A couple of weeks ago, Worlds Adrift announced that it was rolling up a player council, and I did one of those tilt my head to the side thingies and sighed. In my write up, I even pointed out these councils usually have all the power of a student council at a junior high school, which is to say, not much. I didn’t even bother to point out they can also be super corrupt, prone to leaks, and dominated by particular player factions; anybody who’s ever peeked into EVE Online’s CSM already knows that. The ego-inflation of the council members and cheap community appeasement without much dev effort seem to be the chief products.
Now, MOP’s Larry Everett, who served as a Star Wars Galaxies senator many years ago, might disagree with me; I’m sure he can point to instances when he and his fellows agitated for just the right thing at the right time and got SOE to implement something great. But simply having an embedded community team to call for and collect feedback would probably do just as much, without creating a tier of unpaid players who are a bit more extra than everyone else. I would far rather see that kind of effort poured into more useful player outreach anyway, like in a guide/mentor system.
What’s been your experience with these types of councils? Should all MMORPGs have EVE-style player councils?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
