2/4/2018 - devlog
This week, we've welcomed a new member to our team: Julian will be in charge of our PR and Community Management. The three of us spent two days planning and plotting at our headquarters, which was exhausting but also fun and productive. This week, Julian will be hogging the spotlight, but updates from the whole team are going to return in next week's dev log.
Julian
Hello, everyone! What can I say except that getting this job is a dream come true. It's a clichéd way to put it, but also the most accurate. I've been freelancing in the games industry for a couple of years now, and my goal has always been to be a regular member of a small studio some day. Becoming part of this team and this project checks all the boxes on my wishlist. I've been a gamer since the 90's and I'm deeply in love with “hard” sci-fi and hardcore games, so I signed up for an alpha test of Prosperous Universe the moment I became aware of it. I'd gotten to know Martin and Michi throughout numerous game dev events back in Munich, and I jumped on the opportunity when I saw they had a job opening in a fascinating and challenging field. With PR and Community Management, I have a wide variety of activities and responsibilities ahead of me that I can't wait to tackle. I hope I can make both my new colleagues and you, our players, as happy as you've made me by trusting me with this role.
That said, this blog is supposed to be about the progress we've made in the past week, so here we go. Since I only officially joined on Thursday, I've mostly been busy with setting everything up, getting accustomed with the organization and gaining an overview of the somewhat daunting work to come. For most of my time with the company so far, I've been talking with Michi and Martin about our short- and mid-term plans.
Pertaining to the immediate future, we've discussed which features to incorporate in the next alpha version and how to communicate them to our testers. Traveling between planets and systems is going to play a bigger role in it, and I can't wait to tell you guys about the cool system Michi designed for that. If you're a tester already, you're going to learn more about our immediate plans for the game when the time comes, although it's going to take a few weeks before the next test rolls around. If you or someone you know wants to join us next time, don't hesitate to swing by our sign-up thread in the forums. Once signed up, you will be notified via e-mail when the test begins.
We also set some mid-term goals for both the game and the company. Maybe the most important step for the former has been to come up with a system that encourages player interaction by making self-sufficiency harder to achieve and rewarding specialization. Part of it is already being developed under the name of “Starting Profiles and Skill System” in our updated Roadmap. We also brainstormed different ways of cranking up the long-term engagement, because that's what a good MMOG is all about.
In terms of company plans, we've set some internal goals regarding our launch strategy, i.e. what the minimum viable product will be, when we can expect to get there and what the monetization could look like. We've also come up with a few ideas of how to reward those brave souls who test our game knowing their companies will be wrecked at some point because we won't have persistent servers for several months to come.
Anyway, it's time to wrap this up. I promise I'll pass the mic to Michi and Martin again next week. If you want to get in touch, just use any of our social media channels since I'm essentially going to be in charge of those from now on. We can always chat on our Discord server, and of course: join us on the forums if you haven't already!
Happy trading!