As others have said, we’re delighted to meet you! Bringing back weekly streams on the Twitch is a nice first step, but I’m certain there’s a bit more ground to be covered in that regard
Do note that most of us are a bit cynical and wary owing to a lack of clear communication from IOI’s part as of lately, on quite a few matters; I understand that you’ll be representing them and helping drive engagement between us (a driven portion of the playerbase), and do note that we might be a little bit cautious at first.
Best of luck, and we hope you enjoy your time in your new role!
Also TheKotti Mastery 20 speedruns. a great celebration and showcase of all of the design and gameplay of the World of Assassination, most at 20 minutes so quickly viewable, and with pleasant and informative commentary
And CassidyCope Facts & Features videos, an exploration of quirks, other fun particularities of level, or exotic working of the game systems, she also makes “absurd challenges”
But if you want some returns: (click to unravel)
I think we lost our goodwill toward IOI during Year 4.
And gained a general feeling of alienation.
In game, it was the Year of Connor McGreggor, it was the year of terribly bad unlocks, it was the year of glitched featured contracts, of the “we forgot” the asked by everyone Freelancer Coin and a general abandonment of the core game itself…
In communications, it was the year of shadowdropped uncommunicated Elusive Targets, an AI generated trailer, of twitch subscription suit, and a general sense that we were the red-headed stepchild.
And as much as IOI does great work during Year 5, nothing allowed a recovery.
The right spice, the right mutual understanding and recognition, the right resonant action from time to time.
On communication, I’m not particularly on it, but I can see others wrote on it.
On content, IOI has a bad habit of snatching a defeat out of the jaw of victory, with a sense of lack of care. It was using the “cheap-model” of suits to create ill-fitted and bugging suits. It’s the non-micro RFID, it’s the pinot noir, it’s the freelancer coin…
I’m presently waiting to see if the announced Solstice Suit had its lapel pin swapped.
It’s my litmus test.
More importantly:
The last two years had a sense of never being understood, seen, or talked to in the same language.
It created a terrible environment, that frustrated, that unravelled members, that alienated some, that insulted some, that made some feeling crazy.
I think this is why you might see walls of texts, precise and carefully explained wishlist, and unrelenting pursuit of some asks.
We are sometime afraid that we do not talk on the same wave-length.
And we sometimes fear that an ask will be misunderstood, and implemented in a wasted corrupted way that makes everyone angry in the end.
Those are the reasonable, I hope, returns.
You will also certainly see me post about the Lessons Learned Campaign, the SANKO classics, and other ICA ClassicStriker or Lure-to-self Phone and all of their details.
But they are playful musing, I would like, I think some would be great for the game, but I don’t make them an obligation to be met.
Hi Arti,
great to see some outreach on the topic of modding
One question from my end:
Given the always-online nature of the game it’d be effectively unplayable the moment the servers shut down at it’s current state if it wasn’t for community support.
There is a community-made server replacement named “The Peacock Project”, whose staff team I joined 3 years ago (damn, time really flies ), doing mostly community support.
The project is mostly feature-equivalent to the official server and has better mod support by design.
Does IOI have any plans for when the servers will inevitably be shut down, or will you just rely on community support?
Some members of the forum already reached out to me and “warned“ me about the sometimes rougher environment here in the forum. I really appreciate it, but there must always be a reason for this kind of emotionality. And the reason is, that everyone loves this coldblooded, bald man with a faible for costumes. At least in most cases. With that in mind it is always easier to understand where the critique is coming from.
Personally, I will always try to look out for myself and take breaks and limit overtime as much as possible. Appreciate the thought tho.
I don’t think it’s been asked in this thread but what is your level play experience with WoA specifically?
I ask because another employee who was new and hosted a stream was so inexperienced with the intricacies of the game that they did not even understand some of the questions being asked, which can make it hard to get answers even if they attempt to forward the questions to a dev afterward
Since you’ve said that you’ve already had a scroll through the Communication thread, you’ll probably already know that I was quite the vocal critic of Samir, but I have to say… I’m feeling quite optimistic here. I’m already liking what I’m seeing.
Personally, what I hope for from the PR team is
a roadmap outlining the future update policy for HITMAN, along with stable communication regarding the content of those updates and their implementation timelines.
Recently, HITMAN often keeps information completely under wraps until the day of an update, with announcements and implementation happening simultaneously. Even just knowing in advance (ideally about a week prior) “when the next update announcement is scheduled” would personally give me a sense of reassurance.
Also, while X (Twitter) is frequently used for announcements, it often becomes inaccessible and is unstable. It would be great if similar information were also shared on a separate, stable platform, such as the official website “ioi.dk/hitman,” allowing players to check anytime.
Another expectation is that, with the release of 007 approaching next year and HITMAN likely nearing the end of its updates, the team will guide it to a strong conclusion.
For instance, there are numerous requests among user opinions on the forums. I hope these are fed back to the development team to create a better final update for HITMAN.
Personally, what I hope for in the final update includes: offline full access to online-exclusive content like Escalations, Arcade, and Freelancer; the addition of standalone play for Elusive Targets; and as many bug fixes as possible.
I could list more, but I’ll stop here for now.
I welcome your work in user engagement.
I look forward to your future efforts.
Love the Metro GIF. It was the first game that actually “spoke” to me, since Artjom//Artyom is not the most commom name in entertainment media.
I haven’t played WOA specifically and deliberately avoided it, since I knew I had the job just because I planned to do an entire playthrough together with the community live on Twitch - if there is interest of course. If not I will gladly jump into it in my free time and can tell my GF I am doing research.
I see your point regarding the questions and I try to become familiar with all terms and questions as fast as possible. In the end IO needed to hire someone who is living in Copenhagen, knows a thing about comms and marketing in games, is a good fit for the team and willing to make content to sort of grow into the “face” of the team. Ideally, the person would’ve been already familiar with WOA, but it is already a slim profile as it is.
Since Samir (Combatglue) is currently out of office and prioritizes his health - which is 100% justified and the entire team at IO wishes him a fast recovery - I don’t have that much insight into the topic, but please feel free to DM me and let me know, what you were talking about.
Hey there, welcome to the forum. It’s always nice to see IOI members participate on the forum. It’s also very reassuring to be open to questions. I think many members on the forum wish IOI was a bit more transparent and open, so it’s great to see you address that.
That’s a super sweet idea, but it isn’t really a main or public or hitman discussion place. I don’t want to spread our community engagement employee too thin!
(Also I’d have to be on my best behaviour all the time!)
), doing mostly community support.
