Game Development: A Far Green Country

[trickdaemon]

Remember that you are talking to potential customers. Every time you make a passive aggressive you lose potential customers.

Sure. It's a fine balance between stating my case and sounding butthurt sometimes. I don't mean to sound butthurt. I'm not.

I do, however, want to be emphatically clear that we are not apologizing for charging money for the game.

You need to change the way you speak to your potential customers now though. You had a free to play game before but now you have entered the industry and you need to bring people into the game, not tell them to leave.
You have entered the world of capitalism.

In order for someone to respect a developer, especially an indie developer, they must decree at least a modicum of respect for the people that will potentially be paying for their entire lifestyle.

Respect is earned, not given.

Looks like they could be looking for a new jorb in the upcoming months

[Vaulxis]

I am curious though, Jorb, why a sub and not different options? An announcement about this plan and a discussion on it would have also taken away a majority of the backlash, and perhaps avoid the entire situation you face now, perhaps. (Though people would be upset either way)

One could argue that we should have announced it beforehand. We didn't announce anything else, though, so we figured it could be fine as a package deal, I guess. I mean... if you try the game I think I can assure you that there is at least some sugar thrown in with the sour.

Perhaps not enough. Time will tell.

There is sugar for sure, but the salt is too much atm, plus college expenses are a bitch. I hope this game still succeeds, down the road when I have a part time job it'll be worth another look, but the current model makes it hard to even get into as a free player. I spent a solid week and some mostly in the last two world, and I didn't get too far, 60 hours won't get me too far, and I'll come back dead probably the next month, wiping the most of my progress minus the LP/EXP.

To the community, you really need to calm down about it, all you're doing is making them give less of a fuck about what you think

[FerrousToast]

Remember that you are talking to potential customers. Every time you make a passive aggressive you lose potential customers.

Sure. It's a fine balance between stating my case and sounding butthurt sometimes. I don't mean to sound butthurt. I'm not.

I do, however, want to be emphatically clear that we are not apologizing for charging money for the game.

You need to change the way you speak to your potential customers now though. You had a free to play game before but now you have entered the industry and you need to bring people into the game, not tell them to leave.
You have entered the world of capitalism.

This. You can't get away with deleting all of the wells or killing off a town because you two felt like it with your godpowers. It was cool to troll the community back when you were buskers, but if your gonna play businessman now you gotta stop dying your hair, take out the nose ring and put on a suit and tie you know? just chill out man, and talk like a fucking salesperson dealing with a belligerent customer. Your really going to have to become community managers and not just shitlords if you want this to live

[jorb]

People would've gladly paid a reasonable monthly fee for Salem, they said this publicly. Why are you NOW being so angry that people think the pricing is too steep?

But I'm not angry? I understand that there's going to be some salt and I accept that.

[Aperson]

In all seriousness the amount of support (i.e. $$$) you would have accumulated had you just set up a patreon would have been astronomical.

[mentalyll]

Delet

[LukeSkywalker]

People would've gladly paid a reasonable monthly fee for Salem, they said this publicly. Why are you NOW being so angry that people think the pricing is too steep?

But I'm not angry? I understand that there's going to be some salt and I accept that.

If you stopped assuring us you're not angry as you have mentioned and actually answered some questions, you might have a chance to retain a few fans.

[Einlanser]

Hey Jorb,

I own a business, and I provide a few services for free. Some of these services are mandated by my profession, others I provide because I'm a very nice man.

So, from a business owner's perspective, I'm not entirely certain why you would withhold the information regarding your intent to charge prior to the release. It differs from your previous donation-only model, and I think it's fair to say that few of the existing fans of your work expected it. Furthermore, if you announced this before, or perhaps held some discussion about it, it would have made your initial release more stable by driving off those entirely opposed to the idea beforehand, which it appears is somewhat important to you.

There are clearly some benefits to be had from the choice. You place many in a position to be excited about the game before learning of the payment limitation, and they may, therefore, try the game anyway and decide they like it enough to pay for it. Purely monetarily, however, I'm not sure it will be worth those it drives away from their sheer momentary pique.

So, would you mind explaining what your strategy was with this move? I ask purely out of curiosity.

It was never the intention, really, to "withhold" anything. It's more that we didn't announce it. Partly because we haven't had the time to "manage the community".

Also we generally kept a low profile, as I have been trying to keep the hype train reasonable.

Honestly, there's not that much scheming behind our actions. We just figured we'd put the game up when it was in a reasonable state of readiness and not make a big fuss about it, and here we are now.

I appreciate your reply, and wish you well with your project.

[Saxony4]

I have a question, why are rabbits lightning speed?

I've seen them outrun foxes.
Is this intentional or what?

They also run away when you get close to them.

[epicless]

We've been developing, and everything is new.

With tonight's patch we are, as many of you are no doubt aware, releasing a first attempt at a playable build of our labors of the past two years. In a sense they are our labors of the past seven.

What we release today is so vastly different from everything that has come before it that I both struggle for words, and also feel compelled to tell you everything. I shall assume that the safest route is simply to let you all hop into the game, and begin discovering it for yourselves. No doubt there will be a lot of questions, and we shall do our best to answer them both preemptively, and as they may arise.

Seriously, we just don't quite know where to start.

The play button might be a good place.

Welcome.

Legacy Haven is still down, but will be up again somewhat shortly.

Thanks, jorb. Will reserve my comments until I see what the new game is like.