Looking closely

Merry Magnus folks!

And we're here... After 159 episodes, we've reached another season finale. What horrific happenings on Hallowe'en does Jonny have in store for us? What has transpired at the Institute whilst The Archivist ventured deeper and further into the spaces below and beyond? Questions a-plenty, and hopefully some answers...

And speaking of questions, a reminder that the Season 4 mailbox is now open for all your questions to Alex & Jonny about this season of The Magnus Archives. Though you may want to hold off from direct story-related questions until after this week's episode. The form  will remain open until 8pm Sunday 10th November.

Now, I'd like to take a bit of time to address some comments that arose following the recent episode delays. To contextualise, MAG158 was significantly delayed for the early access release, to the point where it didn't actually come out until nearly 11am BST on Thursday, some 19hrs after its intended drop. On the Wednesday I stated that we were hopeful of releasing by midnight, then later I publicised that the episode would be available between 8-9am BST.

With regards to the episode, I can only apologise unreservedly for the delays that beset it (and the small delay to MAG159 as well) and acknowledge that this wasn't our best showing in terms of managing expectations. Unfortunately, with regards to the production of this episode, we encountered a storm of problems, not least of which was that Alex had only the previous day returned from 3 weeks away - and at present he is the only person who can do the assembly & mastering of a TMA episode as complex as MAG158 was.

I spoke to Alex at several points on Wednesday, and put out announcements based on his best estimates. When we spoke that night, I was categorically assured that the episode would be ready and waiting for upload by 8am on Thursday. However, following our conversation and my announcement, it turned out that the only way to get that done would have been for Alex to work through the night, having already spent more than 10 hours on the edit.

We're not going to apologise for prioritising self-care above an edit, but this shows our management process around long delays does require revision, which we will look at during the season break. The times I put out were made in good faith, in an effort to keep you all as informed as possible based on the best information at the time. But I realise that also sets up false hope if/when we have to miss those times.

However, some folks who expressed perfectly reasonable dissatisfaction at the delay and other concerns, took some flak in doing so. Let me be perfectly clear - everyone has the right to criticise us & our actions, and we do not appreciate anyone being targeted (however well-meaningly or obliquely) for airing their grievances.

Have we messed up on occasion? Yes.
Have we put out information that has subsequently been wrong/inaccurate? Unfortunately, yes.
Have we over-promised & under-delivered with regards to bonus material & such? Probably. We recognise we've been over-eager in some areas.

I can categorically state that we never intentionally set out to mislead anyone. Information has always been provided to the best of our knowledge or expectation at the time. However, things change. And we can't always say why at the time, but we will do our best to be as transparent as we can.

We are constantly working to make good on the things we've said, but with only one person in the company being a full-time RQ worker (Alex), many matters will take longer than is ideal. In the interests of not making this overlong, I won't address specific concerns here, but if anyone has things they would like to raise/ask - you are always free to message me here or drop me a line on mail@rustyquill.com. And I encourage you to do so - we want to get better. I will also see about doing a specific "State of the Towers" kind of post at the end of the year - so if you have questions you'd like me to try and answer publicly, let me know.

TL;DR - we've made mistakes, we're sorry and will endeavour to learn from them. Please don't jump on folks raising legitimate & constructive criticism.

And, here's what you can expect from us this week (all shows release at 4pm UK time, though please note, DST has now ended in the UK, so times may vary from your usual):

Tue 29th October
RQG - Apocalypse World Special, Part 1 (Patreon)

Wed 30th October
MAG160 - [REDACTED] * (Patreon)
RQG - Apocalypse World Special, Part 1  (Public)  

Thu 31st October - HALLOWE'EN!
MAG160 - [REDACTED] * (Public)
Hallowe'en Hangout with Anil (8pm; The Cosmic Lounge on Discord)

* Title being kept a surprise at the request of Jonny ;-)

Have a great week folks!

Anil
Community Manager