Letter from the Game Director – July 2010

This month’s letter is actually one of the hardest of the year to write
because with the Expansion launch having rolled out, the Scandinavian
holiday season in full swing, and getting the new studio in Montreal up
and running, this month is very much the ‘in-between’ month.

It is actually the time of year when we do a lot of planning. While we
have some things in progress post the expansion (like adding in the rest
of the new tier four raids, which we will probably talk about in a
little more detail next month) we are also at our annual metaphorical
cross roads when we discuss what has worked this year, what hasn’t, what
we think we need to do next, assessing what we are already working on,
looking at what we could work on, and generally trying to decide on
which plans or schedules we might want to change, adjust, or add in to
the mix.

Since, as we explained last month,
we have set aside the next few months for the upgrade to our underlying
Dreamworld technology platform, that also gives us an opportunity to
spend some design time working on what will come after that. A little
bit of introspection never goes amiss and it allows to take some time
and shape the updates for the rest of the year and beyond.

There is always a list of possible additions to the game, a list longer
than a development team could do in any short period of time. Probably
more than they could do in a long period of time in fact! That means the
biggest challenge that faces us is almost universally the decision on
what to prioritise. That kind of a decision is made by taking many
factors into account – our own statistics and measurements, talking to
players, players feedback, the forums, playing the game ourselves and
spending some time assessing all the designs.

Feedback from the players themselves is an important element, and we
wanted to take this opportunity to involve you all a little more in that
process with a summer survey. Kind of a player census and opinion poll
as it were. Usually when we do surveys we use smaller target groups of
people via email to ask specific questions to specific demographics, but
with this one we wanted to open it up wider, and involve as many
players as possible.

The massive summer player survey

We have split the survey into several sections. That means it isn’t one
marathon survey, and allows you to only answer the sections that you
want to. You can answer one, some, or all of the surveys; it is
completely up to you.

You can find the surveys here:

• General Questions: Here
• Gameplay questions: Here
• PVP questions: Here
• Guild Questions: Here
• Raiding questions: Here

Disclaimer time

Now, before you start, one important disclaimer for all those of the
conspiracy theory inclined persuasion. Just because there is a question
about x, y or z subject, potential change, possible addition or
direction, doesn’t mean that it will happen! This process is about
getting good feedback from players, on a wide variety of possible
changes, directions or decisions, as it always helps with the decision
making process. It isn’t an indication that the subjects or options
included in the surveys are anything other than things that are likely
to be discussed as possibilities, and asking a question about any given
subject is certainly not a promise it will be done!

A little incentive…

Some of these surveys will probably take ten minutes or so to fill out,
they aren’t the shortest surveys in the world, but we feel the data we
can gain from the exercise is worthwhile and so we want as many people
as possible to participate.

To that end there is also a special incentive attached to completing the
surveys. On August 15th we will hold a prize draw for all of those who
completed a survey and provided their valid Age of Conan account email
address. There will be one draw for each survey, so five separate draws
(so if you complete each survey you will have five chances to win), with
the prize being one life-time complimentary account to Age of Conan per
draw (that complimentary time will start from whenever your current
subscription period ends, or straight away if you aren’t currently
subscribing).

A feedback opportunity

Player feedback is an important part of the process, and I hope that as
many of you as possible can take this opportunity to let us know what
you think. That kind of feedback always helps shape future content,
systems and decisions. Now while we can’t possibly agree with everyone,
and I can never guarantee your personal voice will be the one that
results in any given decision, given the vast differences in opinions
out there, it all genuinely helps us build a better picture of our
player base. That is a very positive thing for the developers when they
come to consider certain updates, changes or additions.

So even if you think you might be in a minority on any given subject it
is always worth giving your opinion. The more we know about our players
the better suited the future content can be.

The little things…

…all of the above is of course kind of focusing on the big picture…what
comes next for major updates…but equally important for many are the day
to day tasks and follow-ups that are still being worked on. There is of
course a list of things that we have talked about here on the forums
that are ongoing. We will be rolling out fixes and improvements for the
tier four raids in an update relatively soon. Then there is the ongoing
assessment of the progression rates in the expansion content. With the
recent changes to the drop rates on the Trophies we are getting close to
where we want those to be, and will be looking now towards the other
token type drops, and the rate of faction gain as the next areas for
improvement. You will definitely see further adjustments and
improvements there as well in both the short and long term. So there
will continue to be some smaller update and improvements while we move
through the testing phase of the Dreamworld technology integration.
Until next month!