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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9719574" data-attributes="member: 18">I mean, I think you're illustrating my point perfectly.You're long-time Patron. MCDM communicates with Patrons, first, second, third, and fourth, and then maybe with KS backers, and only so far distance after that with the general public, and that's never been more evident than with Draw Steel!It works for them okay because the Patron list is large, and they have a history of making solid products, but it's also a very self-limiting strategy which I think is going to prevent growth for them.That's a schoolboy error imho. If you're not even hyping or discussing your game until it fully releases in this kind of environment, perhaps you don't understand communications terribly well and I'd say that's definitely the case with MCDM. Matt is very good at making certain kinds of video but his overall media strategy is not great and is very insular. A good example of this for me is how Matt didn't even make "How to play Draw Steel!" videos ready for release, despite that being precisely the kind of video he's good at! He instead referred people to a RPG drama youtuber who happened to make some videos on Draw Steel!, who is a fun guy but not like, a great RPG educator (which ironically, Matt kind of is). Hell, it's not entirely clear he's going to make those kind of videos now it is out!From recent communications he almost doesn't seem like he's really noticed that the game has launched (I guess because for him the core was basically "finished" months ago), and seems to be more excited by their specialized VTT (and also upcoming splatbook classes, at least one of which was originally implied to be in the core, but I'll let that go lol), than the fact that the game is out. And the VTT which is nearly guaranteed to be a flop, because people in general do not like switching to a new VTT, especially not for one new game! There is a chance sheer quality/usability could save but the nice things he quotes people as saying about it are very similar to things people said re: 5E's Sigil VTT, which was a massive flop despite probably millions to tens of millions being poured into it.I do agree to some extent that it's more of a test of endurance than a sprint here, but at some point, the fact that you're still at the starting line eating your delightful picnic with your Patrons rather than jogging along may bite you in the ass!This feels a bit "whataboutery"-ish to me honestly.Even then, for my money, the names you give as examples are obviously more evocative and immediate than "Tier I, Tier II and Tier III", and they're from games that in many cases aren't as deeply considered or carefully designed as this. That's the particular issue here. You've got this extremely thoroughly considered and designed game with a lot of oddly-specific names which are, in fact, pretty evocative of the specific things that are going on, but then you have these totally generic and anti-evocative names which players are going to be using constantly for the rest of the life of the game. It's a weird place to fall down. But somehow unsurprising.I guess I'm coming at this very much from the perspective of how would I feel saying this hundreds and hundreds of times, and I feel like it's a bit energy sapping. But I haven't played so maybe it'll be fine? Little skeptical though.</blockquote>

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