So Cactus Canyon...

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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If they dont release any information, 99% of the community that hasnt read THIS EXACT FORUM POST, doesnt know what valve is up to, because they cant go to valve HQ and speak with the TF2 team directly.

Even if Valve made a post about it, it wouldn't reach a significant portion of the community.
 

Vel0city

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Dec 6, 2014
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Even if Valve made a post about it, it wouldn't reach a significant portion of the community.
It'll reach the people who care about this game, which is more than enough. It'll get posted to Reddit/Facepunch/SPUF/TF2maps.net in no time, making the regulars happy. And since that's the biggest group of people willing to spend money in this game (making Valve and the community creators money) that's what's important. It has to reach the right part of the community. The part that keeps this game alive and well.
 

Fruity Snacks

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It'll reach the people who care about this game, which is more than enough. It'll get posted to Reddit/Facepunch/SPUF/TF2maps.net in no time, making the regulars happy. And since that's the biggest group of people willing to spend money in this game (making Valve and the community creators money) that's what's important. It has to reach the right part of the community. The part that keeps this game alive and well.

Okay, community management science talk:

In the whole scheme of things, Reddit/SPUF/Facepunch/TF2M/etc communities are still a small reach in the overall size of the TF2 community. Yes, they are the ones who are the ones who care enough about the game to join a smaller community for it, and give money, but they are no where near the only people who will pay money for the game.

I would be surprised if the combination of those communities of people who are active in them, makes up more than 5% of the whole TF2 playing population at peak (so, ~4k people) and the reach (as in, the amount of people who get told about information posted on those sources via information trickle-down) is maybe 10-15% of the whole population (so, 10-12k people). Now, the blog itself does net in a fair amount of people, as it's trickled down into the smaller communities, but it won't reach everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if a single news post reaches at most 30% of the active TF2 population (again, assuming peak of 75k). That's not a majority, thats freaking tiny. Additionally, based on the numbers I've seen from campaign passes, key sales, etc. There's is a LOT of people who will buy things, even more than the peak I've mentioned.

So the sum up this whole schpeel: Reddit/FP/TF2M do not even come close to being the largest group of people willing to spend money on this game. Not by a long shot. As communities, they are SUPER important for the games longevity and support, but not even close to providing enough monetary support themselves. In the grand scheme of things, they are TINY compared to whole picture.


tl;dr: Communities are important, but not for financial reasons.
 

Vel0city

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Okay, community management science talk:

In the whole scheme of things, Reddit/SPUF/Facepunch/TF2M/etc communities are still a small reach in the overall size of the TF2 community. Yes, they are the ones who are the ones who care enough about the game to join a smaller community for it, and give money, but they are no where near the only people who will pay money for the game.

I would be surprised if the combination of those communities of people who are active in them, makes up more than 5% of the whole TF2 playing population at peak (so, ~4k people) and the reach (as in, the amount of people who get told about information posted on those sources via information trickle-down) is maybe 10-15% of the whole population (so, 10-12k people). Now, the blog itself does net in a fair amount of people, as it's trickled down into the smaller communities, but it won't reach everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if a single news post reaches at most 30% of the active TF2 population (again, assuming peak of 75k). That's not a majority, thats freaking tiny. Additionally, based on the numbers I've seen from campaign passes, key sales, etc. There's is a LOT of people who will buy things, even more than the peak I've mentioned.

So the sum up this whole schpeel: Reddit/FP/TF2M do not even come close to being the largest group of people willing to spend money on this game. Not by a long shot. As communities, they are SUPER important for the games longevity and support, but not even close to providing enough monetary support themselves. In the grand scheme of things, they are TINY compared to whole picture.


tl;dr: Communities are important, but not for financial reasons.
Everything's still better than being silent. Luckily Valve's slowly breaking that habit, but it needs to happen quicker. Valve's been silent for too long.
 

Fruity Snacks

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Everything's still better than being silent. Luckily Valve's slowly breaking that habit, but it needs to happen quicker. Valve's been silent for too long.

Community Management Science Part II:


Back in the day, they didn't need to talk a whole lot. It was kind of a normal thing in the AAA industry to be quiet, and let your marketing and PR guys do the talking. Now, in the age of Youtube DevLogs, Twitch Streams and generally a lot of openness from indie devs, it's becoming a lot more common, and a lot more companies are being pressured into doing it. (where it is being more interactive with the community, being more open with the community via twitter/twitch/youtube, etc).

Now, they don't necessarily have to do any of this, there are still plenty of companies who don't, and they get along fine. Should Valve do it? Thats totally up in the air. Again, this goes back to the whole "Who would read it, and would it be worth it?" type of thing. If they write a post and it only reaches a third of the population, is that worth the time? They're already super-duper busy, is it worth writing up a monthly thing "Hey, this is what we've done"? With Valve and their work structure/flow (or game dev in general) it's possible that they spend a month on something and realize they don't want to go for it. Like CC or Asteroid, they could start something early, because they have the time/resources to do so, before getting hit by another wave of work and they'll just sit there for a while. So what would they write about? As I understand it, Roadmaps are a thing at Valve, but they're deadlineless.

They could say "We're working on this new map this quarter!" then not use the map for 2 years. Saying "We're doing this right now for this bigger thing we don't want to announce" has a high possibility of working against them at the current moment/state of 'video game community mentalities' where everyone thinks that making a quality level/game/update takes only a couple months with 5 people. To do open development right/proper community engagement and as I've seen, it requires a LOT of work. For Valves 3 most active games, CSGO, TF2 and DotA2, you would need a large team of community managers to engage, plan out engagement events/activities and most importantly stay in deep touch with each of the games development cycles. ONTOP OF THAT ALL, they need to start to embed themselves in the communities of the games. If there are any fan-communities (like ours, for example) they would need to reach out there too. It's a LOT of work.

Additionally, on top of it all since there are already a lot of communities (in TF2 for instance) who do a LOT of their own community interaction/engagement events (ie: stuff like the contest we have, the 72hr Jam, April fools, etc) does Valve REALLY need to do the same thing that we're already doing with a lot of success? Them just posting about it on their blog is already more than enough. Could they do better, oh yea, totally. They still could start doing more engagement, and if done correctly, would be helpful, and wouldn't hurt them, but thats just based on what I know. I don't know the TFTeams workflow, nor their team structure or whatever, so all that I'm saying could be right or wrong... Won't know more unless someone like Jill, Dave or Eric come in and flat out tell us.

I could probably go on and on about this for another 6 pages, but I'll leave it at that. I don't think I really resolved my argument, but I think I got a point across.

Sorry for the essays. I should probably just write this all up or make a video series or something.

TL;DR: Sure, they could, but would it be worth it? For TF2, could it be done in such a way that isn't harmful? The answer is yes, but then it goes back to the first question: Would it be worth it?
 

YM

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OK OK, so Valve may or may not be working on Cactus Canyon....

But Halloween Cactus Canyon isn't: Carcass Canyon
 

Yrr

An Actual Deer
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Sep 20, 2015
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Dang that made me search for a better pun but nothing beats it

Cackling Canyon?
Cactus Cauldron?

Carcass is really prime horror pun real estate here
 

YM

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You know how there's a space cactus made of metal??? weeeeeellll we're gunna need a skeleton cactus for Carcass Canyon
 

YM

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Meme Canyon
Your post is the stake, this thread is Picard
stabbed.jpg
 
Oct 6, 2008
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pl_cactus_cleavage

yep - thesaurus'd it ^^^ - another word for canyon - works for me :)

was thinking of making it moon based style and low gravity in parts

and a cactus is just a cactus - no other word for it
 

Vel0city

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Dec 6, 2014
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pl_cactus_cleavage

yep - thesaurus'd it ^^^ - another word for canyon - works for me :)

was thinking of making it moon based style and low gravity in parts

and a cactus is just a cactus - no other word for it
There's a metal cactus. So a space base Cactus Canyon would indeed work, with the finale with the train 'n stuff being something like 1960s era science fiction train or something like that.
 

Cytosolic

L5: Dapper Member
May 1, 2015
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Cacteye Canyon

If you don't get it...

Cactus - cactus

Cacti - multiple cactus

Cacteye - play on words


Edit- Carcass Canyon is still better