The new MFPS Community (Military FPS Community)
How the end of COD's dominance will make the community stronger

With PC gaming it's clans and communities are identified or branded by the game those groups are dedicated to.And like most other things those groups mature,fail,reform or get replaced by new growth all centered around a game or game series.

I have been musing for quite a while about what might be the effect from the "MW2 PC Fail" and the timely "BFBC2 Introduction".

The COD series has been so strong that large tightknit communities have sprung from it's great gameplay and popularity. In addition other support sites focusing on first person server admin focused mainly on the series, and have gained tremendous respect. Other sites focusing on the modding aspect of the game series have matured and created content that has left a sense of awe and given extreme credibility to the community.


Community News and opinion sites have sprung to life and matured to the point where they blur the lines between community forums and real journalism.Sites where forum bashing is long gone and multimedia presentation is being honed.Places where developers have found hubs within the community to disseminate information directly without fear of unprofessional attacks.

Yet now it seems clear that multigaming is the glue that will redefine this greater community.

Where once it was necessary to narrow ones focus to one tiltle or series it is now a matter of necessity to be inclusive so as to satisfy the needs of the individual community members.Those needs plain and simple are having new titles to play.

New titles that help a gaming community stay relevant.

New titles that meets the needs of the gamers and keep up with frantic pace of the publishers and developers.

But not just any games that get released.The community has got to continue to be a descriminating one that takes on quality while giving feedback to the developers.

Clearly the traditional ways of playing PC FPS's is changing.In addition the total craft which includes server admin and modding has come under assault for reasons mostly related to profits and file security.

Therefore until one title stands apart from the rest and offers the elements required for a healthy PC community and also shows future staying power multigaming is the key to having a cohesive community.

The online PC COD Community is not what it was one year ago.That community is being redefined as the MFPS gaming community.A community that has the maturity and talent to weather changes in the gaming world.

A community being presented by real talent.

A community that is savvy and merits recruitment from developers at times.

A community redefining itself and adapting to the changing landscape.

And lastly a community that knows who it is.

Reflecting back on the disappointment and shock created by the MW2 fiasco it is clear to me that the community has become stronger than any one series or title.The community is ready to embrace the next EA MOH title and looks forward to Treyarchs COD Black Ops offering.

This community has shown it's appreciation for communication from devs such as Dice and rejected top down antics by publishers such as Activision.

This community has shown that it offers lines of mature communication.

This community may now be the Military FPS Community.

A community ready for larger growth and inclusion and ready to be respected and communicated with on a more professional level.

You are probably on to something there. New games coming out it seems more often and unfortunately more often than not - a console game ported to pc...

Communities have to be inclusive and have to be expansive if they want to sustain themselves beyond the "current" game. I am just not sure about the military aspect of this.
I think I understand that you are talking CoD, MoH and the Battlefield series, i.e. clearly military games. There are however games around the corner that are not neccessary purely military whilst still fitting the FPS segment. Stuff like Brink and possibly Shattered Horizon and perhaps more remote...Assasin's Creed. I do not at this stage know if these games will be offering dedicated servers as a hosting option, but this does not detract from the fact that they are not purely military shooters, but FPS.

I am in a community that started with Cod4. All of us drifted into it having played the various CoD series with different communites and all of them failed for a variety of reasons. Flexibility and inclusion of other games were often the reason. The members were no longer "active" as CoD2 had been replaced by CoD4 or some even drifted into BF2 (before CoD4) and so the community was struggeling to keep their members interest.

The inclusive and expansive community stands a chance and at the same time retain members who in many respects are more than qualified to talk about FPS gaming from a) a user perspective and b) a modders perspective and could as you mention "offers lines of mature communication", but this is valid for FPS and not just limiting ourselves to "military".

I paused on the Military FPS slogan, if you will, also. I tried describing the community as Multi FPS. Yet I always see the greatest majority of players and communities as falling into the Military category.I find it fairly hard to imagine it taking to a science fiction genre. Yet the Star wars conversion mod for COD4 begs me to differ.It would be interesting to see how the community would respond to a title offering dedicated servers and modtools in another genre. I appreciate your response Valleyhunter

Great editorial Bleed -salute-