AQ2D
Artix Krieger
| Monday, January 27, 2025
Ooof! Last week was so rough that if I was offered a severed position on the Macro Data Refinement floor of Lumen, I might have actually considered it.(That was a reference to the TV show, Severance. In that show employees of a company have their memories severed so one version of the exists only at work, and the other version exists only in the real world. So, you know... no taking work stress home with you.) At least, that is how I felt after looking at player feedback from last week's art post. From the comments & videos the effort being put into the monster art upgrades was not received well. Oh man, did I misread the room. I have been thinking (and stressing) about it all weekend.
You are the boss. Always have been. Since I am building this for you, what you think about the games and their features is more important than what I think. Any creator who does not know this basic truth is in for a world of hurt. A creator creates to serve their audience. For this project's big picture, the original message I heard loud and clear is that you want to play AQWorlds on mobile. You want to play your character & load your stuff on mobile. You want this. We want this. This is what we are all here to do.
For the past few months I have been talking about these three circles... this is where a creator thrives for the people they are creating for.
So if we are all here with the goal of recreating a game we love for mobile, what happens when there are disagreements on how to do it? Last week I posted what I thought would be a safe "old vs new art" post to kick off the year. Oh boy was I wrong. Players (maybe including you) had very passionate thoughts about their love for the old, original art. I get it. The original art has a special place in our hearts. Some people say it matches the old backgrounds better. This is legitimate feedback from people who play the game and intend to play the new version. So, people clearly love it and now the team is now debating on using old art, or placing old monster art in certain zones, or having dedicated nostalgia maps, or possibly implementing a Halo-like toggle. (That last one is actually possible, but extremely unlikely. The nostolgia maps make a whole lot of sense though.) The goal of these posts is to communicate and get your thoughts. And I certainly heard you about the art this time.
There are going to be a lot of things that are different in Infinity. No matter how small a change... most people hate change. (I mean, I do. Stop "improving" Photoshop Adobe!) And there is no way to port AQWorlds one-to-one. This weekend it dawned on me that there is actually no way for me to win on this project. Think about it. If I keep the game as close as possible there will be complaints that we did not fix all the issues and things they did not like. If we fix all the issues there will be mass complaints that we changed things and got rid of the stuff they liked. Converting something that so many people care about this like performing heart surgery while running through a minefield. At least with posts like these we can try to do it without a blindfold.
...and this is not just a port. This is a new game. New engine. New art file type. It will be different no matter how hard we try to keep it the same.
So that is why I declared the 80% same, 20% better philosophy.
This weekend I saw this philosophy sorta hurled at me offensively. And boy that stung. But after racking my brain for alternatives, the 80/20 philosophy is the only thing that actually works. We cannot make the game exactly the same as it was, but we can preserve the heart of it. The goal is simply not to change it too much. The only place where we should change it... is where we can improve it for you and the other players. Or, I guess where there is no other option. As a realist, I am grimly aware that the 20% part is gonna get A LOT more heat as we get closer to release. Because...
"Better" is a VERY subjective opinion.
That is why I am reinstating the daily progress updates through the work week. Through these I will do my best to transparently communicate to you what exactly we are doing in Infinity. Please let me know what you think of any of the things we are working on. If you really want to make sure I see your comment, post your comments to the posts made on the Artix Krieger Facebook page. That one, for some reason, pops up alerts on my phone so I tend to see more than the others.
See you shortly for the daily update.
Battle on!
Artix
