The Ultimate Site of Worms Armageddon
Worms: Armageddon => General discussion => Topic started by: KoreanRedDragon on June 27, 2014, 11:53 AM
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Team17 have someone new in the position of community manager. He goes by the nicknames MusterBuster and now Mike_Team17, has a history of doing this for big companies like Sony, is passionate about gaming and just generally seems like a cool guy who wants to achieve something for the WA community too. He's only just starting, of course, and says he has a lot to learn about how Team17 function as a company as well as about the various communities across the many Worms games. But a little surprisingly perhaps, he seems to have started his office by approaching the WA player base and introducing himself on the game's Steam discussion forum, specifically asking for suggestions on what he could be doing to make us happy:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/217200/discussions/0/522730700441976868/
He then also visited us in the #worms IRC channel, asked a bunch of questions and said he'd be back for some games over the weekend. Here's the log of that in case anyone wants delicious details:
http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/10ea14e42214455eaca553fca5d19813/0000005C.txt
Now, I don't think either gushing optimism or overwhelming negativity are in order here, we just don't know enough yet to be able to say how much of an impact he'll have in the grand scheme of things or whether this means Team17 are turning a new leaf as far as communication with the players of their games goes. But I do think it's obvious Mike has good intentions and, well, he's looking for suggestions on how to proceed. I see no reason for us not to share our opinions with him. At the very least, T17 will see there's still life in good old WA, right?
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RIGHT ! :)
would be nice if u will inform us about hes work. !!!
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Yeah, if anything interesting develops, I'm sure we'll end up talking about it here too. To those who already have Steam accounts or have no problem creating them (it's free) and want to be heard directly, I can only recommend posting in that Incoming! thread, though; he'll no doubt be keeping an eye on that!
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oh, thats awesome!
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and what benefits i can take by combining all that steam stuff to my wa?
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At least he acknowledges the superiority of W:A and it's rope. Let's see what that will bring on the table.
#1337 post count. 8)
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and what benefits i can take by combining all that steam stuff to my wa?
Well, you'd have to buy WA again first before getting some of the benefits. But basically Steam acts as a platform that automatically updates your games, serves as means of communication with other Steam users (buddy list chat, works when you're in-game too) and sometimes developers (mostly on forums like the WA one I linked to in the first post). People also organise themselves in groups on the community page, trade in-game items and a bunch of other useless stuff like that. The tradeoff is that if you want to play games you've bought on Steam, you have to keep the Steam client running in the background; the vast majority of titles there won't run without it, WA included.
Apart from that, the Steam store is a pretty nice place for buying cheap games, especially if you only buy them during sales like the big summer sale that's going on now (https://www.tus-wa.com/forums/gaming-central/steam-summersale-%29-24729/). If you're weird enough to play other games, that is!
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Yes, but you can still be involved in the community aspect without buying the game as far as I know.
A new community manager for a community that has been managing itself - plenty of times despite Team17 - for 15 years.
I still rather believe you felt obliged to post that KRD, as opposed to it being fruit of having some sort of actual faith in what actual tangible good would come from this.
RANKS ARE COMING!11
edit: should of done a better effort about explaining why WA is better than the newer Worms titles. The keyword here is Sandbox, WA is one, the other games are not. The rope is just a result of a robust physic system, it's not a reason by itself. Not that we would accomplish anything by getting this guy to understand our way of worms, mind you.
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tx for exhaustive answer, now i know im not missing anything. Im not gonna buy same game again for the buddylist (snooper ftw) and im not playing other games xDDD so no need for now.
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Get in his ear, KRD. I can't think of anyone better to be turning the gears in his head than you. The last chick seemed like an airhead.
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ok cool, this guy is being proactive...
but if he is really interested in finding out what makes W:A tick, and why its the oldest running community t17 has produced, why didnt he come right to the source?
TUS
i mean... this site can easily be found on google... and yet, he raises discussion on steam? i dunno... hopefully something good comes out of it..
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Promising. avirex is right, he should be registered here :)
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i mean... this site can easily be found on google... and yet, he raises discussion on steam?
what do you mean easily? (https://www.google.es/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=worms%20armageddon%20community) (what I'm saying is that worms on steam still get more traffic)
edit: the first result brings you here (http://worms2d.info/Community) which does contain a link to TUS, but in between a bunch of much less relevant ones.
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shhhh... cybershadow reading..
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I'd say it has more to do with the fact that as of the closure of the T17 Forum, the Steam discussions have been the most official way for them to interact with their audience (apart from social networks, but I don't care much for those). So it makes sense to me that as someone new to the job, especially since the WA community obviously isn't going to be the only one he'll have to try and take care of, he would pick the Steam forums for the first contact. That's just where (most of) their games are and can be bought, but I'm sure that in time, he'll figure out us WA players aren't that into Steam; this was actually one of the first things he asked after he joined the IRC channel earlier this week. Still, I agree there's valuable input to be found here on TUS as well, and we can certainly point him in this direction whenever relevant discussions pop up, although it wouldn't surprise me if he found his way here on his own.
I actually recently skimmed over that old TUS thread from 2011 where we were discussing the possibility of WA (4.x) making it onto Steam and it strikes me that a lot of the replies there were direct answers to things Mike has been asking about so far. How important official rankings are to us, why WA is the game for us, where we stand on the issue of seeing our community grow (potentially at the cost of it becoming less tight and cozy) and so on. This thread:
https://www.tus-wa.com/forums/worms-armageddon/if-wa-was-rereleased-on-steam-11425/
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where we stand on the issue of seeing out community grow (potentially at the cost of it becoming less tight and cozy) and so on. This thread:
Are the veterans of WA afraid that they will be lose their identity if the community grew to unprecedented levels some day? Is that what is meant by the "cost" which is often mentioned?
Anyway I don't know what the excitement is about, we know that Cybershadow and Deadcode are working on the game and CyberShadow has said that the progress may be slow but they do have a free hand so it is not like Mike will ask CS and DC to show some urgency... also I think since Team17's forum closure the uncertainty has somewhat increased on future developments.
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Are the veterans of WA afraid that they will be lose their identity if the community grew to unprecedented levels some day? Is that what is meant by the "cost" which is often mentioned?
I don't think it's a matter of the veteran players being afraid of getting replaced at the top echelons of play by a new generation, in fact most of those I talk to regularly would welcome the competition. It's more about the atmosphere in the community potentially shifting as a result of an invasion of new players not following established norms that we take for granted today, like for example how aliasing is generally frowned upon on WormNet, or how tough we tend to be on cheaters compared to many of the extremely populated (shooter) games out there and things like that. Unless 4.x happens first, hardcodes standard variants of the competitive schemes into the game itself, implements scheme rules natively and somehow finds a way to bring attention to various guides and tutorials, I do think it's a realistic fear that WA might lose some of the aspects that make it such a unique game to play with others online.
Does any of that for a second make me wish it wouldn't explode with activity overnight? Hell no.
Anyway I don't know what the excitement is about, we know that Cybershadow and Deadcode are working on the game and CyberShadow has said that the progress may be slow but they do have a free hand so it is not like Mike will ask CS and DC to show some urgency... also I think since Team17's forum closure the uncertainty has somewhat increased on future developments.
I feel this uncertainty is just what Mike's arrival stands to improve. More communication between T17 and the two maintainers, but also between them and the player base, is something I can only welcome. Whether it ends up resolving any actual issues or not, perhaps serves to motivate things to move on at a quicker pace... don't know yet. We'll see!
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Sounds like he'll be gone in a month ;D
Poor chap.
T17's main prob is that they want to make games they don't have the skill for.
It looks okay on their desktop but 80% of the players have issues running the game the way it is supposed to. And then they haven't even started playing yet. It just makes people pissed off.. and eventually they stop buying the tenth-a-year follow up to a series that 20 years ago was world class, but right now is just giving people hemorrhoids.
They should focus on small, simple 2d apps. And once that works correctly, transform the app into a game that looks the same, but just has additional options that the small size of an app can't support.
I'll say it again, the best thing they released lately was Crazy Golf. That's the way to go imo.
The sales success of the facebook game proves my point.
As limited and unsatisfying it is to those of us used to a complete game of that.
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lel
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I'll say it again, the best thing they released lately was Crazy Golf. That's the way to go imo.
Indeed
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I actually recently skimmed over that old TUS thread from 2011 where we were discussing the possibility of WA (4.x) making it onto Steam and it strikes me that a lot of the replies there were direct answers to things Mike has been asking about so far. How important official rankings are to us, why WA is the game for us, where we stand on the issue of seeing our community grow (potentially at the cost of it becoming less tight and cozy) and so on.
The WA community has been WAY too tight 'n' cozy for too long. The in-crowd dominates and is causing stagnation.
I'm happy to see that Team17 is loosening up a bit. Lately, they've just been focused on promoting their new products and rarely answer questions outside the scope of their marketing strategy.
Here are my requests for the new guy...
1. Correct the recommended system specs on WA's Steam page.
2. Tell DC/CS to give us an estimated timeline based on their current progress instead of the same old "when it's done".
3. Have Team17 actively promote WA. It may be old, but it still has the most features/flexibility of any Worms game, and offers a special kind of gameplay that can't be found anywhere else.
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I contacted T17 year and a half ago through CS and was offering them visibility on a huge finnish lan party, my free time/work and money to DC so he could finish up with the new patch asap
I was asking about legal issues and wanting someone to contact me but got nothing back.
Bitches
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The feedback page, it seems is no longer being maintained so while we wait for the 4.0 update, how do we know about the features and requests that are likely to appear in 3.x updates? And if someone wants to discuss those or may have a new idea what would be the best place for him to present it, here or on the Steam forum?
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The first gaming session with Mike is finally going to happen tonight, guys. Details here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/217200/discussions/0/41973821460129641/
The feedback page, it seems is no longer being maintained so while we wait for the 4.0 update, how do we know about the features and requests that are likely to appear in 3.x updates? And if someone wants to discuss those or may have a new idea what would be the best place for him to present it, here or on the Steam forum?
The UserVoice feedback page (http://feedback.worms2d.info/forums/5998-worms-armageddon) is still relevant, but the devs do keep an eye on both the Steam discussion forum and this section of TUS here. So I guess people use whichever they prefer. I just pester them about things on IRC. :D