I prefer this way. While it may be less likely you bump into a buddy, you'll likely never have that empty zone feeling and won't oft have to wait hours to assemble a group. For your social interaction, that's what guilds are for. I've already got a couple of groups of friends to play with and that's enough for me.
I actually think that this game has a better social aspect than most. PvP will require large group co-ordination, and this will be a natural place for longer term guilds to meet and work together in. The tagging system makes it costless to help someone else out, and there are encounters difficult enough to make it worth co-operating. The old school grouping mechanics here are not emphasized much at lower levels, but they exist. I think that they're trying to develop important social interactions in different ways.
It will be a challenge to get that tight knit community from ESO, at least as long as population stays up on the mega server. PVP is a different story though, you get to know your allies, and the dangerous people that oppose you (For example, some dude named Murder Thumbs on AD is always a pain in our asses, and my friend consistently runs into him 1v1).
The mega-server is a pretty great thing, but you must wonder whether it was the best choice for ESO.
Whatever happened to the community in MMO's? As i run about in ESO i'm thinking to myself, Who is this guy? am i going to see this guy again? These players i care for as much as the random useless NPC's i come across.
I've played it all from The Myth of soma, Legend of Mir, Darkfall, SWG, Rift, WoW i could go on and on, What was the actual point in making this game an MMO, Don't get me wrong the game is beautiful, smooth, full of content which we all want in an MMO. This game has gone down the same route as SW:TOR, Just a single player game with co-op capabilities.
Everything is seperate, Everything is instance. The servers are just a cluser fluck of random 'players' with random names. The days on SWG when running around and i recognise everyone, In PvP i was running around afraid to die because of my status as a fabled PvP'er on the server, It's not just about the PvP though. Guilds are easily creatable, I've been randomly invited to 20 guilds since i encountered the game, Hell i could join 5 if i like. This destroys the entire community of the MMO.
My point is, What is the actual point of this being an online game?
MMO games used to be about social interaction. They simply aren't anymore. Most features have been replaced with a more accessible and efficient version, without much thought going into community.
The killing blow however, is the megaserver. Individual servers, I believe, was the last bastion for MMO communities to cling to. A community can't be built and established if it is constantly changing. I won't even get into the instancing and phasing.
I don't buy into it when people say that these kinda thoughts, or truths are due to nostalgia, or smaller servers etc.
Take two of the greatest MMO's presently, Everquest and WoW. Now, I heard tale of EQ as I never played it but I believe its community was just as relevant to my WoW experience in the early days. I would spend hours outside of Iron Forge, chatting with people and dueling the night away. I want be in front of Mara, with a lock ready to summon people to the entrance so we could go through that painful experience. I made friends looking to do the baron one in strat the list goes on. But, it is because of that 'community' that both WoW and EQ became very big.
As such, MMO's are more consumption based products, with things to see and do, the themeparks that they have become. But, ultimately, MMO's lack staying power and the only reason people stay is for their guilds. Once someone completes content and they aren't interested in anything else, they leave. Buying an MMO after all, with the first month free is no different to some people than buying a stand alone release.
The point being I suppose is that EQ and WoW both were large and both have had great communities, enough to set them on their path and keep them ticking over even today.
The trouble here is really the casual crowd, not that I have a problem with them, but there's a lot more casual players that people seeking immersion. If you can only get on for an hour a day, then chances are you'll do your own thing rather than band and join in with others.
As such because casual players are such a big market its a lot safer for upcoming MMO's to base their product on those consumers.
But, ultimately all it does is buy them time as people leave, payment models change and the cycle repeats.
Someone needs some balls and make THAT game that grooms people into finding each other once again. Only 2 games presently achieve this to some degree.
1) Dark Souls, I know not an MMO but that has most of the features and communities as I experienced of old.
2) FF14: ARR, not everyone will agree with me on this, but I have spoken and interacted with more people about this game than I have the last 5 years of MMO gaming combined. From partying, crafting, linkshells, gulids the whole nine yards. Its also nice to be a Final Fantasy fan as you have a common ground to talk on also.
In conclusion, yes, its sad the genre is like this at the moment. When a dev gets some balls to take a few more risks rather than harping on about the same old tripe painted as innocation then perhaps, PERHAPS we might get back to what made MMO's great once again.
(Also, TSW deserved a better chance, that was shaping up to be something magical)
Whatever happened to the community in MMO's? As i run about in ESO i'm thinking to myself, Who is this guy? am i going to see this guy again? These players i care for as much as the random useless NPC's i come across.
I
This is due to several design flaws in TESO.
One, grouping has no benefit anymore. It USED to. You used to level faster in a group, but they nerfed it. Now the best way to play is solo quest grinding.
There is no death penalty, so no encouragement to play in numbers there.
The dungeons are all so miniscule and tiny, and many are phased and instanced, that you'll never be there long enough to meet people and group, and those you do see will vanish into another phase in a couple of minutes.
This game suffers both from GW2's social errors and WoW's.
mmo developers stopped caring about communities a long time ago. this isnt their fault though, the majority of mmo players nowadays are casuals that could give two f*cks about forming/maintaining time-consuming online relationships. people struggle to make time for RL friends nowadays, let alone online ones. they just want their 1-2 hr fix per night then log out, no strings attached. cant really blame them either, since most people have lives now and dont have infinite time nowadays to sit around and chat with randoms while waiting an hour for some elite world boss to spawn.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
The market changed, people want comodity, not having to bother bumping into obstacles that they can't complete because there is noone to group with, either because they have no friends or the server is dying. I asked my work colleagues why they don't play MMO's, the majority says it's because they don't want to commit, they want to be able to instantly come home and play, to do their own thing when they want to and how they want to. That's why we have these LFG tools, "instant adventure", these days there's far too many options for gaming entertainment that you can choose something that fits your time and patience better.
Honestly I'm mostly a lone-leveler, I don't like to group when leveling, but I enjoy dungeons and I was a hardcore GW2 zergling, 90% of my time in WvW I was with a organized guild group. When I tried SWTOR and got stuck on a part because I was playing on a low population time-zone it was very annoying, one of the reasons I prefer being able to solo everything, my game-time is unstable, I need something that fits me, I won't change myself to fit the game.
ESO does something wrong though, the grouping for leveling is terrible and a mistake to leave it as it is, you shouldn't require to group, but you should have enough content to satisfy those who want to group. Also we all know how the world is full of douchebags, I prefer to join a guild and select when and with whom I want to socialize than random strangers that I will never see again, hence why I always asked in guild first before joining LFG.
It's mostly that these days socializing should be optional, not everyone is an extrovert.
Although I am enjoying the game I think they made a big mistake with the guilds thing. I'm in 4 guilds now and all my characters are in the same guilds... why? I have no idea why my Dragonknight from the Covenent is in the same guild as my Nord from the Pact. It makes for useful trading and probably pvp but it completely destroys any immersive quality that being in a guild and part of a community has. My characters are all different, and on different parts of the world, it makes no sense at all that they are in the same guilds. It destroys character identity. Less is definitely more.
Developers ARE ACTING ON THERE OWN IN MAKING SOLO MMOS. People are not voting for this crap.
Developers are close minded and following threads of with other games do.
It's kind of like this :
A car manufacture invents a new car that gets 100 miles per gallon. But their is a catch, it can only go 25 mph. At first everyone likes the idea and they sell millions. A few years down the road, people realize they don't like going 25 mph and sales drop off. All other car manufactures feel that they can do the same regardless because they had seen the first make millions.
This example is what Blizzard did with World of Warcraft. Yes I know, WoW still has 6 million but with people don't realize is they could have 15 million......All other developers see is 6 million but fail to realize WoW is their because it's the most established mmo on the market.
10-15 years ago the MMORPG scene was like a village: everybody knew everybody on the server and reputations were important.
Since then, the pool of MMORPG players grew to a lake and then expanded into an ocean.
Now MMORPG's are like megacities (mega-servers !) where you are closely surrounded by millions of complete strangers and can play entirely alone without ever saying a word to anyone.
10-15 years ago the MMORPG scene was like a village: everybody knew everybody on the server and reputations were important.
Since then, the pool of MMORPG players grew to a lake and then expanded into an ocean.
Now MMORPG's are like megacities (mega-servers !) where you are closely surrounded by millions of complete strangers and can play entirely alone without ever saying a word to anyone.
Welcome to modern city life...
I have to disagree somewhat:
Old: Servers had 3-4k players online at the same time on the same server. You will see the same players over and over and remember them.
New: Server has 500k+ players BUT you are lucky if you have 100 players in your shard/instance/whatever. Your chance of seeing the same player are slim at best.
Old: Games had real hubs where players of different levels gathered (starter city/nation, mid level city, end game city)
New: Games have quest hubs that you visit only once for a few quest.
Last but most important point:
Old: Players needed to form groups to finish some quests and content. It was required and arguably forced grouping can be a problem, it builds a community and increases the longevity of a game.
New: Other players are nothing but competition for quest mobs, spawns, public quests, public dungeons, spawned chests. This creates an antisocial environment and is a detriment to the games.
"Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"
I usually travel with my friends. Many of us went to ESO and we all group up and play together. I can understand why, and it's actually kinda fun, but it's weird to be in a group of 10-15 friends, in groups of four, then you enter a solo dungeon. It's funny to watch people we don't know follow us as well. It's like, "Oh look at that big goup, where are they all going?" lol. Really the only time I ever notice other players, other than friends, is in guilds or group dungeons. I'll say Hi, and usually most people will talk. You just have to be the one to start the conversation.
10-15 years ago the MMORPG scene was like a village: everybody knew everybody on the server and reputations were important.
Since then, the pool of MMORPG players grew to a lake and then expanded into an ocean.
Now MMORPG's are like megacities (mega-servers !) where you are closely surrounded by millions of complete strangers and can play entirely alone without ever saying a word to anyone.
Welcome to modern city life...
I have to disagree somewhat:
Old: Servers had 3-4k players online at the same time on the same server. You will see the same players over and over and remember them.
New: Server has 500k+ players BUT you are lucky if you have 100 players in your shard/instance/whatever. Your chance of seeing the same player are slim at best.
Old: Games had real hubs where players of different levels gathered (starter city/nation, mid level city, end game city)
New: Games have quest hubs that you visit only once for a few quest.
Last but most important point:
Old: Players needed to form groups to finish some quests and content. It was required and arguably forced grouping can be a problem, it builds a community and increases the longevity of a game.
New: Other players are nothing but competition for quest mobs, spawns, public quests, public dungeons, spawned chests. This creates an antisocial environment and is a detriment to the games.
10-15 years ago the MMORPG scene was like a village: everybody knew everybody on the server and reputations were important.
Since then, the pool of MMORPG players grew to a lake and then expanded into an ocean.
Now MMORPG's are like megacities (mega-servers !) where you are closely surrounded by millions of complete strangers and can play entirely alone without ever saying a word to anyone.
Welcome to modern city life...
I have to disagree somewhat:
Old: Servers had 3-4k players online at the same time on the same server. You will see the same players over and over and remember them.
New: Server has 500k+ players BUT you are lucky if you have 100 players in your shard/instance/whatever. Your chance of seeing the same player are slim at best.
Old: Games had real hubs where players of different levels gathered (starter city/nation, mid level city, end game city)
New: Games have quest hubs that you visit only once for a few quest.
Last but most important point:
Old: Players needed to form groups to finish some quests and content. It was required and arguably forced grouping can be a problem, it builds a community and increases the longevity of a game.
New: Other players are nothing but competition for quest mobs, spawns, public quests, public dungeons, spawned chests. This creates an antisocial environment and is a detriment to the games.
That's why design is important. Players get shared exp, even out of groups, if they all tag a foe. This is an incentive for co-operating. It's very difficult to train people. That's also important to deter the anti-social. And there is no open PvP outside of a single zone (again, helps with the anti-social). There are also zones, pretty popular, where traditional grouping mechanics work. Requiring them everywhere in an environment that emphasizes story and quests would be an odd design choice.
Whatever happened to the community in MMO's? As i run about in ESO i'm thinking to myself, Who is this guy? am i going to see this guy again? These players i care for as much as the random useless NPC's i come across.
The last time I actually felt like a part of community was in vanilla WoW when we had single servers, server forums and everything from PvE to PvP happened there among those people. Everyone built a reputation for them, there were players that were commonly hated or loved, and everything in between. Groups were manually made, which often resulted in friendship or sometimes in ignoring. It was great.
Now what ever game I play I click a button and get an autogroup of people to dash through group content were no one says a thing, and it's impossible to make friends or contacts because we're not even on same server. No one has a reputation, not that it would even matter when you just click a button to get anything done. Content that is not behind this button is soloable.
In vanilla WoW I did not have to try to make friends, they were made automatically by encountering likeminded people and doing stuff with them. Now it's impossible to make friends unless you specifically begin to search for them, and even then, there's no practical use for them other than chatting, because of all these easy-to-use mechanics in mmorpgs these days.
I honestly dont feel like I'm having rose colored goggles when I'm saying that these games used to be better and are crappy solo adventures now. Sure the games awesome new stuff too, loads of it, but all the features that used to made community through gameplay has been systematically destroyed in favor of ADD.
This being said, I've yet to play TESO, and I have no reason to believe that something would be different in this game with it's we-dont-need-to-announce-server-mergers server technology and heavy phasing. It remains to be seen if I can even coop in this game due to problems reported with the phasing.
10-15 years ago the MMORPG scene was like a village: everybody knew everybody on the server and reputations were important.
Since then, the pool of MMORPG players grew to a lake and then expanded into an ocean.
Now MMORPG's are like megacities (mega-servers !) where you are closely surrounded by millions of complete strangers and can play entirely alone without ever saying a word to anyone.
Welcome to modern city life...
I have to disagree somewhat:
Old: Servers had 3-4k players online at the same time on the same server. You will see the same players over and over and remember them.
New: Server has 500k+ players BUT you are lucky if you have 100 players in your shard/instance/whatever. Your chance of seeing the same player are slim at best.
Old: Games had real hubs where players of different levels gathered (starter city/nation, mid level city, end game city)
New: Games have quest hubs that you visit only once for a few quest.
Last but most important point:
Old: Players needed to form groups to finish some quests and content. It was required and arguably forced grouping can be a problem, it builds a community and increases the longevity of a game.
New: Other players are nothing but competition for quest mobs, spawns, public quests, public dungeons, spawned chests. This creates an antisocial environment and is a detriment to the games.
That's why design is important. Players get shared exp, even out of groups, if they all tag a foe. This is an incentive for co-operating. It's very difficult to train people. That's also important to deter the anti-social. And there is no open PvP outside of a single zone (again, helps with the anti-social). There are also zones, pretty popular, where traditional grouping mechanics work. Requiring them everywhere in an environment that emphasizes story and quests would be an odd design choice.
I am sorry but i disagree. What you listed makes solo play less annoying. It has nothing to do with making a game more social. These mechanics are made ONLY to appease the solo players so they are not bothered and can go about their merry ways. If anything these make the game less sociable.
"Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"
The market changed, people want comodity, not having to bother bumping into obstacles that they can't complete because there is noone to group with, either because they have no friends or the server is dying.
Then why is it that almost all MMOs released since the focus shifted to solo players... have been massive failures? Even the most successful ones failed to grow in subs past launch.
The market changed, people want comodity, not having to bother bumping into obstacles that they can't complete because there is noone to group with, either because they have no friends or the server is dying.
Then why is it that almost all MMOs released since the focus shifted to solo players... have been massive failures? Even the most successful ones failed to grow in subs past launch.
Because they generally suck? Honestly comparing success of a mmo based on how solo-friendly it is is rather... Subjective. Theres far too many variables that might have contributed more to the failure of the MMO than it being solo-friendly.
meh... I could see your point if you complained about the lack of social features/hubs in the game to interact with others and make friends, but to knock the fact that you're exposed to too many people at once? Really? We're in the boom phase right now, what did you expect? You would have the same problem even if there weren't multiple instances of everything.
During this phase SWTOR scrambled to open up tons of new servers that promptly became ghost towns less than 6 months later. At least this way, the number of instances per zone will simply decrease as the player count drops. I doubt it will even be noticeable.
I'll admit the game has problems and it's maybe a bit too solo-friendly, but nothing is stopping you from emoting to folks you pass by while questing/crafting/exploring. You could send out tells to people you see and ask them open-ended questions about how they're liking their class or the game so far. If you guys hit it off, put them on your friends list so you can find them again. Maybe check out crafting or RP hotspots and shmooze. If all else fails try guilds and smaller forum sites where the noise isn't as loud and you can make your voice heard.
This shit ain't rocket science. Zenimax doesn't have to do all the work for you. Relying on the devs to foster the community has never been a recipe for success.
Comments
I agree with the OP...
This kind of mega server technollogy is not good for building communities...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
It will be a challenge to get that tight knit community from ESO, at least as long as population stays up on the mega server. PVP is a different story though, you get to know your allies, and the dangerous people that oppose you (For example, some dude named Murder Thumbs on AD is always a pain in our asses, and my friend consistently runs into him 1v1).
The mega-server is a pretty great thing, but you must wonder whether it was the best choice for ESO.
MMO games used to be about social interaction. They simply aren't anymore. Most features have been replaced with a more accessible and efficient version, without much thought going into community.
The killing blow however, is the megaserver. Individual servers, I believe, was the last bastion for MMO communities to cling to. A community can't be built and established if it is constantly changing. I won't even get into the instancing and phasing.
We can only blame ourselves though.
I don't buy into it when people say that these kinda thoughts, or truths are due to nostalgia, or smaller servers etc.
Take two of the greatest MMO's presently, Everquest and WoW. Now, I heard tale of EQ as I never played it but I believe its community was just as relevant to my WoW experience in the early days. I would spend hours outside of Iron Forge, chatting with people and dueling the night away. I want be in front of Mara, with a lock ready to summon people to the entrance so we could go through that painful experience. I made friends looking to do the baron one in strat the list goes on. But, it is because of that 'community' that both WoW and EQ became very big.
As such, MMO's are more consumption based products, with things to see and do, the themeparks that they have become. But, ultimately, MMO's lack staying power and the only reason people stay is for their guilds. Once someone completes content and they aren't interested in anything else, they leave. Buying an MMO after all, with the first month free is no different to some people than buying a stand alone release.
The point being I suppose is that EQ and WoW both were large and both have had great communities, enough to set them on their path and keep them ticking over even today.
The trouble here is really the casual crowd, not that I have a problem with them, but there's a lot more casual players that people seeking immersion. If you can only get on for an hour a day, then chances are you'll do your own thing rather than band and join in with others.
As such because casual players are such a big market its a lot safer for upcoming MMO's to base their product on those consumers.
But, ultimately all it does is buy them time as people leave, payment models change and the cycle repeats.
Someone needs some balls and make THAT game that grooms people into finding each other once again. Only 2 games presently achieve this to some degree.
1) Dark Souls, I know not an MMO but that has most of the features and communities as I experienced of old.
2) FF14: ARR, not everyone will agree with me on this, but I have spoken and interacted with more people about this game than I have the last 5 years of MMO gaming combined. From partying, crafting, linkshells, gulids the whole nine yards. Its also nice to be a Final Fantasy fan as you have a common ground to talk on also.
In conclusion, yes, its sad the genre is like this at the moment. When a dev gets some balls to take a few more risks rather than harping on about the same old tripe painted as innocation then perhaps, PERHAPS we might get back to what made MMO's great once again.
(Also, TSW deserved a better chance, that was shaping up to be something magical)
This ^^
This is due to several design flaws in TESO.
One, grouping has no benefit anymore. It USED to. You used to level faster in a group, but they nerfed it. Now the best way to play is solo quest grinding.
There is no death penalty, so no encouragement to play in numbers there.
The dungeons are all so miniscule and tiny, and many are phased and instanced, that you'll never be there long enough to meet people and group, and those you do see will vanish into another phase in a couple of minutes.
This game suffers both from GW2's social errors and WoW's.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
The market changed, people want comodity, not having to bother bumping into obstacles that they can't complete because there is noone to group with, either because they have no friends or the server is dying. I asked my work colleagues why they don't play MMO's, the majority says it's because they don't want to commit, they want to be able to instantly come home and play, to do their own thing when they want to and how they want to. That's why we have these LFG tools, "instant adventure", these days there's far too many options for gaming entertainment that you can choose something that fits your time and patience better.
Honestly I'm mostly a lone-leveler, I don't like to group when leveling, but I enjoy dungeons and I was a hardcore GW2 zergling, 90% of my time in WvW I was with a organized guild group. When I tried SWTOR and got stuck on a part because I was playing on a low population time-zone it was very annoying, one of the reasons I prefer being able to solo everything, my game-time is unstable, I need something that fits me, I won't change myself to fit the game.
ESO does something wrong though, the grouping for leveling is terrible and a mistake to leave it as it is, you shouldn't require to group, but you should have enough content to satisfy those who want to group. Also we all know how the world is full of douchebags, I prefer to join a guild and select when and with whom I want to socialize than random strangers that I will never see again, hence why I always asked in guild first before joining LFG.
It's mostly that these days socializing should be optional, not everyone is an extrovert.
Developers ARE ACTING ON THERE OWN IN MAKING SOLO MMOS. People are not voting for this crap.
Developers are close minded and following threads of with other games do.
It's kind of like this :
A car manufacture invents a new car that gets 100 miles per gallon. But their is a catch, it can only go 25 mph. At first everyone likes the idea and they sell millions. A few years down the road, people realize they don't like going 25 mph and sales drop off. All other car manufactures feel that they can do the same regardless because they had seen the first make millions.
This example is what Blizzard did with World of Warcraft. Yes I know, WoW still has 6 million but with people don't realize is they could have 15 million......All other developers see is 6 million but fail to realize WoW is their because it's the most established mmo on the market.
10-15 years ago the MMORPG scene was like a village: everybody knew everybody on the server and reputations were important.
Since then, the pool of MMORPG players grew to a lake and then expanded into an ocean.
Now MMORPG's are like megacities (mega-servers !) where you are closely surrounded by millions of complete strangers and can play entirely alone without ever saying a word to anyone.
Welcome to modern city life...
I have to disagree somewhat:
Old: Servers had 3-4k players online at the same time on the same server. You will see the same players over and over and remember them.
New: Server has 500k+ players BUT you are lucky if you have 100 players in your shard/instance/whatever. Your chance of seeing the same player are slim at best.
Old: Games had real hubs where players of different levels gathered (starter city/nation, mid level city, end game city)
New: Games have quest hubs that you visit only once for a few quest.
Last but most important point:
Old: Players needed to form groups to finish some quests and content. It was required and arguably forced grouping can be a problem, it builds a community and increases the longevity of a game.
New: Other players are nothing but competition for quest mobs, spawns, public quests, public dungeons, spawned chests. This creates an antisocial environment and is a detriment to the games.
Agree 100%
That's why design is important. Players get shared exp, even out of groups, if they all tag a foe. This is an incentive for co-operating. It's very difficult to train people. That's also important to deter the anti-social. And there is no open PvP outside of a single zone (again, helps with the anti-social). There are also zones, pretty popular, where traditional grouping mechanics work. Requiring them everywhere in an environment that emphasizes story and quests would be an odd design choice.
The last time I actually felt like a part of community was in vanilla WoW when we had single servers, server forums and everything from PvE to PvP happened there among those people. Everyone built a reputation for them, there were players that were commonly hated or loved, and everything in between. Groups were manually made, which often resulted in friendship or sometimes in ignoring. It was great.
Now what ever game I play I click a button and get an autogroup of people to dash through group content were no one says a thing, and it's impossible to make friends or contacts because we're not even on same server. No one has a reputation, not that it would even matter when you just click a button to get anything done. Content that is not behind this button is soloable.
In vanilla WoW I did not have to try to make friends, they were made automatically by encountering likeminded people and doing stuff with them. Now it's impossible to make friends unless you specifically begin to search for them, and even then, there's no practical use for them other than chatting, because of all these easy-to-use mechanics in mmorpgs these days.
I honestly dont feel like I'm having rose colored goggles when I'm saying that these games used to be better and are crappy solo adventures now. Sure the games awesome new stuff too, loads of it, but all the features that used to made community through gameplay has been systematically destroyed in favor of ADD.
This being said, I've yet to play TESO, and I have no reason to believe that something would be different in this game with it's we-dont-need-to-announce-server-mergers server technology and heavy phasing. It remains to be seen if I can even coop in this game due to problems reported with the phasing.
I am sorry but i disagree. What you listed makes solo play less annoying. It has nothing to do with making a game more social. These mechanics are made ONLY to appease the solo players so they are not bothered and can go about their merry ways. If anything these make the game less sociable.
Then why is it that almost all MMOs released since the focus shifted to solo players... have been massive failures? Even the most successful ones failed to grow in subs past launch.
Because they generally suck? Honestly comparing success of a mmo based on how solo-friendly it is is rather... Subjective. Theres far too many variables that might have contributed more to the failure of the MMO than it being solo-friendly.
meh... I could see your point if you complained about the lack of social features/hubs in the game to interact with others and make friends, but to knock the fact that you're exposed to too many people at once? Really? We're in the boom phase right now, what did you expect? You would have the same problem even if there weren't multiple instances of everything.
During this phase SWTOR scrambled to open up tons of new servers that promptly became ghost towns less than 6 months later. At least this way, the number of instances per zone will simply decrease as the player count drops. I doubt it will even be noticeable.
I'll admit the game has problems and it's maybe a bit too solo-friendly, but nothing is stopping you from emoting to folks you pass by while questing/crafting/exploring. You could send out tells to people you see and ask them open-ended questions about how they're liking their class or the game so far. If you guys hit it off, put them on your friends list so you can find them again. Maybe check out crafting or RP hotspots and shmooze. If all else fails try guilds and smaller forum sites where the noise isn't as loud and you can make your voice heard.
This shit ain't rocket science. Zenimax doesn't have to do all the work for you. Relying on the devs to foster the community has never been a recipe for success.