Asherons Call: Jessica Mulligan Speaks About The Possible Expansion Pack

Ibn has posted a letter from Jessica Mullican over on the AC:DM Forums about the current hot topic - the possibility of a second expansion pack. I've included the letter in its entirety below:

[i]It is great to see this is still such a topic of interest. I just wanted to take a moment and clarify some things about this:

1. What I said at the ACPL is true; if you want an expansion, we need to show that there is a lot of support for it. However, this needs to be your effort; we're not going to step in and tell you where it should be sited or by whom.

2. If this is to be useful for us, I'd like more info than just a somewhat suspect headcount:

A) What would you be willing to pay for an expansion? Bear in mind that the number of potential sales would dictate how many resources could/would be devoted to a potential project.

B) If you knew an expansion was being developed, how long would you wait for it? Six months? Nine months? A year?

C) If the graphic upgrade for an expansion was art only, not the whole engine, would that be enough? For example, if we had .dat files with upgraded art that would install over the current art or be in addition to it, would that be satisfactory? Or is a full graphic engine upgrade a necessity?

3. Let's not get into other specific features right now; we can always discuss that later, if we decide to do an expansion.

4. I'm not sure where the 10,000 figure came from, but I reviewed the video of the ACPL and I didn't hear that or any number from me. It may have come from the audience.

If someone wants to set up a questionnaire to get this information and then send me the results, I'd be more than happy to make use of it. Remember, though:

***There are no promises here.***

I want everyone to remember that. I can promise nothing and I don't want to needlessly raise your expectations. However, if we don't explore it, the answer is automatically 'No,' right?

-Jessica

[/i]Ophelea has also asked me to post that the 10,000 respondents figure originated from her at the ACPL. 10,000 respondents would be approximately 15-20% of the player base, which she thought would be a reasonable minimum sample size.

Somewhere along the line, this comment appears to have been taken out of context a little - it was a ballpark figure drawn from her previous experience in marketing, nothing more.