Latest news from Deca Games

#1

Hello all,

We have just published a new Developper Letter on our website. You can read it and learn more about our vision for Realm of the Mad God here:

Letter from Deca Games

The Deca Team

Deca posted another blog post
#5

http://www.decagames.io/single-post/2016/10/08/Letter-from-Deca-Games

It is talking about some plans for RotMG that Deca has and whatnot.

I havenā€™t seen anything else about this on the Realmeye forums so sorry if someone else has posted this already.

#6

Hi All,

Itā€™s been almost 3 months since we officially took over RotMG and wow, itā€™s been crazy. We want to say thank you again to everyone who has come back to Realm to be a part of its comeback.

In this letter we want to tell you about whatā€™s been happening behind the scenes and a bit more about our plans for the upcoming months.ok then

So as you guys know, right after taking over we started Month of the Mad God. In hindsight, coming out of the gate with Month of the Mad God was probably not the best idea. We are really happy with how it turned out, but we lost a lot of sleep and progress to make it all happen. We really wanted to do MotMG because we wanted to show everyone that Realm was back and better than ever. And as we mentioned in our first letter, we are trying to do right by this game.

But letā€™s just say we highly over-estimated the working state of the admin tools for the game and its events. Some things that looked very easy and straightforward, ended up being very difficult. When you take over a game made 5+ years ago, thatā€™s to be expected. But I guess our enthusiasm and ambition clouded our better sense of judgement. As you can imagine, trying to put out fires while your team is still learning the new systems and code base is really hard. But trial by fire, is usually the best way to learn. And learn we did.

Everyday had its own bit of chaos as we adjusted to make things happen and react to the bugs, exploits and cheats that were occurring. We had planned on putting a lot more time into future content, but we could only react to the issues that were occurring daily. But thankfully going through this process really helped our team gel together and helped us learn everything super quickly and made us make some real improvements immediately.

After MotMG ended, we refocused on crystallizing our plans for the next phase of the game. We added a few new team members and put them on some smaller projects to get them ramped up on the game and code base and thatā€™s where many of the quality of life updates came from. As a team, we had come a long way from where we started from. But we hadnā€™t made nearly enough progress as we would have liked (this is still the case). We started with the goal of creating a new and improved service where Realm would feel fresh and dynamic again. The game is 5+ years old, but it shouldnā€™t feel that way.

We aim to have a more predictable and regular cadence of new content. We want every time you log in to the game to be anticipating something new and different for you and your guildies.

But how to do that exactly?
First, we will need to invest more time into tools. Tools wonā€™t necessarily be seen by the public but are going to make launching game events and creating/testing new content faster and more efficient. This is going to be really important as our team is never going to be super huge but this will allow us to operate as if we were. Investing time into tools is also going to give us many more options in the types of events and content we produce. You have already seen some of our initial tests with the event chests and arena events. That is just the beginning.

Second, we are going to put more work into guilds and other features that emphasize the social and co-op aspects of the game. Realm does a good job of bringing people together already, but we think thereā€™s tons of untapped potential that can make playing with your friends even better and provide some fresh objectives for the game.

Third, we are looking at improving the loot drop experience. Both in where and how much things drop. But also making some changes to make collecting items a bit less random. More details on that to come soon.

And lastly, we see a bright future in enabling more player generated content. We have already been working with a small group of contributors to help us with the upcoming content release. We are going to improve the workflow and the creation tools we can provide to the community.

We didnā€™t want to make you read all that text just so you could find out what was going to happen months from now - that would be cruel. So letā€™s talk about next week, because our first content update is a big thing for usā€¦ and hopefully for you too :slight_smile:

As mentioned above, we have worked hard to create a completely new encounter while also joining forces with some great and talented community members to build 2 more completely new dungeons. Each of them are geared towards a different player level and skill level.

Each dungeon will drop some brand new items. There will be some brand new enemies and effects. Sound good? Come back on tuesday to find out more - and donā€™t forget to bring your friends!

Sincerely,
Your Deca Games team

For those who donā€™t like clicking on links lol

#7

Itā€™s so nice to actually have the people running the game talk to us.

Iā€™m really excited for the upcoming content. Stay awesome Deca c:

#8

I still wonder what the hell deca has done with the site to make it that laggy.

#9

Their site uses a site builder service. They didnā€™t make it themselves, they just picked from a menu of themes and clicked ā€œcreateā€, basically.

Thanks to @UnicornSla for posting a copy, it wouldnā€™t load on my mobile Reddit app.

#10

You know what I REALLY liked about this?

ā€œAnd lastly, we see a bright future in enabling more player generated content. We have already been working with a small group of contributors to help us with the upcoming content release. We are going to improve the workflow and the creation tools we can provide to the community.ā€

#11

That is something Kabam failed to do. This is a real game developer studio that put its heart and soul into making RotMG as best a gaming experience we want it to be. :slight_smile:

#12

There are many difficulties with this approach. I donā€™t think Kabam ever got far enough with their own ā€œintentionā€ of facilitating player created content to even see the real problems, and Iā€™m glad of it.

The biggest problems are
1)the likelihood of an absolute flood of garbage content and
2)the near impossibility of balance.

Although I believe healthy modding communities can do an amazing service to a game, I think thereā€™s an awful lot to be said for consistency and quality standards, which are very hard to maintain while also empowering content creators outside the licensed studio.

While I love the idea of community involvement (which should be obvious), I also have to deal with the question ā€œwhich community and how should they be involved?ā€ This is why Iā€™ve always embraced the idea of players interacting with the developers in a moderated discussion (forum)ā€”it is my hope that we will get to be heard, and that good ideas will win the day.

It is possible for player development to be well implemented and interesting, but there are also great potential disasters behind that door. I am somewhat leery of this being on the early roadmap, given some of the easily avoidable missteps deca has made so far. That road is much more treacherous and unforgiving, I think.

#13

Aye as it is mine. Iā€™m hoping forums get recognition as a place for player generated ideas. In all honesty, itā€™s really easy to quickly sift through the garbage ideas at first glance and then refine the much more complete/better ones later on.

Not saying there should be a ā€œcontent submissionā€ thing, but some sort of official DECA forum for players to post community content so we know itā€™s seen (which is a good first step I think).

#14

Kinda related, thanks to Xaklor for digging this up:

What are your thoughts on this whole ā€˜gemā€™ system?

While I think itā€™s interesting, my honest opinion is that itā€™s way too complicated to be given to one of Oryxā€™s henchman.

And itā€™s kinda complicated in general. :confused:

#15

Not that many players use the forumsā€¦ Thereā€™s also not that many old players that still play the game :frowning:

#16

Canā€™t wait for the new updates! The new dungeons sound like there add some new content for players that are bored of the game to get some more enjoy out.

Why did kabam not smooth the textures when they owned the game? Like the games graphics right now are they best for a flash gameā€¦

#17

The game is already laggy enough with the poor graphics.

#18

@UnicornSla I wasnā€™t exactly sure if your post was directed at me (asking for thoughts on the gem idea).

The Gem idea has some problems, IMO. I really, genuinely hope and believe that the idea was selected as more of a ā€œfun ideaā€ than a real possibility.

This was my impression:

  1. Adding a second ability is a huge deal.
    a. It would take a ton of development resources to make sure it works, figure out how it interacts with everything else, etcā€¦ I mean, where would you even put it on the screen? The deca post hinted at this complexity, and it is for this reason that Iā€™m not over-concerned that it will actually come to pass.
    b. Because the gem system fails to take into account how big of a deal a second ability is, it also hugely undershoots what it should be accomplishing. A brand new class-agnostic ability should not be confined to one specific drop location, and it certainly should not have a two HOUR cooldown. Thatā€™s only once per play session for any casual player.
  2. The gems suggested arenā€™t balanced. They arenā€™t balanced against each other (I would use the loot drop every time always), and it would be very hard to balance them into the game so that they are meaningfully useful but not gamebreakingly powerful (especially considering the effect must be multiplied across the number of players engaged at one time.
  3. IMO, any game design should be consistent, elegant, meaningful, interesting, and creative. Unfortunately the gem idea is a little bit too dreamy for me. You collect a gem, then fill a bar through exp, and then thereā€™s still a two hour cooldown? The gems have a bunch of different mechanics, but one is supposed to be the rarest and best? And the rarest and best is ā€¦ a second decoy? A longer buff? Thatā€™s a big system for a bit of an underwhelming payoff.
  4. I realize we now live in a very different day, but it is at least worth considering that one of the original core philosophies of development was Simplicity:

Now, the thing is I donā€™t usually offer critiques of ideas unless Iā€™m asked or I feel thereā€™s something at stake. I think people ought to have the space to dream, and like I said my guess is deca was just having fun with a promotion encouraging the players to dream. Thatā€™s a part of the process which I believe to be worthwhile, and I wouldnā€™t want to stifle creativity by being the guy who rains on every parade with ā€œOH YEAH?! WELL HOW WOULD YOU BALANCE IT?!?!ā€ Iā€™m only telling you my thoughts because you (may have) asked, but I wouldnā€™t want to discourage anybody from being creative or dreaming.

<3
stu

#19

I agree with everything stupidity says about the gem idea. until now, i thought DECA was going to go through with it, but now they fixed Janus in a more normal way that everyone was kinda expecting. it almost looks like DECA themselves forgot about it XD

I donā€™t think something like that has a place in RotMG at all, but it could work if a LOT of work went into making work. (work is a fun word lol)

#20