Can someone at Focus explain why they are unable to communicate on a regular basis with the community?
It's been a while now since Mudrunner was released. The community rallied to buy Mudrunner and feedback on problems they have encountered. Yet, it seems that Focus have largely ignored the community, almost to the point the community are concerned about the future of the game.
If I was community manager at Focus, or even someone related to the the development and publication of Mudrunner, I would be desperate to get the community on side and reassure them. However, for Focus, that seems not to be the case. Surely someone, somewhere at Focus understands that good publicity with an engaged and enthusiastic community will help drive Mudrunner sales.
I'm fed up of visiting the Focus forum and the Steam Discussions looking for a hint of some progress. There are rarely any new stickies posted by Focus (or anyone connected to Mudrunner). I have trawl through community posts in a hope I might see a reply by someone connected to Mudrunner, which might shed some news on the situation. Every time it's the same, "we're working on a new update, we can't tell you what it is, or when it will be ready".
Why is it so difficult to to give a regular update, even if it was once a fortnight. Anything is is better than nothing. You clearly know what you're working on, but do not want to share, but even this would work:
20 Nov 2017
New update progressing slowly. Unexpected delays in development, which meant a full re-write of x component.
4 Dec 2017
Update has made some significant progress. We're now in final stages of putting a closed alpha release together.
18 Dec 2017
Closed alpha release built and is currently undergoing testing. We've already discovered a few bugs which we're working on.
8 Jan 2018
Having taken a break for Christmas period, we're now continuing development.
22 Jan 2018
We're at beta, hooray. Testing underway, not too many faults have shown up.
12 Feb 2018
The update is looking good. Here is a teaser of what's in store... x...
Anticipated release 12 March 2018
And so on...
Do you see how it's possible to keep the community engaged without revealing any details?
Seriously Focus, start communicating with your community. I don't care if it takes you two months to just change the pattern of the tyre tread, but please, please, please sort out a regular communications with the community, you will die without them.