The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[Paddy™]

Yes, most people don't use the Info Portal, because for some reasons:

Firstly, thanks for the feedback!

Spoiler below!

- You don't always remember that there is one.

I'm not sure what to do about this one. The Portal is the only sticky thread in the SOMA forum, so I don't think there's much more we can do to make it "visible". If you have any ideas, let us know!

- You generally are sceptical if it's updated to the latest stand.

Why do you feel that way? There are 3 places where the Portal's updates are announced: the thread, the Twitter account, and the website's Change Log. There's not a constant flow of new information about the game (or the films), so updates are going to be small and infrequent. Trust me, Ashtoreth and I are always trying to find new info to add, by reading every gaming site out there on a regular basis, stalking the social media accounts of the people involved with the game/films, and by reading this thread (big kudos to Chrysler for the info he's shared). But we're restricted by how much information is actually available.

- You don't want to rummage through the contents to find exactly what you searched for.

Can you give me an example of something you wanted to find but felt like there was too much to rummage through? The site is indeed verbose, but each page of the site has a "Key Points" section at the top which summarises the content below it. This way we can cater for people who just want the facts quickly and also those who like to read about every detail.

If you're having a hard time finding trailers, or screenshots, or a particular interview, again I'm not sure what to do about that; everything is (in my opinion, at least) clearly labelled, but we welcome any ideas you have to make it better.

- You assume that your question will not be answered there.

This is an easy one: you assumed wrongly. Your recent questions about a retail release of SOMA, and "what is Depth?", were already answered on the Portal months ago. Answering people's questions is precisely why the Portal was created in the first place.

It's like an user manual of a new computer. Do you read it? Always the same standard information?
People will only read it when they never used a computer before.

Not sure what that means. If you're saying it's too verbose, that's a fair criticism and we can work on that, but again there are "Key Points" on each page which summarise the contents, so you don't need to read everything. If you're saying that the site is too "technical", that's another fair criticism we can work with. We've been trying to keep it objective and factual, much like a Wikipedia article, but if people prefer a more "games journalism" kind of text we can talk about that.

If what you actually meant was that you already know everything there is to know about the game (so why would you need to "read the manual"?), then this is obviously untrue, considering your last two questions about SOMA/Depth.

And please avoid it to call members "oblivious". A member can't be obvious. It just can happen that a member don't know something, but that doesn't mean he's obvious in general. And avoid those pictures. We all are adult man and no children anymore.

Not knowing something is one thing (although in this case it's pretty amazing) but not bothering to read the last page of posts is another. Instead of asking "what is depth?" you could have just scrolled up and read what everyone has been talking about for the last few months (or rather, since December of 2013!). Or you could have just used the search box. An adult man like you should know that.

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EDIT: I guess we shouldn't clog up this thread with discussion about the Portal, so for anyone who's interested, feel free to post your feedback in the Portal thread, or send me a PM