If I want to socialize I will do it in PE, my guild chat or on Teamspeak. When I join a PUG I am there to run a dungeon, not to chat about the weather. I try to be polite, and will engage in a discussion about tactics or help out with directions if needed, but do not expect me to want to carry on a conversation about anything not directly related to the task at hand.
I will almost always hay hello if someone else does as well, and I typically say "good run" or something similar at the end. If I just leave without saying anything..... well, silence can speak louder than words.
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Last couple years really feels like with mmo, they made them so 'single player' friendly that it is like 'okay what is the point then?'
As bad as some of the 10 year old mmo are... I feel like I can log into them and still have that be worth the run. This one anymore, it is "okay yeah whats the point?"
And guild chat; no one really uses it last 3 I been in. what's is up with that??
Do I have to bail neverwinter just to feel like I played a game where something mattered??
You're not wrong,
The reality of the matter is, MMOs have become very very easy and with little down time where nearly anything can be accomplished within a half hour. The older MMOs were much more hard core. I was just talking about this in one zone chat. Someone tried to claim that WoW Raids were hard. I was like... errrm.... no.. you want to know what hard challenge meant, that would be the old Everquest model, where you go on a Planar Raid and instantly teleport into a crowd of super powered non-soloable mobs that can wipe an entire raiding party before most of them even have a chance to zone in.
Yeah WoW made things much easier, and much more casual gamer friendly... which attracted a previously unseen crowd into the MMO genre that others followed suit with... but there was a downside... to no down time... and easy soloable content where everything is at your fingertips vs required group play. You couldn't screw it up, and you could go it completely alone... It in essence made it a single player game online.
While Everquest model (also mimicked by Final Fantasy Online), was perhaps overly extreme in the challenge and difficulty level and absolutely required a grouping by most classes, and the downtime was outrageous when you had to spend a good 15 minutes to an hour regenerating your mana before you were ready to fight again (minus another group member with Mana Regeneration song or spell)...
The reality of the matter was that all that downtime meant you really did have time to sit and chat with people in your guild. You actually got to sit down and know people. And the challenges were so extreme they were burned into your mind for a lifetime. And because there were serious death penalties and you couldn't survive without a group... you felt real and legitimate fear and emotion no matter what you did when you were out there, everything was stronger than you, and everything could and would kill you in a heartbeat. And grouping and making connections weren't just optional... they were required. You couldn't gain a bad rep because it was tantamount to being ejected from the game by other players. So everyone had to behave.
So while the "new and easy" casual gamer style for MMOs is now the in thing...
There was a cost to that...
Namely... the contacts between people became as superficial as the challenges you face.
Action oriented games are always like this, you have little to no time if you want to optimize your character progress. Older games tended to have a slower and more time-sinking approach, modern games require fast interaction for fast progress.
i.e. in UO you could easily pass 2 hours by chopping trees, with little or no interaction, so you had more time to actually chat. Even some more modern games like Eve Online have time-based features, as your skills improve over time and you don't really feel you're wasting time if you do some talking.
In NW (but it's not NW's fault, it's how most action-oriented MMOs are designed) every second that you are not running towards an objective, mauling mobs and opening chests might feel as wasted time, so you feel compelled to rush to the next quest/lair/hub without even saying "hello" and leaving temporary parties (that you probably joined not because you needed a party, but because with a party you can burn the mobs faster in the lair) without a "goodbye"...
Action oriented games are always like this, you have little to no time if you want to optimize your character progress. Older games tended to have a slower and more time-sinking approach, modern games require fast interaction for fast progress.
i.e. in UO you could easily pass 2 hours by chopping trees, with little or no interaction, so you had more time to actually chat. Even some more modern games like Eve Online have time-based features, as your skills improve over time and you don't really feel you're wasting time if you do some talking.
In NW (but it's not NW's fault, it's how most action-oriented MMOs are designed) every second that you are not running towards an objective, mauling mobs and opening chests might feel as wasted time, so you feel compelled to rush to the next quest/lair/hub without even saying "hello" and leaving temporary parties (that you probably joined not because you needed a party, but because with a party you can burn the mobs faster in the lair) without a "goodbye"...
And that's really what it becomes, its not specific to Neverwinter either, its all the new casual gamer models.
It gets kind of pointless to even really be online or with other people.
Why?
Well I don't need you, so I don't give a ****, and I'm too busy. And if I need you its only briefly, so you don't matter. I don't even have to talk to you. Guilding is pointless other than for very specific functions. Friends aren't "really friends" they're casual acquintences you briefly engage for about 10 seconds. You're not a person you're just another object in game.
That's what happens in that kind of model. Instead of life long connections made in previous MMOs... now you're playing on battle.net like its Diablo 2 where no one matters to you anymore. So yeah, I do find personal interactions rather pointless. Which does defeat the purpose of a Massive Multiplayer Online Game. Just like the original poster said.
The older MMOs I would have to be fighting alongside you for a very long time because the challenges were much more extreme, and absolutely counting on you to save my butt. We'd be spending hours in party and possibly years togather doing that. Or I would need something or other people to chat with during grinding time or down time.
So there was a pretty sharp cost to casual gaming which kinda makes online play kinda pointless.
Disagree, really. I think it's as social as you're prepared to be. If it was non-stop DD time, then yeah I'd imagine people would just be spamming LFG all day, but it's not. There are long periods where nothing particularly interesting is happening, and then you can chat away to your hearts content, if you wish to do so.
And come to that, even when it IS DD time, legit chat is still full of banter. Those guys are great. Sometimes possibly too laissez-faire ("brb, draco" being my current favourite for 'they were chatting while doing WHAT???' conversations).
And the fact that there's a lot of solo content...well, that's basically the NW version of UO's chopping trees. I'll happily blether away in zone or legit while doing daily stuffs solo.
Plus the more you chat to people, the more you get to know them, which has the added bonus that they're more likely to run with you, give advice, and less likely to chew you out for sucking terribly (my GF says 'hi' from her favourite spot down at the bottom of the damage table).
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Disagree, really. I think it's as social as you're prepared to be. If it was non-stop DD time, then yeah I'd imagine people would just be spamming LFG all day, but it's not. There are long periods where nothing particularly interesting is happening, and then you can chat away to your hearts content, if you wish to do so.
Trust me my friend,
Its nothing even remotely close to what it used to be. We're playing on Battle.net now... we're not playing an MMO game anymore, at least not even close to what it used to be.
We are now playing games that are a superficial as the challenges you face. And I was there for the launch of many of them. Dating back to the EQ and UO days.
Yeah, but those games were basically surrogate lives. Just about tolerable if you have the free time, but I already have a job, and it takes waaaay more time than I really wish it did. I don't need another. This is not a hardcore MMO, and that is something I am absolutely fine with.
I'm simply disagreeing with the idea that it's an antisocial place where nobody matters. That's more...something you bring with you, rather than something the game enforces.
(that's "non-specific you", rather than you in particular, btw )
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Yeah, but those games were basically surrogate lives. Just about tolerable if you have the free time, but I already have a job, and it takes waaaay more time than I really wish it did. I don't need another. This is not a hardcore MMO, and that is something I am absolutely fine with.
And you know, you're not wrong about that.
The MMOs were literally surrogate lives back then. You were living in another world, with separate rules and codes of conduct, and living a totally different life, and even a completely different job with different skill mastery. But the social interactions were astonishingly deep.
There is an Anime series if you really want to know what it was like back then called, Sword Art Online... This movie/anime goes into so much detail on the culture. If you want to know what it was like back then to be in that world of the old style MMOs.
Now... I had a job back then too, and sometimes I would just work, come home, play, and enjoy an entirely different world and group of friends just like I was living another life. So you're not wrong either. That is indeed what old MMOs are, a completely different world. The new Genre of MMOs are not really an MMO anymore, they're just a single player game where no one really matters and there's no real connections to anyone anymore. So the OP is indeed correct.
There was a severe cost in personal interaction in order to bring an MMO to a casual gamer. And I admit, I do miss that part.
Look, guys - just because I play an MMO does NOT mean I have to like you.
A good MMO has a balance between solo play and team play. Why? Not everyone likes being around everyone all the time. Sometimes I need a break from my friends list, okay?
It's nothing personal. I mean, I don't even know the vast majority of you. (Especially considering that I'm still really, really new here.) But I don't think it's criminal or even BAD to want to solo in an MMO.
Sure, there'll be times that I want to run something that requires a group. (Not too bloody often, but it DOES happen.) If and when those urges occur, it's not hard to form a group. It's EFFORT. It's TIME-CONSUMING. But it's not DIFFICULT. If any of you have a problem with not being able to find anyone with whom to play, might I suggest that the problem is you?
honestly, I don't think the solo aspect of the game plays any part in the antisocial nature of this games community. And by that I mean that just being able to play solo does not cause people to be antisocial. I have played many game with very large amounts of solo content yet have never seen this much lack of conversations. I truly believe that it's a few different things that ultimately leads to this.
1. the leveling aspect. We level so fast in this game that skipping content that would otherwise force you to team up with other players has no consequence. In other games, if you were to skip major dungeons along your climb to max level you would have to make up that extra exp by prolonged grinding, possibly adding another day to get that level. Also, there is no lag time in between levels to give you anytime to need to talk. You just basically continue to level until you run out of playing time then start again tomorrow.
2. Negative reinforcement. Sounds crazy I know but I really think players in this game pick up bad habits faster then other games. Meaning if they tried to talk and no one answers then they just figure that's the way everyone is in the game and proceed to not talk to anyone unless they have to.
3. too much action. Ok, might not be the right way to word that but right now I think of another way to say it. But what I mean is, there is a definite feeling of needing to maximize your play time in this game. So if you're running a dungeon, everyone just wants to get through it as fast as possible leaving no time to talk unless you wipe on a boss and even then its pretty much just enough talking to come up with a strategy (if someone doesn't quit first). And the same goes for pretty much anything you do as a team, PvP, GG, quests, all have this "gotta get it done fast" nature to them.
4. disorganized chat. There is just so much <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> scrolling through the chat window that its really hard to keep up a conversation unless you're specifically talking only in 1 chat room. I personally cannot hold a conversation in guild chat while also talking to people in zone chat while trying to watch for possible good trades. Its just too much switching back and forth and I get a headache. Not to mention since zone chat tends to troll and spam central most players have it turned off and often forget they turned it off.
So that's what I think the problems are, maybe im just crazy, I don't know anymore. Personally, I do try to talk to people. Even if its the bare minimum. In guild I will try to answer questions even if its to say "I don't know", in squad I will at least say hiya if someone says hello and at the end of the run I often say "thanks for the fun" even if im the one who put the squad together.
Best thing I can suggest is for those who would like more conversations in game, make an effort to make more conversations. Also, don't add someone as a friend if you're the type that is never going to contact that person again. I have so many names on my friend list of players who friended me but then never asked me to squad with them again. That in itself seems antisocial. lol
IMHO a good mmo gives you oportunity to find people and interact if you want, but still play alone if you feeling like it.
in this point neverwinter could do better, too bad most instances need no group or HAVE to have a party, would be better if it scalled in challenge with the amount of players. also there is no exploration and the city is sooo small for any roleplay or find a place to chill with friends and talk. I misss a big city like Millenium city on champions online, that place is awesome!
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
honestly, I don't think the solo aspect of the game plays any part in the antisocial nature of this games community. And by that I mean that just being able to play solo does not cause people to be antisocial. I have played many game with very large amounts of solo content yet have never seen this much lack of conversations. I truly believe that it's a few different things that ultimately leads to this.
Best thing I can suggest is for those who would like more conversations in game, make an effort to make more conversations. Also, don't add someone as a friend if you're the type that is never going to contact that person again. I have so many names on my friend list of players who friended me but then never asked me to squad with them again. That in itself seems antisocial. lol
It wouldn't help man,
I've played games where solo content was available too, but those were always PvP games, not a base PvE game like D&D. The downtime combined with constant imminent danger is what pulled that closeness in people togather and just never let go. In RvR games where you're realm vs realm, yeah its just huge. Because of the constant danger there. And the downtime meant you really not only talk to people more... but had to get close as you'd be spending hours upon end with them and have to absolutely depend on them like brothers in arms.
But the new "casual" type of MMO, is more like playing Diablo 2. So there's really no actual real conversation, and all friendships are just acquintences of 10 seconds and done. Because you just don't need anyone else, so you just don't give a **** enough to even bother.
Comments
I will almost always hay hello if someone else does as well, and I typically say "good run" or something similar at the end. If I just leave without saying anything..... well, silence can speak louder than words.
You're not wrong,
The reality of the matter is, MMOs have become very very easy and with little down time where nearly anything can be accomplished within a half hour. The older MMOs were much more hard core. I was just talking about this in one zone chat. Someone tried to claim that WoW Raids were hard. I was like... errrm.... no.. you want to know what hard challenge meant, that would be the old Everquest model, where you go on a Planar Raid and instantly teleport into a crowd of super powered non-soloable mobs that can wipe an entire raiding party before most of them even have a chance to zone in.
Yeah WoW made things much easier, and much more casual gamer friendly... which attracted a previously unseen crowd into the MMO genre that others followed suit with... but there was a downside... to no down time... and easy soloable content where everything is at your fingertips vs required group play. You couldn't screw it up, and you could go it completely alone... It in essence made it a single player game online.
While Everquest model (also mimicked by Final Fantasy Online), was perhaps overly extreme in the challenge and difficulty level and absolutely required a grouping by most classes, and the downtime was outrageous when you had to spend a good 15 minutes to an hour regenerating your mana before you were ready to fight again (minus another group member with Mana Regeneration song or spell)...
The reality of the matter was that all that downtime meant you really did have time to sit and chat with people in your guild. You actually got to sit down and know people. And the challenges were so extreme they were burned into your mind for a lifetime. And because there were serious death penalties and you couldn't survive without a group... you felt real and legitimate fear and emotion no matter what you did when you were out there, everything was stronger than you, and everything could and would kill you in a heartbeat. And grouping and making connections weren't just optional... they were required. You couldn't gain a bad rep because it was tantamount to being ejected from the game by other players. So everyone had to behave.
So while the "new and easy" casual gamer style for MMOs is now the in thing...
There was a cost to that...
Namely... the contacts between people became as superficial as the challenges you face.
Bravo. +1 for that post.
i.e. in UO you could easily pass 2 hours by chopping trees, with little or no interaction, so you had more time to actually chat. Even some more modern games like Eve Online have time-based features, as your skills improve over time and you don't really feel you're wasting time if you do some talking.
In NW (but it's not NW's fault, it's how most action-oriented MMOs are designed) every second that you are not running towards an objective, mauling mobs and opening chests might feel as wasted time, so you feel compelled to rush to the next quest/lair/hub without even saying "hello" and leaving temporary parties (that you probably joined not because you needed a party, but because with a party you can burn the mobs faster in the lair) without a "goodbye"...
Pheryllt - 13.8k HR
Ginko - 10.3k DC
Puzzl Bochs - lvl38 CW
sent you a PM in the forum mail system ... or are you being ironic?
And that's really what it becomes, its not specific to Neverwinter either, its all the new casual gamer models.
It gets kind of pointless to even really be online or with other people.
Why?
Well I don't need you, so I don't give a ****, and I'm too busy. And if I need you its only briefly, so you don't matter. I don't even have to talk to you. Guilding is pointless other than for very specific functions. Friends aren't "really friends" they're casual acquintences you briefly engage for about 10 seconds. You're not a person you're just another object in game.
That's what happens in that kind of model. Instead of life long connections made in previous MMOs... now you're playing on battle.net like its Diablo 2 where no one matters to you anymore. So yeah, I do find personal interactions rather pointless. Which does defeat the purpose of a Massive Multiplayer Online Game. Just like the original poster said.
The older MMOs I would have to be fighting alongside you for a very long time because the challenges were much more extreme, and absolutely counting on you to save my butt. We'd be spending hours in party and possibly years togather doing that. Or I would need something or other people to chat with during grinding time or down time.
So there was a pretty sharp cost to casual gaming which kinda makes online play kinda pointless.
And come to that, even when it IS DD time, legit chat is still full of banter. Those guys are great. Sometimes possibly too laissez-faire ("brb, draco" being my current favourite for 'they were chatting while doing WHAT???' conversations).
And the fact that there's a lot of solo content...well, that's basically the NW version of UO's chopping trees. I'll happily blether away in zone or legit while doing daily stuffs solo.
Plus the more you chat to people, the more you get to know them, which has the added bonus that they're more likely to run with you, give advice, and less likely to chew you out for sucking terribly (my GF says 'hi' from her favourite spot down at the bottom of the damage table).
Trust me my friend,
Its nothing even remotely close to what it used to be. We're playing on Battle.net now... we're not playing an MMO game anymore, at least not even close to what it used to be.
We are now playing games that are a superficial as the challenges you face. And I was there for the launch of many of them. Dating back to the EQ and UO days.
I'm simply disagreeing with the idea that it's an antisocial place where nobody matters. That's more...something you bring with you, rather than something the game enforces.
(that's "non-specific you", rather than you in particular, btw
And you know, you're not wrong about that.
The MMOs were literally surrogate lives back then. You were living in another world, with separate rules and codes of conduct, and living a totally different life, and even a completely different job with different skill mastery. But the social interactions were astonishingly deep.
There is an Anime series if you really want to know what it was like back then called, Sword Art Online... This movie/anime goes into so much detail on the culture. If you want to know what it was like back then to be in that world of the old style MMOs.
http://justdubs.tv/anime/sword-art-online-english-dub/
Now... I had a job back then too, and sometimes I would just work, come home, play, and enjoy an entirely different world and group of friends just like I was living another life. So you're not wrong either. That is indeed what old MMOs are, a completely different world. The new Genre of MMOs are not really an MMO anymore, they're just a single player game where no one really matters and there's no real connections to anyone anymore. So the OP is indeed correct.
There was a severe cost in personal interaction in order to bring an MMO to a casual gamer. And I admit, I do miss that part.
A good MMO has a balance between solo play and team play. Why? Not everyone likes being around everyone all the time. Sometimes I need a break from my friends list, okay?
It's nothing personal. I mean, I don't even know the vast majority of you. (Especially considering that I'm still really, really new here.) But I don't think it's criminal or even BAD to want to solo in an MMO.
Sure, there'll be times that I want to run something that requires a group. (Not too bloody often, but it DOES happen.) If and when those urges occur, it's not hard to form a group. It's EFFORT. It's TIME-CONSUMING. But it's not DIFFICULT. If any of you have a problem with not being able to find anyone with whom to play, might I suggest that the problem is you?
1. the leveling aspect. We level so fast in this game that skipping content that would otherwise force you to team up with other players has no consequence. In other games, if you were to skip major dungeons along your climb to max level you would have to make up that extra exp by prolonged grinding, possibly adding another day to get that level. Also, there is no lag time in between levels to give you anytime to need to talk. You just basically continue to level until you run out of playing time then start again tomorrow.
2. Negative reinforcement. Sounds crazy I know but I really think players in this game pick up bad habits faster then other games. Meaning if they tried to talk and no one answers then they just figure that's the way everyone is in the game and proceed to not talk to anyone unless they have to.
3. too much action. Ok, might not be the right way to word that but right now I think of another way to say it. But what I mean is, there is a definite feeling of needing to maximize your play time in this game. So if you're running a dungeon, everyone just wants to get through it as fast as possible leaving no time to talk unless you wipe on a boss and even then its pretty much just enough talking to come up with a strategy (if someone doesn't quit first). And the same goes for pretty much anything you do as a team, PvP, GG, quests, all have this "gotta get it done fast" nature to them.
4. disorganized chat. There is just so much <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> scrolling through the chat window that its really hard to keep up a conversation unless you're specifically talking only in 1 chat room. I personally cannot hold a conversation in guild chat while also talking to people in zone chat while trying to watch for possible good trades. Its just too much switching back and forth and I get a headache. Not to mention since zone chat tends to troll and spam central most players have it turned off and often forget they turned it off.
So that's what I think the problems are, maybe im just crazy, I don't know anymore. Personally, I do try to talk to people. Even if its the bare minimum. In guild I will try to answer questions even if its to say "I don't know", in squad I will at least say hiya if someone says hello and at the end of the run I often say "thanks for the fun" even if im the one who put the squad together.
Best thing I can suggest is for those who would like more conversations in game, make an effort to make more conversations. Also, don't add someone as a friend if you're the type that is never going to contact that person again. I have so many names on my friend list of players who friended me but then never asked me to squad with them again. That in itself seems antisocial. lol
in this point neverwinter could do better, too bad most instances need no group or HAVE to have a party, would be better if it scalled in challenge with the amount of players. also there is no exploration and the city is sooo small for any roleplay or find a place to chill with friends and talk. I misss a big city like Millenium city on champions online, that place is awesome!
It wouldn't help man,
I've played games where solo content was available too, but those were always PvP games, not a base PvE game like D&D. The downtime combined with constant imminent danger is what pulled that closeness in people togather and just never let go. In RvR games where you're realm vs realm, yeah its just huge. Because of the constant danger there. And the downtime meant you really not only talk to people more... but had to get close as you'd be spending hours upon end with them and have to absolutely depend on them like brothers in arms.
But the new "casual" type of MMO, is more like playing Diablo 2. So there's really no actual real conversation, and all friendships are just acquintences of 10 seconds and done. Because you just don't need anyone else, so you just don't give a **** enough to even bother.