Cultural Differences, North American Strangers

[Kanzer]

Nice People do Exist in this country(USA); As much as i hate it here... They just happen to be pretty damn rare... It just so happens that the Majority of people here are disrespectful and take advantage of the anonymity of the internet; and treat everybody terrible because of there own EGO's.

I'm pretty sure its a fact that the Majority of America is really a culturally Messed up country, Think about it, Does our society even have a culture? we Kind of had a unique culture in the past, but does any of that still exist?
If you think about The United States Of America....
We Aren't Exactly a country built on hopes and Dreams...

What an asinine statement. I trust that you've gone around and gotten to know every individual in America to be able to make these claims?

Oh, you haven't? Well then...

[Jayded]

Er. This is a gross misrepresentation of Americans, and a shameless fully subjective stereotype. You imply that Americans don't come together when tragedy strikes, because you've decided to selectively absorb only the media coverage of ie: looting during Katrina. Silly, and requires no further entertaining; and has no place in a discussion about MMOs. You're deeply jaded regarding your fellow Americans and American gamers. You needn't look very far to find friendly Americans who most certainly do not go by a "screw strangers policy".

[Smashcore]

I think a good way to go about this is to add dungeons that aren't part of the duty finder. Put awesome and unique loot in them to give us incentive to go and do them as a party. Also create a few FATE's where you can only get gold and seals only if your in a party and clearly indicate them on the map as separate icons. And one final thing, give an incentive for just being in a party. Like 25 seals for every hour your in a party up to a maximum of 100/day.

FYI: I've played this entire game without a FC or being in a pre-formed party. To me, this is NOT an MMO. Sure there are a lot of other people playing playing with me but I've barely spoken to anyone because there's no real need to.

[CyrilLucifer]

Er. This is a gross misrepresentation of Americans, and a shameless fully subjective stereotype. You imply that Americans don't come together when tragedy strikes, because you've decided to selectively absorb only the media coverage of ie: looting during Katrina. Silly, and requires no further entertaining; and has no place in a discussion about MMOs. You're deeply jaded regarding your fellow Americans and American gamers. You needn't look very far to find friendly Americans who most certainly do not go by a "screw strangers policy".

Seconding this.

Also, OP clearly never played FFXI.

[casker]

I think your thesis is a little off. You're basically saying that westerners are not good at grouping because they are dicks. In that case, the entire game is incompatible with western tastes, as is WoW, as is EQ, as is any game with grouping.

The duty finder was mostly fine while leveling in terms of people at the least being courteous to eachother, and the problems were not necessarily cultural.
Main problems with duty finder:
1) You make no lasting contacts. If you like a group or someone from a group you can't run with them again unless by sheer luck.
2) No way to kick jerks or let people regulate themselves.
3) At end game, people queuing for content they aren't ready for. Throughout leveling you had levelchecks to make sure you are strong enough, but at end game there is no system in place to accomodate the differential in strength based on gear, which is how you grow your character at end game.

Cultural aspect has no relevance for the first point.
Second point, maybe there are fewer jerks and trolls among Japanese people or more specifically, FFXI players. But really, what you see as courtesy and compassion for strangers is misplaced. They are more organized and systematic and group oriented, but its not like they have a ton of compassion for random strangers. The sense of order is borne out of a desire to have everything go smoothly, leave each other alone, and not disrupt the peace more than anything.
Third point, is not cultural, but more of an oversight and lack of features in the duty finder. People get pissy at eachother when people constantly cause wipes because they aren't prepared and aren't geared. That's why SE is implementing gearchecks, this is a game design problem not a cultural one.

[sQQuare]

I am sorry but this quote by Winston Churchill just has to be in here, mostly because its funny and should not be interpreted in anyway but as such.

"Trust the Americans to do the right thing,,, after they tried everything else"

[Aenarion]

Don't tell me that Americans "don't care." Don't tell me that no one cared during Katrina. We cared, even if it didn't get on the news.

Yea, Americans are totally the worst people on the planet, we don't care about anyone, which is why we are consistently one of the most charitable nation in the world

[LiadansWhisper]

Nice People do Exist in this country(USA); As much as i hate it here... They just happen to be pretty damn rare... It just so happens that the Majority of people here are disrespectful and take advantage of the anonymity of the internet; and treat everybody terrible because of there own EGO's.

I'm pretty sure its a fact that the Majority of America is really a culturally Messed up country, Think about it, Does our society even have a culture? we Kind of had a unique culture in the past, but does any of that still exist?
If you think about The United States Of America....
We Aren't Exactly a country built on hopes and Dreams...

We are a country of many cultures. If you think there aren't unique cultures within the US, you haven't been looking very hard. Or else you're ignorant as to what the word "culture" means.

[Maddox]

Look i'll sum this up here for everyone:

NA, if we don't help then its because were selfish, mean, rude douche's

NA, if we do help then we're cocky, strut around like we own the place, and out right douche's.

No matter what there's just no winning.