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GW2 - Do you believe it will or will not have a good community?
Kalfer
Member Posts: 779
Maybe it is because I played SWG for so long. The funny thing about playing a MMO by a company that screws over it's players is that it binds the playerbase together. Somehow people made a lot out of less. But then again, that game had actual classes which only purpose was to entertain other classes. Quite a cool idea, as it worked... for a while (Until Holocron grind).
I am pretty pessimistic about popular online games in general, as the douchebaggery seems to run rampant in these games. Always I am thinking of why developers do not enforce their games, by laying down the law. IMO people should just be banned and deleted, just standard policy. If your acting like a turd, you're gone. You can buy the game and try one more time on a new account, but don't come whining with "my sister logged in on my account and spewed out some mein kampf passages lolz".
I'm not the type of gamer who is sensitive. I can easily take 4chan humor. I don't find it offensive. I just find it offensive when people are not cool.
Things that people should be instantly perma banned for, and proscecuted for in accordance with the Geneva convention (take note United Nations...) :
1) Being an annoying attention seeker. Spamming in channels, yelling in caps, just being an all around nusance.
2) Saying internet meme. Post IP to FBI for being a sheep. Your leroy jeenkins joke are not welcome.
3) being a stupid idiot. - don't encourage keyboard warriors. one aggressive tone; "my daddy is stronger than your dad" - ban. be a cool cat, or go away.
4) scammers, gold farmers, flamers, dupers - whoever is trying to break the game - ban, ban ban.
The game is not a democracy. it's not the voice of the gamers. GW1 was not heavily moderated. Why would it be? part of a monthly fee service comes from paying all the online moderators on all the servers answering tickets. Will GW2 have them? if so, then how many?
Obviously I hope there wont be a need for them, but I hope getting idiots banned will be swift and effective. it should be a quick a jpg upload on the support site, with then a supporter being able to access the chat logs in game, and find out if something bad was said - and then snap.
Im okay with swearing, and with having a swear filter. I dont see the need for people to bypass a swear filter though. But whats not cool is playing with kids, teens and adults who have some low self worth they need to relive in the game. Many of my adult friends amd myself got very tired playing with all these losers, who were almost encourged to run around as there were no consequences for being a complete douche.
Don't tell me to turn off chat channel x or only play with friends. It really defeats the purpose of a MMO to censor yourself from the world.
My own theory is that ArenaNet won't lose players. If demand certain standards of their playerbase, and of them to respect their world and community, players will respect ArenaNet too. What is actually happening to games like WoW is that they where whipped into not having real policiy, and that made the players stomp all over the game.
when you sign into the game and agree to the terms, you should agree to be a nice guy or get bent. getting banned from a jerk have nothing to do with the act of swearing, roleplaying a in a crazy way, being creative or trying to be witty. Lets just weed out all the folk that makes us roll our eyes.
If rules are enforced from the beginning it will take a month max, before the message has come across that you don't call racist slur, or you dont spam caturday sentences in trade chat, or something like that. We can enforce it. In the beginning it might be a bit snitchy-snitch, but I truly believe it will sort itself out.
It's that, or either face a new Battle.net / WoW /Call of Duty type community, full of people and their comments and thoughts that will drop your IQ to single digits. Not because they are bad people - But just because they can. It's related to Penny-Arcades theory about internet anons - They will simply become douchebags if they have no consequences.
In fact it's not different from children who get no consequences from their parents. They always become horrible little idiots without manners.
Comments
Most people are stupid in general and those who are low-lives (or even have one) will do stuff like that......
It's sorta like moving to a new neighborhood and asking, "Are there any bad people here?"
Not everyone is gonna act like a total douche but there's always gonna be those kind of douchebags wondering around the community, online and off, stirring mischief and woe and shit......
So basically in my opinion:
"So-so...." :-/
I've read that the developers are actively trying to promote a good, friendly community. But I'm not sure that's what most players really want. I'm not convinced that any game mechanics can make intolerant, selfish assholes into nice players short of forced grouping and harsh death penalties, both of which GW2 has eschewed.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This is definitely not the place for you. Quickly leave the MMO genre and don't look back!
If you can tolerate a little bit of this, then Guild Wars 2 should be fine. Of all the MMOs I've played, GW1 surely had the best community.
Guild Wars 2!
The overall feel of the community in general is mostly dependent upon the game mechanics. Dicks will be dicks no matter what, but when mechanics are in place that are designed to encourage people to be social and work together the general feel of the community will be better.
As long as GW2 stays as an alternative game rather than an ultra-mainstream mass-appeal game, the community will be decent.
The largest draw I see for GW2 is that combat has been reworked away from tanking and dedicated healers. The kind of gamers who will come to it are those actively seeking out something new and fresh, achievers who want a challenge. I really don't see them as being the annoying chat spammer types.
I dont think it will be any better or worse, it will be what you have seen in all popular mmo's. I personaly dont care much i have a thick skin to penetrate. I have yet to be offended in any mmo i play. I rarely ignore people unless they start to copy/paste spam my chat window.
If i want decent people to play with i join a guild, but to be honest i rarely even do that as i enjoy playing with random people, and 90% of the time i meet nice people even in wow.
Might be becouse i grew up on the fps multiplayer where leet talk and bitching was quite common, it makes the mmo dbags little angels in comparison
many features and game elements that contribute to, and in many cases cause an overall negative comunity won't be in GW2. i'm not worried, i definitely don't think it'll get like WoW's is right now.
Read the thread again. I think it went over your head.
GW 2 > Seems to be highly mass appeal. Mainstreamness will always have idiots, but you don't have to encourge it. People are idiots in real life, but it would be one a whole other level if you didn't have police and laws, to keep people in check.
The self policing didn't do GW1 any favors. Seriously.
My interpretation of your post has you coming across as a no nonsense type of person. If this is the case I suspect you are going to have a hard time finding a good community anywhere. If you can look past those who are being negative then I suspect you will find those who are like minded and have a great experience. I cannot think of any online game I have played that does not have the option to ignore other players.
dude... MMO is all about PEOPLE...
people are different and you can't ban someone for acting like an idiot (how do you know he can help it or not ? ). You can't just ban or punish someone for saying something you don't like, even for insults ppl get warned few times, then baned for a shor period of time which then increases (usually).
But why not being positive about the community? GW has AWESOME community, it's one of the best community I've ever been a part of in mmo world.
I remmember 1 guy asked the developers, in some conference, about the community and what do they expect of it... They said they're trying to create one good and friendly community, so why not just sit and wait... With every GW1 player a lot of community culture will transfer with them to GW2 so it should be just fine
tho I'm hoping they've made the game challenging enough so it can keep the 12 year olds away as they really are annoying. (dunno about the other people but from my xp they're HORRIBLE!)
I agree with you about banning farmers/gold sellers and those alike... ruining the game completley...
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
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I've yet to get offended also. It's not about that - It's simply that people I like and want to play, might get turned off by douchebags, that you will be trading with, be in guilds with, playing with and against, just because the developer can't take a stance and ban people for dumb.
The entry barrier is really low for this game. It's rated Teen, it has no monthly fee. It's an action MMO. To me it sounds like the perfect disaster for a haven of kitties that will overwhelm whatever rational voices there are, diminishing.
It's like going to a party in real life, that is full of jerks - you don't want to hang around bad company. if your in good company you will tend to stay, right? when I buy the game, I should be able to play an online fantasy game - not youtube comments expanded.
I realize that this sounds incredible arogant - but it's very rarely that I have crossed people inside MMORPGs post WoW that were cool. and then this spiral of douchebaggery just spreads around the server, and unless you want to hermit yourself or spend half your gameplay time censoring yourself - which in itself is retarded.
I have seen popular gaming forum that can be effectively moderated. some even by the community. I don't see a rep/ranking/reporting system like a kicking/voting/banning system working like it was made by players. it leaves the system way to open to be exploited, so I think it is possible.
A couple points come to mind:
1) Remarkably considering modern tendencies, Anet has done a fantastic job of maintaining very positive public relations thus far. Their communication about the development of GW2 to their fans is exemplary and should be modeled by all other MMO developers. Whereas many upcoming MMOs create an uproar among fans in one form or another (Ie. Bioware's ToR), Anet has maintained peaceful relations. The attitudes of players who look forward to GW2 is overwhelmingly positive, while those who aren't highly anticipating the game simply steer clear. There's very little bitching and moaning going on.
2) Other than the freedoms of public chat, there is very little room in GW2 for players to grief each other. You can't ninja loot, exp, kills, quest drops, gathering node spawns, and you can't be ganked. Also, we have every reason to believe that dymamic events are going to be chaotic and impersonal enough that nobody will be able to point fingers at a particular player for underperforming should you fail the event. It should be noted that due to the nature of dynamic events, "failing" an event won't necessarily cause player unrest either. Rather, it may be perceived as the exciting advancement of the event to the next, more imminently dire stage.
While a game's design cannot fully eliminate players' urges to anonymously harass each other, GW2 doesn't give such players many means to effectively do so.
I played on many different servers in many games of many genres, and here are some factors I observed for the quality of a community (not in any order...):
Heavy moderated environments > free for all environments
Environments with a high presence of GMs/Devs > player-only environments (as long as GMs are not jerks)
PVE servers > PVP servers
RP servers > the rest
Games with no global chat > Games with large chat channels
Underpopulated servers > Overpopulated servers
Outnumbered factions > Dominant factions
Bug free games > poo
Usually, a game with a steady/stagnant population has mandatory doomsayers polluting every chat channels it can. The type of game doesn't have much of an impact, but its competitiveness amongst players or the size of the chat channels are the biggest factors in my book.
1) I am pretty sure that Guild Wars 1 did not have an awesome community. It was pretty dumb at the end. Back in 03 in the Alpha/Beta? Really good. But back then it was a passionate few, and community friday updates, and one-on-ones with Gailie. It was fewer people, and a closer community.
Come release and it got really bad. Particularly in PvP. I think anyone who have played the game extensively, particularly in PvP - With RA being the holy grail, will say that it was pretty bad.
And why not? People are almost encouraged to be the biggest idiots and most lame childish players they can be. It's one of the reasons why not guilds had a healthy substantial community in the game, which is ironic given it's name - It's one of the big elephants in the room - Death of Guilds in Guild Wars. If your playing the game now, you will get spammed by people begging you to join their guilds. Hardcore desperation, and it's sad, that bad apples get to spread and infest the rest of the community like that.
2) Any community manager will say they are trying to get a nice and friendly community. Have you ever seen a Community manager advocating for a hostile and unfriendlly community?;)
3) 12 year olds will be playing it. 5 year olds are playing WoW. The power of soloing allows kids to do it. GW2 perhaps more so, due to no need from moms credit card!
Emhster - AWESOME DUDE.
The thing about no chat channels at all.. I have never seen this. What game did you play that didn't have this? What a radical awesome idea?
So people either have to communicate through mail, /whispers or talking within distance to each other? I love this idea actually! That almost gives people an incentive to meet up and talk... just because of physical bounderies. I really want to see this idea tested in practice!!??
No better or worse than the traditional modern day MMORPG, same player base that you've seen in other games is going to turn up here.
"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
I personally find the whiners and the snivelers to be the biggest problem in an mmo community. (don't think I am pointing the finger at anyone, if you feel I'm talking about you then thats your fault, not mine) Sometimes people make jokes or comments (distasteful as they may be) but it's over after it's said. The whiners go on about it for hours. They push the issue, constantly trying to better the world by letting everyone know that someone else has done something wrong. Usually, it only incites more brutal behavior and it does nothing to correct the original problem at all. If there is one conversation that I can't stand reading, it's about how the Developers have done nothing but nerf my class, or the lag totally screwed me over, or I hate this stupid game. Buck up, shut up, or go away.
For me, the whiners are the worst problem there is in a community. I can live with all sorts of annoying people, but the people that have nothing better to do then drag global through their pain should get banned if anybody else does.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
In general I agree with your points, but I do clearly remember a dark time not long after GW1's release that held a lot of dissapoint for players due to changes in the beta, as well as "Promises" that was not kept.
But besides that, I think ArenaNet have done good. By not having an official forum they removed a lot of possibilities for players to vent their lameness on the masses, like with the WoW forums, that in turned spawned into the game like WoW subpopculture.
However, as long as you are not enforcing communication or tone, your not really stopping people from just advocating bad behavior, because they have a social outlet where its okay to be mini adolf hitler, and for a 13 year old kid this might be really fun. Personally this does not affect me at all as a person - as its just words, but if even 50% of the population are just lame like above example in various circumstances, then I am sure it would give diminishing returns in my enjoyment of the overall game.
not because i cant ignore a few bad eggs, but because half the server (like in wow) is literally a joke, while my friends and I are super cool dudes who have no need to be douches inside the game. And I am sure you passionate anticipating people are the same.
so if I wanna pug, and of course I wanna pug, why would I want half of the people I play with to be jerks?
I find it really discouraging to see replies in this thread like; "its always been like this, can't do anything about it". You can always do something about it, or discuss why it is why it is. There is always a reason for this social online pattern (PA philosophy is sound here I think).
GW2's community will start off great and degrade over time, like any other, but I don't think it will get much worse than 'mostly decent', just like it's predecessor. There just doesn't seem to be a lot for grief monkeys to do to keep them occupied for the long haul. GW1 has been kept pretty clean and the community is generally cordial, if a little standoffish. I've run into a couple of jackasses, but they've always manifested themselves in Alliance chat, never in a group, which is fine with me. I can tolerate assholes as long as they restrict their stupidity to their own homes.
I believe Shadowbane didn't have global chats; chat was guild/subguild or area chat. This caused, for example, players wanting to trade in the city of Nkur Uuskar or to found their trade city in Khar Thale Islands.
Very nice point eyelolled - Developers are developers for a reason. They are the designers of the game, and thus I personally also think it's futile to whine over nerfed classes. I think it's another striking cord for no official forums! Spreading it out.
We know for a fact that ArenaNet are trying to segregate every server more, so people don't just as easily from district to district (server to server) so people get a closer bonding and will be able to know each other more - It was a big problem in Guild Wars 1, but it also sort of helped GW1.
People wer every independent and didnt need to play nice with others as the game was so instanced. the idea of past games was that if you were annoying you would get PK'ed, players wouldnt invite you to groups and you would be left to your own vices. That was the old school way in UO. If you were a tool, karma would get you.
Putting responsibility in players hands, enhance to experience for everyone. Level entry should entice people for being cool.
GW1 had the most mature community I've been apart of. Will they all migrate over to GW2? For sure. However, I can't say much on what the new players will be like. Chances are, there are going to be quite a bit of idiots. But hopefully they're idiotic enough to stop playing after a little bit for one reason or another.
Personally, I think the community as a whole will start off kind of annoying but mellow out after a year or two.
heres the thing i take a bit of offense to your notion that its kiddies who are mostly the idiots/asshats of mmo communities, it tends to be fairly equal in my experience maturity is what matters. me ive always been as nice as i can be in games as a rule even when i was little (i just ignore people now but i used to get into arguments sometimes, one or two got particularly nasty but things like that happen to the best of us).
as for the leeroy jokes if your talking about spaming global with that i understand, but when your with good friends i would disagree).
all in all gw1 isnt that bad the occasional asshat is something you have to deal with when it comes to life in general.
GW2's only barrier to entry is the box price, with no ongoing costs. It is going to attract the worst of the MMO short-bus riders out there.
I just pray that Arena Net gives us a massive ignore list or the ability to filter out what ever chat channels those social malcontents end up infesting.
Just speculation on my part, but I would think GW2 would have a good community for a couple of reasons.
No griefing. That's going to get rid of a lot of the open world nonsense right there.
Encouraging people to work together. Things like being able to rez anybody at any time and being rewarded for it. I think that's going to put people in a positive frame of mind.
It's not gear-centric. People who might be all about their epeen in other games might be less inclined to act like they're hotshots when it'll be fairly easy for everybody to get great statistical gear.
Not raid-centric/varied leveling/meaningful PVP. I think a lot of the meme nonsense that goes on in cities comes from people being bored. They're locked out of a raid and they've got everything they need from dailies or PVP gear, so they're just hanging out. With GW2, unless you're completely full of max level toons, you can always be leveling a different toon to see a different personal storyline. Also, with world PVP records being kept over time, there's always at least some incentive to go help your world win. I'm envisioning an environment where people are social when they're in cities, not one where they're obnoxious because there's no better place to be.
One can hope anyway.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007