I understand the team is small and Alaunis is going through some personal stuff, but Flight Rising is a small team and can do changelogs within the same day. Pixel Cat's End has one developer and can get changelogs up at the same time as updates and communicate major changes. This entire genre of game runs primarily on tiny dev teams. Lorwolf is not those sites, but with four staff and eight volunteers, surely there's someone who can help in getting communications up in a timely manner (or at all).

At this point we're going several days with no acknowledgement of major changes made between early access and full launch other than in a thread you have to dig around for. That's not acceptable.

@Pig

You're right, the team is very small and again I'd understand if they communicated what they're working on, but if the team is too small it needs to hire people- not just artists but people who can help develop the site.

I think it's a sign the team is in a dire situation then the personal challenges of one person pushed back launch by a month when it still feels like the only really noticeable difference is that we're charged premium currency for something that we weren't before- and now we're being told the wild wolf token is being worked on and will only take a few days- it should have been here at launch, it was something everybody always asked for… It's very concerning!

This small team nonsense is so frustrating to read. And my frustration is not directed towards any one person, I want to be clear.

Everytime a new site comes out that has some big red flags (Dappervolk…) so many of them are excused away with claims that the team is too small. If their team is so small that they cannot communicate regularly with the people literally giving them money and time to play their game, that is THEIR problem to solve.

It is not mean or hurtful to respectfully voice your concerns. I worry that people hold back how they really feel about the website due to other circumstances.

As someone pointed out, Pixel Cats End is one person. And the responses and patch notes that come out for the website are wonderful! They're better than even Dappervolk!

PLEASE devs: Hire a community manager. Please model after what Flightrising 's own one does. This is really important in these early stages of the website to show your audience that you acknowledge your shortfalls and are making efforts to correct them.

This site should not have launched imo. It needed several more months if not a year, if only so the team was better ready and equipped to deal with the launching of a pet site.

I fully agree that the site needs a community manager, and I thought the same thing- the site should not have launched like this, this was the moment that was supposed to leave an impression- and it delayed by a month already and for what payoff? It could have just delayed longer if it really needed it- it would annoy people, but ultimately would be better because the game could feel polished.

I'd really like a list of changes as well. Like @/kuro, I was confused when I found out upgrades needed moonstones instead of pebbles- it would've been nice to know right off the bat.

the lack of communication has been a shame, to say the least. lorwolf really needs a dedicated community manager, imo, and there are many things between EA and launch that have not been fixed, which is a huge shame to see.

i want this game to succeed, but we need a clear avenue of communication between staff and the players, without that then distrust of the staff team will grow and it won't be a good time for anyone!

I feel the need to agree with everything in this post AND to point out that the dev log channel on the discord hasn't been touched in almost a year now. It's… scary, honestly- I was excited for Lorwolf. I want this to go well, I want it to succeed. I and many people have already spent a lot of money on-site (me not so much because I've seen stuff like this happen before). I don't want this game to be another fer.al situation where it just collapses and dies because of dev communication (or lackthereof). I know fer.al was a slightly bigger team run by WildWorks, an established compoany, but as everyone else has said, FR does this just fine on a small team. I'm really anxious about everything on site. It's making me not want to play out of fear of nothing I write mattering because the site will close down much too soon. Everything comes to an end eventually, but… so early? We just started.

I typed this out with the intent to ping Aluanis, but figured maybe better not. Posting anyway in the hopes she or a mod will read it and pass it along.

I have read your responses here, and I have read your news post that you linked. I, and most of everyone else, want to understand. I understand you are going through something; you want to keep that private and I respect that. However, these short and sweet responses are not giving us the impression that we are being heard or respected in kind. I am not trying to push anything here, but I really love this game and I know you do to. If the Moonstone push is because you are going through financial hardships, you should tell us that. Short term solutions are going to have long term effects you may not be thinking of.
If you mentally can not write out more, than conferring with your dev team and having one of them writing out something to address us might be a better option for you.
I am sorry for whatever it is your are going through. Everyday life these days has become very stressful with the pandemic and inflation and a host of other social issues that I won’t get in to here. Lorwolf should be your stress relief as you seem to care so much for it. And believe me when I say we all do as well. This site is very unique and I want to see it prosper.

Thanks if you read everything. I hope to keep playing for years to come.

Since Flight Rising was brought up, I do feel compelled to mention that from all I've heard, their early day communication was. Uh. Abysmal? It got better a couple years back, but when I joined (2017, so 5 years post-launch), it was incredibly opaque and slow. These days, FR runs pretty smoothly for the most part, but it was rough right at the beginning.

That said, I'm also a little bummed there was no “site is open” ping; I'm pretty time-blind and thus missed the rush right away. I'm excited to see where this journey will take us!

@xianvar

That is true about FR, but I was there for launch. Completely different from LW launch. They were in the forums communicating everyday. They probably burned themselves out and got comfortable. One of the things I loved about FR coming from sites like Wajas and Furry-paws, which lacked like any communication, was their communication and active activity on the site. I stopped playing a few years so I wasn’t around for when you are talking about, but they are definitely active these days. I just want a fraction of that for Lorwolf right now.