by Cody "Micajah" Bye
Over the last few months, there's been a general shift in the MMOG
industry. No, we're not going to be seeing more games using a
skill-based advancement system. Unfortunately there hasn't been some
dramatic achievement in server or graphical technology. On the
contrary, the shift that's been occurring centers firmly around the
fans. Since the beginning of MMOGs, fans have had varying relationships
with the developers of the games that they play. In
style="font-style: italic;">Ultima Online, Everquest,
Anarchy Online and Dark
Age of Camelot, players were given the ability to help
introduce the game to new players, helping alleviate some of the burden
from the developers and customer service representatives. But legal
issues soon squashed that practice as these fan volunteers did not have
the same sort of legal precedence that paid customer service
representatives held. Eventually, the relationship between the fan and
the developers faded away.
border="1">
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title="Checking the gauges">
src="/image/view/10289/thumbnail"
width="200">
style="font-style: italic;">Everquest used to
employ volunteers to be "Guides" for new players in the game.
Years have passed since those fateful days, however, and a new
relationship has formed between players and developers. Some games (
style="font-style: italic;">EVE Online and
style="font-style: italic;">Stargate Worlds for
instance) are hiring volunteers to perform particular functions in
their communities. Other companies reward their die-hard gamers with
free trips to events like BlizzCon and FanFaire. Instead of
disregarding the fans and what they have to say, developers are drawing
fans ever closer to their products and giving them more incentives to
become even more involved in the games that they're playing.
Now that relationship has grown even closer, the line between the
developer and the fan has started to fade once again and fans are
becoming trusted outside members of an MMOGs development team.
With the recent announcements and occurrences that have appeared this
summer, I think its time to coin a new term in our strangely cryptic
MMOG vocabulary. The best way to describe these highly trusted outside
individuals is to call them "fan-developers" or "fan-devs" for short.
There's no need to rub your eyes or re-read that sentence, I'm fairly
sure you read it correctly the first time. These fan-devs have been
springing up with amazing rapidity as more of these modern MMOGs draw
closer to their particular release dates. They can be called upon at
any time to help with the testing of features or giving demonstrations
at a convention.
border="1">
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title="Fire the canons!">
src="/image/view/10301/thumbnail"
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style="font-style: italic;">The Pirates of the
Burning Sea developers recently announced that they'd be recruiting a
bunch of fan-devs for The Boarding Party.
These are the fan-devs.
So what is the true definition of a fan-dev? A fan-dev is someone that
acts in a way similar to a true MMOG developer without being paid or
having the restrictions of a true developer. The most likely place you
might see a fan-dev is at a fan-oriented convention or event, where the
inner workings of a game aren't necessarily going to garner much
attention from the public at large. Fan-devs know a tremendous amount
about the game that they're representing, but may not have any
technical to speak of. These fan-devs may also work as event organizers
or feature consultants depending upon the fan-dev that you're talking
to. They are the true "face of the game," and developers have latched
onto this idea with a rabid fascination.
If you had the opportunity to read through the numerous articles the
Ten Ton Hammer staff
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/449">posted
during the Leipzig Games Convention, it was
obvious that there were a number of games and developers that surprised
us with fresh news, information, or media that we discussed with you
via our interviews and previews. However, few things surprised us more
than the video
interview we did with our first fan-dev. Before our interview
with the team members of Auran (developers of
style="font-style: italic;">Fury), they
suggested
that we also talk with one of their top beta players, Lee Romano. Here
was an individual that was flown out of the United States to Leipzig,
Germany, to represent a massively multiplayer online game in his
discussions and mannerisms. Auran and their PR company had no true
control over what he said or how he said it. Our executive editor, Jeff
"Ethec" Woleslagle, came out of the interview and told me that it was
one of the most frank and honest conversations he'd witnessed while
doing interviews. It truly impressed the whole Ten Ton Hammer crew.
Just a few days ago, the development team at Flying Lab Software (the
men and women creating Pirates
of the Burning Sea)
href="http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10424">announced
that they
were organizing what they called "The Boarding Party." In
essence, this
will be a select group of individuals that can organize fan events
(similar to FanFaire's or smaller gatherings), join developers at
conventions and shows, provide direct feedback to Flying Labs
concerning game features, and generally be a group that helps out the
PotBS development team. Much like the beta tester that Auran flew to
Leipzig, The Boarding Party may have members that fly to various
conferences or events to do demonstrations for people that are familiar
with PotBS.
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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/11291">
src="/image/view/11291/preview"
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style="font-style: italic;">For their Leipzig
GC crew, Auran brought over their top beta tester to talk to fans.
But why are these fan-devs suddenly sprining up? In truth, I believe
that the MMOG market is different than it once was. Many un-tested
developers run their studios with less money than they once did,
meaning that their budgets for staffing and travel are constricted
compared to their counterparts at SOE, Blizzard, and EA Mythic. For
Auran in particular, it makes no sense to constantly pay the hundreds
of dollars to send their developers over to the U.S. when they have
perfectly capable individuals living in our country that could explain
basic elements of the game as well as any developer. And when the press
interviews a fan-dev, they hear a voice that is incredibly enthusiastic
about a particular game, one that knows particular gameplay styles even
better than the devs themselves.
In the PotBS case, we have a studio that hasn't expanded to ridiculous
proportions like so many of their competitors. Without an enormous
staff, PotBS relies on fan-devs to organize events for fans, especially
for the regional areas. Being in Seattle, Flying Lab has no problem
creating a northwest based event, but providing for the northeastern
market would be more of a challenge. With several trusted fan-devs
located in New York or Massachusetts, PotBS can have an event presence
no matter where they go.
And in the case of any MMOGs, I've constantly heard how important it is
for developers to receive solid feedback from the fans; whether it's
good or bad. If a fan can explain why a particular feature doesn't
work, or why they don't like it, that's extremely valuable to any
development team. By organizing squads of these feedback groups, a
developer could unleash them on any game function that he wants to
implement before they ever put it out for the general public. By giving
their trust to these gamers, they are also showing their respect for
their opinions and skills, making that gamer even closer to the game
that he or she loves.
Thus, the fan-dev has been born. It's been years since we've seen such
a strong fan presence in our MMOGs, but the fan has returned. Now let's
hope that we're in these games to stay!
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To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Pirates of the Burning Sea Game Page.
