Hey folks,
I wanted to drop a quick note to talk about the translations of our weekly updates.
We’re at an interesting phase with Crowfall® right now, the inflection point between a system “test” and an MMO “playtest”. Many of our core systems are online. Interrelated systems (like Disciplines and power load-out) are surfacing. We’re on the brink of moving from weekend tests to having servers available 24x7, with a LIVE universe (that is more stable) and a separate TEST universe (that comes up and down but always has the latest and greatest).
Yes, we are still in “pre-alpha”, but it’s a far cry from where we started. We inch ever closer to calling the game “alpha”, scaling that test with more players into “beta”, and then launching it in multiple countries and multiple languages.
Once we are officially “live”, the manner and cadence of our community and development-related communications will change. It’s inevitable. We’ll shift to a model that is more traditional for a commercial MMO; you’ll see more information about what is happening IN the game, and what we are planning to add TO the game, and far less about WHO we are (the development team) and HOW we do what we do.
This also means that we will inevitably slow down on the communication front, which will give us time to translate our “official updates” into all of our supported languages.
All of that said… we aren’t there, yet. We are still in development. Things are changing in our product roadmap, and our development schedule, on a daily basis.
We made a decision to be transparent in this process. We pulled back the curtain so that you get to see our decisions in real-time. You see our mistakes and how we correct them, and we are OK with that.
One side-effect of this approach – of talking to you directly – is that it doesn’t always leave time for our partner, Travian Games, to translate every update. If we write something up in the morning that we want to tell you that afternoon (this happens a lot), it isn’t always possible to quickly translate into every language for synchronized release.
We could slow down the cadence of updates to allow time for translations, of course, but I don’t think that’s what you guys really want. So we’re electing not to do that (yet).
I’m going to ask a favor of you. Two favors, actually.
First, realize that important information – things that you NEED to know about – will, of course, continue to be translated as quickly as possible! But all the other stuff? Be patient with us… Most crowdfunding projects don’t do two to three updates a week, much less translate them (even after the fact). Once we are commercial, we'll have a more pre-planned communication cadence that will include time to translate communications for all supported languages before publication.
Secondly, if (when) an update comes out without translation, or delayed transactions, please assume that it’s on us (ArtCraft) rather than Travian. It’s not that Travian doesn’t want to translate everything (believe me, they do!) but we don’t always give them adequate time to do it.
Our #1 priority is to get this game done as quickly as possible. With limited resources, we need to judge everything we do through that lens: is this helping or hindering our development progress to deliver the game we promised in our Kickstarter campaign as soon as possible? Once we’re a commercial game, we’ll treat it like a commercial service. In the meantime, I humbly ask you to let us continue to treat it like a development project so that we can pivot as necessary to maintain forward momentum.
Thanks for your understanding – and for your support, as always!
J. Todd Coleman
Co-Founder, ArtCraft Entertainment