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MMO's Antisocial?
plat0nic
Member Posts: 301
Isn't that an oxymoron?
..as said by Wildstar dev: "And solo players are tragically underserved in most MMOs – something like 65% of players tend to play largely solo (Massively Single-player, as it were)."
http://www.wildstar-online.com/uk/ne...f_the_game.php
How do you feel about more people tend to play solo in MMO? Tbh, I dont know where he get that info from, but surely not out of the blue sky.
Main Game: Eldevin (Plat0nic)
2nd Game: Path of Exile (Platonic Hate)
Comments
People play how they want, that is what makes an MMO an MMO.
Well, he probably does have a wealth of real data at his fingertips, but it could also be very subjective.
Personally, I play a LOT of the content solo, especially story content. Reason being, that MMOs really haven't made it compelling to group for any reason other than to defeat content you can't complete on your own. In fact, they go out of their way to gimp people by reducing overall experience gains. I understand that if there are 5 people and some mob gives 100xp, it's logical to split that 5 ways, but I can usually pick up 4, 5, 6, 10 mobs on my own, spend 1.5 or 2 times the amount of time to kill them and get all the experience. So, from a leveling perspective, there's no real advantage, unless you have a group of people who can really clear like crazy, but even then you spend 80% of your time looking for new mobs.
Apart from content where you're actually forced to group (like battlegrounds or dungeons or raids) what advantage do most games give you?
Crazkanuk
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I think a very few, is one or the other 100% of the time. I have yet to meet somebody who only groups and never solo's or vice versa. They either play with a balance maybe leaning more towards one or the other playstyles.
Because of that there should be enough room for both playstyles in any good MMO
As to being anti social. MMO's are an escape from real life. If you want to escape real life for a moment, chances are that involves people as well.
I don't think it's a question of forcing players to group as much as possible. But I'd say that any MMORPG who wanted to have a staying power and do justice to the 'RPG' term should promote the presence of diverse networks of interdependency among players from its very design. Very specially on the political, strategic and economic areas.
Most of MMORPG nowadays fail in this sense because they 'isolate' the players in a tunnel-vision experience, providing with compartments - usually directed from a lobby - to have the 'social' experience (one should say the 'grouping' experience though...). And even on these terms these games fail to provide with a sufficient degree of functionality to feel satisfactory and sustainable on the long run; being the former usually limited to combat, an AH, a crafting minigame and, in the best of cases, more minigames.
Last and in response to another poster above: Funny you say that, heard news of a sociological study that stated that people that tend to be social irl, tend to be social online. My own experience confirms it.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Most people play solo most of the time. This was true in GW1 and Eve according to Arenanet and CCP.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I believe that the general attitudes of MMO players influence the game and not vice versa. Game mechanics cannot force people to be social. Really.
It's funny that people equate solo players with being anti-social but they have no proof that soloers are less friendly than any other player subdivision. Show me the data.
What about the guilds that only group and talk among themselves or others on their so called "status level". They completely ignore the rest of the game population except to take their money in an auction house. Can one consider them to be a big antisocial solo group?
GW2 does a nice job with the solo but kinda sorta grouped game play.. I think this is a trend we will see more of in the future. People want to play solo in a persistent world and be able to chat with guildmates/friends as well as accomplish more things.
The interesting thing about mmos is it feels more 'real' then single player games even if you are playing solo - likely because you can later use those accomplishments in your group. For example my g/f will craft alot of stuff and then send them to me or use them on her her characters.
So players are often alone but still working for a team. It's much more powerful then single player only games IMHO - and if done right can really grow the industry. Developers like Carbine, Blizzardd and Arenanet show some signs of 'getting it' But for every step forward like GW2 - there are several steps back (FFXIV). Now if you play FFXIV you know they randomnly make you ungroup and prevent random passer bys from help you with their 'duty' quests.
Now in theory this is to make the game harder - but in reality it just makes it seem stupid. Some monster is beating on a fellow adventurer - I should be able to step in and help.
Now most players here are obsessed with the idea that MMOs are failing because they don't force grouing. In reality, they aren't failing when they don't suck - and forcing grouping isn't a ticket to success. Ironically, listening to 'fans' is about the worst thing an MMO can do. They need to listen to their own data and make intelligent game design decisions. Because letting fans design your game is stupid.
Working together is a great way to gate higher level content - but allowing solo or duo play where you can help the larger team in your own ways is a very important part of successfull MMOs.
I'm not really sure why it matters so much that others play solo. They have no real effect on me or my game while they do it. I think what's important is that the game provides things for groups to do and that it somehow rewards group play while letting those people play how they want.
Forcing people to be social or group when they just want to solo has always seemed silly to me. I don't want to play with people who only group to get what they want done then drop group and leave.
MMOs are imo long past the point of being group only games though. And people don't just play them to be social with others all the time.
It can be subjective to you of whether playing solo is a "good" thing. But statistics is not subject. If he indeed has data saying 65% of players (whatever the sample is) playing largely (with some rigorous definition, like 90% of the play-time) solo, then 65% of the players largely playing solo, no ifs and buts.
I think it depends on the game. If the game emphasize its contents & gameplay on group play, the players will do that.
A good example is the good ol' Ragnarok, you hardly can solo the game all the way to level cap, even starting from lower level areas you're encouraged to party up with other players.
Games nowadays, however, doesn't emphasize on that. Developers know that people prefer to play solo if it's possible, so they provide their game as soloable as possible. This leads to themepark mmorpgs. They may force players to do some party play such as world boss or story quest that requires you to clear a dungeon, but that's all. Endgame is different though, as most of endgame stuff in mmorpgs requires you to party up. However, the recent trend of LFG tools really killed the social aspect of party play. People tend to ignore other member because of the randomness.
MMO's started out being very social. In fact it was a way for a lot of nerds to have friends and do things together. It wasn't till WoW brung the genre to mainstream soccer moms and console kiddies that the genre has changed to be largely solo able. In my opinion that hasn't been for the best, but I am not making a living off the games either.
In my MMO dreams I would go back to the beginning and thats where the genre stayed. The WoW crowd could have made their own genre. Sure there wouldn't have been soo many MMO's made. That would have been a good thing in my book since every new MMO is crap piled with more crap.
Its called Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game
Not Massively Solo, Multiplayer Dungeon Game
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Thats true and it's unfortunate because I'm a fairly anti social person. I don't hate people, but I'm not thrilled about interacting. MMOs forced you to interact to at least some degree. You may not have had to group, but you usually had to ask for help, ports to different places, buffs, trading with people, advice, camp check, etc. Now you don't have to do any of that on top of not having to group to fight. It's not like most of those things took much time or effort either. They have just been removed by things like the auction house, fast travel, lfg tools, simplification of buffing systems, etc.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1588672538/pantheon-rise-of-the-fallen
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
It's not called Massively 'never solo' Multiplayer Online Roleplaying game either.
I'd hate for you to start reading any religious books. You may start taking them too literally
You could solo in Everquest, there was not one old school mmo where you could not solo
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
"I'm not really sure why it matters so much that others play solo. They have no real effect on me or my game while they do it. I think what's important is that the game provides things for groups to do and that it somehow rewards group play while letting those people play how they want."
It does matter. Solo players provide color for the world - so you don't feel ike you are playing alone - and if you need some players there to help you with some content they help. I switched to a crowded server in GW2 because I wanted more people around.
Getting those solo players to play really helps your game - not just finacially but socially for the players who want to be social too. Think of it like dating.. Sure everyone wants a hot date but if you knew that everyone at the bar had one you likely wouldn't want to go out as much.. While being single might not be as much fun - its a good thing singles exist.
Maybe PvP-focused ones, otherwise I'd say they were asocial.
I am very social when playing MMORPGs... just not in-game. I am usually voice chatting with at least a couple of RL friends and/or family while I play, which is a lot more meaningful and interesting than typing into a chat box to some player I have never met before and whom I'm never, ever likely to encounter again. Most people who comment on the "anti-social" aspect just don't think it through enough and rather simplistically assume people who don't interact with other players are simply anti-social, period.
The other reason I may not appear very social in MMORPGs (mentioned in another thread tonight, oddly) is that as a male who is classed as 'old' I do NOT want to start chatting to what may turn out to be a young kid - it would be far too easy these days to be accused of being an internet predator and, frankly, I would be creeped out myself if I heard of an older man who chats to kids online. That's the times we live in, folks, sadly! Better safe than sorry.