Hello! This has been something on my mind for a while regarding you guys here at Blue Manchu. I browse the forums relatively frequently as of late, and I'm surprised and delighted by the amount the moderators communicate when resolving issues with your clients (game designers that actually care about their players? Imagine that! ). However, the main reason I usually visit the forums is to check for announcements, either about upcoming expansions and updates or the ever-popular Aloyzo's Arsenal. I check these threads probably twice daily (if not more often than that!), and I'm usually left empty-handed. I don't mean this as a personal affront against any of you guys - I think you have a fantastic game, and I mayyy have over 560 hours on Steam after about a year and a half of play. This is merely a suggestion on how to make an awesome product even more awesome. My main issue is that I never see any sort of update regarding your progress with these threads. As I'm writing this, the last submission on Aloyzo's Arsenal was nearly 2 weeks ago. In previous months, Flax would usually write a post at the end of the thread saying that we should expect the results in roughly a week after the submissions close. In some cases, it would be only a couple days. While the varying amounts of time it takes to get the decisions made and playtesting accomplished are absolutely fine, what I would appreciate out of you guys is a little more openness with your work. Maybe something like "We've narrowed it down to 2 items! Stay tuned for the winner coming in the next day or two!" would be fantastic. I don't mind waiting a little extra time for you guys to make sure you have all the work done, just please let us know when you plan to reveal the new content! What you guys did with Aloyzo's Arsenal #15 was great! I realize that you guys have so many facets of your work cut for you. You're probably working on server maintenance, report systems, upcoming expansions, game balance monitoring, and also enjoying the game you guys have made, in addition to probably at least a half-dozen other areas the playerbase never even hears about. But one thing that would definitely boost customer satisfaction (at least for me) would be to afford a little more transparency with regards to us. We don't need to know about every little thing you guys do, and the teasers you released for the Castle Mitternacht items was so much fun to follow! But I think it's important to work out a healthy balance, to keep both veteran players and newbies excited and interested.
Agreed! Sorry I've been a bit quiet - as many of you may know I hold multiple jobs and Laboratory Mayhem, a game I've worked on for several years, is heading to Kickstarter tomorrow! So I've been a fairly wrapped up in getting that ready. If that gets going more or less smoothly I'll have more time to communicate about the CH work I've been doing, and we're going to try to get a build together with MM&AA ASAP!
