what’s the point of an update log?
why would i do that? and why not
2 Likes
Well, some people follow the Bulletin Board section and then they see your post - that made my game visits 16% higher! However some people may not find your post interesting and they will just leave it.
Well, it’s used to inform your users about updates/fixes in your game.
Whether it’s bug fixes or new features that might have been added, it’s good people know about it.
An update log (aka change log) I’ve made as an example:
Would be easier to see that and understand the fixes/improvements and new features.
You don’t necessarily have to add it but it would be preferred for better UX (User Experience).
The use of an Update Log is generally to log out what was added in an update to a game for the sake of knowing what was added or looking at the history of the game
There can be some benefits to making an update log, especially when the updates made are small and players can’t easily check if it was added/removed or not. It’s good to let your player base know everything that was done in that update rather than just being vague. It can even help you remember what you added so you dont accidentally try to do it again at a later time
Example, if you just say that a new update came out and only mention the big changes, your playerbase has no info on if a certain bug has been fixed or not, or if a QoL (Quality of Life) feature that they wanted has been added, and so on with other small things. Or it could be on an extreme and you dont mention anything to your player base, which will leave them confused on what was added if the update wasn’t obvious to notice
Then there’s the very slight chance of gaining some players after finding your log and noticing how much hard work was put into the game
An update log doesn’t take that much to make, just log out issues/features that were added in that update and when you release it, publish a new log. There’s no real benefit on skipping out on making a log besides saving a bit of time, making a Update Log has more benefits
An update log tells people previous updates and dates, say I wanted to know when the summer event was added, I can look there. It also remindes people when and what the upodate(s) was!
When someone sees that there’s an update to their favorite game, they want to know what changed. They want to know what to expect before joining a server. Also, for any smaller changes, the players can check it out and your content that you spent time on can be appreaciated by more people. Plus, more people can find your game if they just go to #bulletin-board . You can, of course, have a smaller update log in-game and advertise the larger update log to the players in the description of the game or the update log UI/billboard.
The posts above mention for community information’s sake so I won’t chime in too hard there but I’d also like to add that update logs are useful internal trackers for you and/or your development team and highlight some other key points about why it’s good to keep your community informed as the above responses have pointed out very majorly.
Keeping track of the updates you’re making to your experience can help you perform some content cadence analytics. Content cadence refers to the regular release of updates in your experience after it first launches, so to Roblox developers that’s understood as all regular updates after an experience is no longer in early development stages (it’s a stable launched experience that visitors can play). Here are some things you might be interested in analysing:
-
You may be interested in seeing the progress that you or your development team makes every version and how you might be able to iterate upon your next version to bring more or better content to your visitors.
-
You might have a roadmap of all the features you want to get over the course of a development period, be it a short period of time or over the next few years. With each version released both the developers and the visitors can see how you’re progressing through your roadmap and what can be expected, ahead of time, for the next version(s) ahead.
-
For highly engaged visitors, they might want to know what the development team has been working on and how that might affect their gameplay. For example, you might fix a broken fighting skill in a patch ahead of time without waiting to push that fix in the next major version and that might change the “meta” or what visitors need to consider to optimise their gameplay.
-
They help you scope your progress which is especially good if you have version control and you’re looking to investigate the development of a version. Maybe you might want to revert a file or debug a problem down to a specific date. semver is really helpful for versioning, though we tend not to follow the principles it dictates and just adjust it according to our needs (a lot of developers don’t use this right even at a fundamental level without following every single principle – 1.9 does not become 2.0, it becomes 1.10, unless you’re releasing a major update!).
-
Version updates can help you know where you’re at with your experience (what players are currently able to experience as well as the new things they can go through) and help gauge the general reaction from the community to your updates. You can get some feedback or check out how your players like or don’t like your updates and make adjustments to your plans whether that means adding, removing or changing things you had in mind.*
THAT LAST POINT IS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT. Speaking as a developer who formerly led the development of projects for a community of 250K+ members and not as a professional here, anecdotally, your players don’t know what they want. They think they know what they want and that’s why you’ll tend to get a lot of angry complaints if you don’t meet their arbitrary expectations. Worst case scenario, you’re working under someone inexperienced, they also get pressured by the community and make wrong judgements like firing you or demanding that you do as the community wants and not what’s actually the best course of action to take.
Feedback is a very sensitive topic. Logs become all the more important so you can scope that feedback based on what changes you’ve made and there are cases where you’ll garner some harsh responses because of the changes you’ve made. These are all important skills to have when dealing with update feedback, again speaking anecdotally with experience failing in this regard:
-
Keep a level head. Players don’t speak technical, you do. They care more about getting things to do that they enjoy. You’ll get any range of feedback - happy, angry, even personally hateful remarks - and it’s important you never lose it over that. Remember that at the end of the day your audience still makes your community and your paycheck.
-
Find the problem in the complaint. As I mentioned earlier, players typically don’t know what they really want and will often speak in complaints or proposed solutions. You won’t reach conclusions immediately and not always with direct confrontation. You need to be able to calmly hear out all level of feedback even if it’s strongly negative (but obviously do something if it gets to a vile level) and find the real problem they have, then work towards a solution if there is one.
-
Know what feedback to accept or dismiss. Community feedback is not a dictation of your goals and is as much a valid voice as yours and your teams’ is when discussing ideas and how to proceed with updates. Not everything will go through but there are some diamonds in the rough. You ever know those canned responses Roblox gives us to support emails, feature requests and flags on the forum? You have to know when to do that with your community. Sometimes just a smile and a “thanks for the feedback, we’re listening, keep it coming” without actually listening is a good strategy. Let them know you’re reading but don’t let on too much about what you’re actually doing with their feedback. Some feedback really belongs in the trash bin and on occasion you’ll get rubbish that isn’t even worth a second thought later.
Just some things to look out for. I might’ve gotten a bit to deep over a question about what update logs are useful for but I personally think that they play a major part in keeping not just your community informed but you and/or your team as well. What might seem like a simple text scroll of new and updated things may have a big impact on a serious, large project.
Hope I’ve imparted something useful for you here.