I'm curious to see which game has the best community because it is quite frankly the most important aspect of a game for me personally. I could care less if a game is sandbox , theme park or level based , what really is important  to me is that there's a good population of mature , friendly , fun loving and social players. For me the game that had the best community out of all the mmorpgs I've played over the years is definitely Everquest , people loved to group and were quite mature , there was the occasional idiot but there was very few of them and the Trade chat etc was always filled with good conversations none of the garbage I've found when playing WoW.

Final Fantasy XI or Vanguard or LOTRO.

Either one will do.

I'd say EVE and Wizard101. EVE because it's more difficult than the common MMO and most immature people will quit within their first week. Wizard101 because of its extreme chat filter.

For me I would say Everquest2 and Atlantica. They had most friendly community especially when asking about something. Of course Atlantica is free to play so there is some idiots ingame but there is no such as monsters stealing or loot stealing so not much problems arise. In tournaments people was very friendly , it really doesnt matter you win or lose, they just congratulate, ask for advice....

But it really depends on luck in what people you will run into. Because I played WoW twice. One time I had no problem with children and idiots ( maybe they all was killed? :) )  and next time I tried i just had to ignore chat knowing that there is only idiotic talks....

 LOTRO, EQ2 have the best communities.  EVE is a good example of an as good as you can get with a PvP MMO community.

At the end of the day, the significant community is you and your guild, and in a PvP MMO like EVE or WAR, the quality of the same on the enemy side.

EVE in my opinion has the best community of course there are tards that come and go , but they come and dont stay long.. EVE Radio bring the community even closer with player run music lots of funny folks on there and some very nice women ... yes women :)

EQ ,Eve and Ryzom for me had the best comunity,most people were mature and really helpful compared to other games

LOTRO hands down. EVE and Ryzom are good too. Ryzom has dipped a bit because its free.

AC2 had a great community but its been over 4 years since i played it.  I think that game got shutdown...not sure though.

People say that EQ2 has a great community but, from my experience, they are exactly like WoW's which is a pretty mix bag of immature assholes, plain old assholes, and nice people.  Some servers are DEFINITELY better then others.

Warhammer's community is kind of meh, but I think its more due to the game just being released and it's poor social interface.

EQOA for ps2 had the best community for me, played eq2,lotr, pretty much all the big ones. very friendly people and whne i wnet back after i had quit and went back like 2 years later, when i went back and saw my server was pretty much dead so i made a new alt on castle lightwolf, got in a group fairly quikly (made an alchemist probably one of the most wanted classes to have in a group for sick damage) people chatted the whole time and after it they had all gave me money to get me started on the server.and i'm not a begger i would rather get my own stuff but some one offers out of kidness i would be hard pressed not to take it.

Vanguard would be second, got in a guild of strangers people would offer to run me through stuff all the time to help get geared up, crafted me items ect. chat on vent ask how everything was goin out me way stuff like that. again i never asked for anything many times i would log in and have mail from guildies.and i'm a guy not one of those internet attention whores you see in guild chat being overly flirtatious to complete strangers say anything for attention from anyone and everyone.

warhammer, idk people just never talked on there ...at all. very anti social even tho with pqs and being able to just join up with people there in a group without asking,wasn't much talking going on at all. hell i started wishing for a barens chuck norris chat just so i knew i wasn't the only person in the game.

EVE, EQ2...

Clearly LOTRO.

Mortal Online in my opinion!

I'd say Vanguard.

Any game that is niche (EvE) or 'old school' (EQ) will tend to have a better community because these types of games attract people who are more likely to be civil, sociable and mature (in most cases).

Games like WoW are considered to have bad communities because they attract a much wider demographic, encompassing a greater range of personalities (and thus more jerks, just like real life).

PSO has a pretty good community.

but if going by your title IE ANYGAME* i would say Half Life 2

Guild Wars & Spellborn (closed beta) :)

EVE has a terrible community and so does EQ and all them niche games because its just full of elitist dick heads who think they're better than you. At launch I would have said WOW because there was sooo many nice people and lots of them but as the game became more popular it just become full of dicks. 

I don't think there is an online game with a good community lol.


I would have said SWG back in 2003 because people then were sooo nice and helpful but now no...

LOTRO, or Vanguard.

FFXI 99% of the people are mature you group 95% of the game so you will meet a lot of people. There is really only one class you can solo with (Bestmaster) but for the most part after a certain level people will group up with other Beastmasters to level. I knew some kids on there that act more mature then adults in other games and by kids i mean early teens.

So pretty much everything you asked for is in FFXI. However the games lower level areas use to be unpopulated but now they have added a new feature called level sync so now they are all filled a good amount so you can easily get a party.

SWG:Pre NGE, EQ2, LOTRO, EVE are the top 4 for me. All 4 have/had awesome communities

For best as in more willing to sit down spend THEIR time and help YOU do something, Nice as in Helpful to new players, Nice as in close group of people who mostly know each other?

IF you want this kind of nice you need to eliminate all the games out there that do not have group content as the majority of the game play.

Group based games that are mostly PvE based generally have strong community of friendly players usually mature players willing to help.

FFXI

Vangaurd

City of Villains/Heros

These games have very nice communities of players who will take their own time to help you do things, These games (At least FFXI does) Make it so you CAN't do most of the content without getting help from players. About 90% of the content is all group based, and I would say less than 1% of the content has anything to do with PvP. People would be willing to help you on this game, because you will eventually help them as well, its a community game, example,

A level 75 DRK runs into a WHM who needs to finish Genkai 3...That DRK is more likely to help that WHM finish it for 2 reasons, Its not easy to do on your own, that DRK prob had a WHM help him sneak and invis before that to finish it himself. AND that WHM may be a valuable ally later on as a healer. And as the game is 90% group based, that DRK needs that healers help. Same goes for the healer who can't fight easy pray monsters without dying. (This is just an example no need to nit pick at some whms can solo and so on)

Community games and mostly group based games are the games that will have the "best" community for group work. helping eachother, willingness to party, and probably even closeness of friendships.

Its what IV found from my personal experiences in 8 years of MMORPG gaming.

SADLY FFXI ranks as one of the WORSE games possible to choose for End game content, The end game in FFXI is run by total elitist jackasses (The majority not all). These people expect you to drop whatever you are doing at any given time, to go sit in a room and compete with 30-50 other people over a random monster pop within a 1-2 hour window...for a chance at like a 5-10% drop rate of a item that you will PROBABLY not get... I know its dumb, yet this is FFXIs great end game, just avoid the end game community in FFXI and you will be much happier, Do dynamis or something which is much more fair.