Whats wrong with Swtor? Well, not the game anyway.

[Darnu]

So Charles Manson and his Family were social rather than antisocial personalities?

 

Seems they were very sociable together to eachother if those movies were accurate. Although I do see some hints that it was fairly abusive, although how overt I'm not sure. Interview with his "family members" kind of smack like it was a paradise. They just hated a lot of people together

Edited April 4, 2012 by Darnu

[CorellianWannabe]

social personality =/= BEING SOCIAL

 

*sigh*

 

So if everyone is social (by your definition every player is social, right?) what's the problem? We can all be social away from groups and people can quit whining.

[mousestalker]

Here's a a thought.

 

The problem isn't with other gamers, it's mostly likely with you.

 

If you want people to interact with you, then you have to put yourself forward.

 

Playing an MMORPG is roughly analogous to going to a dance when you are thirteen. The music begins to play, and even though you recognize it and it even may be a song you quite like, you find yourself sitting on a chair against the wall.

 

Some time later a cute boy walks near you and you have a brief flash of hope that he's going to ask you to dance. The moment passes when you realize he's heading for the water fountain.

 

You want to dance, but the boys are too shy and socially awkward to ask.

 

MMORPG's are like that. If you want to interact, the burden is on you. Whining on the Fleet channel about how little chat there is isn't fun. You have to come up with a fun social activity. What that is, I'll leave to your imaginations. But it isn't all that hard to come up with something.

 

Just make it something that someone else will want to join in with you.

 

And do keep in mind you may have to try repeatedly. If you do wind up having to try agian, don't just robo-spam. Wait a bit and change things up.

 

/tendentious advice

[CyclopicWarrior]

...But I dont wanna dance with boys.

[quantumsheep]

I think this game has plenty of content. I also think that it's not the MMO makers who need to create community...it's the players who have to create community. It's easy enough to do. Our server always has tons of people talking in general chat- on almost every planet.

 

It's the community's responsibility to create community. All we have to do is make it happen.

 

tl;dr - what's quoted above!

 

 

But, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to tell you a story. Let's call it 'A tale of two servers'

 

From launch, I played on 'The Swiftsure' - a PVP server (as my guild wanted to roll there for various reasons).

 

Love Star Wars. Love the game. There are issues, sure, but overall I'm generally happy with it.

 

I got to 50 as a SI. Most guild mates were busy levelling (me included) so I didn't see them often unless I bumped into them in fleet, in the wild on occasion, or if someone needed help. We did run some flash points, and I really enjoyed them because you'd spend some quality time gaming with each other rather than just talking in guild chat.

 

I didn't bother doing any heroics on the way to 50 because general chat was filled with sexist and racist slurs, along with trolls. I really don't fancy engaging with such people.

 

I'd never tried PVP before. I tried it! It's fun! I play it a LOT! But my god people were incredibly hostile in Warzones! (usually the ones who insist their teammates 'suck' then come last on the boards. You know the ones! ).

 

Again, this didn't feel like the community I knew in SWG. It didn't feel like something I wanted to be part of

 

It felt like what the forums are like if I'm honest. You know, the bad parts. So I can certainly see why some people think there is no community. Or why some people may need encouragement to talk in general and don't. Or why some people don't feel comfortable enough to engage with others.

 

Then something happened.

 

I wanted to play a trooper. I wanted to try healing (as I've never done that before).

 

As my guild is Empire only, I decided to start fresh and roll on an RP server on my own as I like to RP now and again. I tried two or three servers and settled on the Progenitor (PVE - RP).

 

Why?

 

Because on that server, within five minutes of playing, general chat was already full of lively discussion! About sci-fi. About the game. About how my original toon's name was maybe inappropriate for an RP server!

 

Everyone was friendly and civil, answering questions, joking around, discussing Isaac Asimov for God's sake! People felt *comfortable* chatting. And we even managed to get a team together to take down a world boss, something I'd never done on my old server all the way to 50!

 

This was during one afternoon on day 1 of rolling on the Progenitor.

 

Everything I liked about the game was still there, but now there was this extra layer of awesome that was *whispers it* other people.

 

And yes, you get some ***** too, but they're the minority.

 

So I get to level 14 and try healing for the first time ever in PVP. I'm encouraged by my teammates. Friendly 'hellos' are exchanged! I do ok! I'm thanked by some after the game for the heals.

 

This is all new to me.

 

People are friendly and helpful. And this in turn encourages me to be friendly and helpful too!

 

I play a lot of PVP and see familiar faces time after time and form bonds with other players. We play well together. We become friends. We set up our own tiny guild!

 

Currently we have 1 rule: Don't be an ***

 

We look forward to logging in and playing together and with friends outside the guild. And with other guilds.

 

In PVP I even have a nemesis on the empire side, and one of my guild mates has an Empire alt that he uses to actually whisper compliments on a game well played to opposing faction players that they encountered!

 

I turned 50 on my trooper about 3 days ago. So I get ready to play my first 50 match. I'm worried about the reaction I'll get as a fresh 50 in a WZ. On my original server it was typically "Oh great - under geared people mean we lose again. Fail."

 

On the new server I feel comfortable enough to apologise to the players in advance that I may not be much use due to having no gear at all. And they say "Welcome greenhorn. It's not us you should worry about".

 

How awesome is that?

 

There are plus and minus points of course.

 

My old guild is not where I am, and I miss them.

 

There's about half as many players as on the Swiftsure, and because a lot of Oceanic people played there as well as NA players, you could always get a WZ going. On my new server PVP is dead pretty much after about midnight.

 

I'm sure plenty of people are happy on the Swiftsure. Maybe it fits a certain mentality that I wasn't 100% happy with on a personal level. Maybe republic players are more friendly? Who knows?

 

But now I've moved, I am really loving playing the game again. Really loving it.

 

Community isn't dead. You just have to make it yourself, or find one you like

 

QS

Edited April 5, 2012 by quantumsheep

[RazulDarkwood]

I think they must make the music run almost all the time there are moments that there is no music and it kills the mood I had before the music stoped. The music is the glue that keep you in the game because it provides the atmosphere.

[Sauska]

That's indeed the major issue with SWTOR: the total lack of community. A guild is basically reduced to a list of players, with no extra features whatsoever to promote a sense of community. Granted, even WoW didn't offer much in that regard and I still played for 7 years The only MMORPG I ever played who had the ultimate feature that really made guilds pull together and added so many extra dimensions, was SWG: they offered player cities.

 

Player cities added much more than just a city where guilds could have their members build houses to store stuff. Setting up a city in itself was a lot of fun of course, for those who enjoyed landscaping and decorating. It also offered the ones enjoying crafting and selling their products a way to set up shop in the city. And as the city grew, shuttleports and mission terminals became available. Last but not least, it made genuine world pvp possible, by raiding other cities and having a ball.

 

Alas, Bioware seems to focus on the storylines and largely ignores all other MMO features. That will capture the interest of gamers for only so long...

[Banzai]

MMO creators have to create mechanics that encourage community action, and characters need to feel they affect the MMO world. Thanks to WoW and this MMO aping WoW too much, we don't have that. So we have a lack community because it's not necessary.