To my friends at PMOG/The Nethernet

As you may have heard, I no longer have the privilege of serving as your Community Mananger.  There are too many players to thank for making my time as your CM such a pleasure, so to everyone who I had the chance of getting to know, and those who I had yet to meet, thank you for a wonderful 15 months.

I have been lucky enough to have another company take me on as their Community Manager and Designer, which I’ll write more about in another entry.  Thanks to GameLayers, too, for seeing the potential in me, and allowing me the opportunity to learn an extrodinary amount about this industry.

To the Stewards:  I really cannot express in words how much your assistance made not only my working hours, but personal time, too, all the more manageable.  I applaud you for all of the hard work you have done for The Nethernet Community and will continue to do.  I am eternally in debt to each of you.

To the players: I hope you continue to foster the wonderful community you all have built around our little piece of the Internet.  I know I will never have the opportunity to serve a community as unique as yourselves.  I will sincerely miss our interactions.

To anyone who wants to get in touch with me: I am on AIM at burdenday, or you can e-mail me at burdenday at gmail dot com.

Again, thank you all – there are so many other things I could say, but I think this sums it up the best.

Yours,

Joe


Player Satisfaction: “setting and meeting expectations”

Bart Stewart over at Gamasutra recently wrote a short essay called “Game Development as Customer Satisfaction.” Throughout the essay he stresses that the MMO game genre requires companies to build a business model around making a case for continued play constantly, not just at purchase and not just around releases and updates.  Stewart also steps


Embracing “Problem Players”

In my humble opinion there is really no such thing as a “problem player.” If a person is genuinely interested in playing your game they can be engaged, if you’re willing to engage them, and their unsavory behaviors or actions rectified.
Early on in PMOG, we had a number of players who saw a gaping


Managing International Feedback

Not too long ago, I received a message from a player regarding some community relations faux pas Starbucks (and other companies) had encountered with residents and expatriates of Taiwan.  Over a year ago when PMOG went live with a huge amount of fanfare and international press, many residents of Taiwan politely wrote in to inform me that the designation