Ahem. I suppose it's time for... theorycrafting. Not the typical mathematical/statistical analysis I usually do; this isn't Elitist Jerks.
Communities and players are trading genuine, social interaction for efficiency.
That's the thesis. Read it carefully. Done? Read it again.
I've been thinking to myself about something I've seen not just in this forum but across every MMO and communities at large; I thought to make a thread to air such thoughts and possibly dirty laundry. I'll use two example MMOs here.
Suppose we'll look at FFXI first. The more I think about it, the less I think people didn't form social groups because they wanted to, but because they had to. It was efficient. The fastest way to get content done. People used groups and other players to get levels as quickly as possible. At the end of the day, you the player and everyone else you're likely playing with may leave once they finish their objective and not see each other again. In that same instance, you may also retain a few contacts for leveling so they can help yourself level up.
Not much more I want to say about FFXI, so let's move onto FFXIV. FFXIV is a weird crowd to work with. Players want to improve, yet are shunned by the anti-parser crowd and the "git gud" players in general. NA/EU culture seems whack, distorted, and designed here in such a manner that the only player that matters... is you. Afterall, you paid the sub for the game right? What do other people care what you do with the sub? There's occasionally content that requires a group setting, but almost all of the time everything you need to do can be done by yourself or done through the automatic group matcher. There's not as much of a need for you to go out an form a group; a group will often be formed for you instead.
Is there a point between comparing FFXI and FFXIV at this point? Sure there is. People made social groups because it was the path of least resistance in FFXI. People don't make as many--if almost no--groups because it isn't really required in FFXIV. It's whatever is the most efficient, if you ask me.
Now, let's introduce theorycrafting's effect on a community--the mathematical analysis kind. Though originally prominent in Starcraft, an RTS, it's biggest debut in NA/EU MMOs, imo, surfaced at Burning Crusade's launch for WoW in 2007 and Elitist Jerks' emergence. Optimization now reached MMOs, whereas it was typically confined to RPGs like KOTOR and RTSs like Starcraft and Warcraft III. Before theorycrafting became a "thing," playing whatever class you thought was fun to play is perfectly acceptable. Now that it's around in full force, playing the most optimal class to its greatest potential is a major concern. What happens when your class doesn't become or is no longer the optimal class? Complain to the developers to balance it out, of course. Having fun paled in comparison to being optimal; the highest benefit for the lowest cost.
Suppose being efficient applied to groups and social communities. Let's do an example: Say you want to run a dungeon. You can do a few things:
1. Join a current group that has experience and could carry you through.
2. Join a group that doesn't have much experience, but will still take you along.
3. Make your own group to beat the dungeon.
So, let's assume I, as a player, want to get through something with as little a cost to myself as possible. I'd say choice #1 looks pretty nice compared to the rest of them. I can join a group that knows what they're doing and can essentially carry me through it all without me trying as much as possible. I can take it easy, not exert as much energy, and just have fun. Sounds pretty beneficial, right?
Well. Time for a bold opinion. If you picked choice #1, you may be the problem. Afterall, you're expecting other people to play the game in a way that picks up your slack--something that contributes to hatred from the carriers, laziness from the carried, and destructive behavior all over. If the carriers start expressing hatred for these "new" players they have to carry through and help all the time, I guarantee you they will stop doing runs with random players due to multiple bad experiences. They want to be as efficient as possible and the "new"/bad players aren't helping them out. If you picked choice #2 or #3, I'd say you're doing fine and I couldn't care less. At least you're with other people in the same boat as you. #3, however, could be as destructive as #1 if you invite other players who carry you through.
Take a small break now. Done? Hail Hydrate, get some water, and keep reading.
Now we have ourselves a divide of exceptional players (the carriers) and terrible players (the carried) in the community. I'm not specialised in psychology, but I'm pretty sure players remember bad experiences more vividly than good experiences. Say "good" players keep pairing up with the bad/carried players and continue receiving bad experiences. The "good" players forced to deal with the bad players seclude themselves off and avoid the public scene.
Sound familiar with how/why FCs and people hole up within their own cliques? It should.
As more players seclude themselves from the public scene, they sacrifice the number of connections and interactions they could make with others. When the good players are completely isolated, all that is left are the bad players. When the bad players are all that's left for the newer players to play with, the number of bad players will increase. And when good or average players see these players not caring, they may wonder "why should we care?" and the ranks of the badders increase ever more.
Now we have a bunch of bad players present in the works. What's the easiest and lowest thought-provoking way to tell people they're bad? By telling them they're bad. And by telling them they're bad, I mean insulting them. Offering advice requires some knowledge you have to extract out of your brain, type out in a hopefully understandable answer, and then hope that they accept the advice. It's much simpler to tell someone "you suck at NIN" than it is to say "You should consider keeping up DE, SF, and MU." What do most people do? Take the path of least resistance of course--players start to throw out insults.
Now you have a community that tosses out insults at each other, degrades each other, and contains players doomed to suck at a game in addition to plenty of players that feel it isn't worth the time to help out the players lagging behind. Players who are insulted or feel weak generate anti-elitist, anti-parser, and anti-whatever groups to unionize themselves against the haters.
So... congratulations! You're a MOBA, Harry! When a community reaches the MOBA point, the best solution is scorched earth tactics. Destroy it all, rebuild it from the ground up, and pray to whatever gods (or to science) that it goes much better the second time around. Hopefully that cycle won't repeat, right?
Let's ask Satan for a comment on that! What say you, Satan?
"Societies work in cycles, Leggerless. They may be great for a time, but they'll always fall at the end. Least Hell doesn't have this issue; we're going strong for all eternity."
Thanks, Satan. Have a cookie on the way out; they're chocolate chip.
So, what can you do to make your community not reach the MOBA point as quickly? Plenty of things, but they require a continued effort. Making interactions with people instead of taking the most efficient route through everything.
1. Have a smile on your face sometimes. I don't want to pity the fool. I'm a player, not Mr. T.
2. Don't be an extremist. There's more than just your side to an argument.
3. Don't be an entitled little shit. Learn how to be somewhat self-sufficient; in the process of becoming self-sufficient you can inspire others to do the same.
4. Try to have fun when you can. If you're too much of a hardass, everything looks gray, mucky, and like a black lagoon and CoD color palette merged into one grotesque scene.
5. If someone is offering you advice, take it with a grain of salt and try not to lash out at them unless you have plenty of evidence suggesting the advice is bad. If you do lash out, they may stop helping others in general. Don't be that player!
6. You've probably reached a breaking point once or twice. Let me tell you this. The world is your oyster. Fucking own it. JUST DO IT. DON'T LET YOU DREAMS BE DREAMS! Show those naysayers that you're not just all talk, can walk the walk, and break out of your comfort zone!
7. A consistently above average community can get more done than a community made of both exceptional and bad people. It's called quality control and yes, it is a very real thing. Japanese (and the Wu Tang Clan, by coincidence) ain't nothing to fuck with; they made the Kanban system and have their quality up to at least 5 sigma.
8. Macho Man Randy Savage says the sky is the limit? Show him otherwise. Snap into a Slim Jim. Transform into a dragon and yell out quotations. For the community, make it the day that they receive a great blessing. For you... make it so it is just another Tuesday.
9. Learn how to lead a group. You don't have to lead a group yourself all the time, but you really should know what it takes to be a leader should you be forced into that position. WoW Raid Lead guides can give you a starting point. The concepts of leading are very consistent across video games. At the very least, you're going in knowing something rather than nothing and people can appreciate the fact you took the initiative to lead the group when no one else did/could.
10. Respect. It is earned, not given. Earn it if you want it. Also applies to trust.
Now that I've made my giant wall of text I'm heading to the Winchester, grabbing a pint, and waiting for this all to blow over.
P.S. Want to apply this whole thing to RPers? Replace dungeons and skill with roleplays and roleplaying ability.
P.S.S. To those who may think I'm throwing my airs at a soundbox, don't worry. I may as well post a copy of this to Reddit, flair it as "Satirical Discussion" and see what happens.
Communities and players are trading genuine, social interaction for efficiency.
That's the thesis. Read it carefully. Done? Read it again.
I've been thinking to myself about something I've seen not just in this forum but across every MMO and communities at large; I thought to make a thread to air such thoughts and possibly dirty laundry. I'll use two example MMOs here.
Suppose we'll look at FFXI first. The more I think about it, the less I think people didn't form social groups because they wanted to, but because they had to. It was efficient. The fastest way to get content done. People used groups and other players to get levels as quickly as possible. At the end of the day, you the player and everyone else you're likely playing with may leave once they finish their objective and not see each other again. In that same instance, you may also retain a few contacts for leveling so they can help yourself level up.
Not much more I want to say about FFXI, so let's move onto FFXIV. FFXIV is a weird crowd to work with. Players want to improve, yet are shunned by the anti-parser crowd and the "git gud" players in general. NA/EU culture seems whack, distorted, and designed here in such a manner that the only player that matters... is you. Afterall, you paid the sub for the game right? What do other people care what you do with the sub? There's occasionally content that requires a group setting, but almost all of the time everything you need to do can be done by yourself or done through the automatic group matcher. There's not as much of a need for you to go out an form a group; a group will often be formed for you instead.
Is there a point between comparing FFXI and FFXIV at this point? Sure there is. People made social groups because it was the path of least resistance in FFXI. People don't make as many--if almost no--groups because it isn't really required in FFXIV. It's whatever is the most efficient, if you ask me.
Now, let's introduce theorycrafting's effect on a community--the mathematical analysis kind. Though originally prominent in Starcraft, an RTS, it's biggest debut in NA/EU MMOs, imo, surfaced at Burning Crusade's launch for WoW in 2007 and Elitist Jerks' emergence. Optimization now reached MMOs, whereas it was typically confined to RPGs like KOTOR and RTSs like Starcraft and Warcraft III. Before theorycrafting became a "thing," playing whatever class you thought was fun to play is perfectly acceptable. Now that it's around in full force, playing the most optimal class to its greatest potential is a major concern. What happens when your class doesn't become or is no longer the optimal class? Complain to the developers to balance it out, of course. Having fun paled in comparison to being optimal; the highest benefit for the lowest cost.
Suppose being efficient applied to groups and social communities. Let's do an example: Say you want to run a dungeon. You can do a few things:
1. Join a current group that has experience and could carry you through.
2. Join a group that doesn't have much experience, but will still take you along.
3. Make your own group to beat the dungeon.
So, let's assume I, as a player, want to get through something with as little a cost to myself as possible. I'd say choice #1 looks pretty nice compared to the rest of them. I can join a group that knows what they're doing and can essentially carry me through it all without me trying as much as possible. I can take it easy, not exert as much energy, and just have fun. Sounds pretty beneficial, right?
Well. Time for a bold opinion. If you picked choice #1, you may be the problem. Afterall, you're expecting other people to play the game in a way that picks up your slack--something that contributes to hatred from the carriers, laziness from the carried, and destructive behavior all over. If the carriers start expressing hatred for these "new" players they have to carry through and help all the time, I guarantee you they will stop doing runs with random players due to multiple bad experiences. They want to be as efficient as possible and the "new"/bad players aren't helping them out. If you picked choice #2 or #3, I'd say you're doing fine and I couldn't care less. At least you're with other people in the same boat as you. #3, however, could be as destructive as #1 if you invite other players who carry you through.
Take a small break now. Done? Hail Hydrate, get some water, and keep reading.
Now we have ourselves a divide of exceptional players (the carriers) and terrible players (the carried) in the community. I'm not specialised in psychology, but I'm pretty sure players remember bad experiences more vividly than good experiences. Say "good" players keep pairing up with the bad/carried players and continue receiving bad experiences. The "good" players forced to deal with the bad players seclude themselves off and avoid the public scene.
Sound familiar with how/why FCs and people hole up within their own cliques? It should.
As more players seclude themselves from the public scene, they sacrifice the number of connections and interactions they could make with others. When the good players are completely isolated, all that is left are the bad players. When the bad players are all that's left for the newer players to play with, the number of bad players will increase. And when good or average players see these players not caring, they may wonder "why should we care?" and the ranks of the badders increase ever more.
Now we have a bunch of bad players present in the works. What's the easiest and lowest thought-provoking way to tell people they're bad? By telling them they're bad. And by telling them they're bad, I mean insulting them. Offering advice requires some knowledge you have to extract out of your brain, type out in a hopefully understandable answer, and then hope that they accept the advice. It's much simpler to tell someone "you suck at NIN" than it is to say "You should consider keeping up DE, SF, and MU." What do most people do? Take the path of least resistance of course--players start to throw out insults.
Now you have a community that tosses out insults at each other, degrades each other, and contains players doomed to suck at a game in addition to plenty of players that feel it isn't worth the time to help out the players lagging behind. Players who are insulted or feel weak generate anti-elitist, anti-parser, and anti-whatever groups to unionize themselves against the haters.
So... congratulations! You're a MOBA, Harry! When a community reaches the MOBA point, the best solution is scorched earth tactics. Destroy it all, rebuild it from the ground up, and pray to whatever gods (or to science) that it goes much better the second time around. Hopefully that cycle won't repeat, right?
Let's ask Satan for a comment on that! What say you, Satan?
"Societies work in cycles, Leggerless. They may be great for a time, but they'll always fall at the end. Least Hell doesn't have this issue; we're going strong for all eternity."
Thanks, Satan. Have a cookie on the way out; they're chocolate chip.
So, what can you do to make your community not reach the MOBA point as quickly? Plenty of things, but they require a continued effort. Making interactions with people instead of taking the most efficient route through everything.
1. Have a smile on your face sometimes. I don't want to pity the fool. I'm a player, not Mr. T.
2. Don't be an extremist. There's more than just your side to an argument.
3. Don't be an entitled little shit. Learn how to be somewhat self-sufficient; in the process of becoming self-sufficient you can inspire others to do the same.
4. Try to have fun when you can. If you're too much of a hardass, everything looks gray, mucky, and like a black lagoon and CoD color palette merged into one grotesque scene.
5. If someone is offering you advice, take it with a grain of salt and try not to lash out at them unless you have plenty of evidence suggesting the advice is bad. If you do lash out, they may stop helping others in general. Don't be that player!
6. You've probably reached a breaking point once or twice. Let me tell you this. The world is your oyster. Fucking own it. JUST DO IT. DON'T LET YOU DREAMS BE DREAMS! Show those naysayers that you're not just all talk, can walk the walk, and break out of your comfort zone!
7. A consistently above average community can get more done than a community made of both exceptional and bad people. It's called quality control and yes, it is a very real thing. Japanese (and the Wu Tang Clan, by coincidence) ain't nothing to fuck with; they made the Kanban system and have their quality up to at least 5 sigma.
8. Macho Man Randy Savage says the sky is the limit? Show him otherwise. Snap into a Slim Jim. Transform into a dragon and yell out quotations. For the community, make it the day that they receive a great blessing. For you... make it so it is just another Tuesday.
9. Learn how to lead a group. You don't have to lead a group yourself all the time, but you really should know what it takes to be a leader should you be forced into that position. WoW Raid Lead guides can give you a starting point. The concepts of leading are very consistent across video games. At the very least, you're going in knowing something rather than nothing and people can appreciate the fact you took the initiative to lead the group when no one else did/could.
10. Respect. It is earned, not given. Earn it if you want it. Also applies to trust.
Now that I've made my giant wall of text I'm heading to the Winchester, grabbing a pint, and waiting for this all to blow over.
P.S. Want to apply this whole thing to RPers? Replace dungeons and skill with roleplays and roleplaying ability.
P.S.S. To those who may think I'm throwing my airs at a soundbox, don't worry. I may as well post a copy of this to Reddit, flair it as "Satirical Discussion" and see what happens.
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