Community Manager

[Alladania]

Off and on through the life of Horizons, there have been community managers. My mental picture is that the community manager keeps up with the forum and lets the ownership know the pulse of the community and then communicates back to the community as needed.

What do you see as the job of a community manager and do you think we need one at this point? Further - if we did have community managers should there be different folks for Chaos, Order, Blight and Unity?

This may well get moved - and that's fine with me. I was just curious as to the community's thoughts on this issue.

[Starmind]

I think they had something like this already (called lorekeepers or somesuch)
It would be a good idea to have someone who is well known and liked throughout the shard as a go-between for the community and the developers.

[Deth]

Ummmm no the closest thing we have is the CSHorizons, the lorekeepers were something that EI EI OH/PMI/Whoever talked about but like everything else all they did was talk about it.

[Helious]

In a lot of larger MMO the community manager is a fulltime employee (tradionally (as traditional as it can be in such a new technology) a first step into the company for a non-college grad) who jobs are not only to look after the forums, but also to the first point of contact with non-ingame problems, also acting as a promotions or public relations manager.

Do we need one for Horizons? At present probably not as the player base is so small but as the game goes forward and hopefully picks up subs then HELL YES (and my CV is available on request )

Do we need one for each shard? Well NCSoft Europe only has 3 for all of CoH/V one for the english forums, one for the german and one for the french. But there full time employee's and i guess in the first instance any CM's would be voluntary.

My thoughts are my own and don't always, if ever, make sense. You have been warned!

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Community Manager = Herder of Cats

Right now Horizons CS is enough of a benevolent, disembodied voice that I feel appeased when it talks.

[Velea]

Just a quick reply because it's "homework hour" at my house. There is a community manager, you know. Posts as Horizons CS, aka Reyem.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Reyem.

AMONG OTHERS it seems. I'm pretty sure that's Rick lurking behind that login some days. HE'S A SNEAKY GUY.

[Helious]

Just a quick reply because it's "homework hour" at my house. There is a community manager, you know. Posts as Horizons CS, aka Reyem.

**** i don't wanna work for that company any more, they even make their Forum Mod's do homework!

[Velea]

hehe... No. I have three school aged kids. Doing their homework with them is worse than I ever remember my own being. Anyway, that's done, so now to expand my thoughts.

First, I think that the community that posts here is small enough that we have the luxury of being able to have the developers keep pulse on the community on their own. They don't really need a "go between", and I personally appreciate that. I like that we hear directly from Horizons_CS, whomever he might be.

Second, I think if the community did get so big that developers couldn't keep up with the threads, it's better to have an employee of Vi. itself take on the role than to have it be players. Players are always going to be biased and unable to see the big picture in some ways. The person would also have to be a part of the "inside track" and have knowledge that a player shouldn't have so they can see the bigger picture. Players need to be able to be involved in their communities, that's a good thing. But CMs should have "distance" from the community that gives them a perspective of "developer" more than "player".

Last, I'd totally support "Shard Heralds" again. Shard Heralds kept a pulse on each of the different communities within the Horizons community as a whole and I really enjoyed those.

(And it still took me nearly half an hour to go from when I first started typing this to when I'm hitting "post", so forgive me if the thoughts don't flow well together. )