Status Update 2020-09-07

[Shock]

Will there be next Superfighters project in future?

[KliPeH]

Off Topic

[...]

Hopefully you don't find this reply as an attack rather than an opinion. I haven't insulted anyone here so I don't feel like a ban would be justified.

No, but posting from multiple duplicate accounts (one of which is literally called WishICouldGetMyMoneyBack) just to post the same complaint (the OP in the example is also you) is. Doing so is against site rules as clarified in the highlighted text below.

Let’s pretend you’ve forgotten the passwords to the other accounts in which case I can freely deactivate them without stifling your criticism. Please don’t create more accounts.

[Hjarpe]

Will there be next Superfighters project in future?

I've been thinking about some of the tech we're doing for BO, and how exciting it would be in a Superfighters game... and I can't pretend I haven't been doodling tons of concept art and grown extremely attached to a title and overall concept for what "Superfighters 3" would be... that said, don't get your hopes up. Gurt has sworn to never make a multiplayer game again, and I don't blame him. We won't embark on another journey like that willy-nilly, and certainly not while working dayjobs. If we had the bags of money and time, there are definitely ideas.

[Odex64]

Well, I grew up with Superfighters Deluxe and that's enough for me. Thanks for making such a great game and I don't regret all the time I spent on it.
Although I don't really care if there will be a Superfighters sequel since I'm losing my passion for games, but I'll definitely try your upcoming projects.

Good luck with Barbarian Odyssey and Filcher ^^.

[Mighty Spirit the 2]

One thing you should know about SFD is that the broad vision of the game, most of the design and of course the technology, were chosen way back in 2011/2012. The streetsweepers weren't a last-minute feature we threw in because we thought they'd "bring in the casual players" or whatever, they were planned since at least 2014.

That's surprising for me to hear. Because to me, it really does look like you put them in last minute as a way to reassure potential buyers that the game would keep getting updates. However the main reason i consider them last-minute additions was the "special" design choice. Why were drones implemented in this way? They do not add anything to the game, both in terms of fun and in terms of any strategy. I mean i get that they played a part in the campaigns, but then why didn't they stay there? I'm sure many people would have appreciated a different port of drones into versus. To me it made it really unenjoyable and the amount of anger and complaints it took for you to actually nerf them was just a joke. It really makes me think you couldn't be bothered.

We don't make choices based on what we think will bring in the most players, we make the game we want to make, following the initial vision until it's realized, for better or worse.

That is truly disheartening to hear. What was the point in building up a play-testing community in the first place, just so that we would fall in love with the game, and for you then to not care about how "we" wanted the game to turn out? Didn't you make the game geared towards a certain audience, just for you to then realize a vision that none of us believed in once the game hit Steam? For me SFD today is hardly recognizable with the game i was playing 2 years ago. Many players will tell you that those are 2 entirely different games, even older veterans will tell you that older versions are also separate games if you called them different names. Couldn't you have released the older versions alongside the newest one on Steam? Because i can tell you from what the player count represents: it was for the worse.

Whether you think it was improved or ruined in the end, we finished SFD. It's done, and it's a weird blurry snapshot of who we were at different points of that way-too-long development cycle.

You might consider it done, but the game still holds massive potential.

We're not likely to wind back features to an earlier version, because we don't think the game was ever better than in its current, final form.

This reflects how little you played your own game before, or how little attention you paid while playing. Let me say it again:
Melee is not better now - and I've already pointed out numerous times why, I will not do it again here, but i will link what i said in other posts:
What I (and the community) think is wrong with the game
Complaints about the changes made to SFD
The sudden fast block
Versus in general is not better now - I'll let Raveman explain why: https://steamcommunity.com/id/Tplay200/ ... ed/855860/
I know that i couldn't possibly convince you that the game was in a better state before since it seems like you already have your mind set in stone, and of course, all these are "opinions", but when a lot of Veteran players share the same opinions it should set of a bell, don't you think?
Unless of course you stick by your word and don't shed a tear about what veterans think. But honestly i don't think that's true or else you wouldn't have changed things people complained about and implemented features people wanted.

A dwindling community (I haven't checked the stats, but I'll take your word for it) could be a natural consequence of the game being older and veteran players moving on with their lives, as Gurt suggested. It could also be the result of those players falling in love with the work-in-progress version and not accepting subsequent changes which were planned from the start, which is a hard thing to predict or know what to do with - especially since new features were always complained about, not just the ones that stayed controversial months and years later.

Here you basically already answered why the game's community is dying or already in my eyes, dead. When you pumped the game full of stuff that few people liked, and subsequently didn't let there be an option for people to really opt out (although you did add a beta branch this did not spread out to bug fixes and map editor updates, so essentially being pointless downgrades of certain features, and at the same time not being able to play with people online because most always kept the game updated), of course the player count dropped hard. A shame isn't it then? To work so hard just to have so few appreciate all that effort.
Also you said here:

As for the player count, we're not ignoring the problem. We obviously won't let the game die.

The how come you still haven't officially acknowledged the lack of players? It seems like you automatically assume the player count dropped because of other reasons like you listed above (which are true but not the main reason), and not that you put a relatively "high" price on the game. The fact that some very passionate people left in the community are desperately (and hopelessly) trying to keep the game alive, even when it should've been your responsibility, kind of speaks for itself how dire the circumstances are. What do you think, when is it actually time for you to act? When the player count is as low as only 10 people online per month? That's way too late imo, better now while you can still turn the tables.
Ok fair, you want to release the game on other stores to make it more accessible, but what's the pricing going to look like over there? Because if it's the same as now I'm quite certain it won't really boost the player count back to what it was like at its prime. Can't you at least consider the idea of a locked down free version?

If you feel the need to complain about the current state of SFD, I will ask that you be EXTREMELY specific about what you are proposing. Posts like the one above this don't do anything constructive (unless giving me a minor anxiety attack is considered constructive, but never mind that).

I'd say it's more like a wake up call to what veteran players have felt to say for while.

[Hjarpe]

@Mighty Spirit the 2: You sure aren't too charitable in your interpretations, lol. I appreciate the specific links and examples - I'm pretty sure I have read and responded to them before, and if I wasn't so discouraged and despondent by the tone of your post I might try harder to see the subtle points raised - but given that a good-faith conversation seems out of the question, I really can't muster the enthusiasm.

[ChopaVlone]

@Mighty Spirit the 2: You sure aren't too charitable in your interpretations, lol. I appreciate the specific links and examples - I'm pretty sure I have read and responded to them before, and if I wasn't so discouraged and despondent by the tone of your post I might try harder to see the subtle points raised - but given that a good-faith conversation seems out of the question, I really can't muster the enthusiasm.

May I ask. Why are you so against making older versions of SFD accessible and playable to the public?

[Mighty Spirit the 2]

@Mighty Spirit the 2 You sure aren't too charitable in your interpretations, lol. I appreciate the specific links and examples - I'm pretty sure I have read and responded to them before, and if I wasn't so discouraged and despondent by the tone of your post I might try harder to see the subtle points raised - but given that a good-faith conversation seems out of the question, I really can't muster the enthusiasm.

My tone? I don't see what's wrong with expressing my care for a game i grew up with and that meant a lot to me.

You know, I really don't think you realize how much you've hurt certain people by following through with some of your decisions. Superfighters Deluxe was more than just "a free game" to waste time with for me and a lot of people. The game meant something to me. It was special to "us". SFD was there for me when i had good days, and it was always there for me when i came home after another shit day at High School.
To put it in the words of the legendary Pixir:

SuperFighters Deluxe is the only game you need in life."

For me too SFD was the only game i played during Alpha 1.3.4c and Beta 1.0.2c. Now that it's gone i don't believe any game could quite fill the hole that SFD left within me.

Perhaps if you had taken the time and joined us on our journey and played the game regularly, made connections with dedicated players, shed some tears and shared the same laughs we did, you would be looking back on the legacy of SFD not in the eyes of a developer but of a passionate player. At least to me, it looks like you lost touch with what your most dedicated community wanted. You know i used to really look up to you guys a few years ago. You are the reason why i too want to make a game eventually. But for you to not care at all what we felt and follow through "for better or for worse" is really making me and a lot of other people despondent. What exactly was the purpose for us to build a meaningful relationship with the game, just so when the time came to be discarded like we were nothing at all?

This tone and content in my posts your referring to is what people should've been saying for while. Why I had to be the one to finally say it is sad, since so many felt the same way, but from what i heard they just gave up trying to make themselves understood.

I'm always up for having a logical and transparent conversation. Like why haven't you addressed any of my questions from my post
- Will there be a free version?
- Why don't you release the older versions of the game?
- What will the price be on the other Stores?
All important and relevant questions. Of course you have every right not to answer such innocent questions but i think that'll just speak for itself.

[Shock]

I'd like to put another stick into this campfire and don't touch Hjarpe. He's a Game designer, @Mighty Spirit the 2 i agree with biggest part of your post, but it's too strong and unnecessarily negative.

Now this is message to devs:
If you made the game, why wouldn't you finish it as well, so players can keep it alive? With at least a bit more players in community, i'm not saying that i don't like the current game... But these times are cursed and i mean the community... Whatever you say, there are a lot of old players who still might play this game and like it through the "underground emptiness", but most of beta-testers from youtube just deleted SFD game review why?

Yes, Box2D sucks on the current time and i know that some of these troubles, huge errors cannot be fixed, but i mean at least more freedom of making new content, like mods, i know that this is possible and everyone can make it, but why all the game files are so well locked? And i'm not saying about solid tiles and objects, i meant the weapons(at least).

This is your first big project that made a huge community through the years and you just give it up? You still have a chance to fix this situation and i don't mean the game glitches or anything... But losing 8 years on something should worth the actual popularity.

With another projects you may grow, but they will never overtake Superfighters community that still common between all of your games, since deluxe version had multiplayer... Look at other games like Henry stickman which was just a flash game, now the dev made last note in this story by bringing interactive stories and endings into new part...

Why won't you make discord server? Forums is old and unpopular form of discussion, if you don't like mentions, you can just disable them. But if you had official superfighters server in discord, this would be popular and active... Other SFD servers are just abandoned, + you already have moderators.

[Gurt]

At least to me, it looks like you lost touch with what your most dedicated community wanted.

SFD was never about us creating a game solely for our most dedicated community during development, implementing whatever they suggested and eventually release SFD for free. If you feel that this ever was the case then we must have failed with our communication on how and why we created SFD and why we needed feedback/testers during development.

I feel we have already answered the other questions directly or indirectly in other topics and comments but one:
Q: "What will the price be on the other Stores?"
A: About the same. It's about making the game available on other platforms than Steam, not competing with Steam. Sales might come and go at different times though. As of now we might start this process mid 2021 or later as we still have some administrative things to figure out. But we don't know when we will figure them out.

About modding again:
Real modding with custom sounds, textures, animations, logic, code synced across server/clients etc. to modify any part of the code is not possible to get into SFD today in a safe controlled manner and I don't want to spend another 2-4 or more years refactoring the core in my spare time, time I can spend creating another game. A lot of assets are also hard-coded into the game as I didn't know better coding 8 years ago.

Let's say I only focus on creating support to mod and create custom weapons with custom textures and sounds and logic. What would that mean? Well, some sort of interface towards external .dlls, some sort of logic loop and rendering that you can modify. Done? Nope! Then I need to have some way syncing weapon-mods between server/clients and enable/disable them dynamically depending on which server you join and which mods are active on that server. Done now? Nope, more stuff to fix! Damn that's a lot of work again which takes time, time I can spend on another game.

Barbarian Odyssey on the other hand is built around modability in mind from start. My early tests show great promises. And whatever our custom mod interface won't allow you can always patch up using Harmony which will be part of the game. I'm excited over the capabilities already.

[Maniac]

Will there be next Superfighters project in future?

I've been thinking about some of the tech we're doing for BO, and how exciting it would be in a Superfighters game... and I can't pretend I haven't been doodling tons of concept art and grown extremely attached to a title and overall concept for what "Superfighters 3" would be... that said, don't get your hopes up. Gurt has sworn to never make a multiplayer game again, and I don't blame him. We won't embark on another journey like that willy-nilly, and certainly not while working dayjobs. If we had the bags of money and time, there are definitely ideas.

So can we expect to get superfighters 3 somewhere in the future when the dev team has more members? My hopes are up and I am excited, like imagine playing the new version of superfighters deluxe many years later and reliving the nostalgia as an adult xd

[Hjarpe]

You know, I really don't think you realize how much you've hurt certain people by following through with some of your decisions. Superfighters Deluxe was more than just "a free game" to waste time with for me and a lot of people. The game meant something to me. It was special to "us". SFD was there for me when i had good days, and it was always there for me when i came home after another shit day at High School.
To put it in the words of the legendary Pixir:

SuperFighters Deluxe is the only game you need in life."

For me too SFD was the only game i played during Alpha 1.3.4c and Beta 1.0.2c. Now that it's gone i don't believe any game could quite fill the hole that SFD left within me.

Perhaps if you had taken the time and joined us on our journey and played the game regularly, made connections with dedicated players, shed some tears and shared the same laughs we did, you would be looking back on the legacy of SFD not in the eyes of a developer but of a passionate player. At least to me, it looks like you lost touch with what your most dedicated community wanted. You know i used to really look up to you guys a few years ago. You are the reason why i too want to make a game eventually. But for you to not care at all what we felt and follow through "for better or for worse" is really making me and a lot of other people despondent. What exactly was the purpose for us to build a meaningful relationship with the game, just so when the time came to be discarded like we were nothing at all?

First of all, you'd be amazed how differently you play a game as a dev than as a player. The expectations are completely different, and you don't have time to invest as much time in the game as a hardcore player, as that would literally mean spending every waking hour on the game. If all we did was play our own game, that would be pretty masturbatory.

In some ways you guys always know our games a million times better than we will - this is unavoidable. So taking lots of feedback makes sense, and we did, but you obviously can't please everyone.

Based on what you say, I think it's good that we didn't "join you on your journey" more than we did. I used to watch TotalBiscuit (RIP) and one of the things he was good about was saying "hey, I'm NOT your friend, I'm providing a service" - he understood early on about parasocial relationships on the Internet and how unhealthy they are for both sides. You shouldn't hang your happiness on us, nor we on you guys, because it's an asymmetrical relationship - you don't know us, and we know even less about you. We can't please all of you, which means we will have to "betray" some of you every single time we make a decision. If that came with the feeling of betraying a friend every time, it would be unbearable. Our relationship needs to be that of a creator and a consumer. If we ever do false marketing or behave unethically, you guys should criticize us and stop buying our stuff. But if we ever start treating you as personal friends, you should fucking run a million miles away, because any semi-famous Internet person who does that is either dangerously stupid or trying to manipulate you.

We're glad people have found meaning in SFD, we do too. We try to make games that are worthwhile and that have a positive effect on people's lives, otherwise what the fuck are we doing. But people change, circumstances change, and you can't blame us for moving on, just as we don't blame you for it. At the end of the day it's just a game, and expecting it to be anything else is just putting us in an impossible situation.

Regarding older versions of the game, we don't provide access to them right now, and that is not a trivial decision to make. When we have the time and motivation, we'll consider all the ins and outs, but that takes time and energy which we need for other things right now.

@Shock: We agree that switching from the forum to an official Discord would be a good idea for technical reasons. I feel like the forum model provides a healthy distance between you and us, but I get that it's kinda clunky and outdated. We'd be interested in what our mods think about it.

don't get your hopes up.

My hopes are up and I am excited

I've failed again -_-

[Noble]

Honestly, I like the drones and I don't think I have anything against the newest versions, besides the fact that I don't like how the bodies knock everything down but it seems like something that only I dislike. But hey, everyone has something they don't like, and to me, the only thing that prevents me from playing SFD sometimes is the fact that I can't host, even if you don't like something you can simply mod it out (even if you can't mod absolutely everything), don't y'all ever notice how the map editor creates endless possibilities and longer game life expectancy?

I've no idea how this status update became a complaint thread, but since we're at it, gotta say I support the idea of creating a Discord server, with 3 things that I could point out:
1. Any new casual idea can be easily be put into practical (like into some channel for example). Perhaps an announcement, an event, or even a bot that posts updates automatically or does anything you can think of.
2. Much less to be handled by the devs, and essentially, they won't be messaged, notified or bothered about anything unless they want to.
3. Needless to say, moving to something new takes time, things to be thought, some problems solved, new problems created. Discord is much more accessible, active, but at the same time chaotic. On the other hand, everyone including me has expertise making Discord servers and can be helpful, saving a lot of the devs time.

I also think it's the greatest way to keep us updated from Mythologic's new projects.
I intend to make my own games soon and I personally couldn't imagine my poor self getting anywhere if not sharing it through Discord.

[Odex64]

@Shock We agree that switching from the forum to an official Discord would be a good idea for technical reasons. I feel like the forum model provides a healthy distance between you and us, but I get that it's kinda clunky and outdated. We'd be interested in what our mods think about it

One of the reasons you (developers) didn't use Discord are the continuous requests from the community and your little spare time... however using discord (with the right mods and privacy settings) has its benefits. There's a closer and immediately communication with the community and their feedbacks; and they can give you some good ideas for your new games.

I think all the mods agree, and as I said above, there are a lot of privacy settings to avoid uncomfortable situations; I've made an "international" discord server a while ago and we'd be really happy if you join (I may polish up some things). If you wanna take a tour I can make a group with all the mods and invite you there, so we can better-decide what to do .

PM me at any time.

[Mighty Spirit the 2]

At least to me, it looks like you lost touch with what your most dedicated community wanted.

SFD was never about us creating a game solely for our most dedicated community during development, implementing whatever they suggested and eventually release SFD for free.

I'm pretty sure the dedicated community didn't want the game to be free? From the people i talked to we wanted the game to succeed and at the same time you to be paid for your hard work. Inquiring about a "Locked-down" free version is absolutely not the same as having the entire game free. It would mean more players would exist and more people would potentially buy the game.

and you don't have time to invest as much time in the game as a hardcore player, as that would literally mean spending every waking hour on the game.

Your exaggerating. I understand that you have a life and don't have much time to play your own game. That's completely understandable. But is it really that much to ask to play the game a few times a week for 20 min or so? Its not that hard to put of some time if you turn it into a schedule. Is it that not worth it to try and understand how your own game works, both by playing it regularly and witnessing what tricks other players come up with?

In some ways you guys always know our games a million times better than we will - this is unavoidable. So taking lots of feedback makes sense, and we did, but you obviously can't please everyone.

I agree feedback is crucial. But what I and a lot of other players agree on is that there should have been a criteria set for an amount of playtime before you could come with suggestions. That's also why I'm a bit critical with that possible Discord feedback. Especially when requesting new additions to Versus. A lot of suggestions came from purely casual players. People that pretty much only cared about instant gratification, and didn't care about balance. Those are the people that moved on from SFD rather quickly as well. I think it was more important to listen to feedback from dedicated players that cared about the game, cared about balance in the game and actually thought about how every new addition would impact rounds. Casual players were here because the game was free back then. Most of the dedicated players would buy the game even if it cost money. All the changes you did over the last 2 years or so only helped push out most of the dedicated players, and at the same time casual players only stick around for so long + there exist a price on the game now that prevents the constant replacement of casual players like it was before. Wouldn't it have been worth it to satisfy your most loyal followers first?

Based on what you say, I think it's good that we didn't "join you on your journey" more than we did.

I never said anything about you being friends with us. You didn't have to make "meaningful connections" with us, I simply meant that it would have been great if you had witnessed some of the greatest players playing the game. Every time you play just change your name and skin and play a while. You were bound to eventually run into them. If you had seen how amazing certain people mastered this game, maybe you would have thought twice about the future choices you made. Because back then at least the game rewarded skill way more then today and the best would get consistent wins. Thsi review does a pretty good job describing the frustration: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/765 ... ed/855860/

We're glad people have found meaning in SFD, we do too. We try to make games that are worthwhile and that have a positive effect on people's lives, otherwise what the fuck are we doing.

*Had* found meaning in SFD. Then why did you disappoint so many people with the changes you made? I know a lot of former players who bought the game but no longer play because of that. But i guess you didn't know any better.

Regarding older versions of the game, we don't provide access to them right now, and that is not a trivial decision to make. When we have the time and motivation, we'll consider all the ins and outs, but that takes time and energy which we need for other things right now.

Please don't even consider the ins and outs, just do it already. So many people have wanted this just take a peek at the last few posts under this topic:
SFD 1.2.1 conversation and download (after you talk about closing down online services)
I'll be happy if you just do that. I mean sure old melee wasn't flawless, but I'll suck all the flaws up and never complain about it again, after playing what we are stuck with today. Because for all i know it was more fun then any melee match I've had after the game hit Steam.

[Sh4d0w]

I've failed again -_-

Failure is not an option. You know the consequences, right?

[Noble]

One of the reasons you (developers) didn't use Discord are the continuous requests from the community and your little spare time... however using discord (with the right mods and privacy settings) has its benefits. There's a closer and immediately communication with the community and their feedbacks

I was under the impression that the devs never moved to Discord until now because of the instant message environment and they thought they would have so much to read and waste their times on, but I really think they should not be worried by anything like this. It's probably much easier in Discord where suggestions and bug reports can be flipped through easily. The devs could see what's going in the community in a sec or not even ever bother about reading what the #social chat channels and the clans are doing.

I feel like in this forums there is a sense of obligation to respond and organize every suggestion, complaint and reports made, and it always take so much time to get a simple topic question responded by a member, also messages are always titanic long here. I'm in quite a few developers Discord servers and none of them are nowhere as active and responsive or even nearly use as much of their time to respond everyone as Gurt and Hjarpe do in this forums (like in this topic right now).
In fact, in most servers the admins barely say anything (monthly) and there are rules and permissions controls that prevents members from mentioning them worthlessly like Odex said, meaning Discord could be a place you would have much more time to focus on anything else

Recently, I've used my Discord server to create quite a massive elo ranking system >60 superfighters joined in a glance, I didn't think I knew that many players active right now. link
Perhaps the polls and suggestions can be easily made like this. link

[Gurt]

Some reasons why we didn't use Discord during SFD development:
1: It was made available to the public May 2015. A few years after we already established the forum for Pre-Alpha/Alpha feedback. It wasn't popular until 2016 or something when I heard about it the first time.
2: I'm a slow adopter of new tech, like Discord (I rather wait to see how it holds up, security, popularity, etc..). I didn't start using it until early 2018 I think or something because my friends had moved on from Skype/TeamSpeak which we used before. This is now during the Beta of SFD and we focused on creating the last of the content we wanted to include.

Why didn't we use Discord? Basically because it wasn't invented when we started working on SFD.

[Odex64]

Yeah, devs don't have to worry so much and there are specific settings to avoid mentions or direct-messages from unknown users, however we also need a solid moderation team (or some BOTS) to keep the chats clean (yes, there are BOTS to do some special and automatic actions in discord, so it's even easier to manage all the players). And as @Noble said we can make some polls for the feedbacks.

If Hjarpe and Gurt agree, we can start making a "special" group with all the mods in it, so we can accurately discuss and decide what's next.

[Noble]

Based on what you say, I think it's good that we didn't "join you on your journey" more than we did.

I'm 200% with you about the healthy distance between the sellers and consumers, but ah ouch, that one phrase hurts me quite a bit for reasons I'm unsure of. DX

I think I understand what Mighty Spirit is saying a bit, but I'm gonna reinforce Hjarpe's point and show mine.

So, since a while ago, there was this rumors and hysteria going on like this game had its potential ruined, it probably didn't make any sense and felt like a very sudden blow to Gurt and Hjarpe.
But well, the community itself is divided, there are people that plays the game casually, and people like me that simply loves the competition, so it probably always felt like the devs never looked into this aspect of the game, or never cared about the events, game balancements, competitive players and clans. I used to think that before becoming a mod in here.
I like the undeterministic factors of the game, it's wacky and fun, yet it never ceased me from flawlessly beat the ass of someone worse than me at the game, so I think nothing is wrong with how the game is now, like can you imagine Hjarpe's perspective? I would be "What the fuck should we do?"
So imagine me as this one new buyer, bought the game, and nothing else matters to me more than the game durability, which means there's not much for me to do if the players stopped playing because of a paywall or any shit, and because the devs never challenged the players, made an official Discord server, made any events the game has been inactive and won't update anymore, it felt like the devs kind of abandoned the game instantly after it launched and expected it to live on its own and because of that less people will buy the game as well. But the game never depended on this to be popular before, this has to be wrong, so why?

In other words, it's really selfish what I'm about to say
Don't take this incredibly seriously
But I really think the game life depends on the devs and how they interact and challenge the community. I'm not saying that out of the blue, I observe other games doing the same thing.
I tried to make an impact making my own events and I think I indeed made one, but I'm as busy as the devs are and it wasn't nearly as impactful as if they were the ones to do some even small thing. Plus everybody will always like what the devs have to say, not me or anyone else's. But isn't that asking them to do the unthinkable and not give them the answers to anything? Well, probably.
Anyways, I'm not saying you'd have to do that forever, you weren't cursed by the multiplayer game, but it's at least till the game regains to its tracks and survives on its own. Like, the "game marketing" shouldn't have ended just because it launched, right?
I think creating an official Discord can be more than enough honestly, a casual yet serious, official but not all that strict community place for the players. Remember the chaos in the previous forums in the clan discussion? It was chaos, but it was lively, it was proof that the people were eccentric and having fun and that's what players like me are after.

The devs could see what's going in the community in a sec or not even ever bother about reading what the #social chat channels and the clans are doing.

So yeah, even if this community space and more stuff are there, you shouldn't have anything to worry.