What Does A Community Mean?
I've been thinking about it a lot since I decided to use these forums, so I wanted some real, honest points of view.
What does a community for DBD mean to you? How do you think the player base should relate to one another, and what is the function of a greater community in and out of the game? Should there be community standards that we agree on and hold one another to, like any real world community? Should we create norms and mores as overarching expectations both in and out of the game? Should we have sway in the grand scheme of the game itself? What is the purpose, besides yelling into the void in your opinion?
I'm withholding judgement in this thread, and I'd ask that others do the same. Discourse is fine, but I'd like to avoid arguments. I genuinely want to know what the community thinks of itself, and where it would like to go.
Comments
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At least we should stop pretending throwing the game is somehow fine, it's stupid
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As in DCing/unaliving yourself on hook? Like you'd like to see that as an agreed upon standard?
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I'm fine as long as people stop acting like preventing it with mechanics is "pointless" and it is somehow related to game balance or something
Honestly, killers 8 hooking then letting people go is equally bad too, but at least they aren't the team and most survivors doesn't seems to care much when it happens
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How would 8 hooking and allowing the survivors to leave bad?
I will usually let teams that I'm clearly better than escape because what's the point in steamrolling teams that couldn't offer a challenge?
As for dcs I'll let the best survivor live if any of team dcs or quits on hook early.
If we're equal in skill and no one gives up then I let no one escape as the game is fair may the best team win.
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I think the community in any video game is what you make of it. You're gonna always have people that want to play in ways that's aren't up to the standards of either side. The thing about DbD is that it's full of little micro communities within the larger communities. For instance you have your typical survivor main and killer main communities as a whole then within those you have these smaller niche communities who all find like minded people to vibe with.
The DbD community to me is awesome. I think there is a standard with how you should treat people overall especially outside the game, within the game it gets a bit murky as with anything competitive people want to win and there's always some one who wants to win more and this is where the toxic or standards drop. I think after the match is over everyone should let bygones be bygones and move on there's no honor is bad sportsmanship in any sport video game or whatever you choose. That's wishful thinking on my part for sure though.
I wish that we as a whole community had more say so in how the game was developed in the future which is a literal shot in the void I know but I feel the game would be in a much better place.
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Community for us is the playerbase as a whole. Survivors and killers, streamers and potatoes, are all part of this community. How the community should relate to each other is to try keep the game fun and alive for the general players. That's the purpose, goal, mission, whatever you want to call it.
We probably should have some community standards but since the only people who would be able to enforce that is themselves...that's not even touching the fact everyone has possibly radically different standards.
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We probably should have some community standards but since the only people who would be able to enforce that is themselves...that's not even touching the fact everyone has possibly radically different standards.
It used to exist on a much more widespread level, where, in general, people agreed on definitions of things like tunneling and gen-rushing, and certain playstyle were possible, but agreed upon as pretty gross or toxic by the larger community. It changed dramatically right around when crossplay was implemented, and it became a much more self-centered game of "efficiency over fun". It's definitely continued down that path, much to the chagrin of many who played before it all went batty.
I'm definitely of the opinion that gaming communities are real communities and should have similar standards in and out of game. We're all people, not just screen names. Unfortunately, the larger a community gets, and the younger the members are in online/gaming communities (hot take maybe) the less likely it is to be kind or compassionate, usually. Those who grew up in the anonymity of the internet seem to be much less likely to care about the people on the other side of their screen.This has just been my experience, and it's just my opinion, though. Hopefully others have had better overall experiences with forums and communities like this.
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What does a dbd community mean for me? Absolutely nothing. And I believe that should be the case everybody. No point in caring about strangers you've never seen before and will likely never see again.
Same thing applies to having standards and norms. No point in upholding norms if they hinder your experience. May as well make your own.
The difference between real communities and gaming communities, is that one consists of people who know or support each other on a basic level, while the other is just a massive crowd of strangers with no reason to care about each other.
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The difference between real communities and gaming communities, is that one consists of people who know or support each other on a basic level, while the other is just a massive crowd of strangers with no reason to care about each other.
I guess it boils down to the definition of community for me there. And personally, I don't need a reason to care about people, online or otherwise. I find it difficult to understand your point of view here. Not arguing it, just hard to wrap my head around it.
Is it ok if I ask your age demographic? Im curious if my age theory is at play regarding the difference in how we think?
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We weren't strictly speaking definitions. Things such as respecting the 4% swing, lightening up, generally just playing the game like a game instead of like there's actual lives on the line (not talking about choosing to play nice either, talking about how people are taking a video game with no stakes in it seriously enough to curse out, make threats, etc to others).
We really don't remember if there were agreed upon definitions other than in the loosest terms. For example for hooking someone, chasing and hooking another, hooking them, going back to the hook, the unhook happened, and we chase the unhooked because the healthy one ran to pallet central without the rescuee, guess who was called a tunneler.~ Think we call that tunnel? Some might of. Honestly, whatever you saw when cross play hit, we havent seen. Like ever. Its pretty much been a slow grind to here in our eyes as the community and game keeps growing and changing. Its kinda natural as (we believe) its ingrained human nature to try and make things efficient so we can't really blame anything, but still little sad the more we think on it (so we wont and eat cookies till we're happy again).
Gaming communities are real communities but as HaunterofShadows above said:
"The difference between real communities and gaming communities, is that one consists of people who know or support each other on a basic level, while the other is just a massive crowd of strangers with no reason to care about each other."
This is a fact. We're all anonymous masks and don't have much of a true reason to care about one another. A majority care about the game (atleast in some form or another) but as we've seen with the average "im leaving DBD" post, we as a generalized community (there are exceptions of course as there are wholesome people out here) are apathetic to each other unless we build some kinda connection with each other. The average connection we've (Rulebreakers) witnessed in game?…Take a guess (again, exceptions exist). First prize is a cookie. In fairness to the younger (…feeling fking old saying that…) members, we feel like they're just as likely to be apathetic, not more. Its more on how they grew up (atleast we hope most players aren't actual children, it would explain too much).
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Oh sure, I was just kind of using your post as a jumping off point for my own opinion.
I think I'm just not wired to see people on the internet as just masks or anonymous strangers. I'm definitely in the older crowd, where the first, integral parts of my life were before the internet, and it wasn't until my mid-teens that it became even common place in households. It was all AIM chat communities where people actually felt kinship and cared about each other. That extended well into social media and gaming communities, both for video games and online tabletop/board/social deception. Just having a love of the same game or topic was enough to bond people to a degree. I'm not sure when that transitioned to actively NOT caring about other people, but it's a sad, unpleasant symptom of anonymity and a lack of consequences. Honestly, trying so hard not to care seems like a lot more effort. And it's definitely a choice people can make, but why choose that over the alternative?
I don't mean to throw anyone under the bus, and I apologize if this is uncool (I'll delete this portion of the post if it makes anyone angry or uncomfortable), but take the case of HaunterofShadows who posted above. I find it sort of paradoxical that they say they don't care about the community at all, but have over 4k posts here. And not just them, but others as well. That's a lot of time and effort to put into something that means nothing to you. Not judging, but really curious as to how those can be seen as mutually exclusive things and not tie into one another.1 -
We like to think of it as a masquerade party. That said, its not generally speaking not caring, its a lack of reason too care at least from us (we won't speak for the general populous here). We don't know anyone here in any meaningful way other than the "mask" they wear so why should we care other than out of the goodness of our hearts? Each of us is a stranger to each other and can easily disappear. Now while we have some empathy for strangers, we don't really care much about a stranger yelling at the top of their lungs "THIS IS UNFAIR BECAUSE OF BLAH BLAH BLAH, THIS NEEDS CHANGED BECAUSE I LOST, I DON'T LIKE THIS" etc. Which is what we often see. We're not trying to not to care, but its like, why should we, when have no connection to them?
People can post and not genuinely care. The reason we often post varies from its interesting, to boredom, to throwing actual counter points.
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