I haven't spent that much time here lately, but when I do jump in and check on threads I always love seeing articles about the "questionable" practices of MMORPG.com (and similar sites).

But thats not necessarily what I'm asking for here,  I think it would be kind of cool to do maybe a short segment where forum goers can pose a few questions about general things, and have staff answer them maybe once a month or so... just a few questions here or there.

Questions like:

We see a lot of activity from Suzie, Mike and Bill on the forums,  but what is everyone doing when they aren't moderating the forums?

Every now and again we get some articles that seem to keep the "status quo"  like the weekly SWTOR article and so on,  but are there any articles or topics MMORPG.com doesn't get to address?

We get to hear alot about the new upcoming games that are coming out, and how excited the staff is for them,  but what about what the staff is currently playing,  perhaps why they are currently playing it?

Everyone comments about how negative the forums are on a daily basis,  but seeing as how the staff here moderates and deals with the community more than anyone,  does the staff feel like the community is overly negative, or are there just a few bad apples.... .. fighting with bad oranges.... ..in a bad fruit salad?

I think you get the point.      

I think a lot of these sorts of questions would be great to answer on our podcast if you send them in! (gameon AT mmorpg DOT com)

Suzie and Bill don't moderate our forums though, I can answer that much for ya. :) I'll see if I can get them to chime in to discuss what they do (and answer some of the more editorial-related questions!).

As for the community at large, I like to think there are no bad communities. The issue at hand here is pretty unique. While we're a community of MMORPG gamers, most of us don't even necessarily agree on what exactly makes an MMORPG or MMO much less on what makes a good one. We've got sections and forums for just about every MMO in the genre and the people that play each of these MMOs are looking for different things from their games. This means things can get heated when we get a lot of the cross pollination that we do. For example, there's nothing stopping someone who only plays sandbox games and generally participates in sandbox game forums here from popping into a World of Warcraft thread and discussing that as well (things can get hairy here!). Basically, sparks are always ready to fly simply by the nature of our site. Each game forum is essentially a microcosm community and the General section is where it all meets.

We do expect things to get heated at times; we know you guys are passionate about all these games and subjects, but we do enforce our Rules of Conduct to try and keep some level of sanity. When I came on and looked to improve the situation here, my assessment was that the situation was welcoming to those who looked to disrupt and/or troll our community and as a result ended up creating an environment that was hostile to people simply looking to take part in constructive discussion. My goal was to reverse this and help cultivate a community that was welcoming to those looking to actually discuss the subject matter in a mature and respectful manner while making the environment unwelcoming to those looking to create disruption. We realize that things aren't perfect, and they never will be, but this is our goal.

HA! I do what Bill tells me...you know, "Get me my coffee!" or "Get Mike on the phone for important business!"

Oh..wait...that was my last job. :P

I am the newsie here at MMORPG.com with a bit of feature writing thrown in for good measure. No one actually knows that there is a NEWS PAGE but, believe it or not, there is! You can find it HERE.

All I can say is that Mike and his forum crew deserve a steak dinner EVERY night for their work on the forums! They are very popular and take a lot of time and effort to keep up with. And every night on my knees, I thank the Good Lord for all of them so that I don't actually have to moderate the forums. *shivers* We have a great community that is passionate about games and I love that about them but I'm just not up to the task of reading the incredible VOLUME of stuff that's posted!

As far as content goes, there are a lot of games that deserve our attention and that we are working quite hard to ensure that they get the notice they deserve. That's part of why we've introduced things like Digital Kids and Game Hopper to give our readers something outside of the "mainstream".

Wait....we're allowed to play games here? Dang...didn't know that.

:D

I play Rift for my MMO fix but have been captivated by replaying Mass Effect 2 to see how I can change the way my first experience in Mass Effect 3 went down. I love a great story and nobody's done better than the ME series (up to the end of ME3 but that's another story...) than Bioware and it's just pure unadulterated fun to be renewing Shepard's friendships again. :)

As far as our community goes, what Mike wrote is spot on. All of us love games and, as gamers, we have strong emotions with regard to them. Our forums are a great place to voice those opinions.

Anyhow...wow...thanks for asking those questions. It's kind of fun to answer them. :D

Originally posted by Suzie_Ford

No one actually knows that there is a NEWS PAGE but, believe it or not, there is! You can find it HERE.

I remember going through this when I was doing the news. LOL.  Yes, people, we have a NEWS TAB at the very top! I swear we need to hook it up with neon lights!

Also, Suzie touched on what she was playing right now; I'll throw my hat in here as well. I'm replaying the entire ME series as a Renegade, something I've wanted to do since forever but never fully got around to. I played one for a bit in ME1 and then stopped when ME2 came out. I started up again before ME3 came out, this time fresh in ME2 (using the Genesis DLC), but I stopped when ME3 launched (can you blame me?).

It's been a couple of years since I played the original so I feel it's time to go through the whole thing legit with the Renegade character I've been wanting to play forever.

Other than that, some TOR, Dungeon Siege III, and a little DC Universe Online.

Sup guys,

My name is Garrett and I am probably the least visible MMORPG staffer you guys see. I am Industry Relations, which basically means I deal with devs and publishers of games.

For me it is about getting the best coverage for you guys (the readers) way before anyone even knows about it. So all of the interviews, announcements, coverage etc. Kind of starts with me. I work with the studios to get their games on the site and work out coverage plans for their projects. I handle most of our show schedules and behind the scenes stuff.

In many ways I am like Mike, only on the opposite side of the spectrum. Mike being Community, me working with Developers.

The hardest part about this is that I know so much information that I cannot openly discuss with fans. It sucks honestly, but I am the one who sees games, 2-3 years before they come out, I am the one who talks to smaller game companies to get the word out about their projects. Basically I am the CIA branch of the site.

While I do love this job, the part I wish I could do more is talk to the community. Mike and I always chat about what you guys would want to hear and I go directly to the devs with it. If you ever have questions about games...well I am a good person to ask, sadly if it is about a rumored game I wont comment on it ever.

Currently I am playing the in Guild Wars 2 beta events, the TERA beta event, and the Mists of Pandaria Beta. Even with all that the game that I am most addicted to is Skyrim.

In terms of the forums, I know very much that it is a few bad apples. I do wish people could lighten up a bit on their comments, but I also know what it is like to invest hours in a game and have that ruined for you for one reason or another.

While I still write some features for the site and primarily do the written interviews you read, I stay away from Reviews and stuff now, because well I am the one the devs talk to the most.

Hope this helps and happy to try and answer questions for you guys.

Hey, Evan here. I dare say that I'm even less visible than Garrett on a day-to-day basis. FIGHT!

Anyway, I don't moderate the forums or write articles. What I actualy do is work on the front-end experience and fixes/tweaks here along with one other guy. What am I working on right now? I'm building a brand-new mmorpg.com to replace this dated and somewhat clunky version we are using now... the goals being easier reading, better ways to show what we have clearly and quickly and helping everyone find the gems on the site. So much quality content gets misses, like Suzies work (Did you all know she posts a boat load on MMO news all day, every day?)

The rest of the time, I work on RTSguru.com and FPSguru.com doing the same tasks, and helping Bill, Mike and Suzie with graphic assets, new features and anything they need.

Gamewise, I'm not playing any mmo's currently. Just Starcraft II and impatiently waiting for Diablo 3. Without question, I work more than I play, which is good for everyone on the site.

As for the negative fourms, I like to remind people of this little quote I try to work by: "The vocal minority". For everyone one person that bitches, complains or whatever, there are 10-1000 others who are happy or say nothing. (mind you, maybe they say nothing because they aren't happy, but we wouldn't know, would we?)

So many great responses!  

I've been around long enough to see Garrett pop in here or there with his name attached to an article,  but its nice to meet Evan.

I'm really interested in an update to the *new* MMORPG.com site.  Is it going more towards the Guru Sites? Or are we doing a complete revamp of all of them?

I will be honest as well, I often see the news articles when I check out the main page,  but apart from that my main connection to the news would be what I see being talked about most in the forums.  Every now and then I find something on the main page I missed but I haven't spent any time on a "news page" -- sorry Suzie - you deserve more recognition :)

I will give props to Mike,  through all of the years I've been here, most recently it has gotten a lot better than it has been.  Maybe its the new MMOs that are coming out, maybe people are getting older and wiser,  or perhaps the idea of too much negativity has become a recurring joke on these forums more than a serious issue -- or perhaps moderation has just gotten THAT much better,  but it has gotten a lot more tolerable.

I really wish we could hear more from Garrett,  it sounds like he gets to be included in all of the fun stuff we all want to know about.  He's kind of in the position we all wish we could be in... and even though we may not be able to extract many details from him,  I think when more information becomes available, maybe he can open up a bit about what he saw "way back when"  -- how the systems may have evolved or his opinion on the information released.  

I also wouldn't be against seeing what Evan is putting out either.  Many of us visit this site once a day,  I think we'd all be interested in knowing what we could look forward to in terms of changes -- or maybe thats just me. XD

I don't know, the chaos of this site is compelling. There's enough hand-holding websites out there already... 

Hey folks!

My turn. I wanted to pop in earlier, but well... let's just say finding out you have asbestos tile in your house makes getting new carpet and laminate a pain. But it's Saturday, that's taken care of, and I can finally plop down and do something more than e-mail now. That means my favorite pastime: MMORPG.com forum lurking!

Generally, I'm sort of the "Jack of All Trades" when it comes to my job here at MMORPG.com.  Prepare for wall of text.

News and Posting: I work with Suzie every single day of the week to get the news out there to you, the features posted and edited and ready to go, and all other content you see every day on the site.  We're the dynamic duo of content on the site.  I get her content, she posts it. We hunt down news, and she gets it up on the site before anyone else. It's fun to watch other sites post their news based on ours, and you guys have no idea how hard Suzie works to beat the competition. 

Community: Mike's baby, but I work with him on a daily basis to figure out what kinds of content and topics you're clamoring for, and then I try to deliver it to you. When a problem arises in the community, Mike's the one who says "Hey Bill, maybe you guys should address this." And then we do, with an article, blog, interview, and so forth.  I have to give props to Mike and his moderation staff for slowly but surely making the MMORPG.com community a much more friendly place to hang out.  I mean, there was a time before Mike that these forums were right up there with 4Chan. Now, they're actually fun to hang out on, even with the more "colorful" personalities that try to rain on everyone's parade.  And it's because Mike and the mods have made a place that's safe and fun to chirp on.

Industry Relations: I work with Garrett every day as well. He and I spend the majority of our time emailing developers, arranging exclusives, planning previews, reviews, interviews, and all other sorts of cool stuff for you.  Believe me when I say you will be very happy this summer with MMORPG.com. Like Garrett says, there's always an NDA to sign, but you'll be very happy when we can finally start blabbing about stuff we tend to know before anyone else.  Garrett's essentially my ear to the ground, looking for the next big things and he and I are working out plans of attack on new games before the world knows of them.

Site Design: Evan, god bless him, does all of the hardest work here, and all Mike, Suzie, and I do is tell him what we want to see on the site.  There's a great laundry list of new features and designs coming to the site over the next 6-12 months, and it's all thanks to Evan.  We just get to be the ones to say: "Can we do this? Make news more visible above the fold?"  All the graphics, site features, and additions you see are his work (and Ben "Meddle" Krueger's - an even less visible part of the site as a co-owner).  I can't wait for you all to see what he does to this site over the next year.

IN GENERAL: I steer the ship, really.  I do my damnedest to get things to you guys in a timely and adequate manner. I want our coverage to be the most in-depth and hardcore out there, on the topics that matter most to you all. The first beta weekend for GW2? Most companies made one or two articles. We wrote FIFTEEN. This past test, the same thing.  We're at 7 or 8 already, with more coming next week. We did the same with SWTOR, and now with access to TERA, are ramping up coverage there. TSW will be the same, and we'll be continuing this trend of revealing as much as we can about games before they're launched.  There are no plans to slow down there.

I also direct the way content is handled. I re-wrote our review criteria, and beginning with TERA, we'll be beginning a new process of reviews for the AAA releases that will stretch the review out over the course of 3-5 weeks so you can watch as we go through the whole process.  Together with Evan, we finally brought forth live-streaming to MMORPG.com and very shortly you'll see it integrated into the front page, with live-streams and event countdowns... the whole nine yards.  We also brought back Game On Podcast with the help of Som Pourfarzaneh, and soon will be turning that into a live-stream video show.  

It's my job to schedule all of our content, to work with our extremely talented group of freelance writers, and to help them bring you reviews, columns, previews, and interviews.  Basically, I have the daunting and terrifying task of having my finger on the button and saying go or stop.  These past few weeks, I've been busy planning our PAX East plan of attack, including our PAX East Panel - The Future of Online Games. By the way, you guys REALLY don't want to miss that panel at 6pm next Friday if you'll be there. Line up as early as 4pm, because it'll be a DOOZIE.

I guess, in short, my job is to work with all of the above folks, the entire staff of freelancers, and the developers to organize and bring you as much freaking awesome coverage of as many games as possible, especially the ones that matter to you most. That's what I do, and I hope you like it so far.

I do the exact same stuff over at RTSGuru.com as well, as it grows and grows like a little tactical flower. :)

WHAT I PLAY: Right now? It's a mix between so many things. TERA, WoW Beta, GW2 when they have a test, and SWTOR as well as Rift when it comes to live games.  I also still have my active WoW account that I dabble with when I feel nostalgic, and I play DCUO and Wakfu occasionally.  Non-MMO wise, I'm slowly still working through ME3 and Amalur. And yes, I'll be incommunicado when May 15th arrives, though you'll likely see me streaming some Barbarian Diablo 3 play all day that day.  I wish I could say I played all of these a lot, but really my work here keeps me insanely busy and the most I get to play is when I'm reviewing a title, as I will be with TERA beginning with the head-starT.

WHAT DO I WISH WE COULD COVER MORE? - Everything. We're still a business, so what we tend to cover most are the games most people want to hear about: the big guns. I like it though, when we get to cover the little guys, as we did with 8BitMMO this week. Or when we get to see a review of a game that not many have heard of yet (RotMG). I like it when we can shine a spotlight on a smaller game and hopefully bring them a new audience.

I also love our columnists, as I think they bring a really awesome perspective and professional editorial slant to the site. Folks like Richard Aihoshi, Isabelle Parsley, Victor Barreiro Jr., Cassandra Khaw, and the ever-awesome Sanya Weathers really do bring a lot to the table, and I wish their stuff sometimes didn't get buried by the usual preview or interview. I also wish we could cover more of the business site of things when it comes to MMOs, but such content usually goes unnoticed.  The thing is, it's really indicative of our favorite genre's overall direction and is worth being analyzed regularly.  That's what our columnists are for.

EDIT: When I say I send a lot of emails? I meant it. Since 6/10/2011 when I took over, I've sent roughly 7970 emails to PR folks, freelancers, staffers, and gamers. My wrists HURT.

Originally posted by garrett

Sup guys,

My name is Garrett and I am probably the least visible MMORPG staffer you guys see. I am Industry Relations, which basically means I deal with devs and publishers of games.

For me it is about getting the best coverage for you guys (the readers) way before anyone even knows about it. So all of the interviews, announcements, coverage etc. Kind of starts with me. I work with the studios to get their games on the site and work out coverage plans for their projects. I handle most of our show schedules and behind the scenes stuff.

In many ways I am like Mike, only on the opposite side of the spectrum. Mike being Community, me working with Developers.

The hardest part about this is that I know so much information that I cannot openly discuss with fans. It sucks honestly, but I am the one who sees games, 2-3 years before they come out, I am the one who talks to smaller game companies to get the word out about their projects. Basically I am the CIA branch of the site.

While I do love this job, the part I wish I could do more is talk to the community. Mike and I always chat about what you guys would want to hear and I go directly to the devs with it. If you ever have questions about games...well I am a good person to ask, sadly if it is about a rumored game I wont comment on it ever.

Currently I am playing the in Guild Wars 2 beta events, the TERA beta event, and the Mists of Pandaria Beta. Even with all that the game that I am most addicted to is Skyrim.

In terms of the forums, I know very much that it is a few bad apples. I do wish people could lighten up a bit on their comments, but I also know what it is like to invest hours in a game and have that ruined for you for one reason or another.

While I still write some features for the site and primarily do the written interviews you read, I stay away from Reviews and stuff now, because well I am the one the devs talk to the most.

Hope this helps and happy to try and answer questions for you guys.

I have a question...

How do I get your job?

No really. How does one go about getting a job like yours?

I guess thats another question many people would want to know... most people here have that dream of "breaking into" the business,  its a common question throughout the industry.

Good to hear from you Bill,  its amazing how many of you are out there, not to count the moderators we haven't heard about or any of those other back-end guys.  The columnists we see every now and then,  and for the most part, I feel the community has a good impression of them.  

Well I have a behind the scenes question but it concerns technology rather than people.

Why oh why does the 'enhanced' editor disable my browsers spell checker. Sure it has some nice features but it's also somewhat clunky (having to manulay tag links, pasting text includes formating and tags), anyway I'd give it all up for my browsers spell checker to function.

Originally posted by Gorilla

Well I have a behind the scenes question but it concerns technology rather than people.

Why oh why does the 'enhanced' editor disable my browsers spell checker. Sure it has some nice features but it's also somewhat clunky (having to manulay tag links, pasting text includes formating and tags), anyway I'd give it all up for my browsers spell checker to function.

Got in touch with Evan on this and this is what he had to say:

"It's a known limitation with the editor package itself. They literally want to charge extra to buy a spellcheck module via http://www.webspellchecker.net/ If in source view or sometimes firefox, you can get the internal spellcheck."

Sorry folks! I know it can be a pain!

Originally posted by MikeB

"It's a known limitation with the editor package itself. They literally want to charge extra to buy a spellcheck module via http://www.webspellchecker.net/ If in source view or sometimes firefox, you can get the internal spellcheck."

Sorry folks! I know it can be a pain!

Thanks for checking it out. It looks as if it would be cheaper (albeit a fairly major project) to migrate to more open forum software. Who knows one day maybe.

Originally posted by Gorilla

Originally posted by MikeB

"It's a known limitation with the editor package itself. They literally want to charge extra to buy a spellcheck module via http://www.webspellchecker.net/ If in source view or sometimes firefox, you can get the internal spellcheck."

Sorry folks! I know it can be a pain!

Thanks for checking it out. It looks as if it would be cheaper (albeit a fairly major project) to migrate to more open forum software. Who knows one day maybe.

Well, theres always the pre-spellcheck method :)