The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (PUBLIC) The Pub MMO Community Management; my research

One of the classes I'm taking this spring is called Interactive Game Design. Right now I'm working on an individual research project and I'd like to ask for your help.

My project is to develop a list of best practices for developers and publishers of MMO to create a strong player community. In this case, by community I mean a player base or fan base that external to the game rather than specifically confined to within a game world or server. I see that community management for marketing and customer relations from the time that a game is still in development, through testing, and over the course of it's live lifespan.

Since I know everyone here has experience playing MMOs I thought I'd ask for your thoughts on this subject. While I'm aiming to get the perspective of the game developer as well (since I'm focusing on what they can or cannot do in order to create a strong player community), but I think the player perspective is equally important.

So my questions are:

1) What games would you suggest that I look at for specific case studies in community management? (I'm hoping to contact specific people for interviews or feedback what their company/game does well in this are.)

2) What are some good practice that you've seen companies do in the games you've played?

3) What are some bad practices that you've encountered?

4) Are there issue that are important to the online player communities that are not being addresses by companies or community managers?

(Note: I'm interested more in practice that affect groups of player rather than those that impact just one individual (macro vs. micro).)

Thanks in advance guys (and gals)!

Val

1) Probably WoW, although in a lot of ways they're the exception to the genre (such mass appeal, different audience, high success.) I guess SOE games, and maybe some that are highly hyped now like AoC.

2) A lot of companies have those conventions once a year for games, that tends to give the players a larger sense of community. Also, trivial as it may seem, Forums definitely help I think. Some other good practices are how blizzard has those contests all the time to win video cards or whatever for things like best screenshot or best pumkin at halloween.

3) Alienating parts of the playerbase by polarizing PVE and PvP, then having to make the choice between balancing one or the other.

Lack of communication on forums and that sort of thing, especially on heated issues. It may be out of fear of alienating the community with their response, but not answering questions at all gives players a sense that the dev team is ignoring them or just apathetic, and that's probably worse.

4) *shrugs*

np