M394£4W£$!!

EIther the TOR forums here or on their offical site, more doomsayers there than there will be on the 20th of December next year.=p

The force is strong with this one....

Beautiful!

Sure.  People do get out of line when posting.  But, I see a lot of problem with how they are also handled by the gaming company.  They should be staffing their forums with competent customer service people.  People that properly address and handle these posts in a consistant and professional manner.  People that know how to handle upset customers instead of just blowing them off because of how they posted.  No, there are limits to how you can and should post.  Posts that violate the forum rules should and need to be handles with a steady and even hand.  But, they need to be able to look past the emotion to the meat of the post and try to understand.  Not just blow off the customer or jump in with a "QQ" post of their own.  And, as I've said before, those forums are so volatile because of their uneven hand.  Why are people allowed to follow posts with endless streams of memes like "QQ"  and "UMADBRO"?  Posts that are just insults meant to devalue the original poster and spurr on more emotion?  The forums are volatile because they allow them to be. 

You can't treat your customers like children and expect them to take the higher road.   The level of professionalism by most moderation staffing is at best horrible in mmorpgs.  They are the ones that should be setting a level playing field and upholding the standards.  Not cherry picking topics, ignoring people with issues, and allowing trolls and social bullys to run rampant.

Originally posted by Lawlmonster

Sure, this was sorta funny, but wouldn't it have been neat to actually have a well thought out post from a professional writer regarding what they would expect (personally) from something to be considered a top notch post in this particular forum? I mean, that sounds kinda boring, but maybe some of it would be absorbed subconsciously.

 

Yeah! I can agree with you here. I just want to throw in my opinion though. I love this site and I love the community which I now like to feel I am a part of. The only one thing that has always made me step back from it is that sometimes I feel they take themselves a little to seriously.(Not including MikeB) Articles like this blow that theory out the water. I put it to you that this is a very refreshing change. You have to able to laugh at yourselves, if not? What's the point?

HURRR DURRR LOOK AT ME I WRITE FORUM POSTS ABOUT FORUM POSTS!!!!1!!

I like to share some tips for future Community Managers:

First off, make sure that developers and players never communicate directly. If developers annoy you with stuff they want communicated, throw it away and rewrite it (only if you absolutely must communicate, better get rid of them). Consider to turn it into a weekly series and plan ahead so that two or three bits of information will last out for a couple of months. Players love trivia and forum games better anyway, so make sure that the dev tracker and similar tools are always filled to the brim with such things. However, not having a dev tracker is preferrable as players love to discover news, for example that their class has been changed.

It is very important that any information you have up your sleeve is prepared in at least eight different ways. The new skill description you have; you could turn the information into an interview, video, essay, blog entry, screeshot, conference speech, dev diary, (fake) forum post and a news bit all at once and release it over the course of a year. Maybe just post the skill icons as a monthy wednesday feature. Players will discuss them for a long time and tell all their friends about it (and make YouTube videos). That way you can keep the players entertained with only giving away the icons of 3 skills. Repeat the same process with the skill description and other things. You could also make a dev chat event and ask the intern to submit questions about the skills you have presented earlier the week. Players will be happy that they have not missed out information of their favorite game. If you also place the dev chat so that it is in the middle of the night (say 3 a.m.) for half of the player base, the information you provide will appear even more valuable. If you have limited stuff to give away, it also best to announce it on such occasions.

People play MMORPG fantasy and sci-fi games to escape reality so you generally don't want to communicate on issues that need improvement or fixing. If you encounter problem-posts in the forum, just delete them without any notification to help players with their immersion. People who offer critique should be banned (make sure you also ban their account). Most of the time they will purchase another one and play your game longer. This is also a good way to remove items and gold from the in-game economy, something developers usually screw up.

Even if you feel tempted, do not collect feedback from the players in the forums. Only a vocal minority is posting and they do not represent the player base at all. Since they are the minority, you want to communicate the opposite of what you are observing to describe what the majority actually wants. Make sure that your data remains accurate. You only want to pop into threads that are written as Isabelle is suggesting. It is also good if you participate in random and off-topic forum posts. Players soon think you are their buddy and it is a good method to keep game information a little bit more hidden (more mystery is good).

Consider to include a few veterans into player counsel or correspondent programs. If you follow the other rules, the players will feel special and involved and stick around forever. If some player demands match with what the developers are doing anyway, make sure you communicate that the developers meet player wishes. This is considered a win-win situation and should be the goal at all times. If players never suggest the right things, consider to hire some interns that help the playerbase to come up with things that are best for them (i.e. on the internal to-do list). If the intern posts the suggestion, immediately  jump in and write that this is a great idea! This will signalize to anyone else that you are truly listen to player feedback.

If your game has different classes and/or factions make sure you pick only one each at the beginning of your career and only reply to threads and posts relevant for that class or faction. This will increase tension and drama in the forums and we all know this is good to foster community and the meta-game. You may also ask the developers and the rest of the team which class or faction they like best. Otherwise, stick to the rules as listed above concering information policy. It is better to have 8 out of 10 questions in interviews already covered elsewhere. Should you lack the material, you can always ask how someone came to work this morning.

As you see, the job of a Community Manger is great fun and the players will love you for what you are doing even if you bitch about them in the office.

Originally posted by Stormwatch

I like to share some tips for future Community Managers:

First off, make sure that developers and players never communicate directly. If developers annoy you with stuff they want communicated, throw it away and rewrite it (only if you absolutely must communicate, better get rid of them). Consider to turn it into a weekly series and plan ahead so that two or three bits of information will last out for a couple of months. Players love trivia and forum games better anyway, so make sure that the dev tracker and similar tools are always filled to the brim with such things. However, not having a dev tracker is preferrable as players love to discover news, for example that their class has been changed.

It is very important that any information you have up your sleeve is prepared in at least eight different ways. The new skill description you have; you could turn the information into an interview, video, essay, blog entry, screeshot, conference speech, dev diary, (fake) forum post and a news bit all at once and release it over the course of a year. Maybe just post the skill icons as a monthy wednesday feature. Players will discuss them for a long time and tell all their friends about it (and make YouTube videos). That way you can keep the players entertained with only giving away the icons of 3 skills. Repeat the same process with the skill description and other things. You could also make a dev chat event and ask the intern to submit questions about the skills you have presented earlier the week. Players will be happy that they have not missed out information of their favorite game. If you also place the dev chat so that it is in the middle of the night (say 3 a.m.) for half of the player base, the information you provide will appear even more valuable. If you have limited stuff to give away, it also best to announce it on such occasions.

People play MMORPG fantasy and sci-fi games to escape reality so you generally don't want to communicate on issues that need improvement or fixing. If you encounter problem-posts in the forum, just delete them without any notification to help players with their immersion. People who offer critique should be banned (make sure you also ban their account). Most of the time they will purchase another one and play your game longer. This is also a good way to remove items and gold from the in-game economy, something developers usually screw up.

Even if you feel tempted, do not collect feedback from the players in the forums. Only a vocal minority is posting and they do not represent the player base at all. Since they are the minority, you want to communicate the opposite of what you are observing to describe what the majority actually wants. Make sure that your data remains accurate. You only want to pop into threads that are written as Isabelle is suggesting. It is also good if you participate in random and off-topic forum posts. Players soon think you are their buddy and it is a good method to keep game information a little bit more hidden (more mystery is good).

Consider to include a few veterans into player counsel or correspondent programs. If you follow the other rules, the players will feel special and involved and stick around forever. If some player demands match with what the developers are doing anyway, make sure you communicate that the developers meet player wishes. This is considered a win-win situation and should be the goal at all times. If players never suggest the right things, consider to hire some interns that help the playerbase to come up with things that are best for them (i.e. on the internal to-do list). If the intern posts the suggestion, immediately  jump in and write that this is a great idea! This will signalize to anyone else that you are truly listen to player feedback.

If your game has different classes and/or factions make sure you pick only one each at the beginning of your career and only reply to threads and posts relevant for that class or faction. This will increase tension and drama in the forums and we all know this is good to foster community and the meta-game. You may also ask the developers and the rest of the team which class or faction they like best. Otherwise, stick to the rules as listed above concering information policy. It is better to have 8 out of 10 questions in interviews already covered elsewhere. Should you lack the material, you can always ask how someone came to work this morning.

As you see, the job of a Community Manger is great fun and the players will love you for what you are doing even if you bitch about them in the office.

All that effort and you go and forget to end it with </sarcasm>.  That or you are a community manager for Blizzard.  Hmm...

TLDR

... wait, what?

I LIKE IT!!! thanks for the tips

There was one thing that was forgotten.

The poster must have a signature at least 2 times the size of the body of their post. That or it needs to be a movie. Better if it's both.

The OP is obviously a shill for SOE, and if you don't agree with me, then you obviously aren't a real gamer like me ive played a couple thousand MMOs over the last 80 years since the first MMO WoW came out and am a professional gamer so i no wut I'm talking about If the OP isn't banned from this site for being a shill for SOE i'm canceling my account and everyone is going to quit

That was actually difficult to type without proper grammar.

Liked the OP.

+1 post count

Brilliant! Thanks for the early lunchtime laugh, Isabelle.

That was some funny stuff.  And I not just talking about the op, but some of the replies were just priceless.

Originally posted by Kyleran

OP forgot the number one method of increasing forum counts, the one line post. 

More important, agreeing to pointless one-liners with a one-liner... Ding...

Thanks again.   As usual I learned a new word from your article (as well as some cool tips for posting on forums)

Thanks,

Your loyal sycophant.

HI I LOSE DRAGON GEM WHEN SERVER CRASH AND NOW MY CHARACTUR RUINED I BOYCOTTY U