Dev Team?

LordWill

So I was greatly encouraged when the Dev Team introduced themselves and said they were going to be active on the forums yet I haven't seen anything from them since they posted their introductions almost a 3 weeks ago.

I don't think being silent for 3 weeks is very active.

I'm just curious whats going on with the game? Where are things going? When are events coming out? What about dupe cards? etc

I mean it's great to say, hey we are going to be working on these things but then to have zero updates or communication whatsoever just feels like we don't matter.

I do appreciate you guys jumping on the bugs that were happening with the PvP events and hopefully those are resolved but I would still like some news about whats going on and what we can look forward to.

If you are going to be here, then be HERE.

loroku

Agreed. More status updates would be nice, especially since the game is so amazingly buggy. (Still wondering if last week's blue PvP mess up will be compensated as well.) Not communicating gives the impression that you're either hiding or there aren't many of you or you don't care - none of which is flattering.

Cthulhu

Hey, thanks for writing in, we are working hard to get more content into the game and hope to add more updates soon. I think one is planned for today.

We are actively discussing more content releases and hope to communicate plans soon, but we don't want to promise something and it changes.

Overall, the new quick battle is a lot of fun, even though I work for D3 and have to work on this game, I'm hooked and finding great strategies from players as I'm battling through these events.

Basically, stay tuned, a lot is coming!

Cthulhu

loroku

Thanks for saying something! Agreed that Quick Battle is tons of fun... (until you crash mid-game when you were ahead...) and the core match-3 game is still sharp.

At this point I know you guys are burnt hard on promising something that doesn't come through in time, but acknowledging you've heard specific issues ("Hey guys, we know it still crashes constantly and we have a patch coming") goes a long way. I know it seems trite and repetitive, and people will nail you for that, too - but it's still better than nothing.

Cthulhu

No problem, we all do what we can and I will do my best to get into the forums time to time.

LordWill

Hey Thanks for answering!

I agree with what has been said, its nice to have a little something than nothing. For example, if a patch is coming soon (maybe today) this would have been a great opportunity to say something a week ago saying we are working on X, Y , Z and will have a patch out soon. It doesn't need to contain specifics but a taste of whats going on.

The dev team DOES know what they are working on and whats coming (at least I am hoping they do) so they could shed a little light on it.

I don't think people will pull out their pitchforks for giving people a taste of whats to come, even if it doesn't happen right away. Most people (although I know not all and you can't please everyone) would welcome more communication.

So I am going to help the developers and give some ideas so you don't make the same mistakes Demiurge made.

1. Have a PLAN of where you are going. You have already laid the foundation of the game, so I hope you have really done a lot of planning of future features and enhancements for down the road and where you are wanting to take the game AND how you want people to play it. One of the problems Demiurge had is trying to change the basic fundamentals of the game, for example how the Character covers worked they have changed it several times, scaling, event times, reward issues, balance problems etc.
If you look at the progress of their game it almost seems like they couldn't figure what direction to go and spend lots of time, months of development on features that just plain failed. I don't want to see you make the same mistakes of patch fixing everything because you really don't know which direction to go. If I were you I would focus on the "END GAME" and what people are going to continue to log into the game for or to compete in events/PvP, then work back from there.

2. Use us as a resource. We have so many talented and creative people on this forum who would like nothing better than to help you and help you avoid many costly mistakes. Think of it as expanding your creative team by 100 for zero cost. Or maybe compensate people with Crystals if you use their ideas. Create Design/Idea/Card/Event contests and see what people come up with. It costs you NOTHING. So you can keep the same 5 people on the creative team you have now or you can open things up and expand your resources.

3. Listen to our feedback, we are the ones who pay the bills. We want this game to succeed. Communicate with us. Treat us how you want to be treated.

4. Maybe just have a weekly dev team check in or something, doesn't mean you need to do a 30 minute video, just a weekly post or something letting us know how things are going. Even if its "Hey were are still working on the crashing bug! Wish us luck" or something like that. We appreciate that than stone silence.

I stopped posting to the MPQ forums because it was just a dead horse. The Devs had in their mind exactly how they wanted to do their game and were going to do it no matter what anyone said. It's taken them 2 years to figure out some of the feedback that was given about issues we saw and they are now just implementing those features. So save yourself 2 years and you will be better off

Looking forward to continuing to support this game. I think everyone wants it to be a success.

Hibernum_JC

LordWill wrote:

Hey Thanks for answering!

I agree with what has been said, its nice to have a little something than nothing. For example, if a patch is coming soon (maybe today) this would have been a great opportunity to say something a week ago saying we are working on X, Y , Z and will have a patch out soon. It doesn't need to contain specifics but a taste of whats going on.

The dev team DOES know what they are working on and whats coming (at least I am hoping they do) so they could shed a little light on it.

I don't think people will pull out their pitchforks for giving people a taste of whats to come, even if it doesn't happen right away. Most people (although I know not all and you can't please everyone) would welcome more communication.

So I am going to help the developers and give some ideas so you don't make the same mistakes Demiurge made.

1. Have a PLAN of where you are going. You have already laid the foundation of the game, so I hope you have really done a lot of planning of future features and enhancements for down the road and where you are wanting to take the game AND how you want people to play it. One of the problems Demiurge had is trying to change the basic fundamentals of the game, for example how the Character covers worked they have changed it several times, scaling, event times, reward issues, balance problems etc.
If you look at the progressive of their game it almost seems like they couldn't figure what direction to go and spend lots of time, months of development on features that just plain failed.

2. Use us as a resource. We have so many talented and creative people on this forum who would like nothing better than to help you and help you avoid many costly mistakes. Think of it as expanding your creative team by 100 for zero cost. Or maybe compensate people with Crystals if you use their ideas. Create Design/Idea/Card/Event contests and see what people come up with. It costs you NOTHING. So you can keep the same 5 people on the creative team you have now or you can open things up and expand your resources.

3. Listen to our feedback, we are the ones who pay the bills. We want this game to succeed. Communicate with us. Treat us how you want to be treated.

4. Maybe just have a weekly dev team check in or something, doesn't mean you need to do a 30 minute video, just a weekly post or something letting us know how things are going. Even if its "Hey were are still working on the crashing bug! Wish us luck" or something like that. We appreciate that then stone silence.

I stopped posting to the MPQ forums because it was just a dead horse. The Devs had in their mind exactly how they wanted to do their game and were going to do it no matter what anyone said. It's taken them 2 years to figure out some of the feedback that was given about issues we saw and they are now just implementing those features. So save yourself 2 years and you will be better off

Looking forward to continuing to support this game. I think everyone wants it to be a success.

Here's my 2 cents on the matter -

Obviously I would have loved to be able to be more focused on the forums lately, but we're super hard at work on updates, content and fixing stuff that sometimes it's hard to take time to come on here and interact a lot with you folks. I'll make a conscious effort to log on a bit more and look at stuff!

As for your concerns/suggestions:

1- We do have a plan. We know where we're going. I obviously can't speak specifics here, but we have a lot of stuff planned down the line. As for myself, I know where I'm headed balance-wise, I know what I'm doing right and wrong and I'm constantly working towards perfect balance, even though it's not 100% feasible (we're not making Go here!)

2- This is a bit more complex - we need to take a lot into consideration, but for myself I do use you guys as a resource in so far as how you perceive the game, how you feel cards are, what's the balancing perceived like by the community, what kind of decks you guys like to use, etc. It's incredibly useful, and I absolutely love to see how people are growing with the game.

3- We haven't been as active on the forums as we would have liked to be, but believe me when I tell you that we *do* listen. We read through a lot of what is on here and it helps guide us towards the future.

4- Like I said before, it's something we're looking into. We want to be more communicative so there's more visibility on where we're going and such.

Unknown

Hey everyone,

Just like Cthulhu and JC said, we are indeed working hard on figuring out what is wrong and how to fix it. I won't promise anything as I am sure you have an idea of how long it takes sometime to investigate and fix issues. I can assure you though that we take your concerns to heart and want to fix the problems as fast and as properly as we can so that you can return to enjoying our game.

I may not say much here but I am paying attention and taking notes. You just keep on posting your thoughts about the game, we appreciate it.

LordWill

Thanks for the response and please don't take it the wrong way. Most of us really do love the game and want it to be the best that can be so hopefully you'll take my comments that way and not as negative complaining.

I used to work for a game company so I know EXACTLY what you guys are going through and what you are up against. I'm just trying to help.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

Unknown

LordWill wrote:

For example, if a patch is coming soon (maybe today) this would have been a great opportunity to say something a week ago saying we are working on X, Y , Z and will have a patch out soon. It doesn't need to contain specifics but a taste of whats going on.

Well that's exactly what they did when they posted in news and announcements last week:
"Random Game Crashes
Occurrence: Players can experience a random crash in all areas of the game.
Solution: The bug will be fixed in the upcoming version 1.3.1, next week."

loroku

LordWill is spot-on in so many ways I can't even quote them all. Everything he said is golden. (Especially the part about how MPQ took 2 years to implement feedback and how much that ...well, hurts.) Please don't take it as personal - that's 100% constructive criticism right there.

I know with FtP game development you have to walk an incredibly thin line between "spending time responding to people and telling them we're going to fix the bugs" and "fixing the bugs." YES it takes dev time to visit the forum. YES this delays the fixes. But YES it is necessary. I am sure you guys have heard of Gamasutra, it's a great resource. There are some great post mortems in there from other FtP folks who have run this gauntlet (and probably you have, too) and one of the things they say from time to time is that community involvement is huge. It's hard to measure and it saps resources but it's a palpable source of brand promotion that you have to have when you're FtP to mitigate the churn.

Eh, just listen to LordWill - he does it better than me.

Unknown

Also happy to see devs jumping on and posting. Gives me a little more faith about the game going forward given the state it was in when released.

Now find a way to make those duplicate cards useful and then

LordWill

Nerimos wrote:

LordWill wrote:

For example, if a patch is coming soon (maybe today) this would have been a great opportunity to say something a week ago saying we are working on X, Y , Z and will have a patch out soon. It doesn't need to contain specifics but a taste of whats going on.

Well that's exactly what they did when they posted in news and announcements last week:
"Random Game Crashes
Occurrence: Players can experience a random crash in all areas of the game.
Solution: The bug will be fixed in the upcoming version 1.3.1, next week."

You are totally correct they did post on that and I'm glad to see that they did say something about it. I guess I was trying to make another point and used a bad example.

Anyway, I'm glad they took the feedback as helpful and not negative.