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General: Community Spotlight - Online Friends
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Community Manager Laura Genender takes a look at the concept of online friends and looks at a forum post that brings to question the concept of friendships in MMOs, and what communities best foster these long-lasting relationships.
Our mothers never got it, did they? I can’t count how many times I had a parent or a sibling ask me, “Why don’t you get off the computer and spend some time with your friends?” Because, Mom, my friends are in my computer.
The gamer generation is experiencing a phenomenon of technology: the long distance community. Pen pals only took you so far, pre-internet, but now-a-days we have entire cliques at the tip of our fingertips, with instant communication and even virtual spaces where we can hang out. Forget Vegas – even marriages are formed and destroyed online!
But how easy is it to make friends in an MMO? This week on the forums, user natuxatu brings to question the concept of friendships in MMOs, and what communities best foster these long-lasting relationships.
Read the whole article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I've been very fortunate over the years while playing MMO's that I have made some good friends who I still hang out with online, from my days in EQ1 in 1999 til the present day playing WoW.
The community I have been part of has moved from game to game and basically kept the same core members in each game and because of this we have built some very strong ties with each other, infact each year since 2001 we have met up in RL and spent a long weekend recounting our gaming exploits and talking about our RL aswell, this year it's my turn to host our get together in Great Britain, last year it was in Sweden.
I have found that the friendships I have made online have been stronger than the ones I have made in RL, the fact that I have something in common with these ppl is the glue that keeps us together and keeps us coming back each day to either chat or play whatever game we may be involved in at that time.
I hope that I will still remain friends with my online community for many years to come.
The matron of honor at my wedding is a woman I've never met in real life, yet I've been great friends with her online for 12 years. Several of our guests as well I've either only met once, or never at all. A lot of people think it's weird or don't understand, but for me, the people I talk with online are just as real and just as important as my RL friends.
[There are advantages to meeting friends in-game, though. For one thing, you know you have a shared interest – if you meet a buddy in your Alegbra class, or at a bar, all you know you have in common is that you need a math credit or you like beer. If you meet a friend in City of Heroes you know you’ll have plenty to talk about, from Blaster builds to Ghost Widow’s awesome costume.]
I am sorry, but I take issue with this statement.
I agree that gaming friends have much in common in the way of their online interests, but there is more to life than gaming. The friend in the Algebra class could turn into a study partner and later a true friend you can talk to and have lunch/dinner with. Your bar buddy could be someone you go out and party with.
I gamed hardcore from 1999-2004. I made some very good friends, business associates, and even became semi-popular as a online celebrity for a while (www.uopowergamers.com). I met some really nice people and maintain contact with a few of them. The real friends though are the ones I can actually see sitting across from me. The ones that have a shoulder for me to cry on or vice versa. The people I can share physical contact with are the ones that I feel stronger feelings for than the ones online. Sorry, but that's the truth of things. Human beings are social creatures. They desire social contact. Online experiences are not a fullfillment of that need. I had my best times playing Magic with people I can see than in any form of online gaming I ever was involved with. I see online gaming now as an escape where I can go kill a few goblins then shut it off and go into the real world to enjoy time with my Karate students, playing a card game with my kids (Magic FTW!), etc.
Your mother/friends/siblings are right. You need to get out and play in the real world. Real friendships are made here in the real world. Sometimes we get lucky and can meet some pretty decent folks online and maintain decent relationships. But when you need a hug or someone to hang out with, the real world is where it's at.
Hasta.
The author grouped what the whole community looks for in friends with "We." I certainly don't choose friends on whether or not they benefit me or not. I choose friends based on their maturity, common interests, and like-mindedness. It really has nothing to do with competition for gear for me. I think the author, like many authors on this website, reference the WoW community as an example too much and groups the rest of us in that same category. I would just like some credit when it is due to the good people of the human race, instead of being grouped with the low lifes who think only of themselves (greed).
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
One of the most valuable (and true) lessons taught to me by my mother was that in life the number of "real" friends (people who would lend you money, or even die for you) will be less than the fingers on one hand, and you'll have fingers left over. Everyone else is either family or an acquaintance.
I put all online friends in the acquaintance category. (friends of convenience, as long as our common interests hold true)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I have found so many good friends online and alot of bad friends too but most of the good firends i have known for 4+ years and we still kicking today.
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.
I find having little to no friends to be just fine for me. I learned long ago: trust noone, yourself least of all.
I've been online for a long, long time and I haven't made a single friend online. I have plenty of friends in real life, but the people I meet online all bleed into a single anonymous voice so to speak. You just can't have the same level of communication through text or voice chat that you can get from actual face time.
I guess that's why I don't chat with people online. All the contacts in my IM are people I know in real life and anyone else that messages me gets ignored. Even among the people on my contacts list, I rarely chat with them online. Online chat is reserved for friends that are too far away to talk too for free, even on my cell phone.
As for games, it may just be the kinds of games that I play and how I play them. I generally play FPS and RTS games exclusively. I'm not a very chatty player. Sure, I'll talk to my opponents in WH40K: Dawn of War, but I generally remain stone silent in most FPS games. I've never joined a clan or a guild.
I have done pick up groups in MMORPGs, and I admit that it's way more fun than soloing, but communication is usually limited to whatever goal the group is working toward. I don't inquire into the lives of other players and I let people know right from the start that I'm not going to give any information about myself (aside from age and gender) to them. It's nothing personal, I just don't feel that talking to someone over the internet, regardless of how often, means that I "know" that person or vice versa.
I realize that not everyone feels the same as I do and have made friends over the interweb. I'm happy for you and relieved that you weren't bludgeoned to death with a claw hammer when you met your online "friend" in RL. To each their own.....
No sir. You are Wrong. That statement is true FOR YOU and for people who are "wired" mentally, emotionally, socially, and culturally the way YOU are, but that statement is NOT a fundamental universal truth applicable to humans in general.
This is the very error that evangelists and moral crusaders for one cause or another fall into: if you're not exactly like 'us' then you are deviant and the culture will not tolerate that.
The real fact is that Man is not homogeneous when it comes to methods of fulfillment of emotional needs.
As a past editor of Computer Gaming World put it:
My point is this: don't let anyone shame you into thinking that playing computer games is a waste of time. Because whatever they're doing to pass the time is no better – and it certainly isn't going to make them any less dead in the end.
or maybe some Thoreau is in order:
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Before people become too critical of relationships with virtual friends on the internet, they should remember how well imaginary gods have served humanity's needs over the millennia. If the latter can be so powerful that it motivates people to fly planes into buildings, certainly the former - with real beings behind them - can be even more meaningful (not to mention realistic: "Relax, d00d; I wish I could help you, but I don't have 72 virgins here...").
I have been online gaming for around 5 years now and for me it is about the friends that you meet that make the game fun. I have met some of my best friends on here now. Yes, I have friends in rl, but my friends online mean just as much to me and several of them have become rl friends. In fact, I am getting married to one.
When you play a game for a while, you really get to know everyone and you find out about their kids and marriages and parents. You grow together and learn things...not just gaming stuff but rl stuff too. You end up talking about the news, books, movies and current events. It really is no different than rl. And many of my friends that i have met on here would have let me borrow money or help me in anyway that they could...again, no different than rl. And I would do the same for them. It's really what you make of it. Life is short. Loosen up and laugh and make some friends 
.
I met my girlfriend online playing WoW. We had been gaming together for a few months and we just never talked about where we lived, then I found out she lived in the next town over from me. We met up at the Mall in real life and things grew from there.
I have a handful of really "close" friends, and all but one are all online, and even the one who is in real life also plays online. Everybody else is an acquaintance although I prefer their company over my acquaintances in real life.
Currently Playing: Tabula Rasa
Gaming History: EQ, EQ2, SWG, EVE, Anarchy Online, CoX, GW, SRO, Rakion, Ryzom, WoW, Rappelz, Shadowbane, 9Dragons, DAoC, Dungeon Runners, DnD Online, Space Cowboy, LotRO, Vanguard, Fury, Hellgate
Wanting to Play: WAR, TCoS, Darkfall, Aion
Well, maybe Thoreau should have gone out more frequently of Walden pond
, and shaved too. 
Kidding aside, I must agree wholeheartedly with SNieves. Regardless of what one "thinks" or may "believe" about the topic, and whatever game magazine editors say (never a source of illuminating, mature, or erudite discourse IMNSHO... I mean, come *on*), generally speaking online acquaintances (thats all they are, really, regardless of the emotional involvement you might feel) are just that, and it is a piss-poor substitute for physical/eye contact. This coming from a guy who was a former heavy IRC chatter who met one of his GFs online (and lived with her in RL for 3 years), so I am also speaking from my limited personal experience as well. I am not ruling out the possibility that some of those virtual acquaintances may later gel into actual friendship, but that should be the exception and not the rule.
Some find their "emotional needs" fulfilled in a bottle of tequila, or by pouring their salary into pimping out their cars. Fine, people have the free will to pursue things of substance or vacuous illusory things to their hearts content. I'm cool with that. Saddened, but cool.
Lets see... of all those countless people i've met and chatted online and poured my heart out since 1990, deviant as I am, I have befriended... um, let's see... two? Maybe 1.5? Yep, RL wins hands down.
The "Community Spotlight" author made the mistake of constantly using the word "friends" when in reality she's mostly talking about acquaintances and less-than-acquaintances... little more than bots with highly advanced AI. Either that, or she has a very odd concept of what "friendship" really is.
Bah semantics and quibbling and here I am joining in to toss in my 2 cents.
Let's toss out a few definitions for cannon fodder first:
friend - noun
A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement
Word History: A friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin am?cus "friend" and am? "I love" is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos "friend" and phile? "I love." In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, fr?ond, the Old English word for "friend," was simply the present participle of the verb fr?on, "to love." The Germanic root behind this verb is *fr?-, which meant "to like, love, be friendly to." Closely linked to these concepts is that of "peace," and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root, *frithu-, meaning exactly that.
--
Anyhow one man's friend is another man's acquaintance!
Those who say one cant have "online friends" or there is a difference - HELL YES you can have online friends and HELL YES there is a difference - every single one of my friends is different and THE RELATIONSHIP WITH EACH ONE **IS** DIFFERENT
gee, what a novel concept [kinda like this tome of a reply lol] - people are always quick to stupidity and quick with their opinionated replies because they prefer to narrow their definitions and want to give out definitive answers in posts
blahhhhhh - life at our perceptual level is so much more continuous than discrete - i do make a distinction between friends and acquaintances but online/vs real-life is an irrelevant factor
would i die for them? would i trust them with my cell number or a personal check or a critical task? do i confide in them? do i talk of personal matters to them or keep it strictly business? so many similar criteria and characteristics play into whether i decide someone is a friend or merely a 'distant acquaintance' and that distance isnt necessarily of the physical kind - they could be my cubicle mate 2 feet away but never be a friend!
physical proximity is not an important relevant factor in determination of friendship
is it nice to meet a friend physically ? YES indeed!
xkey
xkey was here
I was basically gonne say that, and be an ass about it.
Your way works to.
Stereotypes are not facts, handy backdoors for attention burglars, though.
Reading them in the form of 'articles' got old a long time ago.
Oppinion stated.
This article is slightly vague.
Online can mean anything from a chat group to messageboards to online chats (MSN) to online games. Heck, online games with built in group voice (Lotro) are actually the cheapest long-distance phone calls with family members, if you have to talk a lot.
Online friends can be:
1. friends made online and never met
2. friends made online but followed up with RL contacts
3. friends (even sibblings) maintained in contact via online means of communication
RL friends for RL things, vice versa, I have RL friends who goes eat with me during lunch at work. I have online friends who meet me regularly online for games for online activities. Why would one category preclude the other? RL friends can hurt you in as much as online friends can. A RL friend can gun you in your face, an online friend can at best stab your avatar ingame.
Do you look at someone who betrays you as a friend?
A little single minded aren't you?
Point being, that 'it' can not logically be your friend. Being a traitor.
Poethical justice is not fair.
The key discussion is not who to be a friend. The key is, are online friends inferior to RL friends? Take the case of betrayal, I would sometimes think that someone you know in RL and meet face to face, and trusted (friends) have the chance to hurt you more than someone you only get along with online.
The key discussion is not who to be a friend. The key is, are online friends inferior to RL friends? Take the case of betrayal, I would sometimes think that someone you know in RL and meet face to face, and trusted (friends) have the chance to hurt you more than someone you only get along with online.
Explination:
I may state I previously had a friend. You may not know from this that I still possess this friend.
If the friend in question did betray me, I do presently not posses this friend. Friend eliminated.
Friend does now exist not, following? Unless you kept the traitor, and you are now irrelevant.
As for the definition of online it is an abstract concept, also there is nothing other than yourself to potentially hinder you from meeting these people in the other optional way. (In captivity? Now is when to break out.)
By choice I fail to see the difference. I try to stay positive.
I had a lot of RL friends play MMOs with me. We were friends before the MMO though.
I've also met a lot of characters inside the MMO that I didn't know outside of the MMO, and frankly, I'd rather keep them there. They are kind of like the pals you meet at the casino, or smoking dope. They may be alright to hang out with at the casino, or alright to smoke dope with, but you don't want to bring them home with you.
Maybe that's why I never got an account hacked, or had my items stolen like a lot of the gamers I've read about on these boards. Maybe because I wouldn't blame any of you for selling out your online buds for 1 GP. I mean, beyond all this talk about what is or isn't a friend, it's just a game, and it isn't anything that needs to be taken seriously.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
The key discussion is not who to be a friend. The key is, are online friends inferior to RL friends? Take the case of betrayal, I would sometimes think that someone you know in RL and meet face to face, and trusted (friends) have the chance to hurt you more than someone you only get along with online.
Explination:
I may state I previously had a friend. You may not know from this that I still possess this friend.
If the friend in question did betray me, I do presently not posses this friend. Friend eliminated.
Friend does now exist not, following? Unless you kept the traitor, and you are now irrelevant.
As for the definition of online it is an abstract concept, also there is nothing other than yourself to potentially hinder you from meeting these people in the other optional way. (In captivity? Now is when to break out.)
By choice I fail to see the difference. I try to stay positive.
Not really. Not everyone abandon a friend after 1 betrayal. Many wives forgive their husbands after an affair, which by virtually all definitions is an act of betrayal. That said, you surely can maintain your stand of never forgiving any betrayal. Your stand.
As for meeting in RL, well many of my online friends live so far away, I do not believe I can spare so much commuting time and money to meet each and everyone. AND, I am making new online "friends" everyday. Maybe you will be another one someday.
There is no need for me to meet them in person, to maintain friendship. That is what I come to feel after spending so many hours online. The online part of life is another way of killing time, and meeting them there is as good as meeting them in a cinema or eating out. After the meeting, we go back to our normal life, only to meet again some other time. Whether its face to face or not, it does not matter.