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The transparency of the Camelot Unchained developers

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  • NildenNilden Member EpicPosts: 3,916
    I think having a moderator is not that demanding, you could probably have some volunteers.

    I get the why... posts about the game being a scam and such could hurt their fundraising... just clean those up.  

    Going completely dark looks bad to their fans.
    No it looks bad to anyone looking in. If you are turning off comments it isn't because they are overwhelmingly positive.
    Gdemami[Deleted User]

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  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,780
    edited April 2021
    Nilden said:


    But your not silencing people.

    It falls under "there's a time and place for everything.

    We seem to have become a society where everyone gets to say at any time what's on their mind. edit: say what you want whenever you want, wherever you want even if it's just not the place. It's as if we have to be subjected to every person's whim everywhere we look. there are places for that. And youtube is a place for content where the channel holder has the option to invite discussion or just use it like a "tv." 

    If every time a video is put up for Camelot Unchained we have people spout vitriol then at what point does it become just a disgruntled rant?

    And when does it end? I've said it before and I stand by it, if a person gives to a crowdfunded project then there are no guarantees, know that and cross your fingers and hope it happens.

    But then things don't happen the way the developers promised and people get pissed. Ok great, well we all knew what we were getting into so when do you just cut your losses and stop living the "I'm angry because of the choices I made" life?

    I don't want to hear everyone's opinion at every moment they feel they should say it. There's a time and place. Forums seem to be a place. YouTube? Possibly depending on whose channel it is and what they want to accomplish with that channel.

    Because currently, I have up a video for my Skyrim Mod. It's not listed as the mod is still being tested. But if I link to it I'm not interested in a discussion on the mod or why someone thinks it sucks or is good "for that channel." I just want it to be the video. that's it.

    But people are welcome to give me their opinions over at the nexus when I upload it. I feel that's appropriate.

    Good and bad.
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  • YashaXYashaX Member EpicPosts: 3,100
    Nilden said:
    Sovrath said:

    I'll play devil's advocate and say that sometimes it's appropriate.

    If there needs to be a discussion about something if it's a forum post or announcement then sure.

    But I could see a youtube video showcasing what work has been done, or a feature and the comments are just a list of vitriol for people who just want another place to rant.

    So I suppose there's a time and place for everything.

    Why should every moment be a place for public comment and "our opinions?"

    So who gets to decide when it's appropriate to silence people?

    If you are showcasing work done wouldn't you want people to comment and give feedback on it? How is turning off comments about a video game being developed helping or appropriate?






    I guess they just want to show off their work without receiving feedback on it from the general public, seems totally fine to me. I don't think the comments sections of social media platforms are a particularly good source of constructive feedback anyway.
    Kyleran
    ....
  • Rockinw311Rockinw311 Member UncommonPosts: 149
    edited April 2021
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing
    Gdemami
  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    Kyleran said:
    Scot said:
    Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.
    Err, he and Rhoklaw got the ban hammer, probably over their "disagreement" in the New World Ice Gauntlet thread which has been since closed.


    Sigh... why cant people just ignore instead of report.
    You're assuming it was triggered by a report and not by mod(s) acting on their own initiative.

    The thread in question was actually moderated twice. The first was a removal of several posts about anti-white racism and responses to that, which happened a couple of days before. IDK if that culling was triggered by a report either but I assume that after, the thread was on the mod's radar.

    IDK what happened to the Twitch thread since I had stopped reading it a day or two before that one was also locked.

    I would guess that most bans here are triggered by reports since these forums don't seem to have very active mod presence, but I'm not going to assume that they all are.

    -------------------------

    Carry on, CU bashing.
    Sovrath[Deleted User]Gdemami
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  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited April 2021
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing
    Well I think the social medias have two major purposes for studios like CSE, disseminate information and collect feedback, they just don't want the latter anymore on Facebook because about 3/4 of it was snarky remarks, rhetorical questions, accusations, etc. But I think they should continue to use Facebook as it is a very efficient platform to share updates.
  • Rockinw311Rockinw311 Member UncommonPosts: 149
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing
    Well the social medias have two facets: disseminate information and collect feedback, they just don't want the latter anymore on Facebook because about 3/4 of it was snarky remarks, rhetorical questions, accusations, etc. But I think they should continue to use Facebook as it is a very efficient platform to share updates.
    That is having their cake and eating it too. They can share things via their own site without opening it up to social media/response. If they don't want social, then don't put it there 
    [Deleted User][Deleted User]
  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited April 2021
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing
    Well the social medias have two facets: disseminate information and collect feedback, they just don't want the latter anymore on Facebook because about 3/4 of it was snarky remarks, rhetorical questions, accusations, etc. But I think they should continue to use Facebook as it is a very efficient platform to share updates.
    That is having their cake and eating it too. They can share things via their own site without opening it up to social media/response. If they don't want social, then don't put it there 
    Let's say there are 17,000 people following CU on Facebook, and 2,000 people per month who check the page without following it. They can, in a few clicks, for free, share updates to those 19,000 people (who may or not visit the official website) via Facebook. So I see no reason why they would deprive themselves of this efficient way to share information.
    Rockinw311
  • Rockinw311Rockinw311 Member UncommonPosts: 149
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing
    Well the social medias have two facets: disseminate information and collect feedback, they just don't want the latter anymore on Facebook because about 3/4 of it was snarky remarks, rhetorical questions, accusations, etc. But I think they should continue to use Facebook as it is a very efficient platform to share updates.
    That is having their cake and eating it too. They can share things via their own site without opening it up to social media/response. If they don't want social, then don't put it there 
    Let's say there are 17,000 people following CU on Facebook, and 2,000 people per month who check the page without following it. They can, in a few clicks, for free, share updates to those 19,000 people (who may or not visit the official website) via Facebook. So I see no reason why they would deprive themselves of this efficient way to share information.
    I get why they would want to take advantage of the large pool of people that use these platforms.

    However, if they don't intend to use the platforms for the purpose they're intended - social interaction - then their channel for information dissemination is incorrect. My 2 cents at least.

    Obviously YMMV though for whether or not you agree or not that this is a misuse of those platforms.
    Gdemamifrancis_baud
  • mklinicmklinic Member RarePosts: 2,012

    Obviously YMMV though for whether or not you agree or not that this is a misuse of those platforms.
    I mean, if the platform gives you the ability to disable certain functionality, then using their tools to do so wouldn't really be a misuse of the platform....Just by the virtue that they provide the ability would indicate it is an intended use case.


    Rockinw311YashaX[Deleted User]

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  • Rockinw311Rockinw311 Member UncommonPosts: 149
    mklinic said:

    Obviously YMMV though for whether or not you agree or not that this is a misuse of those platforms.
    I mean, if the platform gives you the ability to disable certain functionality, then using their tools to do so wouldn't really be a misuse of the platform....Just by the virtue that they provide the ability would indicate it is an intended use case.


    I do see your point, but I'd lean more towards the ability to disable being a moderation failsafe, not the intended purpose. But none of us own the platforms, so now we're just arm chairing and it's open to anyone's interpretation at that point. 
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,483
    That's a step in the right direction.  I'd be all in favor of ending all comments on Facebook entirely.  And ending Facebook, while we're at it.
    IselinGdemami
  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 17,586
    What I find perplexing is that Mark isn’t really pushing his product.  As far as I know there has never been a “sale” after the Kickstarter.  He’s just made the community numb to all things Camelot without the benefits of milking sales from all the updates.  

    If you aren’t going to really sell the product then why do YouTube at all?   Anyone who bought the game can see what it’s like by logging in.  They can just have a section on the website that showcases new stuff.

    It just seems like he’s doing the worst of all worlds kind of stuff but not aggressively selling a product but putting it out there anyway.  He doesn’t have to re-sell to existing customers, and he’s not pushing external sales so I don’t see the point.

    Gdemami

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  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    They earned about $5 million of "free" crowdfunding money, about a fifth of their total budget, which is not negligible, so their marketing strategy did pay off to some extent.
    [Deleted User]
  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,780
    edited April 2021
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing

    YouTube allows for one to shut off comments therefore it's part of their vision of how the platform can be used.

    If the dialogue isn't what the channel holder is interested in having then they should be able to take control.

    Otherwise what one is saying is that "social media" just gives permission to strangers to attack people. Not very social.

    IselinYashaX[Deleted User]
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  • Rockinw311Rockinw311 Member UncommonPosts: 149
    Sovrath said:
    YouTube and Facebook are considered social media platforms - if they don't want the social response to what they are posting, perhaps they should not be posting in those environments when they do not want social response to what they are sharing

    YouTube allows for one to shut off comments therefore it's part of their vision of how the platform can be used.

    If the dialogue isn't what the channel holder is interested in having then they should be able to take control.

    Otherwise what one is saying is that "social media" just gives permission to strangers to attack people. Not very social.

    That falls more under my later reply around being more of a moderation failsafe, at least IMO.

    I think we're in agreement that the tool to disable comments exists - it's just a matter of our interpretation for the owners' intent of their tools.
    SovrathGdemami
  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 17,586
    They earned about $5 million of "free" crowdfunding money, about a fifth of their total budget, which is not negligible, so their marketing strategy did pay off to some extent.
    Wasn't the vast majority of that raised during the Kickstarter and initial Store opening?  How much is really raised over the last year?  He never had a sale (after Kickstarter) as far as I know.  It was just a store that people might wander into to buy a copy of the game.  

    My take is still that its the worst of all worlds.  If you are going to take the stance that you don't want to advertise then just focus internally.  Update the backers who can play the game themselves and ignore the outside world until you have a product ready to be viewed and critiqued.   On the other hand, if you want to advertise then the way they are doing it is pretty poor and just causes a lot of noise around the product for little benefit.

    Gdemami

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  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    They earned about $5 million of "free" crowdfunding money, about a fifth of their total budget, which is not negligible, so their marketing strategy did pay off to some extent.
    Wasn't the vast majority of that raised during the Kickstarter and initial Store opening?  How much is really raised over the last year?  He never had a sale (after Kickstarter) as far as I know.  It was just a store that people might wander into to buy a copy of the game.  

    My take is still that its the worst of all worlds.  If you are going to take the stance that you don't want to advertise then just focus internally.  Update the backers who can play the game themselves and ignore the outside world until you have a product ready to be viewed and critiqued.   On the other hand, if you want to advertise then the way they are doing it is pretty poor and just causes a lot of noise around the product for little benefit.

    Between January 2014 and January 2019 there were more than $2,800,000 pledged, which means +$550,000 per year (it could be more than that because of the refunds that are skewing the total).

    CSE doesn't have a massive budget for marketing at launch, so they've to build the player base over time, using a low-cost marketing strategy (live stream Q&As, monthly update and newsletter, which usually gets featured on MOP/MMORPG, FB/Twitter). If they go silent they may lose 1) the potential backers, 2) the potential players at launch and 3) the crowdfunding money they need to fund CU.
  • alinabeenalinabeen Newbie CommonPosts: 3
    Iselin said:
    Kyleran said:
    Scot said:
    Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.
    Err, he and Rhoklaw got the ban hammer, probably over their "disagreement" in the New World Ice Gauntlet thread which has been since closed.


    Sigh... why cant people just ignore instead of report.
    You're assuming it was triggered by a report and not by mod(s) acting on their own initiative.

    The thread in question was actually moderated twice. The first was a removal of several posts about anti-white racism and responses to that, which happened a couple of days before. IDK if that culling was triggered by a report either but I assume that after, the thread was on the mod's radar.

    IDK what happened to the Twitch thread since I had stopped reading it a day or two before that one was also locked.

    I would guess that most bans here are triggered by reports since these forums don't seem to have very active mod presence, but I'm not going to assume that they all are.

    -------------------------

    Carry on, CU bashing.
     



    Yes, I noticed that too
  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited April 2021
    tzervo said:
    Between January 2014 and January 2019 there were more than $2,800,000 pledged, which means +$550,000 per year (it could be more than that because of the refunds that are skewing the total).
    If we are to believe Mr Jacobs, the refunds were 2% of the players since "that other game" announcement as of September 2020:

    Camelot Unchained promises that ‘a game is starting to emerge’ | Massively Overpowered (archive.org)
    “The total number of refunds pending total since Feb 1st is about 2% of our total number of Backers.”
    I had to go to wayward machine because MOP also deleted that particular thread for no good reason - typical.

    Some extensive research you did there, thanks! How I understand it is that the number of refunds pending since February 1st was about 2% of the total of backers, but the pledge counter already went down of more than $400,000 between November 2019 and March 2020 (so those were not pending anymore I guess).
    [Deleted User]
  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 17,586
    They earned about $5 million of "free" crowdfunding money, about a fifth of their total budget, which is not negligible, so their marketing strategy did pay off to some extent.
    Wasn't the vast majority of that raised during the Kickstarter and initial Store opening?  How much is really raised over the last year?  He never had a sale (after Kickstarter) as far as I know.  It was just a store that people might wander into to buy a copy of the game.  

    My take is still that its the worst of all worlds.  If you are going to take the stance that you don't want to advertise then just focus internally.  Update the backers who can play the game themselves and ignore the outside world until you have a product ready to be viewed and critiqued.   On the other hand, if you want to advertise then the way they are doing it is pretty poor and just causes a lot of noise around the product for little benefit.

    Between January 2014 and January 2019 there were more than $2,800,000 pledged, which means +$550,000 per year (it could be more than that because of the refunds that are skewing the total).

    CSE doesn't have a massive budget for marketing at launch, so they've to build the player base over time, using a low-cost marketing strategy (live stream Q&As, monthly update and newsletter, which usually gets featured on MOP/MMORPG, FB/Twitter). If they go silent they may lose 1) the potential backers, 2) the potential players at launch and 3) the crowdfunding money they need to fund CU.
    Can I ask where you got those stats?  Not that I question them but I’d love to see what data exists and if it matches some event or announcement.

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  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited April 2021
  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 17,586
    edited April 2021
    OK you will probably laugh but thats the first time I actually used the "wayback Machine" and it's freaking awesome! Thanks for sharing.

    Now my question.  Unless I am doing something wrong (certainly possible) I think I see very different numbers or at least ones that paint a very different story.

    Here is Oct 2016



    Here is Oct 2020:



    Edit:

    The number today is:$4,403,844
    So since 2016... basically a little under $150k (total)  or 30k per year (zero last 2 years).  That kind of aligns with what I thought, so maybe I'm just doing some selective searching but it really does reflect my understanding that once they were late they stopped trying to sell overtly.

    Kyleranfrancis_baud[Deleted User]

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  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,975
    edited April 2021
    Yes, Mark has stated numerous times they have not been actively marketing CU or their new title Final Stand: Ragnarok.

    When CU's "Beta 1" first started there was an uptick in pledges from people who wanted to test things out.

    I recall Mark cautioning such buyers refunds might not be offered at some point in order to prevent people from quickly requesting one, reducing the churn if it ever became problematic.

    Never came to that as they've fallen even further behind than predicted and COVID-19 provided the perfect excuse to slow refunds way down, still over a year behind in granting them as far as anyone can tell as Mark has gone completely dark on the subject these days.

    Slapshot1188[Deleted User]

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  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited April 2021
    OK you will probably laugh but thats the first time I actually used the "wayback Machine" and it's freaking awesome! Thanks for sharing.

    Now my question.  Unless I am doing something wrong (certainly possible) I think I see very different numbers or at least ones that paint a very different story.

    Here is Oct 2016



    Here is Oct 2020:



    Edit:

    The number today is:$4,403,844
    So since 2016... basically a little under $150k (total)  or 30k per year (zero last 2 years).  That kind of aligns with what I thought, so maybe I'm just doing some selective searching but it really does reflect my understanding that once they were late they stopped trying to sell overtly.

    Well it went up to $5,300,100 in March 2019, so from October 2016 to March 2019 the pledge counter went up slightly more than a million dollars. But that doesn't take into account the refunds, which have likely been more numerous in recent years, so the amount of money pledged could be significantly higher than that. I should have written "in average" 550K/year, since it's certainly not steady.
    [Deleted User]
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