Comments on: Beta Community Guidelines (circa 2004)

By: Powers

Powers — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:16:07 +0000

Scott, you should have CC’d the Star Wars Galaxies team on this when you wrote it. It would have saved a lot of pain (and money).

Powers &8^]

By: Nocte

Nocte — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:00:22 +0000

This certainly explains why some posts can go on for a while before developers post. That’s probably a good thing. I don’t think I could exercise the neccessary level of control of my words unless it meant my job.

By: Melanie

Melanie — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:47:17 +0000

Hey Scott,
This is a great set of guidelines for anyone dealing with a customer base.
I’m going to make everyone in my CS staff read it and understand each point you made. I think I’ll also make each of them write out by hand, “Our players are customers, not Users.” a hundred and fifty times or until it sinks in. = )

~Melanie

By: TheAutochthonousDiaspora » Blog Archive » Being a Mod Series

TheAutochthonousDiaspora » Blog Archive » Being a Mod Series — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:51:34 +0000

[…] series for short). I have to give credit where credit is due, Scott Hartsman’s post on “Beta Community Guidelines” was the first thing I posted for everyone to read. It’s a great summary of the way a […]

By: Danni

Danni — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:14:08 +0000

A couple of years ago, and after a great night’s playing, I read the EQ2 forums to see some horrendously negative comments. I PM’d you just to say that I liked the game and ‘Illegitimi nil carborundum’. You replied even though I am just an Average Joe from England.

It is really nice to see you continue the same vein with this blog. Stealth nerfs and seemingly random game mechanic changes are really, really annoying. It seems the word ‘annoying’ is a bit weak for some…

If you could get the team to be more brutally honest about nerfs and the reason for them, I believe that more people would understand the reasons for themselves, rather than having to read a random fansite to speculate on the reasons. EG Status Point nerf (post as seen on FOH forums).

Anyways, great blog, great info, and thanks for doing it. The last thing I would want to do after coming home from work is to log on and talk about it!

By: EQFangirl

EQFangirl — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 18:17:00 +0000

When I found the link to this blog, I came to read it with healthy portion of skepticism. Most people that have played MMOs for years have had a leat one or two bad experiences when dealing with some level of staff, whether from demonic billing issues to guides or even GMs. So I was surprised to see such sensible, positive guidelines. If everyone who ever replied to a customer’s post in an official category, or heck, ever sent a person a /tell in game to respond to a petition, would follow these guidelines, I think it would avoid the majority of problems I’ve ever had/heard friends and acquaintances experience in the game.

Maybe these guidelines should be required reading before staff members can deal with the customers.

By: Kendricke

Kendricke — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:25:45 +0000

“- Don’t say anything that you don’t want printed on the cover of PC Gamer, with your name, EverQuest II, and SOE associated with it.”

Best. Line. Ever.

By: Cindy Bowens

Cindy Bowens — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:29:21 +0000

Great article, Scott. I found myself nodding and saying “Amen to that” several times while I was reading it.

By: Jessica Mulligan

Jessica Mulligan — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:21:23 +0000

Nice post, indeed. But then, I would expect no less from a man who has more experience developing and managing MMOs than most everyone else in the industry, :D.

-Jess

By: Beta Community Guidelines « Hatchlings Games

Beta Community Guidelines « Hatchlings Games — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:06:33 +0000

[…] Community Guidelines Scott Hartman of EverQuest 2 wrote a Beta Community Guidelines is really damn good. Recently, Zie Aun and I have been talking about MMO / virtual worlds […]

By: Domino

Domino — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:01:23 +0000

Also, “quit hogging the DevTracker, Domino!”

Just kidding … these are excellent guidelines and the blog is a very interesting read so far!

By: darrenl

darrenl — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:34:06 +0000

There is so much good stuff in there Scott….thanks for sharing that.

By: JoeW

JoeW — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:12:15 +0000

Great post, and nice to see ya around!

By: Nerfbat » Scott Hartsman Has a Blog

Nerfbat » Scott Hartsman Has a Blog — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:05:43 +0000

[…] has a blog, which he calls “Off the Record.” He already has a great article up called Beta Community Guidelines, which appears to be an email from a few years ago during EverQuest II Beta (ah, the old days). […]

By: Ryan Shwayder

Ryan Shwayder — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:58:07 +0000

Great post, Scott. Welcome to the world of MMO blogging.

By: Scott Hartsman

Scott Hartsman — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:33:24 +0000

This article turned out to be interesting to a lot more people than I figured it would. Thanks all for the kind words.

@ Cuppy: Re: The only thing that I am wondering is if you refer to your customers as ‘customers’ when speaking directly TO them, or just when talking ABOUT them to others?

Usually to them, since using that word gets the point across that I understand the relationship, and its less likely to accidentally read as patronizing. e.g. The word “customer” implies that I get the fact that “You pay us a sub, and for that fee you trust we’ll treat you fairly and use our best judgment in providing you with a reasonable value of entertainment in return.”

To others, like the press example, (e.g. “Our players just plain rock,”) I don’t see word choice as that important.

@ Nick: Too funny! The original post had an extra credit line at the bottom that read: “There’s this book…Buy it and read it. Seriously.” That was the one.

@ Shane: I’m glad we got to talk via email. I’m leaving the comment here for now, but in general for the future, I’m likely going to have to remove anything that refers to work specifics. Both in the interest of keeping this a personal site and not having it turn into an alternate outlet to raise current EQ2 or SOE issues.

- Scott

By: Shane

Shane — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:56:14 +0000

Great post Gallenite… They are good guidelines. And I am sure in 2004 it was easier to stick to them.

I can tell you that in 2007 your Community representative are failing you dismally on #10 and #11

People are being given 2 week forum bans for “excessive negativity”. Your forum admins are going crazy and they really arent listening to anything the players say.

So, read #10 and #11 again and everything they say is true… let me quote this bit… “If they’re content, they can have a positive impact on many other people. If they’re upset at us, that too spreads through their social circles very quickly.”

Your forum admins are not currently a force for good.

By: KevinC

KevinC — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:23:24 +0000

Great post Scott and excellent guidelines. Number 4 really stands out in my mind because those are the posts I remember - when a Dev is genuinely trying to help a player with a problem they are having (or that we ALL might be having). You really do take the side of the developer and get behind him or her because you can see they are spending time to have a dialoge with you and get to some kind of solution. I think people get jaded in general, so when they see even the least bit of kindness, understanding, etc., and it’s genuine and sincere, it really blows them away.

I also like 12 and 7 because they speak to the confusion a person can feel when they see Dev posts conflicting on some game mechanic or issue. People thought they had the story straight on the death pentalty, only to read another post three hours later that says something slightly different. You definitely want people on the same page, and really knowing what and what not to post about. If not, it can sometimes appear as if no one is really at the wheel.

By: Jim/Celtar

Jim/Celtar — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:55:35 +0000

Wow, what a well written article, dead on to be more exact. Having been a player of online game for 15 plus years now and 30 years of table top role-playing games, I’ve seen alot as far as gaming communities go, the good and the bad.

Your guidelines should be used by all online gaming companies, it is just that on the money.

By: Winwin

Winwin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:32:05 +0000

Right on, Scott. Having been involved in multiple online communities, I cannot agree with you more. I particularly love the line about being “more like a fiancee than the Cable Company”, because it’s true! People put so much time and energy into a given game that they literally develop a sort of relationship with the game, not just with the people within it. Sadly, I’ve seen several community teams that don’t realize that fact. Honestly, that’s one thing I have always felt to be a strong point of SOE’s dev and community teams - they listen, they care, they think before responding, and they don’t refer to a seemingly deified master development plan.

In short though, very damn well put.