Observational Comment/Question

I have a question I'd like to post to the CoH/CoV community at large based on my personal observations while playing the game from Beta to Freedom. Being an old school online multiplayer game enthusiast from way back (remember MPlayer and the Zone?) I’ve had quite some time to observe player to player interactions in a multitude of settings. I played CoH from pre-release to +3 yrs before leaving for a stent on WoW and returning to CoH a few months ago. The one thing that stands out to me about the CoH player community is that overall it’s the friendliest, most polite group I’ve ever gamed with. Nerd Rage is uncommon, Rage Quit is rare, people use words like Please and Thank You…

Why?

Is it because of the fact that we are for the most part playing “heroes” and our behavior is molded by the gestalt of the heroic mindset?

Are CoH players older/more mature? The average age of a video game player is mid-thirties, surely we’re not all over the hill. And the faces on CoH faces appear to represent a wide age group.

Are the GM’s stricter on controlling chat channels? Definitely no “Barrens Chat” in CoH, but that doesn’t explain the overall cooperative approach on mission teams etc. that are out of sight of GM’s.

Anyway, I was just curious to see if others of you observed thae same overall phenomenon that is the CoH/CoV community.

A lot of it's down to the setting - spandex encourages morality.

Villains usually wear leather

It's because we vent all of our horribleness here on the forums, so we have none left by the time we actually play.

For an actual answer, I think at least a small bit of it has to do with the gameplay. There isn't much competitive play at all, the general atmosphere is positive and heroic, teamplay is both extremely powerful and rewarding, the objectives are fairly straightforward, etc. There's a level of "accountability" with global names and such to the point where you can't log in on an alt and harass people, and probably a handful more strictly mechanical reasons I'm forgetting. The playerbase here is also a good deal smaller than most, so you get a friendly more tight knit atmosphere. That's not always the case with smaller communities though - they have just as much potential to be cliquey and full of jerks as they do to be friendly. So, I guess we just lucked out.

For #3, while you can report someone TO a GM (and they'll check their chat logs, etc.) there's no GM control on chat channels. For private/player created channels, the players may mod them, but I can't honestly think of the last time I've seen anything need to be done.

Part of it *may* be age and setting, sure - but I know plenty of people in the same ages playing WoW and the like.

I think part of it is that, outside of PVP, there's no competition for limited/long timer spawns that are vital to finishing something. You don't have "Save Professor Zigglethorp and his Electrobobble Schnozzlegun" out in the open world, with 20 players trying to do it all at once, with only one getting the credit and chance at rare drop and no respawn for an hour. You have no loot someone can "ninja." Even if someone's trying to "disrupt" you by defeating Hellions near you as a lowbie, you can... go to one of the ten spawns right nearby, and if they follow you and finish off the spawn, you likely get credit.

If we need to "Defeat Clamor and find out what's going on!" we're... doing it in an instance. The other 30 people that need to Defeat Clamor are either in with you playing cooperatively or in their *own* instances. You defeating Clamor doesn't mean they can't.

Compared to... a certain other game, with people in robes using what look like weapons from the mecha armor set - they finally picked up on instancing requried bosses. They had a good bit of instancing for class stories, mind you. But - well, before the population crash, there was a starter mission to rescue captured students. You fought off the guards, clicked the cage, and off they went. And, if there were more than 1-2 other people/groups around, it was almost guaranteed someone would use you as a distraction to get the cage without having to fight. You do all the work, get zero credit. (Same's true for harvesting crafting items, or getting chests with possibly higher quality drops.) Later, they did the same thing with bosses - and the spawn rate on THOSE was ridiculously slow.

Put people in that situation, and they ARE competing against each other as well as the game - which will lead to a more hostile environment and "colorful" chat and tells coming your way (or heading out from you at some point.)

We just have no reason and distinctly unfertile ground for it here.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I have to add that the loot/crafting thing is far different.

City of Heroes is a fairly "low stakes" game. Some people describe it as "easy" but I think its more that the challenges that do exist are de-emphasized and largely optional.

I think the 8 person model for standard teaming has a lot to do with the demeanor of the game, actually. I noted in another thread with a similar topic that when allowed to have 8 people instead of 4, there is less reason to worry about one team member not performing well in a role or what sets or specific builds everyone has. So if you pick up, say, a Trick Arrow Defender or something, you don't as much feel like that slot is being wasted.

It's also easier to tolerate one person running late to the mission. Or one person disconnecting/quitting mid mission.

In addition to what has been said, I believe that when CoH launched it had a slightly higher average age of players. It also had a lot of people who weren't gamers but comic fans. And others who liked the fact that there was no PvP, crafting or need to grind for good 'gear'. The tone was set right from the start, and given that a lot players stay for a long time in CoH, it was maintained.

I'd say it comes down to a few things.

1. City of Heroes is fiercely uncompetitive. Not only is there very little official competition through PvP, but the game's system is designed in such a way as to limit your interaction with other people in all ways but to help. You can't gank people, you can't take their loot, there are no specific enemies needed for missions out in the overworld so you can't rob a player of that and most of the game takes place in instances where only those specifically invited can come along. Also, there is no "loot rolling" or "loot distribution rules." Every player has his own chance for drop, and whenever a drop can only happen for one person on the team, the decision is handled by the system and the handover happens covertly so no-one can ever even know.

2. This is a fairly easy game with very few "high stakes" situations. Yes, cooperation is at the heart of it, but LACK of cooperation is not severely punished. There's no "holy trinity," there's no "gear rating," there's no stress over builds and such. Aside from specific and clearly marked "more difficulty" challenges, the game really doesn't expect its players to play like professionals, which leaves team rules lax and team requirements generally optional. What this means is people either team for the company (as I do) or just team for the sake of being on a team, but clashes over who does what and plays how are rare and usually uncalled for. The game gives you pretty much no reason to see others as anything but unambiguous help.

3. The player mentality in this game is actually quite healthy. Many of us here are long-term veterans that have made this game our home, so we care about what goes on in it. Enough of the community is like that to enact a sort of social pressure on people to behave, at least somewhat. It's easy to be a complete dick in a community of ********, but do that here and you'll see people pretty much everyone give you a hard time. We tend to hold ourselves with some dignity, and it's pervasive enough to set a basic standard. Most of us who lived through the "Surviving 15" phase of the game have learned that you don't want to create a bad community that chases people away, because that makes your game dead. Most of us who've been around as long have also learned to deal with disruptive people in positive ways.

4. I'm unaware of another game with such extensive player-to-developer dialogue that's not a two-man show indie title. Even for new players, but especially for veterans of the game, there's a distinct feeling that this "our" game and we need to take care of it and make sure it prospers. The developers have continued dialogue with us, asking for feedback and implementing suggestions to a degree that I don't think another game has done. Sure, we bust their balls probably more often than it should, but at the end of the day, they're still part of our community, rather than minions of the Corporate Commander. This tends to make the community a lot more conscious of the success of the game as a whole, as opposed to their own little niche fun, and let the game burn around them if need be.

City of Heroes is something of a unique experience, and I'd attribute this to a type of player-friendly game design that happened to develop a pretty positive community.

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.

Despite my 5+ years total time and that I'm on almost every day, I'd say I'm still a casual player. I've no interest in min/maxing. I don't need to be all purple'd out and the game is set to where that's the average. If you want to min/max you can but if you don't there is no huge penalty for it as in other games.

Also... Everything Sam said.

I'm going to go with the "we keep it all on the forums" option.

As a refugee from that big game, I've formulated a couple ideas:

The School Uniform Theory

One of the arguments in favor of school uniforms is that they level the playing field by making everybody look more or less the same, reducing the possibility of the more affluent students flaunting their affluence (via more fashionable, name-brand clothing) over the poorer students. How well this actually works in real life is debatable, but that's the theory.

While CoH lacks "uniforms" per se, I think the same basic principle applies: In this game, there are no (or very few) visible rewards for success. With costumes being purely cosmetic, there is nothing to flaunt. With nothing to flaunt, there is less flaunting.


The Dodgeball Theory

Ah dodgeball. There are two kinds of dodgeball players: sadists and people who hate playing dodgeball. What is the one thing needed to play dodgeball? The ball. No ball, no dodging, no big red welts on the side of your face. Dodgeball fans were the original griefers.

Take away a griefer's tools (or don't give them to him in the first place), and he can't grief effectively. In CoH, you can't "steal" another player's "kills". You can't gank people. You can't "ninja" their loot. And thanks to NPCs being solid and impassible, you can't block them with your gigantic dragon or mammoth mount:

http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/sw20101115.jpg

Just posting a link, since I'm not sure if I should actually post a screenshot from another game. But see that big cluster in the middle of the picture? That's almost 100 people with their ginormous mounts parked directly on top of the questgivers for some special "pre-expansion" quests back in mid-November, 2010. You couldn't even see the questgivers, let alone click on them. And it wasn't like these players were trying to get the quests themselves. They just thought it was "funny" to stop anybody else from getting them.

Don't see that in CoH.

You'll find a large portion of the playerbase is older, more mature and like-minded. Atop that, we're not here to get MAXIMUM STAT BOOSTING TALENT SPEC PURPLE DROP TRINKET BOOSTING PVP ARMOR AOE DPS WEAPON SHIELD CAPE REPUTATION HNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

We're here to play superheroes and supervillains, and spend our time reliving our favorite comics. You show me a CoH/CoV player who gets pissy over gear, team performance, stats, enhancements, or mission/trial completion speed, and I'll show you a player that absolutely no one wants to team with.

Seriously. Go peruse the forums and keep an eye out in-game for elitist build-critics and speed-trial demons with team AT requirements; you'll find at least 9-10 other players laughing at them and 5-6 telling them to take a hike. Hell, most of my one-star ratings are people who ask for specific team make-ups, specific build requirements, and specific powers needed.

Just yesterday:

(Redacted Mastermind): Speed Apex LFM, need Empathy Defender, must have all primary powers and Support Hybrid or no invite

Several people said, in Broadcast, that they were one-starring the MM in question.

We like to do things our way here in CoH/CoV, and almost everyone is cool with that. The biggest thing I can say about it is, play the game how you want to play it, but don't make others play by your rules. Dechs has the best rules for his Task Forces. Any build, any budget, no exceptions; if you think you can take it, go for it but don't sit there and ask for a rez if you die.

I agree with much that's been said already, but I'm going to posit one more factor:

The community here is 'better' (for whatever value of 'better' is being discussed) because the game is targeted to the casual player, as opposed to the 'hardcore' player.

The 'hardcore' player is the one who'll sit for hours at a time grinding out XP and levels to eventually be able to participate in the 'endgame' content and shoot for phat lewtz. He's the one who plays and re-plays the PvP content in order to max out his PvP gear to be able to annihilate all comers. He's the one whose enjoyment of the game is likely based, to some degree, on having stuff that other people don't have.

The casual player doesn't have the time to sit and grind out XP and levels to get to an 'endgame' that offers little more than hours of additional grind -- and thus is attracted to City of Heroes, which for much of its life didn't even have an endgame. She's either uninterested in PvP, or she realizes that to even try to do PvP in this game, she's got to work with other players to create a workable framework within the game's existing PvP structure, so the PvP environment is already far different from any other game in that respect, meaning that the PvPers here aren't the same as in other games. And, as noted by others, nothing she has can't be gotten by another character -- and in fact, she may well feel some sense of accomplishment in helping those other characters get those things she has (badges, costume pieces, etc.).

This is not to say that there aren't people who play CoX like a 'hardcore' gamer would, but my guess is that those folks often burn-out, head out, and come back later on a rotating schedule, which means they appreciate the game more when they do play it. So even that works to make for a better community.

Casual may not make a company rich, but it makes for a great game.

--
Pauper

Some great insight here and interesting things to think about. Likely some truth to all the given points.

When I think to times that people DO rage and tempers flare.... it seems to be at points where failure is an option. If a random team runs... say Synapse... it's not a big deal for anyone to not carry their weight, because most of us could probably solo it anyway.

However, when a MoLRSF fails, or someone is in the green stufff when trying for the badge on Keyes... ooohhboy..... thats when it hits the fan.

So I'm going to say that its because much of the game is fairly easy, that there isn't that much raging. Theres really no pressure. Also, in a non-scientific survey done here on the forums - most people said the thing they like about this game is it is fairly easy, and easy to jump in, run something, then leave.

And yeah, failing stuff sucks! RAGE!

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. When secretly harboring evil intent, we must make him believe we are polite and affable.”

It's a Nemesis plot.

I'll just agree with what others have said.

I think most play this game because it's "fun"; what fun means is different to others but I see that big behemoth of a game being attractive to some is the company name behind it as well as "well my rl friend is there..."


As others have said, there's no real competition....about the closest thing we have is badging and seeing which server(s) gets the hardest badge first

Wanted to say a big "Thank You" to all those who contributed to this thread! Best thing I've read today.

What I enjoy most is that all the positive things are true. And reading about how welcoming and casual City of Heroes is makes me excited all over again for my gameplay time tonight.

Thanks, CoH community!