I belong to a very reputable Guild. The first week we had at least 40 people on ventrilo voice chat at one time, it was hard to get a word in. There were many others in sub chanels playing WvW as groups. We had at least 100 players online most all the time. WE STILL HAVE AT LEAST 100 PLAYERS ONLINE YET NO TALKING. No one one in sub chanels.

ITS NOT OUR GUILDS FAULT......We had lost our rasion to group.  Don't get me wrong I still love this mmo and same with our guild. It's just another anti social mmo. WvW is fine for grouping, but how much can you play it.

The open world social seems to be totally non-existent. No one is ever in heavy trouble, but with the occasional rez of the guy next to you. Like in another topic here, players names a just a bluer.

NO REASON TO HAVE A FRIENDS LIST. In weeks of playing I had one request to group, and dismissed the invite. I wish I took it but reacted to quickly to reject it.  Besides what would be the point.  The game is made for auto group.

MMO's like this is why there is no longevity, other than being B2P. My guess is population will drop often until major patches are given or expansions are released.

Sounds accurate to me.

At least they can't lose money due to the exodus of people.

Originally posted by delete5230

I belong to a very reputable Guild. The first week we had at least 40 people on ventrilo voice chat at one time, it was hard to get a word in. There were many others in sub chanels playing WvW as groups. We had at least 100 players online most all the time. WE STILL HAVE AT LEAST 100 PLAYERS ONLINE YET NO TALKING. No one one in sub chanels.

ITS NOT OUR GUILDS FAULT......We had lost our rasion to group.  Don't get me wrong I still love this mmo and same with our guild. It's just another anti social mmo. WvW is fine for grouping, but how much can you play it.

 

The open world social seems to be totally non-existent. No one is ever in heavy trouble, but with the occasional rez of the guy next to you. Like in another topic here, players names a just a bluer.

NO REASON TO HAVE A FRIENDS LIST. In weeks of playing I had one request to group, and dismissed the invite. I wish I took it but reacted to quickly to reject it.  Besides what would be the point.  The game is made for auto group.

MMO's like this is why there is no longevity, other than being B2P. My guess is population will drop often until major patches are given or expansions are released.

It's not your guild's fault. It is the players' fault. I belong to a SMALL guild but we have a lot of chat on the vent server. We have a lot of grouping going on between people as well. Just yesterday I went to the lower zone to group with some guildmates because I still get decent xp and loot because of scaling. We then moved to do a jumping puzzle together and had great fun together from all the falling off the puzzle. 

I dont believe in forced grouping. The game allows you to group. It is up to YOU to find people you like to play with and make friends in game. 

If you have over a 100 members and no one is talking than you have unsocial members which has nothing to do with the game. 

Sounds to me you need to find a guild that actually has members communicating with eachother and organises things for its players.

You know, there's no REASON to have friends. It's just that it's fun to be with them. You could go to a concert alone, but you get more laughs and a better atmosphere with friends. Same for GW2: a story-mode dungeon with random people is not bad, but being able to joke around while trying to understand how to kill this annoying boss or comment on the storyline (how many times have you wanted to shout "Rytlock, shut it damnit you're just making it worse!" in AC? :D)

Now it's true that it makes guilds quite different: either they are PvP teams, with their WvW or sPvP rooster and tournaments, or just fun people to hang out with. Competitive PvE guilds may not really find their place in there (maybe in Orr, but yeah not on the long term); but they have their place elsewhere, MoP is a great game for that, and you can hang out with friendly people and have fun in GW2

I have to agree with the OP - never before have I failed to make any friends in an MMO launch. I stated this in a topic I created before [the following may largely be because of my playtime] but most times I play the zones are completely empty. I hardly ever, ever run across more than one or two players. The only time I ever really see anyone is when a Dynamic Event pops near me.

Everything feels completely disconnected. Such a huge shame really as I love the game world and game itself. But I feel like I'm playing a lobby based game like Phantasy Star or somethng. There is no sense of an overworld, a place where greater things are happening. When I think back to the launch of Aion when you could barely move an inch in any zone without being swamped with other players... I know some people will say this is a bad thing, but it is great for building a sense of environment and community - having all these other players with you. For good or bad, it helps the atmosphere.

In Guild Wars 2 I might as well be playing offline most of the time...

:(

I must agree with the others that it's the player's fault, not the games fault.

If people are social enough and love to be together with others, they will group up no matter what a game offers.

In our chat you see sometimes "hey! anyone want's to go to that area and do events?".

Of course you can go and do them with random people without any grouping but the game gives you the freedom and choice to do it with friends and guildies aswell. As long as you want to that is.

I went into exploration with friends and guildies as also on pet charm tours to show them where they can grab all the pets.

Went into personal storylines with them and had a blast, we also do dungeons together from time to time or going into WvsWvsW when we get the chance to be in there together.

After the guild halls and guild vs guild will come along, I think that guilds like yours will group more because they "must".

Bottom line is though that your guildmates aren't as social as they could be and only group when they feel they "have to".

Originally posted by ohpower

You know, there's no REASON to have friends. It's just that it's fun to be with them.

I am with them, just not in-game.  I voice-chat to real-life friends and family (whether they are playing GW2 or not) all the time.

It's been 12 years since server populations were (relatively) low enough so that people could be remembered by name and personality and were actually interested in chatting.  In those days MMOs were more like small villages where everyone knew each other.  Now, MMOs resemble a bustling metropolis, where nobody talks on the streets to one stranger amomgst thousands.

So OP you are saying that you are incapable of talking with someone that has nothing that you want or with someone that wants nothing from you.

OK.

I know it is hard and scary without the safety net of mutual need...

But so much more enjoyable- being with someone just for the pleasure of being with someone...

But maybe I'm just weird...

If you want to be social you do it on your own, if you need to be forced/baited along to do it then I have some bad news for you.

Otherwise in every MMO I've ever played what the OP stated has happened from WoW to EVE Online to SWGemu, if you wanna make friends you have to make an effort, if everyone's silent in vent crack a joke, ask  for people to do x,y,z, do something. If you blame a game for the meta level content (player interaction) you can blame every game that has ever existed in the same way.

Originally posted by delete5230

I belong to a very reputable Guild. The first week we had at least 40 people on ventrilo voice chat at one time, it was hard to get a word in. There were many others in sub chanels playing WvW as groups. We had at least 100 players online most all the time. WE STILL HAVE AT LEAST 100 PLAYERS ONLINE YET NO TALKING. No one one in sub chanels.

ITS NOT OUR GUILDS FAULT......We had lost our rasion to group.  Don't get me wrong I still love this mmo and same with our guild. It's just another anti social mmo. WvW is fine for grouping, but how much can you play it.

 

The open world social seems to be totally non-existent. No one is ever in heavy trouble, but with the occasional rez of the guy next to you. Like in another topic here, players names a just a bluer.

NO REASON TO HAVE A FRIENDS LIST. In weeks of playing I had one request to group, and dismissed the invite. I wish I took it but reacted to quickly to reject it.  Besides what would be the point.  The game is made for auto group.

MMO's like this is why there is no longevity, other than being B2P. My guess is population will drop often until major patches are given or expansions are released.

Eeee... so you are quite unsocial and you blame game for that ?

1. is being "sociable" for you mean spamming "join party" box in from of my face every 5 minutes ?

2. your guild is not "sociable" and they don't talk to each other and you blame game for that ?

3. You don't group to do stuff and you blame game for that ?

4. What kind of "heavy trouble" in other games you see that require you immediate attention ?

Seriously, you people came with one stupid reason after another. Where do you get all those stupid ideas ?

1. want to party with me ? well stand next to me and do stuff

2. want to chat ? then chat ! I chat quite often in both local chat, map chat and mostly guild chat

3. my guild often group for dungeons, world vs world etc. Sometimes we group for PVE activities while few of us are in nerby area. Again, we chat and play next to each other.

4. I res people, I talk to them. I show people (or ask to show me) route to vista/poi. We send mats to each other for crafting and stuff like that.

I don't see any problem with social aspect of GW2. More to that - it's more social than any other game. Starting for ability to join and help low lvl player while still having fun because of level scalling. Seriously - only one who is unsocial is YOU and YOUR GUILD. And I base that opinion on your own words.

GW2 made group play very natural and automatic and you think that because you ALWAYS in a group that group never exist ? WTF ? :|

Originally posted by kadepsyson

Sounds accurate to me.

At least they can't lose money due to the exodus of people.

Why people keep saying that? how about losing money on cash shop and expansions? Anet has as much reason to keep players playing as any P2P MMO out there.

You know that population will drop servers will have to be merged? and in GW2 you need decent population to run DE's.

Originally posted by delete5230

I belong to a very reputable Guild. The first week we had at least 40 people on ventrilo voice chat at one time, it was hard to get a word in. There were many others in sub chanels playing WvW as groups. We had at least 100 players online most all the time. WE STILL HAVE AT LEAST 100 PLAYERS ONLINE YET NO TALKING. No one one in sub chanels.

ITS NOT OUR GUILDS FAULT......We had lost our rasion to group.  Don't get me wrong I still love this mmo and same with our guild. It's just another anti social mmo. WvW is fine for grouping, but how much can you play it.

 

The open world social seems to be totally non-existent. No one is ever in heavy trouble, but with the occasional rez of the guy next to you. Like in another topic here, players names a just a bluer.

NO REASON TO HAVE A FRIENDS LIST. In weeks of playing I had one request to group, and dismissed the invite. I wish I took it but reacted to quickly to reject it.  Besides what would be the point.  The game is made for auto group.

MMO's like this is why there is no longevity, other than being B2P. My guess is population will drop often until major patches are given or expansions are released.

i agree... the only game i felt, i was really in a Guild/Clan was Darkfall...  

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

So OP you are saying that you are incapable of talking with someone that has nothing that you want or with someone that wants nothing from you.

OK.

I know it is hard and scary without the safety net of mutual need...

But so much more enjoyable- being with someone just for the pleasure of being with someone...

But maybe I'm just weird...

The problem is that at least in real life, you have far more things in common with such people: you usually live in same country or city, know same languages,  know the culture of the country, often similar age, etc. In MMORPGs, you can only be rather certain that you share one common interest: the MMORPG itself and sometimes that just isn't enough.

Sure, I would imagine that social contact is something most humans need from time to time  to feel content, but  not at every place and at any time.

I can agree with that. There are almost no reasons to form a party. When you want to run a dungeon, ok. Other than that it's very rare to team up with someone you don't know. It's a very casual friendly game. Get together for a few things and disband when you feel like doing something else.

With autogrouping for rewards, there is little reason to form an actual party. I'm not even sure this is a bad thing. It sure beats having to stand aroung looking for a party for hours on end.

can't agree more with OP, this game really have no need to group because by it's own nature, it's already auto group and funny that the only time i was in a group is just because of Dungeon, outside of Dungeon i have never group a single time even when we are doing guild event because there is no need to 

This game has no forced grouping. I love it.

If you want it to be more social that's up to you and your guild. If they're not 'friendly' enough for your personal needs, then find a new guild. You could even make one!

As for me, I love that there's no forced grouping.

Forced social intereaction and interdependence.  Some folks love it, makes the entire game for them, others loath it.

As mentioned above, some people are naturally social, they'll discuss just about anything with just about anyone, and I suspect they have no issues socializing in GW2 or any other MMORPG for that matter.

But there's an equally large number of people who really can only socialize in context of the game itself, they're really not interested in sharing personal stories, discussing the latest sporting event, or the new IPhone release.

If the game itself doesn't offer the opportunity and context to provide for socialization, they won't find the game very friendly. (hence the diamatetrically opposed viewpoints in this thread).

I fall in the latter category myself, and understand the OP's viewpoint completely.  Its not that we aren't or can't be social, but only under a certain context and outside of that it just doesn't work for us.