Worst and Best gaming communities?

[bliebblob]

The worst was probably back in warcraft 3. You've heard of dota's legendary community? Well WC3 was the prime evil that spawned it... It was so bad, at some point I decided I could simply no longer play unless with a piece of paper taped over the chat box. Sure, it made me slightly worse of a teamplayer, but map pings were all I really needed to see anyway. Plus what were they going to do about it? Type harder?

The best one? This may be because of the contrast but... Guild wars 2 had one of those 3 day head start thingies if you pre-ordered, which I did. And in those three days I was very pleasantly surprised by how nice the community was. It was like some kind of communist utopia where everyone was just really jazzed about the game. In a way it was almost eerie, but I certainly wasn't complaining. Then the floodgates opened and overnight things devolved into exactly the kind of toxic, attention-whoring shenanigans I was expecting in the first place. "LOL WOW IS BETTER!!!1!" "OMG GIEF HEALZ NUBS" Etc., etc. ... The contrast was incredible. Fascinating from a certain point of view, but as a player I certainly could've done without. -.-

 

[Broderick]

I will say I have a game that come to mind, both simultaneously the best and worst, which is WoW's community. Good gods are there some huge problems with how some people treat each other in that game. Trade chat reads like freaking \b\ from 4chan, edgelords are everywhere. Trolling in general and trade is at an all time high, and racist and sexist remarks are common. Most people tend not to communicate with each other in dungeons, and many like to blame others in the group for their own problems. Then there is the elitism people have in regards to players in pve and pvp; Item level(a sort of median score of your overall gear quality) tends to be a factor when deciding whether you get in a pug group or not, especially in Raids. Somewhat understandable, if people didn't want stupidly high item level for a specific encounter(630 is when most people at the start of the expansion went into Highmaul; most people want 670 for NORMAL).

However, there is quite a lot of good in the community as well. If you get in a good guild, it can be some of the most fun experiences you can have in a game. You gain a comradery with your guild mates, perhaps even a new friend that goes outside the game. Hell, I have heard of people meeting their significant other in the game! The sense of teamwork and accomplishment that goes into a well coordinated raid encounter feels fantastic, and cheering on with your guild mates is such a great feeling. Of course, meeting random people and dungeons and having them be a long-time companion is a great as well(does not happen nowadays as much with the advent of LFR, but it still happens). While trolling new players seems to be common, there generally is always at least a couple people that go out of their way to help the new players, and giving gold to them is relatively common.

There are some definite problems with WoW's community, but damn do I love the game. Suggestion for those who might want to get into it. Join a good guild as soon as possible. Aside from benefits a guild can have(reduced hearthstone time, faster mount speed etc), it is always nice just to have someone to talk to and play with. Just a warning, leveling guilds tend to be rather bad, although you can always leave if need be.