Posted By Watru at 3:13 PM - Sun Jan 20 2019
Just answer these questions please..
Is it good or in everyone's best interest, that they only take feedback from a small group? (Exclusive Forum)
We take feedback from everyone in the community. That's what the forums are for.
We do also have an exclusive live stream once a month with the 10k group where we talk business, give them some insight into upcoming events, and discuss things with them that would affect exclusively the Nobility.
And of course, we have the Early Access forum where we show screenshots and other media, and discuss mechanical changes. The Early Access forum is open to over 2,500 people and is plenty of people to give us the valuable feedback we need.
As we've said in the past, we have the limited group because sometimes we want to make changes that, until we've explored all angles, don't feel the need to alarm our 250,000+ community members or the news outlets. Sometimes we just want to gauge community response in a control group before sharing something broadly.
Is it not a bit dis-concerning that after so many years they have yet to produce anything that can be viewed as progress and are way overdue on timelines and so on?
We've been in production for 2 years and 2 months (Since Nov. 2016). Since then we've had to roll our own back-end servers, create a front-end that can communicate with our back-end, and implement the many gameplay mechanics and systems that exist in the Pre-Alpha - in addition to all the work we've had to do around world building and world generation; including creating the lore and details of all the biomes, flora, fauna, historical events, and Tribes of Elyria.
I know that all sounds defensive, but it's really not meant to be. I just wanted to highlight that we've done a ton in a relatively short amount of time. I say relatively because if you compare us with other in-development and previous MMOs you can see that we're still doing quite well on time.
I know when you're watching the clock waiting for the project to be completed it can seem like an eternity. But I've worked longer than this on single-player free-roaming adventure games.
When they promise things that never happen, why dont the community hold them accountable?
I'm not sure what you mean by never happen. We had several community events come and go that we said would happen, we've got domain & settlement selection coming up soon as well. We reached our Friends & Family milestone earlier last year, but decided not to release the "Walk & Talk" to Alpha 1 backers. Now we're working on getting the game into the hands of players as quickly as possible. Trust me when I say it's coming soon.
But to say never is both a gross over statement and is honestly incorrect. As long as I'm coming into work every day, never hasn't happened yet. In the words of the famous Dread Pirate Roberts, "You're only saying never because no one ever has."
And is it ok for them to keep asking for money and trust when they dont treat the community with equal respect and appreciation for there contributions?
We treat everyone in the community with equal respect and appreciation. No matter whether you're a Monarch, Royal, Elyrian, or you're just here to cheer us on. We know we wouldn't be here, working every day to bring CoE to life without the dedication, love, and support of our community. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Soulbound Studios is built on "Passion for our project and love for our community."
Do we really want a game that caters to the rich few or the ones how buddy's up to the devs?
Every AAA game or MMO you've ever played has taken money to make it. We opted for crowdfunding because we believed that only the players would appreciate what we're trying to achieve with CoE. All evidence suggests that's true. But nothing about the game caters to the rich few or those who "Buddy up to the devs." I'm not even really sure what the last part means.
What I do know is you're regularly in Discord, and I regularly take time out of my day to answer your questions honestly. Both about the mechanics of the game, as well as, as best I can, what we're working on and how progress is going.
The mechanics of CoE are solid, regardless of whether we crowdfund or seed the worlds' starting kingdoms with players.
Another way to look at it is this: We want the world's nobility and aristocracy populated by players at launch because we feel it creates a more difficult challenge, a more engaging story, and a more immersive world. If you agree that playing with human nobility and aristocracy is better than NPC nobility and aristocracy then it's just a question of how we seed the world at launch.
We could randomly assign people from our community the role of monarch, duke, and count, or we could crowdfund and let the players buy those roles. Either way - the mechanics are the same, and the players coming in on launch day can't tell the difference. They won't know or care whether the monarch of their kingdom was randomly selected or paid for their tile. It makes no difference to the players on launch day, because the game is played the same either way. But it does make a difference to us.
As to your question of "Do we really want a game...," I'd say most people on these forums want this game. If you don't, no worries. CoE isn't for everyone. But if you don't want the game we're making, please don't spend your time trying to drag other community members into your negativity. There's plenty of other game communities out there.
And why do we never get a response from SbS on this forum with things like this, not like the tactic of ignoring concerns have worked for them...
Frankly, because we have things to do. There will always be negative articles that come out about the game. Even post-launch. We can't stop development each time that happens to address it. We shouldn't have to.
In this case, there's a seven page thread about people raising valid concerns, all of which are addressed by us staying focused on our work and getting a playable game into your hands as quickly as we can. But if every time one of these threads pops up we have to stop to take screenshots for you, create new videos, or simply log into the forums to give you a virtual hug, it will affect our development.
I mean no disrespect, honestly. I do understand peoples' concerns. It's just that no matter how many times I respond to threads like this, what you all want is to see a game. And we're working on it.
SbS are shooting them [sic] self's in the foot here and laying the groundwork for a shitty perception of this game and SbS as a company, cant they see that?.
I can see you have a shitty perception of the game and the company. And I'm sure many other people do too. The only way I can address that for any lasting amount of time is to deliver a game.
I have to say i rely doubt that they even bother to read these threads and just soldier on in there own ways with no regard for the broader community or there potential costumers i hope they can prove me wrong.
Proven wrong. I read these threads. Every. Hurtful. Comment.
Something needs to be done to sway some public opinion here and SbS needs to reach out to the community, as they need some good will at this point, where are the community managers?
Something does need to be done to sway public opinion. We need to ship a playable version of the game to our backers. And we're working as hard as we can to make that happen. Let us do our jobs instead of trying to rally up negativity.
Responding to the thread at large: I have my opinions about Tim's MMORPG.com article, but I'll keep them to myself. The important thing is that he has concerns, as do many of our backers. I understand.
I understand that 2 years of development seems like a long time to players. I understand that when we're focusing on the back-end for long periods of time and there's no screenshots or videos to share that it can feel lonely and isolating. I understand that when we're focusing on gameplay, but aren't happy with the animations, UI, or something else and keep the screenshots to ourselves that it can also feel like we've vanished or forgotten about the players. I understand.
But I'm asking you to understand, too. Please understand that 2 years to develop an MMO is a drop in the bucket. Even for large teams with established code bases. We're performing miracles with our small little team, but miracles take time.
Please understand that we're not ignoring you, we're just not always taking time away from development to respond to you. That's because we know how eager and excited people are to see the game in all its glory, and when we see threads like this it simultaneously motivates us to work harder, as well as saddens us that people can't just stay positive and allow us to get our jobs done.
There's really no need for the negativity, hostility, or disbelief. We have a shared goal of creating an amazing game. No matter how long it takes, no matter how long we may seem to go silent for, we're working diligently to bring this game to life.
Don't believe me? Remember that there is nobody who has more on the line, or who will lose more if we're unable to deliver on our promises than me. I lose literally everything.
So while I won't ask you to trust me, I will ask you to understand that I am more motivated than any of you to deliver Chronicles of Elyria and to delight our players.
