This is a repost from A Word from Dave on City of Steam official website.
Not every company’s CEO is going to jump in the game with their players, but I believe as a small developer working on our first game, it’s critical for us to be listening to our players.
The closed beta test was a really great chance for me to get familiar with all the players, and smash out some quests, challenges and boss raids together. I got my main character up to level 32, and my alt to 27. It taught me a lot about what players want, where the improvements need to be made, what needs to be taken out and what gets the highest priority for Open Beta.
I want to extend a very warm and heart-felt thank you to everyone who filled out a survey, posted on the forums, talked to the devs in-game or contributed to the success of the tests. While I only chalked up a few hundred replies on the forums and in the game, I think I covered everything and carefully considered all the feedback. Yes, this really took me a long time! And sorry if I missed you out!
I feel kinda sad that my friend list will be deleted for Open Beta, but I’m hoping everyone will jump back online and add me again in the next live version. Please hang around for updates -I will try my best to give you regular info on the new developments!
Of the many many things we are going to improve and add to City of Steam, several things we are really going to focus on for the next version:
- Difficulty Curve: We threw a few nasty curve-balls. Some of these were intentional, and some were the byproduct of rapid development iterations. We want a smooth difficulty curve and will do our best to hit that sweet spot.
- Better Feedback: Successes, failures, and results in general. We are going to tidy these up, tell you exactly what happened and provide better feedback all-round.
- Clarify Stats: If you’re a long-term follower, you’ll know the improvement to stat clarity since alpha has been nothing but amazing. This will only get better.
- Training & Tips: Instead of dumping everything during the tutorial, we’re going to spread out the learning of tricky game systems throughout the early character levels, so you can learn at your own rate, and revisit these tutorials whenever you want.
- Direction & Goals: A complete overhaul of quest tracking and daily tasks will help players find their targets from any locale, and prevent getting lost in the big hubs. We’re also going to highlight the main story, give it some really big visuals and pace out the big story milestones.
- Refine, Reduce, Reiterate: A lot of small systems will be refined and reduced to make options easier to find. The menu bar, the backpack list, the crafting window -these are all things that can be streamlined to make the game better for you.
- Surprises: Of course, we will continue to raise the bar for browser games all-over the world. New features will definitely be in there to dazzle and jaw-drop. You ain’t never seen a browser game like this!
Thanks again to our beloved playership for making this game the coolest MMO community I have ever been in. I hope we can both meet and exceed your expectations, and look forward to seeing you in Open Beta.
Sincerely,
Dave Lindsay
CEO & Creative Lead
Mechanist Games
