The worst in my experience has been WoW, for all the reasons already given. I'm sure there's worse in free MMOs marketed toward children, but I avoid those games, so WoW is the worst I've seen.
The best I've seen has to be Everquest 2. Those friendly, helpful types that seem to be so rare in other games are just all over the place in EQ2.
out of all the games ive played...SWG has the best community. The game was set up that way tho. All the good items were player made (the crafting system was amazing), they had player cities, most people on the servers knew everyone, lots of player ran events etc.. Idk, that game will always stick with me cus of the people I met playing it. I still talk to people from that game, and we dont even play together anymore, we just talk like once a week kind of thing to say whats up. EVE online is pretty good too.
worst? idk, wow is pretty bad, i guess it can depend on your server though. It was decent before cross server BGs came out, I think that ruined some of it. CoH wasnt that great either when I played.
Worst: EQ1 present day. There are now far too many people exploiting with MacroQuest and SEQ, or similar tools, and it's become more acceptable among growing numbers of players to use them. The "I pay for the game so I play how I want" philosophy reigns. While still a taboo subject, hacking has become the norm for a lot of end-game guilds - with of course, many members of their guild blissfully unaware of the cheating that goes on from their officers and raid leaders.
The community as a whole is has become stagnant compared to other MMOs, with almost no new players or guilds - mostly due to it's age and SOEs decision to make EQ2. Most of the fun and interesting people in EQ2 are found in tight-knit raiding guilds; micro-communities that mostly keep themselves to themselves.
Social interaction is limited to pickup groups who grind AA, or in-guild. Despite the fact that the world has grown, the opportunity for social interaction has shrank. These online worlds less worldy, more gamey - and "gamey" isn't even a proper word!
Best: EQ1, pre-Luclin.
There are many reasons for this. One big reason: Trade. I will attempt to explain, though it's very difficult to articulate just how cool this was without sounding like a nostalgic tart. In this era there was no automated bazaar. Trade in EQ was one of the most natural, social and compelling trade systems I've ever seen in an MMO. There was no broker, or auction house, or bazaar, or offline vendor.
Players congregated in common areas, and by entirely their own actions those areas became the 'trade zone' of that server. We ran our own auctions in the chat channels. Trade was something you spent time doing if you wanted a bargain. You didn't have to spend long, simply announce the items you were selling at slightly under the going rate and someone would snap them up quickly.
Haggling, now extremely rare in the current game; was commonplace in those days. It felt like a medieval marketplace - completely , not the supermarket of current MMOs.
---
I did not intend this to be a rose-tinted EQ1 nostalgia puke-fest, but that's probably what it sounds like. What might suprise (or disgust others further) some is that World of Warcraft at the moment has the closest thing to the old-school EQ community. Despite the inclusion of an automated Auction house, the time limit on bids means that player-to-player trade is commonplace and lively.
And while some will erroneously and callously claim that WoW's community sucks, they could not be further from the truth. This view is heavily prejudiced and not true at all. Oerhaps they forget the idiots in the EQ trade channels that exist in every MMO today? Rose tinted spectacles indeed.
Perhaps they confuse stagnation and boredom with maturity? I suppose that with noone making any noise in other games, I could understand why people think that those games seem more mature. The same kind of people that played EQ1, play EQ2 and WoW, and other MMOs are people like you and me.
Alternatively EVE Online has a decent community, trade as a social activity isn't as good as EQ was or WoW is, but it's pretty deep and involved and mature. Every community has negative aspects, but the ones with artificial systems to limit player interaction are the most boring and stagnant.
Oh no, I've really gone into a long diatribe here. Apologies to those with god-given attention spans that are still reading .
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Worst: F2P MMO's. If any kid without a credit card can get in, you've got trouble. Yes, I have tried them.
Best: SWG Pre-NGE (can't comment on current state) I'm not a big Sony hater really, but there was a stunning community back then, absolutely fantastic.
WoW is ok, lot's of idiots sure, but also a lot of 'family' players who are incredibly helpful and pleasent to be around.
Best IMHO is LOTRO, with RF Online and Tales of Pirates close behind
Best all time for me was SWG
Worst right now is DAOC try getting into that game right now when you have never played and prepare for a heaping helping of elitist attitudes
Worst all-time I would have to say is Guild wars
I guess WoW depends on the server I play horde on Scillia and Erader and Allies on Bleeding Hollow and both of my servers seem to be filled with mature, for the most part respectful people. Just goes to show how people can play the same games and have vastlt different experiences.
Worst: The community that no longer plays and stalks the forums, the SWG haters community. They'll attack anyone that has the smell of SWG on them
Best: Imperial community on Chilastra, SWG. I spend most of my in-game time with these people and for the most part, they're all great people with a great sense of humor and just generally alot of fun to be around Although we have seperate guilds the community is rather tight thanks to our central Ventrilo server. It's not uncommon for an event started by one guild to spill over and also involve members of the other guilds too. Some of these people have also ended up becoming RL friends
From my experience I'd say pre-CU SWG by far. Even when at work it was difficult to stay away from the official forums. I always wanted to stay in touch with what was going on.
I wouldn't go so far as to declare any community the worst, but everything else pales in comparison to pre-CU SWG in my opinion. At best I'd say everything else I've experienced has been mediocre at best - including SWG today.
I have played a ton of mmo's in my time, and I have found good and bad parts of the community on most of them. However, there are two in mind that stick out because when I started playing people immediately wanted to start grouping with me and willing to answer any question no matter how much I was a noob.
1. Anarchy Online: I had people from the very beginning helping me with gear and explaining what can be a pretty complex system. They also would run up to me and just start chatting about how I was getting along in game. My AO friend list is absolutely massive.
2. Final Fantasy XI: Again people were willing to help out and explain builds for characters, what gear to use, how to make quick cash, and where to go to farm and take quests. I didn't actually like the game that much but I stayed around for a few months because of how much I liked the people around.
It's hard to say which is the worst because i have played a ton of games and run into totally obnoxious people, but again there are a few that I think claim the stink prize.
1. Guildwars: I love this game, I bought it the first day it came out and was instantly hooked, but I cannot bring myself to play anymore because of the myriad of 12 year old kids that flame the chat channels and make grouping an exercise in futility. They have sucked the life out of the game, I almost wish they would make a couple of pay servers just so I could get away.
2. Lineage II: It's too much a reflection of the real world, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. On most servers there's an elite group of guilds that control the flow of resources almost entirely and getting many of them to share is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Again I love the game, and played for a long time in spite of the community. I did run into a few old timers that were very helpful and dragged me along to help me get b and eventually a grade gear, but for the most part people just hoard wealth and resources.
I will agree with the OP in that elitist groups are worse than simply immature ones. The thing is, almost all high end WOW guilds are highly elitist, in addition to being rather immature. I say WOW's community is easily among the worst, and cite the example of a kid with the voice of a 13-14 year old and an even younger attitude telling me over TS that I was a "f******* worthless piece of shit" in terms of potential recruitment, simply because I was not willing to dedicate myself to 6-8 hour raid sessions every other day of the week, whether or not I needed/wanted the gear involved. I have better things to do with my time thank you very much.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
Best: Ryzom [RIP] Most helpful community, most mature - only PvP trash talk was between players who knew each other
Worst: Dunno, I don't play games [or at least don't stay in games] with a$$holes
I'd guess I'd have to say of the ones that I did play - AC Darktide was the worst - gankfest, Open PvP with no reason behind it, no safe areas for noobs to even begin to develop a character. I remember the first dungeon, which had a level cap of 3 or 5, would always have someone waiting to "greet" the just created character...
i played 8 mmo so far, all free2play. i will try to make ranking of community
1. Last Chaos - there is system rewarding players that help and GM are very active
2. Guildwars - instancing is main reason why community is friendly. town is only place where you can chat. i am too lazy to develop my thought right now
3. Shadowbane - korean enemies unite all nonkoreans
4. Kal online, Rappelz, Archlord - medium level, fair community
5. Rappelz - community does not communicate a lot (apart from trade shouts), so hard to say if its good or bad
6. Knight online - this game is very old and full of elitist ppl
Playing: Rohan Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
1:SWG Pre-NGE -- by far the most helpful people I've ever met. Within the first hour of playing someone had given me a speeder, showed me the ropes of the game, and talked for over an hour about level progression and space flight. Later on when I would take space flights in a huge ship with friends, and we'd run around and have a "party" in the ship. It didn't matter what server I would go to I always found friends. Player run communitys, housing, and ship building. Player run shops, player run everything! This game was the best of the best for community.
2:CoH -- Everyone is fairly nice in CoH. The grouping was always pretty good, and most people were respectful. Every now and then you'd get an inexperienced player that would rush in, but everyone would try and push them in the right direction. Even when fighting a villain, they were always pretty nice, and there was hardly and griefing, if ever. Hero and Villain team ups were always a good way to meet the "other side" of the game. They just got the hint that auction houses could be useful, crafting is still kinda a joke, but it's a start.
3: LOTRO -- I only played the game for a week, and eventhough I don't find it to be a really great game, the community wasn't so bad. I mean noone really stopped to talk to me, or listened to my songs that I played on my lute, which kind of made me angry because I spent quite some time recreating a few zelda songs and a couple star wars songs too. The area I was in was wasn't so populated, but the few people I saw either stopped to laugh, or talked to me briefly about class choices. ( it seemed everyone I met was either a guardian or a lore master. I was a lore master.) I think if I ever came back to the game it would be more for the community then for the game. Didn't have enough time to look into the crafting but it looks to be promising.
Runner Up: Final Fantasy XI (eventhough the community was somewhat nice and helpful, the game made it so tough to do anything or even group with my friends I gave up. It may be a popular game, but it definitely wasn't fun to me, not in the least.)
Worst Top 3
1: WoW -- It's just a horrible community. I even know people who play the game and it was still a horrible community. My best friend plays it constantly, but even he couldn't help me level much. He said he could start me out with some gold, but I was even too low to be worth his in-game time, and sadly enough I understand. I mean all of my friends that play that game have high level characters and unless I spent my time getting to that point, then my time in game would be worthless. The only other people I met or grouped with, were just a bunch of jerks, noone even bothered to help me, when I asked for help. I was called a noob more times then in a F2P game. (granted I was but it still didn't help) I played LOTRO longer and I was only playing the TRIAL of LOTRO. People are way to fanatical about WoW, and therefore makes it a game for fanatics.
2: EQ2 -- The audacity of most of the people playing appauled me. Everyone who I grouped with or asked for help expected me to be an EQ player for life. Like I should know what to do from the get go because EQ has been around forever. Within the first 3 hours of gameplay, I was mocked for my race choice, my class choice, and my overall inabillity to progress correctly. Sadly enough I still played the game twice as long as I did WoW.
3: MxO Post Beta -- I just have an overall distaste for this game. The community wasn't helpful, but mainly because the game itself was just horrendous. You couldn't do anything really, and if you grouped at all and died because you were stuck in a target lock, you would get flamed for it by your other group mates. Granted they died as much if not more then you did. Then on top of that dealing with agents was just ridiculous, so grouping with higher level players was really a no go, so it wasn't for a casual player base anyways. Just a really bad experience.
Runner Up: Guild Wars -- It's not really that bad of a community, it's just that the good people playing, are all out in instances. You just never get to meet the really great players. Crafting? Trade? Kinda a joke. I was a big dye trader when the game first came out when finding dyes was tough and they were selling for alot of money. Silver and black dyes were the way to go, but eventually even that turned into junk. I guess I can't really complain, I mean no monthly fee and all.
Worst: WOW by far. This is the epicentre of all childishness, stupidity and egocentristic attitude. PUGS are disastrous, don't even think about trying one. Average WoW player is nothing but a complete twit. Yes there are a few mature guilds but they are so small minority thats its useless to talk about them.
Best community is probably everything else that's western and P2P. I enjoy DDo community a lot, really helpful and patient. Vanguard community is fantastic, Lotro has some strong roleplayers community. I don't remember I met anyone rude in CoX, or in EQ2. AC2 had a very good community while it was up. Anarchy Online when I played (4 years ago) had a good one as well.
I see the world a bit black and white don't you think?
Best: in my experience is FFXI. Everyone helps, even people who weren't in my linkshell would take the time to help you out as well. Great people there and it made my experience there alot of fun.
Worst in my opinion has to be Guild Wars. PVPers cry for balance constanly which is quite annoying. People would toss others from groups if they were new to the game. Alot of "noob" calling in this game and far too much elitism in this game.
worst- hasta be WoW its notorius for its young/leet/asshat community, basicly everyone whos played it for more then 10 secs knows this, and i bet 90% of th eppl on this topic are agreeing. i logged on for 5 mins just to mess w/ a mage for a few mins on my friends account and righ toff the bat there were ppl shouting in caps "DONT HELP THAT -----!" "GET OVER HERE AND GET IN THSI GROUP B4 i KILL UR MOM" ect ect. i knew it was bad, but damn just that first 5 mins i musta saw like 10-15 blanke dout swears.
best-problyu between EQ2, right from the beggining ppl helped w/o any regret, loved it, and secomd to that FFXI though i had played it so long i heard alot more asshats but over all great comm.
Worst: WoW, KalOnline, DaoC, SWG (when they changed it for all the kids to be Jedi)
Best: Anarchy Online (who knew with a name like that?) City Of Heroes (villains not so much).
Not sure about EVE yet, I just started yesterday on the trial. I haven't been turned into a fireball yet like i expected, so far so good.
I let my kids play KalOnline but I turned off ALL chat functions and don't let them team with anyone. I lasted one day on WoW, not only was it non-interesting to me, but the chatter was amazingly stupid and childish.
In Daoc, people are all out for themselves. Don't ever expect any help from anyone unless it benefits them too.
SWG was pretty cool but had the big mouth kids and spammers in the major cities. the test server was where the adults could hide and play a mature game and the most helpful atmosphere EVER of any game... EVAR! But once they changed the game, it all became a gankfest FPS and should be stripped of its MMORPG categorization.
Comments
Worest Community has to be WOW.
Best one ive ever seen was Eve, alot of nice people willing to teach you how to play the game.
Best that I have experenced would be CoH/CoV
Worst I have experenced would have to be WoW
The worst in my experience has been WoW, for all the reasons already given. I'm sure there's worse in free MMOs marketed toward children, but I avoid those games, so WoW is the worst I've seen.
The best I've seen has to be Everquest 2. Those friendly, helpful types that seem to be so rare in other games are just all over the place in EQ2.
out of all the games ive played...SWG has the best community. The game was set up that way tho. All the good items were player made (the crafting system was amazing), they had player cities, most people on the servers knew everyone, lots of player ran events etc.. Idk, that game will always stick with me cus of the people I met playing it. I still talk to people from that game, and we dont even play together anymore, we just talk like once a week kind of thing to say whats up. EVE online is pretty good too.
worst? idk, wow is pretty bad, i guess it can depend on your server though. It was decent before cross server BGs came out, I think that ruined some of it. CoH wasnt that great either when I played.
Best Communities:
1. Horizons
2. Vanguard
3. Old Daoc
4. EQ1 at release
Worst communities
1. WoW
2. Lineage II
3. LOTR
From my experiences;
Best: EQ2
Worst: DAoC
Based on this guy's experience...
Best: Final Fantasy 11
Worst: WoW, of course.
Best: StarWars Galaxies
Worst: Runescape
Worst: EQ1 present day. There are now far too many people exploiting with MacroQuest and SEQ, or similar tools, and it's become more acceptable among growing numbers of players to use them. The "I pay for the game so I play how I want" philosophy reigns. While still a taboo subject, hacking has become the norm for a lot of end-game guilds - with of course, many members of their guild blissfully unaware of the cheating that goes on from their officers and raid leaders.
The community as a whole is has become stagnant compared to other MMOs, with almost no new players or guilds - mostly due to it's age and SOEs decision to make EQ2. Most of the fun and interesting people in EQ2 are found in tight-knit raiding guilds; micro-communities that mostly keep themselves to themselves.
Social interaction is limited to pickup groups who grind AA, or in-guild. Despite the fact that the world has grown, the opportunity for social interaction has shrank. These online worlds less worldy, more gamey - and "gamey" isn't even a proper word!
Best: EQ1, pre-Luclin.
There are many reasons for this. One big reason: Trade. I will attempt to explain, though it's very difficult to articulate just how cool this was without sounding like a nostalgic tart. In this era there was no automated bazaar. Trade in EQ was one of the most natural, social and compelling trade systems I've ever seen in an MMO. There was no broker, or auction house, or bazaar, or offline vendor.
Players congregated in common areas, and by entirely their own actions those areas became the 'trade zone' of that server. We ran our own auctions in the chat channels. Trade was something you spent time doing if you wanted a bargain. You didn't have to spend long, simply announce the items you were selling at slightly under the going rate and someone would snap them up quickly.
Haggling, now extremely rare in the current game; was commonplace in those days. It felt like a medieval marketplace - completely , not the supermarket of current MMOs.
---
I did not intend this to be a rose-tinted EQ1 nostalgia puke-fest, but that's probably what it sounds like. What might suprise (or disgust others further) some is that World of Warcraft at the moment has the closest thing to the old-school EQ community. Despite the inclusion of an automated Auction house, the time limit on bids means that player-to-player trade is commonplace and lively.
And while some will erroneously and callously claim that WoW's community sucks, they could not be further from the truth. This view is heavily prejudiced and not true at all. Oerhaps they forget the idiots in the EQ trade channels that exist in every MMO today? Rose tinted spectacles indeed.
Perhaps they confuse stagnation and boredom with maturity? I suppose that with noone making any noise in other games, I could understand why people think that those games seem more mature. The same kind of people that played EQ1, play EQ2 and WoW, and other MMOs are people like you and me.
Alternatively EVE Online has a decent community, trade as a social activity isn't as good as EQ was or WoW is, but it's pretty deep and involved and mature. Every community has negative aspects, but the ones with artificial systems to limit player interaction are the most boring and stagnant.
Oh no, I've really gone into a long diatribe here. Apologies to those with god-given attention spans that are still reading
.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Best: UO, Eve-Online (and NwN1)
Worst: WoW, GuildWars, Lineage2
Worst: F2P MMO's. If any kid without a credit card can get in, you've got trouble. Yes, I have tried them.
Best: SWG Pre-NGE (can't comment on current state) I'm not a big Sony hater really, but there was a stunning community back then, absolutely fantastic.
WoW is ok, lot's of idiots sure, but also a lot of 'family' players who are incredibly helpful and pleasent to be around.
Best IMHO is LOTRO, with RF Online and Tales of Pirates close behind
Best all time for me was SWG
Worst right now is DAOC try getting into that game right now when you have never played and prepare for a heaping helping of elitist attitudes
Worst all-time I would have to say is Guild wars
I guess WoW depends on the server I play horde on Scillia and Erader and Allies on Bleeding Hollow and both of my servers seem to be filled with mature, for the most part respectful people. Just goes to show how people can play the same games and have vastlt different experiences.
Worst: The community that no longer plays and stalks the forums, the SWG haters community. They'll attack anyone that has the smell of SWG on them
Best: Imperial community on Chilastra, SWG. I spend most of my in-game time with these people and for the most part, they're all great people with a great sense of humor and just generally alot of fun to be around
Although we have seperate guilds the community is rather tight thanks to our central Ventrilo server. It's not uncommon for an event started by one guild to spill over and also involve members of the other guilds too. Some of these people have also ended up becoming RL friends 
From my experience I'd say pre-CU SWG by far. Even when at work it was difficult to stay away from the official forums. I always wanted to stay in touch with what was going on.
I wouldn't go so far as to declare any community the worst, but everything else pales in comparison to pre-CU SWG in my opinion. At best I'd say everything else I've experienced has been mediocre at best - including SWG today.
I have played a ton of mmo's in my time, and I have found good and bad parts of the community on most of them. However, there are two in mind that stick out because when I started playing people immediately wanted to start grouping with me and willing to answer any question no matter how much I was a noob.
1. Anarchy Online: I had people from the very beginning helping me with gear and explaining what can be a pretty complex system. They also would run up to me and just start chatting about how I was getting along in game. My AO friend list is absolutely massive.
2. Final Fantasy XI: Again people were willing to help out and explain builds for characters, what gear to use, how to make quick cash, and where to go to farm and take quests. I didn't actually like the game that much but I stayed around for a few months because of how much I liked the people around.
It's hard to say which is the worst because i have played a ton of games and run into totally obnoxious people, but again there are a few that I think claim the stink prize.
1. Guildwars: I love this game, I bought it the first day it came out and was instantly hooked, but I cannot bring myself to play anymore because of the myriad of 12 year old kids that flame the chat channels and make grouping an exercise in futility. They have sucked the life out of the game, I almost wish they would make a couple of pay servers just so I could get away.
2. Lineage II: It's too much a reflection of the real world, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. On most servers there's an elite group of guilds that control the flow of resources almost entirely and getting many of them to share is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Again I love the game, and played for a long time in spite of the community. I did run into a few old timers that were very helpful and dragged me along to help me get b and eventually a grade gear, but for the most part people just hoard wealth and resources.
Best: Anarchy Online, EVE, EQ2
Worst: Runescape, WOW
I will agree with the OP in that elitist groups are worse than simply immature ones. The thing is, almost all high end WOW guilds are highly elitist, in addition to being rather immature. I say WOW's community is easily among the worst, and cite the example of a kid with the voice of a 13-14 year old and an even younger attitude telling me over TS that I was a "f******* worthless piece of shit" in terms of potential recruitment, simply because I was not willing to dedicate myself to 6-8 hour raid sessions every other day of the week, whether or not I needed/wanted the gear involved. I have better things to do with my time thank you very much.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Worst: Dunno, I don't play games [or at least don't stay in games] with a$$holes
I'd guess I'd have to say of the ones that I did play - AC Darktide was the worst - gankfest, Open PvP with no reason behind it, no safe areas for noobs to even begin to develop a character. I remember the first dungeon, which had a level cap of 3 or 5, would always have someone waiting to "greet" the just created character...
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
i played 8 mmo so far, all free2play. i will try to make ranking of community
1. Last Chaos - there is system rewarding players that help and GM are very active
2. Guildwars - instancing is main reason why community is friendly. town is only place where you can chat. i am too lazy to develop my thought right now
3. Shadowbane - korean enemies unite all nonkoreans
4. Kal online, Rappelz, Archlord - medium level, fair community
5. Rappelz - community does not communicate a lot (apart from trade shouts), so hard to say if its good or bad
6. Knight online - this game is very old and full of elitist ppl
Playing: Rohan
Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
WoW has a strange comunity pattern, in some servers the comunity is OK, in some other server it is shit.
The worse comunity for me is not WoW, but Lineage2 (at least it was until I played it)
The best comunity EQ1 and EQ2 bar none (and I played all major games since UO).
Best- Pre-nge swg
Worst- WoW
Played: SWG 2.5 years, WoW 4 years
Tried: RF Online, Ryzom, Daoc, CoH/CoV, Lotro, Vanguard, Guild Wars
Beta Tested: SWG, RF Online, Lotro, Potbs, Tabula Rasa, G&H, Perfect World
Best top 3: Of the P2P variety.
1:SWG Pre-NGE -- by far the most helpful people I've ever met. Within the first hour of playing someone had given me a speeder, showed me the ropes of the game, and talked for over an hour about level progression and space flight. Later on when I would take space flights in a huge ship with friends, and we'd run around and have a "party" in the ship. It didn't matter what server I would go to I always found friends. Player run communitys, housing, and ship building. Player run shops, player run everything! This game was the best of the best for community.
2:CoH -- Everyone is fairly nice in CoH. The grouping was always pretty good, and most people were respectful. Every now and then you'd get an inexperienced player that would rush in, but everyone would try and push them in the right direction. Even when fighting a villain, they were always pretty nice, and there was hardly and griefing, if ever. Hero and Villain team ups were always a good way to meet the "other side" of the game. They just got the hint that auction houses could be useful, crafting is still kinda a joke, but it's a start.
3: LOTRO -- I only played the game for a week, and eventhough I don't find it to be a really great game, the community wasn't so bad. I mean noone really stopped to talk to me, or listened to my songs that I played on my lute, which kind of made me angry because I spent quite some time recreating a few zelda songs and a couple star wars songs too. The area I was in was wasn't so populated, but the few people I saw either stopped to laugh, or talked to me briefly about class choices. ( it seemed everyone I met was either a guardian or a lore master. I was a lore master.) I think if I ever came back to the game it would be more for the community then for the game. Didn't have enough time to look into the crafting but it looks to be promising.
Runner Up: Final Fantasy XI (eventhough the community was somewhat nice and helpful, the game made it so tough to do anything or even group with my friends I gave up. It may be a popular game, but it definitely wasn't fun to me, not in the least.)
Worst Top 3
1: WoW -- It's just a horrible community. I even know people who play the game and it was still a horrible community. My best friend plays it constantly, but even he couldn't help me level much. He said he could start me out with some gold, but I was even too low to be worth his in-game time, and sadly enough I understand. I mean all of my friends that play that game have high level characters and unless I spent my time getting to that point, then my time in game would be worthless. The only other people I met or grouped with, were just a bunch of jerks, noone even bothered to help me, when I asked for help. I was called a noob more times then in a F2P game. (granted I was but it still didn't help) I played LOTRO longer and I was only playing the TRIAL of LOTRO. People are way to fanatical about WoW, and therefore makes it a game for fanatics.
2: EQ2 -- The audacity of most of the people playing appauled me. Everyone who I grouped with or asked for help expected me to be an EQ player for life. Like I should know what to do from the get go because EQ has been around forever. Within the first 3 hours of gameplay, I was mocked for my race choice, my class choice, and my overall inabillity to progress correctly. Sadly enough I still played the game twice as long as I did WoW.
3: MxO Post Beta -- I just have an overall distaste for this game. The community wasn't helpful, but mainly because the game itself was just horrendous. You couldn't do anything really, and if you grouped at all and died because you were stuck in a target lock, you would get flamed for it by your other group mates. Granted they died as much if not more then you did. Then on top of that dealing with agents was just ridiculous, so grouping with higher level players was really a no go, so it wasn't for a casual player base anyways. Just a really bad experience.
Runner Up: Guild Wars -- It's not really that bad of a community, it's just that the good people playing, are all out in instances. You just never get to meet the really great players. Crafting? Trade? Kinda a joke. I was a big dye trader when the game first came out when finding dyes was tough and they were selling for alot of money. Silver and black dyes were the way to go, but eventually even that turned into junk. I guess I can't really complain, I mean no monthly fee and all.
Worst: WOW by far. This is the epicentre of all childishness, stupidity and egocentristic attitude. PUGS are disastrous, don't even think about trying one. Average WoW player is nothing but a complete twit. Yes there are a few mature guilds but they are so small minority thats its useless to talk about them.
Best community is probably everything else that's western and P2P. I enjoy DDo community a lot, really helpful and patient. Vanguard community is fantastic, Lotro has some strong roleplayers community. I don't remember I met anyone rude in CoX, or in EQ2. AC2 had a very good community while it was up. Anarchy Online when I played (4 years ago) had a good one as well.
I see the world a bit black and white don't you think?
REALITY CHECK
Best: in my experience is FFXI. Everyone helps, even people who weren't in my linkshell would take the time to help you out as well. Great people there and it made my experience there alot of fun.
Worst in my opinion has to be Guild Wars. PVPers cry for balance constanly which is quite annoying. People would toss others from groups if they were new to the game. Alot of "noob" calling in this game and far too much elitism in this game.
worst- hasta be WoW its notorius for its young/leet/asshat community, basicly everyone whos played it for more then 10 secs knows this, and i bet 90% of th eppl on this topic are agreeing. i logged on for 5 mins just to mess w/ a mage for a few mins on my friends account and righ toff the bat there were ppl shouting in caps "DONT HELP THAT -----!" "GET OVER HERE AND GET IN THSI GROUP B4 i KILL UR MOM" ect ect. i knew it was bad, but damn just that first 5 mins i musta saw like 10-15 blanke dout swears.
best-problyu between EQ2, right from the beggining ppl helped w/o any regret, loved it, and secomd to that FFXI though i had played it so long i heard alot more asshats but over all great comm.
Worst: WoW, KalOnline, DaoC, SWG (when they changed it for all the kids to be Jedi)
Best: Anarchy Online (who knew with a name like that?) City Of Heroes (villains not so much).
Not sure about EVE yet, I just started yesterday on the trial. I haven't been turned into a fireball yet like i expected, so far so good.
I let my kids play KalOnline but I turned off ALL chat functions and don't let them team with anyone. I lasted one day on WoW, not only was it non-interesting to me, but the chatter was amazingly stupid and childish.
In Daoc, people are all out for themselves. Don't ever expect any help from anyone unless it benefits them too.
SWG was pretty cool but had the big mouth kids and spammers in the major cities. the test server was where the adults could hide and play a mature game and the most helpful atmosphere EVER of any game... EVAR!
But once they changed the game, it all became a gankfest FPS and should be stripped of its MMORPG categorization.