Conversation started Monday

6:33pm

Matt

Willem can I ask you a question?

Wednesday

4:49am

Willem

Sure thing, what's up?

6:53am

Matt

How do you honestly feel about the direction kabam is taking the game?

Thursday

12:50pm

Willem

I think kabam is trying their best. They need to make money to keep realm alive, but they really do try not to compromise the game. That is one of the issues that is inevitable in the switch from indie to big company.

1:00pm

Matt

I agree, from your experience, have they been trying hard to understand the needs required from the community and accomodating that?

1:03pm

Willem

Yes, absolutely, the team loves the game and does whatever they can / always fights to make

It better, but I on top of that they are expected to increase profits. It's always an ongoing discussion trying to get the best of both worlds

1:05pm

Matt

Thanks, I hope you don't mind me asking more questions, but there's alot on peoples' minds! Now, I'm pretty sure it's obvious, but keeping UTs soulbound was a way to get players to spend more on vault spaces/character slots and what, right? You don't have to tell me anything you're not allowed/don't want to, but how has that affected the way people have spent gold on the game? Was there a significant rise in vaults being bought?

Today

7:22pm

Willem

Soulbinding was actually in response to duping and the other realm item sites. Nobody on the team wanted to do it, but they felt it was the only way to prevent the game from spiraling out of controller

*control

7:25pm

Matt

Alright, thanks for the insight regarding that. I've recently just heard the news, Mike has left Kabam? That's pretty upsetting. I hope the best for him and the future of Realm. What do you think this might mean for the game?

7:25pm

Willem

honestly, i have no idea

kabam let go a ton of people this week

if i hadnt quit, i probably would have been let go to

some restructuring very high up

i know one of the guys who is taking over realm, and he is a good dude

im more concerned with the fact that we'll have a new engeneering team

so its gonna take the team a while before they are comfortable enough with the code

to put out content at a good rate

7:26pm

Matt

New engineering team? Do you know what they've worked on?

7:27pm

Willem

no idea

dont know the engeers who are going to be assigned to it

i know know they fired the ones we had

7:27pm

Matt

That's a shame, what about anyone working on content?

7:27pm

Willem

well it used to be just me

so now there are 2 new producers / managers / designers

i dont know which is taking whitch role

but like i said, i do trust them

i just think its going to slow things down a bunch

and things were just starting to pick up release speed wise

7:28pm

Matt

That sucks, but do you agree realm is reaching its ending point?

7:28pm

Willem

i dont know

it really depends on what kinda resources kabam wants to give to the game

they didnt cut it

which was an obvious posibility

and taht is a very good sign

so it could still have some great time ahead

we'll jsut have to wait and see

7:31pm

Matt

Did you design the arena? Do you think it was a suitable filler for endgame content at the time being?

7:31pm

Willem

i actually didnt design the feature

thats the only one

i did the art

and the ballancing

but the original design was one of our engeneers

it was never meant to be an endgame loop tho

just a fun competative thing

i personalyl think it failed at that tho

the leaderboards are all jacked up

i proposed a fix for it before i left, but who knows if they'll do it

7:32pm

Matt

I agree, there's no competition because of overpowered pets and no chance for those at lower levels.

7:32pm

Willem

yah

7:32pm

Matt

There's no real prize except for forum contests

7:32pm

Willem

g2g

my firend is here

peace

7:33pm

Matt