The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Best option?

Hire a number of qualified Behavioral Psychologists during the conception phase of the game development and listen to them on how to introduce positive reinforcement for good behaviour and negative consequences for bad behaviour.

General chat is a big negative to community imo. Most of the real ass hats are just looking for an audiance. The bigger the better. It may have started as a way for all people to chat to each other but like everything on the internet, without constant moderation it quickly becomes the lowest common denominator that decides what everyone gets to read.

As for game features, anything that gets large numbers of people working together tends to create community as well as strife. How they're able to fight it out normally decides if it remains friendly or not.

Player ecconomies seem to be a thing of the past but in swg the crafter community was all very good on my server. Crafting in general was always good at creating a positive communty when it forced people to rely on others to get things done. The wow style where everyone has one of everything and it's all junk may as well not even bother imo.

You wanna know how to make a comunity?

Have players need each other. Thats the only thing needed nothing fancy.

Cant have GW2 massive zerg troughout the game. people don't need eachother so no community will be formed.

Same for WoW you can just que up to anything faceroll your keyboard and be done with the whole ordeal not a word has to be said.

People don't need one another to play MMO's anymore so therefore there will be no tight community, just a whole lot of random people doing their own thing. 

edit: And if we talk about chat, people are pretty rude by default especially when the other guy can't even see you. If we would have needed eachothers support to play the game people would be nicer towards eachother.

Isolate them in instances and take away general chat.  Sometimes no community is better than a bad one.

No auction house - peddle your wares

Coop required content - does not have to be combat oriented

Coop crafting - best things come from shared minds

No mini map - need help finding something, find a guide

No instant travel - time to group up, safety in numbers and all that

No global chat - localized chat okay, clan chat better

No mini games - here is a big bueatiful world, go play in a cage

Harsher downtime - nothing like a "OOM" break get get to know your fellowship better

Dangerous world - Maybe the most needed ingridient. If content can be solo'd it will be by most

Community goals - stronger community opens up content in area, work together for better personal progression

None of this is difficult to acheive, just unappealing to the grind for gear players

Notice how it's all pretty much the same thing. As games become more and more solo friendly the community suffers for it. People become no better than NPCs and are often just something in your way.

The old mmos required you to play with other people and had better communities. Maybe it was just because solo ppl wouldn't play them and they are the ones who are ruining mmos communities today.

No "Double XP" weekends.

What the developers are doing here is:

• saying the levelling experience needs some work but that is too hard so lets make it quick
• ecncouraging the "end game stampede" that turns an MMORPG into a MOBA.

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Best option?

Hire a number of qualified Behavioral Psychologists during the conception phase of the game development and listen to them on how to introduce positive reinforcement for good behaviour and negative consequences for bad behaviour.

 

+1

Voice of reason in all of this nonsense. Hire a professional to enforce behavior.

Originally posted by Rossboss

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Best option?

Hire a number of qualified Behavioral Psychologists during the conception phase of the game development and listen to them on how to introduce positive reinforcement for good behaviour and negative consequences for bad behaviour.

 

+1

Voice of reason in all of this nonsense. Hire a professional to enforce behavior.

Well not enforce but to encourage and reinforce postive behaviour patterns.

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by Rossboss

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Best option?

Hire a number of qualified Behavioral Psychologists during the conception phase of the game development and listen to them on how to introduce positive reinforcement for good behaviour and negative consequences for bad behaviour.

 

+1

Voice of reason in all of this nonsense. Hire a professional to enforce behavior.

Well not enforce but to encourage and reinforce postive behaviour patterns.

I laughed when I read enforce. +1 for not really getting your point! :P

Originally posted by DamonVile

General chat is a big negative to community imo. Most of the real ass hats are just looking for an audiance. The bigger the better. It may have started as a way for all people to chat to each other but like everything on the internet, without constant moderation it quickly becomes the lowest common denominator that decides what everyone gets to read.

As for game features, anything that gets large numbers of people working together tends to create community as well as strife. How they're able to fight it out normally decides if it remains friendly or not.

Player ecconomies seem to be a thing of the past but in swg the crafter community was all very good on my server. Crafting in general was always good at creating a positive communty when it forced people to rely on others to get things done. The wow style where everyone has one of everything and it's all junk may as well not even bother imo.

General chat is the guild chat for people who keep getting kicked out of guilds.

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 Hire a group that actually investigates tickets created for chat issues and actually BAN people that abuse chat.

I was able to create a plug-in for WoW that auto-blocked Chuck Norris jokes...so im sure they can create an auto-ban program that kicks people for using piss poor internet memes.

As for the last comment. Tera makes WoW look like a mature audience, its even worse now that its gone F2P, which is simple AMAZING.

Originally posted by Rossboss

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Best option?

Hire a number of qualified Behavioral Psychologists during the conception phase of the game development and listen to them on how to introduce positive reinforcement for good behaviour and negative consequences for bad behaviour.

 

+1

Voice of reason in all of this nonsense. Hire a professional to enforce behavior.

OOoh, like secret goon squads that come to the home of anti-social jerks and kick the snot out of them?

Sounds like a great idea, in fact, I'll do it for cheap. 

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by MMOExposed
What can developers do to improve the community?

 

The game I hear about most for having a bad community is World of Warcraft.

 

But is that really the developers or games fault? 

 

Seem more like the community itself and alone. What's stopping another game from also having the same community or a worst community?

Best option?

Hire a number of qualified Behavioral Psychologists during the conception phase of the game development and listen to them on how to introduce positive reinforcement for good behaviour and negative consequences for bad behaviour.

 

With respect to the "negative consequences" part, hopefully the BP group would have more clout within the coorporation than the marketting and sales guys whose main concern is being all-inclusive and not alienating even the ones who would need to be banned for caustic behavior.

Some developers are already very good about policing chat and stamping out cheats and griefing: Turbine with LOTRO comes to mind, at least it was this way for the 1st year after release...idk now that it's F2P. Other developers don't seem to give much of a crap about moderating anything that doesn't impact their bottom line. I won't name names but I'm talking about the ones with item malls who vigourously go after gold sellers but let anything go in chat and allow cheaters to exploit month after month.

There are unpleasant selfish people everywhere who screw-up community events of every type--electronic or not--the only way to prevent their disruptions is to exclude them. In RL there are jails for the worst offenders and private clubs to try to control the mix of people even more.

Of course, strict policing and bans will lead to even more posts here about alledgedly being banned for no reason at all...

Some developers have already taken measures to minimize some of the aspects of game play that create the hyper-competitive environments that makes the problem worse. Arenanet's phased resource nodes so everyone can get it and cooperative kills with full exp and loot for all participants are good examples of stamping out irritants that often lead to nerd-rage outbursts.

What I'm not aware of anyone ever doing though is to provide real tangible benefits for demonstarted good citizenship... a.k.a. positive reinforcement.

Not even something as common as seeing another random player in trouble and healing them or helping them kill the too many mobs they pulled, has ever, as far as I know, been acknowledged by anything even as simple as an "achievement." You'll get the player's thanks, you'll have your own satisfaction, you may even make a new friend...but the game itself gives the impression that sitting down and watching him die while you have a snack is of equal value...

Jeez...this got much longer than I planned when I started typing...as ususal lol. 

General chat is one of the biggest abused things in MMOs. and it normally shows how pathetic a community is.

getting rid of that would be a good start.

Easy make MMO's require socialization.

No more questing to level up as it promotes solo play.  Make the game revolve around grouping/raiding/other players in general. 

If the game requires you to interact and work with other players, the players who give the community a bad name will not make it anywhere as their lack of skill and lack of concern for players will cause them to be unable to succeed in the game, therefore preventing them from enjoying content unless they start over and create a character and give themselves a good reputation.

Eliminate the ability to play all roles.  No single class should be able to be the best tank, the best healer nor the best dps by simply switching roles.

Classes need to be well defined with difference revolving around choice of weapons/gear or abilities they use.  You should not have for example a paladin in WoW that can be a holy paladin that can heal and also do fairly good dps.  Retribution and deal great dps.  Or switch to whatever the tank role is called and be a great tank.  Players need to know this players is a tank, this is a healer, this is dps, this is CC.  Crowd control should not be given to all players.  Classes can have multiple roles, but having multiple roles should prevent them from being the best at one specific role. 

Originally posted by phantomghost

Easy make MMO's require socialization.

 

No more questing to level up as it promotes solo play.  Make the game revolve around grouping/raiding/other players in general. 

 

If the game requires you to interact and work with other players, the players who give the community a bad name will not make it anywhere as their lack of skill and lack of concern for players will cause them to be unable to succeed in the game, therefore preventing them from enjoying content unless they start over and create a character and give themselves a good reputation.

 

Eliminate the ability to play all roles.  No single class should be able to be the best tank, the best healer nor the best dps by simply switching roles.

 

Classes need to be well defined with difference revolving around choice of weapons/gear or abilities they use.  You should not have for example a paladin in WoW that can be a holy paladin that can heal and also do fairly good dps.  Retribution and deal great dps.  Or switch to whatever the tank role is called and be a great tank.  Players need to know this players is a tank, this is a healer, this is dps, this is CC.  Crowd control should not be given to all players.  Classes can have multiple roles, but having multiple roles should prevent them from being the best at one specific role. 

I disagree with you on one major point.

"No more questing to level up as it promotes solo play.  Make the game revolve around grouping/raiding/other players in general. "

Grouping and raiding encourage the formation of 'cliques' this is not conducive to forming a community.  Grouping and Raiding can also inhibit community formation if there is a LFG tool particularly a cross server LFG tool as these encourage anonymity. 

"Other players in general"  works for me though.