Sean Bulger's Column

Sean Bulger's periodic community column today looks at the concept of Open PvP (player vs. player) and what it does to games and their communities.

A while back we talked about conflict between players and what sort of a role that it can play in a game and for communities. During this, it was noted that player competition can be implemented in numerous different ways. This week, I would like to revisit this discussion and talk about one of those particular methods: the open PvP world.

Open PvP is one of the more controversial topics in MMO circles and plenty of people have fairly strong opinions one way or the other on the subject. That said, I would like to explore both the positive impacts and negative ones on the player community. Open PvP has the potential to help bond a community fairly tightly, but it also has the potential to truly tear it apart as well.

Read more after the leap.

Sean Bulger is back with a new column in his bi-weekly look at issues of community and MMOs. This column focuses on player made content: what's good, what's bad.

As strange as it may seem to some, there are plenty of people out there who enjoy creating things by using parts of the game they play, or by creating something for the game. Even more people like to enjoy those creations - more so the videos in this day of age. This is also something that developers could take advantage of when trying to build a strong community.

Read more after the leap.

In this edition of "Community Column", Sean Bulger follows on his previous look at pre-made factions with player-made factions and how they relate to community in MMOs.

EVE had its empires: the Amarr, the Gallente, the Caldari, and the Mimnatar (woo!). However, in all reality, these empires were largely background for the game, racial options, and a way to divide up ships for players. The Empires weren't really factions in the sense that the realms of Dark Age were - well, at least not at the time of writing. Instead, EVE focused on the player-created corporations.

Now, if you are a new player to EVE, you may not really realize just how much of an effect on the game that these player corporations have. In fact, many smaller corporations have rather small effects. However, out in lawless space, it is player factions that fight over the control of huge sections of the galaxy and resources in a quest to control space, crush foes, and become rich.

Read more after the jump.

This week's "Community Column" from Sean Bulger looks at the concept of pre-made player factions in games and how they enhance or effect community.

In light of the current 'political season', so to speak, I would like to take a look at one area of gameplay in MMOs that truly does have a strong impact on player communities: Player factions. Now, when I speak of something like factions, I do not specifically refer to guilds. Rather, factions are groups of players within a game that are, generally speaking, opposed to each other, and/or have some sort of conflict or even more political relations with each other. They are also often encouraged by gameplay.

Many games see aspects of factions such as these within them. Dark Age of Camlot, World of WarCraft, EverQuest 2, Final Fantasy XI, PlanetSide, and even games such as EVE Online and ShadowBane have various types of factions that players can join and/or create.

Read more after the jump.

Sean Bulger's community management driven column this week is called "Emergent Gaming". He looks at the upcoming trends in gaming and how that relates back to the community.

This could appear in several different forms, one of which is known as emergent gameplay. Emergent gameplay has been a popular phrase lately. Effectively, it is players doing something with a game that the game wasn't actually designed for. Races in MMOs, creating pictures with gold in Lineage 2, or using grenades to launch vehicles or players in the air in spectacular ways in FPSs, are all prime examples of this.

In fact, there are some games out there, and in the works, that are built entirely upon the principle of emergent gaming. They aim to give players tools, as opposed to game systems, with which they can create their own gameplay.

Read more after the jump.

In his latest article, community columnist Sean Bulger looks at "The Site Beyond the Game". This community management focused column looks at official sites, how different games do it and what else is out there.

Every game has an official site for various reasons. The official site of a game is either an important hub of information and activity or it is simply a marketing page trying to draw players in. Or sometimes it is both, like how Sony Online Entertainment sets up their websites - the main page being a flash page used to draw players in, while also retaining forums and the Players websites.

Read it all after the leap.

In Sean Bulger's latest column, he looks at the idea of competition between players as part of building an MMO community. Every other Wednesday, Bulger chimes in with a new community focused column here on WarCry.

One of the most controversial topics you'll run into with online game development - but certainly far from the only one - is competition between players. The very idea of Player versus Player (PvP) content can scare off a number of players and make plenty more question the potential community of any game with it. It would seem that a fairly large amount of MMOers believe that PvP is detrimental to their enjoyment of the game, that it draws in a fairly bad crowd, and it hurts the community for a game. Between the PvP severs of most games and the popularity of primarily PvE games and PvE content, tends to showcase this mindset.

Read more after the leap.

Today we introduce a new column to our schedule. Every other Wednesday, Sean Bulger will check in with his look at communities and design. In the first edition, Sean introduces us to his column and talks about players as a resource for development.

While it certainly does come off a bit grim to refer to players as a resource, we are. In fact, we are probably the most important resource for an MMO. When a game begins to fail and starts to lose players it tends to cause a landslide - when enough people leave a guild, they often take other guild members with them. When enough players leave a server, server merges are needed. Many people play MMOs because they are filled with other players - even testimonies from primarily solo-gamers still mention that other players filling the world is a positive thing for them. It is what separates these games from single player, or normal multiplayer games.

Read more after the click.