2 more delays you can worry, for now, just let dad drive.

Shoklen

Two thoughts flashed into my mind reading this thread...

1) The real time Pizza update bar for ordering online at Domino's...
2) The Windows file system hanging at 98%...

We need a AoC progress bar gif.. haha.. (as a joke)

Lex

Shoklen wrote: »

Two thoughts flashed into my mind reading this thread...

1) The real time Pizza update bar for ordering online at Domino's...
2) The Windows file system hanging at 98%...

We need a AoC progress bar gif.. haha.. (as a joke)

We need more frequent reports from the icecream truck surveillance vehicle.

Azathoth

We should also have live feeds of Steven buying sandals. We would know how development was going based on his purchase. Buying Crocs? Kiss 2021 release goodbye, buying Birkenstocks? We might be getting the next test phase sooner than later

Varkun

Lex wrote: »

Shoklen wrote: »

Two thoughts flashed into my mind reading this thread...

1) The real time Pizza update bar for ordering online at Domino's...
2) The Windows file system hanging at 98%...

We need a AoC progress bar gif.. haha.. (as a joke)

We need more frequent reports from the icecream truck surveillance vehicle.

We have an ice cream truck surveillance vehicle why was I unaware of this and what flavours does it have?

On a more serious note, it is the end of September I am looking towards when we may get some more news on alpha 1 assuming apoc testing goes well.

Shoklen

Yesterday the neighborhood ice cream truck was playing Silent Night.. Very creepy...

Lex wrote: »

We need more frequent reports from the icecream truck surveillance vehicle.

OrcLuck

@Steven what are your thoughts? You asked Mrs. Toast to help channel what we get into a more productive format for the company, is there any budging on this sorta stuff? Obviously you gotta make a call that's right for the business. What opportunities are there for improving on what kind of information we get? I don't necessarily appreciate waiting a month for a nicely written article, that highlights a feature's development, when I don't know what that means toward the greater whole of the project. I don't really get a sense of what an article like the caravan system represents towards progress in the whole project, because I don't know what state that was in before it was shared. Now that its been shared, I don't notice a call for feedback or a timeline for revisiting the topic and seeing what's improved. I don't feel like I can productively add to the process of development. : /

What sorts of information are kosher? Would that monthly progress towards a goal thing be out of line because of x or y reason? What sort of expectations should I reasonably have, and what should I probably lay off on?

I know that I'm a little dissatisfied with the current set up, but should I be? What are the problems you're skirting around by doing things as they currently are?

I doubt there's going to be a situation where there isn't some aspect that's frustrating, but I figure I can't get toward a happier situation without some sort of feedback towards my gruntles and disgruntles.

@Toast Thanks for sharing our feedback. I really appreciate you coming into the discussion and chatting with us.

Viymjr

I am 100% sure that I care 0% about statistics regarding development.

Give me dates!

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