faces into a fair number of walls and we all have a good map of what works well and what doesn’t, but it’s tricky because one of things we really want to do is offer a well-polished MMO experience and we have our own unique take on how to offer that. It’s tough to summarise. We have about 20 different systems that are new. I don’t know if anyone has done Discoveries before with random pieces of the world which drop in and out, or War Plots or housing in the depth that we’re doing it, or the dynamic raiding… We don’t have one single unique selling point to offer to people, we have like 40 things that are cool. Paths just happen to be the less-unique one you bump into at low levels. There’s a war sometimes between having something you can market well in one sentence versus something that’s truly compelling. That’s the balance
for us. We would rather have the path elements as part of a complete nutritious breakfast, as opposed to trying to fool everyone into thinking that War Plots are everything. If you’re a hardcore PvP-er who wants to take a town, capture raid bosses and then fly around and destroy everything then that’s for you, but that’s not every player necessarily. So it’s the goal of doing a lot of things right versus being able to communicate them well and efficiently without being a bullshit artist about it. Conversely, it’s also about not being so many different things that you water down the experience for everyone. That’s the challenge that faces every developer and it’s one that we tackle head-on, but at the end of the day we want to make a good game. People love the Beta, they are having a strong time. Retention is much more important than marketing because that’s where the money is.
>