I have not "made any friends" in MMOs. I've made a lot of acquaintances (people I knew in-game only), but no one I met IRL. City of Heroes was probably the closest with WoW a close second, where I had outside of game contact through e-mails and message boards, but nothing more deep then that.
It's a good distinction and one that some people blur.
for me, when I say I've met friends I actually mean "people I've met in real life/we e-mail each other/follow the facebook pages, etc"
But you are correct for pointing out the distinction as some people think that if they get along with someone online that automatically they are "friends".
No one person can meet all of your needs and wants an wants. We need relationships with many different people, on different levels. We need a richly woven fabric of relationships, proper placed with clear boundaries and expectations.
In this blog, I am inviting you to experiment with thinking about relationships in what may be a very new and different way. I want you to imagine that relationships can exist on different levels.
You can choose the level of relationship you want and invite others to join you there. They of course have the right to accept, refuse, or renegotiate the invitation. You will be invited into relationships with others, and you have the same rights. It is important to recognize what level of relationship you are be invited into and make a choice. Then you need to set and maintain clear boundaries.
Many people find it helpful to think of relationships as unfolding on five levels.
1. ACQUAINTANCES have superficial relationships with you that are respectful such as a waiter or waitress, someone you casually work with, etc.
2. COMPANIONS share activities with you, but the activity is more important than the person. If I work out with someone and they want me to go to a movie instead I will probably say no. If I need a tennis partner and you don’t want to play, I will call another person I know who plays tennis. Many people have acquaintances with people they work out with at the gym. They may not see each other or share any other interests other than that. AND that’s OK. This means I can have some people I work out with, other people I play chess with, and a whole different group of people who share my interest in martial arts. I don’t expect these people to cross-over into other activities — and that’s OK.
3. FRIENDS are companions who share a wide variety if interests and activity. The purpose of the activity is to spend time with the person. So if we both don’t want to see a movie we will figure out something else to do. Being with the friend is primary, the activity is secondary.
4. PARTNERS are people who we make serious commitments to regarding work, earning money, building a business, buying a house, etc. a partnership is conditional whereas friendships are unconditional. If you are responsible for investing my money, that it what I expect you to do. If you don’t make me money on investments I find someone else. If I hire you to do a job and you don’t do it I let you go. Nothing personal. I need to get that job done and you agreed to do it in exchange for reimbursement.
5. LOVERS/INTIMATE partners are people that we share physical affection, sensuality, and sexuality with. Now here where it gets complicated.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
EQ1, DAoC and WoW. Funny looking back all 3 games had classes that needed support of other classes to get content done. Past 4-5 years of MMOing seems a blur of gaming beside people I never needed to talk to.
FFXI. It really helped that you could only do server transfers once every 3 months as well as there being so much stuff that was annoying to repeat that most people stuck to 1-2 characters. This pretty much prevented a large degree of trolling (in comparison to WoW at least), since if you were a douche on the server, you known as that until you left the server and had a name change either by someone already having that name or you making an alt with your old name. Praise be player warning threads!
Newest friends are from GW2. And these are actual people that I hang out with IRL on occation. Made loads of 'friends' that I just chat and mumble all the time. But those dont count
Makes me laugh when people start posting more than one game when the title means 'just one game'
This being said, I started playing with this particular guild while they were exploring gw2, continued on to other games with the same guildies and made more friends along the way. Hard to limit it to one game.
Obviously people made the most friends in the game they've played the most. I have many Dota 2 friends and World of Warcraft friends, because i played these 2 games the most. Have some Tera friends aswell. During my short run i joined some big gaming community in Skyforge, but i've kinda sacked them since they moved to BDO and that game is the cr@p.
SWG first, with EVE in second place and War Thunder as third.
EVE is surprising to me. While I made some friends playing EVE I actually found it one of the most difficult games to make friends in that I ever played. Everyone was off talking in custom channels and all the quests were instanced, so the chances of just randomly meeting someone you would get along with were quite low.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Fallen Earth when it had a big rp community. I still keep in touch with some of these people on my facebook even though we don't even play the same games. I tend to find rp communities the best place to find friends in games because rp is basically a social activity.
Comments
Levels of Relationships:
No one person can meet all of your needs and wants an wants. We need relationships with many different people, on different levels. We need a richly woven fabric of relationships, proper placed with clear boundaries and expectations.
In this blog, I am inviting you to experiment with thinking about relationships in what may be a very new and different way. I want you to imagine that relationships can exist on different levels.
You can choose the level of relationship you want and invite others to join you there. They of course have the right to accept, refuse, or renegotiate the invitation. You will be invited into relationships with others, and you have the same rights. It is important to recognize what level of relationship you are be invited into and make a choice. Then you need to set and maintain clear boundaries.
Many people find it helpful to think of relationships as unfolding on five levels.
1. ACQUAINTANCES have superficial relationships with you that are respectful such as a waiter or waitress, someone you casually work with, etc.
2. COMPANIONS share activities with you, but the activity is more important than the person. If I work out with someone and they want me to go to a movie instead I will probably say no. If I need a tennis partner and you don’t want to play, I will call another person I know who plays tennis. Many people have acquaintances with people they work out with at the gym. They may not see each other or share any other interests other than that. AND that’s OK. This means I can have some people I work out with, other people I play chess with, and a whole different group of people who share my interest in martial arts. I don’t expect these people to cross-over into other activities — and that’s OK.
3. FRIENDS are companions who share a wide variety if interests and activity. The purpose of the activity is to spend time with the person. So if we both don’t want to see a movie we will figure out something else to do. Being with the friend is primary, the activity is secondary.
4. PARTNERS are people who we make serious commitments to regarding work, earning money, building a business, buying a house, etc. a partnership is conditional whereas friendships are unconditional. If you are responsible for investing my money, that it what I expect you to do. If you don’t make me money on investments I find someone else. If I hire you to do a job and you don’t do it I let you go. Nothing personal. I need to get that job done and you agreed to do it in exchange for reimbursement.
5. LOVERS/INTIMATE partners are people that we share physical affection, sensuality, and sexuality with. Now here where it gets complicated.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Everquest 2
People I met in those games carried forward as guildmates in several other games released since.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Makes me laugh when people start posting more than one game when the title means 'just one game'
This being said, I started playing with this particular guild while they were exploring gw2, continued on to other games with the same guildies and made more friends along the way. Hard to limit it to one game.
Darkfall Online
World of Warcraft
Tibia (Only through streaming)
By far the most in Darkfall. I've run guilds in DFUW and WoW.
I play Dragon Oath and make many friends here
Let's party like it is 1863!
if thats the case i have very few friends at all.
To me a friend is someone you share stuff with, on a semi-weekly basis, in a somewhat private setting, be that online, on the phone or in RL.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb