I ♥ Love ♥ This Community

No joke. PoE has one of the most global and unique communities I've ever experienced for an online game. Like any community, we have our ups and downs, yet we're still here; thriving and growing.

• Respect and Understanding
  
  We may have our disagreements and arguments, but we still respect each other after the firestorm. Online gaming forums are notorious for 1337 attitudes and disrespect, but someone we manage to hit the rest button on any angst we encounter. Wonderful moderation and a forgiving community make that possible. In the end people understand not to attack each other, just attack the topics.
  
  My personal example: had a heated exchange with a member over many posts, but then reached out to him in PMs, where our pride didn't have to be challenged in public. Great guy, got to chat with him some more. We're from completely different geographical regions and mindsets on the game, yet we were able to bridge that gap. Forgive and forget.
  
  
• Happy Casuals
  
  Many gaming communities have a big chunk of unhappy casuals, meaning they're always complaining about the latest changes by the developer. For PoE, I see a paradigm shift, where the casuals have learned to enjoy PoE and roll with the changes over time.
  
  Examples: Anu's Self Found Gang, don't get lost, and exponentially different than general and announcements
  
  
• Help is Just Around the Corner
  
  Whether it's Global 820, Guilds, or the Forums, there are a ton of people willing to help each other. True, as with any community some will try to get something out of it, but plenty are willing to help just for the sake of helping. I've helped a few, but FAR more have helped me, especially with challenges in Prophecy. Be proud of your PoE community: you guys are awesome!
  
  
• Online Gaming sans Farmers (mostly)
  
  Whatever GGG has done to limit "gold farming", or in our case currency/orb farming, it's working. Compared with other online games I rarely see the market fluctuate as much as other games, or even other ARPGs. Sure, we have some players who are great at efficient farming and grinding, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the number of casuals and semi-hardcore players. Currently in Prophecy, progression items are cheap at a chaos or two each, and end-game items jump to 20-40c each, as indicative of the time spent to find/craft those items.
  
  Personal experience: I've never seen spam. And I can sell my own unwanted items for a reasonable price. Even the lower-level stuff can sell well, given the right item affixes, sockets, etc. Everything is of use to the community as a whole.
  
  

So what's you're take on PoE's community? Have you seen the silver lining in the cloud? Have you had positive experiences that far outweigh the negative ones?

"

cipher_nemo wrote:

So what's you're take on PoE's community? Have you seen the silver lining in the cloud? Have you had positive experiences that far outweigh the negative ones?

My experience has been almost entirely positive in ingame interactions and PMs in the forum. I like the forum as a whole but I think there is a small number of prolific and consistent toxic posters at any point in time who have a disproportionately negative impact on the entire experience. Their nicknames may change but they seem to be always there in one form or another. These are the players who seem to be incredibly unhappy with the game and yet linger in the forum. Their dissatisfaction with the game means happiness is not allowed, everyone must hate PoE and it must fail horribly - and they do their best to shit on anything positive and good in the forum.They are like a turd in a vat of honey - it' small but it spoils the whole thing.

Apart from them, the forum is full of intelligent, nice and interesting people and the moderation team has always left me speechless with their inhuman patience.

Listing Anu as an example of "happy casual" :)

I have no frame of reference with other MMO communities, so I'll just believe OP that it's worse over there. My experience with PoE community ingame is mostly positive, but I think is due to some specifics:

* I hang out only on /global 820
* I trade very little

While I agree with your take on things, I also have a slightly different personal perspective because 95% of my interaction with the community is based around answering questions. On that end of things, the community is also great because the substantial majority of people who pop up seeking help (whether here, on reddit, Discord, whatever) ask good questions and are polite. Plenty of people actually do their own research and ask only to supplement for things that are extra weird. It's a great environment for someone who gets a kick out of answering questions.

I legitimately cannot tell if this is sarcasm, or if I've just had a glimpse into Bizzaro World. Because from where I'm sitting I see a divided community where casuals are 2nd-class citizens, a developer with no direction and a whale-based business model, gold spammers bombarding in-game chat interspersed with Donald Trump memes, and a community that will troll the shit out of new players legitimately asking questions about one of the most opaquely designed games this side of Dwarf Fortress.

I'd love to borrow those rose-tinted glasses of yours, the world must look frickin' amazing through them.

"

AkuTenshiiZero wrote:

I legitimately cannot tell if this is sarcasm, or if I've just had a glimpse into Bizzaro World. Because from where I'm sitting I see a divided community where casuals are 2nd-class citizens, a developer with no direction and a whale-based business model, gold spammers bombarding in-game chat interspersed with Donald Trump memes, and a community that will troll the shit out of new players legitimately asking questions about one of the most opaquely designed games this side of Dwarf Fortress.

I'd love to borrow those rose-tinted glasses of yours, the world must look frickin' amazing through them.

The post is a bit on the rosy side but you are right in one thing: better overly positive than all doom and gloom.

"

AkuTenshiiZero wrote:

...I see a divided community where casuals are 2nd-class citizens

That's only an illusion. It's easy to get caught up in the latest hype about race events, new end-game items most casuals will never see, and all of the other stuff the bleeding edge of the PoE community lives for. ;-) But when you step behind that curtain, you'll easily find a thriving, happy, and helpful casual community. It's there, trust me, just take that first step.

The most eye-opening experience I've had is when I step back from all of the debate over the latest numbers and min-maxing to see new items, skills, and content for what they truly are: free-to-play enjoyment. You can either run the rat race laid out before you, or you can go your own way. Personally, I've enjoyed a little bit of both

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AkuTenshiiZero wrote:

I'd love to borrow those rose-tinted glasses of yours, the world must look frickin' amazing through them.

Any time, free of charge. ;-)

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viperesque wrote:

While I agree with your take on things, I also have a slightly different personal perspective because 95% of my interaction with the community is based around answering questions. On that end of things, the community is also great because the substantial majority of people who pop up seeking help (whether here, on reddit, Discord, whatever) ask good questions and are polite. Plenty of people actually do their own research and ask only to supplement for things that are extra weird. It's a great environment for someone who gets a kick out of answering questions.

Yeah, I've enjoyed helping around Tech Support sometimes. You get thankful people, and sometimes the players PM me as well to continue troubleshooting or thank us for the help. Far better than other gaming communities where I've helped. :-)

"

morbo wrote:

Listing Anu as an example of "happy casual" :)

Hahaha, glad someone enjoyed that Easter Egg. ;-)

.

I have 15371 posts affirming that i quite enjoy this community.

In-game i consider it a "you reap what you sow" environment. I have never had a bad experience in game with other players.

Maybe my peace mantra works.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Boem wrote:

In-game i consider it a "you reap what you sow" environment. I have never had a bad experience in game with other players.

:-)

Ditto. I had one bad experience, but compared with hundreds of positive ones, that's still an awesome ratio!