What can we do for the backers?

Possibly use it to help flesh out the galactic war feature? See what backers want from it and stuff like that.

I'd definitely suggest throwing out ideas to the backers for brainstorming.
Also I'd suggest keep doing what you're doing but do take time out for rest.
Maybe perhaps during the weekend you could arrange for 2 vs 2 tournament of devs and backers So all 22 of you guys kicking back against 22 backers on the alpha?

You could make short few minute videos(no editing or anything) where you talk what you did that day and what you plan to do tomorrow.
Rage moments would be appreciated as well, in case you have a problem with something, you turn on the camera and tell us what is bothering you.

Sort of like a quick video journal just for the Backers Lounge. Unlisted Youtube videos are the most efficient way. Sure the link would get shared around but theres no real way of stopping such information from going out is there :mrgreen:

As someone who writes some truly terrible software but with no game design experience, and waaaaay to much curiosity, I'd be interested in a dev time tracker type thing.

So it could be fully ambiguous/anonymous (2/30/12 whole team: 50% bug hunting 10% unit design etc..) or more specific (Nuetrino: 90% project management 10% teasing forum lurkers Garat: 90% teasing forum goers etc...). Up to you guys exactly how much to share, you can use this to tease upcoming features, either by entering them or labeling them sekret

Also, you could give us heads up if any of you are going to be playing a few test matches

Here is a couple ideas.. though I think they've already been mentioned by others.

First idea.. Perhaps a way for us to play test 'internal' builds before they are released to the public alpha (allowing us to help with 'internal' testing of certain key features). Then later on, as the game develops further (thinking after release), time permitting of course, arranging some game time with the Uber development team (these could be record and/or live streamed).

The second idea is similar to another suggestion, perhaps we could have some updates as to how development time is spent on the project. Things I wonder about is how Uber internally handles feature requests (and bug reports) from the community (I assume Uber has its own internal goals).

"What can we do for the backers?"

Make the game as awesome as possible.

I dunno about this forums, though. Now that the alpha is out without any kind of NDA there isnt much that is not available to see for everyone.

Asking people about their opinion on stuff is definitely a good one. But apart from that? No idea.

The only thing that comes to my mind and maybe would not be very time consuming...

Give us a heads up about what feature might come soon to the alpha... for example more lobby features, or a new unit coming maybe next week... and so forth... If you can even somewhat predict that... or know that...

I would not do anything fancy like videos (sorry guys^^)... I think that is simply too time consuming to do it halfway right.

So part of the issue with more information sharing is that we simply don't have that information to share. I don't know which feature is going to show up when because we don't know how long stuff takes until we do it.

Making videos is great but how much time do we spend doing that vs working on the game? Keeping in mind that anytime we do that it's the people building the game who are behind the camera. So, for example, Howard is running the sound board instead of making music.

One thing I think that we could communicate better is simply how small our team is compared to what it usually takes to build a game like this. Compared to SupCom development we are literally on a shoe string budget. We never have enough people or time to do it exactly how we want, so we have to make a lot of compromises.

Lately we've mainly been spending time on stability which means sense at this point in the alpha. Once we get that mostly sorted we'll be heavily moving back into game features. Obviously we don't totally stop on features now but things like UI are heavily gated at the moment.

Of course we've also been dealing with the whole "steam explosion" of people who thing the game is too expensive. And by dealing with I mean staring on in awe of the depths of humanity.

So maybe more inside baseball type stuff like this? Me just writing random thoughts on the state of the project?

Your random thoughts are always quite interesting to read.
+1

1. Name more things related to the game. I suggested the metal plant as an example. The chrono cam thread was a great use. It is simple does not take much of your time but it gives us something special to work on.

2. Post images as Garat did of what you are working on, no live stream just simple screenshots of new features that have yet to be added to the Alpha. This gives the Non-Alpha backers something to chew on as well.

4sure

Let me guess, you haven't taken the time to play certain .. easy-to-play games in multiplayer much? I will also guess that you likely never worked in customer support either

And yeah, just some random thoughts from you guys now and then would make me a happy camper Observations, things that annoy you, problems that stump you, a cool idea you just got, fun screenshots, amusing bugs, some genius code trick you just got working, the price of tea in china.. You know, the usual. Show that you're human (or at least have decently coded meatbag-subversal routines)

Ooh can you do a video of you guys absolutely trashing the Iron Man game, as it was the only bad game you guys put up on the kickstarter page. I sympathize movie tie in games are never good but that would be a huge reward.
I love this game from the moment you put it on KS and I've loved everything you've done with the Alpha so please do not get offended.

I'd enjoy a daily ramble on what's been done over that day. I'm sure most of it is kind of covered in the update notes for the builds as they are released, but that's just a feature list, and the story behind who did what and how is the kind of thing us rabid backers would enjoy hearing nothing super in depth just ten or fifteen minutes of typing up what's on your mind

I am happy with random thoughts and just updates on upcoming features as you guys are working on them. I would rather you guys be working on the game then spending the time to do a video.

Oh, and regarding the steam issue.. Might I offer a suggestion? I don't know if it will work, or even make things worse, but I think it might help on the shitstorm going on there.

So far you guys have been very professional in your posts there, which is generally the good way for most companies, but right now it marks you as a faceless corporation, which is easy to hate. You also don't give much actual info there, and in that vacuum **** is flying everywhere..

You could try to make a human, honest post there addressing them directly. Don't be a faceless corporation, show that you're human too.

Maybe something along these lines (yeah, going to smear heavily on, and going to add every scrap of rumor from both sides in. This is just an example, probably with lots of wrong "info", and over the top too)

Oh, damn.. That was quite a lot of text.. And I probably look like an idiot for writing that, but still.. Something like that have been kicking around in my head the last days, and it was good to get it written down, if nothing else.

I would like to know more about what you guys are struggling with on a day to day basis.

Stuff like .. we had this problem and we found a solution.
Or we had to skip this idea, we cannot realise it for this and that reason.
Maybe something about the amount of bugs that are solved to get the alpha stable.

I can imagine somebody made a very stupid error somewhere and it fooked the game in some way but it took a lot of time to fix and it was just a small error.
I see people banging their head against the wall, crying .. waaah why did I not think of this 10 hours ago.

Or maybe that brainwave that gave birth to a great idea/solution.

Perhaps tell how modders can help try to build/test/whatever to help

Basically anything that gives some insight would be fun for me
Does not have to be a fancy video.
Blog can be fun aswell.

Well in regards to the videos idea, I never meant anything big, rather just you take a camera in your hand, start talking and have the game on your pc as well as your face in front of it and tell us stuff thats happening, whats on your mind.

I've always been a fan of visual representation of stuff rather than written but if written is better and more convenient for you then I'm in!

I would just suggest that using the backer forum more like a place to shout out ideas and see what we think.

For most of the part, I have faith in you guys. But if your unsure of something and need suggestions or ideas, please feel free to let us know. I am very interested in what is going on and I'll gladly give my input where I deem appropriate.

Even a few posts like these will be good.

I really don't know what to do about that horrid thing that happened with steam. :? A bunch of people looked at the page and saw the price and raged about it. I don't know what to do other than just say, 'if you don't like it and don't want to listen to why it's that way, then please take your money and leave quietly.'

Anyway that's a bit off topic, whatever you guys want to use this forum for, I'm sure I will be happy.