Comments on: If you can find them maybe you can hire … The B Team

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:35:20 +0000

I think the live team have done a pretty good job, and in some cases they’ve actually solved issues that had been in the game from day 1.

But I did enjoy having some insight into how these teams work. And I think I agree that having your class tweaked too often can be unsettling, even if all the tweaks made sense.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:46:34 +0000

Oh, yes, but even the “B team” nomenclature suggests that these new guys aren’t as good as the “real” designers. Whether or not a wheel is worth reinventing can’t always be in the hands of the original designers when a game playing population changes.

I’m definitely sensitive to the waste that comes in the industry from those who just change for change’s sake or those who needlessly reinvent the wheel. I’m just saying that you can’t assume that the older devs always have the best ideas, or even the best implementation.

By: Ysharros

Ysharros — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:42:28 +0000

Almost certainly, but I think part of the point of the Elder Game article was to show how each generation working on a project ends up reinventing the wheel to some extent, and it’s not even always a wheel worth reinventing. That was my take, anyway, especially after his comments about really enjoying being on a live team.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:35:35 +0000

I, for one, welcome our new overlords. New blood is necessary to address some of the old, now outmoded, design decisions that came from the original “vision” for the game. The players have changed, and the game needs to keep up. That’s the blessing and the curse of a game that maintains a “live team”. Sure, they make some rookie mistakes, but the decisions of the A Team aren’t sacrosanct; they made some dumb choices too.