Red Herrings

Andrew: Some of the teasers we gave out during development were red herrings.

Andrew: Some unintentional, because we teased stuff that later got scrapped, or reworked, or drastically changed.

Andrew: Others intentional, to make sure the hardcore detectives in the community were led off
track and didn't piece together the entire storyline and timeline before the mod was released.

Andrew: Others also to try to control the level of hype to make sure it didn't get too overblown, and kept at a "simmering" level.

Andrew: I see a big mistake a lot of developers tend to make is to show the
best-of-the-best that their game has to offer in their teasers and trailers.

Andrew: Which always leads to people getting dissapointed on release, when
the majority of the game is not at the level that the teasers were.

Andrew: One of my favorite instances of this is the Rivulet snow teaser.

Andrew: I wanted to subtly hint at the existance of snow, but without
revealing the amazing blizzard effects we had actually managed to make.

Andrew: So I tried to make the snow effects in that teaser look as underwhelming and shitty as possible.

Andrew: The snow breath effects were this ugly oversized grey cloud of smoke that looked like Rivulet was about to catch on fire.

Andrew: And then later we show another Rivulet teaser with one measly little puddle of snow on the ground. Amazing.