Feedback to the devs: What I think you're doing wrong
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For a game as beautiful & fantastic as Bleeding Edge, it is very evident that there is a lot criticism coming from outside as well as from inside of the game's community. I want to say that I can only imagine how crappy it must feel to be so overwhelmed with demands and borderline hate while there is probably a lot that is outside of your control.
In this thread I want to avoid making any demands (for updates and what not) and rather try to focus on giving objective feedback based on my observation at how some aspects of the game are being run.As mentioned at the start of the thread; there is absolutely no denying that Bleeding Edge is a very good game, and that you are all extremely talented and competent artists and game developers. I have yet to see a player that hasn't given praise to David Garcia's and Jamie Molloy's spectacular soundtracks, or Geralt & Andy's amazingly designed maps or Marco and Bao's very beautiful art; just to name a few of you. The game truly is a great product, but then what is going wrong in the eyes of your fans, and what exactly do they mean/want when they tell you to communicate more with them?
In order to answer that, allow me to describe 1 aspect that we players care a lot about in games thats core idea is to be multiplayer, pvp, and (to some extent) repetitive like League of Legends, Dota, Overwatch and similar [purely] multiplayer titles, and that aspect is the developer of the game's vision/hopes/expectations for their game, and I wish to elaborate on what that means exactly:
In many discussions about Bleeding Edge's future, there are 2 (failed) game titles that are mentioned in order to draw a comparison, one is Gigantic and the other is Lawbreakers, with Lawbreakers being the one that is relevant to the subject right now. In hindsight, the head figure of Lawbreakers "Cliff Bleszinski" made a mistake in seeming too cocky and pompous with the way he presented his game. Defining the game (Lawbreakers) as being a title for the most skilled and hardcore players, potentially scaring away some of the more casual players, but at the very least, he sent the message that he is very committed to his game, and wants to work on making it achieve greatest heights and compete with the biggest game titles out there.
On the other hand, Bleeding Edge is making the EXACT OPPOSITE mistake. Instead of presenting the game in an ambitious manner (and risking being called pretentious or that it takes itself too seriously), Bleeding Edge is not even being presented IN ANY WAY AT ALL, so we, the players, have no idea what Ninja Theory hopes for or expects from this game. Does it even want to grow and become a big/popular title or not? We have no idea, because the developer's vision for this game is being kept a secret from the game's community. Does the game want to be big like overwatch and league of legends, or does it want to just "exist" in the gaming library, ready to be picked up by anybody but does not really care if people end up playing it or not.THE RESULT
Is that we are presented with a game in which it seems like the developer does not believe in their game at all, so why should we?Yes the game is fun to play. For a while at least. After about 100 hours in the game; the act of playing it becomes an act of showing support to the game, in hopes that the unspoken promise of the game's developer using this support in order to move forward with the game that the community of is promising to keep playing and supporting, will be realized.
Right now I can think of 2 possible explanations as to why the developers are allowing the game to remain in the state that its in right now:"But Sultan, we, the developers, are working on other Ninja Theory responsibilities, and things outside of our control are preventing us from resuming development on the game"
In this case you have to tell the community exactly that. Be transparent (to some extent) with the community, and they will return your transparency, which also serves as a form of respect you are showing to the community, with patience and continuous support."Sultan, we made the game and think of it like a ball. You can take the ball and play with it whenever you want and it doesn't really matter to anyone whether you play with it or not"
If this is the case, then again you need to present this vision for your game to your community. If you truly have no intentions to reach greater heights with the game then that's fine, but you have to be transparent and let your community understand that this is how the game will be run, otherwise you're causing a lot of frustration in the community for no reason other than that you don't care about them.
But all in all, I imagine that the real response to what I'm saying is:
"Dude, we're game developers. Our job is to make the game. Presenting the game and managing the community is someone else's task"
Which while being understandable, is also carefree in a negative sense. The Bleeding Edge community is facing a massive wall right now that makes it very difficult if not impossible to effectively communicate the game's state and problems to the party that needs to receive it. If on top of this wall you place a sign telling us that these problems are the responsibility of a party that does not exist (at least in our eyes) then you are killing your own community by letting these problems and frustrations continue to be recycled over and over until it turns into a tornado that will once and for all put an end to the game that we love.At the very least take this feedback and present it to someone within Ninja Theory or Microsoft that can be responsible for dealing with this type of issue.
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As you had said before for hold your feedbacks for next year,better when they finally decided to speak with us about their game or/and in other case give their situation for all this silence
Bleeding edge still have a very special place in my heart,one game,compare to other like halo, whose I most liked in a level to be a fan of it, unfortunately, at moment l can't play, because l in a place whose there isn't internet:(
I would like to hear that devs are ambitious to be big as like overwatch devs had big expectations about their game.
I respect and recognize their spectacular work with this amazing game, even with all the problems that he had and still have some.
Wish when they decided respond, than decided give more their work for the game and NT started support a few, at least like ,with marketing.But anyway, independent with their answer, still did a good work.
That 2021 can be a great year for this game and for the devs.
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@XxUnReached said in Feedback to the devs: What I think you're doing wrong:
As you had said before for hold your feedbacks for next year,better when they finally decided to speak with us about their game or/and in other case give their situation for all this silence
I meant that regarding feedback posted on discord. Forum threads better be up and ready to be read whenever the dev team does decide to come back. Meanwhile, if they don't read forum posts then that would be a catastrophe.
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@Surrtan Também acho o mesmo. Um jogo tão promissor, divertido, que estava indo tão bem de atualizações... E do nada param de atualizar o jogo e ninguém se pronúncia. O mínimo que deveriam fazer era dizer algo para a comunidade. Mesmo que falassem que retornariam com as atualizações somente ano no próximo ano. Espero que o jogo não seja jogado às traças.
