From someone who's spent ALOT of time with MMORPG communties. DO NOT PUT UP A MESSAGE BOARD ON THE WEB!!!!!

The only thing that ever does is make people spend time on your web page, rather than in the game where they're supposed to be.

"In the communities you may have built or take part in, what technical features do you find to be a must? What sort of social rules to you think are necessary to pull in a more mature base? What sort of content keeps you coming back for more? What communities have you found to be very successful, what ones have you seen that failed miserably, descending in a fiery ball of death?"

I don't build them, I just participate. On that expirence, here's what I personally like to see in a "community" message board.
1> Smart people who are willing to share their knowledge with the members. Even if they just briefly answer some "newbie's" question. It shows class from the veterns of the forum.
2>I dislike "slamming" of other members.
3>I think an edit button is gold, so is delete when you realize the whole post was crap.
4>A help section that addresses all sorts of things. Even rare gliches that only one or two people have encountered. You never know when it may happen to someone else.
5> I used to belong to a community on another service. Too many rules killed it. Not enough killed another one. That's the tricky balance. Rules. You must have some. But too many, and people feel repressed. Then, it's not fun and people don't want to be somewhere that isn't fun.
6>For a truly successful community, I think having open minds to other walks of life/games/interests is key. You can not expect all people to fit into the one mold.

Those are just my points of view. Hope they help in some way.
Ali--The Misfit Chick

I understand a loose yet clearly defined and uniformly enforced terms of service is necessary for any community site. I'm mulling over in my head what the few rules will end up being and how I will enforce them.

Perhaps I should give you a better idea of what exactly I'm working on, it may help narrow down comments/make it easier to give feedback:

MMORPGs have rather steep learning curves, add to that the fact that most player groups in existing games are already pretty much established. This makes the barrier to entry for new players extremely high. Not only do they have trouble figuring out what to do in-game, but they have trouble hooking up with other players and forming a support base in-game. It has been my experience that most new players that don't stick with a game very long leave because they can't figure out what they're doing and have no one to play with. Well, there are always those people in game who want to help the n00bs out, but it's hard for the n00bs to find them. What I'm working on is building a sort of MMORPG Mentor program where people can sign up either as mentors or as trainees for various games. The site would provide all the essential communications tools for mentors and trainees to interact and plan in-game sessions and events. I would also like to slowly gather game-guides for the various games I'll eventually end up covering. There will of course be a message board for general interaction etc. To make this easier on myself, I'm starting out supporting Star Wars Galaxies as that's the only MMO I'm currently playing.

Further thoughts?

Take a look over at Deviantart at what registered members have. It would be darned hard to improve upon that.

My favorite aspects would be the 'watchlist', where you are notified of activity by members you choose when you visit the site. I don't like email notification. I normally don't want to think about particular sites until I visit them, and wading through 50 notifications just makes email annoying. It isn't a bad feature to have, but I prefer an on-site watchlist.

Also, on your messageboards, people are always gonna lean toward the section/tab/topic that is on top and visible. You can pre-empty a lot of off-topic posts if you arrange things well. A good example is over on the board at WinCustomize. They have a skinning board and a help board *behind* the main board, but the main board always ends up full of skinning and help questions. People are either too lazy or too stupid to switch, and after a while the regulars don't bother to go back there and check very often. I'm not a fan of categories at all, but on a big board they are necessary. Too many, though, and I think it feels more 'urban' than 'community'. The individual gets lost in the mix. If people's posts aren't read, they stop posting.

This, WinCusto, and Deviantart are my favorite online communities. Wincusto, of all of them, is held together most by the camaraderie of the people there. Deviantart is immense and complicated socially, but they have really don't an impressive job of using the technology simplify it, keep it manageable. This place is great, I am liking it more and more all the time, and it is somewhere right between the two.

I would suggest making a study of Deviantart. If you are talking about the technology for a community of individuals, you won't find one that has had as much thought put into it. It is really built for the comfort of the individual who resides there.

One thing specific to MMOGs that can make a huge difference is to provide an in-game interface. I don't know what the COC is for SWG, and if third party apps are banned then that might not work, but the in-game interface offers a lot of value.

Points and ratings are a biggie also. A significant majority of MMOG players are achievement driven. If you can make the ratings more meaningful than just post counts then that's even better. I really like how joeuser has trolling/insightful ratings, as that will really help to decrease spam (nothing worse than a message thread full of "bump" and no content).

In-game rewards for out of game behavior. Solicit donations and offer uber quest, craftable, or tradeables to your top mentor every month.

Quest calendars. Let registered users sign up to host/join scheduled quests. This is a great way to keep people coming back to the site. It is also an opportunity for ratings (rate the leader for the members, rate the members for the leader).

Server-specific message boards with built-in support for auctions. This draws your achievers and collectors on a regular basis. Server-specific keeps the clutter down. Built in support for auctions of some sort (message types with icons maybe? For Auction/Seeking/For Sale/For Trade) would seem like a great feature. I haven't put a lot of thought into the details of built in auction support, but I think the general concept is sound.

Don't forget great moderators...not fascists, not sycophants, mature moderators.