I've given a lot of thought to these issues of community.  To tell you the truth, I honestly don't think we're going to have a game community the likes of the early games any time soon.

Teamspeak/Ventrillo/Skype killed the concept of the cosmopolitan MMO.  The metrics are rather stable in this regard: one third of gamers won't team without access to voice, one third of gamers refuse to use voice apps, and the remaining third doesn't care.  It's hard to have a community if you refuse to communicate in the way that someone else does.

This has caused people to think of their community as centered around the guild over the game.  The guild's social hubs, forums and voice server (if applicable), are all the social hubs today's player seems to want or need.  It used to be that players would start a game as individuals, and then form guilds naturally in the course of play.  These days, however, the players come to games already in a guild.  Why care about anyone else when you already have everyone--and everything--you need?

In fact, guilds establish themselves in games even before the games launch.  Players have self-selected their community, and the goal seems to be to get in a position where the guild can function as a community unto itself. 

This has a lot to do with the games themselves.  These days, the games gate group slots, gate content, and put a high premium on hard to acquire loot.  None of the features in a game like World of Warcraft are amicable to gaming with strangers who are entitled to make mistakes.  These days, the games promote efficiency over community; there is just too much to risk when you work outside your comfort zone, with people you don't know well.

Now the best community I found in an MMO was City of Heroes.  The key to its success, in my opinion, was that it didn't penalize players from taking chances.  You could group with anyone, regardless of level, and do pretty much any activity, regardless of setup.  It was the easiest--simply the best--grouping system I found.  People grouped with you--regardless of guild, voice chat use, or playstyle. 

And not only that, but it allowed people a ton of opportunities for self-expression: from costumes, to player written content, to playstyles, to player architecture.  It encouraged diversity which, to me, is an important aspect of community as well.  There's no sense of being in a cosmopolitan community if we can't create something unique from ourselves, and there's no point in being ourselves if we have to bury our preferences for the sake of efficiency.

Originally posted by wormywyrm

Originally posted by Rossboss

...End-game players are generally the most serious and focused of the players, they often plan out their time in their game. Trolls are the exact opposite, they spend the least amount of time being serious and often have their lives scheduled out for them. ...

So people who have to log in certain hours for pre-planned raids = good players.  Players who spontaneously play when they feel like it and don't care about grinding dungeons = trolls...?

 

You missed the part where I said they were not mutually exclusive. I was just laying out what I thought to be the two extremes of MMORPG players. I think to have a good community, it takes both good players and bad players to make a level playing field for all to enjoy. Trolls and End-gamers are not so simply described as being good and bad players. I know players who are well geared and know their classes like no one else does that are also the biggest and most annoying trolls. I also know players who are kind souls and have awful gear and know nothing of their class. I've met people from every bit of the spectrum in-between the two as well.

You can think of MMORPGs as a game like Baseball. Players are ranked on their stats and skill levels, the best ones make it to the Big League and the rest fall off the radar. The Big League players are the end-game players. The trolls and people not as committed usually fall off the radar. The most notable players are always the ones with the most skill or the most public exposure. I'm not saying these are always going to happen or that I want this to happen, but this is what I have observed.

 After playing a number of games over the years where either a) you need other people and the community was made up of venomous, entitled, spoiled rodents (wow) or b) games where the community didn't matter a toss to progress and other players might as well be NPCs in an offline game (GW2), I think I'm starting to understand what makes a good community. IMO, It's best seen in LOTRO (I can only speak for the Snowbourne server).

1. Respect, humour and basic human kindness - Higher levels giving up a lot of their time to help randomer non-kinnies is the norm. Virtually ever time I group, it's packed full of funny, intelligent people who are considerate about loot and quest items and it is the norm for people to stay far longer than they need to be there so you can finish your stuff and rarely bitch when there's a careless wipe. Obviously, you get the odd nobhead who has temporarily borrowed/stolen his older brothers login ID until he gets it banned or finds out it's not like wow and ragequits, however, absolute gents are the standard in my experience.

2. Maturity - part of point one. Whilst, in general, LOTRO undoubtedly has an older audience (as it's slower, more cerebral pace doesn't cater for the MTV generation of 'gimme, gimme, gimme, now, now, now!'), I have learned it's not an age thing but a maturity thing as even younger peeps seem to understand point one. 

3. A game that is not predicated on or rewarded for vicious one-up-man-ship and gear hoarding - obviously it does have an end game tier grind but for some reason (with a few exceptions) the people I come across are more concerned with enjoying the world and getting on with/helping others that spending their time doing that.  

It's not the best coded game in the world (buggy, long load times, awkward animations) and some of the questing structure leaves a lot to be desired but it's the community that keeps me there and grouping is a pleasure rather than a necessary chore. And, I think the structure/nature of the game both attracts and cultivates these features in players. Lot to be learned in that imo. My only complaint about LOTRO is that it only allows a 50 person friends list which was maxed out in a the first month and I keep having to delate older gents to make way for newer nice people.  

This female appears to be much less attention-starved than pokket, and is much kinder on the eyes.

Tenebrion is pleased.

Originally posted by Seshat

Hello,

This was kind of an introduction. I think community is a term that gets tossed around and we judge rather quickly these days. Some might feel MMOs today are becoming single-player oriented and thus community isn't relevant. Some might claim it's more relevant for 'lacking'. There will be other topics down the line, so I did hope to get input as to what you guys might feel is missing in this particular discussion. I started in DAoC but still love playing today and I'll admit that, like many here, I have a sense of nostalgia that can affect my POV in modern MMOs.

As far as the images for this piece, I didn't select them.

Kyleran -

My site was indeed hacked over the weekend, but I'm working on restoring it.

 

Well then I'd like to offer my apologies for being a dick to you Christina. However I still hold the position that whomever on this site thought that using a picture of such cold blooded murderers as a bit of humor was ok, could use a swift kick in the butt.

[mod edit]

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by XcomVic
Who is the girl in the pic, that's all I want to know!

Just some random girl! No, it's the writer. :P

beautiful writer :p

[mod edit]

A good 'MMO' community is one that exists outside of the MMO community rather than formed within that single MMO.

Gives people other ways to connect and a desire to stay within that community; less drama.

[mod edit]

1.Great incentive to work together, In Asherons call it was free passup exp from vassels,community is the best of any mmo i have ever played.People jump at the chance to help and get you flaged cause they benefit a ton from helping you.

2.Fierce competition and freedom to attack and destroy the work of others brings out the worse of players, that community will have highly unfriendly and toxic sections of community but a lot of people play games for just this reason the fear of being attacked and a competitive environment . In order for this to work and have a good community being a douche needs to be punished severely.

First: Look at communities 5-8 years ago, whey want to play and change games. Now game companies have all the players deep in a*s. Player/Gamer is only a moneymaker for next DLC or next SAME game ( look at Crysis 3 - no new ideas just same crap like in Crysis 2). If we dont vote for good games in ours vallets, we never get a good games. Screw EA, Blizzard  ano others "big game developers" who only make a next part of old games. Player/Gamer knows which game is good or bad, dont believe in advertisement..

*I know my english is not perfect but is not my first language.

Originally posted by Jayaris

The creepiness rating on this thread is fucking unreal, and staff members joining in as well. 

....

Sort of backs up my post doesn't it?  ;-)

Originally posted by Czanrei

Unfortunately the OP doesn't seem to understand the meaning of a community.

Seems like there are as many meanings as there are people. Huh, go figure. Have you not noticed the fifty insular little viewpoints prior to yours? All different?

I wish the op luck, grasping the indefinable. But I suspect, like most of us, he can't/won't grasp any concept of 'community' that's terribly different from his own (as exemplified by his own personal favorite past game).

By all means, let's watch what his efforts turn up.

But try to define what a similar conceptual, say "Family" means, just within a single culture, and how many different ways it can be explained and expressed--yet, in the end, no two are identical.

It's all sarts in your family, realy, good and bad.

On the net they show true nature of self and respect to others.

People tend to rulle over each other, those who have more power rulles, and those who, well can't? make a bad community.

Originally posted by infiniti70

Difficulty breeds community. When you have a game like WOW, where you can solo most of the content, easily procure mats, and have nothing communal to achieve or protect. Why expect a community to develop? Most will agree the earlier MMOs (EQ, AC, UO) were much more challenging than what we see today, and the result was players working together to achieve personal goals.

Now we have auction house, then we had trade chat. Now we have dungeon finder, then we had guilds, or towns where we would meet to join for an adventure. Now we have the ability to run dungeons 50 times in a day, then we had CDs and a careful selected band of heros.

Think I agree here.  TSW has a bit of a learning curve, and chat in the starter zone is always buzzing with questions as people are getting started.  The thing is, that has brought a lot lot helpful posts there as well, lots of people pitching in as well as just general chatting.  It's not always perfect, but I think the initial difficulty has sparked a friendlier community.