“Of the 3 games you worked on, which community did you like the most?”

Well, I’m not going to answer that question specifically for what are probably obvious reasons, but I’ll comment a little about the differences I noticed.

The Age of Empires community was really idiosyncratic. Every request was for something different. Someone wanted more historical realism. Someone wanted longer games. Someone wanted a particular civilization to have different bonuses. Someone wanted random maps that were more random. Someone wanted a larger population cap (okay, everyone wanted a larger pop cap). I think this was partially because AOE players enjoyed the game in very different ways - for example, it was a closer 50/50 split of PvE to PvP players than the other games I have worked on. But I think it was also the nature of internet communities. There was no Reddit or Twitter. Fan sites hosted most of the discussion, but they were small and localized.

For World of Warcraft, you have to remember that players invest an enormous amount of time into their characters. That has changed a bit over time with boosts to max level and everyone having a stable of alts, but earlier on you likely had one character who was sufficiently geared for PvP or PvE, and if that character wasn’t viable, you weren’t playing WoW with your friends. Now to be fair, I don’t think this actually happened all that much, but it did happen sometimes, and the fear of it happening was fresh on players’ minds. So while we had some great discussions on WoW, there were also some very emotional discussions. Players sometimes took it very personally when they felt their needs weren’t being met, and you’d see terms like “neglected” and “doesn’t understand our issues” a lot. I don’t want to seem as if I am dissing the entire WoW community. It was and still is a fantastic community, and I enjoyed my interaction with players a great deal. But this sense of personal investment - the sense of “my shaman is me” doesn’t exist to quite the same degree on League.

Now certainly many League players have their mains, or they have the champions they would love to play if they felt more competitive or updated. But even if you main a champ for League, you have the expectation that you won’t be able to play her every single game. Furthermore, the switching cost is much lower. At worst, you have to spend IP or RP to grab a new champion, and at best you may only have to play a few games on a champion you’re rusty with. That’s very different than a WoW player who may have to spend months (traditionally - it certainly isn’t months now) leveling up a new class and gearing them up. Partially as a result, the discussion on League tend to be a little more abstract or even academic. Players certainly complain (as well they should) when they think a particular champion, class or strategy is overly dominant, but the discussions tend to be more about how to fix the shit that is broken rather than someone’s sense that the designers are out to get them. There are exceptions. We hear a lot from Aatrox mains for example. We hear from people who love champs who haven’t gotten a skin in a long time. Those are all super legit. But there are also a lot of discussions about particular item builds, or masteries, or lack of counterplay. Maybe we talk about the rules more? I don’t know how to describe it.

And I’m not trying to say logical arguments are somehow more legit than emotional ones. They’re just different, because the same sense of investment often isn’t there. If you have 1000 games on Leona, then the investment probably does feel there for you.



2/24/2017