CMs do seem to get a lot of the flak, and I really wish they wouldn’t. I’ve been trying to criticize the developers directly, but it is annoying having one full-time CM for Darktide who has to deal with a bunch of justifiably irate gamers.
Personally, I’d like to see the developers themselves get in on the discussion, because based on the current state of the game and communication, it feels like they aren’t playing it at all, nor are they working at it. Dogfooding is important to understand your game more than you usually do by watching other players or with dev tools, and Fatshark has clearly demonstrated that they do not.
I think you are wrong, people have only really criticized Catfish and other Darktide CM’s for not keeping to certain dates and making promises that the Fatshark devs just simply couldn’t back up.
I think the community would do better from more engagement, even monthly blog post would be better then what we have now. The community is honestly not asking for that much, just some basic communications.
I guess what I mostly remembered from it was the first half of the video, which was a talking head bragging about how amazing Darktide was and how proud he was of the team for making such a great game that totally had zero issues.
Which I guess was doubly grating because of the lie of the “unforeseen technical issues” that delayed the info to Skulls, and the fact that the game was (in my opinion) still in a truly bad place.
You’re right that they intro’ed the chaos spawn and maps during skulls.
It depends. That’s part of what dev blogs are for; and generally what community managers are for:
CM: “Hey a lot of players are asking this.”
Dev: “Yeah it’s because x y and z”
CM: “Cool, I’ll relay that.”
Generally, a CM will have training on how to handle answers that can be super gnarly in a way that won’t become a disaster. A dev without that training (or a CM without that one) can be a liability (see: Helldivers right now).
Also, external stakeholders can be pretty strict on what can and can’t be shown. I remember having a back and forth on the creating Sienna dev blogs and had to very clearly lay out how we intended to show the in development work, what we’d show, what we wouldn’t, and the follow up and how this would help game sentiment. Game studios that aren’t 100% owning their IP can’t just throw stuff out there without multi-layered approvals.
Without that training or without going through the proper channels when communicating with players, promises can be made that the rest of the team aren’t aware of, information can leak, someone can lose their cool and say something untoward or show something external stakeholders haven’t approved yet, etc. In the end, devs are human like anyone else, and that comes with human feelings, and for better or for worse those need to be under control before interacting with unhappy players. That’s somewhat part of the CM’s job; to be that shield (and be the one getting doxxed or personally attacked) so the devs don’t have to (which…can be sucky, but a reality).
Not saying devs can’t, but there really should be media training first for them, and sometimes that’s not something all devs want to complete since it’s an extra time sink. (AH’s CEO not withstanding because he’s, well…the CEO; who will say no? ) Some devs handle themselves well in these situations by default, and some don’t. You really gotta be strategic in choosing the devs in question if you go that route.
I gotta say I really appreciate getting the unfiltered responses from the AH devs. In this day and age where everything goes through 50 corporate approval processes, it’s incredibly nice and refreshing and honest to just hear something unfiltered from a dev, even if it’s a response most people won’t like. I get why Fatshark can’t just do that but I wish they could
Do you think GW has approval of how the itemization work? Do you think GW stipulates there needs to be no more than 0.00001% chance of getting a perfect item?
Do you think GW would forbid a dev on Fatshark, any dev, from being on this forum and saying “Yeah I know the RNG is a bit heavy, and to be honest I agree with you. I can’t promise a change, but I see the points being made and they are compelling.”
There is an ocean of communication that Fatshark devs could do, but chooses not to.
Unfortunately not going to read this thread, but GW doesn’t want any 40k or Fantasy Video game news to come out until the end of the month to coincide with their Skulls for the Skull throne event. Don’t expect anything for the next 10+ days.
Well if they accept Dev doing that (or have Dev doing that) then it can end up in place where most of the time it’s fine
But at some point someone say something that goes to far, and either they get problems with their Ip holder, or they make what people think is a promise and it get parroted everywhere (Parroting isn’t something we don’t know how to do), which then just goes and kick them in the back
Were they perhaps suggested to be reworded to the point that the crafting post opened by talking about how bad RNG was, and how you were totally avoiding RNG… before the rest of the crafting post laid out insane amounts of RNG?
I mean I know you can’t answer that, but… that post was… absurd, and sticks in the craw of a great many players.
Based on the post above, I would agree it’s a “wait until WH Skulls” thing, since that’s generally the GW highlight of the year thing. Obviously I’m pulling that out of my butt unofficially as a hunch since I have no idea what the Darktide production roadmap looks like now, but this would make sense.
Where FS says they’re avoiding random elements and highlighting player choice, and then absolutely everything about the crafting laid out insane amounts of RNG and absolutely no choice (locks, 7 layers of RNG, etc)
Which might indeed look like it has been reworded a great many times to appear more edible, and to say the opposite of what is actually happening.
) Some devs handle themselves well in these situations by default, and some don’t. You really gotta be strategic in choosing the devs in question if you go that route.
