How would you re-socialize MMOs?

Draegan_sl · Oct 22, 2013

DiddleySquat_sl said:
1) In EQ I played in a so called European guild (conveniently called 'Europa') but we had a good mix of North and South American, European, Mid and Far East players. It worked well, but the segregation of US/EU/AS servers introduced by WoWkilledthat concept. I still don't understand why that model was adopted in the MMO sector.
Because of the slightly higher ping when you have an ocean between you and the server? It's an MMO, not a FPS game. 50ms extra ping is totally irrelevant.
Because of the language barriers? Maybe that was 'solved' for US server since they didn't have to interact with foreigners anymore (except random Mexicans). But EU servers still are a very mixed bag of cultures and languages, and Aussie players are put on Asian servers, so same "problem" for them. I put problem in quotes because it's not a problem at all. You interact with people you can talk to, the fact that there is a faction on the same server that you can not talk to does not diminish your opportunity to find people you can communicate and play with.

2) I disagree with the player name recognition as a trigger to form a community. There is a name recognition aspect, but it's on a guild name level. When I'm in game at a hub, I'll initially start recognizing guild names, not player names. Having a server with a population of 100K players or 1 million players (factor 10 difference) barely has any influence on getting familiar with guild names.

On getting familiar with individuals, that happens when you get into a pick up group and remember a guy because he was a good, cool or just funny player. So you add him to your friends list. From then on, it does not matter at all how huge your server is, you can always find your new buddy in an instant. The larger your server, the bigger the pool of cool guys is, while finding them is not affected. Big server > small server.

3) I don't like voice chat as a primary means of communication in an MMO. Part of that is me: I'm just a bit too introvert to start talking to strangers. Part of that is the language barrier: while my English is decent - as I'm hoping to show here

- speaking it is a bit more of a challenge and I'm not a 100% comfortable with it, certainly when I'm supposed to be having fun and relax. Also keep in mind that I'm stuck on a Euro server and thus voice chat would be a mix of 'English' with cockney, scottish, welsh, irish, french, spanish, german, russian, greek, italian, ... (need I go on?) accents,IFmy companions are even a bit fluent in spoken English.
So let's keep chat to that chat box, can we? For one, it provides just enough distance for me to feel comfortable with interacting with strangers, and second it forces people to focus on communicating the bare necessities in a concise manner. Spelling and grammar can even be flawed, because people have a chat log and a few moments to decipher it. On voice chat, you have no log and less time.

4) Game pace is crucial factor in being able to communicate with random players passing by. In EQ when you were camping a spot with your group, you could /say to nearby people or /shout to the zone. Good for practical info (/say group full?) or zone banter (/shout Grabbit > Fitz).
Nowadays everyone is an EQ Bard.

5) Instancing: definitely a huge factor in the killing off of MMO communities, but others have already explained it plus I need to go lunch.

1) A lot of games have EU people playing on NA servers. Rift, LOL, GW2 etc. So this whole point of yours is wrong.

2) Good for you I guess? My point still stands that most people will more likely to feel more socially part of a server/game/community the more they recognize people. The whole friends list thing works in any game regardless of any type of setup. One person can only have so many friends before it's just a list of names you barely know. Someone could probably link you a study that shows how humans have circles of friends and there is some kind of limit. I know it was linked at some point on FOH.

3) Sorry to hear that you're socially awkward. I hope you get over that.

4) Game pacing is a subjective thing. Your way is boring as fuck to me. You really like it. No wrong answer really unless you want to get into the perspective of game developer trying to make a game that gets the most amount of people playing.

5) I really disagree. Over-instancing can kill off a community I suppose. But, look at it from this perspective. You have 50 people that want to do a dungeon. With instancing you can have 10 groups playing together and having fun and "socializing". (If you bring up WOW and dungeon socializing then you can stop, WOW dungeon design is really shitty.) Without instancing you could potentially be alienating people.

Instancing doesn't kill communities inherently, but if used poorly, can really do harm. Just like any tool.

Draegan_sl · Oct 22, 2013

shabushabu_sl said:
How so ? Are there raids in existence that require CC ? Different weapon/damage types ? or is it just more RIFT Gimmick style raiding ? Only raids I have done in the last year have been VG and DDO raids so I have no idea myself.

Perhaps there is a game out there I am missing ?

FFXIV, Rift, WOW and maybe SWTOR. Essentially any game that has a serious raid game attached to it. If you only have played DDO and VG then I can see your confusion.

What do you mean by RIFT gimmick style raiding? They had some really awesome raid encounters, their problem was always tuning.

Dahkoht_sl · Oct 22, 2013

I agree on the 24/7 voice chat playing gets old.

I don't play an mmo to socialize with the same folks/guild only,and thankfully there seem be more and more guilds going against the "you have to be on vent" mentality. Seems some turn mmos into large instances for their current friends and guild only - I like meeting and playing with new folks.

I hear lots of people all day yammering , sometimes Id rather not have to hear a party line chat room at night when sitting down to play, instead just the sounds of the game, while still talking in that thing called text chat that functions still after all these years.

shabushabu · Oct 22, 2013

Draegan_sl said:
FFXIV, Rift, WOW and maybe SWTOR. Essentially any game that has a serious raid game attached to it. If you only have played DDO and VG then I can see your confusion.

What do you mean by RIFT gimmick style raiding? They had some really awesome raid encounters, their problem was always tuning.

I was in a top raiding guild in RIFT. I am referring to the raid encounters with dodge this and dodge that... most of the "complexity" of RIFT raiding was around dodging or positioning, it had little to do with "i can play my class this well/not".. I left before HK though perhaps they moved away from twitch-y raiding ? The 12 man they released after the original raid zone was like that it was all about positioning and little about how good you were at a certain class... always hated raids like that... reminds me of raids in wow when you are on some vehicle here or there.

I have not raided in WoW since WOTLK and there was nothing there that was tough. SWTOR has some of the worst combat I have ever seen although i never raided in SWTOR..

I don't call complexity dodging.. back in the day there were other concerns with encounters, damage types, CC, etc etc etc... There was a ton of preparation you had to do even back to WoW vanilla, with resisting damage types etc etc... from what i have seen most of that has gone away but perhaps RIFT has retained that ? maybe FFXIV ?

If its all damage, heal, spank and jump around its watered down from where it used to be.

Alkorin · Oct 22, 2013

Tuco_sl said:
1. Force grouping
2. Remove instancing
3. Add risk into the game (as in, if you fuck up badly enough you could lose your corpse).
4. Don't be afraid of class inter-dependence. Tank + healing + CC + dps works and is better than the chickenshit PVE in GW2.
5. The AH and group finder stuff is fine. If you want to chat with people join a chat room.

All of this, and, the most important item of all (also the single largest downfall of the MMO genre):

STOP listening to what "most gamers" want. Most gamers couldn't tie their shoelaces without a manual, or mommy doing it for them. These are the people that designers are catering to, and they are the people that are responsible for the silver platter bullshit we all eat today.

PatrickStar · Oct 22, 2013

Agonizing the Bait Master_sl said:
We socialized on Solusek Ro very well. First we drove HoSS away due the fact they couldn't get raid mobs and then we let the euros have are leftovers out of spite.

Let me preface by saying I have no affliation to the above guilds/server but just an observer of the comment. The fact you can still bring up drama from EQ after a decade ago meant something in that game made a lasting impact. I think that's all that needs to be said.

alavaz · Oct 22, 2013

Find a machine that causes a rift in the space time continuum that resets the world to 1999. I mean seriously, I don't understand how all of you social butterflys can't make friends in WoW. Especially being that it is the ONLY game that actually has enough people playing it to even meet a friend. Actually I take that back, I do understand. It appears that you are all so incredibly anti social that unless you absolutely have to ask for someones help - My corpse is at the bottom of Fiery Dildo Chasm and I've already lost 10 levels trying to get it! I've already petitioned a GM and he said no so now I have to ask you for help Mr Person. Shit you guys can't even keep a board guild together and you think that EQ with new graphics is somehow going to get the band back together?

Cybsled · Oct 22, 2013

WoW raiding is more complex now that it was during WOTLK. Some encounters require smaller groups to handle side tasks during the fight (bird nests in ToT, towers during the harbor fight in SoO), many fights require interupts, cc, on the spot dps (General Naz comes to mind). They are also moving towards more active tanking mechanics, which means you have to manage and apply them properly, For all the QQ from folks about WoW, their current raid game is probably the best out there.

I would also like to remind people that if you force grouping too much, ultimately you will have less people to group with. I've lost count at the number of MMOs I've played where it felt like I spent more time trying to find a group than actuslly fight in one. This leads to frustration and apathy towards the game, which can then lead to a lost subscription.

shabushabu · Oct 22, 2013

Cybsled_sl said:
WoW raiding is more complex now that it was during WOTLK. Some encounters require smaller groups to handle side tasks during the fight (bird nests in ToT, towers during the harbor fight in SoO), many fights require interupts, cc, on the spot dps (General Naz comes to mind). They are also moving towards more active tanking mechanics, which means you have to manage and apply them properly, For all the QQ from folks about WoW, their current raid game is probably the best out there.

I would also like to remind people that if you force grouping too much, ultimately you will have less people to group with. I've lost count at the number of MMOs I've played where it felt like I spent more time trying to find a group than actuslly fight in one. This leads to frustration and apathy towards the game, which can then lead to a lost subscription.

That is good to hear about WoW. WOTLK really turned me off with the collect and AE method of doing dungeons and raiding didn't feel much different.

Draegan_sl · Oct 22, 2013

shabushabu_sl said:
I was in a top raiding guild in RIFT. I am referring to the raid encounters with dodge this and dodge that... most of the "complexity" of RIFT raiding was around dodging or positioning, it had little to do with "i can play my class this well/not".. I left before HK though perhaps they moved away from twitch-y raiding ? The 12 man they released after the original raid zone was like that it was all about positioning and little about how good you were at a certain class... always hated raids like that... reminds me of raids in wow when you are on some vehicle here or there.

I have not raided in WoW since WOTLK and there was nothing there that was tough. SWTOR has some of the worst combat I have ever seen although i never raided in SWTOR..

I don't call complexity dodging.. back in the day there were other concerns with encounters, damage types, CC, etc etc etc... There was a ton of preparation you had to do even back to WoW vanilla, with resisting damage types etc etc... from what i have seen most of that has gone away but perhaps RIFT has retained that ? maybe FFXIV ?

If its all damage, heal, spank and jump around its watered down from where it used to be.

I see. I really don't equate farming for resist gear and consumables to raid complexity. What's the difference between position and "how good you were at a class"? Positioning and coordination add to complexity. What do you define as "being good at your class" that is beyond dps'ing really well, or aggro swapping or cleansing on time or debuffing in time? That stuff is in every raid.

Look at the first raid in Rift. There were tons of kiting, aggro swapping, multiple tank encounters in that raid to make it really interesting. I don't know what game you were playing.

shabushabu · Oct 22, 2013

Draegan_sl said:
I see. I really don't equate farming for resist gear and consumables to raid complexity. What's the difference between position and "how good you were at a class"? Positioning and coordination add to complexity. What do you define as "being good at your class" that is beyond dps'ing really well, or aggro swapping or cleansing on time or debuffing in time? That stuff is in every raid.

Look at the first raid in Rift. There were tons of kiting, aggro swapping, multiple tank encounters in that raid to make it really interesting. I don't know what game you were playing.

The first raid zone of RIFT was horrible, it was one re-configurable room. The encounters were OK especially greenscale ( the rabbit one I think was rabbit was a gimmick), but the one that made me leave was the 12 man after that, it was terrible....

Because there was a time where skill did not mean how fast you can move in RPGs... the action RPG craze has ended the era when a player used more mind than reaction time... its come into every game since consoles blew up.

If i compare the complexity of Vanguard raiding to RIFT ? it was nearly on par i would say but vanguard did not introduce twitch mechanics to make the raids interesting which rift did.

The other point is preparation, if mobs resisted / proejcted certain damage types it was part of the game to have a raid prepared... of course, the twitch artists say what does that have to do with anything ? I don't know i kind of like the gearing possibilities when facing different types of encounters... some games still do that but it seems to be less important these days to most... just want to go smack shit.

Antarius · Oct 22, 2013

shabushabu_sl said:
That is good to hear about WoW. WOTLK really turned me off with the collect and AE method of doing dungeons and raiding didn't feel much different.

All that he said about the raiding getting more complicated since WoTLK...

But also each class became more complicated since WoTLK. It was significantly harder to play each class in Cata or Mists than it was in WoTLK. Ability bloat for each class. Every expansion, each class got more buttons to press, more complicated rotations, and no one wants to give up "tools".

I remember complaining during Cata about the issue, I had 34 different abilities on my action bars (things that I used regularly, like pots and mount)... On any given fight I'd use about 18 different combat buttons... And this was as a PALADIN, the class that LITERALLY used to press 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 in order to do MAXIMUM POSSIBLE DAMAGE.

FFXIV isn't as bad, each class probably has about 16 different abilities you'll use commonly in combat (and maybe another 8 or so buttons you'll hit regularly out of combat), and the raids are about as complicated as what you'd encounter during wotlk era hardmodes in WoW.

Cybsled · Oct 22, 2013

Unless your game is turn based or has extremely slow combat, you're going to want some twitch. Standing behind a dragon just auto-attacking/pressing some dps button every x seconds ends up putting you to sleep.

Raids still need prep, but for the most part they have tried to eliminate artificial blocking mechanisms (like shissar-bane weapons or Onyxia scale cloaks).

Draegan_sl · Oct 22, 2013

shabushabu_sl said:
The first raid zone of RIFT was horrible, it was one re-configurable room. The encounters were OK especially greenscale ( the rabbit one I think was rabbit was a gimmick), but the one that made me leave was the 12 man after that, it was terrible....

Because there was a time where skill did not mean how fast you can move in RPGs... the action RPG craze has ended the era when a player used more mind than reaction time... its come into every game since consoles blew up.

If i compare the complexity of Vanguard raiding to RIFT ? it was nearly on par i would say but vanguard did not introduce twitch mechanics to make the raids interesting which rift did.

The other point is preparation, if mobs resisted / proejcted certain damage types it was part of the game to have a raid prepared... of course, the twitch artists say what does that have to do with anything ? I don't know i kind of like the gearing possibilities when facing different types of encounters... some games still do that but it seems to be less important these days to most... just want to go smack shit.

The first raid zone was pretty cool I thought. The environment was pretty simple, I agree, but the encounters were really cool I thought. No real tank and spanks and you really needed to figure out the encounter to move forward. The rabbit part was kind of silly, but it was a fun twist I thought. The encounter surrounding it was pretty good though with each boss you had to fight again.

If you're talking about River of Souls, then yes that was a shit raid because it was full of useless boring trash. The encounters were really fun I thought. HK had interesting encounter from a macro point of view, but they were really shitty because each one took like 10-15 minutes and they were too finely tuned.

I never raided in VG because the game was shit. Good class system though.

Current top tier raiding still requires prep to a large extent. I can't say anything about what WOW does now, but that shit requires precise execution of movement and abilities along with consumables etc.

Proper gearing for encounters is fine, I just don't think it create complexity, it just creates options which I don't mind in the end. However, you just people designing encounters around a certain pieces of gear and if people can't get it to drop due to RNG it pisses people off which is why it isn't around anymore for the most part.

Arric_sl · Oct 22, 2013

Here's a different idea. Have a pool of high quality loot, the quality and/or amount of which is determined based on tasks that your faction completes each week such as completing instances and winning BGs. Each week or so a loot council of random players from the server is selected to determine the distribution of the pooled loot. I'm thinking it could be something like each player on the loot council has one piece of the pooled loot that they will distribute to some other player. There can be a server ranking of contributions players have made to the tasks for the week, but the loot council does not have to follow it. They can distribute to their friends. They can take bribes and sell the loot. Basically they can do whatever they want with it other than straight up distribute it to themselves or another person on the loot council that week.

Under this system, if you make the effort to make yourself well known and well regarded on the server, there is likely a better chance that one of the random players on the loot council will distribute a piece of the pooled loot to you.

etchazz · Oct 23, 2013

Arric_sl said:
Here's a different idea. Have a pool of high quality loot, the quality and/or amount of which is determined based on tasks that your faction completes each week such as completing instances and winning BGs. Each week or so a loot council of random players from the server is selected to determine the distribution of the pooled loot. I'm thinking it could be something like each player on the loot council has one piece of the pooled loot that they will distribute to some other player. There can be a server ranking of contributions players have made to the tasks for the week, but the loot council does not have to follow it. They can distribute to their friends. They can take bribes and sell the loot. Basically they can do whatever they want with it other than straight up distribute it to themselves or another person on the loot council that week.

Under this system, if you make the effort to make yourself well known and well regarded on the server, there is likely a better chance that one of the random players on the loot council will distribute a piece of the pooled loot to you.

this may be the worst fucking idea of all time.

Dandai · Oct 23, 2013

etchazz_sl said:
this may be the worst fucking idea of all time.

I wouldn't rank it worse than putting people in ovens, but it is pretty bad as far as encouraging social behavior.

Bruman · Oct 23, 2013

SOEmote.

Dahkoht_sl · Oct 23, 2013

Bruman_sl said:
SOEmote.

Still laughing.

Sadly someone at SOE genuinely believes this though.

Muligan · Oct 23, 2013

Dahkoht_sl said:
Still laughing.

Sadly someone at SOE genuinely believes this though.

I have heard from several people that Georgeson gets a lot of praise internally at SoE because of his vision with SoEmote.

To re-socialze MMO's they simply need to be simplified, with content and itemization be more meaningful. Think of why you grouped. Sure, it was the most efficient way to level but you knew the items you needed. Honestly, I probably knew every item by name up to a certain point in respect to my class and where to get it. Do you even know a portion of the items you're awarded in MMO's today? Outside of top tier items, gear is so casual and meaningless. When I think of LGuk, Sol B, etc. in EQ, the items I received and the memories that surface go hand in hand. The items and experienced gained was as important as your raiding when you look at the big picture. MMO's from level 1 up to the max level is simply a hurdle. It means nothing.

You wanna re-socialize MMO's? Make the journey to the top meaningful and it starts with the content.

How would you re-socialize MMOs?

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