Expedite game production pls

[Gigabear]

Can't say I'm too confident in the roadmap, when "roadmap next week" doesn't mean roadmap next week. Or the week after.

Honestly Grummz has broken more commitments to me personally than I can count, all of them revolving around when something would happen. Had he kept them, everything that happened in the last several months wouldn't have, and all of it would have been resolved privately with little issue for all concerned.

Regarding the roadmap, It's been 6 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars making a DEMO for a kickstarter. There is a jumping off point coming up fast if progress doesn't materialize.

The big tragedy is that someone completely on the outside of the project won't know where to go or what to read to know what's going on. The most obvious outward-facing information sources are stale.

Someone said in the discord during the last CC we need a community manager to take care of that. I demurred on replying then to avoid drama but...hard agree.

 

[Ronyn]

I won't speak to the development of the game, that is not my department.

As for the marketing and social media aspects. Restlessness I get, I really do, but fear not folks there is a plan at play. There are reasons why our outlets go quiet for long periods then have pushes of content.
It relates to what is proven to be effective at growing community sizes, leveraged with what types of content we have to show.

Sometimes I wonder how interested people would be in reading/hearing a more comprehensive breakdown for how these strategies function, what data they are based on and why they are used. As of yet it seems like most people don't really want to know how I get this whole marketing/community building stuff done in my day job, how I've managed to stay relevent in that business for over a decade, what challenges one has to overcome to do it, or even how we have worked to grow em-8ers community over the years.
I'll give you a hint, it's not always as obvious as it seems like it should be.

I suppose if enough people actually want to know about this stuff I can lay it out more one of these days.... I just don't want to bore people to death. lol

 

[bengal]

Sometimes I wonder how interested people would be in reading/hearing a more comprehensive breakdown for how these strategies function, what data they are based on and why they are used. As of yet it seems like most people don't really want to know how I get this whole marketing/community building stuff done in my day job, how I've managed to stay relevent in that business for over a decade, what challenges one has to overcome to do it, or even how we have worked to grow em-8ers community over the years.
I'll give you a hint, it's not always as obvious as it seems like it should be.

it really isnt a matter of how interested in reading/hearing BUT just that things are making headway. And truly this "far" in the project there should be much more to see without any excuses.

As I said before you (team) doesnt need to spend hours on this, give us the cliff notes keep it simple as well as keep our interest in this project. As someone said there comes a jump off point & im sure many have reached it & there are many more who are getting to that point

 

[Pandagnome]

There is a jumping off point coming up fast if progress doesn't materialize.

There is delays with extended delays that one can take so much of such delays before inevitably jumping without delay. Honestly though i hope that this won't happen!

(team) doesnt need to spend hours on this, give us the cliff notes keep it simple

Just like the Em8er Medium

I wonder how interested people would be in reading/hearing a more comprehensive breakdown for how these strategies function, what data they are based on and why they are used.

how I've managed to stay relevent in that business for over a decade, what challenges one has to overcome to do it, or even how we have worked to grow em-8ers community over the years.
I'll give you a hint, it's not always as obvious as it seems like it should be.

I suppose if enough people actually want to know about this stuff I can lay it out more one of these days.... I just don't want to bore people to death. lol

Just add some fantastic ms paint doodles and it will be perfect!

 

[Gigabear]

I won't speak to the development of the game, that is not my department.

As for the marketing and social media aspects. Restlessness I get, I really do, but fear not folks there is a plan at play. There are reasons why our outlets go quiet for long periods then have pushes of content.
It relates to what is proven to be effective at growing community sizes, leveraged with what types of content we have to show.

Sometimes I wonder how interested people would be in reading/hearing a more comprehensive breakdown for how these strategies function, what data they are based on and why they are used. As of yet it seems like most people don't really want to know how I get this whole marketing/community building stuff done in my day job, how I've managed to stay relevent in that business for over a decade, what challenges one has to overcome to do it, or even how we have worked to grow em-8ers community over the years.
I'll give you a hint, it's not always as obvious as it seems like it should be.

I suppose if enough people actually want to know about this stuff I can lay it out more one of these days.... I just don't want to bore people to death. lol

All of the marketing strategies aside, there are limits to how long a project can be kept in pre-pre alpha. Crixa has already crossed over that limit. 6 years is way too long, even accounting for the limited resources of the team.

But that isn't really a problem by itself. It's also about trust. About backer confidence. How many times has kickstarter been a few months from now or this year? Home build was announced like 18 months ago. Bridge packs? 30 days came and went over a month ago.

So now we have this roadmap. Great, except that I have every expectation those timelines will be blown right by. I'd have to be a complete doofus to expect otherwise given all that has happened in the last few years. Grummz doesn't even have the three people hired that will be required to hit those deadlines. Come on.

And Kamen America? REALLY? We don't need more community members, we need to take care of the ones we freaking have. Not to put too fine a point on it but I'm still waiting.

 

[Ronyn]

Ok so what I'm hearing is...
Ya'll want me to roll up my sleeves and start coding!
Ronyn to the rescue! lol

J/K

I do hear your concerns ya'll. So does the big man himself. I'll leave the dev talk to him.

 

[Gigabear]

You jest but I had that exact thought process moments ago and seriously considered making that exact suggestion. But I also suspect that we have a somewhat different view of the state of things. My view can be summarized as "two minutes to midnight."

 

[Pandagnome]

All of the marketing strategies aside, there are limits to how long a project can be kept in pre-pre alpha. Crixa has already crossed over that limit. 6 years is way too long, even accounting for the limited resources of the team.

I have no idea on that what i do know is can see they are putting more effort.

isn't really a problem by itself. It's also about trust. About backer confidence. How many times has kickstarter been a few months from now or this year? Home build was announced like 18 months ago. Bridge packs? 30 days came and went over a month ago.

In my little job as an example we were promised more resources, a pay rise, additional uniform as our old one's are old and worn out. Also promise more training to improve on what we already knew.

Sadly not everything happened resources was still not there so we had to ask others and get some from helpful donations. Pay rise didn't happen either and some folks had their work hours cut during the difficult period.

After almost 9 months we got confirmation next month they will add training and uniforms are in stock.
The other promises haven't happened yet and after our meeting they mentioned that some of our specified ideas have been implemented into the timetable.

Its a good sign and if those promise doesn't occur by the end of the year then a big chunk of the staff are going to look for better opportunities!

Grummz doesn't even have the three people hired that will be required to hit those deadlines.

Is a detailed advertisement for those 3 positions placed and are they circulating that around to find the right candidates?

Perhaps the community can circulate this too, to improve the chance of finding them?

Kamen America? REALLY? We don't need more community members, we need to take care of the ones we freaking have. Not to put too fine a point on it but I'm still waiting.

I understand why they did it and its an interesting move to cross promote too. If i didn't know about this wouldn't of found out about Black Hops either!

Looking after the core community of Em8er is just as important we are less likely to vanish in a heart beat either.

Btw the roadmap is good news lets hope it goes as projected.

 

[Gigabear]

I
I understand why they did it and its an interesting move to cross promote too. If i didn't know about this wouldn't of found out about Black Hops either!

Looking after the core community of Em8er is just as important we are less likely to vanish in a heart beat either.

Btw the roadmap is good news lets hope it goes as projected.

I would like nothing more than to be completely wrong and for that Roadmap to happen on schedule, or even close to it. It's definitely a great thing, but it also sets expectations. Not hitting those goals would be worse than not having them at all, IMO.

 

[liandri]

there are limits to how long a project can be kept in pre-pre alpha

Outside of exceptional circumstances, there's a limit to how long games can be in development, period. Hype takes over. Scope creep takes over. Community goes sour. Vapourware in some cases.

but fear not folks there is a plan at play

Trust the plan. Two more weeks.
Joking aside, I'd be interested to hear it. Twitter and YouTube (including Ember Archived) stopped everything at the Crodus Reveal, and while the follower base on both are smaller than the Discord and Forums, I would think to leverage everything together would have been the way to go.

If this some weird psychology thing where you go dark so people eventually wonder what happened, then visit and see all this new content, that's great, but there needs to be new content for that to work.

Just like the Em8er Medium

The EM-8ER Medium has been really good. I don't care much for skin flavour text, but the development updates are engaging, and I'm sure it's less work than editing a video every couple of weeks.

With July just around the bend, time will tell if the roadmap hits the goals. Grummz already clarified the team would communicate if they have to push things back or remove goals, understandable. But it will look bad if goals are missed. Here's to the project hitting everything on time though, that would be fantastic.

 

[Pandagnome]

It's definitely a great thing, but it also sets expectations.

Perhaps this is not a bad thing it is a target, and having a target we can all see that and that should hopefully reinforce and encourage the team to work towards that better.

With any targets sometimes they can finish well in advance, and other times may need to be extended due to alterations, testing or even other non work related reasons etc.

I do appreciate how honest we are and looking at it carefully. We could also consider those possibilities and whats to say also the possibilities of good outcome that success is to happen too?

Maybe i am too optimistic, but if we do not stay positive I fear the flaws would be more highlighted in contrast to the good things.

So i know our eyes are on this, lets all do what we can and help continue building on what we have!

 

[Mahdi]

“Trust the plan. Two more weeks”

Ooooh I have to go there!!

Love that movie! Tom Hanks laugh at the tub scene, my goodness!

 

[liandri]

Question is would that be difficult to add?

I might be misinterpreting your post, but it looks like several different systems.

1. General player retention
2. Mentor program
3. Concierge program
4. EM-8ER team recruitment

I'll stick my thoughts in a spoiler since it got pretty long. All in all, pulling from the community for staff isn't a bad idea (though there can be repercussions if you're not doing "least-privilege") and would/already has benefitted them. Moderation is good if you can get level-headed people who are passionate about the property.

Spoiler: Long-winded Thought

General player retention comes from a good game and a good community. We have a community, now we need a game. Daily Login Rewards/Tasks would give people something extra to do, and another reason to jump on. Same with weekly and monthly versions of those. For Crixa, any time a player logs in is another opportunity for monetisation. You could give players skin pieces, which would introduce them to skins they might not have been aware of (or skins unique to daily rewards). Perhaps they can pay to increase the rewards they get, accumulating more pieces. Or just have the option to outright by the Peerless once they reach a certain number of days.

A mentor program, helping players, should be left to the community primarily with the moderators stepping in only when needed. Players 'vote' for those that helped them. Maybe when teaming up, a player can join a group as a mentor. It'll be interesting to see how Crixa do it. But moderators would step in to elevate people to that level, and perhaps those that want to need to apply. The concern with rewarding these players would be people trying to gain the system for those rewards. They'd have to be linked to that status, and somehow moderators would need to ensure these people aren't just getting all their guild mates to vote them in.

Concierge, already a thread. Relevant to a mentor program if you've joined it because you've been helping people. But you shouldn't be able to buy your way into mentorship.

As for picking up new community volunteers and team members, I can't see why you couldn't have mentor program progression. Mentors could become Player Moderators who can do a baseline level of moderation (local/global chat, flag players/start/stop some events). Player Moderators could operate loosely under an actual moderator, who might recommend them if they do a really good job, get good community feedback, want to progress and there's an opening for it. Mentors and player moderators would essentially be volunteers, and payment would likely come from in-game in the form of Mentor/PlayMod only items, credits to the store (skin redemptions, etc) and perks. You'd likely have additional UI elements to assist as well.

That being said, I don't know how the community team and its parts operate at the moment on a contractual level, and I would guess that they can't talk about it. Moving into "working" for Crixa is a different game and best left to Crixa staff to discuss privately when the need arises.

This is more game-release than right now thing.

Player retention in the now sense lies in engagement in my mind. Roadmap promises builds. Something to talk about, something to show others, something everyone is following the project for. The devblog will keep those who follow closely busy. The Discord will be kept alive by the few until the next CC rolls around and hopefully it'll be more than a couple hundred viewers. And we'll keep posting on the forum, with others spitballing ideas and giving feedback when they can.

Being said, 36.8k forum members (all with my.em8er accounts?) and 11k Discord members... It doesn't feel that big sometimes. But I suppose those who are around every day would pick up on that, and that's kinda on us and our expectations.

 

[Ronyn]

Hoping to keep things on topic here folks.
Keep on making your voices heard about game production.
Folks are listening.

 

[Pandagnome]

I might be misinterpreting your post

You read it very well !

We have a community, now we need a game. Daily Login Rewards/Tasks would give people something extra to do,

Yes and bonus points for taking part in specific topics such as one's for demo feedback etc.

The concern with rewarding these players would be people trying to gain the system for those rewards. They'd have to be linked to that status, and somehow moderators would need to ensure these people aren't just getting all their guild mates to vote them in.

Yes that's an issue then i suppose its up to the moderator / dev team to give out rewards to make it fair.

you shouldn't be able to buy your way into mentorship.

Yes whom ever is willing to put the effort / time to help can have the same opportunity as those who even pay.

As for picking up new community volunteers and team members, I can't see why you couldn't have mentor program progression. Mentors could become Player Moderators who can do a baseline level of moderation (local/global chat, flag players/start/stop some events). Player Moderators could operate loosely under an actual moderator, who might recommend them if they do a really good job, get good community feedback, want to progress and there's an opening for it. Mentors and player moderators would essentially be volunteers, and payment would likely come from in-game in the form of Mentor/PlayMod only items, credits to the store (skin redemptions, etc) and perks. You'd likely have additional UI elements to assist as well.

That's a great idea to develop along side more experienced Moderators / Mentors.
Eventually you could have a good system to cover various time zones so that way there is someone likely to be around and assist.

Plus to be rewarded for all the good help with ingame forms of items is a well deserved gesture of good will from Crixa.

I would guess that they can't talk about it. Moving into "working" for Crixa is a different game and best left to Crixa staff to discuss privately when the need arises.

This is more game-release than right now thing.

That makes sense.

Being said, 36.8k forum members (all with my.em8er accounts?) and 11k Discord members... It doesn't feel that big sometimes. But I suppose those who are around every day would pick up on that, and that's kinda on us and our expectations.

I think much of it is to do with just joining and then not actually being too involved because either they are too busy, can't be bothered, some may have alts, or just put off by the duration?


If we could get an Em8er flyer to print off with details could also pass them out in Game stores with something like E.g. "Shape the future of our Newest planetary warfare game" visit www.Em8er.com to find out more!

Bla bla bla extra information below

 

[Ronyn]

@liandri @Pandagnome
A lot of these community-member-integration into game stuff is really cool.
Once we get to the stage where the game is functional to a degree where that makes sense, I would love to explore what parts of this can be done.

 

[liandri]

... community-member-integration into game stuff...

Off-topic, but it would be good to gather feedback from the few Firefall mentors from around here to see how that program worked and how viable it was. I always saw mentors in chat, any time I got on. Keep it on the backburner for when moderation becomes such a massive task and programmable solutions just can't cut it.
Player moderator comes from Runescape, but might have been explored in other games. If you're interested in some light reading: https://runescape.wiki/w/Player_Moderator

On the topic of expediting game production, I didn't hear much on CC about resolving bugs outside of the occasional hotfix when things go too broke. The logs never give too much information, but you can change the logging in the UE4 demos with little effort for more.
Since it isn't part of the roadmap, being only this year, I'd be curious to know if it's just the most severe bugs that get fixed with each demo release and a big bug bash prior to KS, or if development will slow to resolve most of the bugs as they proceed along.

 

[Ronyn]

Off-topic, but it would be good to gather feedback from the few Firefall mentors from around here to see how that program worked and how viable it was. I always saw mentors in chat, any time I got on. Keep it on the backburner for when moderation becomes such a massive task and programmable solutions just can't cut it.
Player moderator comes from Runescape, but might have been explored in other games. If you're interested in some light reading: https://runescape.wiki/w/Player_Moderator

Yeah that makes sense to me. I agree.

On the topic of expediting game production, I didn't hear much on CC about resolving bugs outside of the occasional hotfix when things go too broke. The logs never give too much information, but you can change the logging in the UE4 demos with little effort for more.
Since it isn't part of the roadmap, being only this year, I'd be curious to know if it's just the most severe bugs that get fixed with each demo release and a big bug bash prior to KS, or if development will slow to resolve most of the bugs as they proceed along.

Hmmm. This kind of thing would be covered in some sort of updates notes right?

 

[liandri]

This kind of thing would be covered in some sort of updates notes right?

The last two bugs I recall being fixed where it was a part of the update were being killed by an inbound THMPR would crash the server (UE5 demo) and omniframe planking after deepstryking in weird places, the latter creating the new deepstryke issue where you now just get stuck (RiftFixes if memory serves).

There's no "changelog" when updates are released, and I don't know how necessary it would be when people are just going to try to break the demo/stumble upon things anyway. It is pre-preAlpha so it's expected. Presumably the changelog information is tracked internally by the devs themselves.

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

Been reading this thread and mulling it over. Just know my eyes are on it and I'm listening.

thank you