What do the Devs play?

ravenskya

I am legitimately curious. I know the mods play NW. But do the Devs actually play this game at all? And if so, what character classes do they play?

This has been the topic of many conversations I've been a part of over the last few days and I'm genuinely curious. We all have our guesses...

**edited for clarity of question**

kreatyve

I know they do! I think @terramak mentioned on a stream that he plays TR as his main (I could be wrong). They don't make themselves known when they are playing as that would cause so many issues and make the game a lot less enjoyable for them as people would be constantly asking them questions and stuff. But I know for a fact that they all play.

beckylunatic

What I found very telling was a comment on stream that the devs were buying campaign buyout packages, taking advantage of the newest releases and/or the reduced prices.

Because what this says to me is that they'd been developing a game that truly wasn't reasonable to keep up with for a person with a demanding job, family obligations, a social life, other hobbies, etc. We can only hope recent changes really are indicative of a new direction.

They play NW, but I don't think many of them play on a daily basis.

mebengalsfan

My bet is most do play to an extent and not hard core in any form or way.

I remember a Lead Creative Director in another game I played that whenever he was beat by another class that class was NINJA NERFED the next day. I'm not joking either. It ruined the game for quite a few players. Thank GOD he moved on. LOL...

beckylunatic

That's actually another reason for the devs to be cagey about classes they play. They already get enough accusations of favoritism about why this class is neglected or that one is overpowered. Fuel on the fire.

rgutscheradev

I played a... character, let's just say... up until BiS endgame PvP (everything except the Rosegold rings, which were out of my reach, so I had the Jewelcrafting rings instead). We get some goodies in packs, so I had an unreasonable number of mounts and companions, but I earned all my own AD -- I spent some of my own money, not a lot, to buy Zen and trade it on the Zen-AD Exchange, and sold stuff on the AH (not stuff I got from dev goodie packs, that stuff is all bound, as it should be), and earned AD from the daily rewards. I did all the campaigns myself (no buyouts). I didn't get the last two Tyranny of Dragons boons (and yes, that was me who lowered the costs on those). I waited for sales (especially the Wondrous Bazaar sales, for GMoPs and SMoPs) to buy stuff.

At the time I was doing a lot of RP progression work, so I really wanted to experience all of that "for real", since I knew it was the toughest grind in the game (imo -- I suppose some people might say the campaigns, but those seemed OK to me, maybe because there was more gameplay in it).

I won't pretend I had exactly the same experience as a non-dev player, but I tried to keep it close. It definitely took some time and effort!

I think I have a pretty good sense of what's involved. I realize it's a lot.

Unfortunately, MMOs being what they are, it's all but impossible to reach this level of "reality" in every class. So although I had a (close to) realistic start-to-finish experience in one class, I really wish I could know as much about every class. But I need to rely on others (both within Cryptic, and all of you on the forums) for that.

"Keeping Up": this is a problem for any MMO, I think, F2P or not. On the one hand, you have very dedicated players who invest a whole lot (whether time, money, or some combination), and you want to have stuff for them to do. And you also have players who still play a lot but maybe not so intensely, and you want them to still be able to feel they can participate. In every MMO I've seen, it's hard/impossible to be absolute BiS "tip of the spear" (doing all the hardest dungeons, having all the best gear, etc.) without an insane amount of dedication. But hopefully everyone who plays a decent-but-not-ridiculous amount can "keep up" to the extent that when the new module comes out, for example, they can play most of the content. I think Neverwinter mostly hits that bar. But of course what feels like "keeping up" will vary from person to person.

mebengalsfan

rgutscheradev said:

"Keeping Up": this is a problem for any MMO, I think, F2P or not. On the one hand, you have very dedicated players who invest a whole lot (whether time, money, or some combination), and you want to have stuff for them to do. And you also have players who still play a lot but maybe not so intensely, and you want them to still be able to feel they can participate. In every MMO I've seen, it's hard/impossible to be absolute BiS "tip of the spear" (doing all the hardest dungeons, having all the best gear, etc.) without an insane amount of dedication. But hopefully everyone who plays a decent-but-not-ridiculous amount can "keep up" to the extent that when the new module comes out, for example, they can play most of the content. I think Neverwinter mostly hits that bar. But of course what feels like "keeping up" will vary from person to person.

This right here is so true, especially in today's gaming world.

Prior to the introduction of PC being mainstream and becoming norm along with internet being norm, only really hardcore gamers would play MMO type of games. This meant the devs could develop hard and challenging content. The devs also could make content take a while to finish and require multi trip into content.

NW is a newer MMO within the last 10+ years. Many MMOs now fall into this category. In the last 10+ years MMOs have moved over from HARDCORE to finding a balance between the casual player and those that invest lots of time. Casual players need content that can be beat without BiS whereas those who have BiS are more incline to be HARDCORE players.

This goes to my other post on Bonding where content cannot be specifically designed around BiS for players. As long as the group know the mechanics and are high enough to run the content, the casual players can play and beat content just fine. FBI and MSP are examples of content where you do not need BiS to beat it and if you have BiS it just makes the content easy and this is where the devs have difficulty.

In other MMO games players have had discussion on who brings in more money. The answer is casual. Games like NW thrive off the casual player downloading the game and dropping $10-20 and there are many of us out there. Some do a few hundred. The HARDCORE players you have mix bag there. You have those who buy there way to end game, so they spend more and than you have those that are F2P but know the game enough not to spend money and still end up with really good BiS gear due to grinding and playing the market.

NW, overall is a well balance game in how it manages content and its AH and market for Zen to AD, etc...

I give the DEVS props for what they have here as an overall game. The only thing I wish was a bit more on testing to ensure that content does not get released with glitches and that powers that are a bit buggy are fixed. The other thing is no boss should be able to be controlled, meaning no Geas or anything like that. That is of course IMO how it should operate as that is what I am use to in all MMOs I have played.