I very much disagree with peoples views on a games community changing. Nothing has changed as far as I can see.
EQ1/UO were littlered with griefers, trainers, camp/kill stealers, ninja looters, loud mouths, children, etc etc etc. Travel back to the forums of EQ vault and stratics and it was flame fest after flame fest of epic server wide drama. I too look back on those game days with fond memories and unless it is brought to my mind I gloss over the hardships and general nastiness early mmo gamers put on each other. The early games almost advocated open hatred of other players in their early years. It was a byproduct of the game designs. Racing to boss mobs, Open PvP on newbies, clean looting corpes/houses, PKing, corpse camping, etc etc etc.
Games have changed IMHO, not the communities. There are still plenty of dumb players, angry players, griefers to be found in any game (no matter how much people want to think one game is more mature than another). The difference is in the mechanics.
No more racing for content. Simply click on something or cross a zone border and you have your own private dungeon. No trains, yelling, kill stealing, etc. Players now have less to worry about and less to be upset about.
Much of the social mechanics are gone too. Auction houses? No need to stand around and interact with other players trying to sell your goods. Simply click on an NPC who does all the work for you. Same thing when buying an item. Click and buy. No need to ever talk to another player. The same for quests. You get everything in a nice little package that explains where to go and what to do. Very little help is ever needed from other players. Quest and level until you hit the wall and only when you need a guild to progress do you really have to interact.
Forced grouping, waiting for boats/ships to come along, social gathering "auction" spots all helped build communities as strange as that sounds.
The mechanics have changed so much that most MMOs can be played to max level as single player games (part of why I think people complain about raids so much). The communities are still the same though.
Comments
I very much disagree with peoples views on a games community changing. Nothing has changed as far as I can see.
EQ1/UO were littlered with griefers, trainers, camp/kill stealers, ninja looters, loud mouths, children, etc etc etc. Travel back to the forums of EQ vault and stratics and it was flame fest after flame fest of epic server wide drama. I too look back on those game days with fond memories and unless it is brought to my mind I gloss over the hardships and general nastiness early mmo gamers put on each other. The early games almost advocated open hatred of other players in their early years. It was a byproduct of the game designs. Racing to boss mobs, Open PvP on newbies, clean looting corpes/houses, PKing, corpse camping, etc etc etc.
Games have changed IMHO, not the communities. There are still plenty of dumb players, angry players, griefers to be found in any game (no matter how much people want to think one game is more mature than another). The difference is in the mechanics.
No more racing for content. Simply click on something or cross a zone border and you have your own private dungeon. No trains, yelling, kill stealing, etc. Players now have less to worry about and less to be upset about.
Much of the social mechanics are gone too. Auction houses? No need to stand around and interact with other players trying to sell your goods. Simply click on an NPC who does all the work for you. Same thing when buying an item. Click and buy. No need to ever talk to another player. The same for quests. You get everything in a nice little package that explains where to go and what to do. Very little help is ever needed from other players. Quest and level until you hit the wall and only when you need a guild to progress do you really have to interact.
Forced grouping, waiting for boats/ships to come along, social gathering "auction" spots all helped build communities as strange as that sounds.
The mechanics have changed so much that most MMOs can be played to max level as single player games (part of why I think people complain about raids so much). The communities are still the same though.
Now that is one of the most intelligent posts in this topic.