An Open Letter to the AMS2 Community

I think after some time Renato will miss doing dev updates and will eventually start them again

Seriously, there are now so many good comments from people for 1.6 (and rightfully so), it's a pity letting a minority of vocal <deleted word> spoil the fun for everybody else. And it's like they win if they make you stop doing something enjoyable for everyone else, instead of only ignoring those.

 

I think, in saying that, you're showing why he won't - because no one reads what he says anyway.

I think the key thing is to realise that everyone would have been better playing 1.5 and talking about 1.5, or simply doing something else entirely, rather than fretting about 1.6 and what was in it, what wasn't in it, what it would or wouldn't be.

Renato says :-

"...it ends up centering every AMS2 discussion around whether this or that is happening, whether our estimates are going to be right, rather than what we believe is what should matter, which is what the game currently offers and the sheer volume of progress that is delivered on a regular basis, be it timed to perfection or not."

And I bet if somewhere in the middle of his post he'd said "Phone <x> to receive $10k" he wouldn't have received many phone calls. I doubt many read down that far.

Stefano at Kunos often said a similar thing, perhaps in a more frustrated way at the time, that we should find stuff in AC that's good and do that - it's the same sentiment - it's like your parents saying "Play with the toys you have" when you were nagging them about what you wanted for Christmas and looking wistfully at a catalogue or website.

And here we are discussing whether this is happening or that is happening. Even after he said "This isn't happening" - you're still saying "But, do you think it will happen?" - and it's not even discussing some feature in a future version of the game it's discussing what future forum posts will or won't be made.

So you can see why it's counterproductive. It's like a TV show takes 6-12 months to make, but only about 6-12 hours to watch, and then the people are there fretting about the next season and asking when it'll be released.

And you'd think "Ah but a game isn't like that, you can play a game for longer" - but people don't. And once a group of people get the idea that 1.5 will fix something or 1.6 will fix something or 1.7 will fix something the more people who will put all their focus on this new thing they believe will be better and less time into what they already have. Which, as you say, only a few days, weeks or months earlier they were running around their simrig in a mankini setting off party streamers and saying how sim racing would never be the same again.

It arrives, they play it for a few hours. Go on the forums. Start to read about perceived issues and bugs and it starts to tarnish, maybe a couple of interim updates happen and there's a mini-cycle of trying it again, but ultimately discussion about the new update will begin to take hold and then they're back waiting for something they don't have.

It's like kids on boxing day fretting about what toys they're going to get next Christmas. Renato seems to be saying that we should all play with and talk about the toys we got yesterday for a year or whenever the next update happens. Just like Stefano said "AC is good, not perfect, use the stuff that's good and enjoy playing it" and if you really cannot possibly play because of a bug or missing feature then don't. Find something else to do rather than fretting about the future.

Personally I don't think it'll work. Why? The biggest problem they have isn't Renato because, like I say, I doubt there's more than 1% of people who do more than just scroll past looking at screen shots and skimming at what it says. He types far too much. As do I. I have no expectation than more than a handful of people, if any, read this post.

No the biggest problem is always going to be if you have 2 tiers of customers. One who have access to secret forums and extra versions of the game and one who don't. Because the kids won't be happily playing with their 1.6 toy if they think Tommy and Sally are in the other room with some new toy. And the more information about this new toy they hear the less interested they will be in the existing one - and not hearing it is worse "Ooh, we can't talk about that in here..." I mean the whole idea is toxic.

 

My god what a load of tosh!

 

I'm pretty sure most people do read the dev updates in full. And I see no problem in discussing what's in the current version, in the next version, what's missing, working and what's not, or asking for even more content, as long as it's done in a respectful way. Only mediocre things are not being talked about, for things so good (and with such potential for further greatness) as AMS2, there will be passion. And as it is obviously fine to have tons of praises and "take my money" comments (which do not contribute really either, but are still great to see), I think it's also fine to have all kind of different discussions for it.

IMO, the 1.6 release has huge, made the sim possibly the overall best out there, I'm extremely liking it, but I also think it has a few glaring problems and I want to discuss about them and ask them to be fixed, I think there's nothing wrong with that. In the past we were discussing and complaining about other glaring issues (which some people were saying were no issues...) and those were fixed in newer releases.

I think the only problem is when some people complain in a not respectful way, or only come here to moan for the shake of moaning or they do not understand that it's a good thing to not meet promised timeframes if that means it will result to a better game etc. But in my opinion those people are the minority, it's just that they are more vocal, as it is always the case in every aspect of life...

 

Which is, I guess why it makes no difference if he writes a big long post and you claim to have read it - because he explained in depth what the problems were

Maybe you're looking at the finger instead of what it's pointing at?

Well. Exactly. That's exactly what his post said he thinks we should be having discussions about. Ones that centre around "what the game currently offers"

 

I think all cpcdem was saying is that even if Renato is glad that he got that out of his chest and that the pressure to deliver these time consuming dev updates is gone, he might eventually write some again to give people a rough road map on what's coming in the future because he doesn't have to. If there's some great news about new things it is also in his own interest to tease a little bit and let people know. At least I hope so, I very much enjoyed reading these updates.

 

I know what he said, but in my opinion the part you are pointing out at is only a small fraction of the reason behind the decision to stop the dev updates.

 

And this is a perfect example of the problem. Now people in here fretting about no more dev updates, rather than playing with what they have. It's pointless, but they do it anyways.

A few spoiled it for the many. Dev updates are done. Time to move on.

 

Who's fretting? And who's not playing what they have?

 

It is fascinating to see that people instead of reading what you wrote they just read something into it that doesn't exist. No smiley can change that apparently.