Scott Hartsman - Off the Record

The always-hospitable Michael Zenke asked me if I’d like to join them on the Massively Speaking, podcast #13 this week. I’ll post a link when the new one’s up.  They recorded it yesterday.

(Edit: That was fast.)

What I thought I was getting into:  “Don’t worry - No kiss and tell about your time on EQ2.  Just bring yourself and some wit.  Just generally chat.  I’m sure we’ll end up bringing some EQ2 topics up though.”

Perfect.

What actually happened:  “Hi! I’m Michael Zenke, and welcome to Massively Speaking episode #13!  Today we’ve got a rare treat - We’ll be talking to Scott Hartsman about his time as the Senior Producer of EverQuest II.”

Thanks, Michael.

(In all fairness, I’m sure I misheard more than he mis-asked.)

Still, it was fun.  I actually like talking about that kind of thing quite a bit still and everyone asked good questions, though there were definitely a few topics that I’d have liked to explain a little more coherently.

If nothing else, it’s fun to talk about some of the more extreme thoughts I’d had about what we could’ve done to EQ2, now that it’s safe and there’s no need for anyone to worry that I might actually do them and screw up the game they love.

What I remembered about halfway through: I’m sure that I sound a lot better in print when I can edit myself for length.

(Not that I actually do that much either, but…yeah.)

When I got my first computer, the games were cool and all, but the even better part was going online.

I’ve been a part of online communities ever since. My second job involved community management by default, long before there was any weight being given to it as an important part of game development. A lot of my thoughts on how best to work in those communities from the development side boiled down to knowing how I’d want to be treated, and then trying to do exactly that.

After getting into the larger scale MMOs, that sense grew into a sincere belief that keeping intangibles (such as “the relationship with your community”) as positive as you can is more than just the right thing to do — it’s also one of the best things you can do for your bottom line.

Since we were trying to maintain a highly dev-interactive beta community on EQ2, and had a reasonable number of developers who’d yet to interact with Real Live (future) Customers, I wrote these down.

These were never an official document and have long since been obsoleted by the fact that the game isn’t in beta anymore, and that we now have a full on Community Relations department. The industry has evolved quite a bit in even the past three years, and it’s all right if professional community folk find things to laugh at in here. I get asked about them every now and again, usually by people who tilt their heads to the side and appear highly perplexed that developers could possibly have interests in this direction.

On reflection, a lot of them really can be summarized as: “Genuinely give a damn about people, and don’t even come close to sounding like a patronizing know-it-all.”

A couple current comments are inlined below in italics. Here’s the post:

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