Devs and Community Management

My favorite EverQuest 2 developer is the tradeskill dev Emily "Domino" Taylor. One of the reasons is that she keeps us tradeskillers informed of what's going on and is actively seeking our feedback. She does this many different ways; from posts on the forums to hanging out on Test server and popping into the OGR chat channel during Online Gaming Radio's Tuesday night EQ2 program block from 4pm - 10pm PDT. Hmmm ... do you think that is where she got the idea for the Cloak of the Harvester shapechanging users into rocks? Yay Rock!

On Friday she posted on her blog about community management and some of the do's and don'ts of how to behave toward the player base. I thought about her post last night when I watched the video of the PvE panel at the Eve Online Fan Fest. Did they follow the rules? Do the rules change slightly when people are face to face instead of on a forum? Or possibly are Eve players just a bit unusual and require different handling? I'll post the video below for you to decide.





Yes, I know. Another CCP video. But I'm just fascinated by the devs and CCP's attitude toward the game and the players. In most games, if a dev came right out and told players they did something to make sure the players don't cheat, the players would take offense and the trolls would come out in force. In Eve, players take that kind of thinking in stride. New Eden doesn't just look like a dark cruel place; it is a dark cruel place and the players have developed that mindset.