What started as a conversation over dinner in Austin between Chris "Vosx" Mancil (Trion), Sean "Ashen Temper" Dahlberg (Bioware), and Deyth will now be a full-fledged panel discussion at the Austin Game Developer conference this September. Trion World, the publisher for a number of MMO's in development, will be bringing together a handful of guild leaders to shed some light on guild workings and their industry relevance. Here's the official panel submission:
Quote:
Title: Making the Grade: What Gaming's Premier Guilds Really Think About You
Presentation Format: Lecture
Secondary Presentation Format : n/a
Audience Level : Intermediate
Presentation Description: Massively Multiplayer Online Games revolutionized our industry and redefined entertainment for an entire generation. While multiplayer clans and online teams were a common fixture in competitive gaming before, MMO Player Guilds transformed the way our online worlds evolved, how our communities developed, and occasionally – how our games died. Spanning Meridian 59 to Age of Conan, this panel will assemble five Guild Masters from gaming´s premier player organizations to discuss the state of MMO gaming from top to bottom. Why they choose some games and quit others, how they approach beta testing, what they love (and hate) about our games, and what they still hope to see. Meet Sinister's Bone Dancer, Combine's Deyth, Conquest's Zav, Shadowclan's K'Dahbruh, and Lords of the Dead's Lord Hades.
What is the idea takeaway from this presentation?: The audience will get an in-depth perspective of how are games are viewed by a core constituency of our consumers. What motivates these Guilds to play games, how best to communicate with them, and what factors in game design, community management, and customer service affect their product decisions. In effect, this panel will let incredibly dedicated consumers instruct and inform open minded game developers, community managers, and marketing professionals.
Extended Abstract/Outline:
1. Introduction of the Guilds
- A brief history of their Guild founding
- The Games have they played
- What game do they currently play
2. What has been the best MMO game(s) for them in the past ten years and why?
- What was the worst MMO game experience and why?
3. When evaluating a new MMO to potentially play, what factors do they consider?
- What makes them decide to join a game?
- How important is the beta test in that decision?
- How does each guild approach beta testing?
- What makes them leave a game?
4. Why Has World of Warcraft Dominated the MMO Space?
5. What went right and wrong with Warhammer Online and Age of Conan?
6. How important is the launch of a game to you?
- Bugs & Stability
- Community Management
- Customer Support
7. What is your dream MMO game?
- What features must it have?
- What can´t be in the game?
- What is the ideal cost?
8. Question & Answer Session from the Audience
Track: Social Networking & Community
Secondary Track : n/a
UPDATE: You can download the session audio here. There are a lot of ways to play the FLV format, including VLC player which is one of the more popular media players around.
Raph was one of the names mentioned as being excited. Nothing like this has been done before; it's usually industry to industry.
Color me surprised then because we're mostly PVP guilds, and he's always seemed to dislike PVP. Even though we are all PVP guilds, we still have to master PVE, crafting, etc to be competitive in their games.
We cover the spectrum. All of us do PvE and PvP with Shadowclan also doing RP. Conquest and Combine both began as PvE guilds and that's still what CQ prefer.
They had a similar track at the AGC I attended a few years ago. Included on the panel were some folks from Terra Nova that conducted some academic studies of players and the guilds they form. This is a pretty logical extension.
Anyone got a link to what Terra Nova covered in the past at AGDC?
What I find ironic about a lot of these educational hacks writing about guilds is that they:
1. Don't usually play in decent guilds
2. Their survey feedback is too spotty for good analysis
3. The feedback is heavily WoW dominated
I had a similar reaction. I'll see if I can dig up the link/notes to my coverage of the panels. Its been going on for a few years though. IIRC, the one I remember was about the transition from Lineage II to WoW as a guild. Nothing particularly revolutionary as a result.
1. WoW bullshit
2. Kids n Gamez
3. EvE being the standard for mmo economies
4. Lots of BS about virtual worlds
5. Link a Nick Yee article about guild leaders
It amazes me these people are respected in the community and somehow considered to be experts on guilds.
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Austin Game Developer Conference - Guild Leader Panel
10-09-2009 11:46 AM
