Dear Stormworkers,

Weekly Announcements

In the development studio, there is always something really exciting going on. Perhaps it's a new minor update that players have been asked for, an important fix, a new major update, or increasingly, something on the new game.

We want to share this excitement and fun with players! However, we are also mindful that the way we share this information has a big impact on how much joy it brings players. For example, if we share info on updates that won't release for a long time, or could be cancelled or changed later on, this can just be frustrating.

Our strategy is to develop the new feature, test it and get it ready to release, and only then, think about telling players about it! If its a smaller update such as a minor update, it seems better to announce it as we release it, or if its a bigger update, then a few weeks warning to get excited seems to work best.

This does leave us in the situation where, despite there being loads of interesting things going on, there is often no specific thing releasing imminently and ready to announce. This results in the occasional waffling announcement with no juicy new info, and this too can cause friction with players who are understandably disappointed with the lack of value in the announcement.

Our strategy isn't the only way, and "roadmaps" are common in other games where developers explain their general ambitions for the future. This does create a risk for these developers of under-delivering if their plans don't work out, but otherwise answers a lot of questions.

We post here every week, as we alternate between update releases and informational posts. We are considering dropping the informational posts when there is no specific info to release, meaning that some weeks there would be no communication.

What are your thoughts on this? Would you prefer less frequent announcements in preference to more valuable info? Is there a better strategy that we should adopt? How should we communicate with players?

A Shout out to the Creators

We are often asked who made the creations from the screenshots! These screenshots are from the #vehicle-showcase channel in the official Discord server. We don't say who created the vehicles because it is very difficult to know. On the Discord channel, we can only see who posted the image. Many images are vehicles that are not released on the workshop. Its common for players to collaborate, meaning a vehicle can have many authors. Many images are also of players experiences in single or multiplayer and the person posting the image isn't the one who made the vehicle in the image. These creations often took a huge amount of work to create, and it would be hurtful to see someone else given credit for your work. As with many things in life, it is best not to say something if you can't be sure that you are correct!

This doesn't mean we don't appreciate the hard work and skill that creators are putting into their vehicles. Thank you to everyone who posts their content in #vehicle-showcase, you are amazing, and an inspiration to us.

Much love <3,

The Stormworks Developers