Transparency Poll

Yeah I agree it’s good to have devs that care and communicate. That is good.

But I’d rather them do a reveal 1 month out, and set a hard release date and pricing that doesnt change. Any patching afterwards will take priority.

That would completely stop posts demanding communications. It would be concrete info, and a reasonable time span. Not too early, and no release wiggle room. But that means the devs would have to be 99% ready before communicating anything.

That is how most games work or in some variation of it.

2 Likes

While I do not disagree, I do think we have a slightly different model with Boundless. Since it appears that they do have the players do some of the testing (which is why the test version exists) it is harder for them to put something out for test and be sure they can release it a month later. This past release is a good example where the warping in test was literally crashing the planets. This is probably something that they do not want to release and then try to fix afterwards.

The downside is that we see what is planned for a release before it is in its final state, and that may be part of what creates the anxiety for some players.

2 Likes

How transparent would you like the developers to be?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

These options don’t fit how I really feel. Could you add the option “puple”?

3 Likes

I’m guessing the devs are nearing the 99% ready mark… expect some more information soon! :joy:

6 Likes

If Tacos isn’t an option, I can’t vote.

8 Likes

True, did not think about the testing.

1 Like

Dang it, now I want a Taco

6 Likes

I definitely think we need a different communication pipeline. I do not think the devs need to tell us everything they are doing. As a developer myself, I know how harmful that can be. I do think the community as a whole should not always be left out and always be wondering the status of everything.

Some things that I personally think that could improve things:

  • Better define the role of “Community Manager” and “Developer”. Right now we have a lot of communicates coming directly from the actual devs of the game. On the surface, this sounds like a great thing, but it is not. Devs need their isolation. With everyone pinging James etc. directly, it creates a ton of noise they have to cut through and it should not be their job to cut through it. Not to mention the stress that causes.
  • Updates. We need more communication updates. The most important thing above all else is probably the consistently in these approaches. I do not think the “whenever they feel like” approach is good, but having a set day once a week or once every other week is really good so the community knows when they will get a news update. My favorite ways I have seen it done in other games (that are much larger then Boundless) are
6 Likes

it’s okay, james just ignores me

4 Likes

That is the problem. No one should be directly communicating with devs unless it is on a topic only the devs can solve (troubleshooting a bug that has already been reviewed by Community Manager or getting API key access, etc.). All of the constant pings and everything can really kill productivity.

7 Likes

And mood/morale

I dunno. There are definitely many other companies that do such a terrible job with support that it would be really valuable for the companies bottom line to have more technical review of issues. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a current problem for Wonderstruck but, I think there’s certainly some balance to be made.

3 Likes

There is a big difference between communicating with a client (One person, maybe a couple, they have a similar company culture, communication is generally purely factual, so even interpretations stemming from culture differences do not cause issue) and with a community (thousands of people, comprising hundreds of different cultures, all of which can interpret your words slightly differently, as evidenced here. The communication is emotionally charged, which means that even within the same culture people interpret words differently.)

3 Likes

You and I see things very differently. I try not to force my professional experience in the way I handle things bleed over into things outside of my control. I am also used to only getting information on new content after it is mostly finished, not during development when it comes to games.

3 Likes

And I think a lot of companies that do a terrible job at support try to focus too much on process or have communication issues between Community Mangers/Developers. A community managers role is specificly to deal with all of the noise and ■■■■ so the devs do not have to. That does not in any way mean that is a CM sees an issue they cannot just walk over to the developer and “hey, check out this issue __ posted”. They are just the Tier 1 support essentially, nothing stops them from escalating at any time. Then if it is serious, the dev can reach back out. It is just important that communicate goes into the company through the person who it is their job to (Community Manager).

4 Likes

Client was the wrong word, customers!

Oh yeah, please no ghosting us as far as resolving issues or whatever on a smaller scale. But for development they could do something like what warframe developers do.

They have a livestream with a developer once or twice a week on what seems like rotations on what they are working on over twitch.

and they dont do any big release notes until a month out.

That could help with people’s anxiety maybe.

4 Likes

Not teying to FORCE my experience just share what it shows to be historically true.

The vagueness to info around things coming and when is part of many of the complaints on steam reviews and does directly contribute to people leaving the game whether you want to admit it or not.

Point is either fully inform or dont say anything until release. Tese have been the two rules any company i have worked for or ran. They choose ine and stuck with it. They didn’t do cague posts just to try to keep the attention of their user base.

this is the best imo

3 Likes