First of all I would like to start off with an honest statement, I am not looking to get involved as a part of the team, I simply don’t have the time to dedicate to it as I work anywhere from 40-80 hours a week and travel frequently. This post isn’t about that. However I am more than willing to answer questions or offer advice to the team in areas I think I could help.
I have noticed recently more and more threads with arguments on both sides surrounding the activity of the team (or lack thereof) and also the hobby/profit status of the project. I personally think that the team have done a great job of bringing this server to the community, however it may be that as time goes on the level of involvement that is currently possible will not meet the expectations of the community, especially those that are paying either subscription or making purchases from the game shop.
It is a very fine line to be walked between running this server as a hobby / having no formal responsibilities and the flipside, making money from it and bearing the load of the expectations of those paying customers.
I think that there are some areas that could help this, not all are simple or overnight fixes, but with consideration and time they could help the team and the community.
Forums:
LOMCN is great, please don’t get me wrong and the revival that has been seen since Chronicles is amazing. However at some point it would be a good idea from a management point of view to launch your own forums on the official website. There are plenty of cheap or free systems that take little time to implement, but give a greater level of control & delegation to the Chronicles team. You’ll see potentially why I think this after my other points.
Community Team:
There is quite a lot of forum traffic and getting to the important information through the general noise can be a difficult task. It would be a good idea to appoint a team (on the above mentioned forums) that can manage the community, moderate the forums and flag important posts back to the relevant team members.
Testing & Bug Reporting:
Long term you need a permanent test server and a team of testers. Picking that team isn’t an easy task and if needed I can share some ideas with Sam and the others outside of this post. But in general what you want to get is people that are looking to make the best of the server for all involved, that don’t show bias and are willing to test in detail as well as follow up with good descriptions/reports of those bugs.
If you don’t already you could do with an online reporting system, any kind of free helpdesk/support product will do (I’ve used Kayako and other similar ones in the past). This can be tied to the in game reporting if possible and could also be used for general game support rather than forums. The admin team and testing team would have access to review submitted tickets.
The way this could work is that the players report bugs, the testing and admin team review these reports, reproduce if possible the errors in the test realm and add additional details to the ticket where required. All of this additional information helps the admins to fix the issues. Priorities can be given to the most pressing issues so that they are highlighted to the admin team in order.
Trust & Responsibility:
I’m not going to flat out call anyone a liar, it isn’t constructive. However there have been incidents on the forum where it has appeared that the admin team have been less than honest with the community. I have no proof one way or the other, however I will personally attest to the fact that perception is the most important thing to keep positive.
I can tell multiple tales of corruption, lies, deceit and other very strange occurrences that happened throughout the lifetime of GameNetwork and QGO. I know in depth the lengths people went to, to cover up mistakes or misdoings, the lies that were told to the community and in the end, the destruction of a game that many loved.
Mistakes are made, people understand that. Just be honest and open about them. Everyone is human, and while the Mir community may be frightening at times, no one is going to hold a serious grudge over a simple mistake.
Summary:
About me:
Since I want this to come across from a position of experience and demonstrate I've been through all the pain, here is a little about me.
I have a long history with MMO’s, I have spent a lot of time with Mir both as a player and also with testing, community management, translations and bug fixing. I was involved with QGO (Euro Mir 3), iEnt (USA Mir 3) & Wemade (Global Mir 3).
I have also worked professionally in the MMO industry and I was in a small team during both the successful launch of a fairly large European MMORPG, as well as during the transition of that same game from a subscription model to F2P with item shop.
Now I design and build next generation data centre systems and private/public clouds (a little less rockstar than running online games).
I have noticed recently more and more threads with arguments on both sides surrounding the activity of the team (or lack thereof) and also the hobby/profit status of the project. I personally think that the team have done a great job of bringing this server to the community, however it may be that as time goes on the level of involvement that is currently possible will not meet the expectations of the community, especially those that are paying either subscription or making purchases from the game shop.
It is a very fine line to be walked between running this server as a hobby / having no formal responsibilities and the flipside, making money from it and bearing the load of the expectations of those paying customers.
I think that there are some areas that could help this, not all are simple or overnight fixes, but with consideration and time they could help the team and the community.
Forums:
LOMCN is great, please don’t get me wrong and the revival that has been seen since Chronicles is amazing. However at some point it would be a good idea from a management point of view to launch your own forums on the official website. There are plenty of cheap or free systems that take little time to implement, but give a greater level of control & delegation to the Chronicles team. You’ll see potentially why I think this after my other points.
Community Team:
There is quite a lot of forum traffic and getting to the important information through the general noise can be a difficult task. It would be a good idea to appoint a team (on the above mentioned forums) that can manage the community, moderate the forums and flag important posts back to the relevant team members.
Testing & Bug Reporting:
Long term you need a permanent test server and a team of testers. Picking that team isn’t an easy task and if needed I can share some ideas with Sam and the others outside of this post. But in general what you want to get is people that are looking to make the best of the server for all involved, that don’t show bias and are willing to test in detail as well as follow up with good descriptions/reports of those bugs.
If you don’t already you could do with an online reporting system, any kind of free helpdesk/support product will do (I’ve used Kayako and other similar ones in the past). This can be tied to the in game reporting if possible and could also be used for general game support rather than forums. The admin team and testing team would have access to review submitted tickets.
The way this could work is that the players report bugs, the testing and admin team review these reports, reproduce if possible the errors in the test realm and add additional details to the ticket where required. All of this additional information helps the admins to fix the issues. Priorities can be given to the most pressing issues so that they are highlighted to the admin team in order.
Trust & Responsibility:
I’m not going to flat out call anyone a liar, it isn’t constructive. However there have been incidents on the forum where it has appeared that the admin team have been less than honest with the community. I have no proof one way or the other, however I will personally attest to the fact that perception is the most important thing to keep positive.
I can tell multiple tales of corruption, lies, deceit and other very strange occurrences that happened throughout the lifetime of GameNetwork and QGO. I know in depth the lengths people went to, to cover up mistakes or misdoings, the lies that were told to the community and in the end, the destruction of a game that many loved.
Mistakes are made, people understand that. Just be honest and open about them. Everyone is human, and while the Mir community may be frightening at times, no one is going to hold a serious grudge over a simple mistake.
Summary:
- Put the systems in place to support the team and users.
- Delegate and expand where possible (this doesn’t mean you have to give anyone GM or access to the server).
- Be open and honest at all times.
About me:
Since I want this to come across from a position of experience and demonstrate I've been through all the pain, here is a little about me.
I have a long history with MMO’s, I have spent a lot of time with Mir both as a player and also with testing, community management, translations and bug fixing. I was involved with QGO (Euro Mir 3), iEnt (USA Mir 3) & Wemade (Global Mir 3).
I have also worked professionally in the MMO industry and I was in a small team during both the successful launch of a fairly large European MMORPG, as well as during the transition of that same game from a subscription model to F2P with item shop.
Now I design and build next generation data centre systems and private/public clouds (a little less rockstar than running online games).
