Question? Ask.

Unknown

Quote: I would pay to increase my replenishable health pack allotment.

This could make you a lot of money. Maybe 2500 hp for first additional slot 5000 for second and so on. It does lend itself to that dark side of p2w. I had never thought of it and immediately said, I'd pay for that too. Maybe 100 bucks outright if it mathed to 5 slots (didn't check). I haven't spent that much combine over 7 months.

IceIX

laoahpeh wrote:

Hi IceIX, thanks for doing this and I echoed the sentiments that more of such conversations will be much appreciated in the future.

For me, I would like to understand the inner workings of the devs and publisher.

1) is demiurge and d3 doing well financially?
2) how is the revenue/profit of MPQ over the period since launch?
3) is MPQ the biggest revenue driver for both demiurge n d3?
4) when does the license from Marvel ends?
5) do you guys have the permission and/or intention to provide cosmetic additions to the game? E.g. Costumes, hats, animation, etc

I'm surprised there aren't more questions that aren't mechanics related.

1 - Decently enough. None of us are driving Porshes or anything, but we're both doing well enough to be confident enough in the project to push more resources into things and push things forward at a good pace as well as stay in the black overall.
2 - Not sure exactly what you mean. It did alright out of the gate but nothing to write home about. After some tweaks to the Tutorial, our numbers spiked as the game got more accessible. Almost every change we've made since then has been positive for both profits and for player retention.
3 - I'm not an accountant, so I don't have access to the books. I'd say it's fairly likely, but since both companies have a back catalog of retail/digital games that are still earning, it's hard to say.
4 - Not for a long while, and we have extension rights assuming the game is still going strong. But honestly, that's pretty standard for any licensing deal.
5 - As long as it makes sense for that character, yes. Dressing up Wolverine in a clown costume probably wouldn't fly, for example. As for intention on visual customizability, it's not out of the question. There's a matter of visible silhouettes for each character to deal with, in that if you see Patch versus X-Force Wolverine, you know immediately which is which so you know what to expect from an opponent. Too much in the way of costuming or art changes can muddy the waters there.

IceIX

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

It would be easy. You're using a pseudorandom number generator of some sort, likely MCG, Mersenne twister, R250, or Wichmann-Hill.

To avoid bizarre clumpings, use the Sobol, Neiderreiter, or MKL pseudorandom number generators instead.

This post <---
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My head <---

I'm just gonna... step over here.... and copy paste this in entirety to one of the designers... then step away. Slowly.

IceIX

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

I guess the majority of my post concerns those who have all of the 1*s and 2* they need/want and are only in need of 3*s:

1- In light of this (somewhat assumed) revelation on the lack of "value" in purchasing iso, Are the systematically low 3* rates on almost all packs part of this design philosophy? As it stands a good chunk of players-in-the-know advise against cover packs as they are far too expensive for the risks of pulling nothing but/or majority 2* stars. This leads to my next question--

2 - Are there plans to address the recent spiked difficulty in winning specific 3* covers? IS the subsequent lowering of the number of easily available 3* covers (removal one one to give to alliances, bracketing pushing people out of the top 50, requiring top 10 to even smell more than one 3* cover), is part of a future change that has not been yet implemented?

1 - Somewhat. 3*s are supposed to be relatively rare compared to 1* and 2*s. They're called Rares for a reason. But given the power curve of the game, they're possibly a bit too low for those that have moved past the 2* part of the curve. Cover Pack contents are a continued source of some of the most heated debate in the offices.

2 - We've actually got something coming up soon that we're going to test that may alleviate this a bit. It's still in the QA cooker and hasn't 100% finalized design, but it's close. Don't want to spoil it though in case it gets pulled back to design at the relative last minute.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

It would be easy. You're using a pseudorandom number generator of some sort, likely MCG, Mersenne twister, R250, or Wichmann-Hill.

To avoid bizarre clumpings, use the Sobol, Neiderreiter, or MKL pseudorandom number generators instead.

This post <---
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My head <---

I'm just gonna... step over here.... and copy paste this in entirety to one of the designers... then step away. Slowly.

lmfao

IceIX

ender wrote:

Have you guys thought about creating any kind of Alliance raid boss event. Have a crazy over powered tank boss that all members of the team get a shot at fighting, Each time someone fights the boss, HP damage carry's over and the team tries to chip down his health. Would make for a Fun inner alliance event and change of pace from competitive PVP/PVE grinding.

Not for Alliances solely, no. But we have prototyped a few different variants on raids. Just nothing yet that we feel happy enough with.

IceIX

rixmith wrote:

Thanks for staying late into the evening to answer our questions.

You're cutting into this evening's Diablo 3 time! Those T4 rifts won't clear themselves!

Nonce Equitaur 2

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

It would be easy. You're using a pseudorandom number generator of some sort, likely MCG, Mersenne twister, R250, or Wichmann-Hill.
To avoid bizarre clumpings, use the Sobol, Neiderreiter, or MKL pseudorandom number generators instead.

I'm just gonna... step over here.... and copy paste this in entirety to one of the designers... then step away. Slowly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobol_sequence

Here's what a typical pseudorandom (or completely random) sequence looks like. If clumping is okay, then these can be used


Here's what a Sobol pseudorandom sequence looks like. These are used when clumping causes bad effects.


EDIT -- incidentally, don't use low-discrepancy pseudorandom sequences for tile generation. Those need clumpiness for the game to be functional. But the cover packs should not be clumpy.

Unknown

Hey IceIX,

Any chance of a Cover Converter? For example, when you win a Blue BP cover, and you actually wanted a Black one, you can for 200HP or 250HP convert that Blue into a Black.

It would be cheaper than buying the color (because you actually earned the cover) and somehow help the whole repetitive covers situation (many times we stuck needing only one cover and keep receiving the colors you already have maxed).

It could be something like 500 iso-8 to convert a 2* cover, and 200HP to convert a 3* one.

IceIX

Mizake wrote:

1) What do your metrics show you about sales on your 10-packs, 42-packs etc. Are they still doing well compared to before? Better? Worse? I find it hard to believe the packs are doing better than if you were offering a guaranteed hero, or even if the featured hero's drop rate was upped back to 20%. The boards are full of stories of people feeling they got burned by buying the bigger packs. However, maybe your metrics show that that power of intermittent reinforcement is strong enough to overcome the poorer drop rates. As you are constantly tweaking the booster packs, which are your greatest source of income, where do you see the future for these packs and their drop rates?

2) Memorial weekend went by without a sale. I understand you are doing targeted sales based on user data you have accumulated so certain players who have not played for a while or spent for a while get discounts. However, are there plans for a global sale anytime soon? Do you guys base it on national holidays or to hit certain sales numbers? As publisher is it in your power to authorize sales or is there another entity that has to power to do so?

1) The updated 10/42 packs are selling better than anything before them. Which is quite frankly, contrary to every bit of anecdotal data from a large part of the dev base. Despite a bunch of us having the gut feeling that people want more guaranteed stuff, it really does appear that *way* more people actually just want to pull random booster packs more than buy a single cover. And not just more people, but more people repeatedly. There are those that buy once and feel burned, yes. But strangely, that doesn't seem to make up the majority of our repeat spending user base. Cover packs are always a heated discussion though, and we're always discussing ways to make things better for both camps. I personally find it kinda sucky that it seems that the game is pretty well telling me not to spend on it because I'm not in a specific demographic.

2) We do have sales planned, but we don't necessarily base them on any specific timing. Or rather, we usually latch the sale onto whatever is happening around the time that we want to push it as opposed to latching on to every holiday for said sale. Theoretically, we could push a sale any time we wanted. We're uber wary of training the player base to wait for sales though. We'd prefer the base non-sale value of an item be the value attached and a sale price to be a bonus as opposed to many games where the sale is the standard and the default prices are "too high".

Unknown

Hey IceX....In my alli Spider-Men.I am the chief among commanders, despite allaince structure orignally being a Co-Leader with Creator( of alli) .With that said, I post today in hopes of saving my alli.My Co has been offline except one day before season one began around 8 to 10 weeks.With scare of ppl getting booted and no being able to return when alli's started he had went and made all origanal players commanders.So now I have who was supposted to be my Co-leader ghosted and a few ppl who know they cant be kicked who sign in to fight 100 points then wait for rewards.As is we have gone from top 20 to top 50 and now outside of top 100 with my hands tied.Already there is talk of some of my core best leaving cuz commanders are inactive or not contributing.Is there anyway we could un- commander all except me,and maybe another.I realize in hindsight I should Have created alli to avoid all this chaos and annoyance but, if you can find it in your power to give us our alli and earn our rewards, a chance to find others of like mind, It would save our core from scattering to the wind.Thank you either way. AresWr4th

IceIX

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Are there any plans to introduce game modes signifncantly different than what weve seen before? For example, a survival mode where you see how many rounds you can beat with a team and no healing until you die? If so, is there any information you could give to us about whats currently being discussed? PvE/PvP as is feels like its grtting somewhat stale, and a new mode would do wonders for keeping me engaged in the game.

We've got a couple things that are going to change up gameplay a bit in the pipe, so yes. The design on them isn't past prototyping/redesigning phase yet though, so I don't have anything that I could point to and say "Yes, *this* is what we're looking at".

mohio

Rafaelmsb wrote:

Hey IceIX,

Any chance of a Cover Converter? For example, when you win a Blue BP cover, and you actually wanted a Black one, you can for 200HP or 250HP convert that Blue into a Black.

It would be cheaper than buying the color (because you actually earned the cover) and somehow help the whole repetitive covers situation (many times we stuck needing only one cover and keep receiving the colors you already have maxed).

It could be something like 500 iso-8 to convert a 2* cover, and 200HP to convert a 3* one.

Can you imagine what the forums would look like in the first week after they implemented this? So many people whining about all the covers they just sold cause they had no idea this change was coming. I mean I completely agree with you; I fought hard for my 3rd and final red Thor a couple tourneys back, but fell just short of top 10 (with like 1130-something), so instead of finishing him off I got to vendor the yellow and green covers for a nice 1000 iso . I'd have gladly paid the HP required to switch one of those to red (although I'd have spent less in shields trying for the red in the first place, which is probably why they won't do something like this). Anyway, great idea.

Unknown

Great thread Ice, thanks for doing the Q&A. All interesting reading.

With regards to Spider-Man, is his usage continuing to be monitored and evaluated, or is he pretty much done for the foreseeable future?

Unknown

AresWr4th wrote:

Hey IceX....In my alli Spider-Men.I am the chief among commanders, despite allaince structure orignally being a Co-Leader with Creator( of alli) .With that said, I post today in hopes of saving my alli.My Co has been offline except one day before season one began around 8 to 10 weeks.With scare of ppl getting booted and no being able to return when alli's started he had went and made all origanal players commanders.So now I have who was supposted to be my Co-leader ghosted and a few ppl who know they cant be kicked who sign in to fight 100 points then wait for rewards.As is we have gone from top 20 to top 50 and now outside of top 100 with my hands tied.Already there is talk of some of my core best leaving cuz commanders are inactive or not contributing.Is there anyway we could un- commander all except me,and maybe another.I realize in hindsight I should Have created alli to avoid all this chaos and annoyance but, if you can find it in your power to give us our alli and earn our rewards, a chance to find others of like mind, It would save our core from scattering to the wind.Thank you either way. AresWr4th

to save ice a Lil time, this is a problem very easily fixed by emailing customer support.

mohio

IceIX wrote:

1) The updated 10/42 packs are selling better than anything before them. Which is quite frankly, contrary to every bit of anecdotal data from a large part of the dev base. Despite a bunch of us having the gut feeling that people want more guaranteed stuff, it really does appear that *way* more people actually just want to pull random booster packs more than buy a single cover. And not just more people, but more people repeatedly. There are those that buy once and feel burned, yes. But strangely, that doesn't seem to make up the majority of our repeat spending user base. Cover packs are always a heated discussion though, and we're always discussing ways to make things better for both camps. I personally find it kinda sucky that it seems that the game is pretty well telling me not to spend on it because I'm not in a specific demographic.

I am surprised by this too, but my theory is that the people buying the 10/42 packs just simply have no other option (i.e. they don't have the character/color), so they buy packs until they get what they want. If you only happened to "win" one or two Daken/Sentry/etc. covers (or none at all like actually the majority of players), you might feel like you have to buy packs until you get all 3 colors, then you can power them up individually. If you're seeing people who have all 3 colors STILL buying the packs, then I'm flabbergasted, I guess there are far more gamblers out there than I thought. Only other thing I can think of is that it is quite easy to wander over to the "store" and buy packs/tokens, whereas you have to know to go to the character's page for the option to upgrade the power individually.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

AresWr4th wrote:

Hey IceX....In my alli Spider-Men.I am the chief among commanders, despite allaince structure orignally being a Co-Leader with Creator( of alli) .With that said, I post today in hopes of saving my alli.My Co has been offline except one day before season one began around 8 to 10 weeks.With scare of ppl getting booted and no being able to return when alli's started he had went and made all origanal players commanders.So now I have who was supposted to be my Co-leader ghosted and a few ppl who know they cant be kicked who sign in to fight 100 points then wait for rewards.As is we have gone from top 20 to top 50 and now outside of top 100 with my hands tied.Already there is talk of some of my core best leaving cuz commanders are inactive or not contributing.Is there anyway we could un- commander all except me,and maybe another.I realize in hindsight I should Have created alli to avoid all this chaos and annoyance but, if you can find it in your power to give us our alli and earn our rewards, a chance to find others of like mind, It would save our core from scattering to the wind.Thank you either way. AresWr4th

to save ice a Lil time, this is a problem very easily fixed by emailing customer support.

lmao and I have been trying that a month now, havent even got generic email back like from when prizes are escew.

Unknown

mohio wrote:

Rafaelmsb wrote:

Hey IceIX,

Any chance of a Cover Converter? For example, when you win a Blue BP cover, and you actually wanted a Black one, you can for 200HP or 250HP convert that Blue into a Black.

It would be cheaper than buying the color (because you actually earned the cover) and somehow help the whole repetitive covers situation (many times we stuck needing only one cover and keep receiving the colors you already have maxed).

It could be something like 500 iso-8 to convert a 2* cover, and 200HP to convert a 3* one.

Can you imagine what the forums would look like in the first week after they implemented this? So many people whining about all the covers they just sold cause they had no idea this change was coming. I mean I completely agree with you; I fought hard for my 3rd and final red Thor a couple tourneys back, but fell just short of top 10 (with like 1130-something), so instead of finishing him off I got to vendor the yellow and green covers for a nice 1000 iso . I'd have gladly paid the HP required to switch one of those to red (although I'd have spent less in shields trying for the red in the first place, which is probably why they won't do something like this). Anyway, great idea.

It would be interesting for them too. Imagine a mid-level player, in a situation like this, he would love to switch colors, but the HP he saved its for a roster spot. As he scratch his head, trying to figure out what to do, buying some HP will cross his mind.

IceIX

user311 wrote:

D3 or Demiurge.... Which roles do they play in development / server maintenance?

D3 - Publisher: Pays out the lion's share of money required for user acquisition, continued development, royalties, etc. Runs all the user acquisition channels. Generates the marketing/PR materials. Has a role in design checks from Demiurge before things go Live. Runs a set of black box style QA. Handles Customer Support with escalations to the developer when necessary. Handles a lot of the minutae of licensor communication. Makes sure the server bills get paid in regards to server maintenance.

Demiurge - Developer: Does all the design and development of the game. Manages the day to day running of the servers and Events. Generates all in-game assets and assists with marketing/PR asset generation when necessary. Runs internal QA. Creates docs/designs for communication with the licensor and provides constant builds to both D3 and licensor. Monitors the servers and fixes them when they melt into puddles.

There's a lot of overlap in duties but by and large, D3 handles a lot of the management/process stuff while Demiurge handles more of the creative/day to day stuff.

IceIX

Ghast wrote:

1. Squirrel Girl ETA?

2. How many more months will episode 4 last?

4. What happened to 3?

5. Squirrel Girl ETA?

1. Whenever she decides to leave the Great Lakes. I'm gunning for Howard the Duck first.
2. Err, that was Iso-8 Brotherhood. We're past that.
4. I dunno, but 7 8 9. May have wanted a snack after.
5. Quack Fu > rodents