January 24th, 2023 Livestream

Snutt & Jace Talk: Bugs in Satisfactory

https://youtu.be/OGoBA42DrIM

Topics

• Embracer Group > Coffee Stain Holding > Coffee Stain Studios
• Merch
• QA Site

Transcript

anyways so yeah, bugs we were just living it was just released a video last week about the the bug site which we that's true I guess, and I thought it was a good time to talk a little bit more or go into that a little bit and if you guys have any questions that because there's a bunch there's a few questions in the comments of that video where we could be like oh we could reply to them but maybe it's better to just do a big sweep, and do them here but but the the here here's the like what's the word the the recap essentially of that video you should check it out by the way because I think it's a video that I've wanted us to do for a long time because it kind of encapsulates a lot of, a lot of questions that we get here on the stream as well and it kind of sums up a lot of stuff with like how in regards to how we track the bugs and what they actually like what the implication is when a bug is reported or a feedback has been like when we get feedback and stuff, because we do have our questions inside questions outside your game.com that's the best place for people to give us any feedback to the game report any bugs you know, and usually we just we usually just ask people to go there instead of asking us to mail us and stuff like that because it really is the best way to have everything in one place, so we can get a better understanding of what's going on, yep it also has certain other features like upvoting, commenting replying and closing and you know those sort of features are sort of important too, and if you were to contrast to things like steam that gets a bit rough also not everyone who plays satisfactory has steam you could look at Discord, at least in in the past, Discord was no good because chat just keeps moving obviously there are threads and forums now but then those still lack certain features like upvoting, status updates and all that kind of stuff, and and yeah the QA and not only that not everyone has Discord so like instead we just have its own Standalone thing yeah and and like we we've had that side since we launched the game I think since we launched the game did we make the site before or after, before I believe I believe we had a dream the, exactly the closeout so there's been a lot of stuff reported there and there's obviously a lot of stuff that's been reported there that still hasn't been fixed in the game and I really like and that can be really confusing for you guys because it's like why have this bugged not been fixed it's like such an old bug and we sort of talked about that in the video where there's a lot of different aspects as to why you know certain bugs haven't been prioritized yeah and and my my goal, my goal for this so first of all one thing I want to say is that there were some people in the comments who were saying things like and because the thing is you guys might have known but, but like a couple weeks ago on stream I had like a little bit of a a a rant or chat or a talk actually on this this topic because I've been thinking about this topic for quite a while and someone asked a specific question and I went into a bit more bit of extra detail it's probably on the QA, the questions channel the satisfactory stream archive, channel that Marv makes and that that's like because I've been thinking about this for quite some time and some people said at that time and also in the comments of the video not many people but some people said it that it's it's sad that we had to make this video or that like don't listen to the haters or, you know it's a shame that they had they felt that they had to make this video but like it really this video was not made out of a reaction to any level of toxicity or or haters so to speak I don't think that people giving feedback even if it's negative feedback I don't think they're haters they're they're people who care about the game and they're giving their feedback, of course they're haters as well but I'm not making videos based on those people, the the the the reason that I made the video is like this issue this issue so to speak or it's not an issue it's just a phenomenon I suppose of like people who don't understand the developers sort of perspective of things and what the process is like, don't you know if they don't really understand they come to incorrection conclusions about how things sort of work and this is something that has been happening since day one of us launching of this game and it's something that happens for all developers in every Community everywhere always, and so like I just thought it would just be an interesting thing to actually just try shed some light on to get our perspective out there hopefully educate some people so that they might know at the very least that you know that you can understand oh this is why insert games developers might be struggling with this certain thing or why they approach things in a certain way, and the other Hope was that I was hoping that like other developers might if they see it they might be like hey maybe I can have that conversation with my community as well so like even though it's not I guess it's not like it's not like I guess it's not a cheery conversation I mean it was to me because I thought it was interesting but, I guess you could say it's a negative thing to talk about I don't think it is it's just part of the process, in the same way that we've talked about other processes before like game design or Tech art or 3D art or whatever like this is the same kind of thing this is a crucial part of game development it's it's got nothing to do with this community, I mean we have it easier than most communities because you all are actually quite frankly better than most communities so, this wasn't made out of reaction to anyone else there's a lot of necessity for this time of communication regardless because we're in Early Access and I think it's also important to kind of communicate what Early Access means because the Early Access like staple or whatever is there very different from game to game and I think it's also very important to communicate that you know this is how we anticipate working on a game in Early Access so like you mentioned the video you know like there are bugs but we try to find that balance between where the game is playable and it doesn't crash for everyone but there's we're still working on it and we can focus on like fixing every single thing between every update because then the development would become very stale and we'd be stuck in our Lexus for forever so like communicating sort of that also ties into being an early access and I think that video does a good job at like sort of yeah sort of explaining that that thing as well I've tried to like sneak it into some of the videos that I've made for the update 7 release videos where like you know we are linear Lexus and there are certain aspects of that, so I think you know when it boasts when it comes to how we prioritize things, but also like the the frustration from you guys and like we've seen this for so long and it's hard for you guys to know you know when a bug is part of like a bigger system down the line or when like a bug is actually just like we just haven't had gotten around to it essentially like I'm sure there are a lot of bugs that are that are quick and easy to fix that have been in there forever maybe the the the, the one you have in the thumbnail the leg, Blade Runners yeah maybe that is an easy fix, but we still need to like devote time to be like okay let's let's look into this issue and maybe that it turns into like something bigger and if that was already and the other thing is I think there might be work planned around attachment systems in the future which is why we don't want to go into it now because it's not hurting anyone and if we're going to rework attachment systems in the future then let's just do it then so it is there's like many aspects to to that and I think when people just see it as like oh there's there's been a bug that's been recorded for a long time and you haven't fixed it that means that you haven't done anything but I mean it's easy to see that way but I think it's important to realize that you know there's a lot of stuff going on especially in An Early Access title, when it comes to that yeah- I also want to highlight some just sort of some various kind of sentiments that that I also notice in in the, the comments and I'm not saying these sentiments are the majority sentiment or anything like that they're just different viewpoints that I would like to just kind of just address so that we can just talk about it that's pretty much that's it I don't think I need to I just think it's interesting I actually really think it's interesting, so the first thing is like there are some people who who have said, and rightly so because I've seen this said about other games in Early Access as well or you're just using Early Access as a scapegoat just call it what it is this is just full release and it's buggy or something like that you're just saying you're just getting away with it because it's early access and on the other side of that we also have people saying like no you're in Early Access you should be able to just dump buggy [ __ ] on us and that's fine, so so it's interesting that we get we get that entire Spectrum yeah of feedback right, and where we where we feel land on this is first of all, if we there's no one in the studio right now who would 1.0 means the game is complete or you know it's a feature complete game and there is no one at the office right now who would even if every single bug was magically fixed no one in the office would say that we have a feature complete game this is just simply not our vision of satisfactory as it is right now there's other things that need to be done so that's that's one reason why we're still in Early Access because we do not consider satisfactory to be featured complete the bugs don't really matter really in in that determination, now as for because we're in Early Access that means we can just give you buggy games I mean we just don't feel like that that's fair either like we care about you guys having a good time and when you like pay us money we want to ensure that, that there's a minimum level of quality that you guys are getting, and so that's important for us another thing that I noticed as well is a lot of people first of all were praising us for our communication and we get this a lot actually from you guys so first of all thank you very much for those kind words it actually makes me feel really good as a community manager since that's literally my craft and to hear you guys say that about my work is very very very good, so so I really appreciate that but then I hear other people saying like other devs need to learn or other devs are bad at this because they don't communicate the other thing the thing to sort of notice is like I don't actually know if we're necessarily very good at what we do or not or if it's just that where one of the few people who do what we do I think a snood always says it's a low bar which is fairly true but like one thing to understand is that this is not for no reason other developers who don't communicate with their communities aren't doing it out of malice it's it's just it's a scary thing to do it's a risky thing to do and a lot of people just don't know how to do it game developers they're programmers they're artists right like they're not necessarily people who know how to communicate to an entire audience, effectively and so it's so like I would sort of just say like try and have that try and understand that aspect of things a little bit just just know that like that's actually a really scary thing to do and it's, and, we should be a little understanding of other developers when they're too afraid or are don't feel comfortable to do it, having said that though I do encourage developers to try this it is one of my goals as a community manager and it has been since literally day negative 30., it has been my goal, to try and humanize developers in humanized community communities and to try and make that communication something that can happen and that we don't have to be too afraid of that's it's a give and take on both sides developers need to be willing to open up and communities need to be willing to understand, and and vice versa too so yeah it's it's there's a reason why the the industry is the way it is, but it can change and hopefully hopefully folks start taking that chance and start looking into ways that they can change it it is also like a huge undertaking if you want to have like a open bi-directional communication thingy so like maybe companies feel that it you know it's too much effort but I don't think it is I think I think just doing yep- I think the the idea is that either you do it like full out or you don't do it at all Maybe but it could also be that that the developers that I see or the games that I follow maybe I'm just not like into the community enough to to realize that maybe they are doing that maybe I'm just like not seeing it, yeah it could be but it could be could be but at the end of the day like, I don't know like- I don't think I'm I don't I don't know I don't know I don't see it as something that's super super hard like I don't see myself as someone who's like particularly good at this I'm just willing to try it that's the only thing and so like I really encourage other developers out there to give it a give it a go I think it seems scarier than it is it is definitely and I think everyone's going to be better off for it like we get so much support and assistance from you guys and freedom to do more things because you guys trust us and you trust us because we're open with you, it might be a thing where there's not too much like general knowledge on how to do it like you don't really see sometimes I'm always like I wonder how other Studios do it and then I don't have a good example and then I'm like all right guess I won't try because I can't find like a good example of how to do it like maybe that's also the mindset a little bit because there's there aren't that many, that do it that way yeah anyway so it's that kind of energy that goes behind videos like the bugs and satisfactory one where- I think it's just really interesting to have that that conversation and clearly so many people appreciated it and I kind of hope that this video Marius laughs

[Music]

random mod sends a message in the chat literally easy it is really true you guys are so we we barely do anything actually good Community chat like we don't have to do anything at all, yeah yeah he's gonna say, [ __ ] Mario's got me no I'm sorry, no so what I really hope to with that video is that you know that I think that's a video that can stand sort of you know it's going to be relevant even if we if we were to develop this game for 10 more years or whatever you know that video will still be relevant then because that's how we work and that's how we prioritize bugs and whenever people like new people come in and ask this question over again like that video is going to exist and they're going to reference that because I don't think we're gonna change too much in like I guess the the state of the the bug like the the question side might be different, from now and and then but like overall like all the info in that video is just how we work and how we prioritize things and I hope that that lives on, so if you if you thought it was interesting or if you have other friends who were in you know early access Game Dev communities or, or just play games at all whatever I don't know like I don't know- I really tried to script the video to be something that's applicable to any game out there, and any Early Access game out there and also if you're a developer I don't know like, maybe share this with your developer buddies- I was really hoping that this this video would get out there, and hopefully Inspire some people to make some changes so that everyone can start benefiting so that communities can relax more and feel more at ease and so that, developers can have better relationship with their communities so for sure thank you Andrew yeah I was really proud of the video it worked out really well I'm also proud of the video even though I didn't do anything on it no but I just like that because I we usually want to make videos we sometimes communicate back and forth sort of like what should go in the video and stuff like that and this is a video that I've also wanted us to do for a long time and I love that you managed to encapsulate like every single point that I wanted to bring in, in that video and I didn't even to do anything my job is really easy yeah easy good one good job I think I should take all the credit honestly yeah yeah, actually I came up with it first, yeah yeah, all right so with with that on unless there's something you guys have questions about on that video specifically or anything else you want to bring out yeah we're gonna get to q a at the end for General q a but are there any specific questions to that topic or that video then we will be happy we will happily ignore you guys and just pretend, sometimes I see comments where like I can't believe they haven't asked my question and that's the only thing I see from that particular person yeah I've never seen that name before yeah yeah I only care about the ratio of my factory fair enough show the shirt here is it the shirt oh yeah that shirt is thick is that shirt available on because I don't know I don't know I don't know if that shirt this shirt's actually available anymore and maybe I'm not sure you have to go to listendogo.com we used to have a partnership with the forefense by fans but they closed their store or something yeah good smile yeah and I think we may have gotten some of those designs and maybe we can re-release them on lizard doggo.com I'm not sure I don't know what the situation is so no that one is actually available on lizard doggo.com yeah it is there you go Shameless in the middle of everything yeah, would you hire such contract out the QA site Improvement since the person left, yeah we may be we may look for someone and now I know I say that everyone's gonna reach out please just we we have, we'll do whatever you want I guess, yeah there's the, there's the coffeestain.com studios.com jobs there's an open application if you're a web dev and you're involved sending your applications if you DM us we're just gonna say go to that site yeah yeah we're just gonna say go to that site do not DM us about this we are Community managers we we live stream and make shitty videos okay we can't we can't hire you okay I also spend 90 of my job, telling people that ask me questions about Goat Sim that we're doing worker that game but that's that's the majority of my my size I mean I think obviously North had to deal with that when satisfactory was a thing a lot of people were going to them and saying hey yeah so