Character Dev Process

Unknown
edited December 2013 in MPQ General Discussion
This post is addressed to the Devs... (but anyone please comment...)

Curious what (generally) is your process for developing new characters. In particular:

1) How much do you weigh player demand, and how much is just developers' choice of character?
This I'm curious because, as someone said in another thread "devs must love Black Widow!" Is that the case? Seems strange to make 4 versions (including DA), when truly unique characters could be added...

2) How do you decide what color skills a new character will have? Again, as has been suggested in other threads there seems to be a loose system of red/green=attack, purple/yellow/blue=heal/protect/stun, black=miscellaneous, however there are lots of exceptions. Is there a system?
Curious: if it is planned that a character has, say, a protect-tile skill. Is the decision as to whether it is purple, blue, yellow arbitrary?

3) What kind of pre-release testing is done?
Curious about this one because of Invisible Woman (and to a lesser extent some of the characters got nerfed). It seems that she is a failure. I would presume you do a lot of testing prior to release, so how could she turn out so lackluster. Presumably it wasn't intended to develop a "Baglady"? (or was it?) Shame to put all that effort into developing a character that is just a forum joke.

Anyway, just curious... Hope to see more great characters in the future.., icon_e_smile.gif

Comments

  • From what I can tell, it seems the Devs take in our thoughts pretty well, but the have their own agenda. The only goal of this game, and all games for that matter, is to generate revenue.

    Skills are pretty obvious, minus a few skills like spider-mans new purple ability, they generaly pertain to the personality, skillsets from the comic, and what they are known for. I.E. IW's bubble and Hulk's anger.

    For the third, I speculate (and probably will be told that I'm wrong) that they don't really test further than "does it work with the rest of the code". Cause Invisible Woman does suck, and then it goes back to the first line I posted.. They don't care cause she was "necessary" and people spent money to get her.

    Though I do concur with your curiosity, how do the Devs make decisions, if not logically.. icon_e_confused.gif