It is clear now that RG is literally phoning it in with SotA. If he was serious about SotA he would have axed Chris Spears and hired Raph Koster early on when the game changed from a facebook game to a PC game.
Given the timeline (and that Koster has mentioned consulting for Crowfall as far back as one year ago), it's likely Raph was already committed to working on CF (and 2 other legit games he's hinted that he's also working on... yet to be announced).
Starr and Rich Vogel have always had extremely positive things to say about Raph at things like
GDC Post-mortem talks on UO (see 58:XX of "The Idea of Direct Relations with Your Community")
Rick Vogel:
"Designer Dragon... was probably the best community rep we've ever had on our website. He was amazing at controlling our crowds because we had some very vicious fans in the first year of UO because they were passionate about the game, very passionate, and we did make a lot of mistakes...."^I think this has been sorely missing from SotA's forums. Even if it was to disagree with us, there just isn't the wiggle room for any give and take on the forums when people are overly critical and harsh. Threads are just locked, stuff deleted, people banned/etc. I'm aware tons of the same stuff happened before with UO's community, but if you look at Star Citizen or Crowfall's forums, there are PLENTY of very negative, enraged posts (and, in many cases, there is a legit response to them... Star Citizen less so as far as dev interaction... Crowfall is still in KS and honeymoon period, so they playing nice with backers at the moment... I doubt it lasts over time).
Anyway, with all that said, I've still always had the feeling that Raph's "know-it-all" academic braininess (and high probability of "appropriating" good ideas from other sources) would make him a bit hard to work with for types with a different style/personality type.
I imagine him as being one of those brilliant, slightly pedantic coworkers, whose killer combo of theory+practical experience can easily make other people look incompetent/clueless. It would probably be VERY difficult to win a debate with him about a point of disagreement because he has a lot of theory and practice to back up his beliefs. With an inquisitive mind like that, I bet he risks exploring things much more deeply than might be practical (which would be a big no-no on a game being developed on shoestring budget).
I mean... I think he is probably a great team player/leader, but I bet he is such a weighty influence on the projects he works on that there is a real issue with any game he works on can become very much a "koster" type game (and his contributions might overshadow the work of others, even unintentionally). I just guess I could see how a big presence like that wouldn't fit well with a game like SotA (which was already marketing the RG connection, and the Ultima games connections, not as much the UO stuff -- at least not at first, and not truly to its core).
When you look at the big personalities in SotA, I think Raph Koster working on SotA would have been like having too many chefs in the kitchen. Also, he would have been very expensive to hire (and most of his talents are on the design side, which Port probably felt they already have people to cover...).
Personally, I think he would have been an ideal community manager for something like SotA (like day-to-day forum warrior for the team). His blog posts (and involvement on the UO forums back in the day) shows the guys can interact with the forum crowd and post circles around even the most strident of critics. But, I think that's a job that would be a huge step backward for a guy who has been a lead designer on several games.
Also, I've seen a few presentations where he mentions the importance of engaging the community, but also suggests that most devs and "creative" types avoid forums (b/c there are unfairly critical ppl who can tear stuff down before it's been polished). Still, somebody like that really mixing it up on the forums on a regular basis would have changed things there a bit (but many of the things we bitch about RE: moderation would have largely remained the same). You can see his recommendations about profanity and "trolling"/critics in a 2002 presentation (linked below).
As much as I like some of the guy's ideas and presentations, he's still as clinical as it comes to the "business" side of the industry. He seems like a true gamer at heart though. It's just, his game is understanding and improving the process of making games in general. I bet he would generally approve of most of Port's moderation, but I think some of his presentations advocate allowances for more robust criticism/player involvement (and he comes across as somebody who supports transparency and consistency with regard to moderation/policing the community).
Just one example:
www.raphkoster.com/games/presentations/how-to-manage-a-large-scale-online-gaming-community/- The existence of locked threads helps reinforce that action WILL be taken
-Will alienate some, but will become community standard
-You need to have given enough effort to addressing issues^bolded is a common complaint many have expressed with regard to how some threads are closed without real interaction or effort being made to address the issues
Another relevant point:
- Realize you are talking to very hardcore people
-Not representative of final market
-but they ARE the people who generate word of mouth, so keep them happy
-savvy enough to understand tradeoffs, usually
And for sure, check out the "troublemakers" slides....
Troublemakers, type I: verbal- Can they become ombudsmen?
-Do they have a sub-community that sees them as a leader
-Do they have their own forums?
-Must be seen to make public effort to communicate
-You'll need to put on a show of sorrow when you fail
-Make comments to 3rd party about your sorrow too
- Do you have excuses for banning?
-Language is most common
^I think all of these should be pretty self-explanatory. It's easy to see how this stuff applies to IM and his blog, this forum, and how Port and many game devs point to vulgarity as reasons for bans that might be more to do with the content these "troublemakers" are posting...
Troublemakers, type III: grief players -A very small percentage is doing it because your design is broken. Fix the design.
-early, often. Even if they were right about the design being broken.
- Be scrupulous about the legality of the ban
-(never seem to ban because of spite)
-You cannot afford matyrs
^LOL @ the last point... Just look at the
total lack of reason given in
Joviex's Steam ban Saga (and the fact that what he said was actually pretty mild). There have been plenty of other people who were likely banned out of spite too, or because of "language," but many of these "trolls" were expressing legit grievances and complaints. They only had the misfortune of saying something the devs didn't want to hear in a way that made banning them easy, or maybe they sucked at spelling their complaint, so they got mocked for it/etc.
Anyway, I share a few of those (and link to the presentation) to point out that Raph being involved in SotA probably wouldn't have changed much. I do think there is a tone in Crowfall that is smarter about how they are marketing things, and that a lot of that KS (and their marketing) is playing on things that Raph has talked about in the past... but, doesn't change anything about how that game turns out (and/or almost every game).
