Well, I dunno about great community, but ANET did something right as I have people rezzing my sorry butt constantly (even at their own peril!) and in WvW my server is, for the most part anyways, coordinated and even inclusive to mediocre-at-best players such as myself.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
The NPCs at supply camps and keeps also rezz players. Are they part of the great community?
It is true that the developers of any game can introduce mechanisms that can either promote cooperative play or competitive play. However, the mechanisms alone don't make for a good community. There are some very hard and harsh mmorpgs out there, where the people need each other and thus help each other. You don't need anyone in GW2 and thus that particular aspect of collaboration is not explored (can insert a lot of mmorpg names here, not just GW2).
I'll tell you my own rule of thump regarding finding a great community. When you find people ingame that would like to meet IRL, then you have found a great community. Getting a random rezz from some dude out there who happened to pass along is not sufficient reason to get to know him.
Besides, if the rezzing was a special event, if he put effort into rezzing me or gone out of his way to assist me, then maybe I would be curious about him/her. But as things are in GW2, rezzing somebody or firing a couple pot shots to kill a mob is so trivial, I wouldn't bat an eyelid towards anyone's direction that did such a thing.
The NPCs at supply camps and keeps also rezz players. Are they part of the great community?
It is true that the developers of any game can introduce mechanisms that can either promote cooperative play or competitive play. However, the mechanisms alone don't make for a good community. There are some very hard and harsh mmorpgs out there, where the people need each other and thus help each other. You don't need anyone in GW2 and thus that particular aspect of collaboration is not explored (can insert a lot of mmorpg names here, not just GW2).
I'll tell you my own rule of thump regarding finding a great community. When you find people ingame that would like to meet IRL, then you have found a great community. Getting a random rezz from some dude out there who happened to pass along is not sufficient reason to get to know him.
Besides, if the rezzing was a special event, if he put effort into rezzing me or gone out of his way to assist me, then maybe I would be curious about him/her. But as things are in GW2, rezzing somebody or firing a couple pot shots to kill a mob is so trivial, I wouldn't bat an eyelid towards anyone's direction that did such a thing.
Or if one wants to look from the other perspective people simply need you and so are using you while in GW2, without needing you they go out of their way to rezz some completely useless to them stranger.
I don't understand how "need" became a more honorable motivation than "because I can".
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
This is after SWTOR one of the most anti-social games I have come across. There are indeed a LOT of nice players but my god, it also attracted some utter dregs.
A lot of players say "thanks" after a ressurection especially if it isn't a rez fest. Just nice manners right?
Right. Except yesterday at the Balthazar DE, some players actually bitched about people saying thanks, insisting everyone should follow their orders and ignore dead people and what not. Basically they seemed to think leadership is done by shouting.
Compared to The Secret World or Lotro.... my god. Although Lotro has gone down hill since going F2P.
I am more and more beginning to understand why female members of my Lotro guild refuse to team up outside the guild and want to me to keep their gender secret and their mic suddenly doesn't work if I invite friends to a raid.
When is the next MMO launching to take the 12 yr olds away?
I also get the feeling that people who think GW2 community ain't so bad after all are coming fresh out of barren chat. That is like saying people here are nice compared to 4chan. True, but what a standard to measure things by.
The NPCs at supply camps and keeps also rezz players. Are they part of the great community?
It is true that the developers of any game can introduce mechanisms that can either promote cooperative play or competitive play. However, the mechanisms alone don't make for a good community. There are some very hard and harsh mmorpgs out there, where the people need each other and thus help each other. You don't need anyone in GW2 and thus that particular aspect of collaboration is not explored (can insert a lot of mmorpg names here, not just GW2).
I'll tell you my own rule of thump regarding finding a great community. When you find people ingame that would like to meet IRL, then you have found a great community. Getting a random rezz from some dude out there who happened to pass along is not sufficient reason to get to know him.
Besides, if the rezzing was a special event, if he put effort into rezzing me or gone out of his way to assist me, then maybe I would be curious about him/her. But as things are in GW2, rezzing somebody or firing a couple pot shots to kill a mob is so trivial, I wouldn't bat an eyelid towards anyone's direction that did such a thing.
You are wrong, rezzing takes time. If it required no special effort (make a detour, spend some time) then everyone would do it since it also gives XP. But many don't.
Those are the people who really should be playing a solo game, preferably in a locked room, locked from the outside.
The rest are the people who know a blue icon is another player and make a small effort to help them out, maybe because they are nice or maybe because they hope someone will do the same for them.
As for meeting in IRL?
I think you are confusing cooperation with stalking. GW2 is a game, not a dating site.
Rezzing in GW2 takes as much effort (especially in PvE) as it is to hit your autoattack button.
As for the stalking accussation, I guess you've never made any real friends from gaming and it's a pity really. My friend list from mmorpgs is quite big, I've been to weddings and I've visited countries I wouldn't consider going (including Holland btw, very beautiful country). And they've obviously came to mine.
My current GW2 guild is planning a meeting in Sweden this summer. Do you honestly believe that the people who will attend it are stalkers?
The NPCs at supply camps and keeps also rezz players. Are they part of the great community?
It is true that the developers of any game can introduce mechanisms that can either promote cooperative play or competitive play. However, the mechanisms alone don't make for a good community. There are some very hard and harsh mmorpgs out there, where the people need each other and thus help each other. You don't need anyone in GW2 and thus that particular aspect of collaboration is not explored (can insert a lot of mmorpg names here, not just GW2).
I'll tell you my own rule of thump regarding finding a great community. When you find people ingame that would like to meet IRL, then you have found a great community. Getting a random rezz from some dude out there who happened to pass along is not sufficient reason to get to know him.
Besides, if the rezzing was a special event, if he put effort into rezzing me or gone out of his way to assist me, then maybe I would be curious about him/her. But as things are in GW2, rezzing somebody or firing a couple pot shots to kill a mob is so trivial, I wouldn't bat an eyelid towards anyone's direction that did such a thing.
i have more then once said in /m "I've Fallen and I cant get up" and had multi people chime in asking for a waypoint or location, more then once the trecked all the way across the map to find and res me....
You wont find that kind of help in games like WoW, its not encourage, infact, blizzard/activision seem determined to make sure that they keep the community fighting with eachother via artificial conflict....
This is the first MMO i have played since UO that has a community that will drop everything and come running when somebody is in need.....sure, it dosnt mean we are best buddies for ever, or that we even get to know eachother, but the games design is such that it encourages people to be nice to and work with others, rather then fight with and distrust others...
dont get me started on how many games I have played where people who could res you only costing them seconds would walk over your dead corpse because they couldnt spare 5-10seconds to case res spells......
/m is a great tool to meet people and get ad-hoc groups going to kill stuff.....if you see an event, let people know and link a close waypoint, people will come running......everybody loves a good event
This is after SWTOR one of the most anti-social games I have come across. There are indeed a LOT of nice players but my god, it also attracted some utter dregs.
A lot of players say "thanks" after a ressurection especially if it isn't a rez fest. Just nice manners right?
Right. Except yesterday at the Balthazar DE, some players actually bitched about people saying thanks, insisting everyone should follow their orders and ignore dead people and what not. Basically they seemed to think leadership is done by shouting.
Compared to The Secret World or Lotro.... my god. Although Lotro has gone down hill since going F2P.
I am more and more beginning to understand why female members of my Lotro guild refuse to team up outside the guild and want to me to keep their gender secret and their mic suddenly doesn't work if I invite friends to a raid.
When is the next MMO launching to take the 12 yr olds away?
I also get the feeling that people who think GW2 community ain't so bad after all are coming fresh out of barren chat. That is like saying people here are nice compared to 4chan. True, but what a standard to measure things by.
must be your server, the 3 i have been on have been great, the few rare idiot kiddies tend to get chased out of /m pretty damn quick when they start up....
sure you will run into the random idiot jackoff who wants to play commander or wants to troll.....but they are far less common then the people who just want to have fun and play with others.
please done blame 12yo's, some of the honest to god kids I have met and ended up in guilds with over the years have been more mature then many adults, in some cases more mature then their own parents....(i kid you not...)
i have seen 55-65yo men act like cs kiddies, and 11yo's act like perfect manared and mature adults......sure they dont get some of the jokes humor that the adults do....but at least they dont rage quit over stupid stuff.....
if you want an anti-social game, i could link you to a few where you will find real jerks....people who will spend an hour trolling somebody acting like they are helping them, just to dump them someplace they cant survive.....
i could say more but no real need, other then to point out, you may want to try another server and /m more often, and when you do some a jerk, just rclick them and ignore/block them....
The NPCs at supply camps and keeps also rezz players. Are they part of the great community?
It is true that the developers of any game can introduce mechanisms that can either promote cooperative play or competitive play. However, the mechanisms alone don't make for a good community. There are some very hard and harsh mmorpgs out there, where the people need each other and thus help each other. You don't need anyone in GW2 and thus that particular aspect of collaboration is not explored (can insert a lot of mmorpg names here, not just GW2).
I'll tell you my own rule of thump regarding finding a great community. When you find people ingame that would like to meet IRL, then you have found a great community. Getting a random rezz from some dude out there who happened to pass along is not sufficient reason to get to know him.
Besides, if the rezzing was a special event, if he put effort into rezzing me or gone out of his way to assist me, then maybe I would be curious about him/her. But as things are in GW2, rezzing somebody or firing a couple pot shots to kill a mob is so trivial, I wouldn't bat an eyelid towards anyone's direction that did such a thing.
Since we seem bent on generalizing an entire group of 2 million+ players as either good or bad, I feel obligated to point out what should be obvious: the same people play all of these games. There is nothing intrinsically better about the character of the people playing any one game over the people playing another game. The only way we can possibly distinguish one community from another is based on how that community manifests itself as a function its game's specific systems.
I'm not sure why you quoted my post. I didn't claim that GW2 community was X level of quality. I just pointed out that while certain mechanisms prevent asshats from being annoying, those mechanisms do not by themselves make a good community.
Originally posted by Xasapis I'm not sure why you quoted my post. I didn't claim that GW2 community was X level of quality. I just pointed out that while certain mechanisms prevent asshats from being annoying, those mechanisms do not by themselves make a good community.
And that was exactly the point I was refuting. Those mechanisms are the only things that can make a good community. The people are the same in every game. The only variable in the equation is the game they're playing and its mechanisms. Joe in game A can can be a kill stealing douche who runs away without rezzing you. The same Joe in game B won't steal kills because that's not possible and maybe even stops to res you because it's just so darn convenient or even beneficial. Are both "communities" exactly the same because they're comprised of the same person? Or is one better because the game's systems cause that player to behave better?
Players who go out of their way to be excessively kind or douchy will still exist in both games, but even the extent to which those players exhibit their default behavior will vary after it's filtered through the games' systems. A cross realm dungeon finder, for example, may cause someone who is normally very sociable and helpful to not even bother trying to make friends in a dungeon because he knows he'll never see them again. He may not act like an ass, but he might not be as outgoing and pleasant as he otherwise would be. Or, as in my former example, the player who is a kill stealing, PKing asshat by nature simply may not be able to do those things in a game with unversal credit on mob kills and without non-consensual pvp. It will simply create a more positive environment, which I think is precisely what people actually mean when they speak of a "better community." They're not referring to the players themselves, who are, after all, all the same, but rather the environment in which the players interact.
And this effect snowballs in either direction. When the environment is more positive, you'll find the chat even tends to be more positive. Fewer of those who have a tendancy to make douchy remarks actually do so, and vice versa. A week reading WoW's trade chat will desensitize the nicest person to the most vile subjects.
Some games may make it more easy for you to identify those players you would like to meet IRL than other games; and that's entirely a function of the game's mechanics, because I can assure you if there are players you find you'd like to meet in one game, there are players you'd like to meet in every game. Because the same players can be found in every game.
Also, please quote whoever you're replying to to avoid confusion
Just saves space when my post is directly below the one I answer.
LOTRO had none of the mechanics mentioned in GW2 and had and still has one of the best communities in any mmorpg. I still stand by my point that mechanics alone doesn't make for good communities.
In any case, it is too early to talk about GW2 community. Simply because the communities are forged by the people who play long term, not those who rush at the launch and then move on to the next hot title.
On a more general note, while shared loot in the early days of WoW (when I was still playing) would have been considered an annoyance, you could get first hand info about the quality of the people you were running with. Who were the helpful, who were the greedy, who were the asshats. The big difference between that approach and this sterilised mmorg was that back then you knew the people you teamed with were good, because they could screw you if they so choose and didn't.
In GW2, as you already mentioned, you can't tell if the person you teamed with is an asshat or not, because (unless you are in WvW) they can't screw you. Is that an improvement? Mechanisms wise certainly. Community wise, not really. That guy you've been playing in GW2 for 6 months (hypothetically speaking), you now take him into an mmorpg without safety nets and, surprisingly enough, he shows his true colours.
It's not that the community is good (or bad), it's just that the environment is so sterilised that it makes no difference one way or the other.
The same could be said is true of Rift an WoW . Both are city centric games with very few people questing and both have cross server instanced play which probably makes it less likly to meet players . It is a matter of making the effort to talk to people then add them to your friends list . Being a nice guild is always a plus too . I think gessekals332 is right though old school mmos did have closer communitys because they were more like villages where everyone got to know everyone else .
That is true of course, particularly since most of those games had very little solocontent and no tradingposts meaning you had to communicate and make friends, or you were basically screwed.
That noone talks is just not true, it just seems like less since all the chatting is in local and the game lacks a general chat. That have both advantages and disadvantages.
Just saves space when my post is directly below the one I answer.
LOTRO had none of the mechanics mentioned in GW2 and had and still has one of the best communities in any mmorpg. I still stand by my point that mechanics alone doesn't make for good communities.
LOTRO attracted a much more mature crowd. Just like EverQuest 2 did back in the day. It makes already all the difference right out of the bat.
The community in GW2 is fine on my server (Eredon Terrace) and there is plenty of talk in map and team in wvwvw. Sometimes in the world it's not so chatty, but I think a lot of the players during my play time are from various Asian countries so they may not be comfortable chattin g in English, though they are cooperative in play (whether by game design or not is up to you).
Best communities I've played with include TSW and maybe a surprise to many -- Darkfall. Yes, there were some jerks, but they were far outnumbered by decent, helpful players. All you have to do is talk to them. If you get ganked as a noob, you could tell them as much and ask for tips or advice. Seriously, 9 times out of 10 the player was very helpful with advice, returning stuff they looted, and even giving extra stuff like mounts, armor, and aid. It was great.
The Rift community seems good right now, too.
I'm thinking that WoW has absorbed a lot of players with MoP. Of course, there are fine people playing WoW, but I think a lot of the less mature players from other games got sucked over to MoP as well. That has perhaps cleaned up some of the other games' communities a bit.
This is after SWTOR one of the most anti-social games I have come across. There are indeed a LOT of nice players but my god, it also attracted some utter dregs.
A lot of players say "thanks" after a ressurection especially if it isn't a rez fest. Just nice manners right?
Right. Except yesterday at the Balthazar DE, some players actually bitched about people saying thanks, insisting everyone should follow their orders and ignore dead people and what not. Basically they seemed to think leadership is done by shouting.
Compared to The Secret World or Lotro.... my god. Although Lotro has gone down hill since going F2P.
I am more and more beginning to understand why female members of my Lotro guild refuse to team up outside the guild and want to me to keep their gender secret and their mic suddenly doesn't work if I invite friends to a raid.
When is the next MMO launching to take the 12 yr olds away?
I also get the feeling that people who think GW2 community ain't so bad after all are coming fresh out of barren chat. That is like saying people here are nice compared to 4chan. True, but what a standard to measure things by.
must be your server, the 3 i have been on have been great, the few rare idiot kiddies tend to get chased out of /m pretty damn quick when they start up....
sure you will run into the random idiot jackoff who wants to play commander or wants to troll.....but they are far less common then the people who just want to have fun and play with others.
please done blame 12yo's, some of the honest to god kids I have met and ended up in guilds with over the years have been more mature then many adults, in some cases more mature then their own parents....(i kid you not...)
i have seen 55-65yo men act like cs kiddies, and 11yo's act like perfect manared and mature adults......sure they dont get some of the jokes humor that the adults do....but at least they dont rage quit over stupid stuff.....
if you want an anti-social game, i could link you to a few where you will find real jerks....people who will spend an hour trolling somebody acting like they are helping them, just to dump them someplace they cant survive.....
i could say more but no real need, other then to point out, you may want to try another server and /m more often, and when you do some a jerk, just rclick them and ignore/block them....
You know I don't mean people botn in 2000 when I talk about 12yr olds, you can be 60 and be a 12yr old and you can be born in 2000 and be a human being.
And I didn't say it was all bad (Underworld) but the original premise was that GW2 had a GREAT community, well it doesn't in comparison to some other games I played.
Recent games for me are Lotro, SWTOR, TSW and GW2. Lotro started out very good but went downhill with F2P. SWTOR was mostly silent, a common reason given for it failing. TSW saw people helping each other left and right with lots of talking and advice. GW2 is mostly silent again but with extra helpings of "what a piece of shit".
There are nice people but as I go to higher level areas, I get the feeling I am leveling to fast and catching up with the kiddies. Go back to a lower level zone and stuff improves again.
One of the main reasons people left WoW in the beginning was the childish community. I can see signs that GW2 might suffer the same, it happened to the original after all.
The community of GW2 varies from server to server. So when someone claims it is a 'great' community they are talking about their own server. It would be foolish to try to claim that all the servers are same.
Best community for me has been Fallen Earth, LoTRO, DDO and EQ2.
WoW had some nice guilds and groups of people but it was so full of asshats it made it hard to enjoy the game.
In the first year on my server at least WoW had a great community . It was sometime in the second year I started to notice more and more players with a bad attitude. These days when I go back its hard to find anyone whos friendly and nice . I don't know wht it is about WoW that attracts such people . Rift ( which I thinks a great game ) has a similar problem to a lesser extent .
Originally posted by kostoslav All thouse "bad" guys went from WoW to LoL. League of Legends is today what WoW was few years ago. Today u ll find WoW community to be much better. The worst community I had to deal with was in GW1 (af&jq for example)
Definitely has something to do with it. My daughter plays LoL, and the douchebaggery she has encountered is off the charts. I never saw such rude, selfish behavior in any game before. Not my cup of tea, and she only plays with her BF and a few rl friends, but they deal with douche bags daily.
As to GW2, the community is top notch, but like others have experienced, very quiet because they don't need to talk. But then this is getting more common, and while I would not say GW2 promotes much social interaction, to be fair it has grown less common to strike up conversations in any game these days. Many people in ALL games are using Vent or guild chat as their sole social outlet in the community, and I think it is just a change overall.
Hell, for my part, I have quit trying in GW2. I just play with my wife and a couple of RL friends, there is no need for me to group with anyone, so I have quit reaching out. That said, the people I do know in GW2 are top notch.
Comments
Don't lie. You don't even play,
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
they talk all the time here on the Tarnished Coast US server
great community i agree!
Best community I have seen was EQ1.
I also like DF community because I like to see griefing, betraying, etc... but not the little kids saying QQ and L2 phrases.
The NPCs at supply camps and keeps also rezz players. Are they part of the great community?
It is true that the developers of any game can introduce mechanisms that can either promote cooperative play or competitive play. However, the mechanisms alone don't make for a good community. There are some very hard and harsh mmorpgs out there, where the people need each other and thus help each other. You don't need anyone in GW2 and thus that particular aspect of collaboration is not explored (can insert a lot of mmorpg names here, not just GW2).
I'll tell you my own rule of thump regarding finding a great community. When you find people ingame that would like to meet IRL, then you have found a great community. Getting a random rezz from some dude out there who happened to pass along is not sufficient reason to get to know him.
Besides, if the rezzing was a special event, if he put effort into rezzing me or gone out of his way to assist me, then maybe I would be curious about him/her. But as things are in GW2, rezzing somebody or firing a couple pot shots to kill a mob is so trivial, I wouldn't bat an eyelid towards anyone's direction that did such a thing.
Or if one wants to look from the other perspective people simply need you and so are using you while in GW2, without needing you they go out of their way to rezz some completely useless to them stranger.
I don't understand how "need" became a more honorable motivation than "because I can".
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Got to disagree, especially higher level.
This is after SWTOR one of the most anti-social games I have come across. There are indeed a LOT of nice players but my god, it also attracted some utter dregs.
A lot of players say "thanks" after a ressurection especially if it isn't a rez fest. Just nice manners right?
Right. Except yesterday at the Balthazar DE, some players actually bitched about people saying thanks, insisting everyone should follow their orders and ignore dead people and what not. Basically they seemed to think leadership is done by shouting.
Compared to The Secret World or Lotro.... my god. Although Lotro has gone down hill since going F2P.
I am more and more beginning to understand why female members of my Lotro guild refuse to team up outside the guild and want to me to keep their gender secret and their mic suddenly doesn't work if I invite friends to a raid.
When is the next MMO launching to take the 12 yr olds away?
I also get the feeling that people who think GW2 community ain't so bad after all are coming fresh out of barren chat. That is like saying people here are nice compared to 4chan. True, but what a standard to measure things by.
You are wrong, rezzing takes time. If it required no special effort (make a detour, spend some time) then everyone would do it since it also gives XP. But many don't.
Those are the people who really should be playing a solo game, preferably in a locked room, locked from the outside.
The rest are the people who know a blue icon is another player and make a small effort to help them out, maybe because they are nice or maybe because they hope someone will do the same for them.
As for meeting in IRL?
I think you are confusing cooperation with stalking. GW2 is a game, not a dating site.
Rezzing in GW2 takes as much effort (especially in PvE) as it is to hit your autoattack button.
As for the stalking accussation, I guess you've never made any real friends from gaming and it's a pity really. My friend list from mmorpgs is quite big, I've been to weddings and I've visited countries I wouldn't consider going (including Holland btw, very beautiful country). And they've obviously came to mine.
My current GW2 guild is planning a meeting in Sweden this summer. Do you honestly believe that the people who will attend it are stalkers?
i have more then once said in /m "I've Fallen and I cant get up" and had multi people chime in asking for a waypoint or location, more then once the trecked all the way across the map to find and res me....
You wont find that kind of help in games like WoW, its not encourage, infact, blizzard/activision seem determined to make sure that they keep the community fighting with eachother via artificial conflict....
This is the first MMO i have played since UO that has a community that will drop everything and come running when somebody is in need.....sure, it dosnt mean we are best buddies for ever, or that we even get to know eachother, but the games design is such that it encourages people to be nice to and work with others, rather then fight with and distrust others...
dont get me started on how many games I have played where people who could res you only costing them seconds would walk over your dead corpse because they couldnt spare 5-10seconds to case res spells......
/m is a great tool to meet people and get ad-hoc groups going to kill stuff.....if you see an event, let people know and link a close waypoint, people will come running......everybody loves a good event
must be your server, the 3 i have been on have been great, the few rare idiot kiddies tend to get chased out of /m pretty damn quick when they start up....
sure you will run into the random idiot jackoff who wants to play commander or wants to troll.....but they are far less common then the people who just want to have fun and play with others.
please done blame 12yo's, some of the honest to god kids I have met and ended up in guilds with over the years have been more mature then many adults, in some cases more mature then their own parents....(i kid you not...)
i have seen 55-65yo men act like cs kiddies, and 11yo's act like perfect manared and mature adults......sure they dont get some of the jokes humor that the adults do....but at least they dont rage quit over stupid stuff.....
if you want an anti-social game, i could link you to a few where you will find real jerks....people who will spend an hour trolling somebody acting like they are helping them, just to dump them someplace they cant survive.....
i could say more but no real need, other then to point out, you may want to try another server and /m more often, and when you do some a jerk, just rclick them and ignore/block them....
Since we seem bent on generalizing an entire group of 2 million+ players as either good or bad, I feel obligated to point out what should be obvious: the same people play all of these games. There is nothing intrinsically better about the character of the people playing any one game over the people playing another game. The only way we can possibly distinguish one community from another is based on how that community manifests itself as a function its game's specific systems.
And that was exactly the point I was refuting. Those mechanisms are the only things that can make a good community. The people are the same in every game. The only variable in the equation is the game they're playing and its mechanisms. Joe in game A can can be a kill stealing douche who runs away without rezzing you. The same Joe in game B won't steal kills because that's not possible and maybe even stops to res you because it's just so darn convenient or even beneficial. Are both "communities" exactly the same because they're comprised of the same person? Or is one better because the game's systems cause that player to behave better?
Players who go out of their way to be excessively kind or douchy will still exist in both games, but even the extent to which those players exhibit their default behavior will vary after it's filtered through the games' systems. A cross realm dungeon finder, for example, may cause someone who is normally very sociable and helpful to not even bother trying to make friends in a dungeon because he knows he'll never see them again. He may not act like an ass, but he might not be as outgoing and pleasant as he otherwise would be. Or, as in my former example, the player who is a kill stealing, PKing asshat by nature simply may not be able to do those things in a game with unversal credit on mob kills and without non-consensual pvp. It will simply create a more positive environment, which I think is precisely what people actually mean when they speak of a "better community." They're not referring to the players themselves, who are, after all, all the same, but rather the environment in which the players interact.
And this effect snowballs in either direction. When the environment is more positive, you'll find the chat even tends to be more positive. Fewer of those who have a tendancy to make douchy remarks actually do so, and vice versa. A week reading WoW's trade chat will desensitize the nicest person to the most vile subjects.
Some games may make it more easy for you to identify those players you would like to meet IRL than other games; and that's entirely a function of the game's mechanics, because I can assure you if there are players you find you'd like to meet in one game, there are players you'd like to meet in every game. Because the same players can be found in every game.
Also, please quote whoever you're replying to to avoid confusion
I found Asheron's Call to be the best, When it first came out. I've lost touch in the years since and wouldn't mind finding out what happened to them
@ homitu
Just saves space when my post is directly below the one I answer.
LOTRO had none of the mechanics mentioned in GW2 and had and still has one of the best communities in any mmorpg. I still stand by my point that mechanics alone doesn't make for good communities.
In any case, it is too early to talk about GW2 community. Simply because the communities are forged by the people who play long term, not those who rush at the launch and then move on to the next hot title.
On a more general note, while shared loot in the early days of WoW (when I was still playing) would have been considered an annoyance, you could get first hand info about the quality of the people you were running with. Who were the helpful, who were the greedy, who were the asshats. The big difference between that approach and this sterilised mmorg was that back then you knew the people you teamed with were good, because they could screw you if they so choose and didn't.
In GW2, as you already mentioned, you can't tell if the person you teamed with is an asshat or not, because (unless you are in WvW) they can't screw you. Is that an improvement? Mechanisms wise certainly. Community wise, not really. That guy you've been playing in GW2 for 6 months (hypothetically speaking), you now take him into an mmorpg without safety nets and, surprisingly enough, he shows his true colours.
It's not that the community is good (or bad), it's just that the environment is so sterilised that it makes no difference one way or the other.
That is true of course, particularly since most of those games had very little solocontent and no tradingposts meaning you had to communicate and make friends, or you were basically screwed.
That noone talks is just not true, it just seems like less since all the chatting is in local and the game lacks a general chat. That have both advantages and disadvantages.
LOTRO attracted a much more mature crowd. Just like EverQuest 2 did back in the day. It makes already all the difference right out of the bat.
I played both games extensively for many years.
The community in GW2 is fine on my server (Eredon Terrace) and there is plenty of talk in map and team in wvwvw. Sometimes in the world it's not so chatty, but I think a lot of the players during my play time are from various Asian countries so they may not be comfortable chattin g in English, though they are cooperative in play (whether by game design or not is up to you).
Best communities I've played with include TSW and maybe a surprise to many -- Darkfall. Yes, there were some jerks, but they were far outnumbered by decent, helpful players. All you have to do is talk to them. If you get ganked as a noob, you could tell them as much and ask for tips or advice. Seriously, 9 times out of 10 the player was very helpful with advice, returning stuff they looted, and even giving extra stuff like mounts, armor, and aid. It was great.
The Rift community seems good right now, too.
I'm thinking that WoW has absorbed a lot of players with MoP. Of course, there are fine people playing WoW, but I think a lot of the less mature players from other games got sucked over to MoP as well. That has perhaps cleaned up some of the other games' communities a bit.
You know I don't mean people botn in 2000 when I talk about 12yr olds, you can be 60 and be a 12yr old and you can be born in 2000 and be a human being.
And I didn't say it was all bad (Underworld) but the original premise was that GW2 had a GREAT community, well it doesn't in comparison to some other games I played.
Recent games for me are Lotro, SWTOR, TSW and GW2. Lotro started out very good but went downhill with F2P. SWTOR was mostly silent, a common reason given for it failing. TSW saw people helping each other left and right with lots of talking and advice. GW2 is mostly silent again but with extra helpings of "what a piece of shit".
There are nice people but as I go to higher level areas, I get the feeling I am leveling to fast and catching up with the kiddies. Go back to a lower level zone and stuff improves again.
One of the main reasons people left WoW in the beginning was the childish community. I can see signs that GW2 might suffer the same, it happened to the original after all.
Best community for me has been Fallen Earth, LoTRO, DDO and EQ2.
WoW had some nice guilds and groups of people but it was so full of asshats it made it hard to enjoy the game.
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
In the first year on my server at least WoW had a great community . It was sometime in the second year I started to notice more and more players with a bad attitude. These days when I go back its hard to find anyone whos friendly and nice . I don't know wht it is about WoW that attracts such people . Rift ( which I thinks a great game ) has a similar problem to a lesser extent .
Definitely has something to do with it. My daughter plays LoL, and the douchebaggery she has encountered is off the charts. I never saw such rude, selfish behavior in any game before. Not my cup of tea, and she only plays with her BF and a few rl friends, but they deal with douche bags daily.
As to GW2, the community is top notch, but like others have experienced, very quiet because they don't need to talk. But then this is getting more common, and while I would not say GW2 promotes much social interaction, to be fair it has grown less common to strike up conversations in any game these days. Many people in ALL games are using Vent or guild chat as their sole social outlet in the community, and I think it is just a change overall.
Hell, for my part, I have quit trying in GW2. I just play with my wife and a couple of RL friends, there is no need for me to group with anyone, so I have quit reaching out. That said, the people I do know in GW2 are top notch.