I’m now part of this community for a few weeks and my wish of course is, that the number of participants grow contineously. Therefor a lot of marketing is necessary and you guys probably have all hands full with programming / discussing ideas etc.
Did you ever think of asking, if someone voluntarly wants to cooperate with you. I don’t mean with critizising your concepts or influencing you ideas. I mean in writing posts for you or doing kind of update messages for your website. In this forum I can imagine at least a handful who would like to support you this way, to help you being able to concentrate on your content. There are some people spending so much time in writing posts (really big posts) in this forum, it feels like they are already participating on your project all day anyway
If you now think: “ah, we have to keep him informend all the time about what we are doing, so he can write the posts. Then we can also do ourself”… Then think of skype and WebEx demonstrations. The same way like you guys discuss in your office together. You could let someone take part via webcam.
I’m just thinking loudly here and not offering myself, since my english would be quite catastrophic I guess xD But maybe other people here feel called. Maybe do a request for it. This game is public funded right? So most people would not mind if you were asking for voluntarly help inside the community and for the community.
I think letting an ordinary fan write down the devblogs would be highly unprofessional for a game studio.
I´m sure that the devs would hire a professional PR person if writing out devblogs would be that time consuming.
If you want a preview of the upcoming stuff from a player you could bug @Tahru and ask him if he is willing/allowed to share some of the stuff he has seen during the Skype calls with the devs.
If you want to help then help in the ways you can, i personally try to consume any information i can get my hands on and then spread it around to people guiding various discussions and adding things mentioned by the devs, also spend most of my time on the steam hub answering questions about the game to the best of my ability and trying to squash the lies of those who spew them.
Not to make it all about me though, what I’m trying to get at is that with dedication there is more than enough information and more than enough things you can do to help. i never felt like I ran into a lack of information from the devs. if there is something we can always just ask them anyways, most of them are kind enough to spend some time answering stuff.
I can only speak for myself, but as someone who have been with the game for over a year I feel like they are really good at mingling with the community and listening to feedback. I will be the first in line to criticise what I find to be a bad idea or concept (which tends to bother @ben quite a bit xD) however an open opinion is one of the most important things for the game in this stage i reckon.
I don’t think it’s that unprofessional. Everything is matter of time and more important matter of money. If you have to decide between communicating and developing you already see, there is a lack of time. I already saw some post “sorry guys, we could not read it all”. Of course they can’t because there are priorities.
So my proposal is just using sources most efficient. And of course it should be not just someone. They should decide themself who is appropriate for this task. And of course I thought o someone like you Zouls. You are one of the most active guys here.
My personal advantage is, a bigger use of official information to the outside. If you yourself answer things there is lack of developers touch. I know you are long time here, and maybe someone else knows too. But for the most people reading your posts you are just a single opinion and not an official developers message. Can you follow up? I really don’t mean it negatively.
of course i am, i argue from my own perspective, anything else would be absolutely foolish. i’m never going to say ‘‘the developers thinks this’’ cause how the hell would i know. I can however remember most things mentioned by the devs, so if there are discussion on forexample npc’s i can say ‘‘the developers went out and said that npc’s are not part of the plan, however they mentioned that they liked the discussions going on so there might be a chance for adding it if you have strong enough arguments’’
we shouldnt need official information all the time, they love teasing which is freaking annoying, but it also means we get stuff between the posts, and as you can see on the stats
i have read 20300 different posts/replies, i also have direct contact to Ben and James over steam in case i need to ask something or if there are something specific going on i think they should take a look at, i dont abuse that however, what i mainly take pride in is consuming everybodies opinions, thoughts and wants, to check the pulse of the community what is wanted and what isn’t. But even then i still say i only argue for myself or for something i have definitive proof for. if people want the answer to a question i will give it to the best of my extent, however it is still my answer, if people demand an official answer from a dev i guess they just wouldnt get it most of the time, which is why i try to sub in
(i really do sound like an arrogant prick writing like this dont i? apologies)
You got me super wrong I appreciate your activity a lot.Just said, if someone in the world wide web who is interested in Boundless reading your post, he is reading nothing more then a “fan post”. He is not knowing you are so deeply informed and your “opinion” can be taken serious.
I just think that the devs could officially activate people like you. Aquire you officially as a right hand, a post answerer, forum scout, whatever. There are a lot of tasks in communicating, the devs just don’t have time for.
Edit: but I not just think of you. They could activate other people like you. A team just focussed on communicating in a way they’d like.
(sorry, edit fuction of this forum is not working for me)
I understand what you mean, i just dont think its something that they should do, i appreciate information however i dont think it should turn into a sort of slavetask where they everyday and constantly have to provide official information to every single question. I honestly just don’t see the need for it.
also i would be waaaay too offensive to work with officially with the devs xD
Well, I don’t see a slavetask of someone voluntarly joins them
In any way, how many plattforms are there, where they spread information? Right now, just know the website and the forum. Can imagine, there is also a facebook page and some “steam forum”? the steam forum I would not even know where to enter xD Probably youtube is also used.
I think every of this plattforms should have nearly the same amount of information. (okay depending on how much it is in use). Because every person has his own idea of finding information on the internet.
Furthermore, in the task of a “right hand” I don’t just see spreading information to the community and independent people. I also see it in collecting information and sum it up for them (if they are interested in it and getting most of the activity of the community). As I said, I already saw them writing, they don’t have time for everything.
I’m glad you already have that in mind! And if you really consider people from the community, maybe already make contact.
I now how working in projects is, by my own job. So I experienced how important it is, to settle up things as soon as you can, even when a starting date is in the future. If you see a time window for this between your dayli work, try to get it on.
Even better if it would be voluntarly first, if these costs would not be part of your plan. Finances are always part of a project and I guess your ressources are wisely seperated in different areas. So this would be a chance of benefit with minimum of effort Even when it is maybe not the usual way in developing games.
I think collecting information out of the forums to sum up and inform you in a short version, already makes sense.
I’d really like to participate too, but I got a full time job in project management, that’s eating a lot of my time. The rest is for enjoying your game, watching through the forum and having good time with my girlfriend haha I am glad to have already joined this community, supported you and being able to see the nice developing.
Maybe it’s even a success story and potential game developement guide for future start ups You never know…
I’m glad you already have that in mind!