When Sanya Weathers left EA Mythic it was a huge hit to the community. Sanya had been with Mythic for a long time and had a huge role to play in the shaping of the DAOC community. When looking back at my time in DAOC there are only two names that come to mind right away when I think about Mythic: Sanya, and Mark Jacobs. That type of lasting impression says something about a person. As Community Manager I would have expected as much from Sanya. She did her job well and I rarely had any complaints. When we lost her I had hopes for the community still. We had Richard Duffek (Or Richard Cox now that he has legally changed his name) to help coordinate the community.
Richard was different than most Community Management. Many times when you think of Community Representatives (CR’s) you immediately think ‘customer service’ and that robotic lifeless relation between a company and the players. In many cases this is true, there are CR’s that take a more behind-the-scenes approach. Richard wasn’t that way. He was ‘real’ with the players and related to the community as one of us, instead of “One of them”. He gave it to us straight up. While there was never much that Richard could tell us about due to the NDA he never stopped trying to communicate and keep the lines open. Due to not being in WAR Beta I can’t comment on his interaction behind the scenes on the beta boards; not that I could if I was in beta due to the NDA anyway. Known for his sarcasm, cat pictures, and human approach to community management, Richard will be missed sorely.
So where does this leave the Warhammer Community? In the last… oh maybe 6 months or so… we’ve lost two fine community leaders. According to the WAR Herald announcement we have James Nichols and Missy Hatch as Community Coordinators. I want to talk a few minutes about these two and share with you why I have reservations about them. James Nichols, you may know him as “Elrar”, was the CM for Vanguard. I can’t honestly say that James did a ‘bad’ job given the circumstances but I have some concerns. James has shown that he takes a more straight-laced approach to his job. When James was with Sigil working with the Vanguard community we would beg him to post on the boards and work with the community. Working closely with the Vanguard Vault (IGN) I can say that we never had the attention from James that we deserved. There were times when having an official community rep’s presence on the various fansite boards would have done wonders. The community was left with nothing but questions. Where was James? Why didn’t he post or communicate with us at all? Did he not care? James has posted a total of nine(9) times on the Warhammer Alliance site and only twice(2) on the Warhammer Vault. That’s not enough interaction.
It’s not my goal here to put James down in any way or be over critical. My concerns are shared with many in the Warhammer Community. We NEED a community manager and a team of community coordinators who know our players, want to work with our players, and who will LISTEN to our players and relay what we have to say to the right people. We need a presence out there! Now to talk about Missy Hatch. I do not know much about Missy at all – and there’s the problem. Missy has been working with DAOC for a while now and from what I have researched and learned she was not very popular on a few boards. Missy is, like James, more a behind the scenes type. Posting announcements and information from behind the cover of the Herald instead of getting out there and talking with the players has been her approach. She made her FIRST post on the Warhammer Alliance boards yesterday. This type of community interaction is not acceptable for Warhammer Online.
Like I said about James, my goal is not to criticize these two into the ground. I am however going to say it exactly how it is and state right here and right now. There’s cause for serious concern. James and Missy I implore you to please take a more active role in the community you now coordinate – it’s time to get out of the back seat and drive. A game like Warhammer Online needs a strong representation to the devs. This game is all about communication, community, balance, and player run pvp. Warhammer has no official boards and will have no official boards. We do not want another Vanguard blackout here.
Richard changed his last name to Cox? Excuse the cliche, but “wtf?”
As for your concerns, give them a bit more time than a few days to prove themselves. If things haven’t ramped back up to Richard and Sanya’s activity over the next couple weeks, then there’s cause for alarm. They’re just now settling in, as I see it.
My sincere hope is that James and Missy will continue a strong presense at sites like Only-WAR, Warhammer Alliance and WAR-RVR . . . HOWEVER . . . I hope that they will establish a presense that has been lacking thus far at Total Warhammer and Warhammer Conflict. Just because these sites are newer, does not mean that they should be totally ignored by the EA Community Managers. Neither site is on the “official links” list, and neither site has an EA Mythic presense on it.
I wrote to Richard and James several times asking that Warhammer Conflict be included on the official links page. It’s not important to me personally, but I do feel like my site will give a fresh viewpoint on several topics. While Richard talked to me about several topics via e-mail, he (nor James for that matter) ever spoke to me about the topic of getting my site on the official links.
I speak from experience from my two years as a Community Leader for another EA game . . . this is inexcusable. If EA Mythic isn’t going to support or have a presense on ALL the established WAR fansites, they shouldn’t have a presense in any. That’s favoritism, and they’re not going to get any value from reading things they are comfortable with.
Don’t bite off the hand that feeds you.
Peronally I think it is a HUGE mistake not to have official forums with which to do all this. Vanguard was a prime example of how to really screw your community over. We warned them in beta but they still took down the forums. Greater communication with their customers could have saved them alot of heartache and some lost revenue (nothing could overcome the disastorous “Vision”).
That said you can’t really expect them to be on “ALL” fansites/forums. It’s just impractical. I would rather see them select one or two (like they have) that have a high-amount of established traffic and provide an exceptional degree of contact with the communities.
Richards departure does worry me a great deal and I can only hope that they see the need to either get James or Miss Tach to step up or hire someone knew that is unafraid and capable of meeting the communities needs.
George, I have to respectufully disagree with you. But I’m not the type of person who won’t give reasons.
Vanguard – I don’t thnk official forums could have possibly done anything to save Vanguard. It was just a wash-out of a game. As you said, nothing could overcome the disastorous “Vison”.
Devs and WAR fansites – I disagree with your statement that Missy and James should just select one or two established, high traffic sites and stay with them The reason I say this is that they will always get robotic, pre-programmed opinions from them Perhaps a better solution would be for them to “rotate” what sites they would be on during certain time periods. Perhaps they could focus on two or three sites a week. This way, everyone will have an opportunity to get heard. Nothing against Warhammer Alliance, but if a new person starts an old discussion . . the thread is closed. That’s simply not going to hack it in the real world. We need fresh thoughts always – not just the archaic ones.
I will give you an example of why the devs should visit ALL sites.
There have been topics about death penalties on Warhammer Alliance and Warhammer Conflict. At Warhammer Alliance, the “high amount of established traffic” there disagree with death penalties.
Meanwhile, some members are FOR death penalties (and give reasons for their opinion on this). They also posted their opinions at Warhammer Alliance . . were jumped on by the members, and their opinions squashed by mods.
This is well within the rights of the mods at WHA, but it hardly gives a true measure of the thoughts of the community. It only gives the thoughts of WHA. This is not good, and is unacceptable to me.
Your job is to tell the truth or the truth as you see things. Never pull any punches guys. Why do you think I read this blog?
Community relations is where it’s at. If you do not interact with the folks that pay the bills then you will be looking for work someplace else. I hope they take your advice. I would hate to see Warhammer die at an early age.