June 2005
- Development and Live Team Dynamics Chris Richards
- Development and Live Team Dynamics Koster, Raph
- (no subject) Unknown
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? cruise
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from -Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? John Buehler
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? HRose
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? cruise@casual-tempest.net
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Damien Neil
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] John Buehler
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Yggdrasil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Richard A. Bartle
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle II Jaycen Rigger
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Richard A. Bartle
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Richard A. Bartle
- DGN: Reasons for play cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play Russ Whiteman
- DGN: Reasons for play Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play Sean Howard
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle Jaycen Rigger
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle Ren Reynolds
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Max Battcher
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Oliver Smith
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawned from...] Mike Rozak
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Jeff Bachtel
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damion Schubert
On 8/12/05, Jeff Bachtel <jeff@cepheid.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 11, 2005 at 03:00:09PM -0400, Michael Hartman wrote:
>> Sean Howard wrote:
>>> Developers need to start listening to the silent majority in
>>> these games. Failure to do so is creating negative experiences
>>> for gamers and sending them away.
>> This is right on the money. Developers need to understand that
>> the tiny vocal minority who writes 99% of the forum posts and
>> emails, represents less than 1% of their users. You cannot rely
>> on unsolicited player feedback.
[ snip ]
> Does anyone have any actual evidence to back their assertions that
> the desires of the "silent majority" differ significantly from
> vocal players?
> I would expect, without evidence to the contrary, that the desires
> of vocal players are the same, proportionally, as the non-vocal
> players.
This is absolutely true. On our Shadowbane boards, for example, the
people on the boards are much more invested in roleplaying than
those who don't read the forums. Here are some trends I've noticed
over my career.
1) Players on your boards are more hardcore than those playing the
game. They tend to like greater complexity. Newbie players are
almost never represented on your boards, since they don't feel
they can represent their opinions with confidence. Casual players
lack the time to play the game AND read the boards.
2) Players on your boards tend to be much more disgruntled than
your average players. If they were happy, they'd be... playing.
3) Players on your boards tend to consume all available content
about your game. They're the ones that read all of the lore, go
to all of the dev chats and find all of the previews about
upcoming content. As such, they are far better informed about
your game than the average guy playing it, and it's very easy to
forget that not everyone is so informed.
4) Players on your boards tend to be more educated. A couple of
reasons for that. One is that the community will eventually run
out people who can't express themselves fluently, but more than
that, people who post are people who love the game addictively but
can't play because they're at work. =)
5) Players on your boards can frequently have their opinions led
by a charismatic idiot, who will raise discussion on a topic to
the point where its deafening. As such, the entire community can
be convinced, for example, that thieves need nerfing, but if you
go into the game and ask about it, you'll find that people in-
game have a much wider array of opinions.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some. And this is in no way to suggest that
the forums aren't important. But it's crucial to compare the data
you get from them with data from other sources.
--d - DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Jaycen Rigger
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior Jaycen Rigger
- SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior Sean Howard
- SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior Damion Schubert
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] P J
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Jaycen Rigger
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Amanda Walker
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? cruise
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurt the MMO community? Darkwolf
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Vincent Archer
- (no subject) Unknown
- Re: Morris Cox
- BIZ: Customer Acquisition Costs in MMOs Vladimir Cole
- Castle Marrach Comic released under Creative Commons Christopher Allen
- Hosting questions Mike Rozak
- Hosting questions James Turner
- Hosting questions Mike Rozak
- Hosting questions Scott Jennings
- Hosting questions Mike Rozak
- Hosting questions ceo
- Hosting questions Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Hosting questions ceo
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) erik
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Michael Chui
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Richard A. Bartle
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) William Leader
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Erik Bethke
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) William Leader
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Jaycen Rigger
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Eli Stevens (WG.c)
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Akiba Liebskind
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Matt Chatterley
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) David Love
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Damien Neil
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Hulbert, Leland
- Attack System Dhiego Ramos
- Attack System Tiago Carita
- Attack System Damion Schubert
- Attack System Tess Snider
- Attack System Tony Hoyt
- Attack System Dhiego Ramos
- Attack System Matt Chatterley
- Hosting questions Frederick Nacino
- Hosting questions ceo