It’s another day in the world of Transverse and Piranha Games could be finally waking up to the problems.
This week has been a tough week for Piranha Games games following the announcement of Transverse, what with ludicrous funding goals, a Wing Commander relationship/ship copy accusations, and then the complete Reddit mess.
Could they be actually waking up now that they’ve been called-out by the community? Possibly, maybe?
Piranha has now changed their funding goals and there’s a new starter tier at $500,000. This new tier is their way of reassuring backers that if that goal is not met they won’t be left out in the cold should the funds fall short.
The $500,000 goal gets us to an alpha state on ship construction, flight, combat, and harvesting. While release of the final, fully developed feature for each module is dependent on future funding, this is our first major step towards making this trans-human spacesim a reality. Backers who are a part of hitting this goal will get full access to the alpha builds.
If this goal is not met within the time remaining below (days to reach goal), all backers will be refunded 100%!
The refund is slightly more reassuring for anyone who really wants to take the plunge right now and alpha access is also thrown in which is more like a Kickstarter campaign.
So what’s going on with Reddit and Transverse? Overnight the Piranha Games team are now back in control of the /r/Transverse channel but have decided to lock it down. It’s now empty. Community manager Niko commented:
Hey guys!
Due to some extreme clone account presence by a few people who feel an overwhelming need to be negative on all of our official channels, I’ve had to add a few temporary emergency measures.
Reddit is going to be on an approved poster lock-down until we get a few more discussions going as well as have some good standing Redditors to handle the brunt of moderation.
For now, any negative swarming and spamming behavior has been removed, and the lockdown remains. Please do continue your discussions here though! (forums)
Niko also went on to explain their version of events when they set up the channel.
Hey everyone,
Thank you all for your feedback, comments, and concerns.
When I set up the r/Transverse Sub-Reddit, my intent was to have a spot where players could go and find any official information regarding the game on Reddit. We often note that some players cannot visit our forums or sites at all hours due to work or school network policies, which is why we had hoped to create a place on Reddit not unlike the Dev Corner.
Based on the reddiquette guidelines it seems possible we over moderated. With this in mind we are going to focus back intently on our own forums for each product, I look forward to interacting with you there.
I apologize personally and sincerely from the bottom of my heart for anyone who has taken this matter as a personal offence, and hope we can move forward together as a community as we introduce bigger and better announcements more directly related to our games.
Thanks for your time.
“Over moderated”? That’s an understatement, most of the subreddit was nuked in the first 24 hours of opening.
Now there’s been an apology about their conduct we should feel more reassured that it’s onwards and upwards for Transverse and Piranha Games. It’s encouraging to see they’ve revised their starting goal which offers some reassurance of a refund if it’s not met. However, the way in which Piranha has conducted themselves this week, and the way in which they deal with their community, it’s not a good sign of what’s to come further down the road.
Another space game would be great, competition is always good, it helps push the boundaries of what can be achieved in the genre. Transverse may be an excellent idea, it’s the way in which it’s being handled, and will likely be handled in the future, that makes backing this game risky.
The funding goal since Tuesday has now reached a whopping 1% with $6560 of the $500,000 having been funded with 27 days to go. I’ll say it again, be very cautious about backing Transverse.
Talk to other members of the Piranha community about their experiences and make sure you’re satisfied with their answers before pulling out a credit card. There’s an open letter to the on the MWO forums to Piranha’s Russ Bullock which pleads for more action and also points to a 64 page thread where community members express their frustration.
In other Transverse news, there’s a new video from Piranha in which they talk about player progression.
