Originally posted by aRtFuLThinG

Originally posted by Karteli

In WoW I could use a /who command to see what guilds were currently in a particular place, like a raid dungeon.  I could then look at the guilds who did them over the course of a week and actively try to become an initiate with one of them.  With Guild Wars 2, they is no character search commands that I am aware of.  No /who.  So I don't really know who is ACTUALLY doing what and on what time frame they are doing it, like evenings for me, or late night.  There is just no way of knowing anything .. ANYTHING about other players in GW2.  There are no raids in GW2, but what dungeons or end zones does a guild fancy, and at what times?

I have a feeling ArenaNet put search restrictions in to prevent people learning too much about the number of gamers currently playing the game. 

Don't think that is the reason. Don't think they are as obsessed about player numbers as the actual playerbase themselves. 

In WoW and in Swtor there has been many instances where people bring their pvp grief outside of pvp and track/grief guilds or people in pve.

I think Anet is trying to prevent that by maintaining some sort of privacy.

I think that's the same reason why you can not id enemy players by name in WvW as well.

Of course there is a downside to that though - for people don't mind being griefed they can't create a reputation for themselves in the game, as they can't be recognised/identified by name.

Agreed.

But there are plenty of social things they could do that would help a little. Like in EQ2 when someone got their cool unique weapon, the chat showed who and from which guild. That promoted the guild in a positive way and gave players something to brag a little about.

Some stuff like that would be nice, not too much but a little. Put up statues of the 5 best WvWvW players of the month in LA with name and guild for example.

I agree with some points.

1) Its a good game

2) the social aspect is severely lacking

I've said this before...they did a great job in bringing group activities together.  Problem is, the lack of trinity and complexity of  most of these activites, communication is unnecessary.   I've had a lot of fun in this game, but it really feels like a solo coop experience.  Heck, I've had more communication in Diablo 3. 

Unless you have a group of people you go into this game with, chances are it's going to feel a lot like riding the subway: people around, but no one's talking.   There's nothing wrong with that; it's just the type of game it is.

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by Enigmatus

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by Enigmatus

From what little I understand of this topic so far, ArenaNet seems to be aiming for privacy over prestige. Can't really blame them either considering the incredible degree of elitism that usually occurs as a result of being able to inspect someone.

To be fair the tool can be used for less nefarious reasons, but I have never really seen that be the case.

Put your elitism aside.  Social tools are a basic staple of MMORPG's, started with EQ and expanded upon with WoW.  These are social tools, and with every tool you can use it for bad results.  But give players a garage and tell them that hammers aren't allowed because people might hit each other and it no longer is a garage.  It's just a room where people stand around and don't work together to fix stuff anymore.

Elitism? I'm just saying these tools can be misused; how the hell is that elitism?

It is in blue.  You state that you can't blame ArenaNet for not including tools because of the elitism.  I'm not saying you are elitist, I'm saying to put aside your views on elitism.

And by your standards, video games can be misued too.  Drug busts in the past have been linked to WoW accounts.  So we should shut down video games, because they can be misused.

I think MORE people enjoy the social tools than the few who don't.  The few who don't enjoy social tools likely don't play much anyways / don't get involed with games for longevity?

Fine, fair enough. Just an unpleasant experience involving the misuse of these tools left me feeling a little...

My RL is fking mental so gaming time is sparodic at best.  GW2 has had the opposite effect for me as far as social.  Its a game that draws people together and I haven't played with so many people so often in an MMO before.  (e.g. DE's etc)

However for the more old school interaction with guilds/social chat etc. I can see that GW2 does make it easy not to do that but you can still find it easily enough.

I have had some great moments in GW2 where I have saved and been saved by wandering players.  You might want to chat but then something kicks off and you both run out to engage. 

Originally posted by chryses

My RL is fking mental so gaming time is sparodic at best.  GW2 has had the opposite effect for me as far as social.  Its a game that draws people together and I haven't played with so many people so often in an MMO before.  (e.g. DE's etc)

However for the more old school interaction with guilds/social chat etc. I can see that GW2 does make it easy not to do that but you can still find it easily enough.

I have had some great moments in GW2 where I have saved and been saved by wandering players.  You might want to chat but then something kicks off and you both run out to engage. 

The "saving" player gets experience for saving you :P .. Take that away ....:P

Nobody says anything either way ... either they pass you and it's nothing personal .. or they save you and get the xp then run away.  Nobody even knew your name.

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Lol that is a lie about 500 people being on a sever on SWTOR for it to be heavy. The population number you see is per phase.... I learned this the other night by switching phases. population on corcusant went from 201 to 10 in like 1 second after I loaded the phase. Each phase holds about 250 players and last night there were 2 full phases and 1 phase with 230 players on the republic station alone. Don't lie with your hate.

Not really .. 500 people is heavy in SWTOR.  There might be another faction to consider, but nobody has real contact with them anyways outside of instanced PVP so it doesn't matter.  Most of the people are on the fleet, yes. So 1000 on a server, 500 per faction is heavy.  Pretty lame.

from what im actually seeing in game right now.... there are over 1500 people on each faction counting the fleets and capital worlds alone right now this very second. How are you gonna tell me when I see it right now in front of my eyes. There are many things people group up for on the game. I dont think me and you played the same game, but im not here to argue lets stay on topic.

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Lol that is a lie about 500 people being on a sever on SWTOR for it to be heavy. The population number you see is per phase.... I learned this the other night by switching phases. population on corcusant went from 201 to 10 in like 1 second after I loaded the phase. Each phase holds about 250 players and last night there were 2 full phases and 1 phase with 230 players on the republic station alone. Don't lie with your hate.

Not really .. 500 people is heavy in SWTOR.  There might be another faction to consider, but nobody has real contact with them anyways outside of instanced PVP so it doesn't matter.  Most of the people are on the fleet, yes. So 1000 on a server, 500 per faction is heavy.  Pretty lame.

from what im actually seeing in game right now.... there are over 1500 people on each faction counting the fleets and capital worlds alone right now this very second. How are you gonna tell me when I see it right now in front of my eyes. There are many things people group up for on the game. I dont think me and you played the same game, but im not here to argue lets stay on topic.

It is always impressive to see 1500 people in front of your own eyes.  What Server, How are you collecting this information?  What is the population usage of this server - This is a "Full" server? You leave so many holes when you give these details.

I gave you a specific of an EA BioWare SWTOR server, and you give me vague generalizations that have no connotation to server, population listing, or how you collect this data. Puh-lease.  Shills do that on the SWTOR forums all the time to tell complainers that their light server in fact had 3 instances of 250 people on the fleet last night, even though nobody saw it.

Originally posted by Karteli
The "saving" player gets experience for saving you :P .. Take that away ....:P

Nobody says anything either way ... either they pass you and it's nothing personal .. or they save you and get the xp then run away.  Nobody even knew your name.

Originally posted by Bladestrom
I usually say ty, and on more than one occasion I've then went on to help the person who helped me, and then grouped and got chatting. Hell of a lot better than some arse taking advantage of you dying to 'steal' a node then bugger off without raising a finger to help. It takes 2 to socialise :)

agree - I say ty too

even before i knew you got experience rezzing,

I was rezzing players because its a helpful thing to do for another player

Social tools are a basic staple of MMORPG's, started with EQ and expanded upon with WoW.  These are social tools, and with every tool you can use it for bad results.  But give players a garage and tell them that hammers aren't allowed because people might hit each other and it no longer is a garage.  It's just a room where people stand around and don't work together to fix stuff anymore.

Except that EverQuest allowed for us to set ourselves unfindable.  WoW was the one that forced their idea of a social model upon the players.

For myself, I -want- my privacy.  I expect it.  I'm glad that WoW has recently changed their tune regarding privacy, but I have no interest in having my character searchable in the world.  I would much rather be able to remain hidden, for someone to be forced to -search- for me, than to simply have everyone forced to disclose themselves in-game.

I -hated- the way WoW forced the Armory on us, as well as the Real ID fiasco.  Allowing privacy is one of the things Guild Wars 2 does right.

Originally posted by Loke666

Agreed.

But there are plenty of social things they could do that would help a little. Like in EQ2 when someone got their cool unique weapon, the chat showed who and from which guild. That promoted the guild in a positive way and gave players something to brag a little about.

Some stuff like that would be nice, not too much but a little. Put up statues of the 5 best WvWvW players of the month in LA with name and guild for example.

Yeap for sure. I agree that some aspects of the game is lacking.

And actually I do feel that reputation (both good or bad) in a game for that players, where they can be recognised, is important, which is probably why I mentioned that I feel not being able to build one in the game through name recognition in WvW is probably a downside.

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by chryses

My RL is fking mental so gaming time is sparodic at best.  GW2 has had the opposite effect for me as far as social.  Its a game that draws people together and I haven't played with so many people so often in an MMO before.  (e.g. DE's etc)

However for the more old school interaction with guilds/social chat etc. I can see that GW2 does make it easy not to do that but you can still find it easily enough.

I have had some great moments in GW2 where I have saved and been saved by wandering players.  You might want to chat but then something kicks off and you both run out to engage. 

The "saving" player gets experience for saving you :P .. Take that away ....:P

 

Nobody says anything either way ... either they pass you and it's nothing personal .. or they save you and get the xp then run away.  Nobody even knew your name.

Have more faith in humanity! lol

I would still save a player and the XP isn't that great.  I have had some really great moments where a 2-3 of us have fought a lot tougher opponents and kept each other in the game so to speak.  Good feeling.

Originally posted by Borick

Except that EverQuest allowed for us to set ourselves unfindable.  WoW was the one that forced their idea of a social model upon the players.

 

For myself, I -want- my privacy.  I expect it.  I'm glad that WoW has recently changed their tune regarding privacy, but I have no interest in having my character searchable in the world.  I would much rather be able to remain hidden, for someone to be forced to -search- for me, than to simply have everyone forced to disclose themselves in-game.

 

I -hated- the way WoW forced the Armory on us, as well as the Real ID fiasco.  Allowing privacy is one of the things Guild Wars 2 does right.

You caught my attention and took me aback for moment.  BUT, I realized, EQ had the /anon command where players could set themselves anonymous IF they wanted to.

I am guilty of that in EQ, but that was because I was a healer - shame on me.  I also already established a social foundation in that game at the time I was using that feature.

In GW2 though .. sure if you want an /anon I say, USE IT. .. but as it is, everyone is forced to /anon whether they want it or not, even before they find a guild and establish social grounds.

So while I respect your attention to the optional anonymous tool available in EQ, I feel it's moot in a game just starting to have everyone forced into /anon.  New players don't want it, and openly friendly players of any level also don't want it.

EDIT:

also btw /anon in EQ wouldn't hide your identiy completely, just your class & level ... doing a /who in EQ would show everyone in the zone, and you would be listed as (in the case of me) :

Karteli [anonymous]

.. while if you were not anonymous, you would be listed as (hypothetically for conversation):

Borick - Dark Elf - Warrior - 61

If we were both in say East Commonlands, and you did a /who .. and we were were the only 2 people, you would see:

Players in Zone - East Commonlands:

Karteli [anonymous]

Borick - Dark Elf - Warrior - 61

At no time, even though I was /anon was I completely hidden.

Neither case in EQ hides our names or presence from the world.  EQ never made you unfindable did it? (blue highlight above)

also btw /anon in EQ wouldn't hide your identiy completely, just your class & level ... doing a /who in EQ would show everyone in the zone, and you would be listed as (in the case of me) :

Karteli [anonymous]

.. while if you were not anonymous, you would be listed as:

Borick - Dark Elf - Warrior - 61

 

Neither case in EQ hides our names or presence from the world.  EQ never made you unfindable did it? (blue highlight above)

Time passes, and memory is faulty, and perhaps things changed after 2004 when I left the game, but as I recall you could set it so that your name and location were hidden.  It was not possible to search for the player by name unless you were in the same zone with them.  You could still send a whisper to those who were set anon, but if you properly set your away message it wasn't possible to tell if your whisper went through or not.

You make a good point that such privacy tools might be better as an opt-in, rather than an opt-out.

Originally posted by Castillle

...

Click Me

Word.  The OP misses /who and has decided the game is lacking in social features as a result of that, ignoring the existing social tools at his disposal.

/WHO helps in class-based games. /map and just going to the location (fast travel aids in this) replace that in an MMO where level (thus map) is about the only restriction to finding others. Even then, level scaling fixes that, too.

"So how can I actually find a guild that does stuff?  A guild that goes places I want to go?"

Castillle has your answer right up there.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Word.  The OP misses /who and has decided the game is lacking in social features as a result of that, ignoring the existing social tools at his disposal.

/WHO helps in class-based games. /map and just going to the location (fast travel aids in this) replace that in an MMO where level (thus map) is about the only restriction to finding others. Even then, level scaling fixes that, too.

"So how can I actually find a guild that does stuff?  A guild that goes places I want to go?"

Castillle has your answer right up there.

These existing social tools would be ... ?  If you are talking about tells/whispers and grouping then you missed the big picture.  If you are suggesting that players should go to outside sites for social content, then, you are only confirming that GW2 has lacking social tools built into it.  Anything else you rambled on about is not social tools (though nice features in GW2 none-the-less).

Man, are people still blaming the game for social interactions? I'm lonely it must not be my fault.

All synics aside...You were going about the whole 'joining a guild' thing the wrong way. Never join guilds that are just whispering random people. If they're doing that it means theyre desperate for members(or just starting and trying to get members). I would search the official forums and the forums here for a guild It seems to be the best way of going about it.

And as many have preached time and time again. The game isn't just going to hand you friends on a silver platter...you have to go talk to people. If you finish a DE start talking to people that are there...you'd be surprised how many people actually don't mind just stopping and chatting. Some will invite you to go with them and explore or knock out some tough objectives.

If you feel alone, it's because you are alone. The only remedy for this, however, is to engage in conversation of your own free will. The game will not chain people to the floor and make them talk to you.

Most people are already in groups with friends and chatting in either party chat or on skype/ts/Vent/mumble.

You also seem a bit lazy. You want the game to find your guild for you...(it's like people that want the government to find them a job). You want to be able to push a button and have it give you a spreadsheet of every guild, its stats, what it does, etc etc. That's pure laziness. That and it doesn't speak for the integrity of the guild. Theres somethign to be said about just whispering a guild leader or officer and asking for information. You'll generally get a more straight forward answer.