Communication between the Witcher community and CDPR

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

This article taught me nothing that would apply to the company at hand.

The article describes how legacy media mindset is built. It discourages direct communication like I said above. The reason for it is exactly what others voiced above here. I.e. marketing rather than art and community being their main focus. Apparently if it taught you nothing, you already knew those concepts and how they are manifested in practice.

that they aren't another Ubisoft or EA

In some ways. In other ways (like communication) they are getting close to them and much further from independent studios which I already referenced above.

I genuinely wanted to know why it matters to you

And I already explained that to you, because I value direct relation with creators, and not commercial distancing of legacy media.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Paweł and I pop up in various threads here and there. We have Kristine who joined our community team recently so expect her to also start appearing in many threads as well. I know you guys would like to receive regular development updates from us but at this moment we do not have anything in particular to reveal. That time will come later. However, we are working on a formula to start bringing you regular updates - we will be talking about that once we get closer to the B&W release though

source.

Hi Marcin. B&W is now released. Do you still plan some new way of communicating work in progress updates, or changing your general policy on communication with the community? Or it's still too early to be close to B&W release?

 

[Marcin Momot]

source.

Hi Marcin. B&W is now released. Do you still plan some new way of communicating work in progress updates, or changing your general policy on communication with the community? Or it's still too early to be close to B&W release?

Hello,

Thank you for following up on the thread! As you may have noticed we have been much more active all over the internet (including the forums) over the past couple of months and we will continue to do so. Obviously we will try to answer questions as often we can but please remember that it's physically impossible to be everywhere all the time. Thank you for your understanding and thank you for being part of our community for many years.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

@Marcin Momot: Thanks for reassuring that you are actively trying to answer questions now. I could of course miss it, but as far as I know no one reported any updates on topics that I was interested in, so I assume these questions weren't yet answered. Such as how the progress of the Linux version of TW3 is going, REDengine development / new generation APIs usage (Vulkan) and etc. Can you please clarify these, or if you aren't familiar with technical sides of things, can any of the developers help with it? In particular I'm interested in how you are solving the problem of HLSL shaders when working on the Linux flavor of the engine.

In the past I suppose there were various communication blockers that prevented these topics from being discussed, but as you said yourself, after B&W things should be easier.

Thanks!

 

[Marcin Momot]

@Such as how the progress of the Linux version of TW3 is going, REDengine development / new generation APIs usage (Vulkan) and etc. Can you please clarify these, or if you aren't familiar with technical sides of things, can any of the developers help with it? In particular I'm interested in how you are solving the problem of HLSL shaders when working on the Linux flavor of the engine.[/QUOTE] Improving communication also means just being generally more responsive, even though not being able to always share detailed answers. At this moment we have no information to give regarding the topics mentioned by you. Sorry.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Improving communication also means just being generally more responsive, even though not being able to always share detailed answers.

At this moment we have no information to give regarding the topics mentioned by you. Sorry.

Thanks. But is it still possible so have some direct Q&A with developers? If some questions will be on topic that they can't talk about, they can always say they aren't allowed to. Otherwise it seems like any topic related to engine development is always "we have nothing to share" when the question comes from the community, yet at the same time various journalists publish interviews with engine developers periodically and it feels somewhat strange that they are willing to do it with the media, but not with the community directly.

 

[Eredin_Breacc_Glas]

I don't have enough time to read the many hundreds of posts in this thread, but I did read the first page.

Perhaps the best way to resolve this issue is to have a weekly Q&A on C.D.P.R.'s forums. Just for 20 minutes, maybe. I don't see any sort of lack of communication with C.D.P.R., but, if you guys do, this seems like a very viable solution.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Perhaps the best way to resolve this issue is to have a weekly Q&A on C.D.P.R.'s forums. Just for 20 minutes, maybe. I don't see any sort of lack of communication with C.D.P.R., but, if you guys do, this seems like a very viable solution.

Sounds good, but even if not formal and regular - some participation of developers here would be very welcome.

The lack of communication about their work in progress is total now. I.e. no communication at all. And there is no one here to answer any technical questions.

---------- Updated at 09:57 PM ----------

Example of technical Q&A with developer (of other game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD9_L5o4mhQ

 

[Boromir2015]

Sorry, but there are a lot of failures in communications by CDPR.
One personal example: The bug report in the sector "Tech support". http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/62416-Hair-glitch-by-Undvik-armor-(lvl-41)
I have reported an hair glitch by the Undvik armor. And it wasn't a single glitch in my game (I play on PS4 by the way). I have checked different threads in different communities and have asked some friends of mine who are playing TW3 on PS4 too. So it was definitely a general error! And I mean I have more fun to play than to write a report... And was there any reaction? No, nothing happens... Okay I know it wasn't a big problem like CTD... But it was awesome detail by CDPR before... I loved the games of CDPR among other things because of small details like that.
And now... I have seen the same hair glitch, I have reported, exists now for the Grandmaster ursine armor too... And the problem of the Undvik armor?! It is still there... And not only for me, how I can read in a lot of other discussion in other fora!
So, what is my personal experience with CDPR communication in this forum? I like to help other players, if they have a solvable problem, or I like to discuss about different themes with other gamers, but I will never write another bug report, because I've got better things to spend my time on than that... Because no one of CDPR cares... And I know TW3 is just a game, but what do I need a special CDPR forum with CDPR members, if there is no real difference in solving problems like this to other fora like "World of players" for example?!

 

[dragonbird]

Did you send in a bug report, or just post it in the Tech Support forum? They usually do respond to bug reports sent directly to them..

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

That's what I call communication. Why can't CDPR have something similar?

 

[Bagaren]

What you linked to there is Star Citizen which is a game which was crowd funded and is still currently under development so of course you would expect them to have more active communication.


What is it that you want exactly, the GWENT team is doing a decent job at communicating? CDPR Do not want to talk about games that are being developed, you talk about us being here because of the Witcher series. Yes and the Witcher series is finished and has been for a while now so why would they still have communication about it?

Sure it was very unfortunate that the modding support they talked about never came out but that is all over now. I say again, what do you want? Do you want them to pop in once in a while and ask us how we are doing or do you want regular development updates? Because CDPR has never done dev-blogs, they seem very much against it when it comes to their main titles.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

What you linked to there is Star Citizen which is a game which was crowd funded and is still currently under development so of course you would expect them to have more active communication.

Why is that supposed to be expected from crowdfunded games only? My point is, which I already expressed above, such communication is not inherently an attribute of crowdfunding process. CDPR can have it as well. Like you said, they just don't want to.

What is it that you want exactly, the GWENT team is doing a decent job at communicating?

For example, what they are using in their engine in Cyberpunk 2077. Personally, I'm not so interested in Gwent. If Cloud Imperium can talk about it, CDPR also can.

Yes and the Witcher series is finished and has been for a while now so why would they still have communication about it?

Linux version of TW3 never came out. CDPR avoid this subject any time they are asked about it.

Because CDPR has never done dev-blogs, they seem very much against it when it comes to their main titles.

That's exactly the point of my criticism. They are way more similar to legacy publisher funded studios who avoid any communication, than to independent studios who actively use it to reach their fans.

 

[Bagaren]

Why is that supposed to be expected from crowdfunded games only? My point is, which I already expressed above, such communication is not inherently an attribute of crowdfunding process. CDPR can have it as well. Like you said, they just don't want to.

Because this is expected of them. Its not that its crowd funded, its the whole "early access" part of it that forces you to have a very active line of communication open.

That's exactly the point of my criticism. They are way more similar to legacy publisher funded studios who avoid any communication, than to independent studios who actively use it to reach their fans.

But that was not at all what you were saying. You said the lack of communication was driving members away. Lack of communication about what? Lack of dev blogs? They never did any dev blogs for the Witcher 3 and that game is the reason we are all here. A lot of people like the idea of not knowing anything about the game, me included. Sure would be nice if they were like "hey linux, not going to happen" but thats not the sort of thing that would drive away members.

The game has been out for 2 years, members don't leave because of a lack of communication about that 2 years old singleplayer game. Maybe people leave because it is a singleplayer game and after a certain point there is not that much to do anymore?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

You said the lack of communication was driving members away.

I did. It is driving people away. Actually it has driven practically everybody away from here.

Lack of communication about what? Lack of dev blogs?

That as well. But really there is no communication at all, including development related.

 

[Big_Machine]

I did. It is driving people away. Actually it has driven practically everybody away from here.



That as well. But really there is no communication at all, including development related.

Gilrond-i-Virdan, hey man, completely agree. Not only that but CDPR's forum mods don't seem interested in itw own message boards. For example I can't send PMs to anybody because the forum just won't let me for some reason which it does not even state. I've created a couple of threads about it and wrote about it in "Forum Bugs" threads, even left feedback in site feedback form and nada, no repsonse whatsoever. That coupled with the major forum redesign which now sucks balls (not to mention the whole TW3 thing) defeinitely didn't do CDPR any favors.