notes for the constructive crew

There’s a terrific episode of Will & Grace in which Jack is so wrapped up in his acting career that he doesn’t notice his best friend Karen’s life is falling apart. A few dozen punchlines and one really amazing epiphany scene later Jack course corrects. For me, this is a perfect metaphor for playtesting. It’s a scheduled period for me and Eric to stop, step back, and listen to what our players are saying.

At W&M we’re big believers in the power of playtesting to identify problems. We’ve found that when a player finds a problem they’re always right — there is always a problem. How that problem gets resolved falls to the dev team. The key is figuring out why the player was prompted to say what they said. The right fix requires us to balance the original vision for the game, the technical constraints we’re working under, and the larger game experience as a whole. Perfect solutions are sometimes hard to come by — but we take our commitment to crafting the best possible product very seriously.

Feedback is absolute gold and we want to thank all our playtesters for their time and keen insight. HRO is coming out of Beta testing today and we’re looking forward to assessing their comments and making a plan to address the questions that the process raises — all with an eye toward our upcoming May 23 release date! Very exciting!