MMO players are a devoted lot. When we're not actually in our game of choice, we're often on forums arguing about the latest patches, researching new talent builds to make better use of our given class' abilities, or blogging about recent experiences. A tremendous amount of energy goes into making an MMO community what it is, both in and out of the game. But as wonderful as player enthusiasm can be in its many forms, it is frequently ignored or utterly under-utilized by game developers. And as blogger Aspendawn reflects in a recent post,
when they do throw their weight behind community events, their support tends can be quite hollow -- as was the case with the
EQ2 "Guild Recruitment Fair" pictured above.
Her call for more developer-sanctioned mentoring systems is also spot-on, particularly for games that have been around for a while. Even if a community is friendly and welcoming, it can be intimidating jumping into a PUG when you don't quite have a grasp on your class' role just yet. We'd also love to see more events like
Tabula Rasa's Friday Night Fights--events blossoming from the minds of creative gamers and taking official form with the addition of
actual in-game assets to support them. It's not all fancy graphics and epic lootz, we want community too!
