Slitherine Next recap?

[thegreybetween]

Greetings fellow rulers,

Today was the broadcast for Slitherine Next, and there was a block of time reserved to discuss DW2 announcements. I know there was some mention on the forums of a possible big announcement before the end of the year, so I'm hoping that cat is now out of the bag. I'm excited to see how the game is going to expand!

I'm at the office and can't stream video, so I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to summarize the DW2-relevant parts of the broadcast here? This would also be a fine place for any subsequent discussion. Many thanks!

[Clux]

It basically was a TLDR on what they worked on this year and said new races are gonna show up next year

[thegreybetween]

Which races will be in the first wave?
Or did they just say "no news yet, more to come"?

They have done a lot to the game over the last year. While it can (fairly) be argued that a lot of it should have been done prior to launch, I was happy that they were able to release when they did and that we could enjoy (and help troubleshoot) the game's bumpy launch.

As far as the base game is concerned, it is a lot more stable now, and I have no doubt that they'll continue to hone it. The only real missing "content" that I feel like they still need to add are female portraits for the Humans, but I believe that they're working on these now that the release bottleneck on art assets has subsided.

As for the future of the game - it is bright! Assuming that the ultimate goal is an experience as robust (or better!) than DWU, we have some great things in the future - 13+ new races, playable pirate factions, different galaxy timelines, additional plot lines, and more. I look forward to 2023 and beyond!

My personal hunch is that the first expansion will probably just focus on adding a few more races, so that we can enjoy more content in the relatively stable current engine. I assume bigger content updates (like pirates) will be a little later in the cycle, after we've had the afterglow of a few stable launches under our belts.

Races I'd love to see sooner than later: Shandar (my favorites), Quameno, and Securan (now that diplomacy is fleshing out). I think the Ketarov would be cool to see as well, but the espionage system might want a few iterations first.

[Erik Rutins]

The video we released yesterday at Slitherine Next addressed how things have gone and our future plans in general. We will be expanding the DW2 galaxy, adding new content and much more next year. 2022 has been a year mainly of fixing issues with DW2. In 2023 we will continue to make fixes and improvements, but there will also be quite a lot of new content for DW2. More details should be coming in January.

Regards,

- Erik

[thegreybetween]

Good job on the video, BTW. It definitely has great cinematic appeal and made me want to stop what I was doing and play some DW2. I hope it draws in a lot of new folks, and reminds folks who might have put the game aside that now is an awesome time to dive back in. Thanks for all of the hard work and good times in 2022, and cheers to an amazing 2023. Happy holidays to you and the team!

As for the OP, I was able to watch the video after work. Here are the notes for anyone interested:
- There was a new video recapping the improvements to the game since launch. It uses footage from the race trailers and some game footage, with a great narration and enough cinematic panache to feel inspiring. Good stuff!
- There was a little discussion about the bumpiness of the launch and the resulting expansion to the team and the internal QA processes. With past issues largely resolved and a good team in place, the future is bright, but cautious.
- As such, the discussion of new content is limited to [paraphrasing] "2023 is going to be great and there is a lot of stuff coming to DW2, but we're not yet ready to discuss any of it and don't want to create any expectations that could upset the equilibrium we've recovered."
- That said, there was hopeful talk about a big reveal in January/February, so whatever the next wave of content will be, it is well in the works at this point, but not quite far enough along to share.

Again, thanks to the whole team for all of the hard work! I love the game you've created, and I am eager to see where you take it in the next year and beyond. Cheers!

[Tanaka]

Good job on the video, BTW. It definitely has great cinematic appeal and made me want to stop what I was doing and play some DW2. I hope it draws in a lot of new folks, and reminds folks who might have put the game aside that now is an awesome time to dive back in. Thanks for all of the hard work and good times in 2022, and cheers to an amazing 2023. Happy holidays to you and the team!

As for the OP, I was able to watch the video after work. Here are the notes for anyone interested:
- There was a new video recapping the improvements to the game since launch. It uses footage from the race trailers and some game footage, with a great narration and enough cinematic panache to feel inspiring. Good stuff!
- There was a little discussion about the bumpiness of the launch and the resulting expansion to the team and the internal QA processes. With past issues largely resolved and a good team in place, the future is bright, but cautious.
- As such, the discussion of new content is limited to [paraphrasing] "2023 is going to be great and there is a lot of stuff coming to DW2, but we're not yet ready to discuss any of it and don't want to create any expectations that could upset the equilibrium we've recovered."
- That said, there was hopeful talk about a big reveal in January/February, so whatever the next wave of content will be, it is well in the works at this point, but not quite far enough along to share.

Again, thanks to the whole team for all of the hard work! I love the game you've created, and I am eager to see where you take it in the next year and beyond. Cheers!

Nice did not know about this video until I saw this thread. I'm most interested in new races as the galaxy just feels empty as few as there are at launch. If anyone else is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adFb74Y7RVM

[Silvestri]

The video we released yesterday at Slitherine Next addressed how things have gone and our future plans in general. We will be expanding the DW2 galaxy, adding new content and much more next year. 2022 has been a year mainly of fixing issues with DW2. In 2023 we will continue to make fixes and improvements, but there will also be quite a lot of new content for DW2. More details should be coming in January.

Thanks Erik, appreciate all the work you and the team put in to improve the game and excited to see what you have planned for us next year.

Have a great Holiday.