I need a Update on the Update!

[GyroParadox]

XD Thank you Nyuudles

[ChickenBranches]

Yep, chicken FTW!

[brook-monroe]

@Heurazio

if you think the actual strategy does not harm the game you should really read some of the negative reviews in steam.

I take your point, but do you know what it takes to get a negative review on Steam?

You just put something on Steam. The negative reviews start rolling in, many of them misspelled, badly punctuated, and written from the viewpoint of an extremely privileged six-year-old to whom no one has ever said “no.” (It’s like Yelp, but without the large vocabulary.) Getting a negative review on Steam is like being told that North Korea doesn’t like you–it’s just expected. You could put friggin’ gold bars on Steam and people would write negative reviews:

• Not yellow enough
• Thought the bars were going to be silver
• Corners too rounded
• Corners not rounded enough
• Only 99.999% pure gold
• Won’t boot Linux
• Only designed for right-handed players
• Too heavy
• Didn’t like the color of the postage
• Too expensive for an Early Access product
• Didn’t realize is measured in Troy ounces instead of regular ounces
• Doesn’t support Oculus Rift

I’m on Team “I Write Software For a Living and I Know How This Works.” I’m not on “Team Emotionally Invested,” because that way lies madness, and this is just a game. Given that Sony (it was Sony, right–if not, sub in the name of the correct investor) showed up with a truckload of investment cash I expect that the team owes more allegiance to said investor now than it ever would to me–and it never owed me anything, because I understand the nature of risk.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that my laissez-faire attitude occurs because I have other things to keep me busy seven days a week, so when the next release isn’t on the “doorstep” when I hit the Web each morning, I just move on to something else. Other people have different priorities, different knowledge, and different life experiences, and I’m just telling you mine.

[Clexarews]

@brook_monroe

it was Sony, right

Yes.

@brook_monroe

it never owed me anything, because I understand the nature of risk.

Most of the post made me chuckle. This made me laugh pretty heartily.

[nevir]

@brook_monroe

Given that Sony (it was Sony, right–if not, sub in the name of the correct investor) showed up with a truckload of investment cash

We keep throwing this around, but I don’t think there’s ever been confirmation of it. It’s a bit of a dangerous assumption to make, given how much it changes perception of the game’s development.

There are definitely avenues other than cold hard cash that Sony can use to help the game (advertising, distribution, etc)

[Vastar]

@Stretchious

With regards to minimal communication between the community and the devs lately, I think we need to remember - They’re not EA, they’re not a massive corporate machine with multiple development teams. They don’t have a separate team of people to handle marketing and communication channels.

Almost all early access game dev-teams I follow are similar or smaller sized than the devs of B< and yet everyone of them manages to share a sufficient amount of information about upcoming concepts, some of them even on a weekly basis. Also, the concept artists of B< are already doing a great job with sharing their work, it´s just the lack of information about actual gameplay elements that causes this commotion. (again, I think at least knowing what to expect from combat/progression/titans would be adequate after almost 2 years of development)

PS: Big publishers tend to share less information about the development progress than small early access teams.

---

I also want to put some extra emphasis on this:

@Heurazio

i need to say that B< was promising in the beginning and if they had been acting like in the beginning I never said anything.

TBH: B< looked pretty mediocore when I bought it a year ago but the dev team seemed pretty eager to have an open discussion with their community about every topic. They undeniably stopped doing that:

• Dropping the concept of wearables that give a set-bonus for purely aesthetical wearables: This was just casually mentioned by ben, without even making a seperate thread or asking about the opinion of the community about this beforehand.
• Dropping the concept of tiered worlds: Again just casually mentioned in a random thread, no devlog, and no information about what the new plan is.
• The new titan concept: Not only no sneak-peak for the long-term followers (well this decision maybe had some reasons) but also no information about that change and the new concept in the 5(!) months since the trailer was shown.

I´m not saying that those changes are bad or that no changes should be made but some sort of
"Hey, we thought about dropping concept x because we think it doesn´t fit into the direction we are heading anymore, what do you folks think about that?
or
“We thought about switching concept x for concept y”
threads would be much appreciated.

I honestly can´t say if I would buy B< again if I would rediscover it today.

[T4LCOMX]

im just gonna toss this out there:

there is a game that i play a majority of my time, and im very passionate about it. I have played through it over the last 3 years with many changes; some better some worse. over the course of the games development i have seen one thing happen. the community becomes divided and the devs farther and farther out of contact with the communities ideals… to the point of they just do w/e they want and we can just deal with it.

lucky for me my personal views arent too far from theirs… but even then its sad to see that they for the most part have stopped really giving a poop and no longer let what the community feels influence their product. this isnt necessarily the best thing because there is a portion of that community with legit feedback and good ideas who as a result of being bundled in with the rest of the community are overlooked.

this is what i see happening right now here in this thread.

when someone is ‘fed up’ or ‘had enough’ and you can feel that in their attitude… it starts creating walls and barriers. if we cant properly communicate among ourselves without being passive aggressive and bitter then how can we properly communicate with the devs.

i imagine sometimes that being a developer can feel like being a god looking down on his creation in times of war and turmoil (not that i do or dont believe in god just saying, creation destroying itself)

i have been hoping for an update for a long time now and i spend so much time in the aforementioned ‘game’ that really i dont spend as much time in boundless as id ‘like’ to… but i will say this… a beacon i requested i think in october finally made it in game… over something i worked a bit on and well… that will hold me over till the programming update

also, a lot of what theyre working on according to H’s summary of recent info sounds really technical… and well… technical data doesnt always make for the best read. that might have something to do with it. also… spoilers… perhaps there is goodies they dont want us to know about yet because theyre just that freaking awesome.

that makes me want to start up a conversation about marketing and such but this isnt the place for it and well… it would probably be boring

[Clexarews]

Check here and here for posts from Ben about how Sony has helped with game funding.

[Squidgy]

I think y’all are being ridiculous a little bit right now. I have no idea how you cannot trust the team of devs. I believe in (even if I may not like it/understand it at first) every decision they make because they are a smart and talented bunch of people.

[KuroKuma]

Maybe because you shouldn’t trust in something you can’t see.
We’ve all seen what happend with the whole god and religion thing. Nasty business.

[Vastar]

@Squidgy

I believe in (even if I may not like it/understand it at first) every decision they make because they are a smart and talented bunch of people.

The developers of Assasins Creed: Unity, Rainbow Six Siege, Evolve, The Order 1886, … are probably also pretty smart people…just saying.

[Squidgy]

@KuroKuma

Maybe because you shouldn’t trust in something you can’t see.We’ve all seen what happend with the whole god and religion thing. Nasty business.

But we do see them/it?
We literally play a build of the game and talk to the devs regularly on here. They may not make their own posts, but I’m going to believe that they are too busy working on the game, because that is what they have told us, and my instinct is to believe that people aren’t lying.

@Vastar

The developers of Assasins Creed: Unity, Rainbow Six Siege, Evolve, The Order 1886, … are probably also pretty smart people…just saying.

Comparing apples to oranges. Teams with likely pushy publishers. Bigger teams where the smaller guys don’t get much of a say in the final product, but just do their job instead.

I’m so confused at why everyone has turned. I don’t know whether it’s impatience, but you all just have to wait and be patient and trust in Wonderstruck.

[KuroKuma]

The last few posts did a good job at counting what we don’t see or what we don’t see enough of.
Also that was just a reason why some would not trust the devs if they think they are not transparent enough.

I don’t know if the team sizes are about the same but Subnautica does a great job with their transparency.
They have a Trello board for bugs and for the Roadmap where you can follow what the devs are working on.
Without too much additional effort for the team as it seems they’re using it anyway to distribute/coordinate the work. But I’m not sure about that part.
Surely, there are almost no surprises content wise that way but I’d take that any day for a bit more transparency.

@Squidgy

I’m so confused at why everyone has turned. I don’t know whether it’s impatience, but you all just have to wait and be patient and trust in Wonderstruck.

Nobody has turned (yet) we’re merely suggesting how we think the communication could be better.
Also no we don’t HAVE to trust in anyone. But at the moment we MUST trust in them. Big difference.

Edit. I also understand that there most likely isn’t anything to keep us updated until the C++ update hits. So why not take the “break” to revise the communication so we can start the new C++ era with the best communication solution for both sides?

[G-Sage]

Look,when I made this topic, I wasn’t trying to say the devs aren’t doing their jobs,just that they weren’t talking to the community as often as I’d like. So I just asked the questions I couldn’t find,but tbh…I think that it’s taking a bit long for even the tiniest of development to be shown. Like concept art,or new blocks,or creater animations.

I barely ever check the forms anymore, usually because I don’t think they’ll be anything new. There used to be something new at least every week, not even something amazing or game changing,just to see what the community would say. And not to completely get on the devs, because I love what they’re doing, but I messaged James and Ben like a week and a half ago, and they still haven’t message me back. And I know that messaging me is not their upmost importance right now, but I feel like they’re not even there anymore .

I think a what I’m trying to say is that we just need more communication in the community, nobody wants to talk about what they feel because they think someone will get angry over it or disagree resort in some kind of uncomfortable tension and conflict.
But that’s not what’s going to happen if we all share our opinions respectfully and honestly, not all starts with the developers. We’re like a weird, multi-mothered family,and we can’t survive without the parents(devs).

[james]

Hey everyone.

I’m hoping that we can publicly share an initial drop of the C++ build tomorrow. (That’s Wednesday 6th, for people around the world.)

Likewise, I’ve been playing around with the most recent World Builder this evening, and we’ll also get that out asap afterwards. (Slim chance it’ll happen this week.)

[nevir]

@james

I’m hoping that we can publicly share an initial drop of the C++ build tomorrow. (That’s Wednesday 6th, for people around the world.)

Awesome! Hell, even if it’s a day or two more than that, I’m sure we’ll be fine

@james

Likewise, I’ve been playing around with the most recent World Builder this evening, and we’ll also get that out asap afterwards. (Slim chance it’ll happen this week.)

Gah, the suspense I’m not sure I can survive without hierarchical biomes in my life!

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

This conversation is actaully going quite well, I have been watching over it whenever I can since stuff got a bit heated to make sure that it didn’t end in chaos (which it didn’t, damn we have a mature community)

Another good example of keeping the community in the loop is the We happy few team they have weakly updates where everybody tells what they have been doing in a short piece of text, while still of course putting a few surprises aside for the player to meet in the game.

@james

Likewise, I’ve been playing around with the most recent World Builder this evening, and we’ll also get that out asap afterwards. (Slim chance it’ll happen this week.)

And here I thought I was going to catch up on home work this month.

EDIT: Wow, @nevir I know I am awesome but liking my posts the second I post them?

[nevir]

@Thorbjorn42gbf

EDIT: Wow, @nevir I know I am awesome but liking my posts the second I post them?

I try not to read anything; it’s way more fun to just press buttons at random

[Stretchious]

@Vastar

Almost all early access game dev-teams I follow are similar or smaller sized than the devs of B< and yet everyone of them manages to share a sufficient amount of information about upcoming concepts, some of them even on a weekly basis. Also, the concept artists of B< are already doing a great job with sharing their work, it´s just the lack of information about actual gameplay elements that causes this commotion. (again, I think at least knowing what to expect from combat/progression/titans would be adequate after almost 2 years of development)

PS: Big publishers tend to share less information about the development progress than small early access teams.

I only referenced EA as others had seemed focussed on them as a comparison - interesting aside is that James used to work for EA as a product manager (amazing what you can find on the internet - sorry James!).

---

Whilst I do agree with much of your sentiment, I also understand that ultimately all decisions for the direction of B< is down to the developers. Whether they ask for our feedback or not, whether they act on feedback or not - it’s their choice about what goes in, and what doesn’t. I trust them to make Boundless a great game, one that is accessible and enjoyable for as many people as possible. I also understand that they won’t please 100% of the people 100% of the time.

From the tidbits and other information that has already been shared/released, I still strongly believe that B< will be a great game. I’m just sorry that you don’t seem to feel the same way.

---

With the above out of the way…

@Vastar

The new titan concept: Not only no sneak-peak for the long-term followers (well this decision maybe had some reasons) but also no information about that change and the new concept in the 5(!) months since the trailer was shown.

I started a thread about titans a little while back regarding what I had found in the game files, it’s not much… but I may as well share it… from what I can ascertain about them is that, at some point the core of the titan will eject and there was mention of … legs. So whether this means that the core will walk around, as kind of a stage 2 attack phase, I don’t know. That’s pretty much all I know.

---

As for the rest of your concerns, I have no answers for you… hopefully someone else will.

---

EDIT: seems like I was writing that post forever and the whole conversation went on without me (that’ll teach me to watch TV at the same time!)

[Nyuudles]

I was so worried. I was so prepared to flood it with gifs to change the topic . I’m not the type to rush others or push for more info, since I myself like to take my time on things I love doing.