What can we do to make the community a better place?

[basti]

Rather simple:

Be an awesome community just as we are now, and ban the fools asap. Just get rid of them completly right away, before they can do damage.

[HenchAnt]

Originally Posted by Shogun

any dick can play the game and have fun with it. this is bad for the community, but good for population.

I disagree. New, motivated player influx keeps the playerbase from becoming an incestuous bunch of elitist grognards, who spend more of their time rambling about the good old times and grumbling about the current state of affairs.

But to get to the beef: A working game community is simply a bunch of players that are working together towards a "common" goal. (Yes, cheap pun )
Basically, that means people are shaping an environment they actually like to hang out in.

In gaming and club environments, it most often comes down to:

- Invest in beginners. People who are grateful to "the community" will more often than not give back to "the community" later on. Being welcoming and helping people with their first steps goes a long way.

- Deal with troublemakers. There's only so much the playerbase can do here with talk alone. In the end, game moderators will have to deal with the intractable cases. Personally, I would love some ingame system to negative vote disruptive people. When auto-ignoring people with a certain amount of negative votes is an option, then trolling looses most of its attraction.

- Communicate. Don't let problems grow into conflicts. That's the most obvious and the hardest part. Wether its communication between devs and players, or between players of the same faction or between factions: It has to be done continously to build trust and defuse problems early. Actually, among gaming communities, the Planetside crowd here is top notch.
But, as much as I like the inter faction rivalry, it complicates things. Planetside1 was a prime example with respect to the faction weapons. The Planetside forum was full of cries to nerf the other empires weaponry. This whining really dominated forum communication and created quite a bit of bad mood. Lets hope, that with Planetside2, there will be more to talk about than the nerf/imba whining that dominates so many MMO communities.

- Dream. What currently makes the Planetside2 community so outstanding is the dream of what Planetside 2 should be. That's what gives the current discussions their enthusiastic, visionary drive. And that's what drives events like Planetside Day. When actually being able to play Planetside2, some of that will dwindle, of course. But the more of that spirit prevails, the better for the community.

- Work. A lot of gaming communities are busy to just demand stuff from the developers. Nerf this, implement that. While feedback is justified, what really makes a game's community outstanding is when it starts to take things into its own hands. One of the things players want from planetside are massive, epic, cinematic fights. And while Sony gives us the toys, its up to us players to organize this. Coordinating ones own faction to give an entertaining, visually stunning performance is a first step. One next step could be to return this favour to the other factions - for example by recording their finest hours.

One of the things that define the Planetside community is the faction mindset. WoW community has a fraction of it, and the Eve community never really managed to develop something similar, despite the great faction backgrounds.

With the influx of more players from other game backgrounds (for example random 32 player matchs with a "everybody for themselves in a random team" attitude), community talk might be reduced to "the other factions imba gear ruins my personal K/D ratio". Or we can foster a spirit where even Barneys and Elmos have their place - because an epic war game requires epic opponents.

It's up to us.

[HeatLegend]

There isnt much one can do for a better community other than being nice yourself and setting standards. Trolling can be fun around your friends but should be done lightly to people you don't know. Be nice and helpful to people of your own team, even if you dont know them, and obviously dont be a total douche to your enemies, but rivalry in forms of light insults and boasting is always fun.

That's all you can do, be nice and others will be nice. Even if you play and just meet idiots time after time doesn't mean you need to follow their example.

[Shogun]

the only thing we can do is DON´T FEED TROLLS!

except for the friends you know, of course.

be friendly to noobs and teach them what they need to know. most noobs will love this experience and when they know the game, they might act the same.

[GreatMazinkaise]

Try growing thicker skins across the board and stop treating a PvP MMO like it's a bloody group therapy session. In the end, everyone would be better for it.

[Tatwi]

As an example of where the community could improve:

Stop doing things like jumping down people's throats for mentioning BFRs. Yesterday I saw at least 100 BFRs. A lot of people do like them and if you don't, well, good for you. There's no need for you to be an asshole towards everyone else who does like them. By all means, feel free to explain why you don't like them, but beyond that: Suck it up Sista and move on!

Different strokes for different folks. Respect and embrace that concept and things will be a lot more pleasant in the community.

[Carnage]

With TK being on permanently, I could see TKtrolls being a real pain in the ass... needs to be an in-game reporting system, if one person gets to many reports, they ban or account closure could happen.. but sadly with a free game, they can just make another account...

[Shinjorai]

Originally Posted by Carnage

With TK being on permanently, I could see TKtrolls being a real pain in the ass... needs to be an in-game reporting system, if one person gets to many reports, they ban or account closure could happen.. but sadly with a free game, they can just make another account...

Yeah i really hope they have some system in place to prevent that kindve thing. The multiple account griefing i mean.

[Otleaz]

I want to reiterate:

If they allow easy server transfers, there will be no such thing as community in this game. You will have friends and outfits, but that is about it.

A proper community would be difficult with the 6,000 player servers, having a 100,000 player community just won't be feasible.

[Sirisian]

I think directing players to outfits and giving players easy ways to communicate and form friendships will go a long way. The voice system I believe was a huge step for creating a community. If we can get some local chat going it would be even better. I can't tell you how many times I can't find the quick yell for "there is a TR on the other side of that tree... you are going to be mauled if you run at it".

On that note, giving players ways to support one another is a big part of it. You can't discredit how much gameplay affects whether players work together. In PS1 you had players healing each other randomly which was a nice touch. We need a lot of those symbiotic relationships. I'm part of the group of Planetside vets that plan to ramp up TTK during beta so players can work together more like in PS1 and it's less about solo play.

Originally Posted by Otleaz

If they allow easy server transfers, there will be no such thing as community in this game. You will have friends and outfits, but that is about it.

I was under the impression people are referring to outfit communities like in PS1. Unless you played a ton you probably weren't going to know everyone on your server. I didn't know any of the enemy names other than their outfits since I'd see squads of them. As long as large outfits stay centralized I'm fine. What the zerg does is not really important in a F2P title. It might be kind of condescending but most of them are going to be unnamed cannon fodder.

[julfo]

How can we make the community better? Hmmm... well, for a start, we can get rid of some ridiculous preconceived notions:

1) Not having played Planetside 1 means that you a) are less of a person, b) don't deserve to have your opinions listened to, and c) are less worthy to play Planetside 2.

2) Having played another modern First Person Shooter means that you a) are less of a person, b) are an idiot, c) are automatically a BAD FPS player, d) your opinions are worth less, and e) have less of a right to play Planetside 2.

3) Not having read EVERY SINGLE BIT OF DOCUMENTATION about Planetside 2 means you a) are a fool, b) an idiot, and c) less entitled to play Planetside 2.

4) Not wanting to pay for a game or part of a game (customizations, for example) makes you a) cheap, b) less of a person, c) have worthless opinions, and d) less welcome in Planetside 2.

etc.

I've introduced a couple of people to Planetside 2. On the whole they have been extremely impressed. The community is what has let it down more often than not, which is both surprising and worrying as this is what half the appeal of Planetside (1 & 2) is; the large playerbase. And the worst thing is that on occasion it hasn't just been the general populace, but also people in higher positions acting like utter dicks.

Perhaps this is a start on where the community could improve.

^ This from several new peoples perspectives.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by julfo

How can we make the community better? Hmmm... well, for a start, we can get rid of some ridiculous preconceived notions:

1) Not having played Planetside 1 means that you a) are less of a person, b) don't deserve to have your opinions listened to, and c) are less worthy to play Planetside 2.

2) Having played another modern First Person Shooter means that you a) are less of a person, b) are an idiot, c) are automatically a BAD FPS player, d) your opinions are worth less, and e) have less of a right to play Planetside 2.

3) Not having read EVERY SINGLE BIT OF DOCUMENTATION about Planetside 2 means you a) are a fool, b) an idiot, and c) less entitled to play Planetside 2.

4) Not wanting to pay for a game or part of a game (customizations, for example) makes you a) cheap, b) less of a person, c) have worthless opinions, and d) less welcome in Planetside 2.

etc.

I've introduced a couple of people to Planetside 2. On the whole they have been extremely impressed. The community is what has let it down more often than not, which is both surprising and worrying as this is what half the appeal of Planetside (1 & 2) is; the large playerbase. And the worst thing is that on occasion it hasn't just been the general populace, but also people in higher positions acting like utter dicks.

Perhaps this is a start on where the community could improve.

^ This from several new peoples perspectives.

I think if your a fun loving person and teamwork loving player where you come from or what you played before realllly doesn't matter. if you're a dick people treat you as such if you love playing game's and building a fun long lasting game we have cake and would be happy to share and welcome you to a fun and hopefully successful game. what kind of put's people off from the ps1 community is that people from bf or cod come in and say we should do all of their mechanic's and non of ours from ps1 granted ps1 is oolllllldddd we didn't even have head shot's that's a welcome new mechanic that ps1 did not have the ps2 will. and a lot of new mechanic's are already in the game so either way its a new world and I am sure there will be room for everyone to kill maim and destroy each other with bullet's aircraft and tank's instead of bad mouthing each other on the forum's and I've done it to and its not good I agree. I am not a fan of bf3 or black ops evil game's imo but that's a point of view nothing more.

[julfo]

Originally Posted by Zar

I think if your a fun loving person and teamwork loving player where you come from or what you played before realllly doesn't matter. if you're a dick people treat you as such if you love playing game's and building a fun long lasting game we have cake and would be happy to share and welcome you to a fun and hopefully successful game. what kind of put's people off from the ps1 community is that people from bf or cod come in and say we should do all of their mechanic's and non of ours from ps1 granted ps1 is oolllllldddd we didn't even have head shot's that's a welcome new mechanic that ps1 did not have the ps2 will. and a lot of new mechanic's are already in the game so either way its a new world and I am sure there will be room for everyone to kill maim and destroy each other with bullet's aircraft and tank's instead of bad mouthing each other on the forum's and I've done it to and its not good I agree. I am not a fan of bf3 or black ops evil game's imo but that's a point of view nothing more.

Exactly. Unfortunately, the community just isn't at that point yet.

[EightEightEight]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Invite better players.

how do you know they are better players BEFORE you invite them?

[EightEightEight]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Force them to take an IQ test and only allow 130+. Also make them run a marathon and see how far they get. Then throw them out of an airplane with a parachute, but don't tell them how it works. If they're still alive, then they're accepted.

I am ok with this

Originally Posted by OnexBigxHebrew

I'm actually a fan of the moderation style in the sherdog.com MMA forums.

The forum is meant for all MMA discussion, but you get banned/deleted threads for 'Fighter bashing'. It sounds crazy in a fighting forum, but it works to keep good discussions going, because you don't have to hear "GSP is a twat", etc all the time. Instead, you generally have people discussing the sport and fighters in a less flame/troll way.

I think a similar system could help here, and make it anti-'game bashing'.

For example:

Acceptable: "I'm not really a fan of Battlefield's so-and-so system, I fell it limits play in a negative way" or "I feel planetside 1's systems are a little dated, and that a less modern and immersive feel would hurt PS2. Here's why."

Not acceptable: "BF3 is for terrible players and only clowns touch ADS, the developers about that game don't give a fuck about anything but money, etc" or "PS1 is for quake loving vets who suck ass at modern shooters, and love their pew pew shit baby weapons and super-speed, that game is ass".

I don't think infractions should be limited to name calling and whatnot, as there definately seems to be a lot of distracting shit talk in the main discussion area. Myself and everyone else included. Maybe a stricter system would allow vets to still feel like they're at the heart of the community, and make new players feel a little more welcome.

All games, new and old, have something to offer for PS2.

this is also what I think, it's ok to say something is bad if you can explain your view. I used to moderate a graphic design forum back in the day. The main posts we deleted were "Uggg that's terrible back to the drawing board" and "I like this amazing work" now you might ask why the second one. Well the reason is because they don't explained WHY. Everyone is trying to have a discussion you need to explain the why on your stance to do that if you do not then you are stopping the conversation/discussion from continuing.