What is your opinion of the community?

[rbecca]

I like the community, it is usually a nice community. I have to say, i also miss the 08-09 community. Where everyone stalked each other's status updates in the old forums, and editing our profiles was a weekly thing to do. There's a couple of old players that i still miss from 08-09, i also miss the 'family' i had back then, it was silly, but it was nice. I also had PWO BFF's, where them sweetiepies at </3?! D;
I also feel like there's a lot of competition to who's most respected in the community, it has always been there, but, sometimes more then other times.
I guess it's a combination of a lot of things.. hormones, trolls, kiss-ups, ages, hackers, people who are 'more respected' spreading out things(?) etc.
I have played many online games but i never found a forum that was worthy enough to lurk on everyday. But with PWO, it's not like that C:
If PWO were to die, a spot in my heart would be empty, i spent quite a few teenage years with PWO, and oh how i would miss the community.

 

[Professor.Oak]

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.

I don't think the problem is finding an HR Pokemon to make the money, but I feel that people get discouraged when they reach their 8th gym somewhere around 20-30 hours, and then find out they have to play a whole nother 20 hours or more to find an HR Pokemon. I think we would have much more long term players if maybe something like a money hole on the surfboard is later in their game time like 50+ or more hours when someone might of luckily found an HR or Shiny Pokemon just causally training, I don't think people would quit with this many hours, or at least much less IMO because the experience of just causally finding an HR or Shiny Pokemon will feel care free, while having to buy a surfboard is almost by force.

 

[Guest]

I apologize to Zeb; because I think I'm only going to further off-rail this topic, but this conversation about frustrations with the money grind...

I'm the kind of player that when I catch a Pokemon, I want to keep it, and train it. If I catch a second one, sure I'd trade it to give it a home, but requiring a trainer to trade or grind for alot of hours just to proceed the game is generally a dismissed idea by most MMO's. Sure, I think PWO is unique in some aspects, but let's just consider a generally popular MMO (WoW). If they were to go, okay we put this zone here for you guys to explore to once you've done all your quests here, but oh by the way it's gonna cost an ungodly amount to get your ticket, so you can wait 2 weeks for the NPC's to reset, grind thousands upon thousands of kills, or trade away your equipment. The development staff would most certainly be raged on; people would complain, quit, and the ones that stayed would be beyond untrusting of future releases.

There is a difference, of course, PWO has 2 current zones/generations, while WoW is huge in comparison. What effect does the high prices have on the economy is simply that trading brings huge prices, and it becomes a traders market. I personally however believe that more single-completion quests to assist the players (like myself), who don't particularly like trading away their Pokemon, would be a solution that could be implemented in the future. I don't know how the current NPC system in place works, but I would assume there's NPC "types" so it would have to be a new type.

Having said that, is it doable in it's current state? Yeah, definitely, just not ideal for all players. Trade, grind thousands, or play the waiting game.

Sorry for the rant and off-topic-ness.

 

[mad30]

Mods are a rather big part of the community if utilized correctly, currently at the moment they aren't seen as what they are. They are seen as human wikis which has caused a major catch 22. Part of having mods is making wiki and assistants from normal players less valuable, but at the same time that is what is viewed to be their primary role. They should be acting as a voice of the staff to the community however, almost like a public relation (PR) group.

The biggest challenge I think the community, and to be more specific the individuals who are about improving the community, can take on is how to make it so people are less dependent on CGs and other staff members for problems, and more self reliant on each other.

I think almost every single issue in this topic that has been brought up can be helped by making community reliant on on another and less reliant on CGs to solve their problems. I personally believe this starts at spreading the word about the wiki, encouraging others to use the wiki. I think that's something as simple as mentioning your source is the wiki when you help another person. "the wiki says gym leaders can be rebattled every 24 hours if you lose..."

 

[Glaceon01]

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

The good old days...then up goes registration...speaking of since donations are down...just how long registration will be up I wonder since well, pwo mostly goes off donations xD

 

[Fionavara]

Community suck, I dont even bother talking in the chatt much anymore.
there is many reasons, but mainly cus I don't see any warmth in the chatt anymore, there is a few exceptions to the rule and when they are on talk is great but mostly they arent on and chatt is dead cus talking now is considered annoying...asking questions considered annoying...all all-chatt is for nowdays is asking price check, and selling pokes..and now and then ask a newbie question and get sent to wiki..., but seeing everyone checking wiki, why talk atall..just do your own thing and dont bother anyone, dont make any friends and when u're done..leave... all chatt is NOT what it used to be..a way to met friends and get into the community and stay in the game...
I used to play first for the community, pokemons came secund..chatting was the most fun and forum lurking the best...now it's shiny hunt first, talking not atall...cept answer a question instead of spaming wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki.....why talk, noone else is...chatt is dead most of the day. PRice check and spamming trade offers...we dont even get many newbie questions anymore...unless its about neg exp...and ofc tokens...same thing day in day out. community is pretty much useless..we could shut down the forum and not many would notice...and even less would care.
I could say a lot about my thoughts about the staff aswell but I'll leave that part out....

 

[Hawkki]

I support Fionavara's opinion too.


When I first came into the game, the chat was a lot different. During that time, I met a lot of very humble and awesome players who were very great to talk to. After the server crashed over a month due the DDOS attacks, almost all of that people left the game. When I noticed that, I went on chat but people were not very nice. Luckily, I found a great guild with lots of nice players and met new friends. But PWO Chat has never been the same since the server DDOS attack.

 

[Glaceon01]

I remember a time, Fiona, where the chat was live with enjoyable chatter..well, that's when there were 700 players a day playing(server always full)..it has gotten boring, but it doesn't have to be this way honestly the community is what players and staff alike make it. I hate how players have made rules and tried to enforce them like "No switching in battle" the originality of pokemon in this sense is being stripped away it's supposed to be strategic and anticipation what are we doing now? Being barbaric bulls? I don't like being flamed by the new players for liking the old ways..there wasn't commotion until registration opened also the economy changed..because of the flood of newer players some older players left etc I've been around constantly watching these things for 4 years to be exact so meh I think the community is horrid, but doesn't have to be, I'm just concerned about where pwo goes from here..how much longer will this really go on?

 

[Solstice]

I agree with pretty much everyone. The chat was very different several months ago, than it is now. Before, it was actually possible to have a substantially large group conversation. Now the chat consists of noobs asking noob questions at a rate so fast, that it is nearly impossible to answer them all, let alone have a conversation with several other people. These players should be in the help channel, but that channel appears to be inexistent to them. The method I would use to deal with the issue, would be to lock the "all" chat for anyone that doesn't contain all 16 badges. The community was a lot more intelligent and competent back then, but is the complete opposite now. That doesn't give the new players a very good first impression of the community. That is, unless they're aware of the forums.

 

[Derek]

Personaly, i think people need to cool down. The old days are gone...deal with it!! I try so hard to help people with questions, I give advice to people that need it, I even give away rare pokemon and money to people just to help with the endless hours of grinding. New players are discouraged to even play because of the way they are treated by the " older " players. PWO is going to hell ( pardon the language ) because were letting it. Everyone just needs to cool down, talk to people who knows they might surprise you. Host games and tornaments for prizes, you'ed never guess how greatfull these people can be. They even might follow in your example...... I don't mean to offend anyone, it just kills me to have people bad talk the community.

 

[Glaceon01]

Don't be quick to just say screw the old days if you weren't there because us veteran players (some of us) like things how they were, however you can't tell anyone to cool down this is an opinionated topic and nothing has gotten out of hand myself personally I don't disrespect the "joins" I've become friends with a few and been driven to not use the all chat anymore...I've given away shinys, money and ucs..etc.

I do like what you said about tournaments, they seem to bring us together, never the less take it from an experienced player with a not so perfect record...there's time for change better or worse and tbh all the we make it what we want usually doesn't get through.

 

[Derek]

I dont mean any disrespect to the vets, and I understand that I haven't been around for very long. I'm just saying that the community is what we make of it. And I'd like to help make it better. I thank you for your opinion, and maby we can work together to make the community what it use to be, or better.

 

[MacCollin]

well i have a splitted mind concerning your question "what is your opinion of the community?".
on the one hand i met a lot of nice people that became friends. it is also funny to paly with most of the players and to met new people (otherwise i wouldnt keep on playing obviously). on the other hand there are tons of racialist kids that try to grief, cheat and scam which is unacceptable. i have to raise an other negative argument about the forum-community. if there are any suggestions/discussions/rule change suggestions etc. that might be useful in game but would mean a change of something there are always some raging kids that throw in unuseful stuff like "dont criticize it", "if u dont like it leave" etc.. the willigness of doing discussions on a adult/ maturely level is going down to zero in my opinion. a change about the last point i mentioned would be awesome but for this the average mental age has to "level up" a little bit which would also decrease the ammount of cheating/botting/... kids aswell.

ps: i hate to mention this one like "it was better in the old times" (jesus i m not that old yet ) but it was better in the old days concerning the following issue. in the past if anyone used insults like "noob" etc. the insulted person didnt run to a gm asap. they did a fight and after this the problem was solved. nowadays everyone runs to a gm/ uses the com watch for problems that i, personally, can only laugh about. i mean seriously... the saff has other problems as reading 5000 threads about unimportant stuff. grow up, solve your problems by your own (even if u just ignore that kid) and everything runs smoothly.

 

[CheckeredZebra]

I like Derek's view on this. I feel like a lot of the community (especially more self-informed sections) have become somewhat bitter about the stacking situations, when in reality things are alright, just different. I've come across alot of people who try to use any excuse to cause a ruckus too, but that's nothing new. =P It's just what I said earlier that gets me: I try helping newer players and bam, huge heated arguments (NOT debates) arise to where if I said one wrong word, things could explode. And that's not fun.

 

[Glaceon01]

Lol..It's frustrating helping new people sometimes when you can simply find all you need to know regardless I believe this all of us are probably pokemon fans this unites us let's take advantage of a game which gives us what we want.

 

[mad30]

Personally I believe theirs a common trend, the first few months you join you always view as the best. I personally enjoyed PWO when I first join more than when the majority of the now known as "vets" joined (I joined in oct 2008).

The fact is many people are quick to forget a lot of things and usually this leads to them only holding on to what they want to remember. When I first joined, we had a major troll problem due to being able to automatically register on the client. Imagine a troll that could automatically register a new account within a matter of a minute, get in game and spam the chat so bad no one could chat because of a lack of a spam filter. Imagine this with multiple trolls.

Then when mods were in game we had a lot of other problems. Personally i think the community was equally parts as bad as it was good during that era. Sure you had a lot of high quality members, but you also had more issues with things like mini modding, people calling others mini mods, personal troll attacks so on and so on. I'll list a few names that I can quickly think about top of my head as the center of those issues: PokemonTrainerRed, Yangus, Skate/marrymoocow, flounder, sarge, corrine. Do we have any issues that are to that scale currently?

 

[Glaceon01]

Lol, I remember this bleh to think of it it isn't as worse now x_x

I was known as ____ at that time

 

[Derek]

I agree Glaceon. We are all poke fans, we should use this common ground to figure out a soloution. I'm sure their is something we can do to bring some life into this game, some way to unite the players and share a common goal.

 

[crenel]

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.

The problem is that the "solution" is to rely on other people who already have money in order to make money. If you can't see how flawed that is, then of course you see no problem.

I really do not like that new players are required to trade in order to do anything. That is not a healthy environment, no matter which way you spin it. The problem is that there is no self-sustainable way to fund your own journey in your own way at your own pace. Sure it teaches/encourages people to trade (in theory at least), but it is an unnecessary hurdle that is decidedly not fun to some players (those that prefer solo play) and thus artificially alienates them.

Any system that relies on the following to work is a horrible system with no long-term health or life potential:
1. Luck (encountering then capturing rare Pokemon)
2. Other players (trading your first trophy away in order to advance)
3. Some people having more money than others

Yes you can fight NPCs and yes you can grind but we still lack any sort of actual economic balance. There's not enough to spend cash on, there's not enough cash to buy those things, and the only way to earn your cash is to grind in some way, shape or form. Finding a rare Pokemon is still going to be a grind most of the time. Yes, some people will always have more money than others in games, but our system RELIES on that, which is why it fails.

 

[Guest]

Well, I'm relatively new to PWO, and I DO sometimes ask noob questions, but don't try to spam the chat with it, and I never ask to trade or sell because I don't have enough rep LOL. I do think the all chat ruins everything but yeah. I don't really think the community is good, but not bad if you compare it to the Sonic fanbase ("Sonic Adventure 3 will put Nintendo out of buisness!" HA HA HA, no) or the Pokemon community (sounds heavily ironic but I'm not referring to anyone on the board, it's just the competitive Pokemon players on Smogon, or the people who make GardevoirxHuman, LucarioxHuman or whatever fanfiction writers, and let's not forget, people who draw Pokemon ****** *shivers at the thought of my childhood ruined*).