What would you suggest to keep a sane community on Ashes ?

Hey guys,

Since Ashes relies a lot on its community, getting and keeping a « sane » / non-toxic community will be absolutely mandatory in order for the game to be a success and for us to enjoy playing it for a long time.

Many mechanisms of the game have been thought and designed in order to enhance a « play together » playstyle, which is undoubtly a good thing to bring people together and thus to encourage having a "sane" community.

But we should not rely on mechanisms only, since we all have a role to play (not to say « a responsability ») about the community we are part of.

Thus I wanted to know what you guys think about :

1) What could we, as players, do concretly in order to keep a « good / sane » community for Ashes ?

2) What would you like the developpers / game masters to do in order to achieve the same thing ?

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Ael

1) What could we, as players, do concretly in order to keep a « good / sane » community for Ashes ?

- Initiate and participate to in-game player-made events (Mount races, battle pet fights, taverns games, treasure hunts...)
- Offer to help newcomers through the mentorship program
- Spend time to give a hand to people in game even if it doesn't bring any outcome we need
- Complain together about how imba [put a class name in here] has become since the latest patch

- Be active and benevolent on forums / discord

2) What would you like the developpers / game masters to do in order to achieve the same thing ?

- Bring help / special rewards to local player-made events
- Manage some large scale events. For example : initiate a quest for all the players to bring ressources to create a huge arena, and host some « Ashesolympic games » once a year when it's built.
- Create some indicators about how safe/toxic is the community on a given server, and periodically grant global rewards (5% rebate on all in game purchases or stuff like that) if the indicator are goods.

George_Black

I find childlike behaviour less toxic than those that pretend to act mature. They drag the drama on and on, wheras with "toxic" people you either walk away or kill them and move on.

Sane community? Keep a sane community? Who are you or anybody to tell others what to do? Leave people alone.

For me the only reasonable thing is tackling real issues like exesive insulting and real racism. Take a pic of the chat send it to IS. IS can issue a warning or ban straight away if there is a real offense there.

That's all. People label toxic everything that isn't about giving then validation and a feeling of belonging. You cant even argue anymore without someone turning to victimhood and making threats for a ban.
People get killed ingame in a game that has killing in it and they call it harrasment. Weak in mind, seek others set up rules that ruin everybodys fun just because their bubble bursted.

Grow up people. It's not the community that's not sane. It's you that you havent learned to ignore, argue facts or pvp back.

Vhaeyne

Ashes is a highly competitive game where people have to make extreme risks for the best rewards the game has to offer.

In an environment like that, sportsmanship is not going to be the top priority for everyone every day. It would be nice, but it is very unrealistic to expect friends and foes to be paragons of sportsmanship all the time.

Knowing this, it only seems reasonable that individuals looking to get involved in things like fighting for castles, raid bosses, or caravans should expect a degree of salt. In fact, salt can be part of the game. Nearly everything cool that happens in Game of Thrones is due to someone being salty and motivated by it. To say the Grayjoys are toxic would be an understatement. As long as the toxicity stays in game, I think it can be a great boon and give meaning to these endless battles many of us long to be a part of.

Look, at EVE. Some of the best stories in video game history, IMO have come out of the real player PvP interactions of that game. Short of doxing, nearly anything goes in EVE. All is fair in love and war.

In short, sportsmanship is nice, but it can't always be expected. As long as the anger stays in the game, it should be fine. IMO.

Stay salty.

Khronus

@Vhaeyne sportsmanship is and definitely will be a part of the community as long as each community is open to the idea. Each server will define who they are and I am hoping to help define that by creating the best atmosphere possible where we land. That being said, I agree that there will never be peace when the game is designed the way it is. I'm ok with that. I try to focus on punishing toxic guilds and zergs to help balance the world out.

@Aeleanael Unfortunately, I disagree with this statement - "non-toxic community will be absolutely mandatory in order for the game to be a success and for us to enjoy playing it for a long time". The reason I disagree is because what you are saying is just not possible. There will be toxicity and lots of it. The community so far on the forums is fantastic but I have already watched guilds form and fall apart in Alpha 1....and this was a time to simply test the game out! People are just shitty online. Fortunately, the social aspect of what AoC is trying to do will help weed people out quickly on every server. Guilds will have blacklists, trolls will quit the game and through the ashes, good communities will be created (you see what I did there? lol

maouw

I'm actually really interested in how the devs can help foster community hosted events.

For example, if your town mayor throws a festival - what would make a citizen want to participate in that festival? Does there need to be some sort of reward to dole out to winners? A Leaderboard for people to get street cred in their node?

akabear

Ease up the pk system so players can self regulate with more ease.

CROW3

akabear wrote: »

Ease up the pk system so players can self regulate with more ease.

A murder hobo tries an innocent argument. I see through your dark logic! 🤪

akabear

CROW3 wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

Ease up the pk system so players can self regulate with more ease.

A murder hobo tries an innocent argument. I see through your dark logic! 🤪

Seriously, is it only L2 and L2 ex-players that will have experienced how pk`ing can be used for good and bad?

daveywavey

Khronus wrote: »

People are just shitty online.

I generally find the same in RL, too.

Noaani

akabear wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

Ease up the pk system so players can self regulate with more ease.

A murder hobo tries an innocent argument. I see through your dark logic! 🤪

Seriously, is it only L2 and L2 ex-players that will have experienced how pk`ing can be used for good and bad?

Yes, because that hasn't really been a thing in any other games since then.

Basically, if you didn't play L2, you missed it.

Don't ever expect it to come back either, honestly. It just isn't what MMO players do these days.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Don't ever expect it to come back either, honestly. It just isn't what MMO players do these days.

Yet, we have Steven who threw 40million at this project because he misses what Lineage 2 was and what ArcheAge should have been...

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Don't ever expect it to come back either, honestly. It just isn't what MMO players do these days.

Yet, we have Steven who threw 40million at this project because he misses what Lineage 2 was and what ArcheAge should have been...

Yeah, thing is, that isn't going to change player behavior or patterns.

Both Archeage and BDO (And Albion, from what little I knew of it) had what was needed to facilitate the kind of gameplay that people in L2 keep talking about - yet neither game really had it.

It's probably worth asking why...

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

It's probably worth asking why...

I would bet it is because the games you just mentioned are all more forgiving than L2 was in its prime.

Getting anything was real effort. Having to put monumental effort into obtaining gear and levels changes your mentality when it comes to needless risks when losing that effort is on the table.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

It's probably worth asking why...

I would bet it is because the games you just mentioned are all more forgiving than L2 was in its prime.

Getting anything was real effort. Having to put monumental effort into obtaining gear and levels changes your mentality when it comes to needless risks when losing that effort is on the table.

And how many players are left that are willing to put that effort in?

That is the behavior and patterns thing above.

I mean, I'm keen to put in some real time and effort in to a game, but not as much as the original EQ asked at it's start, which was about on par with what L2 was asking for.

It just isn't gamers these days, like it or not.

Dygz

Gamers in MMORPGs don't have sportsmanship. Especially PvPers.

Working together to build villages/towns/cities/metros as our homes - and knowing where other players with similar playstyles have their homes - will go a long ways towards building friendly communities.
The devs expect this to be extended to servers - with people knowing which server best suits a particular playstyle.

These Forums and the content creators already help contention feel more fun than I originally expected.
When I recognize people from the Forums or from Twitch/YouTube, I'm sometimes rooting for them even when they're on the opposing side of a Siege.
Might feel similar for Node Sieges.

"Crap! Atama's guild just destroyed our City, but... I really wanna see what Atama is like as a Mayor."

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

It's probably worth asking why...

I would bet it is because the games you just mentioned are all more forgiving than L2 was in its prime.

Getting anything was real effort. Having to put monumental effort into obtaining gear and levels changes your mentality when it comes to needless risks when losing that effort is on the table.

And how many players are left that are willing to put that effort in?

That is the behavior and patterns thing above.

I mean, I'm keen to put in some real time and effort in to a game, but not as much as the original EQ asked at it's start, which was about on par with what L2 was asking for.

It just isn't gamers these days, like it or not.

I always said Ashes is a niche game. People act like niche is a dirty word around here. Just because something lacks mass appeal doesn't mean it has no appeal. It just means the crowd that it appeals to is not the largest in it's genre.

With that said I don't think it will be as bad as what me and you may have been raised in. Stuff like EQ, FFXI, and L2 is in the past. I do think it will/must be work enough to keep the same mindset in play from L2. Where people would avoid the "YOLO LOL" play style as much as possible.

Effort itself may be a niche concept in all online games these days...

CROW3

Dygz wrote: »

Gamers in MMORPGs don't have sportsmanship. Especially PvPers.

The only form of sportsmanship would be adhering to the EULA. Cheating is bad sportsmanship, but everything else kinda goes. Open pvp tends to solve some toxicity problems, and create others. Corruption is designed to help open pvp solve more problems than it creates.

One of the reasons I like ice hockey is that conflict is built into the game, two guys just duke the crap out of each other, get a penalty, and then get over it and keep playing.

Tyranthraxus

Aeleanael wrote: »

1) What could we, as players, do concretly in order to keep a « good / sane » community for Ashes ?

2) What would you like the developpers / game masters to do in order to achieve the same thing ?

1) Remove all in-game chat channels, and all the voice channels

2) Make a really bad game so that no one plays

It's been my experience that sane communities in MMOs are limited to small guilds. Otherwise? They're about as rare as the rarest Shiny that the hardest raid boss in the game drops!

Dygz

CROW3 wrote: »

One of the reasons I like ice hockey is that conflict is built into the game, two guys just duke the crap out of each other, get a penalty, and then get over it and keep playing.

(I hate watching ice hockey in person. Watch the puck, you miss the fight. Watch the fight, you miss the goal. Televised ice hockey, you can only see what the camera is focused on, plus there can be replays.)
You can't get over it and just keep playing if you're corpse-camped, looted and still flagged for PvP when you no longer want to be.

CROW3

Dygz wrote: »

You can't get over it and just keep playing if you're corpse-camped, looted and still flagged for PvP when you no longer want to be.

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