Let me preface this by saying I understand that for some reason Discord is frowned upon around here and may not be a great topic to discuss because of the "family friendly" image that's trying to be kept. However, I want to send a message to the devs about the importance and impact an official discord server could have on the community.
I've played multiple private server games before. One thing they all had in common was they had an official discord server where people could openly discuss the state of the game, and the lead developers ran the entire thing so it could be moderated to their needs. As far as larger games are concerned, there are fairly frequent developer interviews in which they discuss the future of the game, as well as upcoming content roadmaps (which we got for TLOPO a couple months ago that put a smile on my face). The amazing thing about the smaller game concept was that the devs ACTIVELY interacted in the chat, they talked about things that were being worked on and responded to people's bug reports and questions. These constant reassurances that the game and server was actively being progressed behind the scenes motivated me to continue playing. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I for one can't name a SINGLE TLOPO developer. Do developers have the moderator accounts on this forum? Or are those just very active/trusted community members? The combination of having a very silent dev team and one that I don't even have any knowledge of makes for a demotivating experience in the long run. Whenever I find myself getting burnt out of TLOPO, there is no post to go to and be like "Oh look! This new island is still being worked on and it might be released soon!" or "Oh look! this bug is being publicly addressed!" These type of exciting outlets for the future is what keeps me playing, knowing that I'm not going to be stuck doing the same exact thing for the next 2 years.
I understand the TLOPO devs are busy most of the year with College/full-time careers. However, being busy has nothing to do with setting up a forum in which players and developers can interact. I understand the whole PG-rated mindset of public resources associated with the project, but forum moderators could easily just moderate the Discord as well so I don't see the major problem. I wouldn't even care if the discord was locked and only the developers could post in it, as long as they were relaying information out at a more frequent rate than currently. There are so many ways to improve this amazing game and community that it just really bugs me that very little is being done about it.
I've played multiple private server games before. One thing they all had in common was they had an official discord server where people could openly discuss the state of the game, and the lead developers ran the entire thing so it could be moderated to their needs. As far as larger games are concerned, there are fairly frequent developer interviews in which they discuss the future of the game, as well as upcoming content roadmaps (which we got for TLOPO a couple months ago that put a smile on my face). The amazing thing about the smaller game concept was that the devs ACTIVELY interacted in the chat, they talked about things that were being worked on and responded to people's bug reports and questions. These constant reassurances that the game and server was actively being progressed behind the scenes motivated me to continue playing. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I for one can't name a SINGLE TLOPO developer. Do developers have the moderator accounts on this forum? Or are those just very active/trusted community members? The combination of having a very silent dev team and one that I don't even have any knowledge of makes for a demotivating experience in the long run. Whenever I find myself getting burnt out of TLOPO, there is no post to go to and be like "Oh look! This new island is still being worked on and it might be released soon!" or "Oh look! this bug is being publicly addressed!" These type of exciting outlets for the future is what keeps me playing, knowing that I'm not going to be stuck doing the same exact thing for the next 2 years.
I understand the TLOPO devs are busy most of the year with College/full-time careers. However, being busy has nothing to do with setting up a forum in which players and developers can interact. I understand the whole PG-rated mindset of public resources associated with the project, but forum moderators could easily just moderate the Discord as well so I don't see the major problem. I wouldn't even care if the discord was locked and only the developers could post in it, as long as they were relaying information out at a more frequent rate than currently. There are so many ways to improve this amazing game and community that it just really bugs me that very little is being done about it.
