Repost... I accidentaly posted this in the academy forums so I will repost it here.
One thing STO seems to be missing is the need for socialization. I have played other online games that do quite well in this area. Perhaps make use of the bars that exist on the various stations by granting some type of buff to a player that spends a certain amout of time partaking in the activities that exist there. Im not talking about requiring large amounts of time.. just 5 to 10 minutes. I also dont want this to turn into buff wars or anything. Perhaps something like a medical boost buff, or Experience point gain of 10% for a few hours.
I feel that this type of face to face socialization will lead to more grouping and creation of friends within the game. It could bring fleets closer together.
Or a small boost to symbolize the players willingness to team and be social.
Why not just have it give a temporary small percentage buff if player teams within an hour of being in the bar?
Should spending too much time in a bar have a debuff effect? Would it depend on the bar and wether or not it serves real alcohol?
Sounds kind of like the rest system in another game when you stay at an inn or sit in a home city even if you are logged out you gain rest points granting a bonus to exp gains.
What I would do to get more of social atmosphere going is to get on those mini games like poker, dom-jot (pardon my spelling), and such games as pool.
Yes pool is canon as per voyager.
What I am getting at is games that players can all play and play against eachother or help eachother win such as poker teams.
Dabo is a nice game, but there is really no player interaction going on.
In poker a player could be the card dealer and so forth.
The rewards need to be worth the time.
I am not talking getting gear through a poker game, but rather gaining cosmetic items for your char or your ship that do not take forever and a day to earn.
Even a person who wins little needs something to come away with to in order to help keep the system alive.
You may be on to something there in the OP, but I am just not sure that will keep people coming in for the long term.
Repost... I accidentaly posted this in the academy forums so I will repost it here.
One thing STO seems to be missing is the need for socialization. I have played other online games that do quite well in this area. Perhaps make use of the bars that exist on the various stations by granting some type of buff to a player that spends a certain amout of time partaking in the activities that exist there. Im not talking about requiring large amounts of time.. just 5 to 10 minutes. I also dont want this to turn into buff wars or anything. Perhaps something like a medical boost buff, or Experience point gain of 10% for a few hours.
I feel that this type of face to face socialization will lead to more grouping and creation of friends within the game. It could bring fleets closer together.
Let me know you think.
I think we should WANT to socialize, not NEED to socialize. Just like I feel we should WANT to group with others, not NEED to.
Thing is we are now living in the age where voice chat programs like Skype are common-place, and more social conversation is going on in the privacy of those chat sessions is going on than is readily apparent in casual observation. Odds are, if you can play STO, you can also use a voice chat program. To you, I may be standing there staring at my team mates, but for all you know, we could be engaged in a deep philosophical debate about the nature of the universe, or we could be planning our next move in the game.
As to your idea of requiring 5 to 10 minutes downtime from gameplay as a reason to come to a bar on a space station to get a buff, let me just say, no thanks. I have real life responsibilities that place limits on my gameplay time. 5 to 10 minutes may not seem much to you, but to me, that's a significant chunk. And even though I don't PvP, if something like this were implemented, the victory will be ensured to those who have the buff and defeat will be ensured for those that don't. And in order for the incentive you are looking for to be there, the buff would have to be something greater than just a marginal boost to stats.
Want to bring people to social hubs? then ask the developers to write content that sends them there. Make it where there are reasons to visit Earth Space Dock, even though the services provided there also exist elsewhere.
No area of an MMO should EVER be a ghost town. If an MMO's live team would examine player traffic into and out of each social hub, and create some sort of scenario to place in close proximity to the hub with the least traffic incoming traffic, there's an instant reason for players to gravitate back there on common purpose.
It can be truly said that Deep Space K7 has had a significant upturn in player presence since Series 2. Next series, I hope they introduce a new space sector. And for series 4 I hope they set it in a previously existing hub area that has seen a decrease in visitors. Where Cryptic deploys forward-going content will determine where the players gravitate. It brings players there without forced downtime or forced grouping. And that is a good thing.
I think we should WANT to socialize, not NEED to socialize. Just like I feel we should WANT to group with others, not NEED to.
I agree. Some people have limited playtime and should be forced to spend it looking for other people to play with(or buff them) unless they actually WANT to.
I think a group of people should get bonus buffs when teamed in missions. Teaming already gives you more XP because there's more ships/ground troups to defeat in each mission but a crafted item-like buff for a team would be more useful then a social zone buff, IMO.
2 person team: +5% accuracy
3 person team: above +5% damage
4 person team: above +5% critical
5 person team: above +5% resistance or defense
I can't remember in which MMO(s) it was, but I recall reading info about an MMO in which players that group together receive a slight XP boost. I want to say it was SWG, but I'm not positive. Heck, it could have been STO. I wouldn't know though, because I just recently bought a subscription to the game and have yet to group with anyone aside from when I briefly do so for a PvP match or when I get put into an open team instance during a patrol mission.
Yesterday, when I went to the "Big Dig" ground warzone, I tried to group with some of the people I came across, and while only two accepted my invites, I tried to stick with any others I came across as support, but when I would get flanked and had to take on an extra group of Remans, often times my "group" would just continue on and ditch me behind, which pretty much left me on the outskirts of the objective area fighting Remans forever while the ragtag group of uncoordinated players ended up completing the mission.
There was really no incentive to help me. It takes more then one person to finish that warzon if you are at the same rank that the warzone is ranked as, but with the players competing amongst each other for the high score - or I assume that's why everyone seemed to ditch each other behind (I wasn't the only one) - there's really no incentive to cooperate beyond what is minimally necessary.
I think it would be a good idea (if it's not implemented already) to offer a slight skill point boost to players that complete missions as part of a team. Nothing huge, but an additional 5% boost to player or Bridge Officer skill point rewards or something like that would work. It wouldn't force players to group, but it would create an incentive to do so, as you would rank up faster. And while I haven't really grouped with anybody, I really haven't noticed any other players traveling together either. I don't know if that's one of those things that becomes more common at high levels, but right now I am a Commander 7th grade, and I've yet to see it once.
I think a group of people should get bonus buffs when teamed in missions. Teaming already gives you more XP because there's more ships/ground troups to defeat in each mission but a crafted item-like buff for a team would be more useful then a social zone buff, IMO.
2 person team: +5% accuracy
3 person team: above +5% damage
4 person team: above +5% critical
5 person team: above +5% resistance or defense
A very good idea and would provide a combat-oriented incentive to group that doesnt force anything, and would automatically be applied to the group. NPC bridge officers should not count towards these bonuses, obviously.
But the OP seemed to be making a case for bringing people into social hubs, not just giving a reason to want to group... Do you feel that what I suggested would work in that respect?
A very good idea and would provide a combat-oriented incentive to group that doesnt force anything, and would automatically be applied to the group. NPC bridge officers should not count towards these bonuses, obviously.
But the OP seemed to be making a case for bringing people into social hubs, not just giving a reason to want to group... Do you feel that what I suggested would work in that respect?
I agree with you that there should be some missions that require socialization in the various social areas but, like the STFs, people would just complain that they can't do them solo. I personally have no problem if there were a few "social missions" but not if they must be made at the expense of other types of content that the game so greatly needs. Manpower is extremely limited right now and there are greater end-game needs that need to be addressed first.
STO's never going to be a social simulation game, IMO. Yeah, we all have access to Teamspeak, Skype, Vent, and other voice sources but I'm usually already talking to friends on Teamspeak while playing games. I might be in STO, another friend might be in WoW, another still might be playing DCUO beta and asking us to come and join him, and so on. Voice software has allowed us to expand our socialiazing past just a single game experience.
I think we should WANT to socialize, not NEED to socialize. Just like I feel we should WANT to group with others, not NEED to.
.
I agree with this.
I also agree with another point about not seizing a chunk of playing time by necessitating the need for a 5 to 10 minute buff session. I quit my all-time favorite MMO at the end of last year, and that was one of the major reasons. I no longer have a ton of time each night to play MMOs, and I didn't care for having to spend a chunk of it collecting buffs in order to accomplish most of the worthwhile content in game or to participate in PvP. I have found a lot of players grow to resent that forced down time.
Just out of curiousity, what was it? I'm guessing SWG :P
SWG. I'm a huge, huge Star Wars fan. Played from launch through the CU and the NGE. I finally left because I didn't like tracking down buffs, they were essentially recycling the content each year without much that was new, a lot of the content was steered towards the collection system, which in many ways was just another grind, and my primary playing time was after peak hours, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find players to group with for the things I wanted to do. I'll leave it at that, as I don't want to derail this thread. If anyone wants to talk about SWG with me, then please feel free to message me.
SWG. I'm a huge, huge Star Wars fan. Played from launch through the CU and the NGE. I finally left because I didn't like tracking down buffs, they were essentially recycling the content each year without much that was new, a lot of the content was steered towards the collection system, which in many ways was just another grind, and my primary playing time was after peak hours, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find players to group with for the things I wanted to do. I'll leave it at that, as I don't want to derail this thread. If anyone wants to talk about SWG with me, then please feel free to message me.
Haha, I was right!(see my black text in my last post). Yeah, I definitely feel your pain there. Just to give you an idea of my experience with the game, I have an elder Jedi and a BH with a full suit of Mando. The funny thing is, I spent just as much time getting the buffs to reach those goals as the actualy gameplay itself :rolleyes:
I am pretty sure he means SWG. I also have an account there. While I enjoy the whole cantina scene they over did the buffing system and turned it into buff wars. I am not saying it has to be a buff. I like the idea of adding in mini games for players to play against each other for in game trinkets, Costume peices or some other incentinve to socialise.
Haha, I was right!(see my black text in my last post). Yeah, I definitely feel your pain there. Just to give you an idea of my experience with the game, I have an elder Jedi and a BH with a full suit of Mando. The funny thing is, I spent just as much time getting the buffs to reach those goals as the actualy gameplay itself :rolleyes:
Good guess. I figured my description would give it away. Elder Jedi here as well.
I see what the OP is getting at here. I just don't think the folks that want to socialize at the social locations would be happy with folks that are just there to get the buff. I would guess that there would be quite a bit of griefing going on. You just can't force people to be sociable or friendly.
I am pretty sure he means SWG. I also have an account there. While I enjoy the whole cantina scene they over did the buffing system and turned it into buff wars. I am not saying it has to be a buff. I like the idea of adding in mini games for players to play against each other for in game trinkets, Costume peices or some other incentinve to socialise.
I don't have a problem with social minigames and such as long as 1) they don't provide some "must have" mechanic for the rest of the game (i.e. provide a bonus to fighting, etc.) that can't be acquired some other way, and 2) doesn't divert a significant amount of dev time away from prime content (such as the weekly series, sorties, STFs, etc.).
I do play Dabo from time to time and chat with others. I was playing some a few nights ago while multi-tasking a few RL projects.
I am stating what i already wrote in the other thread about this case.
If socialization does not occur on a voluntary basis then forcing people to do so won't help.
Imagine to socialize with people who are forced to do, is no fun on both sides.
So forcing socialization isn't a good idea in general. If people are willing to socialize then they will do anyway.
If they were to remove the instancing into each system (leave the different sector instances, but remove the system instancing) then people would want to team up more. Why? Because you could be flying by and you would see someone fighting and such and you'd say ''heck lets go join in and do the mission together''. I used to do this all the time in WoW (and so did others with me) and it led to teams and friends and more guild members.
Of course to do this they would totally have to make systems like 10x bigger so you could still do the missions in the systems, and you would still have to have planet instances (for when you do away team missions) but at least in space they could keep it instance-free. You would only need to retain the sector instances so that if you're trying to do a mission in a system and someone has already begun it or has killed half of the enemies, then you could simply switch to another instance of the sector until you found one that was empty or with someone just beginning.
I think a group of people should get bonus buffs when teamed in missions. Teaming already gives you more XP because there's more ships/ground troups to defeat in each mission but a crafted item-like buff for a team would be more useful then a social zone buff, IMO.
2 person team: +5% accuracy
3 person team: above +5% damage
4 person team: above +5% critical
5 person team: above +5% resistance or defense
The whole reason there are STFs is because people want "challenging forced team content". Do those people really want that content to be easier by having buffs applied to them? Every time it's mentioned to make STFs easier, there those who demand they be left the same because they want a challenge. I'd have to assume those players would not want the STFs made easier by giving team buffs.
I think the best way to "encourage" people to socialize in this game would be to provide mini games in the social areas. Multi-player mini games would go a long way to provide something for those who want to hang out in social areas a reason for loitering there and interacting with each other.
I can respect those who do enjoy socializing want more stuff to do in the social areas, but when it comes down to adding buffs, bonuses or specific missions for socialites, I tend to get a bit suspicious of the true motives. Is it really about encouraging people to socialize for the betterment of the community or is it just about rewarding those who play this "MMO" the "right" and punishing those darn anti-social, casual solo players who have never played a MMO before.
Personally, I see no reason at all to "encourage" one play style over another.
One thing STO seems to be missing is the need for socialization.
If simply being human hasn't given you the need to socialize with your fellow human beings then nothing done by any game design company is going to help you with that.
like the STFs, people would just complain that they can't do them solo.
Or, nowadays, complain that the optional Pi Canis Raid missions that were specifically made to encourage teaming are too difficult to solo...
Anyways, socializing ... there are a number of chat channels for all kinds of people (general smalltalk, Trek-related stuff, roleplaying, ...), and fleets give a further sense of community for people.
I don't see what else can be done to encourage socializing. This is something that has to come from the people themselves and can not nor should be enforced.
The whole reason there are STFs is because people want "challenging forced team content". Do those people really want that content to be easier by having buffs applied to them? Every time it's mentioned to make STFs easier, there those who demand they be left the same because they want a challenge. I'd have to assume those players would not want the STFs made easier by giving team buffs.
I have long wondered what percentage of Admirals/Generals in the game actually complete an STF, let alone all 4. I have a feeling it's probably well below 20% of the Admirals/Generals in the game have done one or more. Since Cryptic has the numbers it would be interesting for them to release them. Making content that only a fraction of your fan-base actually does is a waste of valuable manpower, IMO.
The above is my feelings on STFs. Of course there's nothing saying teaming bonuses can't be turned off in STFs just like the Difficulty Slider is.
That is the one thing i have always wanted for this game. Although you meet alot of players in space they are usually to busy to talk with you and as soon as you leave the map/sector they are gone. You can create separate chat rooms yes but realistically that's not something you do on the train to work when having a conversation.
A sector specific chat room that includes all zones and instances of missions and locations within that sector would be perfect. It is definitely something i would love to see. Anything to expand the social element a little.
I do not know about you. But I am constantly chatting. There is lots of chat going on.
Chatting in the Zone
Chatting in the Fleet
Chatting with my Team
Chatting in the PVPMatch
You just need to play the game socially, if you want social.
Start doing missions in teams. Look for people to join your team.
Join a fleet.
Play pvp.
I say, just add more mingames. The current one, Dabo, is REALLY hard to talk to people while playing. But poker, Domjot, Klin Zha, Darts, or any other competitive games could get people talking. Plus adding life to "social" zones.
If simply being human hasn't given you the need to socialize with your fellow human beings then nothing done by any game design company is going to help you with that.
I think it's pretty clear from him posting this thread that he wants to, he is finding tools to do so some what lacking.
Speaking for myself, if I turn down a team invite, it's not because I don't want to socialize or I'm being standoffish--it's just because I'm often only able to log in for an hour or maybe two during any given period, so I don't want to leave any teammates "in the lurch" at a bad time during a mission--there's nothing worse than to have your team waiting in a pvp queue and then your number's called only to find that one or more "teammates" is "afk"--to me, that's uncool. It's better to simply say, "I'm sorry, I can't team right now--maybe again later?"
Also, I prefer that if someone wants to team with me that they send me a "tell" or holler out for me on one of the chat channels rather than just sending me the invite. That way, if I can't team, I can apologize and suggest that we try again a little later. Speaking of which, the Federation or Klingon mail service is a wonderful way to set up team and/or fleet actions. Just contact the person or persons you want to team with and then you can set up a time that works for everyone--that way, you also can avoid the dreaded afk disease.
That being said, I also like the idea of social hubs being utilized. I'd like to roleplay more with my alts and my main, but haven't seen that much action on that frontier. I know there are roleplayers here--so anyone who wants to get into that, give me a holler on zone when one of my alts is at ESD or some other hub. Also, anyone who isn't a roleplayer who wants to say hello, just say it and I'll try to answer back--just don't expect me to answer back quickly if I'm neck deep in Klingons or Nausicaans--I have to take a bath just thinking about being neck deep in Nausicaans!
Comments
Why not just have it give a temporary small percentage buff if player teams within an hour of being in the bar?
Should spending too much time in a bar have a debuff effect? Would it depend on the bar and wether or not it serves real alcohol?
What I would do to get more of social atmosphere going is to get on those mini games like poker, dom-jot (pardon my spelling), and such games as pool.
Yes pool is canon as per voyager.
What I am getting at is games that players can all play and play against eachother or help eachother win such as poker teams.
Dabo is a nice game, but there is really no player interaction going on.
In poker a player could be the card dealer and so forth.
The rewards need to be worth the time.
I am not talking getting gear through a poker game, but rather gaining cosmetic items for your char or your ship that do not take forever and a day to earn.
Even a person who wins little needs something to come away with to in order to help keep the system alive.
You may be on to something there in the OP, but I am just not sure that will keep people coming in for the long term.
I think we should WANT to socialize, not NEED to socialize. Just like I feel we should WANT to group with others, not NEED to.
Thing is we are now living in the age where voice chat programs like Skype are common-place, and more social conversation is going on in the privacy of those chat sessions is going on than is readily apparent in casual observation. Odds are, if you can play STO, you can also use a voice chat program. To you, I may be standing there staring at my team mates, but for all you know, we could be engaged in a deep philosophical debate about the nature of the universe, or we could be planning our next move in the game.
As to your idea of requiring 5 to 10 minutes downtime from gameplay as a reason to come to a bar on a space station to get a buff, let me just say, no thanks. I have real life responsibilities that place limits on my gameplay time. 5 to 10 minutes may not seem much to you, but to me, that's a significant chunk. And even though I don't PvP, if something like this were implemented, the victory will be ensured to those who have the buff and defeat will be ensured for those that don't. And in order for the incentive you are looking for to be there, the buff would have to be something greater than just a marginal boost to stats.
Want to bring people to social hubs? then ask the developers to write content that sends them there. Make it where there are reasons to visit Earth Space Dock, even though the services provided there also exist elsewhere.
No area of an MMO should EVER be a ghost town. If an MMO's live team would examine player traffic into and out of each social hub, and create some sort of scenario to place in close proximity to the hub with the least traffic incoming traffic, there's an instant reason for players to gravitate back there on common purpose.
It can be truly said that Deep Space K7 has had a significant upturn in player presence since Series 2. Next series, I hope they introduce a new space sector. And for series 4 I hope they set it in a previously existing hub area that has seen a decrease in visitors. Where Cryptic deploys forward-going content will determine where the players gravitate. It brings players there without forced downtime or forced grouping. And that is a good thing.
I agree. Some people have limited playtime and should be forced to spend it looking for other people to play with(or buff them) unless they actually WANT to.
2 person team: +5% accuracy
3 person team: above +5% damage
4 person team: above +5% critical
5 person team: above +5% resistance or defense
Yesterday, when I went to the "Big Dig" ground warzone, I tried to group with some of the people I came across, and while only two accepted my invites, I tried to stick with any others I came across as support, but when I would get flanked and had to take on an extra group of Remans, often times my "group" would just continue on and ditch me behind, which pretty much left me on the outskirts of the objective area fighting Remans forever while the ragtag group of uncoordinated players ended up completing the mission.
There was really no incentive to help me. It takes more then one person to finish that warzon if you are at the same rank that the warzone is ranked as, but with the players competing amongst each other for the high score - or I assume that's why everyone seemed to ditch each other behind (I wasn't the only one) - there's really no incentive to cooperate beyond what is minimally necessary.
I think it would be a good idea (if it's not implemented already) to offer a slight skill point boost to players that complete missions as part of a team. Nothing huge, but an additional 5% boost to player or Bridge Officer skill point rewards or something like that would work. It wouldn't force players to group, but it would create an incentive to do so, as you would rank up faster. And while I haven't really grouped with anybody, I really haven't noticed any other players traveling together either. I don't know if that's one of those things that becomes more common at high levels, but right now I am a Commander 7th grade, and I've yet to see it once.
I also like Cosmic_One's idea.
A very good idea and would provide a combat-oriented incentive to group that doesnt force anything, and would automatically be applied to the group. NPC bridge officers should not count towards these bonuses, obviously.
But the OP seemed to be making a case for bringing people into social hubs, not just giving a reason to want to group... Do you feel that what I suggested would work in that respect?
STO's never going to be a social simulation game, IMO. Yeah, we all have access to Teamspeak, Skype, Vent, and other voice sources but I'm usually already talking to friends on Teamspeak while playing games. I might be in STO, another friend might be in WoW, another still might be playing DCUO beta and asking us to come and join him, and so on. Voice software has allowed us to expand our socialiazing past just a single game experience.
I agree with this.
I also agree with another point about not seizing a chunk of playing time by necessitating the need for a 5 to 10 minute buff session. I quit my all-time favorite MMO at the end of last year, and that was one of the major reasons. I no longer have a ton of time each night to play MMOs, and I didn't care for having to spend a chunk of it collecting buffs in order to accomplish most of the worthwhile content in game or to participate in PvP. I have found a lot of players grow to resent that forced down time.
Just out of curiousity, what was it? I'm guessing SWG :P
SWG. I'm a huge, huge Star Wars fan. Played from launch through the CU and the NGE. I finally left because I didn't like tracking down buffs, they were essentially recycling the content each year without much that was new, a lot of the content was steered towards the collection system, which in many ways was just another grind, and my primary playing time was after peak hours, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find players to group with for the things I wanted to do. I'll leave it at that, as I don't want to derail this thread. If anyone wants to talk about SWG with me, then please feel free to message me.
Haha, I was right!(see my black text in my last post). Yeah, I definitely feel your pain there. Just to give you an idea of my experience with the game, I have an elder Jedi and a BH with a full suit of Mando. The funny thing is, I spent just as much time getting the buffs to reach those goals as the actualy gameplay itself :rolleyes:
Good guess. I figured my description would give it away. Elder Jedi here as well.
I don't have a problem with social minigames and such as long as 1) they don't provide some "must have" mechanic for the rest of the game (i.e. provide a bonus to fighting, etc.) that can't be acquired some other way, and 2) doesn't divert a significant amount of dev time away from prime content (such as the weekly series, sorties, STFs, etc.).
I do play Dabo from time to time and chat with others. I was playing some a few nights ago while multi-tasking a few RL projects.
If socialization does not occur on a voluntary basis then forcing people to do so won't help.
Imagine to socialize with people who are forced to do, is no fun on both sides.
So forcing socialization isn't a good idea in general. If people are willing to socialize then they will do anyway.
Thank you for reading.
You can also check out Subspace Radio. Frequently, they have fun parties and group events. Tis a lot of fun.
House of Ill Repute or Brothel. Cat house may upset the Cat people in the game.
Iether way I agree.
Of course to do this they would totally have to make systems like 10x bigger so you could still do the missions in the systems, and you would still have to have planet instances (for when you do away team missions) but at least in space they could keep it instance-free. You would only need to retain the sector instances so that if you're trying to do a mission in a system and someone has already begun it or has killed half of the enemies, then you could simply switch to another instance of the sector until you found one that was empty or with someone just beginning.
The whole reason there are STFs is because people want "challenging forced team content". Do those people really want that content to be easier by having buffs applied to them? Every time it's mentioned to make STFs easier, there those who demand they be left the same because they want a challenge. I'd have to assume those players would not want the STFs made easier by giving team buffs.
I think the best way to "encourage" people to socialize in this game would be to provide mini games in the social areas. Multi-player mini games would go a long way to provide something for those who want to hang out in social areas a reason for loitering there and interacting with each other.
I can respect those who do enjoy socializing want more stuff to do in the social areas, but when it comes down to adding buffs, bonuses or specific missions for socialites, I tend to get a bit suspicious of the true motives. Is it really about encouraging people to socialize for the betterment of the community or is it just about rewarding those who play this "MMO" the "right" and punishing those darn anti-social, casual solo players who have never played a MMO before.
Personally, I see no reason at all to "encourage" one play style over another.
Anyways, socializing ... there are a number of chat channels for all kinds of people (general smalltalk, Trek-related stuff, roleplaying, ...), and fleets give a further sense of community for people.
I don't see what else can be done to encourage socializing. This is something that has to come from the people themselves and can not nor should be enforced.
The above is my feelings on STFs.
A sector specific chat room that includes all zones and instances of missions and locations within that sector would be perfect. It is definitely something i would love to see. Anything to expand the social element a little.
Chatting in the Zone
Chatting in the Fleet
Chatting with my Team
Chatting in the PVPMatch
You just need to play the game socially, if you want social.
Start doing missions in teams. Look for people to join your team.
Join a fleet.
Play pvp.
I think it's pretty clear from him posting this thread that he wants to, he is finding tools to do so some what lacking.
I have to agree they are.
Also, I prefer that if someone wants to team with me that they send me a "tell" or holler out for me on one of the chat channels rather than just sending me the invite. That way, if I can't team, I can apologize and suggest that we try again a little later. Speaking of which, the Federation or Klingon mail service is a wonderful way to set up team and/or fleet actions. Just contact the person or persons you want to team with and then you can set up a time that works for everyone--that way, you also can avoid the dreaded afk disease.
That being said, I also like the idea of social hubs being utilized. I'd like to roleplay more with my alts and my main, but haven't seen that much action on that frontier. I know there are roleplayers here--so anyone who wants to get into that, give me a holler on zone when one of my alts is at ESD or some other hub. Also, anyone who isn't a roleplayer who wants to say hello, just say it and I'll try to answer back--just don't expect me to answer back quickly if I'm neck deep in Klingons or Nausicaans--I have to take a bath just thinking about being neck deep in Nausicaans!