You see it over and over. People complaining over lack of socialization, or how they never seem to make friends in newer MMOs, or that they can't seem to find an MMO that keeps them. However I am of firm opinion that these two elements are linked. We have all watched as WOW launched and showed the gamer community that a MMO could be developed that allowed people a more casual Experiance, a more solo oriented Experiance as well. However even WOW at launch had huge raids that took teamwork and coordination to accomplish. Those experiences that people undertook together is what helped to forge friendships. Those friendships are what kept people playing the game. 

Players though applauded that a game company could create a game that allowed more accessibility, and allowed players easier access to gear. The devs listened and slowly started changing the game making it more and more soloable, more accessible and overall not as challenging. Teamwork while still needed at times wasn't as needed as often. Things that took time to complete such as long involved quests which required people to help one another were made obsolete, and instead people only gathered if they got something for themselves.

The developer community listened and now we see the results. The giant of blizzard was copied for their formula of success. Now we have a game cycle that creates games that are easily accessible, soloable, and lacking much of the depth of older games that have a hard time achieving success regardless of all the extras and flashy graphics. 

Why is that one may wonder. One word..FRIENDS. You read it all the time on these forums. People talk to their friends on vent or  teamspeak (which that in and of itself only inflates the problem) while they play their new games ignoring the people most likely that might actually try to be talking to them, while they Rush thru all the easily accessible content, not having a need or a reason  to make new friends. Or they duo with a friend that came to the game with them.

Well we dug our own hole, we asked for easily accessible content which key term easy. We wanted the capability to solo. People seemed to enjoy making levels fast, and didn't want to have to be bothered with "GRIND" or long time consuming gameplay. Now that the developers have listened people try to blame them for putting out crap that can't keep them entertained.

In all honesty there have been a lot of great features to come along in the MMO industry. However speeding everything up such as leveling or taking out massive  raids that took teamwork and organization wasn't one of them.

I agree with this. MMO's have many features nowadays that make it possible for somebody to play the game without interaction. 

PUG's, Dungeon finders, solo quests etc.

Not only that but as far as the economy goes you have auction houses so don't need to speak in trade. I've played old MMO's like ROSE which had player stalls, its not uncommon in Asian mmos. Assuming the stall owners aren't afk then people could barter rather than accept the price. As far as the economy goes, without an auction house players would have to form friendships and agreements with other players in order to buy/sell which would make cities full centres of trade again. 

Removing things like global chat may be another one, meaning players may find meeting spots like town centres.

However removal of these features may cause uproar in the MMO community who may see it as a step back rather than a debatable step forward. Maybe games should think about weening people off these things slowly but surely.

If people want forced socialization then that is not a game. I play games because I want to socialize and to play with others and also because it is fun. If it becomes like a job, I leave the game (As I did with Rift and TERA).

Many games don't foster cooperation and some do.

People also think Facebook, texting, and that ilk is socializing and I don't.

When a player leaves a game, what changes inside the game? What changes are even possible in a game? The social fabric of the game can change, because one of the social elements is missing, or the game's environment itself can change if the players have an impact on the game's environment.

I think a lot of developers miss both the social impact and game impact of the players themselves. For the most part, players have little or no impact on the games themselves, unless they are playing a game like Eve, where players can own corporations and have a material impact on the game by leaving. When players leave games, they have little impact on the social fabric of the games, because there are better social tools that exist outside of the games.

Developers need to either start embracing Facebook style social networking, they need to start writing systems that give players ownership and an impact in the games' worlds, or both if they want players to stick around longer.

** edit **
Either or both of these approaches should work fine with what players want. Players didn't paint themselves into a corner, developers either misinterpreted what players wanted, or they have different goals than we think they have.

i.e. Developers want more players to cycle through their games instead of fewer players sticking around and playing forever.

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually  good. However  taking out the larger raids that took teamwork, time and coordination, or long involved quests that required people to come together to help people other than themselves was a bad move. Some features like automated grouping and insanely fast leveling should have never been put in.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

Originally posted by cybertrucker

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good. Things like automated groupe fillers, insanely fast leveling, no big raids that take coordination and teamwork to complete.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

Wrong......Players are not asking for easy fast leveling and solo content like devs are making it out to be.  They are doing this on there own to suck in the six year olds.  Also if you level faster they can give us less content.

Developers are doing this, not the players !

I think the 'we' who dug this hole are mostly the new generation in the playerbase (I know it sounds like a broken record from me to always pointing at them :) )

But in this matter I'm rather with your latter comment ("As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good."). I really think the instance finder, or similar tools are good. And with my limited game time I guess solofication is good as well. If I can log on for only 1-2 hours, I wanna play the game, and not the glff channel... And if I have more time, I can jump in some group content.

Almost forgot, teamspeak / vent are good things as well. But I admit I never played an mmo to socialize, I always played with my already existing irl buddies. It doesn't mean an empty friend list, just that it never was in my focus, so I can't say it's harder now to socialize ingame or not.

The only thing I don't like in newer mmo's is the built-in powerleveling. Since I like the content and not the endgame grind, it seems less and less worthy ingame time for me... (worst one so far is DCUO, level cap in 2 days? c'mon... ok, then you can grind out the other weapons, but that's not a game, more like a chore)

Too bad, I'm with the minority in the matter of opposing the, as you said "insanely fast leveling", maybe that's why Turbine thinks it's a privilege to slowing down the process, and they plan to put in the Store the xp-disabling consumable :I

Originally posted by cybertrucker

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good. Things like automated groupe fillers, insanely fast leveling, no big raids that take coordination and teamwork to complete.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

Originally posted by delete5230

Originally posted by cybertrucker

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good. Things like automated groupe fillers, insanely fast leveling, no big raids that take coordination and teamwork to complete.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

Wrong......Players are not asking for easy fast leveling and solo content like devs are making it out to be.  They are doing this on there own to suck in the six year olds.  Also if you level faster they can give us less content.

Developers are doing this, not the players !

I had to retype that lol... I was being distracted while writing that haha.

Originally posted by lizardbones

I think a lot of developers miss both the social impact and game impact of the players themselves.

Sadly, its made impossible by scale.

I can point you at a game where a great many players contributed to the lore over the years.  Some have city streets, buildings, events named after their character. I've got all four moons--orbital models, phases, lore--and the original art for the constellations.  And some pretty forgettable Bardfest performances :P  At least three of the Races in the game began their existence as player creations.  A handful of weapons, a few good ideas for creatures, etc.

But that game had an active player base of only a couple of thousand, at any given time.  It actually relied on player creativity to fill gaps in the lore, show us parts of the world we'd never seen.  And the company hired staff from within the player base, and took roleplay (and lore) very seriously.

Can you imagine any of that working on a much, much larger scale?  Four orders of magnitude larger?  "Sandbox" isn't even really in the same universe.  And it certainly isn't as flexible.

Can you Imagine Megacorp opening themselves up to liability of hiring players (corruptable) directly?  Would their lawyers at corporate legal ever let it happen?  Would you want them to?

The best you can hope for is PCC engines, and strict control over what/how you can build with it.  What NCSoft learned from PCC in CoH...players build Farming content, if you give them the chance.  And Megacorp isn't going to let them within a million miles of the treasure routines.

Originally posted by Rimmersman

Originally posted by cybertrucker

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good. Things like automated groupe fillers, insanely fast leveling, no big raids that take coordination and teamwork to complete.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

 

Vanguard is very playable now it still has a few bugs but nothing like at release. Vanguard is also a grouping mmo, it wont get very far soloing plus you would miss some fantastic dungeons and content. If your looking for that old mmo feeling of a great community where random players will buff you while riding by then Vanguard still holds that magic.

I played vanguard for 2 years was enjoyable. Lucky me my computer didn't run into that  many problems.  The raid system mixed with the guild I was withis what finally made me leave. Didn't want to leave the guild so I left the game instead.

Originally posted by delete5230

Originally posted by cybertrucker

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good. Things like automated groupe fillers, insanely fast leveling, no big raids that take coordination and teamwork to complete.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

Wrong......Players are not asking for easy fast leveling and solo content like devs are making it out to be.  They are doing this on there own to suck in the six year olds.  Also if you level faster they can give us less content.

Developers are doing this, not the players !

Then how do you explain all the forumn posts people have created complaining about game difficulty? 'dungeon X is too hard' 'melee combat is way too difficult, we need more telegraphed moves', 'only 1% of the playerbase gets to experience raid X, how is that fair!?' etc. etc. etc.

No, sir, we ARE responsible for doing this.

While there are some games that are obviously pandering (current WoW, Hellokitty Online), if the goal of MMO devs was to create games people weren't asking for, we'd not only have much different games currently, but the industry would've probably tanked by now.

Attracting the kiddies is great for comapnies that need to expand their audience, but if they don't pander to the audience they already have, they quickly find themselves out of customers.

Originally posted by aesperus

While there are some games that are obviously pandering (current WoW, Hellokitty Online), if the goal of MMO devs was to create games people weren't asking for, we'd not only have much different games currently, but the industry would've probably tanked by now.

Attracting the kiddies is great for comapnies that need to expand their audience, but if they don't pander to the audience they already have, they quickly find themselves out of customers.

Any good head dev knows when the integrity of the game needs to come before the wants of the players.  Which happens quite a bit more often than urban myth thinks.

Pandering is a cute word, puts a negative spin on a company just doing what the players indicate they want.

I never asked for any of that. 

In fact, I knew that this is where things would head, and its why I have been against WoW since it launched. I saw what easy soloable content did to DAoC's socializing. I didn't want to see it repeated. 

I've been asking for a hardcore MMO since 2005. 

Originally posted by cybertrucker

You see it over and over. People complaining over lack of socialization, or how they never seem to make friends in newer MMOs, or that they can't seem to find an MMO that keeps them .......

****snip***

In all honesty there have been a lot of great features to come along in the MMO industry. However speeding everything up such as leveling or taking out massive  raids that took teamwork and organization wasn't one of them.

I definitely agree to a large extent, though I think the focus on raids specifically is a bit narrow.

Raiding, as it used to exist, was fun for a time, but forced a certain job-like atmosphere on games. It had a very negative affect (for me at least) on playing many otherwise great games. I hated feeling forced to login to do some content because I was class X, and the guild needed me for a raid at a specific time that was convenient for them. It sucked. It didn't really help me build friendships either, because I have a life, and sometimes I can't sacrifice being social to go login to a video game for a few hours and do my thing.

That said, I definitely think content that requires teamwork is something that has largely gotten lost in the MMO genre. There's been too much of a focus on the solo play aspect of them for a while.

Furthermore, I think a lot of players (on these forums specifically) have come to believe that 'forced socializing' = what is needed for a social game, with a community. I couldn't agree less.

Too many gamers expect these games to do everything for them. Games that have had healthy social experiences, all had 1 thing in common. The players made an active effort to talk to each other, to be social, and to improve the atmosphere of any particular game.

No game can force people to have fun, to talk to one another in a meaningful way, or to support the game itself. This is something the players have to do. Players need to start realizing that if you want to have a fun multiplayer experience in an MMO, then a lot of the responsibility falls on yourself. If you have a game full of people expecting everyone else to do all the socializing for them, then you very quickly have a game in which no one socializes.

You saw this in games like FFXI. That game had forced grouping for a majority of it's content. It forced players to play together and socialize. However, what inevitably happened is people stopped using the social features in the game. Players started relying too much on others to do the work for them, and it devolved into essentially linkshell(guild) mandatory play. It became harder & harder to find people to play with.

At the end of the day, if you want a game that has a community you enjoy, somewhere along the line someone has to make a conscious effort to make that happen. The only thing a game can do is setup an environment to make that possible, and to try and encourage people to take that first step.

Originally posted by dreamsofwar

I agree with this. MMO's have many features nowadays that make it possible for somebody to play the game without interaction. 

 

PUG's, Dungeon finders, solo quests etc.

 

Not only that but as far as the economy goes you have auction houses so don't need to speak in trade. I've played old MMO's like ROSE which had player stalls, its not uncommon in Asian mmos. Assuming the stall owners aren't afk then people could barter rather than accept the price. As far as the economy goes, without an auction house players would have to form friendships and agreements with other players in order to buy/sell which would make cities full centres of trade again. 

 

Removing things like global chat may be another one, meaning players may find meeting spots like town centres.

 

However removal of these features may cause uproar in the MMO community who may see it as a step back rather than a debatable step forward. Maybe games should think about weening people off these things slowly but surely.

I agree, and tera even took it a step forward,  when someone tries do buy something from you in the auction house and your online they a barter message comes up

Originally posted by delete5230

Originally posted by cybertrucker

As I said in the OP I think many of the features that the newer generation of MMOs are actually good. Things like automated groupe fillers, insanely fast leveling, no big raids that take coordination and teamwork to complete.

When vanguard was developed its a shame it was so unstable and buggy. It allowed for solo content while still promoted grouping, it took time to go thru the game, but was fun (if you could play it lol) while you did. 

Wrong......Players are not asking for easy fast leveling and solo content like devs are making it out to be.  They are doing this on there own to suck in the six year olds.  Also if you level faster they can give us less content.

Developers are doing this, not the players !

Right. Players don't want themeparks. Publishers do. If WoW clones are what players wanted, all the big AAA MMOs of the last 8 years wouldn't have tanked as bas as they did. 

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by aesperus

While there are some games that are obviously pandering (current WoW, Hellokitty Online), if the goal of MMO devs was to create games people weren't asking for, we'd not only have much different games currently, but the industry would've probably tanked by now.

Attracting the kiddies is great for comapnies that need to expand their audience, but if they don't pander to the audience they already have, they quickly find themselves out of customers.

Any good head dev knows when the integrity of the game needs to come before the wants of the players.  Which happens quite a bit more often than urban myth thinks.

Pandering is a cute word, puts a negative spin on a company just doing what the players indicate they want.

I completely agree. But I also think a lot of players forget that both these games often have millions of players telling the devs what they should be doing.

When you're sitting on the other side of the fence, looking at millions of potential players in the peanut gallery, all telling you different reasons why either 'your game sucks', or 'you should be making change X' it can get VERY difficult to know who to listen to. It's also INSANELY easy to fall into the trap of overanalyzing parts of your own game, which often does lead to many of the mistakes we like to scrutinize over passed games.

When you have games this complex, there are countless ways your game can slip up, too many easy ways to make a mistake to count. Compound that with the fact that MMO games, by their nature, do need to adapt to their playerbase, and it's very difficult to know where the integrity of your game truly lies.

Even the best developers acknowledge this. People like Raph Koster have talked about this very problem, and how metrics both help developers tackle it, and at the same time make their jobs even harder.

It's nearly impossible to know if you've stayed true to your game in an MMO, until you've made a decision and seen the results. Because so much of what makes an MMO good (and bad) are the players.

Originally posted by DavisFlight

I never asked for any of that. 

In fact, I knew that this is where things would head, and its why I have been against WoW since it launched. I saw what easy soloable content did to DAoC's socializing. I didn't want to see it repeated. 

I've been asking for a hardcore MMO since 2005. 

Whats it like to be essentially ignored for 7 years?

If someone was to make the Hardcore MMO it will "tank" like all the rest.  Just like every other game on the market. Initall rush of players and then the Mass Exodus.  Every little problem will be nit picked and expanded beyond all proportions.  The Devs will be lauded as the 4 horsemen of the MMOpocalypse and in teh end a small fraction of the intial audience will remain.   Im pretty sure at this point that this is the life cycle of all MMOs.

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Originally posted by Icewhite

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Originally posted by lizardbones I think a lot of developers miss both the social impact and game impact of the players themselves.

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Sadly, its made impossible by scale.

I can point you at a game where a great many players contributed to the lore over the years.  Some have city streets, buildings, events named after their character. I've got all four moons--orbital models, phases, lore--and the original art for the constellations.  And some pretty forgettable Bardfest performances :P  At least three of the Races in the game began their existence as player creations.  A handful of weapons, a few good ideas for creatures, etc.

But that game had an active player base of only a couple of thousand, at any given time.  It actually relied on player creativity to fill gaps in the lore, show us parts of the world we'd never seen.  And the company hired staff from within the player base, and took roleplay (and lore) very seriously.

Can you imagine any of that working on a much, much larger scale?  Four orders of magnitude larger?  "Sandbox" isn't even really in the same universe.  And it certainly isn't as flexible.

Can you Imagine Megacorp opening themselves up to liability of hiring players (corruptable) directly?  Would their lawyers at corporate legal ever let it happen?  Would you want them to?

The best you can hope for is PCC engines, and strict control over what/how you can build with it.  What NCSoft learned from PCC in CoH...players build Farming content, if you give them the chance.  And Megacorp isn't going to let them within a million miles of the treasure routines.

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