Conversation with Willem

Conversation started Monday

6:33pm
Matt
Willem can I ask you a question?

Wednesday

4:49am
Willem
Sure thing, what's up?

6:53am
Matt
How do you honestly feel about the direction kabam is taking the game?

Thursday

12:50pm
Willem
I think kabam is trying their best. They need to make money to keep realm alive, but they really do try not to compromise the game. That is one of the issues that is inevitable in the switch from indie to big company.

1:00pm
Matt
I agree, from your experience, have they been trying hard to understand the needs required from the community and accomodating that?

1:03pm
Willem
Yes, absolutely, the team loves the game and does whatever they can / always fights to make
It better, but I on top of that they are expected to increase profits. It's always an ongoing discussion trying to get the best of both worlds

1:05pm
Matt
Thanks, I hope you don't mind me asking more questions, but there's alot on peoples' minds! Now, I'm pretty sure it's obvious, but keeping UTs soulbound was a way to get players to spend more on vault spaces/character slots and what, right? You don't have to tell me anything you're not allowed/don't want to, but how has that affected the way people have spent gold on the game? Was there a significant rise in vaults being bought?

Today

7:22pm
Willem
Soulbinding was actually in response to duping and the other realm item sites. Nobody on the team wanted to do it, but they felt it was the only way to prevent the game from spiraling out of controller
*control

7:25pm
Matt
Alright, thanks for the insight regarding that. I've recently just heard the news, Mike has left Kabam? That's pretty upsetting. I hope the best for him and the future of Realm. What do you think this might mean for the game?

7:25pm
Willem
honestly, i have no idea
kabam let go a ton of people this week
if i hadnt quit, i probably would have been let go to
some restructuring very high up
i know one of the guys who is taking over realm, and he is a good dude
im more concerned with the fact that we'll have a new engeneering team
so its gonna take the team a while before they are comfortable enough with the code
to put out content at a good rate

7:26pm
Matt
New engineering team? Do you know what they've worked on?

7:27pm
Willem
no idea
dont know the engeers who are going to be assigned to it
i know know they fired the ones we had

7:27pm
Matt
That's a shame, what about anyone working on content?

7:27pm
Willem
well it used to be just me
so now there are 2 new producers / managers / designers
i dont know which is taking whitch role
but like i said, i do trust them
i just think its going to slow things down a bunch
and things were just starting to pick up release speed wise

7:28pm
Matt
That sucks, but do you agree realm is reaching its ending point?

7:28pm
Willem
i dont know
it really depends on what kinda resources kabam wants to give to the game
they didnt cut it
which was an obvious posibility
and taht is a very good sign
so it could still have some great time ahead
we'll jsut have to wait and see

7:31pm
Matt
Did you design the arena? Do you think it was a suitable filler for endgame content at the time being?

7:31pm
Willem
i actually didnt design the feature
thats the only one
i did the art
and the ballancing
but the original design was one of our engeneers
it was never meant to be an endgame loop tho
just a fun competative thing
i personalyl think it failed at that tho
the leaderboards are all jacked up
i proposed a fix for it before i left, but who knows if they'll do it

7:32pm
Matt
I agree, there's no competition because of overpowered pets and no chance for those at lower levels.

7:32pm
Willem
yah

7:32pm
Matt
There's no real prize except for forum contests

7:32pm
Willem
g2g
my firend is here
peace

7:33pm
Matt
Ok