Community Q&A Update & PC-specific Features Feedback

[76561198135081759]

I caught up with Peter & Jack this morning about the following proposal:

1. 22cans creates a video that addresses the community’ questions.
   
2. 22cans follows up with a livestream over Twitch where Peter can interact with the community verbally as they send in their questions. The community team will need to be on hand to moderate the chat window.
   
3. 22cans produces a content roadmap for the next three months, so that the community are aware of our plans.
   
4. 22cans shares weekly dev updates detailing what we’ve been working on for the last seven days (or five working days).

Video with Peter & Jack to addresses the community’s questions & possible livestream follow-up over Twitch

As already discussed and in response to your feedback point 1 of the above list will now be multiple videos so that we can answer all the questions kindly supplied by Gmr Leon, most likely three. We can then address your follow-up queries in a Twitch stream further on down the line.

Weekly dev updates detailing what we’ve been working on for the last seven days (or five working days)

I've already committed to supplying weekly dev updates, you can read more about that in this thread.

Sharing our content roadmap for the next 3 months, so that the community are aware of our plans

Regarding the three month roadmap, there are three areas that we would really like (nay, love) to focus on next, but we'll almost certainly need to prioritise them in sequence. These are as follows:

• PC sprint
  
• Android version and Japanese + Korean localisation
  
• Multiplayer battles and Hubworld

We will be making a decision on where to focus our attention next on/around Thursday 23rd of this month, after which a plan will be drawn up and following that I'll be in a position to share our plans with you.

Now here's the unvarnished truth: the deciding factor on this will be determined by looking at our financials at the time and where we stand to make the greatest gains. I appreciate that you may not want to hear this, but what we choose to work on next will almost certainly be determined by where we'll see the greatest return/opportunity that enables us to expand development of the game. Rest assured that all three areas will be fully explored and delivered in the fullness of time - that is to say we remain committed to delivering all of the above.

Before you ask: no, we're not in financial trouble and no, we're not being greedy either - we do, however, need to maintain a steady cash-flow (after all, we have bills to pay and mouths to feed). I sincerely hope that us eschewing PR speak and being 100% transparent about this doesn't cause you all to flip out!

Please bear in mind that as the previous roadmap demonstrated, plans are (and need to be) fluid - they can and may need to change to respond to any unforeseen eventualities (such as with the Settlements revamp, iOS 8 compatibility issues etc.).

Steamworks (BFE) tools ETA

I've yet to receive confirmation on this I'm afraid, but this has been highlighted to Production & Design.

PC-specific features & functions

I caught up with Peter about some PC-specific features suggested by the community that could be tackled without having to revisit a lot of the game's design and so could be delivered to you sooner rather than later, hopefully independently of a PC-focused sprint (which I expect to address your feedback on Godus' gameplay and features more comprehensively).

These were ranked in the order in which they are most likely to appear before the end of the year.

1. Hotkeys: Assign god powers to hotkeys for easier accessibility.
   
2. Undo option: Have a undo option or button to allow players to undo their most recent actions.
   
3. Digging down: Return of the Dig Down power as it was a handy tool to have for collecting chests.
   
4. Implement a fast forward button: A fast forward button in Homeworld to get through the long construction time more quickly. This would be especially beneficial for PC players not interested or familiar with modding tools
   
5. Multiple save slots: More than one save slot.
   
6. More detailed textures: for houses, trees and more variation in rocks and building styles etc (GFX)
   
7. Increased viewing distance (User Experience): Increase in the viewing distance so players can see more of the world.

I also flagged the following three features to Peter and he's agreed to explore them for possible inclusion in an update aimed at both PC and mobile players:

• Introduce huntable/tameable Wildlife to the game: The world not only needs an array of animals that the followers can interact with, but needs animals that can be tamed by the followers. Having both carnivorous and herbivore would provide some degree of natural existence within the world. Have hunters go out and provide your people with meat as food, this could complement the existing wheat resource or be used as a secondary resource for alternate purposes.
  
• Sticker creation through prayers: Link the prayers of Followers to filling those cards providing the things that they want; i.e. Abode upgrade, better crops, roads, etc. (this needs to be fleshed out).
  
• Archaeological/Collector/Finder followers: Players don't feel very godly having to go around and collect chests, having archaeological followers with the ability to dig for chest is a commonly chosen solution.

I appreciate that the above doesn't address your many concerns over stickers/cards/gems/wait timers etc, however I was going for some easy wins that are practical for us to deliver in a reasonable amount of time, rather than on needing to rework certain aspects of the game. This doesn't mean other suggestions/requests won't be looked at and this isn't supposed to replace the PC sprint, it's merely the start of this process.

Meet the Team dev videos

We shot another four of these this morning, which we will be rolling out over the course of the month. However. if this impacts the Q&A videos with Peter & Jack then the Meet The Team videos will need to be pushed out as the Q&A videos will take priority.

Looking forward to reading your queries, comments and concerns below.

[Spiderweb]

Nice. GK, long live comms :)

[zayfard/TTV]

1st: Fantastic, thanks GK it looks like the changes needed for open comunication is now getting some traction :)
2nd: have I understood correctly that all of the questions in GM Leons list will be answered and that today's metting with Peter was just to iron out details and that no recording has been done yet?

[76561198135081759]

Originally posted by zayfard:

2nd: have I understood correctly that all of the questions in GM Leons list will be answered and that today's meeting with Peter was just to iron out details and that no recording has been done yet?

Correct - we record the first video tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm. Jack's doing the video editing, so I estimate it'll either go up on Friday or, more realistically, the first half of next week.

[YRUSirius]

Thanks for the honest information. I may not like every bit of the content but it is what it is. Thanks for a solid battle plan for a regular information stream.

-YRUSirius

[76561198135081759]

Originally posted by Spiderweb75:

Nice. GK, long live comms :)

Tbh, sitting down with Peter & Jack and getting this update over to you is looooong overdue - it was shifted out by approx. three weeks owing to the iOS 8 issues, sorry.

[Spiderweb]

Originally posted by G.K. @ 22Cans:

Originally posted by Spiderweb75:

Nice. GK, long live comms :)

Tbh, sitting down with Peter & Jack and getting this update over to you is looooong overdue - it was shifted out by approx. three weeks owing to the iOS 8 issues, sorry.

Looking forward to it, tbh I'm not one for worry about the deadlines just the previous lack of comms which happily appears to be changing over the last few days.

[Spiderweb]

Shouldn't you pin your important comm updates though?

Spoke too soon :)

[zayfard/TTV]

My favourite idea here .... "fast forward button to speed up production" :D

[AngryLemon]

Thank you for the update. Sounds like there are some interesting things in the works, and it's great to see that the community is being heard. Looking forward to watching as these changes and videos manifest.

Thank you for keeping us in the loop!

[Digital Jam]

Brilliant. Thank you.

That was probably the single best piece of communication I've seen come out of 22Cans since Godus was launched last year.

As far as the question of financials is concerned, I think player retention is probably the biggest problem for Godus, right now.
I know the Android conversion seems like an attractive idea (in the short-term) but you only get one chance to launch on a new platform and at the moment, there isn't enough content to keep people around for very long. I think it would be better to launch on Android after multiplayer and Hubworld are in place, allowing you to both get and maintain a much bigger audience, than you may ever achieve otherwise.

Just my tuppence anyway.

Again, thanks for the update to George, Matthew, Salmon, Aynen, MDPink, Muir and anyone else who had a hand in getting this new, honest, piece of communication to us, it's much appreciated.

[Spiderweb]

I always thought the increased viewing distance made for an excellent card progression, the more godly you get the further out you can zoom.

Will be good to see dig down back, and like the idea of followers digging up their own chests, excellent excuse for a doctor jones named follower!

[Nixis]

Thanks for the update!

[76561198135081759]

Quick update - I'm hoping to be able to share the planning doc for our next sprint towards the end of next week, most likely on Friday. More to follow as it comes.

[Digital Jam]

Originally posted by Spiderweb75:

I always thought the increased viewing distance made for an excellent card progression, the more godly you get the further out you can zoom.

Will be good to see dig down back, and like the idea of followers digging up their own chests

I always thought it should be part of better sculpting tools, so the more land you can shift, the more land you can see, I feel like the sculpting should progress in a similar way to Katamari Damacy, in that you should feel increasingly Godly, the further you get into the game, eventually being able to shift mountains in seconds that would have previously taken ages. This all means that societies would have to be able to get to much, much larger scales though as you become more detached from direct control over society and I'm not sure what the technical limitations there are at the moment.

[zayfard/TTV]

Originally posted by G.K. @ 22Cans:

Quick update - I'm hoping to be able to share the planning doc for our next sprint towards the end of next week, most likely on Friday. More to follow as it comes.

Thanks for the update GK :)

Please remember the keyword here chaps "hope"