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Is gw2 really a great community?


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I always see people say how great the community is but personally, to me is just so-so? I always think people oversell or overhype it.

Gw2 is not a puny game with puny population so I always thought it is natural to have "many" helpful people and logically speaking, the proportion (in percentage) of helpful people isn't that much different from any other games.

What is your thoughts?

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GW2 removes some of the elements that traditionally promoted bad behavior. You can't steal gathering nodes, quests or enemies for example, the lack of vertical progression killed off a lot of those types, events encourage people to work together and anyone can revive anyone. It makes the community appear nicer and more helpful.

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I think GW2 has a better community than many games I've played. I've been on some forums where it's just not worth trying to ask 'beginner' questions because the only replies you'll get are either mocking you for not already knowing the answers or making jokes about the situation because people seem to consider it beneath them to actually answer. Some of them can be quite mean - 'jokes' which appear to be advice but would actually make things worse, like all the old "Have you tried deleting System32?" comments when anyone asked for PC help, where the funny part is everyone else will know it's terrible advice.

If you admit to things like using a free account (even in the past tense), buying anything less than the most expensive/"best" package, not yet completing all the end-game content or if you call yourself a casual player you basically give everyone else permission to disregard your posts as coming from someone not worthy of speaking to the "real" players. Or they just treat you as if everything you said is automatically wrong.

Last night in WvW someone admitted to being a free player and I realised I was bracing myself for the reaction, but all he got was a few people asking if he liked the game and telling him it's definitely worth getting at least 1 expansion. Plus it actually helped people understand why he was asking 'silly' questions like "Why can't I damage this guy?" where the guy was a camp supervisor with the invulnerability timer up.

Like @"Oglaf.1074" said any game is going to have a mix of people in it's community, you're never going to find any group of people larger than maybe 3 or 4 where everyone is nice all the time...and honestly even with 4 I'd start wondering what they're up to. But I think overall the GW2 community makes more of an effort to be friendly than many I've been part of.

You also have to bear in mind that different people have different standards and expectations. I once received 2 PMs about a long post I'd written - one telling me it was really nice and helpful and one telling me I'd been incredibly rude and condescending to someone who was just trying to get help. I'd answered all their questions but skipped all the 'niceties' - instead of saying "I'm sorry that was so frustrating for you, I can see why you'd expect it to work that way..." I'd jumped straight into "here's what you need to do to get it working". That's how I am, if there's a problem I want a solution and I tend to assume once the problem is fixed people will feel better by default because there isn't a problem any more. Sometimes it works, but sometimes people just want to rant and feel heard and then me trying to fix it doesn't help. It's worse with suggestions - I'm really bad at remembering people online can't see me smiling and nodding as I read the post so I need to start with "I really like this idea" before jumping into "but what about..." - I'm excited for the idea and want to get it into a workable state so it can be made, but they just see criticism. So whilst I always try to be nice and helpful I know for a fact I've contributed both to people thinking the GW2 community is friendly and people thinking it's a horrible place where you can't say anything without being shut down.

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I feel like it does have a good proportion of friendly helpful people, but I don't think that has anything to do with the inherent nature of people that play this game versus others. The game mechanics were designed to encourage this behavior. You are rarely competing with other players, even indirectly in PvE like you are in many other games of this type. No competing over resource nodes, no exclusive tagging of mobs to 'steal kills', etc. If the mechanics changed to have more competition over these things I am pretty sure you would start to see toxicity levels higher, less helpful people, all that. I don't really think there is anything magical about the player base, I think it is all down to game design.

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@SkyShroud.2865 said:so-so?Above average, I'd say.

As others have stated above, GW2 is more cooperative than competitive, which promotes friendlier behavior. People still run HP trains, portal JPs, and occasionally help each other with achievements and the like.

However, there are fairly broad realms of content (fractals, raids, harder world/meta content) where if you PUG at all, you can easily find it doesn't take much for people to reveal antipathy and even hostility, pointing fingers, calling names, &tc. Cliquish behavior is also very common within and among guilds, and as GW2 is largely a social game, and in the social arena ANET is relatively laissez-faire, people regulate themselves, with mixed results.

I've seen MMO communities that are much friendlier, where players regularly gift new players items with premium currency and trade them extras of rares they could easily otherwise sell, just out of empathy and sympathy for being in the new player's shoes. But I think GW2 is at a point now where the noob/vet discrepancy is so huge and the veteran position is so remote, and so much content is dependent upon group competence despite GW2's generally casual veneer that it's much easier to see new players as obstacles or as anchors than as assets. Outside of specific game modes or interactions that friendliness is there, but patience and generosity, less so.

I'd rate it maybe a 6.5 to 7/10. Not LoL level, or even WoW level, but certainly not utopian by any means.

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@Moonyeti.3296 said:I feel like it does have a good proportion of friendly helpful people, but I don't think that has anything to do with the inherent nature of people that play this game versus others. The game mechanics were designed to encourage this behavior. You are rarely competing with other players, even indirectly in PvE like you are in many other games of this type. No competing over resource nodes, no exclusive tagging of mobs to 'steal kills', etc. If the mechanics changed to have more competition over these things I am pretty sure you would start to see toxicity levels higher, less helpful people, all that. I don't really think there is anything magical about the player base, I think it is all down to game design.

isn't that pretty standard now in game design... or for quite a few years rather?

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@SkyShroud.2865 , only way ic it it's the pve quangan lovers that are a nice comunity to each other..

Personally, i would make a quagan fin soup.

Overall liek i tend to say, game is extremelly basic that dont even promote team work, players in raid and fractals are mostly play what i want or gtfo, while even with gimicks setups they expect to get carried and blame on others while nothing of that feel pro behavior is needed due how basic game is.I dont see nor imagine nothing to spport a decent community in PVE on this game, there nothing to attach a group of players towards it.Even Guilds are just chat rooms... nowadays, players u play on WvW are more from "the server community" than most of the guild members we have(this game and server wide)...

I think its a faik community. (some guilds are actually true communities but most already bailed out of this game)

WvW players server wide are more off a true community than pve players think they are.There are no pve commuinities....

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@Moonyeti.3296 said:I feel like it does have a good proportion of friendly helpful people, but I don't think that has anything to do with the inherent nature of people that play this game versus others. The game mechanics were designed to encourage this behavior. You are rarely competing with other players, even indirectly in PvE like you are in many other games of this type. No competing over resource nodes, no exclusive tagging of mobs to 'steal kills', etc. If the mechanics changed to have more competition over these things I am pretty sure you would start to see toxicity levels higher, less helpful people, all that. I don't really think there is anything magical about the player base, I think it is all down to game design.

isn't that pretty standard now in game design... or for quite a few years rather? I think it has also to do with player age. My impression is that teenagers are not that much into the standard mmorpg model anymore, rather persistant competitive designs like LoL and that... hm, thing from Blizzard (yes, I know that little of the genre :) ) Hence we are missing all of nature's designed psychopaths from the game (hey, I am not judging, the juvenile brain has been proven to be a complete mess :) ).

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Any input is going to be strictly anecdotal, but what I've found is that basically - it used to be. Before PoF I had nothing but positive experiences with other players, and found that mentors were helpful, etc. Since, there's been an influx of returning players or people used to other MMOs who seem to have brought with them the kinds of behaviors that made other MMOs less pleasant. Only recently, I've found that people don't help if you're downed, people snag rewards and run away leaving you to fight, 'mentors' basically just ask people to help them, etc. Maybe it's just chance, but that's been my perception.On the other hand, you still have mesmers, for example, helping port people almost always with no request for compensation (and often refusing it). You have a number of guilds that welcome new players and questions. You have people regularly inviting others to farm their home instances - again for no compensation. There's still a lot of helpfulness going on.

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@Algreg.3629 said:

@Moonyeti.3296 said:I feel like it does have a good proportion of friendly helpful people, but I don't think that has anything to do with the inherent nature of people that play this game versus others. The game mechanics were designed to encourage this behavior. You are rarely competing with other players, even indirectly in PvE like you are in many other games of this type. No competing over resource nodes, no exclusive tagging of mobs to 'steal kills', etc. If the mechanics changed to have more competition over these things I am pretty sure you would start to see toxicity levels higher, less helpful people, all that. I don't really think there is anything magical about the player base, I think it is all down to game design.

isn't that pretty standard now in game design... or for quite a few years rather?

Absolutely, but GW2 was designed around it from the beginning, and is established enough to have a reputation for that that newer MMO's have yet to reach. Or they are older games that were designed originally more of the old school 'Everquest-like' way, and were retrofitted to have some of these systems after to modernise them, but there is still plenty of old DNA left over in those games. WoW, Lotro, SW:TOR for example have a lot of these modern improvements retrofitted in, but there are plenty of the old systems still in there. Newer MMO designs incorporate these, but also tend to adapt newer game modes that have been popularized since GW2's release. I think it is GW2 was released at the right time to grab the non competitive, casual MMO market. There are others, but GW2 got the reputation.

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Last night in Dry Top, a newcomer asked how to get geodes, and someone told him the best way was killing the giant, and that he'd get 10x the geodes if he soloed it. Naturally I refuted this, and the guy got a bit sniffy about 'It was just a joke.'

But this is kind of a rare thing to see here, in general everyone in map chat is civil and helpful, sometimes to the point where three or four people are yelling out the same helpful advice at once. The previous game I played was also cooperative, and the chat was frequently full of squabbling, reportable offensive comments, accusations of botting, and so much filter evasion that you didn't dare post a screenshot anywhere without blacking out the chat panel.

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@Algreg.3629 said:

@"Moonyeti.3296" said:I feel like it does have a good proportion of friendly helpful people, but I don't think that has anything to do with the inherent nature of people that play this game versus others. The game mechanics were designed to encourage this behavior. You are rarely competing with other players, even indirectly in PvE like you are in many other games of this type. No competing over resource nodes, no exclusive tagging of mobs to 'steal kills', etc. If the mechanics changed to have more competition over these things I am pretty sure you would start to see toxicity levels higher, less helpful people, all that. I don't really think there is anything magical about the player base, I think it is all down to game design.

isn't that pretty standard now in game design... or for quite a few years rather? I think it has also to do with player age. My impression is that teenagers are not that much into the standard mmorpg model anymore, rather persistant competitive designs like LoL and that... hm, thing from Blizzard (yes, I know that little of the genre :) ) Hence we are missing all of nature's designed psychopaths from the game (hey, I am not judging, the juvenile brain has been proven to be a complete mess :) ).

Back when I dabbled a bit into Blade & Soul, it still had the competitive enviroment in terms of competing over nodes (if they weren't already consumed), the economy felt iirc quite newbie unfriendly, and it being a Korean MMO didn't help too much with it, I think. The differencen between top-geared players and "casuals" lead predictably to the point where the latter couldn't get kill credits as the mob/open world boss melted too fast in the zerg. Don't know how it's nowadays, though. Dunno about current WoW as I stopped playing way back in Cata. LFR caused apparently a small floodwave of raider tears as it's considered the easy mode, but I haven't used it myself.

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Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. GW2 legendary weapons are. I have played mmos long, long time. This is truly one of the best communities out there. Prolly old Rangarok Online community was so nice and helpful.

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It all depends on how you define, "Great Community." What's your definition, @SkyShroud.2865 and why do you think GW2's people haven't met the bar?


For me, I look at how willing people are to help others, how often people stop randomly to help, how many questions get answered in /map or /say, how easy it is to get people for cooperative events, how willing people are to communicate for group or instanced combat, how easy it is to meet people.

Then there's also relative comparisons: is this game's community notably different from other games? Better? worse? In what ways?

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Sometimes the most vocal people aren't the best representation of the populace as a whole.

For me, despite being a primary WvW player, it is rare where I am in an open world area where I see map chat with lots of negative banter.

In fact, I have never asked a question that wasn't answered in a helpful manner including the occasional snarky response. Both in WvW and in PvE open world areas.

I think it's a really good community. It has its issues, but otherwise, it's really good.

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In reference to other communities I'm a part of (which aren't that many since I don't play a lot of games), I'm going to have to say that things are mixed in terms of how "great" the community is. If you're playing with friends and/or a guild, you're going to have a much better time than someone who's running solo in anything. Also, like others have said, the more cooperative nature of the game does eliminate more toxic elements but they still manifest themselves in other ways. Overall, I think the experience is better in game than it is in online communities.

Additionally, online communities for this game, like the forums and the GW2 sub-Reddit, aren't a reasonable metric to determine how "great" a community is because most players don't actively participate in them. Most are playing the game and will likely never set foot in such communities, which I don't blame them for because nine times out of ten I often regret posting and even browsing those communities. Based on my experiences, the forums usually amount to non-constructive/deconstructive complaining about the game and multiple threads asking for the game to be like every other MMO on the market while the GW2 sub-Reddit is mostly flavor-of-the-month memes and clique-like nonsense that you either conform to for upvotes or get downvoted to oblivion.

Between those two, there really isn't a more middle ground, level-headed community for this game, which is a shame. It's either one bad extreme or the other and that, in my opinion, hurts the image of the game.

tl;dr - the community in game is a lot better than the online/forum/sub-Reddit communities so long as you're playing with friends and/or a guild.

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Other MMOS encourage players to compete against each other and that tends to bring out the worst in people

Gw2 doesn't have stuff like monsters becoming worthless if a player attacks it before you do which encurages players to work with each other instead of against each other.

The community did take a huge dip in quality after the game went F2P though

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I've been in GW2 since launch, and the community evolved a lot since then.At launch and up to around tequatl release, it was incredibly friendly and welcoming in most modes, PvP was more of a distraction, most people were casual about it.There were a few bad eggs in WvW, but mostly it was ok.Tequatl changed things a bit by introducing a boss that was actually hard to complete if you didn't find yourself in a full instance of the map. This led to some people having worse reactions, but overall it was mostly a very positive community.

After HoT there was a more noticeable difference... Might be due to the F2P or just the increased difficulty bringing out the worse in people, but you'd see a lot more rudeness and unfriendly behaviour in the map.After Ranked Leagues came out for sPVP, i feel that until i stopped the community was generally becoming more and more toxic. Not with people being frustrated and cussing at each other, that's expected within a competitive aspect. But with more people afking, throwing matches and win-trading more openly.Raids also brought about a new form of toxicity. Not elitism, which is what a lot would expect. That's normal, people will do what they want to do, and completing stuff fast is always a draw for people. But the reverse-elitists, that instead of either complying with the speed runners or the party's standards, will instead insist they are "entitled" to play in that group despite failing the group's requisites.

Honestly it's expected... The game isn't as fresh as it was, and Arena Net isn't pulling off any strokes of genius like the Marionette or SAB any more. So people will unconsciously be less positive as well, which degrades the community.

Overall, and especially because open world, which is the most played part of the game, is co-op focused, instead of competitive, people will in general be friendlier here than in games like BDO, WOW, etc. Where you're likely to get PK'd over a spawn, or just have to stand there being frustrated by the guy stealing your spawns.

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GW2 facilitates being friendly to fellow players: no node or mob stealing, a map icon for downed-states visible to all, the focus on character looks and of course its single best feature (IMO): meta events. Running a lot of DS while enjoying the map chat/drama is as close to The Barrens as you can come in 2018 ;-)

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