Worst and Best gaming communities?

[BoogieManFL]

There internet will probably always have a nasty troll and idiot infestation, but some communities stand out in either a good way or a bad way. So I ask, what gaming community do you think is the worst, and which is the best and why?


The worst, in my experience would have to be the World of Tanks community. Both the forums and in game chat. I thought World of WarCraft had a bad issue with trolls.. But most of those are just that, trolls. In my time playing World of Tanks on and off the years, I've come to expect only the worst. Beyond being trolls, I see so many that go way out of their way to jerks and attack people and just be generally unhelpful. So many posts and response exist only to be inflammatory. It's just freaking terrible. It doesn't help the game is so damn grindy and I think the matchmaker is designed to deliberately sabotage you at certain times because it's a fun PvP game even though I typically don't care for PvP games at all.


The best community, by far, is for Dwarf Fortress. I almost never see anyone being negative or trollish - at all. People there are friendly, helpful, and generally have a good sense of humor. It's one of the few forums where I will read a lot of the posts made even if they don't really apply to me because they are so often insightful and you can learn something. Some of that probably comes from the sheer complexity of the game.. But yeah, good people.

 

[Lufia Erim]

I played Destiny for a bit. Well, more like i was suckered into being addicted to it. And to play destiny you kinda NEEDED the companion app on your smartphone. That was the only way to communicate with other players quickly and effectively. Those Destiny/Bungie forums were vile man. That is the personal worstgaming community i have ever belong to.

HOWEVER the people i met in game was the friendliest bunch of S.O.Bs i have ever met (online)in my life. There was a kind of disconnect. The people in game were really nice , but the people on the forums were as vile as could be.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Is World of Tanks really that bad? I keep hearing about that and LoL in regards to truly abhorrent communities.

I'll go with the classic Call of Duty games. This series has a well-earned reputation for attracting the attention of racist 13 year old kids. Thanks to that community, I have a personal motto; if they have a mic, they have nothing worth saying. If they aren't screaming they are playing heavily distorted music because their mic cost $10.

I would also extend this to the Battlefield forums (I don't have any issues when playing the game). Just reading the threads and responses always makes me want to break something.

 

[MysticSlayer]

In-game, I never really ran into many issues with Battlefield. Then again, I mostly stuck to servers run by clans that I knew would keep the bullshit on their servers down to a minimum. The forums, though...that has got to be the one of the worst experiences I've ever had with any online community, gaming or otherwise. The last time I was there, the Off-Topic section was the only place even remotely sane, and that was taking serious hits as well, especially since that was the dumping ground for them to rant on every other game on the market because they weren't Battlefield.

As far as best is concerned, I don't know.

I remember the Lord of the Rings Online community being very nice, but there just weren't a lot of people unless you were in the late-game areas. Still, I don't really remember any seriously bad players trying to ruin the chat. At worst, I only dealt with people doing excessive roleplaying on a non-roleplaying server.

And while I know Call of Duty has a bad reputation, at least on the PC, I never ran into too many problems. Between CoD4 and MW2 (the two that I played the most that were really big), I probably put in over 1,000 hours of play time. Yeah, I occasionally ran into obnoxious players (but any game with a sizable community will have them), but I can only remember a handful of times that there was a player who was truly obnoxious to the point where he or she was seriously affecting the enjoyment of others. I don't think I've run into any other large FPS community that has that low of a percentage of unbearable people.

 

[SoreWristed]

I wrote a post about that a while back.
http://soregaming.blogspot.be/2014/12/concerning-online-communities.html
Also a poll on the forums
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.868536-Poll-What-game-has-the-worst-player-base#21740220

Okay, i'll stop plugging now.

Personally, i've experienced the most bile in LoL. I've only played it for about 20 matches total, but I dare say I've gotten screamed at or have seen people being screamed at in about 15 of those. I won't say I was ever very good at that game, so I probably pissed some people off by not being instantly good or clairvoyant.

I've met some of the best people in destiny. But I've also seen some horrible ones on the forums for the same game. I asked around on those forums if anyone would play a crucible (pvp) mode without heavy ammo or supers. One of the answers was this gem :

In other words you want a mlg/gb playlist. aka the noob playlist.. aka the playlist for players that cannot adapt to the full game and need things removed from it so they can do better.

this is not CoD/BF/Gears it does not need to play like those games either. It is not just about gun skill in this game but total player skill.

My favourite online community, as probably seen in the article, is WoW. I've always gotten help if needed, most of the time from total strangers. This is mostly while leveling. Endgame does know it's toxic pitfalls, especially when a raid wipes and people start quoting numbers at you. Back when gear level was a thing, i've known raid groups to kick out people to replace them with players with ten more points. But as I dare people to try, make a level 1, go up to someone and ask them some really obvious question. Something along the lines of, how do I equip new armor. Most of the times you'll get a response to help you.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

I played Destiny for a bit. Well, more like i was suckered into being addicted to it. And to play destiny you kinda NEEDED the companion app on your smartphone. That was the only way to communicate with other players quickly and effectively. Those Destiny/Bungie forums were vile man. That is the personal worstgaming community i have ever belong to.

For real?

While I don't consider myself part of Bungie's community, I've been regularly dropping into BNET ever since Halo 3 was in beta. Their forums are renowned for one thing and one thing only - complete obedience to the developer and zero tolerance for even the most legitimate criticism of a Bungie game. I browsed and posted on the Destiny forums numerous times when the game was at its peak, and I could tell that nothing had changed.

During Bungie's Halo reign, The BNET community was widely mocked by other Halo forums such as MLG. For good reason - it was a cesspool of fanboys who had superficial knowledge of the game but would firmly reject any dissent in their perpetual orgy of Bungie ass kissing. So yea, it was and is a horrible community, but not for the reasons you seem to imply.

 

[Signa]

I'm going to say Team Fortress 2 for best, and probably any Blizzard game for worst.

I stopped playing Diablo 2 online entirely because of the assholes. I feel like some of the appeal of Blizzards games is also present in MOBAs, which are also pretty bad I hear.

 

[Lufia Erim]

I played Destiny for a bit. Well, more like i was suckered into being addicted to it. And to play destiny you kinda NEEDED the companion app on your smartphone. That was the only way to communicate with other players quickly and effectively. Those Destiny/Bungie forums were vile man. That is the personal worstgaming community i have ever belong to.

For real?

While I don't consider myself part of Bungie's community, I've been regularly dropping into BNET ever since Halo 3 was in beta. Their forums are renowned for one thing and one thing only - complete obedience to the developer and zero tolerance for even the most legitimate criticism of a Bungie game. I browsed and posted on the Destiny forums numerous times when the game was at its peak, and I could tell that nothing had changed.

During Bungie's Halo reign, The BNET community was widely mocked by other Halo forums such as MLG. For good reason - it was a cesspool of fanboys who had superficial knowledge of the game but would firmly reject any dissent in their perpetual orgy of Bungie ass kissing. So yea, it was and is a horrible community, but not for the reasons you seem to imply.

I didn't really say why in my post, the only reason i went there was because i had to due to destiny .I just said they were vile. But i think we are agreeing so i'll leave it at that lol.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Guild Wars 2 has a pretty great community. Sure, there's the occasional Achievement Point elitist (something I'll never understand since having lots of AP does not mean that you're experienced with a particular dungeon or fractals), but apart from them, the community is both friendly and helpful. I have heard that on some of the highest ranked WvW servers, people are pretty hardcore, but even then, that's probably more just being serious about that game mode.

To give you an example of just how friendly this community is:

My first time playing through the Obsidian Sanctum, I was aided by an enemy player. You can't talk to enemy players in WvW, so he just did the bow emote and I did back. He could tell that I hadn't done the jumping puzzle before so he guided me through and actually waited for me if I missed a jump.

Edit: The worst community I've found is probably LoL. At this point, I don't really need to describe why. There's probably worse though, I just don't play many online games.

Edit 2: Actually, does Twitch Chat count? Because at a certain viewer point, chat goes to Hell and becomes the embodiment of everything wrong with the world.

 

[Tilly]

I never play online multiplayer so I have a happy and fictional impression of gaming communities (Although I wish people would stop referring to the gaming community as a whole- there isn't one!!!)

I've heard pretty bad things about League of Legends though. At least 2 reviews I've seen for the game mentioned the horrible community.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

The worst would have to be Battlefield. There's the Battlefield elitists, then there's the Battlefield PC elitists, then there are the Battlefield elitists for individual Battlefield games.

The best is also Battlefield. Their YouTube community all love interacting with their viewers, something that not many do anymore. And these you tubers have the ear of DICE and Visceral themselves, and aren't afraid to call the devs out on bullshit pre order bonuses and lousy DLC.

 

[Mikeybb]

Back in Call of Duty; united offensive (the days when it was a pc only title, that far back) there were some wonderful islands of sanity and friendliness.

Dark age of Camelot had some wonderful people, for the most part.
The outside pressure of two other realms trying to come over to your land and take your stuff really promoted a sense of cooperation in all but the most determined asshat.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

When I think of a great gaming community, I can't help but think of the Mother fan groups. These are the people who translated and released Mother and Mother 3. These people are making a Mother 4 right now too, out of their love for a game franchise wherein only one of the games in the franchise has come westward officially. These people are giving fans what they want but what makes me thing highly of them is this: when Nintendo launches Mother and Mother 3 in the west, they're purging all of their work. I suppose they are profiting off of their efforts though...but I still see them as being in the moral right. As much as I love Nintendo properties, I hate how Nintendo doesn't sometimes ignores fan requests. For fucks sake, we've sent Nintendo USA a petition with 10,000 signatures for the release of Mother and Mother 3 outside of Japan!

I can't think of any particularly bad fandoms but I'm always kinda creeped out by the Sonic fandom. I equate them to foot fetishist in my mind. You can like a Sonic game without being a Sonic fan just like you can enjoy a particular set of feet without being a fetishist but the Sonic fandom just seems to go out of its way to make itself seem creepy. Between Sonichu and the multitudes of BLANK-the Hedgehog fan art the whole lot of them just seem a bit creepy to me.

 

[SoreWristed]

As for the second one I nominate the original Gunz: The Duel this one gets a particular shout-out because the community actually killed the original game. For those of you that never heard about this game think about any third person shooter, downgrade the graphics so everything looks like it's 1999 again and buff the framerate to about 300 FPS with a lot of anime moves, it was actually more fun than it sounds. The problem came with the community, there were two problems which I believe led to the game's inevitable ruin:

1) The game had a kill ratio like many online games, however unlike many online games the kill ratio was public which of course led to players being kicked out of higher level rooms because "Only MLG pros XXX 420 Blaze it" were allowed in the room (The game had a leveling up system which prevented you from playing in lower level rooms)

2) One of the main weapons in the game was a pretty mundane katana, however with some practice a glitch could be exploited and it allowed players to do things which I'm pretty sure the programmers didn't have in mind; it allowed them to escalate walls or even clip through them and of course this led to scenarios such as immediately being killed after respawning because some idiot hit you through the wall.

I remember Gunz. There were servers where people would kick you for not being able to do katanaflying or not willing to. The online killratio also spawned so much elitism. If you lost a match, but your overall killrate was still better than the winning team, you were assumed to be the moral victor. Team losses were always the fault of the player with the lowest average killratio.

If you killed someone with the weakest weapon in game (the single pistol), some players felt it equally humiliating as going up to their house and taking a dump on their keyboard. And they'd give you an unsurpassed amount of hate for it.

 

[L. Declis]

I generally find anyone who is playing a Warhammer game tends to be friendly; I have a lot of good memories playing Space Marine online, and having a good laugh with other team mates. Same with the Dawn of War games.

I suppose that the games are never popular enough to attract the competitive crowd so all the people left who play are just people who love the lore and the game. It was a great time to be a 40k fan, back when Relic was around.

Now I just watch the constant pushing of 40k crap at me and wait for the next big companies attempt at 40k (Eternal Crusade, you're my current hope).

 

[EHKOS]

Not really enjoying the sass the competitive Rating Battle Pokemon fans are giving me. Gettin' real sick of Garchomp's shit. Don't get me started on Power-up Punch Mega Kangiskhan. Or Talonflame with choiced Brave Bird. I run a very modest team of extreme physical attackers, with only two tricks up my sleeve.

I could mention wonder-trade and the ridiculous expectations of the GTS but I had a cheeseburger today so my heart can't take it. Thank goodness for Nappy's Wonder-Trade-Wednesday.

I really haven't found a great community besides TF2. Then again I don't usually play multiplayer for most games.

 

[Sassafrass]

Nosgoth has a pretty decent community. A few asshats but not enough to say the game could be ruined.
BF3 PC has a mostly decent community, at least in my experiences with it.
Also my regular DayZ Mod Vanilla server (UK341 Noobs Playground PVP 1/2 for anyone interested.) is pretty friendly. Mostly kill on sight but they're friendly in the chat, don't hide the bodies and will mostly give kudos for decent kills. Hell, I think one dude runs a heli taxi service for the entire server as well.

Worst, Town of Salem. The game is fun, but the community is so toxic. So many racial slurs, offensive language and caps spammers in that game. :/

 

[Prince of Ales]

What about modding communities? Surely they're some of the best. Some of the stuff people have made for the Elder Scrolls games is crazy good.

I've seen plenty of bad communities. Stuff that's overhyped and turns out to be mediocre tends to attract a lot of toxicity. Say something like Diablo 3. I know the game had problems and people were pissed off, but the volume of abuse and spam on the forums and in-game chat didn't help anything. It was just this self-perpetuating cycle of negativity.

 

[Ishal]

Pretty sure the MOBA community is the worst of the worst. I feel while others are bad, it doesn't compare to MOBA's.

A Let's Player I like put it a good way I think. He got sucked into DOTA II for a long time and played it for multiple hours a day. He basically said that the worst communities are the ones that influence you to the point where you start to become like them. I feel that is an apt description of MOBAS. There's just so much that goes on in those games. They are very technical in that they rely on very specific roles to be performed during a game. Such heavy reliance on teamplay online can only lead to bad things. And MOBA's take it to the extreme.

I hear bad things about shooters and such from Counter Strike and CoD, sure. I hear the occasional bad rumblings from the fighting game community. But I've never seen the type of shit released from LoL's tribunal anywhere else.

 

[Fappy]

The worst I have experienced first hand would probably be the LoL community. The reasons are pretty self explanatory if you know anything about it. It's just... so bad...

I spent a lot of time on the BSN back during Mass Effect's heyday and it was pretty bad. Not really bad in the sense that the community was abusive or had a ton of trolls... it just had A LOT of bitching and moaning, and I am talking pre-ME3 ending here!