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I am in the beta, and decided to play it today. I coudln't get anyone to talk in the major city you start in, despite it being flooded with players. I've seen other people say this as well, people are still as "gogogogogogogo" as they are in WoW in this game.
Is this unfortunately true? I feel like this is a reason I'm starting to like themepark MMORPG's less -- They promote anti-social behavior when playing as grouping usually doesnt have any benefit, and the only time people talk in dungeons are for buffs or to blame someone if something went wrong.
Was hoping this wouldnt be the case, but in my experience with this game it was. I don't want to go out on a limb and pay $60 and $15 a month for this game for it to happen beyond the beta too.
Guess I'll stick to waiting for August 2nd for the Everquest Next live reveal. Worst case scenario it's a free to play game anyways so all I'd lose is time if I dont like it, but I feel like Sandbox games cater more to grouping/being social
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A lot of people are playing it like wow because it's what they know. I've had a number of conversations with people in my beta experience. You have to find the right people though. Just shouting randomly in the middle the square isn't going to get you anywhere.
Try the inns and guilds. Try one of the unofficial RP servers. Join a linkshell (like a guild chat without the guild).
And, this game basically forces you to group to see a lot of the story so I don't see how it promotes anti-social gaming.
because the game is like WoW
So no this is not "another anti-social themepark". I have played anti social themeparks as a group lover where I couldn't find a group to save my life, and once I did no one said a word to eachother. It is the opposite for me in XIV, and frankly always has been even in 1.0. I don't ever have to solo for extended periods of play, and that is exactly how I like it.
Also I don't get the whole "themepark" label you tacked on as if to somehow imply that themeparks were less group/social friendly than sandboxes. Most sandboxes I have played (Darkfall, SWG, Mortal Online) had the worst grouping "content" of any MMORPG I have played (compared to FFXI, EQ, and even WoW). Selling your crafts and ganking someone as they try to avoid you alone does not make you a social butterfly or the game more social friendly. Plus I know you aren't even going to try to compare PVE encounters between the two because sandbox falls flat on its face.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
Its not the game.... Its the players that change and become less social...
Anyway, back in old EQ i was forced to be social, because when i started out i got no clue what to do, and where to go.. but i would not call people running around town trying to sell buffs a social behaviour. "SoW at North gate for 1G"
People where forced to work together back then because the game was made for that, but it was not allways fun being forced to play with others... Nowerdays, i am much more casual and i prefer my solo moments most of the time.. i think for my type of gameplay, GW2 nailed it on the head with adding DE´s and having people play together withouth forcing anything.
Give me a good groupfindeer in any game, and i personally make sure there is enough fun and social behaviour in my PUGs. It gives me the opportunity to meet new people and talk to them.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I'm sorry but what would you know about the people who play FFXIV?
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
You can solo all the way through the game.
How do you solo the level 15 quests taking you to the different cities? The ones where you HAVE to do group dungeons in a group.
This is required for the storyline, which is required to unlock certain features of the game and large swaths of content.
You can't, You can't solo all the way through the game you can't even play solo only through the content up until level 20. Try again.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
Its a beta that only last for 2 days at a time. People don't want to have random conversations with strangers while they rush to accomplish stuff.
Try shouting in a mall on black Friday and see how many people stop to talk with you.
This is game is not as difficult so people can pretty much solo if they want too. Its not gonna be like Final Fantasy 11, where you have to talk to people to get some where. But im sure as a Final Fantasy game and an MMORPG in general there are lots of things you can only do as groups. Just have to wait for people to get to that point in the game i guess before they start reaching out.
Limit Breaks level 1, cannot be used without a party.
Level 10 Guildhests (require a group, alternate spawned content leveling option)
Level 15 dungeons (part of main storyline, you CANNOT progress without doing them, also suitable leveling option)
level 25? Ifrit (storyline, 4 person party required, cannot progress without it)
Jobs level 30 (designed only for party play, require a party for their subsequent quests)
This is a group CENTRIC MMORPG that allows people to solo when they do not have the time to form a party. It does not really cater to the "I never want to group for anything ever" demographic because you literally cannot progress even through the main storyline in this game without grouping at multiple key points in your progression.
There really hasn't been that many bugs since alpha, but people do talk in game. I have conversations all the time with people I'm playing with, even through the duty finder.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
i haven't had any trouble striking up conversations with random people. just send them a tell and you will usually get a response. i'd much rather quest with a partner than do everything alone and i think most people are this way from my experience, they just don't want to bug people so they keep to themselves.
Of all the theme park mmos out there, this is the game where you need a group/guild on comms having fun. This is the reason why:
Once you have levelled 3 jobs i.e completed the quests from all the cities, you are then effectively quest less. You will need to old school grind it and with a team that is MUCH MUCH more efficient.
Not to mention the endgame pvp and pve, cant say more than that nda etc.
Sounds like an forced party MMO where choice is an illusion and the more intelligent and less lazy among the player base will just find the obvious loopholes to solo so yeah... I'd give this MMO 2 years before F2P by what you've just said ( it gets 2 because it'll last one more year after they actually start giving players choices in terms of progression, if you gotta have vertical progression don't be a dumbass and tell people there's only one path, that isn't a challenging game, that's a punishing one for anyone who doesn't fit that specific player type).
It really pains me to say it, but i just can't get excited about anything Final Fantasy anymore. What used to be IMO the greatest RPG IP of all time gaming wise, turned into a bunch of asexual techno-robot adolescent cutesy, just, shit. I can't think of a better word. I remember back in the day of FF7 because we old FF1-6 vets laughed at how laughably large cloud's sword was. But, the whole game wasnt like that, it was here and there but not like now. Nowadays clouds sword would be considered small to medium small.
The whole art style has just gone to shit, the stories are vapid and uninteresting. Its just not a world i can bring myself to care about.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
and tahts why mmorpgs these days are "anti social" because they are all soloable. Remove every solo experience and you will see people talking to each other and grouping. There are lots of amazing single player rpgs for those anti social creatures.
This is beta and people are trying out the game/testing. No one has time to stop and talk when they want to experience the content. There is quite a bit of content within just the first 20 levels that requires parties, such as Guildhests, Fates, and main story instances, as well as normal instances. Many people also have legions/guilds where there's plenty of chit-chat. People also occasionally carry-on on conversations via /shout in each zone.
It's sad that you never really gave this game a chance. You played it for a little while and because you didn't see much chat you automatically assumed it's ant-social and aren't going to play it again.
Why not just make the whole game FFA PVP with full loss of items on death then as well? You know to get people really into groups...
MMOs need choices not rails, MMOs need to be virtual worlds not kiddie rides where you either need to be alone or in a group to get onboard (the social aspect is laughable considering you can just random group up with people and do "social" group MMOs just as easy if you were solo).
^
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
This game will not go F2P. The logic is that they already have another mmorpg happily churning along on a subscription with a low subscriber base, if their old game even now has never gone F2P, I sincerely doubt their new one will.
To the OP this is like a hybrid themepark/sandbox. Quests don't last forever and there are serious advantages to being in a guild, some of them mechanic based within the game, can't say more than that.
This comes down to how bothered people are as an individual to make those links and join a guild. It is easy in any game to just run around solo except for DFUW and that game is not my cup of tea.
Has nothing to do with that, it's just a very unsocial game environment. I have been in plenty of betas where people talked, FFXIV is very anti-social, and it's not the players, it's the game that allows you to solo through 99% of the content.
When you run out of quests after levelling your 3rd job, grouping and knowing people and having friends will be a "huge" advantage. Even more so with the PvP.
Just want to generally add
If you feel that you do not think this game is for you.You don't have to play it!
The Rift devs said they would never go F2P... has Square Enix even gone on the record with saying something like "we'll run this game as P2P or close it down" ?
Also consider that FFXI has nostalgia going for it so people go back to it from time to time to play again whereas FFIV doesn't have anything beyond a failed first launch to its name. I am not saying it isn't a good game what I am saying is that as a P2P game to last it needs to be a great game on par in terms quality of gameplay offered as say EVE-Online (note: I said quality not type ). It might be possible for the game to craft out its own niche but... it's a bloody cramped space in the MMO-verse already and with Archeage coming down the pipes from SKorea and Black Desert on the horizon... the niche is set to get even more clusterfucky so while I do hope the game makes it I kinda doubt it too ( aside from visuals what I've read and seen of it just doesn't stand out to me in gameplay or feel terms ).