I think communities in MMORPG's are weaker in the sense that generally guilds play a less important role and people change games faster now. LFG tools is one of the things that made guilds less important, but I don't see that necessarily as a bad thing.
Another reason could be the much larger choice in gaming we have nowadays and that MMORPG's are not the main source for online gaming anymore. And people tend to switch games more often, or play several games at the same time. And there are a lot more people now that play games very casually.
But I still see guilds that try to keep those connections strong and work together and focus their recruiting on that aspect.
Then there are also new places now that form gaming communities outside of games (Steam groups for example). But instead of being based in one game, they basically use those groups to find others to play different games together.
I think people who used to use games as a primordial social media are using current social media for their socializing rather than the game so that need for great communities isn't there as strong anymore on a consumer level, there are alternatives.
For the most part community's are just revolved around guilds. There is no need to talk other player and you already have online social networks.
EQ had slow leveling and downtime that ensured you had time and stayed with people around you. If it took time to go from 20 to 30 you would see the same people leveling around you. Guess what with downtime you could talk to them. Not mention forced grouping. Not to say that's the best way go play a MMORPG. It certainly makes sense.
Lot of games these days have guilds and communities that are formed outside the game. They use discord and other chat programs to communicate. So gauging a community is no longer only using the metric that is in game because these communities trade,party and raid together while maintaining a healthy amount of discussion and interaction. I don't think it is accurate to use only in game parameters to decide how good or weak a game community is because sometimes the people playing the game are solely interacting with these communities and sometimes (which I dislike) to the complete exclusion of others.
I'm not so sure, though. For those players in that small community, sure they're strong. What about all the those players NOT in that specific community?
I always felt that community meant most of the folks around, not just a few select people in a clique.
Since no one outside of that group can know about that specific community, I'm not going to judge a whole game by them. They're definitely not adding to the game's community as a whole, right? I'll instead look at the chat, which everyone can access.
You cannot possibly interact with everyone. There has always been the possibility but the reality is that convenience is also a factor in how you interact. If the community you belong to is your guild or discord group then it will be the community you interact with. For that person the community is strong since they are getting the help and interaction they need.
Whether this discord group is contributing to the community in the game the answer is yes because no person or group of people can possibly impact the whole game so it is quality of the interaction that matters. Since games support these types of communities saying it does not impact the whole game because it is not your preferred method of interaction or one you are not familiar with does not change that more and more people are using social media for almost every aspect of their life.
There always have been exclusive guilds even in Everquest and those guilds were so closeted they would actually not allow anyone outside of their guild to take part in raids. So how would you describe those guilds' impact on the community and in a lot of cases those were some of the most successful guilds on the server with server firsts.
I think communities in MMORPG's are weaker in the sense that generally guilds play a less important role and people change games faster now. LFG tools is one of the things that made guilds less important, but I don't see that necessarily as a bad thing.
Another reason could be the much larger choice in gaming we have nowadays and that MMORPG's are not the main source for online gaming anymore. And people tend to switch games more often, or play several games at the same time. And there are a lot more people now that play games very casually.
But I still see guilds that try to keep those connections strong and work together and focus their recruiting on that aspect.
Then there are also new places now that form gaming communities outside of games (Steam groups for example). But instead of being based in one game, they basically use those groups to find others to play different games together.
A lot of the conveniences in recent games have contributed to this. They have made it too easy to be self-sufficient, when the interdependency of players was a huge factor in building and maintaining those communities.
Even games that had great communities saw these things eroded as modern conveniences were patched in.
I also think that reputation doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to be, due to Dungeon Finders, Cross Realm Grouping, and the ease at which players can Reroll, Name Change, Faction Change, or Server Transfer in more recent games.
Back then, bad behavior was easily kept in check because players knew there were social costs (in game) to having a bad reputation. This is no longer the case in most games.
Things like Ventrillo, TeamSpeak, and Discord have also hurt things as it allows players to form their own enclaves outside of the game, and they encourage cliquish gameplay.
I absolutely hate the idea of one player being in multiple guilds, as it commoditizes the guilds.
I think the guild system was the backbone, and the interdependency of players was like a glue. When you make players too self-sufficient and weaken the in-game institutions that can pressure them to behave, cooperate, or involve themselves with the community... The community stops being a community.
There is no difference between the in-game communities in most MMORPGs and Diablo III to me, these days. You could switch the two out, and I wouldn't even notice.
EDIT: That being said, I think a shift in player attitude has a lot to do with how the games themselves have changed. Instead of the players accommodating the games, the games have changed to accommodate the players.
Lot of games these days have guilds and communities that are formed outside the game. They use discord and other chat programs to communicate. So gauging a community is no longer only using the metric that is in game because these communities trade,party and raid together while maintaining a healthy amount of discussion and interaction. I don't think it is accurate to use only in game parameters to decide how good or weak a game community is because sometimes the people playing the game are solely interacting with these communities and sometimes (which I dislike) to the complete exclusion of others.
I'm not so sure, though. For those players in that small community, sure they're strong. What about all the those players NOT in that specific community?
I always felt that community meant most of the folks around, not just a few select people in a clique.
Since no one outside of that group can know about that specific community, I'm not going to judge a whole game by them. They're definitely not adding to the game's community as a whole, right? I'll instead look at the chat, which everyone can access.
You cannot possibly interact with everyone. There has always been the possibility but the reality is that convenience is also a factor in how you interact. If the community you belong to is your guild or discord group then it will be the community you interact with. For that person the community is strong since they are getting the help and interaction they need.
Whether this discord group is contributing to the community in the game the answer is yes because no person or group of people can possibly impact the whole game so it is quality of the interaction that matters. Since games support these types of communities saying it does not impact the whole game because it is not your preferred method of interaction or one you are not familiar with does not change that more and more people are using social media for almost every aspect of their life.
There always have been exclusive guilds even in Everquest and those guilds were so closeted they would actually not allow anyone outside of their guild to take part in raids. So how would you describe those guilds' impact on the community and in a lot of cases those were some of the most successful guilds on the server with server firsts.
It's just personal criteria. You base it on something only a ferw can see and experience, I base it on what everyone can see or experience. That's cool
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
You can thank the select few that are trying hard to ruin both their games and the communities. First of all RAIDS are a dumb idea,it segregates the community .Why is it bad,well because you get asshats like Blizzard who create Itemlevels and gear scores to be able to do content. So it is most certainly about your gear and NOT the players,so then you alienate players from content based not on the person but on the gear.
IO could not for the life of me believe that Square Enix chose to copy Blizzard,two bad apples with no clue how to design a game.
A developer SHOULD be allowing ALL players to interact and NOT base it on gear.Then not everyone has the guild or abilities to do raids,so then what,those players are not allowed to join that OTHER sector of the community unless they are in a large guild with active players on at their time? So what i am saying it that it is the developers who govern a good or bad community and when yo u segregate it behind a wall of gear,that is about as low and inept a developer as can be.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
First of all RAIDS are a dumb idea,it segregates the community .Why is it bad,well because you get asshats like Blizzard who create Itemlevels and gear scores to be able to do content.
Get better gear? No offense, but the reason why they had to do this for Dungeons is because there are people who think simply existing is prerequisite to doing harder content. That is not the case. In order to protect people from their own stupidity (or ignorance), they had to gate the content. In any case, Blizzard *only* does this for queued content. You can always walk into the dungeon. You can do this with literally no gear on your character, and it will let you in.
This is in contrast to FFXIV, where you have to use the Duty Finder to do dungeons/raids, and therefore cannot avoid the iLevel requirements. These requirements actually ARE enforced at all times, so you pinning this on Blizzard is completely asinine. You have it completely backwards. FFXIV is not copying Blizzard. They are doing this own thing. Blizzard didn't design 8 man raids. They got rid of 10 man raids ;-) The idea is that Raiding is a guild activity. If you don't want to coordinate large groups of people, then WoW has LFR and Mythic+ - the latter of which drops end-game gear when you've progressed far enough.
In WoW, guilds can still take under geared players with them to their raids. So can groups of players. They simply run to the dungeon, summon you to it, and zone in with you. It's been like this since ever. It's why high level players can zone into low level dungeons, while FFXIV will actually Sync their Character or iLevel down to the dungeon level.
The iLevel requirements in the Party Finder is there as a courtesy to people PUGing the content, because it's a pretty awful thing to intentionally go to a raid or dungeon expecting other people to carry you when they've put in the time and effort to gear up for it - but you have not. These people do not know you, so you have no right to assume they are okay with carrying you - nor should they feel like they should have to.
What you're doing is projecting your own personal issues onto the genre, and your argument has pretty shaky grounding considering key aspects of it make the completely wrong assumptions. iLevel requirements are only a thing in LFD/LFR. If characters should be expected to be a certain level to do a dungeon, then it's logical that they should be expected to have a certain general gear quality. This is the case in both single and multi-player RPGs. It's not an MMO-exclusive feature.
Gear progression is a core tenet of character progression in both single player and multiplayer MMOs. Character progression is literally the whole purpose of these games. Raids exist to bring players together, otherwise you have thousands of players running around doing predominantly solo content - and players complain that the game feels too much like a solo game, instead (a criticism of games like GW2 and ESO, for example).
Raids are nothing more than dungeons designed for larger group sizes. They are designed for raids or other larger organized groups.
Blizzard's design is a lot more community-oriented than that of Square Enix, who only has 8 man raids (can't even accommodate every job in the game in the same raid) and who have very little viable content outside of raids for end-game PvErs: No World Bosses. No World Quests. No Mythic+ Dungeons. etc.
FFXIV and WoW are similar in many ways, but the disparities that do exist are actually [largely] clumped up at this end-game level of play. It's where these games display the biggest differences in terms of design and philosophy.
Lastly, gearing up is a progressive act. People get to end game gear by progressing through the content. You don't go from Normal Dungeon Gear to Mythic Raid gear. You work through it. This takes time.
It is disheartening to see how so many people (no one here in particular) complain about how "easy and fast" MMORPGs make things like leveling and gearing up, and then complain that they have to take their time and actually progress in terms of itemization to participate in end-game activities.
I feel like a lot of the community wants their cake and to eat it, too.
They want the nostalgic "slow pace," but they also want all things to be viable for them at all times. That is not how any RPG game works, unless you're playing with cards.
I will never forget the idiots on BDO who whenever someone asked a question in main chat would say "No questions on 'server name'". Appalling, and if there was every a reason for subscription only servers that's it.
Lastly, gearing up is a progressive act. People get to end game gear by progressing through the content. You don't go from Normal Dungeon Gear to Mythic Raid gear. You work through it. This takes time.
It is disheartening to see how so many people (no one here in particular) complain about how "easy and fast" MMORPGs make things like leveling and gearing up, and then complain that they have to take their time and actually progress in terms of itemization to participate in end-game activities.
I feel like a lot of the community wants their cake and to eat it, too.
They want the nostalgic "slow pace," but they also want all things to be viable for them at all times. That is not how any RPG game works, unless you're playing with cards.
But this is only one way of progressing raiding, right?
I've never been a "raider" as those get way too chaotic for my tastes. And there does need to be ways for players to "qualify" for raids. It's just that gear is easily (no chat/character interaction required) checked in WoW. A character's level is usually also easily checked without any interaction.
I don't think many players want "easy-peasey" raiding, just a bit of respect or roleplay. I could be wrong, of course.
You are correct that most "raiding issues" can be solved with Guilds, but finding one can be quite difficult, too. Really, I don't know what can be done about raiding, and truthfully I just don't care enough about it. Raids are content I'm sure to skip over
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
To this day, I feel embarrassed, because reputation is EVERYTHING !!!!
To me, that's an interestingly alien mindset. Reputation? I'm not sure I have one with anything other than my closest relatives and best friend. Maybe back when I was in high school I had some kind of reputation as a nerd, but from college on up, including MMOs, I've been in an environment where even if you see someone occasionally in a class or a guild for a few months, they're going to be gone sooner or later. Generally I'm in a pool of people too big to even imagine getting to know 10% of the people I encounter. If that's true for everyone, then it's basically impossible for people to have reputations, unless they are famous somehow. Even when I have been a guild leader and a max level crafter at the same time I never hit that level of fame, so it's a safe assumption that it will never be something I need to worry about.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Communities started to go downhill when WoW launched, not when f2p was introduced...... It changed the landscape from having to work together to I gotta get mine and quick.
Lastly, gearing up is a progressive act. People get to end game gear by progressing through the content. You don't go from Normal Dungeon Gear to Mythic Raid gear. You work through it. This takes time.
It is disheartening to see how so many people (no one here in particular) complain about how "easy and fast" MMORPGs make things like leveling and gearing up, and then complain that they have to take their time and actually progress in terms of itemization to participate in end-game activities.
I feel like a lot of the community wants their cake and to eat it, too.
They want the nostalgic "slow pace," but they also want all things to be viable for them at all times. That is not how any RPG game works, unless you're playing with cards.
But this is only one way of progressing raiding, right?
I've never been a "raider" as those get way too chaotic for my tastes. And there does need to be ways for players to "qualify" for raids. It's just that gear is easily (no chat/character interaction required) checked in WoW. A character's level is usually also easily checked without any interaction.
I don't think many players want "easy-peasey" raiding, just a bit of respect or roleplay. I could be wrong, of course.
You are correct that most "raiding issues" can be solved with Guilds, but finding one can be quite difficult, too. Really, I don't know what can be done about raiding, and truthfully I just don't care enough about it. Raids are content I'm sure to skip over
No.
That's why WoW has Mythic+, World Bosses, World Quests, etc.
The thing that had to "fix" to really bring that content into true viability is the Tier Set system. That's going away in BfA, which is really going to change how progression in the game works (as far as gear is concerned).
The problems that you're citing are already being addressed, at least in WoW, so it isn't really worth discussing them in relation to that game (we're in "Wait and see..." mode now). Other MMORPGs should be taking note of this, because this is literally what everyone has been asking for, for the past decade or more. It's going to feel more like EverQuest, where you could raid with dungeon gear on, and didn't feel like half your slots were pre-allocated to very specific raid drops.
Of course BiS will always exist, but we will have much greater freedom with gearing, and where we actually get the gear from - moreso than ever.
---
Even after Blizzard makes all of these changes, people will still inspect your gear to see if you're even geared enough to do the content (or demand iLvl ranges). They'll still kick and/or avoid you if your DPS/HPS/Tanking performance is too low in relation to what the content calls for. They'll still deny you entrance into parties if you happen to pick the worst spec for your class, because you want to RP a spec that's clearly underperforming.
So you'll be back to square one, because the problem was never "raiding." The problem is that people expect end-game to be like the leveling process, and it isn't. The problem is that a certain super minority of players expect others to play around them, instead of compromising and cooperating with the greater community.
The game has objectives, and people don't like to fail them. The natural tendency of anyone is to take the path of least resistance. This is why things like META exist in games.
Earn your respect with your performance in-game.
RP in your RP guild or on your RP server. Even in EQ, barely anyone RP'd - even on Firiona Vie (most people played there because of loot rules). So I find the expectation of people to RP in these games reeking of bad expectations. MMORPGs have never been littered with RPers, and it's even harder to do this when guilds basically mandate voice communications (that probably helped killed what little RP what left, and this Vent/TS mania started way back in 2003/4).
Across all my games (3 atm) people will say in the general or zone chat they're gonna report you if you offend them in the least. I haven't posted a single message other than the normal "hi" for pugs in about 2 weeks running now. I know if I said my 2 cents I'd be banned lol. So I'm silenced/censored of my own accord. I don't see much wrong with it though, it's just one less place I socialize because the consequences are too great to risk blabbing freely. So in my opinion the strength of the reporters are 1000% of what they used to be when everyone could just chill and chat. Maybe I don't want to continue my grind that I been doing for 2 hours for a certain rep so I can get antlers on my character. I just log off at that point. Before, I used to chat it up to make the grindiness easier. Just my 2 cents though. A single voice in the millions of online gamers.
Communities started to go downhill when WoW launched, not when f2p was introduced...... It changed the landscape from having to work together to I gotta get mine and quick.
I don't think the games had anything to do with this. I think people just assume that the 10M+ players EQ2/WoW brought into the market would have a similar gaming outlook/philosophy to them, and this turned out to not be the case.
The community didn't go downhill. It shifted in demographics. The behaviors in game communities today mirrors the values of the people playing the games.
The same way you seen we had communities which were very mature and "social interaction"-oriented during the EQ/DAoC days.
We got communities which were competitive-oriented during the WoW/EQ2 days.
And we're now getting communities which are oriented around Social Justice, because that's what people are being taught these days. This is clearly evident in the current debates around "toxicity" and "diversity" in gaming.
That's just the way it goes. Ebbs and Flows.
The game has nothing to do with it. You can design the perfect "social game," but that won't matter because you cannot control how people behave and interact with each other in those games.
Across all my games (3 atm) people will say in the general or zone chat they're gonna report you if you offend them in the least. I haven't posted a single message other than the normal "hi" for pugs in about 2 weeks running now. I know if I said my 2 cents I'd be banned lol. So I'm silenced/censored of my own accord. I don't see much wrong with it though, it's just one less place I socialize because the consequences are too great to risk blabbing freely. So in my opinion the strength of the reporters are 1000% of what they used to be when everyone could just chill and chat. Maybe I don't want to continue my grind that I been doing for 2 hours for a certain rep so I can get antlers on my character. I just log off at that point. Before, I used to chat it up to make the grindiness easier. Just my 2 cents though. A single voice in the millions of online gamers.
Yes, I was touching on that in the reply (above). The current community wave is oriented towards social justice and safe space culture - which mirrors things in the real world.
It's quite anti-social and totalitarian. It's hard to build a community when half the player base feels like they're being socially dominated by another group. All it does it create animosity and increasing levels of vitriolic counter-responses.
The playerbase itself becomes tribalistic, as a result.
Across all my games (3 atm) people will say in the general or zone chat they're gonna report you if you offend them in the least. I haven't posted a single message other than the normal "hi" for pugs in about 2 weeks running now. I know if I said my 2 cents I'd be banned lol. So I'm silenced/censored of my own accord. I don't see much wrong with it though, it's just one less place I socialize because the consequences are too great to risk blabbing freely. So in my opinion the strength of the reporters are 1000% of what they used to be when everyone could just chill and chat. Maybe I don't want to continue my grind that I been doing for 2 hours for a certain rep so I can get antlers on my character. I just log off at that point. Before, I used to chat it up to make the grindiness easier. Just my 2 cents though. A single voice in the millions of online gamers.
How is it that you cannot hold an in game conversation and not offend people?
Whatever do you try and discuss that raises the ire of others so much that they report you?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Across all my games (3 atm) people will say in the general or zone chat they're gonna report you if you offend them in the least. I haven't posted a single message other than the normal "hi" for pugs in about 2 weeks running now. I know if I said my 2 cents I'd be banned lol. So I'm silenced/censored of my own accord. I don't see much wrong with it though, it's just one less place I socialize because the consequences are too great to risk blabbing freely. So in my opinion the strength of the reporters are 1000% of what they used to be when everyone could just chill and chat. Maybe I don't want to continue my grind that I been doing for 2 hours for a certain rep so I can get antlers on my character. I just log off at that point. Before, I used to chat it up to make the grindiness easier. Just my 2 cents though. A single voice in the millions of online gamers.
Yes, I was touching on that in the reply (above). The current community wave is oriented towards social justice and safe space culture - which mirrors things in the real world.
It's quite anti-social and totalitarian. It's hard to build a community when half the player base feels like they're being socially dominated by another group. All it does it create animosity and increasing levels of vitriolic counter-responses.
The playerbase itself becomes tribalistic, as a result.
Same question, what topics are you finding this to be a problem with?
You aren't violating the basic tenant of not discussing religion, politics and perhaps most important of all, publically criticizing other people's performance in game are you?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Across all my games (3 atm) people will say in the general or zone chat they're gonna report you if you offend them in the least. I haven't posted a single message other than the normal "hi" for pugs in about 2 weeks running now. I know if I said my 2 cents I'd be banned lol. So I'm silenced/censored of my own accord. I don't see much wrong with it though, it's just one less place I socialize because the consequences are too great to risk blabbing freely. So in my opinion the strength of the reporters are 1000% of what they used to be when everyone could just chill and chat. Maybe I don't want to continue my grind that I been doing for 2 hours for a certain rep so I can get antlers on my character. I just log off at that point. Before, I used to chat it up to make the grindiness easier. Just my 2 cents though. A single voice in the millions of online gamers.
It never ceases to amaze how total strangers give me the power to make their day horrible with words. If I say something and you get offended, who has the problem? Not I
The most useless phrase in the English language is: "I'm offended!" Well... so fucking what? Get over it. Grow a pair. Thicken ye ol' skin. Or... Go cry in your Little Miss Kitty pillow. The best are people who get offended for other people!
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Same question, what topics are you finding this to be a problem with?
Anything you say these days has a chance to offend someone, somewhere. Humans seem to be carrying HUGE boulders on their shoulders these days, just waiting for people to try to knock them off. It is getting beyond ridiculous. ToS doesn't seem to matter. If someone cries, "I'm offended! BAN THEM!", chances are good that the one reported will get banned.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Same question, what topics are you finding this to be a problem with?
Anything you say these days has a chance to offend someone, somewhere. Humans seem to be carrying HUGE boulders on their shoulders these days, just waiting for people to try to knock them off. It is getting beyond ridiculous. ToS doesn't seem to matter. If someone cries, "I'm offended! BAN THEM!", chances are good that the one reported will get banned.
I find that people who claim the whole world is offended are often folks being called out for things like bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, etc. They miss the days when they could use hateful, bullying language and no one would speak up on anyone else's behalf. Nowadays, they will speak up. I know I will.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Same question, what topics are you finding this to be a problem with?
Anything you say these days has a chance to offend someone, somewhere. Humans seem to be carrying HUGE boulders on their shoulders these days, just waiting for people to try to knock them off. It is getting beyond ridiculous. ToS doesn't seem to matter. If someone cries, "I'm offended! BAN THEM!", chances are good that the one reported will get banned.
I find that people who claim the whole world is offended are often folks being called out for things like bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, etc. They miss the days when they could use hateful, bullying language and no one would speak up on anyone else's behalf. Nowadays, they will speak up. I know I will.
Now, the "bullies" are the old "offended" ones. So what if someone is a racist, a biggot, a sexist, or whatever other "-ist" one comes up with? Are you going to "bully" them into thinking correctly (aka: MY way), or would it be better to just shake one's head and move on?
This attitude these days of "You WILL please me!" is outrageous. Change what you can change, ignore what you can't change. You will live longer and happier, right? Change one person (the offended) or the portion of the 7 billion others?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Same question, what topics are you finding this to be a problem with?
Anything you say these days has a chance to offend someone, somewhere. Humans seem to be carrying HUGE boulders on their shoulders these days, just waiting for people to try to knock them off. It is getting beyond ridiculous. ToS doesn't seem to matter. If someone cries, "I'm offended! BAN THEM!", chances are good that the one reported will get banned.
I find that people who claim the whole world is offended are often folks being called out for things like bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, etc. They miss the days when they could use hateful, bullying language and no one would speak up on anyone else's behalf. Nowadays, they will speak up. I know I will.
Now, the "bullies" are the old "offended" ones. So what if someone is a racist, a biggot, a sexist, or whatever other "-ist" one comes up with? Are you going to "bully" them into thinking correctly (aka: MY way), or would it be better to just shake one's head and move on?
This attitude these days of "You WILL please me!" is outrageous. Change what you can change, ignore what you can't change. You will live longer and happier, right? Change one person (the offended) or the portion of the 7 billion others?
I think it is clear why people are claiming you have offended them.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
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Another reason could be the much larger choice in gaming we have nowadays and that MMORPG's are not the main source for online gaming anymore. And people tend to switch games more often, or play several games at the same time. And there are a lot more people now that play games very casually.
But I still see guilds that try to keep those connections strong and work together and focus their recruiting on that aspect.
Then there are also new places now that form gaming communities outside of games (Steam groups for example). But instead of being based in one game, they basically use those groups to find others to play different games together.
EQ had slow leveling and downtime that ensured you had time and stayed with people around you. If it took time to go from 20 to 30 you would see the same people leveling around you. Guess what with downtime you could talk to them. Not mention forced grouping. Not to say that's the best way go play a MMORPG. It certainly makes sense.
Whether this discord group is contributing to the community in the game the answer is yes because no person or group of people can possibly impact the whole game so it is quality of the interaction that matters. Since games support these types of communities saying it does not impact the whole game because it is not your preferred method of interaction or one you are not familiar with does not change that more and more people are using social media for almost every aspect of their life.
There always have been exclusive guilds even in Everquest and those guilds were so closeted they would actually not allow anyone outside of their guild to take part in raids. So how would you describe those guilds' impact on the community and in a lot of cases those were some of the most successful guilds on the server with server firsts.
Even games that had great communities saw these things eroded as modern conveniences were patched in.
I also think that reputation doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to be, due to Dungeon Finders, Cross Realm Grouping, and the ease at which players can Reroll, Name Change, Faction Change, or Server Transfer in more recent games.
Back then, bad behavior was easily kept in check because players knew there were social costs (in game) to having a bad reputation. This is no longer the case in most games.
Things like Ventrillo, TeamSpeak, and Discord have also hurt things as it allows players to form their own enclaves outside of the game, and they encourage cliquish gameplay.
I absolutely hate the idea of one player being in multiple guilds, as it commoditizes the guilds.
I think the guild system was the backbone, and the interdependency of players was like a glue. When you make players too self-sufficient and weaken the in-game institutions that can pressure them to behave, cooperate, or involve themselves with the community... The community stops being a community.
There is no difference between the in-game communities in most MMORPGs and Diablo III to me, these days. You could switch the two out, and I wouldn't even notice.
EDIT: That being said, I think a shift in player attitude has a lot to do with how the games themselves have changed. Instead of the players accommodating the games, the games have changed to accommodate the players.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
First of all RAIDS are a dumb idea,it segregates the community .Why is it bad,well because you get asshats like Blizzard who create Itemlevels and gear scores to be able to do content.
So it is most certainly about your gear and NOT the players,so then you alienate players from content based not on the person but on the gear.
IO could not for the life of me believe that Square Enix chose to copy Blizzard,two bad apples with no clue how to design a game.
A developer SHOULD be allowing ALL players to interact and NOT base it on gear.Then not everyone has the guild or abilities to do raids,so then what,those players are not allowed to join that OTHER sector of the community unless they are in a large guild with active players on at their time?
So what i am saying it that it is the developers who govern a good or bad community and when yo u segregate it behind a wall of gear,that is about as low and inept a developer as can be.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Get better gear? No offense, but the reason why they had to do this for Dungeons is because there are people who think simply existing is prerequisite to doing harder content. That is not the case. In order to protect people from their own stupidity (or ignorance), they had to gate the content. In any case, Blizzard *only* does this for queued content. You can always walk into the dungeon. You can do this with literally no gear on your character, and it will let you in.
In WoW, guilds can still take under geared players with them to their raids. So can groups of players. They simply run to the dungeon, summon you to it, and zone in with you. It's been like this since ever. It's why high level players can zone into low level dungeons, while FFXIV will actually Sync their Character or iLevel down to the dungeon level.
The iLevel requirements in the Party Finder is there as a courtesy to people PUGing the content, because it's a pretty awful thing to intentionally go to a raid or dungeon expecting other people to carry you when they've put in the time and effort to gear up for it - but you have not. These people do not know you, so you have no right to assume they are okay with carrying you - nor should they feel like they should have to.
What you're doing is projecting your own personal issues onto the genre, and your argument has pretty shaky grounding considering key aspects of it make the completely wrong assumptions. iLevel requirements are only a thing in LFD/LFR. If characters should be expected to be a certain level to do a dungeon, then it's logical that they should be expected to have a certain general gear quality. This is the case in both single and multi-player RPGs. It's not an MMO-exclusive feature.
Gear progression is a core tenet of character progression in both single player and multiplayer MMOs. Character progression is literally the whole purpose of these games. Raids exist to bring players together, otherwise you have thousands of players running around doing predominantly solo content - and players complain that the game feels too much like a solo game, instead (a criticism of games like GW2 and ESO, for example).
Raids are nothing more than dungeons designed for larger group sizes. They are designed for raids or other larger organized groups.
Blizzard's design is a lot more community-oriented than that of Square Enix, who only has 8 man raids (can't even accommodate every job in the game in the same raid) and who have very little viable content outside of raids for end-game PvErs: No World Bosses. No World Quests. No Mythic+ Dungeons. etc.
FFXIV and WoW are similar in many ways, but the disparities that do exist are actually [largely] clumped up at this end-game level of play. It's where these games display the biggest differences in terms of design and philosophy.
It is disheartening to see how so many people (no one here in particular) complain about how "easy and fast" MMORPGs make things like leveling and gearing up, and then complain that they have to take their time and actually progress in terms of itemization to participate in end-game activities.
I feel like a lot of the community wants their cake and to eat it, too.
They want the nostalgic "slow pace," but they also want all things to be viable for them at all times. That is not how any RPG game works, unless you're playing with cards.
I've never been a "raider" as those get way too chaotic for my tastes. And there does need to be ways for players to "qualify" for raids. It's just that gear is easily (no chat/character interaction required) checked in WoW. A character's level is usually also easily checked without any interaction.
I don't think many players want "easy-peasey" raiding, just a bit of respect or roleplay. I could be wrong, of course.
You are correct that most "raiding issues" can be solved with Guilds, but finding one can be quite difficult, too. Really, I don't know what can be done about raiding, and truthfully I just don't care enough about it. Raids are content I'm sure to skip over
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
That's why WoW has Mythic+, World Bosses, World Quests, etc.
The thing that had to "fix" to really bring that content into true viability is the Tier Set system. That's going away in BfA, which is really going to change how progression in the game works (as far as gear is concerned).
The problems that you're citing are already being addressed, at least in WoW, so it isn't really worth discussing them in relation to that game (we're in "Wait and see..." mode now). Other MMORPGs should be taking note of this, because this is literally what everyone has been asking for, for the past decade or more. It's going to feel more like EverQuest, where you could raid with dungeon gear on, and didn't feel like half your slots were pre-allocated to very specific raid drops.
Of course BiS will always exist, but we will have much greater freedom with gearing, and where we actually get the gear from - moreso than ever.
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Even after Blizzard makes all of these changes, people will still inspect your gear to see if you're even geared enough to do the content (or demand iLvl ranges). They'll still kick and/or avoid you if your DPS/HPS/Tanking performance is too low in relation to what the content calls for. They'll still deny you entrance into parties if you happen to pick the worst spec for your class, because you want to RP a spec that's clearly underperforming.
So you'll be back to square one, because the problem was never "raiding." The problem is that people expect end-game to be like the leveling process, and it isn't. The problem is that a certain super minority of players expect others to play around them, instead of compromising and cooperating with the greater community.
The game has objectives, and people don't like to fail them. The natural tendency of anyone is to take the path of least resistance. This is why things like META exist in games.
Earn your respect with your performance in-game.
RP in your RP guild or on your RP server. Even in EQ, barely anyone RP'd - even on Firiona Vie (most people played there because of loot rules). So I find the expectation of people to RP in these games reeking of bad expectations. MMORPGs have never been littered with RPers, and it's even harder to do this when guilds basically mandate voice communications (that probably helped killed what little RP what left, and this Vent/TS mania started way back in 2003/4).
I don't think the games had anything to do with this. I think people just assume that the 10M+ players EQ2/WoW brought into the market would have a similar gaming outlook/philosophy to them, and this turned out to not be the case.
The community didn't go downhill. It shifted in demographics. The behaviors in game communities today mirrors the values of the people playing the games.
The same way you seen we had communities which were very mature and "social interaction"-oriented during the EQ/DAoC days.
We got communities which were competitive-oriented during the WoW/EQ2 days.
And we're now getting communities which are oriented around Social Justice, because that's what people are being taught these days. This is clearly evident in the current debates around "toxicity" and "diversity" in gaming.
That's just the way it goes. Ebbs and Flows.
The game has nothing to do with it. You can design the perfect "social game," but that won't matter because you cannot control how people behave and interact with each other in those games.
It's quite anti-social and totalitarian. It's hard to build a community when half the player base feels like they're being socially dominated by another group. All it does it create animosity and increasing levels of vitriolic counter-responses.
The playerbase itself becomes tribalistic, as a result.
Whatever do you try and discuss that raises the ire of others so much that they report you?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You aren't violating the basic tenant of not discussing religion, politics and perhaps most important of all, publically criticizing other people's performance in game are you?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The most useless phrase in the English language is: "I'm offended!" Well... so fucking what? Get over it. Grow a pair. Thicken ye ol' skin. Or... Go cry in your Little Miss Kitty pillow. The best are people who get offended for other people!
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
This attitude these days of "You WILL please me!" is outrageous. Change what you can change, ignore what you can't change. You will live longer and happier, right? Change one person (the offended) or the portion of the 7 billion others?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests