by Jeff Woleslagle on May 22, 2009
Welcome to the 1,085th Edition of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news and commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Today's newsletter pays tribute to Tony "RadarX" Jones on his final day here at Ten Ton Hammer, who's leaving to take a Community Manager position at SOE Tuscon. Coyote and the Ten Ton Hammer team have already found nice ways of saying goodbye, so Loading... will pay tribute by looking at what a Community Manager really does and why Tony's perfect for it. That plus six new articles and guides fill out today's Loading... Radar Love.
Coyote is back in a big way at Ten Ton Hammer, and his daily column explores all things geek with Coyote's trademark wit in It's All Geek to Me. Read it daily at Ten Ton Hammer! Today's topic:
The Pulse
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:
World of Warcraft Champions Online (UP 8 - read why) EverQuest 2 (down 1) Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (down 1) Lord of the Rings Online (down 1)Biggest Movers in the Top 20 today:
Copernicus (UP 25 to #14) Free Realms (down 5 to #19) EVE Online (down 3 to #8) Recent MMO Releases 4/28 - Free Realms (launch date) 5/11 - Chronicles of Spellborn 1.0.4 - "Scrolls of Keys and Courage" (patch) 5/15 - EVE Online Apocrypha 1.2 (patch) 5/19 - Warrior Epic (launch date) 5/19 - Vanguard "Halls of Pantheon" (content patch) 5/22 - Dragonica (CBT key giveaway) Upcoming Releases Summer '09 - Jumpgate Evolution (release date) 8/25 - CrimeCraft (NEW release date) 10/1 - Champions Online (NEW release date) Important Dates 5/30 - Final block of BlizzCon 2009 tickets on sale. 6/2 - 6/4 - E3 2009Loading... Daily
Today we say goodbye to one of the longest serving members of the Ten Ton Hammer team: Tony "RadarX" Jones, who's taking a Community Manager position at SOE Tuscon. After I got over the initial shock... not that Tony's leaving but that there's an SOE Tuscon (apparently that's where the Pox Nora live team is, along with perhaps a super secret project given all the latest staff moves at SOE), I realized what a great guy we're losing.
Tony's always taken all the tough assignments in his almost 4 years here (a lifetime in Internet years): the EverQuest 2 community site as the WoW rivalry began to fade, Tabula Rasa post-launch and in full decline, WAR when we were trying to ramp it up in a hurry. He was our community site utility guy because Coyote was right: he has a love for the MMORPG, not just a game. You have to if you're going to write about games professionally (or semi-professionally? prosumer-ly? ...whatever we do here). In retrospect, I think I was just subconsciously trying to keep him out of SOE's clutches.
But Tony escaped in the end, and he's perfect for the job. Few players really realize what a tough job Community Manager is. CMs are between a rock - player expectations - and a hard place - what the designers and execs want to do and what the coders, system engineers, and the like say is possible. Everyone else can hide in their cubicles and offices most of the time, it's your job to play arbiter on the front lines between the customers and decision makers on an hourly basis. You usually can't fix the many problems you run into daily yourself; you stall, appease, depend on those who can, and eat crow when they can't. Worst of all, you can't get drawn into a battle of words - you can kick or ban, but like all forms of Internet power, you're wise to use the extreme option moderately before you grow an unwanted reputation that you can never really shed.
CMs are often mercilessly attacked by the community they're trying to please, not because they're necessarily at fault, but simply because they're the most accessible. More than a few CMs I've talked to have drawn flak from the other side too - villified in their own offices for taking the player's position too strongly when the corner office-dwellers disagree. For all that trouble, you're on the suck end of the payscale in talent-magnet parts of the world where the cost of living is typically astronomical.
In the end, you have to have a passion for the game and its community and icewater in your veins. Luckily, Tony has all the requisite abilities. Just run those forum posts and memos through a spell checker first, Tony, and you'll be golden. If you had your own jersey number, we'd retire it (our jerseys do have numbers, actually, but they're all 10 and , so consider 11 yours), but if you ever want to make your post-retirement comeback, if Tuscon is a little dry for your tastes or maybe the cicadas and coyotes (no pun intended) are too loud at night, you'll always have a home here a Ten Ton Hammer. Boomjack said it, so it must be so.
We've got two "Goodbye Tony!" threads (one two) going at present, so I'd like to make today's thread in the Loading... forums a tribute to some of the best CMs you've come across. And enjoy the holiday weekend, or just the weekend if you're outside the US.
No Loading... on Memorial Day Monday, we'll be back on Tuesday.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of the Day6 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 73 in May! 599 in 2009!
New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today [Thanks Phil Comeau for links and Real World News]
Premium Content: Gamers Behaving Badly - Hacks, Griefs and CheatsReal World News
'Bazooka Joe' movie deal in the worksThanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
-Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team