D3GO Information request

Azoth658

Hi all especially ( @Brigby ),

In light of a bunch of recent changes (that I have mixed views on). I thought it would be prudent to request some top line information that might help appease some of the masses around why certain changes are being made.

I see a lot of post with assumptions on testing, customer service, characters etc etc. But these are mostly based on little knowledge of the team behind this game.

Therefore I was wondering if you are able to share some overview such as:

10 developers working on new characters
5 developers shield clearance levels
3 developers (secret project)
1 developer new pve content
7 developers bug fixing
1 artist working on new characters
200 people in customer service

500,000 active players
10,000 customer service tickets a week.

I know sharing something like the above might not be approved but I feel like if we knew just how much resource or lack of is available even if it's not broken down by what they are working on might alleviate some of the noise our forum creates in complaints.

Some of the most well received posts in the past were ones where we got an insight into the development cycle and why the developers are making these decisions but these seem to have disappeared of late (probably due to the amount of major changes in a short amount of time).

This may not lead to anything and I'm well aware that a few hundred forumites don't hold sway with the larger scale data but we do all speak to the other 19 players in our alliance so you'd be surprised how fast news travels.

JamieMadrox

D3 doesn't develop the game. They're the publisher. Demiurge is the developer and they're notoriously tight lipped about how their game is developed and who does what.

Of the questions that you asked, D3 could only answer the ones about CS as that is the only area they have direct responsibility over that is covered by your list.

Brigby

@Azoth658

Jamie Madrox is right when he says that we, D3 Go, are the publisher studio, therefore I can really only talk about that aspect.
There's not really much information I can provide, but what I can say is that we're a small, but passionate team of people working behind the scenes to support these games. (That means a lot of multiple-hat roles!)

I don't have exact numbers, but what I can say (based off my previous experience working at another publisher, as well as at a major development studio) is that not every developer works on the same thing at the same time. For example, you could have a UI artist working on improving the layout, while a programmer works with a designer on a completely separate feature. In this case, UI changes are typically quicker to finish than an entire feature, so you might see UI changes in one patch, wonder why they aren't working on the new feature, and then see that feature arrive in the following patch. 

And it's usually safe to say that the longer it takes for a feature to be developed, the more likely the team is smaller than you anticipate.

Now I know that doesn't exactly answer your question, but I hope it provides some insight into the way certain studios operate.

fmftint

mis read the op

Ducky

Also, if you read the credits in game, it actually lists the Demiurge team, the CS team, the D3Go team, etc. It was a bit out of date last I checked, but it gives you a good idea as to how big their teams are so you can at least understand why things take so long, etc.