The funny thing is how it's always people talking about the 'glory days' of MMOs that feel the communities in MMOs are terrible. I find nothing wrong with the community in MMOs today. Yes you have some pricks, particularly in FFAPVP games, but you also have some great people. It's no different now than when it was, the space is just larger now than it used to be so you're going to have to wade through more trash to find the gold. That's not going to change regardless of content or game mechanics, the only way you're going to get smaller communities is if games are catering to smaller markets. Since they all want to make, you know...money...it's not going to happen, so let it go.
My guild in GW2 was one of the best I ever met. They made an effort to include everyone, get people working together and taking care of each other so we grew more as a guild than as individuals, and we regularly rolled through combat because of it. When I started playing Rift again, I found a laid-back guild filled with people willing to help me re-learn the game, after joining as a level 50 that didn't remember crap. The guild master even dipped into her pocket to gift me starter storm legion armor to make the transition smoother. I could go on and on, but the point is I've met far greater people since the reinvention of MMOs than I ever met back when you had to be a specific class and a specific build to get people to notice you, let alone wait around for hours to find a team for content.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
The biggest factor in community decline is the combination of overly busy clickfests (GCD based systems where you have to spam skills every 1-1.5 seconds, plus off gcd abilities inbetween) combined with the rise of voice chat.
If there was a game where the use of voice chat was a lifetime bannable offense it would have an incredible in game community. But now people prefer to talk to their small circle as opposed to type to the large circle.
Or instead of living in the past you could embrace the future by incorporating an in game VOIP. That way you can instantly voice chat with your group, or people you meet in town, or a passing adventurer when you're out exploring.
I have no problem typing. I type for my work, I type in games, I type of forums. I like the type. But many people don't. Embracing VOIP and making it work for a game is a far better solution than simply banning the technology lol.
Except t doesnt work for multiple channels. And when more than one person wnats to speak at a time.
Voice chat has its use for raiding and for multi-game guilds. As a primary communication tool it is severely lacking for reasons including what I posted above and: not everyone can use it (both physical and household), it can have a high annoyance factor (people that leave their mic open, loud/soft talkers, people with annoying voices/mannerisms), some people want to hide their gender (females hiding from unwanted attention especially), some feel its immersion breaking, some people prefer listening to music
Its not a matter of living in the past vs embracing the future. Its that VOIP isnt the right tool.
The banning of voice chat was a joke, its obviously not going to happen. I would love if it did happen because the community would definitely improve, but VOIP is not going anywhere so we are stuck with trying to work around its limitations and its tendancy to drive divides between communities.
It's real, the communities in MMO are far far worse than they used to be.
Everquest had a few things going for it that drove the community:
-the gameplay was slow and tab based, you chatted during combat
-you were forcded to group with most classes
-there was a server chat, not just a local chat
-you were severely punished if you died, which made you seek out help
-you had no AH like in WoW in the beginning of EQ, you were forced to talk to others if you wanted to have an item
-the gameplay in early EQ was easy and simple, it was slow and time-consuming and it severely punished death, but it was easy to play for anyone
There's more reasons, but I think those were the main ones.
Ya the main reasons behind the community was the severity of the game and required group play.
Just about every class couldn't solo. A lot of the loot was unobtainable solo (because kiting in dungeons was a death wish in most cases), so you had to make friend and socialize to progress your character from 1 to cap, not just at end game.
The corpse runs and severe death penalty was the main contributor of the great community. If you were that guy screaming racist remarks in OOC, you were going to have a bad day getting your corpse out of the bottom of a dungeon.
I'd say personal trading might have helped a little bit, but really, you could get away with spamming your wares in EC tunnel with price, meeting and being on your way.
Overall, the exp loss, corpse runs and required group content really brought the community together.
Are those days gone? They are, but I don't think they're gone for good. I feel that a lot of the core community strengthening mechanics (like the death penalty and group content) can be modernized to appeal to a new, broader audience, while still having the same effect.
August 2nd.
About every class couldn't solo? What?
Bard, Druid, Shaman, Magician, Wizard, Necromancer, Enchanter, Paladin, Shadow Knight, and Ranger all could solo. Even a Cleric could solo if they found a place with a lot of undead.
Bard, Druid, Shaman, Magician, Wizard, Necromancer, Enchanter, Paladin, Shadow Knight, and Ranger all could solo. Even a Cleric could solo if they found a place with a lot of undead.
While a bard could solo, they were severely nerfed later on, which limited their ability to solo.
A shaman could solo, but not very good.
A druid could solo, but even when quad kiting or root rotting, group XP tended to be far superior.
A paladin could only solo effectively against undead.
A mage could solo well.
A wizard could solo well.
A necromancer could solo well.
An enchanter charm soloing was not very straightforward, and was quite risky.
A SK, bearing in mind they had excellent gear, could solo.
A cleric could not solo effectively, even against undead, most groups offered superior XP.
There's also the fact that soloing in EQ offered no rewards in terms of gear or flags, and that many zones had summoning mobs.
Also many mobs were unsnarable later on and were extremely fast (GoD Ukun), which severely limited the ability to solo.
Even solo classes were forced to group now and then.
I agree with what a lot of the posters have stated so far about inter-reliability being core to encouraging a 'good' community. I remember playing Shadowbane and having encountered so many awesome players and guilds. We would spend massive amounts of time farming and leveling to build our city, then nation. It was really a good bonding experience to have a community goal. The wars and sieges just added to this. We had organized squads (some would be ranged, others chasers, my favorate was the 'crash' squad I was in, we just charged into the enemy lines and wreaked havoc).
Mmo's nowadays are so limiting in what they allow us to build. If I have no reason to work with and alongside others, then why should I get to know them? Modern mmo's remind me of the phrase from Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club, "single serving friendships". That is what we see in the current crop of mmo's. Let's hope we will leave this concept in the past.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Originally posted by Fusion Dependancy on other players and yeah, it's a thing of the past, atleast in all modern MMO's where you can just solo to cap.
I can't see soling as the problem considering I could solo to a fully skilled character in SWG(Pre-cu), yet the game still had a great community experience.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The biggest factor in community decline is the combination of overly busy clickfests (GCD based systems where you have to spam skills every 1-1.5 seconds, plus off gcd abilities inbetween) combined with the rise of voice chat.
If there was a game where the use of voice chat was a lifetime bannable offense it would have an incredible in game community. But now people prefer to talk to their small circle as opposed to type to the large circle.
Or instead of living in the past you could embrace the future by incorporating an in game VOIP. That way you can instantly voice chat with your group, or people you meet in town, or a passing adventurer when you're out exploring.
I have no problem typing. I type for my work, I type in games, I type of forums. I like the type. But many people don't. Embracing VOIP and making it work for a game is a far better solution than simply banning the technology lol.
Except t doesnt work for multiple channels. And when more than one person wnats to speak at a time.
Voice chat has its use for raiding and for multi-game guilds. As a primary communication tool it is severely lacking for reasons including what I posted above and: not everyone can use it (both physical and household), it can have a high annoyance factor (people that leave their mic open, loud/soft talkers, people with annoying voices/mannerisms), some people want to hide their gender (females hiding from unwanted attention especially), some feel its immersion breaking, some people prefer listening to music
Its not a matter of living in the past vs embracing the future. Its that VOIP isnt the right tool.
The banning of voice chat was a joke, its obviously not going to happen. I would love if it did happen because the community would definitely improve, but VOIP is not going anywhere so we are stuck with trying to work around its limitations and its tendancy to drive divides between communities.
I don't really see how Voip does anything to divide MMO communities. It simply allows players to communicate a little better is all.
It is no different than a PM or private channel in chat which many people use. And who has time or patience to read all the spam that goes on in global chats.
So I really fail to see your point here.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
I'm not a fan of voice chat, not in the least because it's discriminatory to everyone with either a speaking or hearing disability.
Going over my guild members, there's quite a few people like this in MMO, perhaps they like playing MMO because it gives them the opportunity to socialise without a stigma attached to their disability.
Voice also takes people out of the world and puts them into artificial channels, I don't think it's good for a community.
I'm in a very old EQ guild, and we have never forced anyone to use voice chat, and we never will. While we use it amongst officers sometimes, we make sure that everyone is aware of what's being said, and we avoid voice chat whenever possible, to include everyone, people with disabilities, people without mics, people who don't speak English very well, etc
One of the key differences between then and now is that voice chat is prevalent and every guild uses it. There are also far more established organized guilds simply because of the advances of the internet. Social media is common. There are more MMORPG specific websites to recruit on. Websites are more affordable and now even free guild hosting exists for people without any knowledge in website design.
No amount of forced grouping will change any of this. There is already forced grouping in modern MMOs with dungeons and things move along as they always will with guildies grouping together, using voice chat. If you take it any further, you will just run away people who don't want to group. Trying to force them to group isn't going to solve anything, you will just have less players, not more people grouping.
It's real, the communities in MMO are far far worse than they used to be.
Everquest had a few things going for it that drove the community:
-the gameplay was slow and tab based, you chatted during combat, none of this action button mashing
-you camped during combat, you didn't run around looking for mobs, you made a static camp and pulled mobs to it, which allowed you to chat <- this is a major reason I think
-massive amounts of downtime while regaining health or mana compared to today's standards
-you were forced to group with most classes
-there was a server chat, not just a local chat
-you were severely punished if you died, which made you seek out help
-you had no AH like in WoW in the beginning of EQ, you were forced to talk to others if you wanted to have an item
-the gameplay in early EQ was easy and simple, it was slow and time-consuming and it severely punished death, but it was easy to play for anyone
-travel was slow in a huge world, you had to run for miles and often stayed at a camp for days, you were forced to interact with people
There's more reasons, but I think those were the main ones.
All the thing u listed was my favorite part of EQ1. Even when the Bazaar was introduced in SoL I was still in love with the game. Bazaar brought people together in one common area.
Asking others for warps and "tipping" them for their services instead of the later days where it was like 50p for buffs/warp/etc.
Talking with others in the same zone asking about if so and so is camped so you guys would not be stealing from each other.
I'm not a fan of voice chat, not in the least because it's discriminatory to everyone with either a speaking or hearing disability.
Going over my guild members, there's quite a few people like this in MMO, perhaps they like playing MMO because it gives them the opportunity to socialise without a stigma attached to their disability.
Voice also takes people out of the world and puts them into artificial channels, I don't think it's good for a community.
I'm in a very old EQ guild, and we have never forced anyone to use voice chat, and we never will. While we use it amongst officers sometimes, we make sure that everyone is aware of what's being said, and we avoid voice chat whenever possible, to include everyone, people with disabilities, people without mics, people who don't speak English very well, etc
I'm not a fan of it either, but I have no problem with it in a game. If a clan requires voice chat, unfortunately I will not be in that clan. But if others enjoy and find it helpful, then where is the harm?
And disabilities are a non issue here. Obviously we are discriminating against the blind by typing and not using voice.
You seem to think of "community" as some big happy collection of thousands of players all living in harmony. I see community as having a group of friends to play with and have fun with and then simply dealing with the rest of the players in game. I don't need to know everyone on a first name basis.
Still not sure what people see that is so bad in MMO's that is not already prevalent in anything related to the internet. You could argue it is the internet itself that has gotten less friendly over the years and that has translated into gaming communities as well. That is my opinion of it. Young people in particular I find, seem to have lost all sense of any social morals when hiding behind their anonymity. Thats probably not going to change, even if the games do become more social.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
And disabilities are a non issue here. Obviously we are discriminating against the blind by typing and not using voice.
How are disabilities a non-issue, plenty of people who play MMO do have hearing or speaking disabilities.
For them it is an issue if you use voice chat in a guild and don't integrate them properly into the guild.
Same thing can be said for European servers, which have to deal with people who's native language isn't English, trying to integrate people from Europe into a guild is much more complex if you use voice chat. While writing is very straightforward, speaking is not, and it's extremely unenjoyable to force someone to speak English when they game.
My native tongue is not English, and while I don't mind speaking in English if necessary, I loathe doing this in games. Do people who speak English natively enjoy speaking in French or German? I doubt it.
MMO need to take these things into account and so do guilds if they wan to be successful, especially on a European server.
It's real, the communities in MMO are far far worse than they used to be.
Everquest had a few things going for it that drove the community:
-the gameplay was slow and tab based, you chatted during combat, none of this action button mashing
-you camped during combat, you didn't run around looking for mobs, you made a static camp and pulled mobs to it, which allowed you to chat <- this is a major reason I think
-massive amounts of downtime while regaining health or mana compared to today's standards
-you were forced to group with most classes
-there was a server chat, not just a local chat
-you were severely punished if you died, which made you seek out help
-you had no AH like in WoW in the beginning of EQ, you were forced to talk to others if you wanted to have an item
-the gameplay in early EQ was easy and simple, it was slow and time-consuming and it severely punished death, but it was easy to play for anyone
-travel was slow in a huge world, you had to run for miles and often stayed at a camp for days, you were forced to interact with people
There's more reasons, but I think those were the main ones.
^^
You make an MMO socially oriented,an MMO that urges you to seek others out,then it will build a healthy community.
You take away things that promote social encounters.Like not having to group for 90% of the game,using an auction house instead of haggling with other players and so on.Then it will be like the MMO's we have today.
Players will mold to the method put in front of them.If they need others to accomplish something,then they will seek out others.If you dont need others to do something,then why bother wasting your time seeking others out?
And disabilities are a non issue here. Obviously we are discriminating against the blind by typing and not using voice.
How are disabilities a non-issue, plenty of people who play MMO do have hearing or speaking disabilities.
For them it is an issue if you use voice chat in a guild and don't integrate them properly into the guild.
Same thing can be said for European servers, which have to deal with people who's native language isn't English, trying to integrate people from Europe into a guild is much more complex if you use voice chat. While writing is very straightforward, speaking is not, and it's extremely unenjoyable to force someone to speak English when they game.
My native tongue is not English, and while I don't mind speaking in English if necessary, I loathe doing this in games. Do people who speak English natively enjoy speaking in French or German? I doubt it.
MMO need to take these things into account and so do guilds if they wan to be successful, especially on a European server.
Ok so we are all supposed to be able speak different languages now??
I believe it is called the straw man argument that you are using here.
The topic is not about how to integrate people with disabilities and language barriers into a community Waterlilly. Those problems have been around since the "early days" when MMO's were supposedly "community friendly". Therefore that makes them a non issue in this discussion.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
The topic is not about how to integrate people with disabilities and language barriers into a community Waterlilly.
It is for people like me who play on a European server. Our guild has people from all over Europe, and few of them have English as their native tongue. If we forced voice chat on those people, many people would not be able to integrate properly.
We try to limit guild chat to English, and we try to limit voice chat, so everyone is able to understand each other.
The topic is about community, and people being able to communicate with each other effectively, is a big part of this.
If we forced voice chat, not only would many people be unhappy in the guild, it would severely limit our recruitment pool.
You make an MMO socially oriented,an MMO that urges you to seek others out,then it will build a healthy community.
You take away things that promote social encounters.Like not having to group for 90% of the game,using an auction house instead of haggling with other players and so on.Then it will be like the MMO's we have today.
Players will mold to the method put in front of them.If they need others to accomplish something,then they will seek out others.If you dont need others to do something,then why bother wasting your time seeking others out?
its that simple.
It also makes you simply lose subscribers. Many players simply don't want molds that force them to group and be interdependent. Also I have no idea why people believe that dependence makes a great community. As I mentioned before in EQ2, you were totally group dependant, and the community was absolutely toxic, many people ended up leaving the game.
Im not interested in logging in and standing around for an hour waiting for a group to finish a simple quest. That's a waste of my time. The only people that can do that are non-working persons. Game devs finally figured out that not every player is a 12 y/o boy living at home with Mommy.
Sometimes Im not interested in interacting with people, sometimes I am. The MMO has to give you a choice. No one says you cant group to do solo content. But You MUST group to do group content. Many of us gainfully employed persons don't have time for that.
It's real, the communities in MMO are far far worse than they used to be.
Everquest had a few things going for it that drove the community:
-the gameplay was slow and tab based, you chatted during combat
-you were forcded to group with most classes
-there was a server chat, not just a local chat
-you were severely punished if you died, which made you seek out help
-you had no AH like in WoW in the beginning of EQ, you were forced to talk to others if you wanted to have an item
-the gameplay in early EQ was easy and simple, it was slow and time-consuming and it severely punished death, but it was easy to play for anyone
There's more reasons, but I think those were the main ones.
Ya the main reasons behind the community was the severity of the game and required group play.
Just about every class couldn't solo. A lot of the loot was unobtainable solo (because kiting in dungeons was a death wish in most cases), so you had to make friend and socialize to progress your character from 1 to cap, not just at end game.
The corpse runs and severe death penalty was the main contributor of the great community. If you were that guy screaming racist remarks in OOC, you were going to have a bad day getting your corpse out of the bottom of a dungeon.
I'd say personal trading might have helped a little bit, but really, you could get away with spamming your wares in EC tunnel with price, meeting and being on your way.
Overall, the exp loss, corpse runs and required group content really brought the community together.
Are those days gone? They are, but I don't think they're gone for good. I feel that a lot of the core community strengthening mechanics (like the death penalty and group content) can be modernized to appeal to a new, broader audience, while still having the same effect.
August 2nd.
About every class couldn't solo? What?
Bard, Druid, Shaman, Magician, Wizard, Necromancer, Enchanter, Paladin, Shadow Knight, and Ranger all could solo. Even a Cleric could solo if they found a place with a lot of undead.
At the start of the game.
Bard, yes, out in the open.
Druid, Yes, they could kite groups of mobs for great exp.
Necro (Yup, they could fear kite quite well).
Shaman was good too.
Everything else? Hell no lol. Yes there were mobs in the game that were soloable, that any class could solo, but the exp you'd get from them was laughable at best.
The only way to kill the good exp mobs was with a group, or kiting. A Paladin, enchanter, SK were not soloing any good exp mobs, and as a ranger I could solo a lot of stuff, but it was so painfully slow it wasn't even worth the effort.
In general, I think voice chat is essential to certain parts of MMO game play. Being an old school MMO player myself, however, I have to say, as far as community as a whole is concerned, it can be detrimental as well. I'm sure many will see this as being controversial, but in many social situations, voice chat usually aids in the formation of cliques. Groups become so dead set on grouping with certain people that guilds as a whole can suffer. "We're waiting for <insert name> to log on, sorry no room in the group". I've seen this happen far too often. People become alienated. Then you have the clique drama, one person quits the game, then it becomes becomes like a domino effect. People become attached to certain people, many substitute voice chat as their sole source of social interaction with people (irl). It become more than just chatting about what you're doing in the game. That's just my psychological view though.
I agree 100% with one of the posters above. Interdependency is essential for community. The need for certain classes/crafters/professions etc. creates a need to interact with people. Otherwise you have a game like GW2 where everyone is the same, you can go through the whole game, completing your personal story quests and never once group with another player. Never once send a tell. Everyone is the same anyway, why would you need to connect with other players?
The biggest factor in community decline is the combination of overly busy clickfests (GCD based systems where you have to spam skills every 1-1.5 seconds, plus off gcd abilities inbetween) combined with the rise of voice chat.
If there was a game where the use of voice chat was a lifetime bannable offense it would have an incredible in game community. But now people prefer to talk to their small circle as opposed to type to the large circle.
Or instead of living in the past you could embrace the future by incorporating an in game VOIP. That way you can instantly voice chat with your group, or people you meet in town, or a passing adventurer when you're out exploring.
I have no problem typing. I type for my work, I type in games, I type of forums. I like the type. But many people don't. Embracing VOIP and making it work for a game is a far better solution than simply banning the technology lol.
Except t doesnt work for multiple channels. And when more than one person wnats to speak at a time.
Voice chat has its use for raiding and for multi-game guilds. As a primary communication tool it is severely lacking for reasons including what I posted above and: not everyone can use it (both physical and household), it can have a high annoyance factor (people that leave their mic open, loud/soft talkers, people with annoying voices/mannerisms), some people want to hide their gender (females hiding from unwanted attention especially), some feel its immersion breaking, some people prefer listening to music
Its not a matter of living in the past vs embracing the future. Its that VOIP isnt the right tool.
The banning of voice chat was a joke, its obviously not going to happen. I would love if it did happen because the community would definitely improve, but VOIP is not going anywhere so we are stuck with trying to work around its limitations and its tendancy to drive divides between communities.
I don't see what you're talking about. An integrated VOIP system can work extremely well. Sure, having a guild-wide always on VOIP would be extremely bad lol. (That'd be like having a 100 man vent server with 1 channel, lol).
But simply walking up to someone, highlighting them, holding a Push to Talk Say button and instantly being able to speak with someone, who can turn, highly you, hold Push to Talk Say button and greet you back would work really well. Then you could also have a group VOIP in game, with a Push to Talk Group button, to speak specifically to group members.
VOIP can work extremely well if it's integrated correctly. It's not every going to completely remove typing, but in the scenarios where VOIP wouldn't be applicable (/OOC /Region /guild /shout) you still have text based communication, and in those areas, there's no shortage of people communicating. Go into any MMORPG today, even the worst ones, and there are tons of people actively engaging in /region and /guild chat.
The part that's lacking is the /say and /group communication, which is exactly where VOIP can work the best, to pick up the slack.
It's real, the communities in MMO are far far worse than they used to be.
Everquest had a few things going for it that drove the community:
-the gameplay was slow and tab based, you chatted during combat, none of this action button mashing
-you camped during combat, you didn't run around looking for mobs, you made a static camp and pulled mobs to it, which allowed you to chat <- this is a major reason I think
^^
You make an MMO socially oriented,an MMO that urges you to seek others out,then it will build a healthy community.
You take away things that promote social encounters.Like not having to group for 90% of the game,using an auction house instead of haggling with other players and so on.Then it will be like the MMO's we have today.
Players will mold to the method put in front of them.If they need others to accomplish something,then they will seek out others.If you dont need others to do something,then why bother wasting your time seeking others out?
its that simple.
Except it is not that simple.
What if you can't find the item you want because the person who has it is not online? Or what if he is on the other side of the world and requires some long distance travelling? Etc.
Whenever you put the onus on gameplay that requires interaction with other players you are opening up a whole new can of worms. Because basically other players can be unreliable. Just look at how long it takes in game usually to get any soret of group action going. While having to search for a player and haggle sounds interesting it is also time consuming.
So the while the concept sounds good, implementing it in a positive way so as not to downgrade a players game experience is much more difficult. Much simpler to have the auction house and most people prefer convenience over social interaction, unfortunately.
Getting the interaction without degrading game play is the key, but if you start slowing players down and making their life more difficult, it may actually spoil the community.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
In general, I think voice chat is essential to certain parts of MMO game play. Being an old school MMO player myself, however, I have to say, as far as community as a whole is concerned, it can be detrimental as well. I'm sure many will see this as being controversial, but in many social situations, voice chat usually aids in the formation of cliques. Groups become so dead set on grouping with certain people that guilds as a whole can suffer. "We're waiting for to log on, sorry no room in the group". I've seen this happen far too often. People become alienated. Then you have the clique drama, one person quits the game, then it becomes becomes like a domino effect. People become attached to certain people, many substitute voice chat as their sole source of social interaction with people (irl). It become more than just chatting about what you're doing in the game. That's just my psychological view though.
People forming clicks and being selective on who they invite/don't invite to a group has nothing to do with VOIP. It has to do with people forming bonds and then wanting to play with the people they already know instead of looking to meet new people.
This happens regardless of VOIP or typing based communication. It happened all the time in games like LoK, UO and EQ, where VOIP was completely absent.
Comments
The funny thing is how it's always people talking about the 'glory days' of MMOs that feel the communities in MMOs are terrible. I find nothing wrong with the community in MMOs today. Yes you have some pricks, particularly in FFAPVP games, but you also have some great people. It's no different now than when it was, the space is just larger now than it used to be so you're going to have to wade through more trash to find the gold. That's not going to change regardless of content or game mechanics, the only way you're going to get smaller communities is if games are catering to smaller markets. Since they all want to make, you know...money...it's not going to happen, so let it go.
My guild in GW2 was one of the best I ever met. They made an effort to include everyone, get people working together and taking care of each other so we grew more as a guild than as individuals, and we regularly rolled through combat because of it. When I started playing Rift again, I found a laid-back guild filled with people willing to help me re-learn the game, after joining as a level 50 that didn't remember crap. The guild master even dipped into her pocket to gift me starter storm legion armor to make the transition smoother. I could go on and on, but the point is I've met far greater people since the reinvention of MMOs than I ever met back when you had to be a specific class and a specific build to get people to notice you, let alone wait around for hours to find a team for content.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Except t doesnt work for multiple channels. And when more than one person wnats to speak at a time.
Voice chat has its use for raiding and for multi-game guilds. As a primary communication tool it is severely lacking for reasons including what I posted above and: not everyone can use it (both physical and household), it can have a high annoyance factor (people that leave their mic open, loud/soft talkers, people with annoying voices/mannerisms), some people want to hide their gender (females hiding from unwanted attention especially), some feel its immersion breaking, some people prefer listening to music
Its not a matter of living in the past vs embracing the future. Its that VOIP isnt the right tool.
The banning of voice chat was a joke, its obviously not going to happen. I would love if it did happen because the community would definitely improve, but VOIP is not going anywhere so we are stuck with trying to work around its limitations and its tendancy to drive divides between communities.
About every class couldn't solo? What?
Bard, Druid, Shaman, Magician, Wizard, Necromancer, Enchanter, Paladin, Shadow Knight, and Ranger all could solo. Even a Cleric could solo if they found a place with a lot of undead.
Stop blaming the gameplay and examine what's changed about your own habits.
While a bard could solo, they were severely nerfed later on, which limited their ability to solo.
A shaman could solo, but not very good.
A druid could solo, but even when quad kiting or root rotting, group XP tended to be far superior.
A paladin could only solo effectively against undead.
A mage could solo well.
A wizard could solo well.
A necromancer could solo well.
An enchanter charm soloing was not very straightforward, and was quite risky.
A SK, bearing in mind they had excellent gear, could solo.
A cleric could not solo effectively, even against undead, most groups offered superior XP.
There's also the fact that soloing in EQ offered no rewards in terms of gear or flags, and that many zones had summoning mobs.
Also many mobs were unsnarable later on and were extremely fast (GoD Ukun), which severely limited the ability to solo.
Even solo classes were forced to group now and then.
I agree with what a lot of the posters have stated so far about inter-reliability being core to encouraging a 'good' community. I remember playing Shadowbane and having encountered so many awesome players and guilds. We would spend massive amounts of time farming and leveling to build our city, then nation. It was really a good bonding experience to have a community goal. The wars and sieges just added to this. We had organized squads (some would be ranged, others chasers, my favorate was the 'crash' squad I was in, we just charged into the enemy lines and wreaked havoc).
Mmo's nowadays are so limiting in what they allow us to build. If I have no reason to work with and alongside others, then why should I get to know them? Modern mmo's remind me of the phrase from Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club, "single serving friendships". That is what we see in the current crop of mmo's. Let's hope we will leave this concept in the past.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
I can't see soling as the problem considering I could solo to a fully skilled character in SWG(Pre-cu), yet the game still had a great community experience.
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I don't really see how Voip does anything to divide MMO communities. It simply allows players to communicate a little better is all.
It is no different than a PM or private channel in chat which many people use. And who has time or patience to read all the spam that goes on in global chats.
So I really fail to see your point here.
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I'm not a fan of voice chat, not in the least because it's discriminatory to everyone with either a speaking or hearing disability.
Going over my guild members, there's quite a few people like this in MMO, perhaps they like playing MMO because it gives them the opportunity to socialise without a stigma attached to their disability.
Voice also takes people out of the world and puts them into artificial channels, I don't think it's good for a community.
I'm in a very old EQ guild, and we have never forced anyone to use voice chat, and we never will. While we use it amongst officers sometimes, we make sure that everyone is aware of what's being said, and we avoid voice chat whenever possible, to include everyone, people with disabilities, people without mics, people who don't speak English very well, etc
One of the key differences between then and now is that voice chat is prevalent and every guild uses it. There are also far more established organized guilds simply because of the advances of the internet. Social media is common. There are more MMORPG specific websites to recruit on. Websites are more affordable and now even free guild hosting exists for people without any knowledge in website design.
No amount of forced grouping will change any of this. There is already forced grouping in modern MMOs with dungeons and things move along as they always will with guildies grouping together, using voice chat. If you take it any further, you will just run away people who don't want to group. Trying to force them to group isn't going to solve anything, you will just have less players, not more people grouping.
All the thing u listed was my favorite part of EQ1. Even when the Bazaar was introduced in SoL I was still in love with the game. Bazaar brought people together in one common area.
Asking others for warps and "tipping" them for their services instead of the later days where it was like 50p for buffs/warp/etc.
Talking with others in the same zone asking about if so and so is camped so you guys would not be stealing from each other.
Danger
Danger brings people together.
I'm not a fan of it either, but I have no problem with it in a game. If a clan requires voice chat, unfortunately I will not be in that clan. But if others enjoy and find it helpful, then where is the harm?
And disabilities are a non issue here. Obviously we are discriminating against the blind by typing and not using voice.
You seem to think of "community" as some big happy collection of thousands of players all living in harmony. I see community as having a group of friends to play with and have fun with and then simply dealing with the rest of the players in game. I don't need to know everyone on a first name basis.
Still not sure what people see that is so bad in MMO's that is not already prevalent in anything related to the internet. You could argue it is the internet itself that has gotten less friendly over the years and that has translated into gaming communities as well. That is my opinion of it. Young people in particular I find, seem to have lost all sense of any social morals when hiding behind their anonymity. Thats probably not going to change, even if the games do become more social.
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The great thing about interdependence is that surpasses independence without taking away the option of it. Great concept.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
How are disabilities a non-issue, plenty of people who play MMO do have hearing or speaking disabilities.
For them it is an issue if you use voice chat in a guild and don't integrate them properly into the guild.
Same thing can be said for European servers, which have to deal with people who's native language isn't English, trying to integrate people from Europe into a guild is much more complex if you use voice chat. While writing is very straightforward, speaking is not, and it's extremely unenjoyable to force someone to speak English when they game.
My native tongue is not English, and while I don't mind speaking in English if necessary, I loathe doing this in games. Do people who speak English natively enjoy speaking in French or German? I doubt it.
MMO need to take these things into account and so do guilds if they wan to be successful, especially on a European server.
^^
You make an MMO socially oriented,an MMO that urges you to seek others out,then it will build a healthy community.
You take away things that promote social encounters.Like not having to group for 90% of the game,using an auction house instead of haggling with other players and so on.Then it will be like the MMO's we have today.
Players will mold to the method put in front of them.If they need others to accomplish something,then they will seek out others.If you dont need others to do something,then why bother wasting your time seeking others out?
its that simple.
Ok so we are all supposed to be able speak different languages now??
I believe it is called the straw man argument that you are using here.
The topic is not about how to integrate people with disabilities and language barriers into a community Waterlilly. Those problems have been around since the "early days" when MMO's were supposedly "community friendly". Therefore that makes them a non issue in this discussion.
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It is for people like me who play on a European server. Our guild has people from all over Europe, and few of them have English as their native tongue. If we forced voice chat on those people, many people would not be able to integrate properly.
We try to limit guild chat to English, and we try to limit voice chat, so everyone is able to understand each other.
The topic is about community, and people being able to communicate with each other effectively, is a big part of this.
If we forced voice chat, not only would many people be unhappy in the guild, it would severely limit our recruitment pool.
It also makes you simply lose subscribers. Many players simply don't want molds that force them to group and be interdependent. Also I have no idea why people believe that dependence makes a great community. As I mentioned before in EQ2, you were totally group dependant, and the community was absolutely toxic, many people ended up leaving the game.
Im not interested in logging in and standing around for an hour waiting for a group to finish a simple quest. That's a waste of my time. The only people that can do that are non-working persons. Game devs finally figured out that not every player is a 12 y/o boy living at home with Mommy.
Sometimes Im not interested in interacting with people, sometimes I am. The MMO has to give you a choice. No one says you cant group to do solo content. But You MUST group to do group content. Many of us gainfully employed persons don't have time for that.
Current Games: WOW, EVE Online
At the start of the game.
Bard, yes, out in the open.
Druid, Yes, they could kite groups of mobs for great exp.
Necro (Yup, they could fear kite quite well).
Shaman was good too.
Everything else? Hell no lol. Yes there were mobs in the game that were soloable, that any class could solo, but the exp you'd get from them was laughable at best.
The only way to kill the good exp mobs was with a group, or kiting. A Paladin, enchanter, SK were not soloing any good exp mobs, and as a ranger I could solo a lot of stuff, but it was so painfully slow it wasn't even worth the effort.
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In general, I think voice chat is essential to certain parts of MMO game play. Being an old school MMO player myself, however, I have to say, as far as community as a whole is concerned, it can be detrimental as well. I'm sure many will see this as being controversial, but in many social situations, voice chat usually aids in the formation of cliques. Groups become so dead set on grouping with certain people that guilds as a whole can suffer. "We're waiting for <insert name> to log on, sorry no room in the group". I've seen this happen far too often. People become alienated. Then you have the clique drama, one person quits the game, then it becomes becomes like a domino effect. People become attached to certain people, many substitute voice chat as their sole source of social interaction with people (irl). It become more than just chatting about what you're doing in the game. That's just my psychological view though.
I agree 100% with one of the posters above. Interdependency is essential for community. The need for certain classes/crafters/professions etc. creates a need to interact with people. Otherwise you have a game like GW2 where everyone is the same, you can go through the whole game, completing your personal story quests and never once group with another player. Never once send a tell. Everyone is the same anyway, why would you need to connect with other players?
I don't see what you're talking about. An integrated VOIP system can work extremely well. Sure, having a guild-wide always on VOIP would be extremely bad lol. (That'd be like having a 100 man vent server with 1 channel, lol).
But simply walking up to someone, highlighting them, holding a Push to Talk Say button and instantly being able to speak with someone, who can turn, highly you, hold Push to Talk Say button and greet you back would work really well. Then you could also have a group VOIP in game, with a Push to Talk Group button, to speak specifically to group members.
VOIP can work extremely well if it's integrated correctly. It's not every going to completely remove typing, but in the scenarios where VOIP wouldn't be applicable (/OOC /Region /guild /shout) you still have text based communication, and in those areas, there's no shortage of people communicating. Go into any MMORPG today, even the worst ones, and there are tons of people actively engaging in /region and /guild chat.
The part that's lacking is the /say and /group communication, which is exactly where VOIP can work the best, to pick up the slack.
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Except it is not that simple.
What if you can't find the item you want because the person who has it is not online? Or what if he is on the other side of the world and requires some long distance travelling? Etc.
Whenever you put the onus on gameplay that requires interaction with other players you are opening up a whole new can of worms. Because basically other players can be unreliable. Just look at how long it takes in game usually to get any soret of group action going. While having to search for a player and haggle sounds interesting it is also time consuming.
So the while the concept sounds good, implementing it in a positive way so as not to downgrade a players game experience is much more difficult. Much simpler to have the auction house and most people prefer convenience over social interaction, unfortunately.
Getting the interaction without degrading game play is the key, but if you start slowing players down and making their life more difficult, it may actually spoil the community.
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People forming clicks and being selective on who they invite/don't invite to a group has nothing to do with VOIP. It has to do with people forming bonds and then wanting to play with the people they already know instead of looking to meet new people.
This happens regardless of VOIP or typing based communication. It happened all the time in games like LoK, UO and EQ, where VOIP was completely absent.
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