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General: It's Not What You Play
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
There are many reasons that folks log into MMOs these days. Arguably, one of the best reasons to keep coming back is to 'see' the virtual friends we have made along the way. In today's Player Perspectives, MMORPG.com columnist Isabelle Parsley talks about just that: Friendships that transcend -what- is being played and morphs it into -who- it's being played with. Read on!
And most of us socialize in games, to whatever extent and according to our own quirks and preferences. I don't think I can name a single person I know who is a total hermitic misanthrope in games, though I'm sure they're around – and more power to them. The possibility of socialization and the presence of other players in no way obliges anyone to spent their subscription money on doing anything but what they want to do. (Okay, we're excluding aggressively antisocial behavior like griefing here, but that's pretty obvious.)
Read more of Isabelle Parsley's Player Perspectives: It's Not What You Play.
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Comments
I really liked that blog post. My experience with friends has been similar.
Ahhh...my most memorable with friends. Back in early 2000, a very close friend of mine and I were trying to get to The Outpost in The Overthere in Everquest. We had no maps. Or the one we did have was drawn by me (can we see where this is going?). it took us a half hour to realize: "Umm...dude, I've seen that Iksar Statue before." "Not possible. I know where I'm going!" "Umm...no you don't. We've passed that statue 20 times already."
Ok...so...It was an adventure! (Mind you it only gets funnier from here. And we were already laughing out asses off at the fact that we spent 30 minutes going in circles)
So we FINALLY find the path to The Outpost. We have no idea that Iksar aren't welcome there. But we had our own welcoming party say hello to us!
"Huh...there's no one here."
"Maybe it's just a ruin?"
We turn around to leave, and I notice: "Dragoon So and So hits Drakosept for 5000 damage."
A guard was sitting on a massive pillar. Glitched up there most likely. Then I see: "Drakosept has died."
My friend is yelling at me to run. I do. As I do, I accidently aggroed one of the golems or sentinels. Whatever they were called in EQ. So I try to gate out.
I hit Gate: "Your Gate collapses."
"Uh oh..."
I hit Gate again. "Your Gate collapses.
"AWWW SHIT!" The golem was getting closer. "COME ON WORK!"
I swear to God Almighty...at the last second I hit Gate a third time and I got to West Cabilis safely. All the while listening to my friend die laughing at me panicing. Meanwhile, my heart is doing a million miles a minute. "Bastard. I tell him."
But we still laugh about the whole thing. Good times. And as a sense of justice. It took 3 days to get my friends corpse back. Served him right for laughing at me! (j/k)
Yes more and more people are realising its not the game that matters, but moreso the people in it.
I play 2 games these days, Darkfall and WoW.
In Darkfall a clan feels like a sporting team, theres nothing like the risk of losing full loot to get your guild to collaborate.
In WoW I play in a guild of 5 RL friends, including my son who plays the tank (kids and their reflexes). Thats the way to play it, we have Thursday nights as our group WoW night and enjoy hitting cataclysm heroics together and then email each other at work about it the next day. Its become the equivalent of our poker night or pub night and we can do it each week and still keep the wife happy
I've been reading Jane McGonical's book "reality is broken" lately and most of what you touch on is described there. Fiero moments, why we volunteer to "work" at something in our time off, well worth a read if you are interested in this theme.
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76)
Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
You're quitting a game? Can I have your stuff?
More seriously, I'd highly recommend that someday when you quit a game in which you have a lot of stuff that can be given away, you do go ahead and give it all away. That will give you a better perspective on future games that you play.
Very nice blog
Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside =D
Excellent blog and well written. You expressed many of my own feelings about gaming. I solo moslty, because like you, I also have to leave game sometimes without notice and I don't like to leave a group or person hanging by doing so. I do have in-game friends though, and they are always willing to drop what they're doing to help me in a bind. I have many fond memories of my MMO's and currently have no intention of quiting all together. I just move around from one to the other, always looking for the 'perfect' game. Thanks for your wonderful post.
Very nice writeup, Isabelle. Good luck keeping that last nail in regarding the MMO = Grouping mindset. My position is the same as yours, but the players who absolutely need to group just don't get it. During the Rift Head Start, seeing posts on the official forums demanding that people be forced to leave their Autogroup function on made it much easier for me to pass on committing to the game.
I've had some great experiences in MMORPGs over the past 9 years, but lately, they're just not there. Pity. I'm hoping that ArenaNet's design vision manages to change that.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I actually did this when I left WoW for the last time, I gave away everything that was not BoP and then gave my account to one of my friends. It was a great feeling to know that there was nothing left to pull me to log in, after I decided to leave. Plus it helped me to remember that they are just items in a game, nothing more nothing less.
One part I have never understood is people saying they play a game just because their friends are playing it. You should be playing a game because you are having fun, no other reason! If the people you call friends are your friends then you can talk to them through e-mail or voice chat, you should not have to be in a game with them to be their friend. If you have to be part of that game to continue that friendship then I would really look at your friendship, because those people are not it.
I agree with the OP, all the best times I have had in a game was with friends. Playing WoW BGs naked with nothing but weapons on rogues with 4 of my friends; just whole sale slaughtering people with team work and laughing the whole time. To playing as Bounty Hunters in Star Wars Galaxies and coordinating with my friends to hunt down a jedi, or going into a tusken raider camp. To the fond memories of playing AD&D with my friends; and just the blast of role playing a funny or dramatic scene. I kind of miss that aspect of gaming it seems to have shifted to now it is all about the gear, but I can still remember when it was all about the fun of the experience.
That is true! But how is making a finical decision to spend money based on what your friends are doing, a sound decision. If you really believe that this is smart money management, I would say you better pack a big lunch, because you are going to be broke for the rest of your life. We are talking about money here, and it does not make sense to spend it on something you are not enjoying. I know Blizzard or the other developers do not want you to think that way, because if you quick paying, they cannot take baths in money anymore.
I guess I just do not understand how people can be so irresponsible with their voting dollars. At least in the U.S. we have free enterprise and as a consumer I can vote with my dollar to support a product or not. My vote should never be cast by my friends and their decisions. But if you are fine with that, then have a wonderful life, I am just glad you are not in charge of this country!
i dont blog and i dont log into mmo games to see virtual friends either, and ive been playing mmo games for more than 10 years now. in all honesty i have very little interest in meeting new friends from a virtual gameing world. something about it just seems all a bit too nerdy.
so the reason i log into games is to play with real life friends who have a similar interest to myself. these friends ive either known through work or have grown up with over time. when i log into a new game im logging in out of curiosity!! i want to see if the game has done anything new and ingenius with their development that is diffrent from the growing trend we see in pretty much all new game releases today.
i log into old game thats ive played on and off for a while to see if the devs have found away to improve their game and earn my interest in their product, and i have to say i have aunique perspective on video games. im in my 30's and i dont see them as fun or entertainment, instead i concider them a type of hobby! a long term investment if you will, i want to use the game like a person would use the radio or television or in the same kind of way an artist would pain a picture. to pass time which would usually be speant scratching my head wandering what to do with myself to do something relatively constructive and rewarding without any real repercusions.
the problem is that very very few games offer this kind of fullfillment and entertainment. i can think of only 2 games available at present that even come close to what i want from a video game.. these games are eve-online and swg.. i dont really play much in swg of late due to its increasing growth down the themepark path and linear content scenario.. infact the game is turning into a user friendly easy to play game each time i take a look at it, its almost as if the devs are trying to make the game easier to play so that a wider array of an audience can use their product, the result is it becomes less appealing to the more complexed gamers out there.
as for eve, all i can say is the devs know and understand how to put the human mind incontrol of its own thoughts, imagination and ingenuity, it is the only game ive played and know of that really works the mind and forces the player to think rather than just aimlessly mashing keys in a raid or instance they have mashed keys in so many times.
i enjoy challenges that are not questions but more puzzles ever changeing puzzles with a multitude of ways to solve them. and the best thing about eve is that players create these puzzels they are are not generic pre-programmed puzzels stuck in by devs, these puzzels are the results of real peoples actions effecting other real peoples actions. its almost like the real world but it isnt!! it brings a feel of reality into the game and puts eve-online as far as im concerned into the catogory of hobby rather than a game or form of entertainment.
as ive said above, i know of no other games that allow for this kind of connection. its truely facinateing that so little in the means of linear and generic content or quests could cause such interest. the sheer depth of control and interaction the user has within this software is fantastic. and again i dont play eve for freinds which is probably why im getting along with it so well. i dont see the people in these games as close imediate friends instead i see them as ingame tools that just happen to act of there own free will but within the confines and mechanics of the games systems. their is no requirement of respect or loyalty just a mutual understanding that the people in these games are real people and deserve basic and common respect from you. with this in mind i tend to get along fairly well with these games especially eve-online.
people will argue and scream that its important to have freinds in these games, well i tend to disagree. instead i think its ok for others to concider you friends so long as you dont get attached, being attached in this false way of friendship can lead to all kinds of problems with people you dont even know.
so i stay polite and respond with a friendly nature to others with out actually forming bonds or friendship. i mean why would i want to form a bond of real true friendship with some one in a video game living on the otehr side of the planet playing as female charecter when they are really guys and calling them selves nick names and useing wierd names for their ingame avatars. why would i want to talk to these people like friends, you know tell them my problems and discuss my fammily life!!! well i wouldnt lol, that has to be bad practice intodays world. games are not for makeing friends as the friends you make in games often lie about who they are what they do how old they are and where they come from. most of them exagerate and lie, and some of tthem are not in these games to play, some of them are in these games for more sinister reasons, so why would people want to make friends in this kind of enviroment.
that is why i dont make friends in these games and keep strictly in the understanding im fullfilling my own needs with what i refer to as a hobby game.
if i want to meet new friends ill go to the store or out for a few beers with current friends or use real life social activities of all kinds to intereact with real people face to face.
sure i dont mind playing these games with other people on these games, i find it entertaining and good fun. but only in some games!!. over the time ive been gameing the qaulity of the players online and there attitude to each other has deteriated and now i see lots of people who have no clue about one another smack talking each other in the public chat channels, then you have your god gamers who have been in the elite forces or who can pick a fight with 10 people at once and win. or who have unbelievable jobs lol. lots and lots of tall tales that are all utterly false, so false even that when a real person does come along that does indeed have one of these fantastical lives, people pass them off as bull shitters.
too many people in these games are full of shit and pretyt much all of them believe their own waffle. and there in lies the source of the problem, when some one truely believes their own lies, it has to be pretty bad for the social state of the online community. its a community full of liers. and through my experiences in real life! liars are the worst kind of people because you never will know who they really are.
so how can you make friends with these kind of people. you know you cant trust them before you even speak to them. lol you cant take them at face value as its just written text in a chat server.
no i think people are playing these games for the wrong reason and the developers today have also clocked this which is why all games of late look like wow play like wow feel like wow, they are makeing linear sparkly guided worlds for people who would rather talk to other people rather than use thier minds and heads to solve problems and pursue a new kind of hobby. i think the whole problems with mmo's today is the gameing community its self.
just reading the boards on the new swtor site for example, all you see is a bunch of kids wishing the game was out and saying how fantastic it is before they even get to play it. most of it is just propaganda. and its been fueld by cenematic trailers and fantasticle developer blogs in the gameing community. also most of todays players are indeed the remnents of wow. peopel claim wow is the savior of mmo's i think thats a load of crap. wow is by far the most boreing game and slow paced game ive ever had the displeasure of laying hands on.
i beleive wow has lowered the tone of the online gameing world. its made games so much more user friendly and easy to play. so muchy so that when i log into games like lord of the rings online. i somewhat feel like a usb device. im just plugging in and funnctioning.
there is no real enjoyment today with modern mmo's
here is another example, city of heroes / champions online / dc universe.. these games are all the same thing they all do the same thing they all offer the same thing they are all exactly the same thing, their is nothing diffrent about any of them. they are the same!!! why are developers makeing multiple copies of the same game and sticking diffrent names on them ?????? its because people are really simple and easy to please. they play one thing and one thing only and they assume thats what an mmo is. most of todays gamers have littler experience in diffrent formats of games, im not going to explain what diffrent formats are, instead ill let the people who find this interesting go do some research on what i really mean by game formats.
and so here ends my reason as to why i dont log into games to make friends lol which actually turned into a bit of a modern day mmo bashing.
sorry if this broke any ones hearts i didnt mean to offend the people i dont know or have little interest in knowing, but then would that mean that im not really sorry ????
who knows
another thing that i find increasingly disturbing is how the forum moderators of certain forums well all forums feel they have the right to tell people how to conduct them selves in a somewhat public place. ive had a number of warnings from mods from numerous forums for touching on well touchy subjects. again i have little interest or care or concern for what these people think or believe about me!! why ?? because i dont know them or have any interest in knowing them, they are nothing to me
would i insult them?? no i would not thats not the kind of person i am, i wouldnt tell them what to say or how to say things so why do they think they have the right to tell me what to say or what not to say or how to conduct myself. truth is they dont!!
before i would just ignore the warning from these power hungry forum moderators and just carry on as always have, ive never been banned from any forum or game. but now im going to start telling them to keep their bullshit inside their heads, i have little interest in what they preach or their rules in thes epublic places.
they ask us valid questions about these games and our ioppinions and feelings on these subjects, when we answer truthfully they dont always like how we do it and issue warnings.
again these are people we dont know or even care to try to know. why on earth would we be bothered about their warnings ??
and that is the problems with the whole online thing. it never used to be this bad, it used to be something i really enjoyed doing but over the last 10 years or so its lost alot of its appeal.
i think im going to change my hobby and start building model warships from the renaisance period, ships of the line sounds like a good idea.
hehe looking at that GAMERS picture + its message i am under the impression that while those bunch of old dudes are gathered there doin nothing..... their wives are having sex..... o.O
nice article tho
Great read.
I'm with you on many of your points. My brother and I both have great reflexes, not just the twitchy fingers but even more importantly "brain"to-fingers". My brother is 5 years younger however, and I can tell I am not what I was a decade ago.
Back in the day, when UO had just come out, my little brother and I used to hop online at my office with screaming PCs and a T-1. Our advantage was palpable as we watched the lambs trying to get away. The lag monster factor was often huge in those days, and as a result, we were rarely killed--even when it was 3-4 on one--and enjoyed the 'phat lootz' as it were.
With technology of today, we still win a good deal of the time in the PvP arena, but I am noticing it's not the total domination it used to be. Part of it is that many players are on a fairly even Hardware and connection playing ground, and the rest of it--I am sad to say--is likely me just starting to slow down.
I do enjoy going back to older games once in a while, but it is rarely with the intent to get serious, it's more just to reminisce a little. I do however find it becoming easier to walk away from the accumulated in-game wealth when I've grown weary or bored with a game, as apposed to the opposite as described above and for others I know. I am unsure if it's just that I've become accustomed to the idea that they're just pixels, or if over the years--especial being hard core PvP--things come and go so often that I am just no longer phased by it.
One thing though still provides that addictive rush.. a worthy opponent... getting dusted in the end. How sweet it is.
Nothing fancy...
Just DEATH
My first mmo was AC, I made a lot of friends in that game and am still in touch with a lot of them today [12 years later]
Often when in a diff game now and I hear a certain sound that reminds me of my AC days - a vision of being with friends, sitting on Mayoi's Green, chatting - or racing up to the Mage tower to get items needed b4 questing - waiting to go questing with friends at Qalabar's Portal, Chatting in Town with my best buddy Tarrant who was always trying to get me to PvP by any means - even trickery.......LOL, but I wouldn't in those days, only started PvPing for the first time in WoW and loved it. It is True, out in-game friends Are part and parcel of the games we play, gaming just would not be the same without them.
Of all the mmo's I have played - AC still brings the warmest memories of all - probably because it was my first mmo
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
I wonder why we can Edit some Replies and not others!
Ah well, a correction: our not out
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
Holy frigggin shit
scribble scribble scribble
I have no rl friends who will touch a mmo they either consider them huge time sinks or just too nerdy a hobby to get into. They'll play console stuff and maybe fps or rts pc games but that's about it.
I've been playing mmo's for around 6 years now and in that time across many games I have never encountered anyone who I consider more then just random aquiantences. I really don't know how you people find others who would do stuff like send you a junk food care pakagae halfway across the world when they hardly even "really" know you. I"m lucky if I can fnd a guild in any game where anyone even talks to each other at all or ever helps each other in game except for the usual "inner circle" which if you are not in it you don't even get spit on by the rest of the guild.
Pi*1337/100 = 42
lol well i had alot to say, it was also late too so alot of rambling on and i do beleive i repeated a few things unknowingly too. probably explains the length of the post.
so yea mmog's are nto for makeing friends in they are simply alternative hobby types and people are miss useing them.
and kids shouldnt be aloud to use them at all. the age limit needs to be raised and enforced to about 20+ years of age. any younger and they lack the necessary social skills to mix with adults in such an open social enviroment.
in these games there are people with many diffrent cultures and many diffrent beliefs from many diffrent countries from around the world. putting kids into these places at such early stages is not good. they need to learn self respect and then they need to learn respect for their imediate elders and then respect for the other people in they may meet in the street before they start spamming their indiotic shit in world chat servers in an online game.
best way to play these games is with real friends, liek you said !! if you can find any that play these games. im the same i have very few real life friends who would even touch an mmo, they concider them geeky and nerdy. they ahve very little understanding of what they are so they just push them away which is fine!!.
i would rather go out and socialise with those people than try and make new friends in an mmo. friends in an mmo are not really friends, they are just pixels on a screen. voices on a headset, nothing more. and it would be impolite not to respond with some kind of respect for another human. so we all honour this understanding that common respect for all people is always a worthwhile cause, we dont have to befriend them. just be nice and polite and socialise. its a public place afterall.
Pardon me..
I've heard these same excuses before. Remember that subscription based games take three things from you. Time, Energy and Money. If one claims a game is worth playing because of their few friends, then I must say that paying $15 a month for a subscription based game in order to have "friends" really does mean that you are so shallow as to not have found enough friends in the real world or learned how to define friendship.
The real world has a common trend too...Like in Work or School/Colleges where people talk about their life in school or issues at work.
A friend is really not a friend until people can talk about personal things outside a "dependency" environment. In most cases once the dependency is eliminated, one of two things happen. Either the two grow apart since what is common to them has been eliminated or the two learn to like one another and do things together.
In short, once there are no dependencies and two can get along, that is when true friendship begins, everything before then is kindness and discourse as well as luck and opinion.
You are right about one thing. The older you get, the more realize how important having a good friend and real relationships in your life are and perhaps the more you appreciate the people around you who actually give a damn about you. ^_^
As I've gotten older I've started playing games in general less and less. Not because games are boring in general. Its because the game industry is owned mainly by bussiness men and not other gamers.
I find myself waiting for a very few select games. Game devs today just make generic mmos, generic sports games, and generic first person shooters. Thats what 80% of the games coming out are. Single player linear games don't cut it for me either. At 50-60 dollars a pop I need a game thats going to last. If I want a good story I can only run through once, I'll buy a book, not a damn 60 dollar disk.
None of my friends play MMOs, I've tried to get them to play with me. We played city of heroes for a few months, but thats about it. I think maybe they noticed earlier than I did how crappy mmos are or have become.
Whats happened to the game developers? Is no one making their dream games anymore? Cause I wont sit here and believe that making war first person shooters with the same basic plot over and over and over and over and over and over is someone's dream as a developer.
Nice post Isabelle.
You definitely get it!
The most stress and the most fun I've had in MMOs is sharing a mission/quest and dying or succeeding. I've enough rl friends to know the dif between real friends and aquaintances and IMHO people who are cool in games (they don't have to be) are prolly cool in rl.
Love to solo but the most fun I've had is pt with a ls in FFXI.
Again, nice post. +1
If you cut it too short you can always nail a piece on the end.
If you cut it too long then what the hell are you gonna do?
Since 2004 I have played MMOs with my friend Naha. From MapleStory to Phantasy Star Universe to WoW (4 1/2 years) to Perfect World International.. back to Maple. Currently waiting for GW2. We don't have nearly as much fun if we're apart.
Im sure i'm not the only one who started playing with friends, but steadily start to play more by myself. Even thought you find new friends in guilds it's not quite the same thing. I have a problem trusting others, maybe it's just me, but it makes it harder playing with strangers online. Do anyone have tips for this? Im kinda alone now.
The sylvari ordered Rice n chicken in a bar. The waiter asked him: "exploded or intact?" He angrily answered: "Intact of course! Do you take me for a fool?"
Those were his last words.
Very good post, but as to some of the some of the comments following, I differ with a few of them. I belive you can make actual friends inside of an mmo. To say that you can't is just ... well incorrect, it's just to general. I've made a few actual friends from WoW. I still talk to them on vent a lot, and I've visited them and just talked about every day things, life families, jobs, kids, movies that may or may not have sucked. I guess some may not view it possible to make a real friend in an mmo, but sometimes you only get out what you put in a friendship.