Can a Community Kill a Game?

As anyone that reads here might know I started playing wildstar a few weeks ago.  I do not spend a great deal of time on it so I am moving rather slowly and I am also testing all the classes and paths by playing a few characters at once.  Either way, I've finally got my footing in the game and understand the basics of how the game is played.  Now is the time I start to look up information on how to get better.

I always jump right into a game and figure things out on my own before I go looking online for "help".  It is just the way I like to play games.  I am sure there are many like me out there and there are many that never look for help or look for help before they even start.  We all play or own ways but this question is not about how we play but the communities we play in.

The only thing I looked up before starting was the server forums.  I looked for which PvE servers had a lot of activity and then looked for which side was recruiting the most for raiding, which is where my intentions would be to head if I stick with the game.  After that I never went back to the forums... until now.

As I said I was liking the game but after reading some of the threads on the forums I can't help but think if I have wasted my time already.  The community is horrible, just as bad as warcrafts.  Everyone on the forum calling other people bad, saying their options are wrong and not in a polite way which would encourage conversation but in an insulting way, saying that they are "better" than others or that this is wrong or that is wrong or this class is OP or that class is OP.  You know, the basic bullshit we have all, sadly, become way to used to seeing on the forums.

Now I am not the type of person to let others sway me, at least not that easily, but I could not help but feel that my desire to play, my desire to become more involved in the community, my desire to get to max level and start to raid has been greatly reduced after seeing all this.  If this is what the game is like at 50 is it really something I want to be a part of?

I had not reached what some would call the point of no return where I am completely caught up in the game so I will play no matter what, so seeing that this is what the community is like does have some sway with me.  Being I had not made the decision that I will most defiantly keep playing seeing that, at least the most vocal, people at the top level are this horrible makes me wonder if it is worth it to keeping going.

Then I think of all the people, the new players, the ones that come to the forums for the game I do play and am staying with, the one I have reached that point of no return with, warcraft, and think, are they seeing the same thing when they decide to look things up and coming to the same conclusion that I have about wildstar, that maybe it is just not worth the effort if these are the people I will have to deal with.

Community is a huge part of the game even for a person like myself that would prefer to do things solo.  I might be anti social for the most part but if I want to raid I have to find people to raid with which means, against my better judgement, I have to "friend" people.  I have to become part of the community, at least in the most minimal way just to continue to play the game and I really do not want to play with any of these people.

These people are not my people.  They do not have the same agenda I do when playing, they do not have the same moral base I have in the way I treat others, they are just not the type of people I would ever want to associate with in the real world so why would I ever do so in the virtual one.  If anything I expect people to be better in the virtual world.  People have flaws, they all do, but online you can fake it.  If you curse like a sailor on shore leave you can bite your tongue in game.  If you are a racist you can just think of everyone as characters and not race.  No matter what your personal flaws or shortcomings are you can be a better person online.  So why is everyone a worse person?

I am not saying that just complaining about things in the game is a bad thing, hell no, I complain all the time.  As I have said before I complain because I like the game.  If I did not care about the game I would not care if they were removing my favorite spells.  But if I like the game and want to keep playing it you can be damn well sure I am going to complain if they remove something.

So I do not have a problem with people complaining.  I do not see anything wrong with people that say they believe this should be some other way, or that should be different.  They like the game and they are voicing their opinions on what they believe will make it a better game.  No matter if  I agree with it or not I respect that they, like me, care enough about the game to complain about the things that bother them in the hopes that maybe someone will listen and maybe a change will be made that will make the game better.

It is the community that is so venom filled, so mean spirited, so "I am better than you" oriented, the people that just have to watch the world burn that are what I am talking about.  Like if I were to make a tread saying I hate RNG and wish there were more loot options where you can earn your gear instead of having to count on luck to get it an appropriate response would be that the person either agrees or disagrees or is somewhere in the middle but not with bad communities.  With bad communities you get responses like "you are just a baddie that wants gear given to them" instead of maybe starting a conversation on why they believe that RNG is "earning" gear.  They just attack.

After reading a few threads I am left wondering if I should really ever log in again.  Maybe if a few of my friends start playing and I have people to play with I might but the game has already started to lose me and not because of anything the game has done, but because of the community has.

And then it got me to thinking that is exactly what part of the problem with warcraft is and why they are losing subscriptions like crazy.  The community.  Warcraft was always losing subs left and right, even when they were at their high point late BC and through wrath they were losing subs left and right.  The thing was they were picking up more new ones than they were losing.

Now, with more options out there for the gamer, newer and more shiny or flashy games, people might come to the forums and see that community and think, this is what the game is like, well I might as well go try this other game that has better graphics, or is newer, or does not have a subscription cost.

Maybe it is that toxic community that is scaring a lot of people away, just like one peek at the wildstar forums has me questioning myself on if I wasted money on the game.  No one wants to play with people like that and while I know and you know they are just a minority, they are a very vocal and very damaging to the game minority.

Perhaps if I had visited the wildstar forums before I purchased the game I would have never purchased it at all because of the community there.  That makes me wonder, how many people heard of warcraft and its long and rich history and were thinking of picking up the game but decided to visit the forums before making a purchase and after their visit and seeing what the vocal minority is like they decided to just go get another game to satisfy their gaming needs.

Can that vocal minoriy really kill a game?  I think it can.