Frank: Andy, we're very familiar with one another since the podcast, so I thought I could ask some questions and specifically focus on communities and blogs and contributions like that. So tell me some of the things when you're actually rolling around reading more blogs or reading community posts that fans have made, what are sort of the hotbutton things you start when you're actually looking at those kinds of posts?
Andy: Honestly, I read all the blogs that I can. It doesn't really matter about the content or what's in it, the blogs are an insight into the everyday player, it's a peek into their head, how they're experiencing the game, what they're saying about it. There's nothing in particular that is going to make one single blog jump out at me. Any blog, any Warhammer blog is an excellent thing.
Frank: What are some of the things you'd maybe like to see players do when they're actually making blog posts or contributions or things like that? Or do you prefer that the parameter just be wide open to see what basically the players come up with.
Andy: Blogging in general...until recently, blogging in general was always a peek into your own personal experiences and I really like to see the personal experiences, like I said, what the players are actually experiencing, moreso than I like the news story or the exposé. I'd rather like to see the personal experiences moreso than anything. But of course you should have some nice screenshots and graphics are always great, you know, to coordinate with that.
Frank: Bob tells me you're a bit of a masochist, that you like playing the classes that people say just don't work. So I take it community feedback has pretty much been huge in trying to make you in trying to make you make a determination about what class you're playing at some time to -
Andy: Absolutely. The players are complaining that one class is under-performing and they don't feel like...I want to know what the players are saying. I want to know what they're talking about. And so, let's say for example that, you know, the White Lion community has been pretty vocal about their displeasure in some things and has been asking us to make changes, so one of the first things I did when I really started digging into that was actually I made a White Lion and I leveled it to 40 already. So I play that character in PvE and RvR content and I feel like I've been getting a very good grasp on it. One of my recent projects now has been to level a Black Guard to 40 and a Zealot as well, so I'm definitely playing around with those classes.
Frank: Great. Awesome. You're in control of the core tester program, you work with the core testers a lot.
Andy: I work very closely with the core testers.
Frank: What are some of the highlights, you think, of the core tester program that the individuals involved in it have given you so far in terms of feedback?
Andy: Well, I can't really discuss -
Frank: Specifics, no, but I'm talking in general.
Andy: The great thing about the core tester program is the close level of interaction that those players have with the developers. Our developers are already pretty outgoing towards the community, they already spend a lot of time on the forums. They already respond in public. But they have an even better level of interaction with the players. They are able to really propose new ideas, new changes possibly. They just bounce those ideas of the players and get some really good feedback. We get a very broad spectrum of players as well. We have players who are playing in the lower tiers and the mid tiers and we have players, obviously, who are 40, who have experienced content from the very lowest tier of Tier 4 content all the way up to Lost Vale and the city sieges. We get a lot of great feedback from those players.
Frank: Great. I think one of the problems with a program like that is perhaps this sort of caste system it might create. So the select group of players that have this level of access and then everybody else. So what are the things that you have been trying to do sort of balance that? "Yeah of course core testers get this access and they provide this feedback" while still allowing everybody else to feel like they're contributing meaningfully to the developers and their dialogue about the game?
Andy: Part of it is actually getting the developers out on the public forums - not the core boards, but the actual public forums. Getting them out there to post and interact with the community, to talk the community. Things like we did with the Archmage and Shaman roadmap when Adam went out and basically posted their plans over the next three patch cycles for those two careers. It's things like that, we continue to do those and continue to build upon that to increase the level of communication between the community and evolve the more broad player base with the development cycle.
Frank: Speaking specifically about Combat & Careers, any kind of idea about doing something similar to the Team Lead program in Dark Age of Camelot where you had focused players that had these classes and they were the ones who gave the feedback or do you feel that the core tester program in general mostly meets that needs? I mean, Combat & Careers is a huge part of player feedback, but questions that I have right now, poor Nate's getting like a whole ton of them, but I think is there any kind of...do you feel that there might be some kind of way to integrate more Combat & Careers feedback through any kind of dedicated program?
Andy: To be honest with you, the Team Lead program was a great program for Dark Age, it was a really good program for Dark Age. And it actually resulted in some people landing at working at Mythic who are still there to this day. We have more than a few developers who actually started off as Team Leads. However...it was good for Dark Age, Warhammer is a completely different beast. Because of our involvement on the forums, we already have a high level of communication between the player and the dev for the specific careers. We also gather a lot of feedback already. And our core testers - we don't just focus on somebody who plays a lot of hours just like that, we focus on players who are making good posts, making smart, intelligent posts and conducting themselves in a ... I don't want to say professional, in an intellectual manner when it comes to their career specifically. And we go out into our forums and that's one of the first places we go and actually identify possible core testers.
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Part 2:
Andy: So in a way, you can draw a correlation between the Team Lead programme and the core testers, but just think of the core testers as maybe Team Leads who focus on more than just Combat & Careers. They focus on Combat & Careers, on RvR, on PvE, on items, on everything. I mean, it's all-encompassing. And it gives givesa much broader view in focusing on the entire game rather than just a small area.
Frank: Right. Awesome. Obviously, we've got an international community of players, so how have you sort of...have you kept your eye on the international community, the European, Russian markets and things like that? And Bob, we just actually did an interview about their plans specifically, but what have you found when you've actually gone looking around at what the European players have actually been giving feedback for and do you find there is a disparity between feedback, that european players have these priorities and north American players have another set or are they kind of the same?
Andy: Players in general all have the same kind of priorities. I mean, obviously, server stability, client stability, things like that or universal issues. Balance concerns are universal issues. That being said, each community has its own way of communicating. We are very lucky that we have a very open line of communication with GOA and their community team. And they give us regular reports and they give us their information that we pass along to our dev team. You said Bob already talked to you about that?
Frank: Yeah, he already did. He did.
Andy: Yeah, I'll leave it to that since I don't know exactly what he said. I don't want to step on his toes there.
Frank: No, absolutely. Let me ask you a question on new social media. Twitter, facebook, viral marketing, all of that stuff. We've seen some of that from you in terms of Night of Murder for example, the packages that were sent to blogs and things like that, the Twitter Warherald feed, which folks should follow because you never know what might happen on there. How was really the process of sort of selling that as a marketing thing in terms of ...because they're really community tools. I think they're community tools that have a sense of immediacy that actually stretches beyond things like posting on the Herald or posting a press release or even posting on forums. How do you see these new social media tools figuring into your strategy looking forward with communicating with the community?
Andy: Well, here's the thing: the term "community" has changed so much in the last five years. I mean, when you talked about community before, it was just, you know, the forums. That was it, you know. It was go into the message boards, talk to people on the message boards, things like that. These days everybody e-communicates so quickly it's kind of a no-brainer to take advantage of things like Twitter, Facebook, you know, Gamer DNA, all those kinds of things. It's just really important that we're out there, that we're on the cutting edge. We're e-communicating all this stuff, because you know what? To not do so just depraves our players of another outlet to get that information. Or to interact with our developers. Things like that. You'll notice on the Warherald, we're following, the Warherald itself follows developers from the studio, Josh, Paul, James Nichols, Jess Folsom, myself, and Jeff Skalski I believe. And as more developers make twitter feeds, we're going to start adding them on. So it's another way to pick up and kinda see what goes on. I will give this disclaimer about the personal twitter feeds of the developers: they're not always game-related with everything they say.
Frank: *laughs* I know, I think we know that.
Andy: If you've checked out Josh's twitter you know that! Josh always has some interesting stuff to put up in there. But you know, it's kind of another great way to step across that threshold, that wall that's there between the developers and the players because when it comes down to it, we're just, we're people too. More importantly, we're gamers too. And so why not give an extra outlet to humanize us and to help players relate to what we're doing.