I suppose it depends on what you define as being social. To me, this game as a whole is far more social than any other MMO I have ever played. This is due to the fact that people WANT to help you. I've been downed in the BWEs and had someone makea beeline straight towards me to heal me up. They didn't have to, and in most MMOs these days a lot of people would just walk right past you. Hell, I've seen examples of (and I include myself in this) people seeing downed markers on their MAP and trekking a quarter or halfway across the zone to rez someone.
THAT, to me, is being social. Yes, they reward players for doing this actions but in the long run it's bringing players together. I can't help the smile on my face when I do a DE and watch people help others, whether its by drawing the attention of a mob away from someone, tossing down a supportive ability or moving away from dpsing to help up a fellow DE'r. I guarantee you if you put the ability for DPS to break away and rez someone in their party in a game with a holy trinity, most of them would just ignore the person downed and continue DPSing.
As someone above me said, if you're in a DE it's not the best place to socialize if you mean constantly chatting. You're constantly moving, dodging and casting abilities. But before and after the DEs, or quests? I see chatting all over the place. It all depends on how you define socializing.
The game removes the penalty for playing along side each other, which is good, because most MMOs today seem to be designed to train people to be anti-social towards other people. As people play and the inter-personal barriers start to be washed away, people will start to play more actively with each other.
Feeling friendly towards random people you run across is bound to eventually pay off with people reaching out to be more sociable. We have a lot of negative conditioning to overcome, but this game seems designed to do so. As people get deeper into the game, there will be more content that will benefit from, or require, grouping. The positive difference here is that far more players will be open to grouping with others because of the way the game conditions you to see playing along-side others as a positive thing.
People do actually help each other in this game, which is a good thing. A lot of people are already rushing to revive fallen players, lending a hand to someone in a difficult fight and actually joining forces, even if briefly, with people they run across, rather than turning and running the other way, which is something I've see a lot in other MMOs in recent years.
The community is already better than in most MMOs I've plaved since 2006 and I really do think things will continue to impove as the game helps to smooth away a lot of bad MMO habits peole have aquired in other games.
i guess i may be expecting too much too soon. i mean the atmousphere is there the tools are there and the boundaries gone. and with the nessesity of talkign gone im just unsure if it will happen, i hope that it does, but i still am doubtful that /say will be used to the full extent i expect from the community..... which is honestly a bummer because it really would be a breath of fresh air to accually talk to somone after you finish off something hard with people you dont know. banther inbetween adventure.
Simply put, i am finding everything in the game seems to be handed on a silver platter (not as in the game is easy, just everything is easy to do.) selling things to others? click O and done, play a DE run around find one and play easy (well it may kill you :P), and so on.
To me though, these systems although great for the game may have a diffrent effect on the community themselves. It feels like theres just a lack of communication! sure i have 20 people playing on my screen with me, but i try to comment on something to them and i just get no responce back. slowly I am feeling a disconnect with the community as a whole while playing.
Part of why i beleive this is happenong is silmply, its not nessiary to talk at all to play. so people dontand it jsut ceates a emty air. sure occationally people will talk but for a game like this it really would be nice to have banter going on. And i was on the Unofficial RP server. its nigh impossible to take up a role and play it if no one says anything back to you.
what do you guys think?
Some people are taking advantage of free Mumble voice servers to communicate. Personally I rather use a mic. TBH usually when people start using in-game chat early on nowadays they're complaining.
I suppose it depends on what you define as being social. To me, this game as a whole is far more social than any other MMO I have ever played. This is due to the fact that people WANT to help you. I've been downed in the BWEs and had someone makea beeline straight towards me to heal me up. They didn't have to, and in most MMOs these days a lot of people would just walk right past you. Hell, I've seen examples of (and I include myself in this) people seeing downed markers on their MAP and trekking a quarter or halfway across the zone to rez someone.
THAT, to me, is being social. Yes, they reward players for doing this actions but in the long run it's bringing players together. I can't help the smile on my face when I do a DE and watch people help others, whether its by drawing the attention of a mob away from someone, tossing down a supportive ability or moving away from dpsing to help up a fellow DE'r. I guarantee you if you put the ability for DPS to break away and rez someone in their party in a game with a holy trinity, most of them would just ignore the person downed and continue DPSing.
As someone above me said, if you're in a DE it's not the best place to socialize if you mean constantly chatting. You're constantly moving, dodging and casting abilities. But before and after the DEs, or quests? I see chatting all over the place. It all depends on how you define socializing.
maybe it was my sever. but what i mean is
"Wow that was a tough one, almsot did not make it!"
*chirp*
*cricket*
*Ribbit*
would be nice to just get some reciprication :P not much. just enough to spark the feeling that you guys experienced the same thing. make things seem more aline and like people are accually playign with you. and you are not just their means to an end. and that your usefulness if over when the DE is over.
For those that do not know, Sega had no staff or support whatsoever so the only way to get any kind of support, help was the community that played the game.
Not only that, because the 99% of the content (Including chars and items) were stored locally and playable/modifiable offline, hacking ran rampant around the game, and it wasn´t long till the "evil" hackers took hold of the GM powers and admin abilities and started destroying everyone´s experience, banning innocent players and erasing character data by forceformatting people´s memory cards by injecting a corrupted "save code".
But that only spurred the "good" hackers to strike back, inventing anti "code injection" codes that protected the lobbies they played on from being corrupted by the "evil" ones, people started buying devices irl to be able to use these codes unto the game and protect themselves and their friends, and everyone sook out company and protection, creating an authentic "faction war" between the community.
By the end of it all, there were servers "ruled by the hackers" where anything could happen, you entered at your own risk and really weird shit happened around, with people running around with different fonts and skins, people making their own content and lots of hierarchy and "respect " that truly reminded the viewer of the mafia.
Then there were the servers protected by the good hackers and their helpers, where everyone helped each other, helped victims of the hackers restore their lost stuff, played normally and legally, and the code devs attempted to keep up with the newer "evil hacks" so that everyone could continue to do so.
And because people knew that "Outside" it was a cruel and harsh environment, people´s reputation really mattered and people truly had to answer for their own actions, so people were a lot more good to each other than usual.
And they were a lot more appreciative of good company and someone who would help them.
I personally was very lucky because the daughter of one of the "evil hackers" had qutie a crush on me, and thus i was free to go around safely thru both worlds and i was able to experience both communities, and it was truly an unforgettable experience.
By doing so i found out that the "evil hackers" were not necessarily all evil and that lots of them just hanged around because they loved the idea of being able to modify the game to the extremes and sook out to make "a game within a game", exploring all the possibilities, while some of the hackers that supposedly were "good" would be found guilty of being the very ones who created the nocive codes to begin with and would spread them between the evil ones, and then they would create the counter-hack so they would look like heroes and be liked by the people and respected by the community.
I guess it was the closest thing to anarchy a game can offer?
I will admit before hand that I am much more reactive than active, especially when beginning to play a game. What I mean is that my first impulse is to respond to people, but not initiate social contact myself, until I am confident what I am going to say won't make me look like an idiot.
So, in a stress test, we had just finished a DE in the human starting area and a conversation started to which I partecipated nicely, it was quite funny.
But in the latest stress test, while in the Charr starting area and running around with a veritable Legion of Kitties while following the engineer around, a guy tried to speak and I enjoyed seeing him trying to communicate but did not answer back. Mostly because everything was acting so fast around. Not that I would not have had the time for it, just I was focused on what was going on and did not answer.
So I guess you will find more chatty persons during "downtime" like just after an event, see if somebody does NOT immediately run off and maybe you can chat them up.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
I suppose it depends on what you define as being social. To me, this game as a whole is far more social than any other MMO I have ever played. This is due to the fact that people WANT to help you. I've been downed in the BWEs and had someone makea beeline straight towards me to heal me up. They didn't have to, and in most MMOs these days a lot of people would just walk right past you. Hell, I've seen examples of (and I include myself in this) people seeing downed markers on their MAP and trekking a quarter or halfway across the zone to rez someone.
THAT, to me, is being social. Yes, they reward players for doing this actions but in the long run it's bringing players together. I can't help the smile on my face when I do a DE and watch people help others, whether its by drawing the attention of a mob away from someone, tossing down a supportive ability or moving away from dpsing to help up a fellow DE'r. I guarantee you if you put the ability for DPS to break away and rez someone in their party in a game with a holy trinity, most of them would just ignore the person downed and continue DPSing.
As someone above me said, if you're in a DE it's not the best place to socialize if you mean constantly chatting. You're constantly moving, dodging and casting abilities. But before and after the DEs, or quests? I see chatting all over the place. It all depends on how you define socializing.
maybe it was my sever. but what i mean is
"Wow that was a tough one, almsot did not make it!"
*chirp*
*cricket*
*Ribbit*
would be nice to just get some reciprication :P not much. just enough to spark the feeling that you guys experienced the same thing. make things seem more aline and like people are accually playign with you. and you are not just their means to an end. and that your usefulness if over when the DE is over.
Haha, I see what you mean. Most of the DE's I've done have had some sort of interaction, even during it. Even if its just a "thanks man" or ty when someone rezzes you, or a or or something like that. But I agree, some people just dont like to talk. Or they, like me, have vent or something similiar that they talk to guildmates on.
It may differ from server to server. Just depends.
For those that do not know, Sega had no staff or support whatsoever so the only way to get any kind of support, help was the community that played the game.
Not only that, because the 99% of the content (Including chars and items) were stored locally and playable/modifiable offline, hacking ran rampant around the game, and it wasn´t long till the "evil" hackers took hold of the GM powers and admin abilities and started destroying everyone´s experience, banning innocent players and erasing character data by forceformatting people´s memory cards by injecting a corrupted "save code".
But that only spurred the "good" hackers to strike back, inventing anti "code injection" codes that protected the lobbies they played on from being corrupted by the "evil" ones, people started buying devices irl to be able to use these codes unto the game and protect themselves and their friends, and everyone sook out company and protection, creating an authentic "faction war" between the community.
By the end of it all, there were servers "ruled by the hackers" where anything could happen, you entered at your own risk and really weird shit happened around, with people running around with different fonts and skins, people making their own content and lots of hierarchy and "respect " that truly reminded the viewer of the mafia.
Then there were the servers protected by the good hackers and their helpers, where everyone helped each other, helped victims of the hackers restore their lost stuff, played normally and legally, and the code devs attempted to keep up with the newer "evil hacks" so that everyone could continue to do so.
And because people knew that "Outside" it was a cruel and harsh environment, people´s reputation really mattered and people truly had to answer for their own actions, so people were a lot more good to each other than usual.
And they were a lot more appreciative of good company and someone who would help them.
I personally was very lucky because the daughter of one of the "evil hackers" had qutie a crush on me, and thus i was free to go around safely thru both worlds and i was able to experience both communities, and it was truly an unforgettable experience.
By doing so i found out that the "evil hackers" were not necessarily all evil and that lots of them just hanged around because they loved the idea of being able to modify the game to the extremes and sook out to make "a game within a game", exploring all the possibilities, while some of the hackers that supposedly were "good" would be found guilty of being the very ones who created the nocive codes to begin with and would spread them between the evil ones, and then they would create the counter-hack so they would look like heroes and be liked by the people and respected by the community.
I guess it was the closest thing to anarchy a game can offer?
Originally posted by cloud8521 well i dont feel like im gaining any ground and only feel like im being pushed back in to a corner so im just going to go now.
I think you are focussing on the wrong post than bud. Anyway, nice chatting.
Well, it's the beta's and stresses, people aren't really "into" the game yet and alot of people are burning trough content because they have limited time with the game and withdrawals .
After launch, when they have all the time in the world and know their progression is saved, i think you'll start seeing more socializing
One of the design goals was that Anet wanted players to engage with the game through the world rather than looking at cool downs cast bars and other UI elements. Couple that with the fact that there is nearly aways something happening around you that, even if it does not demand your attention, would benefit from your attention, and yes you have a game with less chat.
It is not really the community, Anet have largely succeeded in makingis game that is pretty absorbing. i am not sure what the answer is tbh.
Simply put, i am finding everything in the game seems to be handed on a silver platter (not as in the game is easy, just everything is easy to do.) selling things to others? click O and done, play a DE run around find one and play easy (well it may kill you :P), and so on.
To me though, these systems although great for the game may have a diffrent effect on the community themselves. It feels like theres just a lack of communication! sure i have 20 people playing on my screen with me, but i try to comment on something to them and i just get no responce back. slowly I am feeling a disconnect with the community as a whole while playing.
Part of why i beleive this is happenong is silmply, its not nessiary to talk at all to play. so people dontand it jsut ceates a emty air. sure occationally people will talk but for a game like this it really would be nice to have banter going on. And i was on the Unofficial RP server. its nigh impossible to take up a role and play it if no one says anything back to you.
what do you guys think?
Its better then the bitching and moaning that takes place in WoW when 2 people target the same mob or same harvesting node.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
So if I understand it well Guild wars 2 has no general chat for world or even towns/zones and just a small area around you is covered by /say ?If that is the case then no wonder no one talks,I still remember warhammer doing the same thing with zone chat covering very small areas and the world felt empty and single player like (at least on pve side). To those saying players like op should join a guild,sorry but what is the point of a mmo if you just play and talk with your guild/clan and not meeting random people while exploring the world ?If you just want to talk with your guild you can make your own server for a multiplayer game. It seems people who want a more social mmo where you can meet players and start friendships by just going around and exploring will have to wait a few months and see how the in game community shapes up but based on how previous mmos worked and on lack of general chat,lack of enemies to fight in open world,fast combat etc things don't look so good.
Originally posted by cloud8521 well i dont feel like im gaining any ground and only feel like im being pushed back in to a corner so im just going to go now.
Lol please don't feel that way. I also experienced the thing you talked about. I would often comment on the current event or after it but few people replied. I hope you do not feel I was attacking you.
Some people are REALLY touchy about bad mouthing GW2, I have asked some questions which are critical and recieve many kneejerk reactions, among those are very reasonable posts made by people who took the time to read and try to understand what you wrote.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
So if I understand it well Guild wars 2 has no general chat for world or even towns/zones and just a small area around you is covered by /say ?If that is the case then no wonder no one talks,I still remember warhammer doing the same thing with zone chat covering very small areas and the world felt empty and single player like (at least on pve side). To those saying players like op should join a guild,sorry but what is the point of a mmo if you just play and talk with your guild/clan and not meeting random people while exploring the world ?If you just want to talk with your guild you can make your own server for a multiplayer game. It seems people who want a more social mmo where you can meet players and start friendships by just going around and exploring will have to wait a few months and see how the in game community shapes up but based on how previous mmos worked and on lack of general chat,lack of enemies to fight in open world,fast combat etc things don't look so good.
whoa whoa whoa slow down man. There is /map chat that goes to the whole zone.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
I am very chatty in mmos but I have noticed that in gw2 I often don't notice someone talking right away if I don't see the chat bubble. As someone already said, the game is designed so you don't have to watch the ui and I guess that includes the chat frame, for me at least. Give social people time to get more used to it and I am sure things will be fine.
Simply put, i am finding everything in the game seems to be handed on a silver platter (not as in the game is easy, just everything is easy to do.) selling things to others? click O and done, play a DE run around find one and play easy (well it may kill you :P), and so on.
To me though, these systems although great for the game may have a diffrent effect on the community themselves. It feels like theres just a lack of communication! sure i have 20 people playing on my screen with me, but i try to comment on something to them and i just get no responce back. slowly I am feeling a disconnect with the community as a whole while playing.
Part of why i beleive this is happenong is silmply, its not nessiary to talk at all to play. so people dontand it jsut ceates a emty air. sure occationally people will talk but for a game like this it really would be nice to have banter going on. And i was on the Unofficial RP server. its nigh impossible to take up a role and play it if no one says anything back to you.
what do you guys think?
I think that there really isnt a GW2 community yet no matter how many fans the betas have created. A community is something that really starts to form after launch and it will be months before it becomes a true community.
Once the game have been out a while people will become chattier, in the short beta and stress test most people just are in way too much hurry to stay and talk.
But I still think it will be a lot better than anything else we seen the last 8 years, in most MMOs people solo all the way to max level with no interaction whatsoever nowadays. This is at least slightly more social and you will need to learn to know people for groups later here as in any game.
Some things just occurred to me that also probably play into this. The game actually has a few things that work against players looking for socializing via /say.
Unless they changed it since BWE3, the game defaults to having NPC conversation in the main chat window. NPCs never shut up, resulting in crazy amount of spam. People are being conditioned not to read from this window because of that, imo. (Unless they turn OFF the NPC chat from this window, and I imagine most people haven't done that).
The game doesn't let you customize chat by having multiple windows open and on top at the same time. So anyone who has the combat log open won't see chat, anyone who has made other frames for guild chat, whispers or what not also won't see environment chat (/say). The game needs to let you customize the chat frames to the point where you are allowed to have more than one open at a time (imo).
As I said earlier, the game is designed so you don't have to watch the UI much, so people are probably also not looking at the chat frame much.
I think maybe ANet needs to address the points 1 and 2 above to facilitate a more social game. And for #3, we just all need to get used to a game that isn't defaulting to us needing to stare at the UI more than the screen. (Because I think #3 is a very good thing).
I have noticed what the OP is saying as well. GW2 seems to be a lot less "chatty" than other MMO's, that isn't necessarily a bad thing at all times, but I guess it might form a problem for people who go into the game as lone wolves and hope to find friends and chat partners spontaneously.
It's also a problem for guild recruitment etc., our guild in particular usually recruits by just going out of our way to meet cool new people who are then invited to the voice chat etc.
But of course, part of the remedy for that is just you taking the initiative to talk to people, the (forced) incentive might not be there as much as in other games, but I'm sure some will respond if you really want to talk.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I'm an extremely social player, in fact it's all about community. I play mmos only, because I utilize the word Multi- player. I belong to an organized guild that is doing mutable grouping.
BUT :
1) I'm trying to learn all aspects of the game. I studied everything I could of game and working on putting them into use.
2) I'm trying to figure out my professions.
So yes like most everyone else, I'm soloing for now trying to figure everything out. With every mmo ( new or old ) Don't expect to group before level 20.
One of the drawbacks of GW2's fluent and streamlined gameplay is indeed that communication is superfluous in many cases. Of all the betas I've played this is the game I've met absolutely the least people. At least I'm going to be rolling with my guild, so it won't be too big an issue for me, I hope.
Simply put, i am finding everything in the game seems to be handed on a silver platter (not as in the game is easy, just everything is easy to do.) selling things to others? click O and done, play a DE run around find one and play easy (well it may kill you :P), and so on.
To me though, these systems although great for the game may have a diffrent effect on the community themselves. It feels like theres just a lack of communication! sure i have 20 people playing on my screen with me, but i try to comment on something to them and i just get no responce back. slowly I am feeling a disconnect with the community as a whole while playing.
Part of why i beleive this is happenong is silmply, its not nessiary to talk at all to play. so people dontand it jsut ceates a emty air. sure occationally people will talk but for a game like this it really would be nice to have banter going on. And i was on the Unofficial RP server. its nigh impossible to take up a role and play it if no one says anything back to you.
what do you guys think?
I get where you're coming from, OP, but give it time, it may change. Once some of the newness wears off, people may be more apt to want to communicate.
Comments
I suppose it depends on what you define as being social. To me, this game as a whole is far more social than any other MMO I have ever played. This is due to the fact that people WANT to help you. I've been downed in the BWEs and had someone makea beeline straight towards me to heal me up. They didn't have to, and in most MMOs these days a lot of people would just walk right past you. Hell, I've seen examples of (and I include myself in this) people seeing downed markers on their MAP and trekking a quarter or halfway across the zone to rez someone.
THAT, to me, is being social. Yes, they reward players for doing this actions but in the long run it's bringing players together. I can't help the smile on my face when I do a DE and watch people help others, whether its by drawing the attention of a mob away from someone, tossing down a supportive ability or moving away from dpsing to help up a fellow DE'r. I guarantee you if you put the ability for DPS to break away and rez someone in their party in a game with a holy trinity, most of them would just ignore the person downed and continue DPSing.
As someone above me said, if you're in a DE it's not the best place to socialize if you mean constantly chatting. You're constantly moving, dodging and casting abilities. But before and after the DEs, or quests? I see chatting all over the place. It all depends on how you define socializing.
i guess i may be expecting too much too soon. i mean the atmousphere is there the tools are there and the boundaries gone. and with the nessesity of talkign gone im just unsure if it will happen, i hope that it does, but i still am doubtful that /say will be used to the full extent i expect from the community..... which is honestly a bummer because it really would be a breath of fresh air to accually talk to somone after you finish off something hard with people you dont know. banther inbetween adventure.
Some people are taking advantage of free Mumble voice servers to communicate. Personally I rather use a mic. TBH usually when people start using in-game chat early on nowadays they're complaining.
Quiet players = happy players (most of the time).
maybe it was my sever. but what i mean is
"Wow that was a tough one, almsot did not make it!"
*chirp*
*cricket*
*Ribbit*
would be nice to just get some reciprication :P not much. just enough to spark the feeling that you guys experienced the same thing. make things seem more aline and like people are accually playign with you. and you are not just their means to an end. and that your usefulness if over when the DE is over.
I miss the Phantasy Star Online age.
For those that do not know, Sega had no staff or support whatsoever so the only way to get any kind of support, help was the community that played the game.
Not only that, because the 99% of the content (Including chars and items) were stored locally and playable/modifiable offline, hacking ran rampant around the game, and it wasn´t long till the "evil" hackers took hold of the GM powers and admin abilities and started destroying everyone´s experience, banning innocent players and erasing character data by forceformatting people´s memory cards by injecting a corrupted "save code".
But that only spurred the "good" hackers to strike back, inventing anti "code injection" codes that protected the lobbies they played on from being corrupted by the "evil" ones, people started buying devices irl to be able to use these codes unto the game and protect themselves and their friends, and everyone sook out company and protection, creating an authentic "faction war" between the community.
By the end of it all, there were servers "ruled by the hackers" where anything could happen, you entered at your own risk and really weird shit happened around, with people running around with different fonts and skins, people making their own content and lots of hierarchy and "respect " that truly reminded the viewer of the mafia.
Then there were the servers protected by the good hackers and their helpers, where everyone helped each other, helped victims of the hackers restore their lost stuff, played normally and legally, and the code devs attempted to keep up with the newer "evil hacks" so that everyone could continue to do so.
And because people knew that "Outside" it was a cruel and harsh environment, people´s reputation really mattered and people truly had to answer for their own actions, so people were a lot more good to each other than usual.
And they were a lot more appreciative of good company and someone who would help them.
I personally was very lucky because the daughter of one of the "evil hackers" had qutie a crush on me, and thus i was free to go around safely thru both worlds and i was able to experience both communities, and it was truly an unforgettable experience.
By doing so i found out that the "evil hackers" were not necessarily all evil and that lots of them just hanged around because they loved the idea of being able to modify the game to the extremes and sook out to make "a game within a game", exploring all the possibilities, while some of the hackers that supposedly were "good" would be found guilty of being the very ones who created the nocive codes to begin with and would spread them between the evil ones, and then they would create the counter-hack so they would look like heroes and be liked by the people and respected by the community.
I guess it was the closest thing to anarchy a game can offer?
Good times.
I bring mixed experiences to this thread.
I will admit before hand that I am much more reactive than active, especially when beginning to play a game. What I mean is that my first impulse is to respond to people, but not initiate social contact myself, until I am confident what I am going to say won't make me look like an idiot.
So, in a stress test, we had just finished a DE in the human starting area and a conversation started to which I partecipated nicely, it was quite funny.
But in the latest stress test, while in the Charr starting area and running around with a veritable Legion of Kitties while following the engineer around, a guy tried to speak and I enjoyed seeing him trying to communicate but did not answer back. Mostly because everything was acting so fast around. Not that I would not have had the time for it, just I was focused on what was going on and did not answer.
So I guess you will find more chatty persons during "downtime" like just after an event, see if somebody does NOT immediately run off and maybe you can chat them up.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Haha, I see what you mean. Most of the DE's I've done have had some sort of interaction, even during it. Even if its just a "thanks man" or ty when someone rezzes you, or a
or 
or something like that. But I agree, some people just dont like to talk. Or they, like me, have vent or something similiar that they talk to guildmates on.
It may differ from server to server. Just depends.
That's a classic story!
Good read, thanks.
I think you are focussing on the wrong post than bud. Anyway, nice chatting.
Well, it's the beta's and stresses, people aren't really "into" the game yet and alot of people are burning trough content because they have limited time with the game and withdrawals
.
After launch, when they have all the time in the world and know their progression is saved, i think you'll start seeing more socializing
One of the design goals was that Anet wanted players to engage with the game through the world rather than looking at cool downs cast bars and other UI elements. Couple that with the fact that there is nearly aways something happening around you that, even if it does not demand your attention, would benefit from your attention, and yes you have a game with less chat.
It is not really the community, Anet have largely succeeded in makingis game that is pretty absorbing. i am not sure what the answer is tbh.
Its better then the bitching and moaning that takes place in WoW when 2 people target the same mob or same harvesting node.
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So if I understand it well Guild wars 2 has no general chat for world or even towns/zones and just a small area around you is covered by /say ?If that is the case then no wonder no one talks,I still remember warhammer doing the same thing with zone chat covering very small areas and the world felt empty and single player like (at least on pve side).
To those saying players like op should join a guild,sorry but what is the point of a mmo if you just play and talk with your guild/clan and not meeting random people while exploring the world ?If you just want to talk with your guild you can make your own server for a multiplayer game.
It seems people who want a more social mmo where you can meet players and start friendships by just going around and exploring will have to wait a few months and see how the in game community shapes up but based on how previous mmos worked and on lack of general chat,lack of enemies to fight in open world,fast combat etc things don't look so good.
Lol please don't feel that way. I also experienced the thing you talked about. I would often comment on the current event or after it but few people replied. I hope you do not feel I was attacking you.
Some people are REALLY touchy about bad mouthing GW2, I have asked some questions which are critical and recieve many kneejerk reactions, among those are very reasonable posts made by people who took the time to read and try to understand what you wrote.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
whoa whoa whoa slow down man. There is /map chat that goes to the whole zone.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
I am very chatty in mmos but I have noticed that in gw2 I often don't notice someone talking right away if I don't see the chat bubble. As someone already said, the game is designed so you don't have to watch the ui and I guess that includes the chat frame, for me at least. Give social people time to get more used to it and I am sure things will be fine.
I think that there really isnt a GW2 community yet no matter how many fans the betas have created. A community is something that really starts to form after launch and it will be months before it becomes a true community.
Once the game have been out a while people will become chattier, in the short beta and stress test most people just are in way too much hurry to stay and talk.
But I still think it will be a lot better than anything else we seen the last 8 years, in most MMOs people solo all the way to max level with no interaction whatsoever nowadays. This is at least slightly more social and you will need to learn to know people for groups later here as in any game.
Man, when the place is being invaded by centaurs, wave after wave......I just don't have the time to make you feel better by talking to you
.
It's a war out there, man!
Some things just occurred to me that also probably play into this. The game actually has a few things that work against players looking for socializing via /say.
I have noticed what the OP is saying as well. GW2 seems to be a lot less "chatty" than other MMO's, that isn't necessarily a bad thing at all times, but I guess it might form a problem for people who go into the game as lone wolves and hope to find friends and chat partners spontaneously.
It's also a problem for guild recruitment etc., our guild in particular usually recruits by just going out of our way to meet cool new people who are then invited to the voice chat etc.
But of course, part of the remedy for that is just you taking the initiative to talk to people, the (forced) incentive might not be there as much as in other games, but I'm sure some will respond if you really want to talk.
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I'm an extremely social player, in fact it's all about community. I play mmos only, because I utilize the word Multi- player. I belong to an organized guild that is doing mutable grouping.
BUT :
1) I'm trying to learn all aspects of the game. I studied everything I could of game and working on putting them into use.
2) I'm trying to figure out my professions.
So yes like most everyone else, I'm soloing for now trying to figure everything out. With every mmo ( new or old ) Don't expect to group before level 20.
I don't blame people for not talking much during the stress tests. So much to do, so much to kill.
Theres literally so much to look at and play with that noone really cares at the moment. I kinda like it.
Its refreshing not to see "LFG DPS TANK 345346 GS OR KICK" "GUILD X_LEET-HAXXXORS_X NOW RECRUITING"
..and the rest of that bullshit you usually see clogging up the chat box.
.....though i'm sure that'll come eventually.
I get where you're coming from, OP, but give it time, it may change. Once some of the newness wears off, people may be more apt to want to communicate.