Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General consensus on best community?
halldorr
Member UncommonPosts: 105
Was listening to some podcasts recently and they kept bringing up community and referring to the quality of some MMO communities. Was wondering what others thought were some solid communities. For me, City of Heroes was always a great community - everyone was helpful, there was minimal trolling, etc. WoW on the other hand is the bottom of the barrel (at least for me personally).
Comments
Guild Wars is known to have a nice community.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/04/11/flameseeker-chronicles-the-power-of-community/
Before it went free to play, I would have said LOTR. Now, I'm not so sure that still can be said, although for the most part it is still pretty decent.
Yeah, had heard LOTRO was pretty good as well!
I think I'd have to say FFXI had the best community of MMOs I have played. I'd suspect other PvE focused games overall would have a better community over games with PvP.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
Youtube Channel
Depends if you define 'best' as rainbows and sunshine with smiley faces then I couldn't say. But then I'd personally define that as the 'nicest' and not the 'best' community.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I'll throw in my two cents; Fallen Earth has the best community I've seen first-hand in an MMORPG. The punctuality of GM responses mean you'll never be stuck in a rut without help, and the Help chat is the best I've ever seen. Players were so active that I found myself more willing to participate in helping others as well.
On top of that, the subject matter in Fallen Earth (post-apocalypse) makes for great role-playing potential. There are many guilds dedicated to just that.
Also, I've heard EvE Online is a great community, within the context of the game (scamming and backstabbing are part of the meta-game).
I am sure everyone will have their favorite game and of course say that their game has the best community ect ect. For my own 2 cents I would have to say Eq1, Vanguard and Lotro. Been playing since UO came out, and have tried just about everything under the sun. Most communities start out great at the beggining, no one knows everything so everyone has to help each other and work together.
But you go 3 to 6 months down the line and it becomes a greedfest in most games. People stop shareing where to find good mobs or good places to hunt (heaven forbid someone else finds out where you hunt for hides/ores ect ect) to finish a quest.
People stop grouping with others who may be 5 lvl's below them or someone who doesnt have the best armor/weapon for their lvl (maybe if someone told them a good place to hunt for mobs for a decent armor/weapon).
In most games nowadays if someone has a question, how many times have you seen everyone in chat tell them to go check out this website, get called a newb or some other name. When after 30 minutes of research you find out what you needed was nearby (which any helpful community would have just told you "take a left at the well").
If a game does not promote grouping or encourage it, ie holding your hand and leading you to it with a sparkly line then the community has no reason to work together.
Honestly in terms of MMO's I found that the communitys I created within the guilds I invested time in were the best communitys. If I had to pick which MMO, I found I had the best over all community in general, suprisingly it would of had to been Warhammer. While people will have different expierences and thus different opinions on this game, I found that the smaller community here gave me less trouble then most. Perhaps I was lucky with the guilds I found my self in or I am blessed in the ways of diplomacy but I always found a group of people willing to help each other and enjoyed themselves while doing it.
Socializing is really what makes MMO's so popular, look at the success of myspace and facebook and tell me that isn't related. Why is farmville so popular?
Runes of Magic comes to mind. I hardly ever run into antagonists in there. An odd sort of game to find a mature community, but it's really quite pleasant.
Past, present and future, from the games Ive played, EQ still has a good community, eventhough it's depleted.
I loved most of FFXI's community. For being powerless in the absence of true moderation, many servers had strong standards that most guilds obeyed. The community was also such that players behaving badly had a difficult time finding merit groups, exp groups for levelling new classes, or "raiding guilds" (such that they were).
If SE's GMs were half as active as moderators in other games, the community would have truly been amazing.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I would have to say in my years of gaming it would have to be early EQ. When Verant owned it they had GM events ran by GMs. Also later too. The community as a whole was good. Character reputation was spread amongst the server. Some of the best times were in EQ as a community where you had to actually interact with other players... now games you can solo and not get involved in anyway except if you wanna raid.... too casual.
You echo my sentiments exactly. I've never enjoyed getting together to play with strangers as much as I did in City of Villains. I frankly don't remember ever having a bad experience in a group. Contrast that with WoW where I felt I needed to delouse myself after most group forays. Other games offered varying levels of enjoyment and frustration, but those games were the two extremes for me.
Fallen Earth had a good one. Currently my Rift server also has a good one. Quite helpful people here.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Well, I'd define it as one that really supports the game, supports the community. It doesn't have to be rainbows and sunshine but being helpful to others generally would make it a good community.
Perhaps you have an example of what you think is the "best" community?
I'm going to go with FFXI. Someone eluded to it earlier with people that were jerks not being able to get help with even mundane things, like merit parties. The fact that most people had just one character, they knew that their name meant something and building a good reputation was in their best interest. It wasn't like other games where you could easily re-roll and nobody would know that you were that jerk but just a mage now instead of a warrior. You were always that character 100% of the time, whether you were a mage, warrior, or whatever class you were at the time.
One of the best things is on the bluegartr forums you can pretty much get a ton of info about people that have switched servers. So just because someone was a jerk one server and moved to another doesn't mean that bad/good reputation won't follow them there.
Im going to have to agree with FFXI and EQ in its early days as well. I couldnt decide between them, so I pick them both.
Best Community? Hard to say.
Back in the day you could ask a question in local chat in DAOC and a random stranger would show up to assist you. Those days are gone, now its a challenge to get a guildmate to come and assist. (everyones too busy raiding or something)
At present? I found a great community in Fallen Earth (although it was small getting smaller, pity) and I've got no real issues with my Rift server, even though we've got a Goons chapter on our side.
In its own odd way, EVE had a great community. Sure, in game we'd sometimes hate each other and fight to the death, but we frequently gave and received props for a job well done, and even a very create scam or trick would get props for at least being ingenious.
Was it all sunshine and flowers? Absolutely not, but the community as a whole respects one another and definitely has an "us against the universe" when it comes to defending the game to the outside world (as many here will attest) so I'd put it at the top of the list for PVP centric games.
"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
For me, it has to be Ryzom. Some people have alts in the starter area for the sole purpose of helping newbies.
Judging by the qualities that most people seem to define as 'good' in a community I would have to say LoTRO.
That also seems to be the general thought across most MMO sites but as it has been mentioned you have to define your criteria.
Agree with that.
Also, its been a long time but CoX used to have a good community.
Definitely not mmorpg.com
lol
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Bold yellow is me.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
GW had a nice community. WoW has the weirdest and most mixed (good and bad) community cos you can find everything there from good ppl to the biggest idiot ever and from the most respectful player to the most immature piece of junk (in big proportions)
Rift has somewhat nice community so far but i really hate that since beta 1 most of them still join trade chat to spend their time flaming WoW to call others attention... i have ignored so many trolls from Rifts chat that i could make a politician for president with those votes lol
In EQ2X, although there was many players around, i felt depressively alone because everytime i talked to someone or asked something, they ignored and walked away... thats how good i found it
Perfect World has a nice community only until drama begins to flow. Same goes for Forsaken World.
AoC i have never felt that connection with other players like i did in WoW, PWI, FW. i have played AoC mostly solo