NCsoft's heightened communication pleases fans

Tags : aion news, aion community, aion online

About a week ago, Aion's North American Producer, Chris "Kinslon" Hager, posted some translated patch notes from Korea's 1.9 Aion Client Patch, and, a week before that, North American Community Manager Andrew "Tamat" Beegle "leaked" the early patch info to Aion players via an iPhone picture of his super-secret meeting itinerary. If you consider it objectively, these two pieces of news are really the smallest of small tidbits when it comes to new information.

Anybody who's been eager to see what's beyond 1.5 has known for months that Aion's next big patch is set to hit in Q2 (so April-May-June of 2010), but just weeks prior to Tamat's and Kinslon's "leaked" info, Aion's fan base was awash with anger and disgruntlement. Flash forward to the present day and, while we wouldn't say that players are delirious with happiness, it is fair to say that there's a slight trace of optimism wafting in the air. Objectively speaking, Aion as a game has not really changed in the past month, but just looking at the attitudes of most fans, there is a palpable difference from a few short weeks back.

What gives?

Well, it just so happens that NCsoft is finally learning what many MMO companies have ignored (to disastrous results) in the past: the value of open, honest communication, even if it means asking for more time. For those of you who don't understand, allow us to explain. A few years after Asian MMORPGs hit North American markets, fans slowly began to realize that, for a lot of these F2P MMOs, their focus just wasn't on their western clientele. In reality, Asian MMO developers and North American publishers, wanting to break into the market early, rushed through their localization processes to get their games out as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, after these Asian MMOs were out in the public eye, many companies just couldn't spare the resources to devote themselves to continually localizing content for North America while also developing new content for their gaming communities back home. Ask any Asian F2P MMO veteran out there and they'll tell you the tale of some of their favorite MMOs that died because communication and player populations started out high, but new content would just start coming out slower and slower, and teams would become quieter and quieter until, eventually, the game would just fester on the spot with its dwindling player base.

Of course, with the rise of media relations and the power of the public image, many MMO companies took the age-old stance "don't pick up the phone if you don't have good news to share." In other words, they clammed up until they could get new content. Now, we're not too sure when this was considered a great idea in the business world, but what inevitably follows when a company remains silent about new content is that many players assume there just isn't any new content. Then, once you get to the point where players believe you've abandoned them, well, there's nothing stopping them from doing the same.

Even worse than company silence, however, is when a company is talking, yes, but they're completely ignoring your questions and they're just pretending that everything is sunshine and happiness. Go ask guys like Jon-Enée Merriex, producer of Sword of the New World, or Champions Online developers Cryptic. For each of these MMOs, subscription rates were tanking due to a lack of communication and lack of content from the development teams, and fans were not happy with the state of their game. Flash forward to today and both Sword of the New World and Champions Online are in the process of revitalizing their MMOs and rebuilding their player bases.

And the one common link connecting these two teams?

Both companies have stated that their one critical failure, and the one aspect they will focus on in order to re-establish their MMOs is more honest communication. Speaking on their revival of Sword of the New World, Producer Jon-Enée Merriex noted that "we've made mistakes, no doubt. The biggest being a lack of clear communication to the players letting them know where we are and what we are doing . . . So that means we (as a company) need to go the extra mile to communicate exactly what we are doing on a daily basis." For Cryptic, in response to a user who asked "what will you do to rebuild good faith in the company?" the Champions Online team stated that they would be "stepping up the communication . . . as soon as humanly possible," and that they were going to be "more open and communicative."

Ultimately, NCsoft's bold move to start honestly communicating with their player base has increased their subscriber's confidence in this MMO more than any 30 minute siege extension (as a demonstration that they were "listening to their community") could have ever done. All players really want is to know their voices are being heard and that something is being done behind the scenes. As to whether NCsoft can deliver new content on time (or more frequently!) remains to be seen, but at least let's hope that they'll keep on communicating, regardless of good or bad news.