We hear that there are high level players on the Development Team. It is easy to believe it but there is no real evidence that it is true.
I would like to propose that the Demiurge players release their in-game names especially the high-level players.
The reasoning behind keeping under their cloaking device is because they will be treated differently. While it might be true at first. I’ll admit if Anthony uncloaks I’d change slices to give him a shot or two. Eventually I’d get bored and go back to normal.
We have evidence this is true from the early days. Ice IX played in the game as, wait for it, “Ice IX” as a charter member of Django Unbuffed. While i know i enjoyed seeing him in queues if he wasn’t worth enough points I’d skip him. I know he hit me at the end of one event dragging me back from the top placement because I was worth enough points to him.
This was one big reason we respected when Ice IX said something. We saw him out there fighting in-game with the rest of us. We knew he was experiencing what we were experiencing. It would be nice to know which slices the Demiurge high-level players are playing at. It would be nice to peek at their rosters and see what they have to use. I do think that it would be very helpful when things are communicated to the rest of the high-level players based on the Demiurge players’ input.
Like Ice IX if they join any of the top alliances they will participate with the same truces that exist which will keep down hits. They would even sort of be a badge of honor to have a Dev on your team.
Please consider dropping your cloaking devices and joining in with the community I think it could go a long way.
@Colognoisseur I was waiting for this once I saw that comment. I do agree with you 100% on this. If they have “expert players” it would be nice to see their rosters and understand what they see because their seems to be a disconnect from what we see to what they see.
These forums are so hostile that people will find a way to give the devs hell no matter what their rosters look like.
The only thing I see coming from this are players saying the devs don’t know what they’re doing and pointing out some perceived flaw on their rosters as proof.
They would gain credibility. Of course that doesn’t have a direct, measurable dollar value, so it is a hard sell if there is a legitimate reason they do not want to reveal themselves.
They help make a game many of us enjoy (while others just seem to want to complain and criticise nonstop). They do not need credibility on the forums.
The second they are seen doing something not “optimal” or “meta” some person will feel the need to point out they don’t have a clue how to make or play their own game. There is enough negative blind hate on these forums already.
Whilst I do support the uncloaking premise, I do think revealing their IGNs could potentially open up a can of worms if, for example, their rosters have been acquired or added to in a manner which would be considered illegitimate for an non-Demiurge player.
I would however be interested to see their general roster strength and what they consider to be an “expert” level of play. Does this mean mowing through PvP with a high level Thorbit, tapping for hours in PVE, or merely playing in a higher SCL and testing the enviroment.
Pretty much this. They have very little to gain and a lot to lose by revealing themselves.
Developers who play likely are gifted covers for either doing their jobs or to test characters out and I could see someone complaining about losing to a developer who didn’t “earn” their roster and say they are thus entitled to more rewards.
We’ve already had people in here talking about hitting a developer because they can or having them on their alliance being a “badge of honor”. A developer will not get the experience a regular high level/expert player does for these and many other reasons and thus the data they get would be be warped by these confounding variables.
The fact is we don’t really need to know who is playing or have a “peek” at their rosters in order to have trust. Players have their narratives about the developers already and the fact is that 95% of the playerbase would use ambiguous data (roster, levels, who gets played, how they’re played, how they place, etc.) to support the narrative they already have in your head. The developers don’t need to open themselves to that type of scrutiny.
Following the above, developers then need to decide how much they want to come here and defend their position. Either let these false narratives run or waste time putting out those fires. I’d rather they don’t even open that Pandora’s box.
When vaulting happened I was very vocal about my displeasure over it. I spoke to what I saw in game, my experience, and what I felt would be barriers for people at tiers above and below me, as well as for the developers. The developers ultimately responded to my thread (which I didn’t expect), we had a dialogue as a community, and ultimately the system was changed to what I think was for the better. I didn’t need to “see what they’re working with” to validate my own arguments and I don’t think anyone else does either. Plus, I believe they have their fingers on the pulse of what is going on. They know top level players hate Gambit and hate tapping, and steam players hate the UI and young players struggle with roster slots, and many screw up their MMR over leveling 5s. None of this is new. And repeating it over and over doesn’t change that.
I also disagree that the devs who have regular accounts in the game should reveal their ID, mainly for the same reasons as others already stated. I’d just add that with Ice, he was/is a D3 employee who doesn’t have any direct input or control in the game; he is just a middleman between the players and the developers. For devs who are directly working on the game, they would come under a much higher level of scrutiny if their identities are known. I think it’s just not worth the risk.
On the one hand I can see the lending credibility arguments and certainly other games have done so.
On the other hand for some players I could see their new goal in life becoming to attack these players mercilessly in PvP for any host of reasons.
Having them be treated as just another player is crucial if they want to actually get a real player’s experience. As soon as their secret identities were to become revealed the game would fundamentally change, at least in terms of competition. So I’m leaning towards keeping them secret.
In real world poker (casino gambling), House backed players are called Shills. Casino/Card houses do this so every game has enough players to keep the action moving and the game fun for paying players.
The good news is, the poker dealers will always tell you who is playing on behalf of the house, and the specific betting/calling rules that the shill will play by. (i.e. If a shill raises, it means 3 of kind or better).
I share that anecdote to give you a sense of how other forms of entertainment alert players of “in house” experts and how they explicitly define the rules that “in house” players operate under.
draw you own conclusion on how they should self identify
