What can we do for the backers?

I'd rather they worked on the game rather than occupying their time trawling the forums and responding to backers. Could they give more interaction? Sure. They're going to be rushed to get the game finished for xmas though. I'm pretty sure that's more important.

That's why they're hiring a community manager. Someone whose sole purpose is to be a conduit for the Devs to talk to us, and us to talk to the devs. It's great that Uber is aware that there is a problem.

It's just a shame it took so long and there wasn't anyone to take up the slack.

I empathise with the Devs, when it comes to the pressures of making the game. This was why I made suggestions that are mostly, things that Uber has already shown they are willing to do.

As it stands, they are doing a lot better than most developers when it comes to community interaction. I don't know the precise time constraints that the devs are under. But I do know that the present system is not without flaws, as has recently been demonstrated. I like the livestreams, but I also understand that they take a surprising amount of preparation, which is why I suggested simple forum changes instead of something that I think would take time away from developing features. In fact, in terms of time spent on the forums, I actually believe the suggestions would take up very little indeed. Perhaps the equivalent of less than few minutes a day, although I accept this would be difficult to gauge. I don't think that delays are a necessary outcome from a little more structured engagement with the community, but even if they are, I would rather have a slightly delayed game that was improved and refined with cogent feedback, then an on-time one that wasn't.

Obviously, I'm not the one that gets to make that decision. I hope that the community manager position can help alleviate some of the issues, but until that post is filled, I believe the solutions presented above would be a very lightweight way of improving interaction in both directions. After all, if the devs get higher quality feedback because we know what is more useful to them, then that will ultimately save time as well.

The alpha backers have invested in a project here with no clear picture of the end result, we just trust Uber Entertainment to develop a game that atleast does what they advertised. But the devil is in the details here, it is those details that really shape how the end result is going to look like.

I think what most people here eventually want is a true RTS that has plenty of diversity in terms of strategy and tactics. There are still many questions left unanswered on how Uber Entertainment wants to realise this.

Questions like:

• How will the use of tiers affect unit/building interaction and diversity?
• How will the orbital layer influence gameplay and what kind of interaction will be possible with celestial bodies.

Since the answer to these type of questions can have enormous consequences to how the game is going to look and feel like. It is not very reassuring when these questions receive an incredibly short answer and are basically being pushed to the sides. Personally I wished that the more important subjects were actually something the developers would sometimes discuss with the community instead of giving short answers.

That does not mean that I don't know the developers are working on a tight schedule, and it is not always feasible to spend a large amount of time discussing things. So the problem in my opinion isn't so much with the quantity of the communication, but rather the problem of it not being very reassuring as the current style of communication hardly addresses the issues the community is really concerned about.

Uber could have done it like "back the game, and shut up, and play it when its done". They allow us to participate and communicate a lot more than it is regular in the industry.

Simply shutting down spam threads and responding with single sentence replies to a complex, multi-faceted debate is hardly any better than not responding at all.

As MadScienist said before, it's gotten to the point where there are people who were previously staunch defenders of Uber, are turning into ambivalent lurkers or worse, actively calling out the Devs with angry posts.

While the Devs may have no obligation with regards to an increase in communication, they ignore doing so at their peril.

I wonder how many developer posts is "worth" the investment backers put into Planetary Annihilation. $0.10 per developer post? Do we run out of this entitlement at 1,000 posts for those who spent $100?

As for we who backed the game, is this all of us? Are the developed obliged to give us this special attention, even though there could be a lot of backers who backed the game, but aren't on the forums?

Don't get me wrong, I've already posted in support of the general idea, Nanolathe, but the posts are becoming increasingly more judgemental. I shall refrain from saying "whiney", but it's certainly trending in that direction. I'm all for supporting an increased fan-developer relationship, but such things should form organically.

Not through demand, and not through the developers working in perma-crunch.

Isn't whether someone backs and comes to the forums to engage or backs and avoids the forums rather inconsequential? How else would you see the Developers interacting with all the backers? one-to-one personalised email conversations? I don't there's anyone who's idealised outlook on life stretches that far without being delusional.

And yes, I agree with you that the posts are becoming very judgmental to the point of actual outbursts of anger and frustration in some cases. I don't condone it... but I can understand their position.

I would simply ask for their input, and if it does not appear, sigh and move onto greener pastures. While playing the game, of course.

But I have a rather relaxed notion on this life-or-death medium people call video games (a joke, a joke I say! I am rather ambivalent as a rule though)

Personally, I'm very much trying to avoid coming across as being, whiny, judgmental or entitled. As I've said a lot, I'm genuinely very sympathetic about the devs situation. My only goal here is to try come up with some suggestions as to how both the devs and the community can work together to create a better game.

As for the argument that "we backed it, so we should get a say", well there's a number of points here. Some of them valid, some of bordering on very self-entitled and corrosive. I don't particularly want to talk about this too much, but we should probably discuss it now before it grows further.

Lots of people did back, partially based on the idea of participating in the development of this game, in however small a way. If uber continues to read these threads, then that has been fulfilled. The issue is that some of the more judgmental folks don't think it stops there. They think that they are entitled not just to say their piece but to have it carried out as well. That is NOT how this works. Uber have complete and final say over any and all design decisions. It's their game, and we all agreed to this the second we hit that "complete payment" button. I really dislike talking about this from a contractual perspective, because it takes a lot of the joy out of game design discussion, at least as far as i'm concerned. I want uber to talk to us more because they care about what the community has to say, not because they feel obligated to.

I believe that how well the dev/forum-goer relationship works here will be an issue of importance in the future. Beyond just Planetary Annihilation. The better this relationship works, the more people will continue backing such projects in the future. The better the feedback is, the more likely devs will consider going the kickstarter route in the future.

My honest feeling is that Uber actually are taking feedback on board. They just haven't done the best job of communicating to us how exactly. They seem like nice chaps, and they do seem excited to share with us the things that have been released so far. We actually are getting lots of information from the devs, jut not necessarily the key things that people really really want to see. Hence the suggestions to how we might get the devs and the forum-goers on the same wavelength.

Very well said sir. Very well said indeed.

You're exactly right there.

I will give some honest feedback on their communication:

Taking the last livestream of August 14th as an example, a few things came to mind. Firstly I was annoyed at the amount of times people were complimenting eachother or the technology they use. While I think it's a good sign that the relationship between the developers is probably very good, it doesn't hold much value when it takes such a substancial amount time that could have been used to discuss the actual game.

Secondly, they pick some user questions, but they seem to be in a hurry to answer those questions.

At 41:50-42:00, they litterally say "We can't answer that", "Just send units". It would be much nicer if you'd actually explain why you can't answer that, than giving the same workaround answer that we've already heard before. At 43:06 "We have a lot of great ideas", immediately I feel like asking, "What kind of ideas?". Then at 44:43 "Sorry these questions are really long" without even properly reading the question out loud, and then the question is basically phrased in such a way that you still don't know how the game is going to shape up.

These three questions have in common that they all share the idea of "We won't tell you anything until after it's been implemented.". I am really curious as to why this approach was chosen, why can't we discuss ideas before the functionality makes it into the game?

Lastly I wonder why Uber Entertainment even tries to focus on user questions to the art theme of livestream, it really isn't important to stick to a certain theme for user questions in my opinion.

I think this livestream is the perfect example of the problem here, Uber Entertainment wants to be really involved with the community, but by exposing only the progress they are making on the long term, and avoiding questions that relate to the short term of the alpha is really really disappointing.
Because all the community can do is give feedback on the information they do have, a community can't give feedback if all the information relevant to give feedback on is being kept a secret.

In other words, sorry to say it so bluntly. But why don't you just feed us with something to keep us busy so that we won't have to start worrying about how the game is shaping up?

@YourLocalMadSci:

I didn't mean to infer that you (or others) were necessarily acting in that manner. It's more I was trying to prevent the inevitable decline that occurs when people asking for something keep asking for something (especially without a developer response).

I agree with your premise in general, and I only hope such constructive posts continue in the future. I'm very much against absolutes you see - X is better than what Uber is doing, or Uber should be doing this, etc - not that you are saying these things, but these are examples of recent threads I have both read and/or participated in.

At the end of the day, we are the fans. We are not the developers, even if we have experience in the relevant sectors. We are not the ones working 50 hour weeks to get this game working. That is all I ever remind people of, and I do realise that people agree with this in general.

I'm just glad there is such constructive feedback that I don't have to descend into semantic wrangling in favour of the devs

You are annoyed that people are excited about what they are building? What do you think gets technologists up in the morning? What do you think excites us? Sour grapes Ghostflux, sour grapes.

Because we have limited time and I want to answer as many questions as possible? Come on, really?

That's because we don't know how the game is going to shape up. You really have an odd view of game development if you think we have everything figured out before we implement it. I thought I've been pretty clear that we are building towards the vision shown in the video. Getting from A->B is not a simple process of implementing some giant game design document. It's an iterative process. We iterative and build towards the goal, there is no way to leap to the final game without going through the intermediate stages. You don't seem to understand that apparently.

Because it's a circle jerk until it's implemented. And implementation is often driven by complex technical issues. Sometimes we don't know exactly what something is going to look like. A lot of times things are also done in passes. First pass to get something functional. Second pass later on to polish. Sometimes more passes as things change or need to be updated. Again, it's iterative.

Games are not made through a magical process of turning design documents into code. It doesn't work that way.

Not sure what you are saying here.

Like what?

What is being kept a secret? Are you saying you want to simply hang out in the office and listen to all of our conversations about the game and the implementation. I think your expectations here are MASSIVELY outside what is reasonable. You are way out of line IMHO.

Because we aren't your mom.

We don't know until we build it is the answer to both of these questions. I thought I've been pretty clear in multiple places that we build games using iteration.

I agree with some of point being made. I would love to have more information about early progress of anything, and give feed back ect.

But there is a big rabbit hole Uber can fall into, and i believe it's said before.
When you release allot of information early, you create expectations, and there is where it can go wrong.
Giving allot of information might satisfy allot of people, but what if those expectations couldn't be met, you just aswell could get bad enviroment ect. But it all starts with the truth, and i think they can be a little bit more honost or forthcoming in either questions or information, because at this point it feels like we are abit ignored.

But still i feel this game will be great and i love there work, keep it going!

I think the livestreams and backer communications are as good as they realistically can be without actually being on the team. Maybe that can be a pledge level for the next game; a 24/7 telepresence robot in the uber office (HEIROGLYPH FOR JOKE HERE).

Like neutrino said, a lot of that criticism comes from that narrow edge of knowledge where you know enough about games and development to appreciate this intimate pre-release coverage, but not enough to know what to reasonably criticise.

The issue is that Uber has already created expectations by making so many updates and live streams during the Kickstarter and Pre-Alpha. They've promised Backers a peek at the game while it's still in the oven, and they expect to get that peek as the bread rises. The reason everyone is making a big stink is because nobody at Uber has said anything about the *important* stuff. Yes, we are very interested in art, I personally am REALLY eager to play with the booleans, but that's not what is important at this stage. Because you guys are always saying "We're in alpha, so our priorities are different than what you may think," then you say absolutely nothing about those priorities for upwards of 3 months.

It's not that you are not being communicative, but rather you are communicating about the wrong things. This is a good example of that; nobody on your side wants to write a long-winded response to negative feedback, and nobody on our side really wants to read a long-winded response to negative feedback. We would much rather see the progress on the modified 2-body situation, how you guys are going to handle orbital, obscure hints at what might be in the next patch, what you guys are spending the several million dollars and full-time jobs you have on. We are interested in that stuff, so interested that if we don't get a look at it on a regular basis we will be confused and somewhat violent.

they communicate everything they can as it gets completed. At this stage they're clearing a massive hump of getting interplanetary stuff working, along with a thousand other to-do's. Some people need to chill out and be patient

Who doesn't want more information about the development of their favorite game. At the end of the day though, you have to remember that while ever Neutrino or Garat take time out to give you information, they are using time which could be spent working on the game. I like they read the important topics on the forums and so they understand if the community feels something needs changing, but I dont want them to have to post on every page reassuring people they haven't forgotten the problem!

Personally, I seem to be one of the few people that has been happy with the level of communication from the Dev team. I had always thought that this would be a "devs make game feature - implement feature - then we give feedback process". It feels a bit like some people on these forums are getting a little too self entitled with how much input they should have - Uber are the developers here!
I do agree with Mushroommars though. It would be nice to see a few more of the 'important' features come up in the live streams. Sure, I liked seeing the planet iterations... but you could have done that in a forum post and saved 45 mins. What I and I'm pretty sure everyone else wanted to see was orbital.