Odeeso Arnsu
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Posted - 2004.06.14 08:59:00 -
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This is long winded. I apologize for that. I'm leaving the game because I need to get on with my life. But this post encompasses one of my chief concerns with this game. It has a glaring lack of community. What is shocking is that the game starts out feeling like a community, then boots the player out of that community. Don't know what I mean? Well, pardon my rambling, and read on....
When I first made an eve account, I was installed in a rookie corp and the rookie help channel. These were both lively and interesting chat conduits. Then, as was encouraged, I joined up with a corp, and lost access to the rookie corp's chat channel with its large number of online people. This was fine, and expected. While the average of 5 people in my new corps chat channel were nowhere near as chatty as the previous corp's channel, they were at least consistent. I could count on them. And I still had the rookie help channel to content myself with. I chatted on there, asked, and answered, questions, made some friends, and found some employment.
Then, suddenly, I nolonger had access to the rookie help channel either. My two prime means of socialization and communication within eve were closed to me. True, I did still have my new corps chat channel, but that was it. I went from channels with 4 or 500 consistent members, to one channel with an average of 5 members. And I couldnt go back.
I opened up the channel browser, and hung out on the help channel and the 'eve chat' channel that it offered me. I listened to them for awhile. I didnt care for the random topics of the 'eve chat' channel, and its varying imaturities, and the less helpful attitude of the 'help' channel didnt really attract either. The people on there seemed annoyed with being asked the same rookieish questions consistently and frequently. They were substituting as help for those newbies who had been kicked off 'rookie help' by default. And by that same token, the STAR people, those volunteers who speak in green text, the ones who are actually supposed to be there to help, were rarely ever in the 'help' channel, in contrast to the rookie help channel, which always seemed to have a green-text-speaker. This left only the grumpy oldbies to answer the questions. And I can remember times when someone would ask a newbie question, and it would be ignored, just because noone felt like answering it, once again. How helpful is that kind of a help channel?
So, I had been a member of 2 community chat channels, was convinced I was supposed to leave one of them, and was systematically booted out of the other. The replacements offered were much poorer and less interesting. Sure, some could easily say that my corp was to blame for not being interesting enough, or that the problem is all mine. But what I say is that I had a community, and was forced to leave it. The new one offered to me was intimidating and unfriendly. If a small group of five people is not enough to satisfy me, does that make me, or them, wrong? No. I'm just saying the game has the potential to offer so much more, or build on what it already does. Instead, it kills that momentum.
Now, others are reading this and thinking 'Haha! This fool! There is a community here, all he has but to do is look at these forums!' Well, with all due respect, I did not sign up to join a community that lives outside the game. I want to be part of a community in the game, not have to open up a web browser and navigate a forum. Forums should supplant an in game community, not provide it's bulk. That is why this is my first visit to these forums, because I do not believe I should have to leave the game to find other players to form a community with.
This isn't part of the game. I like being embraced within the game, and I had that, for a time. Then the depth of the game just dropped right out and left me with nothing. I recognize that in MMPORGs, communities of players are built upon the players shoulders. Well, I was in two solid well built communities, and the game took them away from me. By design, I lost the opportunity to meet new people, and the depth of the eve universe just faded away. I believe that this is a flaw in the system, and is something that should be addressed. Warn people better. Don't take away the rookie help channel. or WARN them that you're going to.
I don't think that the way to build a community is to give people one, let them have it for two weeks, then destroy it and tell them to go join all the experienced people *because they're supposed to be one now too*.
I think forums, a dead 'local' channel, and weak chat channels are piddly replacements for a community that is built from the moment you step into the game. Forcing me to leave those beggining communities was probably the greatest blow to my involvement in the eve universe.
Over and out,
Odeeso Arnsu
Don't bash my character, instead, discuss the validity of my arguments.
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