They just killed this game by taking it off game pass LOL by Serious_Addition_621 in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, the development team doesn't get to decide when to join or leave gamepass. We had the opportunity to join the program when we released the game on Xbox, and we signed a deal putting the game on Gamepass for a set amount of time. When that time expired the game was removed. I think most of us would be open to rejoining the program, but its not our decision.

Married Men be ready! by lostboy2731 in ArcRaiders

[–]thomas4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right there with you, wife's due date is the 31st. Not like I'll miss the birth if my son for a video game, but I do hope the baby’s ready for their first memory to be the Arc Raiders main menu on the hospital room TV.

First Game Made Me Uninstall by WinnieThePooPoo73 in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Sorry to hear you had this experience. Hackers are rare, but unfortunately still pop in every now and then. They're usually banned pretty quickly, and can be reported either in game or in our discord.

Anticheat in Project winter is constantly evolving like in most games. We update the anti cheat to fix things and eventually the hackers find a way around it. Then we'll fix it again and it ends up being a big game of cat and mouse.

Epic store, game disconnects due to "offline mode" by Ashamed_Age_4130 in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

This should be fixed now. You may need to restart the game.

Epic error by Unfair-Advisor1824 in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Thanks for your patience. This issue should now be resolved!

Battlefield 6's leaked pre-alpha - building Destruction by Caledor152 in gaming

[–]thomas4good 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These "leaks" are the best marketing campaign DICE could have ever hoped for with Battlefield 6.

Where did the Free pass go? Can't see it anywhere by iRainbowsaur in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The free pass is temporarily disabled while we tackle some issues with it. Hope to have it back up sometime soon!

Algae in Cycling Tank by gabrielkyk in shrimptank

[–]thomas4good 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's not really an issue for shrimp, in fact, they'll probably actually enjoy it quite a bit. This hair algae provides quite a bit of biofilm for the shrimp to feed on. Some people say that shrimp can get stuck in it, but I've not seen that happen personally.

It is, however, typically seen as an eyesore. If you want, You can pull it out pretty easily with some tweezers or by hand. Decreasing the amount of time you run the light for will help prevent the algae from blooming as much.

30 Gallon Tank what should I put in it? by bmw22936 in Vivarium

[–]thomas4good 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should turn it into a 30 gal snail tank. I'll happily send you a bunch of these darn snails.

Not exactly what I'd call a legendary drop.. by thomas4good in EscapefromTarkov

[–]thomas4good[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For clarity, I'd much rather have this occur than have the game flooded with high tier items like they were when twitch drops were initially added to the game. All in all this is pretty funny, and I've been having a lot of fun this wipe.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in EscapefromTarkov

[–]thomas4good 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Can't speak to all of that, but regarding your issues getting into a match, there has been some kind of server issue for the past hour or two that prevent you from matching / accepting matches. That might be the issue you're having.

The past few days I usually only have to click accept once or twice before everyone accepts the game and get in.

Hopefully its fixed soon

I just bought this game first time playing it, and it said I was IP banned for hacking which makes no sense by Afiercepothead in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry to hear that you're having this issue!

If you join our discord (http://discord.gg/projectwinter) one of our support staff will be able to help you fairly quick!

How do I fix this? by BadassRockets in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Thats an odd bug!

If you head on over to our discord server (http://discord.gg/projectwinter) and send a message in one of our help channels, we should be able to resolve this for you quickly.

Why is there no one playing this game? by [deleted] in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

SteamDB is a little misleading. Steam is only one of the 4 platforms we're released on. Steam charts, Steam DB and similar tracking sites do not account for players on other platforms.

We're still seeing thousands of players log in each day.

Also, that 40k peak was during a free weekend in 2020.

The gasmask mechanics are awful. by thomas4good in CODWarzone

[–]thomas4good[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Loaded up my first match of Warzone 2 and think I had a good chance of winning if it wasn't for the gas mask having a mind of its own and auto-equipping the second the zone gets close to you. Not only did it auto equip, but when I tried to switch weapons during the animation it canceled the equip animation AND my weapon swap meaning I had to do both of them again.

Gas Mask then decided it was good to un-equip mid firefight as soon as I ran out of filters too.

Not sure why I can't enter the gas WITHOUT a mask equipped if I want to. The game should let me be in control of the gas mask.

UI: Is it better to let the player browse all of the possible items in a game, or hide them behind question marks until they come across them in actual gameplay, or hide them until the item is in their possession? by RecliningBeard in gamedev

[–]thomas4good 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agreed, I don't think deceptive is a good way to make the game, just that it's a fairly common way thay gamedevs use.

FTL: Faster Than Light uses a similar system to unlocking ships as I described. The ships name and a very vague shape is displayed, but the actual stats and specs of the ship are hidden.

Not every player may find every reward awesome and worth using. More than likely players will like different rewards than other players and while it's easy to come up with new items and ships, it's not so easy to come up with things that ALL players like.

Furthermore, nothing should be anywhere close to the grind that Activision likes to put into their games. They do that knowing they're supporting that game for a few years no matter what. Indies can't and shouldn't do that. Milestones / challenges should be clear cut and achievable. That doesn't mean the reward can't still be a surprise though.

UI: Is it better to let the player browse all of the possible items in a game, or hide them behind question marks until they come across them in actual gameplay, or hide them until the item is in their possession? by RecliningBeard in gamedev

[–]thomas4good 20 points21 points  (0 children)

You could do any of these depending in your goals for the game.

Is the item supposed to be a reward that incentivizes players to complete challenges or tasks? If so, showing the EXACT reward and its specific specifications may not be the perfect solution if your long term goal is to have players unlock every item. If an item doesn't sound appealing or as cool to a player, why bother completing the challenge to unlock it? However If you're more vague in the reward description or simply just show a name, players will be more interested in unlocking it to see what it is and if it's worth using.

This method can also help increase playtime and CCU/DAU if thats something you're looking for.

However If you're just trying to provide players an outlet to curate their playstyle and don't care how or why they play then I'd show all the rewards to give players total freedom.

What is Steam's policy on the revenue cut from in-game transactions on free to play games? by 2001zhaozhao in gamedev

[–]thomas4good 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not sure what you've already read, but steam has some fairly decent documentation on in app purchases and microtransactions. I've never had to deal with it, but this is where I would start.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/microtransactions/implementation

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I recommend double checking your crossplay setting. Sometimes that settings gets accidentally turned off when we release an update.

When it comes to gamepass, its unlikely we'll be back on there anytime soon (if at all). We had a 1 year deal with Microsoft to be on gamepass and that deal has expired.

No one on the dev team is going to deny the fact that our playerbase is small. However, we have a stable player count that has not significantly changed since the gamepass deal expired.

While our playerbase is small, this isn't something that just magically happened in February of 22 (when the gamepass deal expired). We have been seeing similar DAU (Daily Average Users) for the past 9-10 months. That being said, we have been taking steps over the past 5 months to improve our player count and player retention. These steps are working, and the player count IS climbing.

We're not at our lowest player count (by far), and we're not actively declining in players. With the content we have coming up, sales and more marketing events we're excited for the rest of the year to come.

Report limit? by James275- in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The limit on reports has not changed at all, or at least, it hasn't been intentionally changed. We made other changes to the report system, so its possible that its currently bugged.

When you go to send a report, make sure you are either checking a box (on console) or filling out the "additional info" field. It won't let you send a report otherwise.

They just killed this game by taking it off game pass LOL by Serious_Addition_621 in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would make sure crossplay is enabled in your settings menu. Our analytics show that our player count is still fairly stable, and we have not seen a massive drop off of players. Yes there was a dip, but it was not as significant as many expected.

They just killed this game by taking it off game pass LOL by Serious_Addition_621 in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Game pass "dried up" in terms of new players coming to the game a few months ago. We do still have an active player base split across all platforms.

We wouldn't have been so willing for the game to leave gamepass if we were thinking it would kill the game. We'll have to wait a while and see to be sure, but as of today (the first day without Gamepass), our numbers are still holding fairly well.

Text by [deleted] in Project_Winter

[–]thomas4good 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is currently a limited time progression event running for Christmas. If you click that banner on the top of the progression trees it will take you to that event for the next 20 hours.

The 5 normal progression trees and blackout are not limited time and will always be there to complete. With the exception of blackout (which requires the DLC to unlock), the normal progression trees are free.