Blog update - Movin' on up
Max
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Comments
If you are ever in the area and want free lunch at the googleplex, let me know.
Edit: Also, are you guys looking for web developers?
Look forward to countless hours of pure geekness <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" />
Since people seem to enjoy the blog updates, we're going to try and post more frequent, but smaller updates. Please post your thoughts on the latest <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/blog/2007/05/movin_on_up.html" target="_blank">blog entry</a> here.
Max
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Congratz on the safe journey away from boston, about hr and a half away from where i live..I love it there...lol
but its for the best..hope you like it over there on the west coast! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wow.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":0" border="0" alt="wow.gif" />
Keep the updates and especially the good stuff coming!
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/marine.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::marine::" border="0" alt="marine.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pudgy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::gorge::" border="0" alt="pudgy.gif" />
i like this idea of more frequent updates, even if there isnt much to reveal. just showing that youre alive can bring a lot of attention. have you thought about making sort of a weekly update type thing? 'Tuesday Night Fireside chats with Chuck and Max' would be pretty spiffy.
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We've thought about it, but we're not sure that we're very interesting to listen to.
Max
all we can do (and did) is to say we love frequent updates
now go and post another one (please?) ^^
A few random pictures of UWE would be cool, rather than just being a webserver 'somewhere', hell, even a 3' cubicle would be interesting. (Assuming you don't accidentally take pictures of things you don't want us to see yet)
On the topic of the weekly update, you'd be surprised. Fans are by definition, fans, they don't care how much game information is really in it, communication of nothing much is better than nothing. Feel free to tell us how you're finding San Francisco, is it a nice place, if you hit any crazy snags that take you ages to resolve, whatever. It's all interesting. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
- Shockwave.
We've thought about it, but we're not sure that we're very interesting to listen to.
Max
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you would lol
watch out for all the hippies! ~: P
congrats
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I disagree, if you are stuck just remember you fan base loves anything gaming related or especially Natural-Selection related. Heck, remember we are real people too so a little down to earth about the real daily/weekly life behind a new company in the game industry would be interesting if you don't have much new to tell about NS2.
And even more appealing that the blog itself is the fact that you all actually talk with the community about the blog in threads on the forum such as this one. That's the best thing of all to see. If you haven't noticed, the NS2 Gen. Discussion and Ideas & Suggestions forums are much busier than all the other forums on this board with of course the exception of the never-ending Off Topic (or "OT" as it is know here) forum. A lot of that interest and participation is cause by you all showing interest in the community.
It's a rare thing for a community to be involved in actual conversations with the developers making the game on any kind of basis let alone a semi-regular one, and I think it's Natural-Selection's best asset overall. If anything, I'd encourage you, Charlie, and other team members to be <i>regularly</i>, not just occasionally involved in conversations with the people in this community. I honestly feel that doing so will both help your publicity and your production quality massively in the long run. There are some cool people in this community, it's good to get to know one another. As is my sort of personal life motto: "Just have fun, and do your best." Meaning make the best product you can and have fun doing it. I see this community holding <i>far</i> more potential than any of you seem to realize.
I disagree, if you are stuck just remember you fan base loves anything gaming related or especially Natural-Selection related. Heck, remember we are real people too so a little down to earth about the real daily/weekly life behind a new company in the game industry would be interesting if you don't have much new to tell about NS2.
And even more appealing that the blog itself is the fact that you all actually talk with the community about the blog in threads on the forum such as this one. That's the best thing of all to see. If you haven't noticed, the NS2 Gen. Discussion and Ideas & Suggestions forums are much busier than all the other forums on this board with of course the exception of the never-ending Off Topic (or "OT" as it is know here) forum. A lot of that interest and participation is cause by you all showing interest in the community.
It's a rare thing for a community to be involved in actual conversations with the developers making the game on any kind of basis let alone a semi-regular one, and I think it's Natural-Selection's best asset overall. If anything, I'd encourage you, Charlie, and other team members to be <i>regularly</i>, not just occasionally involved in conversations with the people in this community. I honestly feel that doing so will both help your publicity and your production quality massively in the long run. There are some cool people in this community, it's good to get to know one another. As is my sort of personal life motto: "Just have fun, and do your best." Meaning make the best product you can and have fun doing it. I see this community holding <i>far</i> more potential than any of you seem to realize.
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I agree with you. I did see something that struck me as a bit off though, it isn't that rare for a community to be involved in conversations with developers. I know the people who made Galactic Civilizations (I & II - Stardock) and Neverwinter Nights (Bioware 1st and Obsidian 2nd) were pretty involved in feed back to their games during development. Then again, maybe its rare in comparison to the number of developments.
The point being, there are examples of developers discussing development in the past that may help in fostering a good community during development. I am only speculating but I could have sworn that involving the end user in a discussion of the product they wish to buy increases initial sales.
I think the community will become more useful for UWE later in the development, after the release of the Tech Release and in beta testing. I'd view the importance of the community at this stage as sort of semi-dormant. Charlie probably got a lot out of the interviews for taking high-level decisions etc. But when I look at the NS2 forums, the I&S forums specifically, only a small minority of the topics seem to actually be asking good questions, and only some of those again have any good answers.
And when it comes to most of the suggestions; they are either too unrealistic, specific (as we hardly know any details about how NS2 will play), and often totally off the mark of what NS is. It would be improper to mention examples, though you understand what I mean, they shouldn't be hard to find in great numbers.
One thing is to write blogs and make podcasts, these potentially reach a lot of people. But we shouldn't overestimate what value the NS2 forums have yet. They <b>potentially</b> have great value, but probably not before later in development.
Of course community involvement both ways is a great thing, but we can easily overestimate how much UWE actually gains from that involvement. I'd be interested to hear arguments for what gains more investment of time and resources in such will give.