Though Eve has offline skill advancement, game money is required to use any of those skills. In most games, you get game money doing the same things that you do to advance the skills of your character. Unless one can do both while offline, nothing has changed. You might as well gain skills while you are mining in Eve because you can't do any more than what you can buy to do it with. Therefore, the game is still structured around efficient acquisition of gold while online.
Ariste,
The reason that community abandoned EQ, IMO, is for the simple reason that everyone who started the game up to mainly participate in the community found out, over time, that the game was structured so that the only kind of community that mattered in the game, according to the game mechanic, was the efficient min-maxing of both character advancement and use of online time. When EQ first started there were many guilds and players participating in RP; the genre of 3D online gaming was new, fun, and worth being in for a long time just to experience the coolness and wonder factor.
After a time, the mechanics of the game structure took over, and the game became about end-game raid content. Slowly but surely, even the die-hard community people and role-players abandoned ship as the development team focused almost exclusively on powergamer, hardcore raider content.
MMOGs cannot just draw in people looking for a cool place to hang out and form 3D virtual communities anymore because the structure is known; if you don't organize your online time around advancing your character, there is no place for you in the "community". There is no time for drunken gnome runs, for in-game weddings, for rushing off to defend a town from zombies you will likely get no meaningful advance or item from; there is no time for just helping out, chatting, going to the tavern and getting drunk, playing instruments and singing songs.
Until the fundamental structure of the game at least allows one to spend their online time socializing and not falling far behind others and winding up wandering around in deserted areas, that sense of community is not coming back, IMO.
In EQ two things destroyed the community... Luclin and Planes of Power. Luclin added the AH and the whole crafting system in that game became absolete overnight. Why ask a crafter to make you something when you could go to the bizaar and get something better for cheaper than it would cost you for the crafting components to make a similar item? Why hang out in the East Commonlands tunnel and haggle over price with another player when you can just go to Luclin and buy it without talking to a single person? PoP added free teleports to anywhere. This again was a serious blow to the community as a lot of that community developed through the necessity of hanging around other players while traveling... Waiting and riding on boats for example.
I don't really expect half of you to have any clue what I'm talking about as a lot of you never experienced those communities first hand. A lot of you started with MMOs in the post WoW era and these great communities are a totally foriegn concept to you. Imagine if you will the best guild you've ever been in... Now imagine the social aspects of that guild as a server wide community. That is what it was like to play EQ in it's prime.
Players have much more access to information about games now than they did when the internet was new. Game interfaces have become less complex and easier to navigate. There really is no need to interact with others dynamically, since everything can be found on the internet within a few months of a game's launch. Back in the day, you couldn't even set up your hotkeys without the help of someone else to explain it.
That's not true at all. Having the information to do something is not the same as being able to do it. You can look up quest walkthroughs all you want, but if you still have to group with people to complete them, there most certainly is a "need to interact with others."
They have become that way. I have been told repeatedly in recent games that a friend would not group with me because it would slow down their leveling. What? I am not playing this game to level up. I am playing it to share an experience with other people. What happened to going out with a group of friends and getting into trouble or just dinking around. Literally I get yelled at by people for having fun in MMO's now.
It's because modern MMO game mechanics encourage this type of play. They penalize you for grouping, and so people get pissed when they're asked to group. If, instead, games encouraged grouping, you'd see this antisocial behavior begin to fade away.
This pretty much nails the issue on the head. The players really haven't changed that much, but the game mechanics allow them to be independent of each other and without consequences if they act badly.
Without game mechanics such as encouraged and dependent grouping, forced downtime after combat, and social activities (a la SWG's cantainas) we'll not see much of an improvement in the general game community.
Right now about the only respite people have it to find a good clan or guild and 'hide' from the general community. Doesn't help that they keep creating new anti-socialization tools such as Dungeon Finder which only serves to destroy the community building elements of MMO's even further, (even though on the surface it seems to be a positive thing).
Right now most MMO's are all about character progression, hence any activity that doesn't directly contribute to it is frowned upon and causes player to worry more about gear and efficiency and not about having a good time just gaming with each other.
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
To say game mechanics has nothing to do with it is crazy. Soloability of play has a major effect on the community. Other mechanics such as cross-server instances and BG's like WoW has further destroys the community. In earlier games, grouping up contained social interaction. How many groups do you get into now where everyone groups up, does the quest/instance, and disbands with at most a simply "hello" at the beginning, and a "good group. cya" at the end? In previous games, everyone chatted while playing/fighting.
Sometimes, these game mechanics/decisions are driven by player requests that seem very reasonable, but have unintended consequences. An example would be shuttleports in SWG. In the early days, shuttles were on a 10 min. timer. Especially if you had to shuttle three stops to get where you were going, this could tie up a lot of time. Many players complained, and the timer was reduced to like 1 min. Unfortunately, when the timer was 10 min, many players congregated at the shuttleports, interacting, joking, fighting, selling, LFG, etc. Once the timer was reduced, no one was ever there, making the world seem more empty and weakening the sense that there was a community out there.
Unfortunately, I don't see anything on the horizon that will likely change these types of game mechanics. The developers will be no help. It will likely take individual players wanting to stop treating MMO's as single player games to start seeing some change. Our playstyles will need to drive community, rather than developer's game mechanics.
Players have much more access to information about games now than they did when the internet was new. Game interfaces have become less complex and easier to navigate. There really is no need to interact with others dynamically, since everything can be found on the internet within a few months of a game's launch. Back in the day, you couldn't even set up your hotkeys without the help of someone else to explain it.
That's not true at all. Having the information to do something is not the same as being able to do it. You can look up quest walkthroughs all you want, but if you still have to group with people to complete them, there most certainly is a "need to interact with others."
Running in a group, not talking at all, is much much different than having someone explain the fight to you and make up tactics or strategies on the fly. Nowadays you can look up what to do on the internet. No need to ask or explain anything.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
As a couple others have said, it has been the trends in game mechanics and interdependency that have decreased the importance of "community" over time.
Games now seem to be much more geared towards being "solo friendly," and there are a good number of players that complain about having to group to do some of the content. In the older games mentioned, UO/Pre-CU-SWG and a couple others, player interdependency went far beyond raiding or the occasional sale, but permeated all levels of game world.
In Pre-CU SWG, player interdependency touched everything, everyone had a place in the universe and everyone had something to contribute, from low level to finished template players, of all professions. Heck, in the old days, there were all kinds of non-boss PvE creatures just walking around the various worlds, that REQUIRED multiple players to take down, and that was from the eariest days. On the crafting side especially, players needed each other, as it was almost impossible for a solo player to make/get everything they needed on their own, and, it was extremely difficult for the crafter to get everything needed to keep the business going. And if someone was a jerk, they would have trouble getting what they needed, and word got around.
I don't think it is communities themselves that are a thing of the past, so much as that new games (with an exception of two) have less player interdependency, and that is what is driving the weakness in communities.
Show me a game that is totally soloable, and the community there likely reflects that.
To me the 'community' aspects of SWG played out just as they would later do in WoW. You joined a nice guild, and you would do most stuff with them. If you had to go outside your guild to purchase something, you would find the crafter's store and buy stuff from their vendor NPCs. Very little interaction was actually needed.
My view of this issue seems to be much different from many people here since I have pretty much always been part fo friendly guilds that shared my views on the game we played. As such I always had a great community in any game I played. So to me WoW has great communities since I have been part of three great guilds since I started playing. The public trade chat noise is just noise and really does not say anything about the real communities in the game.
It seems the people complaining about lack of community in the current games, are seeking a server-wide community of like minded people. To me this seems like a pipe dream with the wide range of choices available for players. People choosing to play the game one way will not be happy to follow some 'community rules' that another group of players institutes if those rules conflict with their playstyle. Most of the time these groups will ignore each other but when they clash it will not be pretty. And if the groups are big enough, one will not be able to just squelch the other anymore.
Forcing people to group in order to acquire advancement content is not "encouragement" for countless players; it is a reason to not play your game. For those who are time-starved, or recognize that they are not great group members because they lack the twitch skills, lack comprehensive game knowledge, or lack the capacity to do nothing but focus on a group-raid typing marathon for 1-5 hours at a time, forced grouping = cancelled account.
Here's the problem: because these games are only solo-friendly and not solo-centric, the above class of players will still not group up because they recognize they cannot be responsible group or raid members. Do you want a guy that must go AFK every few minutes to do something for his family in your group, or might have to leave your dungeon raid at any time to go pick up his daughter or wife? Or those of us who just don't have good twitch skills? Or cannot invest the time necessary to have the best gear? Or those who chose less than the most desirable build?
You see, we want to be social, a lot of us, but the structure of the game largely prevents us from being able to do so on those terms. We want to advance our characters, but we also realize we're not good, responsible party and raid members, and we're far, far from min-maxed, highly efficient and organized powergamers.
The fact is, we just don't have the time, lifestyle, or inclination to play in a way that would make us adequate or desirable members of virtually any group, raid or guild; but we'd still like to socialize, interact, etc. The problem is that the only socializing mechanic in these games is forced grouping in order to acquire character advancement content. Until there are other reasons to group, guild, and raid - other than character advancement - then a lot of us are just left out, largely by our own ethical desire not to screw up the gaming enjoyment of others.
If, however, everyone could get anything in the game - eventually - via solo play, then the reason for grouping up is not because anyone has to to acquire character advancement; people would group up just to have a good time together, just to see if they can do some things in the game they cannot solo yet. The pressure is largely off, especially if there is offline character advancement, for anyone to contribute a specific role, in time, attention, and twitch skills for their class, because we aren't "screwing up" anyone's character advancement. We aren't being depended on to get everyone in the group 1% closer to some game goal within the next hour or else it's all just wasted time.
Forced grouping can only appeal to players who have the time, attention, and dedication necessary to become good, responsible group members. If you can't meet those qualifications, then you're forced to look elsewhere for your gaming pleasure.
I don't think you can blame game mechanics fully. I firmly believe people are rude douchebags regardless. You saw this about 6 years ago in FFXI when players reputation actually mattered in whether or not they could complete content.
You had people play the nice card and keep their idiocy bottled up until they got what they wanted and split. Later on when server transfers were instituted, you had all of these morons get together and form their own guilds and ruin it for everyone else.
Obviously with so many more people playing these days, you're going to get more idiots. If anything, the game mechanics accelerate and reveal the idiots faster, but idiots have always been idiots.
As a couple others have said, it has been the trends in game mechanics and interdependency that have decreased the importance of "community" over time.
Games now seem to be much more geared towards being "solo friendly," and there are a good number of players that complain about having to group to do some of the content. In the older games mentioned, UO/Pre-CU-SWG and a couple others, player interdependency went far beyond raiding or the occasional sale, but permeated all levels of game world.
In Pre-CU SWG, player interdependency touched everything, everyone had a place in the universe and everyone had something to contribute, from low level to finished template players, of all professions. Heck, in the old days, there were all kinds of non-boss PvE creatures just walking around the various worlds, that REQUIRED multiple players to take down, and that was from the eariest days. On the crafting side especially, players needed each other, as it was almost impossible for a solo player to make/get everything they needed on their own, and, it was extremely difficult for the crafter to get everything needed to keep the business going. And if someone was a jerk, they would have trouble getting what they needed, and word got around.
I don't think it is communities themselves that are a thing of the past, so much as that new games (with an exception of two) have less player interdependency, and that is what is driving the weakness in communities.
Show me a game that is totally soloable, and the community there likely reflects that.
To me the 'community' aspects of SWG played out just as they would later do in WoW. You joined a nice guild, and you would do most stuff with them. If you had to go outside your guild to purchase something, you would find the crafter's store and buy stuff from their vendor NPCs. Very little interaction was actually needed.
My view of this issue seems to be much different from many people here since I have pretty much always been part fo friendly guilds that shared my views on the game we played. As such I always had a great community in any game I played. So to me WoW has great communities since I have been part of three great guilds since I started playing. The public trade chat noise is just noise and really does not say anything about the real communities in the game.
It seems the people complaining about lack of community in the current games, are seeking a server-wide community of like minded people. To me this seems like a pipe dream with the wide range of choices available for players. People choosing to play the game one way will not be happy to follow some 'community rules' that another group of players institutes if those rules conflict with their playstyle. Most of the time these groups will ignore each other but when they clash it will not be pretty. And if the groups are big enough, one will not be able to just squelch the other anymore.
My SWG experience was different, not because I didn't have a great guild of people I ran with, but because we still interacted with other guilds. It was not uncommon to have a group of 20(or sometimes into a second group) where only half might be from my guild, the rest from other friendly guilds or even a couple of randoms that someone in the group knew. The difference between then and now is more about the awareness of the community as a whole. In SWG, I could tell you who were the asshats, who was cool, who was good, who was terrible. As a community, your actions were generally known unless you hid from the community. Even then, you knew a certain amount about someone just by their guild tag. If someone was an ass, yet came from a reputable guild, you just sent a note to the guild leader, and the issue would be resolved (yes, you knew who the guild leader of all the main guilds was).
Bottom line, I see the issue as less about finding/creating good guilds, but rather how do get a sense of a global community within the game.
Forcing people to group in order to acquire advancement content is not "encouragement" for countless players; it is a reason to not play your game. For those who are time-starved, or recognize that they are not great group members because they lack the twitch skills, lack comprehensive game knowledge, or lack the capacity to do nothing but focus on a group-raid typing marathon for 1-5 hours at a time, forced grouping = cancelled account.
Here's the problem: because these games are only solo-friendly and not solo-centric, the above class of players will still not group up because they recognize they cannot be responsible group or raid members. Do you want a guy that must go AFK every few minutes to do something for his family in your group, or might have to leave your dungeon raid at any time to go pick up his daughter or wife? Or those of us who just don't have good twitch skills? Or cannot invest the time necessary to have the best gear? Or those who chose less than the most desirable build?
You see, we want to be social, a lot of us, but the structure of the game largely prevents us from being able to do so on those terms. We want to advance our characters, but we also realize we're not good, responsible party and raid members, and we're far, far from min-maxed, highly efficient and organized powergamers.
The fact is, we just don't have the time, lifestyle, or inclination to play in a way that would make us adequate or desirable members of virtually any group, raid or guild; but we'd still like to socialize, interact, etc. The problem is that the only socializing mechanic in these games is forced grouping in order to acquire character advancement content. Until there are other reasons to group, guild, and raid - other than character advancement - then a lot of us are just left out, largely by our own ethical desire not to screw up the gaming enjoyment of others.
If, however, everyone could get anything in the game - eventually - via solo play, then the reason for grouping up is not because anyone has to to acquire character advancement; people would group up just to have a good time together, just to see if they can do some things in the game they cannot solo yet. The pressure is largely off, especially if there is offline character advancement, for anyone to contribute a specific role, in time, attention, and twitch skills for their class, because we aren't "screwing up" anyone's character advancement. We aren't being depended on to get everyone in the group 1% closer to some game goal within the next hour or else it's all just wasted time.
Forced grouping can only appeal to players who have the time, attention, and dedication necessary to become good, responsible group members. If you can't meet those qualifications, then you're forced to look elsewhere for your gaming pleasure.
I would say there is a world of difference between group centric content for advancing, and raiding; especially regarding the impact on community. Long raids with long lockout timers don't foster stronger community, but rather keeps people living in their guild rather than more casual grouping, which is the type that I feel furthers a more global community.
Now if everything is soloable with the same rewards, I would say this is the other extreme, and is equally as bad for community if not worse.
Is it true that every MMORPG does suck and the old days of Online Communities that we saw in EQ1 are now long gone?
However, I also think that the communities have never changed, they are just not scared or worried about their reputation anymore since they don't 'need' you. They will just be rude to your face instead of behind your back to their guild mates. Communities have always been the same I think.
Exactly. It's not the players who've changed. It's the setting in which the players are placed. If you make it easy for people to be obnoxious, a lot of them are going to be obnoxious. But if you force players to work with each other to succeed, they'll be much less likely to piss everyone else off.
The problem here is that since the degeneration of good gameplay elements of an MMO has continued for so long now, that is if you created that kind of a game where people are forced to do anything, especially work for a common goal the game will fail. And the bitching will continue. Sometimes I think a lot of the "younger" mmo players these days only play games just so they CAN bitch and piss off people. So sad! And devs don't care about any of that anymore as long as thier games make them fat and rich with as many subs as possible to hell with quality gameplay.
I don't think you can blame game mechanics fully. I firmly believe people are rude douchebags regardless. You saw this about 6 years ago in FFXI when players reputation actually mattered in whether or not they could complete content.
You had people play the nice card and keep their idiocy bottled up until they got what they wanted and split. Later on when server transfers were instituted, you had all of these morons get together and form their own guilds and ruin it for everyone else.
Obviously with so many more people playing these days, you're going to get more idiots. If anything, the game mechanics accelerate and reveal the idiots faster, but idiots have always been idiots.
Well, the question becomes, "what kind of player does your game generally attract"? It has been my experience that griefers and jerks gravitate to games and game situations where they can force themselves on others, and where others need them, and where their unsocial (at least, in real life) ability to obsessively avoid the outdoors and real relationships and keep their butt parked in chair in front of a computer for hours and days on end makes their character desirable, or even necessary, to accomplish necessary game content.
Current MMOG game structure demands that end-content driven players get their sense of satisfaction, achievement and respect from the game, or else they would not be willing to dedicate themselves to achieving end-game content - they wouldn't be willing to invest the necessary marathon-like amounts of game time.
Are these people psychologically fit for any kind of community relationship, any kind of social dynamic other than one based on how much time you're willing to devote to the game? Don't you think there is a reason they are substituting the MMOG for an offline social life, in many if not most cases?
The problem is that the very structure of current MMOGs are built to attract and singularly reward what cannot be viewed, overall, as a healthy social psychology. This is why so many people here make the absurd claim that community=forced grouping; they can't conceive of people regularly and happily grouping up and doing things unless they are forced to.
This is why you see so many people here state that there is no reason to play an MMOG unless one is devoted to spending marathon amounts of time and effort to advance their character; they don't understand people that play for other reasons, why those people who are not happy about being forced into groups with such people don't just go play solo games; for them, social=forced grouping and single-minded devotion to advancing in the game.
Is it really any wonder that a genre built around these kind of people has failed so completely in generating good, solid, enjoyable communities?
I don't think you can blame game mechanics fully. I firmly believe people are rude douchebags regardless. You saw this about 6 years ago in FFXI when players reputation actually mattered in whether or not they could complete content.
You had people play the nice card and keep their idiocy bottled up until they got what they wanted and split. Later on when server transfers were instituted, you had all of these morons get together and form their own guilds and ruin it for everyone else.
Obviously with so many more people playing these days, you're going to get more idiots. If anything, the game mechanics accelerate and reveal the idiots faster, but idiots have always been idiots.
Well, the question becomes, "what kind of player does your game generally attract"? It has been my experience that griefers and jerks gravitate to games and game situations where they can force themselves on others, and where others need them, and where their unsocial (at least, in real life) ability to obsessively avoid the outdoors and real relationships and keep their butt parked in chair in front of a computer for hours and days on end makes their character desirable, or even necessary, to accomplish necessary game content.
Current MMOG game structure demands that end-content driven players get their sense of satisfaction, achievement and respect from the game, or else they would not be willing to dedicate themselves to achieving end-game content - they wouldn't be willing to invest the necessary marathon-like investments of time.
Are these people psychologically fit for any kind of community relationship, any kind of social dynamic other than one based on how much time you're willing to devote to the game? Don't you think there is a reason they are substituting the MMOG for an offline social life, in many if not most cases?
The problem is that the very structure of current MMOGs are built to attract and singularly reward what cannot be viewed, overall, as a healthy social psychology. This is why so many people here make the absurd claim that community=forced grouping; they can't conceive of people regularly and happily grouping up and doing things unless they are forced to. This is why you see so many people here state that there is no reason to play an MMOG unless one is devoted to spending marathon amounts of time and effort to advance their character; they don't understand people that play for other reasons, why those people who are not happy about being forced into groups with such people don't just go play solo games; for them, social=forced grouping and single-minded devotion to advancing in the game.
Is it really any wonder that a genre built around these kind of people has failed so completely in generating good, solid, enjoyable communities?
You're doing a whole lot of inaccurate generalizing there. Perhaps you should seek the help of a professional that can help you with your nerdrage. Until then, maybe it's best you refrain from playing any games.
Server farms and large populations have taken out all sense of community. Unless you only group with guildmates or friends you will likely never see the same people twice. Everyone wants instant gratification. Instant Battlegrounds with a quick win, instant Dungeon access. WoW isn't the only game doing this.
The last real community I remember was from DAoC, Shadowbane was pretty good as well. I played a Hibbie on MLF in DAoC. Most people in the same realm knew each other. Most of that dealt with the small size. You were forced to group with the same people while leveling up. You talked to them, you socialized. You spent a lot of time with these people because you needed them to level and do group quests. When you make leveling a solo event there isn't much need to socialize. You lose sense of a community. It is just you and the string of quests that lead you to max level where you all of sudden try to find people to do stuff.
In my current list of played games I would have to say LOTRO has the best community, at least as far as friendlies are concerned.
I don't think you can blame game mechanics fully. I firmly believe people are rude douchebags regardless. You saw this about 6 years ago in FFXI when players reputation actually mattered in whether or not they could complete content.
You had people play the nice card and keep their idiocy bottled up until they got what they wanted and split. Later on when server transfers were instituted, you had all of these morons get together and form their own guilds and ruin it for everyone else.
Obviously with so many more people playing these days, you're going to get more idiots. If anything, the game mechanics accelerate and reveal the idiots faster, but idiots have always been idiots.
Well, the question becomes, "what kind of player does your game generally attract"? It has been my experience that griefers and jerks gravitate to games and game situations where they can force themselves on others, and where others need them, and where their unsocial (at least, in real life) ability to obsessively avoid the outdoors and real relationships and keep their butt parked in chair in front of a computer for hours and days on end makes their character desirable, or even necessary, to accomplish necessary game content.
Current MMOG game structure demands that end-content driven players get their sense of satisfaction, achievement and respect from the game, or else they would not be willing to dedicate themselves to achieving end-game content - they wouldn't be willing to invest the necessary marathon-like amounts of game time.
Are these people psychologically fit for any kind of community relationship, any kind of social dynamic other than one based on how much time you're willing to devote to the game? Don't you think there is a reason they are substituting the MMOG for an offline social life, in many if not most cases?
The problem is that the very structure of current MMOGs are built to attract and singularly reward what cannot be viewed, overall, as a healthy social psychology. This is why so many people here make the absurd claim that community=forced grouping; they can't conceive of people regularly and happily grouping up and doing things unless they are forced to.
This is why you see so many people here state that there is no reason to play an MMOG unless one is devoted to spending marathon amounts of time and effort to advance their character; they don't understand people that play for other reasons, why those people who are not happy about being forced into groups with such people don't just go play solo games; for them, social=forced grouping and single-minded devotion to advancing in the game.
Is it really any wonder that a genre built around these kind of people has failed so completely in generating good, solid, enjoyable communities?
Based on personal observation I would say that it is the 'old school' hardcore communities that are suffering the more 'free form' casual communities are fourishing. However, the casual communities tend not to care much about the structured gaming the 'old schoolers' prefer. This means that these communities are far smaller in scope and really do not care to police those outside them and simply ignore the troublemakers. The groups will also not interact with each other if thier internal rules and customs are in conflict.
As far as I can recall, EQ1 wasn't this way. If you were a douchebag or you sucked, you'd get kicked out of groups, and you needed groups. As a result, as you leveled up there tended to be less and less annoying/bad players for the simple reason that they weren't able to make it that far.
Not only this, you could get a measure, of a person, by the guild tag they were sporting for the most part.
More often than not, if they were in a respected guild, then that member acted accordingly. If not, their arse was getting flamed on the server msg brd, and after a couple of instances(or 1 major one), they got booted.
Just going by lvl didnt tell the entire story. Classes such as Shammy, Nec, druid, BST, chanter, and bard could solo until lvl if they were skilled. SKs, and Gars as well, but they were pretty slow lvling.
You just needed a class that could agro kite, slow, or charm.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
As far as I can recall, EQ1 wasn't this way. If you were a douchebag or you sucked, you'd get kicked out of groups, and you needed groups. As a result, as you leveled up there tended to be less and less annoying/bad players for the simple reason that they weren't able to make it that far.
Not only this, you could get a measure, of a person, by the guild tag they were sporting for the most part.
More often than not, if they were in a respected guild, then that member acted accordingly. If not, their arse was getting flamed on the server msg brd, and after a couple of instances(or 1 major one), they got booted.
Just going by lvl didnt tell the entire story. Classes such as Shammy, Nec, druid, BST, chanter, and bard could solo until lvl if they were skilled. SKs, and Gars as well, but they were pretty slow lvling.
You just needed a class that could agro kite, slow, or charm.
First of all, Go Blue
And yeah, some classes could solo, but you had to be pretty good to do it successfully. I mean, you could quad kite as a Wizard, but if you sucked you'd be dead so quick you wouldn't know what happened. And even then, very few classes in EQ could solo as well as most classes can solo in modern MMOs.
As far as I can recall, EQ1 wasn't this way. If you were a douchebag or you sucked, you'd get kicked out of groups, and you needed groups. As a result, as you leveled up there tended to be less and less annoying/bad players for the simple reason that they weren't able to make it that far.
Not only this, you could get a measure, of a person, by the guild tag they were sporting for the most part.
More often than not, if they were in a respected guild, then that member acted accordingly. If not, their arse was getting flamed on the server msg brd, and after a couple of instances(or 1 major one), they got booted.
Just going by lvl didnt tell the entire story. Classes such as Shammy, Nec, druid, BST, chanter, and bard could solo until lvl if they were skilled. SKs, and Gars as well, but they were pretty slow lvling.
You just needed a class that could agro kite, slow, or charm.
First of all, Go Blue
And yeah, some classes could solo, but you had to be pretty good to do it successfully. I mean, you could quad kite as a Wizard, but if you sucked you'd be dead so quick you wouldn't know what happened. And even then, very few classes in EQ could solo as well as most classes can solo in modern MMOs.
This is true. I could solo with both my SK and Necro by fear kiting but leveling that way was about 10 times slower than just finding a group. In almost all older games soloing was an option but grouping was by far the better way of leveling. This is the way it should still be. Like I said before though, grouping was only one aspect of older games that required a certain amount of player interaction. Almost every aspect of those older games required socialization to some extent. If you were totally antisocial or a total jerk you didn't make it very far.
Now every single class can solo to max level... even healers! Also with AH's, fast travel, highly detailed ingame maps, quest givers with a big '!' over their heads and even compass pointers to point you to your next quest objective you never have to interact with anyone. This breeds horrible communities because other people become more of a nuisense than a boon. Even in guilds these days unless there is a raid going on people just go do their own thing and hardly speak to anyone else. MMOs these days are nothing more than single player RPGs with a chat room grafted on.
People walk into mmorpgs today expecting a horrid community.
They see global chat, they see conversations about bacon, chuck, and general random conversations. Yeah i know its hard to believe that in an online game there would be such things.....
So they see all of this, and it enforces their belief that this game (whatever game it may be) has a terrible community.
Because of this they avoid social interaction in the game. Because of this they never really learn the knowledge of the game from other players, they have to learn it the hard way. This causes problems when grouping with people who know what to do.
Its a constant downward spiral.
Every single game ive tried to find great people to play with i have been successful. Yes even in the dreaded "worst community" of wow, granted i only played a brief period and late in the games history, which is agruably after the full decline of that community as a whole. So i saw it at its worst. Had no problems on any server i tried to find "normal" people.
Since, in any game ive played, ive been able to find the normal community, stepping into the madness of global chat isnt a big deal. I dont mind that the conversation gets childish, its a game for cryin out loud, kids do play. I can alway retreat to guild chat.
Mabey because i walk into a game expecting to have to find the normal community. Mabey because i expect there to be childish people in a game. Mabey i know how people act on the internet where everyhting is anon.
Its really easy to find the good community in a game. Usually a few post in global, or guild recruitment chat or whatever, advertising that im looking for mature players (insert what im looking for other than that in the guild) will result in a few private mesages and a guid invite. I may have to try a couple guilds like this untill i find one that fits.
There now i have normal people to play with, normal people to group with. I network, lame as it sounds, and am able to find normal people to add to my buddy list for future grouping, or my favorite, grouping to go hunting for gankers ( i usually pick the FFA pvp server if possible).
Its not hard, but a lot of times i see people in global, going off on the people chatting there, like they have the moral upperhand to tell everyone in the game that they suck, because they were unable to see past global chat.
On a side note, vent and other voice chat has devastated what use to be vibrant text chat in mmorpgs. I miss the old days of having to carefully plan out what needs to be done, rather than listening to a leader bark orders over vent. Took skill to be able to organize raids and group pvp without instant voice commands, where giving orders via chat was risky if you were in a fight.....really miss that in todays games. Also i hate not listening to the sounds of the game and the music, now i have to hear everyone in drive though window speaker mode at all varying volumes and clarity.
Perhaps a game with a % chance of permadeath or a harsh penalty would solve the grouping problem. Why group? So you don't die.
Perhaps a game with a core value of Risk vs Reward would solve the grouping need. Want a better reward? Get a better group. The better the group, the higher the risk, the better the reward.
Perhaps a game which encourages players to choose a Town, City, or Area to be their "Home town" and to work to develop the town to flourish through donation of Resources (Harvesting, Crafting, Questing, Gold, Guilds, etc.)
Perhaps towns where a player can CHOOSE where their resources go, so guilds or groups can easily be formed not only on the grounds of Roleplaying, but also on the grounds that said players all want the same bonuses, stores, and success. Perhaps the "Knights of the Round Table" will harvest and quest to build their City's Fort and Blacksmith which in turn gives them all better Plate Armor and Knight-based bonuses to skills or stats while the "Merlinian Council" will compose of players who want to invest heavily in an Academy building to get access to special spells once the Academy is upgraded. All of this happens while a persistent world of NPC or PvP invaders come to destroy or damage their buildings, uniting both guilds together in an Alliance to defend their town.
Create dungeons or areas which must be overtaken first before players are allowed to harvest for (x) time until an NPC army comes to reclaim its territory. Or perhaps realistic seasonal change in which an Island is easy to access in the Summer, but one RL week later and its Fall, which means Sea Serpent mating season has happened so it's more dangerous, but the reward is even greater because players demand (y) resource which is rare except on this island. Want a magical fruit to create very powerful potions, but this fruit only spawns in the Winter? If every season lasts 1 RL week, after the 1 week of winter, the price will rise until the next month (3 weeks later) making for a very interesting Economy.
Perhaps seasonal changes, NPC invasions, building, rebuilding, and destroying of player-owned NPC towns along with a harsh death penatly might just create the ILLUSION of a ever-changes persistent world-- but an illusion of a world in which you can change is better than a world which never changes.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
I would say that it's more scum that plays MMOs these days than it was in the past and nice intelligent people generally doesn't stay in bland online games for long.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
I would say that it's more scum that plays MMOs these days than it was in the past and nice intelligent people generally doesn't stay in bland online games for long.
lol! wretched swine dasterdly scum!
You sound a bit cynical (contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives <those cynical men who say that democracy cannot be honest and efficient — F. D. Roosevelt).
I do agree though, to some extent. You have to make your own fun in mmos, that what a mmo is all about though, you cant always rely on some one else to do it for you. But that story is for another thread my friends.
Comments
In EQ two things destroyed the community... Luclin and Planes of Power. Luclin added the AH and the whole crafting system in that game became absolete overnight. Why ask a crafter to make you something when you could go to the bizaar and get something better for cheaper than it would cost you for the crafting components to make a similar item? Why hang out in the East Commonlands tunnel and haggle over price with another player when you can just go to Luclin and buy it without talking to a single person? PoP added free teleports to anywhere. This again was a serious blow to the community as a lot of that community developed through the necessity of hanging around other players while traveling... Waiting and riding on boats for example.
I don't really expect half of you to have any clue what I'm talking about as a lot of you never experienced those communities first hand. A lot of you started with MMOs in the post WoW era and these great communities are a totally foriegn concept to you. Imagine if you will the best guild you've ever been in... Now imagine the social aspects of that guild as a server wide community. That is what it was like to play EQ in it's prime.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
That's not true at all. Having the information to do something is not the same as being able to do it. You can look up quest walkthroughs all you want, but if you still have to group with people to complete them, there most certainly is a "need to interact with others."
Virtual Reality
This pretty much nails the issue on the head. The players really haven't changed that much, but the game mechanics allow them to be independent of each other and without consequences if they act badly.
Without game mechanics such as encouraged and dependent grouping, forced downtime after combat, and social activities (a la SWG's cantainas) we'll not see much of an improvement in the general game community.
Right now about the only respite people have it to find a good clan or guild and 'hide' from the general community. Doesn't help that they keep creating new anti-socialization tools such as Dungeon Finder which only serves to destroy the community building elements of MMO's even further, (even though on the surface it seems to be a positive thing).
Right now most MMO's are all about character progression, hence any activity that doesn't directly contribute to it is frowned upon and causes player to worry more about gear and efficiency and not about having a good time just gaming with each other.
"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
To say game mechanics has nothing to do with it is crazy. Soloability of play has a major effect on the community. Other mechanics such as cross-server instances and BG's like WoW has further destroys the community. In earlier games, grouping up contained social interaction. How many groups do you get into now where everyone groups up, does the quest/instance, and disbands with at most a simply "hello" at the beginning, and a "good group. cya" at the end? In previous games, everyone chatted while playing/fighting.
Sometimes, these game mechanics/decisions are driven by player requests that seem very reasonable, but have unintended consequences. An example would be shuttleports in SWG. In the early days, shuttles were on a 10 min. timer. Especially if you had to shuttle three stops to get where you were going, this could tie up a lot of time. Many players complained, and the timer was reduced to like 1 min. Unfortunately, when the timer was 10 min, many players congregated at the shuttleports, interacting, joking, fighting, selling, LFG, etc. Once the timer was reduced, no one was ever there, making the world seem more empty and weakening the sense that there was a community out there.
Unfortunately, I don't see anything on the horizon that will likely change these types of game mechanics. The developers will be no help. It will likely take individual players wanting to stop treating MMO's as single player games to start seeing some change. Our playstyles will need to drive community, rather than developer's game mechanics.
Just my 2 cents,
Korova
Running in a group, not talking at all, is much much different than having someone explain the fight to you and make up tactics or strategies on the fly. Nowadays you can look up what to do on the internet. No need to ask or explain anything.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Edited...Double post
To me the 'community' aspects of SWG played out just as they would later do in WoW. You joined a nice guild, and you would do most stuff with them. If you had to go outside your guild to purchase something, you would find the crafter's store and buy stuff from their vendor NPCs. Very little interaction was actually needed.
My view of this issue seems to be much different from many people here since I have pretty much always been part fo friendly guilds that shared my views on the game we played. As such I always had a great community in any game I played. So to me WoW has great communities since I have been part of three great guilds since I started playing. The public trade chat noise is just noise and really does not say anything about the real communities in the game.
It seems the people complaining about lack of community in the current games, are seeking a server-wide community of like minded people. To me this seems like a pipe dream with the wide range of choices available for players. People choosing to play the game one way will not be happy to follow some 'community rules' that another group of players institutes if those rules conflict with their playstyle. Most of the time these groups will ignore each other but when they clash it will not be pretty. And if the groups are big enough, one will not be able to just squelch the other anymore.
Forcing people to group in order to acquire advancement content is not "encouragement" for countless players; it is a reason to not play your game. For those who are time-starved, or recognize that they are not great group members because they lack the twitch skills, lack comprehensive game knowledge, or lack the capacity to do nothing but focus on a group-raid typing marathon for 1-5 hours at a time, forced grouping = cancelled account.
Here's the problem: because these games are only solo-friendly and not solo-centric, the above class of players will still not group up because they recognize they cannot be responsible group or raid members. Do you want a guy that must go AFK every few minutes to do something for his family in your group, or might have to leave your dungeon raid at any time to go pick up his daughter or wife? Or those of us who just don't have good twitch skills? Or cannot invest the time necessary to have the best gear? Or those who chose less than the most desirable build?
You see, we want to be social, a lot of us, but the structure of the game largely prevents us from being able to do so on those terms. We want to advance our characters, but we also realize we're not good, responsible party and raid members, and we're far, far from min-maxed, highly efficient and organized powergamers.
The fact is, we just don't have the time, lifestyle, or inclination to play in a way that would make us adequate or desirable members of virtually any group, raid or guild; but we'd still like to socialize, interact, etc. The problem is that the only socializing mechanic in these games is forced grouping in order to acquire character advancement content. Until there are other reasons to group, guild, and raid - other than character advancement - then a lot of us are just left out, largely by our own ethical desire not to screw up the gaming enjoyment of others.
If, however, everyone could get anything in the game - eventually - via solo play, then the reason for grouping up is not because anyone has to to acquire character advancement; people would group up just to have a good time together, just to see if they can do some things in the game they cannot solo yet. The pressure is largely off, especially if there is offline character advancement, for anyone to contribute a specific role, in time, attention, and twitch skills for their class, because we aren't "screwing up" anyone's character advancement. We aren't being depended on to get everyone in the group 1% closer to some game goal within the next hour or else it's all just wasted time.
Forced grouping can only appeal to players who have the time, attention, and dedication necessary to become good, responsible group members. If you can't meet those qualifications, then you're forced to look elsewhere for your gaming pleasure.
I don't think you can blame game mechanics fully. I firmly believe people are rude douchebags regardless. You saw this about 6 years ago in FFXI when players reputation actually mattered in whether or not they could complete content.
You had people play the nice card and keep their idiocy bottled up until they got what they wanted and split. Later on when server transfers were instituted, you had all of these morons get together and form their own guilds and ruin it for everyone else.
Obviously with so many more people playing these days, you're going to get more idiots. If anything, the game mechanics accelerate and reveal the idiots faster, but idiots have always been idiots.
My SWG experience was different, not because I didn't have a great guild of people I ran with, but because we still interacted with other guilds. It was not uncommon to have a group of 20(or sometimes into a second group) where only half might be from my guild, the rest from other friendly guilds or even a couple of randoms that someone in the group knew. The difference between then and now is more about the awareness of the community as a whole. In SWG, I could tell you who were the asshats, who was cool, who was good, who was terrible. As a community, your actions were generally known unless you hid from the community. Even then, you knew a certain amount about someone just by their guild tag. If someone was an ass, yet came from a reputable guild, you just sent a note to the guild leader, and the issue would be resolved (yes, you knew who the guild leader of all the main guilds was).
Bottom line, I see the issue as less about finding/creating good guilds, but rather how do get a sense of a global community within the game.
I would say there is a world of difference between group centric content for advancing, and raiding; especially regarding the impact on community. Long raids with long lockout timers don't foster stronger community, but rather keeps people living in their guild rather than more casual grouping, which is the type that I feel furthers a more global community.
Now if everything is soloable with the same rewards, I would say this is the other extreme, and is equally as bad for community if not worse.
The problem here is that since the degeneration of good gameplay elements of an MMO has continued for so long now, that is if you created that kind of a game where people are forced to do anything, especially work for a common goal the game will fail. And the bitching will continue. Sometimes I think a lot of the "younger" mmo players these days only play games just so they CAN bitch and piss off people. So sad! And devs don't care about any of that anymore as long as thier games make them fat and rich with as many subs as possible to hell with quality gameplay.
Well, the question becomes, "what kind of player does your game generally attract"? It has been my experience that griefers and jerks gravitate to games and game situations where they can force themselves on others, and where others need them, and where their unsocial (at least, in real life) ability to obsessively avoid the outdoors and real relationships and keep their butt parked in chair in front of a computer for hours and days on end makes their character desirable, or even necessary, to accomplish necessary game content.
Current MMOG game structure demands that end-content driven players get their sense of satisfaction, achievement and respect from the game, or else they would not be willing to dedicate themselves to achieving end-game content - they wouldn't be willing to invest the necessary marathon-like amounts of game time.
Are these people psychologically fit for any kind of community relationship, any kind of social dynamic other than one based on how much time you're willing to devote to the game? Don't you think there is a reason they are substituting the MMOG for an offline social life, in many if not most cases?
The problem is that the very structure of current MMOGs are built to attract and singularly reward what cannot be viewed, overall, as a healthy social psychology. This is why so many people here make the absurd claim that community=forced grouping; they can't conceive of people regularly and happily grouping up and doing things unless they are forced to.
This is why you see so many people here state that there is no reason to play an MMOG unless one is devoted to spending marathon amounts of time and effort to advance their character; they don't understand people that play for other reasons, why those people who are not happy about being forced into groups with such people don't just go play solo games; for them, social=forced grouping and single-minded devotion to advancing in the game.
Is it really any wonder that a genre built around these kind of people has failed so completely in generating good, solid, enjoyable communities?
You're doing a whole lot of inaccurate generalizing there. Perhaps you should seek the help of a professional that can help you with your nerdrage. Until then, maybe it's best you refrain from playing any games.
Server farms and large populations have taken out all sense of community. Unless you only group with guildmates or friends you will likely never see the same people twice. Everyone wants instant gratification. Instant Battlegrounds with a quick win, instant Dungeon access. WoW isn't the only game doing this.
The last real community I remember was from DAoC, Shadowbane was pretty good as well. I played a Hibbie on MLF in DAoC. Most people in the same realm knew each other. Most of that dealt with the small size. You were forced to group with the same people while leveling up. You talked to them, you socialized. You spent a lot of time with these people because you needed them to level and do group quests. When you make leveling a solo event there isn't much need to socialize. You lose sense of a community. It is just you and the string of quests that lead you to max level where you all of sudden try to find people to do stuff.
In my current list of played games I would have to say LOTRO has the best community, at least as far as friendlies are concerned.
Based on personal observation I would say that it is the 'old school' hardcore communities that are suffering the more 'free form' casual communities are fourishing. However, the casual communities tend not to care much about the structured gaming the 'old schoolers' prefer. This means that these communities are far smaller in scope and really do not care to police those outside them and simply ignore the troublemakers. The groups will also not interact with each other if thier internal rules and customs are in conflict.
Not only this, you could get a measure, of a person, by the guild tag they were sporting for the most part.
More often than not, if they were in a respected guild, then that member acted accordingly. If not, their arse was getting flamed on the server msg brd, and after a couple of instances(or 1 major one), they got booted.
Just going by lvl didnt tell the entire story. Classes such as Shammy, Nec, druid, BST, chanter, and bard could solo until lvl if they were skilled. SKs, and Gars as well, but they were pretty slow lvling.
You just needed a class that could agro kite, slow, or charm.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
First of all, Go Blue
And yeah, some classes could solo, but you had to be pretty good to do it successfully. I mean, you could quad kite as a Wizard, but if you sucked you'd be dead so quick you wouldn't know what happened. And even then, very few classes in EQ could solo as well as most classes can solo in modern MMOs.
Virtual Reality
This is true. I could solo with both my SK and Necro by fear kiting but leveling that way was about 10 times slower than just finding a group. In almost all older games soloing was an option but grouping was by far the better way of leveling. This is the way it should still be. Like I said before though, grouping was only one aspect of older games that required a certain amount of player interaction. Almost every aspect of those older games required socialization to some extent. If you were totally antisocial or a total jerk you didn't make it very far.
Now every single class can solo to max level... even healers! Also with AH's, fast travel, highly detailed ingame maps, quest givers with a big '!' over their heads and even compass pointers to point you to your next quest objective you never have to interact with anyone. This breeds horrible communities because other people become more of a nuisense than a boon. Even in guilds these days unless there is a raid going on people just go do their own thing and hardly speak to anyone else. MMOs these days are nothing more than single player RPGs with a chat room grafted on.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
People walk into mmorpgs today expecting a horrid community.
They see global chat, they see conversations about bacon, chuck, and general random conversations. Yeah i know its hard to believe that in an online game there would be such things.....
So they see all of this, and it enforces their belief that this game (whatever game it may be) has a terrible community.
Because of this they avoid social interaction in the game. Because of this they never really learn the knowledge of the game from other players, they have to learn it the hard way. This causes problems when grouping with people who know what to do.
Its a constant downward spiral.
Every single game ive tried to find great people to play with i have been successful. Yes even in the dreaded "worst community" of wow, granted i only played a brief period and late in the games history, which is agruably after the full decline of that community as a whole. So i saw it at its worst. Had no problems on any server i tried to find "normal" people.
Since, in any game ive played, ive been able to find the normal community, stepping into the madness of global chat isnt a big deal. I dont mind that the conversation gets childish, its a game for cryin out loud, kids do play. I can alway retreat to guild chat.
Mabey because i walk into a game expecting to have to find the normal community. Mabey because i expect there to be childish people in a game. Mabey i know how people act on the internet where everyhting is anon.
Its really easy to find the good community in a game. Usually a few post in global, or guild recruitment chat or whatever, advertising that im looking for mature players (insert what im looking for other than that in the guild) will result in a few private mesages and a guid invite. I may have to try a couple guilds like this untill i find one that fits.
There now i have normal people to play with, normal people to group with. I network, lame as it sounds, and am able to find normal people to add to my buddy list for future grouping, or my favorite, grouping to go hunting for gankers ( i usually pick the FFA pvp server if possible).
Its not hard, but a lot of times i see people in global, going off on the people chatting there, like they have the moral upperhand to tell everyone in the game that they suck, because they were unable to see past global chat.
On a side note, vent and other voice chat has devastated what use to be vibrant text chat in mmorpgs. I miss the old days of having to carefully plan out what needs to be done, rather than listening to a leader bark orders over vent. Took skill to be able to organize raids and group pvp without instant voice commands, where giving orders via chat was risky if you were in a fight.....really miss that in todays games. Also i hate not listening to the sounds of the game and the music, now i have to hear everyone in drive though window speaker mode at all varying volumes and clarity.
Perhaps a game with a % chance of permadeath or a harsh penalty would solve the grouping problem. Why group? So you don't die.
Perhaps a game with a core value of Risk vs Reward would solve the grouping need. Want a better reward? Get a better group. The better the group, the higher the risk, the better the reward.
Perhaps a game which encourages players to choose a Town, City, or Area to be their "Home town" and to work to develop the town to flourish through donation of Resources (Harvesting, Crafting, Questing, Gold, Guilds, etc.)
Perhaps towns where a player can CHOOSE where their resources go, so guilds or groups can easily be formed not only on the grounds of Roleplaying, but also on the grounds that said players all want the same bonuses, stores, and success. Perhaps the "Knights of the Round Table" will harvest and quest to build their City's Fort and Blacksmith which in turn gives them all better Plate Armor and Knight-based bonuses to skills or stats while the "Merlinian Council" will compose of players who want to invest heavily in an Academy building to get access to special spells once the Academy is upgraded. All of this happens while a persistent world of NPC or PvP invaders come to destroy or damage their buildings, uniting both guilds together in an Alliance to defend their town.
Create dungeons or areas which must be overtaken first before players are allowed to harvest for (x) time until an NPC army comes to reclaim its territory. Or perhaps realistic seasonal change in which an Island is easy to access in the Summer, but one RL week later and its Fall, which means Sea Serpent mating season has happened so it's more dangerous, but the reward is even greater because players demand (y) resource which is rare except on this island. Want a magical fruit to create very powerful potions, but this fruit only spawns in the Winter? If every season lasts 1 RL week, after the 1 week of winter, the price will rise until the next month (3 weeks later) making for a very interesting Economy.
Perhaps seasonal changes, NPC invasions, building, rebuilding, and destroying of player-owned NPC towns along with a harsh death penatly might just create the ILLUSION of a ever-changes persistent world-- but an illusion of a world in which you can change is better than a world which never changes.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Too many MMO's out there to have a real solid community in just one MMO.
The market is too saturated with MMO's unlike the good ole days with JUST UO and EQ.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
I can agree that wow is a big turd.
I would say that it's more scum that plays MMOs these days than it was in the past and nice intelligent people generally doesn't stay in bland online games for long.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
lol! wretched swine dasterdly scum!
You sound a bit cynical (contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives <those cynical men who say that democracy cannot be honest and efficient — F. D. Roosevelt).
I do agree though, to some extent. You have to make your own fun in mmos, that what a mmo is all about though, you cant always rely on some one else to do it for you. But that story is for another thread my friends.