Posted on Behalf of SOF Studios President, Tom
Hello H-Hour Community!
The development team released a great patch last week that included a little bit of everything. The largest deliverable was the return of a Workshop that is bigger and better than ever before. Mappers now have access to all game modes, bomb plants and zones, breach points, destructible objects, door actions and destructible lights. For more information on this release and to see some of the other nice fixes that were included, check the Patch Notes.
Giving map creators this degree of access comes with a need for them to be thorough in how they review their maps and assets for errors before releasing content to the public. We want to enjoy a long term relationship with our mappers and support them by providing tools and server space when available but we also need to be cautious that we balance the needs of the players. Opening week we put all public maps on our workshop servers as a starting point. Unfortunately, we saw maps released with issues that affected players in game and had to remove a few of them as a result. To minimize player impacts in future, we have put up a special server for testing all workshop maps. Only after careful screening will they be moved to our live servers. We hope this new process will prevent players from having issues and benefit the mappers who will receive private feedback.
What’s Ahead?
- The dev team is working on in game content once again so you can expect a combination of fixes and new content or enhancements in their next patch. They are returning to their "todo" entries from Trello and are also continuing to review and fix any log messaging that requires game changes. It is important to note that most messaging is benign so not every message will be addressed
- I also wish to remind everyone that our dev team is comprised of volunteers who graciously give the studio and the H-Hour community their free time. The studio has not and will not set milestones dates for deliverables as a result. This does make it difficult to announce specific items that will be worked on in advance as I know many of you would prefer. It also means times for completing tasks is always an unknown. Despite this, the volunteers have delivered regular patches that were worth the wait. I ask the H-Hour community to recognize the tremendous job in delivering content they have achieved and to understand that the lack of specifics is just the way things will need to be until full time funded resources can be bought back to work on the game.
- We are still waiting on the report from the animation studio assessing our current and future animation needs. This is understandable as they are reviewing everything from rigging, to characters to skeletons, individual and medley animations, etc. so it is a rather large task.
- On the investor front, due diligence is still underway and we are in process of setting up a follow up meeting for next week.
We reviewed the forum feedback on what members would like to see in the Quick Look going forward. I thought I would chunk off one request at a time and address for everyone. This week’s subject is funding.
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Many out in the H-Hour community have wondered how it could possibly be so difficult to bring investors in so we can get the game completed on PC and ported over to PS4 for everyone. The reality is that as much as we may love this vision and see its value, there is a lot more than love of a game that goes on in investment circles. Of course if an H-Hour fan won the lottery, life would be simpler for all of us. In the meantime, it is hard work to find investors interested enough to have that first meeting (called discovery) and harder still to get to follow up meetings and due diligence; let alone close the deal.
The investor community comes from a broad range of backgrounds, some in the gaming industry, others not. Some with knowledge of gaming, others with none. Some looking for short term investments with large and almost immediate paybacks. Others looking for mid term but solid, blue chip investments and of course, large returns. Still others looking for longer term relationships that include an interest in your IP. Not all of these will be a good fit for H-Hour.
Getting access to a discovery meeting with any investor requires an introduction from someone they know. Every single meeting requires investor centric presentations be prepared and presented. An investor who talks to a company has a need or a hole in their portfolio they are hoping to fill so your first presentation must fit those needs. This means doing research and adjusting our pitch before we talk to them. Any meetings that go beyond the initial discovery meeting require much more intensive production of documentation related to the project and tailored to the asks from that group. Once you get to due diligence which is still not a guarantee an agreement will be reached, you are dealing with accountants, lawyers and tax attorneys. None of this is accomplished quickly unfortunately.
Some discussions will get to this stage and then when presented to the publisher or investors board, realize there is a conflict with their existing portfolio and decide not to sign on. This is just the way the ball bounces with these things.
Throughout all of this, the studio has worked diligently to make those connections to get the introductions and pursue funding the project. I cannot give you specifics on those particular discussions as both parties enter into a non-disclosure agreement before meeting. One thing I can tell you is that for those discussions that advance beyond the discovery meeting, the investors search out information online to educate themselves on the potential for their investment to be successful. This is truly in the hands of the H-Hour community and is why I ask each and everyone of you who wants the game completed and released on PS4 to help us keep the dream alive by continuing to play on the servers and showing your support for H-Hour online.
More to follow on September 6th…..