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.
I agree with some of your points such as :
Overreacting (like « this guy killed me this is harrassment he is so toxic he should be perma banned ») is an issue that can't be considered as being even close to real issues.
Reporting and getting rid of real issues like excessive insulting and racism is absolutely mandatory.
I may be wrong but I feel like you're thinking things are black or white only.
I mean, for example not everybody consider being killed in game is harassment/toxxcity and so on right ?
Some people do, some don't. Some will just be pissed about being killed for a couple of minutes, some will hold grudge forever and complain even longer.
I don't think making general assumptions about how people behave about that will bring us anywhere.
The point of this thread is certainly not to tell anybody what they have to do, it's to get ideas about what can be concretly done in order to strenghten a good/benevolent/sane (idk what is the right word, you get the idea) community.
No great theory and all, just actuall stuff anyone could do in game.
And for those who don't care... well that's fine too.
(sorry btw but I'm not sure I have understood what you meant with your two first sentences?)
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.
I agree with that, because in my opinion being salty is not necessary being toxic.
« The dose makes the poison » as they say.
Of course losing my carvan / castle / raid boss to some salty guys would piss me, but that's what the game is about so at the end of the day it's fine. I lose something in game and the other team earns something in game in return.
In my opinion toxicity is more « player related ». Bringing harm to a player in order to harm the player is toxicity.
I don't feel that bringing harm to a game character in order to conquer or node or whatever is toxicity.
Of course not everyone has the same tolerance toward what happens in game, but my point here is not to draw a line between what would be « salty and acceptable » and what is « toxic and unwanted ».
It's to get ideas about what could be actively done on an individual [=player] and/or GM basis in order to have a better community.
@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 ).
That's right, I should have added « In my opinion » before this sentence my bad
Since as far as I'm concerned I have way more fun playing a bad game with good friends than playing an amazing game filled with assholes.
Of course there will always be toxicity online and this is true for each and every game. But as you're saying it, there are also good communities and behaviors that rise (from ashes for example indeed: ) ).
My point is not to bring toxicity to level 0 because I agree it'll never happen. It's to think about what anybody could do in order to help the community being as good as our expectations to the game are.
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?
That's something I'm also interested in. I think there are lots of things that can be done if devs/GM are not only focused about game updates / answering queries, but also have an active in-game rôle by supporting / hosting events
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!
The larger the community, the more toxic players there will be : true.
But the more « valuable » people there will be too.
I truly don't think there some kind of fatality that leads any great game to end up with a shitty community.
I believe it's difficult to ask the community to do anything right now, and it is more on the game design and how players engage with each other through that game design that will be key. If the game is frustrating to play and requires players to not only group up but also require each party member to be decently skilled to complete content, you will have a ton of toxicity build up from that.
If the game is designed in a way that proportionally rewards players for taking on risks/challenges then you can curb these feelings a bit, but not entirely.
My suggestion will always be a strong, solid ToS that smacks the crap out of you if you break the rules. Create a ToS that is as cut and dry as it can be. Leave room for areas that have to be grey and make sure that punishment is swift and accurate.
If players know they are going to get slapped when they do something, they are much less likely to do it. Let us be real here though, no amount of policing will stop all of the idiots out there. That is just a fact of life and sometimes the ignore option will be your best option.
Although I somehow dislike this kind of reasoning (mainly because I believe people are « allowed » to make errors, and should not be punished too hard for that in lots of cases), I have to agree that a severe ToS about breaking the rules may bring out good results on a global scale.
I also agree with the rest of your post about grey lines, policies and ignore.
Keeping the community sane and not toxic is going to be a big ask.
We have to define what these term mean and they don't mean the same thing to everyone.
Case in point. A friend of mine is a college professor. If he hangs out with me and a certain grouping of my fiends he is either embarrassed or shocked that such things could be said(is really funny to watch). I keep some of my groups of friends separated as different groups have different thresholds on what is considered ok. Some like to cuss a lot like a lot a lot. Some don't cuss at all. Some like off color jokes and are never offended others are super thin skinned.
In an MMO you will have a mix of all these types of people. Basic rules of decency should apply here. Treat people with respect and grace at the same time. Far to many people seem to think if some one says something different that they are wrong and toxic. To be fair here these people do exist but some trolling and trash talking has to be allowed as long as people aren't devolving into the obvious hateful garbage.
If they set basic rules and set people free the community will figure it out.
I agree with this too, it points out the difficulty to state what is acceptable vs. what is too much, or what is salty vs. what is toxic... what I personnaly think is that such things have to be considered case by case, since as you're saying people don't have the same tolerance with trolling and so on.
It's hard to figure out the tolerance of people we don't know, and thus to know if they'll get hurt or not, which makes very difficult to draw this line about « acceptable » and « not acceptable ».
I'd like not to focus too much about « what is toxic and what is not » on this thread since it's a concept that don't mean the same thing for each of us, and may deserve a separated thread.
Rather I'd like again to get your ideas about what could be concretly done in order to prevent Ashes community to slip on the « bad side », whatever you consider being this bad side.
In short, what can we do in game to get the best instead of the worst out of people ?
There are basically two options:
You can ban certain player interactions and limit player agency to prevent some bad actors from being able to be toxic in the first place. This is what New World and WoW have done. I really don't like this approach. It's easy to implement and largely solves the problem, but it's basically like cutting off everyone's balls because some guy was going around teabagging everyone.
Or you can incentivize or disincentivize people to push them towards certain behaviors. I think this is the best solution. It's like in real life, what keeps people from shoplifting? It's largely due to the disincentive that comes with being caught. If we remove this disincentive, then it's not really a surprise when there's a rise in shoplifting. So, it's about finding the correct set of incentives and disincentives for the system.
I think the corruption system is a good disincentive, and the bounty hunting system is a good incentive. These might be enough to limit toxicity. Do we need more incentive or disincentive than this? Maybe not.
If you want more incentive for a cohesive, helpful vibe, then I think these incentives can be tied to nodes. Incentivize players to work together to create strong towns/nodes, and make it obvious that helping their fellow node residents not only helps them, but also helps themselves. This should create more comradery amongst node members, because helping each other will not only make the node economically stronger, but also at the same time defensively stronger and less likely for their home to be destroyed.
Comments
There are basically two options:
You can ban certain player interactions and limit player agency to prevent some bad actors from being able to be toxic in the first place. This is what New World and WoW have done. I really don't like this approach. It's easy to implement and largely solves the problem, but it's basically like cutting off everyone's balls because some guy was going around teabagging everyone.
Or you can incentivize or disincentivize people to push them towards certain behaviors. I think this is the best solution. It's like in real life, what keeps people from shoplifting? It's largely due to the disincentive that comes with being caught. If we remove this disincentive, then it's not really a surprise when there's a rise in shoplifting. So, it's about finding the correct set of incentives and disincentives for the system.
I think the corruption system is a good disincentive, and the bounty hunting system is a good incentive. These might be enough to limit toxicity. Do we need more incentive or disincentive than this? Maybe not.
If you want more incentive for a cohesive, helpful vibe, then I think these incentives can be tied to nodes. Incentivize players to work together to create strong towns/nodes, and make it obvious that helping their fellow node residents not only helps them, but also helps themselves. This should create more comradery amongst node members, because helping each other will not only make the node economically stronger, but also at the same time defensively stronger and less likely for their home to be destroyed.
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."―Epictetus