Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Guild Wars 2: Community Support
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
For many players, community is essential when looking for an MMO home. In our latest column devoted to Guild Wars 2, we look at ways the community will be involved in Arena.Net's latest. Check it out and then weigh in with what you think in the comments.
These days it seems that a game cannot survive without a strong community behind it, as everyone can be connected through the internet. ArenaNet did a very good job in Guild Wars building a strong connection with, and for the community. They connected players to guild events and even posted links to community-run online magazines. So will this tradition continue with Guild Wars 2? There are a lot of signs that point to yes, so let’s take a look at how the game will connect players, and how ArenaNet can continue to keep themselves in touch with the players.
Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: Community Support.
)
It doesn’t matter who plays what race, or what class. We all need to work together if we are going to get through the game. It’s more fun that way anyhow.
Comments
Single player can join multiple guilds? Good for increased socialization, not so great for immersion.
Being in multiple guilds isn't immersion breaking, it is no more immersion breaking than saying you have 2 groups of friends and you want to be in both guilds so you make 2 characters. In GW2, you can just join 2 (or more) guilds on one character.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
In another mmorpg I won't name, my husband and I were able to create our own guild with our alts as members. We didn't have to round up strangers and take em somewhere , along with an arm and a leg and pass an algebra test in order to have a guild of our own. Please make it easy to create a guild.
I love and am looking forward to GW2.
However, GW1 had one of the poorest communities out of any MMO I have played, and I expect GW2 won't be much better. I will still play and enjoy them, but not because of their community.
Let me say again, what GW1 did it did amazingly well, but it just wasnt a community game. GW2 will probably follow in that... It is certainly a bit more geared towards community, however.
Here are some features that I think has lead GW1 to having a poor community:
no monthly fees
importance of running multiple/alt characters
no roleplaying tools
poor focus on persistant world
simplified gameplay (which I think is amazing and 100% logical)
mainstream popularity
one giant server --> no accountability
poor guild meta game (except for PvP of course, which is simply amazing)
minimal interaction with other players on reg. basis (no economy, little trading, little to do aside from combat)
total lack of 'running into' the same players multiple times
If you want to look at a MMO that has community, look at EVE online, SWG, or maybe ArcheAge seems to be doing well. Want to see a better community than any MMO can muster? Check out non-MMOs like multiplayer minecraft or really old games like the realm online. GW? No, sorry... And I do say that as a fanboy!
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I think being able to join multiple guilds should play well. I wonder if there is a limit as to how many guilds we can join? And I also hope people don't go like: You can join only my guild and if I see you in other guild you will be kicked out (FFXI).
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
My hats off to ANet for not having official forums. This allows for fansites to thrive where with other games that have official forums, those fansites slowly die off over time. Having played the original GW for 6 years, I always wished I could be connected outside of the game with my in game friends and guild members. Those fansites were the connection.
How much better would it have been to have a GW fansite/social network like facebook back then. This inspired me to launch http://www.gw2hq.com, an online social networking community and fansite in one for Guild Wars 2 gamers and guilds. The fansite has received a lot of praise from it's members and almost 500 members have signed up through word of mouth only advertising.
Everyone knows about http://www.guildwars2guru.com and even ANet staff post on those forums. It is the largest and most successful fansite for Guild Wars 2 and the game hasn't even launched. If anyone is looking for more then just forums, then see my sig. below. We're talking about a live network activity feed, screenshots, videos, blogs, polls, and more. Soon to come will be an IM and live chat rooms as the site grows bigger.
Thank you ANet for allowing your players and fans of your work to be able to give back by doing the legwork and creating fansites deserving of the quality products you have been giving us in entertainment value over the past 6 years. Keep up the good work.
@wormywrym: So because one game, in your opinion, didn't have a good community you assume that another game won't have a good community. Even though both games won't share any game mechanics. I fail to see the logic behind the arguement your brought forth.
In the end all I care about are the community building tools ArenaNet have built for Guild Wars 2. I could care less about GW1, as I've never played it myself and for good reason (it not being an MMO).
Hopefully the Guild limit would be around 5, which doesn't seem like too much or too little. I personally don't see myself joining more than 3 guilds. One for just me and my friends, one for WvWvW and another for whatever...
Cali?
Well experiences vary. The GW1 guild I was in was not any different from MMO guilds I've been in. It did take time to find a good one because it is so easy to create a guild but I don't think thats a bad thing.
There was some good guilds in GW1 and very helpful, problem with a lot of people is they expect a 1 way street and always wanting and taking but never giving.
Thats true of any community even in RL
Actually i think, Guild Wars has enough interaction with other players, if you want. There are people that do nothing but trade all day, and even an average player had to sell his stuff now and then. Of course, there are NPC merchants for this, but that's not the games fault if you prefer them even though they pay worse/cost more.
Also, i don't understand why a single server leads to no accountabilty. If you got several servers, you can just change the server if needed, instead of facing what comes for you, with one, it isn't possible. And there were and are well-known people and guilds, good and bad. More the bad for players, more the good for guilds, but there IS accountabilty.
And monthly fees..why should that lead to a better community? The amount of cursing about the community in other games, and my personal experience, say it isn't worse. Sure, it was "easier" to just check it out (remember you still have to buy it), but it also lead to that people only played when they wanted, and not being "forced" into.
And roleplaying tools..what roleplaying tools do other games actually have? What tools do you *need* for roleplaying? I don't need tools for it, only a community where it is wanted, and WoW etc. don't has that, either.
I agree that there wasn't much of a persistent world, but with people "doing instances" all the time in WoW, Aion etc., it's not much of a difference. And if you have a reason to remember some player, you notice them even now, here and there. It was better in the early days, before they toned down normal mode with the introduction of hard mode, before heroes..but it's still there. It would happen more often with a persistent world, as you surely wouldn't run into them during a mission, but a total lack? No.
I also don't understand "mainstream popularity". Guild Wars isn't exactly main stream, many people do not even touch it because it isn't an "MMO", even though it's more an MMO then half the games that get released today.
You are right about the guilds metagame though, not much you can do with other guilds.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
Wait. What in the world does joining guilds with other players have to do with game immersion? Now we're just tossing the word 'immersion' out there way too casually.
Add it to the long list of words that just get tossed around these days
I actually had the best communitry experience ever in GW1, a lot of very nice, funny, easygoing people. It's one of the big challenges of any mmo: getting equal minded people together. I think the facts that there's no gear differences and the easy travel also make it much easier to do things together and enjoy the game as a group, casual and fanatical players alike.
What guild forming is concerned I'm not that happy. In all games where making a guild or corporation is very easy, the community tends to split up into a myriad of very small groups, which can be very limiting. Although alliances can make up for that.
And oh I hope we get tabards and not again those silly capes!
Cast your vote: The importance of character customisation
Not neccesarily.
Being able to be in one guild for PvE and one for PvP actually make sense, same thing with being in a guild with people you know IRL as well.
My guess is you are not an old player of GW otherwise you would know this is untrue. Currently the community is not so active as before cause the games is over half a decade old. During the prime of the game it had every outpost filled with people, and even today there are guilds that are very active. Most people come online during the holiday events to hang around with their guildies. Out all the MMO's I played from the game list guild wars still holds the biggest friends list for me.
Your first point is completely invalidated thanks to WoW. THAT, in my opinion (which is the keyword and kicker here) had the worst community I've seen, and I've played my way through plenty of MMOs.
Alts? Again, invalid because nearly every game out there has them. EvE Online even has them, seeing as people tend to pay their way in in-game cash to keep the accounts subscribed, and I'm sure you've seen how people can be in that game. I also don't see the importance of having multiple toons in it, seeing as I've done most everything in the game (or tried it) on one character, and I'm sitting pretty nicely in terms of my HoM rewards.
No roleplaying tools? Please do tell how so, instead of a vague statement. Having been in several player-ran events in Guild Wars, there is plenty of creativity displayed in that department.
Poor focus on persistance and simplified gameplay? This is all rather subjective. Honestly I think spamming taunt in WoW is the very definition of simple, while body blocking intelligently in Guild Wars can be rather important. As for the world persistance you really need to ellaborate.
And as for minimal player interaction, again that is subjective. I actually joined a guild, and I get my elephant-sized lion's share of player interaction with them. Perhaps you didn't join a guild then, in which case its as much your fault for not seeking it, as it was ArenaNet for not including some form of zone-chat.
I'm not touching the "no running into same people" thing though, because frankly that doesn't mean squat. Again, having played WoW, I never ran into the same people for the most part, the only time I ever did were in MMOs that tended to have sparse player bases.
I don't know how much of Guild Wars you played, and I don't want to try and make any assumptions, but it sounds like you barely even played the game, much less invested any actual time into it.
I think you really are misunderstanding the meaning of community. Eve online had a terrible community for 90% of players. You had to play the game for years before anyone would accept you or do anything with you. That is not community that is cliqueiness.
Most games with there meta-game content encourage players to form small groups of players who spend up to 15 hours a day on the game to exclude everyone else. In guild wars one you had your friends who you would PVP with and do other things but at any time you wanted you could walk into a town and get people to do anything you want with. This is because they had one big server and because there were very strong incentives to group with people.
In games like Eve and WoW and AION... you can do almost everything on your own and the things you can't people form A teams to do and ignore everyone else. As for what you said about running into the same people all the time well that is the biggest problem with those games like Eve and so on. Yeah sure its nice to say hey ZeGerman how you been but does that 10 seconds of recognition really out way the problems of never finding a healer because all of them are on 10 hour cd's becuase they have an A team with a guild?
So one character can join multiple guilds or just alts? I also wonder if GW2 guilds have guild xp or renown or some other mechanic for building guild resources and how that will work with toon being in multiple guilds. Do all the guilds you are in get the benefits? Also will this lead to every guild trying to invite everyone they see without any kind of filter to see what kind of player you are getting. And with so many huge guilds will you get to know anybody? I always liked the smaller guilds where you know everyone in guild.
In RL I have more then 1 social circle of friends... and RL still manages to be pretty immersive.
Does your real life immersion get ruined by belonging to more than one club or social organization?
I would love to see some decent size guild caps... TOR capped at 500 but then again, that game was obviously not designed for guilds.