A few days ago I decided to reactivate my old EverQuest2 account and try out the Living Legacy offer from SOE. I created a new character in Timorous Deep to experience the new Kunark content on the Lucan D’Lere role-playing server. Within minutes the chat in General chat channel degenerated into sexually inappropriate speech and “dudespeak”. I purposely went to a “RP” server to avoid this kind of garbage. I promptly logged off and swore never to return.
Apparently SOE has become just as lax as Blizzard with regard to enforcing conduct on chat channels — especially on a RP server. There is no way that these players on chat would have been allowed to get away with behavior like this a few years ago. The brazen attitude of these people suggests that they are not afraid of repercussions and don’t give a damn about anything or anyone. Then it dawned on me: maybe this is the new breed of MMO players? No matter what MMO I play these days it seems unruly children and rude teenagers have become the dominant demographic. Has the very community that made MMO’s such an amazing experience been replaced by a brutish gang of school yard hooligans that have no regard for anyone but themselves?
First Impressions are Critical
It was in that moment that I made a value judgment about EverQuest2 as a whole. Instead of using the quality of the game play, the graphics, the quests as my prime criteria I used my perceptions about the maturity of the server community to make my ultimate determination that this MMO was not suitable for me. Of course my evaluation of that particular EQ2 server’s community on the whole is perhaps inaccurate and subjective but would a new player or someone new to MMO’s firing up the game for the very first time give SOE another chance if they experienced what I heard? I doubt it. In the video game industry, you only have one chance to make a good first impression.
This got me pondering the question: Isn’t community the most important commodity that a MMO has to offer prospective players? If so then why don’t more MMO companies do more to improve the quality of their community? Why aren’t players who make a contribution to their community rewarded?
The Golden Age of Community in MMO’s
It was the sense of community that really made earlier MMO’s like Asheron’s Call, EverQuest, and Dark Age of Camelot a very unique and special experience. Back then MMO’s were very new and not well known to the general public; most people into computer gaming played single player games. People were more polite back in those days and there was more courtesy and respect shown to fellow players. Players even role-played! There were some amazing people back then that really seemed to care about immersion and investing into the idea that we were all trying make a virtual fantasy world come to life.
Today’s Dysfunctional Community
Contrast that with what appears to be the today’s new MMO gamer: a spoiled, mean spirited, ADD brat who’s been raised on the pablum of the “self esteem” movement courtesy of our brilliant public education system.
We only have to look at the worst community in MMO history to see how bad things can truly get: World of Warcraft. General chat in WoW is pretty much worthless. The official WoW forums are a disgrace beyond belief with all sorts of nonsense and trolling. The end result is my friends and I usually have General chat and Trade chat turned off. Our ignore lists are always full. We avoid the official forums at all costs. In the end, we end up isolating ourselves from the general player population which means that the good players will have less of a chance of getting groups and making new friends. All because Blizzard has failed to adequately police their MMO. So what’s the point of a MMO when good players have to resort to shutting out everyone out?
Ten years ago I started playing Ultima Online. After that I migrated to EverQuest in 1999. Today if I picked up a MMO for the first time and experienced what I heard in EverQuest2 chat channels I would have been thoroughly appalled. The result is I would never have become the avid MMO gamer I am today. The caliber of the community has degraded to the point it’s not even recognizable. As a mature adult I don’t hang out with children and teenagers in my real life — why then would I want to do so in a virtual world?
Blizzard’s Lax Enforcement
Blizzard is 100% responsible for the state of the WoW community as they only reactively police in game chat and their discussion forums. Basically it’s up to *you* the player to petition and report them. By failing to adequately enforce their rules, Blizzard is basically encouraging these thugs and hooligans to destroy the gaming experience for the rest of us. I seriously doubt that Blizzard President Mike Morhaime would allow members of his own family to view the routinely repulsive official WoW forums. Why then must paying customers be subjected to it?
Take a look at the graphic below taken directly from Blizzard’s website. In Blizzard’s own words we see that players who repeatedly violate codes of conduct *rarely* have their accounts closed. Instead Blizzard is all about “education”. How blissfully nice of them! Translation — we don’t want to lose any money by closing the accounts of players who violate our rules. Read their policies and you’ll soon discover that Blizzard is purposely vague about just how many violations it takes to reach account closure. I’m sure glad that Blizzard doesn’t run the local police department. If they did we’d have a crime wave like you’ve never seen with practically nobody in jail.
Account Closure
Accounts are closed when a player has excessively and/or grossly violated our policies. When an account is closed, the player is no longer able to access the account. Account Closures are rare and represent a player who is unable to abide by our rules and insists on negatively affecting other players’ enjoyment of the game or harming the service itself.
Community Standards in MMO’s
It’s a strange paradox that players are both the best things about MMO’s and the worst things about MMO’s. MMO companies should be more proactive in demanding that players adhere to a higher standard then exists on the “street”, the typical school yard or locker room. In the real world businesses, schools, organizations, clubs and churches all hold their members to standards of conduct. Why can’t MMO’s do the same for their paying customers?
Despite petitioning and reporting disruptive players over and over nothing seems to change. The same offenders are online each daily spewing their garbage in public chat channels. Why should I as a player be forced to put players on ignore? Why should I as a player have to leave chat channels because there is zero enforcement of codes of conduct? Why should I as a player have to use profanity filters because MMO companies don’t care enough to proactively enforcement the rules? Why is the victim penalized more then the perpetrator?
Bad Communities Costs MMO’s Money in the Long Run
Although underrated, I always considered the community to be the biggest asset to a MMO; now I feel that a MMO’s community is its biggest liability. If MMO companies fail to stop the erosion of their communities they will lose MMO veteran’s like myself. When I play MMO’s I usually form guilds and lead players. I routinely end up teaching and training new players how to play their class and how to group and function in raids. I usually selflessly play tanks for the good of the guild. Without tanks groups become impossible. I also operated and administered many guild websites that have helped hundreds of MMO players over the years. If MMO companies can drive away older experienced players like myself, who will lead them and teach them when we are gone?
MMO companies are misguided if they believe that lax enforcement of codes of conduct is not costing them money. While they may think they are keeping these offenders subscribing by giving them a slap on the wrist and educating them, they are losing money by driving away the good players who are an asset to their MMO.
Good Communities Are Possible
I wholeheartedly believe that good communities where players respect each other are entirely possible within MMO’s given strict proactive enforcement. Let’s take a look at two forums that are devoted to MMO gaming and compare the civility quotient. Elitist Jerks a WoW guild have a very strict code of conduct which is vigilantly enforced. As a result the forums are a pleasure to read with a very high signal to noise ratio — meaning more intelligent and respectful posts. Contrast this to the Fires of Heaven MMO discussion forums where there are virtually no rules and anything goes. Posters here frequently engage in flame wars, trolling and other acts of concentrated stupidity. The result is that the forums have a low signal to noise ratio — resulting in very little worthwhile content for the reader.
An interesting fact is that if you look closely both forums share many of the same posters. Clearly these posters who post on the Elitist Jerks forums are capable of behaving themselves with decorum. Yet on the FoH forums they just choose not to. The difference is that there is 1) a code of conduct and 2) it is strictly enforced with consequences.
Niche Communities
Given the fact that Blizzard claims WoW has over 10 million subscribers does anyone really think that all of those diverse demographics can co-exist with one code of conduct as one big happy family? Although Blizzard has created slightly different rule-sets for the few role-playing servers that they have, wouldn’t it make sense to offer more rule-sets that would appeal to niche segments of their player base? Just as many public swimming pools have special “adult only” hours where adults can swim peacefully free from the nuisance of screaming children why can’t Blizzard offer the same to adults in WoW? Many people would gladly pay a premium to play WoW on an adults only server.
Reward Good Samaritans and Players Who Contribute
I find it alarming that Blizzard has a system that will punish players that violate codes of conduct but they do nothing to promote players that try to make Azeroth a better place. While they do have a MVP program on their official forums it’s basically a token and meaningless gesture as it has a current paltry total of 11 members. Blizzard would do well to learn from SOE and institute a formalized volunteer guide program that recognizes that there are selfless and kind players that enjoy helping their fellow players. These volunteers could be given special powers to moderate chat channels and report players that violate the rules directly to Blizzard customer service employees. Good people need to be supported by the company and it would go a long way in showing other players that Blizzard is serious about their community.
The Buck Stops at the Top
The major reason the WoW community is so terrible is a lack of corporate will. The blame goes squarely on the people at the top at Blizzard. For whatever reason, they believe that the chaos and anarchy that existed on the Bnet forums is perfectly acceptable and part of the Blizzard culture. Blizzard is proud of the legacy of the notorious “Battlenet kiddies” and seems to let them get away with murder on their forums. Blizzard could clean up the forums and chat offenders immediately if they so wished. Instead they consciously choose not to do so. They certainly have the money and the resources given the fact that they are most profitable MMO of all time.
One more thing to note: isn’t it interesting that you never see Mike Morhaime, Rob Pardo, Paul Sams or any of the Blizzard brass post in the virtual mosh pit of the official WoW forums? Want to know why? Because they would never allow themselves to be humiliated and pilloried in public at the hands of their beloved WoW subscribers. If they truly love their community so much (Note: Morhaime said that the WoW communities are “awesome” at 2007 Blizzcon) why then do they refuse to mingle with them on the forums? Busted fellas.
Good Community Helps Distinguish Your Brand
Thankfully other MMO’s companies such as Turbine who developed Lord of the Rings Online take the nurturing and conduct of their community very seriously. In post after post on the first impressions forum ex-WoW players almost unanimously remark that the LOTRO community is so much better then what they experienced in WoW. Having a mature and respectful community is one way that LOTRO can distinguish itself in the marketplace from the chaos and anarchy of the WoW community.
If we really want things to change MMO players need to start taking our subscription dollars elsewhere and start supporting MMO developers that realize that the quality of community matters. It’s unfortunate that one has to appeal to good business sense to make the case for MMO companies to start allocating resources into ensuring the maintenance of a civil and decent player base. You would think that they would want to take some pride in their community instead of token lip service that we see in interviews and Blizzcon speeches. It’s time for the MMO industry to wake up. Failing to realize that your community is a valued commodity and it should be treated with respect is going to affect your bottom line for the worse.
-Wolfshead
You know I wholeheartedly agree with much of this post! ANY MMO, whether it be WoW, or EQ2, or EQ1, VG, etc. would do well to establish a HIGH customer service and STRICT community behavior enforcement policy….
…BUT… (you knew it was coming, admit it!)
From the business-side I can understand the desire to not want to alienate the childish/immature market as well since they sadly do represent a large amount of gaming dollars. (That’s right, there’s a “jerk” market.. )
My purposed solution? Setup your servers as such….
* Pristine * servers – Servers with high community behavior standards and codes which are actively enforced by the greatest percentage of Customer Service and Volunteer Customer Service staff. To play on these servers, you would pay $14.95-19.95/month
* Chaos / Anything-goes * servers – Not referring to PvP, but in community standard enforcement. NOTHING is enforced here except for circumstances where action is required to protect the company from lawsuits. Naming policies not enforced, code of conduct not enforced, clothing optional, chat sex in general chat, you name it! For these, there would be a extremely visible warning geared to inform of exactly what these servers are when selecting these servers, but as a result, the monthly cost would only be $9.95/month (attractive to the lesser-mature). Minimal customer service presence required here.
It’s all about targeting different personalities, giving your customer’s options, and enabling your MMORPG to obtain and hang on to the greatest share of subscribers possible. Just have to pull your brain out of the box of “what’s been done” and consider creative ways to solve the problem.
Great post as always Wolfshead! You’re my muse, I swear! Always getting me thinking! 🙂
I agree with Wolfshead and would expand my comments to include the actual play style of the players and not just what is written by them. Just because I play on PvP servers doesn’t mean that I enjoy being killed again and again by the same person 20 levels higher than me camping my corpse. I have run across the mature players that will run up and kill you, it may even happen more than once, but they generally don’t camp and are more than happy to toss a wave at you if you run across them at other times. A respectable enemy.
I am not so sure that I would resort to some form of price discrimination for trying to separate the players. Even the kids will pay more simply because it is what they want to do. I do think that maybe servers with higher levels of enforcement for social/play standards might work though. I am not going to rip on Blizzard and their RP servers since I have played almost every commercial MMORPG since EQ 1 and the RP servers that I have played on almost never seem populated with people that RP. To that extent that may simply be a limitation of the medium. Pen and paper games allow for virtually limitess possibilities since the human GM/DM can adapt. A computer program will ultimately limit what can and cannot be done, hence you really are just giving lip service to a RP theme. There is no way I can play an outcast NE warlock in WoW, the game doesn’t allow for it. You’ll never have a player made character like Drizzt, so completely different the rest of the society, because you would have to essentially let the game allow every player to do whatever they wanted and that is programatically impossible at the moment.
Maybe I diverged for a moment, essentially I do agree with the original post and applaud his insight.
I have to respond to the commentary as a member of the Lucan D’Lere server community.
You are correct that Sony doesn’t do any active enforcement of community standards. If something is offensive, they expect community members to use /petition and report the problem. Action does get taken in such cases.
On the other hand, examine the level 1-9 chat, which is where I assume you ran into the 733t-speak and Chuck Norris jokes and so forth. We get a lot of people trying the game. New characters are by default in the level 1-9 chat. This includes immature people whose parents never gave them a clue about appropriate social behavior.
However, even by the time you get to level 10-19 chat, things have cleared up a lot. The immature unsupervised children (or those with childlike behavior, any way) have usually gotten frustrated with EQ2 and left. Or the community and the GM actions due to /petition have finally gotten them a clue.
LDL is a roleplay server, but also remember that level chat is OOC. And also note that it is “roleplay suggested”, not “roleplay required”, much less “roleplay enforced”.
Every server in every game is going to have its village idiots. Just like real life.
But for the most part, past the first ten levels or so, the game complexity itself tends to weed out the worst offenders.
Nick I’m glad you are enjoying my blog still! I like your idea to expand on the niche server concept. I’m perplexed as to why no MMO company has offered this as an option yet.
Could you imagine if every cell phone company had just one fee/rate structure? It would be ridiculous to say the least. Why then can’t MMO companies offer different levels of price, service and community for the player to choose from?
I guess I’m just tired of always having to babysit the kiddies and teengagers in MMO’s. I find my play experienced is greatly enchance when I’m playing with like-minded people.
Kristian thanks for your comments. I agree that it’s hard to force players to role-play. Role-playing is much easier and more natural back in the days of table top games like Dungeons & Dragons and computer MUDS. The problem is that because the visual and aural information is provided to the player they don’t have to imagine they are in a fantasy world — all the work is done for them. This breeds a sense of laziness where the player starts becoming more of a spectator and participates less. Players essentially just show up and expect to be awed by the graphics and encounters instead of being active participants in the lore and story.
Thank you Sigrdrifa for your excellent analysis of the Lucan D’Lere server. I did not mean to cast any negative aspersons on your server and it’s community. I just think it’s rather unfortunate that low level players can join a RP server without having to agree to conditions that they are there to role-play. There needs to be some kind of RP boot camp or tutorial that explains to new players what is going on.
I also think that SOE should be at least proactively enforcing chat at those low levels to ensure that new players who are there to RP will not be repulsed by disrespectful and offensive chat. However I believe that the essential problem is that the MMO demographic is bascially comprised of children and teens. They are bringing with them their texting, IM, Myspace culture with them to established MMO’s. It’s really a clash of cultures. MMO companies are desperate for new subscribers so they welcome these juvenile subscribers with open arms.
I’m sure that EQ2 is a good MMO and that is has some very nice people. My article was just an attempt to illustrate and examine the decline of the MMO community that I once knew and loved.
-Wolfshead
An intersting aside, Tobold recently felt the need to delete an entire blog entry and all of the comments after a flame war erupted over his stance on an issue.
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2008/06/fire-extinguishing.html
The issue really doesn’t matter. The key point is that this is more evidence of the general decline of the maturity and conduct of the MMO playerbase that seems to erupt into incivility at the slightest provocation (read: something that the mob disagrees with).
I stumbled upon a great article by the Grouchy Gamer that pretty much mirrors my opinion on the decline of player behavior in MMO’s. I’ve included a link within my own article. It’s a great read!
http://www.thegrouchygamer.com/?p=133
It’s simple: most competitors to an established MMO are introducing their product because they want to make money. This motive, of benefit through acquisition of currency or an item, is what they understand, and so it’s the primary motivation they consult against when planning out interactions and rewards.
The reason WoW became successful is probably two main reasons:
1) a company focused on making good games that are enjoyable, which is a more complex attitude towards motivation and open to revision and acknowledgement of mistakes (see: SC Ghost and other cancelled titles).
2) a sufficiently long alpha testing period, and preparation of the game so that functional elements of the game had been largely completed prior to reaching that step, that motivations for playing in the absence of long-term rewards or character progression could sufficiently influence the emerging design.
This might just be a problem specifically with Western culture and motivation and problem-solving are approached . . . there are a lot of Chinese MMOs, and the main barriers to their success are probably just funding (as well as language, for other markets).
I agree completely with you!! Epic words from a true game 🙂
That being said, I do have one thing to add. Its not just kids and teenagers that ruin chat and the communities, there are TONS of players who are adults, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and thats even sadder 🙁
I believe that the biggest different is that now, mmo companies arent promoting to people who are new to mmos or that havent played their first mmo yet – they promote to ANYONE and usually, its players who are currently already playing mmos. So when they come over to game for teh first time, they have all this baggage and are the bitter, jaded vets that you see around. They are sooo stubborn they cant even appreciate the game for what it IS. Back in the day, players found and played an mmo and fell in love with the game and the community. Everyone was there to enjoy the RPG game with others. And most stayed with that game for years and years. Fast-forward to now, where devs promote their games solely on gaming or mmo gaming websites, blog/fansites and otehr related outlets. Gone are the days of promoting to the masses to get “fresh blood” into the game.
Then add that the fact that many games do not police their chat channels, dont enforce server rulesets and pretty much allow players to verbally rape others without consequences. Its pretty fracking SAD that games that should have millions have thousands and its not because of the game itself! Its the playerbase and the communities, usually the “vocal minority” who ruins it for the rest of us.
What can be done? Companies need to grow a spine and REALIZE that perma-banning/IP ban/Account banning these players who dont give a damn is the right way to go! Yes, your $ will be lower for a little while, but use that time to PROMOTE the fact that your game has GMs again and that they are proactive! That ALONE would double ANY mmos population because i know for a fact that there are MILLIONS of players across all mmos, who have left because of the games players or even one player and hope that they devs will get their act together.
Many would happily pay a $30 subscription fee for a game that actually removes the trash that is ruining those games. Happily! At the very least, create 4 servers (RP-PVE, RP-PVP, PVP and PVE) and charge extra to play on these, where there are actual rulesets being enforced.
Think about it. The simplest thing is to just hire a GM to look at a list of character names. Any character with “suckballz” or “eatmya$$” in their name should just be BANNED – if not for the name alone, then because that player has to have done something wrong or will soon enough.
Will it happen? NOPE. So my advice is if you want to experience a game, as soon as you log in, block every public chat channel and find a small growing guild or an established one. But your work isnt done. Once in the guild, you need to “Vet” these players. Make sure that you arent in a guild with 50 awesome players, who allow horrible behavior from 20 scumbags in their guild. All it takes is ONE to ruin the guild experience.
Age of Conan – I LOVE THIS GAME! But its also known to many because there are no consequences for griefers, exploiters, hackers, cheat and harassers. NONE AT ALL. Their “GMs” are volunteer players, most of which ARE the problem players that need to be banned ASAP. But the game is amazing, so i play with all channels blocked, a small friends list, and a small guild. In grouping with others i use “combat chat” because all it takes is one comment or action from a problem player and it will ruin the dungeon or whatever the group is doing.
I wish i could say “dont let these players ruin your experience” but they DO ruin it. And the fact that nothing is done in many of these games, makes it worse.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning = amazing game, yet it was DESTROYED from within by having the most about of dirtbag players than i have seen in ANY mmo in over a decade and over 30 mmos. DESTROYED! No exaggerating here. Not only did these players do all the above, but many didnt play “correctly” and then QQed on forums, causing the devs to go down a path that pushed many “caring” players out, until they had nothing but scumbag players and a handful of quality players. This, plus not promoting the game AT ALL for years and making a trial that didnt allow access to 90% of the game – is what killed it. But it was destroyed mostly by players. SAD
I have a feeling more and more mmorpgs will DIE and shutdown, not because of the game itself – but because the companies ALLOW these Dbags to play for so long, they take over the community and destroy the game.
MMORPG – yet on RP servers you get harrassed for RPing? Most dont even RP, even a tiny bit and either skip PVE or PVP altogether.
The vocal minority and soon to become MAJORITY of these new mmo players are RUSHERS and SKIPPERS – who play the % of the game they want and disrespect and abuse the rest.
I would pay 50/mo to play on an rp=pvp server, in my game of choice, if it meant these players were removed