Starseeker Community.
What does that word really mean in an MMO? We don’t live in the same neighborhoods, nor even know each other outside a virtual world, so what does a gaming community mean to those playing the game?
In the past few weeks, since SOE’s announcement of going free to play, I have been exploring other games that are out there. I’ve been trying to see what makes other games tick and what is missing from this game. I have been having a lot of fun being a part of communities who’s game hasn’t even released yet. Just a bunch of crazy gamers on a forum, talking about the game, discussing ideas for the game in question and what they liked and didn’t like from different games, discussing things out side of games and finding common ground. This is even before they can play their chosen game.
This got me thinking about EQ2, and what it’s lacking right now. I feel SOE has become detached from its community. I think it happened before free to play, and now that free to play is out, the writing is on the wall.
Sure we get a bone now and then about an update, an explanation about the newest release, or even a post about mechanics. SOE does throw fan faire, a great event to really catch a dev and speak to them. But the majority of the fan base can’t go to fan faire, due to lack of spots, money or what have you. Also it is sorta like talking to a politician on a campaign race…really how much of a difference is your one suggestion going to make? I thank SOE for putting on that great event, but in my opinion its not enough.
There are discussions on the forums every day about x thing that doesn’t work, about y mechanic that is broke. About what a class wants on the next expansion. However, most of these discussions are “reactive” in nature. Something is broke in the game, alright lets talk about it! I don’t see a lot discussion coming from those who created the game, they aren’t answering our questions, or even telling us their ideas anymore except for the rare post that you may find about a specific issue for testing.
I came across this thread today. Last year around this time, they had Q&A sessions each month, a series of questions and answers…we have 70 some odd questions just about free to play floating out there waiting for answers and all we’ve gotten is silence.
I also don’t see the interaction between the community and it’s managers (not just the current one) like we had a long time in the past, and that newer games have now. As one of the previous articles here on this website stated, why does eq2 only have 1 community manager that gives information to us, why don’t they have a couple to keep us together as a community and communicate with us?
I think SOE needs to communicate more with it’s player base. Honesty is the best policy, if they are going to make a decision, tell the community. Sure there will always be naysayers, but in the end, they will be dubbed semi-honest and less shady and they won’t loose the respect of most of their loyal players.
If a developer has an idea, they should share them. Not all of them of course, but the ones that will be a broad change. Or even ideas like “wouldn’t be cool if…what are your thoughts”. I will use the new UI for example, I think if they asked for player input on ideas that they would like in a UI that works for both new players and veterans, they could have came up with an awesome innovative UI that worked for everyone. Instead, they change it, then ask for feedback, then tell us that’s the way it is for the most part except for little changes.
I think in the end, the EQ2 community has lost it’s cohesiveness. We are split over free to play, and soon we will be split even further onto two separate forums. We are split over hardcore raiders and solo players. We are split over those who are disillusioned and dissatisfied and those who are happy with SOEs current status and decision making.
SOE needs to bring us back together, or we will find another community to be a part of that we feel like we are a part of.
In my opinion, the community is the biggest and most important part of an MMO, it is why I play the game.
The worst thing is Rothgar actually tried to develop a new UI together with the modding community but most ideas even he wanted to implement are not part of the new UI.
Therefore there are many new features like the hated XP-Bar (aka $C-Bar), that no one ever asked for and that are screaming F2P.
It is a sad tale, but it seams his superiors don’t share his ideas and don’t bother about the community. It is this attitude that will kill EQ2 in the end.
The community is why many of us joined EQ2 in the first place and stayed. Any game can develop content if given enough time, but it is the people that keep the game going. If you get out of touch with your community you will soon find no community left to get in touch with. 🙁
I, sadly, have to agree with the post and the comments. SOE, although mentioning everywhere that they want to “hear from us”, doesn’t seem to care about us in practice. They have 2 big mistakes imho:
1. They don’t seem to participate in people’s comments, questions, complaints of their community in forums even if there are 100 replies there. (there are 2 big forums that seemed to be alive atm: station.com and eq2flames.com) Some examples: People from Vox complaining about their dead server for 3 months // People make class guides which has many mistakes in it // Game mathematics and mechanism never being explained in detail // Guards complaining about low dps and their poor performance in pvp.. etc.
And Reaction of SOE to all those? Sadly, not a single comment, not a single correction. People still trying to figure out themselves what is going on.
2. They don’t ask peoples’ opinion when they are making a change or while designing an expansion pack. I’m sure, they are reading posts and getting feedback fro fan fares and test servers but that’s simply not enough. So game goes to a point in which people and probably, SOE themself hasn’t expected. (ie: WF and BG killed mostly zone groups and even raid groups in many servers.) I’m not saying that they have to make every change by asking to people; that would cost a lot of time and money of course. But, at least they could give some flexibility to people to make their choices.
And now they are announcing the new expack even without correcting those issues. Well, everyday they will be losing more people if they go like this. And such a great game they developed with great effort here would be a waste.