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Grouping with Mimes - The Lonely Bard Story
Emergence
Member Posts: 888
I love bards, so I rolled one in Vanguard and EQ2. Bards shine in groups- so let's get grouping! Easy as pie. Yet for months after Vanguard came out, the only people talking were in /Region. In EQ2, no one ever talks...ever.
I found that I was singing my song alone. My best friend is the quietest person in the universe, and my nephew rarely talks outside of whispering (just like in real life!) I am a lot more talkative than the average person, but still...I expect some form of communication or talking amongst my group. Yet people stopped talking in MMO's. In every group I had ever had in Vanguard, for the 3 months I played, no one ever talked. Same for EQ2, and WAR, and...every game but WoW and CoH (because they had more females, who liked talking as well).
It got so bad one time I yelled IN ALL CAPS at my full group in Vanguard, after 3 hours had passed without a single response to anything I had typed. "Are you guys mimes?" .............silence. "Hello?".........silence, but they were there playing. "HEY MIMES, HOW IS THE MIMING?" followed by the response "OKAY, IF YOU GUYS DONT WANT TO TALK, THEN HOW ABOUT YOU JUST LEAVE? /kick /kick /kick".
I even had my nephew talk, "Mimes? Hello?" and he couldn't get them either.
It wasn't intense action. They weren't busy IRL. They were actively moving around. I was leader, so I stopped pulling and started talking. Instead of replying, stating anything, it was nothing but 3 other mute players who all were running around and jumping, acting like they were not only 100% focused in the game and active, but waiting for the pull, despite how I eventually said "I won't pull until someone talks. HELLO?"
Does anyone else share these experiences- if you are NOT the quiet one? Obviously, any quiet players will not see silent mime groups as a bad thing. But to me, it is WORSE than playing with a bunch of NPC bots. And every game that is not SuperHero based or WoW (have females) is a silent mime society.
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.
Comments
I have had this experience before in other games as well, I have even gone so far as to do a little experiment and see how long it would take before someone answered me. I have gone one entire 6 or 7 hour shift without a single soul speaking to me in WAR before because the open quests don't require people to talk.
What's worse is I have actually been not only in groups that don't talk, but guilds as well. Games that have a Join button or application process that doesn't require vocal contact have made that possible. I was in a guild for an entire week after joining without a single person saying anything when there were at least a 1/2 a dozen people on at one time.
I believe that a lot of the social aspects of MMOs have been over looked or at the very least put on the back burner so that people can get groups or join guilds without being rejected or go through the 20 questions barrage. Unfortunately this type of thinking is making one of the biggest enjoyable parts of MMOs extinct.......Social Community.
That has been the broken straw on the camel that made me quit Warhammer Online (and other mmos)was the fact that I was in a Guild trying to talk to people almost everytime I logged in and hardly ever get a response. Pissed me off to no end. There were times where I just wanted to complain about it in the guild chat to get people going but I don't want to cause drama. Having to deal with that in a Guild is the worst, by far.
People have been coming up with reasons as to why MMOs seem to just suck nowadays, and there are many contributing factors to it, but I think one of the major reasons is due to problems like this. MMOs are largely about social interaction and whenever you have a rough time trying to communicate with people who refuse to do so then that will ruin a huge aspect of the fun of MMOs as you said and just leaves you with the gameplay of the game, and whats the point of playing an MMO just to play with yourself?
MMOs typically don't have gameplay that is on par with that of a solid singleplayer game and when the socialization aspect of your experience in the game starts to fade away, then you'll begin to notice the flaws of the game quicker than you would have when socializing with other players. Could you imagine playing Dark Age of Camelot with very limited social interaction, or a community of players similar to Age of Conan or WoW?
There is no way in hell I would pay 15$ a month to play that game by myself (or close to it) and it is one of my favorite MMOs ever.
Well, I think it' depends on the people.
I personally hate it when people start shooting the sh*t when I'm not there to chat but to play the game.
If I'm in a group, even with game friends, I prefer to be playing and doing the group stuff. I do not want to be talking. except to perhaps give instructions, ask a question, perhaps make a joke.
If I'm in a group that's just talking for the sake of talking I'll leave.
You see, what I dislike is when people are in a group to primarily be social. I think that's great that people want to do this, but I'm there to play, not talk about sports.
The other thing is "you want to talk? You had better have something interesting to say".
Because I've been in groups where the players acted like asshats thinking they were "just having fun" and their conversation was deplorable. I have no interest in nonsense.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
ok.. If you are doing something like an instance or a dungeon, or in the middle of pvping. Sometimes it is hard to stop and type out messages. Unless there is some down time. Some people just want to focus on what they are supposed to be doing or their job in the group, and most of the time they are in vent with their clan/guild anyhow.
You can blame things like vent for people being less social in spatial chats. Most people are in vent and talking to their guild so figure why do they need to type out messages to randoms in their pugs.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
I have a huge problem with typing and healing and playing. You expect me to talk you might die because I cannot do it. So I need actual breaks for talk to happen. If it is Vent then I can talk but typing is not something I can manage and play. Even in Everquest I only spoke while we waited in between pulls. I generally do not talk when fighting. I ignore tells too until I'm done.
Another thing if the topic is something I do not want to be part off I don't speak either but generally with guildees in guildchat I talk up a storm and also when I am just sitting around in town I chat with everyone and may have contributed to the cesspool that is Barren's chat. Yes I know shameful but generally I tried to inject some wit into that discourse.
I feel the same way. But when you express this opinion, the hardcore MMOers tell you to go play a single player rpg if you don't want to talk to some middle schooler about how bad his fart smells.
That's a very good point.
Of course, then the answer is "everyone join vent".
But I hate Vent. It's like I'm thurst into a room with disparate personalities, some who might be my type of people and some who might just be the opposite of who I would usually socialize with, and bam, be involved in conversation.
I'm social in "real life" but that's just an odd way of being introduced. Vent is very personal and I like a small barrier between me and other players until I know them better.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It's a little awkward sometimes, but no big deal to me. If you're asking a question like 'should we go here or here?' and nobody answers, that tends to be annoying. While I can appreciate little comments like 'good heals', I honestly would leave a group just talking for the sake of talking. Especially if we're in an instance. Personally, I'm always in vent. Even if my friends aren't playing the same game as me, I'm usually talking to them no matter what I'm doing. So from the OP's perspective, I might be a mime, but I'm actually just talking to other people over the mic and can't be bothered with typing.
Originally posted by geldonyetich
Wow, I knew you guys were pretty desparate to slam the game, but hacking the web page of a major game site so a user review masquarades as an official one? Pretty impressive.
[Edit: no, after seeing there's an actual video associated with it, I guess not, despite the wierd way GameSpot distributes its content making it looks like the reviewer didn't even write this.]
I think this more has to do with the games than the players. The games have changed. They are now faster paced, and there just isn't much room for the social aspect. Think about it, even in the older games, how often did you stop mid-fight to type something out? You didn't. You waited until after the fight, during those long periods of downtime, to have a full on conversation while you waited for mana/health, or for the mobs to respawn.
Well, players hated downtime. They wanted to spend their game time fighting and killing and healing and looting, not sitting on the ground watching the mana bar slowly fill up. So, in today's games, we don't really have downtime any more. There are few moments to stop and chat, and players, like the above posters, are there to play.
My point: No downtime... No talky talky.
I recall one incident in City of Heroes. I was playing a gravity /empathy controller and I was healing and controlling and this was a very talkative group.They were typing at light speed and I was not able to read much as I was seriously paying attention to the battles in front of me since everyone else was honestly doing way less than I was seeing as I had to heal and control.
So they invite me to their supergroup and into Vent. Then I was chatting away I am a chatterbox and everyone suddenly got silent. I thought it was because I was a female but it was because they thought I was dumb or something cos for the past three hours I was so quiet and they only invited me to their supergroup because I was competent.
yea, i generally only use vent if it's required for a certain activity. I can't stand it when guilds expect you to be in vent all damn day or whatever amount of time you spend playing a game. For pvp yea, for an instance or group run, sure... but vent just to be in vent .. half the time it is annoying and you have to deal with people you really don't like. Or some bullshit , and then there are the assholes of vent that say shit to piss you off or make smart ass comments. Yea, i agree with you on vent.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
I think a lot of it is due to vent or any of the other numerous voice chat programs. There is really very little need for anyone to use text chat so a lot of people don't. I turn off all trade and general chat channels and other than to say hello at the beginning of each PUG I join, I rarely pay attention to chat windows.
I am actually surprised so many people still use text chat in MMOs. Our guild started using voice chat as the primary form of communication almost 10 years ago and I couldn't ever see myself reverting back to text.
Is that the fault of voice chat or the result of joining a guild with people you dislike? Do people not make smartass comments or say shit to piss you off in text chat anymore or is it exclusive to voice chat now?