 | Creating Passionate Users: User Community and ROIMarch 22nd, 2007 |
Look at this, a person from the web world schooling all us community relations wannabes in how to do it right: Creating Passionate Users: User Community and ROI. Just an excellent excellent post. 
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Excellent indeed. Thanks for the link.
Yes, it sums it up very well. Looks like that many mmorpg communities are operated like this, including the selection of community leaders and giving them special rights (like talking to devs more directly), organising real life fan-fests (as SOE called it) and such. But as you see with SWG, wrong decisions with this tool easily gain momentum and turn against you (over there it was the strong focus on ‘professions’ with their profession-correspondent leaders, facilitating that the whole thing only cares about this aspect of gameplay. Combined with the industries worst.idea.ever (no, not NGE. Its called Jedi!) eventually may ring in doom.
So, it does multiply mistakes as well.
I actually think correspondents were one of the best things we ever half-did on SWG. The issue to my mind was not that they focused on professions — we needed that; after all, arguably many of the issues of the game were about neglect of given professions, and without designated advocates for those profs, it probably would have been worse! Instead, it was that they didn’t rotate out and weren’t player-elected.
I agree Raph, the profession correspondents were a big plus for the community, in general. SOE selection and the unlimited tenure did have some downsides, as you’ve mentioned.
I’d point out one other downside… The profession correspondents were one of 2 types of players…
–a Profession ‘Lifer’ – who stuck with the profession thru thick and thin, had a very narrow world view, from the perspective of that profession exclusively
–a disillusioned Professional – someone who played a class avidly for a while, fought the good fight, but didn’t see results- so they changed professions, followed another path, and neglected to continue supporting their elected profession with 100% dedication.
Ideally, you’d want to see more versatile players who had a wider ‘big picture’ view but were willing to focus on a profession’s role within that big picture… (for example, someone who had played a Ranger, dropped ranger, became a Marksman master, then a pistoleer, and then switched it all out to become a TKA -) They’d be a much more effective correspondent for TKA having seen the balance and effectiveness of the various roles first hand.
I also thought the GCW needed some player representation as well. Combat, and specifically combat within the GCW never really materialized as a fully formed entity with goals and definable motivations before JTL (when I left) and I feel that the lack of a focused discussion there was a big part of the problem.
I’m attending her tutorial on Monday. I just realized that was her blog.
Raph your player base is the most important asset you have, but you and us (the guys who are waiting for your next project) already know this. It is simple your players will make or destroy your product.
When I was a rifleman for SWG, my number one form of enjoyment was training other riflepersons in becoming powerful. Hell playing the World/Game for my own selfish desires was secondary. I loved being an expert in being a rifleman (and other classes) and I trained your newbs free of charge. Myself and others really enjoyed that.
After Rifleman and the other professions were destroyed, I became one of the biggest haters and my students followed me. Add to that the fact I am and others were expert trolls, SOE had problems…
Now as to corrs- They were incredibly dedicated folks and even NGE Senators get a certain amount of respect from me (Though I am an exception, some hate the NGE so much that senators are seen as sell outs).
Basically what I am saying is, you know and we know how important community is. You already know the importance of this article, hopefully your contemporaries will learn this as well.
BTW- I would have loved being a Rifleman corr, but people like Ackhece were just more qualified:(
I believe hyped-up online games will get a decent community no matter what they do, but fickle ones… Continuity is the most challenging issue. How do you sustain the 3rd party support infrastructure that the community provides over time? Nothing is more off-putting to me than a product with lots of dead community sites… That makes it look like has-been, soon to be barried, product. Hence, I believe you are better off providing the core infrastructure yourself, in the long run. (Think 3-5 years down the road.)
I think you developers here need to be very carefull here. An MMORPG is different than other systems. If you’re creating an MMO (minus the RPG) then by all means carry on.
You can’t always recognize which players in a game have traits that will cause them to do bad things. Giving players extra power will draw these kinds as well. Then you have problems. Other players will see or at least suspect the problems, and in the later case some will suspect misuse even if there isn’t any.
We’ve all seen the issues of even employees misusing power in games for themselves but more likely for their friends. This is catastrophic. Look at Eve recently. I don’t think we’ve seen yet the long reach of cynicism fall out for that yet. It’ll be interesting to watch Eve’s numbers from here on out, as I predict a steady falloff, where before it was a steady growth.
There’s also been the cases of players with special powers granted, and misusing them. These things don’t go unnoticed. Then legitimate people fall under suspicion as well.
I’ve also witnessed first hand how some of these types grouped, then destroyed any efforts by others to get something going in a game, all the while promoting themselves in the community and with GMs trying to get the special powers that came with being “special”.
I’ve been saying for years that the game staff needs to keep a very long arms length from the players. Keep the players away as far as you can. This is to insure that any accusations die quickly.
But that doesn’t mean I disagree with the article. And it doesn’t mean that GMs can’t be directly involved. It just means that an anonomous state must be strictly enforced, as far as staff goes.
For players, the key is twofold. One, as Raph stated above, is election by other players. The other is that any special powers should be done through the game itself, earned by election.
Ages of Athiria, the one game I’d like to see made becuase they flatly have all the answers (and they have music by Austin Wintery of flOw fame), has a marvelous system for this. Guild leadership and city building comes with the special powers in governance, including designing your own quests, along with taxation, building, justice, warfare, etc. Players who devote themselves to the game will find a place, and a reward, here. But they will always be subject to the other players support. Yet, at the same time, there is no direct tie to the game developers. Game staff can still interact with them directly, but in a arms reach approach. They don’t have to communicate with them, they can simply carry out plans based on rewarding the players efforts, through game play. The link is still very much cut off.
This is the way it needs to be done in an MMORPG. It not only rewards those who put in great effort, it causes them to answer to other players as well as give to other players in multiple ways to earn the rights.
I completely agree with her thoughts about strong, player communities becoming an important part of the development process. However, it seems she focuses quite a bit on incentives. Sounds a lot like the infamous Volunteer program in UO.
I think support is more important than incentive. If your users enjoy your game, they’ll be more than happy to make fansites and wikis (you can even find wikis for games that havent been released yet!)
Kathy Sierra cancelled her tutorial at ETech at the last possible moment.
I’m attempting to cancel my ETech registration for this year.
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Creating Passionate Users: User Community and ROI - Mar 22, 2007 - Raph Twittering away - Mar 22, 2007 - Raph Ludium II announced - Mar 21, 2007 - Raph Keynote at ETech - Mar 21, 2007 - Raph