How Can We Make the NA Community Better?

[DamianFatale]

You're just not going to fix behavior like that. I can't speak for other countries, but the attitudes a lot of people have in America plus the anonymity of the internet alongside your character reputation not mattering in this game like it did in FFXI ends up giving us the current state of behavior. People were absolute jerks at ARR launch. Back when you'd get 1 gil at most from dungeon mobs and gil was hard to come by and Titan Hard was relevant new content, people wouldn't want to eat the quit penalty and would continually pull the boss and wipe the group so someone would quit out of sheer frustration of eating costly repair bills.

It's not a new or recent thing for people to behave poorly. And so long as the game is set up so your character reputation doesn't matter (and it really doesn't with cross-server duty finder and reputation only really mattering for raiding), nothing's going to change.

I don't agree with you. I think that if we want to change things in our area of the world, and in our gaming communities, we need to stand up for negative behavior. It doesn't mean being a keyboard warrior, a political correct monster, or a white knight, it just means that you are proactive in holding up good values. That means you act the way you want to be treated, and you stand up for negativity when you see it. Be the light you want to see in the world, and more will light up in front of you. Not everything is going to change, but this world IS governed by people, and as a result you'd be surprised at what you can influence.

[Kaurie]

I have noticed a certain rise in negative behavior, which is strange, because I thought I'd rarely ever see it in our game.

I.e.
Selling housing plots, abusing the amazon promotion, insulting one another, early pulling, being rude in dungeons, not being a proper mentor (basically just doing it for the crown), and other negative impacting behavior.

How can we improve our community? I'm starting to feel embarrassed. Am I the only one?

Selling housing plots: Is this really that negative? I mean it is annoying for sure, but it is a direct by-product of the economy that SE has created. Best way to address this is to not have housing be open in wards, make it instanced, and give everyone a house. Otherwise, you'll get this.

Abusing the Amazon promotion: I am not sure how negative this is either. It doesn't really impact anyone but the player, Square and Amazon. I doubt either Amazon nor Square are losing sleep over this. However, if they wanted to address it, all they would have to do is set it so your code only applies once the sale is final (i.e. shipped/charged), or have the bonus items be directly removed from an account if the player refunds. As a community, we can't do anything about this and I don't really think we should either - (it would simply create an even more negative environment)

Insulting one another - this is a pretty big rarity from my perspective. I could count on one hand how many times in my 3000 hours of playtime that I have witnessed direct insults. I have, however, noticed a lot of people assumed they are being insulted when they are not. There is a possibility that is happening to you, or that you are the root of said insults (i.e. inadvertently, or purposefully, provoking others).

Being rude in dungeons - Again this is pretty rare from my experiences. However, I have seen it happen. Usually, I just ignore it and move on - maybe rant to my friends about "that whm in my expert" to vent etc. It's usually nothing huge, and can easily be ignored. It's rare enough that I wouldn't say it is a community problem that needs dire attention.

Mentors: I have very little opinion on this. From what I have seen as an outsider, the entire mentorship program is a joke. Though, I thought since the announcement that it seemed like a poorly designed system, so I never took part. So, again, I do not have much opinion.

I'd say the biggest negative impact on our community are threads on reddit and the forum calling out on the negativity in the game (i.e. this one, stories etc.) which make it seem like the world is much more negative than it actually is. This makes it feel more negative and spreads that feeling.

For example, people read stories of how toxic Weeping City is, then queue up for it and expect a very negative experience - they refuse to tell anyone they are new and get tips etc. This then leads to wipes and frustrations and people don't know what is going on. Conversely, the alliance I ran Weeping City with on my first run was incredibly friendly (I was expecting it to be toxic after reading so many threads on it). Everyone was laughing and having a good time and we all offered friendly advice to improve. One alliance in particular kept dying over and over and refused to answer/speak up when we tried to address it for 3 wipes straight. Finally one person said something, we helped them, and cleared on our next try.

I guess, if we want the community to be less toxic, we can start by not assuming they are toxic.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

As long as internet and anonymity exists, the players will not change.

[Oatmealraisin]

No one player can do much to affect the way the whole community behaves. But I think it is possible to make your immediate environment better by being friendly and helpful.

The hardest for me is calling out other players when I see them being jerks to someone. I'd rather just keep my head down, but it's better to speak up - not because it will make the jerk stop, but to support the player they're being rude to. It might seem pointless but it can really turn bad experiences around for people.

Like my first Castrum run - at the very end, once his bonus was secure, the tank went off on me for watching cutscenes. Immediately everyone else told him he was being unreasonable and to take his bonus and shut up. Then proceeded to reassure me that it was fine to watch cutscenes the first time through, and threw in some helpful gameplay advice to boot. So even though it started as a bad encounter with a jerk, I came out of it thinking "this community seems pretty cool".

[Vidrian]

IF you ever wish to see how it can also be, visit some EU servers. Except for some early pulls in the first week of 3.3, and the really rare rude behavior in dungeons, I have encountered close to zero toxic ness on Cerberus...
I'm personally always shocked to hear stories of people on NA data centers... But only on this game. I've met my fair share of toxic player in other games, but ONLY other mmo's...

[DamianFatale]

Housing is very negative, because potentially plots would NEVER open, which goes against the system that was put in place. Personally, I think housing should be a fair, and equal opportunity. It should be obtainable, and on display for everyone with the funds to purchase. Allowing players to sell goes against that, unless they added some sort of a housing market in game. I don't see the point though, its not like you craft a plot.

[NovaLevossida]

I don't agree with you. I think that if we want to change things in our area of the world, and in our gaming communities, we need to stand up for negative behavior. It doesn't mean being a keyboard warrior, a political correct monster, or a white knight, it just means that you are proactive in holding up good values. That means you act the way you want to be treated, and you stand up for negativity when you see it. Be the light you want to see in the world, and more will light up in front of you. Not everything is going to change, but this world IS governed by people, and as a result you'd be surprised at what you can influence.

That's fine and all, but it's ultimately futile given how this (internet) game is set up. So long as personal reputation doesn't matter, anonymity will always empower poor behavior.

[DamianFatale]

You can do more than you might think, because the world is round. Every action you make is like a never ending chain, touching EVERYTHING within reach of that thing. You don't even realize it, but with one smile you might of passively reached at least 100-1000 people by chain reaction. That's how negativity, and positivity travel the world.

I'll explain it even more: Say you're in college, and you walk into your first class. Something happens, because of someone, and you get angry. People around you notice your bad mood, and they pick up on it right? Well, then those people go onto their daily activities, bringing their bad moods to other people, and the people they influenced do the same to more people. Your behavior ALWAYS matters. It's not futile.

[Ryel]

Housing is very negative, because potentially plots would NEVER open, which goes against the system that was put in place. Personally, I think housing should be a fair, and equal opportunity. It should be obtainable, and on display for everyone with the funds to purchase. Allowing players to sell goes against that, unless they added some sort of a housing market in game. I don't see the point though, its not like you craft a plot.

Except the onus is on the developers to create plots.

Not to be rude but you might want to check up on these concepts:

Real estate economics
Supply and demand

Just because the goods are virtual does not mean they don't fall subject to real world issues when the supply doesn't meet the expected demand, some players obviously went a bit overboard (understatement) but the reality is that those players responded poorly to a very real game limitation.

As for many of your other points they are mostly subjective, Kaurie's post does a much better job responding to them point by point than i can at this moment, but i agree with her in that threads like these while made with good intentions ultimately do more harm than good when I'm sure there are many players who either do not feel the same way as you do or simply have not come across the same issues you're claiming to raise and may have their view of the community skewed as a result.

[Kaurie]

Housing is very negative, because potentially plots would NEVER open, which goes against the system that was put in place. Personally, I think housing should be a fair, and equal opportunity. It should be obtainable, and on display for everyone with the funds to purchase. Allowing players to sell goes against that, unless they added some sort of a housing market in game. I don't see the point though, its not like you craft a plot.

While I agree the housing system is off, I do not think it has to do with a toxic community and more to do with game design. Devs could limit housing plots to 1 per account as a band-aid solution. Alternatively, they can embrace a housing market which their system is best developed for. Another option is to demolish the current system and build a new one where everyone gets their own plot. I am sure there are more, but those are 3 off the top of my head.

Unfortunately, the housing situation has nothing to do with the community and everything to do with game design.