NeoGAF

Originally Posted by txag2005

This thread really makes me want to get involved in the various GAF communities. Pretty much all my friends aren't gamers or are very casual so any game that thrives with a solid community I've avoided over the years. Seems like this is a great place to find like minded gamers playing a huge variety of games.

Every time I've jumped in with GAF it has been good times. The games that get support are kind of random though. TF2 was consistent for years (probably still is), Chivalry seems on and off, and oddly enough Battlefield 3 and Kid Icarus were about the same, a very small group meeting weekly.

Around the time the original Love went down getting into Phantom Dust one last time is something I'll always cherish.

Halo GAF seems huge, never jumped in with them.

Yeah one thing about playing with GAF: You get spoiled from the awesome, and then find yourself not wanting to try random people again. Or at least thats what i've run into personally :p

I remember trying out FFXI for a bit and as soon as I created my guy and started wandering around, people were running up, offering advice. A couple of dudes even shadowed me for a bit as I leveled up. They just chatted and would heal me if I needed it. The game wasn't for me, but I always thought that was such a pleasant first experience with an online community.

Easily Demon's/Dark Souls.

For one, people love flaunting their knowledge of the game to help new players. Ask any question and you'll get dozens of answers from busybodies in a matter of minutes - doesn't matter how many times the question's been asked before. Secondly, and more importantly, the community loves getting new blood to invade/get invaded by. They want to build you up so you can be a threat to them someday, which is just about the best thing any competitive gaming community could do. I love helping newbies to Souls because I remember when I was in their position and had people help me out. Lots of people trying to pay it forward. The Souls community withers and dies without new players. The game can be alienating enough, so it stands to reason that the fanbase does its best to ease new players into it.

It doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by phuturist

Dark Souls

According to the the ingame interaction at least.

Misery loves company.

Project Gotham Racing 2 had an absolutely amazing community around it. The playerbase was mainly adults and you could have a great time in a lobby racing over and over with a bunch of fun people. The fact that the community created their own game modes which relied heavily on the players following the rules themselves without the game imposing them and almost always having them work... was a true sight to behold. There's never been anything more fun in racing games than Last Man Standing or Cat & Mouse on PGR2.

The other game would be FFXi which has already been mentioned a few times. The servers were so close-knit that you couldn't afford to be an asshole or you would never get anywhere. There were thousands of players per server and yet you knew the majority of the people milling about and if they had any drama attached to them. The amount of help people were willing to give to the new players is something that just isn't seen in games anymore and once you became a veteran yourself you'd then turn to helping out when you saw a new player in peril as well. There really was a fantastic community spirit in that game a few years ago and it's something I doubt I'll ever find in a game again. Special.

Originally Posted by entrement

A friend of mine is trying to get me to play DOTA 2 as his experience learning and playing with randoms was frustrating in his words. He mentioned that the community is very hostile to new players--no idea if this is true or if he just met up with assholes, which are everywhere sadly.

I felt the original SFIV community was pretty welcoming online. I got a lot of tips via in game messages.

What are your experiences with online communities and how welcoming they are?

Your experience was vastly different than mine. The first time I went online and played for a bit I received 3 or 4 messages from random people I played making fun of me, cursing at me, just mean spirited messages all around. Never touched online again.

My vote goes to SWTOR and FFXIV. SWTOR was great in most zones. I never had trouble finding a good team to help with something. FFXIV is awesome, although some people got annoying around FATES...

Rainbow Six 3 (on xbox)
I was quite a bit younger back then and everyone was mostly an adult and lots of people were still nice to me.