This game was designed to to be intensely social

WizGamer

FYI: No fandom here, I skip out on MMOs after 2-3 weeks max so appreciate me while GW2 has my interest.

 

I'm seeing a lot of social debates, but I just wanted to point out that the developers designed the game to be social

Evidence: 

1. Waypoints allow you quick travel to your friends anywhere
2. Shared crafting nodes
3. Mail  allows you to trade from anywhere in the world. No boxes needed. 
4. Public Events that earn completion from group rewards
5. Ability to be in multiple guilds - No longer will your guild simply die from lack of participation. Now you can be in multiple
6. Downleveling - Allows your friends to come level with you and tackle significant event content including area bosses, escorts, etc. 
7. Sharing of Personal Story/Downleveling - Allows your friends to experience the story from your viewpoint allowing them to watch your cutscenes and watch your choices be made. They also get unique loot items and experience points for helping you.
8. You stay in party even after logged off - This really is a huge one. This means you can basically maintain a persistent group with friends. I'm not sure if there is a timer on it though.
9. Downed state - Get experience from reviving others. You have an incentive to do so as it will aid you in helping defeat mobs. The game basically conditions you for it. You will get your ass whooped if you don't ensure that everyone is "Still standing" 

My Experience

1. Someone mentions Sea Blood Witch is up in /map. I don't really pay attention, doing my own thing because I'm vastly underleveled, but then the players wipe and they call out for help. I immediately teleport to WP, and see tons of others arriving. It's like a freaking portkey from Harry Potter. We dive into the water and swim there en masse to revive and destroy the Witch.
2. Self-explanatory
3. I made something for my friend(who I met ingame not in RL) and sent it to him. He sent me an item later. All immediately available.
4. See 1.
5. I've joined two guilds thus far and benefit from leveling with one while receiving great advice from the other.
6. I was able to join my friend's instanced story line and experience his infiltration missions as if I was I was meant to be included in the story. I was given experience, the quest showed up on my tracker, and I got unique items. 
7. I seriously just haunt that damn swamp waiting for the event even though I'm level 20 and someone calls for help with the Wasp Queen. I immediately rush over there and thank to downleveling, am able to help, revive some allies, and also gain from the endeavor.
8. Self-expanatory.
9. I will see people rush great distances just to revive someone. The minimap even shows you were fallen allies are and I find myself running to their little skull and bones even if it is out of my way. Then, more often and not, I will find several other players contributing to their resurrection.

 

The game was designed to be social and can be very social, if you want to be social. I group very frequently, and when I chat in Say, almost always someone responds. Also, to be fair, /map is 10 times more mature than Barrens. There is no comparison. There are trolls, but I think the way the game is designed, makes it more about the community than competing.

 

What I'm trying to say is: your game doesn't have to be a flailing niche game to "be social" just because it's community is on its dying breath. I am playing TSW as well, and have to say that GW2 is leaps and bounds more social. It feels like the world is meant to have more people in it than just me. TSW does at times, but people never want to group and have likely already completed my mission. /General is dead in every area but the last few and guilds just appear and disappear like Mist. 

 

But, even though it's more social (for me), GW2 can simply not touch TSW's missions. The combat is better though in GW2, but that's an entirely separate thread.

neorandom

yet even on the high pop pve server if you ask to group no ones ever grouping for anything!  especially the w v w where a group just to keep track of which dots you are wanting to stick near would be really handy as opposed to following the blind lemming zerg that will run into siege fire and be mowed down leaving you with repair bills and no xp gain.

kadepsyson

Originally posted by WizGamer

1. Mail  allows you to trade from anywhere in the world. No boxes needed. 

I wish there was a trade window!  Seriously, why isn't there this most basic feature in addition to mail and trading post?  Is it some sort of arenanet "innovation"?

birdycephon

It may have been designed to be social, but RIFT feels a lot more social, due to the fact that it allows you to easily join in actual open groups as opposed to just fighting side by side. It may seem like a minor thing, but it gives a sense of belonging.

Dreamo84

Originally posted by birdycephon
It may have been designed to be social, but RIFT feels a lot more social, due to the fact that it allows you to easily join in actual open groups as opposed to just fighting side by side. It may seem like a minor thing, but it gives a sense of belonging.

I feel differently. In GW2 I feel like i'm automatically grouped with EVERYONE. And thats cool, anytime I or someone else uses a skill that benefits allies everyone gets the boon or the heal.

I love those spots where you come up to a skill challenge mob or something and theres one other person there. Then i say "You wanna try it?" and they say "sure" and then we kick some !@#. Or the countless times ive been rescued and have rescued others. Its truly awesome how this game has made playing an MMO actually feel like I am playing with all these people around me rather than just next to.

Zeblade

I have, since its free so far been on so many differnet servers from US to EU. And so far for hours and hours and days no one talks. Oh sure there is always the 2-5 in chat and yet in say no one talks and there are what over 25 so many times. No one talks. But most free to play game are like this. Yes you paid $50 but you dont pay anymore its free to play. Dont get stuck on that.

And if it has not picked up by now I don't think it will. If I were you I would stay where I was. And this "no chat" is to easy to prove so dont come back with ..they talk all the time..yeah the 2-5 talk all the time. Not the hundreds. Do get LOTS of bots though.

 

stayontarget

social in an odd way:  http://kotaku.com/5942416/theres-not-that-much-difference-between-guild-wars-2-players-and-lemmings

Loke666

Originally posted by neorandom
yet even on the high pop pve server if you ask to group no ones ever grouping for anything!  especially the w v w where a group just to keep track of which dots you are wanting to stick near would be really handy as opposed to following the blind lemming zerg that will run into siege fire and be mowed down leaving you with repair bills and no xp gain.

I am grouped most of the time when I am not farming or crafting. Of course it is usually with guildies but I do use say a lot and talk with people around me and many of them do the same.

Compared to many games where you solo most quests up to max level it is a lot more social, but far from perfect of course.

The best most social stuff is that I easily can jump in and play with any guildies no matter what level they have, we just find a zone where the lowest one survive and play it. I still get enough drops for me to play with a noob guildie.

Just following a zerg is not a good idea though except against the largest bosses in PvE or when you take something large in PvP. Small groups is always more fun.

Loke666

Originally posted by birdycephon
It may have been designed to be social, but RIFT feels a lot more social, due to the fact that it allows you to easily join in actual open groups as opposed to just fighting side by side. It may seem like a minor thing, but it gives a sense of belonging.

I thought Rift was rather anti social until you maxed out, there was no need to group up and most players seemed to solo up to max level. That was at launch though, but it felt less social to me.

Then again did I just play it a short while (good game but felt like I already played it for years) and never really joined a good guild but my initial impression was that it felt a lot less social anyways, DEs or not.

CultOfXtc

It might be designed to be social but it depends what you call social, sure there lottsof ther people around but they don't really interact.  for this reason I would say GW2 is less social than other mmo's.

GoldenArrow

The game is designed to be social but in the end it fails to actually be social.

Everyone is playing alone while playing together.

Meaning that even though there's a lot of people running around I really can't tell whether they are A.net bots or actual players. People don't co-operate in any way, because the most important thing in the game is to tag the mobs before they get facerolled by the zerg. You don't get rewarded for buffing, debuffing or setting up combo fields either.

Like it or not, communicating/talking is the most humane thing, missing that, you miss the social interaction aswell.

In all honesty GW2 feels like the least social mmorpg I've seen in awhile. This counting TSW aswell (even though the communcation is mostly "HELP I'M STUCK WITH INVESTIGATION").

 

Playing together, while being forever alone. It's odd Oo

Squishydew

I absolutely love the game but as far as i can tell It fails at being social quite badly.

People just join the zerg and split up again never saying a single word to eachother

 

Not to mention theres no safe direct way to trade, even in all the dungeon runs I've had people kept talking to the absolute minimum not counting some guildies i ran with.