Introduction

In game development, you are either creating a new Intellectual Property (IP) or building on an established one. Working on a new IP gives you the freedom to create whatever you desire. The challenge here is to generate interest and carve out a market for your game. Working on an existing IP however poses different challenges altogether. 

When working with an existing IP you are developing the game for its fans. You need to be aware of things they love about the series and make sure you stay true to the IP. Failure to do so may set you down a path leading to a phenomenon I like to call OUTRAGE.

OUTRAGE!!!

A fitting image taken from Legion’s class previews

Outrage is when your community goes into an uproar due to a change to the game they love. Fans love your game and invest a massive amount of time playing them. They want to see the game succeed as much as you do. 

In the weeks following Legion’s announcement, information began to surface about the upcoming expansion. One such announcement was the inclusion of an assortment of powerful legendary items. These legendary items make the player considerably stronger. These items are more akin to Legendary Items in Diablo 3 rather than World of Warcraft (WoW). 

Legendary Item examples via wowhead’s database

This announcement split the WoW community into two camps. Players that welcome these items and those that despise them.

This is one of many discussions sparked by this announcement.

Luckily, this makes for an ideal case for us to examine Outrage and discuss how we can avoid it. Why did a decision cause such a violent outburst?

The Design Vacuum

Before delving into the specific WoW problems, let us talk about design vacuums. A vacuum is a place devoid of matter. A design vacuum is when an aspect of a game is designed with no other considerations. Players come to games with their own set of preconceived notions and opinions (psychographics). Games are not experienced in a vacuum so design cannot exist in a vacuum either. This is prevalent specifically in existing IPs, which already have an established community legacy that developers need to keep in mind. 

In my time as a designer, I have seen many new designers feel like they can assess their designs in a vacuum. Early on, I too struggled with this idea. While it is fun to romanticize the idea of perfect designs, the truth is that designs succeed or fail based on how it interacts with the rest of the game. Keep this in mind as you continue reading this article.

The Problem

So what caused this outrage among the WoW community? Was Blizzard’s idea bad? Not necessarily. Sometimes a developer may try to take a game in a new direction that is not yet understood by the community. They may even include a change that aims to attract a different type of player. It is up to Blizzard to communicate that vision and involve their community in the conversation. This is something they are actively doing as you can see in this relatively new forum post.

Blizzard is doing a lot to factor in their community’s feedback and start a conversation

In that case, is the community at fault? Absolutely not. Players consumed with outrage have their hearts in the right place. As crazy as the conversation may get, this madness stems from a place of passion.

With no one to blame, is Outrage inevitable? Not entirely. Developers can change a few things about their game to avoid Outrage. Outrage is sometimes triggered by problems with presentation and perception. Below you will find how I believe these two problems contributed to the community’s outrage.

Legacy of Oranges

Legendary items in WoW are not like legendary items in other games. In the early days of WoW, only a handful of legendaries existed. Players needed to band together for months to try and earn only one legendary item. With each expansion, Blizzard added a handful of Legendary items and made changes to how players acquire them. Players perceived that Blizzard was adding so many more of these items to WoW and that did not sit well with some members of the community. This decision doesn’t hold up to the legacy of legendary items in WoW.

 Thunderfury one of the earlier Legendary Items in WoW via wowhead

The Necessity of Power

Blizzard mentioned that these items will remain powerful across the entire expansion. This compels so many players to go out and find them. A majority of the raiding community perceived this to be a bad decision. They concluded that they will need to spend time finding a vast number of these legendary items to stay relevant in their raiding guild.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and this particular hell is an outraged community (image via wowhead)

The Acquisition Method

At the time of the announcement, Blizzard did not give too many details on how these items are earned. Instead, they hinted that it will involve world content. Players made conclusions that these items are going to be hard to find. Dedicated raiders then concluded that they will need to participate more often in content they do not necessarily enjoy in pursuit of these items. This goes against the type of gameplay these raiders expect from WoW.

Other Problems

We could dissect these problems further but in the interest of time I will list a few more below:

In a vacuum, making this change to WoW sounds like a good idea. When it interacted with some player psychographics, outrage emerged. So what can Blizzard do? They are already on the right track. Involving their community, adjusting their decisions, and doing their best to mitigate the situation. I have no doubt things will come to a fitting end. This article won’t cover what can be done when outrage emerges. For now, I think the more interesting question to ask is what could they have done to avoid this outrage?

Avoiding Outrage

The best way to deal with outrage is to avoid it by noticing it early and adjusting. At Trendy, we learned a few tricks while developing Dungeon Defenders II (DD2) that helped us avoid outrage.

Trendy Entertainment is an indie studio working on the Dungeon Defenders IP. DD2 started life as a MoBA rather than the true sequel fans were expecting. This was the first of many decisions that caused a lot of Outrage among our community. We became masters at outraging our community. I was fortunate enough to watch as it happened over the years. After a couple of company shakeups, Trendy finally rallied behind delivering the DD2 experience our fans were asking for.

Dungeon Defenders II

Dungeon Defenders II is a tower defense, action, RPG hybrid. You control a hero, build defensive structures, and attempt to outlast an oncoming horde. DD2 sits in early access as we work towards its release.

Early Access was helpful to DD2. We got to expose a lot of our mistakes to our community and gather feedback before the game goes live. By the time the team was ready to start working on a new hero, we had a new development process in mind. This process helps us reduce the outrage in our community. Earlier this year, we started working on the Summoner.

The Summoner

The Summoner as seen in the first Dungeon Defenders

The Summoner was iconic in the first Dungeon Defenders. He summons enemy units that players were able to control using a unique RTS control scheme.

We chose the Summoner as our first new hero for the following reasons:

When we were adapting the Summoner to DD2, we elected to cut his RTS control scheme. We made the cut because developing a new control scheme for one hero was going to be a sizable undertaking. I focused on developing a simple but new type of playstyle that this hero would come to embody called the Active Builder. Active Builders must interact with their defenses to reach their highest damage potential. Heroes and Defenses rarely interacted in DD2. By adding a new interaction point, I hoped to deliver a new and exciting playstyle.

My focus was devoted to this new Active Builder mechanic. So much so that it distracted me from a festering concern. By cutting his RTS mechanic, are we not risking community outrage? I asked our community manager to gather expert Summoner players for a Skype conversation. Our fans mentioned that one of the iconic things about the Summoner was his control scheme. After thinking on this for a long while, I proposed a simple change.

Instead of calling him the Summoner, I proposed the following changes: