What Sort Of Community Will Diablo 3 Have? Or "what kind of community do you want?".
A wacky but cool one like Guild Wars?
A super competitative, frequently ragey one like Starcraft?
A mixed bag of nuts, tending towards the immature like WoW?
A bunch of hooting frat boys like X-box Live?
A griefertastic trollpit like Diablo 2?
A crazy hostile one like any Dota game ever?
A newbie friendly, welcoming one like LoTRO?
This topic was made before a long time ago when the forums were young and I am intruiged if things have changed.
I've avoided some good games (well, the online aspect) due to the horrible community they seemed to attract (Diablo 2 online, League of Legends, Unreal Tournament). I've also kept playing some for ages due to an awesome bunch of people involved (DnD online, Neverwinter Nights). Sure, there will always be a few bad apples in a game as big as this will be, but by and large I think that a decent community does a lot to make a good game great.
However, it worries me - seeing the difference between these forums at release and the way they sometimes look now. They still aren't as bad as the WoW/old D3 forums but there is definately some slippage.
I personally don't mind a little bit of snarkiness or sillyness in games, but random matchmaking systems tend to become hilarious griefing simulators for some, and any game with PvP (in any form) is going to cause some rage
I am actually in favour of fairly heavy moderation to keep things sane, especially in the case of scamming/griefing, so long as there is a good appeals process to balance it out.
TL/DR:
What sort of community do you expect?
What sort of community do you want?
Are there any steps that Blizzard can or should implement to help this?
A wacky but cool one like Guild Wars?
A super competitative, frequently ragey one like Starcraft?
A mixed bag of nuts, tending towards the immature like WoW?
A bunch of hooting frat boys like X-box Live?
A griefertastic trollpit like Diablo 2?
A crazy hostile one like any Dota game ever?
A newbie friendly, welcoming one like LoTRO?
This topic was made before a long time ago when the forums were young and I am intruiged if things have changed.
I've avoided some good games (well, the online aspect) due to the horrible community they seemed to attract (Diablo 2 online, League of Legends, Unreal Tournament). I've also kept playing some for ages due to an awesome bunch of people involved (DnD online, Neverwinter Nights). Sure, there will always be a few bad apples in a game as big as this will be, but by and large I think that a decent community does a lot to make a good game great.
However, it worries me - seeing the difference between these forums at release and the way they sometimes look now. They still aren't as bad as the WoW/old D3 forums but there is definately some slippage.
I personally don't mind a little bit of snarkiness or sillyness in games, but random matchmaking systems tend to become hilarious griefing simulators for some, and any game with PvP (in any form) is going to cause some rage
I am actually in favour of fairly heavy moderation to keep things sane, especially in the case of scamming/griefing, so long as there is a good appeals process to balance it out.
TL/DR:
What sort of community do you expect?
What sort of community do you want?
Are there any steps that Blizzard can or should implement to help this?