Developer Interaction

Sabbicat

I have to say I am quite impressed with the involvement and interaction that the development team at Soulbound Studios has had with its community. They are often in the forums posting information about the direction of the game. They also have an IRC channel that hosts a Q&A every week as well as dropping in daily to chat.
Over the years I have not seen any other team make themselves as accessible as this one does. 

Yanocchi

Developers at Illfonic have been doing exactly the same things for almost a year now. I'd say they have even more and better interaction with the community.

Sabbicat

That is good to hear. I have not heard of that game. My point was that in all the games I have been involved with this team was by far the best.

Silvite

It's a nice change of pace.  Usually Community Managers are as close as you get to the dev team.

Yanocchi

Sabbicat said:

That is good to hear. I have not heard of that game. My point was that in all the games I have been involved with this team was by far the best.

It's true. Illfonic and Soulbound Studios are a rare exception to the norm.

raynforce

I am pretty surprised that no matter what my question, it eventually gets answered. If they can't answer, they tell you outright that they are simply not ready to talk about a given topic yet. You are never left wondering if they read your posts. Any doubts I had about the game were pretty well laid to rest after I got the answers I was looking for right from the developers.

TripNull

Thanks for the support guys I just wish we could spend MORE time in the IRC channel.

JeromyWalsh

TripNull said:

Thanks for the support guys I just wish we could spend MORE time in the IRC channel.

Who let a programmer out of his cage? Quick! We need a caffeine lure to get Trip back to work!

Zultra

Keep it up @JeromyWalsh !

Deffcon_1

It is nice having direct access to developers and not just community managers. @TripNull is always full of information and talks to us, and on occasion plays some online games with us! I very happy with the studios community involvement!

CrazKanuk

Silvite said:

It's a nice change of pace.  Usually Community Managers are as close as you get to the dev team.

That's usually for good reason, though. Someone usually ends up saying something stupid. 

That being said, smaller dev companies have no reason to be silent and I think people prefer the transparency these days, and are getting better at accepting that sometimes things that sound simple are actually hard. Others? Wellllll, there's always hope. 

Wizardry

Well Brad was imo the first and foremost transparent but instead of working with him,people just wanted to argue and flame so it never worked well at all.

I hope this game is open to some change,of course nothing major as that would be impossible.

My main concern is the death idea,have not heard yet if it designed to prevent players from finding that perfect death time ,then everyone goes for the same option to die on purpose or force a faster death.
Basically i don't want to see systems turn into glitches/exploits,if that makes any sense.

Silvite

CrazKanuk said:

Silvite said:

It's a nice change of pace.  Usually Community Managers are as close as you get to the dev team.

That's usually for good reason, though. Someone usually ends up saying something stupid. 

That being said, smaller dev companies have no reason to be silent and I think people prefer the transparency these days, and are getting better at accepting that sometimes things that sound simple are actually hard. Others? Wellllll, there's always hope. 

That is true, though a little direct interaction from dev teams is always a nice touch; it makes the community feel like they matter.  It just so happens that in this case the interaction is very frequent.

Sabbicat

Wizardry said:

Well Brad was imo the first and foremost transparent but instead of working with him,people just wanted to argue and flame so it never worked well at all.

I hope this game is open to some change,of course nothing major as that would be impossible.

My main concern is the death idea,have not heard yet if it designed to prevent players from finding that perfect death time ,then everyone goes for the same option to die on purpose or force a faster death.
Basically i don't want to see systems turn into glitches/exploits,if that makes any sense.

Unfortunately you will always have players who with look for FOTM or put up some thread " To become Uber do the following" I'm sure there will be those who will try and map out the "best" timing and "forms" of death to attain enlightenment. From what I have heard from the developers though there are mechanics in place that will curtail any benefits. Its all about the fullfillment of the individuals destiny and story. A specifically timed death may and will likely not advance that cause.

Falendor

Wizardry said:

Well Brad was imo the first and foremost transparent but instead of working with him,people just wanted to argue and flame so it never worked well at all.

I hope this game is open to some change,of course nothing major as that would be impossible.

My main concern is the death idea,have not heard yet if it designed to prevent players from finding that perfect death time ,then everyone goes for the same option to die on purpose or force a faster death.
Basically i don't want to see systems turn into glitches/exploits,if that makes any sense.

My understanding is that this type of stuff is constantly changing from both the passage of time and all the players decisions. Making a "best" character this way would be like hitting a moving invisible target.

SouzouMiguel

Well thank you kindly We do our best. 

goldboyy45

Yanocchi said:

Sabbicat said:

That is good to hear. I have not heard of that game. My point was that in all the games I have been involved with this team was by far the best.

It's true. Illfonic and Soulbound Studios are a rare exception to the norm.

LOL, yeah they are an exception, most mmo projects release...these 2 just scam you out of money and then shut down.

Asm0deus

goldboyy45 said:

Yanocchi said:

Sabbicat said:

That is good to hear. I have not heard of that game. My point was that in all the games I have been involved with this team was by far the best.

It's true. Illfonic and Soulbound Studios are a rare exception to the norm.

LOL, yeah they are an exception, most mmo projects release...these 2 just scam you out of money and then shut down.

Yeah Illfonic and soulbound had/have similar ideologies about what kind of "client" they are targeting as they both seem to want whales and pretty much only whales..scrubs need not apply.

Kyleran

Awesome necro post,  the irony of saying SBS being great in communication four years later is truly priceless.

There are more developers and dev replies in this thread than found in their own forums in the past three months.

Except for an occasional blurb from Snipehunter or Jeremy talking "at" backers instead of to them pretty much one has to hang around their Discord channels to learn much of anything.

Thanks again for this...

  

Asm0deus

It is awesome! We can truly see where they put their mouths isn't where they said it would be.... lol

Albatroes

Its pretty amazing that four years later they are still at the same place. Hell, if they keep pace, we might see an alpha by 2025.

Slapshot1188

I have always said folks should just go look at what these guys said and compare it to what they did.  

These “time machine” posts are great. 

Tiller

Chronicles of Elyria: Saga of Broken Promises

Kyleran

Slapshot1188 said:

I have always said folks should just go look at what these guys said and compare it to what they did.  

These “time machine” posts are great. 

They really do make our "jobs" too easy  

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I have always said folks should just go look at what these guys said and compare it to what they did.  

These “time machine” posts are great. 

They really do make our "jobs" too easy  

People can always debate what’s going to happen in the future but the past is not debatable.

As they say “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior”