Why are you ignoring the Steam Platform?

I am not sure about your strategy to ignore the steam platform.

Firstly: The accessibility of the "Community-Hub" is not available ( http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=18766 ). No reaction (I don't understand why). It is ESSENTIAL that the Steam community gets access to the mod. I already contact the steam support to change that.

Secondly: There are no updated news or announcements on Steam... Nothing about the "Custom Map Pug on 11. October" ( http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=18799 ), the new Empires 2.52 version or "We are looking for programmers" ( http://www.empiresmod.com/drupal/node/393 ). Why?

Thirdly: There are discussions on Steam and this forum (should I say community) does not react on. I am not sure about your behaviour... Why is there no sub-forum in the "Discussion" part of Steam?

You should definitly change your communication strategy. Look at "Fistful of Frags".... their old forum http://www.fistful-of-frags.com/bbs/index.php is completely migrated to Steam http://steamcommunity.com/app/265630/discussions/ with sub-forums and so on. However I feel, that this community is kind of elitist or likes to cut off from the outside world... (don't know the correct English formulation). In my experience (I played tons of games, mods), this is a really BIG problem for Empires Mod at all. Because new players are giving suggestions, may improve the game by new arts, sounds, models, etc.

So the main question is:

Why are you ignoring the Steam Platform?

or

Why does the Steam Platform not have the highest priority?

(If you like to keep your anonymity, use the Steam account of your wife/husband)

 

Brb, getting a wife to use their steam account.

But seriously though, I've wondered the same thing. I suppose the upside of the current way of doing things is that valve could go under tomorrow and empires would still have a future. Idk if that's the right way to go, but that's the main advantage that I see.

 

Naw, it's a different kind of elitism.

The main reason that it's not been done, I expect, is because no one's really had the time or effort to give, and there was probably some issue with it to start with. It's been a while since we've had people doing pr, and the current dev team have their hands full doing good for the actual game (and they're making a lot of progress).

 

Fairly sure Beerdude has posted 5+ times about how we don't seem to have the ability to change the community hub redirect.

 

Just an idea.....Re do the store page some of the screenshots are old.

Also why is Empires still listed as RequiredAppID Source SDK Base 2006 (215)

 

As it is, we don't have nearly as much control over the Steam page as people think we do, and we'd much rather stick with the flexibility of using an external forum rather than the Steam Discussion platform.

 

I know this is going to sound like heresy, but you guys need to jump on this shit.

Like, I understand we have no control. But we need to get control.
This needs to get fixed, first chance possible.

I will go to gabes house to get this shit fixed if possible.
*talking about hub*

 

We can't "get control". As in, Steam doesn't offer that control period.

 

I know in the past it was a pain. Submit a change it valve and they would decide if and when it got changed.

But I thought it was changed so it was a more automated interface now?
Or did Empires get screwed do to when it went on steam and kind of got caught in limbo.
Would it be worth just removing from steam then paying the $100 for greenlight.

 

It did get more automated, but it's not like other people are getting more access and we're not. Most likely it's just some holdover from back-when that Vales has to deal with.

 

Something needs to be done, this should not be ignored.

Even if its basic and looks like shit, it's something, there needs to be something.
*talking about hub*

 

I agree with Teef. I can't imagine that other developers have to send a mail to Valve for every change or news update on their game page.

 

If Empires has the same access I don't see what the issue is then ?
https://partner.steamgames.com/apps/title/[AppID]

Not sure who dropped the ball on this one.... But we could be having the issue of too many new people right now.
https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/marketing_visibility
"Update Visibility Rounds
When you make major updates to your application, add new content, release new DLC, or ship new features, is a great time to remind new and existing customers about your product. We've built a feature for doing exactly that.

With Update Visibility Rounds, we've dedicated space on the front page of the Steam store to highlighting products where the developer has a major update they would like to tell prospective customers about.

Updates announced in this way are also displayed on the Recently Updated page, where customers can see all recently updated titles or filter to just titles they have bought or activated on Steam.

You can use these rounds regardless of whether your product is in Early Access or fully released.

How this works:
When you have a major update that you'd like to communicate to customers, simply click the 'start round' button on your applications' Marketing admin page.
You will be prompted to enter a short description and select a recent community announcement where customers will be able to learn more about your update.
When you get everything entered in, you're ready to start.
Your product will be added to a pool of titles that are opted in, and randomly selected to appear each time a customer views the home page until your visibility round ends.
Right now, each visibility round will result in roughly 500,000 views on the front page of Steam, but that number may change over time as more data is collected and the system is optimized.
Your product and announcement will also be displayed on the Recently Updated page."

 

And here is a video by valve about Steamworks Features -- A Technical Overview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7rZzkubh6o&list=UUStZs-X5W6V3TFJLnwkzN5w&index=26

 

no time to ctrl+c ctrl+v of what is already on the forums?
dont get why all those excuses

...
teefs posts finally making some sense

 

Obviously, we're referring to two different things here.

I was specifically talking about the Source SDK requirement part in terms of us not having absolute power over the Steam store page; apparently that wasn't clear from context. There's no option for us to remove that, as far as I can tell. In terms of having the same control as everyone else, that was in reference to the Steam store page itself. But marketing isn't a part of the Steam store page, which is why it's irrelevant to this train of thought.

Capisce?