The Daily Grind: Are you a part of your game's community out of game?

The community of MMO gamers that I've found on Twitter are some of the best people I've never met. Incredibly entertaining, hugely supportive and a treasure trove of information about the minutae of online gaming.

Yes, Im in a guild that spans many games, MMO and other stuff. We chat in teamspeak, on our forum, play other games together.

Oddly enough, the answer is Yes and No.

I play Guild Wars and take part in the community.

I have played World of Warcraft and wouldn't go anywhere near the community. Well, the official forums at least. That place is dangerous!

I play Lord of the Rings Online and do not take part in the larger community.

Back in the old days, when I was a youngster in my 30's playing EQ, all of my friends played, and a dozen or so locals that I knew. The looks we'd get when we started geeking out over the game at some bar...classic. Remember, this was before it was even remotely "hip" to play an MMO.

Now, not so much. The demographics of MMO's have changed so much, I can't relate to half the new gamers out there.

Well, back when I was young I got really involved in the LOTRO community when it first launched in 2007 (oh Nostalgia, how I miss SoA). But then I realized I was -in-famous not 'famous'. So I stopped trolling the forums.

I hang with friends I meet in-game, my guild mostly. Beyond that, I contribute what I can to the community. I try to be supportive of others on official forums but I usually give from afar with game-related fanfiction (even had developers spotlights a few times, game to game).

Initially, my in-game friendships didn't extend beyond the boundaries of the game until our guild leader in WoW came down to the city where most of the guildies lived and we decided to have a get-together at a restaurant.

It was weird ... almost like the first few episodes of "The Guild" web series. It was all blokes and I had no idea how we would bond. Luckily, it turned out to be an amazing experience ... and funny too. We spent about 10 minutes talking about personal stuff and then it went right onto "game mode" - it was like Vent chat only in real life.

Our fellow restaurant patrons probably thought we were crazy, talking about the stuff we did. We were quite loud. From that day, we kept in contact and even now that most of us have moved on from WoW, we still talk over the phone, we connect on Facebook and so on.

In the MMO's I played after WoW, I would often log out, play a bit of Star Craft (or some other game), but keep the guild channel in Vent active. It feels like you have a room full of people with you, which is kinda nice. It's a lot of fun.

I'm actually really active in the out of game community for Wizard 101 - a lot more than I ever expected to be! I've played a lot of other MMOs and never did much more than read and post to the forums, but the out of game community for Wizard 101 is really wonderful and friendly, I'm happy to be a part of it as both a blogger and podcaster.

Hell no. You'd never catch me in a MMO's official forums.

Kind of, sort of.

I'm not vocal to the point of being a well-known name throughout the communities of the games I play, but I'm pretty sure my name has popped up enough times on the GW and GW2guru forums that people might recognize it, even if they don't know who I am or what I've done.

I don't troll and I don't debate, but I generally do establish myself as a regular on a few subforums that are particularly interesting to me. I post more on official forums than fansites however, in part due to moderation policies. I consider some of the Guru mods trolls themselves and it's not cool having to go up against that just to carry on a normal discussion.

rarely.

Sometimes I lurk on guild forum but that's it.

I look for socialization inside a game ,not for a friends in RL I have enough of those don't need to look for them in game :)

I am, but I'm weird like that. :D I've gotten RL friends into CITY OF HEROES, and some of my in-game friends from COH have gone on to become great friends of mine IRL.

Over the years, yes, no, and maybe.

I tend to "roam and wander" alot from forums and games. I do stick with one forum for CoH (not the official ones) and keep in touch with old players there, even returning to the game.

I do get involved with forums at times, mostly before Beta or at Beta and a bit after launch. I tend to prefer the small, fan forums. Some people give the official forums of games too much credit; I prefer "small ponds" where "most know your name" as opposed to "big ponds" where "10,000 posts can be made every 30-60 minutes".

Nope.

I don't tend to spend a lot of time in any particular MMO - a few weeks or a month and then I'm gone for another 3 months - so I don't join guilds. As for forums, if I'm playing and enjoying a particular game the last thing I'll do is read the forums - too full of complaints, drama and general idiocy. I will read them, but only if I'm not actively playing the game, so as to avoid it putting me off.

Two forums, this and a turbine boat site. No time for anything else.

Depends on the game. For me the factors generally are quality of the game, and how well it lends itself to socialization. I'm inclined to to be a member of the Fallen Earth community out-of-game, but unfortunately FE's social tools aren't strong, even from within the game. Simple things like text emotes being tied to animated emotes are missing (so when you wave at someone, unless they are looking right at you they'll never know) and the clan (guild) tools are threadbare to say the least.

Games like Rift, GuildWars, WoW or Kingdom Of Loathing on the other hand are far more robust and have a larger support network of fan pages, blogs and wikis.

It also depends on whether the game in question has pissed me off, or continues to deliver a quality experience. Allods' parent company, Mail.ru for instance has done a stellar job taking a dump on their core fanbase. Therefor while I will log on occasionally out of curiosity, I don't participate in it's forums or fanblogs b/c I just don't want to be involved.