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The Guild Counsel: Favorite moments from the Massively livestream
I'm sure you know about Massively's ever-expanding video channel. But what you might not know is that over the past year, I've done a little MMO walkabout, sampling as many different games as I could on my character Mmognaut. What I was particularly interested in was branching out and getting to know the communities that make these games what they are, and the Massively livestream was a great way to do that while giving the viewers a chance to experience it too. Through livestreaming and Twitch TV, I've had a great opportunity to explore dozens of MMOs over the past year, often with my co-host Jeremy Stratton. In my weekly column here, I often focus on common issues that happen within a guild, but I've also looked at MMO communities on the whole, and that should include the community that's grown here at Massively. What's really neat is that there's an overlapping at times during these shows, where the in-game communities of the MMO we're showcasing mesh with the Massively community, and it's made for some fantastic moments. Join me in this week's Guild Counsel as I look back over my favorite moments from the past year.
Star Wars Galaxies gets a new community manager
In a week of transition for SOE, Star Wars Galaxies is changing things up as well. It appears that Community Manager Lydia "Zatozia" Pope is moving to other titles in SOE, making way for her replacement: "Greetings Star Wars Galaxies players! Zatozia has been a part of your community for quite some time and not only brought mountains of feedback to the Development team, but created some exciting forum activities as well. She has truly made the Star Wars Galaxies community stand out among our products, and we wish her well as she moves to other games within SOE. "At this time we would also like to introduce your new Community Manager Mepps. An MMO veteran, he looks forward to working with you all and making Star Wars Galaxies one of the best MMO communities to be a part of. Look for him to say hello in the very near future." We look forward to hearing from Mepps and seeing how he fares in a galaxy far, far away.
The Game Archaeologist and the NeverEnding Quest: A cozy chit-chat with Thom Terrazas
Welcome back to the Game Archaeologist's third week of our EverQuest expedition! So, OK, we lost a few valued members of our team crossing the wilds of Norrath, but who would ever think that 10 rats could be so vicious when out for vengeance? It comes with the territory, and really, it's well worth the loss of human life if we can educate just one soul on one of the most influential MMOs of all time. Their mothers will understand their sacrifice. We've already taken a look at the highlights of EverQuest and the perspectives of several veterans of the game, which means this week we must be gearing up for an inside look into the machinations of grinding, hell levels, alternative advancement and DKP. For this, we struggled through the Swamp of Sony to find the ramshackle hut of Thom Terrazas -- and he was expecting us. A fight ensued, with many a chicken flung in anger, not to mention a few pokes in the eye, Three Stooges-style. But in the end, Terrazas capitulated and told us everything we wanted to know. Thom Terrazas almost has all his SOE merit badges, having worked on Planetside, Vanguard and now EverQuest in various roles. I was curious -- what was it like to be handed the keys to not just a game, but a veritable institution? Hit the jump to see what Terrazas has to say about his favorite memories, the future of the game, and why EQ hit it out of the park in 1999.
SWG's Community Manager on in-game events
Perhaps you can remember a time when the developers of MMOs were directly involved in player events -- either running them or just attending player-run events. In our interview with him on Massively Speaking, Richard Garriott mentioned a couple of times about hanging out with players as Lord British in Ultima Online. If you recall, Star Wars Galaxies had a whole team, lead by Jason "Pex" Ryan, that was completely devoted to creating and facilitating player events. It may seem that these days are fading with the scripted events common in more recent releases. Lydia "Zatozia" Pope, the newly appointed Community Manager of SWG, hopes to change that. Zatozia has been with Sony Online Entertainment since May of 1999 when her department was still known as Verant. Under the customer service banner, she ran Historical Events for EverQuest. These were live GM-run events that were used to transition EQ from expansion to expansion. She was also a member of the Stormhammer Legends EQ server team, which specialized in GM-run events and storylines specifically for that server. Zatozia is now the Community Relations Manager for Star Wars Galaxies, and we were able to speak with her about her personal plans for the title as well as how the SWG community is affecting other SOE titles. Click over the break to catch the full interview.
