Oh goodness no haha; she’s way too valuable for that! 
10 Likes
I suppose there is also the matter that FS doesn’t communicate far in advance to avoid changes and having issues that can kick them back
4 Likes
You guys need another CM, because whatever else you have Catfish doing that is having her slammed seems to be interfering and preventing her from doing her job as a CM. From my perspective as a community member she seems pretty absent for week long periods, posting a dev post and comment maybe once a month.
This forum actually suffers from a lack of moderation because their is usually no cm’s checking the place.
8 Likes
tbh either Fatshark’s development cycle is so slow they bleed players to the point of the game dying, or they only prioritize development/actually get people in the room when the players actually start threatening the microtransaction money.
Last time the game started dying at the start of this year, they rushed out a ‘coming soon’ hype for penances and crafting.
Ergo, the only way to get communication is for the game to drop below ~2k daily players.
Fatshark has low pay rates for the industry and where they’re located, IIRC. Probably why they’re having trouble finding a CM.
That, and ‘oh yeah our previous CMs and our continued screwups turned the community hostile so you’re kinda jumping into the tiger pit pre-slathered in bbq sauce’ is not a thing that attracts talent.
That can definitely be part of it. A good CM strikes that balance. I remember announcing Versus Alpha and then it being delayed the day of, and my stomach dropping into my shoes. We got lucky the community was so forgiving on that vein because it could have gone ugly really fast. All devs fear that, I think. Helldivers turned a 180 sentiment-wise as well. So yeah, you gotta be careful.
You guys need another CM, because whatever else you have Catfish doing that is having her slammed seems to be interfering and preventing her from doing her job as a CM. From my perspective as a community member she seems pretty absent for week long periods, posting a dev post and comment maybe once a month.
Yeah, they’re looking right now and being selective for understandable reasons what with the state of the industry and how players are reacting to certain, erm…“comm methods.” I like to think most people can learn CM work, no matter their work experience, but when it hits the fan, that’s when true colors can show because tensions are high and people naturally can get defensive. Finding a CM with 3 years experience that hasn’t moved up the chain into something else is really tough since the average tenure of a CM is about 2 years until they get promoted or move onto something else.
6 Likes
More CMs would be nice, but given FS’ history I’m not sure how much would change. It doesn’t really seem like communicating with the community on behalf of devs is actually in the job description of a CM at FS.
There’s never been much of any communication that wasn’t a pre-cooked PR release. In which case you need a PR person, not a CM. If things were slightly more dynamic, if the CMs could actually answer questions, or hint at features, and not just post PR releases… it would be a lot more useful, and the community would actually feel like someone, somewhere is listening and engaging with them.
6 Likes
Part of the problem is that the dev teams appear to give the CMs incorrect information.
That or the CM makes off-the-cuff remarks that the devs can’t follow up on.
The internal communication is bad either way (again, give me my penances Strawhat!), but when you’re already in a hole, Fatshark’s approach to CMing is just digging even deeper.
I really don’t get how a company manages to both be uncommunicative and also over-hyping and saying things they can’t back up, but FS is, as you said, ‘special’.
4 Likes
Yep, most likely the problems they have with communicating outward stems from severe internal communication issues. Which also, together with the flat structure, probably played a major part in releasing Darktide in not only a completely unfinished state, but also a completely broken state.
2 Likes
Hey @Exanimia !
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to talk to members of this forum, even though you no longer work at Fatshark.
I hope you’re doing well! 
9 Likes
I may have left the tank, but I still love this community! <3
I’m doing great, thanks for asking!
15 Likes
It’s especially odd because this game has a credited Chief Marketing Officer, a credited PR Manager, a credited Marketing Communication Director, and a credited Digital Marketing Manager.
That’s 4 separate positions with authority regarding marketing and public relations, one a C-suite. This isn’t even counting the Community Managers.
It really does beg the question of these folks at Fatshark…
Because marketing your product, creating awareness and hype, cultivating relations with customers, and retaining that user base doesn’t appear to be something anyone is engaged or interested in doing at Fatshark.
It’s got to be embarrassing running into the Arrowhead people at bars and restaurants after work, seeing them running a similar game on a similar engine, and even after taking the biggest online PR drubbing in their history, they’re still pulling in 15-20x as many players on any given day on their game, more than any Fatshark product has seen outside a launch day.
10 Likes
arrowhead made a game trying to satirize neofascist propaganda, failed horrifically, and now have a community that’s mostly people enjoying the neofascist vibes. i don’t think fatshark feels the least bit bad compared to them.
Arrowhead made a game that’s sold out of all proportion of expectations, is maintaining an active daily average online player rate 15-20x that of Darktide even after it’s PSN drama, and that has substantially outsold Darktide, all from a team just a few blocks away of similar size using the same base engine.
If Fatshark doesn’t feel the least bit bad, they objective should from a business perspective.
Likewise, in case you missed it, Darktide and 40k play heavily in the same neofascist satirist space, always has going back to 40k’s origin, that’s a huge fundamental part of the schtick, and likewise attracts the same crowd the sometimes misses the memo. Helldivers is in no way worse off in that regard.
8 Likes
blinks
Arrowhead succeeded at making a satire, that people embrace the propaganda stuff and mess around with it doesn’t mean they’re ‘enjoying the neofascist vibes’ any more than someone jokingly referencing the Omnissiah enjoys actual tech-worship or converting people into servitors.
Like damn dude, stop using the small minority of 4chan chuds who uncritically fall for propaganda as your metric for a game’s fanbase.
Heck, 40k used to be a satire of theocracies, fascism, and all the other conjoined heads of the right-wing hydra. If we’re going to use the memes of a fandom as evidence of genuine belief, GW, and Fatshark by extension, failed even harder than Arrowhead due to the sheer amount of screaming of FOR THE EMPEROR in Darktide’s fanbase.
11 Likes
Last year they delayed their not content roll for Skulls, so if they have nothing for that in less than 2 weeks I don’t know if I have any copium left. I don’t even want for more content, just crack down on your own awful balance and bugs. Those are the most irritating things to suffer for long periods of time.
1 Like
Skull isn’t even announced yet, and can range from Mid May to late June
It felt really weird to agree with you earlier in the thread - thank you for this utterly bad take. Now things are back in order…
12 Likes
This is no longer true.
Darktide will be there, but who knows if it will be news, or another bragging video (like last year) about how amazing penances is.
3 Likes
They’re hard at work! Give them space, they can’t be bothered with trivial tasks such a supporting a live-service game!
2 Likes
Skull last year introduced 2 maps and returned Chaos Spawn
Are you thinking of another event ? I think they did that but for an Xbox one or something
1 Like