Protodude wrote:

Sven wrote:

I've got nothing new to contribute to the thread at this time but I'm just popping in to let folks know I am reading every single post.

This, alone, makes me feel a lot better. Thank you, Sven.

What I want to know, above all else, is if Capcom seriously looked at why people weren't participating in the Devroom. You have to admit: Mega Man Legends is generally considered a niche series, and for a niche game, 15K devoted members is pretty darn swell.

But, there are MORE than 15K Mega Man fans. There's millions. Mega Man Legends or not, no fan would pass up the opportunity to "work alongside the devteam." Something went wrong.

As a leader of a diverse Mega Man community, Sven, I can tell you that there were indeed many misconceptions about how to join the Devroom. I've had fans tell me that they thought by signing up for Unity, alone, made them members of the Devroom. You know this not to be the case; users had to go through a SECOND registration process to obtain a Servbot number.

I feel the Servbot number registration process could have been better implemented. New users joining Unity, from the time the Devroom kicked off, should have been told, straight forward, about the Devroom. In other words, upon registering a Unity account, these members could have been prompted with a message saying "Thankyou for creating a Capcom Unity account. Would you like to join the Mega Man Legends 3 Devroom?" Or something along those lines.

If the Servbot number registration was a tad more seamless, I think the member payoff could have been far, far grander.

And then there is this:



Mega Man Legends 3 outright promoted that it was okay to not necessarily participate in the Devroom (a fact outlined in an official trailer). I can attest to this; several of my friends just wanted to play Legends 3. They felt they had no skill in particular that could be of use to the team, therefor they sat back and watched MML3 develop.

Long story short, the audience for the game is there. Simply gauging that from Devroom numbers, alone, doesn't do it justice. From a marketing standpoint, I can see it as an appropriate tool to assess interest, yes. However, the whole registration process, I feel, was very off-putting.

Further, had Capcom told us that the Devroom would in fact influence the fate of Legends 3 from the get-go, I can guarantee more people would have been motivated to join. I've invested many hours and nights promoting this Project and I can say, honestly, the company failed to get that message across. The above screencap, alone, is all the proof you need.

The bargain was this: if Prototype Version did not generate enough excitement, Legends 3 would be cancelled. We held out for Prototype Version. Somehow, there was another side to this... we were left in the dark.

Sven, look at the eShop. It is *starved* for killer apps. Prototype Version could have been it. Mega Man fan or not, 3DS owners would have downloaded it immediately just because they want something to play. This could have even worked in the Devroom's favor: advertise the Devroom in-game and bam, your numbers surge.

I fail to see why this fell over like a lead balloon. That is why fans are so angry; the potential for Prototype Version was amazing -- not only for Mega Man Legends 3, but for the Nintendo 3DS as well. A golden opportunity to DEFINE the eShop.

We are not asking for Mega Man Legends 3. We only ask your company takes a leap of faith and release Prototype Version at the least. We have fulfilled our end of the spectrum; we created content for the game. It is our right to play this. It is your right to deliver to the fans.

Forgive this wall of text, sir. I've pondered much about this for days. I've had to be the shoulder to cry on: fans come to me to weep. They vent their frustrations on me. I've had to bear it all week long. No amount of words can express the mass dissapointment I've had to witness. But, one case in particular stands out. One individual.

A twenty-something man e-mailed me earlier today. He worked 60 hours a week of labor to save up for a 3DS JUST for Mega Man Legends 3. He is utterly devistated at Capcom's decision. I will never forget his plight.

Fans looked up to this game. It was a ray of hope. An object of motivation to get through a hard day's work.

It's gone now.

Justin wrote:
@Protodude-


In addition, just because people are Legends fans doesn't mean they would necessarily join the dev room. Take me for example. I LOVE Mega Man Legends, yet I didn't join the dev room. I simply don't have any artistic ability, or any interest in game development. To me, a "behind the scenes look" would ruin the magic of the game. That's just me, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who wanted to play the game, but didn't necessarily want to create it.



Of course, if I had known that the project was dependant on dev room participation, you can bet your sweet *** I would have drawn thousands of reaverbots. I have no artistic ability, but that wouldn't have stopped me at all

Protodude wrote:
Very true. There are gamers out there who won't even glimpse at a single gampley footage because they want to save the surprise until the product hits market.

There is a diversity of reasons why fans did not join the Devroom, and I feel all were not taken into consideration before the plug was yanked.

XHunter wrote:
@Protodude

I was reading your post and I have to agree with what you said. In addition to what you mentioned in your post, some people like myself might have not had the free time to participate in the contests or even in the Devroom much. I will use my self for this example. Last semester I was working as an intern so that I could finish up my Associates degree in Applied Science and continue forward with my Bachelors. At the same time I was doing this internship, I was also taking classes at my Community College that would transfer over to the University I am going to this fall since the classes cost less at the Community College than they do at the University (You know, try to save some money ). Unfortunately, this gave me little time to participate in many of the Devroom activities.

With the little free time I did have, I played through Mega Man Legends 2 again to figure out what the development team could improve upon when making Legends 3. One thing I noticed that had not been mentioned in the Devroom was that the majority of the bosses in Legends 2 could be defeated by strafing left or right and jumping every now and then. I posted a suggestion on the Devroom forums in a topic called "Revamp Boss Battle Strategies" that the developers should look into making different and more creative ways to defeat the bosses and give us players a challenge. From what I have seen from the Prototype footage where Barrett fights the Bonne Mecha, the deveopment team did just that. Other than posting that, I did take part in the polls and tried to add a comment here and there of what I thought, but my school and work schedule didn't allow for much more.

Now I'm not saying that anyone who has a job or is going to school automatically didn't have the free time to participate in the Devroom. What I am saying is because everyone has different school and/or work schedules, not everyone had the time to participate as much as they would have wanted even though they were a guaranteed purchase for both the Prototype version and the full retail game when it was released.

tl;dr

Lack of fan participation does not always equal sales numbers.