With Vanguard’s launch imminent, and with heavy pressure from the 800-lb gorilla launching two weeks before it, Brad McQuaid felt it was time to have a ‘come to Jesus’ talk with the fans.

The interesting subtext is Brad laying it all out – the game isn’t going to be nearly as hardcore as they seem to want it. Key notes that Brad makes: the game WILL have a minimap. The game WON’T mandate endless camping. The game WILL have quests, so you won’t be forced to endlessly grind. Believe it or not, they had to defend these positions on the boards. I guess there are fans of anything, even tedious inventory management.

This discussion is always interesting, and highlights a frequent problem with online games – your beta audience isn’t necessarily your live audience, and in both cases, your forum posters may not be the ones in game. Your beta audience is, almost by definition, more hardcore, and have more hardcore tastes.

In Shadowbane, we had an interesting problem — our boards had a very high incidence of roleplay fans. The passion for lore content just wasn’t as high for the other players of the game. Trying to explain this to them was almost always… delicate.

It actually takes a great bit of care to occasionally remind forum users that they do not speak for the entirety of the game’s audience. As a developer, you have to remind them that it’s actually your job to ensure that the game reaches a market that appeals to a very broad collection of tastes. At the same time, you have to do this without alienating your hardcore – you NEED them to become the bedrock of the game, and to evangelize it to their more casual frends. And few things are more dangerous to your community than a fanboi scorned.

Edit: Link fixed. Sorry about that.

Original comments thread is here.