EQN: Should female dwarves have beards?

Over at Everquest Next, they’re encouraging the community to help the game’s developers with some key decisions, like… Should female dwarves have beards?

Okay, on its surface it seems like a silly question. Well, silly if you’re not a fantasy lore geek. In other words, silly if you’re not a gamer.

These questions matter. There’s no question about character design, environment or any aspect of lore that doesn’t deserve at least a doctoral dissertation drawing heavily from Tolkien, Norse mythology and Dungeons and Dragons.

No, it’s not an earthshaking question that will make the game significantly more playable, but it’s a good sign, a sign the EQN developers care abour their community. EQN might be more than a year from release (Just a guess.), but they’re already making a significant effort to build good will with their community.

The EQN Round Table provides a means for gamers to feel like they’re having an impact on how this game turns out. Through the EQN Round Table you can give your feedback on a variety of different questions. Based on the video below, the EQN developers seem to be taking the feedback from the community seriously, while having a bit of fun, too. How sweet is that?

Has any other MMO asked the community what they wanted to see in a game before it was released? It’s hard to think of a single game. Usually the course of a new MMO is charted directly by the developers and, to a much lesser extent, a handful of carefully selected beta testers.

EQN appears to be taking a different approach. No matter what your position is on bearded female dwarves, the Everquest developers care about what you have to say. And they’re getting the community involved at a point when they can still have an impact on how the game turns out.

That’s awesome cool.