The "Gated Communities" in CoH

It's my contention that the game is vastly different for people who belong to strong social networks and those who don't. This is probably obvious to a lot of long-term players. If you have membership in some of the key global chat channels, all of a sudden teaming opportunities, the opportunities to take part in task forces and raids (at almost all hours) or even to PL your alts to 22 (so you can slot SOs) become things you take for granted.

The game is vastly different for those who aren't socially active. If they are on a team oriented character, their sole source of fast xp could be pick up groups which vary in quality from good to very poor. Supergroups can help, but I find that many SGs (not all of them, but many of them) are former shells of what they once were. Long time players have many characters, and many SGs are often just warehouses for alts.

As the game has matured, I've noticed that many veterans have carved away a social niche for themselves, surrounding themselves with people with similar experience and in-game motivations. This isn't a bad thing, but these niches are often hard to crack. Public chat channels still exist and some do thrive, but I've seen more than a fair share of them become inactive or, worse yet, degrade to a level that they are only slightly better than broadcast and completely worthless as a teaming mechanism.

I have no real agenda in bringing up this topic, but I can't help but feel that this phenomenon is somewhat related to the declaration by many players that some servers are virtually empty. Certainly player populations on the smaller servers can shrink down to a handful of players in off peak hours, but I wonder if it's because those players are teaming with friends on other servers, finding teaming opportunities through their social network.

Also, I think CoH/V could be a somewhat unwelcoming game for a new player. The player base is mature and somewhat insular (which is somewhat expected for a mature game). I think it's somewhat difficult for a new player who might only have a handful of characters in their teens to match up with a group that have multiple 50s. I know there are players who go out of their way to help a new player, but eventually, even they want to play the characters they enjoy and not get stuck "baby-sitting" all the time.

Is this a problem? Probably not. It's anyone's guess on how widespread this is. And this post is based on only one player's observation, so it just comes down to my opinion. I have absolutely zero scientific fact or data that can back up my observations. However, I am a little concerned about how truly welcoming this game is for new players. Admission into one of these "gated communities" can often open up a world of opportunity for a new player, while a player without membership could see a mostly empty landscape.

Okay.

Not sure how else to respond to that, since I'm really not sure there was anything that called for a response.

Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize

I agree with you. On Justice, our main global channel "Justice for All" and its successors, is pretty much a veteran affair. I know that between that channel and my SG that I have little need for PUGs and really don't interact much with new players.

But this game is old and long in the tooth. On some of the MMO blogs they talk about this very issue as being one of the reasons that people like to get into a game at launch or not at all.

I know for myself, while I like WoW, for example, I can't get into it because the game is pretty isolating if you don't know anyone.

I joined the Repeat Offenders fairly shortly after joining the game (parhaps a month or two). My experience is very different on Freedom/Virtue/Justice (the servers that the RO coalitions exist on) versus Victory and Guardian (the other two servers I occasionally play on)

Astute observations but... well, this is pretty much true across the board with respect to... anything.

Even games like Left 4 Dead are a much different experience when you've got a group of friends you regularly play with versus random games with strangers. Even outside of games, like the workplace.

not untrue, it happens in any social situation, but t least on liberty, its not like the gates are that strong, just show up, ask, and dont be an idiot. when i join any new players, i let them know about it. Best you can do if you are a member of these groups is help new players (something that i personally feel is my responsibility as a veteran player in the first place) and let them know where the action is.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Anectdotally, even the populated servers have felt more empty to me lately (and that may in part just be because of the holidays).

I had a conversation with a friend last night. He's been on Victory for a year or more, and was in charge of one of the larger supergroups on that server, with a large coalition of other active supergroups... and he and they've made the move to Freedom because Victory has seemed so dead lately. From his perspective this means even the coalition and global channels are fairly dead, people in his SG and the coalition SGs have left, and he has had a very hard time finding any new players to join his SG.

Without hard numbers everything is speculation, but I do agree that the world can seem very empty, especially on lower servers and redside as opposed to blueside. I also think that in game numbers have been down, at the very least during the holidays if not overall, and I'm pretty sure with the free transfers more people have been moving to the top 4 servers or so than moving to the lesser populated servers.

All of which means that being connected to the existing player base is even more important in order to find people to team with.

On the flip side, I still mostly run with random PuGs and rarely start teams myself, and I still find teams that way....

On the flip side

Any 'gated community' that doesn't actively solicit new blood will itself wither away, as members do leave over time. Any channel/coalition has to have some level of recruitment ongoing if they want to survive in the long run.

Interesting...

On Pinnacle, a player put together a channel and began inviting people basically based on who was on at the time, and did so over several weeks, amassing a significant number of members. Since I first got into it, it has grown to be quite huge, and I see new people being added regularly, so someone must still be looking. That sort of thing seems to help people a lot, even though I tend to keep to myself most of the time.

Additionally, I got invited into a community recently, because apparently I made a good impression on someone (yeah, I was surprised, too), and since then I've seen the group grow, at least little by little. We'll hold scheduled events, but inevitably a stranger will come along when there are spots left empty. At one point, I witnessed an exchange between members that went like "Was <charname> a PuG?" "Yup." "Wow, he's not an idiot! Someone direct him to the website!" I'm not sure what became of this, to be honest, but that's generally the approach.

That said, this is player grouping run by player effort. It's kind of disappointing that, with the advent of Global chat, we didn't get any channels that spanned the whole server. Or rather, we didn't get USEFUL channels that spanned the whole server. We got Arena, which I removed after I realised it was syphoning my brain out of my skull, and Help, which isn't really the place to look for teams. We have Broadcast, but that is completely useless with how spread around players are, and Request, which is twice as useless since it's a completely redundant clone of Broadcast anyway. We have no means for a new player to take part in, or at the very least observe large player gatherings. Being that we lack any predictable place of congregation, we really need some kind of chat solution that doesn't have to be created and maintained by players and which serves to unite all people on a given server. Communication is key to breaking out of our cliques, as the Internet has aptly demonstrated, and the better and more easily we can communicate, the more alive everything feels.

That said, the most welcoming kind of game for me is one that doesn't bother me with needing other people, so...

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Agree 100% with the OP -- Would an addition to the tutorial about global channels help? It's been a while since I actually bothered to read the tutorial content, so I can't say if there is something in there regarding this. Unfortunantly, there is SO much information that a new player "should" know that we vets take for granted, I could see it all being overwhelming at the start.

I'll add something else to the gated community concept. Look at how many veterans play on perma-hide, even going so far as to brag about it both in game and here on the forums, as they do not want to associate with the great unwashed. Hard to develop a community under those circumstances.

I think the tutorial is the wrong place to talk about channels. It'll do nothing but confuse new players. Having it be a question on the long list the trainers have would be ok but like someone else said, you have to know what channel to join for your particular server.

A server wide broadcast channel everyone was automatically joined to would be cool but I shudder to think of the ways that could be abused by spammers and griefers. At least now I can just leave AP if the broadcast chatter is annoying me.

I find myself agreeing with the original post. A recent thread celebrated Triumph running an all-defender ITF... and I badly wanted to respond in that thread that no, Triumph wasn't dead as the thread title mentioned, but fragmented.

Part of the breaks come from having multiple badge channels. Triumph Watch went through a split a long time ago where a bunch of players moved to TW 2.0, some formed TW 2.1, and several remained in the original TW channel because the devs would shortly fix the problems with inactive accounts clogging up global channel membership lists. (Still hasn't happened). Then there were personality breaks, with some players being so atrociously bad that groups of players formed separate private channels. Then there were the Supergroup problems, such as the complete fall-out of Feline Fellowship earlier in the year.

If you're able to dance around the fragmentation, Triumph is an active server... but if you're part of the cliques that have pulled off, some may never know you are on the server at all.

I do think that the fragmentation of veteran players hurts new players entering the game. I used to enjoy entire Supergroups dedicated to providing Taxi-Rides, or watching over the lower level zones with healers. Several of the events that attracted me to CoH long ago... I don't see carried out unless I do them. And one stormy / therm rad / rad / bubbly / PB hanging around Atlas Park or Hollows... really isn't much. I also see a focus on supergroups only recruiting if they already have a full base, but I see so few players banding together to create a new SG... but then again, that might because I rarely hang around Atlas now on any server.

Is it actually a problem? Possibly... SG's and Global Channels need new players. Is there an easy solution other than players just opening up and talking to those who are new to the game?

Probably not...

What if everyone PUGs?

I agree with the premise that the game is very different for people without social networks. I played years ago and came back for a couple free weekend type events but never really stuck with it. Or I'd rejoin with a couple friends and they'd stop showing up and I'd drop off.

The last time I rejoined was the free weekend in May 2009. Again, a couple friends rejoined, we messed around for a week or two and they fell off. A week or so after that, I was about to drop off but I realized what the issue was -- I never really teamed and was pretty uch soloing my way through. Further more, I'd get to where I actively avoided teaming because I was afraid I'd suck and people would be exasperated with my team-n00b self, etc.

So I started putting on my LFT flag each time I logged in. I asked around about and found some global channels (on Victory) and tried to get in on task forces and GM hunts, etc. The difference was night and day. I still soloed sometimes but would spend other nights in full teams doing missions or task forces (which weren't nearly as scary as I had thought, previously coming from Everquest with its instruction filled raids) and getting global friend invites, etc. I doubt I would have played into June otherwise and now I'm in an active SG, have in-game friends and all the rest of the "gated community" perks.

I'm not saying "I did it so anyone can!" because I know it's not that easy. I only got into the globals because I post on the forums and would hear about them. I know that forum posters make a small subset of the game's playerbase. I know on some servers, it's not as easy as putting on a LFT tag and waiting for the invites to come in. But I do think the options are available and perhaps something should be done to educate the playerbase. On lower population servers and with instanced missions taking people off the streets, it can sometimes seem like a lonely world.

I agree that having a social network makes a big difference, in this game, in other games, and in many aspects of life. I also think that the barriers preventing people from getting "inside" the social network are like one-way glass. From the outside, you can't see a way to get in. From the inside, you can't see that there is a barrier.

Join your server channels (it's generally as easy as searching for your server name). Voila! You are now a part of an instant social network. Start talking and interacting with the folks who have set themselves up in there, and you'll even be accepted into it. Hell, after a time, you might be one of those folks who've set themselves up in there. And you'll be the one accepting newbies into it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I may be the exception, but I've been playing since issue 1, had a few stints with social networks early on, but since Issue 8 or so I've been exclusively playing on pick up groups I make and actually avoiding any real heavy social involvement. I don't join networks, or supergroups (unless its a supergroup for a themed character, but even that is rare nowadays).

I like the casual nature of this game and I love newbs. I love playing with new players because it makes much of the game feel fresh again.

Until fairly recently I boasted that I never played with the same people twice.

Due to my incredibly erratic play times and hours, I'm kinda used to soloing or small, odd PUGs, and tend to only look on globals when recruiting for TFs or mothership raids and such.

I don't really feel a need for a regular group in this game. Besides, it makes the times when I encounter an old teammate again, or a forum regular, all the more special.

Don't know the forums exist? It's on the updater every time you launch it. Basically every MMO has an official forum. They don't get a free pass on that one, that's just lazy.

Don't know the channels exist? Well, if they're searching for people to play with, typically they go to the official forums and complain that the game is dead and there's no people. And what's on the official forums? People! And what do the people here do? Post a bunch of examples of how you can find more people, which typically includes a bunch of channels where you can find people in-game. Shocking, I know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.