Features

Sean Bulger is back with a new column in his bi-weekly look at issues of community and MMOs. This column focuses on player made content: what's good, what's bad.

As strange as it may seem to some, there are plenty of people out there who enjoy creating things by using parts of the game they play, or by creating something for the game. Even more people like to enjoy those creations - more so the videos in this day of age. This is also something that developers could take advantage of when trying to build a strong community.

Read more after the leap.

This week's "Community Column" from Sean Bulger looks at the concept of pre-made player factions in games and how they enhance or effect community.

In light of the current 'political season', so to speak, I would like to take a look at one area of gameplay in MMOs that truly does have a strong impact on player communities: Player factions. Now, when I speak of something like factions, I do not specifically refer to guilds. Rather, factions are groups of players within a game that are, generally speaking, opposed to each other, and/or have some sort of conflict or even more political relations with each other. They are also often encouraged by gameplay.

Many games see aspects of factions such as these within them. Dark Age of Camlot, World of WarCraft, EverQuest 2, Final Fantasy XI, PlanetSide, and even games such as EVE Online and ShadowBane have various types of factions that players can join and/or create.

Read more after the jump.

Jim Moreno gets back into the groove in 2008 with his latest column: Roleplayers Set S.A.I.L.! This is an acronym for "speech, actions, interactions and look", which are to him four main traits roleplayers focus on. Every other Monday, Moreno brings us a new column where he focuses in on issues that are important to roleplayers.

Taking a good look at my fellow roleplayers in the four MMORPGs I play, and across many other RPGs I've played, I see a vast number of ways we display our RP talents, way too many to count. Yet, I think these methods may all be categorized under four main traits that we focus on - speech, actions, interactions, and look - and are very easily remembered with the acronym SAIL.

Read more after the leap.

In his latest article, community columnist Sean Bulger looks at "The Site Beyond the Game". This community management focused column looks at official sites, how different games do it and what else is out there.

Every game has an official site for various reasons. The official site of a game is either an important hub of information and activity or it is simply a marketing page trying to draw players in. Or sometimes it is both, like how Sony Online Entertainment sets up their websites - the main page being a flash page used to draw players in, while also retaining forums and the Players websites.

Read it all after the leap.

Jonathan Steinhauer's bi-weekly Monday column looks at the "level barrier" in its latest edition. Within, he examines the very concept of levels that most MMOs embrace and what's wrong with them.

Looking more into levels within games, we find that their use a broad statement of experience demands a certain rigidness of focus. Only a few rare exceptions (such as Neverwinter Nights where an adventurer can have more than one character class) allow for greater flexibility of experience. But if you were to twist character levels and actually measure real life experience, would it be absurd to find a man that is a Level 25 computer programmer, a Level 30 husband, a Level 10 bowler, and a Level 42 chef? Not at all.

Read more after the leap.

Today we introduce a new column to our schedule. Every other Wednesday, Sean Bulger will check in with his look at communities and design. In the first edition, Sean introduces us to his column and talks about players as a resource for development.

While it certainly does come off a bit grim to refer to players as a resource, we are. In fact, we are probably the most important resource for an MMO. When a game begins to fail and starts to lose players it tends to cause a landslide - when enough people leave a guild, they often take other guild members with them. When enough players leave a server, server merges are needed. Many people play MMOs because they are filled with other players - even testimonies from primarily solo-gamers still mention that other players filling the world is a positive thing for them. It is what separates these games from single player, or normal multiplayer games.

Read more after the click.