This is good and bad.  Good that it takes us in a new direction and expands on the soical network phenomenon.  There will be a real face behind the avatar and perhaps a new accountability for some as game actions might have social network blowback.

Bad in that if you are a role player and like your anonymity that will be gone.

I have connected with several former fps and mmo gamers from my past on FB.  It's nice to see the real face and the real person which can sometimes be very different. 

As long as it is optional, who cares.  The people that play those silly FB games won't stick around long in a MMO.  It most certainly won't be attached to my FB account.

Originally posted by Vesavius
Modern developers need really understand that building communities in these games has *nothing* to do wih Facebook... I hate recieved wisdom faddish thinking in games design like this tbh.

Some devs do understand, take Age Of Wushu as an example. The game is the most social mmo since EQ, you don't need facebook or any other media outlet. The whole game is based on intereaction with other players. 

Pretty sure mmorpg.com done a write up on GW2  about the same thing.

So far, everything Matt Firor talks about suggests that he doesn't actually have any goods ideas about what TESO should be.

It'll be a terrible game if it carries on like it is.

Originally posted by makii
[mod edit]

I have high hopes for TESO but maybe you have some truth in this. I play / played with a lot of games, and so far only 2 tried to shove this social bull***t in my face: Family Guy and EA's f2p craps (Battlefield Heroes, NFS). Those are below average quality browser games, where it's easy to link it under F**kbook since when you play you're already in your browser...

While I'm almost sure all of my other games have fb or twitter pages, I've never checked, because there was absolutely no need for it, those games aren't forcing you onto that way either. And all of them has good / great community without any social media crap.

(now that I think of, LotrO has a twitter for sure, there used to be forum threads cursing when Turbine put something on there and not in the Launcher window. Which is a very stupid decision as well, everyone see the Launcher window when start the game, why using an external site to announce stuff? I say it too often, but I miss Codies :) )

Originally posted by Jakdstripper

i do not want everyone on FB to know what, when and how many hours i play mmos. as a matter of fact i'd rather most of those people didn't know my gaming habits.

frankly this sounds like an idea from a person that plays Angry birds and Farmville more than mmos, just because he was at a seminar that said "the future is all in social media", "you are either on FB or you are dead".

i personally don't like the idea of connecting my favourite mmo to FB. i have a social comunity(FB, Twiter, etc) and a gaming comunity(Steam, Battlenet, etc) and they are 2 separate entities. i have no intention in trying to bridge them.

I play video games to escape RL for a few hours and live in an alternate reality where the rules are different and repercussions for your actions are not as unforgiving as in RL....and now you want to drag RL into my escape reality?....no thanks.

 

or you could just not use it, crazy thought i know

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by kartool

Originally posted by Shadow-Focus
First!

People still do this?

Sadly, dumb repetitive things entertain people without ever getting old to them..  People still enjoy talking about bacon and laughing at Chuck Norris jokes in game chat.  It's usually a sign of a low IQ.

HOW DARE YOU INSULT BACON!

Originally posted by Kalstark

 

or you could just not use it, crazy thought i know

 and most people will not. however, it irks me that this is something developers think they should spend time and money on, as opposed to making this game feel more like Skyrim....an in the end that's exactly what this game will feel like: Angry Elder Scrolls Birds.

What do i see from this?

I merely see this as a tool to gather people , much like a guildportal site, and manage them on FB, much like a guild portal site - which can be transferred in game, It will make guild leaders jobs easier in managing people, their events and their activities;  thats it.

I am not convinced on how this will improve social connectiveness other than have people make posts on facebook instead on a guild portal; a few steps cut out, more streamlined to make things easier for people to come together,  but the end result will just be the same, it will have to rely on pure activity alone.

Speaking of FB directly, I would have to bring up one  clear negative about this, which would be with facebook there are people that actually have their real names AND pictures on their page. I understand that there are people that would rather  seperate certain personal things from the outside world whichever that maybe. 

now assuming that it will operate just like a FB page - some people may either have to alter their own page before joining this  Guild FB page,  or have to just make another account with their avatar's name. what i say many will think nothing of it, but there are also many that feel comfortable of seperating their real life persona from their gaming persona for many reasons i wont get into.

I will not use it

If i were to join a game and this was something as a priority to join that guild, then i wouldnt mind setting up a profile and go through the motions. outside of that, i see no further purpose for me to WANT to use this. I look at this feature and do not see social connectiveness, but social redistribution, hearding customers from one place to the next, enticing them with a couple established bells and whistles that people will think nothing of it ( Like button for ex.) 

As for their direction of this Social connectiveness, it adds very little to bring people together and socialize, it does not take away anything, but i do not see a massive impact of getting people from different walks of life to work together and talk -- we already have that, its the issue that you wont see it in the open, and when you do it'll commonly extend to the following phrases

LFG,  Pugg Raid etc. , Some random guild recruit spam chat, random gold seller spam chat, a sprinkle of political discussion that devolves to verbal diarrahea, and the rest being hipster, dorito/mountain dew infused trolling.

I do not mind if im wrong

This can give ESO that title of most social game in the industry, or whatever. But i would feel more motivated to talk to others if more games started using certain ingame features like crafting, or socially influenced minigames such as playing cards, cooking, fishing, throwing down to play some music instruments (nothing built in that used outside the game).  If you look at MMO's that have RP communities and their events,  some groups would make  some crazy events with the little social tools that they have (again, music instruments, gambling dice) and run with it. many would be amazed to see a event that involved gambling and money just by using some dice that was in the game, nothing third party either. whether they were in character or not, it was a welcomed resource for many to try their luck to rake home some gold, it had people talking and ultimately brought people together. 

just my opinion and how i feel about it.

I'm an user of "anti-social media" (Ventrilo, Mumble, aMSN and mIRC) and from my point of view, integrating this new social media wave to games is a waste of manhours, which could've been better spent on coding.

And if there's even one popup or advantage to people on various social medias (as many free to play games have - link facebook and you get something for free in game), that certainly makes me feel ill. It's just horrible. I want no part whatsoever in anything like that.

Don't get me wrong people! I want ESO to be good, I truely do, but I am -afraid-. So far it seems quite horrible.

...Now, thinking about normal people using Facebook while playing a game.. Would they really want status updates "derp, joined a guild, hosting events here and here."? I highly doubt that. For me, guilds have always been about privacy and warmth in a tight-knit community.

It's handy to have an easy access guild page without needing to pay for all sorts of sites before you get access to the useful stuff.

But I'm not really a fan of facebook or twitter. Sure, the former is really handy to organise parties and events with your mates, but I never really got along with the hype of putting all your activities and pictures up for public view. From my point of view, it all quickly turns into a massive dickfest (well maybe not that, as it's mostly the girls who obsess over it o.0) to show off how interesting and happy your life really is by only picking the pretty pictures.

I'd rather they put their efforts toward providing a good guild site and perhaps even voice chat server themselves. That's not even new, Sony did it before, as well as a few others.

hmmm, called me jaded or just note that I "just got up"(happy new year everyone) but I just read this sentence as:

"Facebook, Twitter, Google+… they’ll all be shamelessly integrated into the game from the start."

I had to do a double take as I was thinking "wow, they've reached a new level of honesty in this new year".

edit: oh and I won't use any of this.

*yawn*

Has anyone ever had trouble finding their friends in an MMO. Seriously? Has this ever been an issue for anyone?!

So yeah, this is a whole lot of nonsense that I don't really care is in an MMO I play.

ugh!!! don't link us to some outside social media the game it self should be the social media!!

mmo thrive on player retention, the last thing you want is your players going to other media.

Originally posted by SBFord

One of the things that many game makers are coming to grips with is the inclusion of social 'connectedness' in today's MMOs. In our latest Elder Scrolls Online column, we take a look at how TESO devs are making sure their game has all the social connectivity that anyone could possibly want. Read on and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

“...Matt Firor took the stage again to tell us about how ESO will be the most socially connected MMO ever.  Facebook, Twitter, Google+… they’ll all be seamlessly integrated into the game from the start.  You can import all your friends, circles, followers into the game directly.  You can even make a Guild Page on Facebook prior to launch, have your friends join it, have guild members join it, and then import it directly into ESO.  Boom, instant guild.  Matt claims they ZOS knows that people now have friends everywhere, from every walk of life.  They don’t want to make you manage yet another social network.  Instead they believe that Elder Scrolls will benefit by making itself as socially connected to the existing networks as possible.”

Read more of Bill Murphy's The Elder Scrolls Online: Socially Connected on a New Level.

So ESO is just going to be another FB game hmmmm MMORPG.com take this off your MMO game list pls.