Since this is part two of our previous newsletter, we'll just hop right into it!
Following a message from our COO Stirling on the development of Ready or Not and the different modes that used to be present on the maps, we'll talk some more data from the survey, and field some of the more popular questions from our Newsletter comments.
A word on Modes and Maps
Ready or Not released into early access with a lot of experimental content — some of you may remember grey maps with no art at all, some that were partially completed, and some that after significant time with users, were cut completely (I’m looking at you Fast Food).
The road to releasing Ready or Not into early access was not an easy one, but once we finally had something fun we wanted to make sure there was enough content to keep players coming back while we worked on new things. That’s how this came about, as it was a pretty easy way of giving you guys more stuff to play without the request for entirely new maps. However, like many things back then it was added without a consideration for how it would affect development of future content. While some maps did have a number of modes available, many of the new ones had only one extra (Valley of the Dolls for example only had Raid if I recall), which usually only changed the rules of engagement. It didn’t do much else.
As our team grew and the desire to make brand new content increased from both internally and externally, it became very apparent that developing these modes alongside the maps would not be tenable with a small development team, alongside all of the testing required for these maps to work. Some even used different parts of the level, essentially meaning that not only did we need design to stay focused on each mode, but art would have to get involved to ensure each mode was fully ready for presentation.
So, you can imagine on release having 19ish missions, each having 5 modes, and some of those inconsistently having different “levels” within them, and also having to make completely different briefings for each mode variety, we had shot ourselves in the foot with this experimental, early access feature.
It pains me to see stuff like this disappear and I understand the community sentiment about its removal, but I also feel as if there’s a bit of rose-tinting going on. Many of the missions were just not there, they didn’t add too much variety and our analytics showed that most people barely touched some modes (eg. Bomb threat on Dealer). Could we have hunkered down, hired 20 designers and split them up into each map? No, not really. Money == An efficient workforce, it actually means you need to manage that many people and scale up all other aspects of development to match.
Scaling up the team was done, but in a way that allowed to progress forwards with new content and a more sensible pairing of narrative and gameplay (eg. Kids robbing a gas station aren’t placing C4 all over the building). We’re still finding our way but many of the steps taken last year have paved the way for the ability to actually create more content that aligns with this, without worrying about missing deadlines or running out of time.
With that out of the way, I hope with some extra clarity, I do want to note that I’ve made it my business to go through many posts identical to this and many more quite similar, to ensure that we release a feature that allows for players to curate experiences. I’m not sure when something like that will appear, but I do want it to be in a reasonable amount of time.
This should also signal that there isn’t a plan to stop working on RoN and giving it more love, more content, and additional features.
Next up, some stats from our Sentiment Survey.
- Average Playtime: 183 hrs
- Top 3 favorite maps [minus Gas]:
- 23 Megabytes A Second - Streamer
- A Lethal Obsession - Ridgeline
- Sins of the Father - Penthouse
- Most commonly requested weapons: More DMR-type rifles [which I think we fulfilled in Dark Waters], AK-type rifles, Bolt Action rifles. Note: There was also a large spread of maker-specific AR parts, but as they're functionally identical, I didn't include them in the list.
The DLC wish list question was also so varied that it wouldn't be possible to make a 'Top X' list within reasonable amount of space, but there was quite a few bits that even we didn't think of adding in there. Though there was also quite a bit that we already have coming down the pipeline as of now, so please be sure to keep a close eye on what we have coming.
Common Questions
Q. Why don't you talk more about [AI, performance, optimization, etc.]
A. In the past it frustrated me as a wee gamer to only see a company beat the same drum over and over again, so I try not to address the same thing too often since there are only so many ways you can say 'We're aware and working on it' before it starts to get old and/or hollow.
Q. Where's Steam Workshop/Why Mod.io
A. We went with mod.io because it offered some features that the workshop didn't specifically with Unreal Engine. Workshop still may appear in the future as we continue to develop Ready or Not, as Stirling said in his message above.
Q. PvP When?
A. We're not ready to speak on this topic yet, as PvE coop continues to remain our core focus for this project but we certainly have not forgotten about it.
Q. Why don't you Fix [X] instead of releasing DLC?
A. Our team consists of, now, a significant amount of people of a lot of different disciplines. Our mappers, artists, and modelers are hard at work producing new content for the upcoming free content drop and DLCs while our programmers, designers, and even some of our affiliate studios are tearing out a non-zero amount of hair tweaking and fixing Ready or Not.
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In our next newsletter, you can look forward to even more information about the previous year and some previews of some things we got coming next year!
Outside of our drops, you can find more of this wonderful content here:
https://discord.gg/TjyfbXTU28 or https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/
Follow Ready or Not on Steam here.
Our other links: Spotify, Discord, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.
Keep your feet on the ground.
VOID Interactive