This appears to be a recurring thing I've noticed when playing any game online, I've played World of Warcraft and I've come to realise that people in this game are really rude, the things they say is like something from 4Chan (examples, Chuck Norris and Your Mom jokes, as well as the dreaded Barriens Chat), the game is more treated like an e-sport and there's the stupid Gearscore thing, I think WoW is a joke, it's even more bad when there's no-one to make friends with.
Now when I've played every other MMO game, the sad news is there is nobody to play with, it's like WoW is the only MMORPG that really gets played nowhere days and all the others are considered not worth the time playing. I really find it sad that everyone in the world keeps praising WoW as they fail to realise that even though it plays like gold but really it's a turd is disguise.
Recently I've not been playing any MMO of such, been on Left 4 Dead 2 and today I've realised how terrible the game is since there really is no community as I was kicked out of my own set up game and I did nothing wrong, all it is, is just a lobby game and that's what WoW has become as well.
Is it true that every MMORPG does suck and the old days of Online Communities that we saw in EQ1 are now long gone?
When you consider that a community is made up of people with appreciably common beliefs it is very clear that MMORPGs are sorely lacking the the community department. The closest thing I've seen to a community is in Final Fantasy XI, where people are polite but coldly polite.
There is not one thing that has destroyed communities, certainly not the presence of a wealth of titles and certainly not World of Warcraft. No, not even being able to appreciably solo within MMORPGs has caused this problem. Simply put, the problem comes down to people and these people are largely of the Gen-X generation and the one just after it. I don't think its a gross overgeneralisation to say that, as a whole, these generations are morally impoverished and were put in that position by the generation that pseudo-parented them and was supposed to install some sort of moral compass. Granted, its a bit more complicated than that but the general thrust is sensible.
Another problem is a rise in Post-Modern sensibilities where meta-narratives are condemned (e.g. that's only your opinion vs. that is a likely fact) and everyone is so wrapped up in their own personal bubble that they couldn't form a meaningful relationship if they wanted to. This bubble has nothing to do with the presence and expansion of the internet and everything to do with the way people choose to interact with each other; the internet is, after all, a catalyst for real interaction of a certain type with other real people.
I could go on but it would only get me riled up, those who can see some sense in this will understand and those who can't simply won't and they will be impossible to convince otherwise. Simply put, the communities in MMORPGs have all but disappeared because of the people that are playing, the culture they largely were formed from and inform and a hyper-solipsistic psychology that leaves little room for genuine community. We have to change as people, those of us that aren't really doing our best to make community, if we ever want to see it come back again. If people would only do their small part we'd see a world of change.
This assumes a lot. For this to be true everyone who uses the internet would have to have been brought up in the same culture which is clearly false. Also the communities we are talking about were only 5-10 years ago not 25 which is a generation gap. No, the only thing that has clearly changed in the last 5-6 years is the MMOs themselves. They have very obviously progressed from a very social group focused activity to very solo oriented.
In MMOs of the past you needed other players for groups, crafting items, travel directions, quest guides, aquiring rare items and almost every other aspect of MMO gameplay. Now all of that can be acomplished easily without ever having to interact with another player once. We are not just talking about forced grouping here either. Almost every aspect of MMO gameplay in games like UO, EQ pre Luclin/PoP, SWG pre CU/NGE, DAOC, AO and a host of other games required a certain amount of player interaction to acomplish.
Gamers haven't changed all that much over the last 10 years... the MMOs themselves have changed drastically however.
Bren
/end quote
He stated this very well. I think mmorpg companies think a more solo game is going to be more popular and that seems to be the style nowadays ;( it makes me very sad to see it honestly. I loved pre-CU SWG. They need to realize that alot of people play them to be social.
[size=8]PLAYED: TSO, SWG, WOW, EQ2, Vanguard, FFXII, AOC, AION, Guild Wars, Second Life
Having read your post OP I can say I played Ryzom bout 2 years ago and I can actually see it very possible to get to know everyone on the server just by watching chat. The community was that good. Other games that just might be this way are some of the single shard server games with mature communities. Yes there are a few around.
Ryzom
Fallen Earth
EvE Online
Maybe LotRO until it goes free to play this fall ....
Is it true that every MMORPG does suck and the old days of Online Communities that we saw in EQ1 are now long gone?
I picked the poll option "Not Sure."
I think the reason the majority of newer MMORPGs are having a great deal more community troubles is the type of interaction the games requires. Most games now are solo-friendly or the games do not require you to rely on your fellow gamers in order to progress.
The last game I played with a good community base was Final Fantasy XI, I have a theory that forced grouping and the need to be on good relations with others in the world made people be a bit more courteous to each other.
However, I also think that the communities have never changed, they are just not scared or worried about their reputation anymore since they don't 'need' you. They will just be rude to your face instead of behind your back to their guild mates. Communities have always been the same I think.
This assumes a lot. For this to be true everyone who uses the internet would have to have been brought up in the same culture which is clearly false. Also the communities we are talking about were only 5-10 years ago not 25 which is a generation gap. No, the only thing that has clearly changed in the last 5-6 years is the MMOs themselves. They have very obviously progressed from a very social group focused activity to very solo oriented.
In MMOs of the past you needed other players for groups, crafting items, travel directions, quest guides, aquiring rare items and almost every other aspect of MMO gameplay. Now all of that can be acomplished easily without ever having to interact with another player once. We are not just talking about forced grouping here either. Almost every aspect of MMO gameplay in games like UO, EQ pre Luclin/PoP, SWG pre CU/NGE, DAOC, AO and a host of other games required a certain amount of player interaction to acomplish.
Gamers haven't changed all that much over the last 10 years... the MMOs themselves have changed drastically however.
Bren
This is spot on. MMOs used to be very community-oriented, and it wasn't that long ago. When you need other players to succeed, you're a lot less likely to be a douchebag and piss everyone else off, simply as a matter of self-preservation. And even 4Chan kiddies understand self-preservation.
If we want vibrant, helpful communities, we need MMOs that require cooperation. Period.
Is it true that every MMORPG does suck and the old days of Online Communities that we saw in EQ1 are now long gone?
However, I also think that the communities have never changed, they are just not scared or worried about their reputation anymore since they don't 'need' you. They will just be rude to your face instead of behind your back to their guild mates. Communities have always been the same I think.
Exactly. It's not the players who've changed. It's the setting in which the players are placed. If you make it easy for people to be obnoxious, a lot of them are going to be obnoxious. But if you force players to work with each other to succeed, they'll be much less likely to piss everyone else off.
Joining a guild is a thousand times easier thn setting one up. Take your time, I would never join one that does not have a website with forums. The guild you join may well be the deciding factor as to whether you stick with a game or not.
Joining a guild is a thousand times easier thn setting one up. Take your time, I would never join one that does not have a website with forums. The guild you join may well be the deciding factor as to whether you stick with a game or not.
Oh, definitely this. Absolutely. Finding a quality guild is one of the first things I do when I decide that I want to give a game a real shot.
Having said that, you shouldn't have to join a guild just to hide from the rest of the community. If the community is that abysmal, there's a problem.
This appears to be a recurring thing I've noticed when playing any game online, I've played World of Warcraft and I've come to realise that people in this game are really rude, the things they say is like something from 4Chan (examples, Chuck Norris and Your Mom jokes, as well as the dreaded Barriens Chat), the game is more treated like an e-sport and there's the stupid Gearscore thing, I think WoW is a joke, it's even more bad when there's no-one to make friends with.
Now when I've played every other MMO game, the sad news is there is nobody to play with, it's like WoW is the only MMORPG that really gets played nowhere days and all the others are considered not worth the time playing. I really find it sad that everyone in the world keeps praising WoW as they fail to realise that even though it plays like gold but really it's a turd is disguise.
Recently I've not been playing any MMO of such, been on Left 4 Dead 2 and today I've realised how terrible the game is since there really is no community as I was kicked out of my own set up game and I did nothing wrong, all it is, is just a lobby game and that's what WoW has become as well.
Is it true that every MMORPG does suck and the old days of Online Communities that we saw in EQ1 are now long gone?
When you consider that a community is made up of people with appreciably common beliefs it is very clear that MMORPGs are sorely lacking the the community department. The closest thing I've seen to a community is in Final Fantasy XI, where people are polite but coldly polite.
There is not one thing that has destroyed communities, certainly not the presence of a wealth of titles and certainly not World of Warcraft. No, not even being able to appreciably solo within MMORPGs has caused this problem. Simply put, the problem comes down to people and these people are largely of the Gen-X generation and the one just after it. I don't think its a gross overgeneralisation to say that, as a whole, these generations are morally impoverished and were put in that position by the generation that pseudo-parented them and was supposed to install some sort of moral compass. Granted, its a bit more complicated than that but the general thrust is sensible.
Another problem is a rise in Post-Modern sensibilities where meta-narratives are condemned (e.g. that's only your opinion vs. that is a likely fact) and everyone is so wrapped up in their own personal bubble that they couldn't form a meaningful relationship if they wanted to. This bubble has nothing to do with the presence and expansion of the internet and everything to do with the way people choose to interact with each other; the internet is, after all, a catalyst for real interaction of a certain type with other real people.
I could go on but it would only get me riled up, those who can see some sense in this will understand and those who can't simply won't and they will be impossible to convince otherwise. Simply put, the communities in MMORPGs have all but disappeared because of the people that are playing, the culture they largely were formed from and inform and a hyper-solipsistic psychology that leaves little room for genuine community. We have to change as people, those of us that aren't really doing our best to make community, if we ever want to see it come back again. If people would only do their small part we'd see a world of change.
This assumes a lot. For this to be true everyone who uses the internet would have to have been brought up in the same culture which is clearly false. Also the communities we are talking about were only 5-10 years ago not 25 which is a generation gap. No, the only thing that has clearly changed in the last 5-6 years is the MMOs themselves. They have very obviously progressed from a very social group focused activity to very solo oriented.
In MMOs of the past you needed other players for groups, crafting items, travel directions, quest guides, aquiring rare items and almost every other aspect of MMO gameplay. Now all of that can be acomplished easily without ever having to interact with another player once. We are not just talking about forced grouping here either. Almost every aspect of MMO gameplay in games like UO, EQ pre Luclin/PoP, SWG pre CU/NGE, DAOC, AO and a host of other games required a certain amount of player interaction to acomplish.
Gamers haven't changed all that much over the last 10 years... the MMOs themselves have changed drastically however.
Bren
It doesn't assume but rather adduce based on cultural change and the United States functioning as a meta-culture in more ways that can be articulated, or even should be articulated, in a forum like this. That is all I am going to say on that front because I think that if you do some digging with some sociological and psychological studies you're likely to see the thrust of my argument is unforunately more correct than not.
What I will say is that it is far more likely for games to change due to what gamers want than any other reason, which would support what I am saying. If gamers are more rude than not they are going to want more solo-friendly content to not be bothered with rude players; if gamers are more interested in not co-operating with groups because they don't trust their fellow players they are more likely to want solo-friendly content; if gamers are more interested in being 'the uberplayer' they are morie likely to want solo-friendly content. There are a bunch of things that point to the communities changing and this can't but come from the players.
I'll leave it at that and, even if we can't agree on what and why, I think we can all agree that communities need to come make a comeback in a big way and we can all do a bit better as people to help facilitate that.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain. (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Again, I call BS on the 'solo play ruins communities' posts. Anarchy Online is and always has been group-centered, but that community turned abysmal over the years, creepy and rude like an inbred family reunion. Yet the gameplay didn't change. The community did.
And as for the socialogical and psychological underpinnings of MMO community rudeness, with the whole, 'let's blame this generation and the American way of life' I call BS again (not because I'm at all a fan of the American way of life, let me make that clear). People have always been rotten to each other, it's just how our species evolved, and there's nothing new to see on that front.
Something else is the cause, not style of gameplay and not the generation. However, average age of players might have something to do with it. It doesn't matter what generation you're from, I'd wager most of us were ruder when we were younger than we are now.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
Big well advertised games such as WoW will attract more kiddies and tend to have a detrimental affect on the communities. That would be a reason why in my opinion you should never put an MMO on a console for that reason. I own an xbox60 and everyone on there is about 10 and think they are god's gift. I've never played WoW or had much MMO experience. I've played Face of Mankind, which despite a few dicks had a great community. Roma Victor had a superb community where everyone pretty much knew everyone and got on fairly well even cross faction. Idiots were generally known and shunned by the community. I'm 18 now and my first MMO was Runescape when I was about 12. One that we made our own group with RL friends and so it wasn't so bad. Smaller games tend to be better community wise and also the sandbox element where it required a bit of work to get started put the little kiddies off.
Commander Jim
Were all living on knife's edge when will you fall off?
Communities can only exist where one has the time to be social, and to socially interact. The entire genre, for whatever reason, has been structured around the concept of "online time = character advancment", and so one must make a choice, in most cases, between being social, and advancing their character.
Since most players only have a limited amount of time to be online and in the game, when they are in one can hardly blame them for doing what is most efficient for advancing their character. No, they don't have time to chat in full sentences, attend your in-game wedding, or go on your drunken gnome run. They also don't have time to stand around and shoot the breeze for 2 hrs while someone tries to get a raid together. Some of us can't be responsible party members and carry on a text conversation at the same time, not with the fast pace of current games.
These games are geared around and reward those who efficiently min-max their time towards character advancement; they are not structured in a way that promotes socializing in the true sense of the word. Forcing players to group up or raid up and engage in a single-minded, focused typing marathon for 2-4 hours is not "socializing" or "forming community" in any meaningful sense of the words.
If you want communities to return to the MMOG world, someone has to create a game that takes the pressure off of character advancment while in-game, so people feel free to hang out, shoot the breeze, and interact in ways that are not only about making each other more efficient at advancing one's character. The structure of the current MMOG genre has weeded out the RP community and the "hanging out" community and every social community that isn't focused on the end game; to bring them back and bring in a real social new age in MMOGaming, I advise going to a true 24/7 character advancement system where your character advances whether you are online or off. Thus, when you are in-game, for however long, you are completely free to socialize all you want.
Communities can only exist where one has the time to be social, and to socially interact. The entire genre, for whatever reason, has been structured around the concept of "online time = character advancment", and so one must make a choice, in most cases, between being social, and advancing their character.
Since most players only have a limited amount of time to be online and in the game, when they are in one can hardly blame them for doing what is most efficient for advancing their character. No, they don't have time to chat in full sentences, attend your in-game wedding, or go on your drunken gnome run. They also don't have time to stand around and shoot the breeze for 2 hrs while someone tries to get a raid together. Some of us can't be responsible party members and carry on a text conversation at the same time, not with the fast pace of current games.
These games are geared around and reward those who efficiently min-max their time towards character advancement; they are not structured in a way that promotes socializing in the true sense of the word. Forcing players to group up or raid up and engage in a single-minded, focused typing marathon for 2-4 hours is not "socializing" or "forming community" in any meaningful sense of the words.
If you want communities to return to the MMOG world, someone has to create a game that takes the pressure off of character advancment while in-game, so people feel free to hang out, shoot the breeze, and interact in ways that are not only about making each other more efficient at advancing one's character. The structure of the current MMOG genre has weeded out the RP community and the "hanging out" community and every social community that isn't focused on the end game; to bring them back and bring in a real social new age in MMOGaming, I advise going to a true 24/7 character advancement system where your character advances whether you are online or off. Thus, when you are in-game, for however long, you are completely free to socialize all you want.
You speak as if character advancement and socialization are mutually exclusive. I think it should be just the opposite: you shouldn't be able to do the former without the latter. You should have to socialize in order to advance your character. EQ1 was no less progression-focused than more modern games, but since you were forced to group in order to advance, it had a great community.
Originally posted by Ariste Originally posted by Meleagar Communities can only exist where one has the time to be social, and to socially interact. The entire genre, for whatever reason, has been structured around the concept of "online time = character advancment", and so one must make a choice, in most cases, between being social, and advancing their character. Since most players only have a limited amount of time to be online and in the game, when they are in one can hardly blame them for doing what is most efficient for advancing their character. No, they don't have time to chat in full sentences, attend your in-game wedding, or go on your drunken gnome run. They also don't have time to stand around and shoot the breeze for 2 hrs while someone tries to get a raid together. Some of us can't be responsible party members and carry on a text conversation at the same time, not with the fast pace of current games. These games are geared around and reward those who efficiently min-max their time towards character advancement; they are not structured in a way that promotes socializing in the true sense of the word. Forcing players to group up or raid up and engage in a single-minded, focused typing marathon for 2-4 hours is not "socializing" or "forming community" in any meaningful sense of the words. If you want communities to return to the MMOG world, someone has to create a game that takes the pressure off of character advancment while in-game, so people feel free to hang out, shoot the breeze, and interact in ways that are not only about making each other more efficient at advancing one's character. The structure of the current MMOG genre has weeded out the RP community and the "hanging out" community and every social community that isn't focused on the end game; to bring them back and bring in a real social new age in MMOGaming, I advise going to a true 24/7 character advancement system where your character advances whether you are online or off. Thus, when you are in-game, for however long, you are completely free to socialize all you want.
You speak as if character advancement and socialization are mutually exclusive. I think it should be just the opposite: you shouldn't be able to do the former without the latter. You should have to socialize in order to advance your character. EQ1 was no less progression-focused than more modern games, but since you were forced to group in order to advance, it had a great community.
They have become that way. I have been told repeatedly in recent games that a friend would not group with me because it would slow down their leveling. What? I am not playing this game to level up. I am playing it to share an experience with other people. What happened to going out with a group of friends and getting into trouble or just dinking around. Literally I get yelled at by people for having fun in MMO's now.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Though Eve has offline skill advancement, game money is required to use any of those skills. In most games, you get game money doing the same things that you do to advance the skills of your character. Unless one can do both while offline, nothing has changed. You might as well gain skills while you are mining in Eve because you can't do any more than what you can buy to do it with. Therefore, the game is still structured around efficient acquisition of gold while online.
Ariste,
The reason that community abandoned EQ, IMO, is for the simple reason that everyone who started the game up to mainly participate in the community found out, over time, that the game was structured so that the only kind of community that mattered in the game, according to the game mechanic, was the efficient min-maxing of both character advancement and use of online time. When EQ first started there were many guilds and players participating in RP; the genre of 3D online gaming was new, fun, and worth being in for a long time just to experience the coolness and wonder factor.
After a time, the mechanics of the game structure took over, and the game became about end-game raid content. Slowly but surely, even the die-hard community people and role-players abandoned ship as the development team focused almost exclusively on powergamer, hardcore raider content.
MMOGs cannot just draw in people looking for a cool place to hang out and form 3D virtual communities anymore because the structure is known; if you don't organize your online time around advancing your character, there is no place for you in the "community". There is no time for drunken gnome runs, for in-game weddings, for rushing off to defend a town from zombies you will likely get no meaningful advance or item from; there is no time for just helping out, chatting, going to the tavern and getting drunk, playing instruments and singing songs.
Until the fundamental structure of the game at least allows one to spend their online time socializing and not falling far behind others and winding up wandering around in deserted areas, that sense of community is not coming back, IMO.
When I first started playing MMOs, there were so many fewer people playing, so..people remembered you, and reputation for whatever PKer, Ganker, crafter, etc. mattered. Guilds are one way to cope with that fact - that MMOs are main-stream media now.
There need to be other creative ways to 'remember' people so you can roll with or against people with similar tastes.
I found the CoH system really useful (you can add stars 1 to 5 to somehow with a right(?) click, you can also add a short note to yourself. Others, EVE for e.g., have similar systems, but CoH's was sooo easy. I found it helped me a lot in PUGs. I'd get a tell from someone, see that the someone had 1 star, look at the note (Leeroy'ed then rage quit in the middle of Strike Force) and decide whether to join.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
As a couple others have said, it has been the trends in game mechanics and interdependency that have decreased the importance of "community" over time.
Games now seem to be much more geared towards being "solo friendly," and there are a good number of players that complain about having to group to do some of the content. In the older games mentioned, UO/Pre-CU-SWG and a couple others, player interdependency went far beyond raiding or the occasional sale, but permeated all levels of game world.
In Pre-CU SWG, player interdependency touched everything, everyone had a place in the universe and everyone had something to contribute, from low level to finished template players, of all professions. Heck, in the old days, there were all kinds of non-boss PvE creatures just walking around the various worlds, that REQUIRED multiple players to take down, and that was from the eariest days. On the crafting side especially, players needed each other, as it was almost impossible for a solo player to make/get everything they needed on their own, and, it was extremely difficult for the crafter to get everything needed to keep the business going. And if someone was a jerk, they would have trouble getting what they needed, and word got around.
I don't think it is communities themselves that are a thing of the past, so much as that new games (with an exception of two) have less player interdependency, and that is what is driving the weakness in communities.
Show me a game that is totally soloable, and the community there likely reflects that.
I'd have to say that there is no community for one game's entire playerbase as a whole, you just have to find a good guild for a sense of community.
World/General chat in any game can get pretty bad, and shouldn't be used to judge a game's community. It's always the dumb/immoral ones that have the loudest voices.
They have become that way. I have been told repeatedly in recent games that a friend would not group with me because it would slow down their leveling. What? I am not playing this game to level up. I am playing it to share an experience with other people. What happened to going out with a group of friends and getting into trouble or just dinking around. Literally I get yelled at by people for having fun in MMO's now.
It's because modern MMO game mechanics encourage this type of play. They penalize you for grouping, and so people get pissed when they're asked to group. If, instead, games encouraged grouping, you'd see this antisocial behavior begin to fade away.
Players have much more access to information about games now than they did when the internet was new. Game interfaces have become less complex and easier to navigate. There really is no need to interact with others dynamically, since everything can be found on the internet within a few months of a game's launch. Back in the day, you couldn't even set up your hotkeys without the help of someone else to explain it.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Comments
[size=8]PLAYED: TSO, SWG, WOW, EQ2, Vanguard, FFXII, AOC, AION, Guild Wars, Second Life
Waiting: SWTOR, FFXIV
Having read your post OP I can say I played Ryzom bout 2 years ago and I can actually see it very possible to get to know everyone on the server just by watching chat. The community was that good. Other games that just might be this way are some of the single shard server games with mature communities. Yes there are a few around.
Ryzom
Fallen Earth
EvE Online
Maybe LotRO until it goes free to play this fall ....
That's about it that I can think of.
play eq2 one of the best communities around.
I don't think all is lost YET
I picked the poll option "Not Sure."
I think the reason the majority of newer MMORPGs are having a great deal more community troubles is the type of interaction the games requires. Most games now are solo-friendly or the games do not require you to rely on your fellow gamers in order to progress.
The last game I played with a good community base was Final Fantasy XI, I have a theory that forced grouping and the need to be on good relations with others in the world made people be a bit more courteous to each other.
However, I also think that the communities have never changed, they are just not scared or worried about their reputation anymore since they don't 'need' you. They will just be rude to your face instead of behind your back to their guild mates. Communities have always been the same I think.
This is spot on. MMOs used to be very community-oriented, and it wasn't that long ago. When you need other players to succeed, you're a lot less likely to be a douchebag and piss everyone else off, simply as a matter of self-preservation. And even 4Chan kiddies understand self-preservation.
If we want vibrant, helpful communities, we need MMOs that require cooperation. Period.
Virtual Reality
Exactly. It's not the players who've changed. It's the setting in which the players are placed. If you make it easy for people to be obnoxious, a lot of them are going to be obnoxious. But if you force players to work with each other to succeed, they'll be much less likely to piss everyone else off.
Virtual Reality
Even the Crappy communities have good people/players in them
Sure, but it gets tiring weeding through all the crap. And there's no reason it has to be that way.
Virtual Reality
Joining a guild is a thousand times easier thn setting one up. Take your time, I would never join one that does not have a website with forums. The guild you join may well be the deciding factor as to whether you stick with a game or not.
Oh, definitely this. Absolutely. Finding a quality guild is one of the first things I do when I decide that I want to give a game a real shot.
Having said that, you shouldn't have to join a guild just to hide from the rest of the community. If the community is that abysmal, there's a problem.
Virtual Reality
Sadly I've always been the lone wolf type.
I've just never clicked with guilds, even when making my own.
It's a real shame. Hopefully that will change.
With MMO's hand holding even solo oriented players from A to Z nowadays... you should not be suprised.
It doesn't assume but rather adduce based on cultural change and the United States functioning as a meta-culture in more ways that can be articulated, or even should be articulated, in a forum like this. That is all I am going to say on that front because I think that if you do some digging with some sociological and psychological studies you're likely to see the thrust of my argument is unforunately more correct than not.
What I will say is that it is far more likely for games to change due to what gamers want than any other reason, which would support what I am saying. If gamers are more rude than not they are going to want more solo-friendly content to not be bothered with rude players; if gamers are more interested in not co-operating with groups because they don't trust their fellow players they are more likely to want solo-friendly content; if gamers are more interested in being 'the uberplayer' they are morie likely to want solo-friendly content. There are a bunch of things that point to the communities changing and this can't but come from the players.
I'll leave it at that and, even if we can't agree on what and why, I think we can all agree that communities need to come make a comeback in a big way and we can all do a bit better as people to help facilitate that.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Again, I call BS on the 'solo play ruins communities' posts. Anarchy Online is and always has been group-centered, but that community turned abysmal over the years, creepy and rude like an inbred family reunion. Yet the gameplay didn't change. The community did.
And as for the socialogical and psychological underpinnings of MMO community rudeness, with the whole, 'let's blame this generation and the American way of life' I call BS again (not because I'm at all a fan of the American way of life, let me make that clear). People have always been rotten to each other, it's just how our species evolved, and there's nothing new to see on that front.
Something else is the cause, not style of gameplay and not the generation. However, average age of players might have something to do with it. It doesn't matter what generation you're from, I'd wager most of us were ruder when we were younger than we are now.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Big well advertised games such as WoW will attract more kiddies and tend to have a detrimental affect on the communities. That would be a reason why in my opinion you should never put an MMO on a console for that reason. I own an xbox60 and everyone on there is about 10 and think they are god's gift. I've never played WoW or had much MMO experience. I've played Face of Mankind, which despite a few dicks had a great community. Roma Victor had a superb community where everyone pretty much knew everyone and got on fairly well even cross faction. Idiots were generally known and shunned by the community. I'm 18 now and my first MMO was Runescape when I was about 12. One that we made our own group with RL friends and so it wasn't so bad. Smaller games tend to be better community wise and also the sandbox element where it required a bit of work to get started put the little kiddies off.
Commander Jim
Were all living on knife's edge when will you fall off?
Communities can only exist where one has the time to be social, and to socially interact. The entire genre, for whatever reason, has been structured around the concept of "online time = character advancment", and so one must make a choice, in most cases, between being social, and advancing their character.
Since most players only have a limited amount of time to be online and in the game, when they are in one can hardly blame them for doing what is most efficient for advancing their character. No, they don't have time to chat in full sentences, attend your in-game wedding, or go on your drunken gnome run. They also don't have time to stand around and shoot the breeze for 2 hrs while someone tries to get a raid together. Some of us can't be responsible party members and carry on a text conversation at the same time, not with the fast pace of current games.
These games are geared around and reward those who efficiently min-max their time towards character advancement; they are not structured in a way that promotes socializing in the true sense of the word. Forcing players to group up or raid up and engage in a single-minded, focused typing marathon for 2-4 hours is not "socializing" or "forming community" in any meaningful sense of the words.
If you want communities to return to the MMOG world, someone has to create a game that takes the pressure off of character advancment while in-game, so people feel free to hang out, shoot the breeze, and interact in ways that are not only about making each other more efficient at advancing one's character. The structure of the current MMOG genre has weeded out the RP community and the "hanging out" community and every social community that isn't focused on the end game; to bring them back and bring in a real social new age in MMOGaming, I advise going to a true 24/7 character advancement system where your character advances whether you are online or off. Thus, when you are in-game, for however long, you are completely free to socialize all you want.
You speak as if character advancement and socialization are mutually exclusive. I think it should be just the opposite: you shouldn't be able to do the former without the latter. You should have to socialize in order to advance your character. EQ1 was no less progression-focused than more modern games, but since you were forced to group in order to advance, it had a great community.
Virtual Reality
You speak as if character advancement and socialization are mutually exclusive. I think it should be just the opposite: you shouldn't be able to do the former without the latter. You should have to socialize in order to advance your character. EQ1 was no less progression-focused than more modern games, but since you were forced to group in order to advance, it had a great community.
They have become that way. I have been told repeatedly in recent games that a friend would not group with me because it would slow down their leveling. What? I am not playing this game to level up. I am playing it to share an experience with other people. What happened to going out with a group of friends and getting into trouble or just dinking around. Literally I get yelled at by people for having fun in MMO's now.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Parrotfolk,
Though Eve has offline skill advancement, game money is required to use any of those skills. In most games, you get game money doing the same things that you do to advance the skills of your character. Unless one can do both while offline, nothing has changed. You might as well gain skills while you are mining in Eve because you can't do any more than what you can buy to do it with. Therefore, the game is still structured around efficient acquisition of gold while online.
Ariste,
The reason that community abandoned EQ, IMO, is for the simple reason that everyone who started the game up to mainly participate in the community found out, over time, that the game was structured so that the only kind of community that mattered in the game, according to the game mechanic, was the efficient min-maxing of both character advancement and use of online time. When EQ first started there were many guilds and players participating in RP; the genre of 3D online gaming was new, fun, and worth being in for a long time just to experience the coolness and wonder factor.
After a time, the mechanics of the game structure took over, and the game became about end-game raid content. Slowly but surely, even the die-hard community people and role-players abandoned ship as the development team focused almost exclusively on powergamer, hardcore raider content.
MMOGs cannot just draw in people looking for a cool place to hang out and form 3D virtual communities anymore because the structure is known; if you don't organize your online time around advancing your character, there is no place for you in the "community". There is no time for drunken gnome runs, for in-game weddings, for rushing off to defend a town from zombies you will likely get no meaningful advance or item from; there is no time for just helping out, chatting, going to the tavern and getting drunk, playing instruments and singing songs.
Until the fundamental structure of the game at least allows one to spend their online time socializing and not falling far behind others and winding up wandering around in deserted areas, that sense of community is not coming back, IMO.
When I first started playing MMOs, there were so many fewer people playing, so..people remembered you, and reputation for whatever PKer, Ganker, crafter, etc. mattered. Guilds are one way to cope with that fact - that MMOs are main-stream media now.
There need to be other creative ways to 'remember' people so you can roll with or against people with similar tastes.
I found the CoH system really useful (you can add stars 1 to 5 to somehow with a right(?) click, you can also add a short note to yourself. Others, EVE for e.g., have similar systems, but CoH's was sooo easy. I found it helped me a lot in PUGs. I'd get a tell from someone, see that the someone had 1 star, look at the note (Leeroy'ed then rage quit in the middle of Strike Force) and decide whether to join.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
As a couple others have said, it has been the trends in game mechanics and interdependency that have decreased the importance of "community" over time.
Games now seem to be much more geared towards being "solo friendly," and there are a good number of players that complain about having to group to do some of the content. In the older games mentioned, UO/Pre-CU-SWG and a couple others, player interdependency went far beyond raiding or the occasional sale, but permeated all levels of game world.
In Pre-CU SWG, player interdependency touched everything, everyone had a place in the universe and everyone had something to contribute, from low level to finished template players, of all professions. Heck, in the old days, there were all kinds of non-boss PvE creatures just walking around the various worlds, that REQUIRED multiple players to take down, and that was from the eariest days. On the crafting side especially, players needed each other, as it was almost impossible for a solo player to make/get everything they needed on their own, and, it was extremely difficult for the crafter to get everything needed to keep the business going. And if someone was a jerk, they would have trouble getting what they needed, and word got around.
I don't think it is communities themselves that are a thing of the past, so much as that new games (with an exception of two) have less player interdependency, and that is what is driving the weakness in communities.
Show me a game that is totally soloable, and the community there likely reflects that.
I'd have to agree.
It's because modern MMO game mechanics encourage this type of play. They penalize you for grouping, and so people get pissed when they're asked to group. If, instead, games encouraged grouping, you'd see this antisocial behavior begin to fade away.
Virtual Reality
Players have much more access to information about games now than they did when the internet was new. Game interfaces have become less complex and easier to navigate. There really is no need to interact with others dynamically, since everything can be found on the internet within a few months of a game's launch. Back in the day, you couldn't even set up your hotkeys without the help of someone else to explain it.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.