by Jason Van Horn
If you're going to have someone do a lecture on MMOs and how community needs to be properly established in order for a game to grow and thrive, having President/CEO of PLAYXPERT Charles F. Manning as the guest speaker isn't a bad way to start things out. PLAYXPERT is a company that provides in-game community management tools for gamers using a unique overlay technology and an extensible widget architecture. Based on the hour long lecture, there were a number of valid points that were made regarding the best way to establish community in a game, even if the "free for all" idea seems frightening at first.
Manning said that, "Community is business, but unfortunately it's an afterthought." He validated his point by declaring that the community of most MMOs is nothing more than a forum. The forum community, however, seems to be disappearing as we move further along the development of MMOs in general, as there aren't even many official forums for games anymore. For instance, one of the biggest recent MMO releases was Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, a game that didn't start with an official forum and to this date still does not have one. How are gamers supposed to get together? Most Tabula Rasa players have had to flock to secondary forums to find other players, but when you have so many players split across so many sites for info, it can be difficult to make everyone feel like a tight knit bunch.
In Manning's mind an MMO can't truly have a community unless it's completely free and open. The idea of an open community not even kept in line by the developers is a scary endeavor, yet there does seem like the chance for something great to flourish in such an environment. When talking about what a community needs, Manning said that it should follow the four Cs: Connections, Content, Communication, and Commerce. He continued by saying that a well-balanced community needs to have an identity, trust, reputation, history, segmentation, and feedback loops. Manning added that too often even in-game communities are nothing more than a buddy list, showing the player who they've met in the game, rather than exist to show a network of people coming together for a singular purpose.
There seemed to be a slightly audible gasp among the audience of the lecture when Manning declared, "The Game Is The Medium ?The Community Is The Game." Manning had several ideas in regards to bridging the gap between players, including configuring the official site to co-exist with third party fan sites, and hiring third party partners to support middleware. He was also a big supporter behind the idea of allowing people to do non-game activities while still in the game, a key he felt was vitally important in allowing MMOs to become truly immersive. His final note on the topic was that it was critically important to always think as both a producer and consumer to gather all the information possible.
There seemed to be a slightly audible gasp among the audience of the lecture when Manning declared, "The Game Is The Medium ?The Community Is The Game." Manning had several ideas in regards to what needed to be done in order for games to better bridge the gap between players. Configuring the official site to co-exist with third party fan sites, or hiring third party partners to support middleware, allow users to stay in-game even if they're doing something that isn't pertaining exactly to the game. He also felt that leveraging third party communities for awareness makes the game seem fully immersive at all times. His final note on the topic was that it was critically important to always think as both a producer and consumer to gather all the information possible.
It's intimidating to think of a game world where there are no walls keeping out unwanted programs or elements that the game developers didn't intend to have in the first place, but if Mr. Manning is indeed correct, that's exactly what needs to happen in order for MMOs to truly have a community and not merely a buddy list comparable to that of an instant messaging program.
Download Address:http://www.cheatson9.com/google/197.html
No comments:
Post a Comment