Welcome to this small corner of the intertubes. Here I will try to give you an inside look into the goings on here at the Ensemble Studios Live Team. Hopefully you will be able to get inside our heads a little bit and gaze into the twisted maze that we inhabit. This will be a series of blogs and philosophical thoughts on online communities and our live team. This will be the first of many blogs that will come out hopefully about twice a month.
My name is Ben Donges, sometimes known as SOLUS online. When I first started working with the Ensemble community I was originally involved with monitoring and looking for issues and troublemakers. My background in software testing and customer support helped get me started on my journey. Part of my job was to monitor the servers for downtime and help out players in the community as much as possible. Now almost 3 years later I am part of a much larger team with much larger goals.
The Evolution of the Live Team
To understand the Evolution of our team you have to understand more about what we do.
The live team is a people team. We deal in the commodity of emotions and opinions, which is to say we live and work in what is sometimes, a very chaotic space. What makes it even more interesting is that we deal with many of our hard core players daily, so you have to add in a small amount of obsessive compulsive disorder and fanaticism. However those of us on the team like this niche that we have carved out and would not trade it for anything in the world. We want to make all of our players as happy as we can with support, patches, and policing.
It is a very organic process if you look at the big picture. We care for a community that is ever changing and which interestingly enough mirrors a small village. You give the people in the village a voice and a place to communicate their intentions, their will. We provide our community with simple services and the space to communicate and interact with each other. The only difference between our community and a village is there are no taxes on our servers.
Mike McCart was the main man in charge of the websites and community relations here at Ensemble for many years. He kept the torch burning through Age of Empires I all the way to Age of Mythology. During that time there was a small number of employees that oversaw the needs of the community. This was part of the job they did here at Ensemble but not their full time job. We would have regular fire drills when we needed to patch and take people off the jobs they were doing just to get a patch out the door or restart the servers. It was not efficient or good for our community and the powers that be in our company saw that. It was clear that we needed a group of full time employees to take care of the needs of the community.
Where we are today
In a nutshell, we are a team providing the space for all of you guys and girls to play, communicate and grow. We take care of the patching on Age of Empires 3 when we need to. We try and keep the bad people offline and the good people online.
There are now 8 full time members that work hard to make everyone happy.
We take care of the communication between developers and the community with reports to the company and posting news on our multiple websites. We are the bridge between the gamers and Ensemble Studios. No loads over 2 tons please.
Looking Ahead
The Halo Wars community is a new one for Ensemble. We want it to grow and flourish just like our Age of Empires games and community’s. Actually that is not true. We want it to do better. Every time we start a new game there is a major focus for us to do better with the next one and our community’s are no different.
This being Ensembles’ first foray into a Sci-Fi setting instead of a historical one, it is a rich and fertile ground for us to grow a community. The problems with historical settings are they are based in fact. People get hung up when your African Elephants tusks are too long, or if your catapults have license plates (yes they do), or if your Winged Hussar does not display his feathers correctly. It is harder for some people to make the leap and suspend their disbelief.
The Halo Universe is a great opportunity because Bungie has done a good job of creating a place where our developers and community’s imaginations can run wild without being too hindered by facts.
Right now we are under a news embargo (to use a better mans words) when it comes to Halo Wars. Hopefully this embargo is will be lifted soon and our glorious ships can sail forth with information to the eager ports of your imagination.
Age3 will continue to be a part of our focus as well. There is a great commitment to Age3 and our other games and our team will continue to support them as much as possible.
WCG and Future Tournaments
The WCG regional tournaments are going to begin shortly. These will give all of our players a chance to get involved in an international tournament and win some good prizes. If you are curious about what it takes to be a part of the WCG simply read the how to created by our own MrMilo.
http://www.agecommunity.com/WCG_SignUp.aspx
I am trying to get a few more tournaments involved with the Asian Dynasties as well. As soon as I have more information I will post it here, and we will put it up on AgeCommunity.com
Things not to do on ESO
Helpful common sense tips of what not to do when playing Age of Empires III
Tip Number 1: Don’t give out your information to anyone. Ensemble Employees are the guys with the blue names, and we don’t ask for your account or personal information. If someone tells you they need your password to join a clan they are lying. Just take a screenshot and send it in to age3.abuse@ensemblestudios.com
Next Time
Autism and Games
Ben [SOLUS] Donges