I'd love to see a "Friday Devblog" for PA

Hi Brad, and any other Uber staff who frequent these forums! Any chance of getting a Friday Devblog type thing going on like you see with projects like Rust, etc: For example, check out playrust.com

Basically just a weekly blog where you write about what you're working on, features, fixes, etc. Varrak can talk about his graphics there, Sorian can write about his AI work and you can get this kind of interesting content somewhere more visible and widely accessible.

From what I've seen so far, you've been doing this old more formal style of PR the way it was done ~5 years ago, with "secrets" and "just wait for the big surprise announcement11!!!". I think things have changed now in the gaming industry with early access and kickstarter and this style of PR could not possibly be less effective. I'd love to see you adopt an attitude with the community that is less defensive, more open, and I think it would do wonders for perception of the game - and with the way Steam is becoming more structured now around curator recommendations, game hub activity, and social recommendations I think a more open approach feeds in to that really well.

Food for thought anyway. Consider it this way - so far you've only done things one way, and look at how PA is selling so far (let's be honest - we all can see the Steam best seller list and player stats). Perhaps it's time to try something different and see what comes your way.

Yeah, mby player (like me) would cut em some slack if theyd be given the feeling that Ubers working on the problems, and on what problems theyre workin on

I wouldn't say that's necessarily the case at all. See in particular the video at the top of this thread.

Honestly, I feel that yes something like this would have been a good idea while the game was still in Early Access - that's a stage of development where sales are theoretically less important and keeping your players / testers well-informed on the progress of the game is more important.

However I can very well see the reasons why Uber might want to stick to a more Valve-esque approach to this sort of thing in the future now that PA is a released product. Another game that does this very well indeed is Awesomenauts. The features for the next update are revealed sporadically, with a 'teaser' blurred image occupying the slot for a day or two, then full detail being added shortly thereafter. It keeps people talking, guessing and speculating.

When PA first started, Uber was a very small, intimate game developer. They're now rapidly approaching 50 staff members and still growing. I'm not sure that such a style would be as feasible now.

I'm playing devil's advocate here to an extent. Purely for selfish reasons, I'd love for the devs to fill us in on everything that everyone's doing. It's awesome to see people who love their work showing it off. But that also places a huge amount of pressure on individual developers (what if they have a really crappy week and don't get much done - does that mean they have to tell the world their wife is in hospital?).

It's a good suggestion - one that was tabled a very long time ago now. But I'm not sure whether it's feasible or desirable from Uber's point of view at this stage.

This would definitely be something I would love to see but I feel like it would create some unneeded pressure on Uber. It all just depends on how willing they are to do a sort of weekly update.

Really interesting to read that letter. It sounds like the community has tried to politely suggest this in the past without much luck.

To be honest, even Valve is much better in their communication with the community as compared to Uber from what I can tell. Valve regularly blogs about TF2 at teamfortress.com and you can even email lots of members of their team and get personal replies (I used to be more heavily involved in the competitive TF2 scene).

And yeah, while I agree it does put a bit more pressure on developers, my hope would be that it's that good positive pressure rather than something negative. I think you can also do the blogs in such a way that individuality doesn't come in to it so much - no need to name who is working on what, etc...rather, just what is being done overall.

BTW, I think the Rust team is also pretty big now as well. I don't think size should be a factor.

I think Uber needs something big to change honestly. The status quo isn't working and Planetary Annihilation isn't selling.

I've been feeling lately like Uber was phenomenal with keeping us in the loop when they were trying to get us to give them money for their Kickstarter campaign, and they did do a good job with updates almost to release. But I've noticed a big trend towards silent updates and a lack of communication on their part. They're great at pitching, but I don't just want someone trying to sell me something, but rather 2 way communication and that's not happening. I rarely see devs post on the forums anymore, and game updates alone don't count. Also them posting simply to make a joke doesn't count. Productive comments count, and I haven't seen those in months.

This is true for Uber as well, I have had a bunch of private conversations in the past. Though I feel those can't really happen that much, as obviously the devs can't answer private messages all day.

I'd burn to read the details on Uber's financial situation that you seem to have.

No matter what they do there always will be somebody vocal telling them it's ****. Sad truth.

Uber had a weekly update thing going on for 3 or so weeks, but people used those threads to scream at Uber for not doing what they wanted them to do, and they stopped.

The vanguard newsletters were a thousand times more well received. They scrapped those aswell without stating any reason.

Uber doesn't talk much to the community anymore and that's a huge bummer.

So much of the bad reviews could have been better with just a little effort.

And so many more sales could be had if Uber would just talk more and tell us about what's coming.

Uber is trying out Valve's PR strategy as of late. Guess what, Uber isn't Valve. I don't think they can pull off what a super large company can do.

Uber needs to be more open and communicative with its rabid fan base. Especially since it would help with the bad reviews, instill some trust (since a lot of people don't expect updates to come after SMNC), and generate sales.

At least Uber has started posting on social media again. That's a step in the right direction.

Mainly because the Vanguards were falling apart, they were almost exclusively Realm members, do the Realm always had quite a bit of publicity and it got to a point where it was a little silly, and they had just kicked out Trophy for having an opinion, mentioning Hitler or something idk.

@tHeTrOpHySyStEm , do you remember exactly what happened? I'm pretty foggy.

The reasons why the vanguards were disbanded are more complex than that and had nothing to do with somebody being part of the RLM that was just some parts of the forums enraging at the vanguards. The disbanding happened for other reasons.

If only all of us had been told.

The problem isn't that they couldn't do it, I think they could but you need certain "setup" for it that they just don't have right now due to how the release of PA went down.

Mike

I've not been told anything you have not been told as well, but my memory isn't perfect and I don't really want to start a discussion about why past things like this failed. I do have my personal idea why though, but that's based on pure observation of information you also have.

I also disagree that PA doesn't have the setup. PA has the setup. Yes the late server kinda isn't that great, I am not sure how it will end up working PR-wise, but it *may* work in a way. I mean if PA releases the server with a big news push that is bound to generate positive reactions.

While this is true, it is no excuse for not updating their own website since the 5th of September and not giving a statement there like: "Offline mode is coming!" This forum represents a minority of all the customers and the real problem is how people who are new to the game get their information. Right now people have to go to a specific thread to find a mesage from Brad saying that they work on offline mode. No reviewer will find this information and most of the customers wont bother looking for it here. There is a website with a "Recent News" section. Why dont they use it? Shitstorms on this forum shouldnt be a concern there. Just imagine there was a statement on the website saying: "Offline and saving are coming soon." Reviewers could have picked up on that. I think it is a good idea to publish such statements every week because people who bought this game with expectations (raised by Uber and/or retailers) must have an easy way to get information about these (like offline-mode). The website and the news-section is there. Just use it Uber.

Blaming the forums is no excuse, it is not even an explanation for the silence outside of this forum.

That not quite what I meant. TF2 Released in a much more "Complete" state compared to PA.

Think of it this way, imagine if Uber had JUST released all the stuff one might expect based on the original KS Visualization and it was well polished. While it might have been missing things like Gas Giants and Metal planets the core game of combat across Multiple Spheres was, while it could never be perfect per see, was highly workable considering the circumstances and included things like Offline, Saving and Matchmaking.

The tone of the post release conversation here and elsewhere would be entirely different. On top of that Uber would have lots of great, self-contained content for updates in the form of stretch goals.

The way it is now Uber is going to have to spend 1-3 months just getting the game up to that initial "Complete" state because of the last minute additions and elements left out.

They can get there eventually but they aren't there yet.

Mike

Haha, yeah, no, no further comment, thank you for asking. All I know, is why I wasn't in the Vanguard, and that much I was and am quite fine with.

The message Uber is sent to non-involved people with the disbanding of the vanguards is "These people have other opinions as we do so screw them". That's exactly what I got from Uber's actions. The fact that this happened when lots of this forum's members revolted against the poor balance decisions Uber took further reinforces this interpretation.
No statement, no explanation, nothing - just like with the debacle we currently have.

I am quite sure that was not the reason.

Which I find odd. SMNC was a game that got weekly content patches and updates for the whole time Uber were actively supporting it. If it's one thing to expect from Uber from their past is that their games ARE updated regularly.