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[i2amroy]

@Cruxador
Or maybe they're like the Mighty No. 9 team and are essentially creating a new company specifically for a particular product and need start up capital. Seriously, that team is filled with people like Keiji Inafune, the professionals on Kickstarter that I'm talking about here are not "failures", they're people and companies with tons of experience making games, and they still take longer than we've waited for this to produce something solid. Heck, even now Mighty No. 9 only recently released (yet another) "the project is going to be delayed" message a few months back to their backers.

Mighty No. 9 is criticized quite harshly. The only thing saving it from more criticism at this point is that, after the last two delays on top of the character design debacle, many people have already written it off. Also, if Keiji Inafune wasn't a failure in some respect there would have been little reason for him to leave Comcast. While we can't know the real details, his record reads as more of a "right place, right time" than a business wizard.

So 1 of my examples is disputed. The point still holds with other the other ones such as Wayforward Studios and Shantae (which is an actual operating gaming company), and I can dig up plenty more examples if you really want to see them.

[FallacyofUrist]

I think the best think for him tondo would be to.just realise the beta, even if it does randomly crash a bit.

I don't think that would be a good idea personally but what do I know

Counterexample: dwarf fortress.
So yes. If the dev just put up what he had in its entirety, right now, regardless of bugs, maybe there wouldn't have to be all of this irritation and worry about him not communicating/working(?)/whatnot.

[lordcooper]

I think the best think for him tondo would be to.just realise the beta, even if it does randomly crash a bit.

I don't think that would be a good idea personally but what do I know

Counterexample: dwarf fortress.
So yes. If the dev just put up what he had in its entirety, right now, regardless of bugs, maybe there wouldn't have to be all of this irritation and worry about him not communicating/working(?)/whatnot.

Honestly, I think he's left it too late and dug too big a hole for that.  A broken initial release would have been fine a few months ago if presented as such, but is likely to be taken a lot more critically after the disappointment of many missed deadlines then radio silence.  The vastly decreased goodwill and negative bias that a lot of us have by now makes it more likely that people will focus on the problems rather than the potential, and react as such.

Toady gets away with putting out buggy releases because, well, people kinda love him, and for good reason.  He keeps us in the loop to an almost ridiculous extent, provides the game for free (although I've easily spent more on this game than any other and believe this is the case for a lot of people), is regarded as something of a gifted eccentric/auteur for even attempting a game of this scope let alone succeeding, has proven himself ludicrously dedicated to the project, works at a baffling pace and as far as I can remember has never broken a promise to his supporters.  The dude has earned a virtually unlimited amount of goodwill.  The same really can't be said for KDG, in fact the exact opposite of most of those statements would be true.  I have a vague hope they know they're doing but are just really shit at project management and customer service.  I think that's about as much enthusiasm as can be justified at this point.

[gimli]

I think the best think for him tondo would be to.just realise the beta, even if it does randomly crash a bit.

I don't think that would be a good idea personally but what do I know

Counterexample: dwarf fortress.
So yes. If the dev just put up what he had in its entirety, right now, regardless of bugs, maybe there wouldn't have to be all of this irritation and worry about him not communicating/working(?)/whatnot.

It's not a bad idea. Do you remember Stardock's EWoM? I was beta testing it. Lots of testers -including myself- warned SD countless times because of the bad design decisions / huge amounts bugs & CTDs. Wardell was like "I don't give a shit" after a period and decided to release the game to the public. I still remember that I reported more than 10+ CTDs. Some of those CTDs were not fixed for v1.0. Yeah...wtf? Heh.
Needless to say, EWoM's v1.0 release was disastrous. Tons of people couldn't even play the game because it was CTDing like crazy.
So, releasing the TWS beta with proper CTD logging could help a lot to Josh. [...but again, I am not even sure that the beta or the game itself will ever be released..so my post was a "side note".]

[Egan_BW]

It's not massive crowds of screaming nerds in the betatest anyway. And hopefully said betatesters will be able to provide funny gameplay anecdotes to help calm the masses. That's really what we're missing; description of the game itself. Just the normal suffocating storm of kickstarter negativity that I'm so tired of.

[TempAcc]

I think lordcooper captured the context of the situation KDG put itself in pretty nicely. If a beta was released during the time Josh only missed deadlines (each and every single one of them) or during the first half of the radio silence period, then maybe the community would be ok with it and revive its hopes for TWS. The problem now is that things were already bad at that point, and then just became progressively worse, to the point all the community has is a few short notes given out by people that sort of know what josh is doing and seem to have a rather vague idea of how the project is progressing. Its completely natural that the community lost most of its faith in it now.

The best thing that could be done atm is Josh breaking his silence, explaining why it happened and where the project is right now, admitting he shouldn't have set up deadlines he wouldn't be able to fulfill, make an apology and keep people posted on the developmental progress.

[Zangi]

I still have faith That Which Sleeps will one day awaken from its slumber.  Of course, these are trying times for the faithful, That Which Sleep's awakening has yet to be seen, despite the passing of prophesies preordained since time immemorable. 
Many of our brethren have hung up their cloaks and I know many gathered here are also contemplating doing the same, but all I can ask of you is to keep the faith.

That Which Sleeps will awaken, the time may not be now, but that day is coming... and I will be there to welcome it. 

Signed,
Random Cultist

(More likely I'll be distracted with other stuff.)

[gimli]

The best thing that could be done atm is Josh breaking his silence, explaining why it happened and where the project is right now, admitting he shouldn't have set up deadlines he wouldn't be able to fulfill, make an apology and keep people posted on the developmental progress.

Eh well, he will be pretty much forced to do that after he pushed dat "communication button" again. It's logical isn't it? [Let's hope that the button is not missing from his keyboard.]

[Egan_BW]

Wait, there's a communication buttion? That explains a lot...

[gimli]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Cruxador]

So 1 of my examples is disputed. The point still holds with other the other ones such as Wayforward Studios and Shantae (which is an actual operating gaming company), and I can dig up plenty more examples if you really want to see them.

One of your examples is utterly terrible to illustrate what you wanted to say, the other one I'm only passingly familiar with, but looking into it, I think it falls into the "could have made the game anyway" category. I notice you haven't addressed any of the examples I mentioned.

[forsaken1111]

People are already so riled up, if he released a buggy alpha/beta copy now I think they'd just get more upset.

[Zangi]

Branching storyline, dev follows along story to where every option but the locked path is a lose.

[i2amroy]

So 1 of my examples is disputed. The point still holds with other the other ones such as Wayforward Studios and Shantae (which is an actual operating gaming company), and I can dig up plenty more examples if you really want to see them.

One of your examples is utterly terrible to illustrate what you wanted to say, the other one I'm only passingly familiar with, but looking into it, I think it falls into the "could have made the game anyway" category. I notice you haven't addressed any of the examples I mentioned.

I said "Disputed" for a reason regarding M.No.9, because personally where I've been people has been, if not ecstatic about it, at least willing to accept it (and the people that are making it) as neutral successes (not necessarily outstanding ones, but at least ones that are classifiable that way). And whether or not they "could have made the game anyways" has absolutely nothing to do with the speed in which a professional team can create a working product vs a one-man team formed by semi-amateurs on their first real project, which is the only thing I've been focusing on this whole time.

Again I will reiterate. I agree with you on the communication aspect, they really should be communicating. Yes, I agree that their estimates were bad, which is to be expected with a team that hasn't done anything of this scale before professionally. What I don't agree with is that it appears you are demanding that somehow a one-man coding team working on his group's first real public project should be able to produce something actually playable in 1/2-2/3rds of the time that a professional team of several people that has done several similar projects before can produce something. If that's a misunderstanding and you aren't actually arguing for that then please come out and say so straight, because so far it seems that that's what you've been claiming TWS should be able to do; and unless you know something that the rest of us don't know it seems to be a pretty farfetched claim that a single person will be able to do that in that time scale.

[ThtblovesDF]

I just hope it won't end like the break for the dude from http://www.goblinscomic.org/