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

Tree puns. You gotta branch out.

• Challenges specific to working on a sphere vs a traditional flat map (gravity, distinct play areas)
• Engine limitations/assumptions about the planet's shape

Reading this gives me more ideas:
Tech stuff about how planet generation works. Yes we know csg, but how does it handle the generation process? Does the random generator first produce a list of commands that is then executed by other parts of the system or does it directly modify the planet? What parts of it could be replaced with i.e. a file loading mechanism to load maps that fall "from the sky" (or out of a map editor somebody may want to write) etc.

Basically all these things that make it easier to understand stuff for future modding

You and I see the world very differently. You have faith in what they tell you and I am more skeptical. So, I will continue to be critical and give them dirty looks while you continue to have faith. Personally, I think it is healthy.

Also, I disagree that my comment is a fantastic reason for Uber not to be as transparent with their development process. In fact, it should indicate the opposite. There is a lack of communication on major subjects, in addition to small subjects, which adds to many peoples' skepticism. I wouldn't have much skepticism if they communicated more on what is going on (on these major topics) or if they were progressing forward, however slow they are going.

Like you, I also feel they need to communicate more on what is going on (on these major topics); showing people that they are taking steps in the right direction . This would help reduce the general skepticism/negative tone (at least from me). For example, a screen shot of some code, something benign, that just shows that it is being worked on ... or a %-complete, saying something is 2% complete is better than silence.

"Trust me" comments, do not do it for me. Until they show otherwise, I say they are full of it.

I basically only come to the forums to read the Devs posts. A little over a month ago these became less, and less, and less, and now they are basically nothing but planned PR posts. I miss reading honest communication from the devs about what they are working on, but also understand that the community was basically not able to handle this. Nowadays the forums are just the same drama thread over and over and over again, and I come here only maybe 5 minutes a day.

NO! I have no idea who you are or what types of things you want to talk about, or what you have already written. Literally only the 10 forum regulars here know who you are and what you've written before. As someone new to the forums, I've never read anything you've written, nor have 99.9% of your customers (and potential customers) who may go on to complain on the Steam forums, on Reddit, on Metacritic, etc. about a development team that has under-delivered and nobody has heard from since. Stop expecting people to come to you and instead go out and talk to them - seriously, do you guys not know anything about PR?

1) Create a blog
2) Post on that blog
3) Link to your posts on your Twitter, Facebook, Steam Activity, Steam Forums

Seriously, take a look at how the Rust team is handling things. Blog: playrust.com
They even have a god damn Twitter that blogs commits to their rcs!: @RustUpdates

I really like what forrest writes :S
http://forrestthewoods.com/the-tech-of-planetary-annihilation-chronocam/

lol, you ask for more communication and when a dev thinks about writing interesting stuff you don't want him to. You are not looking for a blog, you are looked for advertisements.

What makes you think I only want advertisements? To me that blog post you linked to is awesome, and is the best sort of advertising. To be exceedingly clear to rule out any chance of misinterpretation (which seems to be your forte), I am suggesting forrestthewoods write about literally anything he wants at all about the game. Anything. Now go ahead and misinterpret that.

How does that match up with the big "NO" you wrote two posts above?

The kind of people who are interested in tech details are not the majority. To the majority, this probably wouldn't be all that interesting to read, hence why it's about asking what the target audience wants, rather than a general advertisement.

A response to the general sentiment of the post which was "we know the types of things he has written and who he is, etc." Seriously though cola, if you read the rest of the post it was abundantly clear what I was saying. How you came to interpret that as "when a dev thinks about writing interesting stuff you don't want him to" is absolutely beyond me unless all you did was literally read the first word.

People are looking for signs of life from Uber.

A pulse.

Almost every second post on the Steam forums, Reddit, etc. is "Is this game dead?" I agree there are degrees of interesting details Uber could share. But that's a subtlety we can discuss later once we ascertain whether the patient is dead or not.

They released a patch a day or two ago, one should assume a game that releases a patch every few weeks isnt dead at all.

I guess you meant to make it clear that the issue is not forret writing a good post, but that it needs more visibility. I guess that's true. Uber could do more into that area for sure.

I write blog posts in my spare time because I enjoy it. But I also only write when I get a creative spark that excites me. It's why my blog is updated very irregularly.

I've already written, in great detail, about the things from PA that I really wanted to share. I've got a very long list of non-PA things I want to write about. But right now there's nothing from PA lights that creative spark for me. I do still chime in on technical threads from time to time of course.

Anyhow like I said before, if there are technical topics you want to hear more about I'd love to hear them. I like writing things that other people enjoy and I'm never sure what it is that you guys do and do not find interesting!

@forrestthewoods One thing I'd love to hear about is what it's like in the office. How do you guys organise things, what does your day to day workflow look like, what was it like to expand the team / move to another building.. and so on.

That kind of everyday life thing is one of the big things I am hoping that the documentary will show us. It would definitely be nice to get an inside look a little sooner than that though.

i'd imagine an insane amount of coffee and bacon has been involved

Thank goodness! I know you've been doing updates, but I was a little worried about long-term. This game is a diamond in the rough. As it gets refined and buffed people will see its beauty.

Whether they continue to update the game depends solely on whether they have the finances / continued projects pulling in money to support that development.

Toy Rush was a modified PA-engine game though iirc (I think it was Toy Rush?), so it seems quite likely they're going to continue to do their best to monetize their investment in their engine tech, showcased by PA.

I'm really hoping they'll manage the IP well enough to tackle a PA 2.0 (PA:FA?) in a year or two, where they can go back and iron out the issues from the start, now that they know exactly what the pitfalls and challenges of a spherical RTS are.

Outland Games on iOS. Toy Rush was made in unity.