Megaserver technology is really a mixed thing, on one hand you have it harder to know the important players on your server but on the other there will be plenty of players around even in zones that would otherwise be close to dead and that part is actually good for socializing.
GW2s problem that makes it less social is the fact that they made the game so easy after the first beta weekend because so many players (and I know some of you are here) complained that it was too difficult. Initially was the open world far from easy to solo and most people ran in groups.
And it is far from the only game that this messes up the gameplay but GW2 is probably worst affected due to how DEs work and scale. The need or greed mechanics didn't help at all either, it rewards being a total jerk.
Difficulty is not the only problem that makes games less social, the other bad offenders are phasing and soloinstances. But if the difficulty increased players would be more social than now. And of course the fact that dungeons are getting less and less important in MMOs doesn't help either, it was the best way to progress both XP and loot wise before, now most players doesn't even bother until they hit level cap.
But the thing is that this is very easy things to fix, the problem is that many players seems happy with the way things are and in fact are complaining whenever open world content gets so hard that they can't kill everything by themselves. Fix that attitude and the rest will solve itself.
And it is far from the only game that this messes up the gameplay but GW2 is probably worst affected due to how DEs work and scale. The need or greed mechanics didn't help at all either, it rewards being a total jerk.
GW2 didn't have need or greed mechanics, and its looting mechanics certainly did not reward being a jerk.
The only conflicts came in mass-player farming zones (such as pre-nerf Orr), where looting equates to mass tagging everything and rushing to try and get credit before the horde of players around you makes it impossible.
In anything that so much as resembles a normal group scenario (in other words, anything that doesn't bring a downright ridiculous number of players onto the screen), the loot system rewards cooperation better than most.
In reality, these systems are designed so that you will -or must by reason of the game's mechanics- train every available skill the game has to offer. This is merely a poorly concealed way of keeping players paying and playing for as long as possible.
The end result is predictable; high-level characters that are "experts" in everything. You don't need help from anyone because you can do it all.
A classless system is diametrically opposed to community building, thus players feel lonely and alienated. A player that feels alone in a crowded world (truth be told, which is almost everybody) won't stay in that world long.
False. A redundant system is diametrically opposed to community building. A classless system is only redundant if it encourages generalization, rather than specialization.
Keep that in mind - specialization is the key to dependence. That can be achieved with a dedicated class system or with a build-based classless system. Both work and achieve the same goal and both have their merits when they succeed at doing so.
Good group mechanics are just needs people to help eachother out to beat the content, if you have dedicated healers, classes, levels or not is not an issue there. Many pen and paper games doesn't have any of that but still people will have to play as a group and work together or they will die.
Even FPS games usually have some kind of group mechanics and the more you make so the players need to keep an eye on the other players the better. But what it would matter if you have classes or not really is beyond me as long as you don't let players have all abilities in the game at the same time.
You can still have good group mechanics in a game where all players play knights, the important thing there is that they need to support eachother during combat, not that someone must tank and someone else must heal.
Originally posted by rnor6084 Stop blaming the devs. A lot of what is wrong with MMO's today are the terrible communities that populate them.
Who allowed the terrible communities to foster?
The players lost the ability to police its own playerbase with the advent of cross server queues, name changes, server switching, and lack of interdependence. Sure you can still control this stuff within the confines of your own guild, but it used to be server wide.
If a player ever became an issue for a sever, he was done. No guilds would take him and no one would group with him. His options were to reroll on another server, which could take 6-8 months, or quit the game. Today something like that is laughed at. Anyone can be an asshole all they want because they know there are no consequences. Drop a few $ and be off to another server in no time.
With convenience comes the degradation of the community. Is it the players fault for asking for that convenience of the devs for giving it to them? The bottom line is the bottom line. I just wish it were not.
somehow the quote i was quoting became someone else quote so no i type this here.
im glad you have friends in RL who play games, I do not. I started playing MMO's to make friends.
Why would you do that? If you want friends, open your front door and go find some. MMOs are a game. They exist for entertainment, not socialization. Anyone who is playing them hoping to find RL friends is doing it wrong.
Originally posted by Loke666 And it is far from the only game that this messes up the gameplay but GW2 is probably worst affected due to how DEs work and scale. The need or greed mechanics didn't help at all either, it rewards being a total jerk.
GW2 didn't have need or greed mechanics, and its looting mechanics certainly did not reward being a jerk.
The only conflicts came in mass-player farming zones (such as pre-nerf Orr), where looting equates to mass tagging everything and rushing to try and get credit before the horde of players around you makes it impossible.
In anything that so much as resembles a normal group scenario (in other words, anything that doesn't bring a downright ridiculous number of players onto the screen), the loot system rewards cooperation better than most.
It used too.
Now it rewards showing up at the absolute last minute of a world boss and throwing in a few auto attacks.
Now it rewards stacking to the most populated server in WvW and running around in a megablob spamming '1'.
Why help build a community when you can get the same reward or a better reward for being selfish and putting in no effort?
This is what GW2 promotes now. It didn't always used to be that way.
And it is far from the only game that this messes up the gameplay but GW2 is probably worst affected due to how DEs work and scale. The need or greed mechanics didn't help at all either, it rewards being a total jerk.
GW2 didn't have need or greed mechanics, and its looting mechanics certainly did not reward being a jerk.
The only conflicts came in mass-player farming zones (such as pre-nerf Orr), where looting equates to mass tagging everything and rushing to try and get credit before the horde of players around you makes it impossible.
In anything that so much as resembles a normal group scenario (in other words, anything that doesn't bring a downright ridiculous number of players onto the screen), the loot system rewards cooperation better than most.
It used too. Now it rewards showing up at the absolute last minute of a world boss and throwing in a few auto attacks. Now it rewards stacking to the most populated server in WvW and running around in a megablob spamming '1'. Why help build a community when you can get the same reward or a better reward for being selfish and putting in no effort? This is what GW2 promotes now. It didn't always used to be that way.
In regards to WvW, you have a point. The issue stems from a dilemma - the need to reward the best servers but without harming the legitimacy of competition. In a system where server swapping and cross-server alliances (see Season 2) are possible, satisfying both conditions may be a Herculean task. Add in the fact that it's a pvp environment and you've got some scumbaggery.
Now, as for world events, that's not an issue with the loot system. That's poor distribution of rewards through activities and over-predictability in events. Scheduling the bosses around specific times was a mistake. They should have been sporadic and unpredictable, such that communicating their presence is a service and attempting to zerg-train from boss to boss is an impossibility.
The game's best content is its open world dynamic content - and this should be the content that gives the greatest reward, as it is the content that best highlights the game's strengths and encourages its social functions. Instead, it is often the least-rewarding content.
I'm still pretty bummed this happened to FFXI. Back in 04-06 the game was imo the perfect mmorpg experience. Yes you had to spend more time online to get pretty much anything done, but isn't that the point of these games? Rushing through makes the community sour, overly aggressive and much more difficult to please. Maybe I'm just not cut out for the new fast paced mmos being mass produced now.
Originally posted by Sildanair I'm still pretty bummed this happened to FFXI. Back in 04-06 the game was imo the perfect mmorpg experience. Yes you had to spend more time online to get pretty much anything done, but isn't that the point of these games? Rushing through makes the community sour, overly aggressive and much more difficult to please. Maybe I'm just not cut out for the new fast paced mmos being mass produced now.
No, taking your entire life to play a game is not the point. The point of *ANY* game is entertainment. If you think that people have to throw the rest of their lives away for entertainment, that's absurd.
Originally posted by 0effort<div may-blank-within"="">A small post I wrote a few hours ago,Since post-WoW-era there has been an increasing feeling that modern MMOrpgs are catering more to the solo experience...
If Furcadia, Asheron's Call, SWG, UO, EVE, Planet Entropia, There, Second Life and Toontown never existed then I'd say your rant had some basis in reality. However...
Did any of these release recently?
Of course not. They were all before WOW and all both supported and encouraged solo play.
In no way did SWG encourage solo play. That is probably the most ignorant statement about the game that I have ever heard. Everything from the crafting to the class training system required interdependence among players. In order to heal wounds, you needed either a doctor or an entertainer. There has never been an MMO that needed such complete community involvement.
You didn't need to be in a group to dance on that stage. You didn't need to be tethered to two other specific classes to create your house/museum. As for 'social', you didn't need to speak to that dancer nor the dancer speak to you in order to heal. Your inability to differentiate between grouping and socialization isn't ignorance on my part. Sorry you got emotional over a comment about your video game.
Where did I say anything about socialization? I was replying directly to your statement . TRY READING WHAT YOU POSTED. I highlighted it for you in case you have issues differentiating between what you said and what you wrote in your reply . In no way did it encourage SOLO PLAY. You needed dancers and medics because wounds did not magically go away. You did not solo a whole lot without buffs from medics and crafted weapons. Smugglers couldn't slice without tools from a crafter. Most crafting professions were dependent on others for some pieces or parts. The economy was completely interdependent. SWG was a game that required other players to accomplish much of anything. You are right, you didn't need to group, but you certainly needed the service of others.
No it really didn't. Soloing means not grouping, that's it. I didn't need a group to go on missions, or to build my house. I never used medics when I ran missions. I could get the pieces I needed for crafting from vendors. I really didn't need to talk to, see or interact with another person, just their vendors. When I did it was because I wanted to not because I needed to.
SWG hugely encouraged soloing. You are right for materials I did need other players services, but I just used their vendors, the same as buying something off the auction in WoW which also encourages soloing. No real difference between an npc vendor from the and a player's vendor in the eyes of the customer. Everything I needed I just bought from a vendor.
edit - pre-cu I would even say it encouraged solo even more with the way xp in groups was split. In case you forgot the xp was split depending on did the most damage.
edit - and the point was soloing was encouraged in most/many games outside of EQ long before WoW. So the idea that someone post WoW games are more solo is only true if you ignore all the games that were not like EQ. If you look at the whole market it is false.
Thank you. That's exactly what i was trying to say.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Ariel_Arilon I feel I'd have to agree somewhat with Oeffort. There are many games now that tout a "classless" system where, "You can be anything you want to be!" In reality, these systems are designed so that you will -or must by reason of the game's mechanics- train every available skill the game has to offer. This is merely a poorly concealed way of keeping players paying and playing for as long as possible. The end result is predictable; high-level characters that are "experts" in everything. You don't need help from anyone because you can do it all. A classless system is diametrically opposed to community building, thus players feel lonely and alienated. A player that feels alone in a crowded world (truth be told, which is almost everybody) won't stay in that world long. That's why I read a lot of posts from people who play a game for a few months, and then quit. The unspoken reason they quit is often because of a lack of community. How many posts are there where the OP fondly reminisces about a bygone game that had COMMUNITY. And THAT'S what makes a good game great.
I have to disagree with this entirely.
A classless system does not inherently make a game less social or lessen player dependency.
Look at eve online for example.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Originally posted by Ariel_Arilon I feel I'd have to agree somewhat with Oeffort.
There are many games now that tout a "classless" system where, "You can be anything you want to be!"
In reality, these systems are designed so that you will -or must by reason of the game's mechanics- train every available skill the game has to offer. This is merely a poorly concealed way of keeping players paying and playing for as long as possible.
The end result is predictable; high-level characters that are "experts" in everything. You don't need help from anyone because you can do it all.
A classless system is diametrically opposed to community building, thus players feel lonely and alienated. A player that feels alone in a crowded world (truth be told, which is almost everybody) won't stay in that world long.
That's why I read a lot of posts from people who play a game for a few months, and then quit. The unspoken reason they quit is often because of a lack of community.
How many posts are there where the OP fondly reminisces about a bygone game that had COMMUNITY.
And THAT'S what makes a good game great.
I have to disagree with this entirely.
A classless system does not inherently make a game less social or lessen player dependency.
Look at eve online for example.
I think the problem with a classless system from my view is that it is a side-effect mainly for PVP/PVE games. It is an add on a nihilistic self-centered MMO player that thinks they can be the best in everything in every class and do everything with every class. It still falls under "Who needs them?" since I can become "anything" and I don't need to socialize anymore with "Good/Great Healers" or "Good/Great Tanks" and so on and so forth. It is just a step forward to a more solo-based attitude and experience.
It is like a chain, part of the "who-needs-them" culture. That is how I see it.
However I only see it as that with what I am given with. An asocial MMO community. Under circumstances where the social aspects were stronger and more noticeable I would have said otherwise.
I must admit, and it's not always easy to accomplish this, that I have found those that seek out a companion while leveling and questing. I have not always been so patient and so inclined to tag along. ...And when I reflect upon these moments in time, and there have been more than one and in more than one mmo, it's saddens me. I feel rather empty. I could have been a bit more polite. I should have been more patient. What would it mean to someone if I added them to my friend's list? Just a simple bit of kindness can go far in building good strong friendships, even it be in a high fantasy mmo.
This thread has made me reflect. I have been both helpful and a hindrance at times. I'm not perfect and this is true of each one of us no matter who we are. Self reflection is a hard thing. However, the reflection we cast show us who we are. I'm not sure about all of you out there, but there are uncountable times when I have asked for help and gotten that help and gained a friend from those that came along and did a quest or a challenge yet once again just to help me. Unselfishness. Have we paid this forward? Yes, I think there are many of you all out there that have and continue to do so now in each game you play. I have out of that self awareness that I used to be rather self absorbed at times. It has become easier for me to lift a helping hand and relive some adventures just to help a stranger, or to aid a guildie that is "stuck".
This was a timely thread. I enjoyed reading the OP's topic words and I enjoyed reading the responses. But most of all it made me think about what kind of gamer I am and hope to better myself at becoming a more thoughtful gamer. Nothing makes one feel so wonderful as performing a random act of humble kindness for no other reason that to share with someone your love for the mmo you are playing. We can only hope that those that we share will do the same "down the line" and thus pay it forward.
This is what strong communities are built from...
May the sun always shine warmly upon your back while you journey,
Alyn
Just want to say thanks for this post. It made my day. I always like when people can be as open as you with their posts writing about self-judging material .
I think the problem with a classless system from my view is that it is a side-effect mainly for PVP/PVE games. It is an add on a nihilistic self-centered MMO player that thinks they can be the best in everything in every class and do everything with every class. It still falls under "Who needs them?" since I can become "anything" and I don't need to socialize anymore with "Good/Great Healers" or "Good/Great Tanks" and so on and so forth. It is just a step forward to a more solo-based attitude and experience.
It is like a chain, part of the "who-needs-them" culture. That is how I see it.
However I only see it as that with what I am given with. An asocial MMO community. Under circumstances where the social aspects were stronger and more noticeable I would have said otherwise.
It seems you're confusing "I don't want to LFG for a half hour" with "I want to do everything myself", the former being the reality. Can you give examples of these classless MMOs where people can be the best at everything? Your experiences don't match mine (they're the exact opposite) so I'm curious which MMOs you're playing where this is occurring.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
When I made my first character in UO I remember running around picking up regents off the ground. A player with a "Illustrious Lady" title gated me to her large tower and gave me some pointers. I remember she and a few others would often hang out at banks to "chat." We communicated with people through ICQ or in game.
In early WoW I remember a fellow level 1 night elf trying to figure out how the heck to run up the big tree in Teldrassil. Before dungeon finder and LFR there certainly was more of a sense of dependency. Before name changes and realm changes I feel a different degree of etiquette was in place. I remember a warrior in my vanilla raiding guild left to join a different guild and my current guild posted screenshots of him being a prick in a MC raid. Heh. Karma could be a bitch back then.
If I were to play WoW right now (or any questing and leveling game) I feel I'd skip the social aspect to his "max" level faster. Especially in a game like WoW where I could level to 30 blindfolded. I hate any sort of blame game but I do agree that socializing in mmorpgs is on a decline.
somehow the quote i was quoting became someone else quote so no i type this here.
im glad you have friends in RL who play games, I do not. I started playing MMO's to make friends.
While I had a very bad past experience that gave me a very good reason to never again make real life friends in an MMO, I at least can understand why someone looking to make real friends online would want to be around more social-oriented gamers.
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, you're the only person who has ever posted a good reason to be annoyed with me for soloing in your MMO. Congrats! But I'm still going to do it, sorry!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
I too miss the social aspect of MMOs. I started playing MMOs with Dark Age of Camelot in 2001. Of course since it was my first mmo i was still in the solo rpg mode. I played that way for several levels but soon realized after grouping with friendly strangers, most people were friendly back then, that it was much faster leveling with a group. In fact since you could lose exp for dying, but never levels, often it was nearly impossible to level solo.
I was initially resistant to grouping, but once i started grouping i got to know everyone in my realm on my server. Even if i didnt actually group with them, i knew who they were and vice versa. There was a community. It made the game so much more fun. It made everything more fun.
I have played many mmos since Daoc. Just about every one. Conan, Aion, GW1, GW2, Rift, Warhammer, PS2, WoW, and so on, and none of them had any community.
Imo grouping should yield much greater XP than soloing should.
There need to be reasons for wanting to group up. I think it is the other people in these games that make them worth playing.
One of the things that i think is missing that facilitates grouping is mob camps. If you have dense clusters of mobs spaced throughout the landscape people know where to go to look for a group. Thats how we did it in DAoC. You could go round to the xp spots and ask the people there if they had room in their group.
In newer games mobs are spaced evenly through the landscape which is bad for a number of reasons. First of which is that it makes the games very homogeneous and boring. Camps are landmarks that make the landscape memorable. When everything is the same everywhere nothing is memorable and zones become boring and lifeless.
Secondly as i said camps facilitate grouping, as opposed to drop down menus and lfg tabs that the majority of people dont use or want to use. I think its more visceral to go to a place to look for people than to look for them in a menu which they may or may not even be using.
I recently played a DAoC shard which gave bonuses based on group members and the more members you had in the group the more xp you got for the same mobs. It created an atmosphere where people would invite ANYONE to their grp just to fill it out. Which meant you didnt have to be the RIGHT class or the correct level, and i actually made a friend on that shard who i still play with in other games.
Take a game like TESO. No camps, the landscapes are a nightmare, like they let a 4 year old copy and paste objects anywhere they wanted. The endgame zones are beautiful and show great promise, but because i didnt make any friends i got bored trying to grind out Veteran ranks and quit. If i had made a bunch of friends I would still be playing.
Communities are the key to player retention. New content and updates are not nearly as important as the social interactions we have in these virtual worlds. I can go to any new game and get all the new content i want, but if there isa community in YOUR game that i cant get anywhere else, THAT will keep me coming back.
Community building needs to be the number one priority of any online game. If you give people incentives to group up then they will do it. People are like anything in the universe, they seek the path of least resistance. If i can solo and level just as well as i can with a group, physics tells us that i will be unlikely to seek out a group.
Originally posted by 0effort <div may-blank-within"="">
Edit: Final version.
Are we becoming less social? That is a question I have been trying to answer.
"Thanks once again to the Devs: The antisocial is the new social"
It feels we have lost something. There is this feeling of isolation that has been infiltrating our system as MMOrpgs progressed and evolved. MMO veterans know it, they can feel it, but they have kept their silence in sake of adapting, of dealing with it. We used to have a server and that server was our community, every letter of it. Not quasi or semi, not something you had to reach endgame to enjoy, not something you had to experience after a certain amount of leveling. It was there, it was real, it was phenomenal.
Everyone knew everyone. That's right. We had no strangers or randoms. We had no invasion of other servers. That virtual world was our place just like in real life; our neighborhood where we lived and breathed for years. You had the good, the bad and the ugly apples. If you were a "ninja" or even "ninjaed" something, if you were a "hacker", a "cheater", an "exploiter" God help you and may have mercy on you. Public chat would be a burning hand; it would search you and alienate you from the rest of the community until you admitted your apology, one that had to be genuine not mere words of impression and public speech. Yes we were assholes, yes we had an ego but we were proud; proud of our server and its achievements. We had a place to belong to. It was real not "virtual".
Everything had a cost because every action had a consequence. There was no sugar-coating about it. If you couldn't do your job at low level instances and dungeons, players would avoid you. MMOrpgs used to scale up in a way that there was no excuse of not have had your skills sharpened. There were grindy as fuck but the beauty of it was that fights and patterns were hard-wired to your brain. Finger memory was achievable because practice makes perfect, and oh boy practice was an action that would be repeated through out the entire game.
Every class had a role, and a specific one. You chose a class and had to stick with it so class selection was extremely important. You just couldn't fuck around with a tank or a healer. The tanks words and the healer's suggestion were law. The tank back then was the leader, the king of the group and you had to follow his commands and his marks. Yes tanks used to mark all the time. If tanks didn't make for whatever reason that would get allot of complains and bitching and rightfully so. It wouldn't matter if they had done it multiple times, a mark guaranteed that everyone had to pay attention to the order of numbers because mistakes can happen and better be safe than sorry.
However if you did say you didn't know that fight everybody would be jumping on you to help you out. There was no other option. You were one with the server. Not just a "stranger" or a "random"; you were a valuable person and if you had a good personality with good skills people would congratulate you, add you to their list. People were willing to show you, were willing to "role play" the fight and move from one spot to the next to share their point across. The last thing was a link or a visual representation of the fight. People had to learn together, no exceptions. And you learned by practicing.
There were no speedruns. Each instance or dungeon had a set which you were required to acquire until the next and the next. So if you were wearing a specific year it automatically meant you were good enough to proceed to the next one because it would be mathematically impossible to have it without actually doing a good job about it; there were no shortcuts or easy way outs. Your name was your identity just like in real life. You had a persona, a character with strengths and weaknesses. If you were the asshole of the assholes it didn't matter if you were the best player in the world. Players would refuse to group with you and they would prefer to accept a rookie to their inner circle who was respectable and willing to learn the fight with the rest.
Grouping was not just an process of gathering the best players with the best gear. It was more than that. It was a social gathering. It was enjoyable and not a pain in the ass. You would see players talking about everything they can think off; anime, television series, sports, games, anything. We were social agents, we were social beings and albeit naked in the sense of always vulnerable to our strengths and weaknesses, we were humans. Friendships and rivalry were formed since the beginning. If another played enjoyed your company or generally your character or perspective on things you were most likely befriended it so you can both go together to the next adventure and take with you more minded souls of people. Bonds were never an illusion or a virtual toolbox.
There was history between players. If all was lost, players would use different means of voice applications; Team Speak when it arrived was the real deal. Players would jump on it for every type of occasion; from small talk, to social conversations and gaming. You were expected to be sociable because MMOrpgs were MMOrpgs; Massive Multiplayer Online Games. Even the most antisocial of the antisocials was duoing his PVP or PVE needs with a close partner; everyone was inside a group of minded-like-players. Everyone had his soulmate.
The server was the only option. You had to interact with it. You had to be sociable. You had to be a human being to survive. You couldn't just dismiss everything and do your own thing because if you did you would be left out. In that sense server communities had unwritten laws of social conduct and expectation. Gaming and socialness were interlinked constantly. It is extremely hard to put it into words, it really is but a server was a living organism. Even if you were stuck a mass of players would offer there hand because it didn't matter who or what you were, it was enough you were on their server and it was important that you join them at max level and enjoy the game type of game they enjoy as well. Players would be contacting other players from their list and often higher levels would show up and help you through. There was a social anxiety of finding particular players for particular occasions. We weren't just sitting praying. We weren't afking so someone could find for us the rest of their roles. We would go through all the means necessary to get things done.
MMOrpgs were grindy as fuck but they were fair.
And things changed. I don't think for the better but who knows.
"Who needs them?"
Since post-World of Wacraft era, there has been this uneasy feeling that modern MMOrpgs are starting or have started to cater more to the I, to the me, to "myself", to the solo experience, the solo attitude, and the solo indulgence. From Guild Wars 2 to Final Fantasy XIV, public chat has become a pain in the ass, a real pain in the ass. Individuals barely talk about anything because what is there to talk to? We do not have communities or servers anymore; they were replaced in the form of "Reddit", "Official forums", and "Fansites". The server or the community were eradicated and the net became just that; that living social organism of everyone.
There is no sense of pride of belonging to a server. It is just another server. There is no need to communicate, interact and socialize with that community. It is just another collection of strangers and randoms. Anyone barely knows anyone. There is barely history of players between eachother, there are barely any significant social memories apart from gaming e-peen achievements and have done dos. The solo career became the dogma of contemporary gaming. Everything is achievable and attainable now days by "soloing" your way through without making friends and acquaintances.
"Who needs them?"
When you have a system that randomly selects you with others for every single obstacle that you encounter and the forthcoming one?
"Who needs them?"
When with enough patience and balls of steel, randoms again can help you to meet your aims and goals in game?
"Who needs them?"
When you can behave as you like and do whatever the fuck you want be from being the asshole of the assholes, the "ninja" of the "ninjas"? No one needs anyone. And that is exactly the issue. You are playing again MMOrpg. Not a single-player experience. This is not genre were you finish the main story and you are done or this should have never been case. Duty finders, Megaservers, fuck knows what; you name it.
"The players lost the ability to police its own playerbase with the advent of cross server queues, name changes, server switching, and lack of interdependence".
People barely even talk in groups anymore. Apart from "Hi/Hello" or "So who is doing what?" you will not find anyone who will write "So how is everybody?" and "How was your weekend?". Why would they? We do not have servers or communities, we are merely party of a random probability, merely a fraction of sociality who is there to speedrun as fast as possible until we reach the end game of all the end games. Who cares what you are? Who cares how good or bad you are? Just get things done, finish your instance or dungeon and get on with it.
Because right now it does not matter. Everyone, and I mean everyone is replaceable. Apart from PvPvE orentiented MMOrpgs where e-peen flows eternally, friendly trolling is non-stopable, and teasing can be as good or as bad as you want it to be, the rest of the PVP or PVE is stuck in a wall of getting shit done. Players get stuck. You are a bad or inexperienced player? Tough shit. You want someone to practice? Pray. You want a group to actually sit down with you and explain you everything? Better to end your life.
"We are soloing speedruns at whatever we do and there is always no time to socialize".
Players get stuck in old content for days, weeks and months being randomized with other randoms that don't know the fights as well and everybody seems so hopeless and ignorant, so lost. And you have to sign in 24/7 and beg to miss fortune/luck that a blessing group comes on this ridiculous and most anti-social mechanism called automated player finder, wasting hours, suns and moons for it to start no matter what you description you put. Scaling up difficulty has become so stupified that it is mathematically calculated that by the time you do need to social and actually find proper groups from your server, you are bound to be stuck there for ages; "ice ice baby" as the song tells.
Every time you party with strangers, you would be a liar or a hypocrite to deny this feeling; this feeling of a guarantee fail with strangers from across all servers, this inner feeling of defeatism while the rest, the ones who were playing that MMOrpg since day one are light years ahead of you. In every attempt, in every wipe, one player leaves and then the rest follow, rage and drama and bitterness dominating the interaction between players. The experience of being hopeless at its finest performance.
And on top of that like we said everyone can be everyone they want to be. Server transfers, name changes, rerolls and whatever else convenience the Devs come up to, are all per-determined factors to allow you to succeed through a massive length of pain and frustration. With that convenience, it came down to the degradation of the community. There is no such thing as a server nor a community. Those words are empty space just like every social aspect.
What happened to the fact where everybody knew each other, out-geared people who would come forward to your call for help, many players would sit with you, teach you, train you and make you understand the fight or the pattern of extremely challenging content and guide you through it all successfully?
What happened to the scaling up difficulty in MMOrpgs that would ensure you that if you were successful you were good enough for the next challenge?
What happened to the times where having an achievement was truly an achievement and not some fancy-ass-perk?
What happened to the social aspects of MMOrpgs?
Now all is left is a dust from speeding like being on a super bad ass bike on a high open road. MMOrpgs these days primary role and focus is to train you by yourself, speak to yourself and gratify yourself as much as possible. We used to have so many true, sincere and unique memories of our server, good, bad and ugly ones. Fierce enemies but also respected friends. We would interact with our whole server, add players on our list, interact with them on the daily basis, have them as real friends, had a bond with them.
Everything has become a "read a guide" or "watch youtube" and "just find people" and "get on with it". We add people just so we can whisper them every once in a blue moon about helping us with a content because no one else will.
Such a sad, mad and antisocial world inside a Massive Online Multiplayer Role Playing game.
So thanks once again to Developers who catered to us.
Saving this iteration of the OP msg before it changes again. This is a rose-tinted masterpiece.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Saving this iteration of the OP msg before it changes again. This is a rose-tinted masterpiece.
I am not sure whether your comment is positive or negative towards me but, what is wrong with looking in the past? My belief is that you should get the best out of "old" things and improve not completely abandon them. With what we have now that raw "grind" can be manifested more creatively into becoming a "social grind". I think we should keep that as well as other stuff.
I like the idea of a sandbox where the actions are inherently connected with everyone else. Killing wolves affects the local wolf population and by extension nearby settlements (although if the only thing that changes is the number of wolves left, the devs lack creativity). If you sell the furs, a merchant player can buy them and sell them in a nearby city where such furs are harder to get, and then a craft player can use the furs to make a fur coat, and then another player buys the fur coat. This way, all players are part of the same ecosystem regardless of their socialness.
Originally posted by Sildanair I'm still pretty bummed this happened to FFXI. Back in 04-06 the game was imo the perfect mmorpg experience. Yes you had to spend more time online to get pretty much anything done, but isn't that the point of these games? Rushing through makes the community sour, overly aggressive and much more difficult to please. Maybe I'm just not cut out for the new fast paced mmos being mass produced now.
No, taking your entire life to play a game is not the point. The point of *ANY* game is entertainment. If you think that people have to throw the rest of their lives away for entertainment, that's absurd.
If you spend your entire life on a game you're doing it wrong. You shouldn't jump to conclusions because someone mentions spending a large amount of time on a game. Some of us just don't watch TV or spend time spacing out on our choice social media. I just liked the slower pace of the game and think the rush everything 100% of the time attitude of communities like FFXIV ruin the experience.
I think one part of the issue, and one often overlooked, is that a good bulk of players are considerably older than when they began playing MMO's. They may not be so much 'antisocial' as they now have real world responsibilities and cannot sit for hours on end undisturbed to play a game.
Those community building experiences of sitting around waiting for groups to accomplish anything are simply not feasible to one who may need to go afk randomly, or who has limited time to play to begin with. The soloability of newer games means the devs get to keep these types of players. Soloability does not equal inability to socialize. Even in EQ1, RP and socializing happened outside of the forced grouping mechanic.
Nothing stops a community from forming. That's what guilds are for, and there are a wide variety of guilds in every MMO. Casual pve, RP, raiding, pvp. The games are what you make them, despite the devs. Just because there is a lfg tool, or a cross server tool, does not mean you need to use it. Don't like non-talking or speed run teams? Don't join them. Team with your like-minded guildies.
I think modern games have a good balance for the most part. Content that can be soloed by those who wish to, and endgame content that requires teamwork. Good RPers and players become known, just as much as good raiders get known in their respective communities. So I really don't see a problem. You are only as isolated as you choose to be.
That aside, if the old ways were truly desirable to more than a vocal minority.. the genre would not have changed to what we have today. Even back when it was new, people complained about EQ1's forced grouping. If not, the casual and soloable games would not have become as prominent as they have. The gaming community showed the devs, with their pockets, exactly what we wanted. Some left EQ1 to go to the far more soloable AC1, and it progressed from there.
Saving this iteration of the OP msg before it changes again. This is a rose-tinted masterpiece.
I am not sure whether your comment is positive or negative towards me but, what is wrong with looking in the past? My belief is that you should get the best out of "old" things and improve not completely abandon them. With what we have now that raw "grind" can be manifested more creatively into becoming a "social grind". I think we should keep that as well as other stuff.
I don't know, 0effort, but I think Loktofeit and I might have the same idea...for someone so interested in the great social atmosphere of the past, your rendition of the past seems really...well...antisocial.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Comments
Megaserver technology is really a mixed thing, on one hand you have it harder to know the important players on your server but on the other there will be plenty of players around even in zones that would otherwise be close to dead and that part is actually good for socializing.
GW2s problem that makes it less social is the fact that they made the game so easy after the first beta weekend because so many players (and I know some of you are here) complained that it was too difficult. Initially was the open world far from easy to solo and most people ran in groups.
And it is far from the only game that this messes up the gameplay but GW2 is probably worst affected due to how DEs work and scale. The need or greed mechanics didn't help at all either, it rewards being a total jerk.
Difficulty is not the only problem that makes games less social, the other bad offenders are phasing and soloinstances. But if the difficulty increased players would be more social than now. And of course the fact that dungeons are getting less and less important in MMOs doesn't help either, it was the best way to progress both XP and loot wise before, now most players doesn't even bother until they hit level cap.
But the thing is that this is very easy things to fix, the problem is that many players seems happy with the way things are and in fact are complaining whenever open world content gets so hard that they can't kill everything by themselves. Fix that attitude and the rest will solve itself.
GW2 didn't have need or greed mechanics, and its looting mechanics certainly did not reward being a jerk.
The only conflicts came in mass-player farming zones (such as pre-nerf Orr), where looting equates to mass tagging everything and rushing to try and get credit before the horde of players around you makes it impossible.
In anything that so much as resembles a normal group scenario (in other words, anything that doesn't bring a downright ridiculous number of players onto the screen), the loot system rewards cooperation better than most.
Good group mechanics are just needs people to help eachother out to beat the content, if you have dedicated healers, classes, levels or not is not an issue there. Many pen and paper games doesn't have any of that but still people will have to play as a group and work together or they will die.
Even FPS games usually have some kind of group mechanics and the more you make so the players need to keep an eye on the other players the better. But what it would matter if you have classes or not really is beyond me as long as you don't let players have all abilities in the game at the same time.
You can still have good group mechanics in a game where all players play knights, the important thing there is that they need to support eachother during combat, not that someone must tank and someone else must heal.
Who allowed the terrible communities to foster?
The players lost the ability to police its own playerbase with the advent of cross server queues, name changes, server switching, and lack of interdependence. Sure you can still control this stuff within the confines of your own guild, but it used to be server wide.
If a player ever became an issue for a sever, he was done. No guilds would take him and no one would group with him. His options were to reroll on another server, which could take 6-8 months, or quit the game. Today something like that is laughed at. Anyone can be an asshole all they want because they know there are no consequences. Drop a few $ and be off to another server in no time.
With convenience comes the degradation of the community. Is it the players fault for asking for that convenience of the devs for giving it to them? The bottom line is the bottom line. I just wish it were not.
Why would you do that? If you want friends, open your front door and go find some. MMOs are a game. They exist for entertainment, not socialization. Anyone who is playing them hoping to find RL friends is doing it wrong.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
GW2 didn't have need or greed mechanics, and its looting mechanics certainly did not reward being a jerk.
The only conflicts came in mass-player farming zones (such as pre-nerf Orr), where looting equates to mass tagging everything and rushing to try and get credit before the horde of players around you makes it impossible.
In anything that so much as resembles a normal group scenario (in other words, anything that doesn't bring a downright ridiculous number of players onto the screen), the loot system rewards cooperation better than most.
It used too.Now it rewards showing up at the absolute last minute of a world boss and throwing in a few auto attacks.
Now it rewards stacking to the most populated server in WvW and running around in a megablob spamming '1'.
Why help build a community when you can get the same reward or a better reward for being selfish and putting in no effort?
This is what GW2 promotes now. It didn't always used to be that way.
In regards to WvW, you have a point. The issue stems from a dilemma - the need to reward the best servers but without harming the legitimacy of competition. In a system where server swapping and cross-server alliances (see Season 2) are possible, satisfying both conditions may be a Herculean task. Add in the fact that it's a pvp environment and you've got some scumbaggery.
Now, as for world events, that's not an issue with the loot system. That's poor distribution of rewards through activities and over-predictability in events. Scheduling the bosses around specific times was a mistake. They should have been sporadic and unpredictable, such that communicating their presence is a service and attempting to zerg-train from boss to boss is an impossibility.
The game's best content is its open world dynamic content - and this should be the content that gives the greatest reward, as it is the content that best highlights the game's strengths and encourages its social functions. Instead, it is often the least-rewarding content.
Thanks for the discussion so far and sorry for not quoting back but I love reading people's posts in this discussion.
I have re-edit the main post to its final version. Hope you like it.
No, taking your entire life to play a game is not the point. The point of *ANY* game is entertainment. If you think that people have to throw the rest of their lives away for entertainment, that's absurd.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Thank you. That's exactly what i was trying to say.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I have to disagree with this entirely.
A classless system does not inherently make a game less social or lessen player dependency.
Look at eve online for example.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
I think the problem with a classless system from my view is that it is a side-effect mainly for PVP/PVE games. It is an add on a nihilistic self-centered MMO player that thinks they can be the best in everything in every class and do everything with every class. It still falls under "Who needs them?" since I can become "anything" and I don't need to socialize anymore with "Good/Great Healers" or "Good/Great Tanks" and so on and so forth. It is just a step forward to a more solo-based attitude and experience.
It is like a chain, part of the "who-needs-them" culture. That is how I see it.
However I only see it as that with what I am given with. An asocial MMO community. Under circumstances where the social aspects were stronger and more noticeable I would have said otherwise.
Just want to say thanks for this post. It made my day. I always like when people can be as open as you with their posts writing about self-judging material .
It seems you're confusing "I don't want to LFG for a half hour" with "I want to do everything myself", the former being the reality. Can you give examples of these classless MMOs where people can be the best at everything? Your experiences don't match mine (they're the exact opposite) so I'm curious which MMOs you're playing where this is occurring.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
When I made my first character in UO I remember running around picking up regents off the ground. A player with a "Illustrious Lady" title gated me to her large tower and gave me some pointers. I remember she and a few others would often hang out at banks to "chat." We communicated with people through ICQ or in game.
In early WoW I remember a fellow level 1 night elf trying to figure out how the heck to run up the big tree in Teldrassil. Before dungeon finder and LFR there certainly was more of a sense of dependency. Before name changes and realm changes I feel a different degree of etiquette was in place. I remember a warrior in my vanilla raiding guild left to join a different guild and my current guild posted screenshots of him being a prick in a MC raid. Heh. Karma could be a bitch back then.
If I were to play WoW right now (or any questing and leveling game) I feel I'd skip the social aspect to his "max" level faster. Especially in a game like WoW where I could level to 30 blindfolded. I hate any sort of blame game but I do agree that socializing in mmorpgs is on a decline.
Played: Ultima Online - DaoC - WoW -
While I had a very bad past experience that gave me a very good reason to never again make real life friends in an MMO, I at least can understand why someone looking to make real friends online would want to be around more social-oriented gamers.
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, you're the only person who has ever posted a good reason to be annoyed with me for soloing in your MMO. Congrats! But I'm still going to do it, sorry!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I too miss the social aspect of MMOs. I started playing MMOs with Dark Age of Camelot in 2001. Of course since it was my first mmo i was still in the solo rpg mode. I played that way for several levels but soon realized after grouping with friendly strangers, most people were friendly back then, that it was much faster leveling with a group. In fact since you could lose exp for dying, but never levels, often it was nearly impossible to level solo.
I was initially resistant to grouping, but once i started grouping i got to know everyone in my realm on my server. Even if i didnt actually group with them, i knew who they were and vice versa. There was a community. It made the game so much more fun. It made everything more fun.
I have played many mmos since Daoc. Just about every one. Conan, Aion, GW1, GW2, Rift, Warhammer, PS2, WoW, and so on, and none of them had any community.
Imo grouping should yield much greater XP than soloing should.
There need to be reasons for wanting to group up. I think it is the other people in these games that make them worth playing.
One of the things that i think is missing that facilitates grouping is mob camps. If you have dense clusters of mobs spaced throughout the landscape people know where to go to look for a group. Thats how we did it in DAoC. You could go round to the xp spots and ask the people there if they had room in their group.
In newer games mobs are spaced evenly through the landscape which is bad for a number of reasons. First of which is that it makes the games very homogeneous and boring. Camps are landmarks that make the landscape memorable. When everything is the same everywhere nothing is memorable and zones become boring and lifeless.
Secondly as i said camps facilitate grouping, as opposed to drop down menus and lfg tabs that the majority of people dont use or want to use. I think its more visceral to go to a place to look for people than to look for them in a menu which they may or may not even be using.
I recently played a DAoC shard which gave bonuses based on group members and the more members you had in the group the more xp you got for the same mobs. It created an atmosphere where people would invite ANYONE to their grp just to fill it out. Which meant you didnt have to be the RIGHT class or the correct level, and i actually made a friend on that shard who i still play with in other games.
Take a game like TESO. No camps, the landscapes are a nightmare, like they let a 4 year old copy and paste objects anywhere they wanted. The endgame zones are beautiful and show great promise, but because i didnt make any friends i got bored trying to grind out Veteran ranks and quit. If i had made a bunch of friends I would still be playing.
Communities are the key to player retention. New content and updates are not nearly as important as the social interactions we have in these virtual worlds. I can go to any new game and get all the new content i want, but if there isa community in YOUR game that i cant get anywhere else, THAT will keep me coming back.
Community building needs to be the number one priority of any online game. If you give people incentives to group up then they will do it. People are like anything in the universe, they seek the path of least resistance. If i can solo and level just as well as i can with a group, physics tells us that i will be unlikely to seek out a group.
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Saving this iteration of the OP msg before it changes again. This is a rose-tinted masterpiece.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I am not sure whether your comment is positive or negative towards me but, what is wrong with looking in the past? My belief is that you should get the best out of "old" things and improve not completely abandon them. With what we have now that raw "grind" can be manifested more creatively into becoming a "social grind". I think we should keep that as well as other stuff.
I like the idea of a sandbox where the actions are inherently connected with everyone else. Killing wolves affects the local wolf population and by extension nearby settlements (although if the only thing that changes is the number of wolves left, the devs lack creativity). If you sell the furs, a merchant player can buy them and sell them in a nearby city where such furs are harder to get, and then a craft player can use the furs to make a fur coat, and then another player buys the fur coat. This way, all players are part of the same ecosystem regardless of their socialness.
If you spend your entire life on a game you're doing it wrong. You shouldn't jump to conclusions because someone mentions spending a large amount of time on a game. Some of us just don't watch TV or spend time spacing out on our choice social media. I just liked the slower pace of the game and think the rush everything 100% of the time attitude of communities like FFXIV ruin the experience.
I think one part of the issue, and one often overlooked, is that a good bulk of players are considerably older than when they began playing MMO's. They may not be so much 'antisocial' as they now have real world responsibilities and cannot sit for hours on end undisturbed to play a game.
Those community building experiences of sitting around waiting for groups to accomplish anything are simply not feasible to one who may need to go afk randomly, or who has limited time to play to begin with. The soloability of newer games means the devs get to keep these types of players. Soloability does not equal inability to socialize. Even in EQ1, RP and socializing happened outside of the forced grouping mechanic.
Nothing stops a community from forming. That's what guilds are for, and there are a wide variety of guilds in every MMO. Casual pve, RP, raiding, pvp. The games are what you make them, despite the devs. Just because there is a lfg tool, or a cross server tool, does not mean you need to use it. Don't like non-talking or speed run teams? Don't join them. Team with your like-minded guildies.
I think modern games have a good balance for the most part. Content that can be soloed by those who wish to, and endgame content that requires teamwork. Good RPers and players become known, just as much as good raiders get known in their respective communities. So I really don't see a problem. You are only as isolated as you choose to be.
That aside, if the old ways were truly desirable to more than a vocal minority.. the genre would not have changed to what we have today. Even back when it was new, people complained about EQ1's forced grouping. If not, the casual and soloable games would not have become as prominent as they have. The gaming community showed the devs, with their pockets, exactly what we wanted. Some left EQ1 to go to the far more soloable AC1, and it progressed from there.
I don't know, 0effort, but I think Loktofeit and I might have the same idea...for someone so interested in the great social atmosphere of the past, your rendition of the past seems really...well...antisocial.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE