Nobody talk!!! Every new MMO I play, nobody talk at all. I have seen at least two big MMO where that strange behavior happen. Age of conan and Warhammer online. What the hell is happenning? General chat is always, like ALWAYS, extremely quiet. Even In scenarios, or battlegrounds, or w/e how you call it, nobody talk or try to organise the assaults/defences. Everyone are just very very quiet. The only people I talk to are my old guildies from others MMO that migrated with me to try new games. Even when I ask people a specific question in a private chat, half of the time, never answer back. People form group to kill a boss or to complete a crowded quest and nobody will talk... people will just accept invites, whitout saying anything, then wait to complete the objective and leave. And everybody seems to believe everything is alright.

What the hell is happenning? This behavior is very, very, very disturbing. Its suposed to be a multiplayer game but nobody seems to want to communicate. Its so wierd. Its hard to explain. Anyway I would like to know what you guys and girls think about this. Because, it worry me.

Thanks.

ps: Sorry for the badly formulated sentences and spelling errors. But Im french ( Quebec / Canada ) and Im tired.

I can't really agree with your experience, in every game I've played MMO or otherwise people talk far too much despite never having anything interesting or important to say.

May just be the server you picked. Normally you can't get people to shut the hell up.

I'm a victim of Barrens Chat.  I ignore general chat just because of how annoying people can be.  Sometimes I turn it off completely and go to the forums or google if I have that important of a question..

The truth is... I dont know.

At the beginning it didn't bother me, i thought it didn't matter and after a couple of levels people would stop powerleveling and start speaking.

I do have an idea, and i think what really makes people silent is the rush of the grind.

Its like, even when we are having fun, we are on a tight schedule, because leveling is slow, and we want to be high level to play the most awesome part of the game.

I understand that the levels may be in place to give us time to learn how to play our characters, but i learn how to play my skills a lot faster than i level. And since the level progression is more bassed on time spent than skill (yeah, you can grind faster if you are good but still...)

Also i think that the "RPG" system leaves many people feeling like they are just pressing keys instead of making his character do "something". I mean, you can't push the mobs, or actively block or dodge their attacks, you can't roll into the corner, or duck for cover. So after some time every "Enemy Encounter" is basically the same with a change of background. This feeling leads to an accepted boredom, you are there playing, but you really don't care that much and only play half atention and therefore don't care enough to counicate.

(Please don't flame me starting a conversation on how online game should be, i'm just pointing a behavior that seems to affect, at least, a moderated number of people)

I do speak, since i think it would be nice if we all do it a little more, but even if i say "hi", "goodbye" and "tyvm for the heals" (And sometimes form interesting yet short sentences for special ocations) i rather be playing than typing.

That's because most of the kids that play don't even know how to spell their name, let alone type full sentences.

I've come across this phenomena as well, sort of....

When i played AoC, basically, aside from the two or three people I actually had conversations with, no one really said anything to me at all.  I have a few theories to why this happened, and why it happens a lot of times.

Gone are the days of superb chatting modules.  I hate to break it to everyone, but originally, SWG pretty much had the best non-voice chat system, ever.  It basically allowed you to do anything you wanted to do with a chat interface, and streamlined it to be incredibly accessible, easy on the eyes, and uniformily did not necessarily clutter the screen.

These types of chat interfaces do not exist in MMO's anymore, and I cannot for the life of me figure why the developers don't spend more time on this absolutely necessary game element.  You have to have this, and in some respects, it needs to be the best thing you showcase.  People write off the chat interface as a no brainer, and if something so simple (but likewise very intricate) doesn't work - what does that say about the rest of your game?

Then you have the complexity of the game itself.  AoC is a great example of how a combat system can directly interfere with how social you are in-game.  In this game, if you aren't spamming attacks - you're losing the game!  I imagine WAR is the same.  WoW is also like this, albeit not as bad.

MMO's are becoming heavy on the action, so you have less time to follow instructions during an encounter, much less give them.  WoW introduced something to the MMO realm that hadn't been a major factor - Line of Sight.  Used to, all you had to do was click the target, and then use your Ability Hotbar.  WoW made you first have SoL, and then it required (in some cases) to have positional awareness, such as being behind or to the flank of a target.

Then you have TS and/or Vent.  People have no need to use a chat interface anymore, when everyone they want to talk to, is on the other end of the mic.  This is also in direct correlation to why you see a lot more assholes running about.  They don't know you.  You have nothing they need.  They don't want to know you because you aren't on their TS or Vent server - you aren't in their guild.  And if you aren't int heir guild, then you are by default, inferior to them, because their guild is the best guild ever!

There are a lot of reasons why people don't talk anymore, friend.  Some of it is subconcious psychology - some of it is because the design of the game allows them a reason to not talk to anyone.

Originally posted by Daedrick

Nobody talk!!! Every new MMO I play, nobody talk at all. I have seen at least two big MMO where that strange behavior happen. Age of conan and Warhammer online. What the hell is happenning? General chat is always, like ALWAYS, extremely quiet. Even In scenarios, or battlegrounds, or w/e how you call it, nobody talk or try to organise the assaults/defences. Everyone are just very very quiet. The only people I talk to are my old guildies from others MMO that migrated with me to try new games. Even when I ask people a specific question in a private chat, half of the time, never answer back. People form group to kill a boss or to complete a crowded quest and nobody will talk... people will just accept invites, whitout saying anything, then wait to complete the objective and leave. And everybody seems to believe everything is alright.

What the hell is happenning? This behavior is very, very, very disturbing. Its suposed to be a multiplayer game but nobody seems to want to communicate. Its so wierd. Its hard to explain. Anyway I would like to know what you guys and girls think about this. Because, it worry me.

Thanks.

ps: Sorry for the badly formulated sentences and spelling errors. But Im french ( Quebec / Canada ) and Im tired.

Thats because MMOs are much less dependent on communities now, and everything is focused on letting people solo and instance with as little player interaction as possible. There isn't even any real grouping anymore, just a few people getting together to take out some boss they can't handle themselves. MMOs are less and less about the other people every year. Hell, there isn't even any downtime in games anymore, people used to chat all the time during downtime.

Who's to blame?

When you do socialize in MMOs, how do you socialize? Usually when I'm in a group, I'm chatting with my guild, or in a private chat channel with friends who aren't in the same guild, or otherwise in tells. Then there's voice-chatting.

I don't think people have grown anti-social, it's just that there's so many other mediums splitting our attention and they all take precedence over group and local chat with strangers since they involve communion with friends.

I'm sure in the absence of all the other means to communicate, people would use local and group chat more since there'd be no alternatives.

It's really not the developer's fault, and I wouldn't want to go back to the old days of UO where if a friend of mine moves a screen a way I have no means of communicating 'til we're on the same screen again.

Originally posted by sepher

Who's to blame?

When you do socialize in MMOs, how do you socialize? Usually when I'm in a group, I'm chatting with my guild, or in a private chat channel with friends who aren't in the same guild, or otherwise in tells. Then there's voice-chatting.

I don't think people have grown anti-social, it's just that there's so many other mediums splitting our attention and they all take precedence over group and local chat with strangers since they involve communion with friends.

I'm sure in the absence of all the other means to communicate, people would use local and group chat more since there'd be no alternatives.

It's really not the developer's fault, and I wouldn't want to go back to the old days of UO where if a friend of mine moves a screen a way I have no means of communicating 'til we're on the same screen again.

Its not just that, its the crowd that is attracted to MMOs nowadays. WoW appealed to a massively casual and solo friendly market. You don't need community anymore.

Originally posted by Blazer6992

That's because most of the kids that play don't even know how to spell their name, let alone type full sentences.

 

We have a winner!

Exactly, they are games desiged for 8yo kids.

Barrens Chat is what murdered general chat in todays MMOs.

I think that alot of emphasis has shifted from the questing/adventuring mmo's where you would meet people and run missions with them and chat and take your time doing it. Now it's all about the grind so you can be the top level and get into the end game and PvP content. You don't have time to wander about with people just looking to see if there are any interesting mobs, now you are constantly on a mission of finding the best and quickest xp and nothing should slow you down, especially not something as innane as chatting.

Vent and team speak have also killed off guild chat in most games because its just quicker to yell 'Add' then to type it. It also provides for some good youtube entertainment so I can't knock it totally. But if your talking to someone on the mic why would you take time to type to anyone? You wouldn't.

I wish it wasn't this way. I hate when people invite me to groups or guilds without even saying hello and making me aware of them. Especially when they invite you to a group and then just bark single word commands at you to 'follow' and 'attack'.

Originally posted by ZodiaEclipse

I think that alot of emphasis has shifted from the questing/adventuring mmo's where you would meet people and run missions with them and chat and take your time doing it. Now it's all about the grind so you can be the top level and get into the end game and PvP content. You don't have time to wander about with people just looking to see if there are any interesting mobs, now you are constantly on a mission of finding the best and quickest xp and nothing should slow you down, especially not something as innane as chatting.

Vent and team speak have also killed off guild chat in most games because its just quicker to yell 'Add' then to type it. It also provides for some good youtube entertainment so I can't knock it totally. But if your talking to someone on the mic why would you take time to type to anyone? You wouldn't.

I wish it wasn't this way. I hate when people invite me to groups or guilds without even saying hello and making me aware of them. Especially when they invite you to a group and then just bark single word commands at you to 'follow' and 'attack'.

You have it a bit backwards...

first of all the argument "MMo system is all about pressing some buttons therefore people do not talk" hold no water. People were talking a lot in EQ and that is the grandaddy of pressing some buttons.

I think Voice chat is what killed normal chat. People simply will be in their guilds (that more and more are international, inter-games, communities) ventrilo server and be talking THERE. They do not prolly care much of what happen in the general chat of the game.

 For all the condescending speculation of there being a new, bad crop of gamers in the market...that's not true.

A subscriber-base like WoW's isn't possible without friends joining the games in DROVES together. For the UO and EQ days, it wasn't as likely to have friends offline who played whatever MMO you were playing. 'least not a lot of them. 

So really, what's become normal is that people already have a tight group of friends that they play with; either from past MMOs or from a crop of family and friends they know personally. 

If you have problems socializing in an MMO, then bring people into it to socialize with. You can't expect people to want to have a meet and greet everytime they group or stop in town; 9 times out of 10 you're simply a detour until they can get back to their friends.

That may sound cynical. I don't believe it's impossile to meet new friends in an MMO, I just think the idea of befriending total strangers doesn't take precedence above having a preexisting group of friends to play with.

I think it's the audience it attracts these days. People don't want to play them to socialize or play games with other people, but essentially just show off their characters and how tough/cool/etc they are.

But yeah, I've noticed it too. First in Sword of the New World. Even in clans no one talked. But I switched to LOTRO, and people almost never talk in there, either.

I used to play Guild Wars, which wasn't exactly a MMORPG and definitely not the most mature. But at least people talked there back when I played it.

That said, it does kinda spoil the mood in LOTRO when people use netspeak (and what little talk there is is often in it). So maybe it shuts the other people up?

I think it has a lot to do with the design of these new MMORPGs.

An MMORPG is a social game but the way the new games are designed forces players to behave in a self serving way.  There is no common ownership and there are a few limited common goals and once those goals have been reached there is no reason to return except boredom or to help friends.  They have created a "going my way" mentality that encourages players to exploit each other for personal gain.  If you're not "going my way" I have no reason to deal with you.  There is very little to encourage players to group up except the difficulty level of quests, and again, once the quest is complete there is no reason to repeat it with others.

The newer games ignore the things that encourage any sort of RPing.  Healthy RPers create a toon and make a life for that toon within the game world.  The toon is not an extension of them by any means of the imagination and what happens to that toon has no reflection on them - it is treated more like a person treats a pet.

Lastly. the quests are spoon fed to us with no thought or exploration involved.  Go to X kill Y return to Z and all of it is mapped out for us.  The UI and gameplay is so intuitive no one needs to ask about it and if you do ask something players will push you towards the internet rather than help you.

You walk away from playing these games with a feeling that you are nothing more than just another NPC to other players.

Originally posted by sepher

 For all the condescending speculation of there being a new, bad crop of gamers in the market...that's not true.

Yes it is. MMOs have changed focus as to who the money makers are. The noobs who don't talk come in droves, the new audience, don't really care about the social aspect. Its just addicting to them, with instant gratification and no need of community.

Millions of new players are in the MMO scene. While not all are the same, the vast majority never played anything but WoW, and never will.