Well, it’s been a long time since I wrote anything. There’s a half finished post-gencon wrap up still sitting here. Turns out life can get very distracting. I think I might take an honest try at turning this into the generalist gaming blog it was always intended to be, but for now I’ll keep it mostly traditional.

Anyway. Poots. The dude has been relatively consistent so far, enough so that it’s easy to tell who has been paying attention and who hasn’t. Consistency, mind you, is not necessarily a good thing. You can be consistently mediocre, or even consistently atrocious. I don’t think Poots is either of those things, but he is consistent in his management of updates and development. So much so that the claim of moving to a quarterly update schedule seemed to be more platitude than promise because the precedent was so strong.

I just want to provide my thoughts on how he communicates as it seems like it’s the chief talking point between the legendary giga-updates. With the recent Frosthaven update and Kings Coin controversy having really brought out some strong reactions it seems especially relevant. Seriously though, some of you are eating each other alive… chill out!

Anyway, lets begin with a bit of context as to, potentially, why it be like it is.

THE DOWNSIDES OF FREQUENT UPDATES

Development is an iterative process. If you’re going through a ton of those iterations, it’s hard to solidly define a point to pause and release information. Sharing insight into a dev build of a game is nearly unheard of unless it is done in a highly curated way for marketing purposes, or well after release as a bit of trivia (that may or may not also be for marketing purposes).

The reason, of course, is setting expectations. You push one iteration into the public eye and then scurry back to the drawing board to keep making changes, and add or shed content as dictated by play testing, hitting core design goals, and sometimes resources/what is actually physically possible. The people who aren’t involved in that process don’t see that part though. The update becomes their gospel.

Naturally, this causes problems with “What could have been.” An idea, great on paper, may not transfer to reality in a way that maintains it’s excellence. It may even completely fall apart and represent a dead-end whereupon further iteration is so difficult that it’s better to stop entirely and start from another angle. We have already seen this with the Nightmare Ram. Some people were very upset to learn that it’s design brief had changed rather significantly from the initial showing to the later previews (though it was eventually shown that is wasn’t exactly the case). And very upset people are generally not a pleasant thing to have attached to your brand.

Unfortunately for those people, the Nightmare Ram is not the only thing that is going through changes. There’s no way every concept is going to hit the mark on the first throw. Some will, more or less, but others are going to come out quite differently; this happened with the initial kick-starter (Slaughter too many lions and the Lion God will getcha!), it happening with some wave 4 expansions and the entirety of Wave 3 (though as this was purely additive in extremis, most people were cool with it.. RIP original savage bone-eaters though…) and it’s 100% happening behind the scenes for a bunch of stuff we haven’t heard a thing about.

So how do you show that off? I would argue that you shouldn’t. I would say that the best progress to share would be only that which was 100% confirmed. Or maybe… 99% confirmed at least. 90%? Whatever, you get it. It’s simultaneously the best version the devs can manage to make and a real preview of what the audience it’s intended for can expect to arrive on their doorstep. No messy missed expectations to be had.

The other problem is that each update is a talking point. And generally, people want what they want, not what they’re given. When these intersect, it’s happy days for all. When they don’t it usually creates more resentment than would have existed had there been no update at all.

With so much content on the horizon, the chances of hitting what any particular individual wants to see in an update that is focused only on one thing is so small that it does pose a real risk of this occurring as regularly as regular updates would hypothetically arrive. The huge posts alleviate this by talking about vast swathes of game content that is chronologically relevant (ie Wave 3), 90% developed (ie Screaming God/Black Knight), or stuff already so ill-defined in the first place that all the information is producing totally fresh expectations (ie encounters).

But the biggest hurdle of all with this is… time frames. What content we want to see is one thing, but dozens and dozens of disgruntled backers want a solid due date for wave milestones and I honestly don’t think it’s something Poots even knows right now. Game development for him is beyond deadlines since he works for himself and is not beholden to a publisher’s desire to push whatever is there to market at a strategically selected time. When it’s finished, and the production of the final version is in full swing, I have no doubt that we will be updated. But that clearly hasn’t happened, and it won’t happen until Poots looks at everything and thinks “yes, this is done”.

Put together, there’s a real risk of him causing prolonged outrage the more he engages with a nebulous fan base with no end in sight. Wave 3 already has some of this stemming solely from the delivery time. That isn’t going to change until it does though, so why add to it? It damages the brand for no real gain as the kickstarter investment has already occurred, and as the store sales are focused far more on content unrelated to either kickstarter, why bother? Not to mention the mental tax attached to receiving a ton of negative feedback in the classic way it’s delivered: a frothing internet rage.

But wait! As backers we are entitled to know when our stuff will be coming! Except, we really aren’t… that’s not how kickstarter works (despite the shift to it being used as a glorified pre-order service because average people hate risking money). Like it or not, we already threw our dollars at an idea and there’s no recourse to dictate the circumstances in which that idea comes to fruition. Many of you may have already suffered through campaigns that simply did not deliver or finally came through on meager promises after years of lies. It’s unfortunately just how the system works… we didn’t become shareholders through this investment, and we either have to hope the risk is worthwhile or we shouldn’t have made it at all.

As glum as that sounds, I am still hopeful considering the scope of this kickstarter far outstrips the first, and the that one was a complete clusterfuck that delivered far after many had already gave up on it as a bad investment.

All that said…

POOTS NEEDS TO DO FREQUENT UPDATES

Ironically, I think one aspect of the controversial latest update is only a few degrees shy of the perfect solution.

Why is it perfect?

Simple. It required one artwork, and a short description. So it took no time at all to make, and it depicts something that probably won’t change between now and when we get it. No distraction from his other duties and no unrealistic expectations set.

Poots could have put out something like this once a week. Heck, even once a fortnight. Just one thing. Chop up a mega-update for the content. Make it so small that it doesn’t warrant the worst of the potential craziness some of those updates set off. So frequent that the communication issue is stymied and a sense of progression is imparted to the backers even as it continues behind the scenes as it always has. Do it consistently, and you set the expectation for what an update is. No time-frames, nothing that may come back to haunt him. Just a neat little nugget of progress once a week with no more words than what is necessary to explain what it is, delivered so consistently that people eventually don’t expect to see more.

I’m sure that the critique may then shift to the updates being “not enough” but that falls neatly into the realm of whinging because “enough” is so subjective and “more” is so risky. At the current glacial pace there’s good arguments to make that the updates we do get are so infrequent that people could easily feel like they’re being ghosted… kickstarter poison if ever there was any.

Now personally, I don’t need anything to assume that work is continuing on KDM. I don’t expect updates more frequent than once or twice a year if there’s nothing worth updating us on. But for the many who are not me, whom I do not think are wrong in any way for wanting some reassurance, this would be an easy compromise.

Of course… Poots won’t do it. Have you seen how he communicates? It’s… endearing? Certainly effective at creating hype. Very friendly. Also frequently and needlessly vague. And extremely unprofessional. Either way, it’s consistent. It’s his brand because it’s literally just him and a keyboard and as such I don’t think he can do anything but what he does. He already said he wouldn’t do weekly or monthly updates and I feel like that’s because he can no longer conceive of putting quality time into an update schedule that isn’t curated to look phenomenal and really showcase the work of his team. Habits die hard and communicating as an afterthought to the other things on his plate until those things are gone is one of his biggest habits.

Speaking of…

KINGS COINS

Holy hell am I baffled by community reactions sometimes… but to be fair, boy oh boy does Poots need to get his foot out of his mouth for things that are strictly business related. The sheer lack of anything indicating how many Kings Coins would be worth buying was just dumb. You only bought 50? Sorry bud, you needed 100 for what you wanted! Better luck next time!

I wonder if they intentionally tried to make it as far away from anything evocative of kickstarter-esque “pay now receive later” beats. But that’s honestly just what these should be. Pre-order tokens. Here’s the catalogue, pick what you want. Give money. Get at next sale. Done. Dusted. Simple and clear. No polarizing 24hr exclusivity either, though I personally didn’t think that was that bad by comparison.

The sky fell the moment these were announced for another reason as well. Many took the wording on the email (Your purchase of King’s Coins helps support the team while we eagerly await our return to HQ. Thank you so much in advance!) to be indicative of financial troubles hitting Poots and co, something a quick store update sought to dispel.

But consider this: of course they’re suffering financial troubles, despite what Adam may claim. The entire world is suffering financial troubles, in one form or another. The COVID-19 impact is being felt everywhere. It’s a tough and troubling time. The only way for anything below the major mega-businesses to economically cope is for cash to keep flowing until we all reach the other side of the tunnel and “normal” business decisions might resume.

Some people are outraged at this “cash grab”, especially considering the outstanding kickstarter. Please. There’s nothing wrong with employing an unusual method to inject some quick funds into the operation without necessarily expending any resources alongside it. This isn’t the nefarious scheme. It will allow the KD business to survive a little better for the time being and that benefits everyone as they can’t make anything if they go down. The chief criticism should be that it ought to have been done in a much clearer way.

But they have over 12 million dollars of our money already! Why not use that? Well, it’s a horrible idea for one. That money is for the kickstarter, it should be used for the kickstarter, and the moment it is used generally is the moment the slippery slope starts icing over to enable a wonderful nosedive into the dead kickstarter fulfillment zone. Using that money to recoup regular business losses is just as devastating to the logistics of delivering the project as blowing it on fancy NY hookers and scotch would be. Adam and co SHOULD NOT USE IT for any other reason than development and fulfillment, and anyone who begrudges the store and it’s continued support and new releases while we wait needs to understand this.

Anyway, back to the Kings Coins. They’re dead now. I don’t feel good about that as the idea, flawed as it is, is something that probably needed to happen to make me feel comfortable about Wave 3 and beyond. I feel the only thing that would stop progress is for it to become a fiscal impossibility. Poots managed to deliver kickstarter #1 despite horribly undervaluing it, but no money is no money and right now no money is all the rage.

THE FROSTHAVEN UPDATE

What an oddly worded endorsement. Classic Poots. I saw a lot of people making judgements on whether or not it was passive aggressive or classy or whatever. I didn’t really think it was anything but a Poots-brand half-baked keyboard vomit brought on by warranted enthusiasm. Dude just gets excited about stuff. Remember that weird Dragonball kid video post he made because he was excited?

As someone who enjoys both KDM and Gloomhaven (and backed Frosthaven), as well as a wide variety of other things, I’ve never understood the “us vs them” mentality some people expressed. Two things can be good. Something being good doesn’t devalue other things. There isn’t a finite pile of goodness that is shared and as such one thing rising above does so to the detriment of others.

Thankfully there was a lot more wholesome comments, especially in the wake of Poot’s update. I think we can all agree that it was a nice thing to do.

Anyway, that’s all for today. This was way more meandering than the other stuff I wrote but hey, maybe someone will find it interesting. There’s a high likelihood that the next thing I do will be on the forthcoming update and then I’ll move on to other games since I don’t want to write content for KDM that has any kind of spoilers in it.

Unless people have any requests?