Why the CoX community is the best...

Hello all...

I've been on this game for about 18 months now (I'll get my 18 month badge on Feb. 2). As my first MMO, I really had no idea what to expect concerning the game community. But, in this time, I have realized that the City of Heroes community is, by and large, a friendly, fun, helpful group. We share tips and tricks with one another, help each other out, congratulate one another on our accomplishments, and commiserate with one another over bad PUG stories. In short, the CoX community actually feels like a community.

So, in my naivete, I mistakenly thought that other MMOs would share the same community feel that I've come to expect and love here. (Hey, CoX was my first MMO, I can be excused for being naive, can't I?).

Well, last week my partner and I decided to try out the other new superhero MMO that just launched. We got in to playing the game, enjoyed it, and were looking forward to finding out from others some tips, tricks, and things we had missed.

Imagine my dismay when I logged in to that community's forums, and realized that 75% of the posts were insults toward other players. Even questions such as "I am new to this brand-new MMO that has been out only a week, how do I find (Major NPC)?" are greeted with "Learn to play Noob!" and "Use the F***ING SEARCH FUNCTION!!!11!!" In fact, when I posted my response to a question concerning an in-game issue, I was insulted because I didn't share the opinions of the beta testers.

This complete disregard for any sense of community, and the sheer masochistic joy many players seemed to get in insulting "teh n00bs" made me realize that I will never feel any sense of commitment to that game. It is a fun game, sure. But, when people in a game's "community" go out of their way to one-up each other, insult one another, and feed their own egos, I have little incentive to see the game succeed in the long-term.

Now, that leads me back to the purpose behind my post. I wanted to thank the CoX community for being the positive place it is, and making my entrance in to MMOs a memorable one. Even though I take hiatuses from the game now and then, I want to see this game, this community, succeed. It is an amazing game, with an equally amazing group of players. So, to all of you, I say thank you!

I've played a number of MMOs since 2005, and of all of them this one has the greatest community (and the game itself isn't too bad either ). Most others are pretty bad, one or two could potentially make even WoW's community blush.

I, however, hope "those other games" do succeed because they'll keep all those players you talked about over there, and away from here.

City of Heroes. It's where the mature kids play.

Seriously, though, I think Night-Hawk07 summed it up. Especially that last line. I LOVE that WoW and CO and whatnot exist, because all the morons with an IQ smaller than their shoe size flock there, and leave us alone. Eventually, they'll get tired of it, and find CoH. They'll see what a Community really is. And they'll look at the things they did in the past, and go, "Wow... was I really like that?".

That's not to say that there aren't smart/nice/cool/[adjective] people who play WoW, CO, DCUO, etc. They're just the minority.

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Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

I play this game for two reasons: the community and because it lets me wreck faces. Sometimes I want to play something challenging and I play either games like Ninja Gaiden (strain my reflexes...) or something like Civilization (intellectual challenge). I always come back, though, I find it fun to effortlessly decimate hordes of enemies in good company without having to worry about timing powers. Planning builds provides some intellectual challenge, too.

Community is also one of the reasons I have stopped playing many MMOs and PvP. I don't get what's "cool" about appearing dumb and insulting by using no other means of communication except lolspaek or txtspk with every other word being an insult. PvP even within our community has this which is one of the reasons I won't touch it.

So Hero MMO 3's forums boil down to Biggest MMO X's forums? Makes sense.

This is the only game where I can ask a dumb, dumb, dumb question and get an actual answer. Not once have I ever heard "lol u fail nub" from any player ever.

I love this place. I'm here 'til the servers shut off.

We are great aren't we? You fit in fine here.

It's actually shocking to go back to other game forms (that I used to play/post on) and read them after being back here in CoH for several months.

Dear Lord I don't miss the garbage, slop, filth, crap, whatever... that literally fills other game forums and in-game community.

I love this game.

I now feel guilty for bustin noobs . . . . . . . . nahhhh im kidding! Noobs have to be busted ya know

But yeah while i think this is the best game i have ever played, the one thing that has always kept me here for such a long period of time is the community feel! Just like all communities, some your really close with while others you give a friendly nod as they pass by.

Because we're all just one big happy family [i know thats a song from somwhere but i cant remember what from!]

This is my first MMO. I think my first question here was how to find the tunnels in Faultline which got some very quick and helpful answers. If those first responses had been insults, I wouldn't still be playing COH.

The community here and in-game is awesome and makes the game much more fun. I brought friends with me but I've made quite a few too - our coalition is a great bunch of guys and gals and it wouldn't be the same experience without them.

Welcome, noob.

While I have my gripes with our community, I will say that it is far and away better than most others out there, and I DO mean most others, not just MMO communities. We have our scraps and squabbles, but at the end of the day I know that if I have a question, I can ask it, and people will elbow each other to see who gets to help out first You don't get in a lot of other places. And I mean almost any question, from "What do I reroll this character into?" to "How do a pistol's internal mechanics work?" to "I don't get Inventions, please tell me about them." That alone makes me appreciate the community we have here.

Now, I've seen the community's ugly side, as well, especially when an issue comes up that concerns many people, which leads me to believe that a lot of the community's niceness stems from the fact that we rarely let the game get to us. We have relatively little conditioned competition among players, and there are very few "elitist" achievements on top of that, so most people are just as likely to want to help you out of the goodness of their heart as they are to snicker in your general direction while thinking how much better they are. And it's a good thing, I'd say.

I've spent some time watching Sasuke (the Japanese obstacle course TV show) and one thing which always strikes me is the sportsmanship of the competitors there. They always cheer each other on, help each other out and always end with a smile, even if they end tumbling *** over tea kettle into the cold muddy water. That's the kind of spirit I really enjoy in a game, and that's the kind of community spirit we have here.

Quote:

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.

The great thing about this community is our common desire to see this game become the greatest MMO ever. We gripe and complain, but it's all out of love for this game and the genre. We are unified in a vision of how great this game is and that it can only get better.

Just don't go to PvP forum lots of noobs there... :P

well, we try, i have seen some bad behavior, but overall coh is pretty good. part of it may because we are an older communtiy, and are smaller (less likely to be a target for trolls). glad to have you on board.

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

No, you SHOULD go in those forums every now and again to remind yourself that the rest of the forums aren't like that.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

The pluses of this forum:

Even if we disagree, most of the time we post why we disagree and not just flame.

Even if we are new and ask a question that has been repeated (how do I slot protector bots?), a lot of times, answers are given or links provided to previous answers.

As in many games, there are some aspects some players are better informed than others, and vice-versa.

Welcome to paragon city!

and don't worry, most everyone was a newb once.

I on the other hand....

who am I kidding. I'd played RPG, FPS and stratergy, City of was my first MMO. I didn't even know how an MMO worked. First time I went to fight some hellions, I had my character scoot around a corner when a pistol was drawn thinking I had to dodge it like on a first person shooter.

my how far i've come

I find that a lot of the communities value is linked directly with the server they are on. I remember going to one server (before GR so all but Freedom and Virtue were nearly empty), painfully forming the first positron TF, only to find myself adding two players to ignore because they were some of the most angry and annoying people I had met. I remember turning to my sister, whom I usually compulsively tell about this stuff, and saying "Well, I checked out this server, the bad news is that there are only 10 people on, and the worst news is that over half of them are *****". I can't remember which server it was, though.


But this community is really good. Though I see the trolls and the gold farmers and the super-elitist (second server I tested: "Everyone is super-elitist but strangely suck worse than others". Yes, I am not a very kind individual), the interesting thing is that I only encounter these people on occasion. Going in Atlas Park I'll hear maybe one troll once in the day, but that's about it. Don't find that many people who I have to add to the ignore list, either. When someone needs help, they get help, and people don't try to shamelessly scam other.

Without knowledge of MMO communities and gaming communities in general, you would think the above description depicts a rogues den. That is, of course, until you try to go to another community to find that these spammers, scammers, trollers, gold farmers, haters, and general unpleasant people outnumber other players 3:1. The epitome of this was when I tried to buy something, and the 9 offers I got from sellers were all trying to scam me. Every single one...

Aside from my general unpleasantness, I've actually been a game moderator in a few of these places. It is never pleasant when your the law around those places. On my first day being sworn in, a few players dedicated themselves to try to troll me for 3 hours straight. Non-stop barely rule-abiding insults and distractions for three hours. Eventually they gave up, but the magnitude of this sheer evil is ridiculous. I have problems merely doing anything for three hours straight, let alone just following someone around yelling nonstop.


It's the general curse of the internet to make people more angry than usual. The social outlets on the internet provide us with a medium where we can act out all of our daily rage without getting punched in the face, a place where all of the nonverbal and tone-cues are lost in text, and the ability to filter out annoying stimuli and differences leave us with thin, prejudice skin. In real life, these tendencies are rooted out by social interaction; the aforementioned punch to the face, having to tolerate people you have nothing in common with, and getting meaningful criticism from other people. But not on the internet.

Instead, these behaviors can make for some rather instant gratification. Just like how younger siblings will pester the older ones, getting a reaction from another person will be enough existential justification to do it again. Eliciting a reaction means commanding a certain level of power, and putting someone down simultaneously puts you up while being ten times easier to do.

Combine all of the above factors, and I do truely fear for what the next generation will have in store.