#Meta: A More Central Devblog

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

wild gale
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This community needs to change its collective underwear every time Baha so much as teases the implementation of a new idea. Let me put it this way: I would willingly subscribe to a patreon if it meant more insight into the machinations of Baha's mind. The recent introduction of #1243593308152791151, #1241384011113173162 , and #1241385856518848573 has led to an explosion of ideas, excitement, and engagement, and through the "in progress" tag Baha sparsely applies, is a step in this direction. People tell their friends, their friends go "damn I miss VTOL", and the number of players palpably increases.

A devblog, with no particular dates, but with an outline of Baha's favorite thus-proposed features or immediate / ongoing intents or progress, would be immaculate.
This ALREADY exists in the form of the discord query "from:BahamutoD" and several minutes of piecing together scattered messages. I am not asking for more work from Baha. I am asking for centralization. Too often do veteran discord members resurface ancient baha quotes to clarify information for other discord members. Let us forego this issue, and drive engagement that reaches not just VTOL VR discord veterans but less engaged discord members or even the VTOL community at large through steam.

I.e.:

"Hey everyone, this week I've (Baha) been investigating modern HARM features implemented to make sead a bit less point and click than it is now. I tested out some stuff. It didn't work, but, I'm considering trying X sometime next month when work lets up. You might not hear from me for a bit as a result!"

"The Logistics Update"
"Next week I'm looking at starting an overhaul involving new logistics truck, the AV42's soldier/supply-ferrying abilities, and a more granular supply system for mission creators to use, as well as the downed pilot system to give the AV42 more life. No promises on any of these!".

Baha once did this through youtube. Baha also used to maintain his website. Understandably, these mediums are too big a burden for frequent quality content. All I ask, is that steam or a new channel on discord gets more central communication of developer intent. A couple sentences, every so often, sharing not necessarily future plans or even ongoing work, but summarizing the already scattered thoughts Baha drops in this discord, and bringing them to a wider audience.

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An immediate thumbs down, oh boy 😭

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Understandable

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Meta: A Roadmap (or more centralized communication of dev intent)

plain raven
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I like the idea but also having a roadmap may make it like "oh how long is this going to take!!" etc..

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(Even with no dates, knowing up comming updates may make people impatient and annoying)

dim trail
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This is solved by reading #faq

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That is as much of a roadmap as I think is appropriate

wild gale
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The FAQ is a rather direct "Hey, things will be added"

plain raven
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Its not really a roadmap. Its just saying The newest aircraft and that weather is being tested

wild gale
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Baha himself via the discord query: "From: BahamutoD" is the real roadmap

dim trail
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If you read it it's pretty clear about future features

wild gale
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not at all

wild gale
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not compared to the discord search

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the fact is Baha's intents and thoughts as a developer are very very decentrally communicated

dim trail
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That doesn't really answer what you're talking about

wild gale
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and propagate via rumor and quotes from more active members

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"Oh actually baha said he was considering this three weeks ago >link"

dim trail
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It's not really a rumor if he said it directly

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I don't think this is necessary is my point

wild gale
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right but you see my point though

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its very decentral but exists rn

dim trail
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Sure it's nice but a lot of people don't work like that

wild gale
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it would be nice to have it central

plain raven
wild gale
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Im saying lets get more central / frequent Baha announcements of intent

dim trail
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The fact that new aircrafts bring new features

This is why far the most important thing

wild gale
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again Id literally pay for a patreon devblog

dim trail
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I just don't think that this is a feature request, if that's what the developer wants or how they operate than they can, but not all devs work like that

wild gale
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heh hence the "Meta:" and "other" tag

dim trail
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And it brings up other possible issues such as being impatient or if it doesn't work out disappointed

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For a 1 person team it's a large ask

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And frankly just unnecessary in my opinion

wild gale
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The unturned dev is in a similar position as Baha

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his devlogs garner much attention

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Generally, devlogs do a lot for early access games

plain raven
wild gale
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or games in agressive development

wild gale
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Not much to say there, Im just betting on this community being so rampant with goodwill to be able to tolerate some gentle announcements from baha

plain raven
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If baha wanted to roadmap he would of prob already made one

dim trail
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A roadmap is not at all the same as a devblog

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And what you're describing in your feature request isn't really a devblog imo

wild gale
wild gale
dim trail
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Don't

wild gale
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Meta: A Roadmap OR Central Devblog

dim trail
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If you think that's best keep it imo

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It's not a bad idea

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I just don't think it's a good use of time

severe estuary
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We do have a central devblog

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#public_testing

wild gale
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I wouldnt call that a devblog, its a chat ordained with occasional very sparse responses from baha

severe estuary
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I more meant the pins

wild gale
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ah sure yes, a dev... log.
I want to hear his thoughts man, not just the patchnotes

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"Today I worked on this, here's why."

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"Last week I and the test pilots quietly tried out this. Its not fun. Wont be adding it"

wild gale
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accessing these insights currently is a 2-step process

severe estuary
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Tell people what they nearly got but didn't is the quickest way to generate animosity

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The whole reason teh test pilot branch exists is for that not to happen

wild gale
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thats a sweeping claim, idk if its true

dim trail
wild gale
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writing up a few more sentences a week is surely not some profound burden. Baha already frequently leaks some insights

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discord search --> from: bahamutoD
Lets take those insights, and centralize them somewhere

dim trail
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Right, but your suggestion is making it structured not just typed out thoughts

wild gale
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not just scattered about this discord

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hmm :/

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I wont debate further as I agree with your concerns for the mooost part. In closing I think Im just slightly more optimistic about this community's tolerance.
I don't necessarily want MORE information from Baha. I just want to see it communicated more centrally and clearly. The small fraction of this game's community which frequents this discord, contains an even smaller fraction which checks in daily for that sweet sweet "From:BahamutoD" discord query, and then pieces together the scattered replies to understand what's coming next.

I have seen, in the last 2 weeks that I've heavily engaged with this discord, at least 10-15 occurrences of veteran members like @severe estuary quoting ancient Baha statements, to clarify someone else's question or concern.

"Yeah baha said he's working on it, see here"
"Baha said a long time ago he wouldn't do this"

Again, thats a discord veteran informing a VTOL VR enthusiast on discord (which itself represents only the small most enthusiastic fraction of this game's most engaged community). By better centralizing Baha's intentions as a developer, progress, and personal interest in features, we could better engage the larger community that less intensely interacts with this discord, IF AT ALL (surely discord is at most the top 15% engaged VTOL owners).

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I hope that makes sense

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Meta: A More Central Devblog

dim trail
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This seems like a personal matter between you and whoever quotes baha to find the source of the quote

wild gale
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LOL

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nah I swear

severe estuary
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And I really think a video that's just a list of thing's that won't be added would be bad lol

wild gale
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:(
When did I say anything about compiling ancient comments into a video

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thats not in my suggestion nor in the statements made in this thread so far

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But I do see your point

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Just, thats not what we're asking for

dim trail
wild gale
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I feel misunderstood :((

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which

wild gale
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heheh

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alright guys alright

plain raven
# severe estuary ?

I think he is saying that it would be cool if we could get a public list of possible features and NOT random baha quotes that are old

tired zodiac
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Never publicly commit to anything you can't make happen now, unless you can't avoid it.
No good from this suggestion I think

wild gale
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Browning for what its worth I want you to know that I appreciate you as an arbiter of realistic cynicism and preservation of the status quo

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I see you shooting down both bad and mediocre ideas left and right

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and I respect it a lot

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o7

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Id classify this one as mediocre at worst

plain raven
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like:
"Is xxx feature planned?"
Check #[channel-here]

not:
"is xxx feature planned?"
Well baha mention that he wanted to add it a year ago [link to message]

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thats what this summs down to i feel like

wild gale
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^

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thats closer yeah

royal spoke
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IMO baha keeps engagement really well by releasing intermittent update packages, and he has said that he wants to avoid getting hopes up for features that dont make it, to the extent where he makes NDAs for his testers

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i'm fine with how it is now

dim trail
royal spoke
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but some more info on plans for the next update, before PTB comes out would be great

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like a "possibilities for next update/PTB"

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and things to look out for

plain raven
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(im still against this suggestion kinda cause i feel like cause baha is a solo dev its just makiing promises he might not be able to do as fallen mentioned above, im just helping w/ clerity)

royal spoke
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no promises, just hypotheticals

tired zodiac
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A better idea might be an unofficial community newsletter. Who wants to make that happen?

tired zodiac
plain raven
wild gale
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If I may:
"Im fine with how it is now" is the prevailing sentiment of those of you commenting:
@severe estuary
@royal spoke
@dim trail
@tired zodiac

However, you all share something in common, unlike Remy who is noticeably more ambivalent:
Loloris: 2.5k messages
Strike Eagle Chase: 89k messages
Fallen | CAW: 174 messages but a member of CAW
Browning: 2.7k messages

Remy: 608 messages

It is naturally the veterans who DO so frequently engage with this community who might fail to see the shortcomings of the status quo. I think we all underestimate the several hundred thousand VTOL VR owners who have no idea this discord exists.

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It is those who would never see this post at all, who would most benefit from this idea

royal spoke
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that is a very fair point

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TBH, didnt think about that

dim trail
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Probably yeah

royal spoke
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but at that point i think it falls on us to spread the word

tired zodiac
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I mean... It's disgusting with suggestions for reasons.

I guess that means in supporting the status quo in a way, but that's just a side effect

wild gale
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So far you're downvoting, Im just asking for empathy for the outsiders

royal spoke
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i've been spreading info through my main MILSIM, but a more general news thing would be cool

wild gale
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Community newsletter is a cool idea

royal spoke
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but like, where would it go to

wild gale
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A sentence or two each week from Baha on steam is also a cool idea

royal spoke
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just an image that gets spread around by hand

plain raven
wild gale
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^^

dim trail
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Hence the downvote, I just don't agree with what was written

wild gale
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Read it again Ive made adjustments 😅
Im done touching it now I promise

dim trail
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But that's only my opinion

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There are thousands of others here

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You don't need to win me over

wild gale
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<3

severe estuary
plain raven
royal spoke
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there's always more than that though

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how about we leave this as a non-dev thing

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and if we wanna spread the word around, we can do that separately

plain raven
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Im not voting cause it would be cool but I also see why baha has not done it. (I dont think theirs no middle option)

wild gale
royal spoke
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i think the PTB is enough of a statement

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so many less people are on PTB than you might think

plain raven
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I feel like constant updates and PTB are good enough ROI ngl, I know a bunch of developers who release a game then leave it

severe estuary
wild gale
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Ill accept that yeah

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Id love to see this tried for a brief bit

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see what happens

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but

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im done, I appreciate you all for listening though

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I no longer feel misunderstood heh

wet solstice
plain raven
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^

royal spoke
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@wild gale imma quickly throw together a sloppy review of the last week, and throw it together in paint 3d

wild gale
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LOL

royal spoke
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gotta get a font

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typewriter

wild gale
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And then screencap while you bounce around the mspaint

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upload to youtube

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"hi guys Loloris with the week in review"

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"Solar eclipses are now in game!"

royal spoke
wild gale
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"That logistics truck? coming soon"

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stick figure with soflam

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"JTAC is here to stay!"

royal spoke
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gonna get milsim propaganda tabloids

wild gale
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"The question on everyones mind. Will the av42 be able to deploy them??"

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Man I'd drop manpads on mountain tops in PVP strike mission so fast

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I digress.

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If the community needs to summarize Baha's words for him, I guess we can

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it really is low effort

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people code dev trackers up all the time

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see tarkovdevtracker

severe estuary
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For what it’s worth I thought it would be good for baha to release a quick teaser for the stuff that’s on PTB, but not like a “dev log” but just a teaser for everything that was coming

royal spoke
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i kinda agree with that

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just stuff to look forward to

wild gale
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See that feels like way higher effort than a few sentences on steam

royal spoke
wild gale
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I actually disagree with that lol like even ptb stuff is perhaps unconfirmed

royal spoke
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like the ef-24 teaser

wild gale
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huh

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okay yeah

severe estuary
wild gale
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reeeally

severe estuary
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Just changed a bit of anything

wild gale
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I suspected some work with weather might be undone given the concerns I hear about weather and Baha's use of "its being tested"

severe estuary
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In the history of the game I can’t think of anything that was entirely removed from ptb

wild gale
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Like I genuinely, as an avid reader of this discord, thought weather might not make it and this is just the second serious test of it in this game's history (it was, as Im sure you know, tested in the past, though perhaps not as openly)

severe estuary
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Clouds were on test pilot to tell if they were viable at all first

wild gale
royal spoke
wild gale
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pog

royal spoke
severe estuary
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I have been tempted to create “everything new in” videos for updates

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Could be fun

royal spoke
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you have a better picture of whats going on

spice lichen
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Now for a completely different rebuttal: this channel is for game features, not Meta Discord changes 😛

wild gale
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“Other” tag do exist heh

spice lichen
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This forum is for general VTOL VR feature requests relating to gameplay, weapons, equipment, playable aircraft, singleplayer and multiplayer.

plain raven
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So close enough

spice lichen
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I'd argue #vtolvrdev is closer 🤷‍♂️

bronze summit
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idk ever had a journal or a diary?
its hard man

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especially considering he would have to be careful to cause hype about this that may not work out

white hatch
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When you compare a vr dev like Anton Hand and BahamutoD the difference in communication is day and night.

tired zodiac
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Exactly how much time would you like Baha to switch from making new stuff for VTOL, over to making blogs or videos?
How much less VTOL content do you want so that there is more media?

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The question is irrelevant anyway. VTOL is very clearly a passion project for Baha. He works on what he wants to work on and that's not dev blogs or videos.

severe estuary
# wild gale thats a sweeping claim, idk if its true

Also there was a great recent example of it. Nebulus Fleet Command has pretty regular dev-log videos (its the type of game that they work well with), but those videos included a large feature that had been hyped up for awhile, and now is canceled. There was huge backlash to it being canceled.

The backlash was so bad they were basically forced to release the dev branch as an opt-in beta lol

Imagine if baha decided today to cancel clouds lol

wild gale
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Baha can still cancel clouds, your point is moot

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The point of pte is to be a test environment

severe estuary
wild gale
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The community growing attached is a perhaps unfortunate reality but he “cancelled” clouds before, way back when they were a toggle for a tiny bit, and he still can today

wild gale
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:/

severe estuary
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He shouldn't have communicated them until he was very sure they were going to work

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Which.. is what he did

wild gale
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Did he?

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Are you sure Baha is sure they’re going to work?

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Is there a 100% chance theyre being introduced?

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Or is it 99%

severe estuary
wild gale
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??

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I can do emojis too

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My point is very valid

severe estuary
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You are completely missunderstanding my point

wild gale
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I think you fail to see the independence of your point from the underlying argument

tired zodiac
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@wild gale
How much time would you like Baha to move from development to making media about development?
Enough so updates are delayed by days? Weeks? Months?
Dev time is zero sum.

wild gale
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Communication good.
Balancing expectations and communication are not the same thing

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This post has thoroughly

severe estuary
wild gale
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THOROUGHLY dissected this notion

severe estuary
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Which, completely misses the point

wild gale
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Bruh

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Okay alright Ill accept we’re perhaps both confused, bear with me

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My argument

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Is that baha communicating clouds despite their arguably still not wholly certain inclusion

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Is evidence of a risk with some reward

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PTE has never been so active

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And the community is blowing up

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But clouds have some risk

severe estuary
wild gale
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They may yet be removed

tired zodiac
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Baha talked about cloud inclusion for more than a year before implementing it

severe estuary
wild gale
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And thats apples to oranges btw, conquest in nebulous was half the gamplay loop

severe estuary
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Your argument is that there's a 1% chance of something not being included, therefore baha should reveal things with a 90% chance of being not included and somehow saying they're the same

wild gale
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It would be like baha cancelling radar and a2a combat

wet solstice
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only if those weren't already released

wild gale
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And you bring nebulous to your defense

severe estuary
wild gale
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Your argument hinges on your perception of nebulous

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Perhaps thats where we fail to see eye to eye

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A gameplay feature teased for over a year

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Mentioned in several devlogs

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And approaching a bugfix state

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Youre telling me had major risk of non release

severe estuary
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Yes?

wild gale
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But clouds, introduced for no more than a few weeks now adter sparse mention for years

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Is in fact far more guarunteed

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Thats what youre saying?

severe estuary
wild gale
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Okay

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Look

severe estuary
wild gale
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Your involvement with this other random community and personal knowledge of the dev

tired zodiac
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There was absolutely no guarantee that the technical obstacles clouds present could be overcome

wild gale
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^^!!!

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And yet it has been discussed!

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And people love playing with it!

severe estuary
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Without getting murdered for my nda, clouds were tested tons before the public even got a whisper

wild gale
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Are they? There are numerous complaints of ~40fps from the computationally poorer members of the community

tired zodiac
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It was only discussed in the framing of "I don't think there is a way to do this" before PTB

severe estuary
wild gale
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Guys I think we are fully understood on clouds and nebulous

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I dont agree with you but

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Moving on

wet solstice
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can slow mode be enabled so people can take a moment to think and write? It just feels like shouting at at the moment

wild gale
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The point is communication is great

tired zodiac
wild gale
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Including “clouds are so hard but im working on then rn” communication

wild gale
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The answer is 10 minutes a week is a drop in the ocean

severe estuary
wild gale
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To aggregate the scattered commentary and thoughts of the public testing channel into a cohesive 3 sentence paragraph

tired zodiac
wild gale
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And yet its scattered and decentralized

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And only beterans of the community follow it closely

tired zodiac
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Ok, so you want more than 10mins?

wild gale
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By using discord search queries

wild gale
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10 more minutes

wet solstice
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those that want it will seek it out

tired zodiac
wild gale
wild gale
tired zodiac
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Searching with from: user ID the centralised place for everything baha communicated

wet solstice
wild gale
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And put it outside discord

wild gale
tired zodiac
wet solstice
wild gale
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Because it would engage more than the miniscule fractioj of this community

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Which uses discord

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The larger VTOL community is disengaged

tired zodiac
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What platform do you think would have more visibility than the discord?

wild gale
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Steam

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The little update patch notes? Just a little “hey guys heres whats up”

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Once a week? Twice a month? Still better than the 4 months of silence between cool updates

severe estuary
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I think its extremely facetious to make the claim that more users hidden read steam forms than would read discord. Look at the activity on the game forms vs here

wet solstice
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also there is such a thing as too much noise - the PTB channel is already full of off-topic shit (I too am guilty), having more of the community involved noisily may not be a good thing for getting useful feedback

wild gale
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I think its facetious to think that steam engagement and discord works the same

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Just because a post on steam diesnt have the same upvotes as a discord forum

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Or spawn 42 scattered sub discussions (and probably four new a-10 request threads) doesnt make it bad

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In fact it makes it good

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As @wet solstice points out

wet solstice
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... I was suggesting that perhaps the current level of engagement was the right amount as far as Baha was concerned

wild gale
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Im saying noise is bad i agree with you

lyric loom
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I would say that a very very vague roadmap that focuses on general ideas might be worth it. Anything too specific leads to people begging for a release date

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That said a supporter qna could be cool

wild gale
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It really surprises me how much people disagree with this. In the time it takes me, a human, to gather one iota of argument, one measly little paragraph in this thread, so too could BahamutoD type 5 cohesive utterances into steam and hit post. I ask for so little.

lyric loom
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Basically just what GHPC does

wet solstice
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I absolutely love reading developer insights about their decisions and processes. I seek them out for a lot of my favourite games and have done so for years.

I recognize that this takes work in the short term and has knock-on effects such as community expectation and rudeness.

lyric loom
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Imo a more vague and long term thing would be better

severe estuary
bronze summit
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anton is mega based tho

white hatch
bronze summit
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bro just like talk to the dude if you got a good question

white hatch
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pinging the dev is arguably more obstructive IMO

bronze summit
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yea don't ping him just like talk to him when you see him

white hatch
bronze summit
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anyways he's giving a plenty updates in public testing

white hatch
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to be fair he has periods of time where he's really active

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but then it's darkness for a month

bronze summit
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but idk i don't find any issue with him just popping in to tell us whats going on in the public test then talking for a bit then popping out

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actually i really disliked that point so i deleted it its true but also obnoxious

lime jasper
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it does kinda suck when people pull out old baha quotes and you're like "damn i didn't know that"

cunning kettle
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I understand the desire for a blog but I don't think it will work well for me. Most of the time, the moment I'm ready to talk about something I'm working on or is upcoming is the moment it gets posted on #public_testing or in a trailer. A lot of the time, I don't know how much time I have over the next week or month to work on VTOL VR and often have to cut back on or delay a lot of things I have intentions to work on. Just follow public_testing if you want to see what's going on.

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Also, I spent 20 mins organizing my thoughts for this reply, so it would take a lot more than 10 minutes to decide what to put in a dev log. It's just not something I'm geared for I guess

lime jasper
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fair

white hatch
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from nuclear option

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(i'd forgot baha had already responded to this but I'll keep the message in here to avoid confusion nevertheless)

distant rivet
# white hatch

(reminder that Nuclear option has an actual team of several people working it, not a single person)

eternal pumice
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Isn’t their entire team like 3-5 people.

stable copper
fading canyon
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^

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being able to work on stuff in parallel is a massive boost