My memory of playing MUDs is that actually it did take a fair few hours of chatting to people before you really started to feel the community. I’m not sure I’d say bootcamp but if you log on and chat to the same people for a couple of hours every night, you’re going to build some sorts of links.

And this is why you can get communities in a superguild, as long as some people are on regularly and chatting.

I’d love to see games designed more with an eye on community building, other than social facebook games where it’s all very mercenary. It’s just that the only surefire way we know to do it seems to involve throwing people all in together so they have to talk to each other.

I take your point that you could forge those bonds in a week, but how long would they stay forged if people drifted off after that? I find people in online games seem to have very very short memories for relationships. You only have to be away for a few weeks before you get replaced.

I played DDO like that. I subbed, got my points every month, but did not necessarily play much every month. Then every now and then i’ll “cash in” with the points and buy various things with it in the cash shop. Immediately i had a sense of “well at least my $15 a month did not go to waste” . By the time i cancelled my sub, i already purchased most of the content i -enjoyed- via the subscription and have not for one second felt “dang, 6 months of subs and now i can’t even log into the game anymore, i got nothing to show for all my commitment to the company or game” .

This is how i feel about WoW, kinda like being loyal to a bank for 10 years and then they drop you when you ask for a home loan…

..

As for social issue Spinks mentioned. Do we really need a year of MMO “pain and suffering” to forge a good community? Kinda like that “boot camp” theory where you throw people together and they have to crawl through mud and suffer through GI Jane abuse, and thus forging some sort of close bond.

Is it really the “length of time” or “frequency” that forge these bonds? Or is it “how much the game facilitates interaction with players on a level that you get to know them personally and remember them? ” .

Just as in my boot camp theory, that can be a mere week to forge those bonds if the interaction is sorted. I played MUDs, it was all Roleplay, you never needed massive amounts of content or long term grind to form a “community” or “close bonds” , you just required a form of interacting that encouraged communication and cooperation .

The dungeon finder makes the entire game “anonymous” , you will NOT “forge” any bonds ever, even if you play for a year on the DF.

Same with “super guilds” with so many players in it, that you will end up just being a number when a raid is formed [this number = gearscore] . The new guild leveling system is going directly down the “super guilds” route because smaller guilds can’t complete and recruit anymore [everyone wants the rewards mass guilds offers]

The difficulty curve of the game can also hinder this, again bootcamp theory. If the game is too easy or too linear [predictable] , no one needs to coordinate or cooperate . Everyone becomes self-sustained and kinda isolated despite being in a raid or group. You just do “your thing” and the rest of the team do “their thing” and you’ll get through it without saying a word.

Kinda like working for huge corporation where you don’t know what the corp is doing, you don’t know what your cubicle-neighbors are doing, you just know you must fill in a certain form everyday and pass it along.

I think Turbine has hit the nail on the head with the design of the F2P vs. Subscription split, and the underlying value there.

Blizzard is binary – if you’re subscribed, you have full access to everything – but if you don’t play, you get zero value for your money. Conversely, if you unsubscribe, you get nothing – at all.

By contrast, Turbine is far less binary. If you buy your LOTRO or DDO subscription a month at a time, it’s $15 – but Turbine ‘rebates’ $7.73 back to you* – in the form of 500 Turbine points.

Going a little further, if you buy your Turbine subscription a full year at a time, the montly cost drops to $10, but you get that same $7.73 value in points returned each month, for a final monthly tally of $2.26/mo.

Finally, unlike Blizzard, if you elect to end your Turbine subscription, you can continue to play.

Whether it was by accident or by design, I think Turbine put *just* enough perks into the VIP Subscription that it doesn’t seem like ‘wasted money’ if you remain subscribed through a protracted break from the game.

* Admittedly, that’s a purely theoretical purchase – that’s the presumed value of 500 points purchased at the ’420 point package’ price in the store.