[Discussion] Community

I have had a lot of my doubts about the game squashed by helping test A1. It is by far the best Alpha I've been a part of. Yet there are a few concerns I still have about the games possibility of success. The most notable is the community aspect.

Community is BY FAR the most important thing in an MMO. You could have the greatest game ever but have it completely decimated by a toxic community. For comparison references I'm going to use WoW since it is well known to all MMO players and it has also begun a second version of it's journey. To understand where I'm coming from know that I just turned 35 over the weekend and have been playing MMOs since Ultima Online. IMO there were no better communities than the UO and original WoW communities. I believe this is why they were so successful.

The original classic WoW had a variety of elements to bring people together. You had to manually from dungeons, there were a ton of group quests, and the buffing system also added to a friendly atmosphere. It was extremely easy to find new friends and the game brought people together. With the rerelease of Classic WoW I saw the polar opposite of this. People were antisocial, they paid for dungeon runs instead of running them, and buffing people 90% of the time resulted in no interaction. I was completely dumbfounded how bad the game was the second time around... and it's the same game! The difference in community made all the difference. I couldn't even finish leveling to 60 before I quit playing, and that is saying a lot considering how much I love classic and TBC. IT takes A LOT for me to not want to continue playing WoW in it's best state.

Now, the community aspect is something outside Intrepid's hands. They have been doing a great job promoting the positive people covering the game so far. Yet after witnessing the Discord I have my concerns. There are a lot of good people, but there are also a lot of bad people. Some so bad I've seen straight up bullying tactics being used in the Discord. This has me a bit concerned. If you did this stuff in WoW back in the day you would never get a guild and be an outcast. The second time around no one even bats an eye and considers it normal. Maybe it's just my age showing, but I feel as if that mentality can greatly harm the success chances to the game.

Granted it's too early to tell how things will play out, but Ashes is being designed as an extremely social game. Most MMOs are theme parks that require no socialization which may be the cause for the toxic and lazy behavior I've been witnessing in the second version of WoW. I'm curious what everyone else's thoughts are on this topic. Is anyone else concerned?

I plan to talk about this on the first episode of my talk show coming soon, so it would be nice to get some other opinions.

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Khambhat

tautau wrote: »

Let's set examples that, at least sometimes, will change them.

Lead by example. I think the people worried about the toxicity of the player base simply have to try and set examples. There's always going to min/max, hardcore players who enjoy griefing but there are a lot of decent folks out there willing to be decent. Not carebears, just decent.

D3ATHSPARK

Khambhat wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

Let's set examples that, at least sometimes, will change them.

Lead by example. I think the people worried about the toxicity of the player base simply have to try and set examples. There's always going to min/max, hardcore players who enjoy griefing but there are a lot of decent folks out there willing to be decent. Not carebears, just decent.

That's the plan. I'm going to try and organize a group of good guilds to all start on the same server so we know there is a good amount of quality people there.

Nagash

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

D3ATHSPARK

Nagash wrote: »

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

I plan to create content which is why I think about stuff like this early on. It's true that the bulk of the community seems pretty good, but there are definitely some bad apples out there. Most of those bad apples are leading guilds too so it will be interesting seeing how long they last.

Nagash

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

I plan to create content which is why I think about stuff like this early on. It's true that the bulk of the community seems pretty good, but there are definitely some bad apples out there. Most of those bad apples are leading guilds too so it will be interesting seeing how long they last.

How do you mean by "bad apples" are they toxic or are they people you dislike?

D3ATHSPARK

Nagash wrote: »

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

I plan to create content which is why I think about stuff like this early on. It's true that the bulk of the community seems pretty good, but there are definitely some bad apples out there. Most of those bad apples are leading guilds too so it will be interesting seeing how long they last.

How do you mean by "bad apples" are they toxic or are they people you dislike?

Toxic and destructive. The game is still 1+ years out and I've already had a guild attempt to sabotage mine. It's pretty sad. Lot's of juvenile behavior to weed through. The content creators are pretty awesome so far. I hope those individuals keep going.

Maezriel

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

I plan to create content which is why I think about stuff like this early on. It's true that the bulk of the community seems pretty good, but there are definitely some bad apples out there. Most of those bad apples are leading guilds too so it will be interesting seeing how long they last.

How do you mean by "bad apples" are they toxic or are they people you dislike?

Toxic and destructive. The game is still 1+ years out and I've already had a guild attempt to sabotage mine. It's pretty sad. Lot's of juvenile behavior to weed through. The content creators are pretty awesome so far. I hope those individuals keep going.

Someone speaking well of the CCs?

This sounds sus

Cold 0ne FTB

Nagash wrote: »

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

I plan to create content which is why I think about stuff like this early on. It's true that the bulk of the community seems pretty good, but there are definitely some bad apples out there. Most of those bad apples are leading guilds too so it will be interesting seeing how long they last.

How do you mean by "bad apples" are they toxic or are they people you dislike?

People he dislikes. Prom legit asked him what was taking him so long to type a message one day and he blocked all Enveus in response.

We actually have screenshots and you can see it if you look back in the discord. Lol

Solvryn

Nagash wrote: »

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean the game is a while from release and the community we have already seems to be doing pretty well

I plan to create content which is why I think about stuff like this early on. It's true that the bulk of the community seems pretty good, but there are definitely some bad apples out there. Most of those bad apples are leading guilds too so it will be interesting seeing how long they last.

How do you mean by "bad apples" are they toxic or are they people you dislike?

Just read this conversation, the empirical evidence is present. I never had a conversation with this guy in my life prior to this thread and he's been steep in conjecture and fallacious rhetoric about how he views people.

Big Banana

I can relate about community being a major part of the gaming experience and I believe it still is. I also remember playing WoW when it was first out as well as Runescape. Back then MMOs were so new and exciting. There was a real feel of adventure and there wasn't a guide to every quest, how to level up quickly, or get gold fast. The same applied to me for MapleStory since I really stuck around because of how awesome the community was and how helpful players would be. You'll always have people who try to take advantage of things. With the way Ashes is set up I believe it will be much easier to focus on building friendships and alliances to get things done since the world will be constantly changing on every server and there won't be a way to just Wiki all the quests because not every server will have access to all of them based on how Nodes develop. Same will apply with resources, dungeons, etc. This should really shape for a better community in general since it will take effort and teamwork to truely move forward with characters and the environment.

D3ATHSPARK

Big Banana wrote: »

I can relate about community being a major part of the gaming experience and I believe it still is. I also remember playing WoW when it was first out as well as Runescape. Back then MMOs were so new and exciting. There was a real feel of adventure and there wasn't a guide to every quest, how to level up quickly, or get gold fast. The same applied to me for MapleStory since I really stuck around because of how awesome the community was and how helpful players would be. You'll always have people who try to take advantage of things. With the way Ashes is set up I believe it will be much easier to focus on building friendships and alliances to get things done since the world will be constantly changing on every server and there won't be a way to just Wiki all the quests because not every server will have access to all of them based on how Nodes develop. Same will apply with resources, dungeons, etc. This should really shape for a better community in general since it will take effort and teamwork to truely move forward with characters and the environment.

This is exactly what I'm hoping for. Steven is a smart guy and it seems he is battling the areas where toxicity can be present. Even the "Meta" game is going to be different here given how things unlock.

D3ATHSPARK

Karatos wrote: »

Just read this conversation, the empirical evidence is present. I never had a conversation with this guy in my life prior to this thread and he's been steep in conjecture and fallacious rhetoric about how he views people.

It's just you clowns.

Solvryn

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Karatos wrote: »

Just read this conversation, the empirical evidence is present. I never had a conversation with this guy in my life prior to this thread and he's been steep in conjecture and fallacious rhetoric about how he views people.

It's just you clowns.

Again, I don't know you. Nor do I care. The only thing I see here is you're some narcissist on the internet who lumps a whole group of people together for saying you type slow, that's your business. Own it. Your fallacious reasoning for why you hate a whole crew is for you to sort out.

It would help that you didn't act like a man-child and throw a fit, make some BS up without any empirical evidence. It just makes you out to be a liar.

D3ATHSPARK

Karatos wrote: »

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Karatos wrote: »

Just read this conversation, the empirical evidence is present. I never had a conversation with this guy in my life prior to this thread and he's been steep in conjecture and fallacious rhetoric about how he views people.

It's just you clowns.

Again, I don't know you. Nor do I care. The only thing I see here is you're some narcissist on the internet who lumps a whole group of people together for saying you type slow, that's your business. Own it. Your fallacious reasoning for why you hate a whole crew is for you to sort out.

It would help that you didn't act like a man-child and throw a fit, make some BS up without any empirical evidence. It just makes you out to be a liar.

The fact that you can sit there and believe it's over something as petty as that is just sad. It just shows your low level of intelligence honestly. I could honestly care less what you or anyone else thinks. I know what happened and that word will continue to spread.

Solvryn

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Karatos wrote: »

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Karatos wrote: »

Just read this conversation, the empirical evidence is present. I never had a conversation with this guy in my life prior to this thread and he's been steep in conjecture and fallacious rhetoric about how he views people.

It's just you clowns.

Again, I don't know you. Nor do I care. The only thing I see here is you're some narcissist on the internet who lumps a whole group of people together for saying you type slow, that's your business. Own it. Your fallacious reasoning for why you hate a whole crew is for you to sort out.

It would help that you didn't act like a man-child and throw a fit, make some BS up without any empirical evidence. It just makes you out to be a liar.

The fact that you can sit there and believe it's over something as petty as that is just sad. It just shows your low level of intelligence honestly. I could honestly care less what you or anyone else thinks. I know what happened and that word will continue to spread.

Your fallaciousness will undo you. Good luck.

Elleandria

D3ATHSPARK wrote: »

Elleandrias wrote: »

This is coming from the toxic individual that blocked an entire guild on discord because he got meme'd on for typing forever xD We meme on Steven for typing forever and its not toxic man, its a joke. And I know plenty of old school MMORPG-ers that don't think the community is "toxic" at all, your subjective opinion on what is toxic and what isn't toxic is very different from the rest of the community and with you making asinine comments saying an entire guild is toxic when you really just got sad from some words only makes the situation worse.

You don't even have the whole story yet you're running your mouth. I could care less what a bunch of kids say to me, or how you put it "meme" on me. I have incredibly thick skin and don't take a single thing to heart. Sure I blocked a few so I didn't have to read juvenile comments but that is not how Enveus got blacklisted. That happened when they got butthurt over me blocking them and they decided to join my Discord and attempted to sabotage my guild. Any guild that uses a mob mentality to do something like that earns a global blacklist imo. So you're guilty by association. Maybe understand who your GM is before trying to defend such toxic people.

Its funny how you say i don't know the whole story when i was apart of said story xD lol you got butthurt because someone called you out about how slow you type....Do you understand how childish and thin skinned that makes you? Everyone gets "memed" on, even inside of each community because that's how we act, we all know we're f**king with each other, therefore no one gets offended. You got butthurt because someone said something about you while you were crying in the aoc-guild-chat channel, it really shows your level of maturity when you get so mad that you block an entire guild on discord and then proceed to talk shit to them as if they care about your opinion, the entire time just because you got butthurt over some words, you have a very childish and naive mentality of the world if you think screwing with someone is "toxic" solely because your weak mind cannot take it. Go play roblox or minecraft if you want a community that is not "toxic" in your eyes because you would need essentially a padded room for your egotistical world to exist where everyone is forced to never speak ill of you again. I love how you say Enveus is the issue when, in-fact, you have been the issue all along. The amount of people shitting on your existence should be evidence enough of that when you call people toxic for hurting your wittle feeling kiddo. Maybe one day when you grow up and understand how the real world works you'll understand that its not all rainbows and unicorns like you want it to be, people have free will and the freedom to speak their mind, whether it offends people like you or not.

Elleandria

Dygz wrote: »

Cold 0ne FTB wrote: »

Well no. Your wrong. You might not specifically consent to fight that person but every time you go somewheres were PvP is a possibility you are by default consenting to it.

If we were default consenting to PvP combat by hitting Launch, we would be combatants by default.
And, there would be no penalty for killing non-combatants because there would be no such thing as non-combatants.
Facts are facts. So, I am not wrong. Deterrent for griefing is the same as reducing toxicity. Which is my point.

It is true that if you choose to participate in a Siege, Caravan or other type of battlegrounds, that is consent.
Ashes is PvX. We agree.

Except the corruption system no matter how harsh will never stop griefing because that is a legitimate strategy in the game and always will be. Myself personally i will have NUMEROUS characters jus to grief and become heavily corrupted on and then log off in a village and every so often work the corruption off with time, i wont care if i die on said character or even lose all of its gear because it will be mid-grade gear but still good enough to slap in PvP because i play at a very competitive level. If you think griefing=toxicity then you need to find another game genre to play buddy because where there is open-world pvp there will always be griefing, if griefing didn't exist then there would be no point to open-world pvp, you would have "outer lands" type zones where pvp is enabled and people can fight each other but that is neither realistic nor enjoyable.

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