The transparency of the Camelot Unchained developers

MightyUnclean

The Camelot Unchained developers have now decided to prevent all commenting on posts on the official Facebook page.  That's on top of disabling comments on YouTube and crushing criticism on Discord and the official forums.  But Mark Jacobs is extremely transparent about the development of CU, right?  Just ask him.  When has he been dishonest before?  Clearly things are going well, and there's nothing to hide.

Kyleran

The longer this goes on without significant results the more they'll continue to hunker down inside the ivory  tower walls.

Ungood

Not wanting to hear peoples shit, is not the same as not being transparent about what you are doing.

BruceYee

Kickstarter was in 2013... TWENTY THIRTEEN... I can't even remember where I was or what I was doing in 2013...

MightyUnclean

Ungood said:

Not wanting to hear peoples shit, is not the same as not being transparent about what you are doing.

If they didn't want to hear people's shit, they shouldn't have taken people's money.  You take people's money, you're going to hear from them if you don't follow through on your promises.

Kyleran

BruceYee said:

Kickstarter was in 2013... TWENTY THIRTEEN... I can't even remember where I was or what I was doing in 2013...

I'm thinking then alcohol was probably involved.

Ungood

MightyUnclean said:

Ungood said:

Not wanting to hear peoples shit, is not the same as not being transparent about what you are doing.

If they didn't want to hear people's shit, they shouldn't have taken people's money.  You take people's money, you're going to hear from them if you don't follow through on your promises.

Ok, you have a fair point of not following through with providing the product. But that still does not entitle people to give you shit, at best they are entitled to a refund, nothing more.

Ideally which he should either provide the refund and tell them to fuck off, or put out the product, or maybe do what others like Crowfall, have done, which is just make what he has playable, and get some feedback.

Nilden

Ungood said:

Not wanting to hear peoples shit, is not the same as not being transparent about what you are doing.

That's funny looks like trying to shut people up from over here.

I mean there is no way they could have legitimate complaints, right? It's not like he would announce working on a second game before this one was even done.

Ungood

Nilden said:

Ungood said:

Not wanting to hear peoples shit, is not the same as not being transparent about what you are doing.

That's funny looks like trying to shut people up from over here.

Have you ever worked in CS? You know, as a Manager, where all the Karen's want to talk shit at you, and demand that you give them what they want?

Now fortunately for me, or unfortunately as it would seem, I worked as a Maintenance manager in Hispastupidity for a few years.

Not wanting to hear their shit, is not the same wanting to shut them up, it is also not the same as being transparent about what we are doing, and the like, and it also has nothing to do with providing the product or service as we said it would be. 

Now, while I had a narrow window of what I had to deal with, maintenance, and nothing more, not housekeeping, not food service, not grounds, just one focused aspect of the site. As long as I provide that service, we are done. 

Well if you have ever dealt with Karen's, and by god I believe everyone should have to put at least 5 years of Public CS as part of their real life education, but anyway, dealing with Karen's, well, you would know that providing the service is never quite enough. Oh my light bulb burned out, replacing within 10 min of my calling the front desk is not enough, I demand 10% off the room, and a free breakfast.

The fact that I tell them they can call the front desk and ask to speak to the manager on duty about that, but I will not sign off on that, does not register, what does register is when I tell them if they raise their voice to the point that it will disturb the other guests, I will have them escorted out of the hotel in cuffs if need be, with no refund. Now while some people might feel that sounds like I am trying to shut them up, I am not, they are fee to fuss, cuss, and carry on, to their hearts content, as long as they do not upset or unsettle my other guests, simply because they are not happy that I have not kissed their feet and their ass at the same time.

Now, sure, in some cases, I fully support them being upset about an inconvenience, like when the heater didn't work on a cold night, because the previous guest managed to remove the guard and unplug it, and we did not catch that on the room inspection before they came in. You know what, I am on your side that is annoying, am I still going to let you upset my other guests by throwing a tantrum and publicly badmouthing my establishment while you are on my establishment.. No.. No I won't. Go home and bitch to all your friends about us, after we comped your room and gave you a free breakfast.

BruceYee

Ungood said:

Have you ever worked in CS? You know, as a Manager, where all the Karen's want to talk shit at you, and demand that you give them what they want?

Now fortunately for me, or unfortunately as it would seem, I worked as a Maintenance manager in Hispastupidity for a few years.

Not wanting to hear their shit, is not the same wanting to shut them up, it is also not the same as being transparent about what we are doing, and the like, and it also has nothing to do with providing the product or service as we said it would be. 

Now, while I had a narrow window of what I had to deal with, maintenance, and nothing more, not housekeeping, not food service, not grounds, just one focused aspect of the site. As long as I provide that service, we are done. 

Well if you have ever dealt with Karen's, and by god I believe everyone should have to put at least 5 years of Public CS as part of their real life education, but anyway, dealing with Karen's, well, you would know that providing the service is never quite enough. Oh my light bulb burned out, replacing within 10 min of my calling the front desk is not enough, I demand 10% off the room, and a free breakfast.

The fact that I tell them they can call the front desk and ask to speak to the manager on duty about that, but I will not sign off on that, does not register, what does register is when I tell them if they raise their voice to the point that it will disturb the other guests, I will have them escorted out of the hotel in cuffs if need be, with no refund. Now while some people might feel that sounds like I am trying to shut them up, I am not, they are fee to fuss, cuss, and carry on, to their hearts content, as long as they do not upset or unsettle my other guests, simply because they are not happy that I have not kissed their feet and their ass at the same time.

Now, sure, in some cases, I fully support them being upset about an inconvenience, like when the heater didn't work on a cold night, because the previous guest managed to remove the guard and unplug it, and we did not catch that on the room inspection before they came in. You know what, I am on your side that is annoying, am I still going to let you upset my other guests by throwing a tantrum and publicly badmouthing my establishment while you are on my establishment.. No.. No I won't. Go home and bitch to all your friends about us, after we comped your room and gave you a free breakfast.

Come on...

Nilden

Meh.

I'm not the one turning comments off on my youtube videos. 

You're not gonna hurt my lil fee-fees wif your big bad words.

“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I don't silence criticism, I welcome it. You don't improve by not only ignoring but silencing people.

I think it's pretty weak when the comments are turned off anywhere.

Wizardry

Not so "social media"if he is removing the social from the media lol.

Good thing i don't use Facebook,i might be disappointed i can't comment on his AMAZING game lol.

Scot

Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.

Wizardry

I had some time to think about this "transparency" idea.

So i thought to myself,so being transparent is an excuse to con people?

So it would be like if i tell you i am going to rob your house that makes it ok?I mean i am being fully transparent by telling you right?

So in this particular case,he tells people he is going to make said game and can't come even close to delivering it but then moves on to spend time and resources making a NEW game lol.So obviously he partially conned people out of their money because being a VETERAN of the industry and the result being so weak he must have surely known he would not deliver in any timely fashion.

Sure give anyone 30 years they might deliver that game but that wouldn't be considered an honest achievement.

So idk this guy Mr.Jacobs and some defendants seem to think it is ok that just because he claims to be transparent that makes everything alright?Then on the subject of transparency,has anyone ever seen the books,does anyone know how much the wages are?Does anyone know if what he CLAIMS is actually being done?Simply CLAIMING to be transparent but not really carrying out your claims are two totally different things.

Slapshot1188

Let's be honest.  If comments were open then whatever they posted would be shit on.  If it were me, and I was this far behind on everything I might also shut comments down on Youtube etc...    That doesn't in any way excuse the root cause of the situation which is their utter failure to deliver a functional game.  

But that is the function and role that places like MMORPG.COM can play.  Here is where you can come and make your complaint.  Its why I really don't spend much time on official forums because they are all Ivory Tower Echo Chambers but here we can actually state different opinions and hash through them.

mklinic

MightyUnclean said:

Ungood said:

Not wanting to hear peoples shit, is not the same as not being transparent about what you are doing.

If they didn't want to hear people's shit, they shouldn't have taken people's money.  You take people's money, you're going to hear from them if you don't follow through on your promises.

Don't the people, whose money they took, have the ability to post their "shit" on the official forums? Ungood is right on this one; transparency and providing a platform to everyone, invested or not, aren't really the same thing.

Now, you could certainly argue its a bad look, but after all this time, I imagine that's the least of their concerns...

francis_baud

They're transparent in the sense that they communicate with the backers and non-backers about the status of the game, what is being implemented in details (monthly update, newsletter, monthly Twitch's update and Q&A, replies on MassivelyOP and reddit, forum posts, etc.) and all backers (+$25 on KS, +$35 on the store) can see for themselves the most recent state of the game in 24x3 week-end playtests.

Disallowing people to post on Facebook, to comment and like/dislike on YouTube, and restricting the speech on official channels is not a lack of transparency I believe, it's another issue.

Kyleran

Scot said:

Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.

Err, he and Rhoklaw got the ban hammer, probably over their "disagreement" in the New World Ice Gauntlet thread which has been since closed.

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

Scot said:

Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.

Err, he and Rhoklaw got the ban hammer, probably over their "disagreement" in the New World Ice Gauntlet thread which has been since closed.

Sigh... why cant people just ignore instead of report.

Kyleran

Slapshot1188 said:

Kyleran said:

Scot said:

Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.

Err, he and Rhoklaw got the ban hammer, probably over their "disagreement" in the New World Ice Gauntlet thread which has been since closed.

Sigh... why cant people just ignore instead of report.

Probably for the same reason some folks can't control their online behaviors, it's just not in their nature.

francis_baud

Torval said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Kyleran said:

Scot said:

Well I hope Ungood is Ok, rather than a running commentary on why people get banned, just hope they get back soon.

Err, he and Rhoklaw got the ban hammer, probably over their "disagreement" in the New World Ice Gauntlet thread which has been since closed.

Sigh... why cant people just ignore instead of report.

As for the topic, it's the right of CU to close their threads for comments. It's their playground, so their choice. However, I don't respect that choice at all because they were more than willing to take money from "lay people" while selling unrealistic promises. They should have the skin to take the heat and deal with their failure to deliver. I think that would also help defuse a lot of pent up frustration. Keeping that heat bottled up only makes matters worse.

They did let people express their discontent for more than a year on Facebook, but at some point they probably realized it's not defusing the situation at all, as most of the comments are rehashing the same ideas over and over again (CU is late, CU refunds take too long, CU is vaporware, etc.). So I can understand why they've closed the FB posts for comments, as the reputation of CSE may be tarnished by all those comments, and the studio may lose credibility in the eyes of the potential new backers. Personally if it was my choice I would have let the comments open and actually responded to them, but it would require devoting a lot more resources to social medias.

MightyUnclean

Torval said:

It won't completely defuse the situation because only delivering the actual product will do that. It keeps resentment and frustration from boiling in a locked down pressure cooker.

So they let people comment for a year on Facebook, but then shut it down when they realized the blowback was all rehashed. Could that be because after a year they still didn't deliver the product, or even follow through on their revised and promised timelines?

The answer to that dilemma isn't to shut down the feedback, but to follow through on what was promised. If the comments and feedback were the same after a year then that should tell the developer something about themselves, their project, and their failure to deliver on their deal. Shutting down comments doesn't fix that, it just contributes to festering discontent.

I believe that they're getting desperate.  They've failed for eight years, they're continuing to fail, so they're doing damage control my controlling public perception as much as they can.  I understand why they're doing it, but I also find it to be a chickenshit and dishonest move.

Sovrath

Nilden said:

Meh.

I'm not the one turning comments off on my youtube videos. 

You're not gonna hurt my lil fee-fees wif your big bad words.

“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I don't silence criticism, I welcome it. You don't improve by not only ignoring but silencing people.

I think it's pretty weak when the comments are turned off anywhere.

Nilden said:

Meh.

I'm not the one turning comments off on my youtube videos. 

You're not gonna hurt my lil fee-fees wif your big bad words.

“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I don't silence criticism, I welcome it. You don't improve by not only ignoring but silencing people.

I think it's pretty weak when the comments are turned off anywhere.

I'll play devil's advocate and say that sometimes it's appropriate.

If there needs to be a discussion about something if it's a forum post or announcement then sure.

But I could see a youtube video showcasing what work has been done, or a feature and the comments are just a list of vitriol for people who just want another place to rant.

So I suppose there's a time and place for everything.

Why should every moment be a place for public comment and "our opinions?"

Nilden

Sovrath said:

I'll play devil's advocate and say that sometimes it's appropriate.

If there needs to be a discussion about something if it's a forum post or announcement then sure.

But I could see a youtube video showcasing what work has been done, or a feature and the comments are just a list of vitriol for people who just want another place to rant.

So I suppose there's a time and place for everything.

Why should every moment be a place for public comment and "our opinions?"

So who gets to decide when it's appropriate to silence people?

If you are showcasing work done wouldn't you want people to comment and give feedback on it? How is turning off comments about a video game being developed helping or appropriate?

Scorchien

Its odd to me that anyone would waste energy on CU at all , waste of time that should not be on anyones radar at all

TwistedSister77

I think having a moderator is not that demanding, you could probably have some volunteers.

I get the why... posts about the game being a scam and such could hurt their fundraising... just clean those up.  

Going completely dark looks bad to their fans.