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[Cthulhu]

You guys are brutal. Devs haven't communicated since Monday, game must be dead!

It's going on four weeks it's taken him to do a video.  Just about all of those weeks has been "It'll be there this week"

[Neonivek]

You guys are brutal. Devs haven't communicated since Monday, game must be dead!

I don't quite understand it either. SURE you guys haven't been showing video after video... but you do a weekly update.

I think they want the Peter Molyneux treatment. You need to start BSing every week and musing about features you want.

[Innsmothe]

Guys...there has now been proof that there is a game in development, and not a scam. If you drive people away there will no longer be a game in development.
Please do not ruin this for the rest of us. If you really want to be so critical of game devs, no matter how seemingly lazy, please, try to better them instead of shunning them.
If you deliver a better product in a more reasonable time, I will then buy your game and maybe not theirs.

Don;t be bitchy for the reason of being bitchy.

[Cthulhu]

So since there's a lot of people who haven't been here for the whole saga and are deciding to give their two cents, let's lay it on the line.

The game was funded in November, way beyond what was expected.  As such, they had a lot of big stretch goals and some of these entailed major changes to how the game works on the inside.  The original beta and release dates were missed because of the work they had to do to prepare the game for the stretch goals.

That's fine.

After that though, things start to get a little wonky.

Josh isn't the best at time management or keeping his itinerary organized.  Basically every deadline that's been set has been delayed at least once, usually multiple times.  That's no big deal, shit happens, but it's the nature of the delays and the more flagrantly broken promises that get us.  Way back when there was a series of videos planned to show off modding stuff.  One was released, the second was supposedly in development, then I guess Josh got distracted and dropped them completely.  We've seen or heard nothing of them since.

The mod tools were released two or three times, never in a fully functional state.  Every time we were told that the fixes were coming soon, but they weren't.  As far as anyone can tell the mod tools have been abandoned completely until after beta is finished.  That's fine with me, a lot of us were confused by mod tools before beta in the first place, but the fact remains that his plans went off the rails with little explanation once again.

Now we're supposedly in the home stretch, we were feature locked for beta months ago but new features continue to be added.  The scenario builder video was released like two months ago and the first gameplay video was to follow that.  It followed that, a month later.  Next video was supposed to be the next week.  Nope, bugs to fix and features to add, this week for sure.

That week, nope, bugs to fix and features to add, this week for sure and we're not gonna fix any more bugs until the video's out.

Next week, nope, waluigi time.

And so on. 

Our problem isn't that the game is taking a long time, and only two people suggested that it was a scam and they're both gone.  Our problem is that Josh is a perfectionist (which is a nice way to say he has terrible time management skills) and he's delaying things unseasonably long because he keeps getting distracted by bugs, polish, and the features he supposedly locked months ago. 

You know, the things that traditionally come after beta has been released.

[Xgamer4]

It's also worth adding that the biggest reason most of us are annoyed is because we feel lied to week after week with the "video release this week... Nothing"  nonsense. And it just keeps happening. The delays are secondary, and would probably be understandable of we had any idea why,or some kind of forewarning.

[jhxmt]

I feel incredibly sorry for new indie developers these days.  Their options seem to be limited to keeping their mouths shut about when they hope to be releasing various bits and pieces, and then getting chastised for not communicating clearly with their audience, or to telling people what their aspirational dates are and then getting chastised when they (inevitably) have to miss those dates.

Is it frustrating that KDG expect to be releasing beta/mod tools/game/whatever on a given date, tell people, and then miss the date?  Yes, of course.  Is it unexpected?  Well, no, not really.  Maybe I'm in a minority in always having taken any proposed dates with a huge pinch of salt, but my reaction to all the delays so far has been, "Fair enough, I can see you're working on stuff, and frankly my guess as to when it would be ready wouldn't have been any better than yours, so I'm not going to judge you for having kept me in the loop."

So I don't feel lied to, because I don't think either I could have predicated timescales any better than KDG have been already.  But those dates are predictions, and hence subject to change.  *shrug*  C'est la vie.

[lordcooper]

I feel incredibly sorry for new indie developers these days.  Their options seem to be limited to keeping their mouths shut about when they hope to be releasing various bits and pieces, and then getting chastised for not communicating clearly with their audience, or to telling people what their aspirational dates are and then getting chastised when they (inevitably) have to miss those dates.

Or go the route of the Battle Brothers, Dwarf Fortress, Clockwork Empires, Crusader Kings 2, Prison Architect, (and so many other) devs who keep their customers and prospective customers in the loop really well through frequent blog updates/devlogs while still not giving a succession of false/missed deadlines.  People are generally a lot more patient when they know why they are waiting for something (say, a blockade on the train track), and a lot less patient after being frequent self imposed deadlines pass (it'll be here in 5 minutes, honest).

[Neonivek]

Hmmm

When a friend says they are coming to my house at 3pm I am ready at 3pm and I am then in a continuous state of "being ready" until they finally arrive.

So when they come over at 5 or 6pm, it really bothers me. Even if it wouldn't have if they just said they were here at 5.

Is that similar?

[forsaken1111]

Really it seems like he needs to stop giving out specific dates. There is a reason "Soon" is an often used phrase.

[jhxmt]

Or go the route of the Battle Brothers, Dwarf Fortress, Clockwork Empires, Crusader Kings 2, Prison Architect, (and so many other) devs who keep their customers and prospective customers in the loop really well through frequent blog updates/devlogs while still not giving a succession of false/missed deadlines.

Yes, this would be the ideal.  At the other end of the spectrum, they could go the route of other developers and communicate nothing whatsoever, so that people believe the game's vapourware.  Or they could simply release it half-finished and claim that was the plan all along, ala Doublefine.

I'm not saying they're communicating in the best way - but nor are they a particularly poor example.  I'm simply not ready to be foaming-at-the-mouth mad at them for the deadline slippages they've had so far.  *shrug*

[Urist McScoopbeard]

They've set the bar too high for themselves is all, both in terms of content and schedule.

[Xantalos]

Yeah, for me as long as the game comes out eventually it'll definitely be one I buy. I don't mind waiting a while for something so long as it's actually being developed, which this obviously is.

[gimli]

It's also worth adding that the biggest reason most of us are annoyed is because we feel lied to week after week with the "video release this week... Nothing"  nonsense. And it just keeps happening. The delays are secondary, and would probably be understandable of we had any idea why,or some kind of forewarning.

I don't even care anymore, but anyway...IMO the biggest problem is that the beta has been pushed back a lot of times. If there will be a beta [finally..], there will be a v1.0 release as well [& patches etc.]. This is not vaporware. I am 99% sure about it. [I see more and more posts on different sites with regard to TWS is vaporware...]
KDG must stop posting about release dates for any TWS related stuff, including in-game videos, betas etc. That is all.

[FallacyofUrist]

Oh wow. I look at this thing, and I see AWESOME.

I just hope I'll be able to play it next year instead of after that...

[Cthulhu]

I don't think it's vaporware, I think Josh is just really bad about managing his time.

Also, it's just occurred to me, I think I've been so hung up on my messianic visions of the beta that I didn't realize it, but pretty much every actual component of the game we've seen except the map maker has been completely broken on release without half the features supposed to be in it.

Honestly, if the beta's in shambles when it comes out, that'll probably be the end of things for me.