Hey, We Got Answers, Sort of!

Better than nothing. The whole "Wait until we're done with mobile" is a bit annoying, but I'm hoping in my naiveté that they will use income from the mobile version to make the PC version into something worthy of Peter's earlier games. Thanks for posting the link.

Questions 4 and 18 were given fairly definitive answers, which is helpful.

I'm confused by 16. I thought some famous guy had been brought in to do the story for Godus? But the answer given seems to imply that those horrible chat-sims in the Mountain of the Gods WERE the story, and since that didn't work out, the story is now going to be implied through the progression of civilisation.

Yeah...That pretty much seems to be the case. I'm not sure about outright ditching it for subtle implication, but if you look through the files, all those cheesy bits of dialogue at the Mount were named story. I looked at that and couldn't help but go, "Really?" I'll give them this, it's mildly unique, but not in a good way. It has all the bad taste of fourth-wall breaking tutorials that try to roll with it in the story somehow. The only case where this has ever proven good, if you ask me, is in a game like Conker's Bad Fur Day where they mock it and numerous other game tropes.
Incoming response, probably: "No, no, that wasn't my intent at all! I should have phrased that better." With the undertones of: "This is why I write everything as positively as possible otherwise these guys will read everything negative out of it."

I might be able to empathize with how you feel. I have been in very similar situations. I don't want to downplay the effort it took to make that post happen, but regardless of how people being ungrateful makes you and the team feel, responding with hollow, even ironically silly threats of silence isn't going to get us anywhere.

I do appreciate your and Jack's efforts to be transparent, and I apologise for my negativity, but it really does seem like the majority of that post was filled with non-answers, sidestepping harder questions, and unspecific metaphors. I wish I could express my mixed feelings for this entire thing. On one hand I'm hoping you guys knock it out of the park, on the other I am still very skeptical. Waiting is the worst part of this entire endeavor.

The PC pause is going to make things awkward for the foreseeable future. It won't end in autumn either (us autumn not Southern Hemisphere autumn) as they haven't just stopped coding PC they've stopped thinking about it as well. George is the mouthpiece of 22cans. We need to understand George does his best for us and he needs to understand we have to be able to criticise the bits of 22cans that aren't him with out him taking offence. In that vein I think 22cans are making a lot of mistakes.

While I understand your frustration but the answers he gave were the equivalent of taking a sheet of questions and drawing a penis on it before handing it back.   You have to admit that (at best) there were two answers with information on them beyond "wait for the pc focus" out of 19.  Even then, it was ultra-vague and nothing we haven't seen before.  Threatening silence isn't scary to someone that's been through the dead period.  I sat around waiting for a faq that petered out.  Even the road map was months of waiting.  If anything, the recent lack of silence since you've arrived is what's atypical.  Going silent is just returning to status quo.

If anyone disrespected you, it's Jack for giving you nothing to work with.  The sprint isn't an excuse.  Most of those questions have been around for the bulk of this project.  Heck, Question #1&2 have been around since 1.x and we've heard zippo in response.  They could have been answered months ago and have been ignored.  The only difference now is that we have someone that's honestly pushing for answers and you're getting the sort of responses we've been hearing all along and gotten sick of.

At some point, 22Cans needs its feet held to the fire.  There have been enough insulting interviews, silent spells, and dodgy answers to wipe out nearly all the goodwill I had for this project.  When I see more of the same, I'm going to point it out.  I'm not going to take my steaming pile of poo and be thankful it was anything at all. 

It's not like Peter and Jack are all alone in trying to make this game work.  We've been suggesting and debating possibilities amongst ourselves for months.  They don't want to listen and seem to think they can do it all on their own.  I'm not going to look away when someone pulls back the curtains just because I already know there's nothing there.  I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs that the emperor has no clothes.  I'm going to point out just what I see is wrong and I'm going to make darn sure that my voice is heard by as many people as I can get to hear it, not because they deserve to be punished but because this project, those that have spent money on it, and the silent developers deserve better and its my only means of pushing for change.

Posted on the Steam Forums under Statements we'd like clarified and questions we'd like answered. (emphasis my own)

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Muir 1 hour ago
Overall, I think Jack's answers addressed quite a few concerns. Did they address all of them? No, but he did say that the ones which weren't able to be addressed now will be addressed once the desktop specific sprints start. And since this is the first real promise that Jack has given to the community, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Doubly so since I can confirm that Jack will be working very closely with the sprint for the desktop versions once the launch window for the mobile version has passed later on this year.

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Obviously I'm kind of green to the Godus community, so take this as an honest inquiry, not a veiled insult... is Muir acutally in a position to be basically speaking for the production team and calling things "promises"? What I get from this paragraph is that Muir is attempting to reaffirming that Jack has promised the community that they WILL have answers for us WHEN the PC sprint STARTS. He sounds very certain, but with words like "iterative" being tossed around, I'm not so confident.

What do you guys think?

Note the use of the term sprint for the desktop period.  The term's been used as an excuse for silence already.  Anyone that's worked with software development knows that sprints aren't one-time things.  It'll be an excuse for silence when the pc focus comes in and we'll be waiting for Jack to stop his "very important work" and tell us what is happening.  The excuses for silence (and answering a question with "we'll look into it down the road" isn't an answer) have shifted over time.  In March/April it was the mobile kickoff they were pushing to get done.  Then Iterative design showed up.  Now, it's sprints.  I'm more curious in what the next excuse will be once the pc focus kicks off.  It took G.K. weeks to get those answers from Jack.  Our only difference between April and today is that we have G.K. pestering them directly...