MMO And Social Gaming Is About Compromise

[Malakhim]

Hello everyone! While browsing through the Community General Discussion forums, a general recurring theme that I constantly see is a great sense of apathy for people whose play styles don't necessarily align with the style of others. While this is a natural occurrence(and indeed probably a beneficial one to some degree as it promotes diversity), it has unfortunately created a large rift between a community that stands to be a huge detriment to a person's enjoyment of a game. MMOs and multi-player games whether they be online or off, asynchronous or vice versa, PvE or PVP all share the one unique aspect which is the bringing of people of different ideas and values together, sometimes to even play or work together just like in real life situations such as a family or workplace environment. And much like these aforementioned settings, a great deal of our interaction with other people involves a lot of compromise. "Where are we going for dinner?", "How are we going to distribute our workflow?". They are one and the same idea at play.

Now how does this apply to the gaming space? Well, for starters, oftentimes we see a type of behavior that some people would call "entitlement" in which a person believes that "because he or she paid for a copy of the game as well as a subscription fee, said person should be able to do whatever they want, when and however they want." This would be true in a completely single player experience where no one person has the ability to affect someone else' experience directly; "My rights end where yours begin" and all that. Make no mistake, this sense of "entitlement" cannot fly if we are to have a healthy sense of community in this game that many of us ostensibly love so much and wish to see thrive.

An example would be dungeon runs, where group cohesion and communication are key aspects to a successful and fun time. Some people may want to blaze through a dungeon for whatever reason, while others may want to take their time and smell the roses. Some people may want to be at the highest spec they can, while others are more... "realistic" about it(I guess?). When faced with this situation, it is important in effective handling of a situation to be communicative and compromising. If, for example, you're the only one in the group that wants to go about it a certain way, think about the following: In a real-life situation, you wouldn't tell an entire group of friends or even random but otherwise decent people to "fuck off" if they wanted to all eat at a place you didn't would you? You very well could, but I guarantee those people might not be particularly receptive of including you in their future plans. The smart thing to do in this situation would be to explain the situation to your current group, and if you really can't go along with their plan, then respectfully bow out, but at least try to make that effort to compromise with them.

Accept when you're wrong or might be doing something incorrectly. Come to understanding other people and their motives, and compromise and compensate. Be reasonable and be the bigger person. This really is just one example, but really, I want to enjoy playing with as many people as I can in this game. I really want to be social and see this community thrive, and to do that, we need to be reasonable, rational and compromising.

[Richiealvian]

This is pretty good. Sometimes I fall into the vision of thinking that "person A is bad because he doesn't want to help newbies, and person B is great because he takes his time watching cutscenes and appreciate others that do." All in all it is a community, and if the majority (say 6 out of 8) would prefer to do something the other way, it might only be reasonable that you take into consideration their feelings. But then again, I still stand firm that cutscenes are allowed to be watched by first timers. Man, I'm confusing myself, but yeah.. It's mostly about speed run and elitism. There just has to be an acceptable borderline where it doesn't hurt both parties. Like for example expecting to do titan with gray weapon and no darklight piece and expect to do just fine I find very inappropriate, while requiring the entire darklight set is also highly inappropriate.