There has been a lot of talk about the previous Player Councils and what their impact has been to the world of Racing Rivals. Some people believe they didn’t do anything, or only had their interests at heart or that they went along with everything we said. Basically that nothing really came out of any of the councils. That is just not true at all. Though circumstances make it seem that way, none of which fall on the players who make up the council.
So I’m going to give you a rundown of what really happened with the two previous Player Councils and what we expect from the Player Summit.
The First Player Council
At some point we wanted to get a feel of what the game was like from a player’s point of view. We also wanted to give players a view of the game from the developer’s standpoint. This is how the first Player Council was formed.
When deciding to to invite we determined that we wanted a good mix of representatives from as many different areas of the community as we could. These players also had to show that they were rational and understood that the game is also a business and that they were able to discuss aspects of the game in a thoughtful respectful way. Players may not have agreed with our choices, with some being more controversial than others… but our take on it? We were forming a Suicide Squad, not the Justice League or Avengers or the Mane 6 My Little Ponies. To use a common phrase, “It takes a thief to catch a thief”.
So the players arrived, and we talked. We talked for a whole day. What came out of it was, for Glu’s part, a better understanding about the player’s point of view. There were a lot of suggestions made by the council. Trading lobbies, unique first place turf cars, gear ratios, more customization, changes to turf points, paid name changes, better lobbies and a lot more, in fact a lot of the more recent suggestions posted on these forums were already suggested by the first council.
So what happened to all their suggestions? Simple, a lot of them we considered, but many of those we felt were too big or difficult to implement into Racing Rivals and were probably better served in a sequel to Rivals. So they were placed on the back burner for a sequel project that never happened.
So it wasn’t that the Council was useless or didn’t contribute. Their suggestions would have been all over a sequel. We just never went that route. We even discussed the possibility if a sequel with them which could incorporate a lot of what the council was looking for, but they were obligated to not talk about that.
This takes us to…
The Second Player Council.
As we thought about it more and as we also looked at the Mobile Gaming trends a sequel wasn’t in the cards, we didn’t feel comfortable creating a sequel and making everyone start over so we went to try and upgrade Rivals. Once that happened, we would look into updating systems, adding new features, some with the suggestions the Player Council made.
We worked on 6.0 for a good while and when we felt it was ready we wanted to show the players. So we held a second Player Council.
This time around it was more about showing them what we had in store and run through a bunch of features/changes we wanted to make following the 6.0 launch. Also, we didn’t restrict what the player council could talk about. They were free to inform the player community in any way they saw fit. Which they did.
Mind you, when they saw the 6.0 build, it was a different version than what eventually became the 6.0 release. They also saw it optimized on pretty good devices in very controlled environments. So their initial reactions were on point for what they saw, which turned out to be different from what was released. It was still a few months out so changes were made. Sometimes that’s just what happens in a game’s development.
We also did run through a bunch of features we were going to work on. They also posted about that. Again, yes, we had every intention of building out a lot of the features that the Player Council talked about, we were excited to bring all those out to you.
And then 6.0 launched.
We all know what occurred then. 6.0 was a misstep. We admitted it. We had every intention of presenting the players with the same Racing Rivals that you loved just with a facelift. Unfortunately we then had to focus on “undoing” what we did, with the problem of not being able to just undo it all. We couldn’t go back to 5.3, so we tried and are still in the process of trying to make sure our players are able to play.
This means all the features we had intended to work on needed to be pushed back a bit until we were able to get Rivals stable again.
Then some internal situations happened at Glu which we cannot discuss, but now Racing Rivals is being essentially run by Carbonated Inc. but is still owned by Glu.
Continued in the next comment
IGN: The Real {RR} Ryyst
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
4
Comments
So here we are at
The First Carbonated Summit.
What’s going to happen after this next meeting? I don’t know, but our intention is to get back to what makes the players happy. That is, we want (Carbonated) to make the player experience a priority over things that make us profits. Obviously we still need to pay bills and salaries, but the focus won’t just be on making money.
So we hope to meet with the individuals we chose in hopes that the folks at Carbonated can get a better understanding of how the Rivals players play and think. We’ll again listen to suggestions and feedback. In fact, that process has already started. Our team here has already been in contact with all the Summit players AND the old Player Council members. We’ve been asking questions, we’ve been running ideas by them. When the Summit happens, we’ll be able to sit down and get down to it.
This time we wanted to include the community into the process. This is why we turned to the community to suggest players to invite. While there was no way to include everyone’s choices, we feel we have a good mix of players to speak on the community’s behalf.
Also with the improvements in the realm of streaming. We will be streaming parts of the discussions for you all to see and hear. We’ll also be taking live questions during some segments. We plan on either doing a Facebook Live feed and/or a Twitch feed. Details on all that will be coming soon. We’re also going to be working with The One and Only Pigpen and Max from the Rivals School of Hard Knocks on special video events featuring the folks at Carbonated and the Summit players.
While we will not be able to stream the whole thing, we will be recording it and we will present an edited version out for all to see. Some parts of the discussion may include some secrets and some internal information we aren’t quite ready to or aren’t able to discuss publicly. The players themselves do sign an NDA so they can hear and see things, but wouldn’t be able to talk about. Some things we do want to keep as surprises.
So, I would ask that you give the Player Council members some credit. They suggested a lot of the things that you all have been suggesting. They weren’t given power to determine the course of the game, they didn’t “sign off” on 6.0. They didn’t lie about what they saw. We asked them for their thoughts, their feedback, their knowledge, their suggestions and their honesty. We provided insight into the game dev process and what new things we had all the intention of doing. It wasn’t on them that these things did not work out. They represented the community well. They were passionate, fierce, determined and all had the community at heart. I know we only showed the fun parts, but there were many heated debates and each Council was an eye opening experience for us at Glu.
Something to keep in mind. The Summit/Council members aren’t here to fix anything really. Don’t put that pressure on them. They aren’t game developers or programmers and aren’t on our staff. They are here to provide us with the information we may need to make informed decisions for the good of the game and the players as a whole. We know there will be no way to please everyone, but with their help we will be able to make sure the Rivals experience is steered into the direction that will make RIvals awesome.
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
But most of us can agree that the Summit Players can't have complete control over what Carbonated does. They can only really help influence what needs to be done. But I have faith they'll achieve a lot while they are there
And they are expensive...
Like I said they would be.
Outside of Ferrari, every car costs us money. RRC, lets be honest... is dirt cheap. Hek, a lot of you don't even buy it from us, so there in lies a conundrum yes? How much do we make an RRC car so we don't lose money?
Just one of the things we (Carbonated) have to consider. Can we "fix" the RRC economy so that RRC becomes worth more?
Let's also not forget that Racer Club means bonus items. If you spend $100 worth of gems when there is a Racer Club going on, you are buying things with those gems AND getting bonus items on top of it. So a high end Racer Club Ferrari car isn't expensive really. You purchase a lot for the gems that eventually get you to the top tier cars. At the end of the day, if you got say the 599xx, you also got ...
115 boosts
2 Gold Crates
3 Silver crates
4 Bronze crates
7 Headlights
6 Paints
4 wheels
1 Ferrari California
1 Ferrari 430
1 Ferrari Enzo
1 Ferrari 599xx
All that... on top of what you spent your gems on.
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
as for the Racer Clubs, really the stuff in reality is free it's just the players perspective on it. You get free stuff for spending gems in technicality.
as for fixing the RRC overflow and value, I will go out on a limb and say that at this point fixing it will take more effort than it's worth. I'm not saying it's impossible, but how?
People also want cars from Bugatti and other companies like Spano, Porsche, and RUF. So if you thought Ferarri was expensive..... Yeah you can kinda put 2 and 2 together
https://www.facebook.com/GluRacingRivals/photos/pcb.744831992394627/744824169062076/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/GluRacingRivals/photos/pcb.744831992394627/744824169062076/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/GluRacingRivals/photos/pcb.744831992394627/744824169062076/?type=3
Team: 9am michi
https://www.facebook.com/GluRacingRivals/photos/pcb.744831992394627/744824169062076/?type=3
Team: 9am michi
https://www.facebook.com/GluRacingRivals/photos/pcb.744831992394627/744824169062076/?type=3
Team: 9am michi
Team: 9am michi
Team: 9am michi
https://www.facebook.com/GluRacingRivals/photos/pcb.744831992394627/744824169062076/?type=3
Every Turf Season, we usually have 6 new cars and 6 repeats. On top of that there are new show room cars, mystery box cars, special event cars. We actually do put out a lot of cars. There are Sure, but then there is also the stats of spending. We can get 1000 new users but if none of them spend, that also isn't that great. It's a balance of all things.
When talking to players in the COuncil/Summit or not, I have discussed many suggestions, and I always throw in the phrase, "Big picture". Some changes may seem simple.. .almost no brainers. But in the grand scheme of things, everything is not so simple. Its one big machine with hundreds of cogs and gears that work together to make the whole thing work. Changing one of those components, could also affect other components, some good some bad, but we have to consider it all.
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Team: 9am michi