community-management
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Making it as an MMO blogger: An interview with top community managers
Ahh, that eternal debate about what differentiates a gaming blogger from a gaming journalist. We could go on and on about specifics on both sides, but the fact is, we all have the same goals in mind: writing about what we love. Ravious at Kill Ten Rats approached us with an idea he's been working on for a few months involving MMO bloggers and their relationship with community managers. We thought this was a brilliant idea as a valuable hub of information for MMO bloggers, and offered to help him get it kick-started. So we sent off his questions to nine of the top community managers in the industry to get their take on how bloggers can establish and grow a favorable working relationship with them. With so much information here, we broke it into two parts: one today and the conclusion tomorrow. Follow along for their answers to part one!
BioWare CM on community management then and now
If the community is on board with your game and/or message, they will help propel your game toward success. That success can be temporary, however, because if they're not on board, they may turn on you quickly and sharply. Word of mouth travels fast, especially on the Internet and the primary job of the community management team is to keep that voice with you, not against you.How do they do this? BioWare Austin Community Manager, Sean Dahlberg gives us some insight after ten years in the field. The SW:TOR CM explains that in the past, community management mostly entailed administrating game forums and passing developer messages along to the players. Because the job wasn't taken as seriously as it is today, CMs were often the last to know about major game changes or the rationale behind them, which made the job very difficult.While the job is still difficult today, community managers are now informed of major changes in advance and actually given a voice with upper management. They are essentially the liaison between fans, consumers, developers, and the publisher. They also facilitate communication, help retain customers, and even gain new ones. Sean says the field of community management is still in its infancy and that he's interested to see where it will go from here.
WoW Insider's new writer comes in from the Blizzard
Our big sister site WoW Insider has always been hella fun to read, but this week they got some serious new assistance in the form of an ex-Blizzard Community Manager. Michael "Belfaire" Sacco (his icon was a Talbuk) has moved on from World of Warcraft CMing, and is now offering up his knowledge and expertise to our favorite WoW-focused website.He kicks off his time with the team over there by highlighting a great new change coming to World of Warcraft mounts. After Patch 3.0.8 hits the live servers, there will no longer be any racial restrictions for mounts on either the Alliance or Horde factions. That is to say, the Tauren will be able to ride any Horde-faction mount they want, and even the biggest Human will enjoy the experience of riding a Gnomish Mechano-strider. Check out the full PTR 3.0.8 Patch notes over on WoW Insider, and stay tuned over there for more of Mr. Sacco's insights!
Rumor: Warhammer Online to open official forums in 2009
Somewhere, somehow, William Shatner and Roseanne Barr are singing a duet. That appears to be the implication of a highly unexpected rumor reported on the Warhammer Alliance forum. Apparently, Warhammer Online will soon be launching company-sanctioned official forums. Back in March of this year, Mythic Entertainment's Mark Jacobs went on a ranting rampage about the very concept of official forums. In that whole discussion, he at one point stated he'd rather hear the two above celebrities slam out a duet together than bear the thought of official forums. His statements came during a period were other companies were making similar announcements, and some companies with official forums were even thinking of shutting theirs down. So this (at this point) rumor as offered by Warhammer Alliance is something of a surprise. Forum admin Garthilk states this comes from "unofficial people in and out of Mythic, as well as inside EA, all tell[ing us] the same thing." He goes on to say that, if true, this will be a boon for the unofficial fan community. It will take pressure off of their taxed volunteer resources and allow them to better serve the community. We'll watch for an official response from Mythic, as well as further developments on this story.[Via Broken Toys]
Massively goes to Seattle: A wrap-up of ION 2008
It's been a great week on the west coast, for the second annual MMO-centric Seattle conference. Now called ION, everything we've heard has indicated that this week's event was a tremendous success. Massively was there in force, and below you'll find the ins and outs of the sessions and meetups we attended. Focusing on the community managerOne of the strengths of MMOs are their communities. The stronger a community around an MMO is the more likely that game is to last into the foreseeable future. State of online games keynoteGlobalization is one of the session tracks here at ION 08, as befitting an industry seeking the holy grail of a truly global marketplace for online games. Tuesday's keynote was delivered by Won II Suh of Neowiz, a Korean online games company with 20 titles currently supported or in development by 1000 employees across 8 regions around the world. John Smedley keynote shows off Free Realms and The AgencyWhen you think of Sony Online Entertainment, what comes to mind? I'm sure that Everquest, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies and Planetside are some of the titles which most people think about. From what I've recently seen in John Smedley's keynote at ION 08 that's all going to be changing in the near future. SOE Seattle studio tourOur mission: infiltrate SOE's Seattle studio, obtain intel on The Agency, regale the awesomely hyperactive lead designer Hal Milton with questions from left field. MMOs and the television content model (SGW)Joseph Ybarra, SVP of strategic operations at Firesky, the publishing subsidiary of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, presented a session today at ION 08 about the Stargate Worlds production model that borrows heavily from Hollywood and TV models.
More Tabula Rasa tidbits to string you along
You really have to admire the work that MMO community management teams do. Not only are they the front line of defense against player angst and rage in moments of crisis, but they're also the spin-doctors and craftsmen who take tiny tidbits of information and turn them into news. Take the Tabula Rasa community team for instance. It's pretty clear that Destination Games is plunking away at the 1.4 patch, trying to ready it up for public consumption on the PTR sometime in the next two weeks. They've already dropped the big news about Sanctus Grotto on Friday, and we figured that was all we'd get to preview of 1.4 before the patch notes came out. But oh no! On a slow news day, they've revealed two new nuggets of information to keep us coming back.They've announced that they're changing the way ammo works for Machine Guns, Leech Guns, Polarity Guns, and Propellant Guns so that they can now take lower quality ammunition. This is going to mean big monetary savings for players that have, until now, been largely left to bankruptcy by their boom-sticks. Spies and Guardians, the game's two melee classes, have enjoyed an unfair advantage in this respect, as their weapons don't have prohibitive maintenance costs comparable to ammo. It's nothing as big as an end-game instance, but it's still worth noting.And in a completely unrelated note, they're also putting in /sit and /laydown emotes. Cool, I guess?
