Game design does change the type of Community - Classic's Community Discussion

[arkanon]

1) Diverse making generalizations utterly pointless, just like any global online "community". You never interact with "the community". You interact with individuals.
2) Not the "entire community" because that kind of homogeneous "community group" doesn't exist. It probably affects some individual opinions.

Some people are friendly. Some people are not. And there's a whole bunch of people in between. This is regardless of a game, or social, online medium.

During my 14 levels of Classic, I encountered plenty of "bad" behavior (the usual pulling aggro over you, tag stealing, mob stealing etc). I also encountered "good" behavior (people buffing you, asking politely if I'd like to group instead of spamming invites etc).

Same also happens in the retail version of the game. There is literally no difference.

Out of interest, how the fuck does someone STEAL a tag? That just doesnt make any sense to me at all - the system is literally first in first served, so whoever gets the tag, it is THEIR tag, so it cannot be stolen......am i missing something?

I absolutely agree about retail and classic being exactly the same community, something i have said since day one.

[jstnw89]

And this is the guy everyone should avoid.

Was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a person who is generally anti-social

[khazmodan]

I have had quite a few bad encounters on classic, everyone seems more entitled/ act like they know everything, barrens chat is just gross, then there's the malding crowd. Everyone spams INVITE ME even on collection quests.

If it wasn't for my friends and guild I would have given up on classic by now, but I have those same friends in BFA..

In bfa nobody bothers me.

You should probably stay in BfA then since it seems you are just more of a solo player and BfA is designed for more single player experiences.

[Carolus Rex]

Classic's approach definitely promotes a more social playstyle.

Really? Does it? When mobs are tagged to the first person/group that attacks it? Sure you can say that encourages people to form groups, but it also encourages people to steal mobs from each other. I was in Darkshore, and some Mage was handling 4 mobs, I attacked one that was standing some distance away and wasn't infight, and before I could get my first hit in, he had tagged that one as well. The way I see it many systems in Classic promote a selfish playstyle. When you have to wait a long time for respawns and you don't share mobs, you are more likely to do such things. Or taking mining nodes or chests as someone else is fighting next to it, not able to take it because he is still in combat, fighting the mob that was standing in its vicinity. Ninjalooting in raids, needing on things someone else might need more, but you want it too, and you don't want to keep running the same dungeon to get it etc. All the problems we had in Classic, they're coming back.

[Hyral]

The answers to both questions are tied together. The sense of community is much better and part of that is because grouping is often the fastest way of progressing by design. Though it also depends on the player. I like trying to be friendly and helpful an stay in a group until everyone has completed their quest, and I've noticed when you try to make it a positive experience most people will join you in it and want to group together more and chat around.

In the end interactions are encouraged but you get from it what you put in. So it's no surprise there's so many negative posts about it here in MMO-C.

[Kokolums]

That would leave you with tons of nearly deserted servers in a couple of weeks/months.

I'm on record as saying Classic won't stop growing, and if they get rid of layering to allow the in-game community to flourish, it'll head to 20 million players. You are in total denial. The servers won't stop. They are still filled with level 1s pouring in. Its basically the ONLY MMO on the market. retail is an instanced ARPG with antisocial everything all over the place to prevent a satisfying experience.

[khazmodan]

Fun fact: logging into classic doesn't give the player a +30 buff to IQ. People are still just as moronic and loud as on retail, only now I'm forced to interact with them more so.

Or you could play retail and never have to interact with anybody since most servers are ghost towns or littered with characters from other random servers.

[Vilendor]

Out of interest, how the fuck does someone STEAL a tag? That just doesnt make any sense to me at all - the system is literally first in first served, so whoever gets the tag, it is THEIR tag, so it cannot be stolen......am i missing something?

start a caster or DoT class

[jstnw89]

In the end interactions are encouraged but you get from it what you put in. So it's no surprise there's so many negative posts about it here in MMO-C.

This is probably a big part of my experience and perspective.. I'm a friendly, social player who tries to be really helpful in Classic and maybe I'm just getting back what I put in.. whereas a couple of the people negative about classic in this thread just sound negative about player interaction period

[khazmodan]

I'm on record as saying Classic won't stop growing, and if they get rid of layering to allow the in-game community to flourish, it'll head to 20 million players. You are in total denial. The servers won't stop. They are still filled with level 1s pouring in.

I love Classic and think its probably already over 5 million, which is a hell of a lot better than the sub one million retail players BUT 20 million is a hype train that is a bit faster than i can buy into right now.

[Kokolums]

I love Classic and think its probably already over 5 million, which is a hell of a lot better than the sub one million retail players BUT 20 million is a hype train that is a bit faster than i can buy into right now.

The pirate vanilla servers never stopped growing. That's why Blizzard had to force shut them down and start their own. Again, its a monopoly. No-one else makes MMOs. WoW Classic is the ONLY MMO.

[Carolus Rex]

I'm on record as saying Classic won't stop growing

You are on record saying dumb things then.

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I love Classic and think its probably already over 5 million

Are you insane?

[Wild]

Well what can I say, I have grouped up more with randoms in the past 3 weeks than I have in the past 3 years.
People inv each other, talk to each other, chats are active. Its just a whole different positive energy than retails. I really like it.

[khazmodan]

You are on record saying dumb things then.

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Are you insane?

by the end of Vanilla it was over 6 million and that was with all the bug problems and without the 100 million former players to tap into. Of course if you can get Activision to release those numbers like an honest company would do, we could see the truth.

[Aphrel]

Not sure about friendlyness. But classic does indeed encourage player interaction more simply because there are so many things players can do for eachother that helps out alot. We are more dependent on oneanother.

Whenever i need to go somewhere far i always check if theres any guildmages in the captial from wich i can beg a portal.
Same for healers often asking their guildmages for water if they see that one is near them.

The world is more dangerous, mobs will kill you if you arent careful and drinking/eating between pulls is the norm. So any buffs you can give a player you pass by will help them alot while costing you next to nothing.

[Redroniksre]

Game design does effect the type of community, but not the quality. The same goes for Classic. The vanilla game design encourages interaction (though a lot of your examples seem extreme to me) but the quality of said interaction is generally not different.

Many people i have spoke to 1 on 1 tend to be friendly, as i am sure it would be if people put the effort in on retail too. While General chat seems to be the most toxic people, again not too different.

Retail actually encourages dynamic interaction (thanks to shared mob tagging, shared world objects) while Classic encourages planned and social interaction. One is not better than the other, as i feel that the reason retail is so quiet is more or less because people memed it that way.

You can act the same in both games, and get just as far. I have done it myself.

[arkanon]

start a caster or DoT class

What does that have to do with anything? if they tag it, its theirs. What kind of entitled bullshit is this "that was MY mob" crap?

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I love Classic and think its probably already over 5 million

You have to be joking, right?

[Carolus Rex]

by the end of Vanilla it was over 6 million and that was with all the bug problems and without the 100 million former players to tap into. Of course if you can get Activision to release those numbers like an honest company would do, we could see the truth.

WoW was a new game back then. A game that would keep adding more and more new content.

Classic servers are a nostalgia trip. It's nice to play, but it ultimately has no future. It can't have one.

[Alkizon]

Well, we have already discussed almost identical question here. Check out if you're interested.

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System sets rules (banal natural ones are taking supremacy in this case (biology and physics - necessities and needs, insurmountable laws, to which, as consequence of evolution, was added psychological one as influential component)), people obey them to extent which it requires from them - they adapt and survive or don't. This mechanism forces societies to develop global systems' organization (political, religious systems, depending on preference of local majority). Due to rather general/non-specific nature of such systems, appears need for local models that serve specific purpose (to instill certain knowledges/skills/behaviors), so author and manager of such system becomes part of it, and those, who obey it, become local... community. If system is natural (= conditionally free) to external part (collective/family), then it continues to obey higher order ones, but if it's unnatural (= closed/forced) by origin (sect, imprisonment camp, fictional virtual world etc), then everything already depends on preferences/skills of organizer, and therefore completely on system itself. Everything, that it controls or don't, is reflected in local behavior of given, specific, locally taken “community”. System develops moral values ​​(I hope, I don't discover America for you, when will say, that person doesn't have any kind of morality from birth, and it's formed by external environment and society - character based on his/her place in it and individual kind of temperament), preferences/deviations are quite predictable with proper control... but since system (especially poorly organized) isn't able to keep track of each local individual (offer education program based on his/her personal characteristics), here "PROBLEMS" begins. This is, if in general and with own words.

For reference: Control/management doesn't mean dictates at all (for this is an extreme form of submission based mainly on fear and coercion, which causes a lot of contradictions in commonplace human nature and is basically equivalent of using hormone therapy for treating common cold or nuclear bombs when solving issues of private property; history suggests that this never ends in good way), it's more a means of persuasion, education and mutual adaptation, trust. Border, of course, is very thin here.
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How does this related to questions regarding the game? Literally directly, if take friends' quotes, then:

(system almost always is a real reason)

In short, read first bold link (system's conditions). In regards to the game, see more here:

8. Servers type/org (WM&MMO+changes'soc.psycho.res+auto/subscr) +(+/+/+/+/+)+(+)+(+/+/+/+/+)+(+/+/+/+)

[Jotaux]

I’m finding the classic community far more toxic. Stealing tags, nodes, chests, loot, etc.

I would say it’s far worse than bfa.