My own perspective.

 

The community itself

The biggest problem isnt a lack of functions, Bioware or Kermit the Frog. It is the lack of a living, breathing community. No one is speaking in the general chat, and the game lacks those well known players that everyone knows the name of. Its a game of total anonymity and solo levelling. And if you didnt sign up with a few friends you might as well play any offline mmo. Every planet you get to feels like a huge instanced solo mission. Sure you see ppl everywhere but its like they were all mutes. They just run past you with their companions.

 

General chat

So why not log in and have a fun time chatting with some players (outside the guild)? Sounds like a normal thing to do in any mmo right? Not! Noone speaks about anything in the general chat in this game. Well, maybe in Naar Shadaa at friday or saturday nights but thats for 3-4 levels and then you are gone to the next planet. And Courascants chat is a sad empty ghost channel most of the time. The main Imperial/Republic space stations general chats is full of lvl 50's looking for HM groups. Nothing else. And since everyone is standing around at the stations instead of being in towns, there are no fun players in the main towns where ppl actually quest and socialize normally.

An area with 200 robots

Today I even qq:ed about this at Imperial station to see if there was any reaction at all. At least someone to tell me to shut up or stop playing. Nothing. Only the usual LFG HM...like an area with 200 robots.

 

Guilds

As a new player might wonder, why join them in this game and where to find them? I used to play GW a while back (yes I have played most other MMO's as well) where guilds played an important role in the game. What role, except having a chat with a few nice ppl during your solo adventures, does the guild play in SWTOR? And you dont get the feeling of a living breathing community since no one is recruiting, except a few localized guilds. The general community is often well represented in a non specialized guild so being in one doesnt always make things any different.

 

Group play

Even at peak hours on a heavy loaded server you cant get a group for a low or mid lvl flashpoint. No one is doing them. Today at Imperial station, 200+ ppl and impossible to get a group for any of the 3 flashpoints I wanted to do with my new char. So why even bother ppl think, when you can just rush on and solo level. Sad, since many ppl miss out on a big part of the game. I know I have. I have done 1 flashpoint, ever. (Oh wait that doesnt apply to group play at all, I tried that one solo. ^^)

 

Why I play

I dont play to rush to lvl 50 on every char. I dont play to get the best equipment and show it off to lesser fortunate players. I play to have fun during, and to see where it takes me. I want to have a laugh at lvl 10 and 35. I play to forget those hard days at work and to escape the boredom of mondays and tuesdays and Nikons and Canons.

 

One thing Ive learned is: If its not especially fun at low or mid level play, its rarely at any level.

 

Wanted posters

If I was the sheriff I would put up wanted posters all over town. Wanted: more chatty, goofy and annoying players that fill this game with something else than ”lvl 50 dps LF any HM”.

 

(Just to make it clear: all of this is on a well populated pve server)

 

Just my perspective. Have fun and gl..

Edited March 23, 2012 by Magnuzone

Video killed the radio star. WoW killed MMO community.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to agree with this. I hear a lot of people, despite all the usual social avenues available in the game, going on about it being a single player game and how it's so boring. The real reason has nothing at all to do with the game itself and everything to do with the lack of people using the tools allotted to them by the game developer, or even attempting to create a sense of community.

 

It seems that there are too many folks who'd rather argue, or be trollish if they decide to interact with fellow players at all. The forums is a prime example of this. General chat is often another, on a busy server. One can lead the proverbial "horse to water, but you can't make it drink".

It's pretty much a given in most online games that if you want to socialize or RP with others, you should initiate it. Aside from guildies/friends, you can't just stand around and wait for people to talk to you.

Video killed the radio star. WoW killed MMO community.

 

:D;)

a good guild will have a sense of community.

try and find one on your sever. I know we chat and do loads of stuff - all levels - including creating our own sandbox style events in a themepark game - with all 200 players in our guild.

My own perspective.

 

Valid points

 

Your correct.

 

I warned EA RPG division of this in beta and presented a number of concepts to address these issues but other then the form letter feedback of "were working on it" when the threads got to huge to ignore, nothing has been done to address the community and what not.

 

Much of the problem is actually Vent and other chat programs.

 

In beta we were not allowed to use them (and I beleive most didnt because of it) and you actually saw very lively and entertaining and interactive communities forming on a daily bases.

 

But once the game went live and the initial 3 weeks of newb questions wore off, it was dead silence out there (Ive tried 3 different servers myself (1 imp and 2 republic) and all are the same way. I even know personally players that close the chat box right off and only chat via voice to guild.

 

Its a real issue with modern day MMORPGs.

NOT a WOW problem though as in Rift, there was a active community when chasing RIFTs and other general activities that allowed players to interact with those outside their guilds.

 

DAoC (pre RAs) community was amazing because of realm defences when defending against Hib or Mid Relic attacks. The entire Albion realm on server came togather and we communicated via general chat.

 

TOR simply has no content that promotes interaction, community, socialization.

 

Its been called a Massively Single Player Role Playing Game and for me thats BANG ON THE MONEY when discribing TOR.

 

Great Single player game with limited multiplayer content.

 

And Patch 1.2 does nothing to fix any of this. If anything Patch 1.2 enhances and propells the individualism and solo concept even more.

 

But lets be honest, its to late to add now anyways. TOR could have been THE MMORPG of 2012 and for years to come. Instead it needs to settle with being a great single player RPG with a small amount of multiplayer content.

 

And no, GW2 isnt going to be the saving grace of the MMORPG genre (for those that feel the need to advertise that "game" in every thread that points out TOR issues).

 

MMORPG genre is stagnant right now till some big thinkers come along.But with the industry as a whole not hiring or rewarding idea people, expect more of the same for the next while.

 

PS: Guilds actually hold much of the blame to this. Back in the day Guilds were about community and socialization. Now a days they about Raiding, PVP, numbers. They have lost all aspects of community and socialization and this "find a good guild" is a myth.

 

But a guild is just a clique anyways. When players speak of community and society and interaction they are typically looking for the server, not 10-20 people only.

 

When someone tells me to find a good guild, that just tells me the person doesnt understand the problem being spoken about.

 

And again, guilds today typically use voice chat contained to their guild, which enhances the lack of communication and socialization for the entire community.

 

Then games start adding guild only content and guild only rewards and suddenly the game is rewarding anti social and anti community behavior and practices.

 

Guilds are definately not the answer but they might very well be p[art of the problem now a days.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Kalfear

Even if you do post, usually you get some stupid reaction to something you said. Even if that something is innocent.

 

Never mind asking for help!!! TROLLS will get you? LOL

 

COMMUNITY and making friends is what I usually come to an MMO for. Love having vent, meeting new folks and doing things with others etc...

 

I want COMMUNITY!!!! something to unite us all because hell running around at Social 1 when im 50 kinda sucks. lol...

It's like this with every popular game ever released.

 

Honestly, as a jack-of-all-trades,ace of none gamer, I've seen my fair share of ridiculous communities. I've played Starcraft 2, C&C Generals (and the Shockwave mod), Halo (3, Reach, and ODST and others...) and always in the forums there's always something along the lines of "Bungie fix your armor lock", "Protoss is too OP", "EA get your *bleep* in line and fix China".

 

I've heard enough of this. I don't like to compare this game to WoW, not at all, I actually hate it but go on their forums and you'll see crybabies whine about it as well. No, it's not Bioware, Bungie, EA's or Blizzards fault. It's their 'fans'. They like the game, but the reasonable with common sense appreciate the developer's hard work and devotion and construct meaningful arguments and suggestions to improve the game. Even when the next patch doesn't completely fix something, they still play it and encourage the developers to keep at it.

 

The majority of forums such as these are what we call tryhard fanboys, whinebabies, or even utter stupid users. They want the game as they see it, and if they don't get it they come post about how bad the developers are doing. They don't appreciate the effort Bungie placed by making 3 whole new games for the fans, they don't appreciate the truly devoted fans of C&C Generals to make a new mod for the game without getting hit with these insufferable morons, and they want the game to be 'like this' or 'like WoW'.

 

These people do not care about anything, they care about themselves and they do not have to common sense to stop playing. They keep playing, make the developers very rich, yet they whine and cry about changes. I unfortunately had multiple occurences of this happening to me in real life from my so called 'friends'.

 

They hit 50 in this game, and urged me and pestered me to join their guild (which I did) to get to 50 so we can do endgame content. Keep in mind they've already hit 50 like 2 weeks before I did so they had PLENTY of time to find out the endgame is lacklusting (not that it's bad at all!). Whenever I did, I played 2 flashpoints, Black Talon HM twice. That was it.

 

They urged me to 50 FOR NOTHING. They quit the game soon after and went back to WoW because they found out there was no endgame. I'm now stuck in an empty guild with multiple alts to fill my time while facing the fact that I got completely ditched.

I think this game has plenty of content. I also think that it's not the MMO makers who need to create community...it's the players who have to create community. It's easy enough to do. Our server always has tons of people talking in general chat- on almost every planet.

 

It's the community's responsibility to create community. All we have to do is make it happen.

It's pretty much a given in most online games that if you want to socialize or RP with others, you should initiate it. Aside from guildies/friends, you can't just stand around and wait for people to talk to you.

Pretty much this.

 

I'm quite chatty in-game, and while most people in this game are mute (even during WZs when you need to communicate), I keep trying. I have found other chatty people. They exist

To me this is just another symptom of the Baldur's Gate Syndrome.

 

People have been conditioned by MMOs to assume that all players are just lively NPCs, waiting for the chance to interact with the mighty hero. As NPCs, they cannot feel pain or be lonely, right? Furthermore, what kind of weirdo has a conversation with inanimate objects?

 

I continually try to get people involved on my server, Juyo. We are not a wasteland. There are anywhere from 30 people in non-prime to 70 in prime time. People flat out REFUSE to communicate, unless said communication is to be nasty (which, I don't mind, since then at least something happens).

 

I spent last night on an alt trying to coax one of the 62 people to help with a 4 man. I already had a tank and healer along (any social people I immediately make friends with) and had been mixing in recruitment messages with others trying to get people to interact. I then started sending private messages to people, only to find 11 had me ignored. They ignored me for talking in the general chat, which must have been so depressing to see someone being social. Poor babies.

 

The easy thing to do would be to retreat into gchat and never say another word. But then I think of all the nice players that quit after being ignored or are silent because no one broke the ice.

You hit the nail on the head when you said there is no sense of community on the servers but while general is a decent tool, we need more. An LFG would be ideal but it has its own problems as vets of that other game can attest. Bioware has a much different take on MMOs and that is fine but I think they failed by not including 2 simple things:

 

Global Chat - I know it is blasphemous to suggest something like this but I always viewed trade chat like an talk show. It was mostly annoying but occasionally you'd get good information from it though eventually you had to turn it off. It was a nice place to learn about people on your server - Like when a guild killed a boss, or to find a guild, or to ask a question about how something is affecting the game. The travel time in this game means you spend very little time on the fleet and when you are questing on a planet it feels empty. Enabling a global channel to watch for someone who wants to run a flashpoint is a much better use of time than spamming general in the fleet and wasting an hour. If nothing else watching the idiots argue in trade is proof that you aren't alone in the world.

 

Server Forums - My guess is only 10% of the people went to the server forums in that other game but 100% of the successful guilds used them. The SWTOR "server" forums are useless because they are shared so nobody uses them. If people on a server had a place to call their own, they might spend more time there and it would encourage co-operation between people and guilds. The only reason I can think of not to include server forums is they felt the cost to moderate them was greater than the reward and and if that is their reasoning, they are wrong.

 

Like many fans of Star Wars I really want this game to succeed and I know Bioware is capable of fixing the problems. I just hope it happens before the servers become real ghost towns because then all the tools in the world won't get people back.

As yet, this game doesn't have any rewards desirable enough to encourage the growth of server community. Older MMOs had things, whether gear, access to areas, or otherwise that could only be obtained through long-term commitment by not just a guild but an entire server. While I understand that many players now don't want to have to deal with the sort of infrastructure that had to be maintained for old-school PvE or PvP progression (such as getting Grand Marshall in old WoW, which was frequently a coordinated effort including agreements made between players on the same server), having to come together to achieve goals is what built community in older MMOs. When everything can be done in a short amount of time and without having to rely on your server at large, instead only needing the help of a small group, there's no need for community to form.

 

In addition, when everything is easy, no one can become recognized for achievement. While it hasn't hit SWTOR yet, cross-server activities discourage recognition further: when the pond is too big, you tend not to recognize any of your fellow fish. It might suck queueing repeatedly against an awesome team, but you'll probably recognize those people later (and perhaps form a premade of your own to take them down). On that note, it would also be good to be able to queue with a premade of any size up to the maximum for a WZ.

To me this is just another symptom of the Baldur's Gate Syndrome.

 

People have been conditioned by MMOs to assume that all players are just lively NPCs, waiting for the chance to interact with the mighty hero. As NPCs, they cannot feel pain or be lonely, right? Furthermore, what kind of weirdo has a conversation with inanimate objects?

 

I continually try to get people involved on my server, Juyo. We are not a wasteland. There are anywhere from 30 people in non-prime to 70 in prime time. People flat out REFUSE to communicate, unless said communication is to be nasty (which, I don't mind, since then at least something happens).

 

I spent last night on an alt trying to coax one of the 62 people to help with a 4 man. I already had a tank and healer along (any social people I immediately make friends with) and had been mixing in recruitment messages with others trying to get people to interact. I then started sending private messages to people, only to find 11 had me ignored. They ignored me for talking in the general chat, which must have been so depressing to see someone being social. Poor babies.

 

The easy thing to do would be to retreat into gchat and never say another word. But then I think of all the nice players that quit after being ignored or are silent because no one broke the ice.

 

That happen to me too, in narr shaddaa me an another felow were trying to get a certain datacron and we were laughing at it, you know miss jumps and all that, and talking how to get a better jump. All that in general chat. And some other people where bothered and complain about it, and some ignore us... i mean what a hell its wrong with people?! no one is forcing them to read the chat in the first place. Its nuts.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Spartanik

It's the community's responsibility to create community. All we have to do is make it happen.

 

That's just crazy talk!

Come to Rubat Crystal. Some areas can get lonely, but people are always willing to talk.

Figured I'd weigh in with my thoughts.

 

The first MMO that I started playing was Anarchy Online roughly 10 years ago. It was a Sci-Fi game, which is what drew me in. What made that game, in its peak, was that you HAD to group up and do content together. If you wanted to solo exclusively, you would never reach the level cap. The last level, I recall, took me 14 hours of non-stop group missions to ding.

 

And that's where the MMO paradigm shifted. People complained because they wanted to solo. They didn't want to be FORCED to group up to play the game. Players also complained about "the grind" taking so long. So what happened? They made leveling quicker. You can solo and reach level cap without ever being social and grouping up, and in a comparably short amount of time.

 

And now, doesn't it seem that we, the players, have forced developers to create games that we're now realizing we don't really like? Imagine if BW created SWTOR that you HAD to group up to level. People would have been in an outrage. So what did they do? They create a game where you can do both. The problem is that most people solo. Most people don't do flashpoints except for maybe to grab their daily mission reward for the day.

 

Imagine if BW created a game that took 8 months for a power gamer, let alone a casual gamer, to hit level cap? Major outrage right? So what happened? We're left with a game that a power gamer can hit level cap in a matter of weeks.

 

And now my last example. Anarchy Online, when it came out with it's first, major expansion pack, created an amazing, exciting PVP system where land control brought guild and faction boosts depending on how much land was controlled by whom. This was HUGE in bringing the community together even more. When a fellow-faction's guild territory was attacked, everybody in the faction had incentive to help protect it. People that you wouldn't technically call PVP'ers showed up to mass battle PVP to protect the buffs that they received. Guild members HAD to stop what they were doing to come protect guild land if they wanted to keep the stats required to equip their uber gear. Although I didn't play it, people have told me that DAOC was similar, in that the system sparked fantastic mass pvp battles to take or defend, I think, nodes they were called.

 

All of these things created a wonderful community. Despite thousands of people being on a server, it seemed everybody knew who everybody was. You always found yourself playing with the same people. You would run group missions with the same people all the time. You learned who were the good doctors, who were the good tanks. You got random messages from people saying hey we need a doc, wanna run with us? Group PVE, group PVP, *WAS* the game. If you didn't do it, there was no point in playing.

 

And THAT's where it all went wrong. Everybody complained, so now we have different games that completely removed those aspects. It's pretty sad.

 

I've tried joining numerous guilds in this game and none have been fun while leveling. Even in a decently-sized guild, nobody is running together until they're at level cap. That's not fun for me. The most fun I have is running flashpoints. In fact, I'll run flashpoints over and over until I've leveled 4-5 levels higher than what my class quests require. Then I am forced to go run through my class quests for a planet until I "clean" them up so I can move on to the next planet. When that happens, I literally think "oh man, this sucks. I have to go do quests solo."

 

So the question is, which do you want? People complained when it was the old way. People are complaining at how the games are structured now. And say whatever you want about WOW. I tried that game and found it no different than this one. No reason to group, no community.

 

We did this to ourselves. We made the bed. And now we are forced to lie down in it. Simple enough. So complaining that BW sucks, or Blizzard sucks is useless. Blame yourselves. All of us. We did it.

Edited March 22, 2012 by FrankyBoots

All of a sudden this thread is [MOVED]

 

It was posted in General Discussion from the beginning.

So moved from where?

 

That must mean that it was moved back a few pages on purpose. Because it was no other topic to move it from.

 

 

ehh..

This is very wierd.

Personally all the issues you've been having trouble there is only one i agree with and that's the lack of a talking community but then again that's my own fault for playing on a low population server in which there are still some pretty talkative people and have you tried intitating the conversation. As far as everything else goes I've no such problem getting a group I've had no problem at peak hours finding thing's to do with other people, but that's how it was at first in WoW and ever quest and everything people are getting their barrings and part of the reason that WoW was so easy is because every child on the planet had an account and now all that's left are hardcore fans with nothing better to do. Personally i enjoy were its at right now and am thoroughly impressed. The community will pick as the charts has been progressively showing especially with this being the fastest growing mmo ever. For the past 3 weeks i haven't had a single day where i haven't been in a party and or talknig to people on gen chat for atleast 2 hours. ( Sick of hearing the same crap come out every WoW fans mouth..... WoW was at this same point at the begging i know i was there....)

 

 

End Game content will fix all your problems....Also making the Crew Skills more complicated will help as well.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Kiojin

/cjoin 4 (flashpoint) for the flashpoint part at least

 

 

 

Global Chat - I know it is blasphemous to suggest something like this but I always viewed trade chat like an talk show. It was mostly annoying but occasionally you'd get good information from it though eventually you had to turn it off. It was a nice place to learn about people on your server - Like when a guild killed a boss, or to find a guild, or to ask a question about how something is affecting the game. The travel time in this game means you spend very little time on the fleet and when you are questing on a planet it feels empty. Enabling a global channel to watch for someone who wants to run a flashpoint is a much better use of time than spamming general in the fleet and wasting an hour. If nothing else watching the idiots argue in trade is proof that you aren't alone in the world.

Global Chat - I know it is blasphemous to suggest something like this but I always viewed trade chat like an talk show. It was mostly annoying but occasionally you'd get good information from it though eventually you had to turn it off. It was a nice place to learn about people on your server - Like when a guild killed a boss, or to find a guild, or to ask a question about how something is affecting the game. The travel time in this game means you spend very little time on the fleet and when you are questing on a planet it feels empty. Enabling a global channel to watch for someone who wants to run a flashpoint is a much better use of time than spamming general in the fleet and wasting an hour. If nothing else watching the idiots argue in trade is proof that you aren't alone in the world.

 

+1

Would be an improvement. It just feels to isolated questing on a half-empty planet with no trolls to get annoyed at. Since the general chat is dead on all planets.

 

Was in Balmorra last night and didnt feel like doing anything so I just more or less stood around. So lets see how it is tonight. In 40 minutes I counted 3 sentences in the chat.

I bs on rebublic fleet chat pretty much every time I go there. Maybe it's your server, on Jung ma we chat alot.

Your correct.

 

I warned EA RPG division of this in beta and presented a number of concepts to address these issues but other then the form letter feedback of "were working on it" when the threads got to huge to ignore, nothing has been done to address the community and what not.

 

Much of the problem is actually Vent and other chat programs.

 

In beta we were not allowed to use them (and I beleive most didnt because of it) and you actually saw very lively and entertaining and interactive communities forming on a daily bases.

 

But once the game went live and the initial 3 weeks of newb questions wore off, it was dead silence out there (Ive tried 3 different servers myself (1 imp and 2 republic) and all are the same way. I even know personally players that close the chat box right off and only chat via voice to guild.

 

Its a real issue with modern day MMORPGs.

NOT a WOW problem though as in Rift, there was a active community when chasing RIFTs and other general activities that allowed players to interact with those outside their guilds.

 

DAoC (pre RAs) community was amazing because of realm defences when defending against Hib or Mid Relic attacks. The entire Albion realm on server came togather and we communicated via general chat.

 

TOR simply has no content that promotes interaction, community, socialization.

 

Its been called a Massively Single Player Role Playing Game and for me thats BANG ON THE MONEY when discribing TOR.

 

Great Single player game with limited multiplayer content.

 

And Patch 1.2 does nothing to fix any of this. If anything Patch 1.2 enhances and propells the individualism and solo concept even more.

 

But lets be honest, its to late to add now anyways. TOR could have been THE MMORPG of 2012 and for years to come. Instead it needs to settle with being a great single player RPG with a small amount of multiplayer content.

 

And no, GW2 isnt going to be the saving grace of the MMORPG genre (for those that feel the need to advertise that "game" in every thread that points out TOR issues).

 

MMORPG genre is stagnant right now till some big thinkers come along.But with the industry as a whole not hiring or rewarding idea people, expect more of the same for the next while.

 

PS: Guilds actually hold much of the blame to this. Back in the day Guilds were about community and socialization. Now a days they about Raiding, PVP, numbers. They have lost all aspects of community and socialization and this "find a good guild" is a myth.

 

But a guild is just a clique anyways. When players speak of community and society and interaction they are typically looking for the server, not 10-20 people only.

 

When someone tells me to find a good guild, that just tells me the person doesnt understand the problem being spoken about.

 

And again, guilds today typically use voice chat contained to their guild, which enhances the lack of communication and socialization for the entire community.

 

Then games start adding guild only content and guild only rewards and suddenly the game is rewarding anti social and anti community behavior and practices.

 

Guilds are definately not the answer but they might very well be p[art of the problem now a days.

 

how in the hell would they know if u used vent? they shouldnt have anyway of tracking that

I agree. completely.