Eternal Crusade: Into the Warp 106 “Roadmap Time”
Time to bust out the roadmap – here comes another production update from Behaviour!
via Eternal Crusade
ESRB 16 – Visit esrb.org for rating information.
Nathan Richardsson, Noah Ward, and Katie Fleming recently shared the two month roadmap for Eternal Crusade, shared stats from F2P launch, and answered Q&A!
Nathan opens up with a bit about the design->iteration->design philosophy. Then they go on to a presentation style rundown of the things they are working on for the next two months:
Priorities: These are the 10 things that the studio is hoping to change in the next few months.
World Map: The Map is tied into the campaigns with a new UI.
“Flaming” & “Other” Guys: The issues with Flamers have mostly been ironed out and they have the visual assets. The “veteran” units (ie Terminators) are also on the docket as well.
Campaign Push: The next two months will also have a push for Campaigns – there is a marketing campaign planned to go along with in game campaigns that tie into it. These campaigns will have different themes for each of the factions. There will be special bundles and rewards available for players/factions.
Specials: More Special events are coming – like 2/3x EXP weekends.
Balancing: The core team is constantly working on Bugs & Balancing. This includes Melee vs Melee and Melee vs Ranged. They are also working on the Melee System to make it easy to work on. It’s a very complex system already for the players but it’s even crazier from the developer’s end. Things like animation frames, weapon breaks, visual queues, and dozens of other factors – it’s complex.
At about the 31:00 Mark, they started getting into the numbers and stats of the player base in the game. They talked about the effect of Marketing and also the increase in player counts. If you’re a data junkie these charts are really interesting to look at. I found the “source of death” charts a little surprising because they showed just how much better Ranged combat is doing since the F2P kicked off. Maybe it’s the new players trying to shoot or the complex melee system that is pushing them towards “shooting” classes instead. Personally, I still haven’t gotten the hang of the Melee system, but I feel like when a Melee attacker gets in range they just wipe the floor with everyone…until they are shot down.
After the numbers it was all Q&A from the community. Overall, this was a very informative stream with a lot more info than I’m using to seeing. It was also presented differently, not very flashy but very factual. If you are interested in the behind-the-scenes then give this one a look.
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade
