Weekly Newsletter 06_16_08: Play More, Analyze Less

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Dalmarus

Play More, Analyze Less

June 16th, 2008 - By Dalmarus

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' game update # 5 has been live for a while now and as usual, things have started to settle down. There have been a couple small patches in the last 2 weeks to iron out a few bugs that snuck in with the update. These things happen though, and it was nice to see things get worked on so quickly by the development team. With players getting settled in the game again, the natural direction of the community in general has gone back to the old standby we've been hearing since release; what's next for the game?

Last week, Beau and Luper sat down for another great podcast. Their guest this time was Game Designer, Avair. Avair is in charge of approximately half of the classes in Vanguard and it was a great listen. A lot of questions were asked of him on behalf of the community members that sent in questions. A number of classes were covered and it was great to hear the current plans Avair has for those classes. To hear all about it, be sure to listen to the podcast!

At one point during the interview, Avair brought up a very interesting point while answering a question about which class is his favorite to play. While he has a Dread Knight for his main character, the majority of his play time is spent gathering information for the purpose of either testing classes, or the changes they've made to those classes. The point he made that really caught my interest though, was the idea that since as part of the development team, he has a hard time just being able to relax and play the game since he knows how everything works behind the scene, and is always thinking about things that need to be fixed, things he'd like to do with the classes, or even wishing they had had more time/resources to get something else in.

While I'm certainly not part of the development team in any sense of the phrase, this concept struck a chord with me. It's a very rare occasion that I can simply relax and enjoy the game as a regular player. Almost every minute I'm in the game, I'm always thinking of things I want to get put up on the site here. I'm continually questioning whether everything I come across could be used, and if it can, what's the best method of distribution? Is it something the community actually needs? If not, is it something the community will find interesting? The list literally goes on and on without end.

While this has a tendency to drive me a little bit crazy at times (who doesn’t want to just relax and play their favorite game?), it also has a tendency to drive the friends you play with a little crazy too. They can't tell me about anything cool they've seen without getting pestered with questions about where it was, what level, was it part of a quest, and do they have at least one screenshot of it? I do feel for them, but I still have to ask. I can't help it.

Even though the situations are completely different, I do understand what Avair meant. Now don't get me wrong. I love working on the website, and sure as heck wouldn't be doing it if I didn't. There are certainly times though that I wish I could go back to a simpler time when I didn't analyze the potential usefulness of everything I came in contact with in the game though, ha-ha!

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