Being Friendly is one thing…

So here’s an interesting topic of conversation:

In the past, we’ve seen all manner of behavior from developers when it comes to how to issue news to their players.  There’s been the silent treatment until patch notes come out and then dealing with the playerbase becomes an issue of control.  There’s also the classic “it’s working as intended” that we have seen regarding bugs or jacked up mechanics only to be seen in a future patch that the issue is corrected without any discussion as to why the change was necessary.

Now, working in Customer Service, I can tell you first hand that I find honesty is the best policy.

Okay, so you call over to your bank because you want to know about the status of your loan application that’s being reviewed (example only here).  Would you rather the person on the other end of the phone tells you it’s being reviewed (and get a denial letter a couple weeks later), or that person says, “Well, we’re looking at it, and we have some concerns about this, this, and this.  Can you send us some more information to clarify these points, because we cannot approve the application as is.”

What’s better customer service?

My vote is for the guy who was up-front and honest.

Sometimes when you just give someone the answer up front, they might not want to hear it, might be a bit upset, but they’ll get over it.  They’ll appreciate the fact that you were honest with them rather than giving them some lip service and feeling burned later on.

Customers who get burned are more apt to try and bag on your company and products than customers who get told an honest and up-front answer.

Customer Service is about more than being nice to your customers.  It’s also about being honest with them.  Sometimes I wish more companies would pick up on this.

Thoughts on Community Develoment

something I have posted about on a couple of forums:

I wanted to go ahead and make a statement about something I’ve been thinking about over the past couple of weeks. I took a look at some of the MMOs that have come out in the recent months, and the MMOs that are on the horizon. I’m beginning to notice something of a trend, or at least I think I am.

First, let’s look at Warhammer Online. There are no official forums from EAMythic, yet the game has a fantastic hype machine, and a lot of information is out there on the game. Why is this? I would attribute this to sites like Warhammer Alliance and WAR-RVR. Yes, these are community-driven forums and fansites, but often times these sites can help drum up additional support for the game. Part of me wonders if the reason Age of Conan’s hype and lack of information is starting to be due to the lack of real fan-site support out there for the game.

Now, let’s look at Vanguard. Despite the game being universally looked at as a disaster, there was a tremendous following for the game being drummed up by the fansites. The official forums did drum up hype, but it also scared people off of it due to the rabid nature of the userbase. I believe the World of Warcraft forums also suffer from the same problems. Official Forums can be a good thing, but they can also be very detrimental to your game if the right people are not behind the moderation of the community.

It’s one thing to have fans of your product who love what you are doing, and what you are creating.

It’s another thing completely to see rabid, frothing behavior that is detrimental to your goals as a corporation to help bring new users to the game.

Amusingly enough, the old Official Vanguard Forums were listed in a Gamespot review as being one of the key reasons people might be scared to try the game. In today’s world of options, options, options, you can’t afford to have other users being a key reason to why someone wouldn’t want to try your game. These games are all about the community behind them and the ability to game with other people. I would assume that most people would feel the way I do when I say that I would rather game with open and friendly people than people who will smash every idea I have as being “stupid” or “WoW-ish”.

The Internet and Forums are meant to be a place to harbor discussion and ideas. For anyone to come to an Official Forum and make a post asking a simple question about a possible feature or having some ideas about the features they read about on some MMO site is a positive thing. To see those questions and ideas smashed by a croud of pitchfork and torch-wielding mobs screaming to “GTFO and quit trying to make this game like WoW” for each reply… that can do a lot to impact future sales of the product.

I completely understand the dilemna Blizzard has with their forums. Despite the raw stupidity and rudeness displayed there on a hourly basis, the sheer number of employees it would require to truly moderate those forums is probably not something Blizzard is truly interested in investing in. Of course, I also feel Blizzard is in a period where they feel they can do no wrong, so maybe Community Development is not one of their top priorities right now.

Either way, I do feel community development is something that will begin to play a larger role with future MMOs, and seeing the success of what EAMythic and the Warhammer Online crew are doing right now gives me hope that companies do ‘get it’ when it comes to recognizing that the fanbase are customers or potential customers.