Post by friskyfennecfox in 0.9.0 Hype Train

"Voices Of The Void" Pre-Alpha » Community

Viewing post in 0.9.0 Hype Train

friskyfennecfox61 days ago (3 edits) (+4)(-11)

He's doing us so dirty, isn't he? Itch.io is the very place you download the game from, yet all it gets is a bug report thread that feels abandoned and pointless because we don't know if MrDrNose even checks it as there are no replies from the team.

All the news are gatekept in the Discord server. You have to agree with the rules even if you disagree with them and navigate numerous threads and Discord's UI just to gather the bits of information and satisfy your curiosity.

Lackluster community management is my biggest criticism of the team behind VotV. You're either a supporter and a part of the "inner circle", or you're left out of the game's development cycle to scavenge information elsewhere.

MagusShine61 days ago(+7)(-1)

Discord is so trash cant do anything online anymore without giving away all of you personal information

gdemon96_dev61 days ago(+1)

toby fox conspiracy type shi

Unstable_Scarlet57 days ago (2 edits) (+5)(-2)

yeah except touching his discord at all requires you to give discord your phone number

edit: this comment aged well, with the Zendesk leaks leaking "everyone who had a ticket"'s phone number, lol

sjgkejglwebn56 days ago(+7)(-10)

Dude you don't get it you just have to give away your phone number and personal information to a company facilitating predators ok!!! It's just that worth it!!

Every single goddamn indie game on earth follows this path and I despise it with all of my heart. I fucking hate having to create my 30th puppet account of the day using my 4th separate VPN so I can see what Pen Island Development Studios is up to because they refuse to otherwise interact or post anything about the game elsewhere.

The Cord is a blackhole full of misery, loneliness, sloth and degeneracy, so this shit (and much more! Just wait for the owner to have a mental breakdown and put the project on hold for 5 months because complete fucking random got on his nerves!) will always happen whenever it's involved. I've honestly just been lurking reddit for news because as shit as that place is, they have the decency to allow you to view the site without an account (A crazy concept). If I have any advice to give you, give up on the leaks. Like just check the itch page occasionally for any news and that's good enough. It fucking sucks, but getting involved in the cord isn't worth it.

Foxmaiden38 days ago (1 edit) (+10)

Relax, I agree with you... I'm on discord and there's not much decent information, unless you want to see people sucking up to the dev and becoming part of a cult where they believe the aliens of this game exist and do everything they can to learn as much lore as possible... Reality is too boring, I guess.
Don't get me wrong, the game is good, I loved the setting and construction of it, but calm down...

There's also a changelog that changes every few days... and, apparently, 0.9 will be alpha (out of pre-release) and will be released on Halloween!

Changelog below:

Fixed:

>Nametags stacking in the world origin permanently

>Rake pivot were moving only when used

>Kavotia and Tentacle Balls shoot debug arrow

Changed:

>Settings interface

>Game fonts

-Note

-LCD

>Models

-Blue shelf

-Wooden pallete

-Wooden chair

-Battery + chargeable

-Radio

-Basketball hoop

-Fridge

-Curtains

-Picture frames

-Medkit

-Digital camera

-Coffee chocolate bar

-Beacon

-Remote drone

-Fisherman box

-Desktop printer

-Gas lamp

-Tripod spotlight

-Delivery drone

-Cooking book

-KerfurO manual

-Bench

-Broomba

-Main desk PC

-Fridge

-Coffee bag

-Sleeping bag

-Old bone box

-Metal detector

-ATV

>Fridge

-Added door shelves

>Precise placement

-Added particle effect

>Explosions

-Proximity deafness and tinnitus

-Particle effects

>Gas cans

-Fuel can be transferred between gas cans

>Settings

>Main desk PC

-Object model

-Parts are now separate

>MRE

-Breaks down into smaller foods

>Bandage comes in a packet

>Farming plants

-Plants require sunlight and atmosphere light

-Plants can dry and die without water

-Proper plant orientation

>PC

-Added "videos" area

>Main computer desk

-Added upgrades as physical modules

>Main bed

-Mattress from the main bunk bed can be taken off and put back

>Main map

-Added 2 objects

-Added 1 location

>Metal detector

-In hand scans the area right at the cursor

-Portable metal detector activates by holding ALT

>Sun and atmosphere

-Colors

-Smooth sunlight shadows visibility

>ATV

-Upgrades

-Model

-More functionality

>Landscape foliage and grass

>Weather

-Rain

-Added wind

-Added lightning

>Windmills spinning using global wind

>Spawn menu UI **[NEW]**

>Crafting **[NEW]**

-Added dedicated crafting UI

Removed:

>Pot plants from the store

>Modules tab from the PC

Added:

>45+ objects

>More trash items

>84 store items

>3 settings

>2 events

>12 minigames **[NEW]**

>stuff **[NEW**]

gdemon96_dev37 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

nice

welp start the countdown

Unstable_Scarlet37 days ago(+3)(-1)

why would they release ON halloween, I don't play horror games in November lmao

friskyfennecfox37 days ago(+3)(-1)

I'm with you here. I expected to start digging into the Halloween atmosphere starting with VotV, but seems like it'll be concluding it instead.

Father-Goat-Eyes37 days ago(+5)(-1)

Well, most people- especially those who are already fans of the game- probably don't have the same super strict, self imposed rule where they refuse to play a whole genre of games outside the month of October lmao.

Though honestly, horror is more of a tone that VotV carries as opposed to it's base genre. It's a lot more of an "immersive sim" with some horror theming than a straight horror game. So good news, you CAN still enjoy it the rest of the year too!!

Unstable_Scarlet37 days ago(+2)(-16)

weird, I wasn't aware it was wrong to prefer eating ice cream in the summer over the winter

keep doing your weird passive aggressive hostility thing towards people critical of the decisions of your idol, maybe one day it'll pay off.

Father-Goat-Eyes36 days ago(+5)

?? ..Idol? I don't...know them? At all? I just think the game is really neat...you don't find a lot of openform imsim-adjacent horror games. It's neat, to me. Not really idolizing the team responsible

Regardless! I wasn't being hostile- passive aggressively or otherwise. Mostly just kind of amused, attempting to poke a little humor- not taking this as a serious matter or w/e. Just noting that it seemed silly, to me, and that it doesn't really have to keep you from playing the next build, if you're really that excited about it! Like a 'haha, good news- its *technically* more like this than that, so you totally *could* still play it!' ..not like, a vicious personal attack.. lol oops

I mean, I guess the genre bit wasn't mean to be humorous? That was legitimately supposed to provide some clarification, because I know it's kind of one of those lesser-known 'weirdo' genres that most people don't know or talk about a lot, but it's a genre that I (a weirdo) really enjoy. Sorry that didn't come through, apparently. If I knew it was going to cause this much offense, I wouldnt have bothered lol. Soo My bad, I hope things get better soon!

Watts (about 100)32 days ago(+1)

Nah, you're fine. Dumbing yourself down to any extent just makes you unhappy and the people whining about this or that aspect to your personality will find something else about you to whine about.

Also I haven't seen many MHE references out in the wild before, always happy to see it.

Watts (about 100)32 days ago(+3)

Man, the only one that's "doing weird passive aggressive hostility" is you. I just read through that interaction and they were (at most) just poking fun at the person that mentioned the concept of "only playing a game during October".

Relax.

Bearsjunior37 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

I assume it’s so that they have most time to get the update into a state they are happy with before release, while also still leaving the players with enough time to experience the Halloween event in the newer version.

I’m pretty sure the last Halloween update was very rushed to get it out on time, so the least they could do is try to get this one out on time without rushing it.

sjgkejglwebn24 days ago(+2)

Thanks for providing general release notes and doing the bare minimum (even if I looked at it like 2 weeks later lol), unlike half of modern indie games. It's not personal or targeted at the dev, the game's development or it's community, but the nature of discord itself. I hold an extreme hatred for discord, and for aslong as it exists and continues to, unfortunately, thrive despite half it's userbase being socially inept, I will go against it. There is no calm when the cord exists.

Watts (about 100)32 days ago(+2)(-1)

I understand how you feel and largely agree with you, but if I was the dev and read your comment, the only thing it'd do is make me not want to work on the game, nor engage with the community with how a lot of people tend to come off like that.

Again, I agree with what you're saying, but it's also wise to try and imagine how the developer might feel about what you're saying. I don't think MDN is employing the phone number thing because they want personal information to be given to a private company, they want to prevent ne'er-do-wells and trolls from coming into their Discord to say slurs and spam nonsense. Unfortunately, at the moment, the only real way to stop either is to require a phone number for every account.

Personally, I've just been doing other things. I haven't been engaging with VotV at all for a while. If you think a couple MONTHS is bad, wait to see how long it's been since an update for Viktor Strobovsky has been put out, or anything for UDA-Game. Unfortunately, this is kinda to be expected - the dev doesn't have the time, money, nor hands to fully flesh out what they want to do because they want to get it right. If anything, the amount of time that it's taken for all of these things to be released just ensures that they will be even more stable and functional when they're released.

Recently I've been engaging with Joseph Anderson's Youtube channel - his commentary on Fallout 76 speaks numbers to what I just mentioned. To sum it up, here's two options: Either you get a game that takes forever and is well-polished and insanely detailed BUT it takes forever, OR you get a game that's completely buggy, a total mess, BUT it's put out quickly.

Personally, with how the media landscape currently is, I'd prefer the slow and steady release-structure.

If need be, you can find other games that are equally entertaining. Mike Klubnika is a dev you should check out; he made Buckshot Roulette, Fused 240, and some other games that have been released for free on Steam. He's very good, though I'd suggest either avoiding Fused 240 or going in with low expectations because it's insanely slow and can be very frustrating for others due to that fact - other than that, though, he's a really good storyteller and has a lot of neat ideas. (Light spoilers: The entire story for Fused 240, including the ending, is not happy, and that fits very well in line with the rest of the game. Arguably, it fits with a lot of his games. Most end up being semi-hellish.)

There's also Dominoid by DingDong, UDA Game by MDN, The Butterfly somewhere on the front page (that looks cool but I haven't checked it out), and lots of other totally free games on here that you can just as obsessed with as I am with MDN's games. (Personally I'm kinda frustrated because Advanced Education with Viktor Strobovsky may or may not be so un-optimized that there's a tiny chance it might've had a hand in killing my good computer. Also maybe not, maybe it's correlation and not causation, but it was sort of odd timing, hence why I didn't recommend it. AEwVS is also quite buggy and not fully functional, so that's another reason.)

I'm not trying to say that any of your criticisms are invalid, but (if you'll allow me to criticize you a little harshly) you need to consider the reasons for why things are the way they are. Most devs start making games and gradually find out that game development is not for them. Either it's tedious and time consuming, or it's that the community is very irritating to deal with, or there's some other reasons that I can't think of. I'm not trying to say that the people involved are blameless - there's a plentiful amount of times where game devs are objectively in the wrong, I'm just saying that there's a lot of reasons why things are the way that they are.

Understanding that and moving on when you're frustrated with developers is also an important concept to get acquainted with on your part. Play some older games. I've been playing No Man's Sky recently, and I've been happy to discover that it's actually gotten pretty good since it first launched and I was disappointed - much like how you're frustrated with the slow development of this game. I know how you feel, and it's shitty, but you also need get used to how things are after a certain point. It's a part of growing up. (Also please note that I'm not trying to talk down to you or anything like that, it's just that your writing style reminds me of my own writing when I was younger, hence the "growing up" comment - remembering being young and assuming you are in my state when I was younger is something I do to humanize other people when responding to their comments so I don't come off too aggressively, because I've definitely done that before when it wasn't needed, so I'm trying to pull back on that a bit.)

Anyway, you should check out other games, especially if you're on Steam - there's lots on there as well, assuming you aren't aware of that. There's also lots of emulators and things like that for other (also older) games as well.

TaiyoFrz29 days ago(+2)(-7)

ok lol

sjgkejglwebn24 days ago(+2)

Most of the games I've played over the past 5 years have primarily been older games I've been cycling through, mostly because they're what I enjoy (e.g. rn I'm replaying through the mario galaxy games). My problem doesn't lie with the current state of games, every game has hiccups, drama, etc. It's a natural part of development and that's fine. What's not fine is encouraging your community to fracture even more and actively derailing development by fostering online relationships with strangers 99.7% of the time you'll never meet in your entire life.

This takes a lot of strength to admit, but, I've played Roblox for half of my life. So many niche games go to shit over there because the dev's "MUST" have a discord. They simply "MUST". There is no alternative/other way to grow a community according to them. And every time that happens, development otherwise derails completely. I do not want the same to occur to this one because... WE just have to have a discord, OK! This tangent relates because the bar for creation on roblox is low, similar to indie games. (Tho I'm not implying that VoTV is a low quality product- Far from that, but the bar being so low means that whoever owns it is waaay more likely to be mentally unstable compared to "normal" games, speaking from experience)

I've stated this in a different reply, and in foresight could've added it to the original, but the comment is not targeted at the devs as people. It's at their continued usage of discord despite the companies/communities shady behavior. Ditch it completely, or search for alternatives and you'll live a better life, as simple as that.

(Also my writing style is bad because I actively re-read and change whatever sentence I'm writing like halfway through writing it. I've always been shit at english and that's not changing lol. I'm trying to stop engaging with social media tho because it just ends up biting me in the ass.)

Watts (about 100)23 days ago

Yeah, your reasons are understandable. Honestly I was going into the discussion assuming you were just hyper-focused on VotV for one reason or another, but if it's due to actual gripes about the platform itself rather than just "I want more updates", (hence the part where I was suggesting moving on to other games) then admittedly my addition of that part was unnecessary, so I'll admit that's my bad.

Unfortunately, all social media platforms are going to have some kind of criticism that can be levied against them - I find that the reasons can typically be justified, but at this point, I don't know how any "platform" can exist without some degree of criticism. I imagine that their usage of Discord once again comes back down to the team's ability to control the community that they are surrounded by - at least in some capacity. There's several methods of locking down the server if need be and there's the phone verification thing which weeds out a lot of trolls and ne'er-do-wells, so even these two methods might be good enough for the team to justify the continued use. I imagine there's also other methods of keeping things chill that I'm simply just not aware of, but I digress.

I am not aware of any platforms that are similar to Discord that have even a fraction of reach that it does, so I assume that's also a big part of it - I am presuming that they would want the updates to get out to as many as possible. That's a lot more speculation on my part than I've done previously in this thread, however, so of all the things I've expressed, take that one with the biggest grain of salt possible. (I don't actually know anything outside of what little information I gleam out of some streamers or people that might be "around" the community, so my speculating is not to be fully trusted, but I'm hoping throughout all of my posts that's kind of evident for one reason or another.)

Also, don't justify your writing style to me. It's your writing style, own it. If it's shit, it's your shit, not just any random garbage - be proud of the work you put into things, even if it's minor (like making long-ass paragraphs of text that very few people will ever read, for example).

Anyway, I generally try to levy my criticisms with some padding, devs might not see the "original" comment I make, so if I just criticize without said padding, it might lead into misunderstandings or an eventually necessary stating of the padding, anyway. This also tends to lead into me repeating myself, which also leads to my particular writing style, but I figure half-measures are just work with half of the effort put in, so I might as well go all the way while I'm at it. With that said, now I'm moreso offering suggestions for what you might look to include when posting, rather than offering actual criticism, as I was previously - you haven't said anything especially egregious or outlandish in either of your posts. Either way, do as you will.

Watts (about 100)26 days ago(-5)

If I was MDN, I'd simply not release an update just to spite people like you. Matter of fact, I imagine that's something that's been a factor in the production of the game itself because of how pervasive and frequent that sort of idea is.

I've been interested in making games for a long time, and man, that exact mentality is what I am afraid of if I were to get into game development, because people with your same type of 'stan' mentality for things always poison EVERYTHING you find an interest in. Log off, take some time away from this game's forums, and think about something else, because if it's affecting you so significantly that you're willing to express this opinion about someone who makes the content that you enjoy, you've gotta be unbearable to talk to as a human being. I'm not just saying this to get some "sick dunks", either - take time away from the internet to do ANYTHING else. If there was a messaging feature on Itch.io, I'd rather just send this to you privately because that mentality is enough of an issue that I can say with 100% certainty that that is directly impacting you in other corners of your life that you aren't seeing, and it makes me legitimately think you ACTUALLY need someone to just come out and say it explicitly. Frankly, if this comment actually pisses you off to any degree, it's a good thing for you - maybe it'll be something that leads to you actually getting better in some regard.

I say all of this because I've had the exact same mentality you do - and thankfully, I eventually got better, but not before I got a lot worse. Hopefully saying this will kinda shame you into being a better person, because damn, that's one HELL of a thing to think, letalone express in any kind of public setting like this.

Just 'cause you can have an opinion doesn't mean it's a good one.

friskyfennecfox25 days ago (1 edit) (+5)(-2)

Criticizing something is the greatest form of support, an expression of a genuine wish for someone or something to be better, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered engaging in the first place. Thank you too for reminding me that I'm politically unable to touch grass at the current moment and can't do much else other than expressing opinions online. That's all I'm going to say.

Watts (about 100)25 days ago(-3)

No, you are very clearly not interested in giving any kind of "support" to the dev. Your post was incredibly insulting. You could've said something like, "Man, I really wish the devs of this game would engage with their community more often. I really enjoy the game, but I find it frustrating that there's so little interaction," but you didn't. If I was a dev, I'd actually take something like what I suggested to heart and try to work on communicating with my fans better in future updates. However, just reading your comment would lead to me simply noting you as someone toxic in the community and continue to not engage with it because of how incredibly hostile it comes off as.

What it sounds like to me what you're saying with your unnecessary addition is "I can't do anything other than talk shit about the devs of the games I enjoy!" But the thing is that if you can "express opinions online", you can find plenty of other things to do. Develop a game yourself, maybe it'll help you find a hobby outside of making lackluster comments on the internet. Read some books, there's free PDFs out there. Watch some movies and/or videos, there's plenty of stuff on Youtube. Go onto Wikipedia, read some articles, or go on the Internet Archive, there's movies, music, books, and plenty of other things they're hosting. To put it simply, there's literally an ENTIRE INTERNET of possibilities at your fingertips. Do something other than "expressing opinions" online. Again, just cause you have an opinion doesn't mean it's a good one, especially if you're posting whiney screeds like "the dev of this game that I like need to do this specific thing!" that really don't amount to much more than crying about "community engagement".

On top of that, as I understand it, part of the reason the updates are kept behind the Discord is because the dev is attempting to limit their and their team's exposure to toxicity (which certainly seems like a smart idea to me), and that the team might want to keep the community from getting a constant flood of updates. Unfortunately for them, people like you are going to screech and cry about whatever it is they do. If they don't post, then people will say "post more!" but if they post more, then people will say "These aren't important updates, post less!" and if they post less, then people will go back to whining about them not posting enough, or whine about some other thing because it's not enough to have updates for a game, it's always got to be "the best" when it comes to community engagement, even if the people running the game don't want to have any kind of engagement with the community at all.

On that topic, you do know that the team making this game is there to make the game and not necessarily there for interacting with the community, right? Like a dev team that interacts with their community is not only rare, but it is also something that costs time (and likely even money) that they could just put towards making the game. So if they did what you're asking for, it'd just take that much time away from the game. But I guess the community is more important than the actual game that this entire discussion is revolving around - or, at least to you. To the dev team, apparently "the game is more important"! :O How unexpected of a game development team! To develop games! Imagine it! Who could conceive of such a bizarre and unheard-of concept!

Again, I'd suggest that you take a step back from the game and everything connected to it and come back in a month or two when you're a bit more chill. I'm not criticizing you because you're complaining, I'm criticizing you because your comment was written like you have a parasocial relationship to the development of this game. I imagine your original post would only signal to the team behind VotV that they should continue to not engage with the community until it as a whole is less hostile towards the people working on the game. But if you're going to just double-down on acting snotty towards them, silence from this team is what both you and the more toxic parts of the VotV community deserve. But whatever, keep biting the hand that feeds. I'm sure you've got SO much to show for it.

Here's a rhetorical question for you; does engaging with the VotV community in the manner that you are currently make you happy? If not, then why wouldn't you just simply do something that does make you happy? Don't bother answering either of these questions because they're both rhetorical and I don't actually care about your answers, the point I'm getting at is that you should do literally anything else. I am presuming you have eyes, ears, and a brain. I'm pleading with you to use them somewhere - ANYWHERE - else, for your own sake.

Or don't, either I just ran several circles around you and you gave up or I get to keep running circles until I get bored, it's a win/win for me.

Lumpimp25 days ago(+2)(-2)

rereading this thread a hundred times to try and figure out what they said that got you SO upset. All they said is that they want the communication to be a little more clear and that being forced to use discord sucks, which it does and I'm saying that as someone who has used it since 2017 lol. I've also been looking for more info on 0.9 since it's supposedly coming out soon and I really dont care to join a whole server I'll never interact with just to learn something that could be a blogpost. i really dont understand why youre white knighting so hard. youre being more toxic than friskyfennc ever was

JazzCorp25 days ago(+5)

the real horror was the comments we read along the way

Lumpimp25 days ago(+3)(-2)

for serious

Watts (about 100)24 days ago (4 edits) (-2)

Nah, they really didn't, though. Being rude in an online and a public community like this is something that I think needs to be tampered down on, and frankly, I'm more than happy to help with it, whether or not it's necessary from anyone else's perspective. I am, as you put it, "upset" because I want people to talk online to others the way they would in the real world. I feel that their original comment is not something that should be said to another human being nor a group of people putting effort into making something that I clearly care a lot about if I'm this willing to talk for this long and interested in spending so much time in forum discussions. Thus, here I am.

I'm not disagreeing that Discord sucks - it does. I'm also not disagreeing that the VotV team could do better with their communication skills - their skills could be better, but as I've attempted to hint at several times (and stated explicitly now) now, I'm kind of frustrated with toxicity in online spaces. I am approaching each scenario with what I feel to be the correct amount of "aggression" (as you might put it) that I think is necessary for the context. I'm sure I could be better with something or other, same as with the VotV team and the team behind Discord, but we're all doing our best with the skills we have, so please forgive me if I come off in a bad light for whatever reason. (Edit: I've been using Discord since 2016 - what does that have to do with anything, though? Even if I had no experience with it until just right now, I could still tell you that it sucks as a platform. Why does the age of one's account on it matter in the slightest to the current conversation at hand?)

Also, what does white knighting mean, in your mind? Because I have been and am still currently willing to criticize MDN and the VotV team, I'm just not going to let toxicity exist without calling it such. If I was white knighting, I imagine that I'd be a lot more permissive of flaws and inconsistent with my points, but I'm not and haven't been, so I don't know why you're using the term when it's not applicable. If anything, it certainly sounds like you're doing a little bit of white knighting yourself, based on my definition - I've already addressed several of your points in at least one of my previous responses to friskyfennec, which you should know, since you apparently already read them.

It also does not escape me that you didn't really bother to respond to any of the points that I've made, almost like you're not interested in actually having a discussion on the initial topics mentioned, or you just didn't fully grasp any of the points I've been getting at if you even did read everything.

Foxmaiden23 days ago(+2)(-1)

Simply put: Available time > nonsense!
The facts are:

The game is there for everyone.

Support if you want.
Join the Discord if you want.
They DO NOT have good communication on Itch.io.
Their Discord is ridiculously polluted with completely out-of-context topics or "deep down" lore in an unrealistic story presented in a childish way, designed for 12-14 year olds who like waifus and anime.
The 0.9 test version is already available.

They are very attentive to reported bugs and, even with SEVERAL broken issues in the "bug report," they are still releasing fixes.

So: Enjoy what you like and like it if you want, but the fact is that Discord is necessary for more information.

And if "someone" think that discussions on the internet should always be civil, you are naive, a troll, or have nothing better to do.

Happy Halloween!

Watts (about 100)23 days ago (1 edit) (-2)

I'm sure glad that last part isn't responding to what I was saying, as it would be a fairly gross mischaracterization of what I was at least attempting to get at, regardless of whether or not I stated it well enough.

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