8 replies to this topic

[Bridger]

Hi,

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[Zintair]

I have long thought about this subject. Back when I was very young and MMOs were something maybe only several thousand people in the US knew about and played. Back in AC1 and EQ. I remember in these communities everyone was very helpful. You were almost "black-listed" or ostracized" if you were known to do things that many would consider common today.

At their specific point of view I have to mainly agree but disagree to a small measure. I think both the Game and Community reflect off each other. It's actually a much larger picture involving business and profits and unfortuantly this has become the industry standard. Not many MMO's release and stay afloat so it's important to build/design a game that keep these factors in mind.

The most enjoyable experiences from my MMO career were usually community held events involving the server in some type of organized warfare. The Game or the Developers had absolutely nothing to do with it other than providing the ability to do it. Games these days are being released on the wrong scale. Following the WoW model is a recipe for failure IMO. They had a unique circumstance that involved a lot of Serendipity and other factors to get where they are today.

I think the MMO that takes the gamers completely into account is also foolish though. Sure you can implement end-game PvE and PvP content. This is what the players want right? WRONG. Look at Swtor. That game has buggy mediocre endgame PvE and Awful semi - imbalanced PvP Their implementation of PvP is so lackluster that it has turned a fun aspect of MMOs into a point grind for gear. Once the carrot at the end of the stick is caught there is no more incentive.

It comes down to people don't know what they want. Anyone who understands anything about Marketing will know that the customer usually doesn't know what they want. That's why you offer them a broad selection so that you can satisfy as many as possible.

Translating that into MMOs, the Game and subsequent Developers need to address this by instituting player driven content. Set up the mechanics and designs around the ability of the player to have a unique and custom experience based on the current variables. Player driven content will lengthen subscriptions and time frames for new content releases as well as keeping servers healthy.

I think this WvWvW idea and the basic PvP aspects behind it is finally a step back in the right direction.

[Zirith]

I have to agree with these assumptions, if we just look at the guildwars 1 community, everyone was nice and just there to have fun, the wow communities i have been in were mostly the same but about 15-30% of the population was always out to insult or troll people, then when you get into a highly competitive free to play title such as LoL where there is a much larger negative user base. In my experience, games that are pay to own then free forever have always had the nicest communities. (Halo CE, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Guildwars)I do feel that Anet has done a great job so far of implementing great game mechanics that encourage teamwork and community building such as:

• No mob tagging will make people want to help each other kill things because they all get same amount of loot.
• Shared resource nodes will inspire people to yell "over here" in local chat, which will then be followed by a bunch of "ty"s
• Dynamic events provide even more incentive to work together as it feels like some "evil" is trying to destroy their world and they must work together to stop it.
• Multiple guilds will finally let guildwars players have easy access to all of their friends and communities without the need to decide on a single one.
• The restriction of only being able to hold 1 keep, castle or tower per guild will also encourage larger groups to help the little guy capture points so that the server as a whole can gain an advantage.

Finally, I predict that WvW will bring on some manner of server pride that will help unite the players more than ever in order to achieve the most pve benefits while fighting the nameless(pun not intended) hordes of the 2 opposing servers.

So ya, I'm pretty stoked.

[Zintair]

I have to agree with these assumptions, if we just look at the guildwars 1 community, everyone was nice and just there to have fun, the wow communities i have been in were mostly the same but about 15-30% of the population was always out to insult or troll people, then when you get into a highly competitive free to play title such as LoL where there is a much larger negative user base. In my experience, games that are pay to own then free forever have always had the nicest communities. (Halo CE, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Guildwars)I do feel that Anet has done a great job so far of implementing great game mechanics that encourage teamwork and community building such as:

• No mob tagging will make people want to help each other kill things because they all get same amount of loot.
• Shared resource nodes will inspire people to yell "over here" in local chat, which will then be followed by a bunch of "ty"s
• Dynamic events provide even more incentive to work together as it feels like some "evil" is trying to destroy their world and they must work together to stop it.
• Multiple guilds will finally let guildwars players have easy access to all of their friends and communities without the need to decide on a single one.
• The restriction of only being able to hold 1 keep, castle or tower per guild will also encourage larger groups to help the little guy capture points so that the server as a whole can gain an advantage.

Finally, I predict that WvW will bring on some manner of server pride that will help unite the players more than ever in order to achieve the most pve benefits while fighting the nameless(pun not intended) hordes of the 2 opposing servers.

So ya, I'm pretty stoked.

I agree with all of this.

I am however a little disappointed in the fact that we will not have set servers that we play against. You can;t quite develop a sense of Realm Pride without those familiar names on the other side trying to attack you. Everyone wants an arch-nemesis. The Hero and the Villian go hand in hand and I think you really downplay a positive aspect to the WvW community by cycling them through.

I like to see familiar names and know when I'm going up against a tough fight or an easy one. I like it when its personal that the other team could be fraps the fight because their is such a competitive aspect. Guilds become familiar with other guilds and the community really benefits as a whole from this.

[Bridger]

I agree with all of this.

I am however a little disappointed in the fact that we will not have set servers that we play against. You can;t quite develop a sense of Realm Pride without those familiar names on the other side trying to attack you. Everyone wants an arch-nemesis. The Hero and the Villian go hand in hand and I think you really downplay a positive aspect to the WvW community by cycling them through.

I like to see familiar names and know when I'm going up against a tough fight or an easy one. I like it when its personal that the other team could be fraps the fight because their is such a competitive aspect. Guilds become familiar with other guilds and the community really benefits as a whole from this.

I'm guessing that once we get about 6-8 months in, servers will find their spot, and the "nemesis" will actually be specific servers. You may go up and down and just keep having to fight the "ascalon" server and every time they put up a brutal struggle. The server "as a whole" might be seen as the nemesis, not individual players. Or if you go down another level, specific guilds on that server will be seen as "the reason we always lose the center" or something like that. I'm sure once the servers stop moving around quite so much in the rankings that we'll wind up playing the same servers in a small rotation about every few months.

Also, everything Zirith mentioned is perfect. It's like "why did you force the drama on players to only pick one guild?" it's just so obvious that it would cause less problems without the one guild restriction. It will still cause "some" drama/stress, but I'm pretty sure it will be less.

[Gogims]

I agree with all of this.

I am however a little disappointed in the fact that we will not have set servers that we play against. You can;t quite develop a sense of Realm Pride without those familiar names on the other side trying to attack you. Everyone wants an arch-nemesis. The Hero and the Villian go hand in hand and I think you really downplay a positive aspect to the WvW community by cycling them through.

I like to see familiar names and know when I'm going up against a tough fight or an easy one. I like it when its personal that the other team could be fraps the fight because their is such a competitive aspect. Guilds become familiar with other guilds and the community really benefits as a whole from this.

Fair point, but lets remember that in the end those servers that have won the most will compete against each other (same with those that have won the least). So in essence, we will keep seeing the same servers, but instead of fighting with just one all the time (which will eventually be monotone) we will fight with others servers too!

[Zintair]

Fair point, but lets remember that in the end those servers that have won the most will compete against each other (same with those that have won the least). So in essence, we will keep seeing the same servers, but instead of fighting with just one all the time (which will eventually be monotone) we will fight with others servers too!

Yeah I will concede there are positives and probably a lot more than negatives. Its just a personal stubbornness I have from DAOC and Warhammer. I enjoyed seeing the same players every night putting up the same great fights. For the sake of balance and rate of success I'd have to say though that this system does have its appealing qualities.

[Deft]

I think the game does affect how people interact in it. Games like LoL and WoW are examples of that. WoW has resource and kill stealing, and LoL has, well, assholes. Since there aren't shared resource nodes, or kill stealing in GW2, there will be more of a sense of community within the game. It's the same with WvW. It won't be so much about "me", but instead about my guild or my server. I think that's a good thing, and one of the reasons why MMOs were even created in the first place. To play with other people.

[ArdyFactX]

Moral of the story is. Every one needs to be cool to each other, because you want people to play with you. More people in WvW then better you chances and you win.