So, I actually agree with Skandranon, with regards to this censorship debate. Seems like the community here (and possibly 4chan), are slightly hyper-aware of any censorship being perpetrated on the official forums.
This might have been the case in the past, but recently it seems like the developers are more inclined to ridicule one for criticism (constructive criticism or not), and rile up the community to dunk on the one who supplied said critique, or just laugh at them - instead of outright removing the post.
Seems like they've more so given up on the official forums (if the bug reports are anything to go by, lol) in favor of the discord instead, as it appears to be an environment that is easier for discussions about the game, and possibly less negative.
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Yeah, this seems to be in-line with the upgrade to the forums (XenForo forums) - it appears as though the official forums went from XenForo version 1.5 (or thereabouts) to XenForo version 2.0.0 (or thereabouts) - and it seems like from there the spam filter has been ramped up. The moderators on the forums are aware of it, so if one draws enough attention to their posts, they will be approved.
Unfortunate, but it doesn't look like anything is going to be done about it. As a "New Member", it appears that one won't be able to edit their posts, or include any links. Possibly will be resolved by the time one is listed as a "Well-Known Member" on the official forums - as at that point one would have posted more than 45 times, the threshold appears to be 5 - 10 for the spam filter.
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To go back to the topic of criticism, I do dislike how it appears that criticism is generally not wanted by the developers (constructive criticism or not), whether on the official forums or otherwise. But the reactions exhibited from the developers (particularly Savin, The Observer and BubbleLord), seems to indicate that their egos might be tied to the content they've put in the game, or more likely to the character's they've created - seeing as Savin appeared to not appreciate criticism of Cait, even though the content in question was actually written by SomeKindOfWizard (the Atani wedding Cait content).
- Link (Savin Cait Atani wedding context - Previous post here): https://f95zone.to/threads/corruption-of-champions-ii-v0-5-10-savin-salamander-studios.11371/post-6147904
I dunno, it just seems like being critical of their content is not up for discussion, whether they're developers or writers, as Balaknightfang also doesn't seem to take kindly to people critiquing their content either (although maybe to a lesser extent) - not to mention the fact that there's a joke (amongst the forums / discord community) that every time someone asks about Nelia they add another month delay to her. Not really a joke when she still hasn't had any meaningful content outside of Ragnild's Quest - Blacksmith's New Clothes (written by The Observer, not Balaknightfang), and the Spidernets Quest (written by Gardeford, most likely for fishnets for Atugia as she has scenes with them - also not written by Balaknightfang) - well over 3 years since her release. Truly a worrisome prospect with Balaknightfang writing Viviane, and her seemingly going to be a companion and all...
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- Links (Balaknightfang joke / quote context, and Nelia release date):
1. Balaknightfang quote - https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/what-content-would-you-like-added.13015/page-121#post-339700
2. Nelia release - https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/index.php?title=Version_history&oldid=19907#0.2.6_.28July_7.2C_2019.29
Another aspect that they seemingly also don't want criticism toward is how bad they are at addressing issues (bugs) - this goes for both Trials in Tainted Space and Corruption of Champions 2. One look at the bug reports sub-forums for the games showcases that.
They are incredibly bad at replying to threads with issues, and fixing said issues. It sometimes takes literally tagging them in the threads to see a response, and often there's no update after they ask for a save, and it's provided.
It's fine that they have an internal Trello that they add to, but it would be nice to give feedback to the members of the forum on the status of their bug report, no? Otherwise it feels like the onus is on the member who reported it to check whether the bug is still persistent after each patch (if they care enough to do so), instead of it being the developers responsibility to check.
To back this up, there's a bug in CoC2 that I know of, which has, no joke, been in the game since 2018. Yes, you read that right, 2018, nearly a full 4 years ago. I tried many a time to compile a thorough (semi-professional pdf) document with regards to the bug, but then I realized I'm putting in more effort than they do in the game, so instead it's now a bullet point text document that I'm debating actually sharing lol - it's seriously funnier the more time elapses without them actually seeing it. It's obvious (or should be, for the developers) from looking at the code, but it appears that nobody reviews the code, or even play tests the game for more than an hour or so.
Which is another issue I have with the game, why is it that the developers can't seem to play through their own content? Or at the very least review it themselves? And even more so for Savin - how is it that the project lead / project manager can be unaware of content, for their own character might I add - for what appears to be years after it was added? I'll tell you my theory - Savin doesn't actually review content (as in, in-depth with regards to the lore and setting etc, and how it will relate with other established content) from people that are trusted (either by Savin or within the community) - so, any community writer that came from TiTS and FoE in the last couple of years... That appears to be how the Etheryn Hashat scene happened, which SomeKindOfWizard was once again responsible for. Which is even funnier if you consider that Hashat is super into Ryn for being a feminine elf, yet a "dickgirl" / "hermaphrodite" elf player character is basically ignored by Hashat - the player character has to instead be "fully female" for her to be interested in the player character. The reasoning? SomeKindOfWizard "forgot" to write that possibility. And that was said (incorrectly, didn't seem to know the "hermaphrodite" possibility) by Balaknightfang around a year ago, which is more than a year after it was added - so, now it's been 2 years since then, and no changes still (also a year since Balaknightfang's post (incorrectly, once again) acknowledging it).
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- Links (Balaknightfang's post): https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/your-gripes-with-coc-ii.19814/page-38#post-353799
I dunno man, I don't mean to go on a rant about this game, but it's seriously depressing how much these developers act like amateurs, despite doing this whole game development thing for a decade, if not more.
