Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
MMORPG Generation shift. Google it?
TENTING
Member UncommonPosts: 262
When I began my adventures with MMORPGs, I started out with DaoC and EQ1, it was a brief time with those games, then EQ2 was on the way at the same time as WoW and it was pure coincidence that I landed in WoW and just kind of stuck with that since.
Now the threads about MMORPGs that once was and what is now are plenty enough and many things are said and debated.
What I do remember from the past though, was that people did not have to register and make applications to guilds to become members.
Was no voicechats.
No Discord and the like.
And nobody ever responded with a "Google it" when people asked for advice whether it was in public chat channels in a game or inside their guilds.
Now it can be near impossible to communicate when joining a new guild, without running face first into a handful of "Google it" "Google is your friend" or "<insert random website> linked here", often with no other words of communication.
I am not saying everybody is like that, but the people who are very fond of google and seems to believe that it is the best way to help other people, rather than spending a few extra minutes typing a few advices out, they seem to have become increasingly more common over the years.
I am however in no position to pass judgement on a group of people, who communicate and engage with other people this way, new eras provide new things and people are under influence of how the world change.
I will say though, I have started to believe that the reason we can not return to how things once was, is because a lot of people themselves will not spend the extra time on typing things to each other in a game. Making friends and mingle that way.
Or am I wrong?
(Yes I know somebody will tell me to google it, and then I can rest my case ^^ ) But the question still stands
Now the threads about MMORPGs that once was and what is now are plenty enough and many things are said and debated.
What I do remember from the past though, was that people did not have to register and make applications to guilds to become members.
Was no voicechats.
No Discord and the like.
And nobody ever responded with a "Google it" when people asked for advice whether it was in public chat channels in a game or inside their guilds.
Now it can be near impossible to communicate when joining a new guild, without running face first into a handful of "Google it" "Google is your friend" or "<insert random website> linked here", often with no other words of communication.
I am not saying everybody is like that, but the people who are very fond of google and seems to believe that it is the best way to help other people, rather than spending a few extra minutes typing a few advices out, they seem to have become increasingly more common over the years.
I am however in no position to pass judgement on a group of people, who communicate and engage with other people this way, new eras provide new things and people are under influence of how the world change.
I will say though, I have started to believe that the reason we can not return to how things once was, is because a lot of people themselves will not spend the extra time on typing things to each other in a game. Making friends and mingle that way.
Or am I wrong?
(Yes I know somebody will tell me to google it, and then I can rest my case ^^ ) But the question still stands
Comments
I think you are right about the voice chat. I don't recall any of those.
Your perception is skewed. Think of it this way: People back then didn't say "google it" because there was "no google".
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I understand what your point is, but it also makes me smile a little.
I sort of believe that even though google exists, maybe people can still make the choice not to say "google it"
The fact that people do choose so though, seems to have changed the entire way a community can work and build a social structure within it self, when it removes the need for actual conversations with other people for a longer period of time.
The current trend is rush rush rush.. Gimmie my dungeons and my loots, I've no time to answer questions or engage in meaningful dialogue!! The reason?? Not certain.. The old stand-by argument is that "people don't have that kind of time these days".. I say bull excrement to that.. Plenty of hours get logged by plenty of players on all sorts of games, be they MMORPGs, MOBAs, FPSs, etc.. (Note: Of course some exceptions exist..)
So, what does this mean? It means a ton of players these days just don't care to answer.. They can't be bothered, I suppose.. The old days are gone.. That is sadly clear.. But I would never surrender the hope that as time goes by, the wheel will turn.. As players age and games bring people into ever greater contact, maybe they'll slow down some.. Be more polite or friendly.. One can HOPE at least..
All things are cyclical.. or to quote from the cheesy old movie Megaforce.. "Its all on the wheel.. It all comes around"..
..because we're gamers, damn it!! - William Massachusetts (Log Horizon)
There is simply not time to type on the chat with modern mechanics.
Few minutes ago I just typed "Git Gud" to someone who was asking for advice in BDO General, because I was literally too busy spamming abilities while grinding mobs.
But at the same time I am the same guy that take his time to explain everything in detail when I am doing a less demanding activity like AFK fishing.
It is not a Generation shift, it is the fact that players are constantly busy doing something and have no time to socialize, and helping others it is big part of Socializing in a MMORPG.
So when people criticize games like Pantheon which promote a much slower pace and wonder what is the point of having down time, I always answer that downtime is needed as it promotes Socializing, which to me it supposed to be at the core of every MMORPG.
So in games like Pantheon and EQ I am the friendly chatty guy.
In games like BDO or WoW, I am the "Git Gud" guy.
So I will try again: What choice do you have/speak of when there is no google?
An evolution is a process, there are no 2 distinct time periods - this year fish have no legs, year later they grew legs.
That is the same invalid case you are trying to build here - with "back then" and today.
Now there's PC's, consoles, smartphones, and tablets. Gaming has become mainstream so it's a lot easier to decide you want to play a game, register, pay, download it, and be in the gameworld in less than an hour.
If you didn't like the back then, too bad, maybe one or two more were available but that was it. Now you have hundreds, and can hop, pick, and play as much as you like.
So yes the gaming population has changed and Google it, and Youtube it, and Twitch it, is a thing now. If they were around back then, people would have been saying it back then. I still remember doing research on games and researching to see if a quests I was trying to do was broken or not, and going to the bookstore to buy gaming magazines that had guides in them.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Yeah sorry, guess you lost me there then.
But you ask "what choice do you have/speak when there is no google" and Id say that I think people have the choice to do the same as they did before Google.
Communicate with each other and just exchange helpful advice?, pass that advice on to the next guy who asks, as in the pupil becomes the mentor, and the next pupil becomes the mentor and soon everybody knows everybody, because they have come into contact one way or the other.
It's been a long time since I've played a game where guilds mattered. Being in a higher ranked guild makes it easier for people to find the stuff that you're trying to sell on the market in Uncharted Waters Online. And that's the only game I can think of that I've played in the last 10 years or so where guilds were important.
These days, it seems like MMORPGs have a guild mechanic because they feel like they're supposed to have a guild mechanic to be a fully-featured MMORPG. But there's nothing really for the guild to do, apart from being a chat channel--and there's no reason to restrict players to only being in one chat channel. Perhaps you can have a guild hall, but there's no reason to go to it. You can have shared guild storage, but there's no reason to deposit anything there.
The point was made to show the situation the other way round: How could you tell someone to google it when there was no google?
You couldn't, there was no such choice.
Therefore question why people today do not act like people "before" is pointless. It is just invalid perception you are trying to apply there.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Hmm ok.
Well I understand that google was not there and I will agree, if it had been, we would have seen then, what we see now. (though this is of course speculation)
But the row of events and their timeline, still is what we are facing now.
So because the communities in game behaved differently than they do now, it is with some regret to see that the basis that we could still go by, which would be to give advice, rather than just say "google it" is no longer being chosen.
And what I am pondering is whether the increased internet support will in fact be a very deciding factor, why we, those of us, who miss the way communities worked and communicated decades ago, will never ever again see communities with similar infra structures as the ones we had before.
And because this might be the case, then there is not a single MMORPG that can ever be made, in any shape or form, that will ever be able to bring that kind of community back again.
But I have to ask if I am wrong, because in some way I wish this is not the case.
People had no choice back then, the best they could do is to type in chat but they did develope "google" and how to share information, because it was better and that is how "google it" came by.
Technology isn't shaping our society, it is society that shapes technologies. You have it backwards.
I can not with 100% certainty make a claim about, what I or others would have done 20-25 years ago, if we would have had google then.
You are asking me to build a perception upon a basis I have no justified grounds to build any absolute theory upon.
People 20-25 years ago would not necessarily have treated the current technology the same way as we do now.
We can make guesses, but it will remain speculation.
Now, I think you are just intentionally "obtuse"(?).
I find your reasoning very difficult to understand, which is my fault for not being wise or bright enough.
I simply just cant follow your train of thought and how it relates to this topic, sorry
You are of course welcome to comment further, but I fear I cant answer you, cause I fear I end up upsetting you, rather than developing a dialogue we can learn from. Really sorry, its my fault I know.
I try, but sometimes I just cant do better.
Maybe its better if we try and avoid blaming a generation for things, that a lot of people in all ages takes a part in doing?
I dont believe its a specific age group, that has to stand trial every time society moves in a certain direction.
I know a few (luckily just a few) grannies, who can no longer share a baking recipe without telling people to just google them, so its not really bound to millennials.
But its how we wont be able to turn back time, that worries me somewhat, because without the way of communication we did before, games like Pantheon will never have a community like EQ had.
Which I find a bit discouraging, because a lot of people wish Pantheon to bring back that sense of community. But will the game actually turn out not to be able to bring back, what people are missing, not due to lacking in design, but simply because a similar community can never be established same way again?
( Pantheon in this context just used as an example.)
I do think the average MMORPG gamer was more friendly back then though, but not I think we also may be seeing snarky commend spammed, because the writer is possibly seeking some kind of peer approval, while more helpful replies may have been direct tells. Recently I have received a lot more helpful tells when asking something as apposed to zone chat responses. A lot of people also turn off public chat, only helping their guild mates.
One other thing is that a website with pictures or videos is in many situations the better way to explain what's going on.
For MMO players before Google there was this.
"Allakhazam.com was started in 1999 by Jeffrey Moyer as a simple guide to the gameEverQuest on a free web hosting service. It quickly became known by the EverQuest player base for its extensive quest descriptions. Mr. Moyer then teamed up with programmer Andy Sharp, acquired the url allakhazam.com, and the site was expanded into a database format covering quests, items, mobs and other aspects of the game. By the year 2000, Allakhazam was the most popular site on the internet covering Everquest and was getting over 10 million page views a month. Many consider Allakhazam to be the innovator of the gaming database format that is now followed by a number of other networks"
Now it's called Zam.com
Even though Zam was really popular, no one would say to someone who asked for info about EQ "Just check Zam".
People had time to chat and they were happy to answer any query in chat.
Modern games don't give players time to chat as the gameplay is quite frenetic and fast paced, so people just go for the short (and stupid) answer "Just Google it".
The problem is not the New Generation, it's the New MMOs.
This I find interesting. Not because I think its wrong, not at all, but there seems to be many people who prefer written text and remember things much better, when they engage in dialogue.
Now this is not an issue in itself, but the issue comes along, when people, who do learn better via videos and actual speech, dominate an entire guild or random people into using same methods, ignoring people who wish things explained.
I have to admit, some of the best dungeon runs I have done in my time, are those where tactics have been explained in text and learned along the way. It brings people together in a very cozy and memorable way.
Now people will mention that the harder encounters, as example, Mythic raiding in WoW, requires video research (and I will not deny that), however the reality is, once all the members have done their research, everything will have to be explained again on voicechats. Very often multible times after each wipe.
So what is it, that makes so many people believe that videos and pictures will have the same effect on everybody? To the point where, if people request a text based walkthrough, will be seen ill upon?
You say a lot of things that I agree with in your post.
One thing that makes me wonder though. When you say its the new MMOs, then how come that a lot of the people, who say "google it" in public chat channels, very often are people who are basically just living in those channels, rather than playing the game?
I wish what you say is true though, Id love a game that moves in a slower pace. In fact I am starting to fear that games are on their way to ludicrous speed lvls, so much that Id not only have to worry about whether a game can get a connected community, but Id technically not even be able to play the game itself.
The new Revelation game seems a good example of that. Who wants and can move in that fast pace?
But I guess some can and will enjoy that, I just hope other games will keep things at a human lvl of pace though.