Brand new here, so let me know if I break any rules!

I stumbled across Ray Oldenburg's suggestions of the different "places" in our modern lives whilst (in an unrelated manner) creating a PBBG, and it got me thinking of all of the other games I've played that served as my Third Place for a time. These were places where I felt attached to, like the people who showed up every day were going to be people I could get to know and carry on a relationship with (psychological definition of relationship, not dating). It was compelling enough to be able to define it so well that I want to try and replicate the experience in my up-coming game.

I've been stabbing in the dark without having to be able even playtest it (although will be shortly available), but I feel that there could be some serious thought put toward designing a game to fill in that Third Place for our players. However, trying to fill in the criteria of the aforementioned wikipedia article, I figure that having open access to a chat room for everyone is essential. As well, not allowing external factors to change how people can access the chat (like a perk for in-game purchases).

So, my questions are: should we even bother designing with something like that in mind? Or is it more something that grows organically and cannot be predestined? Surely there are facilitation that the developer can implement, but is it be a waste of time?

Similarly, what about actively preventing negative social influences that can damage or destroy a community?

12 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

Your first question is, is it worthwhile to make games social - to design it so that a community can develop in the game. I say two things about that: "probably," and "it depends on the game genre and its audience."

Can you expound on the "probably"? I'm developing a Persistent Browser-Based Game that is a team PvP idler (imagine Overwatch but with numbers, idle mechanics, and less graphics).

Are there any design aspects have you seen that really accelerate (or positively impact) the social space of a game? There's dozens of systems (reputation, titles, etc) that can influence a social space, but I feel that the territory is a little unpaved still. Toxic social environments can destroy a game that is inherently social, and active prevention can lead to the same thing.