I think this is the 5th thread about "worst community" I seen in a while, all of them are about different games too...
Are people actually getting worse or are the newer games in themselves making that happen?
The MMO community is worse now then when I started with Meridian, the question is why?
I'd like to know too.. even World of Warcraft, which I just resubbed to had a good community in the pre - burning crusade days, let alone games like Dark Age of Camelot or Anarchy Online, but now it is just absolutely atrocious. I end up just turning off things that serve as "general chat" or ingame voice chat in games these days. Global Agenda especially. I just can't bring myself to play that game in particular anymore because of all the assholes that play it. I just want to log on and play a game and not have to put up with people who take it way more than that again like it was a decade ago.
On another note, this games hack gaurds are laughable. Aimbots are everywhere. People actually spawn NPC's in the dome (the only area besides the desert and mission maps) for fun.
GA has incredibly few hacks. I've played 100s of hours and only ever seen a few people that were blatently hacking. HiRez checks reports of hackers and has a ton of "data mining" they can use to find hackers themselves, as well as then watching them play to check. The biggest provider for hacks in GA, Assisted Aiming, completely gave up support within a month I think it was. HiRez takes a firm stand on hackers, they get banned, always.
There are, however, some really good players in GA. The best snipers, for example, routinely get called out as hackers - on the official forums and in-game - but anyone who's played long enough has seen them get better and better just with practice. I'm sure they've been checked by HiRez at some point or another just to make sure anyway XD
TL;DR: Hackers are easily found, always banned when found, and top players are accused of hacking quite often. GA has less hackers than most FPSs.
Also, how come the NPCs comment is right after the hacks one? If you mean PvE bosses etc. they're being spawned by a dev who's bored, if you mean the little robots that follow people around they're pets... Sorry if that's obvious, but then I'm just pointing out the obvious that neither relate to hacks in any way.
Although I agree with the OP on most of his points, there are parts that just arent true. As an earlier poster said, hacks are not a problem in the game... I feel this is an honest case of "you think they are hacking? Nah, you just suck." Also, although yes, the game is full of people that think they are the best thing that has ever happened to the game, its not hard to join a good agency with lots of cool people in it, same as with any other MMO.
On another note, this games hack gaurds are laughable. Aimbots are everywhere. People actually spawn NPC's in the dome (the only area besides the desert and mission maps) for fun.
GA has incredibly few hacks. I've played 100s of hours and only ever seen a few people that were blatently hacking. HiRez checks reports of hackers and has a ton of "data mining" they can use to find hackers themselves, as well as then watching them play to check. The biggest provider for hacks in GA, Assisted Aiming, completely gave up support within a month I think it was. HiRez takes a firm stand on hackers, they get banned, always.
There are, however, some really good players in GA. The best snipers, for example, routinely get called out as hackers - on the official forums and in-game - but anyone who's played long enough has seen them get better and better just with practice. I'm sure they've been checked by HiRez at some point or another just to make sure anyway XD
TL;DR: Hackers are easily found, always banned when found, and top players are accused of hacking quite often. GA has less hackers than most FPSs.
Also, how come the NPCs comment is right after the hacks one? If you mean PvE bosses etc. they're being spawned by a dev who's bored, if you mean the little robots that follow people around they're pets... Sorry if that's obvious, but then I'm just pointing out the obvious that neither relate to hacks in any way.
Good points. HR does seem to take hacks very seriously. The mission/raid bosses and other such that show up from time to time are the GM's/Dev's having fun.
This is a new revelation? Of course it is going to have a bad community. The game is cheap, repetitive, shooter based so....? Whats the news? Same as all the other online shooter based games. BTW I enjoyed the game and hope they add to it.
The game itself is fine. It's really nothing spectacular but it's fun. The actual content is a bit short lived, you've seen pretty much everything there is to see by level 30 (cap is 50).
This games problem is not content, though there definatly could be more. The problem is the community. This game has the absolute highest concentration of asshats and "Pro" morons of any game I have ever played.
Integrated voice is sometimes a blessing, but mostly a curse.
This game tries to hold to the holy trinity, IE tanker, healer, damage dealer. The real problem from the community stems from a website called agendastats.com. Agendastats claims to track your skills in a more effective way than the in game star system. In fact the metric it uses is stacked heavily on kill death ratio.
Essentially, what you end up with is a whole bunch of "AOE" specced assaults in the second tier level brackets padding their stats for agendastats.com, and bitching that the healers arn't tanking.
Its alot worse than just that. If you play this game, and play the trial, you only reach level 12. Know that there are no more open quest zones after the desert, and understand that if you purchase the game and begin playing mercs in the 30-50 bracket most of the people you will meet there are the worst possible specimens of humanity.
On another note, this games hack gaurds are laughable. Aimbots are everywhere. People actually spawn NPC's in the dome (the only area besides the desert and mission maps) for fun.
Last but not least, there are only 13 skill points. So at level 30 you have all the skill points you will ever get. Charecter progresion from level 30-50 is strictly gear based, and you're going to have to grind through a whole lot of those horrible merc missions with the afore mentioned asshats to snag up that next piece of gear or level.
All in all im glad I bought this game. It was alot of fun up until level 30. After getting every class to level 30, it just seems like a massive pointless waste of time spent with people I wouldnt piss on to stop them from burning to death.
I agree on the Community but its nothing special , alot of mmos have comunity lik that even WoW so suck it up u odnt have to read the city chat lol.
As for the merc and lvling u said as good as nothing worth mentioning is that from lvl 1 to 30 someone can get in 2 days of playing so its obvious this game isnt focused on leveling its been made on side .
The other thing is merc .... merc is just a 10 vs 10 battle ground withh quit alot of maps and difrent modes that make fun playing , the 1 thing is u can join this merc pvp with mx 2 people in team so the good thing is new players want get owned by premade teams so its actually balanced this way .
On the other hand the star system is really bad in my opinion cos after u get 4 stars (out of 5) u start to get qeued with really bad teams in merc and its really anoying from time to time but u can get ure 3 stars back to .
And there are 2 other things 1 one and most importand is AvA merc is just something to kill time and lvl up AvA is agency vs agency ( guild vs guild) where its about getting zones buildint factorys defending them and conquering new ones from other agencys which is very cool feature in this game alot of people enjoying his game , and for the last we have Pve dungeons solo/party and every 80 mmin a RAID (10 people) .
So bealeave me people u want get bored that easy , its also worth mentioning that this game isnt that much about gear > skill cos all the gear we need we can get basicly with lvl 36 .
All th emain rewards and cool stuff are aperiance and dise .
For a game that cost right now 17 euro / dollars its really worth buying its a prise of 1 month sub .
GA is a fast paced mmofps thats really fun and the comunity isnt that bad only the main city chat which we dont have to read ever game has chat like that .
I am the punishment of God... If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you Genghis Khan
Well... that answers that I guess lol. I had be toying around with the idea of buying GA ever since APB closed. I had tried GA before but ... it was just a mediocre game so I haven't been exactly excited about picking the game up.
But, there is no way I'm going to deal with hacks, asshats and other such things for a mediocre game.
I played S2-S3 and didn't see hacks. Also; it's fun if you get with a good crew, like anything. As for the worst community, I always take these posts with a grain of salt, everyone knows MMORPG has the worst community!
Also; I can't help but to add, the OP talking about mob spawns in the dome, the GMs did that, the spawns were neutral they would follow a player around, when you left for a mission it would select another player and follow him around the dome.It was fairly common knowledge the GMs did it to mess around, or they'd spawn a red robot and a blue robot, for some Rock 'um Sock 'um action...
Well... that answers that I guess lol. I had be toying around with the idea of buying GA ever since APB closed. I had tried GA before but ... it was just a mediocre game so I haven't been exactly excited about picking the game up.
But, there is no way I'm going to deal with hacks, asshats and other such things for a mediocre game.
When APB players went to GA en-masse a great deal had worries about hacks, I'm assuming they were common in APB? They're really not an issue in GA.... at all, I'm not sure how the OP came to the conclusion he did. GA actually has less hackers than most FPSs at the moment for numerous reasons:
Due to centrally managed servers, HiRez have access to a host of statistics that allow them to pick out suspicous players.
All players can /report suspicous people if they believe the person to be hacking.
HiRez can watch you play to find out.
Hackers get a lifetime ban - no servers to swap to, no escaping.
When found, hackers get banned after a random amount of time. This is to collect further evidence and so that they have no idea exactly when or how they got caught.
AssistedAiming.com provided hacks for GA... it gave up within a month. Most videos on youtube etc. are months old and uselessly showcase AA with hacks that no-one can get from them.
I also remember someone asked on the official forums how many had been banned recently once, I don't think Erez said how many but he did say that in a recent batch they were all under level 30. I'd personally take that to imply that there wasn't anyone they found above level 30 - not for lack of looking or the ability to find them, but because hackers don't even make it to that level before they got banned.
GA may have some downsides, but hacking certainly isn't one of them. If anything, that front should be a possitive point about the game.
As for the community, I can't see how it's worse than other games. You can always turn the chat off of course... I simply rarely pay any attention to it. If you're playing the game, the chat doesn't matter. If you want to be social, join an agency, chat to them through agency/alliance chat and VOIP.
World of Warcraft is the worst community in my view.
The amount of racism, hate, and sheer vulgarity I saw on a regular basis in public chat channels, like trade, was just absolutely ridiculous.
Why a player's race, relgion, creed, gender or anything like that is important in MMO I have no idea. It's one of the things I got sick of seeing.
It violated the ToS word for word and it wasn't something Blizzard did anything about, simply, because you'd see similar offenders over and over. When those voices were quiet there would always be someone to take their place.
And good grief, if something didn't go the way that particular community wanted it was whine, cry, threaten to quit, etc.
The servers would go down for a couple hours and it was the end of the world.
World of Warcraft might be the best MMO by sheer subscription base right now, but with that they sure do end up with some really mean and nasty people.
big games were always like this, trolls just used wow because it has a billion of stupid ppl.
When somoene is obviously trying to provoke you and you bait and start flaming back whos more stupid you or the troll(both are stupid but you are more and at the end its the no life troll that stands behind his monitor laughing at you while you rage)
I played AvA and Pubs on a nightly basis from release until right before Sandstorm and play these days from time to time.
Community - It's the intraweb... if you don't think there are trolls that sit in chat and wait for the chance to try and provoke someone you shouldn't be here. It's in every game get over it and learn to turn channel filters on or grow up and ignore it.
Yes Agendastats made most people stat padding idiots and gave them the epeens the size of the Washington monument but Agendastats only matters to those that let it matter to them. AvA is what Hi-Rez intended the game to be about not Pub stomping which is what the game boiled down to when I stopped playing nightly. Yes there is still AvA but it isn't like it was. I haven't partaken in it so I can really speak to if it is fun or not.
The AvA community in it's prime was amazing. It was as close to a Pre-TOA Daoc community that I've found. Yes there was serious smack talking at times but most of the time it was harmless trolling. Yes there were certain players everyone made fun of because they thought they were amazing and we all knew they were but that comes with any game on the internet. Learn to love it because it will always be around.
Hacks - When I played were few and far between and they were obvious. As stated in an earlier post people who have been playing the game since launch are going to know how to aim way better than someone who's just started. Most of the weapons take extreme amounts of skill to be god like with. I played with and against the three best snipers during the first season of AvA. They all got constantly reported for hacking and never got banned. Why? Because Hi-Rez treats hacking seriously as stated in above posts. Unless some recent patch has made it easier to hack then there's no reason why hackers would be plausible.
Devs Spawning NPCs - shame on your for complaining that Devs are actually watching and interacting with their player base. Hi-Rez takes into account what their community is currently talking about more than any other company I've seen excluding the millions of QQers when someone is overpowered in WoW.
Depth of the game - It does lack on deep RPG elements and the player base would be much larger had they made it deeper there's no arguing that. I still think the game was released far too early like every other MMO these days and had they taken a little bit more time they would have learned form the community that a deeper RPG element was needed to sustain interest. However Hi-Rez made a fairly unique product for a rookie game and I look forward to what they bring with Tribes Universe.
You are right about one thing. People who refuse to help other people in efforts to make themselves look better on Agendastats or other websites like it are a class of their own but you find them in every game. Hop in a BG in WoW and it won't take you long to find some stupid person acting like a tard loosing the BG for you. Same with Warhammer and other games. I can't count the number of times I’ve made a level one character in WAR and beat level 11s on damage or healing because they are horrible or just run in and meat shield it up and die and still loose.
Again it's the intraweb learn to love it and realize that you have to have the bad parts to have the good parts.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
I've been playing it and honestly after I got into an agency, I have completely ignored city chat. It doesn't even matter at all, it's all of the people from the barrens chat and from other mmo's that just troll until their free month is up.
I say who the hell cares, let them be morons and just go about your business of playing the game. I have only seen a hack once as far as I know, and it wasn't that big of a deal, you could still kill the guy. I have also never heard anyone spamming voice with anything, other than telling people to get onto a point, or how we should set up to beat a boss. I have been enjoying the hell out of this game, and I've been playing since it came out.
surely the community cant be worse then wow these days......i quit wow for that and went back to vanguard soh (wich isnt as dead as people think it is tbh).
No the community is worse in my opinion for GA. There is no reason to try and speak in city chat, most reasonable questions get ignored, and no matter what time you get on, here is a list of things that are guaranteed to be spoken about in city chat around the clock.
1) WoW was the first MMO (ore replace WoW with any number of games, its pretty much a recurring macro, or if its not, it may as well should be)
2) Any kind of reference to the Topic of KenyAAA or AfricAAA which are players in the game that don't actually play it so much as chat in the dome all day
3) Any various conversation concerning the bacon, where it has gone, when it comes back, where it had been, etc.
4) "Do people still PLAY this game?" and the flaming that ensues
6) Any various macro about the PS3 or 360, and whatever ridiculousness may come from the original macro
7) "That guy is hacking" "That guy sucks" "My last team was a bunch of (expletives)"
Thats pretty much the entirety of City Chat. You can get on at 2AM or 4PM chances are, one of these conversations is going on.
#1 & #3 are the majority of the city chat that is non-game-ish. I haven't seen a lot of the other stuff. They do talk about Sensa a lot (person in game who's played a lot).
The mechanics of the game are not that complicated and the character progression system is pretty simple. There's not a lot left to talk about. You either play or you chat and chat doesn't involve a lot of talk about the game. There's very little social outlet so people talk about bacon. I don't know what the developer's intentions are as the game itself isn't really a social game.
I've never had a question not answered, but I've also never had a question that didn't get several outre or iffy references either. For me, it's interesting. If the conversation was only about the game, there would largely be silence. I'll take references to bacon and the first MMO (usually your Mom or something similar) to silence. That and it's not any worse than WoW.
As far as the people in instances...the four mans can be really iffy after level 20 or so. Your team pretty much needs to know what it's doing and it depends a lot on the tank. I leveled almost exclusively through PvP from 24 to 30. Raids and the PvP is a different story. Raids (level 30 and up) go much, much smoother, it's easier for random teams to work together, or the people in raids are just more focused. Ditto for the PvP. You don't see a whole lot of general stupidity there. The four mans after level 30 can be a little iffy, but you get more people who want to complete the instance and are a little more careful about what they are doing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Thanks for the info. I was looking for a new game and been checking videos and reviews for GA, but I'll keel looking. Community is important to me and if it sucks I better stay clear of it. Such communities as the one you talk about can seriously trigger my viking temper.
If it ain't dead you're not pressing 2 hard enough.
GA has the typical FPS community. If you ever listen to people smack talking in CoD or Halo, it is no different. For some unknown reason adults turn into complete idiots as soon as someone other than an NPC kills them.
It was the worst ever. I don't know why. Last time I was logged on, someone asked a question in French and I tried to answer in my mediocre french and a flame war went on about not speaking Spanish and all the 'Spanish' and 'Mexican' people invading the Southwest U.S. Its sad as I really like the Developer.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I agree... it is a really good game but the community is just AWFUL! If their community improves, this could be one of the greatest free mmo rpgs ever made.
I actually have to agree with the OP, the community in GA is absolutely horrible. I enjoyed the game, but the community drove me away.
I have played with my share of jerks in other FPS games, but for the most part they don't talk as they are too busy trying to play the game. GA on the other hand you have a whole congregation of FPS players with access to communication tools, large lobbies, and down time where they can spout their trash. When I played GA, I found the community as a whole very rude and unhelpful (ask a question, and you will get some very rude responses or purposeful misinformation).
Now, don't get me wrong, I love FPS games, I have been playing Black Ops almost daily.... but I don't run into jerks nearly as often as in GA.
In some respects this thread is very accurate. General open chat in GA can be bad enough that you can feel it litterally lowering your IQ as you read it. The only way to really come out of it with your synapses intact is to join a good agency that's part of a large alliance, then turn off general chat and never look back.
I agree... it is a really good game but the community is just AWFUL! If their community improves, this could be one of the greatest free mmo rpgs ever made.
Two points... it's not REALLY an MMO because interactions with people caps around 20, and the reason the community is so awful is because HiRez doesn't really enforce much of anything ever. Kinda makes it their own fault, WoW has a bad community but they DO enforce things, so I would rate them as better off... they just have roughly 1000 times the users so even with the enforcement it's hard to keep up.
surely the community cant be worse then wow these days......i quit wow for that and went back to vanguard soh (wich isnt as dead as people think it is tbh).
No the community is worse in my opinion for GA. There is no reason to try and speak in city chat, most reasonable questions get ignored, and no matter what time you get on, here is a list of things that are guaranteed to be spoken about in city chat around the clock.
1) WoW was the first MMO (ore replace WoW with any number of games, its pretty much a recurring macro, or if its not, it may as well should be)
2) Any kind of reference to the Topic of KenyAAA or AfricAAA which are players in the game that don't actually play it so much as chat in the dome all day
3) Any various conversation concerning the bacon, where it has gone, when it comes back, where it had been, etc.
4) "Do people still PLAY this game?" and the flaming that ensues
6) Any various macro about the PS3 or 360, and whatever ridiculousness may come from the original macro
7) "That guy is hacking" "That guy sucks" "My last team was a bunch of (expletives)"
Thats pretty much the entirety of City Chat. You can get on at 2AM or 4PM chances are, one of these conversations is going on.
I agree with this. At the same time, it doesnt mean the community experience in GA is always bad. If I ask a question in city chat, then even among troll'ish replies, I always get a couple of good answers.
surely the community cant be worse then wow these days......i quit wow for that and went back to vanguard soh (wich isnt as dead as people think it is tbh).
No the community is worse in my opinion for GA. There is no reason to try and speak in city chat, most reasonable questions get ignored, and no matter what time you get on, here is a list of things that are guaranteed to be spoken about in city chat around the clock.
1) WoW was the first MMO (ore replace WoW with any number of games, its pretty much a recurring macro, or if its not, it may as well should be)
2) Any kind of reference to the Topic of KenyAAA or AfricAAA which are players in the game that don't actually play it so much as chat in the dome all day
3) Any various conversation concerning the bacon, where it has gone, when it comes back, where it had been, etc.
4) "Do people still PLAY this game?" and the flaming that ensues
6) Any various macro about the PS3 or 360, and whatever ridiculousness may come from the original macro
7) "That guy is hacking" "That guy sucks" "My last team was a bunch of (expletives)"
Thats pretty much the entirety of City Chat. You can get on at 2AM or 4PM chances are, one of these conversations is going on.
I agree with this. At the same time, it doesnt mean the community experience in GA is always bad. If I ask a question in city chat, then even among troll'ish replies, I always get a couple of good answers.
Thats my experience as well. I always try to be helpful when people ask questions. But it can be difficult dealing with all of the Bacon issues, Cook and their antics and especially the clowns who spend their time blessing the rain down in Africa... ^^
Comments
I'd like to know too.. even World of Warcraft, which I just resubbed to had a good community in the pre - burning crusade days, let alone games like Dark Age of Camelot or Anarchy Online, but now it is just absolutely atrocious. I end up just turning off things that serve as "general chat" or ingame voice chat in games these days. Global Agenda especially. I just can't bring myself to play that game in particular anymore because of all the assholes that play it. I just want to log on and play a game and not have to put up with people who take it way more than that again like it was a decade ago.
GA has incredibly few hacks. I've played 100s of hours and only ever seen a few people that were blatently hacking. HiRez checks reports of hackers and has a ton of "data mining" they can use to find hackers themselves, as well as then watching them play to check. The biggest provider for hacks in GA, Assisted Aiming, completely gave up support within a month I think it was. HiRez takes a firm stand on hackers, they get banned, always.
There are, however, some really good players in GA. The best snipers, for example, routinely get called out as hackers - on the official forums and in-game - but anyone who's played long enough has seen them get better and better just with practice. I'm sure they've been checked by HiRez at some point or another just to make sure anyway XD
TL;DR: Hackers are easily found, always banned when found, and top players are accused of hacking quite often. GA has less hackers than most FPSs.
Also, how come the NPCs comment is right after the hacks one? If you mean PvE bosses etc. they're being spawned by a dev who's bored, if you mean the little robots that follow people around they're pets... Sorry if that's obvious, but then I'm just pointing out the obvious that neither relate to hacks in any way.
Although I agree with the OP on most of his points, there are parts that just arent true. As an earlier poster said, hacks are not a problem in the game... I feel this is an honest case of "you think they are hacking? Nah, you just suck." Also, although yes, the game is full of people that think they are the best thing that has ever happened to the game, its not hard to join a good agency with lots of cool people in it, same as with any other MMO.
Good points. HR does seem to take hacks very seriously. The mission/raid bosses and other such that show up from time to time are the GM's/Dev's having fun.
This is a new revelation? Of course it is going to have a bad community. The game is cheap, repetitive, shooter based so....? Whats the news? Same as all the other online shooter based games. BTW I enjoyed the game and hope they add to it.
I agree on the Community but its nothing special , alot of mmos have comunity lik that even WoW so suck it up u odnt have to read the city chat lol.
As for the merc and lvling u said as good as nothing worth mentioning is that from lvl 1 to 30 someone can get in 2 days of playing so its obvious this game isnt focused on leveling its been made on side .
The other thing is merc .... merc is just a 10 vs 10 battle ground withh quit alot of maps and difrent modes that make fun playing , the 1 thing is u can join this merc pvp with mx 2 people in team so the good thing is new players want get owned by premade teams so its actually balanced this way .
On the other hand the star system is really bad in my opinion cos after u get 4 stars (out of 5) u start to get qeued with really bad teams in merc and its really anoying from time to time but u can get ure 3 stars back to
.
And there are 2 other things 1 one and most importand is AvA merc is just something to kill time and lvl up AvA is agency vs agency ( guild vs guild) where its about getting zones buildint factorys defending them and conquering new ones from other agencys which is very cool feature in this game alot of people enjoying his game , and for the last we have Pve dungeons solo/party and every 80 mmin a RAID (10 people) .
So bealeave me people u want get bored that easy , its also worth mentioning that this game isnt that much about gear > skill cos all the gear we need we can get basicly with lvl 36 .
All th emain rewards and cool stuff are aperiance and dise .
For a game that cost right now 17 euro / dollars its really worth buying its a prise of 1 month sub .
GA is a fast paced mmofps thats really fun and the comunity isnt that bad only the main city chat which we dont have to read ever game has chat like that .
I am the punishment of God...
If you had not committed great sins,
God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you
Genghis Khan
Well... that answers that I guess lol. I had be toying around with the idea of buying GA ever since APB closed. I had tried GA before but ... it was just a mediocre game so I haven't been exactly excited about picking the game up.
But, there is no way I'm going to deal with hacks, asshats and other such things for a mediocre game.
I played S2-S3 and didn't see hacks. Also; it's fun if you get with a good crew, like anything. As for the worst community, I always take these posts with a grain of salt, everyone knows MMORPG has the worst community!
Also; I can't help but to add, the OP talking about mob spawns in the dome, the GMs did that, the spawns were neutral they would follow a player around, when you left for a mission it would select another player and follow him around the dome.It was fairly common knowledge the GMs did it to mess around, or they'd spawn a red robot and a blue robot, for some Rock 'um Sock 'um action...
Every Vidya game has a terrible ass community.
When APB players went to GA en-masse a great deal had worries about hacks, I'm assuming they were common in APB? They're really not an issue in GA.... at all, I'm not sure how the OP came to the conclusion he did. GA actually has less hackers than most FPSs at the moment for numerous reasons:
Due to centrally managed servers, HiRez have access to a host of statistics that allow them to pick out suspicous players.
All players can /report suspicous people if they believe the person to be hacking.
HiRez can watch you play to find out.
Hackers get a lifetime ban - no servers to swap to, no escaping.
When found, hackers get banned after a random amount of time. This is to collect further evidence and so that they have no idea exactly when or how they got caught.
AssistedAiming.com provided hacks for GA... it gave up within a month. Most videos on youtube etc. are months old and uselessly showcase AA with hacks that no-one can get from them.
I also remember someone asked on the official forums how many had been banned recently once, I don't think Erez said how many but he did say that in a recent batch they were all under level 30. I'd personally take that to imply that there wasn't anyone they found above level 30 - not for lack of looking or the ability to find them, but because hackers don't even make it to that level before they got banned.
GA may have some downsides, but hacking certainly isn't one of them. If anything, that front should be a possitive point about the game.
As for the community, I can't see how it's worse than other games. You can always turn the chat off of course... I simply rarely pay any attention to it. If you're playing the game, the chat doesn't matter. If you want to be social, join an agency, chat to them through agency/alliance chat and VOIP.
World of Warcraft is the worst community in my view.
The amount of racism, hate, and sheer vulgarity I saw on a regular basis in public chat channels, like trade, was just absolutely ridiculous.
Why a player's race, relgion, creed, gender or anything like that is important in MMO I have no idea. It's one of the things I got sick of seeing.
It violated the ToS word for word and it wasn't something Blizzard did anything about, simply, because you'd see similar offenders over and over. When those voices were quiet there would always be someone to take their place.
And good grief, if something didn't go the way that particular community wanted it was whine, cry, threaten to quit, etc.
The servers would go down for a couple hours and it was the end of the world.
World of Warcraft might be the best MMO by sheer subscription base right now, but with that they sure do end up with some really mean and nasty people.
big games were always like this, trolls just used wow because it has a billion of stupid ppl.
When somoene is obviously trying to provoke you and you bait and start flaming back whos more stupid you or the troll(both are stupid but you are more and at the end its the no life troll that stands behind his monitor laughing at you while you rage)
I played AvA and Pubs on a nightly basis from release until right before Sandstorm and play these days from time to time.
Community - It's the intraweb... if you don't think there are trolls that sit in chat and wait for the chance to try and provoke someone you shouldn't be here. It's in every game get over it and learn to turn channel filters on or grow up and ignore it.
Yes Agendastats made most people stat padding idiots and gave them the epeens the size of the Washington monument but Agendastats only matters to those that let it matter to them. AvA is what Hi-Rez intended the game to be about not Pub stomping which is what the game boiled down to when I stopped playing nightly. Yes there is still AvA but it isn't like it was. I haven't partaken in it so I can really speak to if it is fun or not.
The AvA community in it's prime was amazing. It was as close to a Pre-TOA Daoc community that I've found. Yes there was serious smack talking at times but most of the time it was harmless trolling. Yes there were certain players everyone made fun of because they thought they were amazing and we all knew they were but that comes with any game on the internet. Learn to love it because it will always be around.
Hacks - When I played were few and far between and they were obvious. As stated in an earlier post people who have been playing the game since launch are going to know how to aim way better than someone who's just started. Most of the weapons take extreme amounts of skill to be god like with. I played with and against the three best snipers during the first season of AvA. They all got constantly reported for hacking and never got banned. Why? Because Hi-Rez treats hacking seriously as stated in above posts. Unless some recent patch has made it easier to hack then there's no reason why hackers would be plausible.
Devs Spawning NPCs - shame on your for complaining that Devs are actually watching and interacting with their player base. Hi-Rez takes into account what their community is currently talking about more than any other company I've seen excluding the millions of QQers when someone is overpowered in WoW.
Depth of the game - It does lack on deep RPG elements and the player base would be much larger had they made it deeper there's no arguing that. I still think the game was released far too early like every other MMO these days and had they taken a little bit more time they would have learned form the community that a deeper RPG element was needed to sustain interest. However Hi-Rez made a fairly unique product for a rookie game and I look forward to what they bring with Tribes Universe.
You are right about one thing. People who refuse to help other people in efforts to make themselves look better on Agendastats or other websites like it are a class of their own but you find them in every game. Hop in a BG in WoW and it won't take you long to find some stupid person acting like a tard loosing the BG for you. Same with Warhammer and other games. I can't count the number of times I’ve made a level one character in WAR and beat level 11s on damage or healing because they are horrible or just run in and meat shield it up and die and still loose.
Again it's the intraweb learn to love it and realize that you have to have the bad parts to have the good parts.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
I've been playing it and honestly after I got into an agency, I have completely ignored city chat. It doesn't even matter at all, it's all of the people from the barrens chat and from other mmo's that just troll until their free month is up.
I say who the hell cares, let them be morons and just go about your business of playing the game. I have only seen a hack once as far as I know, and it wasn't that big of a deal, you could still kill the guy. I have also never heard anyone spamming voice with anything, other than telling people to get onto a point, or how we should set up to beat a boss. I have been enjoying the hell out of this game, and I've been playing since it came out.
#1 & #3 are the majority of the city chat that is non-game-ish. I haven't seen a lot of the other stuff. They do talk about Sensa a lot (person in game who's played a lot).
The mechanics of the game are not that complicated and the character progression system is pretty simple. There's not a lot left to talk about. You either play or you chat and chat doesn't involve a lot of talk about the game. There's very little social outlet so people talk about bacon. I don't know what the developer's intentions are as the game itself isn't really a social game.
I've never had a question not answered, but I've also never had a question that didn't get several outre or iffy references either. For me, it's interesting. If the conversation was only about the game, there would largely be silence. I'll take references to bacon and the first MMO (usually your Mom or something similar) to silence. That and it's not any worse than WoW.
As far as the people in instances...the four mans can be really iffy after level 20 or so. Your team pretty much needs to know what it's doing and it depends a lot on the tank. I leveled almost exclusively through PvP from 24 to 30. Raids and the PvP is a different story. Raids (level 30 and up) go much, much smoother, it's easier for random teams to work together, or the people in raids are just more focused. Ditto for the PvP. You don't see a whole lot of general stupidity there. The four mans after level 30 can be a little iffy, but you get more people who want to complete the instance and are a little more careful about what they are doing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Thanks for the info.
I was looking for a new game and been checking videos and reviews for GA, but I'll keel looking. Community is important to me and if it sucks I better stay clear of it. Such communities as the one you talk about can seriously trigger my viking temper.
If it ain't dead you're not pressing 2 hard enough.
GA has the typical FPS community. If you ever listen to people smack talking in CoD or Halo, it is no different. For some unknown reason adults turn into complete idiots as soon as someone other than an NPC kills them.
It was the worst ever. I don't know why. Last time I was logged on, someone asked a question in French and I tried to answer in my mediocre french and a flame war went on about not speaking Spanish and all the 'Spanish' and 'Mexican' people invading the Southwest U.S. Its sad as I really like the Developer.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I agree... it is a really good game but the community is just AWFUL! If their community improves, this could be one of the greatest free mmo rpgs ever made.
?RelapsE?
I actually have to agree with the OP, the community in GA is absolutely horrible. I enjoyed the game, but the community drove me away.
I have played with my share of jerks in other FPS games, but for the most part they don't talk as they are too busy trying to play the game. GA on the other hand you have a whole congregation of FPS players with access to communication tools, large lobbies, and down time where they can spout their trash. When I played GA, I found the community as a whole very rude and unhelpful (ask a question, and you will get some very rude responses or purposeful misinformation).
Now, don't get me wrong, I love FPS games, I have been playing Black Ops almost daily.... but I don't run into jerks nearly as often as in GA.
In some respects this thread is very accurate. General open chat in GA can be bad enough that you can feel it litterally lowering your IQ as you read it. The only way to really come out of it with your synapses intact is to join a good agency that's part of a large alliance, then turn off general chat and never look back.
Two points... it's not REALLY an MMO because interactions with people caps around 20, and the reason the community is so awful is because HiRez doesn't really enforce much of anything ever. Kinda makes it their own fault, WoW has a bad community but they DO enforce things, so I would rate them as better off... they just have roughly 1000 times the users so even with the enforcement it's hard to keep up.
I agree with this. At the same time, it doesnt mean the community experience in GA is always bad. If I ask a question in city chat, then even among troll'ish replies, I always get a couple of good answers.
Santa Claus says such cruel things.
Thats my experience as well. I always try to be helpful when people ask questions. But it can be difficult dealing with all of the Bacon issues, Cook and their antics and especially the clowns who spend their time blessing the rain down in Africa... ^^
The wow was the first mmo was the citys talking topic when I played all the way back in march -_-.
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