Cryptic Studios'  Chief Creative Officer, Jack Emmert, last week posted a piece on the CO website about what has changed at the studio, and how it effects development and design of their newest MMO.  With the excitement of the holiday, I missed it, but it's here now, for you to read!

I was inspired to write this short entry because we just got done with something internally that we'd never, never done before. We finished a zone and were just about to head into working on something new. But we felt that the zone needed some attention. Sure, QA had identified some bugs in it, but the zone did "work." But the one thing we weren't entirely sure about was whether the zone was fun.

So we shut down the Champions team for two weeks. And everyone played the game. Each person was required to play for at least an hour each day, and a goal for the whole team was set for at-home play hours. As a reward, if the team played for 600 total hours for the month of June, the company directors would hold a BBQ for them. As people played, we expected them to use an in-game tool to log bugs, comments, suggestions and criticisms.

Nothing makes me happier then someone saying their game wasn't fun, and that they were truly focused on making sure the entire team played their game for fun.  It doesn't happen often enough!  Kudos Cryptic!