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Reasons OTHER than social for playing MMORPGs

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  • AlBQuirkyAlBQuirky Member EpicPosts: 7,432

    Social
    1. pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations: a social club.
    2. seeking or enjoying the companionship of others; friendly; sociable; gregarious.
    3. of, pertaining to, connected with, or suited to polite or fashionable society: a social event.
    4. living or disposed to live in companionship with others or in a community, rather than in isolation: People are social beings.
    5. of or pertaining to human society, especially as a body divided into classes according to status: social rank.

    Interacting with others is being social, be it PvP, selling goods in Auction Houses, showing off to others, beating an e-peen chest, fame, even being alone in a crowed is social. Seeking praise, fear, adulation, advice, envy from others is social.

    If a player turns off their chat box, goes where no players are, and plays the game, then they are not looking for social contact.

    [EDIT]
    Forgot to say: With that being said, crafting (depending on how it is implemented and the reasons for doing it) and exploration are 2 "not as social" activities that come to mind.

    Crafting is "iffy" if one depends upon others for help with materials, if they are making items to sell to other players, or seek to be "the best" on the server. If a player crafts just for the activity, for personal character development, or improving their own character, then it is not as social.

    - Al

    Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.
    - FARGIN_WAR


  • JemcrystalJemcrystal Member UncommonPosts: 1,983
    Originally posted by rojo6934

    i play solo on mmorpgs that support solo gameplay.

    With that said, i definitely prefer that mmorpgs focus their development on massively multiplayer content. A chat box is enough for a game to be social, but when the actual content requires teamwork to succeed in the open world (not just instanced stuff) then people will work together.

     

    SInce solo players obviously dont care about interacting with non-solo players, i would suggest to have them separated by servers. One server for all the solo players to play how they want and multiplayer servers for the rest. Each with their different rulesets (pvp / pve / rp).

    Question stands is that feasible?  Just how many of these mmorpg "solo" players would fill up a server?  Ten, fifteen, hundred and two?  It's just not worthwhile if the 95% of mmorpg gamers are the interactive socialites.  I'm guessing.  Add to that the reason people are solo playing might be solved with better dungeons, raids, less trolling, or rewarding group quests and activities.  Note I am not derogating the true blue soloist.  I don't have a problem with solo players.



  • ErnzelErnzel Member Posts: 15
    The reason is the fact that MMOs are video games. Socializing can be done without playing games obviously, so the only reason to play an MMOs is to socialize WHILE playing a video game.
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by AlBQuirky

    Crafting is "iffy" if one depends upon others for help with materials, if they are making items to sell to other players, or seek to be "the best" on the server. If a player crafts just for the activity, for personal character development, or improving their own character, then it is not as social.

    Even if you buy and sell materials & finished craft items, it does not have to be social if you do it through an AH.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by AvsRock21
    There's really only one reason why I play "massively" multiplayer games; pvp. I love realm vs realm or faction/guild/corporation based large-scale pvp. But sometimes I also enjoy large scale PvE in the form of raids, but that's hard to come by these days. And PvE is almost always too easy, even if it's large-scale. So I mostly just play for PvP.

    You found WOW hard mode 25 man raid "too easy"?

    Can you show me your raid progression achievements? They must be awesome. DO you have any world first?

    Never understood this. Who gives a shit.

    People who care about  stat board placement, server 1sts, raid progression stats are sad IMO.

    Those who don't believe people who claims raids are easy?

    If raids is so easy for AvsRock21, shouldn't he has some of that to show that it is indeed true? It is essentially a lie detector. I think he is just making it up, and he can't do any of those raids.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by rojo6934

     

    SInce solo players obviously dont care about interacting with non-solo players, i would suggest to have them separated by servers. One server for all the solo players to play how they want and multiplayer servers for the rest. Each with their different rulesets (pvp / pve / rp).

    That is not true.

    "Solo" most of the time means solo-questing or combat.

    Most "solo" players of this kind still trades on AH, and show off gear at cities. You can't do it without others. You don't have to play/social with them to interact.

  • AlBQuirkyAlBQuirky Member EpicPosts: 7,432


    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by AlBQuirky
    Crafting is "iffy" if one depends upon others for help with materials, if they are making items to sell to other players, or seek to be "the best" on the server. If a player crafts just for the activity, for personal character development, or improving their own character, then it is not as social.
    Even if you buy and sell materials & finished craft items, it does not have to be social if you do it through an AH.
    But your are seeking out other players to purchase the items, though it may not be a "virtual" face to face encounter. You adjust prices so that "other players" will buy your items over other players. You seek out items listed by other players for purchase. You are not visiting NPC merchants.

    Now, if you craft to improve your own character only, with no thought about seeking other players to buy or sell, than I can see crafting being non-social. As soon as you seek interaction (buy/sell) with other players, it becomes social.

    Am I making sense?

    - Al

    Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.
    - FARGIN_WAR


  • Attend4455Attend4455 Member Posts: 161
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Some seems to think that socialization is the ONLY reason for playing MMOs for everyone. That is clearly not true. I am a good counter example. In addition, since most MMO support solo-ing, and solo-ing is quite popular, it shows that many do play MMO not to social.

    So this thread is created to clear that up and list all the OTHER reasons why one want to play MMOs, instead of a single player game.

    Here is my some reasons i have observed.

    - Trading on AH. You cannot do that on single player games.

    - Unique settings. There are quite a few settings that you just cannot get from SP games. In fact, i would play those MMOs as SP games. Example. STO. There is no Star Trek (TNG era) RPG aside from this one game. TSW is another good example. It is hard to find a RPG with a modern conspiracy setting. There are many more like Marvel Heroes (granted you can get almost the same thing in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and i do prefer MUA over MH .. but i finished MUA. So i have no alternative but MH)

    - PvP (Obviously, and you don't need to social to pvp)

    - Showing off and compare gear. Progression means more when you can show it off. The fact that wowprogress, wow-hero, and similar "show off" cites are so popular shows that this is one reason. Gearscore is used by almost every WOW player for a reason.

    - There is some people argue that people like to be alone in a crowd. That is not my reason, but certainly it is a preference and i will not write it off just because i don't have that preference.

    Any other reasons?

     

    I think your first paragraph is a classic example of non sequiters and disjointed reasoning.

    I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone

  • KaledrenKaledren Member UncommonPosts: 312
    Originally posted by greenreen
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by AvsRock21
    There's really only one reason why I play "massively" multiplayer games; pvp. I love realm vs realm or faction/guild/corporation based large-scale pvp. But sometimes I also enjoy large scale PvE in the form of raids, but that's hard to come by these days. And PvE is almost always too easy, even if it's large-scale. So I mostly just play for PvP.

    You found WOW hard mode 25 man raid "too easy"?

    Can you show me your raid progression achievements? They must be awesome. DO you have any world first?

    Never understood this. Who gives a shit.

    People who care about  stat board placement, server 1sts, raid progression stats are sad IMO.

    It makes a guild stand out when recruiting to say they have some competitive players.  I think that helps sell them when they have something under their belt they can use to recruit. Back in Rift I got some staff drop that was uber and we were doing progression groups. People would regularly ask me about the staff then follow up and ask if our guild was recruiting. Competent people want to find others and lazy people want someone competent to do the work for them so it suits different types of onlookers.

    Guild recruiting can be challenging, you never have to spam when people come to you to ask to get inside. I think that's partly why leaders want to push for firsts or best in x because it advertises for them without effort. They call that "winning" hehe

    I get what you are saying. My initial comment was more for the individual, or the elitist types who think they are better than everyone else.

    I started a Guild in EQ1 well into the games release. By the time I started it, there were already several large and well known Guilds established. Within 2 months I had 300+ members. It wasn't because we downed the Sleeper, or any other big raid boss...nor had ANY server 1sts. It was because we were built around being friendly, helpful, and had constant events to entertain and reward the members.

    Like races with lvl 1 characters through higher lvl zones while drunk, winner got a prize. Gnomeball (As I called it)...where the Guild went to an arena, decided on two opposite walls as the goal, killed a lvl 1 alt gnome and gave everyone permission to drag the corpse...then it was basically soccer with 2 teams...but anything went. We had fireworks displays and constant buff stations for low levels, as well as games for prizes for low levels not in the Guild, etc.

     

    Anyways...things were different then too. Sure, there were still elitist Guilds...but  we did our own thing and thrived. =)

  • xeniarxeniar Member UncommonPosts: 805
    Originally posted by Jemcrystal
    Originally posted by rojo6934

    i play solo on mmorpgs that support solo gameplay.

    With that said, i definitely prefer that mmorpgs focus their development on massively multiplayer content. A chat box is enough for a game to be social, but when the actual content requires teamwork to succeed in the open world (not just instanced stuff) then people will work together.

     

    SInce solo players obviously dont care about interacting with non-solo players, i would suggest to have them separated by servers. One server for all the solo players to play how they want and multiplayer servers for the rest. Each with their different rulesets (pvp / pve / rp).

    Question stands is that feasible?  Just how many of these mmorpg "solo" players would fill up a server?  Ten, fifteen, hundred and two?  It's just not worthwhile if the 95% of mmorpg gamers are the interactive socialites.  I'm guessing.  Add to that the reason people are solo playing might be solved with better dungeons, raids, less trolling, or rewarding group quests and activities.  Note I am not derogating the true blue soloist.  I don't have a problem with solo players.

    So let me get this right. you say 5% of the population in current mmo's are pure soloists like narius (trading on an AH is a solo action it might as well be baught by npc's your not interacting with anyone unless you whisper them). So why are all the current MMO's designed to be solo trough leveling. the entire group thing only plays a roll at the endgame trough raids or pvp BG's. why are games not designed by having groups pretty much mandatory if that 95% of the playerbase truelly wants to group up/ it does not add up in the slightest.

  • xeniarxeniar Member UncommonPosts: 805
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by greenreen
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by AvsRock21
    There's really only one reason why I play "massively" multiplayer games; pvp. I love realm vs realm or faction/guild/corporation based large-scale pvp. But sometimes I also enjoy large scale PvE in the form of raids, but that's hard to come by these days. And PvE is almost always too easy, even if it's large-scale. So I mostly just play for PvP.

    You found WOW hard mode 25 man raid "too easy"?

    Can you show me your raid progression achievements? They must be awesome. DO you have any world first?

    Never understood this. Who gives a shit.

    People who care about  stat board placement, server 1sts, raid progression stats are sad IMO.

    It makes a guild stand out when recruiting to say they have some competitive players.  I think that helps sell them when they have something under their belt they can use to recruit. Back in Rift I got some staff drop that was uber and we were doing progression groups. People would regularly ask me about the staff then follow up and ask if our guild was recruiting. Competent people want to find others and lazy people want someone competent to do the work for them so it suits different types of onlookers.

    Guild recruiting can be challenging, you never have to spam when people come to you to ask to get inside. I think that's partly why leaders want to push for firsts or best in x because it advertises for them without effort. They call that "winning" hehe

    I get what you are saying. My initial comment was more for the individual, or the elitist types who think they are better than everyone else.

    I started a Guild in EQ1 well into the games release. By the time I started it, there were already several large and well known Guilds established. Within 2 months I had 300+ members. It wasn't because we downed the Sleeper, or any other big raid boss...nor had ANY server 1sts. It was because we were built around being friendly, helpful, and had constant events to entertain and reward the members.

    Like races with lvl 1 characters through higher lvl zones while drunk, winner got a prize. Gnomeball (As I called it)...where the Guild went to an arena, decided on two opposite walls as the goal, killed a lvl 1 alt gnome and gave everyone permission to drag the corpse...then it was basically soccer with 2 teams...but anything went. We had fireworks displays and constant buff stations for low levels, as well as games for prizes for low levels nto in the Guild, etc.

     

    Anyways...things were different then too. Sure, there were still elitist Guilds...but  we did our own thing and thrived. =)

    man i miss that kind of stuff. :(

  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    It is just another form of entertainment that also allows me to think without costing me too much money.At my age i can no longer player sports every night of the week and still expect to get up for work so gaming is a nice easy relaxing way to be entertained.

    Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by Attend4455

    I think your first paragraph is a classic example of non sequiters and disjointed reasoning.

    I'd ding it for leading with his conclusion and using 'social' as a verb...yes, it's a messy opener, for shore.

    Don't make the topic worthless to examine, necessarily.

    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.

  • JaedorJaedor Member UncommonPosts: 1,173

    IMO anything involving another player is "social" including PvP, the AH and fame. Without other people, those circumstances and the variables within them that produce a challenge or fun would not exist.


    I stopped played single player games several years ago when I realized that all the cool things I'd discovered could not be shared with anyone else.

  • djazzydjazzy Member Posts: 3,578

    Correct, the only reason to play mmorps is to play and/or be social with other people.

    mmorpgs are terrible games if you play it alone

  • KaledrenKaledren Member UncommonPosts: 312
    Originally posted by djazzy

    Correct, the only reason to play mmorps is to play and/or be social with other people.

    mmorpgs are terrible games if you play it alone

    Not for those that like soloing...and when the MMORPG is made like a single player game allowing the player to get to cap solo. This is why I feel MMORPG's have de-evolved...because most allow that ability now, while taking away more and more of the reasons to group or be sociable at all....which is what set MMORPG's apart from single player games to begin with as a unique gaming field.

     

     

  • czombieczombie Member Posts: 82
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by djazzy

    Correct, the only reason to play mmorps is to play and/or be social with other people.

    mmorpgs are terrible games if you play it alone

    Not for those that like soloing...and when the MMORPG is made like a single player game allowing the player to get to cap solo. This is why I feel MMORPG's have de-evolved...because most allow that ability now, while taking away more and more of the reasons to group or be sociable at all....which is what set MMORPG's apart from single player games to begin with as a unique gaming field.

     

     

    I prefer to solo myself and be anti-social, while having the choice to be social if I happen to be in the mood.  I don't have a problem with MMO's having incentives to be social, such as game bonuses for being in guilds, but I don't think MMO's should *mandate* that players have to group.  To me this takes away a lot of freedom from the genre.  It also makes the game nearly unplayable if a server is underpopulated.

  • djazzydjazzy Member Posts: 3,578
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by djazzy

    Correct, the only reason to play mmorps is to play and/or be social with other people.

    mmorpgs are terrible games if you play it alone

    Not for those that like soloing...and when the MMORPG is made like a single player game allowing the player to get to cap solo. This is why I feel MMORPG's have de-evolved...because most allow that ability now, while taking away more and more of the reasons to group or be sociable at all....which is what set MMORPG's apart from single player games to begin with as a unique gaming field.

     

     

    Right but there are other people in the world playing along side you. While not exactly like a group it still has the feeling of that you are playing with real live people. I don't see much wrong with that, not everything has to be forced.

    No, what I'm talking about is if there is absolutely no one else about. Play an mmo that has been out for a while. When you are in an leveling area, mid level areas are the worst for this, and there is no one else there, that makes for a terrible experience. A single player game is much, much preferable to that.

    But what I do enjoy is that while I'm playing, while I'm out in the world, that there are other people out there. It makes for a more alive experience.

    I will say that I don't get that experience from group instances or raiding. That is too much of a lobby game experience that I don't feel connected to any sort of online world.

  • KaledrenKaledren Member UncommonPosts: 312
    Originally posted by djazzy
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by djazzy

    Correct, the only reason to play mmorps is to play and/or be social with other people.

    mmorpgs are terrible games if you play it alone

    Not for those that like soloing...and when the MMORPG is made like a single player game allowing the player to get to cap solo. This is why I feel MMORPG's have de-evolved...because most allow that ability now, while taking away more and more of the reasons to group or be sociable at all....which is what set MMORPG's apart from single player games to begin with as a unique gaming field.

     

     

    Right but there are other people in the world playing along side you. While not exactly like a group it still has the feeling of that you are playing with real live people. I don't see much wrong with that, not everything has to be forced.

    No, what I'm talking about is if there is absolutely no one else about. Play an mmo that has been out for a while. When you are in an leveling area, mid level areas are the worst for this, and there is no one else there, that makes for a terrible experience. A single player game is much, much preferable to that.

    But what I do enjoy is that while I'm playing, while I'm out in the world, that there are other people out there. It makes for a more alive experience.

    I will say that I don't get that experience from group instances or raiding. That is too much of a lobby game experience that I don't feel connected to any sort of online world.

    I never said anything about forcing grouping. Just that MMORPG's are WAY more solo friendly now, and continue to add things of that nature while detracting things for grouping, or not adding things as well that promote or encourage grouping.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by djazzy

    Correct, the only reason to play mmorps is to play and/or be social with other people.

    mmorpgs are terrible games if you play it alone

    Obviously wrong.

    Did you actually read the topic? Many have listed many reasons OTHER than social for playing MMORPGs.

    Those may not be your reasons, but you can't deny those are reasons for others.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Kaledren
     

    I never said anything about forcing grouping. Just that MMORPG's are WAY more solo friendly now, and continue to add things of that nature while detracting things for grouping, or not adding things as well that promote or encourage grouping.

    Didn't the list of reasons OTHER than social explains the trend of solo-friendly MMOs? Obviously many players don't play MMOs for groups or social, but one of these other reasons.

    I don't see why MMO devs need to promote groupings when the preferences for OTHER types of interactions are there.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Jaedor

    IMO anything involving another player is "social" including PvP, the AH and fame. Without other people, those circumstances and the variables within them that produce a challenge or fun would not exist.

     

    It is just a matter of semantics. Many here use "social" to mean "talking to other players", and "grouping" to some extent.

    If you want to be precise, you can change socials to "talking, chating with other players", "grouping for pve content".

    Clearly, pvp and AH requires none of those.

     

  • KaledrenKaledren Member UncommonPosts: 312
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Kaledren
     

    I never said anything about forcing grouping. Just that MMORPG's are WAY more solo friendly now, and continue to add things of that nature while detracting things for grouping, or not adding things as well that promote or encourage grouping.

    Didn't the list of reasons OTHER than social explains the trend of solo-friendly MMOs? Obviously many players don't play MMOs for groups or social, but one of these other reasons.

    I don't see why MMO devs need to promote groupings when the preferences for OTHER types of interactions are there.

    Gee let's see ....maybe because it offers more options?

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Kaledren
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Kaledren
     

    I never said anything about forcing grouping. Just that MMORPG's are WAY more solo friendly now, and continue to add things of that nature while detracting things for grouping, or not adding things as well that promote or encourage grouping.

    Didn't the list of reasons OTHER than social explains the trend of solo-friendly MMOs? Obviously many players don't play MMOs for groups or social, but one of these other reasons.

    I don't see why MMO devs need to promote groupings when the preferences for OTHER types of interactions are there.

    Gee let's see ....maybe because it offers more options?

    Why would "promote" groupings offers more options? The grouping options are already there?

     

  • Mr_MechanicalMr_Mechanical Member Posts: 88

    To OP:

    ... nothing, nevermind.

     

    To everyone else:

    There is nothing wrong with playing MMORPGs for the social aspect and experiences they were created to provide us with.   The op just really has some kind of anxiety or social difficulty if he/she cannot see the benefit in positive experiences shared with others.  

    Please do not think for one moment that you have to entertain the notion that "most mmorpg players" play to have the best gear score to show off to the other people that have the same gear score whom you don't affiliate with except for this one reason.

    I think this is incredibly unreasonable, and I forever wonder why people like this don't just go to the corner arcade and play some Street Fighter to get their teenage-angst out, instead of demanding it from the MMORPG genre.

This discussion has been closed.