How did the community become this toxic?

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Originally Posted by Lumiin

Ugh, the community is not toxic because people are selling stuff ._. gesh

I just started doing my first relic today and everyone that helped me, every single person, were people that did not need it. They were all random people that just wanted to help.

Sounds like a real toxic community to me /sarcasm.

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Cause you are a cute pink haired Lalafell... if you where a big fat pink haired Roe, chances are you will be beaten up and fed to the Froggies outside Revenant Toll.

A part of me feels it is almost the atmosphere of endgame that is jading people, more than it is doing anything else. Permit me to explain -

At 2.0's launch, people leveled, had fun, explored the world, because everyone was leveling. Sure, you had a few min/maxers who rushed to level 50 because they wanted to start getting their 300 myth tomes a week, but I feel those were in the minority, and to them, that was their way of playing and having fun.


But as more of our community has hit 50, it's becomming less about being level 50, and more about 'capping for the week' and completing things as fast/efficiently as possible. You can see this predominately in the way speed runs were constantly done, and that was where a lot of the vile originally seems to have come from.

This feels more like it's because the end-game encourages speed more the companionship/community (in my humble opinion.) Sure, othergames have end-game, but in games like RIFT - I never felt a need to 'speed run' anything. Sure, you had strategies for bosses, and sure, you had little tricks to skip some portions - but not once did I feel forced/rushed to max out all my character's gear sets "For the week." I've not seen this phenomena of 'wanting to finish content for the week.' that seems to permeate FFXIV's system.

Community would be better if people would be held accountable for kicking people from groups, other then AFK and being a troublemaker.

Punishment would have to be severe, because if it's just a slap on the wrist, people would just shrug it off.

As it is new players are screwed out of most end game activities.

just from my point of view but other than a few bad apples i'm not seeing this toxic community. i'm on midgard btw, could be just me but 90 percent of the parties i've joined the people are fun to play with.

I think that a lot of toxic people are probably also that way irl. It really has nothing to do with the game at all. Some people are just that nasty and no changes to the game will fix that. Then there are the people that believe the relative anonymity of the internet makes it so they aren't accountable. If you check any Youtube comments, you'll see examples of that.

tl ; dr It has more to do with people just being that way than with it being because of the game, IMO

theres no reason to need people in this game you rely on NPC's for everything.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

It's all eye of the beholder.

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Love it!

I choose to ignore the rude and inpatient players and help the ones that deserve it. I've had limited contact with rude ppl thru my method of playing and enjoyed some nice conversations too.

Community is toxic because people want to sell things? Okay. If that's a toxic community to you, I'm curious how you would react from an everyday match in League of Legends.

The toxicity of the community is a result of the games design. The journey to 50 is a pleasantly designed jog that has it's rough moments, but fights are fair and the difficulty is well scaled. End game is tuned to be a meat grinder in an attempt to pad content out just to keep people playing, and as a result the community, which wants to complete the game, is forced into tight nit militaristic groups to be able to complete the content. The end game content probably makes up less then 5% of the game, yet takes up just as much time to progress through as the rest of it unless someone is using strategy guides. Even then it is a trial of how much a persons nerves can take.

Hard to view people selling things as toxic. Housing created that. You expect an FC to raise those outragous prices by selling crafts/materials to nobody buying? You want toxic join a CT run. Everyone runs their mouth on each other, people leaving instantly after getting their loot. My favorite feature is by faw low level duty roulette, I am having much more fun playing with the "noobs" then the i90 elitist pricks who want to run their mouth at everyone because "look at my gear bro"

Firstly, NPR has been doing a lot of coverage on "cyber bullying" across the board. A lot of it is chalked up to anonymity and lack of accountability.

That aside, I think another part of it is that the game is still fairly new. Regardless of how far anyone has progressed, the length of time we have all been in this together is still relatively short.

But, I am noticing that at least on my server, people are really starting to get to know each other. Even if you aren't in the same FC or LS's, we're just getting familiar with each other and interacting more, and its nice. Its really starting to feel more like a community.

As for the occasional bad egg: Blacklist if you can. Report if needed. But just complaining about it isn't going to induce any change.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

You mean the expansion that's basically "lol we can't think of interesting new characters and don't want to take the time to conceive and develop a meaningful cast of heroes, so here go back in time to an alternate past and rub elbows with the heroes of old in what should cause several temporal paradoxes but whatever lorelol"? That's like standing in line to get your intelligence insulted. >.>;
This.

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Well not everyone sees it that way. I love stories where there's time travel involved and you get to see an area and people that you wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise. It can be done well. :)

OP: I want to share an experience I've had this past week. I was stuck on my 10 years old laptop, which means I couldn't play FFXIV or any of the bigger mmorpg titles. So I decided to give a browser indie game I'd heard about a try - and I was amazed. The community was extremely small - but everyone who played was genuinely interested in the game and was having fun. People were helpful, they chatted and did things together - they joked about the things they didn't like and even managed to turn them fun. I felt like I had just travelled back in time to 2004.
You are free to draw your conclusions - here's a bunch of my considerations [Wall of text incoming. Excuse my english.]

A mmorpg -especially a theme park- will always, sooner or later, grow stale - since its content is finite and developing new content takes more time than consuming it. What used to make the difference every time you logged in was the people who played with you and the content you created together. Still, being able to solo is a great thing - since even the most social of players would want some alone time every now and then. Social interaction doesn't have to be a must 100% of the time nor revolve exclusively around combat.

One of the problems is that way too many people were led to believe that you can play a mmorpg like a singular player game nowadays -just with other players around. These players think that it will constantly be updated with official content to keep up with them. Their expectations are unreal and the gamers who do not understand this are never going to be happy with the genre. Once they exhaust a game's current content and the novelty wears off, there is nothing more for them to do. Whilst this is not as apparent in sandboxes - the problem is glaring when you switch to a theme park model.

Self-centeredness has also reached a new high - and just an example - it has become common to see players ask for a game designer or artist etc to be fired because they didn't like the design of a new set. Anonymity not only means people go unpunished - it leads to disconnection, to the point that unconsciously we stop treating other players and game developers as people sometimes. So never mind taking into consideration that there are people with different tastes playing this game with you.

Mmorpg's are a very slow evolving market - it takes years to develop a quality one. With such big investments, companies do not want to take too many risks. Gamers are unforgiving and the competition is fierce. Time has become a commodity - and the player base is getting older, busier and more demanding.

People want games to value their time more -which is great - but somehow, the situation has escalated. We have gone from getting rid of artificial, mindless time-sinks to getting rid of the entire world - turning mmorpg's into hub games. It is good and well for there to be a few of those games around - as there's obviously a market for them - but why push every game to be like that? A mmorpg doesn't need to be WoW to be successful. As long as it's mindful of whom their target player base is - a niche game can do perfectly well. It will turn off some players, sure - but its very distinct style will also draw in unexpected people who are curious and can't find that experience anywhere else. See EVE - a solid *10 years old* game with a solid identity - with a steady, even increasing player base. See FFXI, albeit now in decline.

This turn of events has made players sour. There are people who are genuinely unhappy about the direction that the genre has taken - the streamlining, the lack of originality - and want it to go back to its roots. The original mmorpg players have been given the shaft in favour of a bigger market. Their concerns are legitimate - I feel - but some people are simply unable to help themselves it seems, and feel the need to vent their frustration everywhere in a very unseemly manner.

I've heard so many players claim that they want to "get things done". I find this mentality is very puzzling - as most of them sound extremely unhappy. The objective of playing a game is having fun. If you're enjoying yourself, whether you're being efficient or casual about it - it is time well-spent. If you're not having fun, it is time you're wasting. If you choose to keep playing a game you do not enjoy - the only one to blame is you and venting your anger on the community or the developers is not going to make things better. If you do not like the very core of a game - that game is probably not targeting you as their customer- but people do not seem to realize that or want to accept it even when they do.

This is the playerbase Yoshi wanted to target for ARR - Even in 1.0 it wasn't this bad, except for people targeting those who said anything slightly negative about it (that ended up being right about ARR being pretty "standard"..or streamlined as people want to call it.)

When you have a game with this design and focus, it's pretty easy for your community to become toxic these days because it's an age of games like DOTA/League of Legends, WoW and tons and tons of failed MMORPGs making people more inclined to not be "serious" about their gameplay and act like it's any other online game where people don't matter, thus the excessive rudeness.

I love how we people will take any and all excuse to blame every excuse but themselves.

The game design is a result of common tropes and popular demand and evidence by game sales.


The community CONDUCT is a result of an individual's impatience, online interaction and anonymity. It is encouraged by the accessibility of the game, yes, but in no way is the mechanics of the game responsible for poor human conduct. That blame lies solely with us humans.

And it's not as if developers have been unaware. They've been continually giving us tools in order to deal with the matter, such as the Vote-kick feature, and Party Finder. They are making a concentrated effort to meet us part way so that we can community build while the game still becomes accessible to a wide berth of player styles.

What we should be doing, instead of pointing fingers at SE going "You're to blame for them , make them behave!" Is to turn around and take a look at ourselves and see what we've done to adapt to the mechanics as people and learn how we can better community build inside the structures we do have.

That actually takes an effort to reach across Duty Finder and Free Company lines to start to get to know people outside your sphere of friends. Discuss issues logically, and attempt to resolve conflicts amicably.

Is the community toxic? The forum community often seems to be. The people I play with in game, both within the duty finder and without, are more often than not pleasant. I've had very few bad encounters in DF by making a concentrated effort to be positive.

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This turn of events has made players sour. There are people who are genuinely unhappy about the direction that the genre has taken - the streamlining, the lack of originality - and want it to go back to its roots. The original mmorpg players have been given the shaft in favour of a bigger market.

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Genres move forward as time progresses. That'd be like old RPG fans complaining that open world RPGs like Skyrim and action RPGs like Secret of Mana should not exist and that everything should be turn-based combat.

Or if fighting game fans complained about games like Guilty Gear, Blaz Blue or the newer versions of Soul Calibur and Tekken and instead want everything to be like it was in King of Fighters '97 or Street Fighter II. It'd make no sense and give way to stagnant mentalities, and MMORPGs are no exception to this.

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Originally Posted by Kiayin

Well not everyone sees it that way. I love stories where there's time travel involved and you get to see an area and people that you wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise. It can be done well.

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If you've looked at how WoW's lore turned, they've made feeble attempts to create new characters, and when they do they heavily mess up development in some way or do something stupid like cling to the old guard and sacrifice said new characters (building up Liam Graymane only to kill him off at the end of the Worgen starting area comes to mind). The fact they chose to go back to the Horde's glory days pre first war is a blatant admission that they can't come up with anything actually new (not counting whatever conspiracy theories remain on Horde favoritism). Garrosh was the biggest waste of character development I've ever seen, and don't even get me started on the garbage that they called the Fall of Theramore.

I wasn't kidding when I said the turns in WoW's lore played a huge role in the cancellation of my account. >.>

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

When you have a game with this design and focus, it's pretty easy for your community to become toxic these days because it's an age of games like DOTA/League of Legends, WoW and tons and tons of failed MMORPGs making people more inclined to not be "serious" about their gameplay and act like it's any other online game where people don't matter, thus the excessive rudeness.

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One has nothing to do with the other. Even rose-goggle recipient games like FFXI has more than its fair share of assholes. And I say that as someone who was called names for not leveling Ninja for utsusemi, nevermind the crap thrown my way over the years for being a melee Red Mage proponent. People will be assholes, regardless of the design philosophy of the developers.

I personally haven't seen anything that would give me reason to call the community toxic. Sure, there are pockets of bad attitudes and toxic behaviour, but most people I've met have been friendly - or at least neutral.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Genres move forward as time progresses.

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Genres move forward no one denies that - MMORGs though? They tend to regress to what works. 1.0 was ambitious and 1.23 was pretty amazing it just needed ironing out, but what does he do? Pretty much toss out anything XIV had going for it simply to stick to the 'standard'. Genres can't move forward if developers want to keep doing the same thing. As much as the XIV community hates to admit this, XIV should have been the XI of this era - XI was built around EQ yet it took its own direction with it and did things MMOs still have yet to do properly - XIV/ARR should have been that, that would be moving forward.

Look at the itemization of this game, XIV 1.2x mimicked FFXI and some other MMOs where items had value, but now, ARR mimics MMOs where items have zero value to it, I mean, I understand gear has 'set slots" in terms of programming, but some MMOs with Gear just..makes you want it. Nothing in ARR makes you "want" it because it'll just be replaced in the next update or right after you finish a quest.

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That'd be like old RPG fans complaining that open world RPGs like Skyrim and action RPGs like Secret of Mana should not exist and that everything should be turn-based combat.

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Not the same at all - For one thing unmodded Skyrim is pretty bad, but that's another story, another thing, Seiken Densetsu games didn't regress when they tried something new, they took what already existed and did something different. They didn't throw out what made previous Square RPGs good, they retained it and built a new battle system and progression. Some liked it some hated, but compare 1.23 to ARR - They could have kept 1.23 and fixed the issues and then build up from there, instead we get a game on an engine that somehow managed to get more clipping than a 2000 developed PS2 MMORPG.

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Or if fighting game fans complained about games like Guilty Gear, Blaz Blue or the newer versions of Soul Calibur and Tekken and instead want everything to be like it was in King of Fighters '97 or Street Fighter II.

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Also not the same, especially considering most people actually like and still loved the older styled fighting games (ignoring the obvious fact that Street Fighter II's system was a happy accident) because newer fighting games are just...really nothing new and trying too hard to go back how they used to be. There's nothing wrong with newer fighting games, but let's be honest...when you say: "Marvel vs Capcom", which ones would people say they truly enjoyed even when Nostalgia isn't a part of it?

Speaking of Stagnation, ever notice how almost every new MMORPG whether it's mass produced Korean or Chinese MMORPGs or "brand new innnovative!" MMOs they tend to all flow the same and basically be the same game no matter what? MMO genre stagnated because if developers try to move forward, people will despise it because "It's not WoW" or 'why can't I talk to NPCs and auto level by not going into the overworld?' "where's my endless dungeon grinds and main story content you only do once but never again?"

Pretty much every genre, RPGs included, are moving forward but in order to make money these days, MMORPGs can't move forward because the generation of gamers they target aren't open to 'change' or it would be seen as a failure. This is why FFXIV had so much potential if it was properly developed from the get go. Whether you love or hate ARR, no one can really deny it's nothing..special even with the Final Fantasy name attached, as it's been said before - it's pretty much like taking any other MMO and putting a FF mod into it...hell you'd get the same experience making a FF mod for Skyrim.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

I love how we people will take any and all excuse to blame every excuse but themselves.

The game design is a result of common tropes and popular demand and evidence by game sales.


The community CONDUCT is a result of an individual's impatience, online interaction and anonymity. It is encouraged by the accessibility of the game, yes, but in no way is the mechanics of the game responsible for poor human conduct. That blame lies solely with us humans.

And it's not as if developers have been unaware. They've been continually giving us tools in order to deal with the matter, such as the Vote-kick feature, and Party Finder. They are making a concentrated effort to meet us part way so that we can community build while the game still becomes accessible to a wide berth of player styles.

What we should be doing, instead of pointing fingers at SE going "You're to blame for them , make them behave!" Is to turn around and take a look at ourselves and see what we've done to adapt to the mechanics as people and learn how we can better community build inside the structures we do have.

That actually takes an effort to reach across Duty Finder and Free Company lines to start to get to know people outside your sphere of friends. Discuss issues logically, and attempt to resolve conflicts amicably.

Is the community toxic? The forum community often seems to be. The people I play with in game, both within the duty finder and without, are more often than not pleasant. I've had very few bad encounters in DF by making a concentrated effort to be positive.

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This is the best post I've read. Well said.

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Originally Posted by Xerukm

I remember when the game first launched and I started playing, almost everybody was helpful and it was a lot of fun to group up and do random stuff. So what happened?

Seriously, what happened?

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I honestly believe that Titan HM happened. As soon as everyone hits that point, you have to start becoming exclusionary. The game stops being about the storyline and the push to rock as a team and starts becoming about me, me, me. Your plumes hit me. You're bad. I'm good.

Then you got Twintania which, frankly, is filled with mechanics where your teammates are hazards. They're something to watch out for. Instead of embracing our fellow players and working together, it became about what I did or didn't do.

In terms of the market, housing happened. Yoshi really screwed the pooch on that one. He gave a lackluster system in housing, hyped it up as the newest point of content and enjoyability, made it the centerpiece of 2.1, and then put it behind a massive gil wall. Since everyone wants housing by Yoshi's hyping, everyone's hoarding money as much as possible. However, crafters are still producing more and more goods with fewer and fewer selling. The market is becoming oversaturated with little demand and infinite supply.

Frankly put, Yoshi-P has designed a game that, 1-49, encouraged teams, fun, and exploration. At 50, it switched on a dime to being about individuals, grinding, and repetition. Players are responding to that by having fun 1-49 and then hitting 50 and being greeted by an entirely different, wholly unforgiving endgame that pushes individual responsibility (and blame) over collectivist teamplay.

Which, I have to say, is quite shocking for a game supposedly built on Eastern values.

However, from a community standpoint, there needs to be responsibility for one's individual behavior at some point. You can pin quite a bit of behavior on game design. However, trolling, insults, unrealistic demands, hostility, etc are all personal decisions and much less systemic. The community isn't toxic, but it sure isn't friendly.

End Game currently have very few things to do. Most of it are locked out per week. Once you cap BcoB, CT, Myth. The only thing left to do are the Trials.

Most people have already done finished Moogle King (no more reason to do it), same with Ultima HM (unless you get new groups which also got issues).

What does that leave people??? Extreme mode.

And in the trials, especially Titan, in which the slights mistake kills you. And in which you have to work with 7 others to ensure you do not wipe. Yes, of cause the community will get more and more toxic.

All the higher end game players have either completed it and do not really want to party with people that have not done so. Shutting newbies out or people that have lag or just not 100% perfect like robots.

Or they have not completed it and have pissed at it and do not want people that can gimp their runs because after 100 wipes, anything that does not help you is annoying and rage inducing (thanks screwy game design).

Thus of cause the whole community will become more and more toxic.

You can of cause level a new char. But leveling now is done in dungeons, in which you speedrun through and thus does not build community too. Or do fates, which is boring and not community building.

For my server it is made even worst as due to difficulty of content, more and more JPS are going JP only.

I guess that I am trying to say, is the game is becoming Goal Orientated. And anything that causes you trouble reaching your Goal is bad and thus removed. Community building is the opposite of effective, efficient and optimal achievement of goals. FF14 game design with all it's lockout and lack of community type content is killing the game.

FYI crafting is not community building. Or the way SE does it, is not.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Genres move forward as time progresses. That'd be like old RPG fans complaining that open world RPGs like Skyrim and action RPGs like Secret of Mana should not exist and that everything should be turn-based combat.

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Yes, genres move forward - but instead of expanding, the selection of mmorpg has become narrower and narrower in everything but sheer number. I was referring more to the originality and variety of the models we can play. Just because we have Skyrim, it doesn't mean we should completely kill off turn-based games. I perfectly enjoy both types - they offer different things.

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If you've looked at how WoW's lore turned, they've made feeble attempts to create new characters, and when they do they heavily mess up development in some way or do something stupid like cling to the old guard and sacrifice said new characters (building up Liam Graymane only to kill him off at the end of the Worgen starting area comes to mind). The fact they chose to go back to the Horde's glory days pre first war is a blatant admission that they can't come up with anything actually new (not counting whatever conspiracy theories remain on Horde favoritism). Garrosh was the biggest waste of character development I've ever seen, and don't even get me started on the garbage that they called the Fall of Theramore.

I wasn't kidding when I said the turns in WoW's lore played a huge role in the cancellation of my account. >.>I wasn't kidding when I said the turns in WoW's lore played a huge role in the cancellation of my account. >.>

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I still stand by my own opinion. XD I love stories where you travel back in time - it allows authors to revisit and flesh out characters I've always been curious and care to hear more about. And I'd rather have that than adding new things and lore just for the sake of it being new. I share your dislike for Garrosh though <3.

While there are tons of nice people in the game still (at my server at least), a big chunk of the nicer audience have left the game, and that happens to every MMO.

Casual social players try out the game, but then after a couple of months, they leave because they don't want to do the harder endgame content. Left are a lot of competitive players that doesn't care about anyone except them self, and they don't want anybody to hold them down from progressing.

I'm not like this, and nobody in my FC is like this, but there is a lot of it going around.

Just find an active social FC, unless you already have one.

The more solo-centric a game becomes, the more self-centered the players become. You can see this in every MMO ever released if it made any kind of transition from group-centric play to solo play. The community ALWAYS degrades as you remove features that force cooperation and communication.

To put it bluntly when you don't need other players to help you get things done the endgame turns into an every man for himself scenario. The DF basically allows players to do group content with 'disposable' allies which further exacerbates the problem, encouraging nasty behaviour because there are no social repercussions for doing so.

The only real solution here from a design standpoint is to force group play on people in a way that forces long-term positive social interaction. They won't do that though because they make more money by catering to the lowest common denominator: soloers (who I should add are not to blame for this, the issue is the elitist types that take advantage of the solo-oriented gameplay).

The only solution from the player standpoint is to isolate yourself within a FC and minimise random interaction with other players (such as through the DF). Of course this arguably makes the situation worse on the whole but we're left with little choice.

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Originally Posted by HumsterMKX

So I strongly strongly suggest we farm humanity and spread it across our servers. Here how you can get Humanity.

1)Slaying Lalafells
2)Punching Lalafells
3)Kicking Lalafells

On whole you can get humanity by farming Lalafells.

Or you can buy some repackaged Lalafell souls Humanity off me. Pst. Help make your server a happlier place today.

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You know, I was the strongest believer that Lalafell and the inferior species could all get along. But reading this I realise I was wrong. THIS IS WAR!

Every time I see a thread like this, I wonder if people don't realize this game is on the internet. Most people are selfish, greedy and stubborn. Get together with 100 strangers in real life, I'm sure you'll find most of the people obnoxious or annoying. Has nothing to do with these silly replies like "it's how Yoshida made it" and such.

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Originally Posted by Whimsicalalien

More and more WoW players are moving in.

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Not quite. Most experienced it and left after the free 30 days. Now you are left with FF players. Quit blaming other games for problems in this one.

Still don't understand -this- term being thrown around... toxic community...

i'm relatively sure the internet always contained its share of jerks so yeah also game mechanics which actually puts responsibility on players to "dodge" / "Tank swap" etc etc now make it that people are more confrontational to one another when something goes wrong

so the internet (community) never changed the game did

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Originally Posted by SummonerSenah

I think that a lot of toxic people are probably also that way irl. It really has nothing to do with the game at all. Some people are just that nasty and no changes to the game will fix that. Then there are the people that believe the relative anonymity of the internet makes it so they aren't accountable. If you check any Youtube comments, you'll see examples of that.

tl ; dr It has more to do with people just being that way than with it being because of the game, IMO

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I think that you are absolutely right. I tend to act pretty much in game/on boards as I do in real life. I'm a softie at heart and try to be nice to folks. Even if I'm in a horrendous group, I try to gracefully exit. Was in a WP group with one fellow who had low level jewelry and a level 44 weapon...yikes. We got it done but it was a pretty rough run. No one said a peep although we could have. This player thanked us at the end for taking a newbie through the dungeon.

Last night while running CT for the second time, I had a horrid gaming experience. One player (a tank) who had a name that sort of indicated a short fuse, started mouthing off at the start. On clearing the very first room, one poor tank made a bad pull and the abuse heaped upon this poor soul was unrelenting and went on for quite some time. Mr. Mouthy Tank kept on with the abuse throughout the run. Retards, stupid players, etc. At one point, I wanted to chime in with, "I would rather run with "stupid" players than someone having a temper tantrum through the whole run." My hubby who was playing along side me begged me not to stir the pot so I held my tongue. Most everyone else said nothing throughout the run but this one player ruined it for everyone. Not sure how to start a votekick....I fumbled around for a bit but was too busy following the herd trying to get the run done. I'm not even sure if this behavior was a reportable offense. I need to get better acquainted with the TOS and start reporting more.

After the run, I looked up this particular player on lodestone toying with reporting him. His blog posts were quite telling. Filled with profanity and raging. Definitely not a nice person and a miserable human being. Unfortunately he has chosen an MMO for his outlet I guess. I hope that he finds happiness and some sort of relief in life. Seems to suffer real extreme anger issues and wouldn't want to meet him in real life. Scary person.

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Originally Posted by Kiayin

Yes, genres move forward - but instead of expanding, the selection of mmorpg has become narrower and narrower in everything but sheer number. I was referring more to the originality and variety of the models we can play. Just because we have Skyrim, it doesn't mean we should completely kill off turn-based games. I perfectly enjoy both types - they offer different things..

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The problem is though, it doesn't matter what we like, if enough people don't actually buy it, the companies can't make it worth doing. Games are so not cheap to make now, mmos even more so, that the risk is too high with the rewards being less. Niche games even more so. I love some of the odder Japanese games, but know it's not worth the cost to translate and sell over here for most companies, but get happy and buy them when they are, even if i already bought the import version.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

The more solo-centric a game becomes, the more self-centered the players become.
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To put it bluntly when you don't need other players to help you get things done the endgame turns into an every man for himself scenario.

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Phantasy Star Online.

Granted, in retrospect, I think a lot of the reason that community ended up being so laid back and enjoyable was due to the amount of dupes and hacks going around.
I played legitimately and hated all the cheating at the time, but now I think it may have worked in the game's favour; when everyone already has everything, there's no need for them to join your room and demand it become all about speed-running or grinding, nor is there a reason (for most) to be particularly bitter when you grab a drop and they don't.
And since 99% of the rest of the population has all the same things they do, there's not much point in trying to show off and fixate on exclusivity.


The overall design helped pretty significantly as well though. Since, past a certain point, you could be effective with most any rare weapon and every enemy in the game had the potential to drop a specific rare item, just playing through the entirity of the game and collecting all the fun new toys was (for the most part) the preferred way to go.
If a game promotes Z as the best item and you have to go through area 1 to have a chance at X to go through area 2 to get Y to go through area 3 to get Z, then it encourages everyone to just rush those 3 areas as quickly as possible since the only thing good comes at the end of them and Z is all that matters in the end.
So linear, vertical, progression and 'vertical challenges' really serve to damage the community more than the content being 'soloable' in my eyes.

The community has not changed at all, this is exactly how it was at launch. The elitists come out to rush the newest content of the game and then sell carries once they're done. Give it a couple of months and you'll see it die down.

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Originally Posted by rabbitzero

The problem is though, it doesn't matter what we like, if enough people don't actually buy it, the companies can't make it worth doing. Games are so not cheap to make now, mmos even more so, that the risk is too high with the rewards being less. Niche games even more so. I love some of the odder Japanese games, but know it's not worth the cost to translate and sell over here for most companies, but get happy and buy them when they are, even if i already bought the import version.

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I completely agree! If it's not profitable, a company shouldn't do it of course. They need to make a living. Not every game needs to be the next big thing though. I find all those kickstarter/crowd-funded projects and the resurgence of indie games quite telling. As long as you know your target player base, you should be able to make reasonable estimates and not overreach yourself. Games that try to cater to everyone can be just as much of a gamble - as SWTOR has proved. But I don't want to derail the OP's topic any longer and this is just my personal opinion anyway. ^_^

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Originally Posted by rabbitzero

Stuff

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Which is why I think the video game market will crash (Again) if nothing changes. Why do you think indie games are so popular now? They're the only ones with balls to try something different. AAA titles are very unimaginative and not innovative at all because big companies are too scared to take risks. Indie companies really have nothing to lose if their game isn't a hit. If Square changes something and tries to be different, people go nuts and the company loses reputation. Therefore, Square would rather play it safe, guaranteed customers but little in the area of innovation.

Thinking about what i saw on past mmos, i came to this simple conclusion just naming some famous ones:

Wow at beginning had a great nice community working together happily.
Once it became extremely toxic to an unplayable level, we moved out.
What's left then is utter junk, who joins now slowly learn how to be a pathetic douchebag. Let's move to the next mmo.

Gw1 at beginning had a nice community working together happily.
Once it became extremely toxic to an unplayable level, we moved out.
What's left then is utter junk, who joins now slowly learn how to be a pathetic douchebag. Let's move to the next mmo.

Gw2 at beginning had a nice community working together happily.
Once it became extremely toxic to an unplayable level, we moved out.
What's left then is utter junk, who joins now slowly learn how to be a pathetic douchebag. Let's move to the next mmo.

What's commmon here? The common part is on every single mmo out there you will always find this common issue:
douchebags everywhere, an unplayable community (regardless of how amazing a game can be), we leave because of the community, not because of the game :)
Sure, the community, selfcentered douchebag to the core, will always fingerpoint the company releasing X content allowing the growth of douchebaggery. :)
FFXIV will have the same destiny and part of the list :)

Fact is, the playerbase is what ruins mmo, nowadays. Question is, how you can show them the logic and reality about it? :)

I can theorize about "where there is interaction between players to clear the content, the game's community will be toxic, sooner or later".

As strange can be, it's true.

I can think of 2 phantastic community i met (i will limit the topic to international games): Hawken (mmo fps) and Path fo exile (diablo-kind mmo).
Both indie, like this poster wrote, he got he point :)

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Originally Posted by Lucke

Which is why I think the video game market will crash (Again) if nothing changes. Why do you think indie games are so popular now? They're the only ones with balls to try something different. AAA titles are very unimaginative and not innovative at all because big companies are too scared to take risks. Indie companies really have nothing to lose if their game isn't a hit. If Square changes something and tries to be different, people go nuts and the company loses reputation. Therefore, Square would rather play it safe, guaranteed customers but little in the area of innovation.

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Why both has a so great community? Because on both, the player play for himself. Alone. Interaction is minimal just if and when. The player's performance matters.
If the player is a loser remains a loser, regardless of other player's performance.
Some may laugh a bit about the lower score, some douche may even write on paper his name. Fact is , it's quite difficult you will meet him again. And maybe that lower score will learn to play a bit better, not being the lower anymore.
At the end, his progress didn't even barely touched the playerbase, noone was even aware of him and if he progressed or not.
His progression at best made that random group better on that particular unique match, tomorrow may be different.

At the end, the playerbase will never be what some of us may have experienced during EQ's gold days.

2014 mmo gamer is a hopeless douchebag, it's useless to think different or think a thread is gonna fix the entire playerbase. It will not :)

Waste of time. It's 2014, wildstar, teso, EQ will be online soon. Again let's move, hoping next is better :)

I think the game is still full of people who have no real interest in it long term. FFXIV:ARR is still the newest MMO of note after all, and so a large portion of the user base are just daisy hoppers with no vested interest in the health of the economy or forming lasting relationships with other players. It's a rat race to complete the hardest content / get the best gear / make the most gil and I suppose that's where the WoW vibes come from.

If there is going to be a proper community for this game, then you will probably see it start to flourish once TESO launches and many of those players move to that. The player base will thin out substantially but hopefully what we are left with is an actual community. Just have to give it time.

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Originally Posted by KenzieLynch

I think the game is still full of people who have no real interest in it long term. FFXIV:ARR is still the newest MMO of note after all, and so a large portion of the user base are just daisy hoppers with no vested interest in the health of the economy or forming lasting relationships with other players. It's a rat race to complete the hardest content / get the best gear / make the most gil and I suppose that's where the WoW vibes come from.

If there is going to be a proper community for this game, then you will probably see it start to flourish once TESO launches and many of those players move to that. The player base will thin out substantially but hopefully what we are left with is an actual community. Just have to give it time.

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Accordingly to my post , what will be left is utter junk. Just try to log now on gw2 or wow, and tell me what you find: utter junk communities on both, a bunch of pathetic douchebags :D

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Originally Posted by Teon

Accordingly to my post , what will be left is utter junk. Just try to log now on gw2 or wow, and tell me what you find: utter junk communities on both, a bunch of pathetic douchebags :D

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Considering the community isn't as bad as the forums make it out to be, I seriously doubt that.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Considering the community isn't as bad as the forums make it out to be, I seriously doubt that.

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Well. I wasn't trying to over-generalize. Let's skip the pointless "don't generalize" , yes? :)
Sure you can be lucky to find 1-2 snowflakes, nice players to group up again. 2 players compared to 500 douchebags around you doesn't make the game better , nor the community anything acceptable.
If you won the lottery being on a superb nice populated FC stick on them, don't stop to sub and pray they don't too (nor you kicked/bored of them). Because if happens, you're screwed :p

My post was from direct experience on every mmo mentioned. What you see on the forum is direct experience, opening a thread to talk about it. A lot attempted to post "don't generalize, my guild is superb".
Didn't change the fact wow, gw1 and gw2 were and are a bunch of douchebags, logging now :)

If this forum is filled of "this community is utter junk" over and over, and loggin you sadly agree meeting douchebags quitting at 1st wipe, trashtalking at first fail, quitting once they get the loot on CT, abusing of kick...
it start to becomes real, and well..
we just quit. :)

It happened already, a lot left for various reasons, a huge more will leave once Wildstar (with his awesomeness about housing) and TESO will be out. Let's not forget the incoming EQ
Good luck with who is left :)

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Originally Posted by Teon

Fact is, the playerbase is what ruins mmo, nowadays.

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As always, the worst enemy of the gaming community is in fact the gaming community.

The best thing you can do to combat toxic players is not be one of them. That doesn't mean be a white knight and yell at everyone you see being nasty, just don't be like that.