A few days ago, Cryptic Studios’ chief creative officer, Jack Emmert, wrote in the Champions Online blog about stopping all new development on Champions Online for two weeks. The idea was executed to make sure that a recently completed zone was actually fun to play in, before the team started working on something else. Emmert says it best with this quote from the article:
We finished a zone and were just about to head into working on something new. But we felt that the zone needed some attention. Sure, QA had identified some bugs in it, but the zone did ‘work.’ But the one thing we weren't entirely sure about was whether the zone was fun.
The entire piece is written in reference to the experiences that Cryptic had with
City of Heroes, both with development and maintenance. Apparently this new revisionist style of development Emmert talks about was not utilized with Cryptic’s original superhero MMO. Also in the article, Emmert briefly reaffirms that Cryptic is indeed working on three games. One of which will probably be the infamous
Star Trek MMO.
Personally, as a gamer, I love when a developer reassures and coddles me. I want to know the games that I desire to play are being worked on carefully.
Champions Online is going to be a fairly large ordeal as well, considering that it will be on both the PC and the Xbox 360. Cryptic will need to continue to take their time.
It makes me wonder and now ask, what games are the Destructoid community waiting for and wishing that a developer would take their sweet time with?
Contest:
2:29 PM on 07.05.2008
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You're saying you don't want your games to be fun? What a curious person you are. I would think that making sure the thing is actually worth playing before fine-tuning it was getting your priorities pretty bang on. What if they bug fixed and then realised it sucked? Redesign and fix new bugs.
Personally hearing things like this, while probably announced with PR in mind, gives me much greater respect for a developer. It seems that things like fun and enjoyment are becoming passé in some circles.
I'm glad that the company is checking to make sure that the game will be fun. More than a few games recently have come out and they're not that fun to play. They look nice, they handle well, but in the end I'm simply completing the tasks presented to me and not enjoying any of it.
My curiousity is piqued about this Champions rule set. Anyone in the Bay Area play this one? If so, drop me a line.