How many times are people going to whine about the social aspect of this game when ANet is doing a lot more than most MMOs to make their game more socialble. Like how two people can fight the same mob, without being in a group and both get rewarded and how event chains will try to keep an adhoc group of players together, long enough to form some kind of social bond.
However let's forget about questing for a minute, because what I find the most social part of an MMO (though I've only played 2 so far) is the downtime in between between quest. Like last night I was playing LotRO; grinding on some boars/bears and I just finished handing in my quest when I heard some random guy playing a lute, so I wipped out my lute and we started jammin and talking. That's what I consider more social, the downtime in-between quest and with Guild Wars 2 having tonnes of activities to do like Bar Brawls & Snow Ball fights, plus World PvP, I won't have to worry about the game feeling anti-social because it won't.
Unless a person takes the Inititive to group up during DEs, there will not be any more social interaction then any other game.
The way to encourage socialization is to force grouping, to have big cities that you have a reason to return to, to have crafting mean something to people who don't have those professions, or present challenges that take more then a "zerg through it" mentality.
As i've stated above, even then, people will only interract as much as they have to. As soon as they have got what they wanted, they'll break group/contact, and move onto the next thing. Unfortunately, it's now entirely up to the players. The devs give you the tools necessary to interract, but the players just don't want to utilize them. It's not the developers, it's the state of the players.
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions.
Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
Unless a person takes the Inititive to group up during DEs, there will not be any more social interaction then any other game.
The way to encourage socialization is to force grouping, to have big cities that you have a reason to return to, to have crafting mean something to people who don't have those professions, or present challenges that take more then a "zerg through it" mentality.
As i've stated above, even then, people will only interract as much as they have to. As soon as they have got what they wanted, they'll break group/contact, and move onto the next thing. Unfortunately, it's now entirely up to the players. The devs give you the tools necessary to interract, but the players just don't want to utilize them. It's not the developers, it's the state of the players.
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions.
Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
so many of you have worries that the game wont be a social game because the developers aren't forcing it upon us, that no human can interact with another unless they are made to. None of you can say that the devs dont want us to group, because it isnt true, they made it completely open to us to be able to decide who we want to play with, whenever we want to play, and your telling the rest of us thats to much freedom?
A community isnt something they can program into the game people, its something we as real people have to start; be the change you want to see. The developers have given us all the tools to do so, Guilds, teams, cross profession combos, rezurrecting of allies, common goals, mini-games in the cities, ect.... Its up to us to utilize them.
A game that doesnt demote social gaming and gives you all the tools to be social is basically inviting us to be. The devs have stated before, that you can solo many things due to how things scale, but that doesnt mean you wont WANT to group, the visuals, combat, and downright awesome of each battle gets more epic and more rewarding the more people that join in!
and If you dont like that you cant talk to the several players helping arround you, then form a team, get to know them. And if they dont want to in that particular event then ah well, try to form one in the next event.
I rarely do missions in GW with just heroes and henchies. If guildies not on I join a pug. I don't like that Anet is planning on allowing one player to take up to 7 heroes. People claim you can't find other players but tha is not yet true. They talk about wanting people to work together in GW2 but are going to make it harder to form groups in GW1.
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions. Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
You must be doing something wrong in GW1 to think that there is zero social gaming going on. I would chance to think that your experience is the exception, not the rule considering that GW1 won Massively's community poll of the best MMO community of the decade by a landslide Link
Just because the mechanic is there for you to use if you want to go it solo, doesnt mean you have to. A lot of times when I need player help with a particular mission or quest, I go to the main outposts (LA, Kaineng, Kamadan, EotN) and ask, not the niche mission outposts; more often than not, I get the help I need. And if you can't get help right away, you can always try the Guru LFG and services forums--lots of helpful people doing missions on a regular basis.
To respond to your last statement, there is a system of rewards for being helpful in GW2: its the Karma points. While they are normally awarded for completing DE's, I do recall there being mention of other ways to earn karma. So for people that need a carrot in order for them to be social, there it is.
They also said they were planning on adding a new outpost in the battle isles for people to congregate at for joining teams to do missions. So they are working on improving both solo features and group features--not trying to destroy one with the other.
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions.
Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
You must be doing something wrong in GW1 to think that there is zero social gaming going on. I would chance to think that your experience is the exception, not the rule considering that GW1 won Massively's community poll of the best MMO community of the decade by a landslide Link
Just because the mechanic is there for you to use if you want to go it solo, doesnt mean you have to. A lot of times when I need player help with a particular mission or quest, I go to the main outposts (LA, Kaineng, Kamadan, EotN) and ask, not the niche mission outposts; more often than not, I get the help I need. And if you can't get help right away, you can always try the Guru LFG and services forums--lots of helpful people doing missions on a regular basis.
To respond to your last statement, there is a system of rewards for being helpful in GW2: its the Karma points. While they are normally awarded for completing DE's, I do recall there being mention of other ways to earn karma. So for people that need a carrot in order for them to be social, there it is.
They also said they were planning on adding a new outpost in the battle isles for people to congregate at for joining teams to do missions. So they are working on improving both solo features and group features--not trying to destroy one with the other.
I'm a social gamer. I've sat in missions and the city asking for a group and watched others ask for a group. I've done this in many games. I have been in huge guilds and guilds of just my friends so I could do these things with them if I so choose.
The norm in this game I see and I have experienced is for people to get ignored. It's not the community being rude, it's the community just doing there thing. Not many people wish to run missions slow for someone who might not have done that mission before. They don't want to wipe because someone is new.
The simple thing is, Heroes and Henchies make 99% of the missions cheese. I've been told and seen people told and made fun of over and over about how they could just use those. And that's just it. It's true, you can just do that. Solo gaming is just how it is now a days. But allowing those two into the equation pushings GW1 into one of the most solo oriented games even though it has so much "group content".
If the best way to earn "karma" in GW2 is to grind DEs solo, I don't understand why that would be a social thing?
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions.
Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
You must be doing something wrong in GW1 to think that there is zero social gaming going on. I would chance to think that your experience is the exception, not the rule considering that GW1 won Massively's community poll of the best MMO community of the decade by a landslide Link
Just because the mechanic is there for you to use if you want to go it solo, doesnt mean you have to. A lot of times when I need player help with a particular mission or quest, I go to the main outposts (LA, Kaineng, Kamadan, EotN) and ask, not the niche mission outposts; more often than not, I get the help I need. And if you can't get help right away, you can always try the Guru LFG and services forums--lots of helpful people doing missions on a regular basis.
To respond to your last statement, there is a system of rewards for being helpful in GW2: its the Karma points. While they are normally awarded for completing DE's, I do recall there being mention of other ways to earn karma. So for people that need a carrot in order for them to be social, there it is.
They also said they were planning on adding a new outpost in the battle isles for people to congregate at for joining teams to do missions. So they are working on improving both solo features and group features--not trying to destroy one with the other.
I'm a social gamer. I've sat in missions and the city asking for a group and watched others ask for a group. I've done this in many games. I have been in huge guilds and guilds of just my friends so I could do these things with them if I so choose.
The norm in this game I see and I have experienced is for people to get ignored. It's not the community being rude, it's the community just doing there thing. Not many people wish to run missions slow for someone who might not have done that mission before. They don't want to wipe because someone is new.
The simple thing is, Heroes and Henchies make 99% of the missions cheese. I've been told and seen people told and made fun of over and over about how they could just use those. And that's just it. It's true, you can just do that. Solo gaming is just how it is now a days. But allowing those two into the equation pushings GW1 into one of the most solo oriented games even though it has so much "group content".
If the best way to earn "karma" in GW2 is to grind DEs solo, I don't understand why that would be a social thing?
DE's get harder the more people there are. I believe that the higher a DE scales the more karma, exp, and gold you get as a reward (not entirely sure about this). If the rewards for DE's become better with more people, i doubt that people will want to do them solo.
Grinding karma in DEs should be an odd choice as the level curve is flat and you can level quickly. What you can't necessarily do at once is see all the content in all it's different states. <.<
DEs scale so that the challenge remains proportional to player numbers increasing and increasing eg damage to the DE. It does not change the challenge in terms of difficulty to complete it with the other players but you can see new things and there is more/different combat involving more players eg. In fact it should allow more interactions between players due to player density and chance, alone.
Different players have different play styles and differ in what play style they want to be doing at any time also. I think the DE flexibility and variations and de-emphasis on grind might make ppl play for fun and that may lead to more social community instead of the usual:"I ain't got time to bleed."
Actually, there are certain Dynamic Events that cannot be solo'ed, like epic boss fights against the Shadow Behemoth and the Shatterer. I imagine that the more epic the DE is, its final events will be similar. You will need more than one person to complete them, however, these epic DEs will probably rarely be attempted by one player as most players in the area will more than likely be alerted to them, and the rarity and epicness (I don't think that's a real word) of the event will always draw a crowd.
As for GW1 being extremely anti-social, I would have to disagree. Yes, I've had a few times where I've waited a long time for help or seen others experience the same, but those occurrences have been quite rare. I do find that I more often than not run the explorable areas solo, IF I haven't joined a group in a mission. If I grouped up for a mission, I often find at least one or more players from that group are more than happy to stick together for the explorable areas. It just depends. It sounds like you've just had a long run of bad luck in this regard, and that's unfortunate. Hopefully, if you decide to play again, that will change.
I actually like the idea of having seven heroes, because there are times that I personally don't feel like grouping because I'm limited on time, and I want to get through certain areas quickly. However, as much as I like the fact that I can solo through the vast majority of content, I will always prefer grouping.
Unless a person takes the Inititive to group up during DEs, there will not be any more social interaction then any other game.
The way to encourage socialization is to force grouping, to have big cities that you have a reason to return to, to have crafting mean something to people who don't have those professions, or present challenges that take more then a "zerg through it" mentality.
As i've stated above, even then, people will only interract as much as they have to. As soon as they have got what they wanted, they'll break group/contact, and move onto the next thing. Unfortunately, it's now entirely up to the players. The devs give you the tools necessary to interract, but the players just don't want to utilize them. It's not the developers, it's the state of the players.
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
btw these people if forced to group probably wouldnt have talked at all anyways, and the people who like to group well they are probably gonna end up grouping because all the tools are there for them (trying to force anti-social people to be social will generaly cause a very negative reaction or in the case of forced grouping they will just be quiet and not talk beyond required co-ordination.)
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions.
Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
dude your problem is you want to force EVERY player to be social and the thing is you just cant, the people who dont want to be social will find ways out of it no matter what you do. and even then when you force people to socialize it just isnt the same as it happening naturaly.
you have to understand that you cant do what you want dev's to do and force everyone to talk with eachother ( heck even when grouped some people just dont want to talk). the dev's are smart they know that if they force the social aspect of the game on people they will loose a large amount of people, either way as people have been saying they are gonna give us the tools to make a community and to socialize, i dont think you understand exactly what a community is or the nature of one if you think you can actualy force it on people.
im sorry man but this is just one of those things you cant force, as a matter of fact all attempts that i have seen to force people together have ended badly (a decent example would be not getting decent exp in SWG pre-nge unless you grouped up, i mean seriously that was just a pain in the butt when i couldnt manage a group or some such thing).
if you want to hang out with people that badly get some RL friends who play whatever game your playing and hang out in game once in a while (heck hang out in the real world too thats a much better solution to your socialization needs).
aside from that most games have multiple communities and you have probably just had extremely bad luck finding the decent ones.
so to summerize forced grouping/socialization = backfires or at the very least doesnt work (so far as i have experienced anyways)
Obviously GW2 is promoting social gaming due to dynamic events but will GW2 "force" you to be social, of course not... ANET wouldn't do something so stupid.
Obviously GW2 is promoting social gaming due to dynamic events but will GW2 "force" you to be social, of course not... ANET wouldn't do something so stupid.
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This, you essentialy compacted what my huge post was supposed to say into a single sentance .... i am shamed.... lol this is what happens when i try and idiot proof what im saying so people cant say im saying something else.... dam after all this time dinh is still influencing my posts O.o
what i dont get is why people need to be forced into interacting with other people. maybe mmorpg players are just anti social but i thought the whole point of mmo's was to play with people from around the world.
what i dont get is why people need to be forced into interacting with other people. maybe mmorpg players are just anti social but i thought the whole point of mmo's was to play with people from around the world.
The problem with the premise is assuming that Massively Multiplayer means "playing together in a cooperative sense in every way". Put it this way: we share this Real World with billions of other people, but we only interact with a set number of people cooperatively: our spouses and immediate families, our co-workers, our friends, etc. Most people only have a handful of CLOSE friends, perhaps 100 or so acquaintances (including co-workers), perhaps a community group that consists of a few thousand but with whom we only interact with a dozen on sporadic occasion.
We may attend a movie with a gathering of people, but also often attend with only one other person. We most often do not go on shopping errands (read: gathering, quests) with a group of other people. It's just how most humans work. And MMOs are virtual worlds at best; to change the way humans work in-game is to make a virtual world "gamey" (that's right, not only theme parks can be gamey!)
So to bring it back to the MMO space: it is valuable for an MMO to have many people playing in the same space, but unrealistic to expect that every person in that shared space wants to work cooperatively with everyone else in that shared space (or even large groups within it) at all times. It's not anti-social, it's how we are. Mandatory grouping is the unnatural behavior, which is why proponents of forced grouping keep having to come up with incentives and rewards for it.
I think the important part here is that the game (hopefully) will promote player interaction right from the get go, whereas in other fantasy MMOs you are literally playing alone at least until max level.
Comments
How many times are people going to whine about the social aspect of this game when ANet is doing a lot more than most MMOs to make their game more socialble. Like how two people can fight the same mob, without being in a group and both get rewarded and how event chains will try to keep an adhoc group of players together, long enough to form some kind of social bond.
However let's forget about questing for a minute, because what I find the most social part of an MMO (though I've only played 2 so far) is the downtime in between between quest. Like last night I was playing LotRO; grinding on some boars/bears and I just finished handing in my quest when I heard some random guy playing a lute, so I wipped out my lute and we started jammin and talking. That's what I consider more social, the downtime in-between quest and with Guild Wars 2 having tonnes of activities to do like Bar Brawls & Snow Ball fights, plus World PvP, I won't have to worry about the game feeling anti-social because it won't.
100% true. So Devs are catering to the anti social players. Instead of making things like I said, they are allowing people to do these DE solo (with other players around) and everyone gets rewards for their actions. You don't rely on anyone or need help. You utterly ignore them and still can do what you need to do. I think DE will make people socialize less in this game because of how they are presented and how Anet is handling the class system.
I will mention there was zero social gaming in GW1 thanks to Henchies/Heroes. You could sit at a mission for a long time and just be ignored asking for a group because people think "You aren't in my group/guild, you must be a terrible player, I'll do it myself. That's the norm, and there are always exceptions.
Guilds are part of any game. That isn't an encouragement of social interaction. Many guilds are just used to group up for things.
A game could reward social interaction in some way by measuring it in some way. Something to encourage people to be more then just a body to help with your current objective. I know that would be hard, but it could be a start. But even then, some people would only do it for the reward, be it a title, a rank, a fluff item, or whatever.
so many of you have worries that the game wont be a social game because the developers aren't forcing it upon us, that no human can interact with another unless they are made to. None of you can say that the devs dont want us to group, because it isnt true, they made it completely open to us to be able to decide who we want to play with, whenever we want to play, and your telling the rest of us thats to much freedom?
A community isnt something they can program into the game people, its something we as real people have to start; be the change you want to see. The developers have given us all the tools to do so, Guilds, teams, cross profession combos, rezurrecting of allies, common goals, mini-games in the cities, ect.... Its up to us to utilize them.
A game that doesnt demote social gaming and gives you all the tools to be social is basically inviting us to be. The devs have stated before, that you can solo many things due to how things scale, but that doesnt mean you wont WANT to group, the visuals, combat, and downright awesome of each battle gets more epic and more rewarding the more people that join in!
and If you dont like that you cant talk to the several players helping arround you, then form a team, get to know them. And if they dont want to in that particular event then ah well, try to form one in the next event.
I rarely do missions in GW with just heroes and henchies. If guildies not on I join a pug. I don't like that Anet is planning on allowing one player to take up to 7 heroes. People claim you can't find other players but tha is not yet true. They talk about wanting people to work together in GW2 but are going to make it harder to form groups in GW1.
You must be doing something wrong in GW1 to think that there is zero social gaming going on. I would chance to think that your experience is the exception, not the rule considering that GW1 won Massively's community poll of the best MMO community of the decade by a landslide Link
Just because the mechanic is there for you to use if you want to go it solo, doesnt mean you have to. A lot of times when I need player help with a particular mission or quest, I go to the main outposts (LA, Kaineng, Kamadan, EotN) and ask, not the niche mission outposts; more often than not, I get the help I need. And if you can't get help right away, you can always try the Guru LFG and services forums--lots of helpful people doing missions on a regular basis.
To respond to your last statement, there is a system of rewards for being helpful in GW2: its the Karma points. While they are normally awarded for completing DE's, I do recall there being mention of other ways to earn karma. So for people that need a carrot in order for them to be social, there it is.
@RameiArashi
They also said they were planning on adding a new outpost in the battle isles for people to congregate at for joining teams to do missions. So they are working on improving both solo features and group features--not trying to destroy one with the other.
I'm a social gamer. I've sat in missions and the city asking for a group and watched others ask for a group. I've done this in many games. I have been in huge guilds and guilds of just my friends so I could do these things with them if I so choose.
The norm in this game I see and I have experienced is for people to get ignored. It's not the community being rude, it's the community just doing there thing. Not many people wish to run missions slow for someone who might not have done that mission before. They don't want to wipe because someone is new.
The simple thing is, Heroes and Henchies make 99% of the missions cheese. I've been told and seen people told and made fun of over and over about how they could just use those. And that's just it. It's true, you can just do that. Solo gaming is just how it is now a days. But allowing those two into the equation pushings GW1 into one of the most solo oriented games even though it has so much "group content".
If the best way to earn "karma" in GW2 is to grind DEs solo, I don't understand why that would be a social thing?
DE's get harder the more people there are. I believe that the higher a DE scales the more karma, exp, and gold you get as a reward (not entirely sure about this). If the rewards for DE's become better with more people, i doubt that people will want to do them solo.
Grinding karma in DEs should be an odd choice as the level curve is flat and you can level quickly. What you can't necessarily do at once is see all the content in all it's different states. <.<
DEs scale so that the challenge remains proportional to player numbers increasing and increasing eg damage to the DE. It does not change the challenge in terms of difficulty to complete it with the other players but you can see new things and there is more/different combat involving more players eg. In fact it should allow more interactions between players due to player density and chance, alone.
Different players have different play styles and differ in what play style they want to be doing at any time also. I think the DE flexibility and variations and de-emphasis on grind might make ppl play for fun and that may lead to more social community instead of the usual:"I ain't got time to bleed."
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Actually, there are certain Dynamic Events that cannot be solo'ed, like epic boss fights against the Shadow Behemoth and the Shatterer. I imagine that the more epic the DE is, its final events will be similar. You will need more than one person to complete them, however, these epic DEs will probably rarely be attempted by one player as most players in the area will more than likely be alerted to them, and the rarity and epicness (I don't think that's a real word) of the event will always draw a crowd.
As for GW1 being extremely anti-social, I would have to disagree. Yes, I've had a few times where I've waited a long time for help or seen others experience the same, but those occurrences have been quite rare. I do find that I more often than not run the explorable areas solo, IF I haven't joined a group in a mission. If I grouped up for a mission, I often find at least one or more players from that group are more than happy to stick together for the explorable areas. It just depends. It sounds like you've just had a long run of bad luck in this regard, and that's unfortunate. Hopefully, if you decide to play again, that will change.
I actually like the idea of having seven heroes, because there are times that I personally don't feel like grouping because I'm limited on time, and I want to get through certain areas quickly. However, as much as I like the fact that I can solo through the vast majority of content, I will always prefer grouping.
http://natethegamer.wordpress.com
dude your problem is you want to force EVERY player to be social and the thing is you just cant, the people who dont want to be social will find ways out of it no matter what you do. and even then when you force people to socialize it just isnt the same as it happening naturaly.
you have to understand that you cant do what you want dev's to do and force everyone to talk with eachother ( heck even when grouped some people just dont want to talk). the dev's are smart they know that if they force the social aspect of the game on people they will loose a large amount of people, either way as people have been saying they are gonna give us the tools to make a community and to socialize, i dont think you understand exactly what a community is or the nature of one if you think you can actualy force it on people.
im sorry man but this is just one of those things you cant force, as a matter of fact all attempts that i have seen to force people together have ended badly (a decent example would be not getting decent exp in SWG pre-nge unless you grouped up, i mean seriously that was just a pain in the butt when i couldnt manage a group or some such thing).
if you want to hang out with people that badly get some RL friends who play whatever game your playing and hang out in game once in a while (heck hang out in the real world too thats a much better solution to your socialization needs).
aside from that most games have multiple communities and you have probably just had extremely bad luck finding the decent ones.
so to summerize forced grouping/socialization = backfires or at the very least doesnt work (so far as i have experienced anyways)
Obviously GW2 is promoting social gaming due to dynamic events but will GW2 "force" you to be social, of course not... ANET wouldn't do something so stupid.
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This, you essentialy compacted what my huge post was supposed to say into a single sentance .... i am shamed.... lol this is what happens when i try and idiot proof what im saying so people cant say im saying something else.... dam after all this time dinh is still influencing my posts O.o
what i dont get is why people need to be forced into interacting with other people. maybe mmorpg players are just anti social but i thought the whole point of mmo's was to play with people from around the world.
The problem with the premise is assuming that Massively Multiplayer means "playing together in a cooperative sense in every way". Put it this way: we share this Real World with billions of other people, but we only interact with a set number of people cooperatively: our spouses and immediate families, our co-workers, our friends, etc. Most people only have a handful of CLOSE friends, perhaps 100 or so acquaintances (including co-workers), perhaps a community group that consists of a few thousand but with whom we only interact with a dozen on sporadic occasion.
We may attend a movie with a gathering of people, but also often attend with only one other person. We most often do not go on shopping errands (read: gathering, quests) with a group of other people. It's just how most humans work. And MMOs are virtual worlds at best; to change the way humans work in-game is to make a virtual world "gamey" (that's right, not only theme parks can be gamey!)
So to bring it back to the MMO space: it is valuable for an MMO to have many people playing in the same space, but unrealistic to expect that every person in that shared space wants to work cooperatively with everyone else in that shared space (or even large groups within it) at all times. It's not anti-social, it's how we are. Mandatory grouping is the unnatural behavior, which is why proponents of forced grouping keep having to come up with incentives and rewards for it.
I think the important part here is that the game (hopefully) will promote player interaction right from the get go, whereas in other fantasy MMOs you are literally playing alone at least until max level.