And still not one word from Matt regarding his in hindsight rosy tainted post over the state of the game. Its a shame that he, as a producer of the game, avid cricket gaming fan and one time staunch critic of the way in which cricket gaming customers have been treated by various companies throughout the years and is a prominent member and owner of this site, has nothing to say.
I've tried to make the point numerous times that my role isn't one where I am in a position to speak for the company - nearly every time I do post however people do take it as an official company line, so I need to post keeping that in mind, which pretty much will always lean towards me not posting.
I've always been a big fan of cricket games, and am very happy that I've been able to make a career out of trying to make one as good as it can be, there's a huge team in the same boat - a number of the QA team who have come from a similar background of being fans of cricket games (and our other sports) and coming in to the team - then having to read disgusting posts calling for them all to be fired, reading that about my colleagues and friends certainly isn't a way to get me to engage on here.
Anyway, to address your point - I made
a post just as a few people were starting to see footage from people playing unpatched copies of the game - I wasn't trying to talk anything up beyond making it clear that people were seeing a game without a patch, and that the day one patch was substantial in content and improvements versus the disc build.
I'd stand by every word of that post, that there was feedback people were posting on things that were already addressed by the day one patch, but that we will look to take on board feedback after that point; I made a comment on the priorities of UI tasks, the HUD update that I said was already designed is now in the builds; and I said that I *hope* to convince our harshest critics once they get the chance to play.
Indeed I've said more or less the same thing repeatedly, I expect that people on this site will trust others on here rather than anything I say or that is in any marketing, as part of their purchasing decisions -
I know you'll all weigh stronger the opinions from others in the community you trust, people who get the game at launch and provide feedback and reviews on it, far more than anything made to build hype/excitement.
I'm sure there will be the healthy amount of scepticism with what is said in marketing, which is where that feedback from the community ends up driving most of the purchasing decisions from those here.
I know there's some strong critics in the thread, even if you're someone not convinced on day one, I hope there's stuff you'll see as people get the game, or if need be through post release updates that change your mind. I hope we can make even our harshest critics happy over time.
In the lead up to release I was just saying, let people try it, listen to people you trust in making your choice as to purchase. I get that at this point a lot of the feedback on the game is negative, so the thing I can do about that is to read it, review the things people bring up and see what I can get addressed, but any posts I'd make on here are in my own time through my personal use of the site - and for me come with the risks I'm taken out of context (such as by those weird twitter accounts) or say something people think is counter to something they've been told from the people whose job it is to actually correspond with the public in an official capacity, ie the support team through their official channels, the support site and the official forum.
On the other hand if you're talking about this,
But I'll give you a tiny tidbit - two of my personal favourite new features are audio related.
Here I was talking about Adam Gilchrist's commentary, and the regional stadium crowd/atmospheric audio. Obviously a lot of people aren't as happy with them as I was, but I've had the different region crowds as something I've wanted for a long time and was happy this game got to deliver it - the audio guys who work on it have taken on board a lot of feedback and are re-balancing and adjusting it to make it better. Likewise Gilchrist's commentary, I hear it from a delivery standpoint - he to me sounds really natural in game compared to the sometimes stilted delivery of some commentators who can't quite make the jump between live and video game. I think his commentary adds a lot, but there's work to be done on making the lines more accurate in terms of triggers and context.
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Anyway, I try and choose my words carefully whenever I post, and then still have a situation where you've thought I've been overly rosy to the point of thinking I've misled people, but I genuinely don't know what I've said that could have given you that impression. That makes it even harder in my position to be active in replying - when those like yourself who have always engaged in good faith discussions are getting impressions much different than what I was trying to convey - then it's even worse once you throw in people off site or grabbing one line out of a long post.
At the end of the day, the main thing I think I can do is to take what people write on here and try and action it as best I can to improve the product.