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I am just SICK AND TIRED of the anti-social attitude in MMOs
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
You know, ever since I left EQ2 I haven't been in one really good guild. Guilds in these days fall completely in two categories: pro raiders with weekly schedules and chat channel-guild. The first sort I don't want to join, because I don't want into these pecking orders, where loot is given on rankings and schedules are mandatory like in a job! And the second, you know the sentece I get all the time? "Well sorry but I am busy doing my quests now."
I just played in a rather difficult and dangerous zone in LOTRO, Isengart. And lots of people all around doing the same quests. And do you think just ONE of them would react to a LFG call? No. Many even prefer apparently do die again and again over joining someone.
You see, I am usually a helpful guy in MMOs. When someone has some task yet I have not, I used to help and just run along. Or when someone was LFG and didn't get help for some time, I just help for the sake of. Or when someone is in danger, I run and help. I mean, I saw that as normal for many years. But the last 2+ years, this has totally vanished from games. Back when SWG and EQ2 were new that was common! When someone needed help, it was easy to get help, whether this person had the same quests or not! It was give and take! And people were actually TALKING. Now, it's hi and bye and IF you get a group, people fight alongside like silent robots!
And don't me even get started about the Teamspeak faschism! I am so sick and tired to get kicked from groups when I say I don't do TS. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR YOU VOICE. Period. I mean, heck we did without TS in the old days against REALLY difficult mobs! In REALLY dangerous zones! People played UO and EQ years without any voiceover, just because they learned their class!
But what REALLY pisses me off like nothing else are these smartass "advisors"! People who will sent you tells about "how with THAT sword or THIS armour you totally suck!" Or how "this or that skills are TOTALLY bad", and sorry but that is the POX and BANE of WOW. No game forced this thrice be damned min-maxxing as much as WoW. Now you need to farm 2000 of these and 500 of them mobs, to get skill point X or faction gear Y. I am so tired of this bizarre sort of MMO design! Where have the times gone, when we just went off to adventure! When it was just we, some quested, looted or crafted gear and off you went!
Sigh. This entire genre and it's player so developed into something sick and anti-social. Its all no longer about exciting adventure, but stats and skills and grinding the right gear and demands and whatnot. This is just isn't they cooperative fun anymore, and all the wonder is replaced by the damn E-sports mentality.
/rant over
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
I think almost all mmorpgs are about competition. Almost all mechanics are set up around that.
Think about it. Even when you're in a group and you are all on the same page, you still have to roll and compete for loot if nothing else.
You compete for crafting materials. You compete for mob kills when you are trying to solo. You obviously compete in PVP. You even compete in auction house trading.
I really cant think of one single facet of the standard mmorpg that doesnt have some sort of competition weaved into its core. And competition creates an anti social environment. When Im constantly sort of competing with every player I see, I begin to see them as a nuesance. No longer do I want to group. I'll just solo thanks.
Because we're all at odds with each other anyways and my "allies" are really just people who are going to get in my way. That may not be necessarily true, but in a subconsious way, it begins to seep in with all the competitive nature thats weaved into the game itself.
Even most guilds Ive joined, one of the first things players seem to ask is, " How do I advance in rank in the guild? " after being in the guild for all of about 30 seconds. Well sure my good man, you just joined 30 seconds ago. I dubb you Admiral Snazzy Pants, and we shall all bow to you. Even guild design is a competition.
Even in most sports that are competitive you are on a team, and you stay on that team. But in the standard mmorpg structure, you're never really on the same team. The game isnt designed that way. And its one of the industries greatest flaws. Developers need to find ways to encourage people playing together. Its good for the players, but its even better for the developers. Are you going to be as tempted to stop playing an mmorpg after a year if you have 30 close friends inside who've you've had countless adventures with? I seriously doubt it.
So let me get this right: YOU don't want to be in voice communication, and everyone else is anti-social? Gotcha.
I understand what the OP means, and I agree. TS can be annoying and unrelaxing, I also prefer chatting (although I have done TS a lot of times for games like planetside and GW1).
But my best experience in a MMO to date was with SWG, and that was because of its strong community. The developers gave us many many many tools for community building, while new MMOs based on WoW give us almost zero, except for difficult raids. And those tools worked nicely with chat (unlike difficult raids). I have never been a role player but I do enjoy having casual conversation with other players around me and socializing in a relaxed setting. I think chat is more relaxing than voice chat and that is probably why I prefer it. Also because chat maintains the barrier of the game so that I can experience the virtual world as an escape from everyday life.
I miss SWG for the community and the excellent tools that helped build the community and made me feel attached to my character and friends.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I agree, far too little co-op for being multiplayer games, I'm hopeing games are starting to shift toward a better design with RIFT having the public groups and GW2 having jump-in events, but it seems like so little... =/
Dont blame him really. You dont have to be in voice com to be social at all.
Because I love joining in voice chat with 25 other people while I listen to them drone on about this or that in monotone voices about how their gear needs to be repaired and then there's some other guy who just feels the incesant need to hum random songs or sing them into the mic while Im trying to get immersed in my game.
Oh and the fits of rage that burst into the mic because "Pwnmaster" couldnt beat 3 mobs 5 levels higher than him is always fun. Voice com has its uses but they're rare. Text works just fine for most interaction but for some reason a lot of guilds these days insist you use it. So you can listen to its members blather on like idiots for hours.
FUN !
He just rather would use typing to talk. I'm the same way. I barely say anything on mic. I type everything most of the time. I don't join guilds that say "TS is must".
He's saying that while MMOS did have some amount of competition, that wasn't the reason for playing. The reason for playing was just to play. By that I mean, you didn't log on just to get to max level as quick as possible. You might want to do that, but you'd also enjoy just smack som rabbits...or dragons...or rabidragons what have you. If you saw someone behind you, you'd say, "need this? Hobdragon?" They'd /nod or "YeS!". You'd group up and end up grouped for the rest of the day.
How often do you group up for 1 quest or 2 and ungroup once you beat a boss or finish a quest, nowadays? Does anyone talk or just kill shtuff and leave?
me 2 mmos are for social not solo but what ever if people want solo play single player games
Play Glitch for a while (www.glitch.com). It is a casual browser game, but it does a lot to promote player interaction and community, something I haven't seen any MMOs really design for in the past 7 or 8 years. It is free to play with almost no restriction on players with no subscription. If you like Douglas Adams or Zork/infocom style humor and Minecraft, you'll probably find yourself playing quite a lot.
You know one of the experiences today was, I failed against some powerful mobs in Isengart. So I asked my guild, hey can someone quick some 10 min and help? You see *I* help when I can.
And what did I get for answer: You can do it alone, just work better. With THAT sword you can't do it. Oh and kill 200,000 giants to raise skill X.
It would have taken 10 damn minutes to quickly help. I help all the time! For what is a guild good, when all are constantly soloing and "oh sorry I am busy with MY quests now"? I know a guild is a not a help me club, there I recall times where guild mates DID help each other. Today, when you say that, you get attacked like "you can't command me what I must do!" I dunno... but something went wrong in MMOs here. I often enjoyed just tagging along hunting stuff. We didn't have quests mostly in SWG for years! We just grouped and did "some stuff"!
Today, when you are in difficulties, you don't get help, you get advise.
EDIT: Thats why I dislike 100% themeparks. All is so streamlined into one particular order of things. "Oh sorry I am not on that particular step of the quest line. I can't help you." That is just so stupid.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I don't know what's going on anymore. Is it modern MMO mechaniacs encouraging people to be anti-social? Is it a generation thing? Are people just anti-social because of bad experiences in groups? Mostly because of time restraints? I don't know. It's probably a mixture of all those things. I think MMO gamers in general are not very social to begin with, and if they can get rewards without an extra helping hand, they will.
Any thoughts/counter-arguments welcome.
Probably this.
You really only need help on few things and this help only includes a small number of people.
The emphasis of "massively" needs to be placed on a higher scale than your typical multiplayer game. You can complete most of the main mmo content by yourself. I think it should be more 50/50 or less.
There are so many player playing the games...this amount of players aren't really utilized for things except making more pockets of smaller players instead of pockets of large amounts of players.
People are afraid of random party members, but that's only because people think they should always win.
I too wish there was more group interaction in mmos, but times are changing. Too many people that play now are in it for themselves, instead of just having fun with others.
I remember when I first played Eve online, I was mining in a low pop high sec system. One day some guy flew into a mining belt I was in. He flagged me with a comm and I accepted. Instead of the usual "give me stuff or I'll suicide you", or "this is my belt leave", he asked if he could mine with me here since the other belts were mostly empty.
I scootch over a bit towards one side and say sure. He scootches to the other side in his mining barge and starts mining there. Eventually I needed to haul my ore, so I offered to haul his stuff for him and we can split profits. Suprisingly he accepted (because most people would say no because they would think I was going to steal it, or they wanted the most for themselves).
We did this for a while, until one day we decided we wanted to go into low sec. I brought some corp mates for protection in lowsec, as did he. We mined and hauled, and made a load of money from it. We split it between our corps and all was happy.
That day we first did lowsec mining succefully and made a large profit, our corp leaders commed eachother and we made an alliance. Because he was nice enough to ask to mine in a belt I was already in, and because I was also nice enough to let him join me, as well as everything else leading up to that point, we made an alliance. If we had done the normal no/hate related responses, our corporations wouldn't have thrived nearly as much.
I wish more games were like this now, but it seems people are too busy having the mentality of "This doesn't help me now, so screw it". =/
OP {mod edit}
Might be time for a MMO break.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well, you don't have to worry about anti-social behavior in my MMO. No ones hardly ever there!
I feel ya, I have used voice chat for many many hours on different games, but TBH I prefer typing.. Typing tends to stay on subject about in game things, and you dont have to listen to these guys..
The Mouth Breather..
The Rambler
The Singer
The 9 year old
The guy who wont turn off voice activation, so you hear every noise in his house constantly..
But yea, I cant find any good Co op games to play right now, and the grouping in MMOs is rediculous.. Its like eeeevery once in a great while I will find a person i group with for hours, complete whole quest chains, form instance groups have a ton of fun... BUt most games are f2p now, and this person dissappears for a week and comes back like 20 levels behind you.. Because its f2p, so people just play whenever..
Idk, Im about sick of MMOS tbh.. Ive had more fun playing "Binding of Isaac" by myself then I have in an MMO in 2 months..
Get with the times old timer, cause they are a change'n. I WONT play with anyone not on TS, and I am a very social person. It's not that I love TS (ok I do), but I just #$@&;^ hate typeing ingame.
I hate questing with other players and I'll almost always turn down an invite even if it means dying frequently or competing for mobs. Often I'll give up and log out rather than put up with multiple requests or sharing an area.
But I do like leveling on random mobs in groups. I miss AO leveling teams a lot.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I happen to agree with the OP but at the same time I HATE the players most of us have become (I don’t mean everyone when I say this). I have just sopped playing Rifts because all the guilds were: raid 24/7, chatrooms, OR filled with complete asses.
In the LFT tool people are brutal to one another. If you don’t know the fights they kick you, if your dps is low they kick you, if they don’t think you are doing a good job on support/healing they kick you. Again this is in my experience. I finally joined a small family guild (chatroom) and do the LFG tool solo as a healer.
Gone are the days that players actually helped one another. When I played EQ1 if you got someone in your group that didn’t know much about an area/fight you explained it to them and MOST got it and if the player was bad you were not mean to him or her you just didn’t invite them back a second time. It was all based off reputation. I'm not sure how we lost all that but we have, at least in my experience. I don’t think solo/small group play has anything to do with it, people are just not nice anymore. I think it has more to do with the internet being anonymous and never having to worry about repercussions more than anything else. I personally don’t see a way out now. I think we are stuck with it like it is.
If someone has found this type of community again please post the game, server name, and guild name because I would love to check them out.
But sadly I have become antisocial because it is easier to play with my small group of friends then meet people. At least in Rifts they R Scarey.
This is my reason.
What is even worse is that if you are in a guild, you'll always be affected by a wide range of social issues. Especially when you play a F2P game.
Whenever you are really bored and don't wanna play an MMO game, go to: http://librivox.org/
Hey hey hey heeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy.......
Ome thing that has helped me somewhat is joining RP servers. On average the people that do that are the older/ smarter set but for the most part I had good experience on these servers until the last 3 or 4 years. I think the asses have spawned into every part of gaming society, like a social plaque /kidding off
But it is true in my experience about the RP servers.
I've gotten better social experiences in "korean grinders" than I have in recent mmos like Rift and even Aion (the only two I've playd "recently"). Primarily because they weren't quest based and you had to party to grind mobs most of the time. We'd start talking for quite a while...usually during the whole time we were fighting... if we died we'd laugh about it because it's mainly when we're tired of being there.
Eq1 was the best at holding social events, no auction house/no instances.
Great fun on sundays in East commons on most servers, selling all the good you collected for the week, bring back old school, camp check !
RP servers do help in finding social, mature folks to play with (the kids don't usually go there and it's a less competitive atmosphere)
My solution to someone treating Vent like open mic night would be to sing right along with them, which would guarantee an end to the assault on my ears. It would also get me kicked from the channel, however, and probably banned. My singing voice is suited for soloing only!
I agree with the anti-voip crowd here completely, it only has a few uses and outside those uses it should never be required. Actually, I can only think of two uses for it. Really difficult raid content (not familiar with any myself) and really coordinated pvp matches. Otherwise, the last thing in the world I want while playing an MMO is to hear the voice of someone I don't even know in real life.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Join a large multigaming community.
Get to know the guys, select the ones you get along with, and mute everyone else.
/fixed.