Global Chat: November 27-December 3
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat!
We're all about communication in this week's Global Chat, and whether that's communication to and from developers or communication with NPCs, it's important to gaming fans who love to know what's happening and why. Our readers had plenty to say on the subject last week, so follow along after the jump to see some of the best of what was said!
You'll probably agree that one of the most important parts of game development and support is communication from the developers to the players. Of course, not all communication is positive in the eyes of fans, as expressed in Bree's Daily Grind last week, but Massively reader Yukon Sam made an excellent point:
The worst thing an MMO developer can ever say is nothing. Developers, like any other human being, can get irritated, cranky, angry, abusive and rude. But the one thing they can never afford to be is silent. If you disengage from the community, either by your own free will or because some droneling from Marketing told you to, then you're disengaging from the only reason your game exists.
From then on, you're performing brain surgery with a blindfold on. Frankly, I laugh and cheer when some developer dumps a truckload of invective on an idiot that's being stubborn, stupid and vocal. Unless I'm the idiot in question. But even then, I respect that they responded, even if the response is "that's the worst idea in the history of human thought."
The Massively forumgoers are having a discussion of another form of communication: quest text. Pcgneurotic had this to say:
My problem with trash quest text is that most of the time, it's fundamentally not what any real person would actually say, whether IRL or in our imaginary RPG worlds. In nearly every MMORPG ever, people spill their guts right on the spot about every problem they've got, and seem to trust you implicitly just because you look like a Wizard/Rogue/Warrior.
There's zero finesse in your interpersonal interactions in MMORPGs, largely because the quest givers serve a purely mechanical function, hooking you up with a way to actively progress, and so any reasoning or logic behind why you have to do their quest is totally icing and cherries.
Finally, Beau had a chat with Tiny Speck's Stewart Butterfield last week about a surprise event that turned a lot of heads: the unlaunching of Glitch. Massively readers are varied in their opinion of the unlaunching itself, but Shipwreck had clear feelings on the way it was handled:
I'm a fanboy, but I think its a respectable, respectful, and ballsy move. It says a lot that TS is not just "working on stuff" while we plug away at a game and then pouncing on us with a whole slew of changes out of the blue. It shows strong communication and a real care for their customers/playerbase.
That's it for Global Chat this week, which means that it's now your turn! Jump in and add your two cents to the conversation!
Global Chat is the weekly feature that's all about you, our readers. Every Sunday we collect the best, funniest, and most thought-provoking comments from the Massively readers and round them up into Global Chat for discussion. Read over them for yourself, hit the comment button, and add your own thoughts!
