[h2]Hola Capos! Recently we conducted a Q&A Livestream on our Discord, and here are the highlights! [/h2] [h3]Unfortunately, the video footage from the stream was corrupted, so it became our first podcast! Enjoy! ːcartel_roflmaoː[/h3] [previewyoutube=RFaX5wjoDd8;full][/previewyoutube] Text version: [expand type=details] [olist] [*] [b]How long did it take to make San Rafaela?[/b] We started working on San Rafaela almost 1.5 years ago! We actually found one of the first map drafts to show you! The goal of this map was to challenge not only the new players but the experts of our first map as well! We also wanted the map to look different from the first one, so we modeled new city buildings, new plants, trees, biomes, and water. So, yeah, we started thinking about San Rafaela even earlier but started making it 1.5 years ago. [*] [b]Is Andrey a programmer?[/b] Nope, I’m just a community manager, but I’m learning a lot from my awesome colleagues! I’ll answer another question cause that was a pretty short answer! [*] [b]I’m terrible at the game, can you teach me?[/b] All I can tell you is that I have over 300 hours in the game, and I sometimes feel like I’m playing for the first time. Trial and error are the best teachers in Cartel Tycoon! But with recent updates, we were closely looking for feedback from players who are just starting out - we wanted to make the game easier to get into, to make these first hours feel good for the player. So, if you’re having trouble with the game - tell us what systems aren’t explained enough, and we’ll take a look at them! In the meantime, you can talk to awesome players on this server, who, I feel like, sometimes know the game better than us. [*] [b]How was it working with tinyBuild? Any interesting stories?[/b] It’s great! They supported us from the beginning, and we couldn't have made this game without them! As for interesting stories, we can show you the first teaser draft that we pitched the game with! Back then there were only five people on the team, and we all pitched in to make this teaser that started our journey with tinyBuild and Cartel Tycoon. It’s an exclusive, don’t show anyone else! [*] [b]How is the art for this game made? It’s incredible![/b] We agree it’s completely incredible! We have two 2D artists and four 3D artists! 2D artists are responsible for the UI and character designs and cinematics, while 3D artists are responsible for all of the 3D in the game - cars, trees, birds, buildings, the whole map! Our 2D character artist uses the IPad and Procreate as her main tools of trade, and for 3D we use 3DS Max and Blender! We will tell our artists that you love their work! A lot of work-in-progress visuals, early concepts, ideas, cinematics storyboards, and many more can be found in our official artbook. Oh, and as a bonus, I’ll show you early sketches of some of the cinematics!. For each character, there’s always a mood board reference board with all the ideas and elements that we’d like to incorporate. Each character has its own backstory that’s tightly connected with how it looks. So, it’s always a collaboration between artists, game designers, and writers. [*] [b]We also had a lot of questions about the future of Cartel Tycoon.[/b] So we’re going to try to answer all of them at once. After the release of San Rafaela and multiple free updates for the game, we want to take a break from constant releases and focus on our long-term plans for the game - researching mod support, for example. We will, of course, continue releasing patches with bug fixes and small changes if needed. The next patch should be released in 2 weeks and will not only contain bug fixes but also some changes based on the feedback we got on Discord and from Steam reviews. But no big content drops are planned until the end of 2023. We’re also taking a step back to look through all of the feedback provided to us and to calculate which requested features can be added to the game and which of the features require a new game of their own! For example, auto-buying from Area Depots and Villages. Next year Cartel Tycoon is also releasing on consoles, so we need to focus on helping and supporting the porting team to get the best version of Cartel Tycoon possible! We don’t have a concrete release date for the console edition yet, but we’re hoping for a spring release. Another reason we’re slowing with the updates is that… we have new projects in development! We won’t share any details just yet but just wanted to let you know we’re cooking something up unrelated to Cartel Tycoon! [*] [b]There were also a couple of questions about future DLCs.[/b] Right now, we don’t have plans for future DLCs, but we’re also juggling a couple of long-term ideas and are thinking of different ways of implementing them! We also don’t want to simply release a DLC with new characters without providing a free update for all of the Cartel Tycoon owners, and as we said above - we’re focusing on the long-term plans and ideas, so if we find an idea that warrants creating several new characters while also providing awesome content for all of the Cartel Tycoon owners - we’ll make a small DLC! [/olist] So, to sum it all up - we have plans for the long-term future of Cartel Tycoon, but we need to take a breather to focus on them fully. We’ve been releasing an update a month (well, almost) for 2 years now, so with the latest huge release behind our backs, we finally feel like the game is in a healthy position where we’re able to do that. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved further, no! We’re still taking your feedback to heart, and, in fact, pretty soon we should be adding one of the most requested features into the game! We wanted to thank you for being with us through these eventful years and helping us make the game that we always wanted to make. And making it better along the way! We always try to thank you, and we’ll continue doing so! [/expand] [list] [*] [url=https://discord.gg/CartelTycoon]Discord[/url] [*] [url=https://twitter.com/CartelTycoon]Twitter[/url] [*] [url=https://www.facebook.com/CartelTycoon/]Facebook[/url] [*] [url=https://www.instagram.com/carteltycoon/]Instagram[/url] [/list]