MMORPG.com list-crafter Bill Murphy puts together a countdown of five things that all developers should keep in mind when thinking about their communities.
As development of MMORPGs go, advancement seems to happen incrementally and slowly as the games themselves are complex and fickle beasts of design complications. What's more is that we, the fans of the games, are just as complex and fickle ourselves. But there's a simple beauty to this relationship between gamer and game developer. We heart each other. Because at the core of it, the developers are just like us only with grander technical knowledge of the bits and pieces that must fit together. What we bring to the equation is a sometimes brutal, sometimes glorified sense of devotion to any developer that "gets it" and values our input in what really is a service industry. In that line of thinking, and in light of recent hubbub around a few games, here are five things every developer should remember about their fans.
#5 We're vocal
I don't necessarily mean that we speak aloud here, but I'm sure if the forums of any game were recorded not with keyboards but with microphones the results would be the same. MMO gamers are a highly vocal bunch when it comes to talking about their favorite, least favorite, or even as of yet un-played games. We love to talk-talk-talk (or type-type-type) about your projects probably more than you do. You should definitely know this by now, and when it comes to the relationship between developer and gamer... we really just want to know if you're listening. That means you need to have forums, and your CM staff should be all over the blogosphere and community site forums as well. Track your users. There are plenty of examples why you should listen to your audience in any entertainment project. With that in mind, let's move to number four...
Read 5 Things Every Developer Should Remember.