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Dev's troubling silence


Ghoster

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Hi guys,

aren't you little concerned about NQ's radio silence after successful KS campaign?

I'm starting to wonder whether they actually counted on much larger hype about DU and much larger funding,
something a few steps closer to the huge success of Star Citizen's.

Right now the only info we have is that NQ is planning to launch another crowdfunding
outside of KS, which could support my hypothesis about the need to obtain second round

of funds for them to stay independent.

I myself supported the campaign, but right now I feel suprised and let down by this lack

of proper communication with the community.

Any thoughts?

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I'm not concerned.

 

After a few failed projects, I'm relatively care-free.

 

In the end, the only thing that matters is results, or reaching "release" eventually and as roughly intended (aka no NMS).

 

Whether they at one point were more silent after any potential kickstarter campaign is one thing that won't matter much later if a product can be delivered roughly as intended to average customer satisfaction.

 

Time will tell whether their perceived silence by now should be worrisome or not.

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I wouldn't say your hypothesis is entirely correct. If I were running a business, and random strangers were willing to throw even more money at my business just because they want to, then why the hell not give them the option to do so. It only gives NQ more leverage in the long run with future investors etc. it doesn't mean they are short on money. But we can jump to conclusions all day if we wanted, except I really don't want to.

 

Patience, just have some patience. 

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Hi guys,

 

aren't you little concerned about NQ's radio silence after successful KS campaign?

 

I'm starting to wonder whether they actually counted on much larger hype about DU and much larger funding,

something a few steps closer to the huge success of Star Citizen's.

 

Right now the only info we have is that NQ is planning to launch another crowdfunding

outside of KS, which could support my hypothesis about the need to obtain second round

of funds for them to stay independent.

 

I myself supported the campaign, but right now I feel suprised and let down by this lack

of proper communication with the community.

 

Any thoughts?

They're only adding a secondary funding option because so many people were asking for it.  It was not originally planned.

 

This is also probably why there is some silence, they're hard at working throwing together new packages whilst developing the game.

 

They had investors lined up if they were successful on the campaign IIRC.

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I'm not worried. They have a lot of things to worry about and take care of. They need to figure out how to continue funding, if they need to bring on more people, what to work on next. things like that. I won't get worried until like.. new year's. if theres no new website or update by then I'll get nervous. 

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Hi guys,

 

aren't you little concerned about NQ's radio silence after successful KS campaign?

 

I'm starting to wonder whether they actually counted on much larger hype about DU and much larger funding,

something a few steps closer to the huge success of Star Citizen's.

 

Right now the only info we have is that NQ is planning to launch another crowdfunding

outside of KS, which could support my hypothesis about the need to obtain second round

of funds for them to stay independent.

 

I myself supported the campaign, but right now I feel suprised and let down by this lack

of proper communication with the community.

 

Any thoughts?

They have always had proper communication and etiquette with the community they have had, they are just extremely busy with multiple things including setting up the new post-kickstarter funding and a few different events, etc. 

 

This is nothing new in terms of a game developer though, sometimes they go silent because nothing significant has really happened - i.e, no major changes to what they've already shown. When they get the time and have something interesting to talk about, they will. 

 

As for your theory about the external crowdfunding, that's wrong, they want to set up this external site so that those who couldn't pledge, missed a pledge or wanted to use paypal can - they got to their funding point and even added the character customization stretch goal in the end, so they are happy, they just want to allow the people who didn't get a chance to pledge. 

 

:)

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They're setting up the extra funding website because a lot of people (notably in Germany) could only pay using Paypal, as Kickstarter wasn't accepting their credit cards (or they didn't have one). Hopefully this only serves as a nice potential buffer for NQ, rather than a feature creeping income source like with Star Citizen.

 

The lack of contact from the studio is perfectly acceptable. I'd much rather wait for their next announcement to either be about the new website or some new feature of the game. Showing off more of the same isn't necessary at this point, and a few short weeks probably isn't enough to have built anything new into the game yet.

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Cool, thank you for your oppinions! I know they're working on the crowdfunding site, it would be nice to know some timeframe. Hell, I may even
upgrade my pledge in order to be able to jump into alpha.

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I'm not at all worried about direct lack of comms from the Dev's themselves. Completely in line with what one would expect from people with work to do!

 

I AM however, concerned with the lack of community management and visibility on the forums, be it basic welcomes to new players, through to actively sourcing ideas and material from the community.

 

And I am concerned with this because a) NQ just put on a new community mod who has yet to even really post and B) there has always been a disturbing lack of community management. We don't get replies for even basic requests (still waiting on a yay/nay to my question of getting the DU theme applied to the mobile version which is so WHITE it's not funny).

 

The only reason I'm being actively critical is that I've managed online communities for well over a decade, in the trickiest of all social media spaces - getting people to talk to government. This is not how one goes about building a community unless the intention is to have a completely organic space reddit style. (I'll also go so far to say that Twitter and Reddit are NOT where a social media / community manager should be - those are broadcast and engagement channels which should be driving people here - THIS is the community.

 

End rant.

 

(Edit: To prove my point - 5 gets you 10 that there won't be a reply to this post from NQ, nor even a like. Really hoping I lose this bet with myself.)

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At this stage, I think the silence is somewhat understandable. Game development is a slow, iterative process and there may simply not be a whole lot to report on at the moment.

 

My hope is that they are currently working on their communications strategy and that this includes regular newsletters. I also hope they are going to start talking to investors and potential investors very soon. Crowdfunding is a confidence game and silence can be interpreted very negatively. We Happy Few do a decent job of communicating with their community by releasing weekly updates. They also add a little personality to their newsletters by getting a number of named team members to discuss what they are currently working on that particular week. 

 

What I really don't want to see is the community making excuses for NQ should they remain silent.

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Hi everyone!
 
@ghoster:
 
Despite how you might feel, we are not going in radio silence mode.
 
A few points that we want to clarify here:
 
- We never expected either to have a success as large as Star Citizen for many obvious reasons: we started to really communicate about the game a few months ago, we had no celebrity in our team and no big brand to put in front. That alone were legitimate reasons to keep our expectations realistic. We are already amazed to see how far we went in a such short amount of time and we are not going to stop there!
- As Pang_Dread mentioned it, we communicated in the last Kickstarter update that the communication now won't be as intense as it was during the Kickstarter. 
- A few things are coming soon:
1) new forum sections will be opened on Wednesday 2nd of November
2) a newsletter for the end of the week (with some stuff that might interest more than one :))
3) a fan fiction contest that will take place from Tuesday 15th November to Thursday 15th of December! (more info very soon!)
 
@Anonymous:
 
We can understand that you are concerned about our current lack of presence. However, you should understand in return that you can't expect the same presence from a Community Manager in a big company or being a part of a big structure than one in a small company. Why? Because in small companies (like indie studios), people are generally brought to do more than the exact job written on their contract. If not, then the company might quickly run into some problems to work properly. 
 
Just a few examples:
- Apart the communication from JC, all the comm from the devs is handled by the CMs (who are doing the link between devs and the community).
- Managing discussions on Facebook and Twitter is totally within the job of the CMs (it's really disturbing to say the contrary).
- This might be shocking but yes, Customer Support can be something a CM has to do (and right now, this is also part of our job).
- Internal, invisible tasks related to Kickstarter and hugely time consuming are also among the things we currently have to do.
- Despite what you're saying, Reddit can also be an appropriate place where a CM might have to interact with people interested in the game.
 
All in all, we would love to interact a lot more with you guys than what we are currently doing.
We will do our best to increase our presence in the coming months.
A few replies are coming soon to some important topics.
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.
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Hi guys, 

 

We can understand your impatience. For Community Managers, it's as rewarding as it's frustrating. 

To be clear, we're amazed by the support and love you guys show everyday. And for that, we're truly grateful. 

 

As we already said in the past, it's normal that the communication activity is less intense, now that the Kickstarter roller coaster is "over". You'll notice the brackets for "over" as as Nyzaltar said, we're still very busy with the necessary "behind the curtain part" to manage, without even talking about all the daily duties we have. 

 

So that's where seeing you always eager for more is satisfying as you obviously like/backed our game and is also frustrating for us, because we can't do everything in a single day of work. 

 

As many of you know via the forum or our recent Twitter activity, we took very few rest and we do our best to be there for you. Like Nyzaltar just announced, we have some cool stuff for you. We hope you'll like it and we'll do our best to increase our presence here to exchange with you as much as possible  ;)

 

Best, 

 

Nomad

 

PS: We're considering applying the DU theme to the mobile version of the forum. This being said, you can already switch from the white data-friendly default view to the full dark desktop version by scrolling down and by taping "Full version" (please see screenshots below). 

 

forum-mobile-01.PNG

 

forum-mobile-02.PNG

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Hi everyone!
 
@ghoster:
 
Despite how you might feel, we are not going in radio silence mode.
 
A few points that we want to clarify here:
 
- We never expected either to have a success as large as Star Citizen for many obvious reasons: we started to really communicate about the game a few months ago, we had no celebrity in our team and no big brand to put in front. That alone were legitimate reasons to keep our expectations realistic. We are already amazed to see how far we went in a such short amount of time and we are not going to stop there!
- As Pang_Dread mentioned it, we communicated in the last Kickstarter update that the communication now won't be as intense as it was during the Kickstarter. 
- A few things are coming soon:

1) new forum sections will be opened on Wednesday 2nd of November

2) a newsletter for the end of the week (with some stuff that might interest more than one :))
3) a fan fiction contest that will take place from Tuesday 15th November to Thursday 15th of December! (more info very soon!)
 
@Anonymous:
 
We can understand that you are concerned about our current lack of presence. However, you should understand in return that you can't expect the same presence from a Community Manager in a big company or being a part of a big structure than one in a small company. Why? Because in small companies (like indie studios), people are generally brought to do more than the exact job written on their contract. If not, then the company might quickly run into some problems to work properly. 
 
Just a few examples:
- Apart the communication from JC, all the comm from the devs is handled by the CMs (who are doing the link between devs and the community).
- Managing discussions on Facebook and Twitter is totally within the job of the CMs (it's really disturbing to say the contrary).
- This might be shocking but yes, Customer Support can be something a CM has to do (and right now, this is also part of our job).
- Internal, invisible tasks related to Kickstarter and hugely time consuming are also among the things we currently have to do.
- Despite what you're saying, Reddit can also be an appropriate place where a CM might have to interact with people interested in the game.
 
All in all, we would love to interact a lot more with you guys than what we are currently doing.
We will do our best to increase our presence in the coming months.
A few replies are coming soon to some important topics.
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.

 

Thank you for this response Nyzaltar. The essence of what you just said is completely satisfactory.

 

Most of us understand that the basic definition of a CM is to manage the community and provide a face between the devs and the players. 

 

We all appreciate your response to questions. It doesn't matter if it takes some time to get these responses, as long as we get them, we'll almost always be satisfied with the answers we get.

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Thank you both, Nyzaltar and Nomad. Good to hear from you. 

 

I think it was the complete silence after Kickstarter that led people into uncertainty and quesswork, so might I suggest a simple message ie. "Busy, expect news around [loose timeframe]"? Learned during military service that complete lack of information is much worse than hearing 'bad news'. 

 

Appreciating you taking the time to share the info, you certainly have you hands full.

 

Cheers.

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