If no words are spoken between players and lets be honest how many MMOers (recent onces) actually talk unless need be? if they don't have to then they wont.
Granted i can seek out a guild if i want, i can do that in any game so thats kind moot. I'm looking at core features themselves and seeing if they promote a more interactive community or if they promote a community that will do tasks at hand. I know it's me and wanting reliance on others but darn it that is what i felt made EQ and the like so great. That reliance on others.
This is going to turn into that one thread about solo vs group thread but i still feel you need to rely on others, when you rely on others you tend to talk more if you don't rely on each other and can simply get the job done regardless if others are there or not, it makes me a bit disheartened.
I know it's just my concern but everything from not needing others to go underwater to the scaling thing to being able to group up without so much as a word or request to group passed with each other, to everyone being able to craft everything. It just feels like it's saying okay we know you don't like other people...Good thing you dont have to here, you can be as antisocial and still succeed at our game because we won't push against the tide, we won't make you want to interact with anybody.
It just feels all too much like the other people are very intellengent (in some cases) NPCs rather then other players. Because we do have to face some truths when your out hunting for a quest in games like Allods how often do people talk together? Heck they barely talk in a group let alone if they can accomplish things without you.
There will be people talking in the game that i'm sure of and there may be a few guilds (what they would be needed for i don't know) and it's nice that the DE scale to make things harder but everything thrown together is just them giving a defeatist attitude towards trying to form a community and saying, well it's not possible to get this lot to talk to each other so we'll just let them do their own thing, we won't stop them if they just want to avoid the community all together.
Btw the list of things i'm talking about are these.
DE scaling,
No underwater breath
no need to actual formal gorup therefore no need to interact with others, pop in do some damage get rewarded walk out
Crafting is designed so eventually you'll have everything maxed out.
Very light DP (lighter then most) die then just run back. no armor lost no xp lost
Instant teleport
Frankly i'm really hoping i'm wrong about this but after playing GW1 for quite a while that is exactly what i saw and it just made me completely disinterested in the game. The only things i can see really building community is the dungeons and the mist, that is hardly the lions share of the game though.
It's my personal opinon the game does't come off casual friendly more like solo friendly, with very limited need to rely on others.
Btw if your curious yes i do indeed have this same issue with SW:TOR with the personal quest it just makes too much of the game soloable and i don't like that. I can deal with it though because most of the game from the world bosses to the group quests to crafting require others. This game however seems to go a bit too far the wrong way IMO, like i stated if you like this sort of thing where you can talk only when you want to, drag and drop grouping and al thats fine but i don't personally.
YOU DO RELY ON OTHERS! You just don't need to be in a group to rely on them!!!!! That's the major difference there!
Its not like you can rez yourself! Its not like you can kill a dragon yourself, its not like you can save a whole town from an army of centaurs yourself and do it in good time! C'mon now, you're talking like the whole game is soloable. There are DEs that require 20 - 100 people to complete, dungeons that require 5 man groups. Your complaint keeps falling on deaf ears because the game already has group elements within it and also you seem to think you need to be in a group to work together when in reality, the game is built so that no matter which side you're on (grouped or not grouped) you'll still be able to help each other.
Things that allow you to help others;
- No ally targeted spells
This means that even if you are grouped with someone, people who are not group with you will also be affected by any positive buffs you place in the area.
- Everyone can Ressurect everyone in combat
No need to wait for that one guy to come rez you
- Physics
The fact that you can stand in front of someone and take any projectile attacks that is coming toward them in the direction you're standing, just brings new meaning to the word "meat shield".
With that said, its up to you if you still want to be skeptical but personally, I just don't get it.
Underneath all of the "your in our world now" or "its all about the journey" stuff Classic MMOs like UO, M59 and EQ that actually coined the term MMORPG had a monthly financial motive to force grouping and then to even penalize group experience, which is actually anti-social imho and a practice that is still very much practiced in P2P games today and actually encourages soloing in order to get more skill upgrades and get more experience per kill at the same time, and it needs to stop as it is imho bad design for todays games..
EQ also wanted and even needed to have heavily camped bottlenecked areas that caused untold social anguish and frustration for many all under the slick guise of looking for groups, bonding with group/guild and or socializing while waiting your groups turn..
You really needed to be a dedicated hardcore player in a good guild to enjoy in full or even see much of the games content and hence the smaller population of players as many that would have been MMO players/casual gamers felt quite isolated and tended not to play long, there was little to do for those that couldnt find the time to play or group because they often couldnt get into a hardcore guild..
ENTER 2012 AND GW2:
An MMO like GW2 will have no monthly financial motive to bottleneck players or even force grouping in the outside world, however with that in mind as far as i can tell GW2 also is not going to punish grouping either...
Which means grouping is actually encouraged as opposed to soloing, and dynamic events will be a great place to potentially meet other gamers and invite to play together beyond the event...
As far as socializing goes thats what the in town mini games and towns are for, when i am already grouped and moving toward the field of battle i have nothing to say if it doesnt directly involve strategy and or approach or what are we doin here guys? Type stuff..
Nothing bothers me quite as much as a social freak talking about things totally unrelated to what the group is doing in the field, that is what towns, public chat and other hubs are for!
While i tend to be a super grouper when feasible i also tend to believe that solo players that enjoy the online ambience should be able to enjoy the game as much as anyone else, afterall they are paying the same amount as me for the game and likely either dont have the time or they know they suck to bad to play with others so leave em be and let them learn and have fun any way they want or desire..
However that isn't what i'm saying. What i'm saying is that the features the game is showing will make this task a lot harder then it should because what normally bonds communities is when people need each other and they get talking during those tasks. Everytime someone doesn't need to do something they generally don't.
'LFG healer', isn't talking. Nor is " 'link to quest' need help with this PLZ"
yes i can find a guild, but i'd like the game to encourage grouping and actual interaction. It just seems to me that they'd prefer everyone to just work on their own thing. It's almost like a philosphy that they don't want to make you do anything.
I thought the point of grouping is to 'play together', not a desperate need for some interface to show you that you are in a group (even tho the game has a group feature nonetheless) If DE is sufficient enough to bring players together to achieve objectives, why lag the gameplay behind by making players to right other players portrait and wait for invite. I guess that depends on what you meant by actualy interaction. I regard actual interaction as the idea that you play and combat along side others, not bound by having a group mechanic telling me who is IN my group or what, if someone needs help, you just lend it, shouldn't need to wait for others to ask.
Don't want to group sure we got content here for you
thanks
Don't want to talk? Great cause you don't have to
again thanks
Don't want to even see other people. Great we have a whole section of the town just for you.
cool I'll just go into my spaceship. I don't get your argument here, a lot of games, including your fav SWTOR, only give you a spaceship as player housing, yet in GW2, they offer a section of the city to you, and you seem to talking that down due to it. Between a small house/spaceship, I'll take the city.
I haven't followed the game a lot but this is the general feel of the game. Nothing makes me want to group with others. Loot, well loot as per fans say it's pretty pointless beyond looks.
I understand that you think SWTOR is your only hope, but it doesn't hurt to know other games better as well, it isn't gonna kill you, as you quote in your sig "Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report." Did you know the same who hosted MMO Report personally said GW2 is going to beat SWTOR hands down? That probably means you should at least know the game, you don't need to agree with that guy, but that was his first time trying the game, and it already impressed him that much.
xp? well thats pretty easily gained
The fact that xp means almost nothing in any game, I say shorter is better than longer, the fact that your attributes scales to the people you play with, yea, levels means close to nothing, content is content, I don't need a number to tell me if I can play it or not. You know what other advantages this can bring? When newer content (after release) is released, they affect every single player, not just the people who reached cap level, many games made the mistake by only focusing on 'endgame' content, but now, all content is avaliable to everyone, the only restriction that is required is whether you can complete it or not.
Theres no raids so no need there.
There are dungeons if thats what you mean. but groups only extends to 5 or 6 people I think, it comes back to the point you mentioned before, if you have 10 or 20 people in your group, are you going to talk to more than 5 or 6 of them? I thought you wanted groups to talk and communicate?
Once i've killed the shattering once the experience is over.
Same as every MMOG out there, once I killed the dungeon boss, the experience is over? well say goodbye to replayability in any game if your theory is correct. GW2 offer choices and branching same as SWTOR in their personal story, attacking GW2 on its replayability is like attacking Bioware's storytelling, not a good idea.
Yes this is a rant but it's the core problem i have with this game, it seems like they are treating players (per features) as indivusuals that happen to share the world with others rather then cogs in a machine that need to work together to get a job done.
Well you acknowledge the rant........:P, but I do hope you can give the game a better look than this, I'm not here to convert you or whatever, but just wanting to make a fair judgement on the game, with all the facts to compare and understand, not just a blind rant. A rant is fine, as long as it is true to the facts. Also on your second point here, I don't like games to force grouping on every single bit of the game, GW2 devs had specifically said dungeons are group specific content (with a harder explorable mode), unless it is a personal story instance. So this covers the idea of group content, the need to work together to get a job done. With the new class system, instead of healer keeping the group alive, everyone keeps everyone alive, how doesn't it need people to work together?
Now the actual question.
How much of this game actually requires people to work together to accomplish something...not get better rewards but to actually accomplish the task at hand? I know as it's not out yet and things can change that this figure is not completely accurate. But how often when i go out into this world will i say, you know what i think i need john with me today because i need X?
For the MMo world there needs to be a certain amount of need.
What made SWG so great imo is the need on other classes to succeed, what made EQ so memorable, the need on others to accomplish something, The monk to pull the warrior to tank the cleric to heal.
Well the 'need' is still there, but instead of needing a monk or warrior specifically, you just need another player to accomplish that role. In GW2 it will be more like one player to control the target, one player to support players, one player to protect others (instead of being a meatshield, you use spells and skills to protect others) You don't need a specific class to achieve those roles in combat, but every class acheive that role differently.
If you keep taking away the need for other people you take away the community network and it turns into a chat room...Not saying that is in this case.
I wish to close that it's entirely possible this isn't going to be the case...but it was in GW1 for me as i tried and tried to actual get into the community and got several tells that there wasn't a point to it really. I know two different games, same philosphy though at least from what i've seen.
Isn't it because the philosphy of the developers changed that caused them to decide to do a sequel instead of more expansions? They said that it was impossible to implement GW2 plhilosphy into GW1, therefore they are making a sequel? Not sure about this, since I honestly do not care much about this, I will say GW1 is definitely not the greatest game out there, a lot of things is definitely flawed.
Like my question (as i feel it will get lost) states how much of this game actual requires you to interact with the community? Do they treat players as part of a whole or just X person happens to be in the area so you'll get a bit more rewards at the end?
Just because you have more players in one area doesn't mean you get more reward, it will require the players in one area to accomplish that goal together in order to acheive the result.
I do hope I don't sound like attacking your love for SWTOR, I used it as an example since I assume you know that game really well, I'm excited for SWTOR as well , since GW2 is B2P I'll probably play both, ultimately the reason I replied is to encourage others to actually look up more games than just fanboying over one game, no one game is perfect, but you just need to find one that is the closest to your taste. I mean take a look at TERA, I wasn't interested in the game before E3, but they talked about the political system, and I was interested, I might not ending up playing it, but I think it is good to keep a good knowledge about the general direction of MMOG, in order to discuss any game intelligently.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW? As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
I don't see what the problem is with finding people. I'll do the same thing I do in every game. Be myself, and hang out with the people smart enough to realize how awesome I am. Those are the best people to group with.
Why would I want to hang out with the other people, much less know whether or not they like football or basketball? I don't want to hang out with most people I meet in the real world either. The idea that there's anything a game can magically do to make most of the people acceptable people to socialize with other than in the most superficial manner is laughable.
Maybe I'm just too used to thinking most people suck (and sadly being right).
Never said i wouldn't seek out like minded people. Me voicing my opinoin on how i dislike that feature is me fighting which is in direct opisition to defeatism.
If i was a defeatist i would have been saying things like this.
Well since the game doens't feature group activities I can't find other people and therefore it's pointless to even try and talk to others or even group up.
However that isn't what i'm saying. What i'm saying is that the features the game is showing will make this task a lot harder then it should because what normally bonds communities is when people need each other and they get talking during those tasks. Everytime someone doesn't need to do something they generally don't.
yes i can find a guild, but i'd like the game to encourage grouping and actual interaction. It just seems to me that they'd prefer everyone to just work on their own thing. It's almost like a philosphy that they don't want to make you do anything.
Don't want to group sure we got content here for you
Don't want to talk? Great cause you don't have to
Don't want to even see other people. Great we have a whole section of the town just for you.
I haven't followed the game a lot but this is the general feel of the game. Nothing makes me want to group with others. Loot, well loot as per fans say it's pretty pointless beyond looks.
xp? well thats pretty easily gained
Theres no raids so no need there.
Once i've killed the shattering once the experience is over.
Yes this is a rant but it's the core problem i have with this game, it seems like they are treating players (per features) as indivusuals that happen to share the world with others rather then cogs in a machine that need to work together to get a job done.
Now the actual question.
How much of this game actually requires people to work together to accomplish something...not get better rewards but to actually accomplish the task at hand? I know as it's not out yet and things can change that this figure is not completely accurate. But how often when i go out into this world will i say, you know what i think i need john with me today because i need X?
For the MMo world there needs to be a certain amount of need.
What made SWG so great imo is the need on other classes to succeed, what made EQ so memorable, the need on others to accomplish something, The monk to pull the warrior to tank the cleric to heal.
If you keep taking away the need for other people you take away the community network and it turns into a chat room...Not saying that is in this case.
I wish to close that it's entirely possible this isn't going to be the case...but it was in GW1 for me as i tried and tried to actual get into the community and got several tells that there wasn't a point to it really. I know two different games, same philosphy though at least from what i've seen.
Like my question (as i feel it will get lost) states how much of this game actual requires you to interact with the community? Do they treat players as part of a whole or just X person happens to be in the area so you'll get a bit more rewards at the end?
Fortunately, most people bond on voluntarily basis. No matter if they are forced to work together or not. What happens a lot when people are forced to work together is fake bonding. Nothing but politeness and communicating untill the group disbands and then they forget.
Most people dont need to be taken by the hand. So if a game doesnt force you, but gives you the oppurtunity to work together and scales the event according to the amount of people who join, it provides exactly that what you are looking for.
On top of that, there are parts in Guild Wars 2 that require grouping. Dungeons in exploration mode for example.
But you knew all this. Your rant is mainly about the lack of forced grouping. This doesnt stand in the way of socialising at all, except for people who need this nudge in the back. I dont think that this is the responsibility of game developers.
I think that forced grouping and the oldschool lfg is a design mechanic that hinders the playing experience. I like to group and see the open groups or dynamic events that scale according to the amount of players that participate as the next step. It gives players the option to play how they want. They are not forced to coordinate or communicate with others but can if they wish to.
How much of this game actually requires people to work together to accomplish something...not get better rewards but to actually accomplish the task at hand? I know as it's not out yet and things can change that this figure is not completely accurate. But how often when i go out into this world will i say, you know what i think i need john with me today because i need X?
Almost nothing in GW2 is designed to require people to work together to accomplish something. Instead, everything is designed so that it is more enjoyable when fighting together, so people will automatically form informal groups and start playing together.
In GW2 players do not fight together because they have to, they do because they want to, and the game supports them by removing the artificial barriers that prevented people from simply playing together in the old MMOs.
You will never log in and think "I wish John was here so I can do X". You will also never log in and think "Damn, John is online, and I would really like to team up with him, but he's a DPS, and we only have space for a tank now".
You will login and think "Great, John is online too, so we can just meet up and do whatever we enjoy".
The idea that there's anything a game can magically do to make most of the people acceptable people to socialize with other than in the most superficial manner is laughable.
You're right, it's just not about making people socialize. Teaming up to kill a troll is not socializing. That's where this thread went off rails.
You can socialize as much or as little as you want. That depends on you, not on the game. What the game does is making it easier and more enjoyable to team up and kill the troll.
However that isn't what i'm saying. What i'm saying is that the features the game is showing will make this task a lot harder then it should because what normally bonds communities is when people need each other and they get talking during those tasks. Everytime someone doesn't need to do something they generally don't.
'LFG healer', isn't talking. Nor is " 'link to quest' need help with this PLZ"
yes i can find a guild, but i'd like the game to encourage grouping and actual interaction. It just seems to me that they'd prefer everyone to just work on their own thing. It's almost like a philosphy that they don't want to make you do anything.
I thought the point of grouping is to 'play together', not a desperate need for some interface to show you that you are in a group (even tho the game has a group feature nonetheless) If DE is sufficient enough to bring players together to achieve objectives, why lag the gameplay behind by making players to right other players portrait and wait for invite. I guess that depends on what you meant by actualy interaction. I regard actual interaction as the idea that you play and combat along side others, not bound by having a group mechanic telling me who is IN my group or what, if someone needs help, you just lend it, shouldn't need to wait for others to ask.
Note really a mechanic thing, it was just the feeling of if you can basically do the event with or without that other person they will just feel ike another NPC joining you in the fight instead of another player. Its somewhat good to hear at least some of the DE will require X amount of people to do.
Don't want to group sure we got content here for you
thanks
Personally myself i think solo content shouldn't be a core content of the game, but rather something to do while your waiting for a group.
Don't want to talk? Great cause you don't have to
again thanks
erm, okay glad you enjoy it but i'd prefer to want to talk to other people. Which i can, it's just the fact these people won't talk to me is the problem.
Don't want to even see other people. Great we have a whole section of the town just for you.
cool I'll just go into my spaceship. I don't get your argument here, a lot of games, including your fav SWTOR, only give you a spaceship as player housing, yet in GW2, they offer a section of the city to you, and you seem to talking that down due to it. Between a small house/spaceship, I'll take the city.
It's not really the spaceship or the town itself it's just this added with everything else. Maybe the size of it bothers me? it's one thing to have a small ship not much bigger then a house, but to have a small portion of a town seems a bit too much to me.
I haven't followed the game a lot but this is the general feel of the game. Nothing makes me want to group with others. Loot, well loot as per fans say it's pretty pointless beyond looks.
I understand that you think SWTOR is your only hope, but it doesn't hurt to know other games better as well, it isn't gonna kill you, as you quote in your sig "Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report." Did you know the same who hosted MMO Report personally said GW2 is going to beat SWTOR hands down? That probably means you should at least know the game, you don't need to agree with that guy, but that was his first time trying the game, and it already impressed him that much.
I don't get your argument here. If we want to discuss my sig i'll do so real quick. First off Bioware being my only hope is the emphasis on story choices and good vs evil alignment nothing more nothing less.
Yeah the guy in my sig might like GW2 more or think it will beat it, stlil doesn't mean he thinks swtor won't be awesome...
as for other games yeah i don't follow them as much, happens with a lot of people GW2 people included :P
But i get this general feeling throughout that the other people are additions to the game rather then a part of it.
xp? well thats pretty easily gained
The fact that xp means almost nothing in any game, I say shorter is better than longer, the fact that your attributes scales to the people you play with, yea, levels means close to nothing, content is content, I don't need a number to tell me if I can play it or not. You know what other advantages this can bring? When newer content (after release) is released, they affect every single player, not just the people who reached cap level, many games made the mistake by only focusing on 'endgame' content, but now, all content is avaliable to everyone, the only restriction that is required is whether you can complete it or not.
I have no problem with content, more content is always good. One of the reasons i like SW:TOR it boosts a lot of content. What i mean is having more people to get more xp is pointless because xp is so easily gained it's not a driving factor to join.
Theres no raids so no need there.
There are dungeons if thats what you mean. but groups only extends to 5 or 6 people I think, it comes back to the point you mentioned before, if you have 10 or 20 people in your group, are you going to talk to more than 5 or 6 of them? I thought you wanted groups to talk and communicate?
Once i've killed the shattering once the experience is over.
Same as every MMOG out there, once I killed the dungeon boss, the experience is over? well say goodbye to replayability in any game if your theory is correct. GW2 offer choices and branching same as SWTOR in their personal story, attacking GW2 on its replayability is like attacking Bioware's storytelling, not a good idea.
This isn't about replayability. This is about a lot of players working together coordinating with each other, talking to each other on how to do things, planing it out.
Yes this is a rant but it's the core problem i have with this game, it seems like they are treating players (per features) as indivusuals that happen to share the world with others rather then cogs in a machine that need to work together to get a job done.
Well you acknowledge the rant........:P, but I do hope you can give the game a better look than this, I'm not here to convert you or whatever, but just wanting to make a fair judgement on the game, with all the facts to compare and understand, not just a blind rant. A rant is fine, as long as it is true to the facts. Also on your second point here, I don't like games to force grouping on every single bit of the game, GW2 devs had specifically said dungeons are group specific content (with a harder explorable mode), unless it is a personal story instance. So this covers the idea of group content, the need to work together to get a job done. With the new class system, instead of healer keeping the group alive, everyone keeps everyone alive, how doesn't it need people to work together?
I don't need every single part of the game to be grouped oriented. I don't believe i ever actually said that, if it came across that way i'm sorry but thats not what i meant. It just seems to me that a lot of the places where they could have incorperated the community more like crafting, and underwater areas
Now the actual question.
How much of this game actually requires people to work together to accomplish something...not get better rewards but to actually accomplish the task at hand? I know as it's not out yet and things can change that this figure is not completely accurate. But how often when i go out into this world will i say, you know what i think i need john with me today because i need X?
For the MMo world there needs to be a certain amount of need.
What made SWG so great imo is the need on other classes to succeed, what made EQ so memorable, the need on others to accomplish something, The monk to pull the warrior to tank the cleric to heal.
Well the 'need' is still there, but instead of needing a monk or warrior specifically, you just need another player to accomplish that role. In GW2 it will be more like one player to control the target, one player to support players, one player to protect others (instead of being a meatshield, you use spells and skills to protect others) You don't need a specific class to achieve those roles in combat, but every class acheive that role differently.
Well at least that is nice. Hopefully that just isn't a small part of the gameplay though, cause i saw quite a few videos where they were accomplishing DE all on their own
If you keep taking away the need for other people you take away the community network and it turns into a chat room...Not saying that is in this case.
I wish to close that it's entirely possible this isn't going to be the case...but it was in GW1 for me as i tried and tried to actual get into the community and got several tells that there wasn't a point to it really. I know two different games, same philosphy though at least from what i've seen.
Isn't it because the philosphy of the developers changed that caused them to decide to do a sequel instead of more expansions? They said that it was impossible to implement GW2 plhilosphy into GW1, therefore they are making a sequel? Not sure about this, since I honestly do not care much about this, I will say GW1 is definitely not the greatest game out there, a lot of things is definitely flawed.
Like my question (as i feel it will get lost) states how much of this game actual requires you to interact with the community? Do they treat players as part of a whole or just X person happens to be in the area so you'll get a bit more rewards at the end?
Just because you have more players in one area doesn't mean you get more reward, it will require the players in one area to accomplish that goal together in order to acheive the result.
I do hope I don't sound like attacking your love for SWTOR, I used it as an example since I assume you know that game really well, I'm excited for SWTOR as well , since GW2 is B2P I'll probably play both, ultimately the reason I replied is to encourage others to actually look up more games than just fanboying over one game, no one game is perfect, but you just need to find one that is the closest to your taste. I mean take a look at TERA, I wasn't interested in the game before E3, but they talked about the political system, and I was interested, I might not ending up playing it, but I think it is good to keep a good knowledge about the general direction of MMOG, in order to discuss any game intelligently.
Oh no i don't think your attacking SW:TOR at all, in fact i'm glad your defending GW2 it helps to understand it better. These are just my fears of the game that it doesn't seem to be encourging people to group together. I can find and join groups just fine in most games, i just worry that when i try and do it in this game people will look at me and say whats the point and keep playing without talking.
It also worries me people will get into the mindset that since they can accomplish a portion of the game alone that they won't seek out groups and won't join them when they are trying to form because there simply ins't a point to it. Don't talk just kill it. Theres no point.
i see this happening a lot, you walk into an area, see people fighting, you say Hi....noone replies, so you start killing or doing whatever the DE requires. Once that part is done you start trying to talk. People just move onto the next DE so you try and follow. Once you get there, you try and say Hi again. Noone replies..rinse repeat until the DE is done.
This is the problem i forsee. Noone needs to talk so noone will. It's not that i can't, but i can only go half way in the conversation.
In a group atmosphere people at least need to say Hi can i group to do X? it's not much but at least they are communicating. Once everyone learns the strat of the DE why talk at all? It's much more efficient not to talk and just do your thing.
It's not that it's hurting communication so much as it's not really encouraging it IMO. Your right a lot of people in an area don't instantly mean more communication. But leaving the communication requirements of the player is going to show a lot of people do'nt communicate. You gotta ease them into it or make them want to communicate and i just don't see the De as they are designed...doing that.
I will state i'm looking forward to this game because of the Nature that the De affect the world. I just don't like the public quest kind of way they are doing it becuase if public quest taught me anything, they don't make people want to talk.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I don't see what the problem is with finding people. I'll do the same thing I do in every game. Be myself, and hang out with the people smart enough to realize how awesome I am. Those are the best people to group with.
Why would I want to hang out with the other people, much less know whether or not they like football or basketball? I don't want to hang out with most people I meet in the real world either. The idea that there's anything a game can magically do to make most of the people acceptable people to socialize with other than in the most superficial manner is laughable.
Maybe I'm just too used to thinking most people suck (and sadly being right).
Well spoken. Grouping and socializing are fine, but thinking that shoehorning people together is something that creates a community or social cohesion is laughable. You could apply the same mechanic to prisons but it doesn't mean you won't have inmates trying to stick shivs in one another's backs.
Allow an environment to exist that lets people come together, instead of one that forces them together. Community will develop on its own naturally. That's the beauty of the GW2 system. Most of the game is designed so that you aren't obligated subsume your will to the hive mind in order to play. However, if you do happen across a good mix, nothing prevents you from following up on it. None of this pounding square pegs into round holes that the collectivists here seem to favor.
Oh no i don't think your attacking SW:TOR at all, in fact i'm glad your defending GW2 it helps to understand it better. These are just my fears of the game that it doesn't seem to be encourging people to group together. I can find and join groups just fine in most games, i just worry that when i try and do it in this game people will look at me and say whats the point and keep playing without talking.
It also worries me people will get into the mindset that since they can accomplish a portion of the game alone that they won't seek out groups and won't join them when they are trying to form because there simply ins't a point to it. Don't talk just kill it. Theres no point.
i see this happening a lot, you walk into an area, see people fighting, you say Hi....noone replies, so you start killing or doing whatever the DE requires. Once that part is done you start trying to talk. People just move onto the next DE so you try and follow. Once you get there, you try and say Hi again. Noone replies..rinse repeat until the DE is done.
This is the problem i forsee. Noone needs to talk so noone will. It's not that i can't, but i can only go half way in the conversation.
In a group atmosphere people at least need to say Hi can i group to do X? it's not much but at least they are communicating. Once everyone learns the strat of the DE why talk at all? It's much more efficient not to talk and just do your thing.
It's not that it's hurting communication so much as it's not really encouraging it IMO. Your right a lot of people in an area don't instantly mean more communication. But leaving the communication requirements of the player is going to show a lot of people do'nt communicate. You gotta ease them into it or make them want to communicate and i just don't see the De as they are designed...doing that.
I will state i'm looking forward to this game because of the Nature that the De affect the world. I just don't like the public quest kind of way they are doing it becuase if public quest taught me anything, they don't make people want to talk.
I don't see how your concern is exclusive to GW2, though. In fact, it's less to do with the game, and more to do with the players themselves.
In traditional MMOs, quests very often do not premote grouping. Especially the quests with "gather X items" because even if you group up, you're still competing for the rewards. If you're in the middle of doing a quest and somebody comes along, 9/10 they will be antisocial and are only there to compete with your mob spawning or bosses. In fact, there have been a countless number of times where I've been waiting for a boss to spawn and so are few other people. I invite them to a group and they don't take the hint. Sad, but true. So yes, it's more to do with the players and not the game.
At least in GW2, you cannot grief eachother. If somebody wants to be antisocial, you won't suffer because of it. And that's the point really. Thing is, players are either friendly or not. If you spot a player that has been doing the same DE than you for the past 20 minutes, then be friendly and chat! If they've noticed that you've been playing together for a while, they may agree to group. At least in GW2 this kind of situation is possible without otherwise causing you problems, unlike other MMOs where if someone is being antisocial, you'll suffer because of it (and from my experience that certainly doesn't make people anymore social than you'd think).
In fact, when certain MMOs actually force grouping for common quests, you then end up meeting lots of people you'd rather not (because they are not in the group to actually be social, only because they have to). I see this a lot in dungeons too. At least in GW2's DE, grouping will always be optional to the point where it's always positive and social. If you find a friendly player, add them to your friend list and play with them in the future; the content scaling feature helps support this and unlike traditional quests, grouping does not make content trivial and easy (because let's face it, normal quests these days are balanced in difficulty for 1 player only and that's another problem).
This is what ArenaNet have observed as well, and why they have done things as they have.
I agree with the others. Instead of forcing people to socialize, this game will simply encourage grouping and socialization naturally.
I'd also like to add my 2 cents about "interaction" and the comments above: I want my game of GW2 to be like a game of soccer or hockey: Our team can interact and work together and form meaningful bonds, without ever having to say a word. I know some people play MMOs purely for the social/chatroom aspect, and that's fine, but personally I'd just rather join a chatroom or go to the local bar, if that's what I was looking for. I think it's much more important that a game encourage teamwork - and I think that's what it's doing by removing the barriers that plague other MMOs.
Oh no i don't think your attacking SW:TOR at all, in fact i'm glad your defending GW2 it helps to understand it better. These are just my fears of the game that it doesn't seem to be encourging people to group together. I can find and join groups just fine in most games, i just worry that when i try and do it in this game people will look at me and say whats the point and keep playing without talking.
It also worries me people will get into the mindset that since they can accomplish a portion of the game alone that they won't seek out groups and won't join them when they are trying to form because there simply ins't a point to it. Don't talk just kill it. Theres no point.
i see this happening a lot, you walk into an area, see people fighting, you say Hi....noone replies, so you start killing or doing whatever the DE requires. Once that part is done you start trying to talk. People just move onto the next DE so you try and follow. Once you get there, you try and say Hi again. Noone replies..rinse repeat until the DE is done.
This is the problem i forsee. Noone needs to talk so noone will. It's not that i can't, but i can only go half way in the conversation.
In a group atmosphere people at least need to say Hi can i group to do X? it's not much but at least they are communicating. Once everyone learns the strat of the DE why talk at all? It's much more efficient not to talk and just do your thing.
It's not that it's hurting communication so much as it's not really encouraging it IMO. Your right a lot of people in an area don't instantly mean more communication. But leaving the communication requirements of the player is going to show a lot of people do'nt communicate. You gotta ease them into it or make them want to communicate and i just don't see the De as they are designed...doing that.
I will state i'm looking forward to this game because of the Nature that the De affect the world. I just don't like the public quest kind of way they are doing it becuase if public quest taught me anything, they don't make people want to talk.
I don't see how your concern is exclusive to GW2, though. In fact, it's less to do with the game, and more to do with the players themselves.
In traditional MMOs, quests very often do not premote grouping. Especially the quests with "gather X items" because even if you group up, you're still competing for the rewards. If you're in the middle of doing a quest and somebody comes along, 9/10 they will be antisocial and are only there to compete with your mob spawning or bosses. In fact, there have been a countless number of times where I've been waiting for a boss to spawn and so are few other people. I invite them to a group and they don't take the hint. Sad, but true. So yes, it's more to do with the players and not the game.
At least in GW2, you cannot grief eachother. If somebody wants to be antisocial, you won't suffer because of it. And that's the point really. Thing is, players are either friendly or not. If you spot a player that has been doing the same DE than you for the past 20 minutes, then be friendly and chat! If they've noticed that you've been playing together for a while, they may agree to group. At least in GW2 this kind of situation is possible without otherwise causing you problems, unlike other MMOs where if someone is being antisocial, you'll suffer because of it (and from my experience that certainly doesn't make people anymore social than you'd think).
In fact, when certain MMOs actually force grouping for common quests, you then end up meeting lots of people you'd rather not (because they are not in the group to actually be social, only because they have to). I see this a lot in dungeons too. At least in GW2's DE, grouping will always be optional to the point where it's always positive and social. If you find a friendly player, add them to your friend list and play with them in the future; the content scaling feature helps support this and unlike traditional quests, grouping does not make content trivial and easy (because let's face it, normal quests these days are balanced in difficulty for 1 player only and that's another problem).
This is what ArenaNet have observed as well, and why they have done things as they have.
I most certainly hope your right, i just worry this is a looks good on paper idea but doesn't work when it goes live type of thing, not much you can do about it here though. Just voicing my concern that most people will just pop in do the DE pop out.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
It's not that it's hurting communication so much as it's not really encouraging it IMO. Your right a lot of people in an area don't instantly mean more communication. But leaving the communication requirements of the player is going to show a lot of people do'nt communicate. You gotta ease them into it or make them want to communicate and i just don't see the De as they are designed...doing that.
A lot of people out there CAN'T communicate. Make it neccessary to do so, and you'll discover just how little meaningful most people have to say.
You can't force people to become interesting, meaningful, or capable of typing. I guess that's why they have things like Vent, but I honestly don't want to listen to a bunch of people talking out loud, either.
*shakes a fist* I think you'll see that older MMOs were hitting a somewhat different demographic. It's not like UO and Everquest were being marketed to the exact same people who are playing WoW, and the game engine magically transformed them like fairy godmothers into communicative paragons.
(PS. I started with Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot, which are ALMOST as old, and I also think this is partially you having rose colored glasses on for the past. I remember a lot of dumb people who when I was teaming with them, I spent a good portion of the back of my head thinking 'People sure are dumb.' You're probably remembering the more interesting people, because who wants to remember all the bad groups?)
To those who are arguing that GW2 will somehow damage socialization by the more free-form cooperation of dynamic events...
First, let's compare with WoW. In WoW, questing is the analog to the open-world dynamic events of GW2. Questing in WoW was by and large single player. In fact, if you ran into another player while questing, they generally were a hindrance and annoyance to you because they competed for the mobs/quest-objectives you were after. At least in GW2 you will be happy to see other players when they come into your dynamic event, unlike WoW where you tried to avoid them at all costs.
The majority of group content in WoW comes from the dungeons. Well, GW2 has dungeons just like WoW, and in these dungeons, you will get in organized groups, just like you did with WoW. So I really think GW2 has the edge over WoW in encouraging community in PvE.
Second, let's look at Everquest. Everquest had forced grouping for most classes. In other words, you could not really advance without spending most of your time camped in a group. While it may seem like this would encourage a tight community, and I'm sure it did in some cases, I don't remember it being the great uniter that so many people think it was. In fact, the "socialization" I experienced in most EQ groups I was in usually consisted of macros, and one or two word sentences. This is how I remember a typical EQ group:
"I am MT."
"Pull"
"I am attacking a /t!"
"I am attacking a /t!"
"OOM, need med"
(Silence)
"R"
"Pull" (repeat)
So I mean, while I'm sure that EQ's forced grouping did help some people make some friends and build relationships, by and large, it was pretty dull.
Developers can try to give you an incentive to communicate to each other and help each other. However, it's ultimately up to the player whether they want to communicate with other players. If the players don't want to communicate with each other, then that's their choice. There is nothing the developers can do to force them. You seem to be blaming the developers for the lack of communications in any MMO. The tools are there to allow people to communicate with each other and help each other in any MMO, but it's up the the player to utilize them.
Sure they could force you to work together. However, that does not imply that it'll be a friendly "hey what's up? how are you?" atmosphere. It could just as easily be a pure business-like atmosphere. Again, it's up to the players.
Anyways, ArenaNet is trying to promote cooperative gameplay within Guild Wars 2. Rather than seeing people as someone you need to race against to get somewhere, another player can actually be a huge help in taking down a mob. Why would you want to spend 3 minutes taking down a mob, when you can spend 1.5 minutes with help and both still get full credit and reward? Yes you can solo your way to level 80 and beyond if you want. Although 'solo' may be subjective in this case. You will still end up working with others when doing dynamic events, but you don't HAVE to interact with them. The option is there to interact with them, and the dynamic event will go more smoothly if everyone works together, but you don't have to. As I said above, it's ultimately up to the player. The developer is not in control of how much players interact with each other.
Comments
YOU DO RELY ON OTHERS! You just don't need to be in a group to rely on them!!!!! That's the major difference there!
Its not like you can rez yourself! Its not like you can kill a dragon yourself, its not like you can save a whole town from an army of centaurs yourself and do it in good time! C'mon now, you're talking like the whole game is soloable. There are DEs that require 20 - 100 people to complete, dungeons that require 5 man groups. Your complaint keeps falling on deaf ears because the game already has group elements within it and also you seem to think you need to be in a group to work together when in reality, the game is built so that no matter which side you're on (grouped or not grouped) you'll still be able to help each other.
Things that allow you to help others;
- No ally targeted spells
This means that even if you are grouped with someone, people who are not group with you will also be affected by any positive buffs you place in the area.
- Everyone can Ressurect everyone in combat
No need to wait for that one guy to come rez you
- Physics
The fact that you can stand in front of someone and take any projectile attacks that is coming toward them in the direction you're standing, just brings new meaning to the word "meat shield".
With that said, its up to you if you still want to be skeptical but personally, I just don't get it.
This is not a game.
In 1999 Verent and $OE gave us online gamers EQ
Underneath all of the "your in our world now" or "its all about the journey" stuff Classic MMOs like UO, M59 and EQ that actually coined the term MMORPG had a monthly financial motive to force grouping and then to even penalize group experience, which is actually anti-social imho and a practice that is still very much practiced in P2P games today and actually encourages soloing in order to get more skill upgrades and get more experience per kill at the same time, and it needs to stop as it is imho bad design for todays games..
EQ also wanted and even needed to have heavily camped bottlenecked areas that caused untold social anguish and frustration for many all under the slick guise of looking for groups, bonding with group/guild and or socializing while waiting your groups turn..
You really needed to be a dedicated hardcore player in a good guild to enjoy in full or even see much of the games content and hence the smaller population of players as many that would have been MMO players/casual gamers felt quite isolated and tended not to play long, there was little to do for those that couldnt find the time to play or group because they often couldnt get into a hardcore guild..
ENTER 2012 AND GW2:
An MMO like GW2 will have no monthly financial motive to bottleneck players or even force grouping in the outside world, however with that in mind as far as i can tell GW2 also is not going to punish grouping either...
Which means grouping is actually encouraged as opposed to soloing, and dynamic events will be a great place to potentially meet other gamers and invite to play together beyond the event...
As far as socializing goes thats what the in town mini games and towns are for, when i am already grouped and moving toward the field of battle i have nothing to say if it doesnt directly involve strategy and or approach or what are we doin here guys? Type stuff..
Nothing bothers me quite as much as a social freak talking about things totally unrelated to what the group is doing in the field, that is what towns, public chat and other hubs are for!
While i tend to be a super grouper when feasible i also tend to believe that solo players that enjoy the online ambience should be able to enjoy the game as much as anyone else, afterall they are paying the same amount as me for the game and likely either dont have the time or they know they suck to bad to play with others so leave em be and let them learn and have fun any way they want or desire..
Playing GW2..
I do hope I don't sound like attacking your love for SWTOR, I used it as an example since I assume you know that game really well, I'm excited for SWTOR as well
, since GW2 is B2P I'll probably play both, ultimately the reason I replied is to encourage others to actually look up more games than just fanboying over one game, no one game is perfect, but you just need to find one that is the closest to your taste. I mean take a look at TERA, I wasn't interested in the game before E3, but they talked about the political system, and I was interested, I might not ending up playing it, but I think it is good to keep a good knowledge about the general direction of MMOG, in order to discuss any game intelligently.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
I don't see what the problem is with finding people. I'll do the same thing I do in every game. Be myself, and hang out with the people smart enough to realize how awesome I am. Those are the best people to group with.
Why would I want to hang out with the other people, much less know whether or not they like football or basketball? I don't want to hang out with most people I meet in the real world either. The idea that there's anything a game can magically do to make most of the people acceptable people to socialize with other than in the most superficial manner is laughable.
Maybe I'm just too used to thinking most people suck (and sadly being right).
Fortunately, most people bond on voluntarily basis. No matter if they are forced to work together or not. What happens a lot when people are forced to work together is fake bonding. Nothing but politeness and communicating untill the group disbands and then they forget.
Most people dont need to be taken by the hand. So if a game doesnt force you, but gives you the oppurtunity to work together and scales the event according to the amount of people who join, it provides exactly that what you are looking for.
On top of that, there are parts in Guild Wars 2 that require grouping. Dungeons in exploration mode for example.
But you knew all this. Your rant is mainly about the lack of forced grouping. This doesnt stand in the way of socialising at all, except for people who need this nudge in the back. I dont think that this is the responsibility of game developers.
I think that forced grouping and the oldschool lfg is a design mechanic that hinders the playing experience. I like to group and see the open groups or dynamic events that scale according to the amount of players that participate as the next step. It gives players the option to play how they want. They are not forced to coordinate or communicate with others but can if they wish to.
Almost nothing in GW2 is designed to require people to work together to accomplish something. Instead, everything is designed so that it is more enjoyable when fighting together, so people will automatically form informal groups and start playing together.
In GW2 players do not fight together because they have to, they do because they want to, and the game supports them by removing the artificial barriers that prevented people from simply playing together in the old MMOs.
You will never log in and think "I wish John was here so I can do X". You will also never log in and think "Damn, John is online, and I would really like to team up with him, but he's a DPS, and we only have space for a tank now".
You will login and think "Great, John is online too, so we can just meet up and do whatever we enjoy".
You're right, it's just not about making people socialize. Teaming up to kill a troll is not socializing. That's where this thread went off rails.
You can socialize as much or as little as you want. That depends on you, not on the game. What the game does is making it easier and more enjoyable to team up and kill the troll.
Oh no i don't think your attacking SW:TOR at all, in fact i'm glad your defending GW2 it helps to understand it better. These are just my fears of the game that it doesn't seem to be encourging people to group together. I can find and join groups just fine in most games, i just worry that when i try and do it in this game people will look at me and say whats the point and keep playing without talking.
It also worries me people will get into the mindset that since they can accomplish a portion of the game alone that they won't seek out groups and won't join them when they are trying to form because there simply ins't a point to it. Don't talk just kill it. Theres no point.
i see this happening a lot, you walk into an area, see people fighting, you say Hi....noone replies, so you start killing or doing whatever the DE requires. Once that part is done you start trying to talk. People just move onto the next DE so you try and follow. Once you get there, you try and say Hi again. Noone replies..rinse repeat until the DE is done.
This is the problem i forsee. Noone needs to talk so noone will. It's not that i can't, but i can only go half way in the conversation.
In a group atmosphere people at least need to say Hi can i group to do X? it's not much but at least they are communicating. Once everyone learns the strat of the DE why talk at all? It's much more efficient not to talk and just do your thing.
It's not that it's hurting communication so much as it's not really encouraging it IMO. Your right a lot of people in an area don't instantly mean more communication. But leaving the communication requirements of the player is going to show a lot of people do'nt communicate. You gotta ease them into it or make them want to communicate and i just don't see the De as they are designed...doing that.
I will state i'm looking forward to this game because of the Nature that the De affect the world. I just don't like the public quest kind of way they are doing it becuase if public quest taught me anything, they don't make people want to talk.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Well spoken. Grouping and socializing are fine, but thinking that shoehorning people together is something that creates a community or social cohesion is laughable. You could apply the same mechanic to prisons but it doesn't mean you won't have inmates trying to stick shivs in one another's backs.
Allow an environment to exist that lets people come together, instead of one that forces them together. Community will develop on its own naturally. That's the beauty of the GW2 system. Most of the game is designed so that you aren't obligated subsume your will to the hive mind in order to play. However, if you do happen across a good mix, nothing prevents you from following up on it. None of this pounding square pegs into round holes that the collectivists here seem to favor.
I don't see how your concern is exclusive to GW2, though. In fact, it's less to do with the game, and more to do with the players themselves.
In traditional MMOs, quests very often do not premote grouping. Especially the quests with "gather X items" because even if you group up, you're still competing for the rewards. If you're in the middle of doing a quest and somebody comes along, 9/10 they will be antisocial and are only there to compete with your mob spawning or bosses. In fact, there have been a countless number of times where I've been waiting for a boss to spawn and so are few other people. I invite them to a group and they don't take the hint. Sad, but true. So yes, it's more to do with the players and not the game.
At least in GW2, you cannot grief eachother. If somebody wants to be antisocial, you won't suffer because of it. And that's the point really. Thing is, players are either friendly or not. If you spot a player that has been doing the same DE than you for the past 20 minutes, then be friendly and chat! If they've noticed that you've been playing together for a while, they may agree to group. At least in GW2 this kind of situation is possible without otherwise causing you problems, unlike other MMOs where if someone is being antisocial, you'll suffer because of it (and from my experience that certainly doesn't make people anymore social than you'd think).
In fact, when certain MMOs actually force grouping for common quests, you then end up meeting lots of people you'd rather not (because they are not in the group to actually be social, only because they have to). I see this a lot in dungeons too. At least in GW2's DE, grouping will always be optional to the point where it's always positive and social. If you find a friendly player, add them to your friend list and play with them in the future; the content scaling feature helps support this and unlike traditional quests, grouping does not make content trivial and easy (because let's face it, normal quests these days are balanced in difficulty for 1 player only and that's another problem).
This is what ArenaNet have observed as well, and why they have done things as they have.
I agree with the others. Instead of forcing people to socialize, this game will simply encourage grouping and socialization naturally.
I'd also like to add my 2 cents about "interaction" and the comments above: I want my game of GW2 to be like a game of soccer or hockey: Our team can interact and work together and form meaningful bonds, without ever having to say a word. I know some people play MMOs purely for the social/chatroom aspect, and that's fine, but personally I'd just rather join a chatroom or go to the local bar, if that's what I was looking for. I think it's much more important that a game encourage teamwork - and I think that's what it's doing by removing the barriers that plague other MMOs.
I most certainly hope your right, i just worry this is a looks good on paper idea but doesn't work when it goes live type of thing, not much you can do about it here though. Just voicing my concern that most people will just pop in do the DE pop out.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
A lot of people out there CAN'T communicate. Make it neccessary to do so, and you'll discover just how little meaningful most people have to say.
You can't force people to become interesting, meaningful, or capable of typing. I guess that's why they have things like Vent, but I honestly don't want to listen to a bunch of people talking out loud, either.
*shakes a fist* I think you'll see that older MMOs were hitting a somewhat different demographic. It's not like UO and Everquest were being marketed to the exact same people who are playing WoW, and the game engine magically transformed them like fairy godmothers into communicative paragons.
(PS. I started with Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot, which are ALMOST as old, and I also think this is partially you having rose colored glasses on for the past. I remember a lot of dumb people who when I was teaming with them, I spent a good portion of the back of my head thinking 'People sure are dumb.' You're probably remembering the more interesting people, because who wants to remember all the bad groups?)
To those who are arguing that GW2 will somehow damage socialization by the more free-form cooperation of dynamic events...
First, let's compare with WoW. In WoW, questing is the analog to the open-world dynamic events of GW2. Questing in WoW was by and large single player. In fact, if you ran into another player while questing, they generally were a hindrance and annoyance to you because they competed for the mobs/quest-objectives you were after. At least in GW2 you will be happy to see other players when they come into your dynamic event, unlike WoW where you tried to avoid them at all costs.
The majority of group content in WoW comes from the dungeons. Well, GW2 has dungeons just like WoW, and in these dungeons, you will get in organized groups, just like you did with WoW. So I really think GW2 has the edge over WoW in encouraging community in PvE.
Second, let's look at Everquest. Everquest had forced grouping for most classes. In other words, you could not really advance without spending most of your time camped in a group. While it may seem like this would encourage a tight community, and I'm sure it did in some cases, I don't remember it being the great uniter that so many people think it was. In fact, the "socialization" I experienced in most EQ groups I was in usually consisted of macros, and one or two word sentences. This is how I remember a typical EQ group:
"I am MT."
"Pull"
"I am attacking a /t!"
"I am attacking a /t!"
"OOM, need med"
(Silence)
"R"
"Pull" (repeat)
So I mean, while I'm sure that EQ's forced grouping did help some people make some friends and build relationships, by and large, it was pretty dull.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Developers can try to give you an incentive to communicate to each other and help each other. However, it's ultimately up to the player whether they want to communicate with other players. If the players don't want to communicate with each other, then that's their choice. There is nothing the developers can do to force them. You seem to be blaming the developers for the lack of communications in any MMO. The tools are there to allow people to communicate with each other and help each other in any MMO, but it's up the the player to utilize them.
Sure they could force you to work together. However, that does not imply that it'll be a friendly "hey what's up? how are you?" atmosphere. It could just as easily be a pure business-like atmosphere. Again, it's up to the players.
Anyways, ArenaNet is trying to promote cooperative gameplay within Guild Wars 2. Rather than seeing people as someone you need to race against to get somewhere, another player can actually be a huge help in taking down a mob. Why would you want to spend 3 minutes taking down a mob, when you can spend 1.5 minutes with help and both still get full credit and reward? Yes you can solo your way to level 80 and beyond if you want. Although 'solo' may be subjective in this case. You will still end up working with others when doing dynamic events, but you don't HAVE to interact with them. The option is there to interact with them, and the dynamic event will go more smoothly if everyone works together, but you don't have to. As I said above, it's ultimately up to the player. The developer is not in control of how much players interact with each other.