When did MMO players become so Anti-Social.

Krimzin

I've been an MMO player since UO/EQ. I have had the pleasure of playing with some truly great people and have made long term friendships along the way. I have my Online Friends who I game with and RL friends with whom I do other activities outside of gaming. On occasion RL friends and Online friends do cross paths.

I've played every major MMO in the last 15 years. Some good, some horrible, but I always meet some great people along the way.

More and more it seems all anyone is interested in, is a Multiplayer game that they can play solo. WTF? Why play an MMO if you don't want to play with other people? Kinda like going to a brothel to sit in the corner and masturbate..

Could someone please explain this phenomenon to me, because I just don't get it.

Rusque

I'm sure there will be varying opinions on what led to it, but I'm going to go with the rise of the elitism as commonplace behavior (thanks to dps meters and similar mods).


Before elitism became rampant, you could go to a dungeon or raid, and as long as you didn't blatantly do something moronic, everything was fine. It was easy to have a good time with strangers. Just show up, try hard, have fun.

But then guides started coming out, performance mods, gear mods, etc, etc. And people became numbers. You were expected to KNOW the content before ever seeing it. Talk about spoilers . . . how is that even fun? I'd rather experience things as they come in game, not because I youtube'd the fight and watched it 30 times before reading a step by step guide for what my class should be doing during the fight.

So now, you get into pretty much any game, it'll be decent at launch before people have had a chance to inundate the community with these resources, but eventually the elitism will creep back in and you'll join a group that just wants to go as fast as possible and is watching everyone's numbers constantly so they can dole out blame for being 3% less efficient!

If you look at people's fondest memories of games like UO, they'll remember stuff like coming across someone who figured out some silly convoluted way of trapping their house, and it was fun. If UO was mainstream in today's marketplace, "the best build" would exist for every aspect of the game and if you didn't follow it, you would be "wrong". And "the best trap" would be viewed on youtube 500k times and everyone would be doing it. yadda yadda.

jmcdermottuk

The more MMO's are designed for casual or solo play the less players need each other. Add "features" like a cross server dungeon finder and the likelyhood of ever meeting the same players twice drops dramatically, allowing people to behave like utter dicks with no consequences.

We've been invaded by the FPS crowd, leading to a move to faster gameplay, shorter gameplay, action combat, small group based gameplay and the typical FPS toxic communities.

WoW brought in so many players that had never played MMO's before, from other genres, that the MMO has changed to suit them, not the original MMO crowd. There's more of them than us and they are the ones that devs are catering to now.

Meanwhile, we - the original MMO players, are left to wander through the wasteland that our beloved genre has turned into.

TLDR version:
Dickheads.

Hariken

I agree with Rusque. It became more about numbers and it pissed people off. So now people don't want to deal with elitism anymore and just want to play the game for fun without having some jerkoff ruining it for them.

Lord.Bachus

The more userfriendly the game comes..

the less users need to communicate with eachother..

JemAs666

I think the path of least resistance pathway is the cause.  In any scenario when you do not have to deal with other humans it is the path of least resistance.  Even walking through Hell would be easier than dealing with MMO players in general.  Others have pointed out other possible reasons as well 

Avanah

The moment players wanted to spend less time vs reward in games is when they became anti-social elitist asshats.

CalmOceans

If you can solo or if there is an autogrouping system, there's no reason to interact with other people.

EQ didn't have autogrouping nor solo opportunities for most classes, so socialization was high.

I don't know why some people prefer today's MMO, I don't think all people who play MMO are MMO players, and I don't think all MMO games, are actually MMO.

femininitytrinity

I think the shutdown of CoH left me feeling a bit antisocial

Gabriel-Knight

jmcdermottuk said:

The more MMO's are designed for casual or solo play the less players need each other. Add "features" like a cross server dungeon finder and the likelyhood of ever meeting the same players twice drops dramatically, allowing people to behave like utter dicks with no consequences.

I think that's the main issue here. Back in the day, when the servers were smaller and the content was "harder", forming a group and doing your job was essential. Today you just press a button, the group is ready, and you just roflstomp everything in a few seconds. Why would you care about everyone else? They may as well be bots for all you know.

I played in a private vanilla server of WoW a while ago for a whole year, and there were like 200 people in total, 100 online at peak times. If you acted like a dick there, good luck finding another group the next time. You HAD to work your way in the dungeons, and you HAD to be nice with your teammates, just as we do IRL, otherwise they would just kick your ass and call someone else, forever sending you into a pariah state.

So yes, i think the problem is that games are now way too crowded, and the chances of meeting with the same people are second to none. The day devs fix that, the rest will inevitably change, but of course they don't want it because faster queues and dungeons = moar purplez, therefore moar happines for the standard players = moar moneyz.

The days of good MMOs are over, took me a while to accept that but i finally did it.

RavingRabbid

IMO this is a big factor in why a lot of players like myself have become anti-social in MMOs. Naturally its not limited to this.

Player Elitism, Trolls, unneeded cursing in voice-chat or world chat, Graphic sexual remarks (discussions of rape), putting other players down, Anti-Christian/Muslim remarks, Players that are Drunk or High, Political discussions, bullying, Do nothing Guilds or Guilds with stupid high demands of players, Bigoted race remarks, lack of thanks for helping other players, etc, etc.

Many MMO players and former MMO players that I have spoken with prefer the casual/solo gameplay with a smidgeon of grouping due to the above issues. There is absolutely no need for (far too many) players to be in one of the categories above. Communities need to step up and shut the garbage down as much as humanly possible.

Siris23

Some days I'll hop on and run a few dungeons
Some days I'll try and pug a raid
Some days I just want to login and smash some mobs by myself
Some days I just mindlessly run around gathering
Some days I (all of the above)

If I felt an MMO I played was lacking in the solo department I would ask for more, but does that mean I want a solo/single player game? Hell No!

Variety is the spice of (virtual) life.

barasawa

Krimzin said:

...More and more it seems all anyone is interested in, is a Multiplayer game that they can play solo. WTF? Why play an MMO if you don't want to play with other people? ...

There are plenty of reasons, but let's not forget it's also the fault of the publishers. Lots of the types of games we want to play are only made available as MMOs. 
Let's say you like RPGs that have a story. Better yet, let's say your tired of playing as the 13 year old boy/girl that has to save the entire world and instead you'd rather just bounce around exploring an interesting world with various story lines and subplots while attacking and pillaging the occasional orc or unwary dragon? 
Not a lot of those around that are worth playing, are there. Let's narrow the field even more, what if you want the character you play to be YOURS!!!! Not Geralt the Spizzball Champ, or whatever pre-defined character most single player games force you to use? 
Yes, most single player games are very narrow in their design and focus. It's a race to save the universe (or whatever) with the devs chosen protagonist. If you're lucky, they'll give you the option of a male or female version, and you get to change the hairdo. 

Now of course there are plenty of other reasons as well. Nobody is after what I'm after, so I have to solo it. Well crud, all my friends are on different time schedules, or different quests, or different continents, so I can't join with them. 
How about a pug? Um, yeah..... Unless it's a dungeon or the equivalent, the pug tools won't help. Of course you could always spam LFG, but we know what that usually results in. You waste a huge amount of time trying to find someone until you either give in and solo, or keep waiting until you finally get some help. Ok, now that person you finally got, most of the time is an idiot, useless, a need hog, or all of the above. Don't forget the other thing that happens if PvP can occur out there, the griefer that waits until your beat up and waiting for cooldown who then ganks you and possibly masturbates on his screen in ecstasy over the view of your corpse. 

Now don't get me wrong, in games where PvP isn't non-consensual, I've had a great time with others, but it's pretty rare. I've partied with more people from Thailand, Myanmar, and China than I have with people in my own country. Heck, one day I was with 3 Chinese, only one could sort of speak English, and we rocked the F'ing house all day! It was amazing how much strategy you can make work using simple emotes and limited verbal if the people are intelligent and not a pack of self righteous (choose your own insult here)! Why the heck don't I find more Americans that are cooperative like that? I dunno, maybe because too many of them think it's a bloody competition and anything goes so long as they get theirs? I do not know, but I have seen a lot of you-know-whats with that exact attitude.

Then there's the contraries. I've done plenty of that myself. You're told you can't solo this, or go there, or whatever, if you're solo - you HAVE to have a party. Well bugger that, let's just see if I actually CAN solo it! I've often enjoyed doing crazy things like that. In WoW, I was always going places I wasn't supposed to be. Like a 7th level exploring (and not dying) in The Blasted Lands. I surprised a whole lot of people that day. 
How about in the old Fallout game when everyone told me it was impossible to keep Dogmeat alive and finish the game with him. I made it my mission in life to do exactly that! I did it too, though I did have to reload a savegame more than once, or twice... 

In fact, it seems as though the more a game tries to force people to cooperate, the less they are willing too. The greatest group cooperation I've seen in games was only achieved by those with two circumstances in effect. First, you couldn't force pvp on someone, and second there was no attempt to make people group up, ie - no minimum party size and no forced character specializations (tank/dps/healer). Why this was so I'll leave to psychologists and sociologists, but it's just my anecdotal observations. 

Does this clear things up for anyone?  I thought not. Oh well, just go and play however you want, so long as you aren't F'ing with someone else.

jigo86

no more grouping needed u can solo everything so no1 need to be sozial

CrazKanuk

RavingRabbid said:

IMO this is a big factor in why a lot of players like myself have become anti-social in MMOs. Naturally its not limited to this.

Player Elitism, Trolls, unneeded cursing in voice-chat or world chat, Graphic sexual remarks (discussions of rape), putting other players down, Anti-Christian/Muslim remarks, Players that are Drunk or High, Political discussions, bullying, Do nothing Guilds or Guilds with stupid high demands of players, Bigoted race remarks, lack of thanks for helping other players, etc, etc.

Many MMO players and former MMO players that I have spoken with prefer the casual/solo gameplay with a smidgeon of grouping due to the above issues. There is absolutely no need for (far too many) players to be in one of the categories above. Communities need to step up and shut the garbage down as much as humanly possible.

Couldn't agree more. Remember when MMOs weren't jobs? That was awesome! I remember when I used to fall asleep in raids and then we'd have a good laugh over it when we wiped. Now? Everything is so serious. 

StoneRoses

Meh...!!!

I spend all day talking to customers at work. Majority of them are not pleasant to work with most of them find the dumbest things to complain about. They have to be right about being fucking dumbasses. 

Jumping into an MMO, my interaction with folks is give or take,  selective and situational. 

So no, I am not blaming the game or developers.

AlyssaImagine

I find it happened with dungeon finder and the like. I'm just going to leave an example. In the Beta, FF XIV: ARR didn't have Dungeon Finder, at least not until open Beta, I think it was, or a little earlier. Before Dungeon Finder, everyone had to find people willing to go through dungeons with them. I met people during Beta, and we are still friends. Once Dungeon Finder was put into the game, meeting people was a thing of the past. People weren't focused on building long term friendships, because it would be easy to find groups. The few you did meet just wanted a quick group, and typically weren't interested in trying to get better at the game. They hated wiping, and didn't want to figure out ways to achieve victory. People just no longer cared, they only cared about getting through content, and preferably as quickly as possible with little effort.

stayontarget

Krimzin said:

I've been an MMO player since UO/EQ. I have had the pleasure of playing with some truly great people and have made long term friendships along the way. I have my Online Friends who I game with and RL friends with whom I do other activities outside of gaming. On occasion RL friends and Online friends do cross paths.

I've played every major MMO in the last 15 years. Some good, some horrible, but I always meet some great people along the way.

More and more it seems all anyone is interested in, is a Multiplayer game that they can play solo. WTF? Why play an MMO if you don't want to play with other people? Kinda like going to a brothel to sit in the corner and masturbate..

Could someone please explain this phenomenon to me, because I just don't get it.

I don't really know Krimzin, but I have meet quite a few good people playing solo centric mmo's over the years, so I really don't think that's the issue.  I think it has more to do with the toxic community in gaming in general.

Hell even at this forum gaming site is prof of that, or take a stroll in games like LoL.  You really can't blame the games in general but in the society we live in today.

Cheers.

Yoofaloof

I love playing MMO's purely for the knowledge that other 'human beings' are milling about rather than NPC's. Don't really like grouping as there is always another player who can play your character better than you (how they have time to type their thoughts on my playstyle whilst they are supposed to be playing their toon is beyond me) so I tend to ignore chat or hide it altogether. Most players I come across are quite pig-headed. Only this afternoon on an Adventure in Rift part of the quest was to pick up certain items - a player could see that I was on my way to collect it - but no they wanted it regardless. If I see someone doing the same I let them have it. Players today have no conscience and are all out for themselves. Seems I missed out on UO, their community sounded fantastic and seems there hasn't been one to match it since? Guess I'm anti-social too reading back...

Tamanous

Social interactions are supported by game design. Developers have built recent mmos to purposely attract the solo player because they are the larger market. 

I don't socialize as much because most of the game play is hindered by it. I play along side players who have zero history in social games because they are pulled in from mainstream genre's for the greater $$$.

I'm trying desperately to get a friend into ESO but we have to go through 50 levels of easy mode with less than 5% of the content even suited for anything other than solo. We can do delves because I can solo them so fast and easily they appear nearly pointless as is. A few world bosses, 1 or 2 public dungeons, some easy mode Dolems and 1 group dungeon and that's it. The rest of the entire zone is complete easy mode complicated by stories that don't work well with grouping.

We want to head out and do hard shit but we can't unless we do Orsinium (1 zone), level to vet (late vet for Craglorn), grind the same dungeons over and over and avoid story which forces solo play. The games themselves go out of their way to make the social experience difficult ... because they want to preserve to solo experience because they targeted that group in the first place. It is clear that most group content is separated and categorized more as a minor alternate play style or delegated to end game to minimize content vs player population which is more development cheat than a primary design focus of their game. This is perhaps a lesser evil in ESO but exists across many mmos.

Social mmos will only exist when the developer designs a social mmo and targets that audience. Luckily a very few indie mmorpgs are on the horizon but come with all the risks indie games inherit. Here's hoping.

nariusseldon

Krimzin said:

More and more it seems all anyone is interested in, is a Multiplayer game that they can play solo. WTF? Why play an MMO if you don't want to play with other people? 

Because of the IP? Game play? Case in point, where can you find a action RPG that let you play marvel characters except Marvel Heroes? 

nariusseldon

when socializing is not fun?

olepi

Once MMO's were dumbed down enough to appeal to the general gaming public, you ended up with lots of Mortal Kombat Punks in the MMO's.

LaughingDead

i think of it like this: the MMO is like school. there is the anti-social(shy or strategist), the "hi everyone", and there is testers. the shy watch what other people posted and learn from there as well as google help and the strategist test to see their dps and see how fast a character can clear a dungeon or defeat a boss. the "hi everyone" try to get into a guild on the 1st day, very social, and love to be in groups. the testers may not want to be social because they want to see how the game is b4 deciding to make it their main game.

Kefo

stayontarget said:

Krimzin said:

I've been an MMO player since UO/EQ. I have had the pleasure of playing with some truly great people and have made long term friendships along the way. I have my Online Friends who I game with and RL friends with whom I do other activities outside of gaming. On occasion RL friends and Online friends do cross paths.

I've played every major MMO in the last 15 years. Some good, some horrible, but I always meet some great people along the way.

More and more it seems all anyone is interested in, is a Multiplayer game that they can play solo. WTF? Why play an MMO if you don't want to play with other people? Kinda like going to a brothel to sit in the corner and masturbate..

Could someone please explain this phenomenon to me, because I just don't get it.

I don't really know Krimzin, but I have meet quite a few good people playing solo centric mmo's over the years, so I really don't think that's the issue.  I think it has more to do with the toxic community in gaming in general.

Hell even at this forum gaming site is prof of that, or take a stroll in games like LoL.  You really can't blame the games in general but in the society we live in today.

Cheers.

You can meet good people playing solo centric MMO's but MMO's by design are supposed to be about community. Everyone has their days where they don't want to interact with other people but when you bring that mindset into a MMO to be a constant thing then what the hell is the point of even playing one?

Back in EQ's heyday there were days where I would just put on anon and go do my thing but the most fun I ever had was finding new people to group with and then getting absolutely destroyed by some mobs

Dragpz

Life is pretty stressful sometimes, and most of that stress comes from people. As society becomes more and more technologically dependent, people become less social and more machine-reliant. Perhaps if MMOs accurately reflect life, then a life in which introverted behavior is taking hold of more and more of the people would likely reflect the playerbase of most modern MMOs. For me personally, I dislike playing single-player games because I've spent most of my childhood playing them. But, Multi-player games that offer both Solo and Group content offer players new degrees of freedom to how they'd like to tune their MMO life. They can either become social-Group-oriented butterfly or a Han Solo artist. But, again, if they are anything like they are IRL, they will likely play Solo and only group when necessary. And, of course, developers will likely notice this trend and aim for this type of demographic.