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General: Blog Spotlight: Social Interaction
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Every Week, Community Manager Laura Genender takes a look at one or more of the entries being created in our MMORPG.com blogs. This week, she looks at Jimmy_Scythe's most recent entry, and discusses the social interaction in MMORPGs.
Jimmy_Scythe's blog, "An Onging Tribute to My Own Lameness", is rather ineptly named. There is nothing lame about the contents, and Jimmy's most recent post, dealing with (you guessed it) MMORPGs, is more thought provoking and interesting than "lame."
The blog post begins by exploring the MMORPG's undeniable relation to the MUD - and then, what is a MUD? "Imagine a series of chat rooms that are linked together in a very specific way so that you can only get to a particular room from a connecting room. The links between rooms are designed in ten directions... and each room displays a series of objects that you can interact with... Ultimately, though, MUDs are just collections of fancy chat rooms where you have to specify when you're interacting with objects or talking/emoting with another player."
Over time, the scale of multiplayer gaming has grown - some of our modern MMORPGs have several million players world wide. Players are given more social related tools, including buddy lists, guild systems, and a ton of chat channels. "Am I the only person that thinks this sounds a lot like MSN / Yahoo messager, ICQ and MYSpace?" Jimmy_Scythe questions. "This is the reason why MMORPGs hold the key to a future for the gaming industry. This is also a reason why gamers should be considered."
Read the whole column here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
We need to went our frustration in some way or PVP vs PVE wars will just explode over the MMORPG universe. Social focus is the next logical step and it should provide a way to integrate those 2 playing styles without one destroying the other.
You'll hear NO NO NO, PVP can't mix with PVE! Ofcourse it can't, IN TODAYS games, but todays gamers are starting to look for something more than what is available. Politics, art, buisness, managment, there's always people wanting to play one of those aspects, haha, my sisters plays WoW and she never fought another player there, but by lvl 35 she made well over 300G, she studys economics
Social interaction will give us freedom and once people taste that, thetre will be no coming back.
Just a suggestion, what do you think about a game which would play like a normal MMO with towns and NPCs and wars and mobs and whatnot but with a twist. Those inclined in only fighting would advance trought fighting wars for land...something like WAR but there would be one totaly different layer of gameplay there. One where players with enough social connections and some kind of faction status could take over the roles of NPCs and slowly the whole gameworld would pass from NPC hands to player control. Ofcourse, players would also have the power to make other people loose those positions and for a special twist some of the mob bosses could also be controled by certain players.
Now what I would like to see if a game like this would ever come to be is that you don't advance so much in gear and stats, but more in status and power to control the game world, because that would be true power and not some dice roll power...
MMORPG players really are anti social for the most part, which is why the "RPG" part is left off most of the time people talk about them. Characters actually capable of affecting their game world in a lasting, meaningful way, or having the chance to be special and play a role in a developing story are two facets of role playing games, specificly MUDS and tabletop, that have not been realized in MMOs so far. Introducing these concepts is an essential step that MMOs must take. If people wanted nothing more than a chat room, they wouldn't pay a monthly fee, right?
I kind of agree with the comments of the last poster, but I'm not sure that this will ever happen in an MMO as we know it. Let's take MUDs and tabletop RPGs as a good example of social games as I have had a fair amount of experience with both of them.
Desktop roleplaying typically takes place with a small group of friends, I pretty sure that this level of social interactivity happens in MMOs with small guilds made of up friends too. The level of roleplay doesn't come close, but then, hey, WOW doesn't really come close to the human imagination does it?
MUDs, from my experience anyway, were very social due to the fact that a lot of them had a small number of players and those that had larger numbers developed groups and cliques. As I think the OP pointed out, MUDs are essentially linked chat rooms and therefore by default social interaction will be greater and more creative.
WOW is a computer game, there is enough to keep you occupied that you could probably solo your way to lvl70 and still have fun doing it. Social interactivity is much more of an option than a necessity. All lot of people play WOW with the same mind set that they used to play Counterstrike or Unreal Tournament, like a video game!
I find it ironic that WOW is called "World" of Warcraft, in such a static environment where the scenery never changes, the seasons never change, the mobs respawn in the same place again and again, the quests never change and players have absolutely no influence over the environment at all.
I think one of the best examples I have seen of an MMO that has taken the social element and run with it very well is (don't laugh) Puzzle Pirates! They have player owned land, played owned and run towns, a player run economy and most of all player run progression. By this I mean they don't have levels, you can't "grind" your way to the top, to get to the top ultimately you have to prove your worth to other players (akin to many MUDs), you have to play well and demonstrate that you are playing well. Puzzle Pirates! really is a world and it is very social.
Puzzle Pirates! doesn't have many subscribers compared to WOW, it is less of a video game and more of a world. Is it possible to get the best of both.... maybe but I don't expect to see it any time soon.
I consider myself a hardcore gamer overall. I've witnessed the evolution of the MMO industry. So let me get to it:
1. Social Interaction: The social interaction circles are getting smaller and smaller as new games are being developed. Kindness is almost nonexistant with the introduction of hardcore PvP. Players find themselves trusting no one but their guildmates because of ninja-looters, kill stealers and gold farmers. If you ask for help people want something from you. Even while playing World of Warcraft and being on the same side you will find that there is competition amongst the players- AND THEY ARE ON THE SAME SIDE! So, you decide to do instances that lock 5-40 people in a protection bubble away from the real world. Cutting your social circle from 3k players to just 5-40 (a few more if you want to add your guildmates/friends).
2. Internet: With the explosion of the gaming web sites came the introduction to spoilers, walkthroughs, how-to videos and a plethora of cheats/hacks. Why ask for help in the area you are questing in when you can alt-tab and read the walkthrough in 3 minutes? Atl-tab back over to finish the quest and move on. That gives no room for social interaction PERIOD. IF there was a game ever created that didn't allow walkthroughs and spoilers then you would see a HUGE increase in social interaction because all the information is online within the game. The PLAYERS are the knowledge base instead of the internet. That allows for more social interaction, friendship making and a more solid/stable MMO environment- not to mention the FUN aspect of it all.
3. Randomize MMOs: Well, we all know that X mob spawns in Y location at Z time right? STOP DOING THAT!!! Have the PvE NPCs move around (migrate or go extinct in that area). I think Dark & Light was the only game to introduce non-static spawning. AWESOME idea and it's very hard to make a spoiler/walkthrough if X mob is NOT at Y location at Z time. Why do you think Diablo is STILL popular? The dungeons are randomized over and over and over again. You can play all day long and no two dungeons are the same. That's more exciting because you don't lose the adventure aspect. The gold farmers can't corner off an area and farm it to death. People will have to adventure out to new areas of the game all the time so they are constantly on the move and the adventure never stops.
With more and more games coming out we can look forward to the social circles getting even bigger because people will leave one game to try another (and another and another and another). I left World of Warcraft for 3 months and came back- guild was disbanded and some moved to another server. So that circle is broken and I was a solo player again that had 2 people in my friends list that I could talk to.
While I agree with the poster above on most points, I feel that the biggest contributor to a declining social interaction in MMOs these days are built in FORCED "social interaction" requirements.
To meet your goals in all top MMOs you must join one of the top guilds and raid with them. Unfortunately its extremely counterproductive to building a community with in the game. Instead of gaining friends along the way and possibly building a group/guild of friends to enjoy the end game, most players join the guilds early so they dont miss the opportunity to join the top guilds. "Top guild" to most players are is not defined by the quality of people or potential fun factor, its a simple formula of possibilities of getting the most top loot. Getting as much as possible for the least effort.
I dont think the problem is with how dynamic the world is or how much of the world can be affected. I think the biggest problem is that most games really only allow for one end game play style. Raiding. Yes, of course you have other options, but they are not comparable. You dont have to raid... if you dont want good gear. You dont have to raid...if you dont want to see most of game content. Dont get me wrong, guilds are great and raiding is extremely fun.. However forcing people to raid pushes most people into joining groups of other people that they dont like and cant find a common bond with, other than that they get x probability of getting top lootz..... This is why people leave games and go to others (thinking grass is greener on the other side)..
I think one of the biggest anti-social causes of current games is the level grind. This separates players by both zones and by their abilities. As a player levels up, if he doesn't match pace with his own guild he ends up separated off. I've joined several guilds in WoW and each time, I and my guildmates seldom actually played together. The guilds became a source of information from top down, and that's about it as far as game play. Guilds seem to only work for the really hardcore gamers who are all evenly matched on their race to the "end game", or once at the "end game" where the race has ended maybe (I've yet to get to that level in any game, I just can't stand the grind and don't see the benefit of getting to "the end".
Once upon a time....
True, linear desing and single player mechanics cause this alot more than anti social behavior. People don't play theese games because they wanna avoid people, but because they wanna cooperate or fight other people.
A lot of the anti-social behavior we see in games like WoW has a lot, if not more to do with the way the game is designed than it has to do with the people that play it.
In some cases WoW out right discourages social interaction and grouping. How? Making quests, mainly collection quests, a lot faster to do solo than in any sort of group, even to the extent that if there are others doing that very same quest you can probably do it faster if you compete with them rather than group with them.
Another thing that makes WoW anti-social is the way instances are designed, because instances are balanced for 5, 10, or 25 people, and you can only take 5, 10, or 25 people. This means that not only do you have to leave people out because there is 'no more room' but also that you don't want under-geared players, as that slows things down, if not stops the run altogether.
About the most social part of WoW is PvP, but these days it’s just another grind, so there is no need for even the slightest bit of social interaction.
CoV on the other hand, while not really doing heaps to encourage social interaction, doesn't discourage it either, because grouping is always to your advantage. You get more exp and loot; because there are more, and tougher mobs in the instance compared to if you where solo. You make faster progress in a group as you generally can’t kill things before your team mate has even gotten a shot off like in WoW. Not to mention that you can even do quests faster in the outside world because there are often bosses and higher level mobs around that are hard to solo. Then there’s the mentor / lackey system, which helps remove the level gap.
Which is not to say that CoV is the prefect game, as it gets repetitive fairly quickly, just that I think MMOs really need to focus on trying to include as many people as possible in all aspects of the game, not exclude those that aren’t level 70, don’t have the skeleton key, haven’t got to exalted with the shrubbers, are only wearing greens, etc. I mean, why can’t we storm the black temple with 100-200 players?
For those of you that are laying blanket claims that MMORPG gamers are "anti-social" you need to actually do your research. The evidence and scientific side of things paints a picture that completely contradicts what you are saying. Most gamers will say that the reason they play MMORPG's is because of the other people they are with moreso than the game mechanics or game itself. Check out the Daedalus Project (on google) if you want to read information that is SCIENTIFICALLY based
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"Jimmy explains. "Any game that incorporates social interaction as a major component of gameplay is doomed to fail with the core gaming demographic." Which, currently, is true. Your average gamer doesn't want to spend time on law, politics, art, community, etc - they want to kill mobs, and kill other players."
This is also not true. Second life and Eve Online are games built around this idea as the primary source of entertainment in the game. CCP's executive producer recently labeled the developers of Eve as "janitors" because they value the player driven content in lieu of developer imposed material. Again I seem to be fighting tooth and nail against blatant stereotypes and blanket assumptions that are invariably false.
To say the average gamer doesn't want to spend time on law, politics, art, and community is probably a true statement. But these things are advanced manifestations of a more simple idea. That idea is "making a lasting impact". Now if you asked the average gamer if they'd like the ability to, within their games, make a lasting impact on the world and those around them I guarantee they would say YES. Each person's interpretation of how that's done is different, but I think most people would enjoy existing in a world where things like politics, law, and community influenced them and were in turn influenced by the gamer. All of this requires thinking on a level that is below the surface. The current games are NOT a benchmark for what is possible....and we really need to get that idea out of our heads.
So in summation all of the most in depth psychological and sociological research done in the area of virtual worlds flies in the face of what is being said here completely. It is our ignorance of these ideas that is leading to the ever present stagnation in the industry that we are all seeing.
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