The Unique Language of MMO Community Managers

03 Feb 2011 at 16:12:34 by Jeff Hollis

Hello there, my fellow gamebois and gamegurls, and welcome to this week's community-oriented edition of MMO Weekly.   In this week's article, I'll touch upon a topic that at various times intrigues, infuriates, or confuses those new to the MMO genre.  Of course, I'm referring to the unique language spoken only by MMO community managers. 

What Language Do Community Managers Speak?

While there is no official designation for the unique language that community managers utilize, I like to refer to their style of communication as “CM speak”.  CM speak has several unique overall guidelines, and some specific grammatical rules.  We'll get to the importance of these rules, and the significance of following them, a bit later on.  In the meantime, just know that these rules didn't develop in a vacuum.  CMs have had to develop these guidelines the hard way, as the MMO industry has matured over the last 12 years.  These rules acknowledge that MMO gaming is an industry unlike any other.  In light of the unusual nature of MMOs and their fans, how do CMs communicate with their company's obsessive customers?

Rule 1:  Be vague. 

The key to CM speak is to be vague.  Whether writing on the official forums, or speaking to a member of the press, a lack of specificity is often very important.  As a community manager, you must be careful that you don't say exactly this, but you don't say exactly that either.  In broad general terms, you'll most often want to remain non-committal on many subjects. 

Rule 2:  Don't respond to trolls.

This is another broad, general rule that CMs learn to follow.  The internet is a place in which some not very nice people hang out.  These people are called trolls, and some trolls play MMOs.  The goal of these MMO trolls is to provoke the community manager into an outburst.  CMs have learned not to fall for their tricks, and they are now routinely ignored.

Rule 3:  If there is a real but non-critical issue, and the devs are addressing it, express concern in a non-committal way

Often a community manager will encounter a situation in which players are upset.  If, for example, a particular boss may be broken or bugged, a community manager would say, “Our development team is taking a hard look at this issue, and will be able to draw some conclusions soon.  Your input is extremely important in this process, so thank you for posting on our forums.”  See that?  The CM didn't commit to a fix, or a time frame, or any other specific remedy.  

Rule 4:  If the dev team is working on a feature that may never make it into the game, do not talk about it, at all, ever. 

If the dev team is working on a cool new transportation system that involves instantly teleporting players to pre-designated locations in every zone in the game, CMs have learned not to mention this.  It is only safe to begin talking about this when the community manager is 100% certain the new feature WILL be implemented.

Rule 5:  Express strong support for anything that is non-controversial.

Expressing the company's strong commitment to supporting guilds, fansites, the players, the community, podcasts, wikis, fan gatherings, etc.  Everyone agrees that these things are positive, and you, the community manager, should too.  This is simply good PR. 

Rule 6:  If there is a critical issue, verify it, ensure a fix is being worked on, and admit it.

If, for example, all the clerics are screaming, “Holy Smite is now totally gimped!” after the last patch, first look to see if the bug is real.  If so, admit it, prioritize the fix, and tell players that the devs are working on it.  Again, avoiding a specific time frame is a good idea, as the devs may experience delays.

Rule 7:  Do not talk in specific numbers.

If the dev team is working on having 8 top-level instances in the new expansion, do not ever say, “Yes, our dev team will have 8 full dungeons in the next expansion”.  Instead, the community manager should say, “In the next expansion, there will be multiple high-end instances, all of which are extremely innovative and will challenge the most advanced players.” 

Rule 8:  Everything you, the community manager, says is a rock-solid promise.

It doesn't matter how carefully you couch what you say – if you say it, it will be heard as a promise.  For example, if the community manager states that, “We are currently working on introducing 'prestige talents' into the game.  It's in testing right now, and may not work out, so it may never make it into the final game.”  What the players hear is, “We will soon be introducing 'prestige talents' into the game, probably in the next patch.  It'll be epic!”

Rule 9:  Everything anyone in your company says is also a rock solid promise.  So, do not let them do much talking.

You, the community manager, are the spokesman for your company and the game.  The dev who designed the PvP battle zones is not.  He should never talk to the public or the press without a bit of rehearsing, with the CM, first.  Remember, anything he says, no matter how speculative, will be taken as a promise of future features or upgrades.

Rule 10:  If you tell the players they'll be getting feature A, and instead give them equally good feature B instead, they'll flay you alive.

If the community manager should mention that the devs are working on the 'Lord Etherion's Vampire Enclave' instance, and that it's expected to go live this summer, it had better damn well go live this summer.  If, for example, the Enclave instance just never works out (vampires are notorious for having technical problems), and the devs instead develop the 'Captain Aqua's Undersea Kingdom' instance, don't think for a minute that players will understand the substitution, no matter how carefully you explain it.  Instead, the moment you mention the new instance, players will demand both the Enclave and the Undersea Kingdom.  If, for some reason, the Enclave never goes live, the community manager will be hearing about it as long as the game exists. 

Why These Rules are Important

It's important for community managers to follow these rules for several specific reasons.  First, the community manager is the spokesman for the company.  Like it or not, the CM is the person who has the most contact with the player base.  That contact is constant, day in and day out.  Second, unlike most other products, and even most other kinds of games, MMO players are notorious for frequenting the official forums.  This means they are expecting a level of interaction that is unprecedented in nearly any other industry.  The CM is the person responsible for providing this.

In part because so much communication takes place in the official forums, it almost guarantees emotionality.  MMO gamers (and everyone else) are used to seeing extreme emotional outbursts on the internet; that makes it seem ok to have these overreactions on the game's official forums as well. It is now widely acknowledged that anything a CM says will elicit a range of openly emotional, and frequently negative, responses.  This is doubly true if the topic at hand is unavoidably controversial, or if the CM says anything that isn't thoroughly diplomatic. For example, while nerfing is a necessary fact of virtual life, even the most even-handed nerf will elicit howls of outrage.  

Beyond this, MMO players tend to be an impatient lot; they are looking for fixes, changes, and improvements to the game now.  It is difficult for them to understand the challenges that developers face, and that bringing changes to their beloved MMO takes time.  When community managers discuss possibilities or potential changes to the game, players will take them as promises.  As the MMO industry has matured, CMs have had to learn the art of ambiguity in dealing with these circumstances.

In a nutshell, then, for two primary reasons, the CM is in a unique position.  Unlike his peers in other industries, the MMO CM  is responsible for communicating with a uniquely enthusiastic customer.   This customer has purchased a product that is ever changing, and he is not likely to enjoy every change that is made.  Beyond this, his primary contact with that customer is via community forums, in which emotionality is both accepted and expected.  As such, the MMO CM has had to develop a unique form of communication, CM speak, to both survive and thrive in the volatile (though enjoyable) world of MMO community management. 

Opinions?  Rants?  Insights?  I'd love to hear what you thoughts on this topic.  Of course, if you enjoy these kinds of MMO-musings, please feel free to visit me over at my new project (writing, obsessing, and podcasting about Star Wars: The Old Republic), TORWars.com. We'd love to have drop by.  But for now, ciao!

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