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I need your opinions: What ways do you feel that games can improve their communities?

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  • TheStarheartTheStarheart Member Posts: 368
    Originally posted by Lissyl
    Originally posted by LadyEuphei
    MAny people are talking about forced grouping and such, which is not what I see happening. I see people starting to be held accountable. If a player can rank a team mate and say, "hey, this guy was really helpful" the community swarms to that. If you make it beneficial to be a nice person the game community becomes even better. Take League of legends for instance. They always had the ability to report and players were down right nasty to eachother. Since the release of the honorable opponent system, you have really seen the LoL scene clean up. Games need to remember that there are 2 sides to the story, if you focus on punishment people will turn evil for some reason, if you focus on rewarding the nice players, people will be nice. 

    Thank you so much.

    I agree completely.  I don't think we can have, community-wise, a better game until we have a better gamER.  While there have always been outliers to behaviour patterns, the earliest MMO's were -not- populated by the kind of acerbic trash-spewing infantile 'gamer' that populates them today.  Until something is done about this - be it the LoL method or something new and innovative (and other than a heavy banhammer, I must admit to not having much in the way of ideas) - there can be no real 'community' improvement no matter what tools/resources you use. 

    Simply recreating the structures of the past doesn't recreate their conditions.

    I absolutely want to recreate mechanics that are rewarding for people to participate with one another. At the same time, I also want to do new things to encourage community, friendliness, being helpful, etc. I just need to find good ways to do so. That's why I'm throwing it out there for the community think-tank.

     

    Where I'm at now is to have a game where things are just hard to find/do, but they're much easier when you're helping other people. helping random groups, helping your guild, being rated as friendly and helpful, etc. will increase the probability of good things happening for you and the potency of your character. how well he performs his job, how well he crafts, etc. The nicer and more helpful you are, the more good things happen to you. Almost like a karma system.

    Spent a really long time with the same group? Bonus probability.

    Donated items to someone? Bonus probability.

    Joined a random group to help with a dungeon you've already done? Bonus probability.

    Got a positive feedback from someone? Bonus probability.

    Certain thresholds in increased probability would also yield a bonus. 10% inc chance at something because you helped a lot of people? Now you have the chance for increased crits. reached 20%? X ability now has this bonus to it.  Not only are you better at crafting, finding certain drops, etc. but your character performs better as well.

     

  • TheocritusTheocritus Member LegendaryPosts: 9,739

         The best community I ever played in was in early EQ and here is why:

    1. grouping- while soloing was feasible with a few classes, the majority were dependant on grouping...Also the best loot was off the bosses which usually required a group to conquer

    2. every class has a role- if you want a good community, then everyone in that community needs to have a role...In EQ every class had unique abilities that were either valuable in a group setting or had special buffs that other players wanted.

    3. good economy with active trading- often a good crafting system ties in with this as other players need goods you have and there is quality interaction...if the crafting system gives one player the ability to do everything then you dont need other players

       in summary, the best communities are the ones where you/your character are valued and needed.....The problem with too many of the post WoW MMOs is that they are trying to hard to jsut be entertaining, and are not giving players any meaning.... Too many of them are making it so each character can do everything, the content is mostly soloable, and you jsut don't need anyone else anymore.

     

  • NovusodNovusod Member UncommonPosts: 912

    The real community killer is instancing and solo questing. The main appeal of MMORPGs is the persistant world and community interactions. Instances isolate players from each other. Non-trable loot also hurts the community as well because the second appeal of MMORPGs is a player-driven economy. If you do not like competition and player driven economy then you should be playing single player games and not MMORPGs. Single player games are a much better experience for the soloist.

     

    Things that are good but not completely necissary:

    - Sandbox Content with a living breathing world

    - Some type of healthy level grind. If someone hits max level on the first day the Devs dropped the ball.

    - FFA PvP (No factions everyone is red, no gimicy PvP gear or battlegrounds)

    - Death Penalties (Everquest type corpse runs were famous for getting people to work together)

    - Difficult content that requires large amounts of players (100+ man raids would be ideal)

    - Robust class system that is more than just a trinity (tanks, healers, DPS, Crowd Control, Buffers, Debuffers, etc)

    - Complex mechanic system (how many games still use the CHA carisma stat?)

    - Lots of Lore but light or no player story (People should understand that Lore and story are not the same thing)

  • OrtwigOrtwig Member UncommonPosts: 1,163
    Originally posted by LadyEuphei
    MAny people are talking about forced grouping and such, which is not what I see happening. I see people starting to be held accountable. If a player can rank a team mate and say, "hey, this guy was really helpful" the community swarms to that. If you make it beneficial to be a nice person the game community becomes even better. Take League of legends for instance. They always had the ability to report and players were down right nasty to eachother. Since the release of the honorable opponent system, you have really seen the LoL scene clean up. Games need to remember that there are 2 sides to the story, if you focus on punishment people will turn evil for some reason, if you focus on rewarding the nice players, people will be nice. 

    I think this is a great start of an idea.  So many of the crowd sourcng and social networking tools could be tweaked to work better in an MMO system.  I know people flip out about Facebook, but you can't deny these tools make it easier to pair up with like-minded people.

    • Player and guild ratings, with the ability to offer reviews
    • In game system to add public character profile information and guild info -- what you are looking for; add tools to match up interests with guilds
    • Add the ability to create informal groups -- not quite guilds, more than playing solo
    • Incentives and rewards for participating in group activities, including, but not limited to dungeons, open world questing, crafting, trade, diplomacy, entertainment and RP
    • Penalties for bad behavior as judged by the larger community (a karma system sounds great)
    • Tools to advertise group events -- bulletin boards and calendar
    • Matchmaking tools so that groups with similar interests can find each other
    • Difficult content that can best be completed by a group
    • No lfd/lfr tools -- instead use bulletein boards and calendaring to sign up for teams
    • Improved chat tools, and integrated voip
    • Community events -- theater, music, tourneys
    • Law enforcement framework if open world PvP is to be added
    • More specialization in abilities and gear instead of less (eject the trinity in favor of unique/individual characters) to promote diverse groups 
    • Experience for non-combat activities
    • Politcal and trade systems coupled with reputation and influence
    • Improved communication tools for individuals and guilds - all with the the focus of getting people into a group that fits their playstyle
    • Activities focused exclusively on getting new people introduced to other new and experienced players.  Maybe a newcomers guild designed especially to get people up to speed and find them a place within the community.
    I'm sure there's a ton more ideas out there.
  • NovusodNovusod Member UncommonPosts: 912
    Originally posted by Robokapp

    a clique is a micro-community.

     

    we're decades away (too early or too late) for ebating how to turn cliques into larger communities so let's focus on how to get people into cliques for now.

     

    cliques...are good. unless you're the guy not in one. But tha't strue for communities as well.

    There is only one game I ever played that tried to build up larger communities over cliques. Yes, this was decades ago in the 90s MUD era.

     

    The main pro-community mechanic was to place a character in a commmunity at character creation. Basically your character was part of a Kingdom or small Tribe of 25 other players. This was randomly decided at character creation. Just like in real life you don't get to choose where you are born or who your parrents are. Fate decides it and you have no choice but to accept it.

    Inactives were killed off through PERMA DEATH PvP.  Additionally scripts deleted inactive accounts on a weekly basis. They took the whole tribal thing seriously so active players would always be in a comminity with other active players. If you did not like people you were with you could always defect to another Kingdom but where you ended up was again random. There was no such thing as soloing. It wasn't part of the the game AT ALL.

    A lot of people complained about the system though because they couldn't be in the same community with their real life friends. The community generation system was random, which was the whole point of promoting community over cliques. The devs stuck to their guns though and never changed the system. Game was in business for over tens so they made the right choice.

    I have often wondered how people would react today under such a strict system.

  • allendale5allendale5 Member Posts: 124
    I havn't read all the responses in this thread so if somebody else already brought this up then I apologize, but I feel that we need more incentive to join a guild and to advance that guild.  I know some games touch on this a bit insofar as they grant certain guild-wide buffs depending on level of the guild etc., but in my opinion the games on the market today just don't give us enough in the way of incentives.  Most of the guild buffs are minor and personal guild renown usually tends to be only cheap returns on our time invested, presumably in an effort to comfort the un-guilded players; the result of which is mediocre allegience toward our guild and high levels of guild hopping.  
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    I don't play games for their community. I play for fun ... for the gameplay experience, which may incidentally including multiplayer (or even massive multiplayer) interactions.

    Forcing socialization in the expense of gameplay, and convenience is not the way to make a good game (at least for me).

    Given how these "community breaking" features like instances, and LFD are popular, i would say most players don't really care about the mythical "community".

    After all, all i need is someone to play with ... and they are always a button away (LFD). And if i don't like them .. the quit function is also a button away. ANd if i really want to socialize (which i usually don't play game for it) .. you can use whisper chat and what-not.

    And at the end, how many people can you socialize? 50? 100? 1000? Even at 1000, which i highly doubt anyone has time for so many, it is less than 10% what a server can support .. and it drops to almost nothing for games with cross server functionalities.

    So i don't really care about a particular community because with so many players (law of large numbers), the chance of not finding someone whom i like to play with .. is approaching zero.

  • AnthurAnthur Member UncommonPosts: 961

    To have a good mmo community you first need players which are interested in such a thing. Read the previous post in this thread and you know why a good community is a rare thing. Does it even exist in newer mmos anymore ? I only remember it from old mmos. Btw, this is not intended as an attack against the last poster. He just said what most people playing mmos nowadays think and do.

    You can add any feature you want into a game which promotes a good community. It's useless if players are not interested in such a feature.

  • RydesonRydeson Member UncommonPosts: 3,852

         I don't want to say "forced" grouping,, BUT there needs to be more dependant interaction within the community.. I thought EQ was a good mix of solo and group play.. Was it perfect? NO.. but from the games I've played it's the best mix I have seen to date..   Second thing"

    STOP WITH THE DAMN EPEEN ESPORT GAME PLAY..

         This is a bigger problem with me then anything.. The games today are NOT uniting the playerbase against a common foe, but putting us against each other..  I would love to see games that promote social community play.. This means getting rid of crap like gear score,  Raid limits and lockouts.. Get rid of instancing too.. I loved how groups close to each other would help each other out in a pinch or buffs.. If this means that 1/2 of the marketshare would never play the game, so be it..  I would rather play with a strong 200-300k community, then deal with 1 million esports wanting to compare their epeens.. NO THANKS..

         There also needs to be stronger crafting from start to finish.. Today's crafting is BS.. It's nothing more then a game hobby to pass the time.. Most of the products made are sold to NPC vendors, once you hit end game (which is TOO fast) only a few recipes are useable for short time..

         Get rid of questing as we have it today..  Very seldom are people on the same timetable, and that actually keeps people from grouping..  I would like to see questlines only be 10% of the game exp.. Questing should be either epic like "EQ epic quest", or use NPC's as delivery missions to help players move from one area to another..  NO MORE "kill 10 rabbits" quest.. Those are not quest to begin with, those are chores.. I would like to see 90% of current quest turn into repeatable turn in rewards like EQ's deathfist belts.. As you adventure in the zone with others, you will eventually loot items that NPC's want.. Once you are done for the day, go turn in your items for rewards. (exp, rep and coin).. This way there are no quest obsticles that keep players from grouping up..

         Summary.. stop appeasing the single player console gamer, and start looking back on past  games on what makes communities stronger, even IF smaller.. Games of the past were not perfect, but they were alot better then today's junk.. Oh, btw.. I also felt that GM's were a HUGE bonus on the server community.. They helped settle disputes, helped trouble players with bugs and were normally social with the playerbase..

  • phantomghostphantomghost Member UncommonPosts: 738

    Require grouping.  No easy mode WoW type games.

     

    Make it so social interaction is required.  If you suck, good luck finding a group.  If you are an idiot in chat, good luck getting a group. 

     

    Good thing for the producers too as they can make a change name feature cost a fortune, so when the kids log on and think they are funny, and ruin the game for themselves and need mommy and daddy to bail them out by paying an over priced name change fee, they will think about doing it again with their new name or ever in the future.


  • phantomghostphantomghost Member UncommonPosts: 738
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    I don't play games for their community. I play for fun ... for the gameplay experience, which may incidentally including multiplayer (or even massive multiplayer) interactions.

    Forcing socialization in the expense of gameplay, and convenience is not the way to make a good game (at least for me).

    Given how these "community breaking" features like instances, and LFD are popular, i would say most players don't really care about the mythical "community".

    After all, all i need is someone to play with ... and they are always a button away (LFD). And if i don't like them .. the quit function is also a button away. ANd if i really want to socialize (which i usually don't play game for it) .. you can use whisper chat and what-not.

    And at the end, how many people can you socialize? 50? 100? 1000? Even at 1000, which i highly doubt anyone has time for so many, it is less than 10% what a server can support .. and it drops to almost nothing for games with cross server functionalities.

    So i don't really care about a particular community because with so many players (law of large numbers), the chance of not finding someone whom i like to play with .. is approaching zero.

    Go play a RPG then not a MMORPG.

     

    You are a perfect example of what ruined the community.  Just my opinion.


  • Sora2810Sora2810 Member Posts: 567
    Originally posted by GrayGhost79

    Take a page from UO. Create a Virtual World. Thats about all you truly have to do. I new my neighbors in UO, I saw them often enough so we got to know each other and adventured together. We'd go over and visit with each other and play board games in our respective houses. 

    No forced grouping worked well as well. People weren't sitting around lfg all day. You grouped if you wanted to with whom you wanted to group with. People would go off and adventure, gather resources, complete collection quests for actual achievements and meet people along the way. Each group in UO had it's own community. Tamers run into each other all the time, help each other out, compete with each other, teach and help new tamers, share what they've learned with each other. Same with crafters and same with any group in UO. 

    PK's would try to kill players doing dungeons in fel while others would try to protect them. Different communities formed but for the most part we considered ourselves as part of the larger community. 

     

     

    This^

    Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
    Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403

    I thought the "one and only one character" approach someone (want game was that) was trying was an interesting idea.

    Avoids the double-anonymity (anonymous player of one-of-many anonymous toons) feature of the Big Games.  You're invested (in theory) in your reputation, and other players.  I remember how different small games felt from mmos.

    But I'm not sold on the concept as a magic bullet—enormous number of drawbacks, inevitable multi-account abuses, etc.

    (I'm not sold on a lot of magic bullets to fix human problems.  Try a bunch of 'em, in the same title, and be prepared to listen to people bitchin').

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099

    Not every game has to appeal to every player, but forced grouping (or any other forced interdependance) is a complete non-starter for me.  I won't do it, no matter what the carrots and sticks.  The harder you try, the more you just push me away from your game.

    To me, community is about networks - the flow of information and resources from one random player to another random player.  Too efficent (eg: global auction houses) and there's no structure to the community.  Too inefficient (eg: grouping to do anything) and all but the most extreme extraverts will become claustraphobic.

    Let people become *interesting*.  Personally I like games that let you attach a biography to your character, so I can see someone wandering by and call up their brief self-description.  That ability to research people without bothering them directly appeals to me.  Why not add some more there, so that every passing player is a collection of interesting tidbits, perhaps even a passive quest-giver virally spreading news?   Not all player-player interaction needs to based around me stopping what I'm doing in order to answer questions from the players who are interacting with me. 

    Achievements, mounts, pets and other vanities touch on this area of character definition, but tend to emphasize envy over community.  The random collateral buffs applied to nearby friendly players while playing a healer in the open world go a long way to making my presence more welcome in an area and helping break the ice.  I like it when I accidentally help people.

    But back to my first point, remember that everyone has different reactions to different types of interactions.  PvP-seekers vs PvP-avoiders are the most conspicuous example of this, but similar variations of opion are going to happen about every form of interaction.  A general-auduience game that is not targetting a niche of personalities needs enough diversity of interaction mechanics to allow each player to find their own comfort zone when dealing with the rest of the community.

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Be unpopular. Smaller communities tend to be closer.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

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