Cryptic's Jack Emmert has posted a new entry in the Cryptic dev blog detailing their new processes for ensuring a quality game experience, including shutting down development on Champions Online for two weeks to take an intensive look at a single zone.

Cryptic was founded way back in July 2000 and has developed and released two MMORPG products and we are currently working on three projects right now. Champions Online is the closest to release and has the largest team by far. But what's changed over the years? What have we learned from developing and maintaining City of Heroes?

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.

Read more here.

This is the way development should be handled by all teams, I feel.  Make sure that the step you took is strong before trying to take another step.  Good job Cryptic.

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Originally posted by severius
This is the way development should be handled by all teams, I feel.  Make sure that the step you took is strong before trying to take another step.  Good job Cryptic.

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Champions is looking good. I like that the devs are taking the time to make sure the zones are polished and fun to play as well as being functional.

Cryptic has learned from CoH, which itself was a great game, and are going the extra mile to make sure that this game is superior in every way. I'm excited, let me play it now!

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.

Wait wait wait...you had your team, stop working, play a game for 2 weeks, then held a BBQ for them?
You slave drivers!

PS - Are you hiring??

Keep up the good work.  We're all out here hoping for a winner.

This is one game I got my eye on.

Good luck Cryptic.

The one wish I have is that PVP is more integrated into the game and not shoved in the corner like City of Heroes. Atleast a PVP server or something. Maybe a flagging system kinda like SWG used to have.

Flag yourself as a hero/villian and open yourself to PVP from other flagged players.

It would be nice to see if this done by more companys.

Did they get the BBQ? And more importantly... was it REAL BBQ or just grilling?

Mmm... BBQ...

A first for Cryptic, and one of very few examples in the entire MMO genre, I would wager.

Of all the MMOs I've played, I'd believe this had been done -- maybe -- for WoW.

Most of the others were obviously NEVER played by the employees for "fun factor" prior to release.

Mmmm.... BBQ....

I really believe that the Cryptic team are doing great and that Champions Online will be a success when they use this methods of debugging and make all the developers on the projects play the game to see if it's fun and at the same time debug the issues.

This is why next year when I graduate (GSP major in DeVry University) I will be sending in my resume for a job there...  Sounds like a great company to work for.

I've checked and Cryptic apparently are hiring.  :-)

Also, apparently the team tested a combined total of 800+ hours, so they got the barbeque.

The bubbly feeling is from Developers actually testing their game for the unprogramable - FUN.  By the time a game makes it to beta, it's too late - it has to be released, fun or not.  Nice to see a company that is taking a fun first [or second at least] approach.

taking time to test is great but Mr. Cynical devils advocate observes:

Why did they feel the need to bribe the developers to play their own game on their own time?  

Isn't it fun enough to play without the incentive of a BBQ? 

Will Cryptic include a BBQ certificate with the purchase of the game to motivate customers to play?

And after the BBQ motivator what's next, a Hooters gift card?  Free passes to the bunny ranch?

(and yeah yeah i know they work 12-16 grueling hours/day on the thing and it's an incentive reward to spend personal time on playing, but still)