How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”

  • The last two weeks we’ve had minimal communication from the devs on what’s coming for the game, a delay that lead to having no patch at all...just a chum bucket of disappointment.

    Rare, you’ve got to tell us more things and more often. Radio silence breeds conjecture and speculation, which leads to disappointment.

    If you want us to abandon all expectation in order to avoid that disappointment, you’re going to have a large group of disgruntled players on your hands.

    Please give us MORE, however small, so that we can better manage our expectations of what you can deliver.

    Edit: I should add some clarification that has arisen from discussion on this thread:

    Rare has repeatedly used a service term “surprise and delight” when referring to customers (player base). I’m stating that being just on time or barely behind the eight ball will never truly “surprise and delight” someone. Not only delivering on your messaging, but exceeding expectations is what’s going to surprise and delight me.

    Just saying...

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  • Ahoy there matey!

    They are keeping us updated as much as possible and this was posted earlier in the discord. So while there will be no installable patch today they have let us know they are doing some server-side improvements.

    https://compass-ssl.xboxlive.com/assets/1b/b1/1bb1cd28-3de2-4e56-8e91-f5aa8a1458f9.JPG?n=update.JPG

    I'm not a fan of settings solid dates/feature release dates as if these get missed people get more salty... I'm happy to take things as they come.

  • @musicmee said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    Ahoy there matey!

    They are keeping us updated as much as possible

    Rofl c'mon man. I love the game too but let's not kid ourselves.

    OP is pretty valid.

  • Was it posted anywhere else? I don't use Discord, so I never would have seen that.

  • @musicmee said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    Ahoy there matey!

    They are keeping us updated as much as possible and this was posted earlier in the discord. So while there will be no installable patch today they have let us know they are doing some server-side improvements.

    https://compass-ssl.xboxlive.com/assets/1b/b1/1bb1cd28-3de2-4e56-8e91-f5aa8a1458f9.JPG?n=update.JPG

    I'm not a fan of settings solid dates/feature release dates as if these get missed people get more salty... I'm happy to take things as they come.

    Wut?

    They posted that on the day that they said there was going to be a patch for the past week. If they had said Monday eh guys we no patch this week after all there would be a quarter of the amount of salt there is gonna be now.

    White Knight syndrome much?

    @ollieoxenfree I think you nailed it perfectly.

  • @aa-yeti They never said there would be a patch, stop setting made up expectations for once...

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @aa-yeti They never said there would be a patch, stop setting made up expectations for once...

    Actually, they did say that we would have a patch this week in their last dev update video. They said that patch MIGHT include Private Crews, not that the patch itself MIGHT happen.

  • @khol-thndrwlkr i believe Rare tweeted about it as well

  • server upgrades and maintenance is not a disappointment. Constantly upgrading the hardware is ok by me. Helps with a slew of server side issues that I've been seeing all week. A big one is ping/lag spikes galore. Things like this need maintenance. I think people have high hopes all the time and are let down when things don't happen when they want it. Patience is key.

  • @redeyesith They said that they wanted to include private crews in the next patch and hoped that it would be released this week.

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith They said that they wanted to include private crews in the next patch and hoped that it would be released this week.

    Start at 6 minutes for the exact quote.

    https://youtu.be/Scx9ktvDZCQ?t=6m

  • @redeyesith I just watched before i posted, no need to link to it again.

  • @gloog they’ve very clearly outlined their future plans and content. From what I hear is people are just impatient. Give Rare the benefit of the doubt. What is a week or 2 waiting going to ruin the game?

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith I just watched before i posted, no need to link to it again.

    Fantastic, as the exact quote was "that's something we're testing right now and are hoping to get into next weeks patch."

  • @redeyesith said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith I just watched before i posted, no need to link to it again.

    Fantastic, as the exact quote was "that's something we're testing right now and are hoping to get into next weeks patch."

    Yes his exact words were HOPING .They didnt say they would guarentee it in this weeks patch.

    Plus they came out and said they still want to test and improve a few features they plan on introducing i.e Private Crews.

  • @phillyreid you would make the perfect underling. Can I be your boss?

  • @phillyreid said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith I just watched before i posted, no need to link to it again.

    Fantastic, as the exact quote was "that's something we're testing right now and are hoping to get into next weeks patch."

    Yes his exact words were HOPING .They didnt say they would guarentee it in this weeks patch.

    Plus they came out and said they still want to test and improve a few features they plan on introducing i.e Private Crews.

    The point is this week there was no patch, there was server maintenance. They previously said we would have a patch this week, and that they were hoping it would include Private Crews. By what they said, Private Crews was the thing that MIGHT happen, not the patch itself. They then pushed the scheduled date back and said nothing, which really implies something for the patch needed more time. Then, on the date of the new day they tell us there is no patch. This is bad optics, and that is the point of the frustration people have.

  • I just hope when the hungering deep patch eventually rolls out that it has some content that is new and unique and not just a fetch quest but some fundamentally new addition to the world. Fishing would be nice.

  • @gloog Its just really irritating when you have the backseat players that when new features and improvements are implemented they stay silent. But as soon as the dev eam communicate something all the backseat players push there way to the front to moan and groan.

  • @redeyesith I hink it's alot to do with the UK bank holiday on Monday where they would be having a day off.

  • they should add the option do merchant missions paralell to order of souls or gold hoarders,when u start a merchant quest u should have the ability to start a second voyage, im on 47 40 36 im afraid for merchant grinding next week around.

  • @phillyreid said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith I hink it's alot to do with the UK bank holiday on Monday where they would be having a day off.

    That was already accounted for. Historically, they have done updates on Tuesday. This week it was slated for Wednesday, clearly for the UK holiday. It was then pushed to Thursday. None of this changes the point of contention that people have with this situation. I'm a big fan of this game myself, I've been actively engaging on these forums and even kicking around ideas or helping others who have ideas I generally disagree with still work them out to be feasible. I'm still very disappointed by how this week played out, and can't deny it is a major misstep on the part of Rare.

    They will give us a video, they will explain things. I will probably be a reasonable explanation. The problem is it should have come first, before we hit the threshold of the date in question and suddenly pulled the rug out on things. They would have had to see this coming, based on the date push-back, so communication was in order before having this PR nightmare on their hands amid people already being fairly frustrated about lack of content and things like that. It was bad optics, as I said, and that remains the point.

  • @redeyesith So we draw different conclusions from what has been said. I have been playing games for 20+ years and i know that any date or estimate they give is ALWAYS preliminary due to the way software development work.

    People need to stop being so damned entitled and just relax and wait for the update and then hopefully next week when the patch lands.

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith So we draw different conclusions from what has been said. I have been playing games for 20+ years and i know that any date or estimate they give is ALWAYS preliminary due to the way software development work.

    People need to stop being so damned entitled and just relax and wait for the update and then hopefully next week when the patch lands.

    The point is the optics of how they handled it bud, not that there was some issues that resulted in delays in general. I can't make that more clear. This was handled poorly, and could have been handled a lot better. I've also been playing games for around 25 years now, so I'm well aware of delays. The point is how the company handles it, not the delay. Not entitlement.

  • @musicmee Alas, I'm a pretty big fan of this game. I keep up with it on twitter, reddit and the official forums. But not discord. Releasing bad news in one place isn't the way to go.

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    People need to stop being so damned entitled and just relax and wait for the update and then hopefully next week when the patch lands.

    Entitled? Is it too much to ask for some more communication? Is it too much to hope that a game developer can exceed expectations instead of just simply meeting it?

  • @musicmee based "Ahoy there matey!" poster

    anywho, we got pranked this week, probably we get a patch next week so we can get dat private crews goodness.

  • @musicmee said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    I'm not a fan of settings solid dates/feature release dates as if these get missed people get more salty... I'm happy to take things as they come.

    Yeah we've been pretty lucky so far with a weekly patch AND server maintenance. 7 weeks is a long time to keep that up for and the devs to ot burn out, especially now that they have splintered off into separate groups focused on separate tasks.

  • @redeyesith Still they handle community communication better than 95% of other game studios and have kept us in the loop both in regards to content and what they HOPE they want to include on a weekly basis.

    They are not required to do so and most game developers don't, this is a classic example of people always wanting more and feeling entitled.

  • @sshteeve This isn't something they've recently done. This will have been something that's been in place for months. Theyonly told us about it now, as part of the content update, to let people know that the content updates further out will get more than a few weeks work on them.

  • @ollieoxenfree Actually, yes! They are not required to do so and most game studios don't other than larger content drops and those are often far in between.

  • @redeyesith Haha this is by no way shape or form a "Major" mishap by rare. So what they pushed the maintenance window back a few days? So what if they havent added any little bits of content this week?

    Your forgetting one major point. The Hungering Deep is due out this month. With this will come a load more content.

    God sake give the devs a break. They have been very good at communicating thusfar.

    A hell of alot better than the likes of Ubisoft, EA etc..

  • @lord-of-goats No necessarily considering there is a group of devs actively working on improvements gleaned from the community - those are on the fly.
    they already admitted that content that should have been coming late this month or early next month (pets) has been pushed back to prioritise on other content.

    My point is that no other (or very few) games provide weekly patches. I don't even remember WoW having weekly updates!

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    @redeyesith Still they handle community communication better than 95% of other game studios and have kept us in the loop both in regards to content and what they HOPE they want to include on a weekly basis.

    They are not required to do so and most game developers don't, this is a classic example of people always wanting more and feeling entitled.

    Never said they didn't, but also in that same update they specifically asked for feedback on how they are doing with addressing concerns and providing information, so people are letting them know what they think. Again, they mishandled this situation, and as a consumer I have a right to be disappointed about that and express that to the company (more so when they specifically request their customers to do so). And again, I generally love this game and am a fan of Rare, but that doesn't mean I won't hold them accountable when they make a mistake.

  • @threezool said in How exactly, are we being “Surprised and Delighted?”:

    They are not required to do so and most game studios don't other than larger content drops and those are often far in between.

    Are you their lawyer? Of course they’re not “required” to do ANYTHING.

    That’s like saying “I’m not REQUIRED to be a nice person or go above and beyond...” sounds dickish doesn’t it?

    I’m not here to argue contracts. I’m here to state how I feel about communication to a pretty supportive community.

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