No Community

[Dzian]

I would like to add a little something.

I think some people feel a lack of community because the game enforces players to create cliques and remain in those cliques. Although FCs and linkshells exists to further improve the means for players to communicate and make friends, it still forces people to remain in their little chatrooms and ignore the rest of the world. I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

I got the chance to witness gameplay of Black Desert and I can't say it enough, the server chat is amazing. It keeps the community together despite all the guilds and wars with a constant barrage of news, jokes and drama. Such is missing in FF14 and sadly, the best someone can do at times is just stare at the their screen, go idle in Idyllshire and wait for their FC or linkshell to introduce a subject of conversation.

Towns feels like they are filled with silent, immobile zombies. Sure there is a shout option for announcement and stuff like that but since it's uncommon, I see it rarely used. Hell, even I am too shy of using it.

I think we need to connect the community together with a server chat(With a minimum level restriction to prevent bots) and allow people to enjoy its insanity with the option of turning it off. It would bring much more life and would allow some player interactions instead of the random emote from a silent observer. At least for those who have not made friends with anyone yet.

Something to note regarding chat in general is it's often frowned upon entirely.

a dozen people having a conversation in iddyllshire via the /s or /sh. and people frown upon it and say take it to your linkshell or even /tells... it's very anti communication.

the same can be said in duty finder, people say be friendly talk to your group. yet if and when you do theres always going to be them people that tell you to stop talking and start fighting, again it's very anti communication... I did a weeping city for tails and 7 or 8 of us were cracking jokes and having a laugh, and people were complaining we were filling the alliance chat with to much talk and not killing the bosses. if we wanted to talk we should do it after the raid... so once again its very anti communication...

In a way though I see this game as kinda like face book. I mean sure people have 500+ facebook friends, but how many of them are actually friends....
same thing in XIV, I've got social connections all over the place. 80+ people on my friendlist. plus quite active and social in my fc and ls's. yet if asked I could probably name 10 of these people. because that's how many actually have any kind of bond with...
another example is work. I work in a pretty large company 200 members of staff sociable and friendly with most of them. yet when employees leaves noone ever sees them again. because the connections are so superficial. 200 people there but maybe 3 i'd invite to a wedding or some other meaningfull life event....

then you get big free companies that have 500 members and people say they're great and friendly. but how many of those memebers could you actually name without looking at the roster......
or if 100 of them suddenly left. how many of them would you remember?

while social aspects do exist they are incredibly shallow and superficial for the most part. and sometimes I think they do need to work on that.

I see in threads quite frequently people say ffxiv isn't great and it isn't. but the only reason they play is because some of their friends do. so comments like these show that good social connections help the player base. even when the game isn't that great in there opinions.. so if they could bolster the social aspect and give it some actually depth and meaning it could help a lot in keeping players around.

also see the opposite being true. how many people pick up the game and put it donw in there first months cos the social element is so superficial they don't make many friends or meaningfull ones at least and again the game isn't that great so they drop it....