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Socializing getting the shaft, from us the players?
Dewm
Member UncommonPosts: 1,337
So this thread is kinda in conjunction with the other socializing thread on the board here. But I didn't feel it was on toppic enough to post there.
But in the discusion people were talking about whether grouping is the same as socializing, which quickly turned into a thread about why you like or dislike chatting in groups and what not..
... my view/question would be:
Is chatting and socializing getting the shaft because games are quicker these days. Here is what I mean, it used to be in the old days, it would take 10minutes-1hour to get a group togeather and in this meantime you would be sitting in a partial group chatting it up, and then you would go to said zone and start killing mobs, now the attacks were slow enough you could quickly get out some chat in the meantime "Mob behind you", "don't pull the rabbit" "buff please" etc etc... and then the whole group would have a 20 second cooldown before the next pull/attack.. Lots of time for chat.
But nowdays everything is so fast paced, you join a random group, 1-2minutes.. you get auto transported to the begenning on the dungeon, you zone in...start kiling stuff and all of the skills happen so fast and have fast enough of a cooldown that not many people chat and there is no communications, which not only leads to less socializing but also less communications leads to more mistakes = more disasters.. frustration etc..
so I guess I'm wondering what your opinion is.
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Comments
Socializing is getting the shaft from the players? Absolutely...not.
I'll make a thread about this later, I think.
It is worse than the op thinks,mmorpg gaming is so bad right now it curtails an entire ME ME theme.
Players no longer want a rpg or a game world they want pvp and they want the very best gear in game so they can be the very best in pvp.What these players want is so far removed from playing a mMORPG they truly do not belong in a rpg.They are looking for a first person game,the only problem is fps games tend to be a little more FAIR ,aside from latency of course.Players don't want fair,they want their ZERGS or ganking or simply to have the best player in game so pvp is EASY MODE.
USUALLY at least in UT your skill is all that really matters,there is no gear to make you stronger or better.Plain and simple players hate to lose,if they can't win they whine or quit.
For the gamers that truly want to enjoy a RPG world,they do like getting int oa group and talking with other players.Furthermore the RPG typr players enjoy working together more than agaisnt each other.
IMO any notion of PVP is a fail fail for ANY game.The reason is simple math,in EVERY fight there is a loser,so you have a 50/50 crowd of happy and angry or bitter.
In a Socializing atmosphere it is a win win,becuase all that matters is the friendship,the pace needs to have some tenacity but it is not the most important thing.Without your fellow player,there simply is NO game world,yet so many want to turn this genre into a ME ME screw everyone else.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It's pretty simply really. If player interdependency is a feature of the game, people will chat and work together. Some people call this "forced interaction" and "forced grouping". I call it gaming. Also, if there are social features and social places (down time), then people will socialize there. Not everyone, but a lot will.
The auction house, and lack of methods for people to sell their own crafted goods also killed community. In older games, you would establish relationships with others as crafters, mat suppliers and customers. If you kicked butt at crafting high end stuff, you got a reputation and people sought you out. In SWG, I would get emails from crafters about when they had specials and new runs of gear, or when they needed materials.
Now what do we have? Put it up on the AH and forget it. No need to talk to anyone.
That's just *one* example, but while there are more solo-happy players in these games today, there's also less incentive to even bother trying to be social to see if you like it.
I've heard this weird statement from some players who say "I don't want to talk to others, I just want to know they are out there". What?
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Mama told me never to talk to strangers. I think that's a big aspect of the anti social behavior in many games today. It used to be that only a certain type of person (usually geeky teenaged males - no offense, just telling it like it was!) tended to play MMOs, or even RPGs in general. So, most everyone had a common passion that came out quickly in most interactions in the game playing. That common ground was a natural ice-breaker for many people, so it was easy to build a fairly tight-knit community especially within a guild setting.
Then comes WoW. If nothing else, it put MMOs into the mainstream. But now that means that many people no longer have that common ground at first. The new people to MMO gaming didn't have that passion for RPGs and MMOs, they had a curiosity about a game and then maybe developed a passion for that particular game. Some of those people have branched out to other games and may be a little more social than the freshest MMO noob, but are still not as social as the old school players.
Fast forward to today, and most people are living fast paced lives, so they don't have much time to devote to slowing down and talking to people. They also have a heightened sense of security which brings them right back to the "don't talk to strangers". I think many people shy away from talking to others online, even in a game, because they just don't know, and hence don't trust, the person on the other computer.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I'll say the same thing I said there: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5295460
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
The difference been coh did casual very "right"
I'm sort of seeing that with gw2, a game I think borrows heavily from coh, and daoc, but isn't quite there. A mixture of them 2 would be best themepark mmo ever though.
Could someone make some sort of survival sci-fi sandbox where you get dropped at some random point on some alien planet then have to go out and find friends to survive / avoid marauders players that want to take your stuff.
Of course, as it should be.
I play games to PLAY, not socialize. If i want to socialize, i go socialize (chatroom, or god forbide, actually MEET a friend).
Grouping is different. Grouping is a gameplay style .. that i play co-op. It is not impossible that i may chat with someone in a group, but certainly that is NOT the norm, and NOT why i play a GAME.
Ding ding...friggin ding...
MMO's social explosion worked hand in hand with the 'chatroom' age of the internet. It was the popular thing to do, ingame or out of game. Fastfoward a decade, into the mobile chat age, out goes meeting one place online to converse and in comes multiple app chat services such as ventrilo, teamspeak, STEAM chat, and of course you social networks. Heck, look at Blizzard and their crossgaming chat interface.
It's not MMO's fault that they can't go back in time.
Actually, this was sort of the feeling you get when you first start playing the game Xsyon, only it's a post-apoc earth, not an alien world.
That game is broken as can be, but the first thing people did was gather together and start working toward group goals, and helping each other out. Coming up on a "stranger" in the wilderness was an andrenaline rush, because they might just chat with you, or kill you. Or they might chat with you and then kill you.
The first person I came upon, we stayed a good long distance from each other, and discussed our intentions. I was crossing over a part of his claimed land, and he wanted to make sure I wasn't there to steal resources and/or hunt him. After a few minutes, we traded kind words, and he let me pass.
I had more immersion and player interaction in the week I tried that game than I did the previous several years of themepark gaming. That particular game sucks, but you can still see the potential of a great sandbox in it.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
You're on the right track, but I think it is a much larger problem than in MMORPGs. It's a cultural thing that MMORPGs have to adapt to in order to make money. If they revert to the slow style, the risk factor in the game goes way down. I mean if you take away the fast pace, the less disasters players have and the easier the game seems. The problem is that we have been desensitized to these small disasters and need some large disasters faster than they have ever been before. But that's another discussion.
It also has a lot to do with the kind of players you surround yourself with. I like to find a small group in the game and sort of progress through the game with them. That means we all know eachother's playstyle and can expect certain things from eachother so we know when is a good time to type or converse with eachother. It's really the "random groups" or PUGs that give you the bad impression of social scenes in gaming. If you take the time to assemble a group on your own, it will probably show through in your successes and failures. Not everyone can manage a group/raid, which is why these ragtag groups often fail miserably. If you or someone you know can take the initiative to make a group with the right players, you will most likely do better than one with a randomly assembled team because of the communication between the leader and the group members. That and if you know these players, it will be easier to talk with them while doing something that requires focusing on.
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
See and this sort of mentality cracks me up, you say you play games to PLAY games... not socialize.. Isn't one of the great challenges of gaming working on a team?
Look back in time before computer games, look at other games that were around..
Football
Soccer
Baseball
Basketball
Vollyball
Cricket
Hockey
(I could go on for a long time)
All team based games, when did gaming become about AVOIDING challenges?
All of our great sports movies now day (mighty ducks, remeber the titans etc...) were about getting a group of people and actually forming a team, getting them to work togeather..
Even 4000 years ago people hunted in groups, they worked togeather, this singlistic attitude that people have now days is unrealistic of the way we were designed.
Please check out my channel. I do gaming reviews, gaming related reviews & lets plays. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/user/BettyofDewm/videos
That's a list of sports. Sports are about teamwork vs another team. Primitive toys didn't have AI, and the challenges were presented in the form of puzzle or games. For greater challenges, people took to playing against each other. With computers, we now have another opponent to challenge us. Life, culture and technology - whether you want to accept it or not - has progressed over the past 4,000 year.
It's unrealistic to enjoy Crossword Puzzles and Sodoku without others?
It's unrealistic to have fun playing an FPS or CRPG without others?
Maybe it 'cracks you up' that he plays games to just play because you are spending more effort rationalizing your own view than trying to understand the views of others.
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
That's an interesting view, and for people that are constantly connected to the internet, I think you may very well be onto something there. 24/7 has become 60/60 as we are inundated with IMs, emails, tweets and assorted other feedback channels. Games, commonly a diversion or even an escape, are a great place to put up the AFK flag and turn an otherwise steady bombardment of interaction requests/needs into a moment of making it opt-in, passive or even non-existent.
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
Socializing is getting the shaft because games don't encourage or reward it anymore. You can have a ton of social people in a game but if the game gives no tools encouraging socializing, a social atmosphere will never develop. There will never be a social community in SWTOR, or TSW, or even WoW.
The harsher and harder the game, the more people will band together. There IS a happy balance. You can't inspire teamwork without giving people a common foe, you can't encourage it if everyone is solo quest grinding in instances.
I can definitely agree with this, but honestly, each person plays their games how they want to play the game. Some people play games TO socialize instead of using other outlets like social media websites. I've met players that have 3 generations of a family in real life playing in the game at once. 3 generations, that means grandparents all the way down to grandchildren. Never has immersion been so complete in any game except for in real life. The only true way to play games in a social bubble is to play single player games, which are few and far between now.
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
It hasn't suddenly become a big thing. MMORPGs, from their very first days, have been about socializing and sharing a world. The most recent trend, which has directly contributed to the failure of most themeparks, is to leave this part out of MMOs, because its "safer".
Its not just about chatting, its about being able to influence someone else's experience. Usually in a positive way, though in FFA PVP scenarios, not all the time.
Interesting and important topic. I think it's partialy due to the games/design and partialy due to the players. Some observations....
- Most of todays games (and players) are focused primarly on progression, so time spent socializing or doing other things is time which comes at the cost of the games/players main goal...progression. I used to play a MUD (Gemstone for those who are interested) that had alot of progression in it, and we had our share of power-levelers...but there was an interesting design mechanic in this regard.... your character didn't get the exp you earned from killing things right away...it went into a sort of bucket from which you absorbed the EXP (meaning it counted for your characters advancement) at a fixed rate which was generaly FAR SLOWER then the speed at which you could add EXP into the bucket by killing mobs, and the bucket was only so large, meaning that once it was full any excess EXP you added was wasted. This meant that continueing to adventure after your bucket was full was COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE, since any exp you earned beyond your max bucket size was wasted, and if you continued to adventure you risked being killed and loosing whatever was still unabsorbed in your bocket. Your character also had to be online in order to absorb from your bucket. This meant the most efficient way to advance was to fill up your bucket and then go back to town and wait till you had absorbed whatever was in it before going out. Now you could theoriticaly just leave your character logged in and go read a book or something...I'm sure some people did that...but most people, even the power-levelers tended to socialize and RP in this downtime. It turns out that most people, even achievers, do like to socialize when they understand it isn't hindering thier other goals in the game.
- Speed of play, as observed, can leave little time for communication. More importantly style and difficulty of play don't REQUIRE or make ADVANTAGEOUS more then cursorary communication. If you are playing against a challenge (boss, encounter) that everybody knows how to defeat and what it will do....and everbody has and knows thier predefined rolls in that fight which are largely determined by thier class choice...then the group hardly needs to communicate. If you are walking into something UNIQUE that no one has ever faced before, and there is no Wiki "How to Defeat", then the group may take a considerable amount of time strategizing how to approach and defeat it..... especialy if the games combat system isn't so narrowly focused that every class has only one set thing that they are usefull for. This idea of strategizing together and working together to solve a problem tends to lead to bounds of comradeship which are an important basis for socialization.
- As above if the player is largely independant and self-sufficient then there is less opportunity for social bonds to form. They can still happen but the player has to conciously work at it, rather then it happening as an organic part of play. By contrast, for example, if a player is dependant upon others for construction and repair of thier adventuring gear, for rescuing them when they fall while adventuring, for healing them when they are injured and for opening treasure chests they might find.... such interdependence breeds a sense of connection to other players which is the basis for socialization.
- By contrast to the above, most of todays games inhibit or ACTIVELY penalize players encountering and working with each other. Logicaly one would think an adventurer out alone in the dangerous wilderness would be HAPPY to encounter another adventurer (or group) as it makes thier work easier and SAFER. Yet the opposite is true in most games. Safety is mostly not an issue as general adventuring is easy enough that one rarely risks death, even solo....and death has so little consequence, that it's not all that important to avoid it if it does occur. Instead the other adventurer is seen as competetion for valuable resources (kills/exp, quest drops, treasure) and therefore undesirable to encounter. Even when people group to work together, that group is usualy taken away from the main world (private intances) and not allowed opportunity to interact with others.
- Finally much of the important/fun/interesting game-play in games today is seen to occur at the "end game.".... and the "end game" is a realisticaly achievable goal in a matter of days, weeks or a couple months at most these days for most games. Thus players who want to experience the most out of a game, naturaly tend to adopt the attitude of putting thier heads down, ignoring distractions (such as socialization) and powering through so that they can "get there". If the thing you are experiencing at the end of a journey isn't significantly richer or more interesting then the journey itself....and if the end point of the journey is significantly distant...then most people are going to be more relaxed about doing other things while on the journey. For example if you tell me that there are fabolous riches just an hour away...I'm not likely to be interested to sit down and talk to you for 30 minutes. By contrast if I'm on a journey that takes 10 years to complete and the only thing at the end is a signpost that says "Hey you are here.".... then taking a 30 minute break to talk to someone isn't much of a downside.
YMMV.