Expectations (and managing them)

Erm. Yes it does.
The game that was pitched during the kickstarter was a large-scale multi-planet RTS. PA delivers exactly that.

"Our expectations?"

The community doesn't think one single thing. Individuals in the community do. We are not going to have a bad time at 1.0, but some people might. Some people will engage in drama for the sake of drama. Some individuals will love the game no matter what. Still others will have legitimate concerns, and it may make or break their enjoyment of PA. I don't get who this post is even addressed to.

I don't care at all about ladders or ranking. I do care about the fact that naval sucks. I think the server needs to be released much sooner than much later. Others care deeply about ladders and naval can be fully cut for all they care. Where does that leave "our expectations?" Why should we all expect the same thing?

Us, we, the community, the collective .. you can pretty much bluff and bull-**** your way through anything if you're never specific or precise about who you're talking about or what ideas they're expressing. Ascribing individual thoughts and actions to whole groups is an easy way to create or exaggerate any problem you want to fuss over.

There was more promised in the Kickstarter than that.

Look at the Kickstarter page and tell me that every one of those features has been fulfilled.

I'll list off a few features that have not been fulfilled

• 12+ hour games (PA isn't stable enough for that yet)
• 40 person game
• Split interfaces (maybe PIP could be considered this, but not fully)
  
• Multiple windows
• Saving and sharing systems with the community (we have to use a mod for that)
• Multiple monitors
• Offline play
• LAN play
• Host out own servers
• Asteroid smash tsunamies
• Submarines
• Gas giants (Uber is hinting that they're being worked on and will likely be in at 1.0, but we don't have them yet)
• Co-op local play for GW
• Multiplayer GW
• Clan wars GW
• GW "Dynamic story system that logs your fight and generates exciting counter attacks and special missions"
• Geothermal Plants and liquid metal processing mines
• Re-activatable metal planets

And that's just with a few minutes of digging through the kickstarter page and kickstarter updates.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we need all of these for 1.0 or Uber won't ever deliver or anything like that.

I'm simply saying that we do not yet have everything that was promised in the Kickstarter and we will not have everything that was promised at 1.0.

That's not a bad thing, it's just a fact.

So you shouldn't be saying we have the game that was promised in the Kickstarter.

At this point, who knows.

I mean, im going to put my faith in blast hardcheese, and hope for at least a competent game, with a guarantee of continued development and patching to just add more to the game and make it what the dev's wanted originally but had to cut.

I mean, like I played over 400 hours of supcom 2, so I dunno, I'll be content so long as the bugs are kept in check.

it will take months ... maybe over two or even more years before this game will be feature complete
people should realize this much at least ...
expecting that this game will have most content for fluid and ballanced gameplay within the next couple months is, to be frank, foolish ...
it is also foolish to expect mods to fix everything in a short time period ...

Well mods are really good patches, not good fixes.

It wouldn't really be productive at all to name and shame. You can look through this very thread if you want examples, or at the weekly thread which was yet again closed by the Devs (what is that, the third time?). You can read the subreddit and see the generally strong pessimism that floats there weekly. It's not incorrect to summarize the actions of a group as a collective if it's a reasonably accurate representation. Yes, generalizations about a group always leave out some outliers, but i'm not addressing those people, i'm addressing the general atmosphere on the forums and related places.

You missed +Sing, confirmed in the orchestral announcement.

Thanks, I agree. You can look around even in this thread to find people saying "If I don't get specific feature X, then I am going to be really pissed"! Well I guess that person is going to be pretty pissed when it comes down to it, because we're probably not getting anymore major features. Considering the list of 'major' features to be added before release is probably less than one or two more minor things, a lot of people are going to be majorly disappointed. Personally i'm not suprised, it has been very clear since we entered 'gamma' that the game was simply not going to be able to live up to all it's original promises. I find it unfortunate that so many are unable to accept this. We did get an innovative and eventually open source engine for a new 3d planet-based RTS. I know when I saw the original KS I thought "no way they'll ever be able to do all this", and frankly am pretty impessed they got so far.

The really curious thing is all the self righteous anger at Uber for acting in its own self interest. Now mind you i'm not talking about annoyance over things like the charity commander or some of the reason incidents of hostility from the devs. I'm just talking about all the bemoaning that happens 'because Uber is acting like a PR company'. Of course they are. They never would have gotten the KS without insane levels of hype. This baby was a hype train from day one and anyone who couldn't see that was frankly just a bit naive. I've scaled back my expectations of the games hugely from beta days and I think i'm happier for it. But the sheer intensity of the self-rightousness is I believe what has ultimately resulted in the most Dev hostility. People act like Kickstarter is some holy contract between consumer and company. Uber is a for-profit company acting in it's own self interest. Kickstarter and early access provides zero guarantee of eventual product. I think it is a sign of the failure of these models that consumers seem to largely misunderstand these points and instead feel that every single stretch point is some kind of contract.

My final thought is that there are several people in this thread confusing my advice to generally scale back expectations with some kind of dismissal or apology for the legitimate problems in the game. Let me be clear: I have completely stopped playing the game. I don't find it fun anymore. I don't know if it is the game or me but I'm waiting for something totally different to emerge before I get back in. I am not, in anyway, denying the numerous flaws of the game as it is now or as it will be at release. My argument is simply that if we are unable to collectively accept this 'failure' and move on, the release will be a disaster. The end result will be that none of us will get the game we want. I'm not saying everyone needs to take their gripes home and shut up; I'm just saying that scaling back the intensity and degree of your expectations will make you happier and make it easier to work with the devs towards a better product. If the general consensus is that the game is a failure, I promise you that story is going to be the one that leads come release day. Do we really want that outcome and believe it is the right choice? Personally I don't; I'd rather see a release day that says 'this is a fundementally good game, with a lot of promise, come out and support it so it can get even better'! versus 'this game is proof that kickstarter doesn't work well and that devs will often disappoint or even infuriate their own most loyal fanbase'.

I think the game is really cool. It has problems, but PA is one of only three games I have ever paid money for and I don't regret it.

If I may summarize the OP:
- This is the game you're getting at release, with a few bonus features and bugfixes.
- If you whine about it the media will hear you and proclaim your opinions to the world! As facts!

Choose your stance carefully.

MWO is the biggest disappointment is gaming history!!!

Can you not create your own asteroids by creating small moons that share the same orbit.....

Yes, except planets don't really look much like asteroids. Proper decorative asteroids would be nice.

And now for something completely different...

yeah they do.

Speaking of expectations, can you explain where and why you developed your self-entitled expectation to being kept intimately abreast of Uber’s internal development, and have Uber’s business decisions promptly and comprehensively detailed to you?

Then please detail all the other games where developers bend over backwards to appease these expectations you have become so accustomed to.

Well said.
Not only that, we are a small subset of the total player base, making even these discussions biased and probably not indicative of overall consensus, not that you can even count on that based on your argument.

I too have noticed the creeping sense of entitlement in these forums recently. That's not to say there aren't genuine concerns in there, but it does tend to make me somewhat dismissive of people's gripes. Not that it matters what I think, I will still play the game for the foreseeable future...

Theres a select few of very voice community members, that are encouraging this toxic tone. People that hate what uber are doing what the game has become, but for some reason continue to stick around, and spread there toxic crap.

Well listen to some poeple it would be PA. they have nothing to compare it against. Did you buy your gold $500 clan madcat yet?

I hope then, that PA is one of only three games you have ever played, too. Otherwise you should regret that.

On topic: As important as generating hype is, delivering on the hype is even more important. PA is a good game with great potential. But good might not live up to the hype.