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Kenlon posted:We never got a revised Abyssal preview that would help show that the writers had understood the problems with the first one, for example. No, we got an update in the kickstarter talking about the preview which said 'the ghosts are special effects, there's no raping that was never our intent' which really only served to make things worse.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:18 |
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# ? May 29, 2024 10:00 |
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I want mechanics previews as much as everyone else, but I'd rather the developers fix problems like BP/XP that have been actually confirmed to exist but have been portrayed as being equal in importance to Raksi's baby eating.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:21 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:Like you're doing really well as a PR guy to a group of people many of whom'd be happy to just call you a turdbrain and leave it at that. This keeps getting pushed around and I don't think it's true - there are people here with legitimate concerns about the project who want to know what's up, but we don't have any information to go on and kept getting told "oh it's awesome you just have to trust us, now here's a thing that shows why you shouldn't trust us at all: " or complete silence. The way StephenLS is presenting SA as some kind of endless negativity hive is lovely PR and only serves to drive away people who are enthusiastic about the project. If people didn't care about Exalted or wanted to create an "echo chamber" (thanks for that, by the way, it's a great way to dismiss concerns of paying and potential customers) they wouldn't be actively trying to engage with the developers and learn about all the cool ways the system's been fixed but we can't know about.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:23 |
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Bedlamdan posted:Kenlon, they have about 300 separate playtest groups giving them feedback right now, speaking as yet another person involved with a group of playtesters. They've got enough people giving them opinions on the game that they can reasonably sort out, and some of these people have absolutely no reason to shill for the game. They've got all the feedback they can reasonably sort through already, and a Pathfinder style Open Beta is going to do gently caress-all in terms of sorting out useful feedback from the white noise. Yeah, that, too. I think it was about two months ago that Holden came to me one Friday looking for sympathy because the playtesters discovered that SUBSYSTEM, which looked good on paper, implodes when used in conjunction with ACTION, and he was all like "If I can't figure out how to reconcile this I'll need to rewrite SUBSYSTEM from the ground up, and I would rather kill myself than do that." And I said "Oh, yeah, and I guess it'd mean you'd have to fix about half the charms for ABILITY, too, wouldn't it? Sucks to be you! Glad I'm just the copyeditor!" (Which is of course code for "My deepest sympathies, let me know if I can help with anything.") Next week I asked him how it was going and he was all "I am rewriting SUBSYSTEM. Kill me." But that was two months ago and now it's fixed. If all goes well you will never know which system I'm talking about, which action, which ability, which Charms. Book'll come out and it'll all just work. Last week I spend about four hours every morning before my full-time office job editing the gently caress out of chapter 2. You will notice Rich called chapter 2 out as complete in the latest Monday update. (Fallout of that system rewrite was a Facebook post Holden wrote, which I will quote here because it's interesting.) quote:I'm gonna ramble about my work over the last year. Warning: Long.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:27 |
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Mikan posted:This keeps getting pushed around and I don't think it's true - there are people here with legitimate concerns about the project who want to know what's up, but we don't have any information to go on and kept getting told "oh it's awesome you just have to trust us, now here's a thing that shows why you shouldn't trust us at all: " or complete silence. Oh, I wasn't trying to make a social or cultural statement on the negativity of SA. I was speaking personally. I, myself, am happy to be gleefully dismissive of and rude to RPG writers, you turdbrain.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:28 |
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I feel like part of the issue is that it's been very unclear how far along the Core Book truly is. The two Socialize charm previews were released more than a year ago now. At that time people felt that the book must be coming close to completion. After all, charms end up being one of the last concurrent parts written for the book since they need so many of the systems in place before they are written. In truth, the book was nowhere near complete. Since then large portions of the charm section have been rewritten at least twice if not more. When people were telling them to put up previews of charms during the KS they couldn't because they had nothing to show. People thought that the Ex3 KS was like other WW KSs in that the product was nearly complete and the only reason there was a KS was to find the Deluxe Edition. And while that is the stated goal of the KS, the book wasn't in a similar state of completion. The lack of transparency in the design process and progress for the entire haul has led to people feeling like this will never be released or that something is catastrophically wrong if it's taking this long. Realize that a year ago we saw two Socialize Charms, and at this point we are now approaching the Social Influence play testing. That disparity is a large part of the issue.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:30 |
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Bedlamdan posted:Kenlon, they have about 300 separate playtest groups giving them feedback right now, speaking as yet another person involved with a group of playtesters. They've got enough people giving them opinions on the game that they can reasonably sort out, and some of these people have absolutely no reason to shill for the game. They've got all the feedback they can reasonably sort through already, and a Pathfinder style Open Beta is going to do gently caress-all in terms of sorting out useful feedback from the white noise. They don't have to try to listen to all the discussion that would come from opening the text up to backers FATE Core or Demon: The Descent style. The writers can keep listening to the playtesters for 99% of the feedback, and use the larger context to understand how people are viewing the game. Not to mention that it would turn those 300 groups into a counterbalance to the "it's all gonna suck!" since they could give examples from actual play. Not to mention all of us who would immediately start games using said preview, and if it's good we'd sure as hell say so. . . Bedlamdan posted:No, we got an update in the kickstarter talking about the preview which said 'the ghosts are special effects, there's no raping that was never our intent' which really only served to make things worse. Which only emphasizes the problems with trying to manage public opinion by giving little dribbles of information.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:31 |
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I don't think we even need a full preview at this point, just more open and honest communication from the developers and less blaming the community for a "negative tone" about third edition. If they want to keep the actual game under wraps, whatever, that's fine. Dribbling out previews of inconsequential stuff mixed in with hype and treating paying/potential customers like children is only going to keep souring people on the book before it releases.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:36 |
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Stephenls posted:Yeah, that, too. I think it was about two months ago that Holden came to me one Friday looking for sympathy because the playtesters discovered that SUBSYSTEM, which looked good on paper, implodes when used in conjunction with ACTION, and he was all like "If I can't figure out how to reconcile this I'll need to rewrite SUBSYSTEM from the ground up, and I would rather kill myself than do that." And I said "Oh, yeah, and I guess it'd mean you'd have to fix about half the charms for ABILITY, too, wouldn't it? Sucks to be you! Glad I'm just the copyeditor!" (Which is of course code for "My deepest sympathies, let me know if I can help with anything.") You can't make any assumptions! Everything has to be questioned! I mean, except for keeping the entire 2E attribute/skill list, therefore ensuring that there are thirty four different character traits each of which needs a huge Charm tree.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:36 |
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Yeah, I don't at all suppose that the public at large is a good study group for specific feedback, because opinions will run the gamut-- I'm just a PR professional, and this walled garden approach is painful to watch. If SA has become a negative community for Exalted (and SA got me interested in Exalted in the first place, so I don't at all think that was always the case), it is a result of your approach, not some failing of the fanbase.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:36 |
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Ferrinus posted:You can't make any assumptions! Everything has to be questioned! I mean, except for keeping the entire 2E attribute/skill list, therefore ensuring that there are thirty four different character traits each of which needs a huge Charm tree. No, we questioned those.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:38 |
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Nightskye posted:Yeah, I don't at all suppose that the public at large is a good study group for specific feedback, because opinions will run the gamut-- I'm just a PR professional, and this walled garden approach is painful to watch. If SA has become a negative community for Exalted (and SA got me interested in Exalted in the first place, so I don't at all think that was always the case), it is a result of your approach, not some failing of the fanbase. I think SA is the negative community for Exalted compared to the White Wolf Forums and RPGNet, which, you know... fair cop, relatively speaking. I'll take actual criticism even when it's over the line before Exalted (+) and a treatise on why Homestuck is more of an epic than Gilgamesh.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:43 |
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Stephenls posted:No, we questioned those. You totally didn't, come on now. There's obviously huge redundancy in the skill list and coming up with the equivalent of detailed, crunchy computer hacking rules for twenty five different skills is a waste of both your and our time. No doubt you've since come up with charm trees that make Presence, Performance, and Socialize genuinely different from each other, but those charm trees could easily sprout from only two social skills or even only one.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:45 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:I think SA is the negative community for Exalted compared to the White Wolf Forums and RPGNet, which, you know... fair cop, relatively speaking. I'll take actual criticism even when it's over the line before Exalted (+) and a treatise on why Homestuck is more of an epic than Gilgamesh. I think it's pretty fair to think that SA is far and away the most negative when it comes to Exalted. I've been looking around, even 4chan is more positive about it in between the flamewars over the devs/previews combined with entreaties to leak the playtest docs online. That's not a bad thing or a good thing, but it's a factual thing.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:46 |
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Critical is a far better word than negative.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:47 |
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Mikan posted:Critical is a far better word than negative. Also true.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:52 |
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Mikan posted:Critical is a far better word than negative. Exactly. There's not much "It's awful and we hate it because we hate it!" Rather, there's "This thing? It is a problem. Why are you not fixing the problem?" See the whole BP/XP discussion from earlier, or the desire for real previews to give us something to dig into rather than being stuck hearing "Oh, it'll be great, we promise." The latter issue is as much focused on us wanting to help make it better as much as anything else, at least for me.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:52 |
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I think at this point it would be helpful to get people to layout their concerns for Ex3 in a concise fashion. People are actually play testing, so now is the time to reiterate in non-ranting fashion what you are worried about or would like to see. I know we have at least two play testers on here, so we could potentially raise any of these issues. I'm not saying that all concerns listed will be addressed or raised, but Exalted has such an extensive history of things we want to avoid or fix that it might help to be clear about what issues we want addressed. Basically, we have been going back and forth so long that it's not exactly clear what all the actual concerns are. Each side is guilty of picking pointless hills to die upon.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:53 |
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Bedlamdan posted:Also true. It can be both. SA has both "Harsh but well-considered criticism" and "Taking whatever cheap shots seem funny" as well-established cultural institutions.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:54 |
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Mikan posted:Critical is a far better word than negative. I think both are apt. Not all of the negativity is criticism. Though I think we're far more likely, when it comes to game development, to suffer when criticism is dismissed as negativity than we are when negativity is passed off as criticism.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:57 |
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There are certainly people who are negative about Exalted on SA. A few of them may have popped in early on in the Exalted 3E saga to say snarky things. For the most part, they've gotten bored and left now. The people still talking in the thread are the most positive people on SA about Exalted. They're the people who got hooked on the great ideas in the setting and have been enjoying the game and supporting the Ink Monkeys stuff and house ruling like crazy to work around the flaws in 1E/2E and want nothing more than an amazingly awesome third edition.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:57 |
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NIV3K posted:I think at this point it would be helpful to get people to layout their concerns for Ex3 in a concise fashion. People are actually play testing, so now is the time to reiterate in non-ranting fashion what you are worried about or would like to see. I know we have at least two play testers on here, so we could potentially raise any of these issues.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 18:58 |
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Ferrinus posted:
I don't know what to say without overstepping the bounds of NDA except that I think that the "martial arts, martial arts, and martial arts" thing mentioned earlier in the thread really isn't an issue as of right now.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:01 |
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Bedlamdan posted:I don't know what to say without overstepping the bounds of NDA except that I think that the "martial arts, martial arts, and martial arts" thing mentioned earlier in the thread really isn't an issue as of right now. I would say it's under consideration with no clear sight as to how it will be resolved if at all. Edit: One of my own concerns: • I would like Craft to not be 5+ abilities under one name that I have to sink experience into to be competent. NIV3K fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Feb 5, 2014 |
# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:03 |
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Bedlamdan posted:I don't know what to say without overstepping the bounds of NDA except that I think that the "martial arts, martial arts, and martial arts" thing mentioned earlier in the thread really isn't an issue as of right now. As I understand it, if I'm a random nonmagical rice farmer or roadside bandit, and I throw a punch at you, I am counting my dots of Martial Arts to determine how many dice to add to my pool. Confirm or deny this at your peril. EDIT: I don't actually think it's a bad thing that multiple things are named "Martial Arts", i.e. Martial Arts Techniques and Martial Arts Charms. It's just dumb that Martial Arts is the name used, specifically, for the default thing that goes on everyone's character sheet regardless of their training, since it's the complete opposite of how the martial arts in Exalted (as opposed to in Weapons of the Gods or something) actually work. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Feb 5, 2014 |
# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:03 |
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Ferrinus posted:As I understand it, if I'm a random nonmagical rice farmer or roadside bandit, and I throw a punch at you, I am counting my dots of Martial Arts to determine how many dice to add to my pool. Confirm or deny this at your peril. God drat it I have no idea how to articulate this. Look, you have to understand, I'm not the one who signed NDA on this, and I may be breaching the trust of friends who were willing to give me some information when we were talking. Okay, the best I think I can get away with saying is that a roadside bandit might have alternatives to Martial Arts for hurling punches.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:13 |
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Bedlamdan posted:God drat it I have no idea how to articulate this. Look, you have to understand, I'm not the one who signed NDA on this, and I may be breaching the trust of friends who were willing to give me some information when we were talking. Let it go, man. It's not your job to allay his concerns.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:15 |
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Stephenls posted:Let it go, man. It's not your job to allay his concerns. All right, sorry.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:26 |
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Stephenls posted:Let it go, man. It's not your job to allay his concerns. It's not anybody's job to allay his concerns. However it is somebody's job to try and make sure everyone ignores his concerns just like the devs do.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:54 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:It's not anybody's job to allay his concerns. However it is somebody's job to try and make sure everyone ignores his concerns just like the devs do. I'm sorry, but that is in fact horseshit. They have been very, very good about taking feedback from playtesters into account so far, aside from the singular issue that Ferrinus really really cares about.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:58 |
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Bedlamdan posted:I'm sorry, but that is in fact horseshit. They have been very, very good about taking feedback from playtesters into account so far, aside from the singular issue that Ferrinus really really cares about. So, it's horseshit, apart from being literally and specifically true. Thanks for clarifying, Bedlamdan.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:59 |
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When is the book coming out?
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:59 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:So, it's horseshit, apart from being literally and specifically true. Thanks for clarifying, Bedlamdan. With regards to BP/XP? Yes. With regards to a lot of other things not so much. EDIT: poo poo, Ferrinus, just send them a vaguely professional e-mail and guess what? More likely than not, they'd let you in! That's how everyone I know who got involved with the playtest ended up involved with the playtest.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:00 |
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Bedlamdan posted:With regards to BP/XP? Yes. Cool! I'm glad we agree.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:00 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:It's not anybody's job to allay his concerns. However it is somebody's job to try and make sure everyone ignores his concerns just like the devs do. Yeah, sorry, that really should have been delivered via PM. tatankatonk posted:When is the book coming out? When it's done. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Feb 5, 2014 |
# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:01 |
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Stephenls posted:Yeah, sorry, that really should have been delivered via PM. What's the rough ETA?
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:04 |
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tatankatonk posted:When is the book coming out? I'd hazard a guess that the earliest it could be released is April.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:06 |
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Bedlamdan posted:Okay, the best I think I can get away with saying is that a roadside bandit might have alternatives to Martial Arts for hurling punches. Glad to hear there's some goofy workaround in place to fix the obvious, glaring weirdness of an untrained roadside bandit having no skill for just punching someone.
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:06 |
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Ferrinus posted:Glad to hear there's some goofy workaround in place to fix the obvious, glaring weirdness of an untrained roadside bandit having no skill for just punching someone. Or have a skill for just punching someone. Was my earlier statement really so god-damned perplexing, Ferrinus?
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:09 |
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# ? May 29, 2024 10:00 |
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Stephenls posted:Yeah, sorry, that really should have been delivered via PM. Yeah I mean, obviously if you're gonna have an NDA you want it enforced. And far be it from me to criticize someone for holding Ferrinus in contempt, but...
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# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:09 |