I know first hand on what to and not to say when it comes to pre-planning developmental progress for a gaming company. I also know that this can be a negative or positive depending on how something is perceived once those words become into the public norm under an official title. This title can be from a developer, manager, or a trusted moderator - which should obviously take a higher precedent than the clientele you are selling the product to.
Enlisted is in this gray state where it annoys the hell out of me and surprises me with some wording from the company itself - be from MEABP or Major Update announcements and releases. It does not have to be in a gray state. Please consider doing the following for us all.
Look - your most loyal players mean well with good intentions for your product and project. We want it to succeed even more than you do, but in order for that to work, you need to meet us half way in the following conditions.
- You need to be more open to your CM team on what they can or can not say in more detail.
- You need to engage with your community more by doing semi-developer only livestreams.
- You need to work with the talented people who are trying to promote your product for free.
First Point
Let me go into more detail about each one of these points. Firstly, the CM team is limited by what they can say - they can not announce anything that is planned to be for a release before it is time. If they do, it will usually be met with something along the lines of “we are listening” and “in the future XYZ will change” and other similar phrases or sentences.
We can not fault the CM team from replying with this manner since they are trying their best to defuse tension without making the developers angry at them in the process. Majority of the time, however, Keofox, and many of the team get blasted with insults or contradictions of past wording of defusing conversations. We need to all realize that things can change.
This is where I now speak directly to you, the developers. Please allow your CM team to announce your ideas and brainstorms for future ideas. Let your clientele know most of the core aspects of your head space so that you could use our feedback to guide you in a manner that would gather both goodwill and profits.
You should keep some aspects of a major update or something special under the books, that would only be fair - but only telling your community a week or even a day in advance before such an update releases after a period of time where no communication happened only ends in an outcome that annoys majority of your players. I want this damn game to succeed.
By giving the CM team more freedom in expressing where your collective minds are at, you give us a road map that we can judge and help aid with via feedback or even polls if you would wish to take that further. And to make this better for both parties, we all would have to understand with express emphasis that this new style of communication will be labeled as SUBJECT TO CHANGE at any given moment.
This would keep the CM team safe from harassment and at least give us some estimation of where an idea changed or could be similar to a full release whenever that idea becomes an implementation and into the release game. I have done this with a mobile game that I was apart of their PR team and it worked flawlessly, but I am sadly under an NDA about what company it is - but do note that engaging in a player base in this manner is only beneficial.
Second Point
Developer only livestreams can be once a month where earlier within the same month, the CM team would all gather into an area on the forums and gather feedback about one of the newly founded subject to change posts about where the direction is going. The goal for this is to address any concerns or roadblocks if an idea you allowed to be shared is going to be any factor from: overpowered, different, game breaking, balancing, etcetera.
You can also commentate your thoughts over this as you have a level designer make a map via the editor for the background footage (and after three or so streams, 3 months in total, and some backend tweaking, that map could be added into the game or something? Maybe the community could help with it as they type in the chat on what to add or not, etcetera.)
Nonetheless, the entire point for this is to be laid back and talk with us - and to engage with your team more often. I have seen the death of many companies who only stayed at the chest level of a business… but every organization needs to look down ever so often to see their feet in front of them… or else they will be stuck in the same place.
Third Point
Content Creators or anyone who could aid in a large stake for your company should be treated with some sort of respect. I still respect most members within the Darkflow LLC but there are some that are set in stone in ignorance that it saddens me having to type that. You know everything I have ever offered you was in some way profit driven first and player appreciate second - but the difference between me and the recent updates so far is that my options would both be profitable and actually raise the anticipation, respect, and goodwill of everyone.
I have put 3000+ hours into this game and I know how and what to monetize to people in order for them to get to spend money, but in a way that respects their wallets and just in that sweet spot of pricing that would make them double, triple, or even four plus times as many purchases. For the company I worked at, I was given $12,500 USD to turn into a profit. After eight (8) months, my plans earned a near estimate of $6.2 Million USD. I know my methods work and I know the same methods would work similar in an environment such as this.
People who promote your project should not be given insane advantages over people who do not - but please at least allow your ears to them more often since I know full well the CC Discord is a ghost town and the entire point for that is to TALK WITH YOUR COMMUNITY.
Regardless of what I did do for myself - I wish to see what you over at Darkflow could do.
Epilogue
This entire post is a long shot and I am even tired of doing joke posts about my frustration now, I only want the game to be better and to get better since the damn concept of it is addicting enough where it at least deserves that amount of respect from time investment.
TLDR
I propose points of letting the CM team say something more under the guidelines of it all being subject to change so the player base can have some understanding of future content way before it actually does or does not happen. I also discuss how developer only livestreams (not PR people) would benefit using feedback from players from a previous new style post the CM team would make. And finally I wish for the people who publicly support the game to get their voices heard more often since they are basically being the feet of the company, keeping a population coming back for more or reminding people the project exists on social media.