Well I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I will say the biggest impact on my level of communication has been one thing: Launch.
We can talk a lot about the toll working on a project like BT takes, but often the words are incomplete and inadequate. I was pretty spent after we finished BT and we're not just talking about physical energy depletion, it's the emotional toll too. In my career of putting out games, I very often will not even play, look at, or even THINK about a project or it's subject matter post launch. I am a guy so
surely this is a false equivalency, but I imagine this phenomenon shares traits and similarities with post-partum depression. Thankfully BT is a unique project in that I am very ready for more, still play it for fun, and am always cranking on new ideas for stuff to add value to the game.
That doesn't change the fact that energy stores need to be replenished. As many of you pointed out, us getting in here and mixing it up with you is additional time for our team members. It's energy expenditure, and when I am running low and have to choose where the fuel gets spent, I prioritize the work. That doesn't diminish my desire to interact with everyone here, but it does diminish my ability. We don't have dedicated time for this, so it's about stealing a moment to write something and also about having something genuinely useful to add. I read posts in here all the time, but as Mitch has said in the past, observing can be more useful for us than participating. Dev interaction will always color opinions and can shift a conversation.
So for my part, I won't chime in unless I think I can provide new clarity or real value.
That being said, with the game's release there was a large influx of new folks on the forums here offering feedback, bug reports, etc. While that stuff is great and useful, I'm already leveraging our internal review and bug reporting systems to pursue that work on the live product. There was a lot to add and improve post launch. Simply because the game is live out there doesn't mean we don't have a lot of work to do! Much of that work is fix oriented, it isn't the sort of collaborative two way conversation about concept we've had with the community in the past. It's cut and dry goals of stability and quality of life fixing. (At least my bugs were mostly!)
I'm excited to continue my work in BT and the stuff that's going on is really awesome. I can't give further detail beyond my personal hype for what's next. And the hype is real.
As for community interaction, I've received not a word of change in how we're expected to talk with y'all. Save for the obvious fact that we no longer just speak for our little HBS family with each post here, we're now representing the larger PDX organization. So care must be taken to be respectful of their modes and ways of conversing with all of you.
TL;DR. We're busy! People are taking much deserved breaks. And I'm working on stuff that I can't talk about just yet. I'm not gone away, just out of pocket for a moment.
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