Thoughts on Communication With The Community

[Laika Ivanova]

14 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Hey all,

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life.

Re: my posting on Twitter -- no, I don't use it anymore. I've not been too quiet on my reasons why. And "losing" a community there that I spent years building has made it hard to feel much like investing time in other replacement options like BlueSky, etc. I don't think I'm the only one who feels a bit burned out by social media. Honestly it's just been easier to bury myself in work.

I've been trying to find a good way to be more active in the forums and be more available again. I hate to sound trite but we are just so *busy* right now, it's been hard to stick our heads up for air. So much going on here and we are slowly working our way towards being able to share more of it, but it's just taking time. Those of you who have been with us for a while know we can be slow about stuff. Yeah, I know. Understatement. 😅

I've not been super happy with our community engagement for a while now, and that's something else we've been strategizing around and have plans for. But, as much as you may feel forgotten at the moment, you really aren't. I do have a dev diary coming which will outline TALES Part Five and give you some other updates (ex. TALES on Switch status), and as I hinted we're working towards some other stuff we're pretty excited to share with you.

Apart from that, things are just brutal in our industry right now so a lot of our thoughts are with our friends from fellow studios who are going through hard times with project cancellations, layoffs, closures, etc. Hinterland is fine!! But it's tough to see many of our close colleagues at other studios affected by these mass layoffs and all the industry turmoil. 

It gets really easy to just hunker down and focus on things you can control, like your work and the stuff that's right in front of you, but I appreciate you gently reminding us that we need to pop our heads up once in a while. Sorry that I've been quiet and that you felt we had forgotten about you.

- Raph

 

This is exactly what I think the majority of this community needed to see. I can only assume, but I just guess out loud that most absolutely understand that things take time. Significantly more time when they should be great. It's good to see that you are aware of the situation and more importantly, updated the folks around here now. As I said, just mentioning it once after a couple months like this is good.

On another note: Really great to see that things seem to be fine around Hinterland. I'm not in the industry myself, but I have seen people I talked to on multiple occasions that are in it just loosing their position, it hurts. Props to you for being able to avoid that in your own company.

[Sherri]

On 4/19/2024 at 7:48 PM, Raphael van Lierop said:

Hey all,

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life.

Re: my posting on Twitter -- no, I don't use it anymore. I've not been too quiet on my reasons why. And "losing" a community there that I spent years building has made it hard to feel much like investing time in other replacement options like BlueSky, etc. I don't think I'm the only one who feels a bit burned out by social media. Honestly it's just been easier to bury myself in work.

 

I feel that. When I left Twitter, even though I was content with my decision, I still mourned a lost community. Even though Mastodon has mostly filled that.... I'm just very sick of social media in general. Might be a good thing, to cut that attachment & find new uses for our energy.

----

I think it might help to remember that communication with the community - especially here on the forums, doesn't have to be as 'grand' as a full dev diary. It can be overwhelming to put together the equivalent of a whole newsletter when regular work is already so time-consuming.

Maybe try some small but unique stuff. Like "Check out these pencil sketches from when we designed the toxic wolves." Or "Here's a funny story from when we first playtested the long route to the Airfield." Etc. little anecdotes that humanize the dev process & maybe give staff who are willing, a chance to share fun tidbits from their work.

Not everything has to be a big news release. Doesn't even have to be 'new'. 😁

Edited April 21 by Sherri

[Raphael van Lierop]

On 4/20/2024 at 6:46 AM, rush247 said:

So possibly next week for dev diary?  If so that's good.  Not really all that excited for what the status on Switch is though since you waited this long it must be bad.  Nice to know you're still around too, for a minute when I saw the posting for a "Technical Lead" in the wanted section on your site I got really worried something bad had happened.

It never works out well if I promise "next week" because if something comes up that means I have to delay it for some reason, folks just get disappointed and throw it back at us "but you said...", so just keep your eyes open for it and know that news is coming.

Re: Technical Lead -- nothing to worry about. If anything you should take this as a sign of continued commitment to the game. 

[Raphael van Lierop]

On 4/20/2024 at 7:16 AM, Laika Ivanova said:

On another note: Really great to see that things seem to be fine around Hinterland. I'm not in the industry myself, but I have seen people I talked to on multiple occasions that are in it just loosing their position, it hurts. Props to you for being able to avoid that in your own company.

We don't take anything for granted, and the industry is in shambles, but we're fine, and we're still on track to deliver on our long-term strategy for Hinterland and our projects. But of course we are impacted by the losses at other companies, as it creates a lot of angst in the general atmosphere, and it's also hard to see our colleagues at other studios suffering. 

[thekillergreece]

That's fine, life can be busy and all that.
IMO you could throw a sneak peek once a month / two months so we can know what you guys are cooking. This was one of the few reasons why I closely followed you on Twitter until you stopped posting there.

[Laika Ivanova]

I've been thinking on what Hinterland could specifically do to improve communication and I ended up coming back to how The Indie Stone handles their "Thursdoid" (Project Zomboid) - a monthly post in which they talk about current progress and where possible, show some of the things they've been working on. Sometimes those posts are longer, if there is a lot of visual progress they can show, sometimes it's less, simply because there isn't much to show. Not saying that's the best way to handle things going forward, but I'd say it's smart to take inspiration from at the very least. The Thursdoids are always amazing to read through, even if there isn't much.

Edited April 22 by Laika Ivanova

[ManicManiac]

In my opinion... I'd say it's easy for folks on the forum to just try to tell Hinterland what they "should do," and it all may seem simple and easy from that point of view...   However, we don't know all the demands on Hinterland's time.  We don't know the issues that the various teams may be facing with what they are working on, or the amount of coordination it takes at each level to keep things moving forward.  We just don't know all those behind-the-scenes things that sap both time and energy... 

I'll echo what I've mentioned in another thread:

Quote

I think folks might also benefit from not expecting the Hinterland Team to be at their beck-and-call.
Work has to get done, and work takes time.

I would say that Hinterland has been rather good about letting us know when they have information to share.
Do they really owe us monthly updates?  Are we stockholders?  Are we on some Board of Directors?  ...No...

I feel that Hinterland has earned a lot of good will over the years.  I think that rather than assume and jump to negative conclusions... I think we ought to give the benefit of any doubt and just have patience.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not criticizing the suggestions themselves.  I'm sure most genuinely intend those suggestions to be helpful.
All I'm trying to say here... is I think it would be wise for all of us to temper expectation with patience.
As far as I have seen over the years, Hinterland has been rather good about sharing information with us... when they felt they had something substantial to share, and when they felt that information was in a ready enough state to share.

Edited April 22 by ManicManiac

[Raphael van Lierop]

4 hours ago, thekillergreece said:

That's fine, life can be busy and all that.
IMO you could throw a sneak peek once a month / two months so we can know what you guys are cooking. This was one of the few reasons why I closely followed you on Twitter until you stopped posting there.

Yeah, and I really regret not being on there anymore because it was a very easy "low impact" way for me to update folks, and the news would eventually find its way in here and everywhere else. But that's not a good replacement for nurturing our own Official community better.

My assumption is people come here vs. posting in Steam or Reddit or wherever (or maybe you post in all those places too) to get that special insider feeling, and if we don't provide that here there's not much point in spending your time here vs. those other platforms, especially when they are quite active. We get it.

[turtle777]

I don’t think it matters as much how exactly the communication takes place (frequency, style, length, place).

It’s more an about keeling the community “in the loop” and excited. The smallest tidbits will do.

-t