Hi! I feel it's time I take the temperature on things we need to do better. I made a quick survey on what you would like us to improve in the upcoming weeks. I'm asking that because when the frenzy of launch preparation come, I wish to remember what was, in your eyes, the most important things you want us to keep doing / improving. Of course we wish to improve everything, but please vote on the most important thing for you. If it’s not in the list, just share it in the threads.
Voted for the Dev Livestream, mainly because it's potentially an "All of the above" type option, that can be changed to fit the week-to-week (or however often it would be broadcast) issues/news/concerns/updates. The broadcasts you did in the past were not only very enlightening, but also had something extra compared to the livestreams done by Devs of other games, insofar that us viewers were sifting through nearly every frame to find possible clues or whatnot, making it feel a lot more interactive, rather than "just" Devs talking to the community - at least for me - and that I can only see as a boon to TBW and to the Agents watching. If it continues post-launch - and if finances permit - you could even do it in a slight "In Character" type fashion, having it presented like an "Update from HQ", rather than in a format somewhat disconnected from the universe of TBW.
I've got very mixed feelings on dev updates for TBW... In most games they're something I really appreciate, but it also feels like they're rather starkly at odds with the sense of this-is-not-a-game that can make ARGs so exciting. That being said, something like an in-character weekly briefing has a lot of potential, if the updates in it were things that made sense within the context of the game. I'm not sure how to spin "Anashel gives a tour of the office to show off the new Easter decorations he put up" as being an agent briefing from TBW HQ. -Bats (in-character or not, I sincerely hope that those decorations will exist. and that they involve many zombie bunnies)
They'd have to boost Agent morale in between occult encounters and horrific findings somehow, wouldn't they? Will Forgues be wearing a Donnie Darko bunny costume this year, you think?
My issue isn't with the decorations, or not being particularly serious... More with the idea that this big international agency - with its own infantry division, super high tech rupturific science wing, and spies peeking out of every possible orifice - has an HQ that's a half dozen people in a small office space. With bunnies. And a guy who looks & sounds an awful lot like that puppetmaster guy who was plugging the game on kickstarter. Conversely, the same video done completely out-of-character/out-of-game would make perfect sense... but would also strongly highlight that yes, this is very much just a game. While it's obvious - as it is in most ARGs, when you really look at them - that TBW is a game, there's usually a polite fiction maintained that, well, just maybe it isn't... So I'm hesitant about things that make that fiction - or that suspension of disbelief - harder to maintain by hitting players over the head with reminders of the "G" part of ARG. It would give him a convenient way to avoid showing his face on camera. Seasonally appropriate, too! -Bats (err, "peeking out of every orifice" may not have been the best analogy)
