One of the goals of any Community Manager is to foster an environment of collaboration between their Community and Development team. At Paragon, I'm extremely fortunate to be working with a development team that is not only in touch with their Community, but is also willing to "open the door" to player collaborated game design.
Last November, we hosted the first ever Freedom Player Summit. The event was extremely popular with everyone who attended. Everyone loves to hear new and exciting information, and Paragon had plenty of that to share with the announcement of Issue 22 and the revamp of Dark Astoria. But the best thing to come out of the first "Pummit" wasn't the cool panels or reveals, but rather a panel that we ran during the middle of the day: the Design a Costume Set Workshop.
This was something that, to my knowledge, hadn't been done before; a group of MMO developers sat down with the players and actually hashed out, in rough concept form, a completely new bit of content. As an avid MMO player, I know this is something we usually only dream of doing. Actually being able to collaborate on new content for a game that we're passionate about is an idea we only get to wax philosophically about in the forums, and yet here it was, happening before our very eyes. Working together, members of the Art and Development teams and the players successfully pitched the very first Community collaborated content: the Retro Sci-Fi costume set. I'm proud of the Paragon development team for taking a major step forward in Community relations, and am thankful to have been a part of it.
Something I found even more awesome was that many of our players watching on Ustream were able to see the process and enjoy the positive atmosphere shared during the panel. What was unfortunate was that we weren't able to directly involve them more in the initial process. This sentiment was echoed in the following days by many Community members on the forums and Facebook. Rather than simply shrugging it off, Paragon decided that there was no reason this process couldn't be as collaborative as the inception. My hat's off to David "Noble Savage" Nakayama for taking the continuing discussion about what exactly "Retro Sci-Fi" is and what direction we should take for the upcoming costume set. I know that he spent many hours working with the players to really hone the direction we wanted to take with this particular genre, and I really feel like the concept nailed exactly the consensus. While Paragon can't do this with every Pummit costume set (dev already has a very strong idea of where it's going with the "Post Apocalyptic" costume set created during the 2012 spring Pummit...think "Australian Wasteland"), we definitely want to where it's possible. I'd also like to give special praise to Cheryl "Dink" Austin for all of her hard work with the Community to really deliver on the costume art side. Because of this, she's instantly become one of the most popular Red Names, although I'm sure it has nothing to do with bubble heads and glowing rings .
Here we are, seven months later, and I finally get to announce to you, the Retro Sci-Fi costume set will be available on the Paragon Market on Tuesday, June 12th, 2012 (as an added bonus, we're putting costume slots on sale this week, just in case you need room). It's been a long time coming, but I promise you; the wait was worth it! This is, in my humble opinion, one of the best costume sets Paragon Studios has released and will be enjoyed by many for years to come.
Thank you, the players, for your participation in this process, and thanks to the Paragon/COH development team for helping to make it all happen. I'll always remember this as a particularly awesome part of my career as a Community Manager.
-Z
(Bonus points if anyone can identify the inspiration of Black Pebble's screenshot above)
One of the goals of any Community Manager is to foster an environment of collaboration between their Community and Development team. At Paragon, I'm extremely fortunate to be working with a development team that is not only in touch with their Community, but is also willing to "open the door" to player collaborated game design.
Last November, we hosted the first ever Freedom Player Summit. The event was extremely popular with everyone who attended. Everyone loves to hear new and exciting information, and Paragon had plenty of that to share with the announcement of Issue 22 and the revamp of Dark Astoria. But the best thing to come out of the first "Pummit" wasn't the cool panels or reveals, but rather a panel that we ran during the middle of the day: the Design a Costume Set Workshop.
This was something that, to my knowledge, hadn't been done before; a group of MMO developers sat down with the players and actually hashed out, in rough concept form, a completely new bit of content. As an avid MMO player, I know this is something we usually only dream of doing. Actually being able to collaborate on new content for a game that we're passionate about is an idea we only get to wax philosophically about in the forums, and yet here it was, happening before our very eyes. Working together, members of the Art and Development teams and the players successfully pitched the very first Community collaborated content: the Retro Sci-Fi costume set. I'm proud of the Paragon development team for taking a major step forward in Community relations, and am thankful to have been a part of it.
Something I found even more awesome was that many of our players watching on Ustream were able to see the process and enjoy the positive atmosphere shared during the panel. What was unfortunate was that we weren't able to directly involve them more in the initial process. This sentiment was echoed in the following days by many Community members on the forums and Facebook. Rather than simply shrugging it off, Paragon decided that there was no reason this process couldn't be as collaborative as the inception. My hat's off to David "Noble Savage" Nakayama for taking the continuing discussion about what exactly "Retro Sci-Fi" is and what direction we should take for the upcoming costume set. I know that he spent many hours working with the players to really hone the direction we wanted to take with this particular genre, and I really feel like the concept nailed exactly the consensus. While Paragon can't do this with every Pummit costume set (dev already has a very strong idea of where it's going with the "Post Apocalyptic" costume set created during the 2012 spring Pummit...think "Australian Wasteland"), we definitely want to where it's possible. I'd also like to give special praise to Cheryl "Dink" Austin for all of her hard work with the Community to really deliver on the costume art side. Because of this, she's instantly become one of the most popular Red Names, although I'm sure it has nothing to do with bubble heads and glowing rings
Here we are, seven months later, and I finally get to announce to you, the Retro Sci-Fi costume set will be available on the Paragon Market on Tuesday, June 12th, 2012 (as an added bonus, we're putting costume slots on sale this week, just in case you need room). It's been a long time coming, but I promise you; the wait was worth it! This is, in my humble opinion, one of the best costume sets Paragon Studios has released and will be enjoyed by many for years to come.
Thank you, the players, for your participation in this process, and thanks to the Paragon/COH development team for helping to make it all happen. I'll always remember this as a particularly awesome part of my career as a Community Manager.
-Z
(Bonus points if anyone can identify the inspiration of Black Pebble's screenshot above)
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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios