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Archive for the 'Just Thinking' category

Where I Want To Be

May 31 2011 Published by Sanya Weathers under Just Thinking, Related To Work I'm Doing

As the seven of you know, I’m a show tunes junkie. Love ‘em. One of my favorite soundtracks is a show called Chess. You pretty much have to have personal memories of the Cold War to even get the show, and it doesn’t hurt to have some appreciation for the musical stylings of ABBA, since those dudes wrote the show. Aaaaaanyway, there’s a line from the show that goes “Now I’m where I want to be and who I want to be and doing what I always said I would and yet I feel I haven’t won at all.” I felt like that a few years ago, sitting at basically the highest point a community weenie can go without switching to production or marketing. I was finally a real director with a great team, and I was doing important stuff and invited to important meetings. (Oh, god, the meetings.) Heck, I was even important enough to bribe with sample packages of swag.

It wasn’t as much fun as I had thought it would be. And it… ended.

The last couple years have been quite a ride. I enjoy consulting, and setting up communities, and I even like writing white papers. But thanks to the economy going tits up, the consulting pickings have grown slim, unless you’re willing to gladhand and live on the road in order to get those pickings.

That was even less fun than I thought it would be, and I already had that pegged as “less fun than sporking out my own eyes.”

Fortunately, I’ve really been having fun at Metaverse, which has given me a variety of things to do. But the absolute most fun I’ve had in… oh, more than five years, at least… has been a plain old forum gig.

I had one of those falling off the toilet moments, and realized I need the equivalent of plutonium in order to function. I need a few hundred crazed MMO fans to interact with, inform, organize, and mock with lolcats. I have always known that I recharge my energy for this job by attending cons, player gatherings, and tradeshows. I just didn’t know how miserable I really was without that player interaction.

I also realized that I want to stay with MMOs. Real ones. I’ve got a couple of “social media” games under my belt, and I did the sports thing for awhile, but while those players are great, there’s just nothing like an old school MMO for attracting, well, my kind of nerd. I make D&D jokes…from experience. I have Magic cards. I can quote ad nauseum from Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Spaceballs, and Princess Bride. There are more than two thousand books in my house, and I’ve worn out more library cards than I have credit cards. I have six alts in LOTRO, five of which were created so I wouldn’t have to “waste” craft materials and recipes. I wept over Challenger and Columbia. That’s who *I* am, and for better and usually for worse, I’m probably not capable of changing.

All seven of you, and the three lurkers, nodded in recognition at nearly every point. Maybe you don’t match me exactly, but I’ll bet you’ve still got painted miniatures in your closet and the lyrics to Code Monkey memorized.

Finally, I have come to realize that while my PVP skills get worse every year as my reflexes dull to the point that I can’t fend off attacks from elderly beagles, my favorite kind of communities are around games with a PVP element. I don’t know what it is, and it’s definitely not the calm reason and dulcet tones with which you people conduct your arguments, but I love the energy and passion and fun.

So, that’s the what. The where is more complicated, but all things being equal, I’m happier at a startup. I love the can-do spirit, the energy, the risk taking, and the excitement. I’m not a microspecialist, mainly, though goodness knows there are other issues. One of them, oddly, is that I’m not very good at coming up with ideas when I have a big budget. I’m actually more creative when I’ve got to make something work with nothing but rubber bands and Excel.

That’s where I want to be, and I think that’s where I’m going. I’m gonna have some news in a couple days. Knock wood for me.

28 responses so far

Don't Assume, Don't Judge

Nov 04 2010 Published by Sanya Weathers under Just Thinking

Many of you have realized over the years that I am politically liberal. Please look up the original meaning of that word, and use that definition when trying to extrapolate my views. If you do that for me, I’ll use the original meaning of the word “Republican,” hmm? Small government, no interference in the private lives of citizens, etc?

Aaaaaanyway, the point is, I’m a big ol’ liberal, and I also have a big American flag flying outside my house. A nice one, too, no some crappy screenprinted piece of garbage made overseas. This baby is hand sewn and embroidered here in the USA out of weatherproof material. On the fourth of July I even recite the Pledge.

The flag belongs to all citizens of the USA. However, people see a flag these days, and they make certain… assumptions. All of my junk mail last month was from the Democrats, because that’s how I’m registered. (I tossed every bit of it, BTW, since none of it told me a single fact about the candidates and the issues – just a lot of vague nonsense. /rage) But my hand-delivered junk – a doorknob hanger, three flyers – was teeming with genuinely foul assumptions about minorities, gays, our elected President, and more. None of it was officially from any particular candidate, of course. But I felt ill that someone saw my beautiful flag and thought I must therefore be a piece of bigoted fecal material.

I mention this because I was doing a bit of moderating this morning for a community I’m working with. The issue at hand is a bit of a hot topic among members, and the combatants were getting mean. Lots of filter evasion, lots of vaguely racist innuendo, and the usual casual misogyny. I should be used to it by now, but every once in awhile, I look up and think… really? The worst thing you can be in the WHOLE WORLD is a girl?

Anyway, what made this particular bit of nonsense so fascinating was that this same forum has a “RL Pic” thread. I realize people can lie there, too, but honestly? People don’t, usually. There’s this deep hunger to say “this is who I really am” in humans that are willing to post pictures. (Also, the fakes are pretty obvious. Pro tip – if you are actually a blond model, wear the t-shirt from the game, don’t use shots from your portfolio because you’re still hot with a camera phone, and/or don’t use the first picture that comes up on Google Image search.) So, unusually for a message board, I had some idea as to the race/gender/age and in some cases orientation of the people screaming at each other.

I wanted to scream back. I wanted to grab people by the necks, bash their heads together, and say, “LOOK. The rule against using slurs isn’t because we’re “politically correct.” It is because words HURT people. You are using words that are causing pain, words that cut, and you’re slicing up the same people who are on your side in this ridiculous and pointless argument. Why would you stab your own friends? Who told you this was okay?”

I wish I could tell you I had a solution. But all I can do is keep flying my flag, keep banning people who think slurs are just words, and keep on hoping that eventually, someone will notice.

15 responses so far

Derivative Trash

Sep 15 2010 Published by Sanya Weathers under Just Thinking, Related To Work I'm Doing

I put up a post on the Mod Squad blog, saying that it’s a hell of a lot easier to retain your own audience than to retain someone else’s. I thought the seven of you would get a kick out of knowing that the column grew out of a rant that I nearly put up on a message board. Here was the post I deleted:

Or maybe [this game] should go after its own customers. Going after the “WoW market” or the “EVE market” or anyone else’s “market” is self-limiting and the cause of a whole lot of derivative garbage.

What the hell does “the XYZ market” even mean in this context? If you think everyone playing an MMO… a virtual freaking WORLD… is there for the same reasons, or even the same reasons every day, you are either ignorant or… no, you’re just ignorant. Because assuming any market is homogeneous is ignorant, and flat out dangerous for those of us who are trying to create worlds.

We’re not going to get “X market” anyway. That group is happy playing X. We should be looking for people who want something different from X, or tired of X, or never really liked X in the first place but their guild leader did, because they are the only ones likely to come over to us and stay there. (If you’re here because you’re so happy playing X, well, you sure bitch a lot about it.) I can see including [design element], but only because there’s no point in reinventing the wheel, not because X has the final word on what makes a great game.

To your other suggestion, “X Game in Y setting” is stupid. People playing X like that particular setting. Just because the underlying code mechanics of a video game laser are similar to a video game crossbow doesn’t mean that you’re going to convince all the Renn Faire people that they’ve secretly been longing to fly spaceships. Go ahead. Come to the Maryland RennFest with me next weekend and ask the guy in the period-perfect Tudor outfit how he feels about the jackass in the Star Wars costume and Slave Leia companion.

You seven see why I deleted it, and moved it here. Someone asked me recently what I’ve learned in the last decade. Well, here it is. I’ve mainly learned that I can’t post the right thing in the wrong place.

22 responses so far

IP Blocking In a Global Society…

Aug 26 2010 Published by Sanya Weathers under Just Thinking

…is stupid. I understand the desire to guarantee profits. I grasp that people pay licensing fees in order to have exclusive rights within a territory. But there’s no “right to profit” anywhere that I’ve ever seen, and if we ever want to pay more than lip service to the concept of a global economy, we should pay attention to the world we’ve created that doesn’t have borders (beyond economic ones, a topic for a whole ‘nother rant).

At any rate, TERA just announced that they will not be IP blocking. Players can freely choose between North American and European servers. Bravo.

http://211.43.148.85/forums/showthread.php?t=9682

Money quote: In a time that players are becoming more connected around the world, we believe that IP blocking has no place in a world class Action MMO.

9 responses so far

A Sign Our Culture Is Broken

Aug 11 2010 Published by Sanya Weathers under Just Thinking, Meta Community

No kidding, guys, actual headline about a big league community manager: “…the White House press secretary’s candor may be a sign he should switch to less visible role.”

It is a standard of conventional wisdom that people are idiots, can’t handle the truth, and facts must be dressed up and spun in order to be palatable. And it’s a fact that people who do tell the truth are usually “in trouble” at best and run out of town on a rail at worst.

Now here’s my problem with the conventional wisdom, besides it being cynical: It’s not actually true.

An audience is always composed of two groups – one, actual customers (or voters or whatever). Two, people with their own agenda. You might as well blow off the second group entirely, because they are never going to listen. It does not matter how much time you spend on spin and packaging and whatever. They are going to find a way to twist your words, take quotes out of context, and if all else fails, lie. Why waste time catering to their nonsense? I’ll tell you what, if your community is bigger than a thousand people, you don’t have time. Your only hope is to break people off from the herd at live events and get through to them when they don’t have an audience.

The actual customers are different. You still want to put your best foot forward. You still want to choose the perfect words, the words that will communicate your feelings and your intent as well as the facts. You still want to convey a sense of inclusion, of partnership, of value. You need to be in sync with your team in terms of your message and your timing. And you should never be rude to an individual (rude to hypothetical groups/strawmen – we CM types call that a “technique”) and you don’t need to say every little thing that pops into your head at the instant it does the popping.

But you really, really don’t have to avoid candor with actual customers. When you think you do, then… and only then… is it time to switch to a less visible role.

8 responses so far

Real Names

Jul 07 2010 Published by Sanya Weathers under Just Thinking

Some thoughts:

- I’ve always said employees should be using their real names to provide transparency and accountability. If you can’t handle being the public face of a company and all that implies, get another job. It’s that easy. It is not always that FUN, mind you.

- My customers are not public citizens. Making them public citizens against their will is crappy. I can think of half a dozen reasons why someone should be allowed to be anonymous, and I’m not going to list them because any one of them is good enough. Want people to stop acting like asshats on the boards? Suspend in game accounts for out of game behavior. Hire more mods. Close the board. Whatever. This is just chickenshit.

- This will not kill WoW. Remember, the percentage of WoW customers who read [WoW's] forums is in the single digits. The number of people who post is even smaller. If this does anything major to their sub numbers, I’ll be very surprised.

- I am working for a number of companies right now and three of them were advised by their legal departments to… not do what Blizzard is doing. One does not allow me to use my real name despite my case for doing so. Another allowed me to use my real name after giving them something in writing that stated I absolved them of responsibility in the event of harassment or worse. And a third company doesn’t let ANYONE use any handle, in game or out, that Googles up as a real name lest the real owner of that name get harassed. As I said on Scott’s blog, Blizzard clearly doesn’t think they are liable. These three other MMO companies clearly think they could be. We won’t know the legal truth until Blizzard gets sued for wrongful death.

- Yes, I said death, and no, I’m not overreacting. Someone is going to get stalked through this tool because some whackadoodle fell in love with an avatar. Maybe the victim did a little roleplay and the stalker took it too seriously. Maybe the victim hurt the stalker’s widdle feewings during a message board discussion. Who knows. Marriages break up (and reform) every day thanks to MMO drama leaking out into the real world. Blizzard should know this better than anyone. Good lord, you can’t go a week without an international advice column posting some complaint about a spouse or a kid that is too involved in WoW. That’s not Blizzard’s fault.

But “Here’s the real name of the person who sexxored you and then changed her mind/called you an idiot in front of all your friends/won’t talk to you because you’re creepy” will lead to something disastrous. Unfortunately, the person to whom the disaster occurs will be one of the people who is sitting here today scoffing at the “scare-mongerers” and “alarmists.” Because the scare-mongerers and the alarmists won’t be posting.

38 responses so far