Yo Peter and Jack and the dev team! Let's jam!

There's an old saying in the business. "You treat your employees like you treat your customers."

I wonder how true that holds with 22cans

...or sacrifice their children.

Do we really fall for it though? We always point out the holes, and they either don't say anything or meekly try to dance around it because they know that we know they're leading us along with a bunch of scraps going nowhere well or fast.

(To avoid derailing the other thread.)

The problem for 22cans is they are caught in their own maze of bullshit. Early this year there was a silence and a delay and we had no idea why (although we suspected based on mobile testing etc). Later Peter said in a video that 22cans were doing a mobile sprint, that they'd focused on PC for as long as they could and that it had always been the plan to switch to mobile and then return to PC at some point. He apologised for not making that clear earlier. Later we found out from samvt that a decision was taken last November to switch the effort to mobile and that sam advised against that decision. We as a community were told there would be a pc sprint about now at that our issues with the fact thus Godus pc is a port of Godus mobile would be addressed then. Now reality (as originally called by danjal's) has arrived and surprise surprise mobile needs ongoing attention in the form of new content. 22cans are faced with a decision between keeping their promise to us with a meaningful PC sprint or meeting the needs of mobile which is generating their revenue. Guess which one they'll choose? Well really have chosen because arc is mobile content. It doesn't matter what 22cans say when the reality is they will be working on mobile for the forseeable future. Working on mobile means we don't get what we want and I daresay deserve.

I do want to say however that I appreciate the information coming out on arc and that arc is being completed. I just hope the PC implementation of arc addresses our concerns expressed to date. George/Matt it would help improve the relationship if you could give us some assurances that arc will be designed so as to be pc appropriate. That means fixing sculpting, balancing, astari, dynamic water and not adding new frustration mechanics to annoy people into buying gems. Arc doesn't have to be bad, if designed properly it could be the first step in making godus a successful PC game.

It's a big if.

The problem with implementing the Arc at this stage is that it locks mechanics in before they look at the pc version.  Once the Arc and Wayworld come out, we pretty much are stuck with the base game as it is.  Since that's sort of against the whole point of the pc focus in the first place, the fact that they're implementing the Arc at this time pretty much puts paid to the idea they were ever going to seriously revisit stickers, chests, and belief in any meaningful way for the pc version.  The Arc is the death knell of a meaningful difference between the pc and mobile versions, despite the "future plans" to the contrary that 22Cans promises will come some day.

Were it worth my time, I'd go back and revisit every single time I was blasted for not giving them the benefit of the doubt and pointing out the obvious issues.  The road map and first AMA are the two biggest examples, but they are certainly not the only ones.  I'm just sick of being labelled "the problem" whenever this sort of situation ends up going south.

Things aren't going to turn around. Even if they start listening and addressing our concerns, they've locked themselves into a design model that can't work as a decent pc game any more.  Some of us still grasp that fleeting hope things will change, but it's been a year of SEA and they're doing nothing but expand f2p mechanics.  This has been a half-hearted port of a mobile game since it hit SEA, and it's hard to keep looking away from that 500lb gorilla when we discuss the state of this project.  At least, a year ago there wasn't an iOS release so there was deniability, but most of it was our willing disbelief of what was staring us in the face.

Honestly, if it wasn't for this forum, I'd have given up on communicating at all by now.  At least twice I've had to fend off directed insults from the mods and once even had to point out blatant hypocrisy on their part while it was going on.  I don't have the energy of Danjal to post repeated long responses to all this crap.  I don't have Gmr's optimism to give the benefit of the doubt any more.  All I've left is anger driving me to call 22Cans on its bs and disappointment whenever I see people trying to candy coat problems that should have been addressed a year ago. 

A polite response, followed by a delay and an excuse.
Followed by silence.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

*edit*
I'm now imagining one of those shock collars used to train dogs not to do certain things.
Whenever 22cans/Peter made a promise or set a deadline and breaks it they get zapped.

Looks like they're letting their valiant White Knight gallantly throw himself into the mob of angry peasants. Note how no other CM/Mod/QA has jumped into quell the uprising.

Honestly, I understand and respect most of his insight and efforts, but generally he ends up going in circles - and it comes off as a bit condescending. I think someone needs to get in there and mediate the tension; Anyen is just digging the hole deeper, even if well intended.

[Edited to clarify my thoughts]