A Letter to the Developers

Dear Developers,
I am writing this on behalf of the GMT and TU community.
When the project started, both the community and you, the developers, had high hopes and
dreams for the new game. Promises of rides, a full boardwalk, and customization beyond relief left most of us in awe. But that was the past. Looking at the Trello and progress made, we think a lot of the vision was lost. Yes, this game has been out for about three days, but we are looking into the future of the game as well. GMT was a community, a close community. We think we first lost sight of the community aspect when games were added to the main menu, meaning players no longer had to visit the plaza. Mac mentioned it was done that way because certain players did not want to have to be a part of the plaza, but was that not the point of the game? A lot of us old players are wondering “What happened?”. We wanted “X” to be complete, but instead, we were given “X” “Y” and “Z”. Good, right? Well, it would be, if XYZ were not severely broken.

We don’t believe certain features are being prioritized or implemented properly. Condos are not currently a social gathering place, but an isolated island (literally and metaphorically). The Plaza is currently a strip mall center. Games and features we so desired to be implemented, are planned to be worked on after items only few people want, and current features we don’t believe were implemented properly.

What we ask: We want, and plead, that polls be opened for the community to vote on. We ask that the polls ask users what THEY want implemented into the game. Certain features and items we wanted are not a priority and are being ignored. We hope that the polls show you, the developers, what we think should be added first. Not only added, but what should be fixed and change. We also hope that PixelTail had a community representative. No, not a community manager. A player or member who speaks and listens on behalf of the community. Their vision represents the communities, and would help the game’s development.

To conclude, this thread was not a complaint letter. It is well known that the game is early access, but we are worried about the future of the game. No one said you, the developers, are slacking off. The amount of work you have done in such a small time is amazing. We simply request that you take the community more into account while furthering your work on the game. Thank You.

~ Bonkars and the TU Community

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I helped with this article so i feel important :kissing_smiling_eyes:

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This was written by me on behalf of the community. The ideas and concepts in this thread were suggested to me by other members. If you contributed an idea to me, thanks.

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I think something like priority and social engagement becomes an issue when you drop a game as open ended as Tower Unite is. It would’ve been neat to have a list of proposed plans/features that were going to be worked on post EA release to make people feel more comfortable with their purchase as it’s now become an industry norm to have the early access feel like a ground where things and new additions are just randomly thrown at them rather than having the actual game be built upon in a consistent and progressive manner.

That would be my one big complaint, just constantly keep letting people what your next step always is to building the game, let them discuss it and essentially build the game with you. That’s what Early Access should be. Or if we have that and I just don’t know let people be aware that it exists lol.

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I am writing this on behalf of the GMT and TU community. When the project started, both the community and you, the developers, had high hopes and dreams for the new game. Promises of rides, a full boardwalk, and customization beyond relief left most of us in awe. But that was the past. Looking at the Trello and progress made, we think a lot of the vision was lost. Yes, this game has been out for about three days, but we are looking into the future of the game as well.

The game only just released to Early Access. What does this mean exactly?

Early access, alphafunding, or paid-alpha is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can pay for a game in the early stages of development and obtain access to playable but unfinished versions of the game, while the developer is able to use those funds to continue work on the game.

And whilst I’ve made several comments myself about looking towards the future in regards to this game and that I don’t see the business model working out when it comes to active players returning day after day, I think its way too early to make any comments regarding the lack of game features. The game has not been out for three days, because it’s not ‘out’ at all, you’ve bought into Early Access, which means you are assisting in the funding of the game to receive an unfinished version to track progress. Unless you yourself are assisting with development you cannot know how long it will take to add certain features.

We don’t believe certain features are being prioritized or implemented properly. Condos are not currently a social gathering place, but an isolated island (literally and metaphorically). The Plaza is currently a strip mall center. Games and features we so desired to be implemented, are planned to be worked on after items only few people want, and current features we don’t believe were implemented properly.

Changes are being made to condos, and that’s public knowledge, so there isn’t much I can add to this. Secondly, the issue regarding prioritization is difficult, because each developer has their own tasks they’re working on and some are more efficient and can produce content faster than others, so coordinating features to prioritize what you or your peers want would be near impossible unless all of the tasks are restructured and given to different individuals, which would not be beneficial, as they’ve clearly given the tasks that best suit each developer to that respective person.

What we ask: We want, and plead, that polls be opened for the community to vote on. We ask that the polls ask users what THEY want implemented into the game. Certain features and items we wanted are not a priority and are being ignored. We hope that the polls show you, the developers, what we think should be added first. Not only added, but what should be fixed and change. We also hope that PixelTail had a community representative. No, not a community manager. A player or member who speaks and listens on behalf of the community. Their vision represents the communities, and would help the game’s development.

Polls are problematic. If you’re allowing someone to vote on what gets done next, development will be a mess. My brother is an indie game maker who’s working on his first title, and I’ve witnessed the difficulty of coordinating each task with your fellow developers; let’s say you create a script for poker, but you don’t have the models yet… You’re then reliant upon that person to create the 3d art for poker cards, but that person could be right in the middle of something and it would be counterproductive to change mid task.

Community representative. Yeah, that’s a dreadful idea. People have their own bias, their own opinions that differ from everyone else. You’ll never find someone that agrees with everyone they’re going to represent. If you need a more glaring example of this, look at the US elections right now. Someone will always be alienated and excluded if there was a community representative and it would be majority wins or whatever feature that person wanted themselves that they back.

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Really? Because who exactly did you ask?

So are they. It’s almost as if developing a game in 3D space designed to run in constant multiplayer takes time to make.

They never were. I rarely had random people in my condo.

It always was. It only seems worse now because things they’re working on aren’t fucking done.

Just fucking stop. There’s a logical progression for things to be developed. Right now, priority is fixing what’s already there, which is lack of optimization and shoddy netcode. The developers have been more than transparent about their deadlines and what’s happening when. To want anything more is textbook selfishness.

Paging @Caboose700.

You spend a lot of time complaining.

Then why even bother writing this? If the version of TU we had right now was the final product, yes, that would make sense. However, as someone who has been here since Lobby One for GMT and since Alpha 1 for TU, they have made amazing progress in a very short amount of time.

Like I said before, they have been more than transparent about their progress and deadlines. That much can’t be said for a lot of game developers, and I mean a lot.

No. This is not the TU community. This is you and someone else’s letter complaining about the lack of polish on a game that isn’t even close to being done yet.

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I’d like to chime in and say this letter does not speak for me. I am happy with the current state of Tower for how long they’ve been working on it. That doesn’t mean I believe the game is complete, far from it, but for how much time they’ve had, this is good progress. Tower Unite is not anywhere near as mature as it will be eventually. Sure, we’re missing some social features, but those are in the works. If your opinion is that the social features should be prioritised, then fine, say that, but don’t try to pass it off as the opinion of the entire community, and accept that people are going to disagree.

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Just to explain this, and to make sure this doesn’t feel to off minded I wanted to explain this thread if Profbonkars doesn’t mind.

We were working on a letter together as a part of the community to be posted, however we had some problems during the conversation and this was posted way earlier than it should have been.

We’re currently updating the letter as I’m writting this and for all that would like to join it please PM at Discord, we want everyone’s input on the final version of this letter to the community. One that actually presents a conversation, rather than an opinion. I’d love your guys opinion especifically @DrDoctor and @DominateEye. Thanks!

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I’m not sure a letter to the developers from the entire community is necessary. They’re taking what the majority of us say into account, and those who feel like they haven’t been heard will probably be heard when the initial EA bugfixing stage is finished. Not to attack this idea or anything, because if Pixeltail had a different staff, it might be necessary, but I don’t think this is where it’s absolutely needed.

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Thread will be deleted when the forum managers get to it.
Sorry for any inconvenience I caused.

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Yes. I can see that, however our plan with the letter is not to speak about being heard or not, but to speak about the overall state of the game, community as well.

The current version is 95% different than this thread and we’ve had multiple contribute in. Sadly, since this thread has been posted already a lot of people probably have the wrong idea of what our goal with it was. The goal was not to basically complain about stuff but to tell developers were here to help them and so on.

Really. We would love everyone to be part of the conversation. Not just me, not just you, not a group of people.

The goal of it is to remind everyone we’re a community. :smile:

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Alright, I get you. If we’re not talking in THE Discord, then right after I finish singing the entire soundtrack to Hamilton for the 37th time this week I’ll PM you.

Please don’t have a full conversation on this thread. Thanks.

The fact is this letter is premature, if it should even exist at all. You’re trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. No one thinks the developers are getting lazy or not focusing on the community. They had over 1300 players on day one and are currently working out bugs such as netcode, optimization, and various stuttering issues. Developers are still extremely active on the forums and on the Discord, so it’s not a problem of the community being ignored.

If the purpose of the letter is to say that their priorities might not line up with yours, that’s absolutely true, but not in the way you think. Polishing what they have right now is imperative before adding anything new. I appreciate your invitation, but I remain steadfast in saying a letter like this doesn’t need to exist right now. There’s no harm being done to the game or the community by the devs at this point. If there is in the future, I will gladly sign off on it.

Believe me this is not the current version of the letter and it is completely different right now.

Although this version made it seem like we were complaining about priorities that’s not at all the point we want to pass others, especially not the developers. We want to make them know that we’re all here and that they can count on us.

Even if you feel it might not be needed I want to send you the current version so you can judge if it’s needed or not. We took our heart to it and we want everyone that replied this version to read it, especially to make sure our actions aren’t misunderstood. :smile:

What do you say?

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If the letter really has changed that much, feel free to send it to me, either by Discord or a forum PM.

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I’m with you dominate

I’m giving my thoughts to @PoliteWhale regarding the polished letter. It’s different than this one.

They have yet to delete this post.