Players and testers of Crowfall are an essential part of development. This comes from an interview with the developers.
mmorpg.com conducted an interview with Crowfall’s Creative Director, J. Todd Coleman, Executive Producer Gordon Walton, and Vice President of Marketing DebySue Wolfclaw. One of the topics was players – and how important they are.
Players are an extension of the development team
Crowfall takes a different approach than most games in the genre. Through campaigns, players can “win” the MMORPG in a way. Even in development, Crowfall differs significantly from other (Kickstarter) MMORPGs.
There was never an NDA for the game; supporters could show and share content from Crowfall from the very beginning while testing it. All of this led to a strong community bond and a special relationship between developers and players.
Feedback is important: With Patch 5.7, some innovations came to Crowfall. According to Coleman, players are an important part of such innovations, an extension of the team:
We do this with every system when it first goes online. We present it to the players and see what they think about it. This is something that is really interesting about this type of development, and frankly, it is different from anything I have experienced so far, involving the players so early in the game. Having that direct connection with them means that they almost – the truly engaged ones, whom we see almost daily – have become an extension of the design team. I know it sounds crazy, but it is true.
Players understand the development process: The particularly engaged players even help the team develop new concepts. Players who have been testing Crowfall for a long time can even adapt to the pace of development.
“The guys who have been around the longest absolutely understand the pace at which games are developed, and I think a good part of them has supported this for as strong reasons as any other. They believe in the team and like the vision, but they also want to feel like an extension of the development team and have that direct connection,” Coleman said.
According to Coleman, the idea of involving the audience as part of the design fits very well with Crowfall in particular. All the campaigns are already summarized as individual, standalone games within Crowfall.
Players help developers help players: Players have been able to stream the game since the beginning of Crowfall. Streaming is something that, according to mmorpg.com, is often criticized in PvP games, partly because it allows players to target and eliminate other players.
According to Walton, streaming helps discover bugs and issues directly showcased by the community with clips. Coleman elaborates on the criticism:
“What I would like to see is […] when players know they are being watched in the stream, they adapt and carry out ‘false flag’ operations in which they send out a small group and wait just around the corner of the hill with 50 people.”
“And they send them out with a very distinct landmark in the distance, knowing that they will attract someone just like a honey pot and destroy them.”
Everything seems to be going smoothly with the development and community of Crowfall. Nonetheless, the developers are afraid of the release
