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On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

1) PvP is interesting for streaming. Nobody wants to watch the same PvE missions over and over but skilled PvP, now that's more like it. Essentially, with some very specific exceptions that we did not classify for at the time (MMORPG - hardcore raiding), you don't get a big audience by streaming PvE. They hoped to grow the content creator community this way.

Strangely enough I started watch WoT few months ago, and I found there is no lack of quiet brilliant commenters there. WT is less, but compared to AW it is huge content to watch.

In terms of twists and action AW PvE falls quite low. It is entertaining, but watching it is pointless unless new SO comes out for educational purpose. It is not walkthrough of AAA game.

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

Regarding the streamers, this too practically collapsed in the west with the demise of PvP queues. The most harmful thing here was the death of the NA PvP queues because most - if not all - great streamers we used to have (who weren't paid) were Americans. This is important because... let's face it. Everyone wants to listen to people with pleasant voices and good English. Streamers are mostly entertainers, they don't even have to be good players (see Jingles for example). When the Americans and English went, the community contributor scene mostly collapsed. We still have dedicated streamers, even good ones like Spitfire, but their views are generally very low.

The same happened with the Russians to a degree, only not as bad because their PvP never truly collapsed. But all "influential" (and I am using that loosely, we're talking about guys with single and low thousands of views per video) people on their side are old players (Zuberg, Snake, Chavez mostly). There's nobody new and our playerbase is too small to grow a truly big influencer. Influencers are results, not reasons games get successful.

These three are certainly have their influence, but they still pale compared to Polezny Bes which used to describe quite well whole picture of AW issues. For now Zuberg is one who doesn't repeat news from official site and capable to bring own complex ideas.

Miracle Expert plays best among them imo, but even he melts struggling all these PvP mechanics and bugs. Also he barely influencer personality.

Any of English-speaking streamers i met were either lack of skill, charisma, or simply (or rude) whiny snow flake queens. They abandoned AW once it didn't pay off to do it. 

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

1) PvP is interesting for streaming. Nobody wants to watch the same PvE missions over and over but skilled PvP, now that's more like it. Essentially, with some very specific exceptions that we did not classify for at the time (MMORPG - hardcore raiding), you don't get a big audience by streaming PvE. They hoped to grow the content creator community this way.

Strangely enough I started watch WoT few months ago, and I found there is no lack of quiet brilliant commenters there. WT is less, but compared to AW it is huge content to watch.

In terms of twists and action AW PvE falls quite low. It is entertaining, but watching it is pointless unless new SO comes out for educational purpose. It is not walkthrough of AAA game.

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

Regarding the streamers, this too practically collapsed in the west with the demise of PvP queues. The most harmful thing here was the death of the NA PvP queues because most - if not all - great streamers we used to have (who weren't paid) were Americans. This is important because... let's face it. Everyone wants to listen to people with pleasant voices and good English. Streamers are mostly entertainers, they don't even have to be good players (see Jingles for example). When the Americans and English went, the community contributor scene mostly collapsed. We still have dedicated streamers, even good ones like Spitfire, but their views are generally very low.

The same happened with the Russians to a degree, only not as bad because their PvP never truly collapsed. But all "influential" (and I am using that loosely, we're talking about guys with single and low thousands of views per video) people on their side are old players (Zuberg, Snake, Chavez mostly). There's nobody new and our playerbase is too small to grow a truly big influencer. Influencers are results, not reasons games get successful.

There three are certainly have their influence, but they still pale compared to Polezny Bes which used to describe quite well whole picture of AW issues.

Miracle Expert plays best among them imo, but even he melts struggling all these PvP mechanics and bugs. Also he barely influencer personality.

Any of English-speaking streamers i met were either lack of skill, charisma, or simply (or rude) whiny snow flake queens. They abandoned AW once it didn't pay off to do it. 

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

1) PvP is interesting for streaming. Nobody wants to watch the same PvE missions over and over but skilled PvP, now that's more like it. Essentially, with some very specific exceptions that we did not classify for at the time (MMORPG - hardcore raiding), you don't get a big audience by streaming PvE. They hoped to grow the content creator community this way.

<TBD>

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

Regarding the streamers, this too practically collapsed in the west with the demise of PvP queues. The most harmful thing here was the death of the NA PvP queues because most - if not all - great streamers we used to have (who weren't paid) were Americans. This is important because... let's face it. Everyone wants to listen to people with pleasant voices and good English. Streamers are mostly entertainers, they don't even have to be good players (see Jingles for example). When the Americans and English went, the community contributor scene mostly collapsed. We still have dedicated streamers, even good ones like Spitfire, but their views are generally very low.

The same happened with the Russians to a degree, only not as bad because their PvP never truly collapsed. But all "influential" (and I am using that loosely, we're talking about guys with single and low thousands of views per video) people on their side are old players (Zuberg, Snake, Chavez mostly). There's nobody new and our playerbase is too small to grow a truly big influencer. Influencers are results, not reasons games get successful.

<TBD>

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

1) PvP is interesting for streaming. Nobody wants to watch the same PvE missions over and over but skilled PvP, now that's more like it. Essentially, with some very specific exceptions that we did not classify for at the time (MMORPG - hardcore raiding), you don't get a big audience by streaming PvE. They hoped to grow the content creator community this way.

2) In the beginning, they specifically hoped to expand the playerbase by inviting harcore PvP clans from WoT over (aka "unicums"). The rationale was that these clans had established fanbases and very little churn. If they crossed over and the PvP environment was interesting enough, they'd form a very stable playerbase core.

The fact that I don't generally like PvP elitists is well-known and I was advising strongly against 2) for a few reasons. For one, hardcore PvP players rarely (almost never) take into account the needs of wider populace. They want as much skill-based gameplay as possible (logically, they want to show their skilly), which tends to lead to very niche gameplay that's not interesting for anyone else. WoT specifically became successful because it offered very casual experience in the beginning.

But, more importantly, hardcore playerbase isn't instant noodles. It doesn't come pre-packaged by taking it from somewhere else. It has to grow from the roots. Easy come, easy go, they say - and this is one of the biggest cases where I was proven right. The logical happened - these clans (like RSOP and a few others) did come over, they kinda enjoyed the game, but soon started having demands that were incompatible with the vision of the game as a casual experience. Their demands were not met and so they left. The rest packed up when PvP first on the NA server and then on the EU server collapsed. Of course the whole shitshow with Obsidian didn't help.

Regarding the streamers, this too practically collapsed in the west with the demise of PvP queues. The most harmful thing here was the death of the NA PvP queues because most - if not all - great streamers we used to have (who weren't paid) were Americans. This is important because... let's face it. Everyone wants to listen to people with pleasant voices and good English. Streamers are mostly entertainers, they don't even have to be good players (see Jingles for example). When the Americans and English went, the community contributor scene mostly collapsed. We still have dedicated streamers, even good ones like Spitfire, but their views are generally very low.

The same happened with the Russians to a degree, only not as bad because their PvP never truly collapsed. But all "influential" (and I am using that loosely, we're talking about guys with single and low thousands of views per video) people on their side are old players (Zuberg, Snake, Chavez mostly). There's nobody new and our playerbase is too small to grow a truly big influencer. Influencers are results, not reasons games get successful.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because making games has a LOT of inertia. The Mail.ru development team was tuned to this kind of thinking, that's the people there were around when the direction was kept and the people who are around now are the veterans of that era. AW is a five year old game now (a decade if we're talking the initial development phase, which was very long). Changing directions is very, very very hard. Plus you have guys who are good at what they do, with years of experience, at this. At PvP tuning. This all came together in the 0.33 rebalance.

On 8/13/2020 at 9:07 PM, Silentstalker said:

1) PvP is interesting for streaming. Nobody wants to watch the same PvE missions over and over but skilled PvP, now that's more like it. Essentially, with some very specific exceptions that we did not classify for at the time (MMORPG - hardcore raiding), you don't get a big audience by streaming PvE. They hoped to grow the content creator community this way.

2) In the beginning, they specifically hoped to expand the playerbase by inviting harcore PvP clans from WoT over (aka "unicums"). The rationale was that these clans had established fanbases and very little churn. If they crossed over and the PvP environment was interesting enough, they'd form a very stable playerbase core.

The fact that I don't generally like PvP elitists is well-known and I was advising strongly against 2) for a few reasons. For one, hardcore PvP players rarely (almost never) take into account the needs of wider populace. They want as much skill-based gameplay as possible (logically, they want to show their skilly), which tends to lead to very niche gameplay that's not interesting for anyone else. WoT specifically became successful because it offered very casual experience in the beginning.

But, more importantly, hardcore playerbase isn't instant noodles. It doesn't come pre-packaged by taking it from somewhere else. It has to grow from the roots. Easy come, easy go, they say - and this is one of the biggest cases where I was proven right. The logical happened - these clans (like RSOP and a few others) did come over, they kinda enjoyed the game, but soon started having demands that were incompatible with the vision of the game as a casual experience. Their demands were not met and so they left. The rest packed up when PvP first on the NA server and then on the EU server collapsed. Of course the whole shitshow with Obsidian didn't help.

Regarding the streamers, this too practically collapsed in the west with the demise of PvP queues. The most harmful thing here was the death of the NA PvP queues because most - if not all - great streamers we used to have (who weren't paid) were Americans. This is important because... let's face it. Everyone wants to listen to people with pleasant voices and good English. Streamers are mostly entertainers, they don't even have to be good players (see Jingles for example). When the Americans and English went, the community contributor scene mostly collapsed. We still have dedicated streamers, even good ones like Spitfire, but their views are generally very low.

The same happened with the Russians to a degree, only not as bad because their PvP never truly collapsed. But all "influential" (and I am using that loosely, we're talking about guys with single and low thousands of views per video) people on their side are old players (Zuberg, Snake, Chavez mostly). There's nobody new and our playerbase is too small to grow a truly big influencer. Influencers are results, not reasons games get successful.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because making games has a LOT of inertia. The Mail.ru development team was tuned to this kind of thinking, that's the people there were around when the direction was kept and the people who are around now are the veterans of that era. AW is a five year old game now (a decade if we're talking the initial development phase, which was very long). Changing directions is very, very very hard. Plus you have guys who are good at what they do, with years of experience, at this. At PvP tuning. This all came together in the 0.33 rebalance.