>I understand you are going through something; you want to keep that private and I respect that.

@Ezra

It's really interesting that you have this perspective. When I voiced to Alanuis my discomfort with her sharing in detail to me (via private DMs) what was going on, she said that everyone already knew. Do others also have this understanding? I think it's much more appropriate for these matters to remain private, but seeing as my emailed concerns haven't been addressed, it continues to make me uncomfortable the way I was treated.

Back to the rest of your post: I completely agree regarding financials. This doesn't just got for Lorwolf, but if more sites were up front about the cost of running their website, where their financial shortfalls are and why, I'm sure people would be more than happy to find ways to contribute. People want this site to succeed. It feels almost…. slimy otherwise.

Support. If something has been changed, I need to be made aware of it ASAP. I want to know what the plans are for things we were previously promised, especially when it comes to addressing major issues with the gameplay or monetization. I can understand if there are difficult circumstances and I don't mind being patient when those get in the way, but I don't want to feel I'm in the dark about a major gameplay issue or just given a simple “acknowledged.” after the fact. Support for community managers, as well as for the costs of the game to be upfront.

@Loki

you are definitely the only person i've seen who actually knows what is going on irl. i was under the assumption that she was keeping it private from everyone (as is her right). whatever is happening with her that she told you was something “everyone already knows”, it's definitely not something that we already know. she may have shared the information with a select few people but definitely not the community as a whole.

edit: just feel the need to add, i was completely okay with launch being pushed back as a) the health and well-being of the developers is more important, and b) no game should be launched before it's ready. i'm starting to wonder if launch should have been pushed back a second time. i genuinely feel like the community as a whole would have been okay with this, given the overall understanding that the devs are human beings who need to deal with irl issues first. that said, now that the site is open, if development needs to be slowed down that is perfectly fine. just please, communicate this!

@Loki

I have no idea what she’s got going on, so that’s an isolated incident as far as I’m aware. This furthers my belief that she’s dealing with something she needs to take some time for herself for. I’m sorry she made you uncomfortable, and I hope she addresses it with you soon.

@Ezra @Kuro

Thank you both for your insight. I feel reassured with my feelings now and I really appreciate that!

I very much agree with both of you, this doesn't seem to be a good time for the team. Which is okay! Life happens and we cannot control that. There will always be people who are unhappy about a launch being pushed back, that's unavoidable, but in the long run the players who want to see the site succeed will be happier for it. To be honest at this point I would even be fine with the site rolling back into a beta state so expectations are set right from the get-go for people coming in.

When there is no communication people are only left to speculate why certain choices were made, and often times those will turn into negative assumptions.

@Loki I just wanted to add that if Alaunis does assume everyone “already knows” what's up (I do not either) that's also information about how communication is going.

Truly, I don't think the team was ready for launch yet but didn't want to push it back again? But rushing out of EA and then forcing a full launch while the team is in disarray… I hope there can be some sort of orderly recovery, and soon, even if that means some things get delegated away from Alaunis temporarily.

I'd like to offer a bit more perspective on something that I'm surprised no one seemed to bring up yet: there was a Kickstarter.

I backed the ToeBeanies Kickstarter back when it happened in late 2020. To this day, I still have yet to receive the socks and gloves that I paid for. The husband-and-wife team (much like Lorwolf's) ran into many manufacturing delays and had to eat the cost of hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars out of their own pocket when their manufacturers (I believe there were at least two incidents) completely dropped the ball and produced extremely faulty products. Updates have been few and far between with so many factors out of their control, such as manufacturing time and shipment, but a few weeks ago we got an announcement saying they finished hand-creating all of the products that had yet to be shipped.

In these months, however, people were extremely upset. I haven't kept too closely with it, if it's something that fell through the cracks then I learn my lesson, but the two were incredibly frustrated and voiced that they were even doxxed over this ordeal. When people's money is involved, people start to get heated about what happens.

Which is exactly why communication DOES need to happen. Especially as working on Lorwolf is Alaunis' full-time job — it's said so the August Development Update. JimJim is the programmer, so I assume he is way deep into fixing bugs that launch found immediately. On the other hand, there are several artists for the site and plenty of custom apparel to keep users occupied, that the other co-founder could surely find the time to comment on some posts. Mind you, I'm not saying anyone should be doxxed, just that people get upset when they pay for a product they never receive.

I'm not going to pretend or say I could do a better job at running a game. I've daydreamed about it before, and I'm not sure I'd even want to run a game for more than a couple hundred people, so a game at this size is incredible to be leading. I'm not in the Discord and I'm not super active as far as Lorwolf goes, but I have been enjoying my time here so far. I hope that the development team does take all of these concerns into account. Making and managing a game is no easy feat when you have thousands of people barking in your front yard about different things. It's about finding the balance and working towards the vision of the game you want to create.

I don't want to play doomsday, but inactive developers make for an inactive game. You can still earn the trust of the community that has been following you for several years.

I'm seconding @/Kuro.

I didn't know upgrades now cost moonstones until I actually went to upgrade my slots.

It would've been nice to have have basic list of the major changes between ea and launch.

I'm not asking to be update on every little thing (I know that would most likely be an unreasonable demand), but it'd really help to have little bits of input from the team even if it's just a brief comment on the forums every once in a while

There was an @ everyone ping today in the Discord to announce that today was when pups were going to start to be born, and while I'm glad to see a presence… I don't know, I'm conflicted. It leaves a little bit of a bad taste to announce that, but we still have silence on the changes made between EA and launch. It's good to see the engagement, but… it's not really what we were asking for, and that engagement isn't seen by anyone not in the server or anyone who doesn't happen to see the linked thread anyway.

I guess while I'm here I want to make a plea to make sure that communications are equal between the site and Discord. Things primarily being communicated via Discord and not making it onto the site itself is what burned a lot of people on Dappervolk, and while I'm not overly concerned about it right now, I'd really hate to see Lorwolf go down that same road and wanted to mention it while it's still very early days.

quoting tserin:

I guess while I'm here I want to make a plea to make sure that communications are equal between the site and Discord. Things primarily being communicated via Discord and not making it onto the site itself is what burned a lot of people on Dappervolk, and while I'm not overly concerned about it right now, I'd really hate to see Lorwolf go down that same road and wanted to mention it while it's still very early days.

please, please, please. you have a lot of players who aren't on discord or don't like using it. please do not make discord the primary means of communication!