Do we really need "rich social interaction" in game? Personally i don't care for it.
Rich social interaction ACROSS games is much better. I don't want my socialization be restricted by a single game or a single server. If i have a friend who play multiple games, or on a different server, i want to be able to group/chat with him. Guilds should be across games/server too.
IF I equate a guild to afamily, then only talking within a guild is not social interaction, it's isolation. What does Jim playing wow have to do with killing the dragon here and now in Skyrim.
The lack of understanding the fundemenals (or not caring about) is what hurts mMORPGs the most. MMO has become a curse to the RPG part. It's what hurts the game most.
I don't think players care about the "fundamantals", or "what a MMO should be". I don't. I care if i am entertained, and i care about if i can play with a particular friend when i want to.
And nothing "hurt" a game. It hurts those who don't have the preferences devs who cater to. Nothing more and nothing less, as it should be in a free market.
I don't agree with OP's list of reasons why social mmorpgs were social. Mmorpgs that were social had some of these features, but to put an equal sign in and select those features.. I can't find good reasons.
However, obviously some things makes social behaviour harder and some make it easier.
- Socializing takes time, so a game needs to provide breaks, pauses.
Things preventing this are paced combat, quick respawn, insta-teleporting and queueing (more..).
Things that helped were, buffing, downtime between kills, travel time, how-to-proceed discussions/tactical (more..).
-Socializing requires reasons, so a game needs to provide reasons to interact with others.
Preventing this are simplistic gameplay, solo centric, bland/similar class or roles, lack of mystery (more..).
Helping could be group content, depending on others/classes/skills in combat/tradeskill, need to ask for advice (more..).
And so on. Its not rocket science, what social environments a game provide = attract player types = amount of social play.
I could have written an extensive list and with more reasoning and so on, but I really can't be bothered to do all this work on every post. Those who know will not need it explained and those who don't will ignore it anyways.
Originally posted by ReallyNow10 1. Dying has to have some sting to it (enough so that players don't die on purpose or carelessly)2. Challenges have to be risky enough that people are compelled to team up or group up3. Some downtime has to exist (i.e., healing, medding between fights) in order to allow for conversation (i.e., can't have constant key-spamming combat or no one will ever talk, mic or not).4. Players have to share the same zones (i.e., instancing should be kept to a minimum, and maybe flying outright non-existent).
mmmm.. Old School Everquest. Death had a lot of sting to it. Its why you didn't do stupid shit like some MMO players these days do.
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
I'd say in particular make sharing more beneficial. Rewarding players for rewarding one another means inherently there will be more interaction between people.
It's a bit of a 'play nice and get a cookie' tactic, but functionally it works. Same reason you see rewards randomly thrown at players in games like DOTA 2 before reviews, a bad match suddenly jumps up in quality.
If you give incentive to players with the potential of reward for interacting with one another, they are more likely to be social.
I don't mean to say you should take the social hub approach. I'm not a social person myself, and I find it annoying when a game plugs into something like Facebook and requires X number of friends to play to get a reward. That annoys the crap out of me and functionally it doesn't really work, it just causes people to meta-game and generate fake accounts or convince friends who have no intention to play to just temporarily sign up.
What's needed is perks associated with personal interaction. The ability for players to do quick call outs and assists that lets any local players react and get a benefit from helping one another. Small kickbacks that grant people a reason to do anything other than just ignore or compete against the people around themselves.
EDIT: For an example.
Let's say maybe the basic level of activity is built socially to work on a billboard type system. Players can generate simple quest tasks for one another and offer up a reward from their own resources, which then is accompanied by an equivalent auto generated reward.
When you post up the quest, it takes collateral from you, but for it's completion you are granted a 'benefactor' reward in addition to whatever the goal of the quest itself was. On both ends players benefit from the interaction, but additionally it creates the basic level of progress and economy for the game, by players interacting with one another to maximize the potential output of the system.
More or less, it's just that if you want people to be social, they have to perceive some kind of value in doing so. If they think interpersonal interaction be it direct or indirect is better than taking the world alone, then they will opt to act in a more outgoing fashion.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I could have written an extensive list and with more reasoning and so on, but I really can't be bothered to do all this work on every post. Those who know will not need it explained and those who don't will ignore it anyways.
Personally, my "social" tendencies early on just resulted from an enormous amount of standing around. Being online, but not actively engaged while standing atop a corpse mound waiting for the next spawn.
Before guilds, just a factor of a tiny game with a tiny population.
After guilds--Lots of chatroom action, I guess. And certainly a lot of in-guild yucks. But again, still pretty insular. even when we were (fairly) well-known on the server, and almost-famous in our tiny corner.
As games spent more effort on keeping players actively engaged, instead of watching progress bars or sitting on a spawn...naturally we had less time to gab.
Personally, I always felt the disconnection began (in earnest) when PuG interfaces became very efficient at creating fast-moving groups that absolutely despised one another. More efficient, for the worst cases, than guilds (which sometimes asked them to behave).
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Rich social environment comes from social people, that is all.
Oh and for MMOs, [social people] don't have issues being social or having social moments in MMOs.
Takecare.
Edited: Mind you it isn't easy, but I guess it's why I and many who I socialize with random and known in a video game end up not having these issues.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Join a guild. Socialize when you're online or in a group.
Most people will actually end up being pretty chatty if you talk to them first, usually someone just has to break the ice.
Problem solved.
Ayup. Why relatively social people never have any real issues with 'social environment'.
Get by with a little help from mah frenz.
The topic is always a big hit with Mrs. Grundy.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
mmmm.. Old School Everquest. Death had a lot of sting to it. Its why you didn't do stupid shit like some MMO players these days do.
And you don't take risk or experiment. Or if you connection is bad, you have to replay a large part of the game.
And for all its sting, it is less sting than a modern game like D3, which has a PD option.
Dying may not have to sting as bad as EQ1, but it has to sting somewhat, or else folks die on purpose to re-pop at the village they're trying to get to anyway.
I don't disagree in general .. but what is "somewhat"? A few golds which is more expensive than a teleport? Is that enough?
Most old games had no more options for social interaction than new games.
It's the players that are deciding to do it or not.
EQ certainly didn't have anything specific made for it to help roleplayers or socialization. They had raids, guilds, dungeons, same as new MMO's and that was pretty much it.
It is the rare game that does something to encourage socialization, e.g SWG cantinas. The others just have hard content - today the hard content is raids.
Not true. In early EQ1, you usually needed to group and had to talk to get a group, you had abundant downtime where you were compelled to talk, you had to talk to barter goods, you had to talk to confirm which camps were occupied or had openings, you had to talk to yell TRAIN TO ZONE, etc....
In some games today, you don't have to talk to do ANY of the above, and therein lies the problem.
You didn't need to do that in EQ either, it helped if you did. Just like today's games.
No you didn't. Half the classes could solo and solo well. There was a lot of downtime; no one was compelled to talk, they talked because they wanted to; talking regarding camps was a simple shout "camp check". You didn't have to yell train to zone, it was just polite to.
Wow has just as much talking regarding items to sell and services being offered, even though it has a AH. It has just as much, if not more, talking regarding groups formed and way more talking regarding raids being done.
Edit - that a common complain in games these days, no one goes anywhere and just spams looking for group for whatever raid/dungeon/pvp (not legitimate IMO, how a person chooses to play is their own issues, there are multiple ways to play these games effectively).
The bottom line is there needs to be 1) Time to communicate (i..e., time to type, maybe during downtimes) and 2) a reason to communicate (i.e., maybe you have to talk to get a group going, barter some stuff, etc...)
GW2, for example, outside of dungeons sort of eliminates all of that. Even in the public quests, there was little need to talk.
The big difference I see between EQ and modern MMO's is that in EQ...when MMORPG's were niche....the player base consisted mostly of P&P D&D players, etc. Players communicated for the various reasons listed...but mainly because RPing was much more popular and the players enjoyed immersing themselves in the world and their characters (Being the character) and developing a reputation within the world.
Today's player base is more widespread from other genres due to Blizzard's mainstreaming of it. So lots of console players, etc. They seem to care more about achievements, personal stats and how they compare to others and being first in every category or as many as they can get. It's more about "Look at me and how awesome I am!" now. IMO and personal observations of course.
I dont know what version of EQ some of these people played. The only solo classes were Druids and Wizards.. both AE Kiting Classes. Rest of the classes needed groups to farm XP.
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
I dont know what version of EQ some of these people played. The only solo classes were Druids and Wizards.. both AE Kiting Classes. Rest of the classes needed groups to farm XP.
Eh...I played Ranger, Dreadknight and Beastlord and could solo pretty good. Of course though...it took knowing your class and mob aggro ranges, etc too.
I don't disagree in general .. but what is "somewhat"? A few golds which is more expensive than a teleport? Is that enough?
I think a little more than that. Some degree of "ouch" just to get hearts to pound. Remember barely making it out alive from a train in Unrest? Thinking that kind of fear/elation, although toned down a bit.
I prefer the "chance of a penalty" over an actual determined penalty. Say, if your character dies, there is a 10% chance of an EQ1 penalty. Odds are it will only hit you every 10th death or so, but every single time you're going to sweat.
There is no sensible punishment a game can exact to cause any effect on me. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I wonder how "more social games" of the past managed to get along without any of those ifriends gizmos. Social media fellows, still talking up their paycheck until the bubble goes up.
They managed to get along without them because people interacted and communicated very differently back then. Also, the games were designed very differently back then, some with greater support for proximity-based interaction. There is a world of difference between how gamers socialize and communicate now compared to how they did 10 years ago, and especially compared to how they did 15 years ago.
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 don't agree with OP's list of reasons why social mmorpgs were social. Mmorpgs that were social had some of these features, but to put an equal sign in and select those features.. I can't find good reasons.
However, obviously some things makes social behaviour harder and some make it easier.
- Socializing takes time, so a game needs to provide breaks, pauses.
Things preventing this are paced combat, quick respawn, insta-teleporting and queueing (more..).
Things that helped were, buffing, downtime between kills, travel time, how-to-proceed discussions/tactical (more..).
For a group that is so focused on divining where community went, it's rare - if ever - that one of you suggests the games offer social activities. Instead, it's always the same insistence that everyone else's fun during combat be paused to force them into boredom so that they have nothing left to do but talk to you. Worse, the communication must be on your terms and your preferred format, as VoIP exists, allowing people to interact if they choose to without having to pause what they are finding fun to do.
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 dont know what version of EQ some of these people played. The only solo classes were Druids and Wizards.. both AE Kiting Classes. Rest of the classes needed groups to farm XP.
Eh...I played Ranger, Dreadknight and Beastlord and could solo pretty good. Of course though...it took knowing your class and mob aggro ranges, etc too.
Necros were soloer kings. Bards could charm kite/fear kite and of course swarm kite making them IMO the best open area soloers in the game (bards soloing in a dungeon... shudder).
Paly's and clerics could solo undead.
Monks while slow could split mobs, FD and mend making them very effective soloers.
So then we have 10 out of 14 at launch, then 11 (beasts) of 14 could solo well. 16 classes now but with mercs they all solo.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I dont know what version of EQ some of these people played. The only solo classes were Druids and Wizards.. both AE Kiting Classes. Rest of the classes needed groups to farm XP.
Eh...I played Ranger, Dreadknight and Beastlord and could solo pretty good. Of course though...it took knowing your class and mob aggro ranges, etc too.
Necros were soloer kings. Bards could charm kite/fear kite and of course swarm kite making them IMO the best open area soloers in the game (bards soloing in a dungeon... shudder).
Paly's and clerics could solo undead.
Monks while slow could split mobs, FD and mend making them very effective soloers.
So then we have 10 out of 14 at launch, then 11 (beasts) of 14 could solo well. 16 classes now but with mercs they all solo.
Still a BIG difference in soloing in EQ (Pre- PoP) and in today's MMORPG's.
In EQ...yes, you could solo, and well if you know your class and how to use them, split mobs, and knew aggro ranges. But IMO it was MUCH harder to do than in today's games. More at stake too...because dying happened more then, and was much more painful/scary/exciting. having to do naked corpse runs to get your stuff, xp loss..maybe even a lvl loss if not far into the lvl...
Plus you could take on a couple mobs.....but any more than that could be death (Depending on the mobs and their con to you)
Now?...I can blow through several mobs with little ill effect (And this is nearly all current MMORPG's I have tried) and if I die? Eh...respawn with little loss really. Maybe a few coins to repair (If even) and a debuff for a few minutes. Makes taking risks a thoughtless matter.
I think a little more than that. Some degree of "ouch" just to get hearts to pound. Remember barely making it out alive from a train in Unrest? Thinking that kind of fear/elation, although toned down a bit.
Yeah i remember the trains. That is just frustration as in .. "damn he did that and now i have to replay the game for 3 hours?".
Friend A comes along, wants to play with friend B. Games these days have it to where Friend A needs to do a massive amount of levelling in order to partake in PvP/Quests/Dailies with Friend B.
What is social about that?
I will use UO as an example, too. It could be tough, and most places you went (like a dungeon), you could almost go at any stage of entering the game. Whether you were new or a veteran. If you just started that day, not highly adviasable, but there were people who could go with you to places and teach you what you didn't know, or heal you while you raised certain skills. There was encouraged trade, visiting peoples houses (which had shops stocked by themselves), you were put into a realistic world where you did not rely on a LFG feature that shot you into a group of strangers from four other entirely different servers.
I dont know what version of EQ some of these people played. The only solo classes were Druids and Wizards.. both AE Kiting Classes. Rest of the classes needed groups to farm XP.
Eh...I played Ranger, Dreadknight and Beastlord and could solo pretty good. Of course though...it took knowing your class and mob aggro ranges, etc too.
Necros were soloer kings. Bards could charm kite/fear kite and of course swarm kite making them IMO the best open area soloers in the game (bards soloing in a dungeon... shudder).
Paly's and clerics could solo undead.
Monks while slow could split mobs, FD and mend making them very effective soloers.
So then we have 10 out of 14 at launch, then 11 (beasts) of 14 could solo well. 16 classes now but with mercs they all solo.
Still a BIG difference in soloing in EQ (Pre- PoP) and in today's MMORPG's.
In EQ...yes, you could solo, and well if you know your class and how to use them, split mobs, and knew aggro ranges. But IMO it was MUCH harder to do than in today's games. More at stake too...because dying happened more then, and was much more painful/scary/exciting. having to do naked corpse runs to get your stuff, xp loss..maybe even a lvl loss if not far into the lvl...
Plus you could take on a couple mobs.....but any more than that could be death (Depending on the mobs and their con to you)
Now?...I can blow through several mobs with little ill effect (And this is nearly all current MMORPG's I have tried) and if I die? Eh...respawn with little loss really. Maybe a few coins to repair (If even) and a debuff for a few minutes. Makes taking risks a thoughtless matter.
Definately. It was harder to solo, you had to be much more carefull. Way way easier to solo today.
But the guy saying that only 2 could do it. Dead wrong.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I'm all for more social MMOs but I don't agree with the OP at all. For example, DIFFERENCES and forcing people to work with those differences creates a more social dynamic experience. Making it so that everyone of different levels can play together does not enhance anything. It just makes things easier and stupider.
The reason people don't socialize like they did in UO and EQ is that we've learned the internet is a dick.
When we talked to people in UO and EQ we expected people to behave like they do in face to face encounters. We typically behave civilly even if we don't like the person, and perfect strangers are at least passingly polite to each other. When someone didn't behave that way in-game we thought that person is a dick, and went on thinking he was a aberration and most people are friendly.
What we have learned since is that when people are freed of responsibility for their actions and cloaked in anonymity they are dicks. This isn't the exception its the rule. Finding a nice person on an unmoderated forum now is rare, the dicks are the norm. MMOs are for the most part unmoderated forums. You can say the most racist, murderous, sexist, hateful things on global chat and hardly anything ever comes of it. So much so that the most egregious dicks don't find that therapeutic anymore. They have to make it personal.
So what have the now learned and savvy explorers of the internet done? Shut off chat. Turned off tells. They don't want to talk to the unfriendly mobs roaming the internet. They are there just to play a game, and maybe group with some people they've already vetted through a mutual organization such as a guild, that's it.
Some developers have noticed this and thought maybe chat is too hard. It's just too difficult to type when the fighting is at it's highest. So they make local voip channels. No need to group to voip, just talk and people around you will hear you. That will break the ice! And how is it used? To play the most annoying songs a dick can find, on repeat. To fart into the mic, to make themselves so much more annoying than when they were on the chat channel other players turned off.
It has nothing to do with the games. It's us. We know what to expect from the internet now. For many of us that means staying away from the griefers, the gankers, the racists, the shock kiddies, the bad players, the AFKs, and especially the people on the internet that aren't here for entertainment, but for therapy, for mental self-medication.
We are the first generation of the internet society, and we're cavemen.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Comments
It does in D3. Not a MMO .. but close enough for me.
I don't think players care about the "fundamantals", or "what a MMO should be". I don't. I care if i am entertained, and i care about if i can play with a particular friend when i want to.
And nothing "hurt" a game. It hurts those who don't have the preferences devs who cater to. Nothing more and nothing less, as it should be in a free market.
I don't agree with OP's list of reasons why social mmorpgs were social. Mmorpgs that were social had some of these features, but to put an equal sign in and select those features.. I can't find good reasons.
However, obviously some things makes social behaviour harder and some make it easier.
- Socializing takes time, so a game needs to provide breaks, pauses.
Things preventing this are paced combat, quick respawn, insta-teleporting and queueing (more..).
Things that helped were, buffing, downtime between kills, travel time, how-to-proceed discussions/tactical (more..).
-Socializing requires reasons, so a game needs to provide reasons to interact with others.
Preventing this are simplistic gameplay, solo centric, bland/similar class or roles, lack of mystery (more..).
Helping could be group content, depending on others/classes/skills in combat/tradeskill, need to ask for advice (more..).
And so on. Its not rocket science, what social environments a game provide = attract player types = amount of social play.
I could have written an extensive list and with more reasoning and so on, but I really can't be bothered to do all this work on every post. Those who know will not need it explained and those who don't will ignore it anyways.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
mmmm.. Old School Everquest. Death had a lot of sting to it. Its why you didn't do stupid shit like some MMO players these days do.
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
And you don't take risk or experiment. Or if you connection is bad, you have to replay a large part of the game.
And for all its sting, it is less sting than a modern game like D3, which has a PD option.
I'd say in particular make sharing more beneficial. Rewarding players for rewarding one another means inherently there will be more interaction between people.
It's a bit of a 'play nice and get a cookie' tactic, but functionally it works. Same reason you see rewards randomly thrown at players in games like DOTA 2 before reviews, a bad match suddenly jumps up in quality.
If you give incentive to players with the potential of reward for interacting with one another, they are more likely to be social.
I don't mean to say you should take the social hub approach. I'm not a social person myself, and I find it annoying when a game plugs into something like Facebook and requires X number of friends to play to get a reward. That annoys the crap out of me and functionally it doesn't really work, it just causes people to meta-game and generate fake accounts or convince friends who have no intention to play to just temporarily sign up.
What's needed is perks associated with personal interaction. The ability for players to do quick call outs and assists that lets any local players react and get a benefit from helping one another. Small kickbacks that grant people a reason to do anything other than just ignore or compete against the people around themselves.
EDIT: For an example.
Let's say maybe the basic level of activity is built socially to work on a billboard type system. Players can generate simple quest tasks for one another and offer up a reward from their own resources, which then is accompanied by an equivalent auto generated reward.
When you post up the quest, it takes collateral from you, but for it's completion you are granted a 'benefactor' reward in addition to whatever the goal of the quest itself was. On both ends players benefit from the interaction, but additionally it creates the basic level of progress and economy for the game, by players interacting with one another to maximize the potential output of the system.
More or less, it's just that if you want people to be social, they have to perceive some kind of value in doing so. If they think interpersonal interaction be it direct or indirect is better than taking the world alone, then they will opt to act in a more outgoing fashion.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Personally, my "social" tendencies early on just resulted from an enormous amount of standing around. Being online, but not actively engaged while standing atop a corpse mound waiting for the next spawn.
Before guilds, just a factor of a tiny game with a tiny population.
After guilds--Lots of chatroom action, I guess. And certainly a lot of in-guild yucks. But again, still pretty insular. even when we were (fairly) well-known on the server, and almost-famous in our tiny corner.
As games spent more effort on keeping players actively engaged, instead of watching progress bars or sitting on a spawn...naturally we had less time to gab.
Personally, I always felt the disconnection began (in earnest) when PuG interfaces became very efficient at creating fast-moving groups that absolutely despised one another. More efficient, for the worst cases, than guilds (which sometimes asked them to behave).
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Rich social environment comes from social people, that is all.
Oh and for MMOs, [social people] don't have issues being social or having social moments in MMOs.
Takecare.
Edited: Mind you it isn't easy, but I guess it's why I and many who I socialize with random and known in a video game end up not having these issues.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Join a guild. Socialize when you're online or in a group.
Most people will actually end up being pretty chatty if you talk to them first, usually someone just has to break the ice.
Problem solved.
Ayup. Why relatively social people never have any real issues with 'social environment'.
Get by with a little help from mah frenz.
The topic is always a big hit with Mrs. Grundy.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I miss Friends chat! Ofc that wouldn't work with a chat system of modern mmos but it really did alot more for the community than you realize.
Another thing is that in older games the worlds were much much smaller, meaning that the communities came across one another much more often.
The combination of these two things really made each player have a sort of reputation. Hard to explain now that I'm trying to.
If WoW was released today even in its' entirety it would be f2p in 3 months.
Why is it still such a big deal?
I don't disagree in general .. but what is "somewhat"? A few golds which is more expensive than a teleport? Is that enough?
The big difference I see between EQ and modern MMO's is that in EQ...when MMORPG's were niche....the player base consisted mostly of P&P D&D players, etc. Players communicated for the various reasons listed...but mainly because RPing was much more popular and the players enjoyed immersing themselves in the world and their characters (Being the character) and developing a reputation within the world.
Today's player base is more widespread from other genres due to Blizzard's mainstreaming of it. So lots of console players, etc. They seem to care more about achievements, personal stats and how they compare to others and being first in every category or as many as they can get. It's more about "Look at me and how awesome I am!" now. IMO and personal observations of course.
I dont know what version of EQ some of these people played. The only solo classes were Druids and Wizards.. both AE Kiting Classes. Rest of the classes needed groups to farm XP.
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
Eh...I played Ranger, Dreadknight and Beastlord and could solo pretty good. Of course though...it took knowing your class and mob aggro ranges, etc too.
There is no sensible punishment a game can exact to cause any effect on me. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
They managed to get along without them because people interacted and communicated very differently back then. Also, the games were designed very differently back then, some with greater support for proximity-based interaction. There is a world of difference between how gamers socialize and communicate now compared to how they did 10 years ago, and especially compared to how they did 15 years ago.
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
For a group that is so focused on divining where community went, it's rare - if ever - that one of you suggests the games offer social activities. Instead, it's always the same insistence that everyone else's fun during combat be paused to force them into boredom so that they have nothing left to do but talk to you. Worse, the communication must be on your terms and your preferred format, as VoIP exists, allowing people to interact if they choose to without having to pause what they are finding fun to do.
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
Necros were soloer kings. Bards could charm kite/fear kite and of course swarm kite making them IMO the best open area soloers in the game (bards soloing in a dungeon... shudder).
Paly's and clerics could solo undead.
Monks while slow could split mobs, FD and mend making them very effective soloers.
So then we have 10 out of 14 at launch, then 11 (beasts) of 14 could solo well. 16 classes now but with mercs they all solo.
Still a BIG difference in soloing in EQ (Pre- PoP) and in today's MMORPG's.
In EQ...yes, you could solo, and well if you know your class and how to use them, split mobs, and knew aggro ranges. But IMO it was MUCH harder to do than in today's games. More at stake too...because dying happened more then, and was much more painful/scary/exciting. having to do naked corpse runs to get your stuff, xp loss..maybe even a lvl loss if not far into the lvl...
Plus you could take on a couple mobs.....but any more than that could be death (Depending on the mobs and their con to you)
Now?...I can blow through several mobs with little ill effect (And this is nearly all current MMORPG's I have tried) and if I die? Eh...respawn with little loss really. Maybe a few coins to repair (If even) and a debuff for a few minutes. Makes taking risks a thoughtless matter.
Yeah i remember the trains. That is just frustration as in .. "damn he did that and now i have to replay the game for 3 hours?".
So no thanks.
The largest problem are the levels.
Friend A comes along, wants to play with friend B. Games these days have it to where Friend A needs to do a massive amount of levelling in order to partake in PvP/Quests/Dailies with Friend B.
What is social about that?
I will use UO as an example, too. It could be tough, and most places you went (like a dungeon), you could almost go at any stage of entering the game. Whether you were new or a veteran. If you just started that day, not highly adviasable, but there were people who could go with you to places and teach you what you didn't know, or heal you while you raised certain skills. There was encouraged trade, visiting peoples houses (which had shops stocked by themselves), you were put into a realistic world where you did not rely on a LFG feature that shot you into a group of strangers from four other entirely different servers.
Definately. It was harder to solo, you had to be much more carefull. Way way easier to solo today.
But the guy saying that only 2 could do it. Dead wrong.
The reason people don't socialize like they did in UO and EQ is that we've learned the internet is a dick.
When we talked to people in UO and EQ we expected people to behave like they do in face to face encounters. We typically behave civilly even if we don't like the person, and perfect strangers are at least passingly polite to each other. When someone didn't behave that way in-game we thought that person is a dick, and went on thinking he was a aberration and most people are friendly.
What we have learned since is that when people are freed of responsibility for their actions and cloaked in anonymity they are dicks. This isn't the exception its the rule. Finding a nice person on an unmoderated forum now is rare, the dicks are the norm. MMOs are for the most part unmoderated forums. You can say the most racist, murderous, sexist, hateful things on global chat and hardly anything ever comes of it. So much so that the most egregious dicks don't find that therapeutic anymore. They have to make it personal.
So what have the now learned and savvy explorers of the internet done? Shut off chat. Turned off tells. They don't want to talk to the unfriendly mobs roaming the internet. They are there just to play a game, and maybe group with some people they've already vetted through a mutual organization such as a guild, that's it.
Some developers have noticed this and thought maybe chat is too hard. It's just too difficult to type when the fighting is at it's highest. So they make local voip channels. No need to group to voip, just talk and people around you will hear you. That will break the ice! And how is it used? To play the most annoying songs a dick can find, on repeat. To fart into the mic, to make themselves so much more annoying than when they were on the chat channel other players turned off.
It has nothing to do with the games. It's us. We know what to expect from the internet now. For many of us that means staying away from the griefers, the gankers, the racists, the shock kiddies, the bad players, the AFKs, and especially the people on the internet that aren't here for entertainment, but for therapy, for mental self-medication.
We are the first generation of the internet society, and we're cavemen.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.