MMORPG.com writer Phil James admits to being something of a lone wolf in his game life. So what's he doing writing about Community Spirit? Well, that's the thing: Phil is trying to break out of his solo mode and LFG. See how successful Phil has been in finding a community in World of Warcraft in the MMORPG equivalent of speed dating in Part II. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Getting to know a community in a short space of time can be a bit of a fool’s errand. Now apply that to World of Warcraft with its long list of servers, too many guilds to name, and far too many groups to count. The breadth and depth of socialisation that goes on is staggering; what I think of as ‘community’ is every players interaction with others. So in writing about the social side of a game like WoW, how do you sum it up? How could one guy speak for all the millions of others? In discussing communities the phrase “your experiences may vary” is very true. So all I can do is share my stories with you and if you can relate, great and if not, that’s great too, all our experiences are equally valid.

Read more of Phil James' Community Spirit II: World of Warcraft.

The community in World of Warcraft has become a sad state of affairs.  I was (note 'was') a veteran of World of Warcraft.  Back in the earliest days, just out of release, I played on the Silver Hand Server.  The community there was nothing short of the best.  RP was plentiful and amazing.  People were helpful.  Nowadays, the community is filled with children who scream: Ur mom!  or "That's what ur mom told me last night!" insinuating some....pillow talk.  The game is filled with degenerates who use constant netspeak/leetspeak/dudespeak and spew constant profanities.  It is no longer a place of community.  Whether you agree with me or not is your right.  But this is my opinion and the opinion of many others I know.

No kidding WoW's community has been going down the drain for the past couple years. Blizzard is in a position to make a difference in in-game moderating with all the money they make they can afford it. But they don't and it's setting a bad example for other devs who don't take responsibility for their own game worlds. 

Game companies who create MMO's need to stop letting asinine gamers with no respect for other gamers bully in-game communities. Those same companies have the marketting stats also to see for themselves that no mmo with a horrible community like WoW's lasts more than a few months because their moronic griefing 'customers' run everyone off. The ONLY reason WoW is still around is because they have the money to throw at the servers. If they didn't have the capital to keep feeding the attention-starved brats on those servers, the game would sink in a month. 

Even MMORPG.COM could be helping to fix the problem of the above-mentioned types of gamers by posting more articles about the decaying state of online communities. Not only that, but support their articles that talk about those topics and be prepared to fight off the flamers who will reply and whine about being called out to stop hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet. 

It's bad enough that the video game industry is under attack constantly by politicians trying to censor almost any kind of game without internal problems from delusional and clueless half-wit gamers who only worry about getting their kicks at the expense of other gamers. 

I loved the community back during classic, and even partway through BC. The game really doesn't have a sense of community anymore outside of your guild and a few friends.

In classic I made TONS of friends (and enemies) running around the world leveling, questing and farming. Some of the guys in the guild I was in for the past 3 years remembered me (and I remember them) from classic, because I was a crazy paladin in the 51-60 bracket for gulch who would heal people and we'd see each other around frequently. Myself and my close friend built up friendly rivalries with horde guilds because we were frequently fighting over farming spots and killing each other in BG's. When you did groups or BG's, you learned who was who and buitl up a relationship with them. Guild communicated with each other more.

Now...nobody really talks. I knew very few people outside my guild/circle of friends. There really isn't much of a sense of community anymore. At all. Heck, a trip to the forums will tell you that (well, anywhere on the internet, but the WoW boards are pretty bad). The piss poor community was one of the reasons I quit. I loved the community that existed throughout the first 4 years, tolerated it throughout LK but can no longer stand it in Cata. It's depressing, because I find myself wanting to play from time to time, but I know if I resub I'll regret it because the first interaction I have with somebody outside of my small group of friends will make me want to stab them in the face.

Imagine if all the major chat channels were moderated, that would be a good improvement.

I'm kind of surpised that you chose to socialize using RP realms only. WoW can be a great social game. I've never gotten into the whole RP thing, but I can tell you that if you just choose a medium to high pop server that you will undoubtedly meet and socialize with folks once you hit a major city. There are usually guilds recruiting in trade or guild recruit channel and now you can even search to find guilds through he guild button. I'm an altaholic so I have way too many alts on way too many servers. I belong to, at last count, 8 guilds. Whenever I log on to any of them I find other players to chat with or group with for dungeons. I wouldn't  associate RPers and their realms with the social aspect of WoW. There are plenty of us who socialize and know each other by our real names on regular PVE/PVP realms.

Not trying to derail this thread, but all that being said I tend to play RIFT more lately and love the social aspects in that game more. Its one of the few games where you can actually talk to the opposing faction using /say talking outloud. I haven't given up my WoW subscription because I have tons of friends I like to play with certain days of the week. I think anyone who wants to be social in any MMO right now can find their niche. Just pay attention to genchat or the other channels and your sure to find new friends.

It is odd how a thread about socializing in WoW became about ERP. I mainly play on non-RP realms and I never see any ERP honestly.

Originally posted by chuck21222

I'm kind of surpised that you chose to socialize using RP realms only. WoW can be a great social game. I've never gotten into the whole RP thing, but I can tell you that if you just choose a medium to high pop server that you will undoubtedly meet and socialize with folks once you hit a major city. There are usually guilds recruiting in trade or guild recruit channel and now you can even search to find guilds through he guild button. I'm an altaholic so I have way too many alts on way too many servers. I belong to, at last count, 8 guilds. Whenever I log on to any of them I find other players to chat with or group with for dungeons. I wouldn't  associate RPers and their realms with the social aspect of WoW. There are plenty of us who socialize and know each other by our real names on regular PVE/PVP realms.

Not trying to derail this thread, but all that being said I tend to play RIFT more lately and love the social aspects in that game more. Its one of the few games where you can actually talk to the opposing faction using /say talking outloud. I haven't given up my WoW subscription because I have tons of friends I like to play with certain days of the week. I think anyone who wants to be social in any MMO right now can find their niche. Just pay attention to genchat or the other channels and your sure to find new friends.

It is odd how a thread about socializing in WoW became about ERP. I mainly play on non-RP realms and I never see any ERP honestly.

 

Many people choose RP servers as they are seen as having a more mature population.  Even if this is a false assumption, the fact that this is why people head to them raises the average age a little.  I'm not sure if this is the case any more.  It certainly was when I started playing mmos, but now RP seems to mean erp.  Maybe it's just WoW.  I can't really say for sure.

As a post-script to this article, I got chatting to a player while I was out and about in Elwynn Forest.  We got talking about the old days of mmos and our shared love of EQII and classic WoW.  She was friendly and polite and even gave me some cloth and a few gold which is always appreciated when you are runnning your first character on a server.  The twist?  The player was an active member of an erp guild; one of the people hangin around the Inn, looking for a good time.  Maybe I've judged erpers a little harshly.

 Actually I do believe that a much to large percent of the WoW game population are horny teens and snipes. Are they all that makes up the WoW game population? No, but they are a very large vocal population and not a minority anymore.

 Forgot to mention that the only game population that I've found to be worse is the Age of Conan players. They make the WoW players look well behaved in comparison honestly. The best in game population that I've seen on average would be the Lord of the Rings Online players. Too bad I'm burn't out on Turbine and the issues I have far to often with their software and Win 7 64 bit. Gets tiresome having to delete and reinstall the game as often as I have had to do even in the last year.  

  Actually canceled my LotRO account today because once again their data corupted and I've going to have to re-download the FE. No thanks Turbine. Back to ignoring the snipes and twits in WoW for the time being. 

I remember being an engineer rogue and setting up the bombs that look like sheep right outside the inn in Goldshire.....

Ahh the memories.

I'm of the opinion that WoW is no different in regards to community than any other mmo of the past.  I remember griefers back in AC and EQ.  I remember gamers using offensive names for attention and taking up chat with innane coversation that should have been taking up in /tells.  But for some reason, some oldschoolers have gotten so thin skinned that if they see a Chuck Norris joke in gen chat they rage for an hr and come here to post about the terrible WoW community. 

Having played wow on and off since launch (and other mmorpgs before/after/between), it does look like players behaviour gotten worse. But is that the whole truth ?

First there is the old man syndrome, everything was better in the old days. You have more experience with mmorpgs and quickly learn the mechanics and start focusing on other things. The punks from the streets are the future ? I was never a p... wait a moment!.

Other thing is that mmorpgs changed and the mechanics invite bad behavior. I have seen friendly players from the eq days change to self centered jerks after playing wow for some years .. I can even see one in the mirror although I try not to.

Anyways, If I clean the rose tint of my glasses for a moment, I do remember massive jerks in eq 10 years ago, childish discussions in ooc, ninja looters and so on. But the thing is that the game was based on cooperation, and hence bad behaviour meant bad reputation and eventually forced these out because few people would group with them. Games today have less cooperative elements, and you can get away with beeing a jerk.

And that is why there are more jerks now, because they (we) can. Consequences for bad behavior is less now because there is no group/society which we have to face afterwards.

It is like a society without laws/rules, people will act differently but they are still the same people. That is why I think players are the same but Games changed the way we act online.

Makes sense ?

Having played since vanilla, I can see no difference in the community now and then. I just don't share this oppinion that the wow community is bad. Wow has idiots and elitist jerks, no doubt. But so does every online game i've ever played. People will be people. It's not the game that is making people behave like morons from time to time.

I played Wow a few months and quit recently , went back to Lotro and what a difference the community is so much better i can actually have a conversation without it going down to baby talk .

I love Wow lore and the game as a whole , but the whole kid mentality just breaks it for me , back to fight the forces of sauron for the time being .

it's true that Age of conan is the worst i have seen as a community , wow is really close 2nd .

It's the game design that also is flawed, most current games follow a quest line driven game design, so people would rather finish up a quest and continue to the next one, with or without the current group.

In Everquest 1 people would rather stay in 1 spot to get exp and loot, which makes socializing a lot easier, also because you will have downtime because your healer/buffer  needed to regain mana or a player needed some afk for what ever reason, still it meant the group would stay, also it easier to replace a member because there where always people around who would like to join your group, longest time i have been in 1 single group was 29 hours, even with some sleep time in between, when wake up some of the old groupmembers where still in place and i joined back after another groupmember would leave.

This of course is helping to know your fellowgroup members and can devolpe friendship or even create guild.

Nowadays a group only commes together to a  quest or instance(coz there where the loot is) and you have to keep moving to the next mob, which makes chatting also harder. if a game would have the ppl stay in 1 spot socializing would be more part of the game also.

But with most ppl racing to become max lvl/gear as fast as they can, you can not expect that they have time to socialize.

True Lotro/EQ2 have a nicer community then WoW, but the game basics are the same, but at least in Lotro/EQ2 people have the decensy to say thanks and goodbye.

what kind of spirit can this community possibly have now that they don't travel to dungeons together, there aren't any public quests to speak of, everything accept for dungeon badge grinding is soloable, and the people they have paying for their subs are the parents of the kids who have completely ruined any symblance of a community by making lud comments in trade/general chat just because they can without mommy watching.

Originally posted by otter3370

I'm of the opinion that WoW is no different in regards to community than any other mmo of the past.  I remember griefers back in AC and EQ.  I remember gamers using offensive names for attention and taking up chat with innane coversation that should have been taking up in /tells.  But for some reason, some oldschoolers have gotten so thin skinned that if they see a Chuck Norris joke in gen chat they rage for an hr and come here to post about the terrible WoW community. 

  You are wrong, I can and do ignore the Chuck Norris crap or the linking of the damn weapon spam in trade etc. If we were so thin skinned as you allude we wouldn't play.  The abusive profanity, racism and general trolling are much much worse then it was 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago. 

 I am not looking at anything with rose colored classes, there have always been snipes and trolls, that said they used to be a very small percent of the game that you interacted with in the game. Now? they are very large segement of the game.

Originally posted by AcmeGamer

Originally posted by otter3370

I'm of the opinion that WoW is no different in regards to community than any other mmo of the past.  I remember griefers back in AC and EQ.  I remember gamers using offensive names for attention and taking up chat with innane coversation that should have been taking up in /tells.  But for some reason, some oldschoolers have gotten so thin skinned that if they see a Chuck Norris joke in gen chat they rage for an hr and come here to post about the terrible WoW community. 

 

  You are wrong, I can and do ignore the Chuck Norris crap or the linking of the damn weapon spam in trade etc. If we were so thin skinned as you allude we wouldn't play.  The abusive profanity, racism and general trolling are much much worse then it was 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago. 

 

 I am not looking at anything with rose colored classes, there have always been snipes and trolls, that said they used to be a very small percent of the game that you interacted with in the game. Now? they are very large segement of the game.

Exactly. There have always been those certain special players, but the difference between ten years ago and now is that there is little to no moderation whatsoever, because nobody wants to lose out on their subscription, right?

Originally posted by kjempff

 

Anyways, If I clean the rose tint of my glasses for a moment, I do remember massive jerks in eq 10 years ago, childish discussions in ooc, ninja looters and so on. But the thing is that the game was based on cooperation, and hence bad behaviour meant bad reputation and eventually forced these out because few people would group with them. Games today have less cooperative elements, and you can get away with beeing a jerk.

 

     This sums it up, there were always jerks, snipes and trolls. But more of them either cooled their jets and fell into line if they wanted to get anywhere in the game and played the social game or left the game after a short while.  The way the game mechanics have changed and removed the "risk/reward" concept and the requirement for team work has led to more snipish behavior.

I actually tried coming back to wow this week using my friends resurrection scrool and am now  sick with it's community after only 3 days of playing. I agree with everything the author wrote but one thing:

Do I believe that WoW is now populated by jerks and horny adolescents? No...

I do.