Where's the community?

[Rain]

Well as a guildmaster of a community oriented guild, I often become frustrated because most players are still stuck in that "lets raid 24/7" mentality.

 

Granted the best loot will come from those activities, and granted casual players want the most bang for their buck, but after playing this game since BETA, listening to the nonsense in general chat, and awaiting the future updates from Bioware, I'm still left asking, "where's the community?"

 

I remember first hearing about this game and getting excited then i realized the truth, this game isnt community oriented.

 

Open world pvp zones were a great idea, but server performance and farmable objectives have left it a wasteland, BW said they woukd revisit it, but here we are with no progress.

 

Capital ships were mentioned, this would have been a great tool for community, but we havent heard anymore talk of it since launch.

 

So with the lack of community tools, where does that leave us?

 

Here are some ideas :

 

1) Take a group to e middle of nowhere and just hang out, have duels, go on a crafting mat collection spree, have a dance party.

 

2) although clothing is limited you might be surprised, have a costume contest.

 

3) Host a guild lottery.

 

4) if your guild is fortunate enough to have large numbers on both republic and empire, stage a guild war on Ilum.

 

5) Have a HM race, see who can complete one the fastest.

 

I could sit here and go through idea affter idea, but until the community decides these things are important, they will be mute points. So the bottom line is, it up to US to create our community, it up to US to make a difference, if you want a successful run of this game, you cant be focused on raiding, pvp, pve, specifically, you have to be focused on all systems of the game and enjoy this game in balance, because otherwise you will get burned out on content and drop your subscription.

 

Probably the hardest questions for me to answer are, if MMO's are all about making a buck, why are they not focused on what really matters, COMMUNITY. Doesnt a community drive an MMO? How will an MMO survive without people?

People create communities.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Rain

[uniz]

personally i find the following detrimental and or obstructive to building any community in most mmos: easy solo leveling, a group finder. lack of server events, lack of any inter faction events, and such. the problem is the first two for many players are now desired and with the lfd especially perhaps now thought of as a basic mmo staple.

 

you can't build a community if you don't need to or have many options to interact with other players. also far too many players lack the social skills because of previous certain mmos' experiences and now really don't know how to interact unless it involves the word "jawa" in general chat. for too many people friends on their friends list are those that make stuff for them rather than to group/warfront/ops with. events can help build but if people no longer desire to interact, which mmos are now propagating through fast easy leveling solo game play and lfd, then community building can no longer be blamed on this games perceived lack of such.

 

in other words the fault is shared between the players as well as the lack of events.

[Rain]

Well I agree to a certain extent, it does require the player base to create their own community with server events and such, but it also requires support from development. One big problem this game had was it launched with over a million players, then it took a nose dive because players finished the content too fast . The reason for that downward spiral is because development was too dependent on the content. MMO's should not be dependent upon content and alot of games right now are dependent on content. We need systems in place to allow for players to generate the content and better fulfill the needs of the community. The guild system is basic, crafting is basic, space is basic, the only content that isn't basic are the content that is repetitive and doesn't allow much community building. As long as the MMO market focuses on content instead of player generated systems, there will always be a high turnover rate.

[uniz]

i agree with what you are saying.

 

the "shot gun" approach, especially in a just launched mmo, has almost all of its content so "thin" that it is quickly ran through. this leads to people being quickly bored and looking for other games for a new fresh start. there the cycle is repeated and sadly this is now the state of many recently released mmos. tough to build a community when people are leaving it so fast.

 

events are needed but resources are now committed to "beef out" all of the this content which just can't be done fast enough and again people leave.

 

far too many games are just too thin because of this design and then even with such there is not much to work with for players to make their own events. rift was the exception to this as it had open world events allowing people to get to know and play with each other. problem is it was too grindy for much of this.

[XmaceukX]

Maybe its because we all have different times of play for example, i only get a few hours each night for the nights I'm on and i want to level and do things i enjoy doing which is playing the game basically, I don't want to do things that do not help my progression due to the amount of online time i actually get.

 

Its nothing personal but i have to do whats best for me and the little time i get to play.

[happysister]

yeah, finding time is a big issue for me as well. all of my guild has been really busy with real life things like work and school. so when we do get a group on all at once, we tend to do guild raids or level alts together the whole time.