This is a follow on from Vic’s post ‘Monthly Metrics : 2015’
The game includes a Metrics option that sends data back to our secret Caribbean server every five rounds. What does it send? Only the information that’s been used to compile the following. It’s purely game data and couldn’t reach out beyond the game software package even if it wanted to.
We’re not part of the NSA and Edward Snowden has, I’m pretty sure, never heard of us despite his familiarisation with all things Russian.
The information is really useful to us in balancing the game and getting an idea of how it’s being played. As developers we strive to do better and having hard data to base decisions around is a huge plus.
The forum is great for bugs and observations but having a few people state that this or that is unbalanced isn’t that meaningful simply because the sample size is too small. We do take it into account but it’s complimentary to the metrics data rather than being a reason for change itself.
If you haven’t already, I’d highly recommend switching on the Metrics setting. Doing so gives you a warm fuzzy ‘helping to improve the game’ feeling that’ll get you through the first few days of winter. Can’t vouch for what comes after that although hard liquor might help.
Here’s what we’ve ascertained to date. We’ve got data back from almost 600 different players and have over 1300 unique records covering about 440 games (each game sends data every 5 rounds hence the larger number of records than games).
First question is who is playing which side?
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