Crusaders of the Lost Idols

Crusaders of the Lost Idols Dev Tracker




23 May

Comment

Originally posted by bgh251f2

That's a comment that I don't see a lot but:

I really like the way some interactions of crusaders are brought from the bush whacker 2(the dragon siblings, Jim and Sasha I think). But even so I thought that some comics (or small animations, even though it would be really harder) to expand on the characters and their relationships could be really nice.

Yes! More lore would be awesome. I think that's something we'd all love to do as some of those characters have been around for five years now. Bringing them across was kind of like having spin-off movies for The Avengers. Sort of.

At the moment, we don't have anyone to spend time on fleshing out the back stories but would love to get to that.

Comment

Originally posted by [deleted]

[deleted]

Nothing to report at the moment but we'll update you as soon as we can!

Comment

Originally posted by RustyKnight83

What's your favourite part of your job?

Since starting, I've had to learn a tonne of new skills including Photoshop and HTML. It's been great to continually add new strings to my bow. I REALLY like working with technology that outputs something I can share with people.

Previous roles I've had, I wouldn't have had to actually write the newsletter or create the banners. It's been really good for the old brain.

Another part of the job is metrics. My background is Arts at university but working in video games ever since the launch of FIFA Ultimate Team and FIFA Online it has required marketing that has a huge analytics component. I've had to get very comfortable with a number of analytics platforms and spreadsheets.

I love poring through data trying to understand how any campaigns I put together are working.

Comment

Originally posted by taybele

Maybe you would need to put the answer to the riddle into a form that would then give you a unique code? Or something like that? People would still be able to give it away but it would be an extra step and people wouldn't be able to just paste the code into the chatrooms.

That'd be the holy grail of making it a personal experience based on individual ability.

I saw a really great puzzle for Battlefield once. The final step still required individual player input https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuzmOXL1bc

However, I'll give that idea some more thought and see if there's a way to do it that doesn't pull people from doing the important stuff in keeping Crusaders running.

Comment

Originally posted by sqrzwol

Fair enough. One further comment though, is that it seems there is nothing you can really do about data-miners, and many of us knew that this latest event was being repeated a week before it dropped. Seems only in your best interest to embrace that and make something with it, even if just a low-impact teaser of some sort. Just a thought..

Thanks for the feedback. I'll share that with Justin and the team. We do annualise the events so it's reasonable to assume certain things we do but as for the data mining maybe it's something we can better mitigate against. The clever people on the team will be able to help answer that.

Comment

Originally posted by Keindorfer

Clive, what do you think is a reasonable time span for the term "soon" ?

We hear you! So, "soon" should be something we can confidently deliver within two to three weeks.

However, if I understand the context of the question, we can probably do more to identify words that help us communicate realistic timelines :)

Comment

Originally posted by impelus

Just send me the high resolution vector artwork and I can print them for you. I will keep track of sales with pen and paper and send you a commission check every time I have to turn the page.

:)

Comment

Originally posted by gungurran

1) We've been told that "mobile wasn't as successful as hoped". Do you feel you've learnt any (shareable) lessons from that lack of success from a marketing perspective? If so, please share.

2) What's the biggest "open door" you've ever found yourself pushing on when marketing a game?

1) Totally. Mobile marketing is (a) very reliant on charting via Apple/iTunes support at launch (b) having the available marketing budget to take risks on acquisition spread over 30, 60, 100, and even as long as 300 days. Not a lot of companies have those kind of resources.

After much discussion and analysis here, it really comes down to making a visually appealing game that is on-trend to get the attention of the editorial team who manage the iTunes store. That'll enable you to get a feature.

Compounded with that is that you have to have confidence that your game is going to retain and monetize well to take risks on early acquisition to keep you in the charts and recoup your marketing expenses back anywhere up to a year or more later.

2) The biggest open door is probably finding new and creative ways to work with platforms like Humble Bundle, OrlyGift, and other giveaway websites. They've been really important for us. That's more for PC/Steam though.

... Read more
Comment

Originally posted by spongeneard

Hey Clive,

The best marketing tip I can give you is sell a GE mace for Bae and a GE hat for Mindy. And just watch the money flow in!!!

Also have you considered selling wild epic recipes? Like many people I know want specific epics so maybe sell 2 wild epic recipes for $5 and they can be used on two epics of your choice. Seems like a good way for people to get their specific epics as well as make you guys money in the process.

Nice! That's good to know there's an appetite for that kind of stuff to sell. I'll raise with the team (I don't control the sales) and see what they think.

Comment

Originally posted by Tasselfoot

Hey Clive,

Any plans for new CNE-created riddles or puzzles? Those were great!

Cheers! -Tass

Hey Tass. You guys are way too clever for me! We definitely would like to do more. The hardest thing is actually balancing the puzzles so that everyone has a chance to engage and feel like they have a fair crack at solving them.

The amount of work I put into the last one was quite significant and it was solved within minutes!

If time and money were no object I would LOVE to do a really sophisticated campaign like the Lost (TV show) where they had online cryptic clues, or Jay Z's album launch where he hid lyrics at real locations all around NYC.

However, there's also a question of how much does the quiz/puzzle actually start to become it's own beast and distract from the game. Lots of food for thought.

Short answer would be, nothing in the hopper but would love to do a new one time permitting.

Comment

Originally posted by sqrzwol

Hi Clive,

Just curious if, from a marketing perspective, it is at all frustrating to you that CNE is so secretive about their updates? Don't you want to advertise things in advance to increase excitement? Or is the secrecy itself a secret marketing technique?

Thanks in advance.

Great question. So, I've worked in both environments where last minute announces are a necessity (like CNE) and then campaigns like FIFA where there's a three to six-month pre-promotion period.

It really comes to down to the resources available to hit a communications milestone. At CNE we are 16 people but split over different projects. At EA I was part of a machine that had well over 100-200 people (in total, including all the ancillary staff) working on the game.

I would like more lead time to really blow out the marketing but by the same token the system we have here is manageable for the size of the studio.

Comment

Originally posted by gungurran

Does you job include "marketing" to the existing player-base? If so, how much time do you find you spend on the existing player-base compared to seeking new players?

I spend a lot of time performing marketing tasks for existing fans (my job is probably 50-50 between new and existing fans).

Things like all the social media posts, writing the weekly emails, designing the images that you see on both, etc.

Existing fans are the reason that we are able to keep Crusaders going so we make sure to look after you :)

Comment

Originally posted by ZellZoy

Did you know that the link posted on the Facebook page links back to last week's AMA?

Fixed! It's a last minute snafu because I was on the subs bench and asked to warm-up quickly as Erika has a meeting :)

Comment

Originally posted by piperlover

Howdy Clive!!

So would y'all consider doing t-shirts or jackets a la on demand printing for those of us who would love to advertise y'all around the world??

Susan

So would y'all consider doing t-shirts or jackets a la on demand printing for those of us who would love to advertise y'all around the world??

The more we discuss doing more t-shirts and printing, the more I like this idea. Eric is a big fan of t-shirts here too. I think that we should do it and maybe something like BustedTees or RedBubble will give us the chance to explore the idea. I'll look into it.

Comment

Originally posted by schaikie123

also i just had pumpkin with 1.5 mil health http://prntscr.com/fb8cbr

Nice work!

Comment

Originally posted by schaikie123

hey, i wanted to know if we could have more flash sales

I don't look after the sales but it's something I can raise with the team. Thanks for the feedback!