Rappelz and survace
Ok a couple of things so i don't go and get my head bitten off though i am quite shure that its going to happen anyways one way or another... One im not trying to endorse this game and say look here play this game, and yes this is more pointed towards the devs.
Now that that is done with I've been off playing the majority of my free time on a free MMO called Rappelz, it has good graphics and gameplay but one of the best assets i believe is the company. This was origionaly a korean game but there are other versions now, thing is the company that runs it is great! Its not some huge company like SoE (which my dad is a part of n.n sorry to gloat) or Blizzard, they are a small company i believe like Tulga or EI or Pixel. The thing that makes this company so great is the level of work and communications they put into their games and communities. If a server goes down or there is any hint of trouble one they will post it up on the message boards ASAP and two if the game and server is up they will make a world wide announcement. Something like: Hey the doungen raids are not working and will probably be forced an hour ahead we are working to solve the issue we will put out notice when it is fixed.
Aside from communication they run three games, and are working on the fourth one, all of which they add and do weekly matinence. Oh look the map is wrong in this area, next patch... Fixed! Oh look this is still not working, ok so we are going to work on it some more... soon after, Fixed! Correct me if i am wrong on this but this company seems to be doing ok with updating 3 games and is still a relitavely small one, it would seem that Pixel or EI could get much more done, of course im no expert on programming and game design as much as i would like to get into the field.
Another thing that I think is a very good move for this company is the fact that they appoint VGG's (Voulenteer game guides) and VQA's (Voulenteer Quality Assurance) who are given badges to stand out. VGG's help to answer many questions that arise and are usually in contact with some GM/dev to help the player out of their situation. Im not shure exactly what VQA's do though... *shruggs*
What im shure what everyone agrees needs to happen is a much more of a trust and communication inbetween the devs/gm's and the player community. It doesn't need to get to everyone's personal whims but i think players should have a right to know what is happening in the game that they are playing. Im just giving Rappelz as an example because i've played it for a while and i believe it to be a good prime example.
*bows*
