JagexHooli

Thanks for the well wishes for the team.

If my post you responded to doesn't get that across, let me totally clear - we totally agree there wasn't enough comms. That post was to explain what happened and how to fix it going forward.

This is more along the lines of where we're going communications wise.

This stream was intended to be that kind of development update in Live Stream form - what we're working on, issues, content reprioritization and so on. That's the kind of dialogue we want to have going forward.

Although we dropped quite a lot of specifics - as we know many of you had felt in the dark for quite a while by this point - we should be able to keep you informed and connected to the studio regardless on if we have anything to confirm or announce by name, so to speak.

We agree. I said this in another comment but to repeat here, it basically came down to uncertainty. Hopefully we can shed a little more light on this.

Shortly after Archaeology shipped, the impact of lockdown started to rear it's head - longer term stuff like childcare, less than ideal working from home environments, difficulties coordinating bigger projects remotely while being flexible to employee needs etc. We talked about that a bunch on stream so I won't go into that too much more here.

What that generated was a lot of uncertainty and unknowns around how long content would begin to take. When it became apparent that production impact was significant (at least 30% down according to our last Wellness surveys and Producer estimates), the team began looking at how we could adapt to it - which is this new plan - while continuing on course with DM, Ninja etc.

That process took around two months in total (you have to not only come up with a new approach, but s...

I mentioned this in another post, but Mod Warden is a big believer in community comms. Since I joined 6 weeks ago, I can speak to how he's been pushing us on additional things he'd like to see from the team too.

The issue everyone raises is, in actuality, a couple of miscommunication issues. It's no reflection on anyone to be honest - especially when it comes to intent - but just a casualty of the times we've faced.

Warden very much inherited the Roadmap announcement at Jagex, which is why he referred to it coming later in his opening statement.

As a new EP for the product, Warden identified our not-so-great 'hit rate' on announcements and wanted to spend some time assessing why that was and, in turn communicating cautiously. While that makes sense, it was never clearly stated or explained to you as players (I believe it was mentioned very lightly once on a stream IIRC).

Just before Archaeology left the building, COVID also arrived and, retrospective...

Honestly, we went into this stream knowing there would be doubt to anything we say. And that's totally okay.

This stream wasn't meant to change minds, but to bring you closer to the development. We hope you now have a better picture of what we're doing as a team and how we are adjusting to our new production impact rather than being in the dark.

Trust is earned, not told. If you are sceptical today, keep on it. Hopefully, through both our actions and keeping you better informed, we can win that trust back.

It was something we had planned to cover. As I've said elsewhere, Mod Warden was a huge part of why this stream even happened and he wanted to answer questions like this.

The only reason it was raised at the end was due to me monitoring what major community questions we hadn't covered. We all went into this stream wanting to talk about the Roadmap and I just made sure we didn't miss the chance to get you an answer on it.

There's been some issues with our communications this year, but it shouldn't be taken as a reflection on Warden's stance on communication at all. It's more a reflection of trying to achieve that new balance and, as a team, overcorrecting on the cautious front during a time of massive uncertainty (COVID impact).

RIP my sleep?

Exactly. The main thing we hope you all took away from yesterday is a better understanding of where we are development wise, what our challenges are right now, and some key things we're working on.

The goal for us as a team is to find a better balance in our communication so you feel this 'in the know' every month without stepping into announcing things too early territory. It's why there was no big Roadmap Post instead.

What matters to us is the continued conversation from this point, not the result of one stream. It may take some time, we may make mistakes along the way, but we'll get there.

Legitimately had no idea where the haunted comments came from all stream. Was my curtain moving or something?

Honestly, I'm fine with that if it did sound a little PR'y because they really are throwing themselves at it to be honest.

A team actively look to react and find opportunity in a situation that impacts production output is very rare in my experience. It would have been easier from a development standpoint to stay the course and just accept the slower delivery cadence - and many teams would pick that option and throw out the COVID excuse.

Speaking as a witness to it, pivoting direction is no small task. There's a huge knock on in so many areas - brainstorms upon brainstorms, scoping, reformatting teams, working out how to make meaningful content on much smaller timeframes and so on. That all takes time, effort and a lot of coordination - and then you have to go execute on it. But, ultimately, the hope is that this is the right way to go to deliver more additive content and prevent big gaps.

On the WFH front, your case is the same for some others here at Jagex...

That's exactly where we want to be - having these conversations early, frequently and honestly.

We consider this stream a new starting line for our approach to how we talk with all of you, but it's about how we do that consistently over the years ahead that matters.

That's what we're saying about walking the line. We don't want everything to be a surprise, but we do want to talk about things at the right time in the right way.

The intention we are driving as a Community Team right now is provide ways to give better insight into what we're working on, provide regular development updates and so on - but not necessarily by just revealing and promising content. It's about keeping you informed while also talking about the right things at the right times.

We want to move away from our past hit-rate of announcement accuracy, but not at the cost of keeping you in the dark entirely about what's kind of things are in development, where we are headed and so on.

That's the goal.

The last three months have been a reflection of the impact to productivity that working from home has had on the team, as people work around their home lives - in less than ideal setups, managing childcare or homeschooling, the mental stresses of working where you live etc. I can speak to my own experience, moving half way around the world for this job only 6 weeks ago, to say how hard it is to do this from home vs the studio.

Simply put, sticking to the existing plans we had simply wouldn't work for either us as developers or you as players - the gaps on those bigger pieces of content would be much bigger than anyone would like to see.

Instead, the team took the initiative and adapted our approach to the reduced capacity. What this new approach does is minimize the chance of significant gaps between additive content, with a goal of delivering on a monthly cadence as soon as we can.

The team are throwing themselves at this challenge ...

We don't disagree on the leaving you hanging front. While I believe Warden made a mention here or there about moving away from road maps in streams a few months ago, it obviously didn't come across (which is on us, not you as players). That's the reason we made sure to tackle it head on today.

As we mentioned on stream today, this is what should be considered an opening of the door. This was intended to be a honest look at where we are development wise, indications of what to expect, what we are aiming for, and what we won't be doing. It's only a first step, but it's a step.

Moving forward, the goal is to offer a better level of transparency and access into what's going on around the game - but not in the form of a roadmap. There's memes around content announcements vs delivery in this community for a reason, and we want to leave that reality as a by-gone era for Jagex.

Again, this doesn't mean an intention to keep the curtain fully drawn. We'll just be meas...

Thanks for your report on this - the team acknowledge that 'put a' is a common part of standard sentences and we're going to remove this from the hard filter as soon as we can. We'll be continuing to monitor for similar reports and assess on a case by case basis.

We know the solution is imperfect, but as we mentioned in the post announcing this change, it's just an initial step we can take to help make our community a more inclusive and representative place to be - now rather than later.

Phenomenal.

Thanks for the feedback on this. Fixing elements of our past communication is a focus for the team all up, so hopefully we can win back the trust around the word 'soon'... uhh... soon.

This Quest announce will be a good demonstration of that, unless something suddenly goes horrifically wrong because I jinxed us in a Reddit comment.

This post was our update on the investigation: https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/a=13/update-account-recovery-requests-june-13th-14th

Thanks for your thoughts Rubic.

With any element of feedback, designers will always want the broadest spectrum of perspectives so they can use their design expertise to solve or embrace as many of them as possible (especially given the many different ways people play Runescape!).

From my experience so far, many JMods here (especially Ninja) are really plugged in to the community already on top of being very active players themselves. Even when you don't see a post, I can guarantee you that multiple JMods have read it as well as the CM team. There's a lot more internal understanding of the nuances of our community throughout the team than you might expect.

What this means is, when we approach a PAG, the expertise is there to be cognitive of these divisions in our community - if not already with the JMod Developers then through us as a Community Team.

I touched on this a little in my other comment, but PAG feedback is not gospel, nor does it dictate wh...

Right now, the team is primarily working on the next quest, with Ninja also working really hard on their beefy player-inspired Strikes every 2 weeks.

Unveiling our new quest is the next focal point of what we'll be talking about - and you won't have long to wait to hear about it (read: SOON!).