A lot of us had accumulated a lot of resentment over the last weeks creating a mounting tension among players who felt the studio was out of touch with the community. This phenomenon has been going on longer than Domain & Settlement Selection was announced. It started with the delays on map selection followed by the wait for the DSS announcement. This culminated in the unprecedented anger and irritation that has been seen in the CoE discord over the last week and more specifically today at the announcement of the latest delay.

As Damocles said, this unexpected Q&A addressing our irritation not only reduced our grips over receiving further delays, it almost made up for the facts that there was any delays at all. I would also like to see more of these "community feedback" period. It allowed for the whole community to come together and discuss in what turned out to be a very civil discussion.

Thanks Caspian for taking the time to listen to us and act on what was said promptly and decisively. This is the type of community we wanted to be part of all along and I hope to see more of this type of interaction as we all follow and contribute to the development of Chronicles of Elyria.

I will follow suit here. I believe this evening was one of the most productive interactions the community has had with the development team and Caspian specifically. We've had other discord chats in the past but was mainly just being talked to instead of talked with. The same with the Q&A sessions in general while we get to ask questions they are still sorted and filtered.

This allowed for a real and productive conversation, though 100% believe there needs to be some sort of structure involved. As anyone who was in the chat we had many people that wished to speak that were either drowned out, cut off or ignored.

Even still I know that many of us consider this a win even with the delayed times. This was one major step in turning around the reputation that SBS has started to develop in this community and those of us that want so much to support you all in making this game have some solid hope again. I really wish for this to continue.

Thank you Caspian, and the team that supported him of scenes in this chance to address so many of our concerns. As well as a huge thank you for taking the time away from your families to be here for this project and the conversation that was held.

While the session was far better then silence would have been, I still heard nothing which gives me any confidence that SBS has course corrected in any way that will cause it meet any future delivery date that it sets.

Feel good feedback, listening and catharsis do not count for jack at the end of the day, there are only 2 things SBS needs to do.

Change the way they create and release dates https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31391/deadline-methodology-poll

Change the person setting and communicating those dates https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31449/sbs-you-need-to-hand-over-scheduling-duty-to-someone-else

Did anyone record this voice chat? After going over discord logs, I am hearing everyone say that it appropriately addressed concerns from both the community and developers. While I am pleased to hear such positive feedback form this discussion, I'd very much appreciate the opportunity to listen to this chat myself.

Edits for information I have found on discord

From Adam Rhyne:
@Caspian ☁ Sorry for starting that conversation off on the wrong foot, but I am glad you were able to get the time to come in and hear your communities thoughts. I know I dont have all the information and I acknowledge that. However, I dont think the answer is black or white but I do believe a grey area solution will result in more funding for you, along with more engagement for the community and will increase trust and faith rather than decrease it. Anything I am able to do to help, as always I am happy to do.
@Caspian ☁ I do not believe you guys are doing anything intentionally scummy. Especially after this conversation and clarification of your perspective. Making proper business decisions is not a bad thing that is a good thing as you need that funding. I just started to get the feeling that you were valuing hype and cashflow over maintaining and building of trust and confidence of your audience. I am happy to have been proven wrong there. Thank you for your time.

from Kynlo "Cheese Press" Accardi:
Adam was conveying misleading information (I was not online for this part so I missed it), to which Caspian settled it by saying (paraphrase) that "the studio never intended nor believed they were misleading anybody or cheating anybody out of anything". When asked to no longer give hard dates, he accepted that for DSS that the maps should be completed prior to any more dates being given, which is why the original post is now offline for modification. He also asked for all those who have lost any trust in the company or thinks that these dates are "hype for cash grabs", not spend any money on the store until they regain said trust.

From Cyneric Torrin:
I have not been a white knight for the past few weeks and was one of the very salty people. We got our concerns listened to and a change that I and others have been asking for, which is to say no hard dates for DSS until it is guaranteed to work. I am defending them now because they have done what I and others had been asking is that we wanted to be sure we could believe they would hit their dates, and we did not currently believe they would which was a problem. With this change, we have our faith restored a bit, and we feel like they are listening to us. So yeah now I'm certainly going to defend SBS over this as a result when I otherwise wouldn't have.

Posted By Lodrig at 05:02 AM - Mon May 13 2019

While the session was far better then silence would have been, I still heard nothing which gives me any confidence that SBS has course corrected in any way that will cause it meet any future delivery date that it sets.

Feel good feedback, listening and catharsis do not count for jack at the end of the day, there are only 2 things SBS needs to do.

Change the way they create and release dates https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31391/deadline-methodology-poll

Change the person setting and communicating those dates https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31449/sbs-you-need-to-hand-over-scheduling-duty-to-someone-else

As much as I agree with what you're saying. We've tried to outline the issue and it hasn't worked.

Maybe the results we got from the VC is an indication that we need a more positive outlook to get things to change in their processes, maybe it's just a fluke, but I think it's worth trying.

Posted By Lodrig at 11:02 PM - Sun May 12 2019

While the session was far better then silence would have been, I still heard nothing which gives me any confidence that SBS has course corrected in any way that will cause it meet any future delivery date that it sets.

The only thing that will restore lost confidence is to see course corrections in the way future events are rolled out. Namely, KoE, Expo and launch. The good news is, we won't have to wait very long to make some judgements on this. Caspian already deferred the May 20th deadline so that's a step in the right direction.

Worth noting as well that Caspian reserved the right to set dates as needed in the future based on their own goals/priorities, but I don't know of any scenario in which missing a publicly announced date, and announcing the delay at the 11th hour, is a good outcome for anyone. So beyond D&SS, I hope they can grow as a studio and get better at setting achievable deadlines for themselves.

Posted By Lodrig at 11:02 PM - Sun May 12 2019

Change the way they create and release dates https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31391/deadline-methodology-poll

Change the person setting and communicating those dates https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/31449/sbs-you-need-to-hand-over-scheduling-duty-to-someone-else

I agree in principle, but I think it's more about having the right discipline. There's no reason Caspian can't handle this himself, it's just that he's convinced himself that "creating hype" is his ultimate priority that supersedes good discipline. This is why despite Vye's protestations, stuff gets said that should not be said, and how dates get set that are not remotely achievable.

I'd personally like to see them move beyond all the talk and theorycrafting and fake dates. This is year 3. They should be in a position to show what they have accomplished and what they are working on. It is these tangible things that will generate all the hype they'd ever need.

Show more. Talk less. That's the mission for 2019, Soulbound.

Posted By kibitz at 01:09 AM - Mon May 13 2019

Did anyone record this voice chat? After going over discord logs, I am hearing everyone say that it appropriately addressed concerns from both the community and developers. While I am pleased to hear such positive feedback form this discussion, I'd very much appreciate the opportunity to listen to this chat myself.

Edits for information I have found on discord

From Cyneric Torrin:
I have not been a white knight for the past few weeks and was one of the very salty people. We got our concerns listened to and a change that I and others have been asking for, which is to say no hard dates for DSS until it is guaranteed to work. I am defending them now because they have done what I and others had been asking is that we wanted to be sure we could believe they would hit their dates, and we did not currently believe they would which was a problem. With this change, we have our faith restored a bit, and we feel like they are listening to us. So yeah now I'm certainly going to defend SBS over this as a result when I otherwise wouldn't have.

While I was not there to hear the voice chat. If this is something Cyneric said, I have faith in him as a level headed leader in the community. If he feels this way it is a good indication that progress was made.

Sure, my trust was lost and I won't be spending money until they gain that trust back but I will be less skeptical and allow them the opportunity to do so and I encourage others to do the same.

Was not there either, suspect it was a timezone issue...

Only time will tell, what will come of this, but at least there seems to be a small start in both trust returning, and the community venting off some of the pressurized steam that has been boiling. I hope SbS keeps this up and from now on remain mindful in avoiding situations like this latest delay hell.

Good post btw nekomimi

Posted By Hieronymus at 11:08 AM - Mon May 13 2019

Worth noting as well that Caspian reserved the right to set dates as needed in the future based on their own goals/priorities,

This is what tells me that Caspian has not turn over a new leaf. He's trying to reserve the right to make the same mistake again. I don't need to 'wait and see' if their is a change in behavior when the party in questions ONLY future commitment was to keep doing the same thing.

People need to filter out the platitudes that were said or the warm feeling they got from 'being heard' and hear what was actually said by Caspian, what was actually promised. Anyone who came out of that discussion feeling their was any real change in the studio's practices is deluding themselves. And this desire to sit-back and wait, or in anyway cease pressuring for change is only going to be enabling of more of the same.