Game Communities

The two multiplayer games that I've put the most time into are Runescape and Team Fortress 2, an MMORPG and an online FPS, respectively. Because of the different genres, comparing these games' communities is an apples and oranges matter, but I'll go ahead and do it anyway.

Team Fortress 2 is a competitive game, so you'd think that most social interaction is antagonism between the two teams, but the real staple of conversation is intra-team bickering caused by differences in skill levels and goals among the members of one team. For every carefree submachine sniper, there's an aggressively competitive pyro telling said sniper to change class. There are more laid-back veterans who are happy to teach new players and have a good time, but most conversations seem to be on the negative side.

Runescape, on the other hand, is a much slower game and most time is taken training skills. Because of the way 'skilling' is designed, some skills like mining foster selfishness and distrust-- a given rock has only one piece of ore, and only one player is going to get it. About ninety percent of the angry conversations I've heard in Runescape are arguments over mining.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that my favorite part of Runescape is fishing, the skill that lies on the other end of the social spectrum. There are infinite fish in every fishing spot and player's hands are free while they wait for a bite, so it's easy to fish alongside lots of other people strike up a conversation in the chat window. People are generally good-natured in the absence of competition over in-game resources, and this leads to my final point.

The thing that I think Runescape's community has in more strength than Team Fortress 2's is a sense of solidarity and goodwill. There are jerks in Runescape, but the general sense I get is that players are there to journey together on the path to higher levels and shinier armor. In Team Fortress 2, I feel that players are there to win, aiming not only over the other team, but also to be the best on their team. There's much more to be said on this matter, but writing more than a paragraph after mentioning a final point is probably bad form.