WoW for the most part made it possible to solo from 1 to max level.With WoW's success other companies followed suit,thus you see what we see today..
Casual,accessable,solo friendly themeparks.
I don't agree with your assesment.
WoW only makes part of the content accsesible to the solo player. If you want to progress your character further, you need to group for instances, raids, arena, bgs...
They chose to make the leveling/questing part soloable, but they could easily have made the leveling require grouping, and something else be accessible to the solo player. It's a design decision.
Saying WoW doesn't offer group content is just plain lying. You can't even honestly claim ignorance considering how well known WoW is.
Uhh,I never said WoW didnt have group content..
I said you could level from 1 - max solo,which most modern day MMO's mimic..
Of course they chose to make it solo,Are you assuming that I think its some design flaw?
WoW became a hit with their design decisions and every major mmo followed in their foot steps.
I believe people have molded and have become accustomed,comfortable,with the solo mentality becuase of it.
Grouping and being forced to play with others outside of your immediate circle of friends... not so much.
Too many random acts of douchery by pug/randoms. People that just do stupid and mean spirited sh*t just to do it.
Way too many asshats that hide behind the veil of anonymity.
Way too many little kids and/or immature tweenagers.
Games don't have any intelligent search features to look for 'like-minded individuals/compatible' players to group you with. Instead, they just lump you in with anyone... doesn't matter the age, skill level, knowledge level, etc.,... And I actually 'hate' that.
I also strongly dislike waiting for queues. Waiting for a group of random people that I likely won't talk to and I'd say 3/4's of the time when they do talk they are either mean/douch-esque OR completely clueless.
I would personally love it if games allowed you to create a 'social profile' for your character that acts as a filter when you use group finder/guild finder tools.. that would help match you up with like-minded folks.
Yet people have done it before in older mmo's and still do it today in many games.
Your assertions are wrong.
The greatest limitation to grouping is the awkward mechanics given to the players. Communication is painful and social tools near non existant. It has to be resolved from the ground up. The game must reward players for cooperation to make it appealing. This is not forced grouping as players will seek it out for all the benefits that go along with grouping ... socializing, advancement in game community building.
It is the fundamental failings of an mmo that requires the creation of artificial grouping mechanics and instanced gameplay that only segregates the greater community.
Human beings are a social species but when a game does not emulate the basic social mechanics humans have evolved around you cannot expect social grouping to flourish. There are far too many barriers in place. It is the fundamental failing of the mmo's development that hinders social behavior. The tools stunt it beyond hope. It must allow seemless virtual integration yet mmo's have not offered any improved interface for this in well over a decade.
Blame mmo's for it's complete failure in making true virtual worlds ... not the player who will only take the path of least resistance. The whole reason why this is such a debate is because players WANT to be social but can't. If it wasn't an issue we would even be talking about it and we wouldn't have mmo's.
Yet people have done it before in older mmo's and still do it today in many games.
Your assertions are wrong.
The greatest limitation to grouping is the awkward mechanics given to the players. Communication is painful and social tools near non existant. It has to be resolved from the ground up. The game must reward players for cooperation to make it appealing. This is not forced grouping as players will seek it out for all the benefits that go along with grouping ... socializing, advancement in game community building.
It is the fundamental failings of an mmo that requires the creation of artificial grouping mechanics and instanced gameplay that only segregates the greater community.
Human beings are a social species but when a game does not emulate the basic social mechanics humans have evolved around you cannot expect social grouping to flourish. There are far too many barriers in place. It is the fundamental failing of the mmo's development that hinders social behavior. The tools stunt it beyond hope. It must allow seemless virtual integration yet mmo's have not offered any improved interface for this in well over a decade.
Blame mmo's for it's complete failure in making true virtual worlds ... not the player who will only take the path of least resistance. The whole reason why this is such a debate is because players WANT to be social but can't. If it wasn't an issue we would even be talking about it and we wouldn't have mmo's.
Agreed, Well put..
labeling it as "forced grouping" is simply untrue.
Now if I create a game that you start off max level, with all the best gear, unlimited supply of money, and your character cannot move but just stand there.. would you all play this game... it seems to be exactly what you are all looking for.
Now if I create a game that you start off max level, with all the best gear, unlimited supply of money, and your character cannot move but just stand there.. would you all play this game... it seems to be exactly what you are all looking for.
Why even have gear? Just go nude.
A game where we all just stand there naked having a several hour long staring contest every day while flashing wads of money at eachother? Hell, that could be more interesting then some of the stuff we get. Im in.
You could say I'm a shy social guy if that makes sense. I need a reason to approach a person and start a conversation for the most part. If I don't have a reason I feel like I'm invading their space. Now my point here is about a game as you level not end game.
The last game I played that would have what you called forced grouping was EQ. In EQ there was lots of content that required a group to get a chance at a drop that could be a upgrade as you level. In this case if I entered an area where a named mob was located it gave me the reason to approach players that I needed to start a social experience. I feel that is missing in todays games for the most part.
IMHO this type of game play created better communites over the long run then what we have today.
There are actualy 2 factors at play here which significantly effect human behavior in this regard...
1) Humans have evolved as "herd" animals. We ARE (as a rule) highly social creatures. We actualy REQUIRE meaningfull interaction and social connections in order to function. Deprive a human being (or a monkey) from all interaction with other humans and they will tend to grow deeply depressed and unstable, even to the point of insanity. Think Tom Hanks in "Cast Away". By contrast, your house cat, which has evolved as a solitary predator, will be just fine with little to no contact with other cats it's whole life.
2) Human beings have also evolved an instinctual fear of the "Unkown". There are very good reasons for this as the world is and was, a dangerous place. This includes other human beings we don't know..e.g. "Strangers". It's no coincidence that the most common greeting found in human languages/culture is the word.. "Peace", followed by a raised and open right hand (showing that no weapons are being held at ready). The anxiety about strangers is based upon this fear of the unkown and the concept that we have (instinctualy) no idea of thier nature or thier intent toward us.
We are perfectly fine and comfortable operating within the "Tribe". That's part of our natural pattern. We get nervous about those outside the "Tribe." That's one of the reasons it's commonly held that small towns are much freindlier places then big cities. Once a person gets to know another person, becomes familiar with them, it breaks down that initial (instinctual) anxiety that we ALL feel. The person is no longer stranger/unkown...they become familier to us, and someone we know how to deal with and interact with.
......
So we have 2 contradictory elements of human nature at play here. Humans want (NEED actualy) to interact with others, to form social bonds, to be parts of groups/communities/tribes. However humans also are anxious about approaching or interacting with strangers. Some people are better at overcoming that natural anxiety on thier own, but we pretty much all have it. In order to overcome that anxiety, we tend to create catalysts that help overcome it...whether it's an organized hiking trip where everyone (strangers) comes together as a group to engage in some activity and thus have something they share in common to help "break the ice"....or team sports...little league, softball, etc.... or the simple act of when someone new is hired, taking them around the workplace and introducing them to co-workers. It's all designed as an ice-breaker to help overcome that natural anxiety we have about strangers. The same can happen through happenstance as well, people thrown together as part of a natural disaster/catastrophe and working together to get through it is an old, but accurate cliche.
Most people WANT/NEED a certain amount of social interaction in thier lives. Of course we also want/need some amount of space or "alone time" as well.
"Forced" Grouping or other built-in game interdependancies CAN work because they act as catalysts to overcome anxieties and help support and give reason for the human relationships that we all NEED and are comfortable with as part of our natural state.
The disconnect comes in when you start getting into the reasons WHY people play games...which are quite different. Some people play games specificaly to INTERACT with others....that's most of us who like/are interested in rulesets with built-in interdependancy and/or grouping. To us such mechanics are a GOOD THING because they help facilitate the type of thing we are looking for in a game. Others (I'm assuming you), play games mostly to GET AWAY from other human beings, it's part of thier "alone time" so anything that would work counter to that e.g. "Forced Grouping" is seen as a negative. It's as simple as that.
There is no flat out work/doesn't work as an axiom or universal truth in this regard. It's simply dependant on what the individual is looking to get out of the activity....and we are looking for different things.
It also explains why OPTIONAL GROUPING or OPTIONAL INTERDEPENDANCY tends to result in environments where people are mostly not interacting or being social.... because even though individuals may want/enjoy interaction with others in those environment...there isn't much to act as a catalyst to overcome that natural anxiety about "the stranger" that we all feel.
You could say I'm a shy social guy if that makes sense. I need a reason to approach a person and start a conversation for the most part. If I don't have a reason I feel like I'm invading their space. Now my point here is about a game as you level not end game.
The last game I played that would have what you called forced grouping was EQ. In EQ there was lots of content that required a group to get a chance at a drop that could be a upgrade as you level. In this case if I entered an area where a named mob was located it gave me the reason to approach players that I needed to start a social experience. I feel that is missing in todays games for the most part.
IMHO this type of game play created better communites over the long run then what we have today.
QFT except I would not consider myself shy at all.
Totally disagree. And I think you'll find that the bulk of psychological and anthropological literatue does as well.
People talk to random strangers all the time, in line at the bank, the grocery store, gas stations...
We are social creatures, not just because it was important to survive but for a lot of emotional reasons. Removing contact whether it is social, physical... can actually contribute cause a great deal of psychological conditions not the least of which is depression.
However you are right that forced grouping does not work. People want to socialize with others because they like to be social.
What the developers of these games have to answer is, "Why are people playing these games?" I doubt the answer is to be social for the majority of people. They will socialize in their RL.
They play games for entertainment.
MMO's give them opportunities to be social, if they choose to, that is not availble in spg. People gravitate to MMO's because there is more choice, more opportunity for pretty well everything over spg.
You know, this post totally headshots my thread.
*Shake fists*
I'd love to know where you live since in my area, people don't talk much. At least not without an 'excuse' to do so.
Other than 'Hi / good evening' I rarely see random strangers talk. Maybe its just me?
What you are experiencing, I suspect, is a couple things....
1) Instinctual fear of strangers means there is an anxiety to be overcome when attempting to interact with a stranger. If you live in a big city, pretty much everyone you see will be a "stranger".... thus most people feel a natural disnclination to interact with them...as opposed to a small village where you are likely to know most of the people you see.
2) The "overcrowding" effect... It's an observable effect among almost all higher animals that when you have too many of them crammed into too small a space they tend to act in a LESS social fashion...even to the point of becoming openly hostile. This may be due to the fact that an environment can only support so many numbers of a given species before it starts to break down (food, water, air, reduction of waste/toxins). Modern technology can overcome this to a remarkable degree...but our instincts aren't for the most part wired based on the realities of the modern world...they are wired based on the primitive hunter gathers we were thousands of years ago (and earlier). In the reality of that world, Manhatten, for example would quickly become a desolate wasteland incapable of supporting human life, if it had as many people in it as it does today. On some level, our brains start to react when we feel we are being "overcrowded".
getting deep over in this thread... this is why i love the mmo genre. it can sometimes turn into a mini-social experiment (or a large one, a la EVE online... sorry, had to mention it)
my opinion has pretty much been stated by multiple people in bits and pieces. in reality, some endeavors require the involvement of more than one person; so again as in reality, some times we will just have to suck it up and find other people to assist us on our quest. in the realm of massive multiplayer games, we cant simply opt out of a developer-dictated group experience to slay the grandmaster dragon by ourselves. the world created by the developers is just that: a world, and as such must provide a contiguous, uniform experience to all its players. if you "x" yards wearing "y" equipment, you suffer "z" damage, and if you go up against the hardest raid boss alone, he will kill you in so many milliseconds.
i dont know if developers should make a game with the goal of promoting or devaluing group interaction, as this could lead to a feeling of either artificiality or isolation, respectively. i think what devs should focus on is making realistic rulesets for players (skills, health, etc.) and making bosses, monsters and epic crafting chains the way they see fit. i would think the most rewarding part of being a developer would be to introduce a challenge to the game's community without having a pre-ordained method of completing the task, and see how they orient themselves to overcome the challenge.
as in real life, there is no invisible hand demanding you to find 4 other players to help you complete a task. there are only challenges, and methods of overcoming said challenges. the beauty of human interaction is in its use of logic and cunning, whether in a group or alone, to beat obstacles and puzzles imposed by nature. this is how a social game feels fresh and not stale; when individual players recognize a challenge and individually decide to find other players to help them overcome it.
I'd suggest that the world has really changed in the past eight years. Back in 2004 when WoW launched competition to EQ, people didn't walk around so glued to smartphones that they walk into oncoming traffic or otherwise become oblivious to everything around them. Yes, headphones were ubiquitous. But that's an aural experience, not a visual one.
I'd also suggest that in a hyper-connected world, we sometimes want to disconnect yet not completely. Enter the era of the solo-friendly mmo.
It's human behavior to want to choose when and where to be social and not have it crammed down your throat. Games should work much the same way.
Except in games if you want to simulate human interaction...
We're forced in our day to day lives to interact with people all the time. Sometimes this leads to social encounters. Some people need the incentive or the push.
MMOs would work in the same way. They'd set up the potential for a social exchange and leave it to you to take it further.
Modern MMOs just make you 100% self sufficient, which means no socializing or social community ever develops. And without a community holding people to games, they peter out and die very quickly (see every WoW clone).
Games are first and foremost recreational. The word 'forced' rings badly with that.
Lets not forget that "we" the gamers has pushed the genre in the direction it is in and not the developers. They only follow where the money is.
Except that the money was never in WoW clones. They didn't understand what made WoW a success and they never figured it out.
Of course they have. They simply can't reproduce it for a variety of reasons.
If that was true, and they knew they couldn't reproduce it, don't you think they wouldn't have wasted money trying? No. They don't understand at all, which is why SWTOR was such a huge failure.
It's quite simple, they have to follow suit. People want familiarity like it or not. If they don't implement XYZ features people will simply leave. That's probably why SWTOR failed. It wasn't enough like WoW
Haha WHAT? SWTOR failed because it wasn't like WoW enough? That's the first time I've heard that. Meanwhile everyone else talks about how singleplayer oriented it was, destined to fail when people run out of content, nothing new to keep people strung along. And we have games like Rift, carbon copies of WoW, that still fail.
And what are you people on about? 95% of WoW was focused on soloing. That's where the bulk of development went. Its one of the most anti social MMOs, and its the one that popularized the recent batch of anti social MMOs.
Yeah, city people have psychological problems like you described. For people that don't live in some boxes place one after another, one next to each other bonding is natural and it's because we always lived in packs.
Let me explain you this way. My friend live in the city HIS ENTIRE LIFE. I met him when i was working with his company and for some reason we keept contact. Anyway - I was very suprised that he have no idea who live next to his door in housing (that you call it in english) ? It's really just a psychological problem. Why ?
I know everyone in my block (when I moved because of my job and I'm trying to buy a house). Next thing I did after moved in was to bring cake every day and visit every one of them to say "Hi!", drop cake and tell them they can visit if they want when they want.
It was common thing for me. I lived in the village in my early years. It was natural that at the age of 12 I was basically knew all people there by face and by name. At the age of 16-18 I was knew many people who live nerby our village. It was good thing because if you ever had a problem you could always ask for help and someone always helped you. At the age of 20 I could not move 10m without saying Hi to someone (even cops - people really knew each other back there).
Anyway... what you described is your psychological problem and instead of telling us that you are all fine and people are strange because they want to form groups and help each other (like we were doing since stone age) - visit psychiatrist. Maybe he can help you.
It's not only your problem. I once saw experiment when actor collapsed in the middle of the city. No one helped him.
I love this post. This is the way life is in my part of the U.S. So don't think that village lifestyle is lost on the world, its still around.
Or I guess in games like DAoC and Eve where grouping isn't necessarily required, but the best possible experience comes from doing so.
It's true the MMO playerbase has changed since then though.
Seems to work well for GW2 as well. Hell GW2 gives you no choice you are fored to group with the zerg of Slobs weither you want to or not. Yes that player that tagged a critter and then spent the rest of the fight dancing will get exp, loot and DE com pletion form you and anyone else that actually worked toward killing mobs and quest completion.
The worthless "Leroy Jenkins" of the world have certainly found a game that caters to their needs in GW2.
Add to that 90% of GW2's exploration is simply following your nose to area marked on the map. (Look Ma I'm exploring!) and you have to wonder if the general IQ of players is dropping.
Totally disagree. And I think you'll find that the bulk of psychological and anthropological literatue does as well.
People talk to random strangers all the time, in line at the bank, the grocery store, gas stations...
We are social creatures, not just because it was important to survive but for a lot of emotional reasons. Removing contact whether it is social, physical... can actually contribute cause a great deal of psychological conditions not the least of which is depression.
However you are right that forced grouping does not work. People want to socialize with others because they like to be social.
What the developers of these games have to answer is, "Why are people playing these games?" I doubt the answer is to be social for the majority of people. They will socialize in their RL.
They play games for entertainment.
edit - in todays world it only seems like people don't socialize unless there is a reason for because we are totally overstimulated and constantly bombarded by social media. You literally cannot go for an hour without phone, text, computer, television, radio, ads, friends.... hitting you in some way. Time to escape to the bush I think.
I highlighted the main reasons people socialize... notice the trend?
In case you miss it. - People tend to socialize when they are waiting.
I wish to shift the focus a bit and move away from 'game design' which is the stickied 'Solo vs group' thread.
From a RL point of view, humans generally don't talk to strangers with no reason. Despite the advancement in technology of 'contact me anywhere', rarely do we see humans just walk up to someone and talk to them.
If we do it is because we want something from the interaction; I talk to cafe lady who wants my money and I need my caffine shot.
Humans want to be in the presence of other people but not actually interact with all of them. I go to bars with my friends and hang out with my friends. I don't go to bars and talk to someone I don't know; unless its staff and my orange juice is 30 seconds late.
Exception is if I am there with a specific focus on 'talking to strangers' like 'Singles Bar / Speed dating' but even then, there is that desire to get something (companionship) out of it.
Forced grouping in MMOs? Fine. Cool. Have at it.
But looking at how most people (maybe its because I lived in large cities most of my life?) live, don't expect a massive amount of people.
I've made sweaping generalization which won't apply 100% (Yes that ONE poster who's like 'but I talk to EVERYONE! ^__^ ) but that's how I view why forced grouping won't be popular. Pretty sure a professional in social / behavioural science can poke holes in my theory though. :P
I think you are considering only the day-to-day talk with people for distraction purposes as "interaction". In reality, you are "interacting" with thousands or even millions people everyday. Everything that you consumes required its production by others. The human world is a complex net of human interactions.
MMOs try to simulate these net for fun purposes. Obviously, the majority of them try to simulate a world of fantasy, medieval-like. In consequence, they will involve not only economic and other "pacific" interactions, but violent competitions too.
You could say I'm a shy social guy if that makes sense. I need a reason to approach a person and start a conversation for the most part. If I don't have a reason I feel like I'm invading their space. Now my point here is about a game as you level not end game.
The last game I played that would have what you called forced grouping was EQ. In EQ there was lots of content that required a group to get a chance at a drop that could be a upgrade as you level. In this case if I entered an area where a named mob was located it gave me the reason to approach players that I needed to start a social experience. I feel that is missing in todays games for the most part.
IMHO this type of game play created better communites over the long run then what we have today.
QFT except I would not consider myself shy at all.
Zepp gave the perfect description of my behavior. I don't invade other people's space. I don't even ask other players for help. I will ask them to group if I know we have a common goal to work towards.
I'm actually quite social once the conversation gets started, just hard for me to break the ice it seems.
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
When MMO's 'forced' you to group,there was something to get out of it..
better exp on a much harder leveling scale.
and phat lewtz that were much more rare and elusive than todays iterations.
Essentially accurate.
WoW simply made enormous cash removing the forced-grouping stick from the equation (as did Sony, really) and leaving the easy carrot as a reward. Some years later, Blizzard brought the Stick back (called it "dungeon finder" this time, and multiplied the repetition factor. Same tedium EQ had, same people you'd really rather not group with, but disguised with many tiny quick bites instead of one big one. Plus more bonus "gogogogogo" and "kick the noob".
We sure have come a long way.
dotdotdot
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Haha WHAT? SWTOR failed because it wasn't like WoW enough? That's the first time I've heard that. Meanwhile everyone else talks about how singleplayer oriented it was, destined to fail when people run out of content, nothing new to keep people strung along. And we have games like Rift, carbon copies of WoW, that still fail.
And what are you people on about? 95% of WoW was focused on soloing. That's where the bulk of development went. Its one of the most anti social MMOs, and its the one that popularized the recent batch of anti social MMOs.
DavisFlight I believe I have agreed with about everything you have said so far.
When MMO's 'forced' you to group,there was something to get out of it..
better exp on a much harder leveling scale.
and phat lewtz that were much more rare and elusive than todays iterations.
Essentially accurate.
WoW simply made enormous cash removing the forced-grouping stick from the equation (as did Sony, really) and leaving the easy carrot as a reward. Some years later, Blizzard brought the Stick back (called it "dungeon finder" this time, and multiplied the repetition factor. Same tedium EQ had, same people you'd really rather not group with, but disguised with many tiny quick bites instead of one big one. Plus more bonus "gogogogogo" and "kick the noob".
I think your human psychology is off. People do want to talk and interact. They however on a whole are not that great at doing it on their own and just feel stupid doing it for no reason. People feel stupid saying hey wanna come help me with this thing I can easily do on my own just so I'm not alone. If there was road-blocks though where you had to group to advance people usually don't have that big of a problem teaming up in that situation. People team up and play sports and stuff all the time...why? because that is what is required for that activity.
Hmmm.....I played EQ and that was a forced group game and was one of the games that started the genre...and is still going. So this topic is pretty much wrong.
I wish to shift the focus a bit and move away from 'game design' which is the stickied 'Solo vs group' thread.
From a RL point of view, humans generally don't talk to strangers with no reason. Despite the advancement in technology of 'contact me anywhere', rarely do we see humans just walk up to someone and talk to them.
If we do it is because we want something from the interaction; I talk to cafe lady who wants my money and I need my caffine shot.
Humans want to be in the presence of other people but not actually interact with all of them. I go to bars with my friends and hang out with my friends. I don't go to bars and talk to someone I don't know; unless its staff and my orange juice is 30 seconds late.
Exception is if I am there with a specific focus on 'talking to strangers' like 'Singles Bar / Speed dating' but even then, there is that desire to get something (companionship) out of it.
Forced grouping in MMOs? Fine. Cool. Have at it.
But looking at how most people (maybe its because I lived in large cities most of my life?) live, don't expect a massive amount of people.
I've made sweaping generalization which won't apply 100% (Yes that ONE poster who's like 'but I talk to EVERYONE! ^__^ ) but that's how I view why forced grouping won't be popular. Pretty sure a professional in social / behavioural science can poke holes in my theory though. :P
But from a RL point of view, most people make their friends at work and school... where they're forced to be (arguably). The point of forced grouping isn't to force grouping, its to create opportunities for social dynamics which when they work, pay off enormously for the players and the game.
It's human behavior to want to choose when and where to be social and not have it crammed down your throat. Games should work much the same way.
Except in games if you want to simulate human interaction...
We're forced in our day to day lives to interact with people all the time. Sometimes this leads to social encounters. Some people need the incentive or the push.
MMOs would work in the same way. They'd set up the potential for a social exchange and leave it to you to take it further.
Modern MMOs just make you 100% self sufficient, which means no socializing or social community ever develops. And without a community holding people to games, they peter out and die very quickly (see every WoW clone).
Games are first and foremost recreational. The word 'forced' rings badly with that.
Lets not forget that "we" the gamers has pushed the genre in the direction it is in and not the developers. They only follow where the money is.
Except that the money was never in WoW clones. They didn't understand what made WoW a success and they never figured it out.
Of course they have. They simply can't reproduce it for a variety of reasons.
If that was true, and they knew they couldn't reproduce it, don't you think they wouldn't have wasted money trying? No. They don't understand at all, which is why SWTOR was such a huge failure.
It's quite simple, they have to follow suit. People want familiarity like it or not. If they don't implement XYZ features people will simply leave. That's probably why SWTOR failed. It wasn't enough like WoW
Haha WHAT? SWTOR failed because it wasn't like WoW enough? That's the first time I've heard that. Meanwhile everyone else talks about how singleplayer oriented it was, destined to fail when people run out of content, nothing new to keep people strung along. And we have games like Rift, carbon copies of WoW, that still fail.
And what are you people on about? 95% of WoW was focused on soloing. That's where the bulk of development went. Its one of the most anti social MMOs, and its the one that popularized the recent batch of anti social MMOs.
So let me get this straight. The most successful MMO of all time is also the most solo focused MMO. I guess that really speaks for itself doesn't it. It's not really the solo aspect that makes MMOs fail. Looking at WoW, playing solo is what the majority wants. Again thanks for making my point
Comments
Uhh,I never said WoW didnt have group content..
I said you could level from 1 - max solo,which most modern day MMO's mimic..
Of course they chose to make it solo,Are you assuming that I think its some design flaw?
WoW became a hit with their design decisions and every major mmo followed in their foot steps.
I believe people have molded and have become accustomed,comfortable,with the solo mentality becuase of it.
Grouping with friends is fun.
Grouping and being forced to play with others outside of your immediate circle of friends... not so much.
Too many random acts of douchery by pug/randoms. People that just do stupid and mean spirited sh*t just to do it.
Way too many asshats that hide behind the veil of anonymity.
Way too many little kids and/or immature tweenagers.
Games don't have any intelligent search features to look for 'like-minded individuals/compatible' players to group you with. Instead, they just lump you in with anyone... doesn't matter the age, skill level, knowledge level, etc.,... And I actually 'hate' that.
I also strongly dislike waiting for queues. Waiting for a group of random people that I likely won't talk to and I'd say 3/4's of the time when they do talk they are either mean/douch-esque OR completely clueless.
I would personally love it if games allowed you to create a 'social profile' for your character that acts as a filter when you use group finder/guild finder tools.. that would help match you up with like-minded folks.
Yet people have done it before in older mmo's and still do it today in many games.
Your assertions are wrong.
The greatest limitation to grouping is the awkward mechanics given to the players. Communication is painful and social tools near non existant. It has to be resolved from the ground up. The game must reward players for cooperation to make it appealing. This is not forced grouping as players will seek it out for all the benefits that go along with grouping ... socializing, advancement in game community building.
It is the fundamental failings of an mmo that requires the creation of artificial grouping mechanics and instanced gameplay that only segregates the greater community.
Human beings are a social species but when a game does not emulate the basic social mechanics humans have evolved around you cannot expect social grouping to flourish. There are far too many barriers in place. It is the fundamental failing of the mmo's development that hinders social behavior. The tools stunt it beyond hope. It must allow seemless virtual integration yet mmo's have not offered any improved interface for this in well over a decade.
Blame mmo's for it's complete failure in making true virtual worlds ... not the player who will only take the path of least resistance. The whole reason why this is such a debate is because players WANT to be social but can't. If it wasn't an issue we would even be talking about it and we wouldn't have mmo's.
You stay sassy!
Agreed, Well put..
labeling it as "forced grouping" is simply untrue.
Everybody seems so unhappy with everything.
They hate grouping.
They hate the grind.
They hate farming.
They hate looting.
They hate pvp.
They hate pve.
They hate traveling.
Now if I create a game that you start off max level, with all the best gear, unlimited supply of money, and your character cannot move but just stand there.. would you all play this game... it seems to be exactly what you are all looking for.
Why even have gear? Just go nude.
A game where we all just stand there naked having a several hour long staring contest every day while flashing wads of money at eachother? Hell, that could be more interesting then some of the stuff we get. Im in.
Edit: Just call it Second Life: Uncensored
You could say I'm a shy social guy if that makes sense. I need a reason to approach a person and start a conversation for the most part. If I don't have a reason I feel like I'm invading their space. Now my point here is about a game as you level not end game.
The last game I played that would have what you called forced grouping was EQ. In EQ there was lots of content that required a group to get a chance at a drop that could be a upgrade as you level. In this case if I entered an area where a named mob was located it gave me the reason to approach players that I needed to start a social experience. I feel that is missing in todays games for the most part.
IMHO this type of game play created better communites over the long run then what we have today.
@JPNZ,
There are actualy 2 factors at play here which significantly effect human behavior in this regard...
1) Humans have evolved as "herd" animals. We ARE (as a rule) highly social creatures. We actualy REQUIRE meaningfull interaction and social connections in order to function. Deprive a human being (or a monkey) from all interaction with other humans and they will tend to grow deeply depressed and unstable, even to the point of insanity. Think Tom Hanks in "Cast Away". By contrast, your house cat, which has evolved as a solitary predator, will be just fine with little to no contact with other cats it's whole life.
2) Human beings have also evolved an instinctual fear of the "Unkown". There are very good reasons for this as the world is and was, a dangerous place. This includes other human beings we don't know..e.g. "Strangers". It's no coincidence that the most common greeting found in human languages/culture is the word.. "Peace", followed by a raised and open right hand (showing that no weapons are being held at ready). The anxiety about strangers is based upon this fear of the unkown and the concept that we have (instinctualy) no idea of thier nature or thier intent toward us.
We are perfectly fine and comfortable operating within the "Tribe". That's part of our natural pattern. We get nervous about those outside the "Tribe." That's one of the reasons it's commonly held that small towns are much freindlier places then big cities. Once a person gets to know another person, becomes familiar with them, it breaks down that initial (instinctual) anxiety that we ALL feel. The person is no longer stranger/unkown...they become familier to us, and someone we know how to deal with and interact with.
......
So we have 2 contradictory elements of human nature at play here. Humans want (NEED actualy) to interact with others, to form social bonds, to be parts of groups/communities/tribes. However humans also are anxious about approaching or interacting with strangers. Some people are better at overcoming that natural anxiety on thier own, but we pretty much all have it. In order to overcome that anxiety, we tend to create catalysts that help overcome it...whether it's an organized hiking trip where everyone (strangers) comes together as a group to engage in some activity and thus have something they share in common to help "break the ice"....or team sports...little league, softball, etc.... or the simple act of when someone new is hired, taking them around the workplace and introducing them to co-workers. It's all designed as an ice-breaker to help overcome that natural anxiety we have about strangers. The same can happen through happenstance as well, people thrown together as part of a natural disaster/catastrophe and working together to get through it is an old, but accurate cliche.
Most people WANT/NEED a certain amount of social interaction in thier lives. Of course we also want/need some amount of space or "alone time" as well.
"Forced" Grouping or other built-in game interdependancies CAN work because they act as catalysts to overcome anxieties and help support and give reason for the human relationships that we all NEED and are comfortable with as part of our natural state.
The disconnect comes in when you start getting into the reasons WHY people play games...which are quite different. Some people play games specificaly to INTERACT with others....that's most of us who like/are interested in rulesets with built-in interdependancy and/or grouping. To us such mechanics are a GOOD THING because they help facilitate the type of thing we are looking for in a game. Others (I'm assuming you), play games mostly to GET AWAY from other human beings, it's part of thier "alone time" so anything that would work counter to that e.g. "Forced Grouping" is seen as a negative. It's as simple as that.
There is no flat out work/doesn't work as an axiom or universal truth in this regard. It's simply dependant on what the individual is looking to get out of the activity....and we are looking for different things.
It also explains why OPTIONAL GROUPING or OPTIONAL INTERDEPENDANCY tends to result in environments where people are mostly not interacting or being social.... because even though individuals may want/enjoy interaction with others in those environment...there isn't much to act as a catalyst to overcome that natural anxiety about "the stranger" that we all feel.
QFT except I would not consider myself shy at all.
What you are experiencing, I suspect, is a couple things....
1) Instinctual fear of strangers means there is an anxiety to be overcome when attempting to interact with a stranger. If you live in a big city, pretty much everyone you see will be a "stranger".... thus most people feel a natural disnclination to interact with them...as opposed to a small village where you are likely to know most of the people you see.
2) The "overcrowding" effect... It's an observable effect among almost all higher animals that when you have too many of them crammed into too small a space they tend to act in a LESS social fashion...even to the point of becoming openly hostile. This may be due to the fact that an environment can only support so many numbers of a given species before it starts to break down (food, water, air, reduction of waste/toxins). Modern technology can overcome this to a remarkable degree...but our instincts aren't for the most part wired based on the realities of the modern world...they are wired based on the primitive hunter gathers we were thousands of years ago (and earlier). In the reality of that world, Manhatten, for example would quickly become a desolate wasteland incapable of supporting human life, if it had as many people in it as it does today. On some level, our brains start to react when we feel we are being "overcrowded".
getting deep over in this thread... this is why i love the mmo genre. it can sometimes turn into a mini-social experiment (or a large one, a la EVE online... sorry, had to mention it)
my opinion has pretty much been stated by multiple people in bits and pieces. in reality, some endeavors require the involvement of more than one person; so again as in reality, some times we will just have to suck it up and find other people to assist us on our quest. in the realm of massive multiplayer games, we cant simply opt out of a developer-dictated group experience to slay the grandmaster dragon by ourselves. the world created by the developers is just that: a world, and as such must provide a contiguous, uniform experience to all its players. if you "x" yards wearing "y" equipment, you suffer "z" damage, and if you go up against the hardest raid boss alone, he will kill you in so many milliseconds.
i dont know if developers should make a game with the goal of promoting or devaluing group interaction, as this could lead to a feeling of either artificiality or isolation, respectively. i think what devs should focus on is making realistic rulesets for players (skills, health, etc.) and making bosses, monsters and epic crafting chains the way they see fit. i would think the most rewarding part of being a developer would be to introduce a challenge to the game's community without having a pre-ordained method of completing the task, and see how they orient themselves to overcome the challenge.
as in real life, there is no invisible hand demanding you to find 4 other players to help you complete a task. there are only challenges, and methods of overcoming said challenges. the beauty of human interaction is in its use of logic and cunning, whether in a group or alone, to beat obstacles and puzzles imposed by nature. this is how a social game feels fresh and not stale; when individual players recognize a challenge and individually decide to find other players to help them overcome it.
I'd suggest that the world has really changed in the past eight years. Back in 2004 when WoW launched competition to EQ, people didn't walk around so glued to smartphones that they walk into oncoming traffic or otherwise become oblivious to everything around them. Yes, headphones were ubiquitous. But that's an aural experience, not a visual one.
I'd also suggest that in a hyper-connected world, we sometimes want to disconnect yet not completely. Enter the era of the solo-friendly mmo.
Haha WHAT? SWTOR failed because it wasn't like WoW enough? That's the first time I've heard that. Meanwhile everyone else talks about how singleplayer oriented it was, destined to fail when people run out of content, nothing new to keep people strung along. And we have games like Rift, carbon copies of WoW, that still fail.
And what are you people on about? 95% of WoW was focused on soloing. That's where the bulk of development went. Its one of the most anti social MMOs, and its the one that popularized the recent batch of anti social MMOs.
Seems to work well for GW2 as well. Hell GW2 gives you no choice you are fored to group with the zerg of Slobs weither you want to or not. Yes that player that tagged a critter and then spent the rest of the fight dancing will get exp, loot and DE com pletion form you and anyone else that actually worked toward killing mobs and quest completion.
The worthless "Leroy Jenkins" of the world have certainly found a game that caters to their needs in GW2.
Add to that 90% of GW2's exploration is simply following your nose to area marked on the map. (Look Ma I'm exploring!) and you have to wonder if the general IQ of players is dropping.
I highlighted the main reasons people socialize... notice the trend?
In case you miss it. - People tend to socialize when they are waiting.
Games now don't require it.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
I think you are considering only the day-to-day talk with people for distraction purposes as "interaction". In reality, you are "interacting" with thousands or even millions people everyday. Everything that you consumes required its production by others. The human world is a complex net of human interactions.
MMOs try to simulate these net for fun purposes. Obviously, the majority of them try to simulate a world of fantasy, medieval-like. In consequence, they will involve not only economic and other "pacific" interactions, but violent competitions too.
Zepp gave the perfect description of my behavior. I don't invade other people's space. I don't even ask other players for help. I will ask them to group if I know we have a common goal to work towards.
I'm actually quite social once the conversation gets started, just hard for me to break the ice it seems.
"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
Essentially accurate.
WoW simply made enormous cash removing the forced-grouping stick from the equation (as did Sony, really) and leaving the easy carrot as a reward. Some years later, Blizzard brought the Stick back (called it "dungeon finder" this time, and multiplied the repetition factor. Same tedium EQ had, same people you'd really rather not group with, but disguised with many tiny quick bites instead of one big one. Plus more bonus "gogogogogo" and "kick the noob".
We sure have come a long way.
dotdotdot
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
DavisFlight I believe I have agreed with about everything you have said so far.
couldnt resist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2Z23SAFVA
EQ2 fan sites
But from a RL point of view, most people make their friends at work and school... where they're forced to be (arguably). The point of forced grouping isn't to force grouping, its to create opportunities for social dynamics which when they work, pay off enormously for the players and the game.
So let me get this straight. The most successful MMO of all time is also the most solo focused MMO. I guess that really speaks for itself doesn't it. It's not really the solo aspect that makes MMOs fail. Looking at WoW, playing solo is what the majority wants. Again thanks for making my point