I’ve been following Mortal Online for a while now and was tempted to purchase the game to join the beta, but when I saw the price of 69 EUR I decided to wait and see for a while before diving in.
Looks like I made a wise decision as by all accounts the beta isn’t going well, infact it is barely going at all. I don’t know what the technical problems are, but it’s a shame they couldn’t have gotten the servers more stable before opening the game up to the paying public. Yes I know technically you’re paying for a pre-order of the finished product and not for the beta test, but I’d be annoyed if I paid 69 EUR and only got to beta test the login screen.
There has been some criticism on the official forums which eventually brought this response from one of the MO developers:
We’re selling a product that has so many disclaimers, warnings and descriptions of what doesn’t work and what not to expect I’m amazed we manage to even sell a few copies. The blind customers you are talking about must indeed be very blind, or dumb, or rather, actively have chosen to be blind and ignore those disclaimers. I’m very sorry if you happen to be one of the former, as we unfortunately forgot to put up disclaimers for blind people. However we will of course give even those blind customers the product they bought, but how does working overtime on their product instead of prioritizing your personal request on a Beta forum make us shit on their heads?
Ok so it’s not that bad, but it’s obvious he let himself get baited and while I sympathise with his position it illustrates why devs don’t necessarily make the best community managers. When you are so personally invested in a project it can be very difficult to respond to criticism. This is presumably why most major companies employ dedicated staff to communicate with players. That and they want their development staff to spend their time developing the game and not trolling the forum.
The whole thread is a good read, and there’s a little more back and forth before the dev gives this explanation for his posts. I can definitely see where he’s coming from but I disagree with most of it. If I were being cynical I’d say the decision not to hire a community manager was motivated more by a lack of funds than any philosophical reasons. I suppose what irks me the most about his response is that he doesn’t apologise for his comments. Yes the player was rude and offensive, but he already gave you his money for a product he wishes he hadn’t bought so why rub his nose in it further?
When you make a game you have to accept that a lot of players aren’t going to like various things you do or decisions that you make. Some of those players will rant about it all over your forums threatening to quit and telling you that your game sucks blah blah blah. A lot of these people won’t actually quit and will continue as players and customers. It’s best to be grateful that they’re still paying the subscription (or in the case of MO that they already paid the pre-order) and publically ignore their criticism while privately looking for any positives you can take from it.
With Maiden Desmodus I like to think we are receptive to suggestions from our players and since opening we’ve added features or made changes as a direct result of player feedback. You do have to be careful however as often players don’t see the whole picture when they come up with ideas for gameplay changes. This isn’t because we think they are “idiots”, as the MO dev describes it, but because they are, well you know, players. As a player you have a viewpoint that is necessarily more focused on your own enjoyment and gameplay experience. This is perfectly reasonable as it’s your time and money invested in the product. However as a designer you have to try and balance the enjoyment and gameplay experience of all your players, not just those that make suggestions or rant on forums.
bcdev.design.blog 