What is your opinion of the community?

[CheckeredZebra]

EDIT: Do note this is a year+ old post. While there is legitimate discussion going on still, my opinion has changed a bit as the people who annoyed me previously are now gone. Currently, I have a beef with rude trolls in the help chat.

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Old post:

So I've been in game for a while, on my player account, and I noticed something I consider disturbing. Please note this is my opinon as a person and not as a staff member.

I want to note that I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but every time I get on under my staff name and help people, I am praised for
1. Being helpful
2. Not being snarky/moody

But when I get onto my player account and help the exact same demographic of people, I am often treated with mistrust. This is nothing unusual, except for the fact that I am often argued with in a non-civil way until either somebody with a tag intervenes, I say another staff said something, or I finally argue all possible points of discussion. Normally things weren't so...snarky. Sure they'd question it, but it was civil. Now my attempts at giving information normally end up with me on the brink of a heated argument. (I had like 5 arguments today just from helping people).

And yet people are helping each other more than they ever have. Every day I am greeted by tons of questions being answered by certain people and others with lots of patience. It's a bit of a split, as there will always be good/bad people, but it seems like I'm running into the more hot tempered side of the community lately. Perhaps, it is just me.

What I guess I want to say here is, do you feel the community is overly competitive with each other socially? I feel there is a lot of "who can get the most respected" competition in the community. To my observations, PWO turned from who had the best dragonite/the shiny metagross to who has the most say. What is your opinion on how things currently are? Player attitudes? How staff are? Are there issues you want to bring up? Discuss.

 

[Guest]

From my point of view, I find PWO community too great & respectful... I don't recall having an argument/fight with someone since I started playing... People are very helpful/talkative & I'm doing my best to help new comers through answering their questions, giving them free pokemons & pokedollars to help them with their journey.

Some people show gratitude when you help them & some get what they want & just leave the channel or simply they stop replying when they get what they need, but from your side you feel happy because you helped them without waiting nothing in return
Well there are always bad people who show up & have the intentions of breaking a fight, but I rarely see them in PWO... the chats are so smooth & funny sometimes which make leveling your pokemon a breeze

From my point of view, one of the great guys I enjoy chatting with them are: Professor.Oak with his fabulous grammar , omgfail & NinjaMuffin xD btw I'm WiloBlue ingame

 

[Guest]

I'll start by saying that the playerbase will always kiss a staff-member's ***. Most of the time, it's going to be the younger players that do this, but that doesn't always hold true. You know, the whole "maybe they'll give me a shiny for kissing their ***" thing.

As for the community as a whole, we unfortunately live in a time where "trolling" is praised, and where everyone is trained to think that they can do whatever online and be safe without repercussions. It's unfortunate, but it's just the times we live in.

However, wilosoft expressed a sentiment that most players share, simply there are a few players that are non-staff that are respected in the community, then there are others who try to help, but for whatever reason, simply are rejected.

 

[Guest]

Trolling and kissing up exist in any online game, but this game has one of the best friendly community I have even seen

 

[mad30]

You know, the whole "maybe they'll give me a shiny for kissing their butt" thing.

Shiny brown lips count?

 

[risefromruins]

I miss the 08-09 community where disputes where settled by battling or a guild war.

 

[ThrustForFun]

PWO turned from who had the best dragonite/the shiny metagross to who has the most say.

This pretty much sums up my opinion, and if I said this on a post, not being a Staff member, my post would probably be buried and shunned.

But all in all, I think the Staff are helpful and the community do help eachother, even if there's a slight 'if I help this person maybe the Staff will notice me' hint to some helpers.

 

[CheckeredZebra]

I suppose it might just be me, then
but it's not sucking up I have a problem with so much (cause that's everywhere) it's basically...well, let's use an example.

God (staff) comes down to earth and tells people that showering daily makes their hair less oily. He is praised greatly.

Preacher (informed player) tells people that showering daily makes their hair less oily. He is not only ignored, but treated with disrespect.

That's what I feel like is happening. If you aren't on every day helping or giving out stuff, this is becoming more common among people.

 

[Hawkki]

+1 to zebra

 

[Chocobo7]

So I've been in game for a while, on my player account, and I noticed something I consider disturbing. Please note this is my opinon as a person and not as a staff member.

I want to note that I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but every time I get on under my staff name and help people, I am praised for
1. Being helpful
2. Not being snarky/moody

But when I get onto my player account and help the exact same demographic of people, I am often treated with mistrust. This is nothing unusual, except for the fact that I am often argued with in a non-civil way until either somebody with a tag intervenes, I say another staff said something, or I finally argue all possible points of discussion. Normally things weren't so...snarky. Sure they'd question it, but it was civil. Now my attempts at giving information normally end up with me on the brink of a heated argument. (I had like 5 arguments today just from helping people).

Oh don't I know this. Most people know or can easily figure out my main non staff account and know who I am, so I usually get treated similarly to when I am on my staff account, but when I play on my other player account that is much newer and help people I usually get ignored/shouted down at. A perfect example is where someone became outright hostile to me correcting their incredibly and obviously wrong information based purely on my playtime, as if that made them correct over me who was actully giving a person the information they needed.

That is a small minority though, which makes me happy, and the majority of players are genuinely decent or just stay quiet and do their own thing.

 

[Guest]

I haven't really encountered any issues in the community. Maybe I unintentionally plan my playtime around it

In general I enjoy talking with people in game or trying to answer whatever questions I can, even if my knowledge is limited.
There will always be the stubborn few, and there will always be the ones that kiss up to the staff, but the majority of the community I find pretty good.

 

[matileo19]

You know, the whole "maybe they'll give me a shiny for kissing their butt" thing.

Shiny brown lips count?

SO TRUE lol...

I miss the 08-09 community where disputes where settled by battling or a guild war.

+1 for your comment.

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You know? Pwo should not have CGs/MODs really.
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I had tons of people sucking my butt when I was Gml/Mod and now I have tons of haters instead lol, I can't really understand what's on their brains. When they need help, you have to be there for them, but get in mind that they will forget what you did for them in the past. Kinda hard huh ?

I'll say what rise said, I really miss the old community (08/09) lots of good battlers, good cyber* friends, guild wars,XAT, now we have lots of hackers, flame wars, haters, FALSE FRIENDS (Oh he will leave soon or late and will probably gimme his stuff coz I used to be a false but good friend O )uff...

 

[Guest]

I'll say what rise said, I really miss the old community (08/09) lots of good battlers, good cyber* friends, guild wars,XAT, now we have lots of hackers, flame wars, haters, FALSE FRIENDS (Oh he will leave soon or late and will probably gimme his stuff coz I used to be a false but good friend O )uff...

Don't forget we still have people helping others, trying to make real friends and a overall supporting community.

Don't let the bad apples ruin the cake. (Don't mix them in, they aren't worth it)

 

[Professor.Oak]

In my opinion the community has become less involved, in the forums before the Nintedo shutdown, people would post in the forums all the time, the IRC would almost always have some activity if even just random chatter, everything was so full of "life" I would say. And I've definitely seen what has been stated above about the Playtime, some people feel that they can back up their answers with "lol look at my play time" and that that's a good gauge of how knowledgeable they are. Which, sure I can understand in most cases it is however that rule is not absolute. Perhaps it's because we're seeing more people just being here for a little while, then more long term players that we used to see in the past and so people feel that they can trust people that are more known or with more playtime perhaps.

Either way, I would like to point out for everyone old and new that it's time to stop trying to bring back the times of the past and be angry that this present has turned out this way, but instead to make a better game in any way possible. If everyone just keeps disliking the present situation and not do anything, we're never going to get anywhere. I think we need to start encouraging players to be more involved in the community, in the forums, IRC, Wiki, in any way possible to make this a stronger community, to show the newbies and the old veterans a like that we shouldn't be concerned about respect or rank, but to do what we came here to do, play some Pokemon, and have some fun meeting friends along the way.

 

[Maideza]

Worst community I have ever been a part of.

I try to help as much as I can, but no one (95/100) believes you without a staff tag. I have often answered some questions/helped, where the same people hours later ask staff "Is it really like thís?!?"

I never really help online anymore, because people anyway won't people it. Also doesn't help when many throw false info around.

 

[Merse]

What surprises me that 90% of the newbie players is not present on the forum, they barely know about its existence. And they never ever read anything about the game, so they always ask stupid questions about the rods, neg XP, "where to catch X pokemon" etc. These questions reflect that they don't even have basic knowledge about the game...

 

[Derek]

I think that the community needs some encouragement. Most new players find it so hard trying to make the money for a surfboard, its discourageing. So following in oaks example i've been hosting losts of hide and seek games. I give new players a chance in making some fast cash, i've already given out almost 1mil in pokedollars, And more people are playing everyday, they seem so greatfull to have their needs met.

 

[CheckeredZebra]

Seems Maideza has run into a lot of the same problems I have, even though I wouldn't call this the worst community ever.

Most new players find it so hard trying to make the money for a surfboard, its discourageing.

I'll agree with that, Derek. It's harder now than ever to make money.

The reason I'm asking all of this is to see if there are any problems within the community and how to best steer us away from that.

 

[Jinji]

Every time I see the Community turn against anyone, my heart aches.

 

[risefromruins]

Most new players find it so hard trying to make the money for a surfboard, its discourageing.

I'll agree with that, Derek. It's harder now than ever to make money.

I disagree with that 100%.

I started playing the game on a separate account a few months back (name is not important) and I didn't use any special privileges to do well. I never bought membership, I never asked for help from experienced players to give me pokes/money, and I never QQ'd about it being hard.

I actually played the game.

I caught 1 HR pokemon, if you even consider Chansey to be a worthwhile HR, and I was not only able to trade just that ONE pokemon to make enough money to get a surfboard....I was even able to put together a decent battling team. FROM ONE HORRIBLY RARE POKEMON.

The game is not hard, it requires a little bit of work for sure, but it is not impossible to make money.

Before I made that account sometimes I would feel sympathy for players who had trouble getting a surfboard, but now after my experiences as a regular player....I feel no remorse whatsoever. If you put in a little time and do a little research on the forums, the game is easy.

Edit: One thing I will say is tough is making money from simply grinding pokemon. Things in game are priced relatively high compared to how much money you get from wild/trainer battles. But again, all that can be fixed by catching a rare pokemon.