Why is "server community" used as an argument against cross-server LFD?

[savagepotato]

Personally, I would settle for a server wide lfg chat channel.

 

This would be more than enough for me.

[Blurble]

accountability is a myth.

 

People on my server were blacklisted. Oh, and all that drama that comes with it was hilarious, too bad that went with the community.

[OSUNightfall]

accountability is a myth.

 

Saying something doesn't make it so. Get blacklisted from most raiding guilds on your server, and see how much fun you have on a day-to-day. Top guilds can and do share info on troublemakers, and if you're one of them, have fun with your PUGs, because no competent guild will take you. In games like Eve it's 10x more prevalent, because you can't just roll an alt in a week, a month, or even a year. Half the people on the server will kill you on sight just because of rep.

[Pinely]

Why is "server community" used as an argument against cross-server LFD?

 

Because the Dungeon Finder made Dungeons more accessible to players in WoW. As a result, these elite little communities of regular dungeon runners fell apart. And more players meant a somewhat greater likelihood that you'll be paired with a rude player. Of course, there are better ways to socialize in an MMO and the accessibility has meant more time actually playing the game instead of waiting. And Blizzard has continually refined the system to prefer players from the same server and is introducing Battletags to make even more friends across servers. But, nostalgia is blinding, so these players show up in every new MMO to try and make the case that accessible content is somehow bad for everyone and not just the minority that benefited from the older system.

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much. In a couple months it will be apparent that a system without a robust LFG tool is worthless. A couple months after that, it will be apparent that the reality of low population servers makes a server-only LFG tool only marginally useful. By this time next year I'm confident SWTOR will have or will be announcing a LFG tool, although perhaps not one with cross server functionality.

[ferroz]

I agree with the OP. I played EQ1 for 3+ years starting from its release, along with every other MMO, and I never once heard about or saw anything mentioned about black lists for people with poor behavior. There is no central location to even coordinate something like it because every reputable forum delete things like black lists.

 

There is no such thing as server community. It's just a bunch of random people thrown together on one server. Eventually you get to know the noisier people, and which people or guilds you don't want to group with, but it's not like it's a coordinated server wide thing.

Some servers had them. Tribunal had the POMS (piece of monkey s***) list . They did little or nothing to curb the bad behaviors.

 

People on that list were still able to get into guilds; I recall there was a druid that always seemed to manage to be guilded even though he was well known for ninja looting and training people (name began with an E I think).

 

Companions had a couple of real pieces of work (an enchanter, can't recall the name right now) and they were one of the top 2 progression guilds on that server at the time (this was before SI beat them and EV into time). EV had a few skunks as well. I don't think either of them had anyone on the poms list, but then again, they had such a presence on the forums that they wouldn't eh?

 

 

Accountability in MMOs is a myth

[Kaedian]

because is no community once you can grab a group from other servers. No no consequences for being a ninja, or being a ******* worse is no socialization you que up do your flashpoint and drop group with out so much as a word.... it destroys need to make friends and form a community on your server.

 

Agreed 100%.

[Saber_Six]

PlayerX: "LFG FlashPoint1 pst!!"

PlayerY: "Watch it, that guy needs everything."

 

A LFG tool eliminates that.

[geogenetic]

I agree with the OP. I played EQ1 for 3+ years starting from its release, along with every other MMO, and I never once heard about or saw anything mentioned about black lists for people with poor behavior. There is no central location to even coordinate something like it because every reputable forum delete things like black lists.

 

There is no such thing as server community. It's just a bunch of random people thrown together on one server. Eventually you get to know the noisier people, and which people or guilds you don't want to group with, but it's not like it's a coordinated server wide thing.

 

You sir missed a large and great part of EQ in my opinion. The community was the best part of that game.

[ferroz]

Saying something doesn't make it so. Get blacklisted from most raiding guilds on your server, and see how much fun you have on a day-to-day. Top guilds can and do share info on troublemakers, and if you're one of them, have fun with your PUGs, because no competent guild will take you. In games like Eve it's 10x more prevalent, because you can't just roll an alt in a week, a month, or even a year. Half the people on the server will kill you on sight just because of rep.

Most raiding guilds didn't give a crap; as long as they didn't pull that stuff in guild groups or raids they were fine.

 

It's a myth. I'm sure it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to think that shunning people actually makes a difference, but it doesn't.

[tindin]

pvp gets a tool so why cant flashpoints

[OSUNightfall]

PlayerX: "LFG FlashPoint1 pst!!"

PlayerY: "Watch it, that guy needs everything."

 

A LFG tool eliminates that.

 

What it doesn't eliminate is me kicking them out of my group the first time they do it, then giving them the old tar and feather in general. See a name enough times, you start to remember. Especially if you run a lot of groups and raids, and start to keep your own list of undesirables.

[Xzulld]

If your friends list, and your ability to join groups manually extended beyond the server, then all of the arguments against cross server LFD would vanish.

 

I have been trying for a long time to get these kinds of features added to other games. I have friends on half a dozen servers in multiple games, and this feature alone would allow for a greater community AND easier grouping.

 

Best of both worlds.

 

Or if a game allowed you to load your existing character into ANY server from a central login server that would also remove these issues.

 

I remember old days of FPS style games like mechwarrior with the MSN zones lobby system and see really no technical reason why MMO's cant be the same. You would need caps on zone populations (handled already with sharding), and caps on server populations (already exists with queueing)

Edited December 29, 2011 by Xzulld

[OSUNightfall]

Most raiding guilds didn't give a crap; as long as they didn't pull that stuff in guild groups or raids they were fine.

 

It's a myth. I'm sure it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to think that shunning people actually makes a difference, but it doesn't.

 

All you're saying is, all the jerks can eventually band together into their own little jerk communities. I'm fine with that, but they won't be doing raids with *me* or *my group*, which is the main point. Accountability is less about punishment and more about keeping the bad players away from you personally.

Edited December 29, 2011 by OSUNightfall

[Yakito]

I'm not sure why a lot of forum posters seem to think that it's important to foster a sense of "server community". What's up with that? I've played in MMO's a long time and it was never important in the least. I hope Bioware does a cross-server LFD tool. I get really tired of having to spam trade chat and then have to spend a lot of time traveling to the instance. The LFD would simply make it easier.

 

Spamming trade chat with "lfg/lfm for <instance name here> is just simply annoying. And even though I've done most of the instances this way, I don't have any more friends than I had before I started. So I never bought into the "fostering server community" as a valid argument against a cross-server LFD tool. To those of you that don't want it, you don't have to use it. But just because you don't want to use it doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't.

 

/end of rant

 

Maybe if you gave it a thought you'd understand. But obviously you do not, so why do you even bother making a thread if you don't understand the issue? I am tired of trying to explain to to people like you.

 

Server Community IS important. That's how guilds and friendships are created. The best way - be in a Flashpoint with someone and see him in action, and THEN invite him. You have no idea how much frustration it caused after LFD when you invite people hoping they are good and you realise they can't even complete the simplest tasks in game.

 

People are lazy and they don't even bother to tick "Looking for group" box when they need a group. Maybe if people actually tried and remembered how it was before some "tool" did all your job for you?

 

I haven't met a single new friend after the LFD was implemented. Only Ninja douchebags.

[Innocentone]

What some don't realize is that with an LFD tool. It allows players to do instances over and over even if someone has a lockout. Also your able to work on other things while waiting for the tool to find a group. Like gathering , crafting , etc. It helps instead of having to spam chats or having to wait to find people . Edited December 29, 2011 by Innocentone

[Orvish]

Most raiding guilds didn't give a crap; as long as they didn't pull that stuff in guild groups or raids they were fine.

 

It's a myth. I'm sure it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to think that shunning people actually makes a difference, but it doesn't.

 

Quality raiding guilds cared, because having that guy in your guild meant you would tolerate that sort of thing. And when he pulled that crap outside a guild run, it reflected back badly on the guild.

 

So yes, while that person may be able to get into a guild, they'll have a hard time getting into any sort of actual quality guild on the server.

[pauledangerously]

LFG needs to be implemented. Flame me all you want. It's my only major gripe so far.

[Nulzero]

I agree with the OP. I played EQ1 for 3+ years starting from its release, along with every other MMO, and I never once heard about or saw anything mentioned about black lists for people with poor behavior. There is no central location to even coordinate something like it because every reputable forum delete things like black lists.

 

There is no such thing as server community. It's just a bunch of random people thrown together on one server. Eventually you get to know the noisier people, and which people or guilds you don't want to group with, but it's not like it's a coordinated server wide thing.

 

Agreed, what people think of as "server community" is forum drama and busybodies proclaiming black lists that only the very small percentage of people who were actually reading those forums ever heard about. While finding out who slept with who for loot or who ninja'd the raid prior to hearthing and /gquit ing was entertaining, I don't really think of it as a GOOD reason for server community.

 

Most of the good community interaction came guild to guild through guild leaders or pvp pre-made groups. I understand the want to meet people on your own server, and thats why I think any LFG tool should at least have the option to flag server only. Having experience with off-peak, low pop, low level manual and automated dungeon finding I can say not having cross server grouping for those cases seriously hinders the ability to do a dungeon.

[Drudenfusz]

Since BioWare is not even giving us server forums here it tells us that they don't care that much about server community, so that argument for LFG tool is just vain.

[Wafles]

Single server lfg/lfd =fantastic, most the servers are plenty full to make it effective enough anyway

 

Anything else will cause bioware's community to go down the hole too quick =(

Edited December 29, 2011 by Wafles

[Xzulld]

I haven't met a single new friend after the LFD was implemented. Only Ninja douchebags.

That is too bad, I however have met lots of people who Id love to cross server friends with, but cant either becuase they didn't want to do the whole real ID thing or becuase clearly the support for making a manual group cross server group wasn't there.

 

This issue is an artificial problem created by the server architecture which is really not needed.

 

My solutions below >>

If your friends list, and your ability to join groups manually extended beyond the server, then all of the arguments against cross server LFD would vanish.

 

I have been trying for a long time to get these kinds of features added to other games. I have friends on half a dozen servers in multiple games, and this feature alone would allow for a greater community AND easier grouping.

 

Best of both worlds.

 

Or if a game allowed you to load your existing character into ANY server from a central login server that would also remove these issues.

 

I remember old days of FPS style games like mechwarrior with the MSN zones lobby system and see really no technical reason why MMO's cant be the same. You would need caps on zone populations (handled already with sharding), and caps on server populations (already exists with queueing)

Edited December 29, 2011 by Xzulld

[Olinore]

I wish when these threads came up there was less focus on the negatives and more focus on the positives.

 

I mean I don't know about you guys, but a server community for me is far less about negative reputations and far more about GREAT reputations.

 

I'd love to have the "family feeling" of server communities in this game. Similar to what we had in SWG and in WoW as well (in the vanilla and tbc era). I want my server to be the bar where everyone knows my name and all that jazz.

 

 

My thoughts exactly! That is precisely why I hope they don't implement a cross-server option. I want to get to know the people on my server, not play once with strangers that I will never see again. I like the idea of grouping again with that funny DPS who cracks jokes during the slow times, or that awesome tank who also waits the 2.8 seconds for the person gathering a node between fights, or that great healer who saved us all from a facepull last time, or simply pleasant folks in general that I recognize from previous groups.

 

I play MMOs because I enjoy the gameplay, but also the social aspect of them. And building server community is part of the fun.

[Nulzero]

All your saying is, all the jerks can eventually band together into their own little jerk communities. I'm fine with that, but they won't be doing raids with *me* or *my group*, which is the main point. Accountability is less about punishment and more about keeping the bad players away from you personally.

 

I don't get why that is an argument against x-server LFG especially if its optional. Anyone you ignore in wow be it same server or cross server will never group with you again.

[Kaedian]

 

Accountability in MMOs is a myth

 

Sole accountability is the myth. For such an idea to work, everyone has to buy in. If the servers take a stance on the arsehats then they will be forced to either reroll on a nother server or conform to acceptable community behavior. Cross server lfg takes away that ability of a server to police its own.

 

That said, let's not jump right to the assumption that people rolling need on everything is a ninja, this game has been responsible for bringing another wave of mmo newbs to the fold. As such these people may not realize the idea behind the need/greed roll and think that a financial "need" is enough to roll need. In one group last night I had one player that was level 12 and hadn't selected an ac, another was a jedi rolling need on blasters and cunning gear ... a tell revealed the person didn't realize cunning was useless and that the smuggler actually NEEDed the blaster.

 

The game is new, the hype is large and years in development, how we as the community handle the beginning will set in motion how communities flourish or die in the months and years to come.

 

If you want a community, work for it and demand it of each other, and of yourselves.

 

Silence is acceptance.

[Nulzero]

Sole accountability is the myth. For such an idea to work, everyone has to buy in. If the servers take a stance on the arsehats then they will be forced to either reroll on a nother server or conform to acceptable community behavior. Cross server lfg takes away that ability of a server to police its own.

 

That said, let's not jump right to the assumption that people rolling need on everything is a ninja, this game has been responsible for bringing another wave of mmo newbs to the fold. As such these people may not realize the idea behind the need/greed roll and think that a financial "need" is enough to roll need. In one group last night I had one player that was level 12 and hadn't selected an ac, another was a jedi rolling need on blasters and cunning gear ... a tell revealed the person didn't realize cunning was useless and that the smuggler actually NEEDed the blaster.

 

The game is new, the hype is large and years in development, how we as the community handle the beginning will set in motion how communities flourish or die in the months and years to come.

 

If you want a community, work for it and demand it of each other, and of yourselves.

 

Silence is acceptance.

 

And this is an example of another feature wow has that I would like to see added and that's a group trade-able option for bop items for a limited time period. For all the complaining I've seen about people ninja looting in dungeons I've found that if I whispered someone "hey that tinket is plus heals not plus dmg" or something along those lines I'll often times get the item.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Nulzero