Set it and Don't Forget it

The game I'm working on, Adventure Quest 3D, is an MMO is a massive game but a passionate fan-base. But the game lacked a key component, audio. Specifically spatial audio. The game did have combat sound effects and background music and a lot of other things but if two players were fighting a monster beside me or would run past me, the player wouldn't here a thing. This took the immersion out from the game.

I was tasked to make a new audio framework which would need to compatible with any content the game puts out for the players to download and also be optimized for mobile platforms. I made the new system and it worked! The sounds were amazing, it felt like the player was in the world and it felt right. I thought to myself that this was incredible I implemented this feature, it's done, I don't have to worry about and it will be something the game will benefit from. I couldn't have been more wrong.

New scenarios and bugs kept on coming up, like the sound card not being able to handle too many sounds, the old audio system interfering, values not being set right and a bunch more. Some players liked the drop-off of the sound effects some didn't and I saw myself in this constant battle of balancing. What I thought would only require a week of work, turned out to be a long-standing feature that I will constantly have to iterate and add more features for the content-creating team to use.

I realized no major feature can just be added and forgotten. For a feature to be done right it has to be improved and be perfected over time.