iksanabot wrote:TheGreatJoeGargery wrote:dauner wrote:I agree that over half of the comments in the blog are unnessecary and mean, but one problem shined through, which is lack of clarity and communication.
Only after Leo and iksanabot made their long posts everyone knew what was going on, not the same old blog entires which don't tell you anything new other than it takes longer, but not really why.
I don't mind at all that making the game takes longer, i just want some more info about the process and the problems.
Just a few more lines of text so that everyone gets why it takes longer and they can't go faster than they are already going.
I can see your point. I think some of the rage is also due to the monetization system, specifically that it is a subscription based model. I'm one of those people who only subscribes when there is something new to play then I cancel my subscription, as I think many other people do. I'm sure there are some people who planned it so they subscribed when they heard Living With Temptation 2 was going to be released soon to play some of the other games on Lesson of Passion until Living With Temptation 2 is released. Now those people are wondering if their subscription will expire by the time it is released. If you're on a budget this could be a distressing situation for you, as you may not be able to resubscribe when it actually is released. Again, like you said, if there was more substance in the blog posts then that person would be in a better position to judge when is the best time to subscribe. Also, if you are constantly misjudging when the best time is to subscribe due to lack of information, you could start to become resentful toward the Lesson of Passion crew and have the perception that the lack of information is intentional in order to milk money out of you. Judging by what I have seen with the business practice of Lesson of Passion I doubt this is the reason for the lack of information and delays, as they have been very responsive to player feedback after releasing a game and seem to want to please their customers, but I can see how it could be perceived that way.
This has made me think a bit. I never pictured anyone actually subscribing BEFORE the release in anticipation of the release, balanced with the desire to play some of the older games for a while. I haven't seen the subscription data, but from what I understand, subscriptions spike at a release, and then don't get renewed, typically. I don't think there is any smaller spike in subscriptions before the release, or following announcements, but I suppose even though most people aren't doing this, some are, and maybe those few that buy in advance of a release are more justified in feeling angry. However, LOP rarely, if ever, makes any kind of "hard" deadline announcement (unless release is coming the next day or within the week), so there really isn't much more we can do to avoid customers assuming a release is going to be out before the subscription they are thinking of buying runs out. An important factor to consider is that the longer the estimate of a release date is into the future, the less definite it is. If Leo says "probably this year" and there are 6 months left in the year, then no one should be buying a month long subscription expecting that they will be able to play a new game within the month. If Leo says "probably next month" then it's a huge risk to assume the game will come out within 30 days, because depending on the time of month the announcement is made, "next month" could include 60 days into the future. If Leo says "in about two weeks, now we are getting within an estimation range that implies greater precision, and going by that information, I can imagine someone assuming the game will at least be out within 30 days, and so they could buy a subscription now and it would still be active when the new game is released. In this circumstance I think a customer would be justified to be angry, but the thing is, I don't think that LOP has ever projected a release date "within two weeks", and then not delivered within 30 days. So I don't think that the circumstance under which a customer could be justifiably angry has ever actually occurred. The frustration is understandable, but the anger is not justified. Once more: though I recognize that someone may feel angry or frustrated that they took a risk that the game would be out within 30 days and then it wasn't, I don't feel they are justifiably angry at LOP, unless LOP gave information that logically should lead one to believe the game would definitely be out within 30 days.
I do recognize that the "next month" circumstance is a gray area, but still, very few people are buying subscriptions after Leo makes an announcement like "probably next month", so the angriest people really don't represent a lot of people at all, and it's hard to feel sorry for them when all they do is rage and attack without any admission that they may be more at fault than Leo in the matter.
I'm running out of time, and I wanted to say one other thing. I agree that LOP could be well served to have weekly announcements. I'd like to limit images that are included to only one, or two, and just a paragraph saying what is being coded, and what is next in line. But I understand why Leo does not do that. For one, the times when people are screaming for updates is usually the busiest times, and the posts do take a lot of time form actually working on the game. Keep in mind, Leo's first language is not English. As the voice of the company, he has to try his best to make his posts as clear as possible, and it's hard when your are posting in another language, so it really does take him a lot of time, and it's a big time demand at exactly the wrong time: often when he's trying to finish a release. You may say you want him to hire someone else, but that would cost money, for one, and also, I think Leo likes being the voice of LOP: it's his company, and he built it from scratch. He's worked hard and made a great success of himself and he loves his company. So you can understand that he wants to do the posts, and that often he won't post when he's too busy to spend 30-60 minutes trying to translate what he wants to say into English.
Anyway, I'm not sure how he will feel about it, but I will offer him my help with regular blog posts, so maybe we can start to reduce this kind of mess on the blog comments.
No time to proof read this post guys, it might be a garble of crap.
Last update from Leo (I think) on the blog was "this month", but I'm GUESSING it will be sooner than 14 days, provided no one gets sick, or dies, which can delay things unexpectedly (and has in the past).
Best regards to all of you, and thanks for the show of support on the blog.
iksanabot