What I would do if I were Asylum right now

[Expressman 19]

There seems to be two loud audiences in the community: The fanbois who think Identity can do no wrong, and the ragers who melt down at every real or perceived issue.

But there is a third group, and I think it's a lot of us, who both acknowledge some issues, feel some disappointment, yet keep things in perspective and remain hopeful. I think I fall into that category.

I'm not a game dev expert, but I do work on a software product team and I'm a liaison to the marketing and PR team so I've seen some things. Here's my 2 cents on what I'd do starting right now if I were Asylum:

1. PR move: Apologize. You're Canadians, so you're good at it. You need to acknowledge you misled people as to the playability of the module 1 release and give acknowledgement to the hard feelings in the community right now.  

2. Business strategy: Freeze Steam. It is nothing but an open sore of expectation mismatch resulting in negative reviews.  

3. Project management: Identify what are the top 3 issues and when they'll be patched (this will be for the benefit of the community later). Create a waterfall roadmap of the next 3-5 weeks internally.    
4. Technical move: Form an Alpha or Closed Beta test (CBT) group. Offer the community some full-release swag for participating in what you will clearly frame as a buggy process (this is expectation management).  
5. PR/PM move: Announce the top 3 issues and when they'll be fixed. Update daily. (Also expectation management) 
 

I've been in Alphas and Betas for other games and the entire tone of the community would be different if expectations were framed up properly. People expect a lot of bugs and limited server windows in Alpha and they feel special being a part of it. Similarly people expect some bugs in a Beta and feel special being a part of it. What happened is something presented as a limited functionality full game was released in an Alpha state, and charged for at that, and everyone is (somewhat understandably) losing their minds. Some companies have even split bets into closed betas (limited audience, limited server windows), and open betas.

It all comes back to expectation management and who is really framing the narrative here. Asylum has an opportunity to take the high ground and control the narrative in a positive way. Your move.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Expressman
Formatting

[TPlays 99]

1 minute ago, Expressman said:

There seems to be two loud audiences in the community: The fanbois who think Identity can do no wrong, and the ragers who melt down at every real or perceived issue.

But there is a third group, and I think it's a lot of us, who both acknowledge some issues, feel some disappointment, yet keep things in perspective and remain hopeful. I think I fall into that category.

I'm not a game dev expert, but I do work on a software product team and I'm a liaison to the marketing and PR team so I've seen some things. Here's my 2 cents on what I'd do starting right now if I were Asylum:

1. PR move: Apologize. You're Canadians, so you're good at it. You need to acknowledge you misled people as to the playability of the module 1 release and give acknowledgement to the hard feelings in the community right now.

 

2. Business strategy: Freeze Steam. It is nothing but an open sore of expectation mismatch resulting in negative reviews.

 

3. Project management: Identify what are the top 3 issues and when they'll be patched (this will be for the benefit of the community later). Create a waterfall roadmap of the next 3-5 weeks internally.  

4. Technical move: Form an Alpha or Closed Beta test (CBT) group. Offer the community some full-release swag for participating in what you will clearly frame as a buggy process (this is expectation management).

5. PR/PM move: Announce the top 3 issues and when they'll be fixed. Update daily. (Also expectation management) 
 

I've been in Alphas and Betas for other games and the entire tone of the community would be different if expectations were framed up properly. People expect a lot of bugs and limited server windows in Alpha and they feel special being a part of it. Similarly people expect some bugs in a Beta and feel special being a part of it. What happened is something presented as a limited functionality full game was released in an Alpha state, and charged for at that, and everyone is (somewhat understandably) losing their minds. Some companies have even split bets into closed betas (limited audience, limited server windows), and open betas.

It all comes back to expectation management and who is really framing the narrative here. Asylum has an opportunity to take the high ground and control the narrative in a positive way. Your move.

 

Alright, I do identify myself as that third party as you say. I do acknowledge the mistakes Asylum makes BUT. You have to be a little lenient with this game because this is their first game.

[wilddogsgamer 5]

When they told us 4 months ago (or whenever) that we would get steam keys, I said this was stupid. You do not release a game on Steam until it is ready for mainstream criticism. Many people will try it, refund it, and never look at the project again, but only after negative reviews. This was stupid, stupid, stupid. I am not convinced they were doing anything other than receive more money. 

It should have been released in multiple stages on this website. top 50 fund givers. Let them find the most serious of bugs, if they want. Then the top 200. Then 500. Then all players who received early access. 

Everything else OP said I agree with. 

[Expressman 19]

1 minute ago, wilddogsgamer said:

When they told us 4 months ago (or whenever) that we would get steam keys, I said this was stupid. You do not release a game on Steam until it is ready for mainstream criticism. Many people will try it, refund it, and never look at the project again, but only after negative reviews. This was stupid, stupid, stupid. I am not convinced they were doing anything other than receive more money. 

It should have been released in multiple stages on this website. top 50 fund givers. Let them find the most serious of bugs, if they want. Then the top 200. Then 500. Then all players who received early access. 

Everything else OP said I agree with. 

 

I agree with you! Mainly I was focusing on what they could do going forward from the fix they're currently in.

[wilddogsgamer 5]

Here is what I think they should do.

1) delete the game from steam. All history of it. Immediately.

2) Apologize to the community. Be up front. Let the people vent, quit trying to mute people that are unhappy with you. Acknowledge it.

3) Tell the community you are taking the next month off to cry yourself to sleep. I am certain that this release is DEVASTATING to the devs. Your instinct when you feel that way is to just duck and cover. I say they should duck and cover, but only after they tell us they are. We are human, and I can only imagine the feelings they have right now.

4) get back to work. Release the current build on the website.

[Mr_Mog 9]

I would like to see all of that too.

Except for the 3 issues updated daily. Don't get me wrong asylum has shit PR and could really use a good community manager. But stuff like the tasklist don't do it at all. It's not proof that they are working on anything, it's not convincing, it's not hype either, it's just a setup for disappointment. I'd rather see them show concrete progress on the module and the game. We've seen them pretending to work for a long time now, they're good at it, but I don't think it'll work any longer. I'd rather see some real work.

[Asupra 56]

i dont agree or disagree , with any of the above but , can we at least know What went wrong what is the technical Error that caused the whole thing , its for sure something the Devs are aware of , so what went wrong with the game is it the code or the engine or the servers or the adaptations and modding the engine or What ? u got the idea ?

  

[4thdesign 18]

58 minutes ago, Asupra said:

i dont agree or disagree , with any of the above but , can we at least know What went wrong what is the technical Error that caused the whole thing , its for sure something the Devs are aware of , so what went wrong with the game is it the code or the engine or the servers or the adaptations and modding the engine or What ? u got the idea ?

  

 

Probably all of those and quite possibly, they uploaded an old version of townsquare. Kinda says to me their admin is up shit creek. It also tells me that being that disorganised, don't expect miracles with releases and updates..... we could end up going backwards, rather than forwards. 

However, good to see version control has come into play.... version 1.0.0.0 I notice..... although I also know there has been at least 2 updates since release.... so version control is already fucked up!!

Read into that, however you want. 

[BridgetKV 11]

This would be great. I feel that increased transparency would quell a lot of the anger in the community. They've tried it in the past but didn't really stick to it, so maybe they would benefit from hiring someone with more professional experience under their belt.

[KitsunebisNight 0]

9 hours ago, Expressman said:

There seems to be two loud audiences in the community: The fanbois who think Identity can do no wrong, and the ragers who melt down at every real or perceived issue.

But there is a third group, and I think it's a lot of us, who both acknowledge some issues, feel some disappointment, yet keep things in perspective and remain hopeful. I think I fall into that category.

I'm not a game dev expert, but I do work on a software product team and I'm a liaison to the marketing and PR team so I've seen some things. Here's my 2 cents on what I'd do starting right now if I were Asylum:

1. PR move: Apologize. You're Canadians, so you're good at it. You need to acknowledge you misled people as to the playability of the module 1 release and give acknowledgement to the hard feelings in the community right now.  

2. Business strategy: Freeze Steam. It is nothing but an open sore of expectation mismatch resulting in negative reviews.  

3. Project management: Identify what are the top 3 issues and when they'll be patched (this will be for the benefit of the community later). Create a waterfall roadmap of the next 3-5 weeks internally.    
4. Technical move: Form an Alpha or Closed Beta test (CBT) group. Offer the community some full-release swag for participating in what you will clearly frame as a buggy process (this is expectation management).  
5. PR/PM move: Announce the top 3 issues and when they'll be fixed. Update daily. (Also expectation management) 
 

I've been in Alphas and Betas for other games and the entire tone of the community would be different if expectations were framed up properly. People expect a lot of bugs and limited server windows in Alpha and they feel special being a part of it. Similarly people expect some bugs in a Beta and feel special being a part of it. What happened is something presented as a limited functionality full game was released in an Alpha state, and charged for at that, and everyone is (somewhat understandably) losing their minds. Some companies have even split bets into closed betas (limited audience, limited server windows), and open betas.

It all comes back to expectation management and who is really framing the narrative here. Asylum has an opportunity to take the high ground and control the narrative in a positive way. Your move.

 

i'd really like to consider myself a part of this neutral third group, but its really, really hard to do so when your mods would ban me from discord when all i do is talk casual discord shit, complain about normal issues any game would/could have, and even go to the lengths of defending your development team from the chaos of crap happening in the town square chat. i still have no word on this and have no clue what it is i could have been banned for. i want to support your game and follow its development but its deathly obvious that the community on this entirely community driven game is being terribly moderated, and thats nothing less than the truth, and very dangerous for the redemption of this games future.

[LordBenji 210]

@KitsunebisNight You can make a ban appeal here (account support): https://www.identityrpg.com/community/forum/33-support-center/

[JoelKeys 412]

On 03/12/2018 at 3:12 PM, Expressman said:

There seems to be two loud audiences in the community: The fanbois who think Identity can do no wrong, and the ragers who melt down at every real or perceived issue.

But there is a third group, and I think it's a lot of us, who both acknowledge some issues, feel some disappointment, yet keep things in perspective and remain hopeful. I think I fall into that category.

I'm not a game dev expert, but I do work on a software product team and I'm a liaison to the marketing and PR team so I've seen some things. Here's my 2 cents on what I'd do starting right now if I were Asylum:

1. PR move: Apologize. You're Canadians, so you're good at it. You need to acknowledge you misled people as to the playability of the module 1 release and give acknowledgement to the hard feelings in the community right now.  

2. Business strategy: Freeze Steam. It is nothing but an open sore of expectation mismatch resulting in negative reviews.  

3. Project management: Identify what are the top 3 issues and when they'll be patched (this will be for the benefit of the community later). Create a waterfall roadmap of the next 3-5 weeks internally.    
4. Technical move: Form an Alpha or Closed Beta test (CBT) group. Offer the community some full-release swag for participating in what you will clearly frame as a buggy process (this is expectation management).  
5. PR/PM move: Announce the top 3 issues and when they'll be fixed. Update daily. (Also expectation management) 
 

I've been in Alphas and Betas for other games and the entire tone of the community would be different if expectations were framed up properly. People expect a lot of bugs and limited server windows in Alpha and they feel special being a part of it. Similarly people expect some bugs in a Beta and feel special being a part of it. What happened is something presented as a limited functionality full game was released in an Alpha state, and charged for at that, and everyone is (somewhat understandably) losing their minds. Some companies have even split bets into closed betas (limited audience, limited server windows), and open betas.

It all comes back to expectation management and who is really framing the narrative here. Asylum has an opportunity to take the high ground and control the narrative in a positive way. Your move.

 

This is perfectly written in my opinion. My beef with Asylum as I have always said is the failure to take responsibility. I don't believe they have every actually apologised for anything. That's my primary issue.