This week in Path of Exile, things were humming along on the way to The Fall of Oriath expansion with a nice preview of some of the locations that players will find. In addition, the team published the fourth part of its community Q&A, as well as an in-house interview with Rachael, a member of the Customer Support team. It's another great week to be an Exile!
Community Q&A #4
GGG published the fourth in a series of articles with questions from the community covering a wide range of topics. This week, topics ranged from adding regional ladders to when the concept for PoE began, whether or not there will be an updated engine, the possible addition of new damage types and whether or not GGG has ever considered creating an MMO.
As Path of Exile grows, and in turn Grinding Gear Games as a company, have you thought of developing other games (in particular -- an MMORPG)?
We don't have the money, time, expertise or desire to develop an MMORPG. Path of Exile is more than enough work for all of us at the moment!
When and how was the first concept/idea of PoE born? What was the first steps of its actual realisation?
Jonathan and I had talked about creating an Action RPG for some time prior to us starting Path of Exile. We knew that Erik and Brian were interested in being involved, but we just needed to find the right time to start the project. That time ended up being November 2006, once Jonathan had finished university. Initially we worked on getting a rudimentary online realm up (without 3d graphics) and an item system. Being able to log in, move around and manipulate items was a core early goal.
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Location Teasers, In-House Q&A, League Stats
A few gifs were published that show off a trio of locations that players will find in The Fall of Oriath expansion later this year.
GGG's Rachel, a member of the Customer Support team, took part in an in-house interview to talk about her background in gaming in general, what she does at GGG, how Customer Support works and more.
Do you receive threats from players? What about thanks? Maybe you could remember some unusual or funny requests?
We've received threats and thanks in the past, however in saying that the threats are few and far between, and the thanks are often :)
As we've all spent a significant amount of time on the internet, we're mostly impervious to threatening behaviour. In saying that, we are still people and staff abuse is something we take very seriously. Thankfully (hah!), the thanks we receive from players are much more prevalent than the threats, and much more memorable! We like hearing back from happy people, and it may sound clichéd, but it really does brighten our day here in the cave.
Serious talk though: our Support team works incredibly hard to make the players happy as much as they possibly can; everyone on the team knows how frustrating it can be to have to contact support for their favourite game, as it's something we've all had to do in the past. In my opinion, it's this very grounded and personal experience that makes the GGG Support team work so hard to provide excellent service; because we've all been on the receiving end of insufficient or disappointing support for a game. In addition to that everyone in Support plays Path of Exile, and cares a great deal about being here helping the community however we can, which I think is rather unique for a game development company.
Now that the latest Legacy league has settled in, players have been able to see and play the full range of leagues. To show off how this has literally played out, GGG has published some interesting stats with the Leaguestones players are using most.
Breach shows as a favourite, which in one way came as no surprise, as before Legacy it was our most popular league. Breach offers a large amount of challenging combat, extra monsters, and a chance at some great items. What did surprise us, however, is that it is the most popular league despite many players having just experienced a full 3 month league of Breach only weeks earlier.
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Community Showcase
Last on this week's list, but certainly not least, is the Community Showcase, the place where all of the amazing work put out by fans and players of Path of Exile gets a chance to shine. This week's installment includes 3D and traditional art, music and wallpapers.
See all of the awesome work here.
