“The new user interface for The Infinite Black Expansion is about 95% complete. We can connect to the server and play the game! The next step is to implement the universe and solar system maps, space battle visuals, and movement from sector to sector. We'll have a demo video of the user interface soon. New Features Players have been asking why things are delayed. A big reason for that is because we've added 9 major new features that were never announced! We'll release more details in the coming weeks, but today we can reveal three of them! 1) There is now a captain portrait designer built into the client so all players can create a unique avatar. The old website portrait system will be going away. 2) Vanity items drop from enemy NPCs and special events. You can buy and sell these items, or consume them to add to your collection. There are currently over 5,000 vanity items with more on the way. Bonus: Kickstarter backers will receive exclusive Vanity items! 3) We are integrating the Steam Marketplace into the desktop clients. This allows players to buy and sell equipment safely outside of the game using their Steam wallet, with powerful price history and market tracking tools. We'll have another update soon with a video and more information! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/967658980/the-infinite-black-expansion/posts/2242375”

21h 7m

“I work on the expansion every day, all day. It will be ready when it's ready. My goal is to do it well; not fast. Deadlines will be missed but I'd rather have a good game later than a bad game now.”

06/28/2018

“We've offered to pay people to make (quality) guides, and have paid a few people over the years. Most of the guide submissions we've received very poor quality, rife with typos, grammar issues, etc. We have resources online, but we can't actually make people read them. If you think you can do better than what we and other players have done, go for it. https://steamcommunity.com/app/489000/guides/ I challenge you to create the best guide out there.”

06/15/2018

“Login rewards are exploitable, as people can create multiple accounts. It's just not going to happen.”

06/15/2018

“Money isn't the issue with advertising. The problem is the client.. It's confusing, unfriendly, doesn't work particularly well, isn't visually attractive, and too many things are through chat commands. My goal with the expansion client is to make something visually attractive which helps marketing, and has a good new player experience. We've put over $20,000 into advertising in the past two years, and it never pays off. Typically we get about 1 download per $1 and only 1:100 of them stick around to play... So we're paying about $100 for a real new user. It's just not economically viable, at least with the current game. What matters 1000x more than advertising is positive reviews, and word-of-mouth. That's why it sucks every time a player who likes the game decides to give us a negative review (like lots of people still playing have). They're just killing the game they enjoy, and not fixing anything. Our rating on Google Play was tanked by an alliance who was unhappy about some minor issue two years ago. I don't even remember what it was because it got changed a day later, but they did serious and lasting damage to the game -- We were dropped from Google's top game list, and saw a 90% decline in new users, all because some Alliance leader thought destroying our rating was a good idea. They were directly responsible for 2 employees losing their jobs because we couldn't afford them anymore, and we had to shift focus to Heroes of Dire to generate a new revenue stream. If you guys want the game to survive, the best thing you could do is encourage corp mates to review the game. We don't give any rewards or gifts for positive reviews, other than not going out of business.”

06/13/2018