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What can developers do when making a MMO to improve the community?

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  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Originally posted by Theocritus
    There's little doubt that the death of the community started once players could do everything solo (cough WoW)...... Make your game where players have to depend on other players for things and you will ahve a better community, but that won't happen until these companies quit copying WoW.

    Look around. Games like LoL are toxic partly because of the player dependency. You make one mistake and you wont hear the end of it. One player has the ability to throw the entire game for his/her team. You want more of that in games?

    You know what made old communities so good? -Because they were small!

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

  • xeniarxeniar Member UncommonPosts: 805
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by Theocritus
    There's little doubt that the death of the community started once players could do everything solo (cough WoW)...... Make your game where players have to depend on other players for things and you will ahve a better community, but that won't happen until these companies quit copying WoW.

    Look around. Games like LoL are toxic partly because of the player dependency. You make one mistake and you wont hear the end of it. One player has the ability to throw the entire game for his/her team. You want more of that in games?

    You know what made old communities so good? -Because they were small!

    Yes i do, if that player makes an honest mistake big deal.. if he's doing it on purpose the community will quite basicly ban him. If a game had a community in wich people are actual individuals instead of random players, assholes and trolls will only bring downfall on themselves. because nobody would group with them. have fun playing a game by yourself when u need the help of others.

    I have to give you the last sentence tho. the bigger a community gets the harder it is to manage. But i have faith in that community's are selfregulating like that given the tools.

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  • MMOExposedMMOExposed Member RarePosts: 7,387
    Originally posted by strangiato2112

    1.  Make it group dependant

    2. Make it appeal to a mature community.

     

    But what appeal to mature community?

    Philosophy of MMO Game Design

  • loulakiloulaki Member UncommonPosts: 944

    trying to build a community is like trying to build a society, so its wise to check some history of society and rulers and check how every system ended...

    so yes developers are responsible(not full) for building a gamming community !!!

    image

  • eye_meye_m Member UncommonPosts: 3,317

    eliminate public forums and  globat chat.   Make the private forums have a consistant waiting list.  Once a person is banned, they are allowed to requeue  to be added back into the forums, but they are at the bottom of the list.  And you have to have an active account to post in the private forums, so obviously account support would not be handled there.  

     

    use game mechanics that promote co-operative play and lack of competition in the PvE environment.

     

    Fight gold spammers and botters actively and consistantly.

     

     

     

     

    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.

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by xeniar

    Yes i do, if that player makes an honest mistake big deal.. if he's doing it on purpose the community will quite basicly ban him. If a game had a community in wich people are actual individuals instead of random players, assholes and trolls will only bring downfall on themselves. because nobody would group with them. have fun playing a game by yourself when u need the help of others.

    I have to give you the last sentence tho. the bigger a community gets the harder it is to manage. But i have faith in that community's are selfregulating like that given the tools.

    Small communities are, in fact, the perfect vehicles for insularity and exclusion. I think we (all of us) define "toxic" very differently indeed. Was the adult community of the United Staes more toxic in the 50s, or in (say) the 90s?

    That depends, largely, on who you ask.

    Middle aged suburban golf-playing white males were at their peak in the 50s. Just ask Ozzie Nelson or Hugh Beaumont.

    Women and minorities, on the other hand, may not remember that era quite so fondly.

    (Go figure, which ones weren't allowed in the Country Club?)

    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.

  • RossbossRossboss Member Posts: 240
    Originally posted by craftseeker
    Originally posted by dave6660
    Originally posted by craftseeker
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    Originally posted by Rossboss
    Originally posted by craftseeker
     

    +1

    Voice of reason in all of this nonsense. Hire a professional to enforce behavior.

    OOoh, like secret goon squads that come to the home of anti-social jerks and kick the snot out of them?

    Sounds like a great idea, in fact, I'll do it for cheap.  image

     

    Thus demonstrating you are, in fact, exactly the kind of anti-social-jerk that should be avoided when playing MMORPGs

    Your sarcasm detector is broken.  Go to the auction house and buy a new one.

    If you look like a duck and sound like a duck you can expect to get shot like a duck.

    BTW  I can still hear the sound of quacking.

    Wow, you guys flipped out because I said enforce. Sorry, my original post was poorly worded.

    I meant it in a mental sense, not a physical sense. Not like kicking people out of the game, more like designing events and adventures to benefit players who don't act like complete jerks.

    Actively design and enforce rules with both benefits and reprimands for players depending on how they act. For instance, make a form of travel that benefits the players for having a group of people to share the work.

    Rowboat mechanics if you will, where everyone works for the same goal and gets to the goal faster by working together, but the same goal can be met with only one player in the boat. Also, make players who just sit on the boat freeloading a ride pay for the other's work through currency or another form of payment, like they would pay for a ferry.

    There also needs to be more cross player/class mechanics, like one class providing a debuff that other players can trigger for stronger attacks or other benefits. Like a player puts a curse on an enemy that enables another player's attacks to deal extra damage.

    Player A puts target in a "Weakened" mode through the use of a normal skill.

    Player B uses Magic Missile which has an additional effect when an enemy is in a "Weakened" mode.

    Player C uses Heal which additionally increases Player A's Attack and Casting Speed if their target is in a "Weakened" mode.

    Player D uses Courage which increases other player's pet attack and casting damage while their target is in "Weakened" mode.

    Etc.

    The main issue is that players are being rewarded for the wrong reasons for being in groups. They are in groups for personal gain instead of to help the group as a whole. But that's a whole other bag of worms.

    I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
    I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
    I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.

  • sketocafesketocafe Member UncommonPosts: 950

    I'm sure these have both been mentioned in the thread. but here they are again anyways. 

    Put a legal translation of "Don't be a dick" in your ToS and enforce it on people who habitually make others feel sad. I'm not talking about language or idiot memes but people who consistently target other players they run accross for verbal abuse and ruin their experiences in your game. Ban them. 

    The second thing is encourage players to work together. WoW servers actually had  decent communities in TBC when lfg was just a foul stench on the horizon and grinding heroics for badges of justice was difficult when you were just starting to gear. When I last played, the difficulty had been completely removed from the grind (unfortunately the tedium was left in) and you didn't have to communicate with your group at all to finish something and collect your emblem dealies. Even without a cross server lfg, you wouldn't need to exhibit any signs of teamwork at all, although the fact that everyone is a stranger and the only people who seem to speak are the arrogant douchebags probably leads to the lack of challenge. 

    If you want your players to have a community, you need to give em reasons to form one. Do that and they will, don't and it's asshole city.

  • sketocafesketocafe Member UncommonPosts: 950
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by Theocritus
    There's little doubt that the death of the community started once players could do everything solo (cough WoW)...... Make your game where players have to depend on other players for things and you will ahve a better community, but that won't happen until these companies quit copying WoW.

    Look around. Games like LoL are toxic partly because of the player dependency. You make one mistake and you wont hear the end of it. One player has the ability to throw the entire game for his/her team. You want more of that in games?

    You know what made old communities so good? -Because they were small!

    The difference between the old non-solo  WoW where communities existed and LoL is that you self-selected your groups while pugging. Players had to actually be dependable or you wouldn't play with them. Players had reputations and when word got around consistent assholes didn't get groups so much.

    LoL is just current LFD wow where your reputation doesn't mean that you can't find a group. You can always find a group, and if someone is behaving poorly, it's the person who leaves because he doesn't want to deal with it that gets punished with a wasted que, not the asshat.

  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529

    Why improve the community within the game?

    That'll be toxic no matter what the game devs do.

    Engage the meta-community sites that are built around having a community; SomethingAwful / TeamLiquid / Reddit etc.

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • RefMinorRefMinor Member UncommonPosts: 3,452
    Interdependcy and paid server transfers and no cross server LFG.
  • CuathonCuathon Member Posts: 2,211
    Originally posted by RefMinor
    Interdependcy and paid server transfers and no cross server LFG.

    People never seem to understand that assholes are the price they pay for convenience. Want 10 second group finds in 30 minute arena matches? Accept that you are going to play with assholes.

    But if you play long sessions in a game with voluntary associations and localized interaction you get awesome people.

    Why do people behave well in real life? Consequences.

  • shingoukiehshingoukieh Member UncommonPosts: 126
    Originally posted by infiniti70

    No auction house - peddle your wares

    Coop required content - does not have to be combat oriented

    Coop crafting - best things come from shared minds

    No mini map - need help finding something, find a guide

    No instant travel - time to group up, safety in numbers and all that

    No global chat - localized chat okay, clan chat better

    No mini games - here is a big bueatiful world, go play in a cage

    Harsher downtime - nothing like a "OOM" break get get to know your fellowship better

    Dangerous world - Maybe the most needed ingridient. If content can be solo'd it will be by most

    Community goals - stronger community opens up content in area, work together for better personal progression

     

    None of this is difficult to acheive, just unappealing to the grind for gear players

     

    agree with most but mini mad and global chat...i remember back in wow global chat was great....especially when horde was coming through global chat was useful...back then when that happened people responded and fought...example of a bad global chat is tera...that chat is horrible. i like a good mini map...i remember in wow i had to use this site to figure out where stuff was etc..just was more annoying..i mean i like to figure it out but when the quest dont give direction...then wtf

     

  • znaiikaznaiika Member Posts: 203
    Originally posted by xeniar

    You wanna know how to make a comunity?

    Have players need each other. Thats the only thing needed nothing fancy.

     

    This will creat even biger audience for bad people.

    All you need is a harsh rulles for offenders, even bans, if people don't learn from their first lesson.

  • steelheartxsteelheartx Member UncommonPosts: 434
    A buddy of mine hit it right on the head yesterday.  Players need a reason (a fear) not to die when playing a game.  Once you have this the community will start to help each other for mutual survival.  In hindsight i do believe he is correct for the most part.  EQ1 had once of the best communities i ever played with, and looking back this may have been one of the main reasons for it.

    Looking for a family that you can game with for life? Check out Grievance at https://www.grievancegaming.org !

  • FARGIN_WARFARGIN_WAR Member Posts: 166
    Originally posted by Cuathon
    Originally posted by RefMinor
    Interdependcy and paid server transfers and no cross server LFG.

    People never seem to understand that assholes are the price they pay for convenience. Want 10 second group finds in 30 minute arena matches? Accept that you are going to play with assholes.

    But if you play long sessions in a game with voluntary associations and localized interaction you get awesome people.

    Why do people behave well in real life? Consequences.

    I also think a big part of the problem is that while most people would agree that there are assholes in every gaming community, rarely do most people realize they are probably one of them.

    image

    If you don’t do stupid things while you’re young, you’ll have nothing to smile about when you’re old.

  • boxsndboxsnd Member UncommonPosts: 438

    Force them to group and improve their teamwork. Reward great groups with more exp / faster endgame progression.

     

    Games like WoW/GW2/SWTOR can be soloed from 1 to max level without needing anyone and anything. You can be an asshole to everyone and never face any consequences. 

     

    In old school games like DAoC exping with a group was at least 2-3 times faster than soloing. Exping with a GREAT group was even faster. Most of the assholes never made it to 50 because nobody would group them after a while and soloing was extremely slow and boring. At level 50 it was the same thing. Only stealthers could solo effectively (that's why many of them were assholes).

    DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247
    Originally posted by jpnz

    Why improve the community within the game?

    That'll be toxic no matter what the game devs do.

    Engage the meta-community sites that are built around having a community; SomethingAwful / TeamLiquid / Reddit etc.

    It's good to do both. jpnz, I think you're the first one here to suggest that. It's something many MMO devs do already. It's the type of suggestion that makes many of the control freaks here shutter, but it is a great way to bring existing communities (some of them are HUGE) into your game community, in effect broadening both communities.

     

    synergy, man.

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
    "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre

  • sanshi44sanshi44 Member UncommonPosts: 1,187
    Originally posted by steelheartx
    A buddy of mine hit it right on the head yesterday.  Players need a reason (a fear) not to die when playing a game.  Once you have this the community will start to help each other for mutual survival.  In hindsight i do believe he is correct for the most part.  EQ1 had once of the best communities i ever played with, and looking back this may have been one of the main reasons for it.

    Agree,

    As for making a community in a game it simply boils down to one simple thing, You must need the help of others in the game simple as that. Lets face it If you need people in a game to survive your gonna look for people to help you with that and if somone an ass hole or what ever no one will wanna help them so, and if somone was an asshole in Everquest there name reach the ends of Norrath eventualy and no one would let him join there groups and so on because no one likes to play with those types of people. For example there was no need/greed roll system in everquest an item dropped on the corpse and anyone could ninja loot it there were no safe guards on that item however 99.9% of the population would never ninja loot somthing because they knew there would be negative reprocusion to there game play later on in the game. If you did something negative your name would always be remembered kinda funny that.

    As for the quoted post with a death penalty such as Everquest 1 its absolutly right. No one wanted to die so they seeked help of others and if the worst happen and u did die and needed help to get your body back you could quite often easily find somone to give you a hand retreiving it because they knew how much it sucks to die so they quite often went out of the way to give somone in need a hand, These actions led to friendships within the game some have even lasted a lifetime. Everquest was one of those games that you knew that if you helped somone else the favor would be returned by somone else someday for some reason a name of somone doing a good or bad deed would always spread to other player in the world of norrath. I know i found my first guild in EQ because i died and some kind soul helped me and because of that ive helped other people in there time of need and im sure atleast one of those many people i helped has done the same.

    The moment you take away the need of other people in the community it goes down hill from there. As games come out more and more of these thing that make you rely on other people in the game are removed and this is why we been seeing worst and worst game community as time progresses.

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by sketocafe

    I'm sure these have both been mentioned in the thread. but here they are again anyways. 

    Put a legal translation of "Don't be a dick" in your ToS and enforce it on people who habitually make others feel sad.

    Doesn't need a legal defintion, it's covered by the "terminate your account at any time" clause.

    Problem lies in the inability of remaining employed, after cutting the company's income. In short, you need a boss that really will keep your ass covered if/when you choose to excercise that clause. And in a corporate environment, that protection ends the moment that he does.

    PR repercussions.  Mouthy Punk, after being terminated, of course runs to the nearest forum and begins a "For No Reason" thread. Gamers, being gamers, of course go "Rawr! Outrage! Burn the Witch!" The rest is all too familiar.

     

    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.

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by sanshi44
    Lets face it If you need people in a game to survive your gonna look for people to help you with that and if somone an ass hole or what ever no one will wanna help them so, and if somone was an asshole in Everquest there name reach the ends of Norrath eventualy and no one would let him join there groups and so on because no one likes to play with those types of people.

    I once received a call from a buddy at 3AM to do a corpse rescue, in time to avoid losing the gear. We actually had to do that kind of stuff, once upon a time.

    Now I could conclude that the beneficial effect Droppage+Janitors had on the Community (capital C) was well worth the fairly frequent loses of lifetime gear collections.

    But I'm just really hard pressed to envision that kind of inter-dependence working in the World of the Internet. That was already fading away; the moment people began to realize what a dangerous place the Internet could be.

    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.

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247
    Originally posted by Icewhite
    Originally posted by sketocafe

    I'm sure these have both been mentioned in the thread. but here they are again anyways. 

    Put a legal translation of "Don't be a dick" in your ToS and enforce it on people who habitually make others feel sad.

    Doesn't need a legal defintion, it's covered by the "terminate your account at any time" clause.

    Problem lies in the inability of remaining employed, after cutting the company's income. In short, you need a boss that really will keep your ass covered if/when you choose to excercise that clause. And in a corporate environment, that protection ends the moment that he does.

    PR repercussions.  Mouthy Punk, after being terminated, of course runs to the nearest forum and begins a "For No Reason" thread. Gamers, being gamers, of course go "Rawr! Outrage! Burn the Witch!" The rest is all too familiar.

    Ultima Online had a "spirit of the game" clause in its code of conduct but did away with that around 2003 or so. It was probably constantly being contested and more of a hassle than the current common "terminate your account at any time" clause.

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
    "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre

  • BladestromBladestrom Member UncommonPosts: 5,001
    Happy players make for a happy community, therefore I believe the answer is that devs need to decide on their target market and focus on making that target happy. Critical factor is that the target market should be focused - not everyone and his dog.

    rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar

    Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D

  • BladestromBladestrom Member UncommonPosts: 5,001
    Eve is a great example IMO ^^ (and I'm not the target audience here)

    rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar

    Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D

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