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LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#1
See the first comments here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jo ... e/comments. Illuminus' comment is probably representative of what many backers are thinking, especially those who didn't see Josh's last post here. Even if they did though, there comes a point where you have to ask "How long do we have to wait before we can say we've been waiting too long?" And yes, I know this is dredging up the old debate about deadlines vs a quality product, but I thought it would be pertinent to point out that the Kickstarter followers are in a worse position than we are on the forums.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#2
He sounds rather pessimistic with his first comment. "The guy has gone off the deep end. Fans in his forums have given up hearing anything from him now and just post pictures of trains and submarines."

I had more to say but I felt that starting a flame war wouldn't help. But I will say this. WHEN Josh speaks again, I won't be one of the people who gave up.
Image "Everyone needs to have their avatar's edited to have afros." -Charley Deallus
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#3
TROPtastic wrote:...but I thought it would be pertinent to point out that the Kickstarter followers are in a worse position than we are on the forums.

How are they in a worse position? If I had backed this game, I would have been paying for the game he described, not for him to make me feel all warm and fuzzy by posting stuff in a forum. If he did post stuff, great, if not, oh well, I backed the GAME, not some forum, pat me on the head fuzziness.

And as a special, no extra cost benefit to those to which it may apply.
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Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#4
I certainly don't think Josh has given up, and I think that LT will be awesome when it's released, but I can understand where the guy is coming from.

Josh sets guidelines on how and when he'll communicate with the public, then breaks those guidelines without sharing the reasons why. If he was just some random guy, who would we be to give him a hard time, right? He's NOT just some random guy, though, he's a game dev who's cultivated a community, and is now in danger of having that community fray from violating his own rules of engagement.

If you want to see how badly this type of thing can get, Google "Cube World". Wollay took a TON of good will, and a lot of people's money, and abandoned them. Maybe. No one's really sure, because no one's heard from him in about 10 months.

Community and buzz is a VERY hard thing to build, and a very easy thing to lose through neglect. I hope Josh doesn't make the mistake of losing his through breaking his own promises.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#5
Zebulon Pi wrote:..... because no one's heard from him in about 10 months.

Community and buzz is a VERY hard thing to build, and a very easy thing to lose through neglect. I hope Josh doesn't make the mistake of losing his through breaking his own promises.

Ten months is a hell of a lot longer than just a few weeks.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#6
I just dont really get why he stopped posting. Like, even though he is off doing something amazing in his code dungeon, he could take 10 minutes to post a cryptic screen shot or something. Maybe he is worried that what he is working on is kind of off the deep end and wont pan out, in which case he doesnt want to look dumb for spending so much time on it, but I think we could all understand if that happened. Im far from losing my faith in Josh, but a word or two from him would go a long way.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#7
Zebulon Pi wrote:I certainly don't think Josh has given up, and I think that LT will be awesome when it's released, but I can understand where the guy is coming from.

Josh sets guidelines on how and when he'll communicate with the public, then breaks those guidelines without sharing the reasons why. If he was just some random guy, who would we be to give him a hard time, right? He's NOT just some random guy, though, he's a game dev who's cultivated a community, and is now in danger of having that community fray from violating his own rules of engagement.

If you want to see how badly this type of thing can get, Google "Cube World". Wollay took a TON of good will, and a lot of people's money, and abandoned them. Maybe. No one's really sure, because no one's heard from him in about 10 months.

Community and buzz is a VERY hard thing to build, and a very easy thing to lose through neglect. I hope Josh doesn't make the mistake of losing his through breaking his own promises.
Josh DID post at the beginning of the month saying he was focusing more on making the game rather than trying to make constant deadlines and worrying about making a video or post. I know it was right in the middle of a topic, which makes it very hard to find (I only found it thanks to someone else linking it, so I felt dumb).

"It is especially hard to take things like concerns about the validity of an 8-day RTB cycle seriously. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be mean when I say that! It's just...I'm in the driver's seat right now, and I can see how this is working. I can see the effect. And I wouldn't change it for anything. Seriously. I'm just...I"m just not worried about this anymore, because I see that it's exactly as it should be :)"

Just because people can't read his announcements doesn't mean they should shove all of the blame on him. Everyone is basically acting like he just fell off the face of the world. His post basically says to me "I'm busy working on the game, not on jumping back and forth to make deadlines." Sure, to some it could sound rude or something like that but to me it is reality. I would rather see the game made than him having to cater to constant deadlines.

For the full post, click the link in my signature "In Josh We TRUST" it takes you to his post. Also, it seems he has been working covertly on the forums lately (or it is someone else) but he isn't dead. He is just working.
Last edited by Charley_Deallus on Mon Feb 23, 2015 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image "Everyone needs to have their avatar's edited to have afros." -Charley Deallus
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#9
Poet1960 wrote:
Zebulon Pi wrote:..... because no one's heard from him in about 10 months.

Community and buzz is a VERY hard thing to build, and a very easy thing to lose through neglect. I hope Josh doesn't make the mistake of losing his through breaking his own promises.

Ten months is a hell of a lot longer than just a few weeks.
Sure is, but you don't get to 10 months without getting to a few weeks first.

Difference, too, is that Wollay was known to be insular and slow, and yet STILL people hate him at this point. With someone like Josh, who DOES make promises about communication, and then breaks them, what will the perception be?

Again, I think the Kickstarter poster is being WAY too hyperbolic with his post, but the sentiment isn't unreasonable. When a dev blows timelines and retreats from dialog, what's the general public SUPPOSED to think? There's been a lot of very public promise breaking in games lately, from Godus to Elite, and this isn't helping.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#10
Tbh, if I hadn't done a kickstarter, I would drop off the face of the Earth after all of the negativity...a very negative comment of mine but the pessimism and anger has really been eating at me. It's getting to the point where I would love Magus to temp ban me for a few weeks -_- even though I can voluntarily do it like Katawa.

EDIT - and I missed a sentence in the OP's message saying many KS people missed Josh's last sentence, so I hope TROP knows that none of my anger is aimed at him. However, only two comments really look negative...since there haven't been many lately. So, if this a survey using collected statements and all of that, I wouldn't see a negative trend in KS comments unless I was only collecting a weeks worth of data.
Last edited by Charley_Deallus on Mon Feb 23, 2015 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image "Everyone needs to have their avatar's edited to have afros." -Charley Deallus
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#12
Zebulon Pi wrote:
Poet1960 wrote:
Zebulon Pi wrote:..... because no one's heard from him in about 10 months.

Community and buzz is a VERY hard thing to build, and a very easy thing to lose through neglect. I hope Josh doesn't make the mistake of losing his through breaking his own promises.

Ten months is a hell of a lot longer than just a few weeks.
Sure is, but you don't get to 10 months without getting to a few weeks first.

Difference, too, is that Wollay was known to be insular and slow, and yet STILL people hate him at this point. With someone like Josh, who DOES make promises about communication, and then breaks them, what will the perception be?

Again, I think the Kickstarter poster is being WAY too hyperbolic with his post, but the sentiment isn't unreasonable. When a dev blows timelines and retreats from dialog, what's the general public SUPPOSED to think? There's been a lot of very public promise breaking in games lately, from Godus to Elite, and this isn't helping.
The question then becomes, did he break those promises because he planned to, or because of unfolding events that forced it to turn out that way? And I mean legitimate events, not like Brabens excuse about single player not working out because of a choice he made to make it so that single player wasn't viable.

How many years has Josh been here EVERY single day, or nearly so, giving out info and letting us know what he's been doing? And now some people want to get all fidgety over a few weeks when he doesn't? Come on. Josh wants this game as bad as we do, maybe even more.

So he takes a hiatus for a while, big deal, I'm sure he hasn't just decided to drop 2+ years of intensive work and walk away from it.





“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#13
Poet1960 wrote:
The question then becomes, did he break those promises because he planned to, or because of unfolding events that forced it to turn out that way? And I mean legitimate events, not like Brabens excuse about single player not working out because of a choice he made to make it so that single player wasn't viable.

How many years has Josh been here EVERY single day, or nearly so, giving out info and letting us know what he's been doing? And now some people want to get all fidgety over a few weeks when he doesn't? Come on. Josh wants this game as bad as we do, maybe even more.

So he takes a hiatus for a while, big deal, I'm sure he hasn't just decided to drop 2+ years of intensive work and walk away from it.





“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
IS he taking a hiatus or Is he coding like mad and simply not posting to the site? Did he say that he wasn't going to be posting for a while? Did he make a public, unambiguous announcement about his intentions?

Again, no hate toward Josh, that's not the point of what I'm saying. What I AM saying is that I'm someone who came here EVERY DAY to read Josh's weblog for TWO YEARS, and I can't figure out what he's up to. How's the general public supposed to react? People aren't exactly bright in large groups, and tend toward hyperbole, and those things aren't good when you're trying to maintain hype on your project. He needs clear communication on what he's doing, and what we can expect (doesn't need timelines, just plain English on expectations), and I think we'd be fine.
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#14
"I hope you all can forgive me for this! If I seem distant, unconcerned, far...well, it's because I am :oops: Each day I live more and more inside LT, both as a game and a concept. Each day it becomes more tangible, more audible, more exceptional -- and, consequently, it becomes harder and harder to look away. It is especially hard to take things like concerns about the validity of an 8-day RTB cycle seriously. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be mean when I say that! It's just...I'm in the driver's seat right now, and I can see how this is working. I can see the effect. And I wouldn't change it for anything. Seriously. I'm just...I"m just not worried about this anymore, because I see that it's exactly as it should be :)"

"Limit Theory is really happening, folks :] You have trusted me this far. You have trusted me when I was less motivated, less capable, less responsible, less passionate, and less disciplined than what I am now. So now -- all you've got to do is hang on. Hang on, and I promise you won't be disappointed. This is it."
All I can offer you mate. Sorry. Can be easily read as ambiguous so I can't say I can completely answer the questions.
Image "Everyone needs to have their avatar's edited to have afros." -Charley Deallus
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Re: LT Backers are starting to lose faith

#15
Zebulon Pi wrote:
Poet1960 wrote:
The question then becomes, did he break those promises because he planned to, or because of unfolding events that forced it to turn out that way? And I mean legitimate events, not like Brabens excuse about single player not working out because of a choice he made to make it so that single player wasn't viable.

How many years has Josh been here EVERY single day, or nearly so, giving out info and letting us know what he's been doing? And now some people want to get all fidgety over a few weeks when he doesn't? Come on. Josh wants this game as bad as we do, maybe even more.

So he takes a hiatus for a while, big deal, I'm sure he hasn't just decided to drop 2+ years of intensive work and walk away from it.





“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
IS he taking a hiatus or Is he coding like mad and simply not posting to the site? Did he say that he wasn't going to be posting for a while? Did he make a public, unambiguous announcement about his intentions?

Again, no hate toward Josh, that's not the point of what I'm saying. What I AM saying is that I'm someone who came here EVERY DAY to read Josh's weblog for TWO YEARS, and I can't figure out what he's up to. How's the general public supposed to react? People aren't exactly bright in large groups, and tend toward hyperbole, and those things aren't good when you're trying to maintain hype on your project. He needs clear communication on what he's doing, and what we can expect (doesn't need timelines, just plain English on expectations), and I think we'd be fine.


The general public, which implies or assumes a vast number of people that basically includes EVERYONE. While I agree many people aren't very bright, the term general public is misleading at best. I say this because of all people, how many know about the game at all? Pretty much the only ones that know of it are here, that leaves a few who know, but choose not to be here. Of those, many just check in from time to time to see how things are progressing, or in other words, IS IT DONE YET? No? Okay, I will check back later.

So in fact there doesn't seem to be any real danger of the, "general public," reacting badly, because most don't even know about it, and the ones who do, are either in here, or check in periodically just to see if it's DONE. They don't care about anything else.

Clear communication is certainly a useful thing when called for, but we don't know what he is up to, and anything from our end is pure speculation and guess work. So if he thinks he's doing what's best, then fine, I will go along with it. I don't know all the facts, so I don't presume to know what he should or shouldn't do.




EDIT:
I hate typos.
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