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Shroud's Status, Criticism, Healthy Debate, & the Future

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Jul 25, 2018.

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  1. MFWalter

    MFWalter Avatar

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    To further this. We really need someone on staff to develop a resource for game content we can access easily. The community run wiki tries, but things like that can only go so far. It would go a long way to help with my feeling of communication if there was an accurate website I could easily get to that has basic info on it. Everytime I Google something about the game I get sent back to the wiki and sometimes it has nothing helpful, sometime it has out of date info that wastes my time, and sometimes it has helpful info. I recently got a recipe for a new piece of armour I could not craft before and when I Googled it up there is no info on the stats that item has. I just have to craft it and see. It isn't the end of the world, but why is that kind of info not just readily available? We live in an age where everything you want to know about a game, and more, is one Google away, but Shroud if a black hole of information.
     
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  2. Elay

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    Great post, huge respect for this.
     
  3. Metlore

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    Great post @DarkStarr. Always appreciate you reaching out and staying in touch with everything.
     
  4. Stryker Sparhawk

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    Thank you @DarkStarr for setting us back on the road of Reality - Chaos style :)
     
  5. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

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    Great feedback Vlad. Note that I actually did put the bug number fix in the R56 Release instructions!
     
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  6. Vyrin

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    Huge amount of respect for the post @DarkStarr.

    The questing system was so important to the original plans of the game, and many people did try to bring it up. It's nice to know at this point finally that those concerns were being heard and realized internally. Some got beaten up by the community for saying what you clearly said now. If you really want to improve the questing in Ep. 2, please find a way to get community feedback early. Counteract those who dismiss it by saying you can't give spoilers, or questing is the last thing to be put in after everything else, and the list goes on...
     
  7. Vyrin

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    Is there any sympathy then for those of us who also realized this years ago, felt like we were not being listened to (as Darkstarr even stated) or criticized by the community, and are only now receiving confirmation that the devs agreed the system wasn't working and wouldn't work?
     
  8. Blake Blackstone

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    I think polling would go a long way in making the community feel like they were being heard. Doesnt have to be on major development decisions but would let Portalrium know what their player base wants. Something even as simple as what mob do you want to see next. At the very least it would be engaging to the player base.

    As far as the apology goes, only time will tell. There has been a lot of damage done between the people who backed this game and the developers. Trust has been eroded and needs to be earned back. At this point, the only way to do so is to prove it through actions and not words. But it all starts with words, so great first step.
     
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  9. 2112Starman

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    The point being is they clearly are listening. They really are and we all know it. You may feel you are not being listened to. I think they listen to me but dont do much at times but why would I expect them to listen to just me? There are thousands of different opinions here on everything about the game that I agree with and dont agree with. I put 5 figured into this game and they clearly dont listen to me any more then anyone else. I just know that I am one of tens of thousands of people with opinions here and mine dont mesh at times with thier's. But why should I then demand they listen to me and only me?Every topic I post on has people for and against it, the next topic the same people flip to the opposite side.

    On the flip side, Im criticized by this community ALL THE TIME for the stuff I said which is why at one time I bounced to Raw... but I wasn't extreme enough over there because I still likes some things about the game. Again, there are thousands of people with a thousand different opinions and there are people here I have DEEPLY argued with on some things and yet DEEPLY agreed with other things. But I dont pout about this community much because most people are reasonable and its moderated pretty well (especially lately, its gone through some bad times in my opnion).

    Why should anyone have "sympathy" for me? I dont want them to, I stand by my opinions.

    The simple fact is that HOW you complain matters most. If you just rant, people are going to naturally respond negatively.
     
  10. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    I think I covered your concern under my second bullet point:
    I find it highly unlikely that they were unaware of the problems they had with a major sub-system of the game and were ignoring people telling them it was problematic... I find it highly likely that they spent more time than they should have trying to fix it, thereby addressing the issues...

    Also, while I think that it is certainly possible for an outsider not on the development team to be able to point out problems with systems (That's why they look to us for bug reports), I don't think it's possible to for an outsider (even an appropriately skilled one) who is Not familiar with the architecture of the sub-system in question to be able to judge whether it is repairable or needs to be scrapped entirely and rebuilt.

    Having started my career as a software developer, and having been in the software industry for more than a quarter century now, I've experienced the need to make that call... The repair/replace call... and invariably, in Hindsight, realizing that you should have made the call to replace sooner than you did...

    My opinion, given that which I know to be true, and my experience with similar situations filling in the gaps with assumptions based on that experience, is that Occam's Razor suggests that that is what happened here... They didn't Not Heed the feedback they were given... They didn't Ignore Anyone... They simply, as development teams do all the time, held on to a piece of code, trying to fix it, longer than they should have.

    Again, my opinion based on those facts I know + my own personal experience.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2018
  11. Thexedor Markhamm

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    This team works so hard. 57 Releases and counting. Each one building a more complete, brilliant and beautiful game. I'm confident they will see this journey through. :cool:

    Of course:

    Mistakes will happen. Temperatures will rise. Anger begets anger. Echo chambers build tribal nations (not communities). Trolls gonna roll and troll.

    None of that can be countered. But what makes a real difference is how we 'choose' to respond to one another.

    Criticize constructively. Defend with empathy.

    NOW: BRING ON R57!

    :)
     
  12. Sir Aular Glorthalion

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    You guys have built a pretty compelling game and done a lot with the resources you have. Echoing the sentiments of previous posters - fixing things in-game currently should be more a priority. It sounds like you're going to focus more on this, which is a good route. Is there any way you can share the bug list and what you're working on? For bugs reported in a previous release (with no bug number or response from a dev), is it helpful to report them again?

    What, if anything, can we help with? You have an active fan base. Can you leverage volunteers for anything more?
     
  13. Vyrin

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    All I asked for was sympathy Rufus. Following Occam's Razor, when you get no response to your concerns, and they are dismissed by community members, it's easiest to assume no one is listening. I said it "felt like" the concerns about questing weren't being listened to, I did not say Port was unaware they had a problem. Darkstarr admitted that people could feel like they weren't listened to. And he said there was even the possibility that more could have been communicated. So I don't see the need to try to prove that I was somehow at fault for not being clairvoyant about Port's internal deliberations. But enough of this, I guess the point is to prove again that I was wrong. I will bow out of this conversation.
     
  14. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    That seriously wasn't my intent, and I apologize that that is how it was taken.

    But now, on reflection, please explain to me how my response was interpreted as casting you as a victim? I honestly don't understand how I offended...

    Yes, people complained very loudly for a long time... perhaps it's a difference of perspective?

    When people complain about issues on the forums, my base assumption is that those complaints are being read and considered, and stack ranked by the team without them needing to respond to each one individually, or constantly restate that they do read the forums (which they do restate regularly)...

    What response to your concerns would you have liked? If it's a workable solution, I'm sure it will be given consideration.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2018
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  15. redfish

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    My sense is most of the devs efforts in the months leading up to release was to get out a product on schedule, that both achieved some of their core promises, and felt complete enough from a new users' experience that they wouldn't have a problem playing the game.

    And that at the same time, they knew that some things needed to be switched around later, but trying to do so at their time would throw them off their release schedule.
     
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  16. Blake Blackstone

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    Just let what DS posted be enough and let people say their peace. You don’t have to be there at every turn to be offended and defend against what people are saying. This is the point of the OP...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 26, 2018
  17. DarkStarr

    DarkStarr Executive Producer SOTA Developer

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    This exactly
     
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  18. Krissa Lox

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    There is a bit of wisdom I find given in the preface of Will Durant's History of Civilization series about the value of foolishly ambitious undertakings. Although the wording is specific to his personal context of writing history, I think the idea applies broadly to all manners of work in cultural endeavors including game-making. After all, we're not just reciting or expressing cultural principles in this field, but going still further in providing interactive environments to explore them in...

    "I do not need to be told how absurd this enterprise is, nor how immodest its very conception; for many years of effort have brought it to but a fifth of its completion, and have made it clear that no one mind, and no single lifetime, can adequately compass this task. Nevertheless I have dreamed that despite the many errors inevitable in this undertaking, it may be of some use to those upon whom the passion for philosophy has laid the compulsion to try to see things whole, to pursue perspective, unity, and understanding through history in time, as well as to seek them through science in space.

    I have long felt that our usual method of writing history in separate longitudinal sections -- economic history, political history, religious history, the history of philosophy, the history of literature, the history of science, the history of music, the history of art -- does injustice to the unity of human life; that history should be written collaterally as well as lineally, synthetically as well as analytically; and that the ideal historiography would seek to portray in each period the total complex of a nation's culture, institutions, adventures, and ways. But the accumulation of knowledge has divided history, like science, into a thousand isolated specialties; and prudent scholars have refrained from attempting any view of the whole -- whether of the material universe, or of the living past of our race. For the probability of error increases with the scope of the undertaking, and any man who sells his soul to synthesis will be a tragic target for a myriad merry darts of specialist critique.

    A history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy, such a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity; but let us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits into its fatal depths."
     
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  19. Solazur

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    That part just tickled me. Hell, you coulda done a thread on that.

    oh wait. you did :)

    we all be's in this together....or we'll all be out... or something like that
     
  20. Vladamir Begemot

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    You are always one step ahead of me. For the first time in ages I haven't been able to read the finished notes yet, this close to release. Summer!
     
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