MMORPG communities rise and fall, but have any come back as strong as Dungeon Fighter Online‘s? And have any had such personal dealings with the publishers?
Dungeon Fighter Online (DFO Global) rose from the dead to a bouncing open beta earlier this year under the wing of Neople, the game’s Korea-based developer and new Western publisher. The circumstances surrounding DFO Global‘s return are certainly unique, but they’re not as surprising as how Neople has been dealing with the game’s English-speaking community.
From pre-open beta launch during the hype stream, you could tell Neople was going to be handling the English community in a very informal way. CEO In Lee was up front about the game’s chance of failure, stating the chance of failure being 80% during the stream. The community representatives and developers were also very up front, but very excited.
Neople’s positive energy has continued through the past couple months, with the DFO Global Facebook page packed to the brim with not only hype over updates, but rants about gold sellers and bots and personal stories from the company’s English speaking members.
You get it, Danjun.
Scrolling through the official Facebook is really a sight to behold, and one has to wonder why more MMORPG publishers don’t get so involved with their communities. I know I’m enjoying reading about how the game’s developers came to Neople — just as much as I’m enjoying the candid honesty about the state of the game. Is it really so hard to actually put effort forth and connect with your playerbase?
As terrible as it is to say it, my continued support of Dungeon Fighter Online is in large part because Neople have been in such close contact with their playerbase. I want to support these people that have been so candid with the community, I want to see how the game grows, and I want to see Jerry lose weight and get healthy.
The connection Neople has made with its English-speaking community is unprecedented, and it may be one of the reasons the game makes it to launch and (hopefully) succeeds. This is how communicating with consumers should be: Completely organic.
