I was looking through the Dev Journals and it occurs to me that an enormous amount of the information in the Dev Journals has been redacted. I have been listening to old Q&A's and similarly a large amount of that information has been redacted. This has led me to having a lot of confusion, and I can't be the only one, about what the particulars of certain game mechanics are and how exactly they function. Quite frankly, I've been following this game so long I barely remember everything I ever learned about it. Pretty much the only things I can keep track of is the information released in the last couple months, anything before that I have forgotten. I'd be willing to bet that when information is redacted it doesn't take long for the Devs to forget what they said or wrote either.
So, I am just writing this post to encourage the Devs, in the interests of transparency, please think about clarity as well. The Q&A's and Dev Journals are great and all, but there is no one stop place to go to review core game mechanics. There is no way for us to tell what has been redacted and what hasn't been unless we want to wade through a bunch of Dev Journals or Q&A's. Which leads into another issue, which is the labeling of the recent Dev Journals. The titles themselves are entertaining, but looking back on them a few months from now there is no way to tell from the title what is actually in any given Journal which makes it impossible to easily find information, assuming the journal is still relevant or to what degree it is relevant.
Additionally, although it has thankfully changed with SBS self-hosted topic driven Q&A's many of the old Q&A's that may still have a lot of relevant information are not clearly labeled. Although this can't be fixed directly, if the information was available in another format there would be no need to worry about the old Q&A's.
I bring this up in reference to two issues. The first and least important issue is simply assurance on investment. I am completely sold on the game, but I am not always clear on exactly what that entails. I can't be the only one who feels this way from time to time. Secondly, there is an enormous amount of difficult implicit in introducing new people to the game, or alternatively if one stops following the game for any length of time. In either case it is virtually impossible to discern accurate old information from inaccurate old information. Even beyond that, it may be difficult to nigh impossible to even find certain information to answer a new community member's question or just to refresh yourself.
Normally I wouldn't even worry about this because I understand a little bit about how complicated development is, but given SBS has made it clear they favor transparency I though it incumbent upon me to try to help with that issue. I also understand that a lot of information is revealed on discord or other platforms which is not necessarily available to the community in general and that's fine.
However, let me finish by illustrating my point with one question. Under the "Game" tab above on the left, in "Overview," there is an option called "Lore and Religion." When is the last time it was updated? Because, I gotta tell you, if I was new to CoE I'd say it looks pretty lack luster, and speaking as someone who isn't new I know for a fact there is a lot of information missing.