Personally, I find the very topic itself kind've silly on the whole with regards to mentioning the social aspect.
People who are social will be social.
People who are not social will not be social.
Artificially employing something will act as a deterrent to those who just don't want to deal with others; how many times have you said something along the lines (or heard someone else say) "Oh dang... there's someone else here. Now I'll get less overall," or "Too many people here... going to just log off / give up for the night". If they aren't social people, then they will feel awkward and probably even upset. Or if they just don't want to be social that night, had a night's worth of repetitive action to commit to (as we all tend to do in MMOs nowadays, where we just shut our minds off and go to it), or maybe they have enough friends already. Who knows?
In a game such as Guild Wars II that may have shared tagging, you still see people being very social. You can go into an event, participate in it, and still see the social people being social without any (what I call negative) encouragement to do so by artificially making mobs a one per person or group thing.
Does it mean less people will form groups? Maybe? But when was forming a group the basis of being social? It isn't. In fact, on World of Warcraft right now there is such a thing as Frog Farming. With the new group finder, people are joining groups and never talking. They just tag mobs for their group and do this action for hours. It's rare to even see someone say "goodbye" for heading out. Though there is the occasional "social" person who is naturally such who talks, because that's what they do and what they would do regardless.
When it comes to Raid Finder systems, you see people wiping repeatedly to this day. It's only then that you see a few people chat (who aren't yelling at everyone else because they themselves are so hardcore) say what people should be doing. Or perhaps they are the first people to do so during and after the fight; the social butterflies not afraid of the ragers. But this counts of a random system bringing a lot of people -- 25 to be exact -- in the hopes that one is social and not timid of the atmosphere. In addition, it has boss fights that are difficult enough to wipe parties of 25 max level players, with no other raid nearby to tag first. Thus, tagging is not a difficulty. In most cases, it is a repetitive action.
Mob tagging in this light has far too much going against it if the social experience is the sole reason why it exists. It just punishes a certain type of person, whereas the social people would be alright irregardless of the fact. What I think this should read is "trying to give the social people more people to talk with, even if it's against their comfort zone."
Granted though, there are many reasons for having mob tagging besides the social aspects. In addition, Blizzard in itself presumably (and I say presumably now due to the horrid buggy state the new patch was/is), knows their game and how to keep it running by now. They should have a good grasp of their audience as well as what works for it.
It isn't a copy and paste issue where one solution fits all games, but again, making the social aspect of it a main part of the reasoning, to me, is just silly. In situations where PvP may be involved, the answer will likely be clear: take out the player that is at your camp area. Though that's really only with a FFA type of environment.
In a game with a low population, they might need to try tactics to keep people talking. Though therein may also display many other things that are wrong with that game if a bandaid like such needs to be put in, in the first place.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
For the most part, I agree with him, although I would add a caveat: I do think mob-tagging, while more conducive to teamwork and social play, can go in the opposite direction easier and create hostility as well, due to "kill-stealing."
Which is a social experience in games that have PvP.
Try going to Hasla and tag kill/steal some token mobs from your own faction in ArcheAge - you're going to be dead in about 10s flat.
Social experience does not mean "happiness and harmony" - it can also be chaos and war.
Hasla is probably the most complained about spot in the game. It is where 2/3 of the same faction pkers hide out on my server. My own faction can barely even farmed the needed tokens to make what we need as not only are you dealing with the other continent your are having to worry about a group of pkers coming through and wiping you out. Before you say get a guild I come for one of the biggest guilds on the server and we do this together and it is a hassle just to be able to find a spot to help grind out tokens for people that haven't gotten what they need yet. Mob tagging creates a horrible "me first" type of attitude in games. It doesn't promote grouping as most people just join up with someone and never share a word and drop group as soon as a mob is dead. What was the point of that type of grouping, not a social experience, just a hassle to get invites or get a single kill.
The most common thing you see in Trial chat was they were trying to take my mob.
I understand what you're saying, but a lot of the friends I've made in WoW I've made through random questing/mod tagging groups that happen randomly and out of nowhere. I don't think its necessary, but I also don't think its a bad thing, and I definitely don't think it ruins PvE, but that's just my opinion; I can see how it can ruin it for others.
In a game such as Guild Wars II that may have shared tagging, you still see people being very social. You can go into an event, participate in it, and still see the social people being social without any (what I call negative) encouragement to do so by artificially making mobs a one per person or group thing.
Really? I saw vastly less people socializing EVER in Guild Wars 2. I recall only once a social interaction talking with people, leveling 2 characters up to max (yeah, I tried that hard to find some value in the game despite it dragging down on me), my entire experience through. That experience wasn't even for the 'events' or anything just for a side skill challenge point. It doesn't mean it can't happen ever, but its vastly less likely people will communicate AT ALL when things are done in that manor. When stuff is face roll and doesn't need people really 'working together', your lowering the chance for social interaction to occur.
Personally, I do think simple 'mob tagging' isn't exactly the best solution at all times either. They do have special mobs (aka named quest mobs, rares, and the few event mobs) share tagged which I think is helpful, though other mobs it can be rough getting what you need do to so many being around snagging tags themselves. I think it can be improved based off more then just 'tagging first'. It doesn't exactly promote 'talkative' groups either as you do mention, but it gives a window to potentially lead to it more.
Games with tagging from what I have seen have shown far more social interaction then shared tagging, for better or worst. Shared tagging games end up making players more into 'NPCs' that just happen to move more sporadically with a crazy less predictable script.
In a game such as Guild Wars II that may have shared tagging, you still see people being very social. You can go into an event, participate in it, and still see the social people being social without any (what I call negative) encouragement to do so by artificially making mobs a one per person or group thing.
Really? I saw vastly less people socializing EVER in Guild Wars 2. I recall only once a social interaction talking with people, leveling 2 characters up to max (yeah, I tried that hard to find some value in the game despite it dragging down on me), my entire experience through. That experience wasn't even for the 'events' or anything just for a side skill challenge point. It doesn't mean it can't happen ever, but its vastly less likely people will communicate AT ALL when things are done in that manor. When stuff is face roll and doesn't need people really 'working together', your lowering the chance for social interaction to occur.
Personally, I do think simple 'mob tagging' isn't exactly the best solution at all times either. They do have special mobs (aka named quest mobs, rares, and the few event mobs) share tagged which I think is helpful, though other mobs it can be rough getting what you need do to so many being around snagging tags themselves. I think it can be improved based off more then just 'tagging first'. It doesn't exactly promote 'talkative' groups either as you do mention, but it gives a window to potentially lead to it more.
Games with tagging from what I have seen have shown far more social interaction then shared tagging, for better or worst. Shared tagging games end up making players more into 'NPCs' that just happen to move more sporadically with a crazy less predictable script.
What you see there is the workings of various things. There is a large misconception on what is social and what isn't. In truth, if you have social people, you will have a social game. Whether the game was meant to be such or not is another case. Take for example Ultima Online back in the day. That game had no general chat. You only saw text over people's heads. There were a lot of games like that back in the day. Yet, it is heralded as the golden age of MMOs where people were social. The genre was still growing. Now let's look at "social media" and "social media games" such as Farmville and a variety of other games that are, in whole, single player. They have social functions in place without it being multiplayer as we know it in WoW. Few games there have the concept of mob tagging or grouping. Yet, the social experience comes from the game itself and -- more often than not -- the option choice to socially exhibit your accomplishments. Clicker Heroes? Yeah. That game had no real social prospects at all, and yet it had a large reddit page with tons of social interactivity and people comparing things. That game inspired social activity, even though all you did was click a million times.
This is why the entire notion of tagging promoting social experiences is silly on the whole. It's artificial. And if it does make a game feel more "social", then that is one of many things:
1) The game was lacking something in the first place -- a flaw in design or whatnot.
2) Forcing people who may not enjoy talking to do so;
2) Most of the anti-social people left or got frustrated if they could not adapt
Though in nearly every case number one is always true. When thinking about these things, one also has to consider cause and effect. In addition what the game is trying to focus on, such as perhaps trying to get more people into PvP or promote tense situations where two guilds are trying to harvest one claim or lucrative farming area. Though as we see time and again, even when people join groups, they do what they need to do and then leave in most cases. If they're social, they'll say "hello". If they're timid, they'll likely just quit the area or the game in general, leaving the social ones to thrive.
What has WoW done to promote true cooperation lately? Well, there is Rated PvP, Heroic raiding and Challenge Modes. These things pretty much all require communication on a level that goes beyond typing itself. Though honestly, when was the last time anyone heard anything over general chat with regards to someone else being in their farming area? That only promotes negative banter with people yelling back and forth. "You're not the only one here, newb" "Cry moar", etc. If it's done on a whisper basis, then it's usually just someone calling you a "fgt" for simply playing the game, or the random invite for a party that isn't even offered with any words. You just know they're there, you're there... you party for a couple hours without typing a thing. Leave when you're finished with it. This is the case even with very social people who are in a grinding mindset.
Next we look at the voice options. They're there. No way around that. People use Vent or Skype or whatever for things that require difficulty above the average. They'll even stop using the game to communicate as a whole and just go to skype or whatever messenger they used in the past. This was fixed by a real system Blizzard implemented -- the Real ID and then the B.net ID system. Now people can see each other online at any given moment, on any Blizzard game (which led to it's own problems, but it's optional to accept people to b.net ids). This is all entirely optional and is a true system of social accessibility.
They also introduced cross-realms. That is, the ability to see other people in areas (so long as the area doesn't meet a threshold of people) without merging realms. And yes, they even merged realms of low population servers.
What have they done that negates the prospect of mobs being a part of social dynamics? Something that goes against this talk directly. They took out group quests -- ones that require groups to fight -- for the last two expansions. In fact, Cataclysm really only had one... a fan favorite called the Blood Arena or some such. They also made elites soloable over the years. Not to mention that the one thing that does require a group -- world bosses -- are just that. They're bosses. They are difficult. They're specifically tuned so that they can be downed by people in guilds using chat systems. Mob grinding? Normal mob tagging? Provides none of this.
In WoD they have a few quests now where they recommend at least three players. Though in all honesty I was able to solo each of those quests even on characters that were created specifically on those servers (that is, not transferred from live). Not once did I ever hear someone ask for help for those quests. In addition, "rare" mobs are now combined with quests mobs (edit: Which are mobs that anyone can hit once and get credit for in game). They respawn after a minute each, and drop a rare item one time per character. They're no longer on 2-48 hour cooldowns -- and this goes against what they're saying here about mob tagging and the 'dynamics" it gives.
This is why this is all poppycock, when at least referring to WoW in general. It's something I don't understand why they are even mentioning. They say one thing, but do another; not only that, the foundation of such simply doesn't make sense if only speaking in terms of social aspects.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
In a game such as Guild Wars II that may have shared tagging, you still see people being very social. You can go into an event, participate in it, and still see the social people being social without any (what I call negative) encouragement to do so by artificially making mobs a one per person or group thing.
Really? I saw vastly less people socializing EVER in Guild Wars 2. I recall only once a social interaction talking with people, leveling 2 characters up to max (yeah, I tried that hard to find some value in the game despite it dragging down on me), my entire experience through. That experience wasn't even for the 'events' or anything just for a side skill challenge point. It doesn't mean it can't happen ever, but its vastly less likely people will communicate AT ALL when things are done in that manor. When stuff is face roll and doesn't need people really 'working together', your lowering the chance for social interaction to occur.
Personally, I do think simple 'mob tagging' isn't exactly the best solution at all times either. They do have special mobs (aka named quest mobs, rares, and the few event mobs) share tagged which I think is helpful, though other mobs it can be rough getting what you need do to so many being around snagging tags themselves. I think it can be improved based off more then just 'tagging first'. It doesn't exactly promote 'talkative' groups either as you do mention, but it gives a window to potentially lead to it more.
Games with tagging from what I have seen have shown far more social interaction then shared tagging, for better or worst. Shared tagging games end up making players more into 'NPCs' that just happen to move more sporadically with a crazy less predictable script.
What you see there is the workings of various things. There is a large misconception on what is social and what isn't. In truth, if you have social people, you will have a social game. Whether the game was meant to be such or not is another case. Take for example Ultima Online back in the day. That game had no general chat. You only saw text over people's heads. There were a lot of games like that back in the day. Yet, it is heralded as the golden age of MMOs where people were social. The genre was still growing. Now let's look at "social media" and "social media games" such as Farmville and a variety of other games that are, in whole, single player. They have social functions in place without it being multiplayer as we know it in WoW. Few games there have the concept of mob tagging or grouping. Yet, the social experience comes from the game itself and -- more often than not -- the option choice to socially exhibit your accomplishments. Clicker Heroes? Yeah. That game had no real social prospects at all, and yet it had a large reddit page with tons of social interactivity and people comparing things. That game inspired social activity, even though all you did was click a million times.
This is why the entire notion of tagging promoting social experiences is silly on the whole. It's artificial. And if it does make a game feel more "social", then that is one of many things:
1) The game was lacking something in the first place -- a flaw in design or whatnot.
2) Forcing people who may not enjoy talking to do so;
2) Most of the anti-social people left or got frustrated if they could not adapt
Though in nearly every case number one is always true. When thinking about these things, one also has to consider cause and effect. In addition what the game is trying to focus on, such as perhaps trying to get more people into PvP or promote tense situations where two guilds are trying to harvest one claim or lucrative farming area. Though as we see time and again, even when people join groups, they do what they need to do and then leave in most cases. If they're social, they'll say "hello". If they're timid, they'll likely just quit the area or the game in general, leaving the social ones to thrive.
What has WoW done to promote true cooperation lately? Well, there is Rated PvP, Heroic raiding and Challenge Modes. These things pretty much all require communication on a level that goes beyond typing itself. Though honestly, when was the last time anyone heard anything over general chat with regards to someone else being in their farming area? That only promotes negative banter with people yelling back and forth. "You're not the only one here, newb" "Cry moar", etc. If it's done on a whisper basis, then it's usually just someone calling you a "fgt" for simply playing the game, or the random invite for a party that isn't even offered with any words. You just know they're there, you're there... you party for a couple hours without typing a thing. Leave when you're finished with it. This is the case even with very social people who are in a grinding mindset.
Next we look at the voice options. They're there. No way around that. People use Vent or Skype or whatever for things that require difficulty above the average. They'll even stop using the game to communicate as a whole and just go to skype or whatever messenger they used in the past. This was fixed by a real system Blizzard implemented -- the Real ID and then the B.net ID system. Now people can see each other online at any given moment, on any Blizzard game (which led to it's own problems, but it's optional to accept people to b.net ids). This is all entirely optional and is a true system of social accessibility.
They also introduced cross-realms. That is, the ability to see other people in areas (so long as the area doesn't meet a threshold of people) without merging realms. And yes, they even merged realms of low population servers.
What have they done that negates the prospect of mobs being a part of social dynamics? Something that goes against this talk directly. They took out group quests -- ones that require groups to fight -- for the last two expansions. In fact, Cataclysm really only had one... a fan favorite called the Blood Arena or some such. They also made elites soloable over the years. Not to mention that the one thing that does require a group -- world bosses -- are just that. They're bosses. They are difficult. They're specifically tuned so that they can be downed by people in guilds using chat systems. Mob grinding? Normal mob tagging? Provides none of this.
In WoD they have a few quests now where they recommend at least three players. Though in all honesty I was able to solo each of those quests even on characters that were created specifically on those servers (that is, not transferred from live). Not once did I ever hear someone ask for help for those quests. In addition, "rare" mobs are now combined with quests mobs (edit: Which are mobs that anyone can hit once and get credit for in game). They respawn after a minute each, and drop a rare item one time per character. They're no longer on 2-48 hour cooldowns -- and this goes against what they're saying here about mob tagging and the 'dynamics" it gives.
This is why this is all poppycock, when at least referring to WoW in general. It's something I don't understand why they are even mentioning. They say one thing, but do another; not only that, the foundation of such simply doesn't make sense if only speaking in terms of social aspects.
Anyone else feel that Blizzard is out of touch? How could they possibly think that shared mob-tagging is asocial? If anything, it encourages hostility because of the competitive nature of it. There's been many times where i've had people send me rude messages, because i "stole" their mob. They are quickly added to ignore, making it the opposite experience that this dev says it promotes.
I thought WoW was going in a good direction with Timeless Isle, where mob-tagging is shared, but it seems like they did a 180 now, and are just riding the wave without any innovation with even the smaller QoL enhancements. By his logic, AOE looting is asocial too, since people have less time to be "social" because they didn't stick around long enough to loot.
One would assume they came to that conclusion by playing gw2. You may not agree with it, but it's not exactly rocket science to see how they came to that conclusion.
1 resource node is on an x hour timer, 2 people rush to tag it, 1 person gets it, another person has lust out and may well face the same problem when it next spawns. now node is camped, problem just got worse. maybe people camping node have a friendly chat while sipping tea and waiting to spam click the node.
Scenario 2, node is shared, node is no longer camped, no one has to wait hours only to lose out to someone who clicks faster.
Blizzard devs are idiots
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by Bladestrom 1 resource node is on an x hour timer, 2 people rush to tag it, 1 person gets it, another person has lust out and may well face the same problem when it next spawns. now node is camped, problem just got worse. maybe people camping node have a friendly chat while sipping tea and waiting to spam click the node.
Scenario 2, node is shared, node is no longer camped, no one has to wait hours only to lose out to someone who clicks faster.
Blizzard devs are idiots
The statement is about social gameplay, not fair gameplay - so let's look at both scenarios you described.
The question isn't really about which scenario is better but about which is more social i.e., which is more likely to cause two people in the world to communicate with one another socially? Again I'm not making any statement over which system is better, only about which is more likely for people to communicate with one another. In WoW, you are much more likely to talk to another player - even if it's something as simple as, "Hey dude, you need this boss too? *sends invite*". In GW2 you literally never havce to say boo to another human ever. Again, not saying which is better, but if we're talking about which system is more social, the one that rewards players actually talking to each other would be the one.
Your favorite response is that you disagree and don't understand most of the reply.
Not hard to understand....mob targetting/tagging ruins PvE. It may be really cool in these sub par PvP games you play, but you are acting like that's what counts. It only counts to you. In reality, it ruins the total experience.
Ruins PvE how exactly?
Again it's hard to see your point as you are not providing any example or details.
If there is no tagging - you can completely ignore other players and just play "in your own world" - pretend that there is nobody there because it doesn't matter what others do.
So to me again tagging mobs promotes social interaction.
I dont understand the point of forcing people to interact with each other. If they want to interact, they will. If they dont want to interact they wont. Archeage is a good example of players adding others to the group because they would rather share mobs and then leaving the group when they are done, with little to no communication. Even if there is communication most of the time its, hey man I need that add me, added, mobs dead, TY, party evaporates. Tagging does not increase long term social interaction. Challenging game play increases long term social interaction because playing alone is far more difficult than saying " hey, want to group ". EQ1 encouraged far more social interaction due to its difficulty and not tagging.
I see a couple pretty large drawbacks to tagging:
1: Tagging can influence builds
Dont you love being a cast time class amongst a bunch of insta casters, so there is no fucking way you can tag a mob before them. When an area is overrun you are forced to move and hopefully find an area that isnt over crowed OR you give in to the insta cast crowd and change your build so you can tag mobs as fast as they can.
2: Ping is King
My ping is better than yours so I follow you around and insta cast everything you attempt to fight. Who wants this kind of greifing to exist, not I.
3. Spawn Camping
ESO was rampant with assholes sitting in the dungeons in a group and insta aoeing every boss spawn. I dont know how many bots ive seen do this with scripts that react before you can. Wait an hour and go back, still mother fuckers sitting on the boss or quest spawn tagging it before you can.
Tagging is a lame concept. If you want people to interact and help each other make the fucking game CHALLENGING. How many games are going to have the supposed Trinity of tank, dps, and healer and only use it for raids and instances. Yea we have this great system where everyone fills a role and must rely on each other for 10% of the game. For the other easy 90% of the game everyone can solo easily but we will force them to interact through tagging mechanics...
Originally posted by Arawulf In WoW, you are much more likely to talk to another player - even if it's something as simple as, "Hey dude, you need this boss too? *sends invite*". In GW2 you literally never havce to say boo to another human ever.
Nothing but people's nature stops asking same question in GW2. People do not talk to others because they have to but because they want to.
If you force people that do not want to talk to others into talking to others, guess what happens...the result isn't really social.
Ahh, old school games know how to do a game right *reminisces Anarchy Online: Temple of Three Winds*
The reason why open dungeons worked in anarchy online was because dungeons were level capped. It kind of created mini-engd-games within the game since you couldn't simply have a max lvl guildmate come do the dungeon for you.
It was pretty great for social gameplay, I admit.
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
That's true arawulf, but negative interaction is antisocial ultimately, crating a scenario where 1 player guzumps another player for a resource is not good social design. Re GW2, well you could say that no one needs to talk to each other in any MMO, however with shared nodes there's 1 less thing that can trigger antisocial behaviour, and thata what blizzard does not get and why anti social behaviour in wow is rife.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Comments
Personally, I find the very topic itself kind've silly on the whole with regards to mentioning the social aspect.
People who are social will be social.
People who are not social will not be social.
Artificially employing something will act as a deterrent to those who just don't want to deal with others; how many times have you said something along the lines (or heard someone else say) "Oh dang... there's someone else here. Now I'll get less overall," or "Too many people here... going to just log off / give up for the night". If they aren't social people, then they will feel awkward and probably even upset. Or if they just don't want to be social that night, had a night's worth of repetitive action to commit to (as we all tend to do in MMOs nowadays, where we just shut our minds off and go to it), or maybe they have enough friends already. Who knows?
In a game such as Guild Wars II that may have shared tagging, you still see people being very social. You can go into an event, participate in it, and still see the social people being social without any (what I call negative) encouragement to do so by artificially making mobs a one per person or group thing.
Does it mean less people will form groups? Maybe? But when was forming a group the basis of being social? It isn't. In fact, on World of Warcraft right now there is such a thing as Frog Farming. With the new group finder, people are joining groups and never talking. They just tag mobs for their group and do this action for hours. It's rare to even see someone say "goodbye" for heading out. Though there is the occasional "social" person who is naturally such who talks, because that's what they do and what they would do regardless.
When it comes to Raid Finder systems, you see people wiping repeatedly to this day. It's only then that you see a few people chat (who aren't yelling at everyone else because they themselves are so hardcore) say what people should be doing. Or perhaps they are the first people to do so during and after the fight; the social butterflies not afraid of the ragers. But this counts of a random system bringing a lot of people -- 25 to be exact -- in the hopes that one is social and not timid of the atmosphere. In addition, it has boss fights that are difficult enough to wipe parties of 25 max level players, with no other raid nearby to tag first. Thus, tagging is not a difficulty. In most cases, it is a repetitive action.
Mob tagging in this light has far too much going against it if the social experience is the sole reason why it exists. It just punishes a certain type of person, whereas the social people would be alright irregardless of the fact. What I think this should read is "trying to give the social people more people to talk with, even if it's against their comfort zone."
Granted though, there are many reasons for having mob tagging besides the social aspects. In addition, Blizzard in itself presumably (and I say presumably now due to the horrid buggy state the new patch was/is), knows their game and how to keep it running by now. They should have a good grasp of their audience as well as what works for it.
It isn't a copy and paste issue where one solution fits all games, but again, making the social aspect of it a main part of the reasoning, to me, is just silly. In situations where PvP may be involved, the answer will likely be clear: take out the player that is at your camp area. Though that's really only with a FFA type of environment.
In a game with a low population, they might need to try tactics to keep people talking. Though therein may also display many other things that are wrong with that game if a bandaid like such needs to be put in, in the first place.
Hasla is probably the most complained about spot in the game. It is where 2/3 of the same faction pkers hide out on my server. My own faction can barely even farmed the needed tokens to make what we need as not only are you dealing with the other continent your are having to worry about a group of pkers coming through and wiping you out. Before you say get a guild I come for one of the biggest guilds on the server and we do this together and it is a hassle just to be able to find a spot to help grind out tokens for people that haven't gotten what they need yet. Mob tagging creates a horrible "me first" type of attitude in games. It doesn't promote grouping as most people just join up with someone and never share a word and drop group as soon as a mob is dead. What was the point of that type of grouping, not a social experience, just a hassle to get invites or get a single kill.
The most common thing you see in Trial chat was they were trying to take my mob.
Really? I saw vastly less people socializing EVER in Guild Wars 2. I recall only once a social interaction talking with people, leveling 2 characters up to max (yeah, I tried that hard to find some value in the game despite it dragging down on me), my entire experience through. That experience wasn't even for the 'events' or anything just for a side skill challenge point. It doesn't mean it can't happen ever, but its vastly less likely people will communicate AT ALL when things are done in that manor. When stuff is face roll and doesn't need people really 'working together', your lowering the chance for social interaction to occur.
Personally, I do think simple 'mob tagging' isn't exactly the best solution at all times either. They do have special mobs (aka named quest mobs, rares, and the few event mobs) share tagged which I think is helpful, though other mobs it can be rough getting what you need do to so many being around snagging tags themselves. I think it can be improved based off more then just 'tagging first'. It doesn't exactly promote 'talkative' groups either as you do mention, but it gives a window to potentially lead to it more.
Games with tagging from what I have seen have shown far more social interaction then shared tagging, for better or worst. Shared tagging games end up making players more into 'NPCs' that just happen to move more sporadically with a crazy less predictable script.
What you see there is the workings of various things. There is a large misconception on what is social and what isn't. In truth, if you have social people, you will have a social game. Whether the game was meant to be such or not is another case. Take for example Ultima Online back in the day. That game had no general chat. You only saw text over people's heads. There were a lot of games like that back in the day. Yet, it is heralded as the golden age of MMOs where people were social. The genre was still growing. Now let's look at "social media" and "social media games" such as Farmville and a variety of other games that are, in whole, single player. They have social functions in place without it being multiplayer as we know it in WoW. Few games there have the concept of mob tagging or grouping. Yet, the social experience comes from the game itself and -- more often than not -- the option choice to socially exhibit your accomplishments. Clicker Heroes? Yeah. That game had no real social prospects at all, and yet it had a large reddit page with tons of social interactivity and people comparing things. That game inspired social activity, even though all you did was click a million times.
This is why the entire notion of tagging promoting social experiences is silly on the whole. It's artificial. And if it does make a game feel more "social", then that is one of many things:
1) The game was lacking something in the first place -- a flaw in design or whatnot.
2) Forcing people who may not enjoy talking to do so;
2) Most of the anti-social people left or got frustrated if they could not adapt
Though in nearly every case number one is always true. When thinking about these things, one also has to consider cause and effect. In addition what the game is trying to focus on, such as perhaps trying to get more people into PvP or promote tense situations where two guilds are trying to harvest one claim or lucrative farming area. Though as we see time and again, even when people join groups, they do what they need to do and then leave in most cases. If they're social, they'll say "hello". If they're timid, they'll likely just quit the area or the game in general, leaving the social ones to thrive.
What has WoW done to promote true cooperation lately? Well, there is Rated PvP, Heroic raiding and Challenge Modes. These things pretty much all require communication on a level that goes beyond typing itself. Though honestly, when was the last time anyone heard anything over general chat with regards to someone else being in their farming area? That only promotes negative banter with people yelling back and forth. "You're not the only one here, newb" "Cry moar", etc. If it's done on a whisper basis, then it's usually just someone calling you a "fgt" for simply playing the game, or the random invite for a party that isn't even offered with any words. You just know they're there, you're there... you party for a couple hours without typing a thing. Leave when you're finished with it. This is the case even with very social people who are in a grinding mindset.
Next we look at the voice options. They're there. No way around that. People use Vent or Skype or whatever for things that require difficulty above the average. They'll even stop using the game to communicate as a whole and just go to skype or whatever messenger they used in the past. This was fixed by a real system Blizzard implemented -- the Real ID and then the B.net ID system. Now people can see each other online at any given moment, on any Blizzard game (which led to it's own problems, but it's optional to accept people to b.net ids). This is all entirely optional and is a true system of social accessibility.
They also introduced cross-realms. That is, the ability to see other people in areas (so long as the area doesn't meet a threshold of people) without merging realms. And yes, they even merged realms of low population servers.
What have they done that negates the prospect of mobs being a part of social dynamics? Something that goes against this talk directly. They took out group quests -- ones that require groups to fight -- for the last two expansions. In fact, Cataclysm really only had one... a fan favorite called the Blood Arena or some such. They also made elites soloable over the years. Not to mention that the one thing that does require a group -- world bosses -- are just that. They're bosses. They are difficult. They're specifically tuned so that they can be downed by people in guilds using chat systems. Mob grinding? Normal mob tagging? Provides none of this.
In WoD they have a few quests now where they recommend at least three players. Though in all honesty I was able to solo each of those quests even on characters that were created specifically on those servers (that is, not transferred from live). Not once did I ever hear someone ask for help for those quests. In addition, "rare" mobs are now combined with quests mobs (edit: Which are mobs that anyone can hit once and get credit for in game). They respawn after a minute each, and drop a rare item one time per character. They're no longer on 2-48 hour cooldowns -- and this goes against what they're saying here about mob tagging and the 'dynamics" it gives.
This is why this is all poppycock, when at least referring to WoW in general. It's something I don't understand why they are even mentioning. They say one thing, but do another; not only that, the foundation of such simply doesn't make sense if only speaking in terms of social aspects.
Yes.
One would assume they came to that conclusion by playing gw2. You may not agree with it, but it's not exactly rocket science to see how they came to that conclusion.
Scenario 2, node is shared, node is no longer camped, no one has to wait hours only to lose out to someone who clicks faster.
Blizzard devs are idiots
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
The statement is about social gameplay, not fair gameplay - so let's look at both scenarios you described.
The question isn't really about which scenario is better but about which is more social i.e., which is more likely to cause two people in the world to communicate with one another socially? Again I'm not making any statement over which system is better, only about which is more likely for people to communicate with one another. In WoW, you are much more likely to talk to another player - even if it's something as simple as, "Hey dude, you need this boss too? *sends invite*". In GW2 you literally never havce to say boo to another human ever. Again, not saying which is better, but if we're talking about which system is more social, the one that rewards players actually talking to each other would be the one.
I dont understand the point of forcing people to interact with each other. If they want to interact, they will. If they dont want to interact they wont. Archeage is a good example of players adding others to the group because they would rather share mobs and then leaving the group when they are done, with little to no communication. Even if there is communication most of the time its, hey man I need that add me, added, mobs dead, TY, party evaporates. Tagging does not increase long term social interaction. Challenging game play increases long term social interaction because playing alone is far more difficult than saying " hey, want to group ". EQ1 encouraged far more social interaction due to its difficulty and not tagging.
I see a couple pretty large drawbacks to tagging:
1: Tagging can influence builds
Dont you love being a cast time class amongst a bunch of insta casters, so there is no fucking way you can tag a mob before them. When an area is overrun you are forced to move and hopefully find an area that isnt over crowed OR you give in to the insta cast crowd and change your build so you can tag mobs as fast as they can.
2: Ping is King
My ping is better than yours so I follow you around and insta cast everything you attempt to fight. Who wants this kind of greifing to exist, not I.
3. Spawn Camping
ESO was rampant with assholes sitting in the dungeons in a group and insta aoeing every boss spawn. I dont know how many bots ive seen do this with scripts that react before you can. Wait an hour and go back, still mother fuckers sitting on the boss or quest spawn tagging it before you can.
Tagging is a lame concept. If you want people to interact and help each other make the fucking game CHALLENGING. How many games are going to have the supposed Trinity of tank, dps, and healer and only use it for raids and instances. Yea we have this great system where everyone fills a role and must rely on each other for 10% of the game. For the other easy 90% of the game everyone can solo easily but we will force them to interact through tagging mechanics...
Nothing but people's nature stops asking same question in GW2. People do not talk to others because they have to but because they want to.
If you force people that do not want to talk to others into talking to others, guess what happens...the result isn't really social.
The reason why open dungeons worked in anarchy online was because dungeons were level capped. It kind of created mini-engd-games within the game since you couldn't simply have a max lvl guildmate come do the dungeon for you.
It was pretty great for social gameplay, I admit.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D