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[Debate] Community Responsibility

Sir ArmaMalum·5/4/2014, 6:24:19 PM·5 votes·862 views

Hello and welcome to my weekly (at least that's what I shoot for) [Debate] post. In this post series I outline a subject with LoL, and encourage people to post their own opinions and views about the subject. I hope to spark intelligent, civil and open-minded debate amongst the community. Just in case you don’t know how to do debate that here are the guidelines:

  • Don't dismiss anyone's opinions, opinions are never wrong, you just disagree with them.
  • You are free to disagree with someone always, but always do your best to explain why.
  • Don't get emotional, hopefully we're all adults here, keep it in 'debate' mode. No catfights allowed.
  • Feel free to disagree with my OP as well! I love feedback, but this is a debate thread, I'll respond where I can!
  • There is a comment reply cap! You only have a few tries to rebuttle and argue a point, so make them count!

#####Want to help decide what topic comes next? Well you can! Poll below!

http://i.imgur.com/2hZQZ7d.png
#Community Responsibility

In this context what I mean by ‘community responsibility’ is what expectations should we as a playerbase set for ourselves and to what end. In other words, with this week’s [Debate] I want to discuss what you think we as a community should and shouldn’t be expected to do. This is going to be a pretty broad topic, as this can range from behavior to knowledge to Riot criticisms and criticisms of ourselves to maturity to generally any action and way of thinking that can be solely our responsibility to do.

#http://i.imgur.com/2jznKyX.png The Question

What should we expect from our fellow players? Which of the expectations have we met or failed as a community?

#http://i.imgur.com/RNA0WwV.png My View

If I started all over and came into this game as a fresh new player I would expect quite a few things:

####A HELPFUL community
Not necessarily friendly, that’s naïve to expect out of everyone. But a fellow player willing to at least try to help another player out because they’re both playing a game they enjoy.

####A good dev-player relationship
The devs work to make the game better, and you want a better game. While both may approach it differently, I would expect both sides to give each other slack and room to maneuver in their own mediums.

####Trust
Anytime I come into a game I would like to be able to trust the community to do something expected. It doesn’t even have to be friendly or helpful. Imgur, for example has the random quirks like “Bannana for scale” or upvoting the best pun in the comments. This isn’t helpful and it isn’t practical in the slightest, but I can trust it to happen and expect it.

####A default ‘positive’
Something goes wrong? Servers are down? Someone came into rage in the forums? A new player would expect a community centralized about a game that is made to be a fun entertaining activity to try to help and remain positive about it, because there is no reason to panic or keep egging people on.

####Provide constructive feedback to dev decisions
Yes the occasional rage or blind devotion would be expected but I would assume if one had a point to make they would explain it, and if they didn’t they would stay silent and see what happened. Constructive does not mean supportive. Acceptable feedback could nothing but against a decision but it must be backed by explanation instead of mindless exclamations.

If we scored it off of my ‘rubric’ here my view of the current community would be a 1/5. 0.5 point for the first, 0.5 point for the second and a failure for the rest. Most of you probably saw that coming, as the general outlook for the community isn’t great, but I don’t make it a point to vocalize my disappointment often because I consider myself a part of the community and therefore obligated to the 4th point, a ‘default positive’. I believe with enough work, dedication, and friendly views that even one person can make a difference in a community of millions, and as an engineering student pointing out the problem isn’t enough. I have to do something about it, I have to implement a solution the best I can. That’s an expectation I hold to myself, and one I hope to be able to expect out the rest of you.

Addendum

Sorry for the short outline and long personal rant, but I really hope to hear some different viewpoints here as well as explanations of why you feel that way and why expectations have been met or failed. By all means I encourage questioning my view as well as others, be respectful, but always ask questions.

###Previous: Champion Archetypes---Running Out

###Next: New vs Old, Player Priority

###All [Debates]

24 Comments

Courier Eight5/4/2014, 10:55:49 PM5 votes

I honestly expect a lot more from the community in regards to hate speak. Hell, even raging I'll take with a grain of salt, but if I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone call someone a f----t, a n----r, or even a girl I wouldn't have to worry about student loans. The sexism, racism, and homophobia is really rampant in our community, and in our in-game chats.

We've set up a culture that actively excludes, belittles, and dehumanizes people; not even based on game skill, but by identity. My girlfriend, for example, loves the designs and the characters but would never want to actually play the game, because of the community. And I know you're never going to stop the 13-year-olds tossing out slurs like candy, but we as a community should be more pro-active about calling them out on it.

MackleDoge5/4/2014, 6:32:19 PM3 votes

Honestly, the only thing I expect out of a community is to let the company do their thing and enjoy the product. I don't expect good behavior, I don't expect reason or logic, I don't expect a good attitude, and I don't expect a very welcoming or positive experience on the forums or from the community. From my experience, people in general are extremely entitled and selfish, and I think those characteristics really shine through when they are allowed to semi-anonymously berate and insult one another and complain to their heart's content about the smallest thing. I'd say the majority of the players in the community just don't care about the forums, they don't care about the interaction, and they aren't concerned with the actual community aspect. People who are active on the forums tend to be the minority population from what I've seen and experienced and that minority tends to be split into three general groups: those who just want to troll around and have some fun interacting, those who want to do something positive and/or constructive with their forum time, and those who want to do nothing but bitch, complain, and flame anyone and anything. I'm not sure where that leaves us with community responsibility, because we end up with three actual very different communities that have to interact with one another. Personally, I just want to see a little more intelligence from the community and a little less whining.

Angry Monster5/5/2014, 4:00:27 AM2 votes

I am going to hit each of your points.

A HELPFUL community

Not sure why you feel that people need to be helpful. That is putting a huge burden on people. Some may want to help and that is fine but why should i be helping every other player? I feel that we should not be passing bad information around but in general our skill puts us with those that don't need our help. I think the exent of expected player to player should be polite or neutral.

A good dev-player relationship

Bah don't care. I feel that at times riot listens to the people to much.(example annie skin thing)

Trust

I only trust to do what they think are in there best interest or that they think they are entitled to. I do not blindly trust anyone that i do not know.

A default ‘positive’

The thing is where can we complain then if everything is positive. The reality of the world there are as many positives as there is negatives. And some genuine criticism might be justified. I would like to see less trolling but some people think they are legit when trolling.

Provide constructive feedback to dev decisions

I think i already touched on this. Again what is constructive feed back. A negative toned post saying "riot did x wrong" is constructive. Riot tends to not like that kind of feed back but whatever. As long as a post is not rude, trolly or overtly emotional ex ( i lost my proms cause x is to strong.....) its should be considered as worthy input.

I really feel you expect to much here. Some of the problems with the community is completely riots fault. GD should be general talk league not everything under the sun. Any complains about balance should of gone to champion feed back. And most of GD should be move to OFF TOPIC. Riot failed to control and set reasonable standard. Most rioters only check GD enforcing this bad behavior.

Riot has shown that they really do not care about behavior since they out source it to the people to handle. Look at what the community mostly is. That should be your standard.

lorewise5/5/2014, 4:27:04 PM1 votes

I would argue that Riot does have an excellent relationship with the community. I'm sure there are other game developers who are as open as Riot but they're few and far between.

And that does create for an amazing community despite any other toxicity. I mean this game is huge and I can't even think of any game company that not only has the amount of players as League and an overwhelmingly amazing community.

I realize that LoL is known for toxicity but that's usually limited to actual games. The community surrounding Riot and even their own corporate atmosphere (from what I've read) seems to foster a lot of loyalty, passion, and positive experiences. I mean I hate toxicity but I still play this game and I only rarely see horrible behavior outside of mathces.

I wouldn't play if I felt otherwise.