In my last post, I noted that the Champions Online forums were awash in bile — whine posts, “I Quit” posts, angry rants against the devs and predictions of doom are commonplace. I understand that Aion has had its share of ugly posts on its forums due to the server queue madness experienced by its players… and a quick tour shows lots of deleted posts, a sure sign of active moderation. Non-game specific forums are even uglier than official ones with every new game being touted as the next “Epic Fail”.
For the purposes of this discussion, let’s ignore the craziest and the rudest posts. Regardless of the forum or the topic, there is a certain type of person that thrives off of forum drama and that type of person is going to troll, cry doom and flame. If we cut those posts out, I still perceive that the MMO community at large has taken a big turn toward the negative. When things aren’t changing in our game of choice, we moan about how slowly bugs are being fixed and the lack of new content. When things are changing, we howl about the changes and how they are ruining the game. Heaven forbid something goes wrong, like a bug is pushed through, or there is significant downtime. If I contrast the MMO communities of today with those of five years ago, I see that we have become less patient, less civil and frankly, meaner.
I know that the internet and society in general are becoming less civil, but these aren’t political forums. We are hobbyists talking about our common hobby… games. Moreover, these are games where we are often working together to overcome common challenges. You need people to play with and to team with and you need the ability to coordinate and get along. On the surface, it would seem that MMO forums should mirror this atmosphere of cooperation, but sadly they do not. So what’s going on?
One culprit is that you are still anonymous on an internet forum, or an MMO. If you make a nasty forum post, no one knows who you are in game. If you are nasty in game, people might remember you, but all it takes is one new character and all of your sins are erased. Champions has an interesting solution to this. In Champions, you have a global name that is tied to each of your characters, and your forum account. If I ingore you on the forums, I am also ignoring you in game and vice versa. As our MMO universes become more toxic with regards to peoples’ behavior, I think you will see this solution more often.
Antoher possibility is that the games have changed. Games used to be team-centric and the few classes that could solo usually did so only by sacrificing the quality of loot and leveling rate. Now, almost every MMO that is released is hyped as being “solo-friendly”. Even in games that focus on end-game raids, you can usually solo to the level cap without a hitch. Everyone wants to be Wolverine and no one wants to be Cyclops. Now, I like solo-friendly games, but they do promote a “lone-wolf” mentality. Why care about the fact that the healers are having problems if I am not a healer and in fact, I don’t need a healer? Even worse, if healers are doing better than I am, that doesn’t help me… they ought to be nerfed. When I was a teacher, we used to call this “Center of the Universe Disorder”. You can see this attitude all over the forums. Everyone is under the delusion that their experience of the game is somehow the only experience. Their perceptions and preferences are that of the entire community and their opinion is the truth. If you disagree, you are a whiner, a fanboi, and/or an idiot.
Another possibility is that MMO gamers have become jaded and cynical toward their games and game-makers. They might have put up with bugs, imbalances, downtime, nerfs, economy problems, etc. in the days of Ultima Online and Asheron’s Call, but in this day and age, they expect a more polished experience. Or, because of the huge success of World of Warcraft, is it possible that there are now an entire generation of gamers that have never played any other game. More importantly, is there a large group of gamers that have only played WoW and have joined in the last three or so years?
If so, this would be a group of gamers that has never played a game in “release state”. They never had to deal with server queues. They have never played a game that was missing significant portions of content, that had huge class issues, where large numbers of quests and abilities were bugged. They have never seen their favorite game closed, or changed so massively that it was unrecognizable. These folks would lack the perspective that MMOs generally suck at launch… that “OMG, I am paying for beta” is a meaningless statement when the game they are playing is changing week to week, patch to patch. This group would be quick to jump onto a new game, be overwhelmed by the numerous “serious problems” they see, and complain how the game is just not ready for prime time.
Regardless of the reasons, we aren’t doing ourselves any favors with our posting habits. MMOs are still made or broken based on their community and the forum is one of the most visible representations of that community. Make a commitment to being polite, positive and informative when you can be and when you can’t… go read a book.
I completely agree that far too many people have your “Center of the Universe” mentality. I also agree that this extends to forums and into most of the newbie parts of MMO’s.
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But I disagree with the ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, dont say anything’ ending paragraph. People need to be going to the forums and complaining. Explaining why they are not likely to keep playing. But like you said, its pointless to do it like a whiny little brat. Constructive criticism is a good thing.
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Also I think its more than just the ‘new’ players to MMO’s that are crying. I have played most MMO’s (or at least the beta’s) since UO. I am completely sick of game’s being launched that are not ready to be played. Champions Online is a great example. I played with the beta. It wasn’t that bad, but I did not get very far before I got bored. Then on release there are MASSIVE changes to the entire combat system. To me that just screams NOT READY. As far as I saw, these changes were not (widely) tested. Why were they not in the beta? Because they were last minute, rushed into a game not ready to be played.
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MMO developers need to realize that they are competing with games that have been out for years (like WoW). Games that have an immense amount of polish in them. They also need to realize that (especially in MMO’s) first impressions are HUGE. It would not be an understatement to say that first impressions can make or break your game. Look at Conan. It could turn into a better game than WoW (for certain types of players). 90%, probably more, of those players will never even give Conan a chance after that abysmal launch.
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Thats why I am all for bitching about a crappy game. But I do think you’re right that most people on these forums take it overboard.
You’re absolutely correct. We touched on this a little in a recent discussion and now it’s bad enough that on my ‘Aion – My First Week in Review’ posting at http://strictmachine.me/?p=423 I actually recommend that people avoid the ‘General’ forums for Aion. Don’t even read them. I’m really looking forward to five weeks or so from now when some of these players leave (one can only hope) so that the forums are readable.
While there are some legitimate issues, the deafening cry of the whining, “Center of the Universe” players is overwhelming. I’d love to see an MMO launch with a forum rating system such that lower rated threads are not visible unless you adjust your viewing threshold to a lower value. Slashdot, often the land of forum trolls, does something like this and with your viewing threshold set an appropriate value you can hide the noise and trolling.
You are always hysterical cmag, hitting the nail on the head once again.
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For many years the pc/mmo gamer has held a stigma of being an awkward type lacking social skills. And in some cases that stereotype bears truth. Just browse the Darkfall forums for a day if anyone isn’t a believer.
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The ambiguity of the internet enables people to take on different persona and play roles. In others it grants an air of freedom and empowerment. Unfortunately there is always one yahoo that uses that as an “a–hole pass”. Anonymity doesn’t give you the right to act out at someone differently than you would act in the street, just enables you to meet someone that you wouldn’t normally meet on the street.
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Many times I found myself clicking the /ignore button while grumbling, “come to new york and say that shit to my face.” I never was one to hold a grudge but I have no patience for internet tough guys. I always stand up for myself and hold a few (quite a few) personal rules of internet etiquette.
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I have a motto that I need to remind myself every time I log on; “The internet is an insane asylum where the patients run the show.”
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Good read,
Frank
I think all of the points you make contribute to the situation. I believe there are also some other factors that may contribute as well.
1) The sheer number of players now has moved us beyond merely hobbyists talking about our hobby. MMOs are mainstreamed, full of non-gamer types. Sociology teaches us that as groups grow in size, all of the normal social subgroups within society become represented in the original group. Many of these subgroups are not pleasant, or courteous people.
2) On the other hand, hobbyists tend to identify strongly with their hobby and have exhibited the same behavior you discuss since well before the days of the internet and computer games. Read some music, comic book, film buff, autobuff, etc. fanzines to see my point. In the ancient past of my youth I followed a lot of punk and rock fanzines – it was the same whiny, confrontational, personally abusive crap we can find in MMOs today. Fanzines were generally localized geographically, the internet changes that.
3) Continuing the theme of not really being all that new, I started playing WoW in Oct 2005. The forums were already toxic and something to be avoided. You all may remember the old t-shirts “I survived Barrens chat” – I am not sure things are really that much worse since those days other than the fact there are more flamers so their fecal matter accrues all over the place.
I could add more, but I’ll spare y’all the trouble. Suffice it to say nice read.
vB
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