Hello Kered

I can say without a doubt stuff is being worked on. Anything else I will have to leave to others to comment on!

We are silently working on removing trout from the game. But in all seriousness, the staff crew is alive and well and are working diligently to release some new content soon.

Is it just three gms left? 1 SG?

Also removing trout. Just no.

@kered 

The Eternal City 2 - Rise of the Salmon

You will never beat me.

@syden

The Eternal City 3d - Trout destroys Ereal

I am genuinely curious as to why content, updates, patches and timelines for announced things are always shrouded in such mystery for this game. To be fair, the conversation is always so vague that it almost seems worthless. I am absolutely one of TEC's biggest cheerleaders, but this is the rage-inducing pet peeve I have with TEC. 

It seems like the staff constantly make these vague promises with no discernable timeline in order to avoid accountability. For many many months, a lot of folks have been asking for a simple "Patch Notes" update either in the form of a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly post. You could even post it in with the Monthly promotions and sale as if you ever bring them back. 

I get real life interferes with a lot of what we go with this game. Hell, my stream has been intermittent at best because of work trips and family obligations lately. But I still post updates to it in my Discord. Such as upcoming streams, content ideas, I ask for feedback on event ideas, etc. Maybe some weeks my response is "I haven't even thought about the stream for 2 weeks." But its still a clear response.

No one is asking for people to create a line by line accounting for their time in game. But nominating someone (SG seems the best person) to gather up changes and updates throughout a 2 week period and then list them in a post seems like a small ask from the community. Hell, if no SG or GM wants to do it, I will do it. Email me the things you have been working on all month and I will put them into a not too vague but not too specific list and post them monthly. 

Maybe we could do something like we have officials list for gms

Like 

Analog - GM of RP

Pranzor - GM of Bug repair/coding

Senses GM of a bit of everything

Siddhe Gm of RP/Boss/Herder of goats

Tale- MIA?

then

SG's

Explosion- SG for EST time or etc

that way we can direct questions for specific people 

and know whom we have to talk to deal with

Posted by: @randomone

I am genuinely curious as to why content, updates, patches and timelines for announced things are always shrouded in such mystery for this game. To be fair, the conversation is always so vague that it almost seems worthless. I am absolutely one of TEC's biggest cheerleaders, but this is the rage-inducing pet peeve I have with TEC. 

It seems like the staff constantly make these vague promises with no discernable timeline in order to avoid accountability. For many many months, a lot of folks have been asking for a simple "Patch Notes" update either in the form of a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly post. You could even post it in with the Monthly promotions and sale as if you ever bring them back. 

I get real life interferes with a lot of what we go with this game. Hell, my stream has been intermittent at best because of work trips and family obligations lately. But I still post updates to it in my Discord. Such as upcoming streams, content ideas, I ask for feedback on event ideas, etc. Maybe some weeks my response is "I haven't even thought about the stream for 2 weeks." But its still a clear response.

No one is asking for people to create a line by line accounting for their time in game. But nominating someone (SG seems the best person) to gather up changes and updates throughout a 2 week period and then list them in a post seems like a small ask from the community. Hell, if no SG or GM wants to do it, I will do it. Email me the things you have been working on all month and I will put them into a not too vague but not too specific list and post them monthly. 

Sorry buddy.

This isn't the kind of post they engage with.

Too bad. Would be nice.

I'm going to tiptoe into this conversation. I can only share from my own perspective as a StoryGuide but nonetheless I hope it helps.

As a StoryGuide there are plenty of projects to work on. The problem is that not every project for a SG ends up launching. I have a pile of mini events, one shot stories, and events that have been worked on and placed on hold or wait status for different reasons in my time as a StoryGuide. Sometimes you move out of the way of a major story arc, or players are making events and you want to spend that time encouraging those efforts, or other times you end up not having enough time to plan and prepare to the level of storytelling you hold yourself accountable to. 

My own personal example was the Cineran assassin and the healer story that I ran a while ago. Imagine building a story arc making sure to have all your research and information ready for what you anticipate players will seek or investigate and expect to fly by the seat of your pants because someone fixated on a certain part of the story and you have to adjust in the middle of the event. Some events are very easy to plan and may take only a few hours and others like this example takes a significant amount of time to plan and execute well.

The request to post some sort of status update sounds great but ultimately would be a time consideration for things that have already been accomplished. Instead of writing a post about how many requests got finished in a month wouldn't it be better to actually fill those requests?

In conclusion, if you do have feedback for Storyguides I always encourage players to use the @sgfeedback command. Thanks!

@sgexplosion I think you are doing a great job with all that you do. No matter the feedback I just hope you keep doing the amazing job you have been. I for one am looking forward to the many new and fun stories, one-shots, and events you have up your sleeves. Keep it rocking SGs and GMs.

• You've been doing great! Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm missing some hints or clues on what direction I should investigate or I'm limited on time.  (Lately been playing a lot at work lol.) But I do love the situations that have popped up lately.  I think some of the interactions lately have kind of helped shape where my character might be going now and where he sees himself.

I'm just a part of a larger and awesome team. 

Have a great day everyone!

@sgexplosion Where communication ends imagination begins.

I think @RandomOne making a request for status updates isn't too much -- it's communication and accountability (that is not saying GM's and SG's are beholden to the players, I assume a great motivation is for the fun of it all.)

Communication TENDS to bring calm when expectations are known and then breeds trust and goodwill as they're fulfilled.  The accountability simply sets the pace -- if you say "such and such" is planned for release around a general time frame that works, and if there are four phases then the occassional "phase 1" is ahead, behind, or complete works.

But without communication it only leads to the worst of assumptions, regardless of the plans and intent GM's and SG's may have, and therefore some very imaginative folks have their imaginations run wild.

It's great to GET things done, yes.  Morale of the playerbase improves if you'll beat your own chest.

@asphirium Agreed.

I think the confusion is, I was not saying to have a line by line accounting of what everyone did for the week. I agree, time spent filling requests is preferred, but engaging the playerbase is ALSO preferred.

Here is the issue: Players feel the Staff abandons the game for long stretches of time, then come in, make a bunch of changes, then go on hiatus again. It feels like a quarterly surge where it is one month on, 2 months off for staff activity. We are 99% sure things are going on in those down months, the problem is players have no idea what it is. 

A biweekly patch notes isn't a large ask from a game that I at least 20 others are shelling out 30 bucks a month for. It doesn't have to be super detailed like the recent herbalism post, though that post was everything an update note should be plus some, it just has to be a simple communication from staff to players about recent updates and changes and even a thing or two coming soon. 

Look, the player base is TRYING to help you. We have been running our own events, we have been pushing to get the game to stay on the front page of the www.topmudsites.com, we have been helping new players when we see them, we have been doing our own SLs to keep folks engaged,  I have been (trying, when work permits) to stream more. We are TRYING to help grow this game, but from the outside looking in, it appears as if the game is unsupported. The staff rarely post here, in their own forums. There is no consistent update/notes section. There is no "Coming Soon" section like most games have to hook people into continuing to stick around. The news section of this website has its last notice as June of 2021. Thats almost a year old! Hell, most of the links for TEC out on the internet still point to Skotos (I get it, the topmudsites admin never responds to emails), we have had 1 monthly sale in the past 6 at least. All these things give an impression to the community at large, Players and Potential Players. I get that you all are doing things, I have no doubts that you are working on the game and we all just don't see it. But its a quick and minor fix to post a few quick blurbs about game updates every 2 weeks. We aren't asking for indepth coding changes and .0035% tweaks to things. Just small notes to let us know not only what is changing, but what you all are prioritizing in your efforts. If the Staff says "We have been gathering research for a future Parcines storyline" then cool, the players can brush up on what they know about it too so they are prepared for it. That gave away nothing in terms of specifics, nor did it give a deadline to hold anyone to. What it DID do is show the players where interest of the staff was and that staff was working on things for the game. Why is something simple like that, from staff to playerbase such a difficult ask? No one is asking for change logs and shit like that, just small, scheduled updates.

I really, really think creating a PR position for someone to help manage that staff to public communication, website updates, forums posts, etc would be a very smart thing to do. Not give it to a staff member, I mean field someone to do it as a new, sole responsibility. That way the SGs can keep doing storyline stuff, staff can keep doing coding/management stuff, and the PR person solely focuses on the image of the game to the greater community.