Ekim's Gamer View: Players Rule
Ekim, 2003-10-10

It's become a trend that developers seem to want to let players believe they are listening to them. Well, maybe not a trend yet, but it may become one very soon. When DAoC developer Mythic Entertainment began their Team Lead program, I wonder if they knew how much it would catch on. Seems like Sony liked the idea enough to try and start a similar program with SWG. But are players really being listened to, or are the Team Leads only used make players feel safe?

The Rise and Fall of Team Leads

There's no doubt about the potential of a player-based Team Lead program. No matter what, players will always know the game much better than the developers themselves after a short while. Some gamers out there spend more time in a game than at work, if you can believe that. How can they not know the game in-and-out after only a few short weeks?! If those players are relatively dedicated to the game, they'll want to help make it better, and flag the problems inherent to the profession, or class that they play.

So it seems that such a program is a natural step forward in the evolution of the genre. The question isn't if the program is useful, or if it has a real reason to exist. The question is whether or not the developers really care. That's really hard to truthfully answer, especially when you're on the players' side. I think that developers do care… in the beginning. But that can slowly fade off as time goes by, as it seems that DAoC is proving these days.

I've read about numerous reports that talked about DAoC Team Leads submitting problems and issues with their class that get completely ignored by the developer. Worse, sometimes the developer will actually implement changes that go directly opposite to some suggestions that the Team Leads offered to fix a class! There was one long-time Team Lead that left DAoC a few weeks ago, claiming that changes in the Team Lead philosophy made it frustrating to work with unless you always agreed with some of the decision makers. That doesn't sound very beneficial to me.

But DAoC has been out for over 2 years (is it even 3 already?!). What about SWG which has also started to embrace a similar way of going about fixing things? So far, the program (referred to as Profession Correspondents) is still fairly new and nothing has been done yet to prove that it will be successful. The developer has proved many times already that they are willing to sacrifice their Vision for the better good of the gaming community, which is a good thing. But what will happen next year when things will be seemingly balanced? How much listening can developers really do when they believe their game is as perfect as it can possibly be?

Who's benefiting from what here?

And what about developers who have upcoming titles? Do they see a program such as this to be worth the hassle? Do they simply see it as an opportunity to keep a group of demanding players happy through nerf sessions? It's very hard to tell, and I'd really like to hear the opinion of a game designer beyond the "we love you, you are invaluable to us, and we listen" comments that are generally given when asked about it on public boards. What does a Team Lead really bring to the table for the developer?

Or maybe we're just looking in the wrong direction…. Maybe the publishers are the ones we should really be asking. What does it mean for a publisher to know that the game they are financing is being ruled by players' Vision instead of their developer's, or their own as a matter of fact? What sort of value does it have to them, if any? In other words, I'm wondering if the trend will continue, or if it will simply die a slow death as new games appear. Oh, I'm very sure that the Team Leads will stay in one form or another, that most of the new games will see similar programs implemented. But what will it really be worth?

Gamers are an easily seduced bunch. Developers and publishers alike know how much some players are lured by the possibility of "helping" them to make a game better. A lot of players out there dream of working in the business, and it's easy to use that against them. When a developer requests the help of players, they rush in to get their proverbial foot in the door in the hopes of infiltrating the business by the backdoor. I'm sure it worked for some of them too, and there's nothing wrong with that. But unless the Team Leads have a real say in what's happening with a game, then such a program will be made worthless by those who are telling us today how valuable it is. And that would be a real shame.