Since starting the Resurrect ADOM development crowd funding campaign on Monday I got a lot of feedback, most of it good, some critical and some plain bad. As was to be expected on Internet. I have tried to keep up with various threads, Reddits, newsgroups, etc. but currently this does not seem to be very effective.
Thus I have been wondering: Is there enough interest in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything)? I'd try to do better than Woody Harrelson ;-) I might be able to do one tonight between 9pm and midnight (GMT+1 time zone, summer time) as I'll be staying in a hotel and won't be disturbed.
My idea would be to try to get all questions, criticism and whatever handled in one central place as efficiently as possible. Also Reddit seems to have been the place where I have my toughest critics - so it might be good to centralize things there.
On the other hand there already are something like three or four Reddits concerning the crowd funding campaign, so that might be enough (e.g. here, here, here and here).
Opinions please! (and please note: today I won't have much time to look at the comments here - if there is a lot of positive feedback regarding the idea you might want to reserve the time slot tonight as I might start the Reddit rather spontaneously after checking into the hotel and making sure that I have a decent Internet connection)
P.S.: Technical question as I'm not really into Reddit: Would http://www.redit.com/r/IAmA, http://www.reddit.com/r/AMA or http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes be more appropriate? :-) (damn, this might be going down the Woody lane - I really have no clue ;-) ).
I'm not sure it would be very helpful. Not that many ADOMers use Reddit, plus a lot of the stuff has been washed out to death on there already. For some there is no convincing and it's not worth wasting time on them.
ReplyDeleteHow about a Roguelike Radio ep? I can gather together some of the tough questions. Would be good to have Jochen involved for something like that though.
We'll be happy to do that. E-mail me to talk about the details.
DeleteAs someone who does not largely support the campaign but does not have (too much! ;) j/k) ill will towards it, I think this option would be much better. Especially if the episode can get out quickly.
DeleteLike someone below said, you're are pretty overexposed on Reddit at the moment.
If you do the roguelike radio episode, maybe they could put out a call for questions, that way you could get and answer real constructive criticism without the bile.
For instance my big complaint (and I am "boatie" on reddit, so you may recognize it) is the lack of transparency of what you will do with the money. I'd love to here a interview style response to that.
Also, I hate that I left the "you're are" typo in there...
DeleteI had assumed that the money was going to pay the salaries of a couple of professional programmers (TB, Jochen, etc.) to make an update for the game, plus possibly some aside for other people who TB might collaborate with on it, like the person who makes the music or whatever.
DeleteSorry, I meant more "Exactly what do you hope to accomplish, what are real deliverables that you will complete"
Deletebeyond generally stating you'll fix bugs, what bugs do you plan to fix?
beyond making a generally better UI, what are the parts of your UI that are less than satisfactory and what are your plans to update them?
I second the radio episode. I had been wondering why there wasn't one already.
DeleteHonestly, I deal with critics and haters all the time and have learned one thing: most of them won't change their opinions, even if truth hits them square under the jaw. My opinion is: do it if there are more questions than flares, more doubt than hate, more sane criticism than thrash talk. If that's the case, there will be people in there willing to read what you want to say and learn more from it. If it's all the opposite, you might as well be igniting in haters a brand new fire to try and burn you.
ReplyDeleteI browse /r/roguelikes quite a bit, and I'm sure they'd be interested in some kind of AMA. You might have limited success on /r/AmA or /r/IAmA, but /r/roguelikes is a much more focused group of people. Granted, they probably already have their minds made up about ADOM but it wouldn't hurt to shed some light on the guy who made it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if it's the critics (and not the fans) you want to approach, you might as well forget about it. Reddit is notorious for being full of hard-headed people who refuse to listen to anyone's opinion but their own.
http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/w2hr7/thomas_biskup_creator_of_adom_is_considering/
Also echoing Darren's suggestion for a RR episode.
"most people are not prepared to have their minds changed... And I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same" - Iain Banks, The Use of Weapons
ReplyDeleteHaving said that might be worth a discussion as other people will read it too, just go into it not expecting to change the minds of the people you're talking to directly.
Wow those reddit threads are really nasty! I don't understand where all that bile is coming from. It seems totally out of proportion!
ReplyDeleteI'd hope that if you do a more general IAMA type of thread then the questions won't so uncivil.
Good luck with that game.
An AMA with you would be interesting, but do it after the campaign is closed so that it's not so obviously a marketing gimmick.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that big a community, you've already have 5 or 10 chances to get their attention to your IndieGoGo campaign.
I would love to see your AMA on Reddit.
ReplyDeleteMade up my mind. No AMA today. Not enough interest for the effort. I prefer to spend the evening working on ADOM II and preparing some more materials for the ADOM crowd funding campaign (I'd like to get up a new video or two at the weekend).
ReplyDeleteDumb, it was certainly in your best interest to do the AMA
DeleteCan't hate on you for being willing to put more work into Adom2, Thomas. ;)
ReplyDeleteI just heard about this project and I think it's pretty amazing that you are considering to resurrect ADOM.
ReplyDeleteI agree with others that the campaign goal seems pretty high for the features that have been revealed so far. However - and that's a _huge_ however - when I consider how many hours I've spent enjoying this game, I consider the pledge partly to be a payment for services delivered long ago.
ADOM was released at a time when micropayment didn't exist yet. There was no way you could have been (successfully) asking for donations back then, but you can now, and I simply think you deserve it. If a new and improved ADOM comes out of it, all the better.
The criticism on Reddit (as far as I can see) is missing the point entirely. While it's amazing that some developers create huge, free products for less money than you are asking for, that is their life and their calculation, and it doesn't mean that everyone else needs to do the same. You've done your own calculations, you've made an offer, now let's see if people are taking it (personally I hope so).
You could, however, probably get more money if you'd guarantee going open source at a certain date. It would certainly make me pledge a bit more than I'm planning to do right now.
Thomas- I support this project completely and I really hope that it succeeds! I also hope that you don't get too frustrated or down about all of the negative and cynical people out there that have strange ideas about what they think you should or shouldn't do with your own creation.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely have always supported you not releasing the code, I hope you take it to the grave. As a software developer that deals with large legacy projects I laugh at the people that think that this code would even be worth much as open source. I know what this code must be like and most people would take one look, back away slowly, and go back to working on one of the other roguelikes that were written from the start to facilitate community development. Having the source open still might get us more features and improvements over time, however painful the effort, but I think it would absolutely destroy the essence of what makes this game great. ADOM is about the mystery, exploration, and character that YOU put into it, not about cheesy tile sets or trying to pack everything ever done with roguelikes into one game. If I want a game like that I can go and play one, there are lots of great games out there that are open source and evolve through a community effort, I never saw ADOM as being that and don't want it to be.
I pledged at the Lord level, it is the least I could do for all of the enjoyment I've gotten out of the game, even over the last 10 years when the game has remained unchanged. That alone plus the pledge perks are good enough for me, anything else that comes out of this is a bonus to me. I absolutely share your vision of simply finishing the game up like it should be, being able to call it complete, and moving on with ADOM II. The best of luck with this campaign and with ADOM II, I'll be thrilled to play them both until I can't make out the ASCII anymore :) Thanks for all the fun!
Thanks a lot to you for the support!
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