That's enough drama for one day. Give it a rest.

If you want to tell SBS how to do their job you should apply there. This thread seems really pretentious...

I actually agree with Vucar here. It was good Caspian hopped into voice and chatted with us. I got a real sense that he is interested in making the correct changes moving forward. I believe him when he says that. At this point, they just need to get through their current deliverable and we will see how things go with the next one. :-)

If you want to tell SBS how to do their job you should apply there. This thread seems really pretentious...

i do agree with Vulcar,winston and adam. its very easy second guess, the horse is dead.

Aww crap. Now there's a dad horse??

The trouble with being in charge is being second guessed by every twat with a mouth...or in this case fingers.

Unfortunately, the damage is already done m8. The only thing that could turn things around would be the release of a playable product, whatever form that may take. So just let it be what it will be.

I am with Adam.

Shit's been rough for a while. Let's get through DSS, let them regroup, and see where we are at.

If Caspian walks back his stance, and continues to believe that the only metric worth evaluating is the money spent, then we can lend truth to that statement.

I am willing to give them one more shot to prove they are worthy of the investment we have given them.

If CASPIAN (and I say that in caps because these are HIS decisions and beliefs we are contending with) continues to perpetuate the mentality that the only metric he listens to is whether people are spending money in the store, then that is the metric we will use to show our displeasure.

I would MUCH prefer that they actually pay attention to the input of the community, both in Discord and the forums, and use that as their touchstone. However, he has made it clear that is not how he functions. So I need to reset, and see where they end up on the other side of this.

Until then, I am neither for, nor against, SBS. I am simply observing for a while. They are at square one. They need to re-earn the trust, both professionally, and fiscally, they once had.

Part of the problem with that Marovec is that there are a lot of those out there in the COE community whom aren't very out spoken. There is some ~4000 people right now in the CoE discord alone however if you take a look at a lot of the chat channels in there you see the same voices over and over again, and if SBS uses that as their only source of feedback they are getting a very small amount of the community's input. Looking at sales gives them a overall general picture of how their audience and investors (aka everyone who has spent anything on CoE) are feeling about current progress.

Jodre

Sales does give an indication, just not an accurate one in terms of community desires.

All it does is say that people are spending money. I spent $200 on a shit mobile game because - why not?

I don't believe in their vision, they don't have a stellar product, I just felt like it. It says NOTHING about my actual input about the game.

Simply spending money is a SHIT metric to gauge how a community feels. All it indicate is that people are spending money - and people spend money on stupid shit all the time.

Now, instead of being able to simply drop some cash on CoE because I feel like it, comfortable that I could still voice my input in discord, or here, I have to carefully consider if I want my spending money to reflect a tacit agreement with whatever SBS has going on.

• Did something happen recently I didn't like? Better not spend any money, wouldn't want them to get the impression I was in favor of it.

• Is there are recent development I feel strongly about? Should I engage with the community, and give feedback and garner input in the forums? Nah, that doesn't matter - I should just make sure I don't spend money, and encourage others who feel the same not to either. Maybe that way our voice will be heard.

By saying the only metric that really matters is money spent, you remove the "voice" from the community, and FORCE them to take a hardline stance by either financially contributing, or not.

Where before we could do both, SBS has made it clear that is not effective.

So, I will do what is evidently effective (in my own small way). I will simply stop spending money - and encourage those I am in communication with to do the same.

I used to be able to passively support SBS with money here and there, and so could my friends. Now, we don't have that option - we HAVE to consider every penny spent.

Thanks Caspian...I hope you are happy.

lets see how SBS handles it in the future, no point in fretting about it now

@Jodre Sales don't show much when your giving direct returns per purchase. Did I buy an otterbear because they are doing good or because I wanted an otterbear? Sure if it were a donation system with 0 possibility of return then yes, donations would be an accurate metric of their approval because the only motivation would be to help development. Here, it isn't. The alternate motivation of pets, mounts, housing, resources, etc greatly skews purpose of investment. Everything I have bought has been because I wanted it when the game is live, not because of how they were doing at the time of purchase.

Also, I don't need to get shot to realize the wound is going to be deadly however that is exactly what going by sales does. Judging your PR by sales you are only going to react after you have already been shot and the wound is bleeding out. In general, by the time your big spenders are pissed off enough to leave you have already been abandoned by the lesser invested players and fence-sitting potential players who tend to make up a greater portion of the community than the big or repeating spenders keeping your sales up.

I much prefer a "those with closed mouths don't get fed" approach instead of being punished for buying things in the store because the studio thinks my desire for an otterbear has anything to do with how I like what they are doing right now.

I agree. However, the reality is that my opinion, like the majority of people who have financially contributed, doesn't really count for much. We are committed. Whether we are faithfully loyal or salty as heck or somewhere in between...the reality is that we are gonna play the game when it comes out.

So when people who have paid there hundreds or thousands say to give it a rest...that doesn't carry much weight.

When this game is released the success of it will not be dependant on nobility and mayors that have bought in....rather it will be on the scores more needed to fill in the ranks and fill up the town's. The people that still need to be attracted to the game.

Maybe my numbers are off but I feel like the game still needs a lot more people to sign up. Well, you want hype to be building leading up to release and not the reverse.

Missing dates is kinda the reverse. Personally, I don't care - I'm vested and I've waited for games before while experiencing delays. However, I still agree that giving release dates without delivering does more harm than good.

At least this complaint is constructive - silencing constructive complaints just goes to fuel the fire of the spiteful critics.

My two cents worth that isn't worth much.

SBS sales revenue and the willingness of people to give them money is not really the main point to my thread.

That's all just HOW the loss of trust or regaining of it is measured. Any claim that SBS has not lost trust and credibility at this point would be laughable. And the idea that SBS should need to actually get hit with revenue loss before course-correcting would be a massive failure as it would be putting the project in jeopardy and I do not want to see that. I am attempting to lay out a course of action which will avert that jeopardy. Damage has been done and I'm describing a repair process, rather then sitting in the ashes and just accepting a state in which no one has any trust is delivery dates.

I'm describing what needs to happen FOR trust to be restored generally and community wide. Some folks may be willing to extend their trust on the basis of Caspian's latest apology, but I and many others view that as profoundly naive given the history or prior delays and apologies.

If your a person who's already giving back trust or your fatalistically accepting an inability to meet dates, then your by definition not the person who SBS needs to be course-correcting for. The correction is for those NOT satisfied which is not even counting the true silent-majority, the players who are not even here because they won't invest time, money or interest in a project with chronic issues, and a leadership which won't correct itself.

I do not think it is reasonable to say 'only final delivery of product' is what what would restore trust. Trust is by definition a future expectation, once an event happens it's no longer in the future. I've specifically listed actions which can be taken IMMEDIATELY which would raise the expectations for meeting any future delivery date. This is fairly standard business practice too, when their is chronic failure you fire the people responsible and replace them. In this instance Caspian should evaluate his own performance as unsatisfactory and make the prudent business choice to fire himself from the aspects of the job which he has failed and effectively 'hire' (internally) a new person for the job.

Takeda_Shinukage pretty much said what I wanna say on the topic of measuring support by store sales.

Posted By Lodrig - Tue May 14 2019

[...] And the idea that SBS should need to actually get hit with revenue loss before course-correcting would be a massive failure as it would be putting the project in jeopardy and I do not want to see that.

Yes, that's very true.

Posted By Lodrig - Tue May 14 2019

I am attempting to lay out a course of action which will avert that jeopardy. Damage has been done and I'm describing a repair process, rather then sitting in the ashes and just accepting a state in which no one has any trust is delivery dates.

I'm describing what needs to happen FOR trust to be restored generally and community wide.

If we truly wish SBS to listen to our ideas, we will have to pick the timing that the studio is the most willing to do so. And I am afraid it is not now. Just because we have a concern and voice it out does not mean it will be listened. Therefore, I agree with Adam that we should leave the topic for now.

Personally, I do not at all see how an individual third party can do any better at estimating dates. He neither has the vision, nor has the knowledge on each team's work.

Posted By Lodrig - Tue May 14 2019

I do not think it is reasonable to say 'only final delivery of product' is what what would restore trust. Trust is by definition a future expectation, once an event happens it's no longer in the future.

To restore trust community wide (and even those who already left), a deliverable is the best way. A deliverable need not be the full game itself, even something like Pre-Elyria is good enough.

Posted By Lodrig - Tue May 14 2019

[...] In this instance Caspian should evaluate his own performance as unsatisfactory and make the prudent business choice to fire himself from the aspects of the job which he has failed and effectively 'hire' (internally) a new person for the job.

We should be making decision based on expectation of the future, ie who can do the job best. Instead of base on historical data, which is what happened / who had failed. If a person can learn from his mistakes to make him perform a task better, there is no reason to deny him the opportunity, and find a new person to make all those mistakes again.

The idea that past record is already our strongest basis for decision making simply means we have no reliable grasps on the criteria needed to fill a job. That's like predicting certain stock price will rise because it has been rising for the past few days.