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When Intrepid gives information, it builds up 'faith', something like when a politician talks. "Design Capital", let's say. When there's a 'gaffe' or a 'slip', some of that is spent or lost. It's a combination of 'trust' and 'the veil'. Affects different people differently and because it's subjective, it's possible for a listener to misinterpret a situation.
Steven 'spent all his design capital' for ME in a few words, during that stream.
I learned that the 'combo system issue' that I saw in the test is probably a real thing with a real problem, through a set of small hints.
I learned that they're still in the pitch phase for certain things despite making a decision based on a flawed test.
I learned that they're still in the modeling phase for Node positions/simulation to the point where 'developers are offering models written in Java and these are somehow impressing people'.
I learned that the reason we didn't see things above Village wasn't necessarily because they were 'working but not stable' but because they might not be working or properly simulated yet either.
I learned that the combat system which is basically rudimentary and doesn't currently address any of the things that would cause the game to have a balanced
base
in my opinion is 'good and we're going forward'.
I learned that the risk vs reward aspect isn't actually 100%, there are ways it doesn't apply and things it doesn't apply to, that can easily be manipulated, and I lost a lot of faith in
why
it's that way, which leads to a lot of change in the open-world interaction. Basically that 'those who step forward' take risks, those who 'pull at their heels' risk 'less than they risk by stepping forward'.
I expected some hint or announcement of what they're doing about Jeff Bard leaving, but I guess that will come later... maybe.
Steven 'spent all his capital' for me. It's not to say Intrepid can't build up more of it, but when you've been told a lot of things that 'could go either way', and someone suddenly presents you with multiple signs that it all means the opposite of what you believed, 'philosophically', it's easy to shift.
I had
faith
before. I only have
cautious wariness
now. But it is also true to say that I didn't think I was part of the target audience for this game before, except for the faith. Now that it's gone, I don't anymore.
Hopefully they continue to do as they always do, transparently show things, rebuild it, or don't. I like
being able to know
that they're still testing models for the NodeWorld simulation at this point. I just don't like the implication of it relative to the status of development and design.
Steven 'reframed the narrative' for me in little ways, as someone who has worked in similar levels of projects in a different industry, and a lot of things I saw but didn't speak on before, now have a decidedly different 'cast' to them.
But, absolutely nothing confirmable, as always, it's all speculation and bias. I just, as mentioned prior, never specifically thought I was part of the target audience, and I lost all of the 'stuff that was starting to make me believe that'.