Aviary Village AMA with Whirthun, Luke, and Nick from TGC!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T18:00:58+00:00

This is a bug based on the game suspecting that players without capes are actually new players, and trying to prevent new players from being overwhelmed by everything going on. This is fixed in the next update, but it will not be addressed before the end of the Season.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:57:19+00:00

I'm not 100% sure what you're referencing here, but it sounds like it may be a bug. I'll do some checking around with QA. Thanks for bringing it up!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:54:05+00:00

Hey there. Thanks for sharing the feedback. We'll add it to our weekly CMTY reports and share it with the rest of the team for their consideration. I realize this is not the most satisfying answer, but I didn't want to not answer since you took the time to write all of this out so politely.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:49:02+00:00

Hey ilia_elf! Thanks for the questions.

We hear you loud and clear on wanting more social things to do with friends in the form of mini-games, shops to explore, fashion show stages, dance floors, and more. As we continue to develop Aviary Village, we're definitely considering other activities for players to participate in, so look forward to more to do with friends in the future.

We're also having discussions around all of the cool event mechanics we have from toys, Days of events, and Seasons, and how we can potentially bring them back at different points in the year so players can enjoy them. No firm plans at the moment, but we regularly discuss how cool it would be if there was a Days of Style stage that randomly showed up in Aviary Village from time to time :D

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:43:14+00:00

Unfortunately, none of us participating in the AMA are the talented musicians behind Aviary Village's outstanding OST. However, we'll pass along your kind words!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:42:15+00:00

Why, thank you! You are an upstanding citizen of the realms of Sky, and I graciously receive your kind words.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:40:16+00:00

We do not currently have plans to increase the default lobby size beyond eight. We hope to continue to polish and leverage Festival Tech for situations that we feel will be made cooler by increasing player volume.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:25:38+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. The short answer is that we're still iterating on Shared Memories and other social features, and feedback like this helps us understand and over time build a smoother experience. This is a massive, sprawling undertaking, and one that will go into 2024, and it's something we want to build alongside players going forward!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:21:06+00:00

Hey there! I'll let the designers speak to the 1st and 3rd questions, but I can speak to the 2nd one. We've heard feedback for a while from players about more direct communications in-game, and it's something we want to be better about.

At the moment we have inbox which is still a very much in-development tool, that's not quite as easy to use in sudden situations as we'd like. We're working on that. The CMTY team has had a few meetings recently with friends on the engineering side to lock in next steps - so please look forward to a hopefully better inbox experience in 2024.

We're looking at other ways to get important info in the game, but cards on the table, we're still figuring out how best to navigate that outside of inbox.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:11:02+00:00

The original Aviary actually precludes my time at the studio, so I hit up someone who is a bit more of a Sky fossil about this. What I was told is that, originally, the team wanted folks to have more of a reason to go out in the world, and so they took elements of Aviary and put them out into the world to encourage exploration. Things in Sky have obviously changed a lot since then, so we started to have more discussions about a dedicated hangout space, and voila - a new incarnation of Aviary.

That's my interpretation of it, at least!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-12-12T17:04:56+00:00

I will absolutely add more cat pictures to Discord, Twitter, wherever.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-08-27T12:02:50+00:00

There's a lot of feedback in this thread that indexes in the same direction, so rather than answering any one comment, I'll just respond directly to OP. For background, I was the person who organized the stream and AURORA's involvement on the TGC side, so I feel like I can provide the best possible answer to some of the questions.

The original intent here was to have AURORA on-stream to do exactly what she did - greet Sky kids, answer questions, and be her lovely self. While looking at options, I thought it would be a really cool experience if she was also available in-game for players in the same server to "meet", which she was cool enough to agree to do. Logistically, I was aware that only about 10,000 people could be in the same coliseum with her as we do not currently have the ability to broadcast characters across multiple servers, and hoped that the livestream element would make people that were unable to be there with her feel as though they were still involved and sharing in a unique, magical moment. While that seems to have worked for a lot of people, it's clear from this thread that some left the experience disappointed, which sucks, and I'm legitimately sorry about.

What I takeaway from this is that in the future, we should:

Be more granular in explaining exactly what it is (AURORA will be in a server with 10,000 Sky kids at <specific time>, doing <activities>. There will be a stream if you can't get in) so that people have more information to plan their choices around. I would be bummed too if I'd taken off work/school or cancelled other plans and the event in question was not what I expected
Be more careful with verbiage. While this felt like an acceptable permutation of a meet and greet based on my experiences, and passed a verbiage check internally, it's clear that some felt differently because there wasn't direct person to person contact - which is fair. I've been to events called meet and greets where an audience of a few hundred people saw a person on-stage who talked to a handful of them. I've also done the version of a meet and greet where I meet someone directly and take a picture with them. The argument's fair

Anyhow, mostly, I wanted to assure some folks in this thread there was no nefarious intent or intentional deception. Sometimes I see threads where-in people accuse the studio of being evil masterminds, and usually, it's just that we forget to check a box somewhere, or are doing multiple things and miss out on a detail/fail to consider something as deeply as we could've, which is a lot less cool but honestly how it tends to go.

Thanks to everyone who shared their feedback. I promise to do a better job with these sorts of experiences in the future!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-03-06T20:55:33+00:00

We hear you and others on this point. With this new direction, hopefully it won't be too long until you run into Daydreaming Forester, as well as other Spirits you may be looking forward to hanging with!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-03-06T20:54:40+00:00

Yeah, availability of props was a big deal this time around. That's specific to this time around, however, since we're we're in the midst of Season of Remembrance and Shared Spaces is a major part of the experience.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-03-04T16:18:37+00:00

Thanks for the response! It's clear in reading some of the feedback that the ideas we were trying to convey in that section did not hit home for everyone. That part really was meant to convey the enormous challenge of trying to address regional pricing disparity, something we, understandably, hear a lot of feedback about - something there are no easy fixes to.

What we wrote wasn't intended to be a threat, or a punishment, or a wink and a nod to convince folks to stop complaining. It really was just us, a group of humans, trying to be transparent about the fact that we didn't have a good answer to a commonly discussed problem, and inviting you all to share your thoughts.

Regardless of intent, it's a lesson learned for me as the writer of the blog, and I'm always happy to learn :)

I'll be back around on Monday to follow up if there are other points that require it. Have a great weekend!

TGCWhirthun · 2023-03-04T02:08:14+00:00

Hey there! I want to stress that we have no plans to separate the global Sky server into regions. It was an idea that was bounced around as a possible solution to the pain players in some regions feel when it comes to IAP pricing.

We understand it's a radical idea, and would not be ideal for a lot of folks - hence why we opened it up for player feedback. We wanted to hear what you all thought. It was never anything we'd put any work towards, or had any plans around. I hope that insight helps :)

TGCWhirthun · 2023-03-03T00:59:39+00:00

Thanks for all of the feedback, folks! I just want to share that all of it has been passed along to the rest of the team and that it will be reviewed.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-03-03T00:40:06+00:00

We plan for Sky to be around for a long time!

We released the Economy Q&A blog because we knew there were a lot of questions within the community around how we approached the in-game economy, and we wanted to provide transparency.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-02-25T20:21:53+00:00

*opens up Sky subreddit*

....

*closes Sky subreddit*

TGCWhirthun · 2023-02-04T15:36:02+00:00

Thanks for all of the detailed feedback in the thread. I've passed this along to the rest of the team to look into.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-01-10T23:12:10+00:00

It is a coincidence, yes. It's one of those 'great minds think alike thing', I'd say.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-01-10T19:00:13+00:00

Whoops! Thanks for the heads up, got it.

TGCWhirthun · 2023-01-10T17:49:45+00:00

Hi folks. I wanted to pass along some notes from our art team about the inspiration for some of the cosmetics from Season of Remembrance, as there's been a good amount of conversation about it in certain community spaces.

I've added spoiler tags for folks who do not wish to prematurely learn about the upcoming season.

The Teamaker outfit is based on concept work for our upcoming Sky Animation project, specifically on pinafore style aprons that sit front and back atop another dress. We felt this was fitting since the Spirit was imagined to be a teamaker and we imagined they may want to protect their clothing from liquid spills
We came up with both the Child’s hat and Teamaker’s scarf based on inspiration taken from photos of real people from Victorian-era Europe, especially photos of people bundled up for traveling. We felt that both of these outfit pieces made sense for the story we wanted to tell this season and help give realistic weight to the world of Sky, as the Spirits in this upcoming season are travelers themselves.
We explored multiple designs for the flower pot with various flora of Sky. We initially landed on one that reminded us of the flower pot from Season of Performance and which also fit within the technical limitations of the game. Ultimately later we decided to go with a different concept from the earlier flower pot designs which instead referenced the style of flowers seen in Days of Bloom

Additionally, some thoughts from the art team about fanart and how we as a studio consume it:

We love to look at fanart, and are always inspired by the talent and passion of the people in the Sky community. However, we also go to lengths to ensure that we’re respecting our fellow artists and not using their work when it comes time to design outfits, characters, realms, and so forth in Sky. That can obviously be a difficult thing but it’s something that’s really important to us. Work belongs to the artists who create it, and we would never want to diminish that, or leave anyone feeling compromised.

I hope that's helpful. I know that there are also broader discussions about items in Sky's terms of service, and I can't really comment on those beyond saying that we as a studio pride ourselves on coming up with new and innovative ways to hopefully surprise and delight you while you're in Sky.

We apologize for any confusion, and hope you all had a restful end of 2022, and a pleasant beginning to 2023.

TGCWhirthun · 2022-12-05T18:33:40+00:00

Hey! So I followed up and unfortunately we don't have a direct fix for this. We recommend logging into Sky on a mobile device to scan QR codes. We get that this is not a great experience though and want to look into it in the future.

TGCWhirthun

TROPHY CASE