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Why did SWG have a good community?
preston326
Member UncommonPosts: 115
Hi, I've been told that SWG had really nice community because "developers provided players with the tools to shape the community". So what were those 'tools'?
Comments
The primary tools were player cities and the fact that PvP was consensual. SWG had very large planets with lots of empty space. Player crafters could create automated stores to sell their wares whiel they were away.
A guild could go out into the wilderness and build its own city away from other players and do their own thing. Thus players got to interact with people they liked and could ignore players they did not want to interact with. You got tight, self-selected communities.
It depends what they mean.
SWG had a better community before the time it had "social tools" like storyteller stuff. That is because back before then the mmorpg audience was different and in general mmos were built around a more world simulation model which drove community interaction.
An older, more rpg centric community in a sandbox mmorpg will have a "better" community than most modern themepark games, regardless of what artificial social tools you try to add to them.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Because the game was designed around more than just combat being the focal point of the game. Crafting was a fully fleshed out gameplay path, as were more social skills such as the entertainer professions. In this, there were gamers of all varieties playing together. The best part of it, was that each profession had it's place and offered something that other players needed or wanted, which helped in shaping the game's community in a positive way by having players interacting and relying on one another.
Because it was small?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I think the economy was the number one driving force behind the social aspect. No matter your game path, you needed the tools to do it properly, and you could only get those tools from someone who could craft them. All items beyond starting equipment were crafted.
This forced "casual" interaction in a way that was very natural...
"Hey can you fix my armour?" "Sure, how's the war going?"
"Can I get some buffs?" "Sure, here's the cost and stats."
"How much for a tan ribbed shirt and hot pants?" "I'll have to go get more hide for those, but Smithy over there can make them."
I'm one of those that aren't very social in-game, but the interactions were casual and necessary. These interactions led to much larger ones and eventually to friendships.
Guilds became greatly enhanced because no one could be just a pvp guild. You needed crafters of all types in order to fund and support it. That means guild members had to interact and cooperate with other guilds and their members.
Not to mention the coolness of finding your own corner of Dantooine to build a Guild Hall and start up an entire city.
I have a hard time being forced to "group" in order to quest (sorry... but I do)... but with smaller, short and "casual" interactions... it was much easier to build in-game relationships to make it fun to reach my goals helping, and with the help of others.
Aurelion-Ellwaen-Aulric
simple answer really, you had to rely on the community to survive
I'd like to add that SWG in the begining had a slightly more intellectual leaning... or as Nancy McIntyre put it "Far too much reading".
It was a sandbox complete with a player crafing driven economy, so if you wanted to be 'successful' you were dependant on other players to help get you where you wanted to go. That level of interdependace was a massive barrier of entry for the console kiddies who just wanted to get in a 'pwn'. Which was good for the community, as the people who tended to gravitate towards SWG at that time (in my circles at least) were more mature Star Wars fans, and not necessarily hardcore gamers.
For a time, SWG was Shangri-f'ing-la for us SW fans.
Although its not a tool (more of a side effect of the game mechanics)
id say the downtime was a huge part of what made SWG so good with the community.People had to wait for shuttles,buffs,wound healing etc etc during the waiting people would talk to pass time.
Now its all get to the action now mindset which while is more fun it does have an effect on the communities because we dont talk to each other anymore.
(figured i lurk on here so much i should eventually throw my 2 cents in)
Agreed, shuttle wait times went a long way towards forcing people to mingle. Annoying for those who just wanted to jump in and kill stuff, but great for those of us who wanted to 'live' in the SW universe.
I never played SWG, but its funny you should mention wait times.
I'm a fan of FFXI (huge fan) and some of my best memories were chatting with people while waiting for an air ship. Or talking to people while riding it..
Lotsa down time in that game, which gave alot of time to interact. Including during combat, you'd pull 4-5 mobs and then have some downtime to recharge..and talk about whatever.
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This^..
SWG had a good community from day one on, most people you met were social it had nothing to do with the tools given.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
SWG had a good community from day one on, most people you met were social it had nothing to do with the tools given.
I would think that some of it had to do with having a common interest in Star Wars. Knowing you have a common ground with other people makes it a lot easier to strike up a conversation and hang out.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There were non-combat player classes (social, science, medical, trade, politics, etc) that brought in a much more diverse player base along with many interesting personalities and dynamics to the community. You had people from all walks of life playing SWG, and a large portion of them didn't care about combat at all. Even more people were like me, who loved a 50/50 balance of both as I felt the need. In contrast, today's MMO's are populated mostly by combat type people.
The game allowed people to forge their own adventure within a virtual world. You were not on quest rails. In my opinion, many of the 'heros' of SWG were support people who crafted amazing things, built incredible shops/homes to explore, sat at Star Ports and greeted/helped brand new players spawning into the game for the first time, etc.
The professions were designed, for the most part, to be cooperative. People needed each other, and they enjoyed that aspect very much.
The crafting and resource system was so vast and detailed, that I personally think the complexity of it supassed the complexity of many other *entire games*. No developer has come close, in my opinion.
The lack of theme park content actually made people create their own quests and adventures, and everyone was happy as hell to do it.
When I tell people that players would design, rehearse and perform theatrical plays to be shown to other players in the cities of SWG, they look at me like I was crazy. When I tell them that I was a contract hunter who specialized in rare crafting goods that I kept extensive notes and location information for, they don't really get it. When I talk about how people could decorate their homes with just about every item in the game, and they created everything from incredible temples, to hunting lodges to huge player driven NPC vendor malls, they have trouble seeing it. Those are just three examples out of thousands of unique things people did in this game that had nothing at all to do with quests, raids, endgame, etc.
*NONE* of those things were designed by SOE. The game simply gave us the tools, and we ran with them. We built worlds. Note that I didn't talk about combat here, though it was obviously a huge part of the game. That should be implied.
You have to understand, that it is very hard to reduce the experience down. In reality, it would not be all that difficult to write a 200-300 page paperback book about the experience, gameplay and community of SWG. There would be no other way to give the game justice for what it achieved. There was a spark of life about it that truly felt like a virtual world and community. When many of us logged in, we were going to a second home, not just a game.
I swear if someone would put together a room full of real SWG vets and let them talk about their experiences and what really worked about SWG, that this could be duplicated in another sandbox game. SWG rose to be something larger than the sum of the game's systems, and it did so through the passion of the community playing it. The devs deserve credit for creating a system that let the player's imagination take the steering wheel, while deeply emmersing them in the Star Wars universe, and all that comes with it.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Probably right about that, at the same time IMO it just seems like back then most also had a common interest in creating communities, which was the main focus of the genre for many, those times have changed over the last (almost ) decade.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It had better community because there was:
- less anonymity - no LFG auto-queue tools with insta-teleport
- game encouraged cooperation - people tend to behave better if they share common interest and / or need others to cooperate with
- less people with 'I need to do that dungeon for my epic bracelets NAU noob!!'
SWG was a game in which 'rules' and dependancies in the world mattered. Player was a one of 'citizens' inhabiting a universe (server) and obviously there was a limit what single person can do.
Modern mmorpg's create single player experience where players sometimes create co-op 'teams' to do specific task. Also player can be 'I can do everything and I do everything so I don't have to cooperate with others'.
It is normal - when there is cooperation, both in economic sense (player made economy in SWG, not everyone can easily be crafter,etc) and combat sense.
Nowadays 90% of game is solo experience, when you absolutely need to group, you have anonymus 'low-effort' LFG tool that pair you up with some random people you'll never see again.
That's why people act like ass. Why? Becasue they can.
Why less % acted like ass in SWG and older games? Because if you did, people were reluctant to cooperate with you and it was not easy and fast to make an alt and there were no easy-anonymus tools to group up as well.
you could only have one character per account on any given server.
Agree, and there were other little features that came together to help bolster a community atmosphere. For example, since players ran their own in-game vendors and shops out of decorated player housing, they ultimately controlled the economy. If you acted out or were rude in SWG, you could potentially be banned from some great shops, or even entire player cities! This is a big deal, because while there were a lot of crafters, the truly great cafters who sold the best of the best goods, were few and spread across the planets. Being a jerk regularly to players meant that you could lose access to these crafters and their goods.
The other side of this coin is interesting too. If you really, really wanted to be a villian, and to be hated by lots of players, you could. You could become a true 'bad guy' and gain all of the associated noteriety. You could become a legend of evil. In today's games, there are so many rude and mean people playing, that it is commonplace. You are just another griefing kid on a server full of them, and you do so because you can get away with it. In SWG, you had to weigh the consequences, but it made the world that much more interesting to have these types of people in them.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Just look at this list of pre-NGE SWG professions. SWG did not have classes, it was a skill point based system, and it allowed you to dabble in multiple professions to make your own unique characters. There is something for EVERYONE in a list like this. Also note that these professions were, for the most part, fully realized gameplay paths that were a cooperative part of the community.
Starting Professions
Artisan
Brawler
Entertainer
Marksman
Medic
Politician
Scout
Elite/Hybrid Professions
Architect
Armorsmith
Bio-engineer
Bounty Hunter
Carbineer
Chef
Combat Medic
Commando
Creature Handler
Dancer
Doctor
Droid Engineer
Fencer
Image Designer
Merchant
Musician
Pikeman
Pistoleer
Ranger
Rifleman
Smuggler
Squad Leader
Swordsman
Tailor
Teras Kasi Artist
Weaponsmith
------
Take Chef for example. Cooking was not some tacked-on feature that every player could do. It was a full crafting profession that relied on resource growing/gathering and cooperation with other players, such as traders who could manufacture your food products in their factories to make "crates" of them that people could carry in their packs into combat. If you worked hard, *and developed great relationships with the right people*, you could become the most well known chef on your server, and provide products that were better than the rest. People would travel from all over to visit your shop/vendors and pay a premium to buy your goods. They would also message you and request special orders for themselves or their guild. Your brand of food could become legendary.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
DING DING DING!! We have a winner. That really is the main reason SWGs early community was better than modern ones. Though I disagree it was a completely great community. Dickheads of Mortis Consortium? I'm looking right at you.
Its no different than the early online community days of BBss and Newsgroups where like minded people got together to share ideas just for the fun of it, before the taint of ego driven, net tardtality became the social norm.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
I agree. It was about interdepenency. You needed other people for something besides raiding or PvP. In its time it was a pretty amazing thing. At this point though I wouldn't want another sandbox with a known IP. Something new and original based on the interdependency model that was used in SWG would be cool though.
Its no different than the early online community days of BBss and Newsgroups where like minded people got together to share ideas just for the fun of it, before the taint of ego driven, net tardtality became the social norm.
I agree here. You had a small community of mostly like minded individuals. There were plenty of jackasses though. Bria had its share thats for sure.
Yes, but those people added spice to a game where most people were cooperative. They were standouts, and they made the game interesting. I wouldn't have it any other way. What I don't like is today's selfish gameplay where people are free to be rude little children without any in-game consequence.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Because the game was not for console gamers!!!!
enuf said...
You had to depend on the community to survive. The sheer magnitude of how true that was is impossible to capture in a single post. You had crafted weapons, armor, buff items, social items, housing, pets, mounts, collections, and later space ships, space parts of all kinds - all of these things were only accesible by working with other players. You did not get epic dropped loot or run instanced dungeons repeatedly to get good drops. You got your stuff from people.
It's a hard concept to grasp today. But that's how it was. And the more friends you made, the more power you had. Someone who had a ton of contacts and friends could wield more "power" than anyone by pulling in some favors or contracts, and getting anything accomplished/crafted. Being a jackass and rude to people was a quick way to be shunned by the community, which actually had consequences for your character. Not because you'd be attacked on sight or become some kind of flagged enemy of the state, but because no one would want to do you any favors or work with you to accomplish or craft something.
Short version: It was players who created almost every item and buff in the game. If you were not friendly to players, you had a harder time getting anything. The tool that Sony gave to the players was the ability to build everything.
Agreed.
Sandbox/Virtual World MMOs were more than just about combat, leveling, and items. The point of the game was to place your character/avatar into a world where there was plenty for that avatar to do. These games focused more about shaping the world, community, and economy than the theme park structure that dominates the genre today.
The Internet was also a little less aggressive and opinionated years back as well. Each year, with more and more people getting online - and especially when corporate America started abusing the internet - the internet has turned more into a giant chaotic mess of anonymous opinions, advertisements, and aggressive people. I'm not saying it didn't have these elements in the 90's, but they've grown 100x fold since the early-to-mid 2000's.
I mean if you want to evaluate human nature, just look online. Hop on an large scale MMO for a few hours and read general chat conversations. 80% of it is generally negative, aggressive, or bullying in nature. Communities used to be more helpful in general. I think most mature players now simply band up with friends and ignore general chat all together - using Vent or Guild Chat to talk amongst themselves.
And with that being said I'll always stick by the stance that an in-game community will ALWAYS be stronger and more realistic if you can only communicate in-game with people within your proximity. No /general chat channels - only local. UO was a great example of this.