How long have you been a fan of AE?

We want to see new features and innovations come out of AQ3D, but AE is yet to come up with anything that stands out. They can come up with something if they try to, but those weekly releases feel like an obstacle that is in the way.

 

I have been playing since 2007, started with DragonFable, and still play it! It's best AE game, story wise.

 

Think part of the reason why it's considered best for its story is because it had a different writer who no longer works for the company (as far as I'm aware of). The story for other AE games, including AQ3D, feels a bit stagnant... some needing a better motif, archetype surrounding the hero/villain, and just better planning in general. AQWorlds story after the chaos saga hasn't been interesting as much, and AQ3D's story feels bare-bone with little planning.

 

Really? DF had a different writer? That does explain why people look up to it when it comes to the story.

 

Started playing their games in early 2007, discovered it through a nephew. He grew out of it very quickly and I have played their games for over a decade now. Even though I stopped genuinely following or playing anything AE related maybe 3 or so years ago.

 

I think they had Alina and Geopetal for DragonFable's writing team. Alina moved to AQWorlds' story and Geopetal left the team back in 2016. AE's older games don't really get as much releases as they used to nowadays.

 

Alina used to write for DF? That's news to me and it's not surprising because I haven't played DF that much. Geopetal apparently was a game director for DF before quitting AE. Yeah, AE's old games don't get as much focus and AQ3D is definitely one of the reasons why.

 

Well they have different teams to manage different games, so it isn't exactly AQ3D why other games are neglected. Ultimately, it's business, and AE wants to keep their big moneymakers as relevant as possible. If players poured thousands of dollars into DragonFable every week, it'd be no different than AQ3D or AQWorlds getting weekly updates. They could just hire more people with that money, and it wouldn't be too hard to find new people since the gaming industry is very relevant.

 

AE has been hiring more people and they can hire more, but there are also business reasons not to keep hiring more people.

 

Well, they could also rearrange their current team members, like move some working on one game (e.g. AQWorlds) to another game (e.g. AQ3D). Doesn't necessarily mean that they need to hire new people, if they can already manage a team. But right now, the game would benefit from having more people working on the game, if the game wants to keep up with a weekly pace, and not affect other games.

 

Yeah, that's a way to get more people work on AQ3D without hiring more people. It would benefit AQ3D's development, but I doubt that AE is going to do it enough that it would have an effect on the game.

 

Well they already buy assets to mitigate having to hire people, rather than completely create everything on their own. For instance, the World Tree wasn't entirely made from scratch since it borrows from some Unity Assets. If I backed the game for $5,000 just for that, I'd probably be disappointed. I do feel like fans of the game get exploited more than they actually realize, especially since there are so many reused things or store-bought things. It's really part of the reason why I avoid spending DCs, because AE tends to reuse the same model; there just isn't as much uniqueness that stands out, but some people new to the game might not think about that.

And to think about it as a whole, someone would probably spend thousands of dollars on an MMORPG (or some game with lootboxes or other eye-candy) over a period of time just to gain enjoyment. People don't really think about their budget, and there's usually more gravitas regarding to the perception, and consequences. For instance, a negatively reviewed game that costs $60 might give a negative perception but, without having a review to judge on, would vary depending on personal taste compared to an okay-reviewed game where you might feel enticed to spend thousands of dollars just for enjoyment. That is a huge difference.

And there's usually some selection bias as well. To summarize, the people who enjoy playing a video game are less likely to rate a game positive than the people who found something appalling (e.g. maybe you think a game company's sequel diverted too much from the prequel). And the people who thought it was okay or didn't care for the game probably didn't care to rate it either. And someone who spends hundreds or thousands of dollar to derive enjoyment might rate for a completely different reason, without denoting that they pour in a lot of money to enjoy a game. Statistics can be very deceptive to a person's perception of things, especially when determining what to choose. Reasonably, I would choose a $60 video game that's been negatively reviewed but maybe full of content over some video game where you feel like you may need to constantly spend money to actually gain enjoyment.

 

Yeah, AE has been using the Unity assets to lessen the workload and it isn't exactly a great move on their part because game does take damage that way. A lot of people gave money out of their pockets to AQ3D's Kickstarter and it does make many feel like they got cheated out of their money when AE handles their game this way.

People have a different outlook on a product they spent money on compared to those who didn't. Money can get you a lot of things and when it comes to games like AQ3D, it can get you nice things to look at and that's what players like. A game that fails to ensure enjoyment without having to resort to literally throwing money at it to get that enjoyment isn't going to do that well overall and when it comes to MMORPGs, this kinda of practice isn't costumer healthy whatsoever obviously.

When it comes to the reviews, there are influences from different sources present. There are fans, newcomers, veterans of the genre, big-spenders and so on. It should ultimately be about what you think, but it can be a messy process to go through to give a big piece of your mind.

 

For the most part, I feel like the company's become lazier, or simply too complacent, mostly now relying on community artists and such. And it doesn't pertain to just AQ3D, but also other games like AQWorlds. And even just looking at new items they've made in AQWorlds, you can see that apparent laziness... for instance, looking at some of the new armors in AQWorlds, it seems like they've stopped making some armors for female characters, so now an armor is the same for both genders, or have barely any difference at all (mostly just a facial difference). And then you have recolors, especially to create the illusion of "abundance"; you might see two new items in the game, but those two new items are mirrors of each other. And then in AQ3D, you have new items, but you have to earn them the way you earned previous items (e.g. the new Shrade set in Camp Gonnagetcha); for new players, they have to do the same repetitive grinding just to collect every Shrade item... there's just no variance whatsoever.

And I don't think the MMORPG genre is necessarily dead, but it's just management itself being poor for the company. For instance, I have a different perception of how I enjoyed an AE game in the past compared to the present. I could probably go up to any other MMORPG and find a nicer experience easily.

 

Doing something for a long time does open up opportunities to make things go a little bit more faster. Using the same formula is what AE excels in. They got multiple things going on at the same time which does lead to lazily implemented content and this is definitely the case with AQ3D.

Yeah, the genre itself clearly isn't dead, it's the management of MMORPGs that makes it feel like it. Well, it's actually not a challenge to find something different from what you are used to when you have been playing AE's games for so long.

 

For AE, they could always find inspirations from other games or major topics. They tend to stay on the safe spot though, mostly taking any inspiration in textual forms rather than in implementation, especially stories that trend online. For instance, you often see parodies and pop culture references, which they try to relate with players, but it has the effect of veering away from more of the fictional fantasy-type story. For people expecting something serious in the game's storyline, like an actual major villain that actually does things, players encounter nothing more than pop culture references and other contemporary allusions, and it's the sort of thing that separates a story-driven game like DragonFable from AQWorlds and AQ3D.

As for implementation, when some other new game has this "amazing feature" that no other game has ever done before, you don't really see AE being proactive in building a feature that's "game-changing" like that other game. Like there's barely anything done for PvP, and you don't really see mini-games or anything different to the core of the game. It's the same "do this quest and turn it in" formula, and it's rather dull, especially when the task is mundane or repetitive. And challenge maps aren't really as impressive, because they're built from previous challenge maps, so it feels like a simple rinse and repeat. The game just needs to constantly be innovative, and that's just something it lacks to do. I could even go on about the Friday the 13th event, which is the same repetitive farming as it's always been. You do the same quests, and kill monsters at camp to collect badges, just to craft another Shrade set, and it's boring and tedious. And to make matters worse, they've added a new Shrade variant, which makes encountering a specific version of Shrade much rarer. They could have lowered the spawn time and/or made other improvements, but instead it's just a re-release of the core element with just new items, and it doesn't really feel game-changing whatsoever. They don't bother changing up the monsters on the field, changing the environment and landscape, or anything to make the experience "new", only bring minor additions.

 

I have noticed that as well. AE likes to take inspiration from recent events or events from the past. AE has turned many of their games into shoeboxes filled everything else but shoes. Dragonfable did fill that story-driven game spot in their catalog of games which is kinda sad if you think about it.

AE really isn't proactive because they are stuck in this loop of dispensing content to their games, be it filler or not. Adding new features seems be a side thing, but that's just the fault of how they manage their games. I am sure they want to add new features, but their priorities just doesn't let them do that whenever they want.

Friday 13th started out just there "Kill these 2 bosses for items + there are a few minions with items too" to "Kill this boss for items, but there are multiple of them with different items each, and you can craft all those items, but you need pieces from those first two bosses to craft everything which you cannot craft + there even more minions now and they all also drop items". It hasn't really gone anywhere even though we got 2 dungeons now too.

 

There is a saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket." I feel like AE has added too much filler for AQ3D that they can't prioritize anything important for the progress of the game. For instance, too many holiday-related events, and they try to add more holiday events, even if it's mediocre. I think part of the reason is that they feel impulsive to add yearly content, especially since they've trapped themselves with things like having to make collections for every year now.

When you really think about it, they barely have any manageable time for actual releases. You have TLaPD in September, then maybe a week to work on a draft for a new storyline release. Then you have Mogloween for the month of October, and maybe about a week or two to focus on the storyline release, then you have Black Friday in November, and now you have to work on Frostval with no time at all to focus on a storyline release. Then January, there's a chunk of time, but February, there's Heroes Hearts Day, then Dage's birthday in early March, and in late March and early April, there's April Fool's Day, then Grenwog's Day (which they did forget to re-release last year), then May the 4th, and then Summer collection in June, and then a chunk of time in July to focus on releases, then the cycle repeats. And on top of that, there's no time for revisions, and there may be other events that might intervene during some months (example: Friday the 13th could fall on any month of the year).

It's just outright unreasonable. Usually in a lot gaming industries, you have two separate divisions... one team focuses on the main content of the game, and the other team focuses on the side content, and that's the kind of chemistry that builds a good game. And with AE being a small company, they try to juggle more things than they are capable of. Anytime there's a new release, whether it's some holiday release or an actual story release, there's usually mistakes, a lack of content, or other things to point at.

 

These seasonal events do take a lot of time from making story releases and the amount of filler content compared to story releases is pretty large. AE isn't a big company so they can't make story releases in a timely manner while making filler content at the same time. Things were good when we didn't have many seasonal events or at least when they weren't that big and it's fine to have small seasonal events, but AQ3D still isn't live and it has many years worth of seasonal content in it!

 

Seems like priority issues for the company. It is disappointing, when the majority of the game is seasonal releases rather than story-driven releases. It only delays the Live release of the game further (since new players are going to want to experience what the story offers more than just filler). I feel like they went for seasonal releases just because it's easy money from their familiar fanbase, rather than because they actually want the game to be Live in a timely manner. Like ask yourself, where does AE make the majority of their profit, and the answer is from seasonal releases, especially collections. They could always add permanent DC items in story areas or try new things, but I feel like it's the perception of rarity (rare titles and badges, can only get this item during a specific time, etc.) that drives people to buying things, and that's the exact tactic AE's striving for, so they don't want to change the formula at all.

The realization is that AE's primary goal is to make money, and their secondary goal is to provide service to its customer, and that's really how any market or company is. Some games definitely do better than others at serving its customer (e.g. games where you pay only once for the full experience), but some games downplay its customers into cheap luring tactics (e.g. games with lootboxes and other deceptive practices) while other games are in the middle (e.g. games requiring subscriptions but provide an average experience, or some other average experience that requires money from the consumer).

If I had to rank where AE falls on the scale, they'd be at the middle, but slightly facing the games with deceptive practices since the experience for what players pay for is a bit underwhelming. I personally think a game like Overwatch would be slightly better in ranking, despite having loot boxes, simply because the gameplay makes it stand out more than its lootboxes.