But is it because players changed, or because development changed how we play?
It's because development changed in order to accommodate a different kind of players. "Back in the day" it was an effort to play MMO's - people had slow and very expensive connections, terrible machines: trouble when they had to render large groups of people etc. MMORPG players were rare and their options were not that open - few games, mostly the same style. Single player games were at their prime at that time. Now, when the Internet became something trivial, a new opportunity opened for the devs: to get the single player gamers in. Those people want to play MMO's but they want the games to be played the way they are used to: single player progress, in fact not having to depend on others.
This is taken to a whole new level now with the "no trinity" approaches, public quests, public events and everything like that. The illusion of grouping, that's what it is, while everyone having their own agendas. I avoid the games which have one or multiple of the above mentioned characteristics, because it's obvious where they will end up (i've seen it too many times already)
This is taken to a whole new level now with the "no trinity" approaches, public quests, public events and everything like that. The illusion of grouping, that's what it is, while everyone having their own agendas. I avoid the games which have one or multiple of the above mentioned characteristics, because it's obvious where they will end up (i've seen it too many times already)
quest laden mmos have always had the illusion of "quest" grouping
games like WOW where people group for a quest for 15 minutes then disband are not any better for grouping
its been games like EQ1, DAOC where I saw groups stick together for hours at a time mob grinding
if gamers want mmos to be more group intensive -- it won't be because of quest mechanics
Personally I love public quests, its the best combination I know for mob grinding and questing
the flaws of grouping in quest based games:
players have little interest if they already did the quest or are on a different step of the quest
In EQ, everyone knew each other on the server, we made our own groups, our own raids, we didn't need these bandaids. We knew the people we grouped with and made an effort to get to know the ones we didn't, so we could build out our social network and build the server community.
Rose tinted specs, remember sitting on the edge of various zones looking for around 30 minutes spamming general, Paladin LFG.. AA group etc.
Until that is, I got a KEI + avatar weapon and went off to solo some ice cave someplace for even better aaxp. This was planes of power era, stopped playing after major guilds prevented progression of the lesser ones by camping lower planes bosses to prevent keying.
Originally posted by tkreep Do you really want to go back to the days where you wait 3-6 hours to find a group and then hope that it doesnt fall apart within 10 minutes of finding a camp? And then pull and grind on mobs for another 3-6 hours to gain one level up?
Yes, but it is my personal preference.
It is also a huge exaggeration, since I've never waited more than 1 hour for any group in any game I played, but your experience might differ. And trying to find a solid group, or trying to get into a group in the best spot was actually a challenge in itself, and a very rewarding one. I felt satisfaction similar to that of defeating a boss. It was a part of gameplay to me. Also this encouraged me to join a guild, and since I'm an introvert, I wouldn't do it otherwise and miss out some fun.
In my opinion problem lies indeed in people, but not necessarily people are the solution. If I'm an introvert it is incredibly hard for me to make contact with other people in game and it is not something I can change easily. Saying that it is my fault and I should change my behavior is pretty stupid, since it is psychological issue and it is very hard if not impossible for people to change the way they are. If there is option to do something solo, I'll do it solo. When grouping is needed, then I'll be forced to do it, and it is nothing bad for me. I'll be happy that I got pushed to do it.
In short, people are introverts. If you want to make them socialize you need to force them, but it is not a bad thing for them, it helps. Trying to change people is much harder if not impossible, but changing game mechanics to fix their problems is effective.
The only problem lies in time. Games with mandatory grouping take a lot of time, so game for casual players will be automatically hard to socialize in for introverts.
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
The new "thing" in MMO is artificially grouping people together.
MMO are no longer about dependency but about being able to solo on any class, at any level, and anywhere.
The result is that people don't talk, they don't form a community and most know no one on the server, at best they know their guild and that's about it.
These people become social recluse in the game and lack the ability and social network to form groups.
The way new MMO are trying to fix this is with artificial bandaids, so people can imagine they actually have a community in their game.
GW2 calls them Public quests, EQNext calls them rallying calls, Rift calls them rifts, WoW calls them dungeon finders, FFXIV calls them Fates.
In EQ, everyone knew each other on the server, we made our own groups, our own raids, we didn't need these bandaids. We knew the people we grouped with and made an effort to get to know the ones we didn't, so we could build out our social network and build the server community.
MMO have truly become casual and excuses for multiplayer games, where the community is so incredibly weak that they are unable to form their own groups.
stuck in the past much?
well i guess your opinion is as good as any and i agree with the casualisation
i am a firm supporter of the ability to solo but it needs to be more difficult
i hate trinity and i hate forced grouping
well its not like you asked any other opinions, you just stated yours like its a fact
For the past few years, if you haven't been on TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/whatever, you odn't get heard. I would bet a lot of people who play MMOs don't pay attention to the chat box, and a surprising portion probably don't even know how to use the basic chat channels in their game.
A lot of recent games barely support chat at all.
Everything has shifted to VOIP of some sort. And with that, games have upped the pace significantly. If you aren't in the same VOIP system as everyone else (and most people sit on private TS/Vent/whatever servers), then you aren't going to communicate with everyone else - so rather than force a lot of communication, players tend to just get mad at people who didn't go watch a bunch of YouTube How-To videos and dismiss them outright/kick from group/excommunicate them, but heaven forbid they actually try communicating with them in anything but their private VOIP server.
Yeap. the shift to more VOIP is one reason. Another one is the typical zone/world chats.. 99% of what is said there does not interest you in any way and is far away.. therefore a lot of people pay not that much attention to chat channels.
If you would come back to ranged based chatting, like whisper (just hear what is absolutely near by you), say (is around you and in line of sight) and yell (is around you and in line of sight) you would filter out all those communication not belongingn to you. That you can have additionally zone/trade and whatever chat is another story.. but even then i do not see a lot of purpose in it and will be exploited from gold spammers, or spammers generally. Why not go back to just Whisper/Say/Yell and additionally Send/Guild/alliance.. whereas Alliance can be a bit more than a actual alliance of guilds, but as much as for a faction in a warzone.. with other words a new kind of zone chat.. but just in zones where there is a reason to talk to all players around.. and this channel should be able to be more moderateable.. like to call a leader or officers with additonal rights.
Additionally whisper/say/yell could also be implemented via VOIP.
And about Public Quests.. i would say that Public Quests do support community more than work against it. Much more are Quests/Heart Quests or whatever you call them are more a curse for group play.. especially if you can level from 1 to endlevel only with single player quests.
But nevertheless the chat system really needs an overhaul.
Stick with MMO, I don't play on playstation and I know that isn't an MMO.
examples?
Why would being an MMO matter? If a game has good grouping without the trinity, it has good grouping without the trinity. His example isn't invalid just because you "don't play on playstation".
Many class-based FPSes (TF2, Natural Selection), MOBAs (LoL), and Puzzle Pirates all have great grouping without the trinity, and their roles could easily exist in an MMO (and well, PP is an MMO.) It's ridiculously close-minded to suggest that just because a game exists outside your preference or experience that the examples are invalid.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I used to think I knew exactly what I want in games but now after so many years Everquest being my first MMO I am conflicted. I'm a lazy person in all my years of playing even when I played a wizard in EQ I have never formed a group. I queue up for groups like in EQ it was how it was in dungeons or friends invited me. When I played WoW I was a healer and people who had grouped with me would invite me ,same for EQ 2,LotRO and City of X too. I have never made an effort to form a group nor take any responsibility for how to proceed someone else always did that. So when I had to stand about waiting because no one was inviting me when a game like Vanguard got sparse with other players you do not get invites because the game had so few players I was lost.
Then the auto lfd started and I thought hey great idea but when I noticed how people hardly talked that no one even answered me when I did, I realised what I had lost without ever appreciating it. In real life I talk a lot and I make friends very easily and yes in random zone chat I talk a lot too but it is not the same as sitting in a camp in Guk waiting for a pull and chatting. Of course people will say "I am not playing an MMO for a chatroom go find a chatroom for that". You are right I guess.
I do not know what has lead to the current situation and I suspect many things contributed to it and I do not think we can actually know it because we were not playing every single game simultaneously during these past 15 years or longer to quantify and I suspect it is far more complex than what is suggested here.
Thinking back the last games where community was strong was Everquest, DAoC, FFXI, EQ 2, LotRO, Vanilla WoW and City of X on certain servers . I did not play AC ,SWG or UO for any length of time to add them but from what I have read they are those that had them too. If I left any out it is because I did not play them or forgot them am getting old
Guilds are the tools now .The guild I joined for FFXIV ARR wants me to be on mumble even when I am not talking all the time I am on playing. Difficult to find guilds that do not require this. How do you change this ? You cannot force it nor make a game that forces grouping it will fail in this climate unless you are prepared for a niche population of 50 k. Adapt I guess what else is there . Of course we can discuss this but developers aren't looking to recreate Everquest ,it is not going to generate enough revenue. It's a pipedream to think it will ever go back to those days. We have to make it work with what we have now the VOIP being the most used. We must learn to use it and build communities with it. Some games have it built in although LOtRO was piss poor and worked badly other games could come up with better ones.I guess this is the future and then VR will change everything again.
You can never go home so now we must learn how to go on with what we have and since we cannot affect change because the genre has marched on and the hardcore EQ people are a small minority and since we do not have the market's ear we must learn to use the tools we have now to form communities. I think we need threads to come up with ideas to suggest to the games coming out to help us form communities. No point dwelling on the past and recriminations.
Originally posted by wolfmann Originally posted by LoktofeitOriginally posted by CalmOceansThe new "thing" in MMO is artificially grouping people together.MMO are no longer about dependency but about being able to solo on any class, at any level, and anywhere.The result is that people don't talk, they don't form a community and most know no one on the server, at best they know their guild and that's about it.In EQ, everyone knew each other on the server, we made our own groups, our own raids, we didn't need these bandaids.MMO have truly become casual and excuses for multiplayer games, where the community is so incredibly weak that they are unable to form their own groups.
Are today's gamers looking to build online communities in these games, though? "Back in my day..." doesn't count because the world is different and people act, interact and communicate differently now. Public Quests, Rallying Calls and Dungeon Finders aren't a band-aid for a failed in-game community if neither the devs nor the players were looking for that in the first place. They are merely tools to accommodate how people play and interact now.But is it because players changed, or because developement changed how we play?
If you put a frog in boiling water, it tries to jump out. If you put it in cold water and heats it to a boil... it stays.
And thats how the last generations of MMORPG "evolution" has gone. Slow removal of dependencied, both combat and out of combat, until we have todays situation... Community? wutz dat?
You are giving developers too much credit for being evil geniuses. What they do is largely a response to the players. The initial MMORPG audience was a million or less people. Now it's in the many millions of people. Different audience, different games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
It is fascinating. It also shows that the original idea of forcing many into ONE virtual world in the guise of a game is a unworkable idea.
Players self-select to go to the solo-friendly games. They self-select to go to the games with more tools and "less" community.
What is the lesson? Most don't care about community that much, as long as they have a few friends to play with. In fact, that is pretty obvious. Why would I care about a "massive" number of players when i don't even have time to play with 20?
Originally posted by tkreep Do you really want to go back to the days where you wait 3-6 hours to find a group and then hope that it doesnt fall apart within 10 minutes of finding a camp? And then pull and grind on mobs for another 3-6 hours to gain one level up?
Yes, but it is my personal preference.
It is also a huge exaggeration
heh its not an exaggeration if you played final fantasy 11
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
It is fascinating. It also shows that the original idea of forcing many into ONE virtual world in the guise of a game is a unworkable idea.
Players self-select to go to the solo-friendly games. They self-select to go to the games with more tools and "less" community.
What is the lesson? Most don't care about community that much, as long as they have a few friends to play with. In fact, that is pretty obvious. Why would I care about a "massive" number of players when i don't even have time to play with 20?
How can you say player self select when ALL games coming out have suffered from the convenience creep? Most of those games failed to hold player and subscriptions and have to supported by cash shops that only a minority players actually use.
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
It is fascinating. It also shows that the original idea of forcing many into ONE virtual world in the guise of a game is a unworkable idea.
Players self-select to go to the solo-friendly games. They self-select to go to the games with more tools and "less" community.
What is the lesson? Most don't care about community that much, as long as they have a few friends to play with. In fact, that is pretty obvious. Why would I care about a "massive" number of players when i don't even have time to play with 20?
How can you say player self select when ALL games coming out have suffered from the convenience creep? Most of those games failed to hold player and subscriptions and have to supported by cash shops that only a minority players actually use.
Obviously not all.
Back in the WOW days, WOW is the first one who is more solo-friendly. It stole EQ's audience quite fast.
And even today, there are games like DarkFall or Eve which are not solo-friendly. The huge amount of lopsided choice for games other than those obviously push less and less development into non-solo-friendly games, but the self-selection is still there.
You can go play Darkfall and Eve, can you? That is a choice and a selection, by definition.
And what does holding player has anything to do with this? Player want solo-friend and variety .. hence solo-friend games and players hop around. It is a fallacy to think that games need to be long.
I thought this might be a veiled thread about forced grouping and it did not disappoint.
Forced grouping is lame. If I want to group in a modern MMO, I have no trouble grouping. I group up when I want to, on my terms. This allows me to pick and choose who I group with. If I find myself in a horrible group, I can go do some solo quests and try grouping another day. In the forced grouping scenario, I was stuck with the horrible group because otherwise I couldn't progress.
I feel like the ones advocating for forced grouping are actually these horrible group players who find themselves ejected from groups and gain a reputation as a bad group player.
Another "games were better back then" thread, how refreshing.
Please tell us more about how the lack of trinity-based PvE grinds kills community, that's really a subject we need to explore further.
While you're at it perhaps you could shed some more light on how casualization destroys the soul of the MMO genre, how catering to solo players is the work of the devil, and how anyone not ageeeing with you is a brainwashed lemming.
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
It is fascinating. It also shows that the original idea of forcing many into ONE virtual world in the guise of a game is a unworkable idea.
Players self-select to go to the solo-friendly games. They self-select to go to the games with more tools and "less" community.
What is the lesson? Most don't care about community that much, as long as they have a few friends to play with. In fact, that is pretty obvious. Why would I care about a "massive" number of players when i don't even have time to play with 20?
Really. 99% of all your posts are either oversimplifying, with a trend to just wrong conclusions, or stating the obvious just to draw again somewhat ridiculus conclusions.
Usually it is really a waste of time to read your posts.. and even more a waste of time to reply to one of your posts.
I should really know it by now.. so shame on me. That i actually read once again one of your posts and replied. ;(
Edit/PS: This should not be a personal attack. And just out of curiosity, you do it on purpose? And if you do it on purpose, for what reason? And if not, how old are you? And what is your current occupation?
Of course.. you don't have to answer, or you can answer per pm.. just out of curiosity.
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
It is fascinating. It also shows that the original idea of forcing many into ONE virtual world in the guise of a game is a unworkable idea.
Players self-select to go to the solo-friendly games. They self-select to go to the games with more tools and "less" community.
What is the lesson? Most don't care about community that much, as long as they have a few friends to play with. In fact, that is pretty obvious. Why would I care about a "massive" number of players when i don't even have time to play with 20?
Really. 99% of all your posts are either oversimplifying, with a trend to just wrong conclusions, or stating the obvious just to draw again somewhat ridiculus conclusions.
Usually it is really a waste of time to read your posts.. and even more a waste of time to reply to one of your posts.
I should really know it by now.. so shame on me. That i actually read once again one of your posts and replied. ;(
Edit/PS: This should not be a personal attack. And just out of curiosity, you do it on purpose? And if you do it on purpose, for what reason? And if not, how old are you? And what is your current occupation?
Of course.. you don't have to answer, or you can answer per pm.. just out of curiosity.
Perhaps you should learn to listen to someone whom while not completely unbiased is farther along than yourself. Also drop the veiled insults, either learn to take a ban like a man or stick to the topic.
The new "thing" in MMO is artificially grouping people together.
MMO are no longer about dependency but about being able to solo on any class, at any level, and anywhere.
The result is that people don't talk, they don't form a community and most know no one on the server, at best they know their guild and that's about it.
In EQ, everyone knew each other on the server, we made our own groups, our own raids, we didn't need these bandaids.
MMO have truly become casual and excuses for multiplayer games, where the community is so incredibly weak that they are unable to form their own groups.
Are today's gamers looking to build online communities in these games, though? "Back in my day..." doesn't count because the world is different and people act, interact and communicate differently now. Public Quests, Rallying Calls and Dungeon Finders aren't a band-aid for a failed in-game community if neither the devs nor the players were looking for that in the first place. They are merely tools to accommodate how people play and don't interact now.
There, fixed it for you. The problem is, you youngens DON'T communicate and have no idea of what a real community really is. This, let me group, never say a word and never interact with these other people ever again isn't a community. It's a gaggle of individuals.
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by CalmOceans The new "thing" in MMO is artificially grouping people together.MMO are no longer about dependency but about being able to solo on any class, at any level, and anywhere.The result is that people don't talk, they don't form a community and most know no one on the server, at best they know their guild and that's about it.In EQ, everyone knew each other on the server, we made our own groups, our own raids, we didn't need these bandaids.MMO have truly become casual and excuses for multiplayer games, where the community is so incredibly weak that they are unable to form their own groups.
Are today's gamers looking to build online communities in these games, though? "Back in my day..." doesn't count because the world is different and people act, interact and communicate differently now. Public Quests, Rallying Calls and Dungeon Finders aren't a band-aid for a failed in-game community if neither the devs nor the players were looking for that in the first place. They are merely tools to accommodate how people play and interact now.
But is it because players changed, or because developement changed how we play?
If you put a frog in boiling water, it tries to jump out. If you put it in cold water and heats it to a boil... it stays.
And thats how the last generations of MMORPG "evolution" has gone. Slow removal of dependencied, both combat and out of combat, until we have todays situation... Community? wutz dat?
Both - devs tried something out and players responded positively to it and thus we have what we have
The new "thing" in MMO is artificially grouping people together.
MMO are no longer about dependency but about being able to solo on any class, at any level, and anywhere.
The result is that people don't talk, they don't form a community and most know no one on the server, at best they know their guild and that's about it.
In EQ, everyone knew each other on the server, we made our own groups, our own raids, we didn't need these bandaids.
MMO have truly become casual and excuses for multiplayer games, where the community is so incredibly weak that they are unable to form their own groups.
Are today's gamers looking to build online communities in these games, though? "Back in my day..." doesn't count because the world is different and people act, interact and communicate differently now. Public Quests, Rallying Calls and Dungeon Finders aren't a band-aid for a failed in-game community if neither the devs nor the players were looking for that in the first place. They are merely tools to accommodate how people play and don't interact now.
There, fixed it for you. The problem is, you youngens DON'T communicate and have no idea of what a real community really is. This, let me group, never say a word and never interact with these other people ever again isn't a community. It's a gaggle of individuals.
Most MMOs are not played by youngens (Unless you mean anyone under 50)
Actual young people are more socially connected now than ever before
Get off my lawn mentality is the exact mentality that causes terrible communities, like "play my way or you are playing it wrong".
Comments
GW1 was not trinity based - tanks had no taunt
GW1 did need healers for tougher encounters
EQ2 fan sites
It's because development changed in order to accommodate a different kind of players. "Back in the day" it was an effort to play MMO's - people had slow and very expensive connections, terrible machines: trouble when they had to render large groups of people etc. MMORPG players were rare and their options were not that open - few games, mostly the same style. Single player games were at their prime at that time. Now, when the Internet became something trivial, a new opportunity opened for the devs: to get the single player gamers in. Those people want to play MMO's but they want the games to be played the way they are used to: single player progress, in fact not having to depend on others.
This is taken to a whole new level now with the "no trinity" approaches, public quests, public events and everything like that. The illusion of grouping, that's what it is, while everyone having their own agendas. I avoid the games which have one or multiple of the above mentioned characteristics, because it's obvious where they will end up (i've seen it too many times already)
quest laden mmos have always had the illusion of "quest" grouping
games like WOW where people group for a quest for 15 minutes then disband are not any better for grouping
its been games like EQ1, DAOC where I saw groups stick together for hours at a time mob grinding
if gamers want mmos to be more group intensive -- it won't be because of quest mechanics
Personally I love public quests, its the best combination I know for mob grinding and questing
the flaws of grouping in quest based games:
players have little interest if they already did the quest or are on a different step of the quest
EQ2 fan sites
Rose tinted specs, remember sitting on the edge of various zones looking for around 30 minutes spamming general, Paladin LFG.. AA group etc.
Until that is, I got a KEI + avatar weapon and went off to solo some ice cave someplace for even better aaxp. This was planes of power era, stopped playing after major guilds prevented progression of the lesser ones by camping lower planes bosses to prevent keying.
Yes, but it is my personal preference.
It is also a huge exaggeration, since I've never waited more than 1 hour for any group in any game I played, but your experience might differ. And trying to find a solid group, or trying to get into a group in the best spot was actually a challenge in itself, and a very rewarding one. I felt satisfaction similar to that of defeating a boss. It was a part of gameplay to me. Also this encouraged me to join a guild, and since I'm an introvert, I wouldn't do it otherwise and miss out some fun.
In my opinion problem lies indeed in people, but not necessarily people are the solution. If I'm an introvert it is incredibly hard for me to make contact with other people in game and it is not something I can change easily. Saying that it is my fault and I should change my behavior is pretty stupid, since it is psychological issue and it is very hard if not impossible for people to change the way they are. If there is option to do something solo, I'll do it solo. When grouping is needed, then I'll be forced to do it, and it is nothing bad for me. I'll be happy that I got pushed to do it.
In short, people are introverts. If you want to make them socialize you need to force them, but it is not a bad thing for them, it helps. Trying to change people is much harder if not impossible, but changing game mechanics to fix their problems is effective.
The only problem lies in time. Games with mandatory grouping take a lot of time, so game for casual players will be automatically hard to socialize in for introverts.
The development of the tools Calmoceans mentions were really just to placate the solo players who felt that any time spent on their part trying to find a group and so on was an anathema. I am not saying I have never got anything good out of those tools, I have, they can do their job no question.
But they do point out what has happened to the community in MMOs. And that in turn points to why the baulk of players leave after two months. You don't have a community in solo games, so we can hardly expect the modern 'easymode solo MMO' model to cater for it in any way.
Indeed those tools which were seen as an empowerment of the individual player have weakened the community. This has a parallel in real life societies in fact, which I find quite fascinating.
stuck in the past much?
well i guess your opinion is as good as any and i agree with the casualisation
i am a firm supporter of the ability to solo but it needs to be more difficult
i hate trinity and i hate forced grouping
well its not like you asked any other opinions, you just stated yours like its a fact
Yeap. the shift to more VOIP is one reason. Another one is the typical zone/world chats.. 99% of what is said there does not interest you in any way and is far away.. therefore a lot of people pay not that much attention to chat channels.
If you would come back to ranged based chatting, like whisper (just hear what is absolutely near by you), say (is around you and in line of sight) and yell (is around you and in line of sight) you would filter out all those communication not belongingn to you. That you can have additionally zone/trade and whatever chat is another story.. but even then i do not see a lot of purpose in it and will be exploited from gold spammers, or spammers generally. Why not go back to just Whisper/Say/Yell and additionally Send/Guild/alliance.. whereas Alliance can be a bit more than a actual alliance of guilds, but as much as for a faction in a warzone.. with other words a new kind of zone chat.. but just in zones where there is a reason to talk to all players around.. and this channel should be able to be more moderateable.. like to call a leader or officers with additonal rights.
Additionally whisper/say/yell could also be implemented via VOIP.
And about Public Quests.. i would say that Public Quests do support community more than work against it. Much more are Quests/Heart Quests or whatever you call them are more a curse for group play.. especially if you can level from 1 to endlevel only with single player quests.
But nevertheless the chat system really needs an overhaul.
Why would being an MMO matter? If a game has good grouping without the trinity, it has good grouping without the trinity. His example isn't invalid just because you "don't play on playstation".
Many class-based FPSes (TF2, Natural Selection), MOBAs (LoL), and Puzzle Pirates all have great grouping without the trinity, and their roles could easily exist in an MMO (and well, PP is an MMO.) It's ridiculously close-minded to suggest that just because a game exists outside your preference or experience that the examples are invalid.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I used to think I knew exactly what I want in games but now after so many years Everquest being my first MMO I am conflicted. I'm a lazy person in all my years of playing even when I played a wizard in EQ I have never formed a group. I queue up for groups like in EQ it was how it was in dungeons or friends invited me. When I played WoW I was a healer and people who had grouped with me would invite me ,same for EQ 2,LotRO and City of X too. I have never made an effort to form a group nor take any responsibility for how to proceed someone else always did that. So when I had to stand about waiting because no one was inviting me when a game like Vanguard got sparse with other players you do not get invites because the game had so few players I was lost.
Then the auto lfd started and I thought hey great idea but when I noticed how people hardly talked that no one even answered me when I did, I realised what I had lost without ever appreciating it. In real life I talk a lot and I make friends very easily and yes in random zone chat I talk a lot too but it is not the same as sitting in a camp in Guk waiting for a pull and chatting. Of course people will say "I am not playing an MMO for a chatroom go find a chatroom for that". You are right I guess.
I do not know what has lead to the current situation and I suspect many things contributed to it and I do not think we can actually know it because we were not playing every single game simultaneously during these past 15 years or longer to quantify and I suspect it is far more complex than what is suggested here.
Thinking back the last games where community was strong was Everquest, DAoC, FFXI, EQ 2, LotRO, Vanilla WoW and City of X on certain servers . I did not play AC ,SWG or UO for any length of time to add them but from what I have read they are those that had them too. If I left any out it is because I did not play them or forgot them am getting old
Guilds are the tools now .The guild I joined for FFXIV ARR wants me to be on mumble even when I am not talking all the time I am on playing. Difficult to find guilds that do not require this. How do you change this ? You cannot force it nor make a game that forces grouping it will fail in this climate unless you are prepared for a niche population of 50 k. Adapt I guess what else is there . Of course we can discuss this but developers aren't looking to recreate Everquest ,it is not going to generate enough revenue. It's a pipedream to think it will ever go back to those days. We have to make it work with what we have now the VOIP being the most used. We must learn to use it and build communities with it. Some games have it built in although LOtRO was piss poor and worked badly other games could come up with better ones.I guess this is the future and then VR will change everything again.
You can never go home so now we must learn how to go on with what we have and since we cannot affect change because the genre has marched on and the hardcore EQ people are a small minority and since we do not have the market's ear we must learn to use the tools we have now to form communities. I think we need threads to come up with ideas to suggest to the games coming out to help us form communities. No point dwelling on the past and recriminations.
But is it because players changed, or because developement changed how we play?
If you put a frog in boiling water, it tries to jump out. If you put it in cold water and heats it to a boil... it stays.
And thats how the last generations of MMORPG "evolution" has gone. Slow removal of dependencied, both combat and out of combat, until we have todays situation... Community? wutz dat?
You are giving developers too much credit for being evil geniuses. What they do is largely a response to the players. The initial MMORPG audience was a million or less people. Now it's in the many millions of people. Different audience, different games.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Yeh, because he is angry that others don't have the same preference as his.
It is fascinating. It also shows that the original idea of forcing many into ONE virtual world in the guise of a game is a unworkable idea.
Players self-select to go to the solo-friendly games. They self-select to go to the games with more tools and "less" community.
What is the lesson? Most don't care about community that much, as long as they have a few friends to play with. In fact, that is pretty obvious. Why would I care about a "massive" number of players when i don't even have time to play with 20?
heh its not an exaggeration if you played final fantasy 11
How can you say player self select when ALL games coming out have suffered from the convenience creep? Most of those games failed to hold player and subscriptions and have to supported by cash shops that only a minority players actually use.
Obviously not all.
Back in the WOW days, WOW is the first one who is more solo-friendly. It stole EQ's audience quite fast.
And even today, there are games like DarkFall or Eve which are not solo-friendly. The huge amount of lopsided choice for games other than those obviously push less and less development into non-solo-friendly games, but the self-selection is still there.
You can go play Darkfall and Eve, can you? That is a choice and a selection, by definition.
And what does holding player has anything to do with this? Player want solo-friend and variety .. hence solo-friend games and players hop around. It is a fallacy to think that games need to be long.
I thought this might be a veiled thread about forced grouping and it did not disappoint.
Forced grouping is lame. If I want to group in a modern MMO, I have no trouble grouping. I group up when I want to, on my terms. This allows me to pick and choose who I group with. If I find myself in a horrible group, I can go do some solo quests and try grouping another day. In the forced grouping scenario, I was stuck with the horrible group because otherwise I couldn't progress.
I feel like the ones advocating for forced grouping are actually these horrible group players who find themselves ejected from groups and gain a reputation as a bad group player.
Please tell us more about how the lack of trinity-based PvE grinds kills community, that's really a subject we need to explore further.
While you're at it perhaps you could shed some more light on how casualization destroys the soul of the MMO genre, how catering to solo players is the work of the devil, and how anyone not ageeeing with you is a brainwashed lemming.
Thanks.
Really. 99% of all your posts are either oversimplifying, with a trend to just wrong conclusions, or stating the obvious just to draw again somewhat ridiculus conclusions.
Usually it is really a waste of time to read your posts.. and even more a waste of time to reply to one of your posts.
I should really know it by now.. so shame on me. That i actually read once again one of your posts and replied. ;(
Edit/PS: This should not be a personal attack. And just out of curiosity, you do it on purpose? And if you do it on purpose, for what reason? And if not, how old are you? And what is your current occupation?
Of course.. you don't have to answer, or you can answer per pm.. just out of curiosity.
Perhaps you should learn to listen to someone whom while not completely unbiased is farther along than yourself. Also drop the veiled insults, either learn to take a ban like a man or stick to the topic.
There, fixed it for you. The problem is, you youngens DON'T communicate and have no idea of what a real community really is. This, let me group, never say a word and never interact with these other people ever again isn't a community. It's a gaggle of individuals.
Are today's gamers looking to build online communities in these games, though? "Back in my day..." doesn't count because the world is different and people act, interact and communicate differently now. Public Quests, Rallying Calls and Dungeon Finders aren't a band-aid for a failed in-game community if neither the devs nor the players were looking for that in the first place. They are merely tools to accommodate how people play and interact now.
But is it because players changed, or because developement changed how we play?
If you put a frog in boiling water, it tries to jump out. If you put it in cold water and heats it to a boil... it stays.
And thats how the last generations of MMORPG "evolution" has gone. Slow removal of dependencied, both combat and out of combat, until we have todays situation... Community? wutz dat?
Both - devs tried something out and players responded positively to it and thus we have what we haveMost MMOs are not played by youngens (Unless you mean anyone under 50)
Actual young people are more socially connected now than ever before
Get off my lawn mentality is the exact mentality that causes terrible communities, like "play my way or you are playing it wrong".