SWTOR's forums was one of the reasons I stopped following the game, reminded me too much of WoW forums. While I won't go so far as say SWTOR will the worst community ever but does have the potential to eclipse WoW's community because of hype, accessability, game mechanics, and being SW. SWTOR will definately be one of the big leagues of worst communities.
Any mmo that is expected to have large sub numbers, and that attracts alot of attention, will have a bunch of folk who some of us may deem less than desireable. Sadly they have just as much right to play the game as we do. My advice, deal with it, ignore them if you must, but seriously grow up and realise that "who cares as long as I'M having fun". Come on folks, this thread is kind of useless.
"Well let me just quote the late-great Colonel Sanders, who said…’I’m too drunk to taste this chicken." - Ricky Bobby
It will just be the same bad community other MMO's have had (in recent years).
General chat will consist of non stop WoW comments, chuck norris comments, rudeness and other responses that should pretty much result in instant perma bans.
Thus many people will just turn general chat off and/or ignore everyone they can. Resulting in people wondering why nobody wants to group and more posts about how solo oriented MMO's have become... well no really? Seriously if you watch the average person talk in an MMO why would you ever want to group with them? Kill them in PvP... yes. Take all their stuff.. yes. Wish that there was an account level /ignore... hell yes.
Then you have people trying to ask questions that don't get answers because of the above. Unless its an off hour and general chat is under control.
This is why I hate posts that claim any game or in game tool destroys community. Its people playing MMO's that have destroyed community... and is exactly why people stick to guild/friend groups.
On top of all this in the PvP you are going to have the same people from DAoC etc that will be running speed hacks, radar or whatever else they can find. Like the "tools" people used in WAR with all the super special abilities that ... aren't actually part of the game.
Pretty much I've never seen any company seriously enforce their TOS/Eula. Which of course kills the game... or you pull a Mythic and finally ban radar users just as WoW launches... *waves* goodbye all those bored players who wanted to try a new game.. they certainly weren't just banned... or all the friends that follow them (who might not have even known their buddy was just perma banned).
BW can do two things that I would like..
1) put in an account level ignore option. Options are nice because people don't have to use them. I want to be able to /accountignore if I choose to. So I don't have to ignore every alt that person makes and it would be nice if it also added this to an account list on my end. So I don't have to add them to every character I have manually.
2) Enforce their TOA/Eula... Sure they will claim they do but let's actually see it done. If you get caught using any "illegal" 3rd party programs you should get a perma ban.. zero tolerance. No endless 3 day vacations etc Normal infractions should follow normal policy
Its easy to turn off general chat and ignore almost all players.
Its not as easy if you like to PvP to ignore people who are exploiting or using "3rd party programs". When you see the same people endlessly reported and the response of "its under investigation"... eventually people either quit or start using the same super special abilities to compete. (this is a Mythic reference pretty much.. oh Hi they are part of BW now..)
Or when you report the same level 20 guy for mining "under ground" in a level 80+ zone day after day... how hard can it really be to check and go "oh ya he is exploiting the z axis..." ... (yes that is a world of warcraft reference).
What social tools/ mechanisms can BW introduce to help this potentiol situation?
Thats a tricky question really. Since day one mmo gamers are interested into debating their game weakness to enhance them. It is a big part of any mmo, you will probably not see it in other computer games, not at that level i think. First i don't think it is bad as you make it look, not that bad, you always find few people with constructive comment into those flame wars. It is part of the massively multiplayer aspect really. It is a way for the people to socialise in the bad or good sense about their hoby. The problem is that they are entirely dependant in the dev work, basically Devs are the only one that can do something about it. Or they listen and implemented what they ask for or they don't. Thats all this hater and fan boys debates really are about. This naturally hapen now even before the games are launched. So overall this is not bad to me, i don't see it as a negative point overall.
Now about what they can do to help it?
I personally think they could give a lot more tools to the players, to build their own events and stories for the others for exemple, to create communities like villages, some real trade hubs and activities, better ingame chating and meeting rooms... Whatever could focus the gamers in what happen to their characters rather than what happen to the game. TRy to make the gamers talk about their ingame activities rather than the outside game mechanism and rules. I mean both are important, but ingame activity are just inexistant into forums.
But really when you look at it there is not much to talk about ingame stuff, really nothing. The few last items that are from the last update, where to find this or this and how, some trading and hints, helping the noobs, but thats all. So trying to enrich this aspect can be good. Maybe this could help, especially if they could separate the ingame and game mechanisms forums; and have the ingame one more interesting. Seam a very long path really They really would have to pour in a lot of attractive and easy to access rp features to make it happen, and it's really not where the mmorpg genre is heading at all.
The game surely will evoke strong emotions. The story concept, the fact Bioware is behind it and it is Star Wars. Yeah, that won't make things easy, no matter on what side of the fence one is sitting.
Unfortunately, it is something that happens with almost every MMO. You CAN'T critizise anything without the fans jumping at your throat. I tried to discuss the flaws of Rift with some of the folks I had played Rift along for 3 months, thinking, hey those are some mates I played along. And BOY was I attacked. It is just impossible to debate any flaws of MMOs with people playing it, and it seems for many there is just totally blind adoration or totally aggressive mockery. Any balanced and critical in between is an impossible stance.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Honestly nothing, the internet is a sesspool of douchebaggery and such. There really is not anything they can do to help with it. Well they could make it a offline single player game thats about the ONLY way. All I can say really is get used to assholes online, because well thats the age we live in. I just try to ignore them, someone calls you a noob, don't say anything back thats what they want, to piss them off just ignore them and they'll stop.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
The game surely will evoke strong emotions. The story concept, the fact Bioware is behind it and it is Star Wars. Yeah, that won't make things easy, no matter on what side of the fence one is sitting.
Unfortunately, it is something that happens with almost every MMO. You CAN'T critizise anything without the fans jumping at your throat. I tried to discuss the flaws of Rift with some of the folks I had played Rift along for 3 months, thinking, hey those are some mates I played along. And BOY was I attacked. It is just impossible to debate any flaws of MMOs with people playing it, and it seems for many there is just totally blind adoration or totally aggressive mockery. Any balanced and critical in between is an impossible stance.
Well sorry Elikal but to be honest with you, your posts rarely come off as balanced themselves. Most of them tend to be over thought, over numerous, long winded angry rants where you let your anger and frustration overwhelm what would otherwise be good points for discussion. Or you continue to try to find concrete answers to topics that due to lack of concrete information can only be summed up by posters gut feeling opinions. So its of little suprise you get mostly heated and emotional based answers when you contiune to ask the same unanswerable questions. My two cents.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
If you come into this conversation as an outsider, I have to say that the voice of reason tends to point toward Mav and DarkPony. Tossing out random percentages and presenting them as facts does come across as a lie. The conversation sort of derailed after that point.
So back to the original question....I don't believe this game will have any worse community than any other game out there. BW can't be responsible for all the idiots that go out and play games. The larger the community the more likely you are to run into a few a-holes. Just ignore people that spam chat. That is the best thing you can do. If you respond to them then they get what they want. If they are constantly ignored in chat they will quit the spam and leave to some other game where people argue back. Last night I ran a few battlegrounds in Rift. I saw the same person complaining in each one. By the third matchup he had quit complaining because no one was listening to him. We also won a match doing the opposite of what he suggested.
Like others stated, I tend to find the RP servers as the most mature. For sure those servers still have a-holes too, but there is usually less spam and hateful attitudes. Also, once you get past the first couple months the population seems to get better as well. You have those people searching for the next best thing who will only play for a month, then complain about content like they do in every other game. Once they get burnt out in a month and leave the conversations usually get better. AoC at launch, complaining all the time. AoC now on the Wicanna server, awesome group of people.
The game surely will evoke strong emotions. The story concept, the fact Bioware is behind it and it is Star Wars. Yeah, that won't make things easy, no matter on what side of the fence one is sitting.
Unfortunately, it is something that happens with almost every MMO. You CAN'T critizise anything without the fans jumping at your throat. I tried to discuss the flaws of Rift with some of the folks I had played Rift along for 3 months, thinking, hey those are some mates I played along. And BOY was I attacked. It is just impossible to debate any flaws of MMOs with people playing it, and it seems for many there is just totally blind adoration or totally aggressive mockery. Any balanced and critical in between is an impossible stance.
Well sorry Elikal but to be honest with you, your posts rarely come off as balanced themselves. Most of them tend to be over thought, over numerous, long winded angry rants where you let your anger and frustration overwhelm what would otherwise be good points for discussion. Or you continue to try to find concrete answers to topics that due to lack of concrete information can only be summed up by posters gut feeling opinions. So its of little suprise you get mostly heated and emotional based answers when you contiune to ask the same unanswerable questions. My two cents.
That IS my balanced. There is just SO MUCH idiocy in games (and gamers) I am really, really holding back 80% of what I feel and think. This is 10 times washed through a "nicety-filter". On the contrary I have the opinion I was way too tolerant and timid for my own good in the last years here, and I have allowed people to treat me out of tolerance as probably I shouldn't.
You haven't seen me REALLY angry. Trust me, you would notice the difference.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
There has only been two MMOs I've played that I could honestly say had very few jerks in it. Those two are DAoC and DDO. Maybe, because both were smaller, closer communities where we all worked together without being forced to. No one forced us to go out and fight for our realm in DAoC. DDO no one is forced to join a specific guild or be left out in the cold. You can do pick-up raids pretty easily.
I've basically played every MMO. Some have small pops, and some have large. The large ones just means you have more of a chance to meet a someone who doesn't really want to interact with people. They just want to get the phat lewts with minimal time invested, so they can do the same thing over and over.
For some reason the worst are large populated PvE games like EQ used to be, of course, WoW, and I've noticed Rift is quickly going there. Maybe because in those games we are forced to group with people to get anything done. This wears on people's patience, and then they just give up and treat everyone like trash. Or the more elitist of the bunch show newer players how its ok to treat others how you don't want to be treated, and those newer players make no effort into being a decent person. They just say or do whatever pops into their tiny, undisciplined mind.
I really don't know why most games are filled with self-righteous, self-appointed know-it-alls.
It's not about any single game, it's just that anonymous people gather in masses and are able to communicate from behind the safety of their computer screens, idiocrasy flourish. This tends to happen more though with environments that are about competition and violence, like most mmorpgs. Make a mmorpg that is about growing flowers and I doubt things get very hostile in the forums etc of that game.
The game surely will evoke strong emotions. The story concept, the fact Bioware is behind it and it is Star Wars. Yeah, that won't make things easy, no matter on what side of the fence one is sitting.
Unfortunately, it is something that happens with almost every MMO. You CAN'T critizise anything without the fans jumping at your throat. I tried to discuss the flaws of Rift with some of the folks I had played Rift along for 3 months, thinking, hey those are some mates I played along. And BOY was I attacked. It is just impossible to debate any flaws of MMOs with people playing it, and it seems for many there is just totally blind adoration or totally aggressive mockery. Any balanced and critical in between is an impossible stance.
Well sorry Elikal but to be honest with you, your posts rarely come off as balanced themselves. Most of them tend to be over thought, over numerous, long winded angry rants where you let your anger and frustration overwhelm what would otherwise be good points for discussion. Or you continue to try to find concrete answers to topics that due to lack of concrete information can only be summed up by posters gut feeling opinions. So its of little suprise you get mostly heated and emotional based answers when you contiune to ask the same unanswerable questions. My two cents.
That IS my balanced. There is just SO MUCH idiocy in games (and gamers) I am really, really holding back 80% of what I feel and think. This is 10 times washed through a "nicety-filter". On the contrary I have the opinion I was way too tolerant and timid for my own good in the last years here, and I have allowed people to treat me out of tolerance as probably I shouldn't.
You haven't seen me REALLY angry. Trust me, you would notice the difference.
The game surely will evoke strong emotions. The story concept, the fact Bioware is behind it and it is Star Wars. Yeah, that won't make things easy, no matter on what side of the fence one is sitting.
Unfortunately, it is something that happens with almost every MMO. You CAN'T critizise anything without the fans jumping at your throat. I tried to discuss the flaws of Rift with some of the folks I had played Rift along for 3 months, thinking, hey those are some mates I played along. And BOY was I attacked. It is just impossible to debate any flaws of MMOs with people playing it, and it seems for many there is just totally blind adoration or totally aggressive mockery. Any balanced and critical in between is an impossible stance.
Sadly, most people can't view anything objectively. Everyone has an opinion. It doesn't matter that they know .00001% of the information. There was a thread recently about server technology that had so much misinformation, and people who clearly had trouble doing simple addition where putting in their two cents, it was mind-boogling. By god, they have an opinion, and it must be right. It doesn't matter they were a high-school drop-out or have not even graduated from high school, yet. They know EVERYTHING.
Hardcore ultra defensive BW/ SW fanbois on one side, taking offense at any percieved slight to 'their' game.
Shiny new game casuals attracted by the Star wars brand that are just there for the lulz and to pretty much troll their way through the experience before they quit at the end of the free play, on the other.
Mixed together in a 90% solo based experience, with very little interdependency or need to 'get on', and given a global chat channel to fight in....
What social tools/ mechanisms can BW introduce to help this potentiol situation?
I agree with the fans part but BioWare mod the swtor forum very strictly. You won't get the same racist, sexist abuse you get in the off-topic forum on this site and you won't find any political forum where the mods allowed racist, sexist homophobic and god knows what other rants to run free.
Until recently they had an off-topic forum but you were not allowed to talk about anything polictical which was fine IMO. The thing i have a problem with is you could talk about other MMOs in the off-topic forum but BioWare didn't like that so now their is no off-topic forum and you cannot talk about other MMOs anywhere on their site.
It's not about any single game, it's just that anonymous people gather in masses and are able to communicate from behind the safety of their computer screens, idiocrasy flourish. This tends to happen more though with environments that are about competition and violence, like most mmorpgs. Make a mmorpg that is about growing flowers and I doubt things get very hostile in the forums etc of that game.
"did you just step on my roses? did you just step on my @#$% roses?! AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH"
Hardcore ultra defensive BW/ SW fanbois on one side, taking offense at any percieved slight to 'their' game.
Shiny new game casuals attracted by the Star wars brand that are just there for the lulz and to pretty much troll their way through the experience before they quit at the end of the free play, on the other.
Mixed together in a 90% solo based experience, with very little interdependency or need to 'get on', and given a global chat channel to fight in....
What social tools/ mechanisms can BW introduce to help this potentiol situation?
I agree with the fans part but BioWare mo0d the swtor forum very strictly. You won't get the same racist sexist abuse you get in the off-topic forum on this site and you won't find any poilictic forum where the mods allowed racist sexist and god knows what other rants to run free.
Until recently they had an off-topic forum but you were not allowed to talk about anything polictical which was fine IMO. The thing i have a problem with is you could talk about other MMOs in the off-topic forum but BioWare didn't like that so now their is no off-topic forum and you cannot talk about other MMOs anywhere on their site.
Lol..Paranoia BioWare..
What sense does it make to provide an outlet for people to advertise other products on your website?
@OP They could do alot like making the game more group focused or harder to play but they wont. IMO bioware seems more interested in money now then money for the long term, so they really want that casual and the guys that go from one MMO release to the next monies.
From my experiences the more casual/solo friendly the more the community sucks. Basically if people need other people to do what they want in a game they anrt dicks to people but if they don't... When I played vanilla WOW I had no problems with the community, then I came back in WOTLK and the community had become crap.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Hardcore ultra defensive BW/ SW fanbois on one side, taking offense at any percieved slight to 'their' game.
Shiny new game casuals attracted by the Star wars brand that are just there for the lulz and to pretty much troll their way through the experience before they quit at the end of the free play, on the other.
Mixed together in a 90% solo based experience, with very little interdependency or need to 'get on', and given a global chat channel to fight in....
What social tools/ mechanisms can BW introduce to help this potentiol situation?
I agree with the fans part but BioWare mo0d the swtor forum very strictly. You won't get the same racist sexist abuse you get in the off-topic forum on this site and you won't find any poilictic forum where the mods allowed racist sexist and god knows what other rants to run free.
Until recently they had an off-topic forum but you were not allowed to talk about anything polictical which was fine IMO. The thing i have a problem with is you could talk about other MMOs in the off-topic forum but BioWare didn't like that so now their is no off-topic forum and you cannot talk about other MMOs anywhere on their site.
Lol..Paranoia BioWare..
What sense does it make to provide an outlet for people to advertise other products on your website?
That's what the off-topic forum on gaming sites is about,it's to discuss ANYTHING that has nothing to do with the game. It's quite easy to work out what off-topic means,i should not have to explain it to you.
I have never been on any dev teams site that has not had an off-topic forum.
What I mean is: build group-finding tools powerful enough that people actually want to use them; build an auction house useful enough people want to use it; and then don't bother with
1. Alderaan - General>
2. Alderaan - Trade>
3. Alderaan - LFG>
and so on. When such channels are present, there's always at least one somewhere that will devolve into barrens chat.
Heaven forbid people actually have to communicate in an online universe...
I mean really, People want to play in an online universe with thousands of players but they cant handle filtering out the bullshit they dont aggree with or dont want to hear?
In referece to the topic:
Yes, the game will attract alot of players they wont share your view point and will probably find them offensive. as for lore,i fully expect to see people with alias's like "lightsabermasterxxx" and guilds called "darthrofl" ruining your immersion.
Does this hinder my descision to try the game? no. it would be foolish to think that human nature and stupidity wouldnt transend into a virtual world.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
That's what the off-topic forum on gaming sites is about,it's to discuss ANYTHING that has nothing to do with the game. It's quite easy to work out what off-topic means,i should not have to explain it to you.
I have never been on any dev teams site that has not had an off-topic forum.
Well, there's a first time for everything. For example, if you visited Aion or GW2 forums you'll find that they don't have an official dev forum but the most visited forums of those MMO's are run by regular folks, if you hadn't experienced that before then there's your first time again.
As for the reason why they closed down the offtopic forum after providing you the privilege of posting on those for a while, a privilege that doesn't always exist for every MMORPG (see GW2 and Aion), could you link me the quote where it says that they shut it down because of people talking about other MMO's? I'd hate to think that that was all fabricated stuff and rumor mongering with no shred of evidence in it. Thank you in advance
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Hardcore ultra defensive BW/ SW fanbois on one side, taking offense at any percieved slight to 'their' game.
Shiny new game casuals attracted by the Star wars brand that are just there for the lulz and to pretty much troll their way through the experience before they quit at the end of the free play, on the other.
Mixed together in a 90% solo based experience, with very little interdependency or need to 'get on', and given a global chat channel to fight in....
What social tools/ mechanisms can BW introduce to help this potentiol situation?
I agree with the fans part but BioWare mo0d the swtor forum very strictly. You won't get the same racist sexist abuse you get in the off-topic forum on this site and you won't find any poilictic forum where the mods allowed racist sexist and god knows what other rants to run free.
Until recently they had an off-topic forum but you were not allowed to talk about anything polictical which was fine IMO. The thing i have a problem with is you could talk about other MMOs in the off-topic forum but BioWare didn't like that so now their is no off-topic forum and you cannot talk about other MMOs anywhere on their site.
Lol..Paranoia BioWare..
What sense does it make to provide an outlet for people to advertise other products on your website?
That's what the off-topic forum on gaming sites is about,it's to discuss ANYTHING that has nothing to do with the game. It's quite easy to work out what off-topic means,i should not have to explain it to you.
I have never been on any dev teams site that has not had an off-topic forum.
You did not answer the question. I said what sense does it make. Why would I allow someone to advertise another game on my website in any form. Heck there are games out there with no official forums and even WOW took down their off topic forum when they revamped the website to Cataclysm.
Hardcore ultra defensive BW/ SW fanbois on one side, taking offense at any percieved slight to 'their' game.
Shiny new game casuals attracted by the Star wars brand that are just there for the lulz and to pretty much troll their way through the experience before they quit at the end of the free play, on the other.
Mixed together in a 90% solo based experience, with very little interdependency or need to 'get on', and given a global chat channel to fight in....
What social tools/ mechanisms can BW introduce to help this potentiol situation?
You really should ask this question AFTER launch. I think the game itself will weed out the type of players who don't like it. Due to it's emphasis on story, thankfully, many of the "wrong" type of player won't stick around for long. They'll go back to WoW when they realize you actually have to immerse yourself in the game's story and not just min/max all day every day in some strange epeen competition that they all seem to crave.
On the other side of it, you have the sandbox lovers who won't play it either since it tells them a story and they can't re-enact their SWG fantasies like they want to. So again, the game itself will divide and conquer. What we have afterwards is where we should focus with questions like your own.
for those asking about global chat, according to damion schubert there won't be any global chat. now this was from back in november so it could have changed since then, but that was the last time we heard about it i believe.
Each planet has chat channels that allows you to communicate with other players on the same planet. Yes, we have different channels for general, pvp, trade, etc. You will be able to turn off the channel, flag another player as a spammer for Customer Support's review, and ignore problem players.
Disregarding whether or not they are realistic (and the presence of technology makes them much more realistic here than in fantasy games - you only have to look at a CB Radio for an analog), chat is very good for the community. Of particular note, some of our best content areas are the awesome multiplayer fights our worldbuilders have been setting up. If to fight those, you had to go to town and wait for someone else to wander by, life would suck, and this content (which I want to stress, in my opinion, is usually wicked fun) would never get done.
We currently don't have any global channels that cover the whole game. General rule of thumb in an MMO is that if your chat channel has more than a certain number of participants, it becomes spammy and unusable (something that we'll be keeping an eye on in our earlier planets).
Comments
*nudges Tardcore and drops a sugar lump in his lap*
Truly the voice of reason in this neck of the woods.
My brand new bloggity blog.
SWTOR's forums was one of the reasons I stopped following the game, reminded me too much of WoW forums. While I won't go so far as say SWTOR will the worst community ever but does have the potential to eclipse WoW's community because of hype, accessability, game mechanics, and being SW. SWTOR will definately be one of the big leagues of worst communities.
Any mmo that is expected to have large sub numbers, and that attracts alot of attention, will have a bunch of folk who some of us may deem less than desireable. Sadly they have just as much right to play the game as we do. My advice, deal with it, ignore them if you must, but seriously grow up and realise that "who cares as long as I'M having fun". Come on folks, this thread is kind of useless.
It won't be the worst community ever.
It will just be the same bad community other MMO's have had (in recent years).
General chat will consist of non stop WoW comments, chuck norris comments, rudeness and other responses that should pretty much result in instant perma bans.
Thus many people will just turn general chat off and/or ignore everyone they can. Resulting in people wondering why nobody wants to group and more posts about how solo oriented MMO's have become... well no really? Seriously if you watch the average person talk in an MMO why would you ever want to group with them? Kill them in PvP... yes. Take all their stuff.. yes. Wish that there was an account level /ignore... hell yes.
Then you have people trying to ask questions that don't get answers because of the above. Unless its an off hour and general chat is under control.
This is why I hate posts that claim any game or in game tool destroys community. Its people playing MMO's that have destroyed community... and is exactly why people stick to guild/friend groups.
On top of all this in the PvP you are going to have the same people from DAoC etc that will be running speed hacks, radar or whatever else they can find. Like the "tools" people used in WAR with all the super special abilities that ... aren't actually part of the game.
Pretty much I've never seen any company seriously enforce their TOS/Eula. Which of course kills the game... or you pull a Mythic and finally ban radar users just as WoW launches... *waves* goodbye all those bored players who wanted to try a new game.. they certainly weren't just banned... or all the friends that follow them (who might not have even known their buddy was just perma banned).
BW can do two things that I would like..
1) put in an account level ignore option. Options are nice because people don't have to use them. I want to be able to /accountignore if I choose to. So I don't have to ignore every alt that person makes and it would be nice if it also added this to an account list on my end. So I don't have to add them to every character I have manually.
2) Enforce their TOA/Eula... Sure they will claim they do but let's actually see it done. If you get caught using any "illegal" 3rd party programs you should get a perma ban.. zero tolerance. No endless 3 day vacations etc Normal infractions should follow normal policy
Its easy to turn off general chat and ignore almost all players.
Its not as easy if you like to PvP to ignore people who are exploiting or using "3rd party programs". When you see the same people endlessly reported and the response of "its under investigation"... eventually people either quit or start using the same super special abilities to compete. (this is a Mythic reference pretty much.. oh Hi they are part of BW now..)
Or when you report the same level 20 guy for mining "under ground" in a level 80+ zone day after day... how hard can it really be to check and go "oh ya he is exploiting the z axis..." ... (yes that is a world of warcraft reference).
Thats a tricky question really. Since day one mmo gamers are interested into debating their game weakness to enhance them. It is a big part of any mmo, you will probably not see it in other computer games, not at that level i think. First i don't think it is bad as you make it look, not that bad, you always find few people with constructive comment into those flame wars. It is part of the massively multiplayer aspect really. It is a way for the people to socialise in the bad or good sense about their hoby. The problem is that they are entirely dependant in the dev work, basically Devs are the only one that can do something about it. Or they listen and implemented what they ask for or they don't. Thats all this hater and fan boys debates really are about. This naturally hapen now even before the games are launched. So overall this is not bad to me, i don't see it as a negative point overall.
Now about what they can do to help it?
I personally think they could give a lot more tools to the players, to build their own events and stories for the others for exemple, to create communities like villages, some real trade hubs and activities, better ingame chating and meeting rooms... Whatever could focus the gamers in what happen to their characters rather than what happen to the game. TRy to make the gamers talk about their ingame activities rather than the outside game mechanism and rules. I mean both are important, but ingame activity are just inexistant into forums.
But really when you look at it there is not much to talk about ingame stuff, really nothing. The few last items that are from the last update, where to find this or this and how, some trading and hints, helping the noobs, but thats all. So trying to enrich this aspect can be good. Maybe this could help, especially if they could separate the ingame and game mechanisms forums; and have the ingame one more interesting. Seam a very long path really
They really would have to pour in a lot of attractive and easy to access rp features to make it happen, and it's really not where the mmorpg genre is heading at all.
The game surely will evoke strong emotions. The story concept, the fact Bioware is behind it and it is Star Wars. Yeah, that won't make things easy, no matter on what side of the fence one is sitting.
Unfortunately, it is something that happens with almost every MMO. You CAN'T critizise anything without the fans jumping at your throat. I tried to discuss the flaws of Rift with some of the folks I had played Rift along for 3 months, thinking, hey those are some mates I played along. And BOY was I attacked. It is just impossible to debate any flaws of MMOs with people playing it, and it seems for many there is just totally blind adoration or totally aggressive mockery. Any balanced and critical in between is an impossible stance.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I'm the voice of reason!? Cripes how did that happen!? We are truly and deeply doomed as a species. Well we humans any way, you ponies should be fine.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Honestly nothing, the internet is a sesspool of douchebaggery and such. There really is not anything they can do to help with it. Well they could make it a offline single player game thats about the ONLY way. All I can say really is get used to assholes online, because well thats the age we live in. I just try to ignore them, someone calls you a noob, don't say anything back thats what they want, to piss them off just ignore them and they'll stop.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Well sorry Elikal but to be honest with you, your posts rarely come off as balanced themselves. Most of them tend to be over thought, over numerous, long winded angry rants where you let your anger and frustration overwhelm what would otherwise be good points for discussion. Or you continue to try to find concrete answers to topics that due to lack of concrete information can only be summed up by posters gut feeling opinions. So its of little suprise you get mostly heated and emotional based answers when you contiune to ask the same unanswerable questions. My two cents.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
If you come into this conversation as an outsider, I have to say that the voice of reason tends to point toward Mav and DarkPony. Tossing out random percentages and presenting them as facts does come across as a lie. The conversation sort of derailed after that point.
So back to the original question....I don't believe this game will have any worse community than any other game out there. BW can't be responsible for all the idiots that go out and play games. The larger the community the more likely you are to run into a few a-holes. Just ignore people that spam chat. That is the best thing you can do. If you respond to them then they get what they want. If they are constantly ignored in chat they will quit the spam and leave to some other game where people argue back. Last night I ran a few battlegrounds in Rift. I saw the same person complaining in each one. By the third matchup he had quit complaining because no one was listening to him. We also won a match doing the opposite of what he suggested.
Like others stated, I tend to find the RP servers as the most mature. For sure those servers still have a-holes too, but there is usually less spam and hateful attitudes. Also, once you get past the first couple months the population seems to get better as well. You have those people searching for the next best thing who will only play for a month, then complain about content like they do in every other game. Once they get burnt out in a month and leave the conversations usually get better. AoC at launch, complaining all the time. AoC now on the Wicanna server, awesome group of people.
That IS my balanced. There is just SO MUCH idiocy in games (and gamers) I am really, really holding back 80% of what I feel and think. This is 10 times washed through a "nicety-filter". On the contrary I have the opinion I was way too tolerant and timid for my own good in the last years here, and I have allowed people to treat me out of tolerance as probably I shouldn't.
You haven't seen me REALLY angry. Trust me, you would notice the difference.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
There has only been two MMOs I've played that I could honestly say had very few jerks in it. Those two are DAoC and DDO. Maybe, because both were smaller, closer communities where we all worked together without being forced to. No one forced us to go out and fight for our realm in DAoC. DDO no one is forced to join a specific guild or be left out in the cold. You can do pick-up raids pretty easily.
I've basically played every MMO. Some have small pops, and some have large. The large ones just means you have more of a chance to meet a someone who doesn't really want to interact with people. They just want to get the phat lewts with minimal time invested, so they can do the same thing over and over.
For some reason the worst are large populated PvE games like EQ used to be, of course, WoW, and I've noticed Rift is quickly going there. Maybe because in those games we are forced to group with people to get anything done. This wears on people's patience, and then they just give up and treat everyone like trash. Or the more elitist of the bunch show newer players how its ok to treat others how you don't want to be treated, and those newer players make no effort into being a decent person. They just say or do whatever pops into their tiny, undisciplined mind.
I really don't know why most games are filled with self-righteous, self-appointed know-it-alls.
It's not about any single game, it's just that anonymous people gather in masses and are able to communicate from behind the safety of their computer screens, idiocrasy flourish. This tends to happen more though with environments that are about competition and violence, like most mmorpgs. Make a mmorpg that is about growing flowers and I doubt things get very hostile in the forums etc of that game.
Do you get all green and stuff?
In Bioware we trust!
Sadly, most people can't view anything objectively. Everyone has an opinion. It doesn't matter that they know .00001% of the information. There was a thread recently about server technology that had so much misinformation, and people who clearly had trouble doing simple addition where putting in their two cents, it was mind-boogling. By god, they have an opinion, and it must be right. It doesn't matter they were a high-school drop-out or have not even graduated from high school, yet. They know EVERYTHING.
I agree with the fans part but BioWare mod the swtor forum very strictly. You won't get the same racist, sexist abuse you get in the off-topic forum on this site and you won't find any political forum where the mods allowed racist, sexist homophobic and god knows what other rants to run free.
Until recently they had an off-topic forum but you were not allowed to talk about anything polictical which was fine IMO. The thing i have a problem with is you could talk about other MMOs in the off-topic forum but BioWare didn't like that so now their is no off-topic forum and you cannot talk about other MMOs anywhere on their site.
Lol..Paranoia BioWare..
"did you just step on my roses? did you just step on my @#$% roses?! AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH"
What sense does it make to provide an outlet for people to advertise other products on your website?
In Bioware we trust!
@OP
They could do alot like making the game more group focused or harder to play but they wont. IMO bioware seems more interested in money now then money for the long term, so they really want that casual and the guys that go from one MMO release to the next monies.
From my experiences the more casual/solo friendly the more the community sucks. Basically if people need other people to do what they want in a game they anrt dicks to people but if they don't... When I played vanilla WOW I had no problems with the community, then I came back in WOTLK and the community had become crap.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
That's what the off-topic forum on gaming sites is about,it's to discuss ANYTHING that has nothing to do with the game. It's quite easy to work out what off-topic means,i should not have to explain it to you.
I have never been on any dev teams site that has not had an off-topic forum.
Heaven forbid people actually have to communicate in an online universe...
I mean really, People want to play in an online universe with thousands of players but they cant handle filtering out the bullshit they dont aggree with or dont want to hear?
In referece to the topic:
Yes, the game will attract alot of players they wont share your view point and will probably find them offensive. as for lore,i fully expect to see people with alias's like "lightsabermasterxxx" and guilds called "darthrofl" ruining your immersion.
Does this hinder my descision to try the game? no. it would be foolish to think that human nature and stupidity wouldnt transend into a virtual world.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Well, there's a first time for everything. For example, if you visited Aion or GW2 forums you'll find that they don't have an official dev forum but the most visited forums of those MMO's are run by regular folks, if you hadn't experienced that before then there's your first time again.
As for the reason why they closed down the offtopic forum after providing you the privilege of posting on those for a while, a privilege that doesn't always exist for every MMORPG (see GW2 and Aion), could you link me the quote where it says that they shut it down because of people talking about other MMO's? I'd hate to think that that was all fabricated stuff and rumor mongering with no shred of evidence in it. Thank you in advance
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You did not answer the question. I said what sense does it make. Why would I allow someone to advertise another game on my website in any form. Heck there are games out there with no official forums and even WOW took down their off topic forum when they revamped the website to Cataclysm.
In Bioware we trust!
You really should ask this question AFTER launch. I think the game itself will weed out the type of players who don't like it. Due to it's emphasis on story, thankfully, many of the "wrong" type of player won't stick around for long. They'll go back to WoW when they realize you actually have to immerse yourself in the game's story and not just min/max all day every day in some strange epeen competition that they all seem to crave.
On the other side of it, you have the sandbox lovers who won't play it either since it tells them a story and they can't re-enact their SWG fantasies like they want to. So again, the game itself will divide and conquer. What we have afterwards is where we should focus with questions like your own.
for those asking about global chat, according to damion schubert there won't be any global chat. now this was from back in november so it could have changed since then, but that was the last time we heard about it i believe.
DamionSchubert
Joined: Oct 2008
11.24.2010 , 01:07 PM
Each planet has chat channels that allows you to communicate with other players on the same planet. Yes, we have different channels for general, pvp, trade, etc. You will be able to turn off the channel, flag another player as a spammer for Customer Support's review, and ignore problem players.
Disregarding whether or not they are realistic (and the presence of technology makes them much more realistic here than in fantasy games - you only have to look at a CB Radio for an analog), chat is very good for the community. Of particular note, some of our best content areas are the awesome multiplayer fights our worldbuilders have been setting up. If to fight those, you had to go to town and wait for someone else to wander by, life would suck, and this content (which I want to stress, in my opinion, is usually wicked fun) would never get done.
We currently don't have any global channels that cover the whole game. General rule of thumb in an MMO is that if your chat channel has more than a certain number of participants, it becomes spammy and unusable (something that we'll be keeping an eye on in our earlier planets).
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4771767#post4771767