Lycus
Legendary AdventureGuide!
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This is certainly an interesting topic, that focuses on the flip side of the usual complaint that we do not listen enough. It is certainly true that as Game developers and as a game team, it is really hard to strike the perfect balance of listening to player suggestions and using your own initiative, possibly taking the game in a direction many players are not so keen on. I think a lot of people misunderstand the idea of 'listening to the community', since I have seen quite a number of posters comment 'We never get listened to and no player suggestions get put in game, it is pointless suggesting things' - what they mean by this really is 'I never get listened to and I do not like it that my suggestions are not put in-game.'. The issues has been raised of 'listening to right people' and to an extent that is certainly true, some people understand the game better than others; some understand the development process, the gaming industry, maybe even understanding the maths, balance and the rest of the behind the scenes workings to a higher ability than others; due to this, surely these are the people that should be listened to? However I personally feel that once again, this is very subjective, how do you define the 'right people to listen to', I am pretty sure that everyone who posts a suggestion feels they are the right person to listen to and that is why they are posting that suggestion. There are always going to be some people thinking a certain one person is one of these 'right people' to listen to, hence why they support their suggestions, they may even support a lot of suggestions from this one person, however at the same time there are going to be people against the suggestions they suggest and who do not feel they are the 'right people to listen to'. I think the best way to view things is that everyone who posts a suggestion has spent their time to think and post an idea that they feel is right for the game and either a good thing to implement or a good direction to take the game in. Each of these suggestions are then read and will be considered by members of the EpicDuel team and implemented if and when it is felt it is a correct thing to take forward into the game. It does not exactly matter if an idea is extremely supported or not supported, because unless valid reasons are given by people (in which case they would be taken under consideration), just saying 'supported' or 'unsupported' does not mean that it is the right thing for the game exactly, since there is no reason to support it, it may simply mean that it is okay for you personally. So that being said, I personally do not feel it is an issue of picking ideas from 'the right people' since I feel everyone in this community is capable of being one of this group. People may not always present great ideas, but at that point, that is when others help them by giving feedback and we view it and decide based on its values, the next time they may present an excellent idea because they have taken that feedback on board or because they genuinely have just hit something great to suggest. Then you are left with striking the perfect balance of listening to the players and using game team/development team intuition to bring in our own ideas etc. and that is not an easy task in itself. I think that all in all, a perfect balance is very hard to meet, especially since there is no exact perfect balance to target. Maybe as a team we could put in our own thoughts more, since it is an Artix Entertainments game and therefore, and technically as a team, the developers in particular, are the 'experts'; surely the ideas should come from them. However the idea of having a game like this is that the players get a say and that the suggestions they want to be implemented actually have a chance to make it in-game. The players are the people playing it and therefore they know what they want. If you look at it that way you go into a whole other debate of whether 'the customer is always right' or whether, as Steve Jobs stated 'the consumer does not know what they want until it is put in front of them' - in other words, no one sat at home saying 'I want a device called an iPod that has apps that I can use as tools or play as games, it lets me surf the internet, play music and it looks exactly like blah blah blah...' - you get the idea, people only realised they wanted and could use a device like this when it was actually put out there by the experts. Then the question is what ethos should ED follow, or should it strike something in the middle? Now all the above can be said and you are likely bored of what I am saying by this point as I am rambling on, sorry! But at the end of the day, the idea of AE's games for the most part, including ED, is that we do a mixture of both, we listen to the community and implement what we can and what we feel is appropriate, while also taking the games in the direction felt best with the 'expert knowledge' that is held within the company. Since reaching the balance is not a physical thing and mostly has to be tallied mentally, it is subjective and it is something there will likely almost always be people on both sides of the wall saying that the grass is greener on the other side. Even now, this topic says we listen to much, but only the other day I read a load of comments saying we do not listen at all. Finding the balance is hard and even if we do find it, players may not feel we have and we wouldn't exactly know that we have, since it is down to opinion and opinion is personal and therefore varies from one person to another. Technically this topic is another suggestion and some people feel it is right and other feel it is not. In a world where opinions are dominant, facts and exact targets are sometimes hard to find, therefore though this topic is useful in giving us an opinion of a player and other players who are also giving feedback, it is a very hard one to deal with and therefore, this is the best answer I can give that is thorough over all bases. The only other thing I can say is that this will certainly be considered and reviewed, however as stated, it is a hard one to come to an answer on! Thank you for all of your inputs and I hope my massive answer is not too confusing and actually makes sense, while also helping to answer and shed light on this topic and my take on it!
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