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What makes a good community?
Mendel
Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
Many people use the idea of a 'good community' when they talk about games. But what, exactly, does a game's population really need to be considered a 'good community'? There are probably several elements that are necessary for a community to be 'good'.
Here's some of the elements that I think contribute to a good community.
Here's some of the elements that I think contribute to a good community.
- Large population. A large number of players provides variety.
- Stable population. Seeing the same people in-game allows friendships to form.
- Active chat. Players must be willing to participate in the community.
- Even distribution of population across levels. There should be a lot of people around the same level providing competition, grouping, etc.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
If one character or account can do everything they have no true motivation to become part of a community.
I believe people need to need other people to make a community work. It can't be optional. The moment it is optional many persons don't engage.
At one time i didn't even consider community as mattering in any game i played.However that was because i was ONLY playing FFXI at the time ,i had no problem at all with the community.However once i branched out and started playing Wow and EQ2 i could not believe the difference in chat.Then when i played VG it was more of the same,the community was just awful.
WHY??I truly believe it is all about the game design,FFXI was designed to have players work together and get long and no pvp.These other games wee all about soloing so no need to get along with anyone nor to work with anyone,it creates a bad community and it was extremely noticeable to me.
Just one example was asking for help in chat.In FFXI people would do it all the time and people were helpful but in Wow or EQ2 or VG,nobody would offer any help,they would instead spam out Chuck Norris jokes or smart ass comments or something i never knew existed the spammy WTS LTB.That is what an auction house is for,you don't spam chat with your wares.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
A good community helps each other when someone is screwing up. That special melee pulling sub tank DPS? A good community will try to teach him, a bad one will shun him.
A good community should not be willing to cheat/glitch/exploit, and tries to stop it when it happens. This is heavily on the devs as well, when cheaters are not punished it starts to become prevalent.
The biggest and most basic is that a good community does not harass people. Be it by spamming whispers, by trying to blacklist, by doxxing, or any other awful thing people come up with, it is never an acceptable solution in a good community.
Edit: Just realized that when playing GW2 I experienced all of the positives on one server, and all of the negatives on two others. Maybe my definition could use some work.
Absolutely. It is a lot more convenient to just play games that do not depend on others for fun.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Censorship ALWAYS engenders hard feelings and defiance.
When a game pits communities against each other is more likely.
When a game caters to different play styles and therefore a number of communities you may see communities not getting on with others.
You can't say people can be civil only when they get to pick all the people around them.
Forced interdependence is something you do for work. Some of us play games for leisure. Others play games because they want to work more.
Being civil to others doesn't contradict leisure. Of course you'd enjoy playing with your friends but if you don't want to interact with anyone else outside of your circle then the community's quality would be irrelevant to you. You can't even call that a community.
The more the games become solo friendly the more you'd lose the need for the community. When you don't need anything from the community you will behave differently.
I remember in Vanilla WoW whenever one of our guildmates needed a dungeon run we all helped, because we knew another day we could be the one needing it. Then came the group finder tool and people stopped helping each other. Maybe the tool was making our lives more convenient but had definitely had a negative impact on human relations.
Then again, when group finders only matched you with players from your own server people were nicer. Because when you'd get out you would still be on the same server. You might saw those people again. Their GM might've contacted your GM and told about your misbehavior. But when it was broadened to cross-server, people acted worse. Because your team members weren't people anymore, they were just names that you did not have to see ever again. Same thing applies to MOBAs, that's why they usually have such an awful community.
Real Life culture and society, as well as MMOs, have these last few years catered more and more to pure selfishness. Is it any wonder why we have lost the desire, and perhaps even the social ability itself, to act in a selfLESS manner in anything, including MMOs? Is it really a mystery that we can't stand each others company and can't tolerate grouping with each other (generally speaking) in Online Gaming?
This is why online gaming is so popular, because it appeals to our base, natural, selfish self.
If one wishes to be able to work together with others, either in real life or in games, one must cultivate a caring attitude about others as much or more than ourselves and that takes work and a commitment, both of which are disdained in Gaming. To choose this way isn't in our base natures, the belief that "humans are inherently good" is a lie that denies history itself, we must choose to rise above our selfish brutal natures or all this talk of grouping in MMOs is pointless.
The choice to place the other Players on equal par with ourselves must come first before clicking the LFG button or the experience may well be just a thesis as to why we shouldn't group in MMOs any longer.
Remember this selfishness trend isn't confined to just online gaming... it permeates all of real life because it started there long before it entered MMOs communities. We have far more to lose in real life than we do in games if we don't learn to rise above our own selfishness FIRST.
If we want MMO Players to play together like we did when MMOs first started we need to do now what we did then, what we did because of previous real world decisions we each made... we need to choose to put the needs of others equal to our own. We need to respect each other enough not jump down someone else's throat when they make a mistake. We need to care about others enough to realize our time is their time as well.
And if we choose not to care about others like we did years ago then lack of good groups is going to be a reoccurring theme and we might as well get used to it.
Pros: -) Less game time to spend, generally less farming, fast changing community (ppl bored, ppl that don't find sense in the game quit and other new join at the same time etc.)
Cons: On the other side (coming at the point of the thread), Communities are only places to talk/chat in game in order to have an "idea" of not being alone (if you need a dg just hotjoin and you are done), less patience in the game, you come with the idea of finding a team, finishing the dungeon very fast, so later you can go to eat or go out with your bf/gf, so ppl leave teams like drinking water, without caring about ppl and without talking with noone, often joining even without sayin: "hello"! because there is the hotjoin who cares and bla bla bla. I'll sum up the new mmo structure with 3 words: cold as fck.
How you achieve these goals for a good community will always be up for debate. I personally believe that a good community is the second most important factor for the longevity of a game (behind core gameplay experience) but game designers are ignoring features that help to foster a good community. As other have said, forced grouping, interdependency and things like server / faction pride are critical to a good community but are features generally left out of modern mmos.
If players don't want to be dependent on strangers for their fun, why force it on them? And yes, community quality is irrelevant then ... as the success of many games with toxic community has shown.
Whether a good community is needed is also up for debate.
But gamers like me, who teaming and community is what makes MMOing worth playing. That type of game is in short supply. Your right, community is not needed. But it is desirous of many gamers and I am getting a little tried of the only option for that type of game play is in MMOs 10 years old.
Developers are in a MOBA mind set. Easy to make content that does not require planing to get done. Any zerg rush will do game play. The only thing you need to master is your class and if you do, it matters little what class you play. Its a game of self. Where other decisions dont matter because they impact no one but you.
There is something magic about a MMO community that shapes it self to the needs of the community. Where people reroll a new class because thats whats missing from teams. Where you can decide to be the class or spec that makes a team or just be another LFG DPS. For the MOBA mind set, this is awesome. For the MMOers, this is sad.
This type of games is in short supply because the type of players you belong to is in short-supply. And that fundamental fact of basic supply and demand cannot be overcome.
Yes, i have plenty of "games of self" that i can play (both pve and pvp), and to be honest, i don't really mind some games that go your way because, frankly, i don't have time to play all the ones i like anyway. So what if there are a few games that i am going to ignore.
However, i don't see the high touch community and interdependent kind of games making a big comeback.