Bloodbearer Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 I know that I'm probably going to get a lot of "you old fogie" hate for this, but it's a question I can not stop asking myself lately. I've played MMO's for just about 11 years now. Started off with Everquest and have adventured my way through multiple others. The one thing that really drew me in to the genre was it's sense of community and companionship. I thought it was awesome that your character lived in a world with thousands of others. Not only were the vast majority of those people helpful; they were friendly to boot! People actually went out of their way to help another player that they didn't know from a hole in the wall. It was astounding. Now, however, I feel like every game that comes out gets worse and worse in regards to it's community. People live to grief, harass, and flame the **** out of each other. The worst part is that it's become accepted as the norm. No one says anything because they've given up trying to fix it. So, is it just me? Is anyone else as disappointed as I am? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TalonSaber Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 there are still loads of friendly and helpful people in this game I for Instance will try to buff anyone I see as I quest , will heal or assist in a fight if i notice someone is about to die and only rarely stand there and dance instead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodbearer Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 I know that there are plenty of exceptions to the generalization, (and I appreciate every single one) but it's the mentality of it that gets to me. For altruism, and the desire to work together to accomplish something, to be rare is appalling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hebrind Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 (edited) Ah mate, I feel your pain. In any MMO at the moment, there's a massive lack of mutual respect and the only way to get to know people is to constantly make the effort yourself to be a nice person. In Ultima Online it was great, same with SWG - lots of people who wanted to help and who were willing to share stories and jokes and provide mutual assistance with quests and adventures. Even WoW, which is arguably the cause of the current MMO social slump, was once a place where people played together, chatted, got along and forged friendships. However, I feel that the "new breed" of younger player is a very solitary, very selfish bracket. Don't get me wrong, it's not ALL young people aged 11-16, and nor are some of us who are old enough to know better wholly innocent - but you'll generally find that people will want to solo everything, earn their gold, get "big shiny stuff" and then log off. I don't blame anyone for this other than society as a whole. Children are learning one way or another to be far more "Dog-eat-dog" than ever, and with the internet perceived to the nation as a whole as a "place where nasty men dwell" I can't really say I blame them. The amount of people I will encounter who I give a buff to, ask them "do you need a hand?" and just get a stony silence while they scurry off is uninspiring. Bottom line - don't worry, it's not you, it really is them. There are diamonds in the rough, but you have to dig to find them. Good luck! Edited February 24, 2012 by Hebrind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valtrim Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Agreed. To be honest, it's not even the "friendly" part that I miss; I just miss (in other games) the reputation aspect of communities and getting to know people and guilds. TOR is doing alright in that regard, so far... there just have to be more reasons for people to keep playing their mains rather than just doing dailies/weeklies and logging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hebrind Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 (edited) Agreed. To be honest, it's not even the "friendly" part that I miss; I just miss (in other games) the reputation aspect of communities and getting to know people and guilds. TOR is doing alright in that regard, so far... there just have to be more reasons for people to keep playing their mains rather than just doing dailies/weeklies and logging. Regarding the last bit of your post - don't change the subject, content is content - nothing to do with the anti-social behaviour of our peers. However I do agree with you on your first part - reputations of guilds were a big thing back on Ultima Online and WoW. I remember when I was on UO, there was a guy called Ulysses on the Europa shard (server). He was basically an entrepreneur in UO and opened a shop selling the loot he found in dungeons. Over time, and years of dedication and hard work, he actually employed people in-game to advertise for him, and to stock his shop and by the time I quit back in 2006, I think he had 5 shops and some kind of order system. It was truly a sight to behold. I made a name for myself as a blacksmith, I was known for my craftmanship and people would ask for me by name at times. The stuff you could talk about while hammering out a set of plate metal was incredible... places you'd been, people you'd met, deaths you'd narrowly escaped... Richard Garriot tells a good story where a knight in UO comes across a poor man who is fishing on a riverbank. The knight is recently finished with a dungeon and says to the fisherman, "Here! I will share with you my loot from the dungeon! Fine weapons and armour with the best enchantments ever seen!" The fisherman looks at the knight and says, "Why are you giving me these? I am a fisherman, I have no use for swords or shields, nor do I have use for magic or incantations! Begone!" Little moments like this are missing from MMOs today. A brilliant interview. 18:45 for the fishing story! Edited February 24, 2012 by Hebrind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodbearer Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 Agreed. To be honest, it's not even the "friendly" part that I miss; I just miss (in other games) the reputation aspect of communities and getting to know people and guilds. TOR is doing alright in that regard, so far... there just have to be more reasons for people to keep playing their mains rather than just doing dailies/weeklies and logging. Seconded. That was one of the worst things to ever happen to WoW. Cross-realm anything. I understand it made for a quicker and more streamlined experience. I understand it let you get your "purplez" faster. However, it effectively killed the server based sense of community. No more making friends in order to do instances and battlegrounds. All you have to do is click a little button and it finds a group for you! Like your mom setting up play dates! How lovely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodbearer Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 Richard Garriot tells a good story where a knight in UO comes across a poor man who is fishing on a riverbank. The knight is recently finished with a dungeon and says to the fisherman, "Here! I will share with you my loot from the dungeon! Fine weapons and armour with the best enchantments ever seen!" The fisherman looks at the knight and says, "Why are you giving me these? I am a fisherman, I have no use for swords or shields, nor do I have use for magic or incantations! Begone!" Little moments like this are missing from MMOs today. A brilliant interview. 18:45 for the fishing story! Just watched it. Brought back very fond memories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilbercanada Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Itsthe minority who needs to yell the loudest to be heard, this is the case of most troubled players in mmos, they want attention and can not tell the difrence between postive or native, as in our culture we have blured the difrence and have made any attention, just that. Sadly this is comon in the work place, younger workers are showing a deformed ablity to socialy interact and are causeing much the same issues you find in MMO, mouthy ingorant *****s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulself Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 there are still loads of friendly and helpful people in this game I for Instance will try to buff anyone I see as I quest , will heal or assist in a fight if i notice someone is about to die and only rarely stand there and dance instead I pretty much do the same thing, i try to help people out when i see them about to die .. unless they have a really really dumb name.. then i dance while they die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynomen Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I am a huge fan of helpful, friendly communities in MMO's. I know there are plenty of people like that here, but with how TOR has set up its forums, the negative posts cover up the positive very quick. That and a lot of us are busy in game so not really coming to the forums as much. That will change over time and I think TOR would do well to open up server sections to allow people to get to know each other more on those respective servers. Sadly though, I see a definate change in attitude for today's players. No everone mind you, but just read some of the posts on the forums or watch what is said in general chat in game. The focus is get it now no matter what. Instant gratification. There are a ton of very smart players out there, but a lack of patinece and a willingness to really earn what they get. ( I point to those who fight club on Ilum, or quit warzones because they are behind in the score or going to lose the match.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnclearImage Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I know that I'm probably going to get a lot of "you old fogie" hate for this, but it's a question I can not stop asking myself lately. I've played MMO's for just about 11 years now. Started off with Everquest and have adventured my way through multiple others. The one thing that really drew me in to the genre was it's sense of community and companionship. I thought it was awesome that your character lived in a world with thousands of others. Not only were the vast majority of those people helpful; they were friendly to boot! People actually went out of their way to help another player that they didn't know from a hole in the wall. It was astounding. Now, however, I feel like every game that comes out gets worse and worse in regards to it's community. People live to grief, harass, and flame the **** out of each other. The worst part is that it's become accepted as the norm. No one says anything because they've given up trying to fix it. So, is it just me? Is anyone else as disappointed as I am? Before only gamers played MMOs, now that games have gone mainstream, and attracted a younger player base we're mixing a bunch of different personalities together. Not to mention the constant PvP atmosphere of gaming (used to be co-op or team based now 90% of the games are versus) creates a sense of strife between people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozymandous Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Ah mate, I feel your pain. In any MMO at the moment, there's a massive lack of mutual respect and the only way to get to know people is to constantly make the effort yourself to be a nice person. In Ultima Online it was great, same with SWG - lots of people who wanted to help and who were willing to share stories and jokes and provide mutual assistance with quests and adventures. Even WoW, which is arguably the cause of the current MMO social slump, was once a place where people played together, chatted, got along and forged friendships. However, I feel that the "new breed" of younger player is a very solitary, very selfish bracket. Don't get me wrong, it's not ALL young people aged 11-16, and nor are some of us who are old enough to know better wholly innocent - but you'll generally find that people will want to solo everything, earn their gold, get "big shiny stuff" and then log off. I don't blame anyone for this other than society as a whole. Children are learning one way or another to be far more "Dog-eat-dog" than ever, and with the internet perceived to the nation as a whole as a "place where nasty men dwell" I can't really say I blame them. The amount of people I will encounter who I give a buff to, ask them "do you need a hand?" and just get a stony silence while they scurry off is uninspiring. Bottom line - don't worry, it's not you, it really is them. There are diamonds in the rough, but you have to dig to find them. Good luck! Hmm, not a bad summation, however you need to change the age range to 18-40. I have met a lot more players in their 20's and 30's who act like this than kids, tbh. This is especially true if they "grew up" on the internet in the late 90's to early/mid 2000's. A lot of the 'older' players have also grown up and had families too so don't play incessantly like they used to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loregaba Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 (edited) Hi, to the OP. I was thinking just the same a couple days ago. I am on Krayt server and joined a guild on invitation. As soon as I got in, I read not one welcome or Hi, ahah. I told myself, bah no worries, it happens. After a couple minutes; I was like the rest of the 50+ online in the guild, witnessing a stupid fight between two or three 'experts'. Pff, where is the fun? Well, not a good timing I told myself. But after a week, it was the friggin norm! Ahaha! So I left. Then two or three days later, I received another invite from the same guild. I answered: 'thanks, but no thanks, I've been there before '. No answer, not even a; OK dude. Hehe. Another two or three days later, another invite from the same guy. So, I told him that it's been the second time I refuse his invitation. He wants to know why, so I answer because there are too many people in his guild who ignores what respect means. He answered that respect has to be earn. Pff, bully mentality. So, I told him; No, respect is given to any human being by default, but it can be easily lost by your behavior. He was furious, insulted me and before I could answer I was on his ignore list. Ahahah. At least stand your ground to fight! But this little anecdote is soooo common today in mmorpg. I remember 10 years ago, this kind of thing rarely happened. Today, the people a so stressed and exclusively lean towards game performance, bah! Where is the fun? The game seems designed to increase this appetite for performance and poorly invest in the social aspect of the game. Which is why, on the long run, that new mmorpg won't last long. After 3-4 years, it will be over. I have so many examples in mind that shows how a game could be totally addictive for years just with some funny ingredients that are totally lacking in SWTOR. I doubt I'll play it for long. I made it up to 50 in a month! Ahahah. Nearly all levels and layers are copy of a couple originals. It's totally poor, flashing with nice graphics. The only strong design are the quests with voice over, but that alone isn't enough, at the end, we all hit the spacebar to skip the 'precious' Anyway, have fun! Ketzal on Krayt Edited February 25, 2012 by Loregaba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Explosive_Lasers Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 MMO communities always sucked, to some extent. Need I provide Exhibit A? http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-biggest-dick-moves-in-history-online-gaming/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabidPopcorn Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 (edited) I remembered when I first played WoW people in the starting zones would even group up and quest for hours and hours even until the next zone. When you didn't know how to get from one place to another, some people would even take you there, on foot. This forged truly lasting friendships that would continue throughout the game, compare this to games nowadays. The word 'troll' wasn't even mentioned that often, social conversations in general chat were common. People would go out of the way just to help fellow friends/guildies gear up - it wasn't unusual for people to go from IF to SW just to give someone some lv15 white item. I think people just had more patience then, there was no rush to get to 60 because there was so much to do in every zone (questing zones had waaay more people). As games tried to make things easier for everyone (imagine asking SWTOR players to run the equivalent of the length of STV (without sprint), this was what people put up with but they still had fun); and as players became more min/max oriented, we get less people doing things that would be considered going off on a tangent - e.g. in SWTOR (and WoW) the only thing that matters is getting to 50 and getting your battlemaster/rakata. All of the above still happens today, but sooo much less often. Edited February 25, 2012 by RabidPopcorn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookieluva Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I also Started playing mmo's with Everquest, and i think i also miss the community i dont seem to play Swtor for more than 2 or 3 hours at a go, and i would play EQ constantly... i think i spent 3 days with no sleep camping for one of the drops to get my cleric his Water Sprinkler.... its not just the community tho everything seems so rediculously simple. goto point A, complete objective, head to point b for reward. I hope they add Epic relics or something of the like to give me a goal that i would actually have to strive twards, even a quested mount that operates in buildings or has 200% move speed anything.... just some rediculously hard goal; something that cant be done in a single hour or two.... i think such things would help the community feel, also if they would allow guilds to be larger like 1000 members, or institute a group storyline... so that we can make say a static group to hit up the group storyline from 1 to 50 as a team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulself Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Hate to say it but what happen to the MMO communities is that MMO's became more main stream and with the influx of people and only having maybe at best 1 out of 5 (best guess tho anyone can make up random stats ) being any good at these games . and after running into either really bad pugs that have no clue what they are doing, mind you i don't mind teaching people but when they ask something that is just off the wall stupid like for example when you see them at level ten wearing the starter gear because they don't know how to equip items... yeah.. these people that are to dumb to read the help tutorials need to stop playing games. Or running into elitist snobs that talk crap if your not already fully decked out in gear.. i mean really here you are trying to get a group so you can get this gear and they think you should have it before you ever ran the dungeon .. so really the communities die because people log into these games and only play with people they have knows for years and rather not deal with all the other people out there just to avoid all the bad players or elitist *** hats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superneko Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I know that I'm probably going to get a lot of "you old fogie" hate for this, but it's a question I can not stop asking myself lately. I've played MMO's for just about 11 years now. Started off with Everquest and have adventured my way through multiple others. The one thing that really drew me in to the genre was it's sense of community and companionship. I thought it was awesome that your character lived in a world with thousands of others. Not only were the vast majority of those people helpful; they were friendly to boot! People actually went out of their way to help another player that they didn't know from a hole in the wall. It was astounding. Now, however, I feel like every game that comes out gets worse and worse in regards to it's community. People live to grief, harass, and flame the **** out of each other. The worst part is that it's become accepted as the norm. No one says anything because they've given up trying to fix it. So, is it just me? Is anyone else as disappointed as I am? EQ had a max of 500,000 subscriptions at its peak. Trains, PKs, ninja-looting, arguing over spawns, etc. The forums had as much developer hate then as they do now. Three things happened since the glory days of experience death penalties and corpse runs; you got old, your tolerance for those newer to the genre has decreased, and the player base has risen vastly. Welcome to the club of disgruntled, intolerant middle-aged MMO players. /comfort Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tausra Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I want to share an amusing anecdote from when I signed on to my first MMO, like 7 or 8 years ago. I had just gotten SWG for Christmas, little did I know I had missed the good ol' days by a few months. I signed in and rolled my first character ever, a twi'lek entertainer named Atewi. I went through the tutorial and landed in Mos Eisley, my eyes wide and almost squealing in delight. I ran around the space port, checked out the city and spent almost two hours doing it. It was at that point that I got a /tell, "You look really new to the game, would you like to see the best part of it". I asked what was implied in that, and he said "Space, the final frontier". 5 minutes later I was controlling a turret as he was flying space missions. We then set down on Yavin where he showed me the abandoned "temples". The rest of the game could have been terrible, but at that moment there was nothing else. We talked for awhile and then he said he had to go, but first he gave me like 50k credits, the name of a few good tailors and wished me good luck. I took the money and went to those tailors, buying all the clothing and equipment that caught my eye, and I hadn't even been to a single Cantina yet. The cantina crowd was more than friendly, within a week i was part of a "band" that would play together. I don't think I've ever played a game with people half that friendly outside of AoC. This game could be the same way, but I think it will be much more difficult because of the current MMO player mentality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadcrusader Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 It aint that bad on my server, almost everyone is friendly and we help each other, i myself have given several epics to people that i have grouped with. And people help one another, i have even seen Empires help Republic and reversed. The server is Nightmare Lands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynomen Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I want to share an amusing anecdote from when I signed on to my first MMO, like 7 or 8 years ago. I had just gotten SWG for Christmas, little did I know I had missed the good ol' days by a few months. I signed in and rolled my first character ever, a twi'lek entertainer named Atewi. I went through the tutorial and landed in Mos Eisley, my eyes wide and almost squealing in delight. I ran around the space port, checked out the city and spent almost two hours doing it. It was at that point that I got a /tell, "You look really new to the game, would you like to see the best part of it". I asked what was implied in that, and he said "Space, the final frontier". 5 minutes later I was controlling a turret as he was flying space missions. We then set down on Yavin where he showed me the abandoned "temples". The rest of the game could have been terrible, but at that moment there was nothing else. We talked for awhile and then he said he had to go, but first he gave me like 50k credits, the name of a few good tailors and wished me good luck. I took the money and went to those tailors, buying all the clothing and equipment that caught my eye, and I hadn't even been to a single Cantina yet. The cantina crowd was more than friendly, within a week i was part of a "band" that would play together. I don't think I've ever played a game with people half that friendly outside of AoC. This game could be the same way, but I think it will be much more difficult because of the current MMO player mentality. SWG is my fav game hands down. Bugs and all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanguardXL Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 (edited) Communities have changed, yes, due to WoW. Before WoW MMOs were a niche market at best. Everquest was a massive commercial success at a little over 1 million subscribers at it's peak. What WoW did is it opened the MMO market with a license with broader gamer popularity (Warcraft's notably younger and more instant-gains playerbase), that was easier and more casual-friendly than any MMO that had come before it. Now WoW is considered the standard because it did something no other MMO had done before; become a mainstream success. Being mainstream means it has attracted a much different playerbase than MMOs has before; a much younger, much less patient, much more selfish playerbase that seems unable to read past 125 characters, think the letters U and R are full words, and have no interest in their fellow gamers other than how they may be used to make themselves more uber1337. Combine that with the fact that the original MMO gamers, who formed the original communities, are getting older. They don't have the time to play games, or at least not like they once did, with work, family, and so-on. Thus leaving the lunatics running the asylum. EDIT: As for myself... I'm on disability. I spend a great deal of time playing, across several alts. I still have the habit I have had for years. Once a week one of my higher levels will come back to either Dromund Kaas or Coruscant for a couple of days. Will do nothing but help younger characters with any Heroics they're having problems with, offer any advice for characters of classes I'm familiar with, and general make myself useful. I always get tons of thank you's and so-on, but that isn't why I do it. I always give them my same statement at the end, "All I ask for payment is when you're higher up yourself, come back here and help out like I'm doing for a few hours. Pay it forward." ... and they have. I've seen them. Edited February 25, 2012 by VanguardXL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JusticeLord Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I am extremely disappointed in the communities of MMO's as well. Let me start off by saying that I loved this game with every fiber of my being. I quit this game because the community has became like WoW's (by far the worst gaming experience of my life). I strive to be a good person in every way possible but no one seems to want to return the favor. I was in a guild of people I thought were my friends, the first chance they got they turned on me. I have severe Social Anxiety Disorder and the only way I can really talk to anyone is through MMO's and social network sites (which I have also given up on), that being said I had an extremely awful day and I came online to talk to my guild about it and get some support from what I thought were my friends... I got kicked from the guild because I was supposedly spamming guild chat even though I explained all of this. I got kicked after dealing with a guy who said women are 'pieces of ***' (they didn't get kicked), I got kicked even after dealing with a person who attacked me for standing up for my friend, for standing up for my belief in God, and for standing against drugs (they didn't get kicked either). This situation genuinely brought me close to committing suicide (compiled with everything else that was going on in my life). It's surprising that people you think are your friends will turn on you when you need them the most, then they won't even hear you out when you try to explain things. In today's world you can't be against sex before marriage, drugs, or alcohol without being treated like garbage. It should be the opposite way around, but this world is messed up to say the least. I sincerely hope that the community improves here (Rift's community was by far the best I've ever seen, I miss the community there a lot). There were a lot of good people I knew in this game... unfortunately I can't deal with the others. As stupid as it may sound, show respect and decency to the people you're playing the game with. I'll be back when they allow server transfers and I pray that I simply chose a 'bad' server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattBat Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 It's because the games are full of immature kids and young immature adults. 11 years ago even going back to the early 90"s back when I started in UO. The games had restrictions on age. Now it's a free for all. The games are loaded with kids and adults who act like kids. Kids who haven't been taught manners or what it means to have a moral thought process. The games are developed by these very same mind liked people and thats why the games are getting more and more immoral in content, with bad language and poorly thought out end games like this one. Since when did the F word make better sales in a movie. It only attracts the people who are not allowed to say it at home, so they can get their giggles in the movie when an actor says ******* on the screen. We are seeing more and more young immature parents having babies cussing, smoking, drinking and taking them to places the shouldn't be at everyday. They drive them to movie theater, drop them off and leave to go party or drink at a bars or at a friends house. Using the theater as a baby sitter service, at the same time letting them watch a R rater movie that the ticket seller and the ticket taker doesn't do the right thing and say no you're not allowed. They do it because the parent will just come in and yell at them for not letting them in. They have no balls to stand their ground and do what they know is right. These are the kids and kiddie adults in the games of today and it is getting worst every year. They feel they can't talk unless they use the F word every 3 to 4 words. They feel stronger if they can attack other people in chat. It makes up for their lack of friends in the real world. Online gaming gives them the opportunity to act out all their hate and anger they feel towards parents, teachers and adults who look down on them in the real world. Just watch the news and you'll see what our future holds. They are our future, so they say, God help us. Enough said. I saw this post and had to respond to it. Now to prove my point let the example begin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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