For all of the hot air in this “user concerns” post and then their first Q&A, this company as a whole is doing a pretty lousy job living up to their comparison with Bless Online and the previous publishers of ELOA. The silence is deafening when they really need to be communicating (or just basic acknowledging that feedback will be taken into consideration). Not seeing anything for days doesn’t give me personally any incentive to actually put together the kind of detailed feedback that I can delve into (this blog should make it apparent at how verbose I can be).
I already know about the usual disconnect that happens between the actual Korean leadership (and by extension, the development team) and their subsidiary peons (it’s been covered ad nauseum in this blog since 2016ish when I switched angles away from Blizzard).
The staff at the western subsidiary might be a few notches higher than the player base but the end result is usually the same; feedback that is collected is often times placed into the virtual version of the “circular filing cabinet that sits on the floor”. Bottomline is that the Korean led leadership and development team have their own vision of what they think will work with the western player base (and most times, they are far off base).
As I also noted before, modifying someone elses source (or the original developers designs) is never an easy task; it is usually better to have someone who previously worked on the game involved because they’ll have a bit more intimate knowledge of why they came to some decisions in the first place. Things get hairy when you have to make the sort of changes necessary when it comes to removing the cash shop mechanics though because the entire game needs to go through a tuning pass (because rewards and how the game play as a result feels, is affected). Simple example: you fight a tough boss and manage to get through all of the mechanics and then trash drops for all of that effort. It’s the whole effort/reward balance of which I again, refer back to a talk that Bill Roper (former Blizzard North executive) did.
The stance system is fun but the entire reward loop in Warlords Awakening is just off (and it is already easy to see how that will translate into an unfun reward loop at max level). My highest level character as of this entry is just 26 (since I’m leveling several classes and am in no rush since this early access period has several more months). But from what I see, this game is on a path to the same graveyard (just with a different name) because it will be difficult to convince other players to buy this game or even spend money on it when players run into the unfun stuff. Without some form of recurring revenue, the end result will be the same as Kuntara Online (where PLAYWITH will have no alternative but to pull the plug).
The development team is clearly in over their heads. The publishing subsidiary is at the mercy of their South Korean overlords because they cannot communicate to the player base, what hasn’t been communicated from the head office. The big PR mistake was doing this comparison with Bless Online (Neowiz) and stating you aren’t going to make those same mistakes… but are still doing so in a very different way (pure lack of communication, no roadmap whatsover).
Neowiz has at least always been trying to communicate to the player base (it’a another matter if most are no longer really listening to that message) with the Korean producer actively involved. PLAYWITH? Crickets. And even if they are communicating more with their ambassadors now that early access has started, they really need to begin interacting with the rest of the already small player base, a lot more.
The company has already made another huge mistake releasing this into early access because as I’ve mentioned so many times throughout this blog, YOU GET ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION (they are failing on that aspect). Myself, I can be patient compared to many others who are already off the wagon. But even now, I am re-thinking my “I will give them all of early access” because it’s like an echo chamber with these folks.
P.S. I’m working on a post highlighting the issues with the game.
