COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Suggestion concerning PrElyria footage in context of new customer experience for SoE

As Caspian had hinted that further PrElyria footage might be restricted to Alpha 1 backers due to negative feedback, especially in hindsight of their efforts to improving the new customer experience for Settlers of Elyria, I would like to suggest using a strategy again that SBS had attempted previously (for their VoxElyria video).

Produce a short 15-30 seconds 'introduction' (once and reuse it), that mimics PrElyria and 'high fidelity' client side by side with a text and voice explanation of 'greybox testing'.

Whenever developers stray from the norm, they have to ensure that the reasons and benefits of their decision are highlighted and easily accessible for a new customer upfront, without requiring any form of research in order to prevent the potential customer from wrong conclusions based on empiric knowledge. First impression is incredibly important (there's been research by a German car manufacturer that it takes about four times the money in advertising to regain lost interest after a first contact).

Since there has been confusion, what I do not suggest is a continuous side by side footage of PrElyria and high-fidelity client, as that would obviously negate the benefits of having PrElyria in the first place. I do not suggest that you actually put effort into synchronizing both clients either, but to mimic it visually. As long as the explanation mentions it's 'simulated' to highlight the point, there's no bad in 'faking' the effect. I do not suggest to produce any new high fidelity assets either, SBS could even use 'old' high quality footage and simply perform the same movement in the PrElyria client. I do not suggest anything that takes more than a single day (if at all) to produce either and since it should be reused, it is a one time cost (of a single day), but long term benefit.

I'm looking forward to feedback.


Sage willing to help with Purity (if you spot me on Discord and have some Plague on your account that could be nullified with a trade, drop me a message on Discord)

10/25/2019 2:34:42 PM #1

It's a good idea and should not take an exorbitant amount of time to create. Caspian mentioned that he would discuss it internally with his team first so lets see what happens.


Greybattle County

10/25/2019 3:45:57 PM #2

except caspian said in discord that it would take an exorbitant amount of time to make, because they would have to catch the high fidelity client up to the current one, and not doing that is the entire reason they are using the prelyria client, because its many many times faster to create a low fidelity version and recreate it each time they need to test it, then once all the big stuff is ready, they bring the high fidelity client in line with prelyria and create all the animations and items once, rather than spend ages working on them.

that is at least the gist of the situation as far as i understand it. what you want would take something like 6 months and bring everything else to a standstill.


10/25/2019 3:50:05 PM #3

Very constructive post in my opinion! Especially after all the criticism about SbS's communication a while ago. It's good to adress hints such as Caspian's early.

I understand the concern that a part of the audience will not understand the significance of being able to iterade quickly during the implementaion of game mechanics. But honestly: I don't belive the (presumably minority of) players who can't look behind the graphics will be too impressed by some high-fidelity graphics now. In contrary, if they were drawn into the game now with either old or new high fidelity assets they may even be disappointed when these graphics become outdated in the next few years which development will most likely take. (To a certain point this has already happend with the old high-fidelity assets.) And as you said, regaining lost interest is way harder!

Also one thing I believe is really important for SbS to understand is that progress cannot be shown one-off. It's always a process and showing the development from concept to PrElyria to Elyria high fidelity will generate way more confidence than promising high-fidelity early on. The main advantage of low-fidelity assets is being able to iterate quickly - which is basically nothing else than generating fast progress! If SbS keeps this up it will generate way more confidence than anything else!


10/25/2019 4:51:22 PM #4

Hi everyone!

First, while I appreciate the desire to take to the forums and rally support for an idea, this stems from a casual conversation about what the web team has been working on lately, and wasn't intended for a larger audience. Please don't take discussions with developers and escalate them on the forums for broader exposure unless we ask you to. :-)

Second, this statement is a bit misleading and so I wanted to correct it:

As Caspian had hinted that further PrElyria footage might be restricted to Alpha 1 backers due to negative feedback...

For those who weren't part of the larger Discord discussion, my statement began as an explanation of why we didn't share footage of Prelyria for a long time. Which is pretty simple - It's not what Chronicles of Elyria is ultimately going to look like. It is, not surprising, our Pre-Alpha client and is thus more suited for a smaller audience - in particular our Alpha 1 backers who have expressed a desire in seeing the game at this stage of development.

However, as development is a lengthy process, for many people it seemed like we'd gone dark and that development wasn't moving forward, which was not at all the case. So we took to showing the Prelyria/Pre-Alpha client as part of our shiny Thursdays in an effort to reassure people that forward progress is definitely being made and that game-play mechanics are coming online very quickly now.

That said, people who are tightly integrated within our community are already aware of our development process and understand that the Pre-Alpha client is functionally equivalent to the final game, but isn't visually equivalent. On the other hand, the general audience (people who are not an active part of our community) who are only superficially aware of CoE and its features are seeing the gameplay screenshots and video footage and are getting the wrong impression of what the final game is going to be. And while some of them do express a negative reaction, that's not the root problem, nor the main focus of our Discord conversation.

The root problem, and main focus, is that the information on our website isn't easily discoverable and is a bit stale. For example, there isn't anything in our game guide or top-level pages that talks about our approach to development or which explains why the Pre-Alpha client exists, or why it looks different than the final game. So when someone does learn about our game through a Prelyria YouTube video, etc. there isn't a good way to funnel them through that first introduction of the game to a place where they have a fuller understanding.

As I said in Discord, I can see the value in a quick, informative blurb at the beginning of gameplay videos featuring our pre-Alpha, but that alone isn't enough to address my bigger plans right now, which is making sure new people who come to the site (and existing community members) have an easier time learning about the game, where we are in development, what our process is, what's unique about CoE, and why this is a game to be excited about.

Now that everyone is caught up with our discussion, I said in our conversation I'd bring it up with the team and I've already started discussing it with the team Leads. I'm not entirely sure what else I can do to make sure you know your feedback was heard. But if it helps, it was.

Cheers!
Caspian


10/25/2019 5:46:50 PM #5

Perhaps this might be a productive suggestion Caspian and perhaps not, but maybe taking the time to redo the dev journals in more current form to and also inserting them in place of the weekly shinies? They would still be shiny and new looks at gameplay, you could save some of the time creating stuff because your doing double duty with it, they would allow the current backers a more up to date version of stuff to theorycraft from and a more comprehensive look at the systems coming into place for newcomers? Let me conclude by saying im not with these people ^ so feel free to disregard my suggestion if its not viable!


10/25/2019 5:47:43 PM #6

Posted By Caspian at 6:51 PM - Fri Oct 25 2019

So we took to showing the Prelyria/Pre-Alpha client as part of our shiny Thursdays in an effort to reassure people that forward progress is definitely being made and that game-play mechanics are coming online very quickly now.

This definitely worked and I'm pretty sure for many of us it boosted our trust, faith and anticipation!

Posted By Caspian at 6:51 PM - Fri Oct 25 2019

Now that everyone is caught up with our discussion, I said in our conversation I'd bring it up with the team and I've already started discussing it with the team Leads. I'm not entirely sure what else I can do to make sure you know your feedback was heard. But if it helps, it was.

Again, much appreciated! <3


10/25/2019 6:23:19 PM #7

Definitely appreciate this post and I want to reiterate some of what others brought up in the discord chat earlier.

I agree with them that having a 5 to 10 second disclaimer that the prelyria client is a "greybox low poly" version and showing a stock (example) is the best way to go about it at the beginning of every video.

Eye candy reels them in, game mechanics keeps them wanting more.

So I say... definitely show them a disclaimer - it will help to garner more interest in the project and help to alleviate potential misunderstandings about the graphics of the game.


10/25/2019 6:57:46 PM #8

I think some regular footage of Pre-Elyria client is fine as long as you are clearly demonstrating progress in a key game functionality and explain that. Perhaps also have a permanent small banner at the bottom of the footage that clearly states this is a test client and not how the final game will look.

In the long run I think regular footage of progress will gain more support than silence just to appease a small minority of brand new players or casual observers that don't read up enough to understand what the Pre-Elyria client is.


10/25/2019 7:03:54 PM #9

Noting what Caspian said and leaving the website side out of it, all you have to do is say a short piece at the start of each clip saying 'this is a low poly version we use for fast mechanical development, the final game will use high quality realistic graphics' or what ever. No need to make a huge extra work load.


10/25/2019 7:10:50 PM #10

Another alternative is adding a description of the development process to the game guide.


10/26/2019 12:21:20 AM #11

I agree that the website needs a lot of updating. But SBS would benefit SO much from actually putting something out when you said you would. You said that SoE would start "a few weeks" after the end of DSS. Please put all of the people you can into making that happen! Thanks.


10/26/2019 2:35:55 PM #12

Posted By Caspian at 6:51 PM - Fri Oct 25 2019

(...)take to the forums and rally support for an idea (...)

I am sorry if that was the impression, it is not what I meant to do.

Posted By Caspian at 6:51 PM - Fri Oct 25 2019

(...)I've already started discussing it with the team Leads(...)

That is why I had posted and asked for feedback now. Once you have taken a decision and started/finished production, it is too late to provide ideas, as I agree this must not take more than a very small amount of resources from the team.

Posted By Caspian at 6:51 PM - Fri Oct 25 2019

(...)Please don't take discussions with developers and escalate them on the forums for broader exposure unless we ask you to(...)

Noted. I am sorry and shall refrain from doing so in the future.


Sage willing to help with Purity (if you spot me on Discord and have some Plague on your account that could be nullified with a trade, drop me a message on Discord)

10/26/2019 11:41:45 PM #13

It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Keep the channels of discussion open, honest and most of all unfettered.

😉


You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. JAMES 1:19 NLT

10/29/2019 1:56:04 PM #14

I had read this conversation back in Discord a while back. It is pretty heart warming to see both the devs and fans can keep their passion for the project even after these many years. Both sides of the argument make sense, which leads me to think of a middle of the way solution.

Maybe the short clip, of the side by side comparison need not be unique for each video release. How about a clip simply about riding a horse in a Lower Montane environment merely for comparison sake (something similar to the swirling horse tail clip a while back)?

Maybe SBS can update the comparison clip to another one once or twice a year?


Never argue with an idiot, cuz he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Vice mayor of Lux Verloren

10/29/2019 6:43:21 PM #15

Fantastic reply Caspian and I'm glad this is all being brought up. Sometimes I feel like the website is losing it's grip on the current state of the game. As you said/spoke to, I expect this leaves (and has left) many prospective backers confused and cautious. So much so that they're likely to simply leave for something else and "wait and see what happens", or in other words, "move on and forget about it because I don't understand or trust this unknown process and maybe one day I'll be reminded of the game again somehow".

From a long time Early Backer of many different games and projects, to a developer of one of these said projects, I can't stress the importance of your information and 'message' being as closely synced to your works as possible. If people don't understand what's happening, the gap in their knowledge is immediately filled by suspicion and scepticism.