Where is Hubworld?

A cascade of promises and excuses. That's what happens when you say things you aren't certain you can uphold, promise something you don't know how to make, and sell something you can't fulfill or deliver.

Molyneux'd

Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't blame anyone - FuriousMoo, Raspofabs - if they found a new gig and left this mess behind; it might be a smart career move, and certainly would be much better for thier mental wellbeing. Then Peter would be left holding the bag, and forced to deal with it, instead of shackling his subordinates with forcing his employees to bare the responsibility.

You can't blame the team but peter made a number clear mistakes. He should never have resorted to kickstarter for this project and he should never have promised a pc game when he clearly wanted to make a mobile game. He says he's an indie developer but from the outside 22cans looks bloated and and acts like a mini publisher with accountants, project managers and marketers out the wazoo. Do indies have separate design and production teams where production only works if theres a valid business case? Why not just have designers and coders working in one team against a mutually agreed plan? It doesn't seem like people were able to just talk to peter and that seems weird.

Ultimately if hed set out to make a decent single player God game for $20 a unit for the PC he probably would have been quite successful with the community behind him. If it was good we would have paid more and like nosh he could have increased the price over time instead of having $5 fire sales.

We'll probably never know the truth but I can't help but think peters goal in this first and foremost was to make 22cans the next King and all other considerations were secondary to this objective. My suspicion is that he thought if he could just get enough revenue coming in from the mobile players someone would buy him out he would have the resources to deliver on his dreams (and promises).

Unfortunately, every indicator points to this blowing up in his face down the road.  That's as much a negative as positive.  Plus, now his name is tied to Godus so when it finally crumbles, he'll bear as much ill will as PM.  When the project dies, he's the one holding the bag. 

Also, let's not forget that the people working on Godus now are people that were working on Godus before.  They know what REALLY went on while PM was feeding us the bs.  While they may not have paid attention at the time, they have inside knowledge of just what was happening and it doesn't take a high IQ to fit it all together.  If they were blindly following orders, it's pretty safe to say that nobody has a clue where Godus is going and this isn't going to end up anywhere significant in 6 months, much less 6 years.   If this was a year ago, wiping the slate clean and pulling a "forgive and forget" would make sense.  At this point, we're hovering at the edge of Stockholm Syndrome. 

I don't think anybody is forgiving or forgetting but it makes sense to be selective about who gets blamed and who gets sympathy. When you look at what SamVT says it's clear that he and his credibility was taken for a ride as much as we were.

When I was in high school I had some teachers who would punish the whole class for what one person wrote on the blackboard. Every since then I have not been a fan of group blame. As far as I'm concerned FuriousMoo is just trying to do a job. I appreciate the way he has reached out to this community and fans of the half finished game called Godus.

Yeah, I'm a relative newcomer but equating fairness with "Stockholm Syndrome" seems way over the top. That's really the only thought I have on the matter.

Doesn't excuse 22cans poor track record on communication. Recently all the hassle with the Q&A just to answer a few questions. Then nothing on steam of any note since end of the PC sprint. I understand Moo's non committal stance. But some form or vague roadmap must be possible.

22Cans got Hubworld working on a small scale, allegedly (inside their own office so presumably over LAN) but couldn't get it to work online. It's not the first piece of fucntionality in Godus that was promised and then discarded due to the staff of 22Cans having no comprehension of the technologies they were working with.

Every few months since this project went public, 22Cans has hit the pc community's breaking point for accepting all the lies, excuses, and insults.  They suddenly come up with a new excuse and promise to better next time.  The cycle has been repeating over and over again.  Whether it's the sudden openness from a few months back, a new employee showing up with plans to change everything (we're on our third time with this one), or another series of suddenly pronounced promises that never come to pass, the result is the same.  The community pulls behind the CM/Developer that's spearheading it.  Things seem like they're going to get better for about 3 weeks, and then it all falls apart. 

As for motivations of the employees, it's really hard for me to pretend like they were innocent bystanders to all of this.  By this point, anyone that's been working at 22Cans should have a clear idea just what's been going on and how bad the situation is.  We've been told repeatedly by the previous people we got behind that they were being continually informed about all of this.  Moo isn't a new hire.  He doesn't get a clean slate because he got shuffled into another slot.  This isn't a huge corporation.  The best assumption I can come up with is that this whole situation reads like the retrospective of filming Phantom Menace.  Everyone following around Lucas (PM) and hanging on his every word while he systematically tacks on garbage.

While I'd love to spend time waiting around for Moo to prove himself, the clock's been ticking.  22Cans went on holiday and never came back.  Apart from some spit-balling mechanics for the distant future, we've no indication anything's actually going to happen.  Hell, all evidence tells us there that there aren't enough people to DO anything any more.  We'll be lucky to see anything of significance by May, if ever. 

Nothing I say is going to change things.  Our opinions are finally being heard, but by a team too small to act on them.  I'm just venting my frustrations and voicing my perception of the situation.  For me, watching this project flounder has helped point out what went wrong in some of the projects I've been involved with in the past.  The next time I'm handed a train wreck project, I have a beautiful case study for my examples.

Moo may be sincere about his dedication to trying the impossible.  He may sincerely think he can pull it off.  However, it's all unfounded speculation at this point.  The logistics just don't hold up.  Either 22Cans reverses its stance on Godus or we're just sitting around watching the development equivalent of Pickett's Charge.