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Good Game == Bad Community

uquipuuquipu Member Posts: 1,516
in The Pub at MMORPG.COM

 The Internet has changed since the 1990's.  Back when the Internet was new it was populated by mostly early adopter types, eg, nerds.  It was a mono-culture of nerds.  Usenet was a font of knowledge and helpful individuals.  You could get traffic to your website in seconds by listing it on yahoo.

Today, everyone and their granny's have broadband.  Usenet is a cesspool.  There are 8 year olds with broadband in their bedrooms.  The Internet community has become diverse.  In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female.  Today about half of the Internet population is female.

So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?

It attracts people.  Some of these people will be kids.  Some of these people will be jerks.  The more people you attract the more you attract jerks.  Even if one out of 500 people is a jerk.  If you have 5,000 people online thats 10 jerks.  Couple those 10 jerks with a global chat and it can make your community look more bad than it is.

So when you say your game has a good community, what you are telling me is that your game is boring.

 

Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren

Comments

  • Cephus404Cephus404 Member CommonPosts: 3,675

    That's nothing new unfortunately.  Even way back in the days before the Internet when the fastest modems out there were 2400 baud, those of us out in the BBSing community knew that the day after Christmas was going to suck because all those morons who got modems for Christmas were going to show up at our doorstep acting like a bunch of idiots because they had no clue how to behave online.  That's still largely the case today.  People jump into a game and figure that since they're anonymous, they can act like an asshat and nobody can say anything about it.  Unfortunately, largely they're right.  At least with the BBS crowd, it usually took us a couple of weeks to weed out the worst of the losers and delete their accounts, but today, unless you're going far above and beyond any realm of acceptability, your account doesn't get deleted, people get to act like idiots because the games would rather have their money than a decent community.

    I admit, I kind of miss the old days in that regard.

    Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
    Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
    Now Playing: None
    Hope: None

  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787
    Originally posted by uquipu


     The Internet has changed since the 1990's.  Back when the Internet was new it was populated by mostly early adopter types, eg, nerds.  It was a mono-culture of nerds.  Usenet was a font of knowledge and helpful individuals.  You could get traffic to your website in seconds by listing it on yahoo.
    Today, everyone and their granny's have broadband.  Usenet is a cesspool.  There are 8 year olds with broadband in their bedrooms.  The Internet community has become diverse.  In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female.  Today about half of the Internet population is female.
    So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?
    It attracts people.  Some of these people will be kids.  Some of these people will be jerks.  The more people you attract the more you attract jerks.  Even if one out of 500 people is a jerk.  If you have 5,000 people online thats 10 jerks.  Couple those 10 jerks with a global chat and it can make your community look more bad than it is.
    So when you say your game has a good community, what you are telling me is that your game is boring.
     

     

    I am sorry but what does that have to do with the rest of the post?

    Are you saying that woman make up a disproportionate number of the "jerks"?  Are you saying that having more woman online ruins internet gaming?

    I do not see the point of this comment, unless you are sexist d-bag.  From some of your other posts I do not think that is the case.

    I am not going to ask you to explain yourself, but you might want to.  What you types comes off very inappropriate.

     

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • skeaserskeaser Member RarePosts: 4,190
    Originally posted by MMOman101

    Originally posted by uquipu


     The Internet has changed since the 1990's.  Back when the Internet was new it was populated by mostly early adopter types, eg, nerds.  It was a mono-culture of nerds.  Usenet was a font of knowledge and helpful individuals.  You could get traffic to your website in seconds by listing it on yahoo.
    Today, everyone and their granny's have broadband.  Usenet is a cesspool.  There are 8 year olds with broadband in their bedrooms.  The Internet community has become diverse.  In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female.  Today about half of the Internet population is female.
    So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?
    It attracts people.  Some of these people will be kids.  Some of these people will be jerks.  The more people you attract the more you attract jerks.  Even if one out of 500 people is a jerk.  If you have 5,000 people online thats 10 jerks.  Couple those 10 jerks with a global chat and it can make your community look more bad than it is.
    So when you say your game has a good community, what you are telling me is that your game is boring.
     

     

    I am sorry but what does that have to do with the rest of the post?

    Are you saying that woman make up a disproportionate number of the "jerks"?  Are you saying that having more woman online ruins internet gaming?

    I do not see the point of this comment, unless you are sexist d-bag.  From some of your other posts I do not think that is the case.

    I am not going to ask you to explain yourself, but you might want to.  What you types comes off very inappropriate.

     

     

    I think we took that a little differently. I saw it as just a statistic to show change.

    Sig so that badges don't eat my posts.


  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787
    Originally posted by skeaser

    Originally posted by MMOman101

    Originally posted by uquipu


     The Internet has changed since the 1990's.  Back when the Internet was new it was populated by mostly early adopter types, eg, nerds.  It was a mono-culture of nerds.  Usenet was a font of knowledge and helpful individuals.  You could get traffic to your website in seconds by listing it on yahoo.
    Today, everyone and their granny's have broadband.  Usenet is a cesspool.  There are 8 year olds with broadband in their bedrooms.  The Internet community has become diverse.  In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female.  Today about half of the Internet population is female.
    So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?
    It attracts people.  Some of these people will be kids.  Some of these people will be jerks.  The more people you attract the more you attract jerks.  Even if one out of 500 people is a jerk.  If you have 5,000 people online thats 10 jerks.  Couple those 10 jerks with a global chat and it can make your community look more bad than it is.
    So when you say your game has a good community, what you are telling me is that your game is boring.
     

     

    I am sorry but what does that have to do with the rest of the post?

    Are you saying that woman make up a disproportionate number of the "jerks"?  Are you saying that having more woman online ruins internet gaming?

    I do not see the point of this comment, unless you are sexist d-bag.  From some of your other posts I do not think that is the case.

    I am not going to ask you to explain yourself, but you might want to.  What you types comes off very inappropriate.

     

     

    I think we took that a little differently. I saw it as just a statistic to show change.

     

    The OP is not just about change.  It is about how that change has affected the gaming community--in a negative way.  Inherently, it was not needed unless it furthered the overarching point.

    I guess we can agree to disagree, I am good with that. 

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • SelenicaSelenica Member Posts: 183

     I think it's just that in a very populated game, the loudest, most obnoxious people just stick out. Forums and public chat channels are the worst because of the people there with the purpose of trolling or flaming people. I think it also depends how competitive a game is. People can be really vicious to one another when they think the purpose to life/to a game is to be better than everyone else. For example, some people in WoW will make it their business to look up peoples' armory stats and then message them to tell them how terrible they are.

  • RemainsRemains Member UncommonPosts: 375
    Originally posted by MMOman101

    Originally posted by uquipu


     The Internet has changed since the 1990's.  Back when the Internet was new it was populated by mostly early adopter types, eg, nerds.  It was a mono-culture of nerds.  Usenet was a font of knowledge and helpful individuals.  You could get traffic to your website in seconds by listing it on yahoo.
    Today, everyone and their granny's have broadband.  Usenet is a cesspool.  There are 8 year olds with broadband in their bedrooms.  The Internet community has become diverse.  In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female.  Today about half of the Internet population is female.
    So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?
    It attracts people.  Some of these people will be kids.  Some of these people will be jerks.  The more people you attract the more you attract jerks.  Even if one out of 500 people is a jerk.  If you have 5,000 people online thats 10 jerks.  Couple those 10 jerks with a global chat and it can make your community look more bad than it is.
    So when you say your game has a good community, what you are telling me is that your game is boring.
     

     

    I am sorry but what does that have to do with the rest of the post?

    Are you saying that woman make up a disproportionate number of the "jerks"?  Are you saying that having more woman online ruins internet gaming?

    I do not see the point of this comment, unless you are sexist d-bag.  From some of your other posts I do not think that is the case.

    I am not going to ask you to explain yourself, but you might want to.  What you types comes off very inappropriate.

     

    I read it as an example of how the "monoculture" changed. I'd guess there werent many female nerds back before the 90's.

    He's also mentioning grannys... you dont seriously think hes suggesting that grannys are generally jerks..?

  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787
    Originally posted by Remains
    I read it as an example of how the "monoculture" changed. I'd guess there werent many female nerds back before the 90's.
    He's also mentioning grannys... you dont seriously think hes suggesting that grannys are generally jerks..?

     

    I come from an Irish family and you do not want to mess with my grandma.

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • IzeBergz11IzeBergz11 Member Posts: 16

     No. Making a good game does not preclude the possibility of having a "good" community.  Its just a simple fact that it is more difficult to create a "good" community.

  • IlliusIllius Member UncommonPosts: 4,142

    I would like to postulate that creating a good community isn't something that anyone in particular has influence over.  It's up to the community to show what is acceptable and in a way create itself.

    No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-

  • IlvaldyrIlvaldyr Member CommonPosts: 2,142

    I firmly believe that every game has a good community.

    Unfortunately, I also believe that every game has a bad community too.

    I've played WoW for nearly 5 years and always enjoyed the community that I've been in, yet if I was to whack up a quick poll asking "Which game has the worst community?" I imagine that WoW would be very high on that list.

    I understand why; there's always idiots talking rubbish on the global channels, the forums, spamming in communal areas and if I wasn't in a guild/alliance of people I like and respect, then the trash-talking morons would probably colour my perceptions of the community too.

    People are just people, and some of those people will always be jerks. This is true now, and it was true 10 years ago when we were playing games like UO.

    I don't think the ratio of jerk-to-nonjerk has changed much, but Uquipu is right .. the larger the population, the more jerks there inevitably are, and they stand out from the rest of the crowd because, well .. they're jerks.

    I view them in the same vein as I view dog poo left on pavements. Avoid. Ignore. Forget.

    image
    Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
  • klm41989klm41989 Member Posts: 7

    If games would allow you to choose what chat options you can ignore people with the ignore function( for exmaple giving you the choice to ignore XXX thru tells only, local/global general chats while allowing tells, complete ignores of every chta, or anything else you can think of) communites would improve because the jerks would lose their audience, and their ability to find good groups/guilds would be affected, thus affecting their general gameplay and fun making them want to act more appropriate to have more fun( tho som people there's no changing)

  • NixishNixish Member UncommonPosts: 185
    Originally posted by MMOman101

    Originally posted by uquipu


     The Internet has changed since the 1990's.  Back when the Internet was new it was populated by mostly early adopter types, eg, nerds.  It was a mono-culture of nerds.  Usenet was a font of knowledge and helpful individuals.  You could get traffic to your website in seconds by listing it on yahoo.
    Today, everyone and their granny's have broadband.  Usenet is a cesspool.  There are 8 year olds with broadband in their bedrooms.  The Internet community has become diverse.  In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female.  Today about half of the Internet population is female.
    So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?
    It attracts people.  Some of these people will be kids.  Some of these people will be jerks.  The more people you attract the more you attract jerks.  Even if one out of 500 people is a jerk.  If you have 5,000 people online thats 10 jerks.  Couple those 10 jerks with a global chat and it can make your community look more bad than it is.
    So when you say your game has a good community, what you are telling me is that your game is boring.
     

     

    I am sorry but what does that have to do with the rest of the post?

    Are you saying that woman make up a disproportionate number of the "jerks"?  Are you saying that having more woman online ruins internet gaming?

    I do not see the point of this comment, unless you are sexist d-bag.  From some of your other posts I do not think that is the case.

    I am not going to ask you to explain yourself, but you might want to.  What you types comes off very inappropriate.

     



     

    I'm female and I wasn't offended.

    "In the early days of the Internet, I remember seeing studies that said only 5% of the Internet population was female. Today about half of the Internet population is female.

    So what happens when you make a fun Internet based game?

    It attracts people."

     

    Females are people. I promise =)

  • abyss610abyss610 Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,131

    I REALLY like how Fallen Earth is for this, from what i saw when i played it has one of the best communities. one of the main reasons i think is because of how involved the GMs are. unlike most games where gms are things of myth, FE gms are ALWAYS online and always in the help channel. one night i saw 4 or 5 of them all in the help channel helping people and bsing with us.

    one time i saw people getting out of hand in the chat channel, gm chimes in says "play nice :)" most stopped couple kept going then the gm muted the entire channel telling them to " take it to tells that the rest of us don't wanna hear it". then unmuted the channel. then one moron kept going then you see the GM says " /twirls hammer" wich to me ment bann hammer guy kept it up then bam, gm banned him from talking in any channel other than guild or tells..lol

  • KyoufuKyoufu Member Posts: 10

    Guys act significantly dumber when females are around, and now they're all over my internetz.

     

    Edit woops meant to quote the post asking what the relevance of the female statistic is.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Kyoufu


    Guys act significantly dumber when females are around, and now they're all over my internetz.
     
    Edit woops meant to quote the post asking what the relevance of the female statistic is.



     

    We forgive you.  There's girls around.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • FennrisFennris Member UncommonPosts: 277

    One of the first things I remember reading by a message board nut in the early 90s:  "The more people there are the uglier things get."  It's the least common denominator rule - we're only as good as our dumbest/loudest.  It's why anarchy doesn't work.  There were plenty of bad communities on the internet in the early 90s, btw.

    That's why you join guilds and stick to small groups where you know you can kill  anyone/everyone if they get out of line.

  • NicoliNicoli Member Posts: 1,312
    Originally posted by Selenica


     I think it's just that in a very populated game, the loudest, most obnoxious people just stick out. Forums and public chat channels are the worst because of the people there with the purpose of trolling or flaming people. I think it also depends how competitive a game is. People can be really vicious to one another when they think the purpose to life/to a game is to be better than everyone else. For example, some people in WoW will make it their business to look up peoples' armory stats and then message them to tell them how terrible they are.

    I actually think the "safety" nets of most modern MMOs help the problem people survive and thrive. Newer games you have someone annoying you or harassing you usually have very few things to stop it. A lot of the older games If some one was a problem you got your self and your friends to attack his character till he left you alone. The same mechanics that protect you help the 'jerks" stay around.

  • randomtrandomt Member UncommonPosts: 1,220

    The proper equation is for the most part:

    mass market game == bad community

  • SlyLoKSlyLoK Member RarePosts: 2,698

    You attract people that are like yourself.. If you find a game has a bad community then maybe you fell into the wrong crowd.. because you are exactly like them.

  • ShijeerShijeer Member Posts: 131

    It's more like bad community == bad game



    - Shijeer

    image

  • RavZterzRavZterz Member UncommonPosts: 618

    Most games have a guild/clan feature that allows you to sort of limit your community to set group of people that you like.  While jerks are still in the community and all over world/zone chat you don't really interact with them in most games.  Same idea with party/groups.  You aren't really worrying about the community around you when your in a group, and while a jerk can ruin a group they can be replaced.

    I like to call Istaria a community based game because of the way the entire server population is encourged to do server wide events.  Lack of PvP also might have shaped the community but I could go on right now and ask of a set of armor and someone would be willing to spend 15 minutes to craft it and give it to me at a tenth of its value.  Some people might find it boring but most games don't really involve the entire community and encourge the help self > guild > race/ rest of server.  Most of the time you don't do anything with 90% of the people you play "with"

    Make games you want to play.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar


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