The channels for beta communication were as follows, as far as I know:
OFFICIAL:
Fatshark forum
Fatshark public discord
Fatshark focus group discord
In-game survey
UNOFFICIAL:*
Squirrel Squad (open beta discussion only)
Blood Moon Inn (open and closed beta discussion, where proof of beta invite/Steam had to be shown to Discord moderation team—this was proposed by the BMI staff)
Reddit (open beta discussion only)
*I think there was also something in Red Moon Inn that had dev blessings as well, but am not sure since I’m not in that one. I’m not sure about other Verm servers.
The devs hang out in these third party servers, but are usually pretty quiet overall and seem to prefer to sit and absorb feedback (sans reddit, where they pop in from time to time)
Youre simply wrong. Yes there was a focus group and no I wasnt part of it. But there was FS presence and discussion bout the beta in the official forum.
Best example I remember is a topic about stagger changes where a dev explained in-depth how it worked.
And please just let that awful blogpost die. Its wrong on so many ends.
Because you were not in internal beta. And there is no need to go over this topic again, Hedge already acknowledged that it needs different approach next time.
This is the reason, why it makes no sense to argue about this.
It seems like everyone is answering to you that it’s in your email, probably in the spam or Promotions folder, and you’ll automatically get it if you have the beta in your library.
Guy who wrote that article is heavily biased though.
His main argument is that fatshark is dishonest and doesnt treat “important” content creators well, like the guy who made the giant quality of life mod…fatshark apparently “ignored” him for some beta test at some point and invited another guy.
This other guy was apparently another modder but a less skilled one, but if you ask me he had a very desirable quality, he wanted to reduce the amount of cheaters.
Cheaters who existed because the first guy basically added a cheat engine with his mod, a very easy to use one.
So what this second guy did is to try and ask the first to remove all the cheats from the mod and make that the public version, he could keep his cheats to himself if he wanted to test stuff, something the first didnt care to do.
So the second did his best with inferior skills and despite a lot of struggling he finally got as workable edition but the damage was kinda done, the majority was cheating or quite sick of dealing with cheaters, and without removing the first mod this could not change.
So as i see it, the first guy made a mod for his own self satisfaction but he really did not give two shits about the game in general, second guy did and that´s why he was asked to provide his opinions.
Then the writer goes in to mention that Jsat has some mod/macro that lets him use the same button for multiple actions, like scrolling up makes him switch his weapon while scrolling down lets him dodge or such.
Which apparently means he was a dishonest cheater because he didnt tell his stream-viewers about this when asked.
And actually, go read the comments to that article, sneakyPanda says it all.
Now i am not the sharpest fellow around nor the wisest or even decently impartial, but there is one claim or yours i´d like to shot down right away, even with my clumsy words.
This, i find to be quite the opposite of my experiences…you see i have gotten in contact with both @Fatshark_Hedge@FatsharkJulia who both did their best to answers whatever questions and concerns i had, even when i was kinda acting like an ass.
For which i am both embarrassed and grateful.
All this despite that i didnt really play vt1 at all, i only got really into vt2 and started playing a lot from there…while messing around on these forums at the same time.
Speaking of which, as mentioned on these forums i have had multiple questions, bug reports and whatnot and i think i´ve gotten pretty much every single direct question and bug report answered by them, when i needed tech support i got it.
And while not sure i think they actually added at least one of my suggestions for quality of life improvements and very minor buffs into the beta which was quite amazing to a small narrow minded guy like me.
I´ve seen other fellas in similar boats have the same things happen to them.
And as for their appointments of community heroes and whatnot? I have never seen them actually do anything bad, even close, at worst they might disagree with you but that´s it.
Wont just randomly delete or report your posts because they didnt like them like some other game forums or reddit subboard mods have been known to do due to personal “dislike”…something i´ve experienced as well.
As for having a few more private and close groups to chat with away from the main playerbase? How is this even remotely an issue? Especially on discord?
Its basically them picking out people they think are fun and chill to have around, and i know for certain that at least one of those is a serious hunter of bugs and provider of feedback in general…a guess would be that many of them are.
I´ve little doubt that those who show themselves to be passionate about the game while chill to be around would have much problems getting into the discord server.
Personally i am too scatterbrained and prone to playing different games on rotation to even give it a shot though,and being acknowledged as often as i have been on these forums is plenty good already as i see it.
TL:DR
In my experience Fatshark listens to feedback and criticism ( delivered in a civil manner) very well and they are always willing to help when you need it while also often answering questions that game related.
They are largely unbiased, quick to respond to bug reports and requests for help (such as tech issue´s) while also doing their best to stick around and interact with the community.
I also havent seen any of their appointed mini moderators ever do anything that could be considered really bad in etiquette or commit any major things like censure of posts they just dont “like”.
The game isnt worth playing anymore since the horrible beta changes are going to be live in the expansion. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.
I tried telling Hedge about the problems with the beta and to tell the devs in charge of it not to change core gameplay mechanics and that the changes were not a good idea and would kill the game. The response i got? None i was met with silence.
I’ve moved onto another game now so it hardly matters (Not my problem anymore) Not sure why fatshark decided to nuke a quality game with bad changes…Guess we’ll never know OP?
Enjoy your less than 1k active player count failshark you deserve it!
If J_sat used macros and acted like he wasn’t, that is dishonest. But that’s a minor indiscretion, even if true, and doesn’t mean he’s a bad player, though imo it’s weak of him to do that. It also doesn’t reflect on FS.
The article is going the guilt by association angle (which is ridiculous), and while it includes a few valid criticisms of FS (eg the builds thing and their odd release cycle), overall it does indeed read as the guy being annoyed at who FS chose to work together with in the community as he doesn’t like those individuals and also him being annoyed he wasn’t included.
It’s 90% about Grimalackt and J_sat instead of going into depth on the valid criticisms, which imo are what the general VT2 community is more concerned about than things concerning a modder and a YouTuber.
Pretty sure Jsat was streaming and people were like “how dafq are you chaining your actions so fast?” And he´d said something like “nothing really”.
Then he got some virtual keyboard that displayed what he was pressing and people realized that he had some macros because the input speed was too high for a ordinary setup.
Dishonest? He wasnt bragging about his macros but i dont think he told people it was easy or simple either,…probably, havent checked in detail.
’
As for valid criticisms…the weird patching cycles and poor balance in game 1 and whatnot=?
Well yeah sure, their patches are irregular, and the long time of poor weapon balance in game 1 was really bad, but only the second one here is actually a really bad thing.
Good sir, this is a forum for discussions but you are clearly not intent on doing that.
You told hedge the betas changes were a problem? What happens when 10 others tell him they are good? Is he stupid for paying more attention to others rather than you?
