Have MMO's become less social?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Skuz, Mar 12, 2021.

  1. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Interesting video shared on a EQ Facebook group.



    What are your thoughts?
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  2. HoodenShuklak Augur

  3. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    Is Never
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  4. Gremin Augur

    The choice to socialize is and always will be up to each individual player. Certain games do make it easier, while others do not. I play the game solely for the social aspect, but I understand while some do not and prefer to be alone.
  5. Gremin Augur

  6. Falafel Lorekeeper

    Didn't watch the video, but personally i've become less social in mmo's over the years as things get more tryhard and min-maxy. People, at least in pugs, expect you to know everything instantly and have little to no patience for anyone new to the content.

    I just don't pug anymore in content of any relevance. I'll still pug leveling stuff, as it tends to be easy and not really matter.

    For an example, the culture around mythic plus in wow has been a massive turnoff for me from playing that game anymore. Such toxic, tryhard, bullcrap.
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  7. Machen New Member

    Not less, just different. Less pickup groups, more longer term relationships in guilds.
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  8. Bullsnooze Augur

    (I haven’t watched the video, but I will after I post my initial response.) :)

    In terms of RPGs, well they’ve become less social by design alone and not by player choice. Most game developers followed WoW’s model which took elements from EQ, SWG, DAoC, and a few other notable titles and further built upon them to make it easier on players. Those ‘QoL’ changes inadvertently lead to a hit to the social aspect of MMORPGs.

    For example:

    Bazaar/Auction Housing systems
    - While you can still partake in haggling with other folks, these systems negate that need entirely.

    LFG Systems
    - EQ remains social here, but just about every other game in the genre has fully implemented cross-server grouping, raiding, and PVP within a queue system with drop-in/out style of play. The design of these systems makes it very easy to put people together, but it doesn’t promote any type of social interactions. Therefore a majority of players join, complete tasks, and leave without ever speaking a word.

    and really the above systems are the meat and potatoes of MMORPGs. Once you remove the need for players to interact with one another your social aspect will steadily decline.
    Stymie likes this.
  9. Sirene_Fippy Okayest Bard

    It's an interesting topic.

    There is a concept in game design called "stickiness" - how much people want to keep coming back and playing your game. The social aspect of MMOs make them sticky. Original EQ had a lot of aspects that accidentally made the game sticky - no spell descriptions, no information in the game for the most part. You needed to talk to other players to find out about things (and honestly, you still do). EQ itself does a terrible job of teaching players what to do, you're on you own pretty much as soon as you leave the tutorial. The Hero's Journey directs new players to a questline that will result in targeted exp and gear, but has no information about how to play your class. The player is expected to figure that out themselves, and there is a large variety in skill level of players (in terms of playing your class).

    I think one of EQ's strengths back in the day was that it had to run full screen. If you wanted to look up something, you had to log all the way out of the game, which was painful enough to make it easier to ask people in game. Even now I will try to look up stuff when honestly I could find the answer easily in game by asking. You would print out maps or quest guides to have them on hand while playing. Most people didn't own multiple computers for looking up stuff while playing - and if you did, it was often more helpful to run a 2nd character.

    I don't follow mainstream games by any means, but I think many games (MMOs included) see one style as successful, take it, and then make a new game using many of the things they learned worked, or didn't work from the previous game. The interesting part of this for EQ is because finding a group could be difficult, newer games tried to remove this need. The results aren't 100% positive - as mentioned in the video, people will kick you from a group with no consequences, and often don't speak. One of the only MMOs I tried since EQ launched was Warhammer Online. It had a group finder, and you could join groups without talking to other players. You could do public quests with anyone in an area, without having to cooperate, and got rewarded just for hitting stuff even if you weren't part of a group. The game wasn't sticky. I never made a single friend while playing it. In EQ, though, tons of players have stories about how when they were new a high level player gave them fine steel, or helped them, or they grouped up and became lifelong friends with someone.

    The social part is so powerful that even when the game is not fun, or doing poorly, or boring, you still log in often times because your friends or guild want you to be there and you're expected. Playing and MMO can become an obligation instead of a hobby. If it stays an obligation for too long, you might quit, but it sometimes becomes fun again (class balance changes, new abilities, fun content, new friends, etc).

    Did you notice that everyone stopped using the LFG window? I think that was an interesting shift. When LDoN was out I spent an entire summer making groups and running LDoNs, one after another, finding players in the LFG window. Something changed since then where, I log in and know who I'm going to play with already 90% of the time. And I have little to no desire to find random people to play with, even though it would probably be good for the game.

    I got tired of having old friends come back, help them get gear/levels/flags and have them disappear again. The end-state for me was having alts I play with by myself. I got tired of running progression and dropping 1 alt for a real person, then later having them be unreliable and not be around when I needed <x role>. It ends up feeling like you're being punished or wasting time by helping other people get stuff, so it's easier to play alone. In fact I will just not do content that I need a real group for, because I have enough other things to keep myself occupied (farming hunter, collectibles, 350 TS, all the old content that still matters, etc).

    One thing I think EQ hasn't done well is solo content. It seems like soloing in EQ now is really boxing alone. I do think solo content shouldn't be forgotten and we should support solo players (not people boxing alone - those are supported well enough).

    As for the video - I didn't agree entirely with the history of socializing on the internet, or that socializing moved outside the game (maybe true for other games). Before online games people used chat rooms, IRC, forums. The reason people were forced to talk in EQ is because it was full screen. Discord is new but it's not a new concept at all. I don't really want to talk to anyone from EQ on Facebook, and my guild seems to mostly ignore their forum. I also think many EQ forums have died and participation on this one is decreasing. EQ is becoming less social, and less sticky, and people talk less. I think I talked to 1 other bard in the past 3 months about anything related to strategies. Part of why is because the game isn't really changing. For the most part I know how to play my class and what to do when I log into the game, I don't need help or to ask questions. Just show up to raids and collect currency, rinse/repeat weekly for a year until the next expansion. The most I talk is when we try a new raid. I would love to have a newbie bard to talk to and help - maybe EQ needs a good mentoring system.
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  10. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    There is something to be said for the feel of community on a server, and how that impacts people's social interactions. Much like groups, some people join them and some people start them, and social interactions are no different. In the old days somebody was always talking, and somebody was always responding. There was a conversation going and you could join it. You started to recognize names, you were familiar with their personalities and such. This broke the ice and put us in a place where it was easy to be around those people.

    Does it really matter which group in Lower Guk you are in if you are talking to all the other groups in local anyway? That's the community effect. For somebody like me, who is introverted, it helps a lot in opening up the social scene. Here on the forums you get a similar effect, we're just not all on the same server or at the same level to benefit from that community familiarity. But those of us who want to be social are here doing that. For what it's worth, the forums are also good way for guildmates to get familiar with each other, if their forums are active anyway.

    On Agnarr I've been pretty quiet since i came back. But I did join General and I do keep an eye on it. There have been groups I could have joined, or people I could have added to my group, which I haven't taken advantage of yet. This was less due to social changes, and more due to expectations on myself. My playtime has mostly been in 90 minute increments or less, and with long run times and other issues, I don't want to be that guy who shows up and says "thanks for the group, I can stay for 20 minutes."

    So while we have the community aspect there, albeit a low population one, I'm not able to take advantage of it quite yet. But I think it matters, at least for the group joiners, maybe less for the group starters. This time around I'm hoping to be both, just need to get my playtime managed into longer blocks and setup some good dungeon groups.
    Stymie likes this.
  11. Fluid Augur

    Bartle is considered cannon. Been around since MUDs for sure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types

    The antisocial thing is part of the human condition. If you look back, Diablo<only 4 players vs MMPOG> was so bad you couldn't play anything but a password protected game. People would come into public games just to PK lower, much lower, level characters using every cheat imaginable. I recall people using hacks to warp my character to areas that were instant death. Not that I had anything on them that was worth stealing, they just wanted to make you die and lose your equipment to make you have a bad night and defeat the combat flags.
    Sirene_Fippy likes this.
  12. Cicelee Augur

    If you are in a good guild that does things together, it is a very social experience.
  13. Loanword New Member

    Please remember lots of people use discord, etc to socialize in games now.
  14. Karanthal Augur

    As a 40 something gamer (which many of us probably are on this forum) the move from many years of single player games to online gaming was revolutionary. I started off in the world of MUDs while at uni moving on to Ultima and EQ soon after.

    I'm not sure I can answer for the genre as a whole, but I would say the social aspect has changed rather than lessened at least in EQ. I'm still raiding regularly with my guild, but the group scene has changed. Outside of raids I mostly play my box team rather than with real players. I'm still talking with guild mates and we team up when necessary for epics etc but there isn't the wander to a zone and find a group mentality anymore. I've not used the LFG tool for years. The EQ world feels a smaller place than it did when online games were new, there feels less need to be in the same zone as people you are talking to.

    WoW felt very solo focused when last I played it. LfGroup/raid tools stick to in a zone, you kill stuff together 99% of the time in silence and leave. People are more likely to be interacting with their friends who are maybe playing other games rather than the random people they have been put with for a mission.
  15. ExecutionDbl9 Druid / Shadow Knight / Necromancer


    I agree with this. Min / maxing is probably my most hated element of MMO's, and what keeps me away from them typically.

    It's also a big reason why I never raided back in the OG days when I was in EQ the first time, and have little to no interest in doing it now that I'm back.
  16. code-zero Augur

    For those who didn't watch the video, you should have watched the video. The youtuber accurately points out that the social aspects have moved out of the game and separated the actual gameplay. I find this to be very accurate as I am on discord servers and other private communications with the people I actually play the game with.
  17. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    My take on it is that "social interaction" itself is significantly less, now versus then regardless of where it takes place.

    The big difference between 1999 or whenever you started playing & more recently is how wide the circle of people most players interact with is.

    When this game & others in that generation first came out social interaction, or just getting to chat to others who were "like-minded" because they were also playing the game, was I think far more open, you would chat with a far broader & larger number of players, and I think most of us learned or at least experienced that even sharing a common interest that there was a wide variety of people playing & some of them were people you knew you could not get along with.

    Over time as the cliques & friendship circles formed of people who were able to get along well those interactions with the many became interactions with a few, the broader mass got "screened out" as unsuitable or unlikeable and the more a group of players were increasing in friendship & inter-dependence the less they even needed people outside their group so joining their circle got harder over time.

    I think the smaller a server gets the more open & friendly it becomes, almost a correlation with the "City Vs Village" scenario.
    I think the evolution of human beings where we had social groups that were rarely more than a 100 or so people translates over to gaming too, a server of 4000 - much like city life groups can far more easily be antagonistic as they feel like they compete for resources, lower numbers & things start to get more cooperative, and at very low numbers even collaborative.

    So to summarise I would say we should all try to get along better & try to resist the urge to be "insular" and make an effort to be more open with others, how each server's community is will help determine its longevity, if you want your server to have a long & happy life then work towards being less antagonistic with each other & more cooperative - how?

    Hunter Raids
    Open Raids
    Plat raids
    Fun/silly events with prizes open to the whole server

    There's a lot everyone can do to make a server a unique place & a more open, friendly & inviting place, I am not saying everyone needs to hold hands round a fire singing Kumbaya but not being jerks to anyone who isn't wearing the same guild tag will be a huge step in the right direction.
    If you managed to pull all this off as a community while the server is still young instead of waiting until there is only half a guild of players left then maybe the server won't die so rapidly.
  18. NoMoreTLPs Journeyman

    EQ is a terrible game to use as an example of the state of social interaction for MMOs.

    EQ isn't about socialization anymore, it hasn't been for 15+ years... and the TLPs are just a playground for people with no jobs, lives, etc to run on a krono treadmill
    Arctodus likes this.
  19. Arctodus Elder


    Agree with this statement sorta, I would also include people want to accomplish a feat quicker such as quest camping. The prefer to just multibox to prevent losing a roll on a drop or sitting LFG. Some items are just to rare in EQ. The social aspect could improve if some items had a higher drop rate.
  20. ExecutionDbl9 Druid / Shadow Knight / Necromancer


    Hmm.

    *checks self*

    *has career*
    *has a family*
    *has a social life*
    *has hobbies and gaming outside of EQ*
    *plays on a TLP*

    Hmm...
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