The Demiurge Players Should Uncloak

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  • Colognoisseur
    Colognoisseur Posts: 806 Critical Contributor
    @HoundofShadow

    Thank you for that response it was comprehensive and I see your perspective clearly.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    @Michaelcles

    I can safely infer from your many posts in this thread that you strongly believe that MPQ developers should not be allowed to play MPQ because you believe that they have "insider information". As a result of this "insider information", every time any developer plays PvE or PvP, he or she occupies a potential placement slot in each particular slice and bracket; thus, they are not treating their paying customers fairly. If there are 10 developers distributed in SCL 6 to SCL 9 and each of them occupy one potential placement slot for each sub/PvE/PvP (10 slots), it means they took up 10 potential placement slots out of 4 slices * 3 brackets * 1000 players, which is 10 out of 12000 in one PvE, or 0.083%.

    Should "insider information" be considered as a "benefit/perk" or should it be considered as a by-product of their roles/job scopes as developers of MPQ?

    On one hand, there are players wanting developers to "play with them", like what "Ice XX" did, so that they know that developers are on the ground with them. On the other hand, there are also players who think that developers should not be allowed to play MPQ, due to "insider information" advantage.  

    Given that all players have equal rights to voice their opinions and concerns, is there any way out of this classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation?

    If you were the developers, how would you deal with these spectrum of views from the players when you are trying to improve the gameplay or functionalities?

    Should the developers make decisions that benefit the majority of the playerbase or should the developers give more emphasis on the voices of the minorities? Or is compromising the only way out? Is it possible for the developers' decisions to satisfy every single player? 

    I'm not against the developers coming out to communicate with the players, but in my opinion, these are actual scenarios the developers have to deal with. At the end of each conversation, one group of players would be happy and another group unsatisfied.

  • Michaelcles
    Michaelcles Posts: 100 Tile Toppler
    HoundofShadow said:
    @Michaelcles

    I can safely infer from your many posts in this thread that you strongly believe that MPQ developers should not be allowed to play MPQ because you believe that they have "insider information". As a result of this "insider information", every time any developer plays PvE or PvP, he or she occupies a potential placement slot in each particular slice and bracket; thus, they are not treating their paying customers fairly. If there are 10 developers distributed in SCL 6 to SCL 9 and each of them occupy one potential placement slot for each sub/PvE/PvP (10 slots), it means they took up 10 potential placement slots out of 4 slices * 3 brackets * 1000 players, which is 10 out of 12000 in one PvE, or 0.083%.

    Should "insider information" be considered as a "benefit/perk" or should it be considered as a by-product of their roles/job scopes as developers of MPQ?

    On one hand, there are players wanting developers to "play with them", like what "Ice XX" did, so that they know that developers are on the ground with them. On the other hand, there are also players who think that developers should not be allowed to play MPQ, due to "insider information" advantage.  

    Given that all players have equal rights to voice their opinions and concerns, is there any way out of this classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation?

    If you were the developers, how would you deal with these spectrum of views from the players when you are trying to improve the gameplay or functionalities?

    Should the developers make decisions that benefit the majority of the playerbase or should the developers give more emphasis on the voices of the minorities? Or is compromising the only way out? Is it possible for the developers' decisions to satisfy every single player? 

    I'm not against the developers coming out to communicate with the players, but in my opinion, these are actual scenarios the developers have to deal with. At the end of each conversation, one group of players would be happy and another group unsatisfied.

    Devs still get rewarded based on how good they do, but goodies the devs get should not bump anyone to a lower reward.  Simple as that.  Dev gets fifth place (would have been higher if not for tappers) then 6th gets the 5th place goodies.  Everyone in the slice gets rewards for one place higher except for 1st through 4th.

    As for your example, what about 10 devs playing over the last 5 years?  The player base has gotten ****.  Reminds me of when servers go down and everyone gets rewarded.

    There should be mea culpa whereby real players get some goodies based on how long they have played.

    The Devs could stay hidden then, since that seems to be so important to them.

  • Michaelcles
    Michaelcles Posts: 100 Tile Toppler
    Straycat said:
    This is why we can't have nice things. We want them to communicate more but then we antagonize them over a fairly innocuous statement. All he said is they ask "expert players" in the dev team about characters.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised some people took that as some kind of challenge, but I don't need them to prove their "expert" credentials.


    You can’t have nice things because of the economics of mobile games, not comments on a message board.  Develop an app, charge nothing, get a certain portion of your player base to pay, ideally monthly.  Make tweaks along the way to keep them coming back.  If you have a hot property like Marvel, all the better so long as you can pay Disney.

    It creates artificial barriers in the game with arbitrary rewards, all designed to get you coming back.

    I would rather pay upfront for all of the content in a finite game.  If it’s good, then merchandise it and make sequels.

    This is the entertainment BUSINESS.
  • BearVenger
    BearVenger Posts: 453 Mover and Shaker
    In my previous software support job, we had test servers that would emulate our clients and allow us to replicate their issues. 

    I'm all for developers playing with the equivalent of sandboxed accounts, so they can try the game out "in the wild" and simulate whatever unintented positive and negative consequences we report in forum, as well as the longterm grindy issues we report. These guys have months of unreleased characters and features (see the Infinity Wars surprise announcement this week) being worked on in the lab; why play with things that you've already stressed out over and finished months ago?

    But, based on all that's been posted here, if the devs did have casual accounts, I don't think there would be anything beneficial to the developers, the players, or the game if they made themselves public.

    Any outcome would be twisted into how unfair it was to the players by the folks jaded enough to pursue it.  
  • NeonBlue
    NeonBlue Posts: 142 Tile Toppler
    edited April 2018
    What kind of "inside information" would provide a significant enough benefit for people to call them out on it? If they're playing with dev accounts that have infinite resources, then yeah, they would have an unfair advantage, or if they got special developer discounts on in-game content, but if they're just playing the game, what sort of top-secret information could they possibly have that other veterans and long-term players might not have? How could this information help them beat other players? 
  • Player1575
    Player1575 Posts: 253 Mover and Shaker
    I just wanna know their IGNs cause I'm curious about how they ay pvp. Do they join # check rooms and play nice with everyone? Do they late climb and hit anything that's worth points? Do they hit grills immediately when they see them or wait a few minutes to make sure the person is #? So many questions I'd want answers for.

    I'd never try to switch shards or target them or anything if their names were revealed cause it's not worth the time or effort, but it'd still be cool to know their play style.

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