During our time at the Game Developers Conference, we stopped by Trion Worlds' office and talked with Senior Community Manager Cindy "Abigale" Bowens about Rift's launch.

ZAM: As you mentioned, players can see Zann's name all over Facebook and Twitter. How do you manage your time with an MMO that never turns off?

Bowens: We don't sleep (laughs). We've been working a lot of really long hours. That kinds of goes with community. We're all used to being on call 24/7. We take some time off now and then, but we're pretty much on call all the time.

ZAM: Only Rift players are able to post on the forums. Can you talk a little about that decision?

Bowens: The main reason for that is to keep the noise down and be able to really concentrate on talking with our own customers. The issue was having a lot of people who I like to call “drive-by trolls.” They're people who have no connection to the game or the community and just come in to make malicious posts or things like that. Also, if a player's account is tied to their posting privileges, there's a little more accountability there. It helps keep things under control.

ZAM: So the feedback of players who post in the forums will definitely be heard.

Bowens: Absolutely. We read the forums constantly. My team is on the forums all day, every day. But the rest of the company is, too. If you walk around the dev area you're going to see browsers open to the forums all over the room. They'll send me threads. I often get threads from a designer or artist or programmer saying, “hey, there's an issue here, can you answer them for us? Can you get us more information?” It's a great team, I just can't say that enough.

ZAM: During the second gamer day event, you invited community members to visit the Trion Worlds studio who have been following the game even prior to the closed beta events. Have you noticed any other standouts in the community since head start and launch?

Bowens: Absolutely. There are a number of people who have been posting on the forums who I would call newer players who have just been great. That always happens. You always have a group of people who just really like to be helpful and are there to direct people to the right answers and be friendly and be the voice of reason. A lot of our old-timers are still around doing that and we've definitely added a lot of new ones as well. We really encourage that. We're actually looking at starting some sort of MVP program to recognize those people on the forums. I know a lot of other games do that, and it's something we want to do down the road, but don't quite have it in place yet.

ZAM: Do you have any other community related projects or events planned?

Bowens: For the next week or two, everything's focused on launch. We're all having to relearn communication now that the game is live. Who's doing what and that sort of thing. We do have some plans for lots of things down the road. We're looking at some different types of contests we want to do. We're hosting a part at PAX East, so that will be fun. We keep being asked a lot if we're going to host large player events. We definitely want to do that sort of thing down the road. We have to wait and see how our community grows and how much interest there is, but if there's enough interest to do it I'm pretty sure we'll do it.

ZAM: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Bowens: This has been a great ride. It's a wonderful community. A lot of long-time mature gamers have joined us. A lot of people who have been looking for their new MMO home are saying they found it in Rift, and I just couldn't be happier to hear that because I've found my new home here, too!

Darryl Gangloff, Editor-in-Chief