Is there someone among the dev team with the balls to own up to mistakes and be transparent and honest about it?
It’s not rocket science that in terms of PR, there are gains to be had. Community goodwill, trust, etc. Might even lead to a positive cycle in the sense that when players and dev have good relations, it becomes almost self-sustaining.
Ie. devs open up to the players. The players open up to the devs. The quality of feedback is less ragy and shitposting and more sincere.
Or maybe i am just hopelessly naive that anything could possibly change. Maybe this community just sucks and the natural reactions from devs (who are only human) is to close up and be guarded and keep communication extremely controlled and limited.
Anyways, if manor lords devs can do it, why not fatshark? Like seriously, why not? It’s just a change in communication style.
The poll is a bit stupid with multiple overlapping answers, but this is what i felt like building, out of curiosity. But i appreciate the time anyone takes to vote.
Communication from Fatshark is fine as it is.
Communication from Fatshark is NOT fine as it is.
Fatshark needs to be more transparent and honest.
Fatshark should be less transparent and honest.
Communication is too infrequent.
Communication is too frequent.
Someone from Fatshark should publicly own up to the mistakes of the company.
Fatshark should NOT own up to their mistakes. I don’t want to hear about it.
Fatshark could learn from other studios on how to communicate with their playerbase.
Fatshark is an example for other studios, on how to communicate with their playerbase.
The credited “Director of Public Relations” for Darktide I don’t think has done anything Darktide related in a publicly visible way aside from posting a picture of a physical box copy he found at a store while on vacation once.
Darktide’s credits show 7 different people with leadership roles in Marketing and Public Relations, not counting community managers. In a very “Office Space” sense, nobody appears to have any idea of what the people in these positions “Do Here”, because it’s certainly doesn’t appear to be much, particularly next to their competition like DRG and Helldivers.
My suspicion is that the communications problems aren’t tied to just one guy they can throw into the piranha pond but is actually a group of obstructive idiots.
Oh hey the comms section of The Book needs an update. Nice.
But yeah Fatshark has constantly acted the part of blind deaf-mutes when it comes to important points about the game. Remember it took them botching a press release and subsequent community rage to get them to just. Tell people. What the crafting update was going to look like.
Fatshark as a company would vastly prefer to have softball interactions with gaming ‘media’ than actually own up to their mistakes with a justifiably fed-up playerbase.
As many have said before, it sounds like possible suits bottlenecking and/or re-shuffling behind the scenes, devs migrating to new project etc., probably many factors we’re not privy to.
I can tell you that sw devs are often terrible at communicating with the public even via lead designers/managers/whatever; it usually backfires spectacularly as deadlines are missed and ideas/content scrapped. Look at the most recent example of the promised new Vet weapon (leaked heat power sword), that was prematurely leaked all things considered.
Unpopular (biased) take, but I’d probably be doing the same as FS right now and not being too chatty about upcoming stuff until it was fairly close to completion, only occasionally giving updates to keep some feedback going etc.
It’s a real mixed bag at FS over the last year.
That being said, again, some stupid 1-2 line Lua bugs or omissions should not take 6 months to fix, that’s not acceptable in the least.
I would appreciate more transparency and honesty (ahem singleplayer), and happy enough for it to be on their own time. It would be nice to know what’s cooking, but if it’s not content then I’m not sure how it would actually affect the bottom line. The really juicy info might be what they’re not working on and why – certain bugs and issues like elite spam vs. sound engine and what they plan to do about it would be really interesting to hear about imo.
FWIW I believe they have put efforts towards improving communication via Dev Blogs, Community Managers, Havoc introduction (somewhat) and other instances. From what I have seen the feedback and discussion has been mostly positive. It’s when they don’t say anything that negativity brews.
So while it’s partly wishful thinking, if there was an option to select “Fatshark needs to stop shooting themselves in the fin” I’d choose that in a heartbeat
Gut feel; DT is full of over-performing under-selling nerds. “Sheldons”. We’d probably respond well to over-honesty, even if it was self-deprecating. That’s how I feel, anyway.
I’m not going to compare forum representatives. I’ve liked all we’ve had before. But definitely it’s the case that those that posted more got more community affection.
It’s not rly throwing? Not like it should be an apologizing self humiliation video with flagellation practise. Just casually admit on dev stream, reddit or forum post that “x” thing was a bad idea of me, happens, we will fix it, it’s our current priority. Or it’s not currently but one day when we will have more resources.
Like guys from GGG openly can call some of their mechanics trash and not fun. And so players just know devs playing their own game and aware about problems not only from reddit but cause verified it with their own expirience.
Tbh I agree with you but I also think some members of the community think in very different terms like “they must acknowledge their lies! Then be fired! Then never work in this industry again!”.
People will demand extreme things no matter how FS is transparent. But people who are not overreacting and willing to change their opinion will give some credit to FS incase of different communication approach.
People who are saying exactly those words exist in every community. And sending death treats also. It’s just an inadequate minority that thinks devs has no right for mistakes when they are inventing or trying something new. FS on the other hand repeating mistakes in things they have expirience already or industry figured out 10 years ago. Wich is a fair point of critique and making fun of them, but again in non psycho way.
I personally don’t care about some corpo suits in marketing/buisness stragedy department who have no deal with creating the game but just implementing shady antiplayer mechanics to be fired. They shouldn’t work in the gaming industry indeed, but at casino.
Designers who are forced to implement something, cause of deccisions made by some higherups is a different thing.
Sure FS is a buisness company in the end, but people tend to see companies as entities. And it’s better when such personification is mature and have balls to take responsibility. Rather than slippery, coward or doubling down one.
The wording can be read as being a bit agressive i admit.
But i would not mind if the CEO or whoever is in charge of decisions gets thrown under the bus.
They are in leadership roles for a reason (and probably get big fat bonuses) and should be able to take the heat.
I would never ever want this person to be a community manager. They are just messengers. Don’t shoot the messenger. Or other low / mid level employees.
The only time we got comms from an executive, it was a non-apology after the game dropped 95% of its player base in the span of a month after launch and everyone was pissed at the blatantly unfinished (besides the perfectly functional cash shop) game.
One of these days I need to check on the Open Letter and see what aspects of its promises vanished into the void and which eventually got delivered on.
