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Originally posted by Loktofeit

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Originally posted by Phry

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Originally posted by VirusDancer On the drive to work, do you notice all the other people you're grouped with in traffic...? Not very social is it? :)

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this is a very good analogy tbh, just because your in the same place and doing the same things, doesnt mean you communicate in any way, and no its not very social at all. This is something i've noticed about MMO's generally though, they are no longer promoting social interraction, how many games could you replace the players with bots and not notice the difference. Its not even about enforcing grouping in a game, its about games being more social generally, i don't know of any game released in the last couple of years that actually promoted interdependance. Kind of sad really.

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I don't think promoting interdependence is the key, as that is the tool most MMOs use and it simply doesn't work. Promoting interaction seems to work much better. More importantly, Providing channels for like-minded individuals to separate from the rest and interact allows for more social behaviour. While on the surface, that sounds contradictory, it really is how people work.

Rather than paste it all in this post, here's something I wrote a few years back on this particular topic. People interact more when you allow them to divide.

 

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When WOW released dungeon finder tool there was much cry and complaining that it does not encourage social behaviour. For me it doesn't matter. Now GW2 does it at large scale. Puts you into groups automaticaly with even larger number of players in open world and still players say the same that it is an anti social MMO.

For me socializing means communication and if that is missing whether you play with 5 players or 50 you are going to feel the same.

Don't like any of the options, so won't vote. But i will give my opinion on the matter. I think it's not about socializing per se, but more about the feeling of mmorpg interactions being "impersonall". Allow to use examples.

When i'm doing a dynamic event, rift, pq, dungeon run using LFG tools, etc, there is a clear, pre-determined, game goal. The game tells me to "kill x". So, even if i'm "grouped" with other players, we see each other as just npcs. Not completly of course, but in a certain way, you could replace people with AI (really good one) and it would not make that much difference.

Now, imagine playing a card game with other players in-game. Or how about an rp and guild event, like, a game of hide and seek (just came up with it because i posted a video). In this situation, the "goal" is set by the players. If you replace people with npcs, it would feel hollow and shallow. In these events and situation, being around players and "socializing" matters.

 Another possible example. This one using forced grouping. A high level area in the game is sooo hard that you must have another player (just 1 is enough) to stay alive.

Now, using my dungeon run exmaple again, the objective is to beat it, beat the trash mobs, beat the bosses, fast as possible, etc, etc. Bam, ty maam, kthxbye. Game set goal, right?

Now, game to the high level area. Let's say i, the player, wanty to go explore it and find great views and even take some shots. Another person wants to go there too to find some rare materials for crafting. So, we decide to group up, explore and do stuff along side each other. In this case, our "goals" where set by ourselves. I wanted to explore, but went mat hunting to help out soemone else as they help me.

In conclusion, i think it goes like this:

When the goals, objectives, actions, etc exist in a way that the players join "around it in a circle", the "socialization" occurs automatically as the goals "bounce off" each person. We are "facing each other as we face the goal". Even if there's no chatting, if feels like a personal group experience.

When the goal, objectives, actions, etc exist in a way that the players seperate themselves and "look up each in their own space", there's no personal feeling of communication, because everyone is "in their own world". Yes, they have the same objective, but are not "looking at each other, just the goal", so everyone's "around you" but not "with you".

I know, i know. "WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MMOwanderer?"

My previous posts more or less ignored everything but the title of the thread. So, here's an answer.

In games like WoW, Rift and TSW, the Dynamic Events and Group Finders are necessary. Good or bad, you need them. Not initially, as there are plenty of people around to put a group together by just talking, but after awhile, there's not enough people or they are spread out so much that putting a group together in global chat is just frustrating, not fun.

In more open world games where players aren't progressing from a beginning to an end, even if there are instances, something that puts groups together may not be necessary, and may not be beneficial.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect
 To make things more social you need to prolong the experience, games such as EverQuest had a single group together for hours inside dungeons, which is more like going on a camping trip with a bunch of strangers - the longer you're together, the more time you have to get to know each other and have more interesting conversations.

However, if you find that you do not actually like the strangers being stuck with them for long periods of time will be a nightmare.  I guess yelling and throwing stuff at each other does qualify as 'interesting conversations'.

I remember in school there was a guy I was mildly social with.  We knew each other, talked about stuff a few times and were generally cordial to each other.  Then we had to work together on a school project and we realized that our work styles clashed too much and we were driving each other nuts due to our quirks.  We should have gone our seperate ways and forget the whole thing but we had to finish the project so we could pass our class.  By the end we hated each other's guts and afterwards never spoke again.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Loktofeit

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Originally posted by Phry

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Originally posted by VirusDancer On the drive to work, do you notice all the other people you're grouped with in traffic...? Not very social is it? :)

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this is a very good analogy tbh, just because your in the same place and doing the same things, doesnt mean you communicate in any way, and no its not very social at all. This is something i've noticed about MMO's generally though, they are no longer promoting social interraction, how many games could you replace the players with bots and not notice the difference. Its not even about enforcing grouping in a game, its about games being more social generally, i don't know of any game released in the last couple of years that actually promoted interdependance. Kind of sad really.

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I don't think promoting interdependence is the key, as that is the tool most MMOs use and it simply doesn't work. Promoting interaction seems to work much better. More importantly, Providing channels for like-minded individuals to separate from the rest and interact allows for more social behaviour. While on the surface, that sounds contradictory, it really is how people work.

 

Rather than paste it all in this post, here's something I wrote a few years back on this particular topic. People interact more when you allow them to divide.

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This makes sense. It's how Facebook became the raging internet monster we all know and love to hate. It allows people to all get together, and then divide themselves into as many groups as they want.
 

Two of FB's most powerful tools on that front were the Poke and Groups.

While Poke is universally despised currently, it served the very distinct purpose of allowing people to make the leap from wanting to interact to actually interacting when they aren't necessrily sure how to. Poke gave people a tool to initiate interaction with others. Despite it currently being the bane of FB features, it fulfilled a much needed role in getting people communicating.

The Group feature allows people to not only divide but a way find those subgroups. Not only does this allow people to share common interests and bond with new people, but it also allows these groups to do so with minimal atangonism from those who have absolutely no interest in or flat out dislike the discussion matter. Groups based on religion, hobby, nationality, locale, gender, age, etc formed so as new people joined FB they could search and find these groups in order to become part of the community and interact with others more.

A player created chat channel system like AOL's room system with search, invites and other features would facilitate players being social much more than any combat group system.

Originally posted by MMOwanderer

Don't like any of the options, so won't vote. But i will give my opinion on the matter. I think it's not about socializing per se, but more about the feeling of mmorpg interactions being "impersonall". Allow to use examples.

When i'm doing a dynamic event, rift, pq, dungeon run using LFG tools, etc, there is a clear, pre-determined, game goal. The game tells me to "kill x". So, even if i'm "grouped" with other players, we see each other as just npcs. Not completly of course, but in a certain way, you could replace people with AI (really good one) and it would not make that much difference.

Now, imagine playing a card game with other players in-game. Or how about an rp and guild event, like, a game of hide and seek (just came up with it because i posted a video). In this situation, the "goal" is set by the players. If you replace people with npcs, it would feel hollow and shallow. In these events and situation, being around players and "socializing" matters.

 Another possible example. This one using forced grouping. A high level area in the game is sooo hard that you must have another player (just 1 is enough) to stay alive.

Now, using my dungeon run exmaple again, the objective is to beat it, beat the trash mobs, beat the bosses, fast as possible, etc, etc. Bam, ty maam, kthxbye. Game set goal, right?

Now, game to the high level area. Let's say i, the player, wanty to go explore it and find great views and even take some shots. Another person wants to go there too to find some rare materials for crafting. So, we decide to group up, explore and do stuff along side each other. In this case, our "goals" where set by ourselves. I wanted to explore, but went mat hunting to help out soemone else as they help me.

In conclusion, i think it goes like this:

When the goals, objectives, actions, etc exist in a way that the players join "around it in a circle", the "socialization" occurs automatically as the goals "bounce off" each person. We are "facing each other as we face the goal". Even if there's no chatting, if feels like a personal group experience.

When the goal, objectives, actions, etc exist in a way that the players seperate themselves and "look up each in their own space", there's no personal feeling of communication, because everyone is "in their own world". Yes, they have the same objective, but are not "looking at each other, just the goal", so everyone's "around you" but not "with you".

I know, i know. "WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MMOwanderer?"

That's actually a damn good explanation. :)

I love these questions.  From what Ive learned from a psychological point of view, people are constructively social if they:

1. Connect the way they individulally want ( leading, following, sharing ideas ).  If the individual doesnt get the connection they enjoy it will not be social for them, they will most likely not connect at all.

2. Invest into each other by doing things they dont want to do for the other people.  If you only do things you already want to do with or for someone, there is Zero investment in the social relationship.  

Connection example:  John likes to lead, Mary likes to follow.  If Mary tells John what to do and he lets her lead, they will both disconnect and probably not want to hang out with each other gain.  On the other hand, if John takes the lead, and Mary follows, both will be much happier and desire to hang out with each other again as their connection has increased.

Investment example:   John likes combat but dislikes exploring. Mary likes to explore but dislikes combat.  If John ends up exploring with Mary with little combat to help her out, John will be investing emotionaly into Mary.  If Mary helps John out with lots of combat, but doesnt get to see any new things, she will be investing in John.   Its counter intituitive but it is how our frontal lobe/hedonic system works.   Investment doesnt mean happy, it means they will miss each other and probably not know why.

As long as the grouping mechanism allows for both, id argue it is social.

-Blitz

Originally posted by Ausare
Well forced grouping has failed in the oast. I can play cards against a computer...and hide and seek?...really...

They where just examples to express a point. Did you miss it? Not being sarcastic.

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Originally posted by Kenze

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Originally posted by Loke666 Dungeonfinder is good but not cross server dungeon finders. The reason for that is that when you play with other people from your server you will run into them again, making lots of opportunity to learn to know new people. In a cross server DF you probably never will see them again which really takes away the social point of it.

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this doesnt work either. Dungeonfinder on servers with Low populations or massively top heavy pops is practicly useless if its not cross server. everquest 2's dungeon finder comes to mind.

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They quickly made it cross server due to complaints.

The Dungeon Finders in WoW and Rift will look for people on your server first.

Responding to subject question: No, grouping and being social are not the same thing.

Just like being married can make you feel more lonely than when you were single. I've pugged dungeons where no one spoke the entire run. It takes effort to be social. Dungeon finders remove the necessity of making even that effort.

So these days, I follow some old advice - "Be the change you want to see." - and always start a conversation when I join a group.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Two of FB's most powerful tools on that front were the Poke and Groups.

While Poke is universally despised currently, it served the very distinct purpose of allowing people to make the leap from wanting to interact to actually interacting when they aren't necessrily sure how to. Poke gave people a tool to initiate interaction with others. Despite it currently being the bane of FB features, it fulfilled a much needed role in getting people communicating.

The Group feature allows people to not only divide but a way find those subgroups. Not only does this allow people to share common interests and bond with new people, but it also allows these groups to do so with minimal atangonism from those who have absolutely no interest in or flat out dislike the discussion matter. Groups based on religion, hobby, nationality, locale, gender, age, etc formed so as new people joined FB they could search and find these groups in order to become part of the community and interact with others more.

A player created chat channel system like AOL's room system with search, invites and other features would facilitate players being social much more than any combat group system.

It kinda reminds me of the time when I would still talk to telemarketers who called me on the phone.  These days I have Call Display and do not even pick up the phone if it is an unkown area code.  Does that make me less social?

I am actually a firm believer in allosing players to be members of multiple guilds at once.  It was my favorite feature in A Tale in the Desert and I can't believe that most MMORPGs are not using it.  It does not lock me into one social circle and allows me to participate in other activities that might not be that popular in my main guild.

Lack of socialization is more due to lack of downtime that games like EQ used to have, as well as the elimination of spawn camping. 

When you are sitting in 1 place for hours, waiting on mana, or spawns, of course you are going to talk to others, to help relieve the boredom.

Let's also not forget older MMOs were much harder to break into for the average person, and asked much more.  The higher threshold for playing and a smaller population, to me, would mean that it would be more likely that you would meet other people more like you, therefore be easier to socialize with.

Originally posted by BlitzVF

2. Invest into each other by doing things they dont want to do for the other people.  If you only do things you already want to do with or for someone, there is Zero investment in the social relationship.  

 

Investment example:   John likes combat but dislikes exploring. Mary likes to explore but dislikes combat.  If John ends up exploring with Mary with little combat to help her out, John will be investing emotionaly into Mary.  If Mary helps John out with lots of combat, but doesnt get to see any new things, she will be investing in John.   Its counter intituitive but it is how our frontal lobe/hedonic system works.   Investment doesnt mean happy, it means they will miss each other and probably not know why.

 

-Blitz

The investment thing can really turn on you real quick.  If you are doing stuff you do not like to help another person, you quickly build up resentment if you feel that the other person is not reciprocicating the help.  Some people might be completely selfless in this aspect but that tends to be exploited by leeches.    That kind of social connnection can easily turn to hatred. 

So like yeah. If you mean that required grouping is something that makes people have to talk to one another. No. Unless you include statements like "GET OUT OF THE FIRE NOOB!" or "LEETSAUCE" as conversation pieces because that's usually what I've seen. Three guesses which game I saw conversations like that in. It starts with a W.

No I'm one of those who rarely uses the keyboard in games. I play with a gamer keypad and the talking I am doing, is to the friends i'm either playing or not playing with while gaming. With Skypes new ten person conversation enhancement who needs to type any longer. Multiple accounts (one for gaming only) and you've got the perfect communication app for free.

Originally posted by Derros

Lack of socialization is more due to lack of downtime that games like EQ used to have, as well as the elimination of spawn camping. 

When you are sitting in 1 place for hours, waiting on mana, or spawns, of course you are going to talk to others, to help relieve the boredom.

Did you just really advocate boring your players to get them to talk to one another out of sheer lack of anything else to do?