Announcement Update from Facebook

Flight1700 said:
I once again state my opinion on your "communication".
The methods and tactics the Team is using are unacceptable to a game that has a what, 50,000(?) player following. Yeah, I get development is tough. You guys need to understand THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. The issue your community has is your lack of EFFECTIVE communication.
Some solutions to your lack of communication:

- Begin to throw projected relaunch dates out to the community. Your system of "oh we have no idea, you guys just need to wait" is really a terrible way to treat the community. There is no excuse. This would easily be solved with statements from the Team such as "the relaunch will not happen within the week", if unwilling to give a projected launch date such as "We hope to relaunch on June 16, the Team is bogged down with finals." This would at least give the community SOME IDEA of what the team has in mind. We would not be totally in the dark.

- Begin using the TLOPO TWITTER again to feed daily updates about what the team is currently doing and when this segment will be finished, and how much more is left expressed as an accurate percentage. Twitter is an EFFECTIVE AND ADEQUATE addition to the forums regarding broadcasting updates, much better than the forums alone could do. This would require little to no effort on the part of the Team, assuming all developers have the login for it.

The idea behind these suggestions are twofold: inform the community where progress stands (as a percentage of completion [this is a finite thing that devs DO KNOW]) and to reach a larger amount of the community through twitter notifications.
We want information and predictions, not necessarily speed. This is how all game developers update their communities, through twitter and as ESTIMATIONS.
This is all we ask. Not for our game back, but to know what the heck's going on. We believe it is a fair request.
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1) We have stated numerous times why we do not give dates. We are not making excuses, simply telling you the simple truth: We can't predict how fast something will be done given the nature of busy schedules, unexpected work hours, potential setbacks in development, and everything else combined. We have made attempts to fill you guys in to the best of our ability, but we're not perfect - nor do we claim to be.

As for what you're saying here: "This would easily be solved with statements from the Team such as "the relaunch will not happen within the week" We've done just that, and updated you on social media that it would be delayed, as well as on the forums.

2) This would take time away from development, which is honestly counter-productive to what you want in every aspect.

We are trying our best, and all we ask for is some patience on your part.

Fair winds, pirate.
 
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I think what some of you are failing to understand is this. Would you like someone to constantly complain when you're doing a favor for them? For Example every day, I give Johnny an orange at 11:00 a.m. Today however, I told Johnny I would be a little late with it, but it would come soon. Then I got home to find out all my oranges were rotten, and I couldn't give him one when I'd have liked to, so I tell him it'll be a little longer. Johnny then berates me, and says disrespectful things to me, because I did not give him something I didn't have to give him. I'm not giving him anything now. See what I mean? Some of you guys are complaining that they gave us an estimate, and fell short of the expectations you set for them. Now that they've seen how people react to that, next time they just might not give an estimate at all and leave everyone in the dark. Remember, they don't HAVE to do anything. They could call it quits on the whole project right now if they wanted to, and there is nothing anyone could do to stop them. Be glad you're getting the game back. I know I sure am.
 
Jim Hexskull said:
I think what some of you are failing to understand is this. Would you like someone to constantly complain when you're doing a favor for them? For Example every day, I give Johnny an orange at 11:00 a.m. Today however, I told Johnny I would be a little late with it, but it would come soon. Then I got home to find out all my oranges were rotten, and I couldn't give him one when I'd have liked to, so I tell him it'll be a little longer. Johnny then berates me, and says disrespectful things to me, because I did not give him something I didn't have to give him. I'm not giving him anything now. See what I mean? Some of you guys are complaining that they gave us an estimate, and fell short of the expectations you set for them. Now that they've seen how people react to that, next time they just might not give an estimate at all and leave everyone in the dark. Remember, they don't HAVE to do anything. They could call it quits on the whole project right now if they wanted to, and there is nothing anyone could do to stop them. Be glad you're getting the game back. I know I sure am.
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Benjamin Calicovane said:
I get what you're saying, that there should definitely be better communication and there are some good ways to do so, but this comes off as kind of agressive lol
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Apologies, it undoubtedly did. However, I feel the Team is a bit aggressive in their "No, you people get to wait in the dark, kicked to the side of the road, and you will like it" attitude.
 
What happened to a few days? I'm willing to wait but the time they said it would be up has kind of passed. Do you think we could get some information about what went wrong because I see it has been stuck on 1.6 for several days now. I just want to know what's going on I can't take being in the dark.
 
Flight1700 said:
Apologies, it undoubtedly did. However, I feel the Team is a bit aggressive in their "No, you people get to wait in the dark, kicked to the side of the road, and you will like it" attitude.
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As said in the post above:

We're not leaving you in the dark. We've given you a 4 hour long stream, two blog posts, and two facebook updates with progress at relevant times, when we're more sure of what's going on. That is not being kept in the dark or being kicked to the side of the road, whatsoever, in any universe.

I'll give you aggressive, but that's just me as a person. I'm a very salty dog. Apologies if it comes off as aggressive or rude. :p
 
Johnny Telltale said:
1) We have stated numerous times why we do not give dates. We are not making excuses, simply telling you the simple truth: We can't predict how fast something will be done given the nature of busy schedules, unexpected work hours, potential setbacks in development, and everything else combined. We have made attempts to fill you guys in to the best of our ability, but we're not perfect - nor do we claim to be.

As for what you're saying here: "This would easily be solved with statements from the Team such as "the relaunch will not happen within the week" We've done just that, and updated you on social media that it would be delayed, as well as on the forums.

"We hope to relaunch on June 16, the Team is bogged down with finals." We have also been saying time and time again that everyone's schedules is busy, especially around finals season, which means we have communicated pretty directly that we're a bit bogged down.

2) This would take time away from development, which is honestly counter-productive to what you want in every aspect.

We are trying our best, and all we ask for is some patience on your part.

Fair winds, pirate.
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Your measured and reasonable response is not lost on me, thank you. However, I would like to point out that what I suggested has not been fulfilled, while what you described above has.
What I suggested was to have news centered around empirical information that can be grasped, such as firm events that have taken place or actual estimates in the form of dates.
Specifically your reply to 1), I suggested saying "the relaunch will not happen within the week." This is concrete, something indisputable. In contrast, a statement such as "it will be delayed" is not concrete. It is disputable, open to interpretation.

The same concept applies to your response to "we hope to relaunch on June 16th, the team is bogged down with finals." This statement provides an estimated date before the reason, something empirical, as opposed to "schedules are busy and we're a bit bogged down." This statement is open to interpretation; when will schedules relax? June 16? Never?

We ask for concrete, empirical information. That is all. :)
 
Flight1700 said:
Your measured and reasonable response is not lost on me, thank you. However, I would like to point out that what I suggested has not been fulfilled, while what you described above has.
What I suggested was to have news centered around empirical information that can be grasped, such as firm events that have taken place or actual estimates in the form of dates.
Specifically your reply to 1), I suggested saying "the relaunch will not happen within the week." This is concrete, something indisputable. In contrast, a statement such as "it will be delayed" is not concrete. It is disputable, open to interpretation.

The same concept applies to your response to "we hope to relaunch on June 16th, the team is bogged down with finals." This statement provides an estimated date before the reason, something empirical, as opposed to "schedules are busy and we're a bit bogged down." This statement is open to interpretation; when will schedules relax? June 16? Never?

We ask for concrete, empirical information. That is all. :)
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Have you considered that concrete information can not always be given, because we're in the middle of a beta environment that is constantly shifting from day to day?

"the relaunch will not happen within the week." is very vague and disputable. Not this week? What about next, the one after that, the month after that, does it mean by not this week that it'll be next year? You're telling us to replace one phrase you consider vague, with another vague phrase. So put out one fire, by setting another.

We do not give set dates, because we do not have a set date in mind - we've given numerous reasons as to why this is.

That statement is not open to interpretation, sorry. It means schedules are bogged and we don't know when they'll let up, but we're still trying our hardest to get the game up for you guys.

The developers are doing this in their free time, with no pay, and purely the want to give you guys your favourite childhood game back. Is that not enough?
 
Here's my two cents on this matter.

The devs are working extremely hard to bring back the game we all love and miss. When the game closed on September 19th, 2013, we were all heartbroken, and i'm sure many of the developers for TLOPO were as well (hence why they created TLOPO in the first place). What many of us are failing to realize is the developers are funding this game out of their own wallets, with no form of income whatsoever. No donations, no membership subscriptions, nothing. Period. Servers can get very expensive depending on how many you have, and the specifications of them. Then on top of that, they need to pay a yearly fee just to hold the domain name tlopo.com (as with any other website). You can look up a general idea of how much servers cost yourself if you don't believe me when I say they CAN get expensive. They are paying for all of this, plus bills of their own in real life. I'm sure some of them have a family to support too. They are CHOOSING to spend their hard earned money out of the kindness of their hearts for us, the community.

We all have waited nearly 3 years for any form of remake to be released, i'm sure we can all wait a couple more days/weeks for the beta to be once again released. They said it won't take longer than the Alpha to Beta transition, which was nearly 3 months. Game Development is no easy task, especially when you aren't working for a huge corporation such as Disney or Blizzard. As soon as you fix one bug, there is the likelihood of another feature breaking based on the one you just fixed, and it is sometimes a never ending process.

As for the communication from the developers, they don't have to communicate anything with us. When they said the game will be out in a "few days" they probably meant that but ran into an unforeseen circumstance that they want to address to prevent further issues once the game is released again. That is the exact reason they don't release dates. If they can't meet their deadline for whatever reason, the community goes nuts.

The developers do not owe us anything. If anything, we owe them our respect and patience as they recreate this game we all love and keep it in tip-top shape. The least we can do is respect their efforts, and respect the process. If you can't even do those simple things, maybe you would be better off recreating your own version of POTCO from scratch, and tell me how that works out for you.


I apologize if this post comes off as rude. I am just tired of all the complaining and those of you that aren't being patient. We all want the game back. You're not the only person waiting. We are all waiting for the release. I feel like all of this needed to be said again.


:2 cents:
 
Johnny Telltale said:
1) We have stated numerous times why we do not give dates. We are not making excuses, simply telling you the simple truth: We can't predict how fast something will be done given the nature of busy schedules, unexpected work hours, potential setbacks in development, and everything else combined. We have made attempts to fill you guys in to the best of our ability, but we're not perfect - nor do we claim to be.

As for what you're saying here: "This would easily be solved with statements from the Team such as "the relaunch will not happen within the week" We've done just that, and updated you on social media that it would be delayed, as well as on the forums.

"We hope to relaunch on June 16, the Team is bogged down with finals." We have also been saying time and time again that everyone's schedules is busy, especially around finals season, which means we have communicated pretty directly that we're a bit bogged down.

2) This would take time away from development, which is honestly counter-productive to what you want in every aspect.

We are trying our best, and all we ask for is some patience on your part.

Fair winds, pirate.
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rather then giving us set in stone dates why not say your expectations if everything went 100% smooth and expectations of worse case scenario so we get an idea of the work you gotta do but still doesn't give you pressure for specific deadlines. idk maybe not a good idea just my thoughts.
 
William Foulbutler said:
Here's my two cents on this matter.

The devs are working extremely hard to bring back the game we all love and miss. When the game closed on September 19th, 2013, we were all heartbroken, and i'm sure many of the developers for TLOPO were as well (hence why they created TLOPO in the first place). What many of us are failing to realize is the developers are funding this game out of their own wallets, with no form of income whatsoever. No donations, no membership subscriptions, nothing. Period. Servers can get very expensive depending on how many you have, and the specifications of them. Then on top of that, they need to pay a yearly fee just to hold the domain name tlopo.com (as with any other website). You can look up a general idea of how much servers cost yourself if you don't believe me when I say they CAN get expensive. They are paying for all of this, plus bills of their own in real life. I'm sure some of them have a family to support too. They are CHOOSING to spend their hard earned money out of the kindness of their hearts for us, the community.

We all have waited nearly 3 years for any form of remake to be released, i'm sure we can all wait a couple more days/weeks for the beta to be once again released. They said it won't take longer than the Alpha to Beta transition, which was nearly 3 months. Game Development is no easy task, especially when you aren't working for a huge corporation such as Disney or Blizzard. As soon as you fix one bug, there is the likelihood of another feature breaking based on the one you just fixed, and it is sometimes a never ending process.

As for the communication from the developers, they don't have to communicate anything with us. When they said the game will be out in a "few days" they probably meant that but ran into an unforeseen circumstance that they want to address to prevent further issues once the game is released again. That is the exact reason they don't release dates. If they can't meet their deadline for whatever reason, the community goes nuts.

The developers do not owe us anything. If anything, we owe them our respect and patience as they recreate this game we all love and keep it in tip-top shape. The least we can do is respect their efforts, and respect the process. If you can't even do those simple things, maybe you would be better off recreating your own version of POTCO from scratch, and tell me how that works out for you.


I apologize if this post comes off as rude. I am just tired of all the complaining and those of you that aren't being patient. We all want the game back. You're not the only person waiting. We are all waiting for the release. I feel like all of this needed to be said again.


:2 cents:
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William Foulbutler said:
Snipsnip
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That's beautifully said, and doesn't come off as rude at all. We honestly don't want to keep anyone in the dark, and try to update everyone when we can - but it's a tricky thing and we don't want to let anyone down by giving a wrong date or bad information about an update. Darned if you do, darned if you don't ;)

Stephen Teague said:
Unfortunately, for some... not it's not enough smh -_-
Complaining on the forums isn't going to change anything... don't see why some resort to it still.
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It's like breaking your back to help someone, only to have them to request some broken legs too. :p
 
Hakiri said:
rather then giving us set in stone dates why not say your expectations if everything went 100% smooth and expectations of worse case scenario so we get an idea of the work you gotta do but still doesn't give you pressure for specific deadlines. idk maybe not a good idea just my thoughts.
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We did exactly that in the 4 hour long livestream. It lead to most of this thread :p
 
Johnny Telltale said:
"the relaunch will not happen within the week." is very vague and disputable. Not this week? What about next, the one after that, the month after that, does it mean by not this week that it'll be next year? You're telling us to replace one phrase you consider vague, with another vague phrase. So put out one fire, by setting another.
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The idea of this suggestion was a precedent of the next idea. I suppose they were meant to go hand in hand. However, "not launching this [month, week, year]" is better defined than "not launching at this present moment" (essentially what is being said now) because of the longer period of time the statement clarifies.

Suppose you have a man, he will be killed at some less than certain time in the future. Now, which statement will sit better with this man? One such as "you will not be killed in the next three seconds", or "you will not be killed in the next three weeks".
It's obviously the latter, right? It's because you've clearly defined what is DEFINITELY GOING TO HAPPEN for a longer period of time. It sits better with the community.

As for the concrete date of June 16, the same concept applies. "You will definitely not be killed until June 16, at which point you may die at any given time." It provides a sense of assurance, something to cling to until that date. The community can only cling to a statement such as "not launching at the present moment" for the next day at best.

Stretch the interval of definite information the communtiy has.
 
Flight1700 said:
The idea of this suggestion was a precedent of the next idea. I suppose they were meant to go hand in hand. However, "not launching this [month, week, year]" is better defined than "not launching at this present moment" (essentially what is being said now) because of the longer period of time the statement clarifies.

Suppose you have a man, he will be killed at some less than certain time in the future. Now, which statement will sit better with this man? One such as "you will not be killed in the next three seconds", or "you will not be killed in the next three weeks".
It's obviously the latter, right? It's because you've clearly defined what is DEFINITELY GOING TO HAPPEN for a longer period of time. It sits better with the community.

As for the concrete date of June 16, the same concept applies. "You will definitely not be killed until June 16, at which point you may die at any given time." It provides a sense of assurance, something to cling to until that date. The community can only cling to a statement such as "not launching at the present moment" for the next day at best.

Stretch the interval of definiate information the communtiy has.
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He gets your point I'm pretty sure... the horse is dead, he's explaining when it won't work/hasn't happened/they'll consider it in the future
 
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