About this series:

Lessons from the Live Team looks at online game development from a post-launch perspective.

Sandra "srand" Powers served for several years in many positions - including producer, lead engineer, and game systems designer - on the live team of Asheron's Call 1, a major commercial MMORPG.

Now a producer with EverQuest II, she seeks to use her unique experiences for good, improving the virtual worlds that she so admires.

Lessons from the Live Team Column ...

• The Bug Process - #9: Finding bugs, documenting them, tracking them, and fixing them (or not).
• The Yearly Rant - #8: What did World of Warcraft do right? Polish.
• Social Engineering - #7: Social interactions, client & server performance, and the tradeoff between graphics and that performance.
• Documenting Live Updates - #6: The purposes of documentation in a post-launch world.
• Efficient Additions - #5: How to make the most efficient use of your MMORPG expansions.
• It's All About the Audience - #4: Examining player motivations and habits in live games.
• Think Before You Ship - #3: Sandra gets technical by talking about the nuts and bolts of upgrades and expansions.
• The Many Faces of Live Development - #2: Boxes, downloads, updates, and live updates (and their purposes).
• The Message - #1: A new column discusses online game development from the post-launch perspective.

Top 2 Lessons from the Live Team Articles ...

• The Bug Process - #9: Finding bugs, documenting them, tracking them, and fixing them (or not).
• The Yearly Rant - #8: What did World of Warcraft do right? Polish.