titsup
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Post by titsup on Dec 17, 2015 22:28:18 GMT
Everyone here has written about their displeasure with aspects of the game. I'm curious though, what would you do? So I posit the question, tomorrow, you are given the opportunity to shape this game. You can't change where its been. Everything today and before can't be changed. You can't take away PoTs because youve got people invested for thousands. But you've been given the keys, you are in the driver's seat and Richard is in the passenger seat. He's explained that you may be lost and he's hoping that, though you may not be able to find the original destination, you can come up with a cool new destination for this game. I thought of this after watching this. The prequels are objectively dreadful movies. They are poorly written, poorly filmed, and poorly edited. Yet, that video makes a compelling argument for how The Phantom Menace could have been better. Of course you are free to answer how you like, but I'll just throw out there that 'fire Chris' or 'stop listening to whales' are easy, impractical answers. I'm curious more about how you might guide design of the game to build on what already exists and yet make this game seem more appealing. Would you can the combat system in favor of standard mmo combat or maybe you have an altogether combat idea that you think might be better? I'm honestly curious here. I think everyone here is intelligent and at least somewhat interested in design. Back when I was active on the forums over there, dewd would post excellent design ideas. I thought maybe it might be a nice change of pace to think about how we would approach the game going forward if we were in charge.
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Caliya
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People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
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Post by Caliya on Dec 17, 2015 22:56:50 GMT
I'm not going to go into various details, but let's just take one subject: POTs.
1. They should all be instanced, not just the 250 privileged people. Some sort of common portal to enter, that has various map locations to access them, and then access them by some sort of lunar rift - the portals can be named for the first 250 towns as consolation. 2. No one should be able/allowed to buy them until they have a large enough guild in the game to occupy them. I know this can be subverted by having enough game accounts to make up a guild to take up the plots. But each one of those players should have to pay Port directly, with various independent IPs and email addresses. If their ranks decline more than 10%, they will be in danger of losing their town, just as someone who buys a house that doesn't log in is subject to decay. 3. There should not be a limit to towns (there isn't now). Everyone should be able to earn them with stiffer criteria, similar to what I just outlined. 4. Towns should have to be earned as much in game as with real dollars. The criteria above, having X number of actual guild members in game, a certain amount of gold, and real dollars. 5. As with the player number decay of, say, 10%, towns should be able to shrink and expand. Once a town shrinks below a certain size (2 people? for example), it would decay. Those are just off the top of my head, and I have not thought them through thoroughly, so there may be holes in the ideas.
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titsup
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Post by titsup on Dec 17, 2015 23:00:49 GMT
I'm not going to go into various details, but let's just take one subject: POTs. 1. They should all be instanced, not just the 250 privileged people. Some sort of common portal to enter, that has various map locations to access them, and then access them by some sort of lunar rift. 2. No one should be able/allowed to buy them until they have a large enough guild in the game to occupy them. I know this can be subverted by having enough game accounts to make up a guild to take up the plots. But each one of those players should have to pay Port directly, with various independent IPs and email addresses. If their ranks decline more than 10%, they will be in danger of losing their town, just as someone who buys a house that doesn't log in is subject to decay. 3. There should not be a limit to towns (there isn't now). Everyone should be able to earn them with stiffer criteria, similar to what I just outlined. 4. Towns should have to be earned as much in game as with real dollars. The criteria above, having X number of actual guild members in game, a certain amount of gold, and real dollars. Those are just off the top of my head, and I have not thought them through thoroughly, so there may be holes in the ideas. That's really all I'm looking for. I didn't want to make this an exercise of what happens on the forums there. Example, you criticize something in the game, you are challenged for criticizing something in the game and tasked with coming up with an alternative, people then exploit your alternative as if you are a game designer and that it was your job to come up with an alternative. It just occurred to me that folks here might have some interesting ideas on how they might change things for the better.
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Post by Mordecai on Dec 18, 2015 1:33:29 GMT
You really are keeping our hands tied by forcing us to keep POTs. If I could nix POTs, or at least drastically cut them down, then I might answer with more depth.
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titsup
Strong in the Force
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Post by titsup on Dec 18, 2015 2:09:38 GMT
You really are keeping our hands tied by forcing us to keep POTs. If I could nix POTs, or at least drastically cut them down, then I might answer with more depth. I'm all for alternative solutions, a way of dealing with what has already been done. The reason I said PoTs should be included is because going back in time would give the ability to say what one would have done different from the outset. Certainly, if you have an alternative for PoTs that you might feel would work for the game, I think that's interesting. I guess I'm interested in where they are more so than where they went wrong before. Is there some solution to PoTs that backers might find palatable? Some way to transform them that negate what a bunch of backers did? I suppose here I'm not necessarily looking to exclude doing something to alter PoTs. It wouldn't even have to be palatable to those that own them, but a direction that wouldn't eradicate what's happened thus far. I suppose if you put yourself in their position, you'd be talking about refunding a large sum of money and angering what is currently your most loyal fanbase (even if that loyalty has essentially been on the grounds of a contract). I just thought t was a more interesting exercise to contemplate the issues they currently face. Refunding PoTs, I assume, is not an option for them and would destroy the good will they have with their most active players. However, if you must start there, then so be it. I won't exclude any comments. Its possible one thinks that PoTs have made the game irreparable, and if that's the case, I'd rather see a response detailing other aspects of the game one would change than no response at all.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Dec 18, 2015 2:38:05 GMT
Maybe split this into another thread, if you could do anything in the past what would you do? But I think the entire forum is kind of an homage to that in a way As for now... 1. The game feels small, too instanced. Try to find a way to make the game feel bigger. Example, if you are in dungeons a lot then you dont notice how small the overworld is because you don't expect dungeons to be overly massive and, well, you're int he dungeon so you can't see the overworld! So, make dungeons a lot bigger to keep people in them longer so they don't notice the instanced poopy overworld. See where I'm going with this? WHERE IS THE UNDERWORLD we were promised? They have a real chance with the underworld to increase the size of the game to a very large degree. Depending on the complexity and design it could almost be another game all together and has a great chance in saving some face. 2. Every day things "pre-alpha" "polish later" - no, do it now. Give me great sound fx for everything I do, especially repetitive tasks. Every repetitive task I preform that sounds like it was just taken out of an iron barrel and dumped into the game is going to get on my nerves more and more and more. Clean up the sound, get the sfx in there and the animations for really cool moves. You may not think it is a big thing but think about it. How many POTs have I gone into? Maybe one or two. How many times have I been in combat as opposed to going into POTs? Thats right, you just fucking smiled I know it. 3. Items Where are they? Start generating crafting recipes full fucking time. If you are going to base the powerful gear off crafting then get it done. Stop producing needless shit for the add-on store, you've just claimed that SotA will be solvent until the end of 2016 ffs!!! Get those artists on other stuff, get the coders on crafting. STAT, because the game looks empty. These are also just off the top of my head. If I have time to sit and produce anything that isn't a ramble I will return
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Post by dewderonomy on Dec 18, 2015 2:52:49 GMT
Back when I was active on the forums over there, dewd would post excellent design ideas. I thought maybe it might be a nice change of pace to think about how we would approach the game going forward if we were in charge. Thanks, Argyle. I think most of the issues are rooted in the beginning, and everything else stems from that. For example, The Ultimate RPG. They came out and talked a big game about bringing back sandbox role-playing. There was talk ridiculing health bars and hotbars and everything else. The original design had blood and limping to determine damage, not a health bar. That was awesome. There was also an emphasis on open world exploration and adventure, getting away from quest givers with exclamation points over their heads. Instead, all of those elements still exist, except in the case of quests, they just got rid of the convenience and then made you play a texting guessing game to figure out what the fuck to do next. Now let's look at the big one: advertising two totally different games. I'm not talking about single player vs. multi-player vs. friends only vs. that one group you hang out with when you need to just relax instead of that other group, I mean, you know the one, with the drama llama with her kids begging for attention in the background who keeps hitting on that 20-year-old kid and then starts bitching and moaning if enough people don't encourage her to wake up the next day because she's brave or whatever. Yeah, not talking about that. Instead, I'm talking about Ultima versus Ultima Online. The Ultimas were all very different, but towards the end they had a free-roaming, sandbox element that was greatly appreciated and immensely fun to explore. I recall saving and then jumping into a galleon with the crew from Buc's Den to pirate the various cities and kill those annoying gypsies (which led me to learn one of the treasure map pieces belonged to them). It was enjoyable to have that freedom. Enter Ultima Online, a game remembered by veterans for its nostalgic feeling of community and adventure as much as for its bugs, exploits and wild west society. Now they said this was a successor to the Ultimas, sure, and it could be argued (albeit poorly) that they weren't directly referencing a sequel to UO. Fine, but Richard Garriott and Company kept showing up on UO freeshards and referencing UO in literally everything they did leading up to the Kickstarter. In essence, they advertised for both the Ultima series as well as Ultima Online, and as we all know, UO means different things to different folks - but invokes memories of those early Felucca days for most. I bring this up because this sets the expectations going forward. Referencing things like " UO" and "sandbox" and "going back to how it used to be" means circa-1999 Britain gang warfare and crossroad robberies. Same for those looking toward a single play Ultima-like experience again. Then we get this weird MMO/not-MMO that has almost no real infrastructure to support massively multi-player standards nor is it set up to make for an immersive single player experience. In short, it has no identity, and fails at any kind of label or definition set out to explain it. Likewise, those who care only about single player (and will only play it single player) don't care about how gameplay might affect an online community (enter crafting, combat, housing, et al). You all are smart enough (and probably already know) how this ends up. All from improper expectations and marketing. Additionally, they pushed celebrity - hard. Again, expectations poorly managed. Lots of name dropping, "legends of the industry" and so forth and so on. So when the game shapes up to be mediocre at best in every single department, it breeds further dissent, further criticism. Stretch goals not being upheld properly? Not-so-clever positioning to redefine those goals and rewards? Further criticism, and heated, at that. And their response? No customer service specialists. So not only do they start selling a product they themselves cannot define, but the features of it aren't clear from the beginning for the buyer and they lack support and PR to properly carry the reputation positively. Throw on an evidently sub-par game in both its mechanics and its vision and that creates an ire they only add fuel to by responding with dull sarcasm and infantile witticisms. So what would I do better? How would I fix it? It's clear you need to define your game; say, "We're making this" and then push it forward. They were trying to do too many things at once (not even mentioning how this was obviously designed for mobile devices with the card combat system). It really just comes down to those two things: setting correct expectations (including properly defining the game in the first place) and servicing your fanbase and customers appropriately, neither of which they have done at any point in time. From a game mechanics standpoint, with the budget they have, minimizing the emphasis on POTs is a given. I really can't offer fixes because it's like trying to play a violin, a guitar, a cello, a piano and snipe the wings off a gnat at 1,000 feet with a Red Rider BB gun, all with two broken hands. You simply cannot divert your limited resources to so many things, and when you do have to prioritize, do so inappropriately. POTS is something some will use, while combat is something everyone will use, either directly (hunting, adventuring, fending off spiders/wolves/skeletons while mining) or indirectly (buying resources from the people who have to go fight in order to manufacture items). Combat is also linked directly with quests (this is no Fallout, where your Charisma/Speech can talk your way out of fights) as well as with PvP (which means an entire demographic hinges on whether or not your combat is actually fleshed out and fun). It's no secret why there's a whopping 3-4 PvPers on SotA (and I'm being liberal in that estimate). SotA was never my dream game, at any point; it looked like it might be fun and I was going to give it a go, nothing more. But in contrast, more and more games are deviating from the tired old hotbar/cooldown system of MMOs. I know they tried something different with card combat; as I mentioned on the forums back then, I'm a huge fan of a game called En Garde!, and it could be very similar to that. But not in a real-time action game. It's too wonky, it forces NPCs to be crude and listless by design (can't have interactive mobs and bosses when you have to wait 'til you draw the "Slash" or "Block" cards), and PvP becomes more and more luck-based on top of the inherent RNG norms they included (and actually encourage templates/classes that are optimized for any given fight while minimizing dependence on random draws). The card combat takes the same uninspired gameplay from 1996-style RPGs, "refined" by modern MMOs, and then tacks on a shitty input system. I understand the point of this was "how would you do X differently", but as you can see, it really, truly is a mess from all angles. The more you break it down by a question like that, it becomes clearer and clearer that this was doomed to fail from the start.
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jackjack
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Post by jackjack on Dec 18, 2015 4:51:46 GMT
Example, if you are in dungeons a lot then you dont notice how small the overworld is because you don't expect dungeons to be overly massive and, well, you're int he dungeon so you can't see the overworld! So, make dungeons a lot bigger to keep people in them longer so they don't notice the instanced poopy overworld. See where I'm going with this? WHERE IS THE UNDERWORLD we were promised? They have a real chance with the underworld to increase the size of the game to a very large degree. Depending on the complexity and design it could almost be another game all together and has a great chance in saving some face I second this. The most iconic moments I remember from Ultima 6 & 7 took place in their awesome dungeons. To say nothing of the fun I had playing Underworld 1 and, (to a lesser degree), its sequel. The dungeons were always brutal and unforgiving to any unprepared Avatars, and the twisted humor shines ever more brightly the deeper you delve.
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titsup
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Post by titsup on Dec 18, 2015 5:10:23 GMT
Example, if you are in dungeons a lot then you dont notice how small the overworld is because you don't expect dungeons to be overly massive and, well, you're int he dungeon so you can't see the overworld! So, make dungeons a lot bigger to keep people in them longer so they don't notice the instanced poopy overworld. See where I'm going with this? WHERE IS THE UNDERWORLD we were promised? They have a real chance with the underworld to increase the size of the game to a very large degree. Depending on the complexity and design it could almost be another game all together and has a great chance in saving some face I second this. The most iconic moments I remember from Ultima 6 & 7 took place in their awesome dungeons. To say nothing of the fun I had playing Underworld 1 and, (to a lesser degree), its sequel. The dungeons were always brutal and unforgiving to any unprepared Avatars, and the twisted humor shines ever more brightly the deeper you delve. This issue may be a problem with using the Unity engine. I saw someone posit (here maybe?) that the dungeons don't ever seem to overlap, as in higher levels don't cross over lower levels. I'm not sure if that's the case, but if it is and its consistent throughout the game, it seems as though it may be a product of the engine they are using.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Dec 18, 2015 5:25:55 GMT
I second this. The most iconic moments I remember from Ultima 6 & 7 took place in their awesome dungeons. To say nothing of the fun I had playing Underworld 1 and, (to a lesser degree), its sequel. The dungeons were always brutal and unforgiving to any unprepared Avatars, and the twisted humor shines ever more brightly the deeper you delve. This issue may be a problem with using the Unity engine. I saw someone posit (here maybe?) that the dungeons don't ever seem to overlap, as in higher levels don't cross over lower levels. I'm not sure if that's the case, but if it is and its consistent throughout the game, it seems as though it may be a product of the engine they are using. Oh, I must have missed that one but I did assume it was the case from what I read about sky space around player homes. We can't put stuff on tops of our homes apparently because there is no room in the scene for it and if there were, ++++++loading / draw times. Leave it to Portalarium to re-introduce an Ultima 7 game engine problem. Pretty soon, they'll be teleporting us to different parts of the scene/dungeon/world because its too big for the world space just like U7. IN THE EARLY 90s :/
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titsup
Strong in the Force
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Post by titsup on Dec 18, 2015 5:28:53 GMT
This issue may be a problem with using the Unity engine. I saw someone posit (here maybe?) that the dungeons don't ever seem to overlap, as in higher levels don't cross over lower levels. I'm not sure if that's the case, but if it is and its consistent throughout the game, it seems as though it may be a product of the engine they are using. Oh, I must have missed that one but I did assume it was the case from what I read about sky space around player homes. We can't put stuff on tops of our homes apparently because there is no room in the scene for it and if there were, ++++++loading / draw times. Leave it to Portalarium to re-introduce an Ultima 7 game engine problem. Pretty soon, they'll be teleporting us to different parts of the scene/dungeon/world because its too big for the world space just like U7. IN THE EARLY 90s :/ Its all about recapturing that magic technology from 20 years ago. Its nostalgia and definitely not a limitation!
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Dec 18, 2015 5:29:53 GMT
Oh, I must have missed that one but I did assume it was the case from what I read about sky space around player homes. We can't put stuff on tops of our homes apparently because there is no room in the scene for it and if there were, ++++++loading / draw times. Leave it to Portalarium to re-introduce an Ultima 7 game engine problem. Pretty soon, they'll be teleporting us to different parts of the scene/dungeon/world because its too big for the world space just like U7. IN THE EARLY 90s :/ Its all about recapturing that magic technology from 20 years ago. Its nostalgia and definitely not a limitation! So many better ways to do that!! Let me chuck sleeping potions at mobs
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Post by myrcello on Dec 18, 2015 6:41:59 GMT
3 games with retro style look and technology of the 90's.
But much more deepness.
One pure SotA Solo Game ( made by Richard alone!) 5 Episodes
One pure SotA MMO 2d visual game with shards ( made by Ralph Coster, Darkstarr and team) - and one shard Full Loot. ( grin)
Both not interferring with each other.
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Dec 18, 2015 8:19:07 GMT
3 games with retro style look and technology of the 90's. But much more deepness. One pure SotA Solo Game ( made by Richard alone!) 5 Episodes One pure SotA MMO 2d visual game with shards ( made by Ralph Coster, Darkstarr and team) - and one shard Full Loot. ( grin) Both not interferring with each other. You know that's how I thought the selective multilayer was gonna be. You play the story online or alone or with friends. Maybe the map was limited or like a green zone. Then you went to the mmoish side and the world opened up a lot more and yeah played more mmoish. The story episodes allowing for driving the story and giving a rogue experience richer then an mmo can give. I still think TSW manages to balance story and mmo. A really underated game
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Joviex
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PERMABANNED
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Post by Joviex on Dec 19, 2015 6:08:38 GMT
For example, The Ultimate RPG. They came out and talked a big game about bringing back sandbox role-playing. There was talk ridiculing health bars and hotbars and everything else. The original design had blood and limping to determine damage, not a health bar. That was awesome. There was also an emphasis on open world exploration and adventure, getting away from quest givers with exclamation points over their heads. Instead, all of those elements still exist, except in the case of quests, they just got rid of the convenience and then made you play a texting guessing game to figure out what the fuck to do next. Now let's look at the big one: advertising two totally different games. That was an excellent read. You could have stopped with the above. =) Regardless of how they want you to believe how awesome they are because **we have super awesome design power and years of production** -- well, that may have worked in 2000, but the internet is a great equalizer. They simply failed at making and sticking to any design plan until in the rears -- its a real hmmm moment for me cause I am typically not a person to be taken for a ride, but I gave R.G. the benefit of the doubt. I mean, wtf, its R.G.! And it seems, from a non-developer standpoint, that it continues to fail to live up to itself, and fallen into the mediocrity of modern, unfocused, undeveloped, game design, as evidenced on the slow death crawl on steam and the shocking lack of people actually playing. Log in, online, multiplay, and if you dont go to a PoT with everyone, and want to stroll around, you may as well be playing a solo game. And just to ramble a bit more, to actually give you my answer, as to what: A) Stuck to the original pitch, cause you know, in "his" industry they are called Game Design Documents or Bibles, in my world its called a Show Bible. You make it before you start, with all the goals, and milestones, and you STICK TO IT UNLESS SOMETHING MASSIVELY FUCKS YOUR DAY. B) Changed it to 3D overhead ISO like on the overland map, but not as sloppy (controls) or rigid (camera moves) and with some life, ppl, events, something. Ya know, like EVERY ULTIMA EVER (almost but you get this) Its like walking through a giant whale, I mean MEGASTREISAND huge, who is still alive, and you can hear it, dying, as your long walk takes you past the misty grey entrance and through to an empty looking glass (R.G. promise); mired in sadness (trolling their own now) and still attempting to wallow around, as if it had life, but it cannot move -- for if it does, it will crush the village below, which has propped up this whale on a tower of tiny wooden toothpicks (everyone else), which eventually happen in any case, as the whale continues to sloth ever downward, impaling itself, crushing itself, under it's own fetid design.
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titsup
Strong in the Force
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Post by titsup on Dec 19, 2015 6:30:47 GMT
Its like walking through a giant whale, I mean MEGASTREISAND huge, who is still alive, and you can hear it, dying, as your long walk takes you past the misty grey entrance and through to an empty looking glass (R.G. promise); mired in sadness (trolling their own now) and still attempting to wallow around, as if it had life, but it cannot move -- for if it does, it will crush the village below, which has propped up this whale on a tower of tiny wooden toothpicks (everyone else), which eventually happen in any case, as the whale continues to sloth ever downward, impaling itself, crushing itself, under it's own fetid design. Jesus christ Joviex! I felt like I might need therapy after reading this paragraph.
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Post by nemolives on Dec 20, 2015 15:43:28 GMT
I posit the question, tomorrow, you are given the opportunity to shape this game. You can't change where its been. Everything today and before can't be changed. You can't take away PoTs because youve got people invested for thousands. But you've been given the keys, you are in the driver's seat and Richard is in the passenger seat. He's explained that you may be lost and he's hoping that, though you may not be able to find the original destination, you can come up with a cool new destination for this game. 1.) Announce effective immediately, development is being turned over entirely to creating the global feature set/gameplay that all can access 2.) PoTs, old items that don't work yet, all will be honoured, but are on hold until the game launches 3.) No more new items will appear in the store, or be designed for it. State "Content Is King" again. 4.) Declare that marketing will focus upon new pledges rather than supporting the old, and so pledge prices across the board are to be permanently reduced. 5.) Release a new tier of pledges, from the date the first pledges started to lose their rewards, that get rewards unique to them. Explain this is because a rares trading market doesn't work if people don't have anything they can trade. State clearly you intend to make current joiners feel very special, and have a way to catch up with the early and huge adapters in game. 6.) Craftable radio/podcast receivers, non-unique houseboats, in game achievable Player Owned Towns, anything suggested for but currently locked off from the non-Whale, implement as fast as possible then hype like mad to the non-Red Thomas media. 7.) Stop pretending publicly everything is going swimmingly well; genuine humility and admitting to design drift will make you seem more human, and the development team more wise than they currently do to an audience today that is too used to media manipulation. 8.) Keep Chris Spears well away from social media. 9.) Then knuckle down and get to work HARD.
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