Why I Love AE

There are a lot of reasons why I love AE, but one of my favorite to bring up is the way they actually listen to their players. I don’t believe there is a single gaming company in the world that does a better than Artix Entertainment of not only listening to its most important customer, the fan base of players who play their games, but adjusting and tweaking the games based on that very feedback. This was in full swing after Warlic announced that new players would be able to leave the dropship and at any time, instead of needing to be level 3 to land. This seemingly minor change caused an absolute uproar everywhere you looked (including here on the blog). Sure enough, soon after, Warlic wrote this on the July 31st Design Notes:

“Also, last week I gave all new players the chance to leave the intro shuttle at any time… It was a great idea because if gave all players a chance to experience more of MechQuest without having to wait until level 3. However, this was perhaps the LEAST popular decision I have ever made in MQ! The forums (in fact, possibly the entire internet) immediately errupted in flaming posts about how I had completely lost my mind! I assure you… I lost my mind a couple decades ago… WAY before I opened the shuttle doors and let all the newbies out.

So, Today I am adding the ability to re-visit the dropship for all players. So, if you landed in Soluna city and feel that you are not ready for the challenge yet, you can go back to the ship and level up with easier enemies…”

When will you ever see the head creator of a game not only acknowledge making a mistake, but then reacting to it and making a change to the game to help overcome it? Not very often, and it’s just one of many reasons why I think AE is genuinely one of the best online game-making companies in the world.