529 replies to this topic

[jinxPad]

Gli, on 16 October 2012 - 10:10 AM, said:

There are 3 ways I play this game, depending on circumstances.

• Doing stuff together with guildies.
  
• Solo, but involved in guild chat. (Happens when we get on at very different times and people are already doing stuff.)
  
• Completely alone, with /map chat off most of the time. (When no guildies are on.)

If you're not in my guild, I'm probably not going to talk to you, and if you're not someone I know in real life, you're not in my guild.

There's nothing ANet can do to change my ways. My refusal to be anyone's online BFF is not a shortcoming of the game. The game is fine with regard to the means of socializing it offers. It's just that players will do what they want to do, and apparently socializing is not a high priority with some. So be it.

This post hits the nail on the head for me.  I don't think it's fair to blame the game (this or any other) for people not being particularly social or in some cases overly social to the point where its just plain uncomfortable.


People are the way they are, if they want to talk to you they will, and if not then they won't.  Our guild chat isn't particularly active, but many of us are on comms so we chat there.  But nobody flat out ignores you if you ask a question in guild chat.  Some people just aren't social (in game chat that is), and probably were so before the game.  Blaming game design because you don't get a reply in map chat just doesn't seem, fair.

If someone asks a question in map chat which I can answer, then I usually will, but that's got nothing to do with game design, it's all to do with the kind of person I am.  I dont mind answering questions about gear/spec/quest etc if someone pm's me, again, this is to do with my personality and not the game.

[Ritualist]

jinxPad, on 03 January 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

I don't think it's fair to blame the game (this or any other) for people not being particularly social or in some cases overly social to the point where its just plain uncomfortable.

Isn't the actual problem here building a game that DEMANDS that people act a certain way, when you KNOW that a lot of them won't?
The fact that folks don't care about social interactions wouldn't be a problem if the whole game could be, not only completed but also enjoyed solo. It's not.

Grouping with someone makes D3 more fun. It's still a perfectly fine game when played solo.
Group with someone not only makes the game actually enjoyable (certain classes kill SO slow that they are basically a pain to play), it's actually mandatory in certain situations in GW2.

[Serris]

Protoss, on 03 January 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

Grouping with someone makes D3 more fun. It's still a perfectly fine game when played solo.
Group with someone not only makes the game actually enjoyable (certain classes kill SO slow that they are basically a pain to play), it's actually mandatory in certain situations in GW2.

people still play D3? O_o

but yeah, the game isn't very friendly to social people. most maps just feel empty, so if nobody replies in chat, chances are the few people still in the zone don't feel like talking.

[Impmon]

littleXuro, on 29 September 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

I've had my fair share of complaints about the game so far but since those can be mostly fixed, I'm waiting to see what will happen but there is one thing that made me not play for nearly two days now and once again I logged out nearly instantly today.

The social aspect. In short, it's a joke in Guild Wars 2.

Every map I enter I always try to start a chat in map chat or with anyone close to me which usually has no response whatsoever as a result. So then I try to join a guild, been in 12 so far, nobody talks even though I try to get any conversation going (sadly most of these guilds advertise themselves as social guilds on this forum too).

I love to do Jumping Puzzles in WvW as it gives free treb/golem blueprints which can contribute quite good towards our war against the other servers, been shouting in map chat on every borderland for 8 days now, never did anyone even want to respond except a few annoying trolls who feel it's neccesary to point out it's a warzone and not a PvE enviroment.

Same story for any other activity I try to do in the game.

I can deal with flawed mechanics which can be tuned but as far as I can tell, this is a flaw in the core of the entire design around Guild Wars 2. Since there is no difference between grouping and non-grouping, people avoid the social aspect entirely appareantly.

I never felt so lonely in a MMORPG. If this is the next generation of MMO's, I will be done with this genre.


Edit, I should note I have been on 4 servers now, all give me the same result.

If you want to chat join a guild since 99% of the guilds in this game are chat filters.  They don't do anything as a guild its a buncha random people invited to a chat filter with a name.  You can chat with those people.

[Operetta]

I run around with a real life buddy all the time, but other than eachother we are terribly alone in this game.
Doing TA or Fractals runs ppl only seem to talk when they're downed or when they're complaining that 1 player isn't keeping up.

In Dynamic Event runs I /dance, /wave and invite players who I've seen for the past 5 events constantly and they just are like ...whatever.
WHY won't you /WAVE back at me!?

I also randomly compliment people in game: ZOMG your SWORDZ! <3 them!!
and never get responses back, and yall aren't afk all the time.

But truth is it doesn't matter, we're all playing the game together even if you don't want indulge me in emote war, be my new best friend, or fake ./DUEL WITH HUNNIE BUNNIE BOO and just unleash all our skills at eachother to look at the pretty colors while waiting for the next event .

We're being social by playing together, even if it's only alongside eachother.

Of course...I'd love it if you'd /wave to me once in a while.

[beadnbutter32]

Times have changed, text chat is dead, or on life support at best.  Voice is where the action is.
VOIP Not just limited to guilds.  See server focused sites  for server based voice chat channels.

I will agree that MMORPG socializing as a whole, even with voice, has degraded as an experience.  Like everything else today, technology tends to get beaten down to the lowest most mundane use and focus.  Any extended stay in Lion's Arch requires skill at using block to filter out of map chat the inanity spewing 'look at me' attention freaks and their ilk.

Edited by beadnbutter32, 03 January 2013 - 02:30 PM.

[jinxPad]

Protoss, on 03 January 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

Isn't the actual problem here building a game that DEMANDS that people act a certain way, when you KNOW that a lot of them won't?
The fact that folks don't care about social interactions wouldn't be a problem if the whole game could be, not only completed but also enjoyed solo. It's not.

Grouping with someone makes D3 more fun. It's still a perfectly fine game when played solo.
Group with someone not only makes the game actually enjoyable (certain classes kill SO slow that they are basically a pain to play), it's actually mandatory in certain situations in GW2.

I'm not sure I get what you mean.  The game doesn't (at least from my pov) demand me to act any particular way so to speak at least not in any way that I personally would find out of character for the situation.  If what you mean is it requires you to group up to do things such as dungeons/fractals etc etc then I still don't see how this basic multiplayer mechanic should require someone to be "social" if it's not within their nature to be.

GW2 isn't a singleplayer game, was never designed to be but just because a game is a multiplayer game, I don't think anybody should expect people to go out of their way to be particularly social.

Sorry though if I missed your point >_<

[astromarmot]

I don't and likely never will VOIP chat, r/l concerns require comms have a rewind/pause feature that is naturally a part of text chat and not really functional with voice chat beyond a couple of participants (and I couldn't even imagine joining a mumble equivalent to /map chat)

[jonasklk]

Mitobunny, on 29 September 2012 - 11:09 AM, said:

I got so bored that I randomly started being silly with tonics and had fun with some random people. I think sometimes you just need to invite others in by doing something interesting.

This.

Tonics seems to be good at inviting some interesting people:)

[Elle]

I used to play GW1 because I liked to do things with people. I didn't care what we did what mattered was that I was surrounded by other people. I used to have full friends list and had to start a second one on a second account.
Not the case with GW2.
I specifically chose RP server so I meet more people while out and about. Well let me tell you this... my friend list has 2 people in it. Both from GW1.
Last night I was doing an event with 30+ people and all I saw in those 20-30mins was "ty" by me and some other guy at the end when we got the chest. Everyone went to do his own thing afterwards. Same thing over and over again.
The only reason I'm still playing is because I hope one day this will change.

[astromarmot]

Wouldn't it be kinda cool if all those who wanted more socialization could agree to x-fer to the same server that was an officially unofficial social server?

[Operetta]

astromarmot, on 03 January 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Wouldn't it be kinda cool if all those who wanted more socialization could agree to x-fer to the same server that was an officially unofficial social server?

I'd come!

[jinxPad]

astromarmot, on 03 January 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Wouldn't it be kinda cool if all those who wanted more socialization could agree to x-fer to the same server that was an officially unofficial social server?

I have a feeling that if that happened... it would be just the same as any other server

[astromarmot]

jinxPad, on 03 January 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

I have a feeling that if that happened... it would be just the same as any other server

Hard to say for sure...but it might make for an interesting experiment...


I, for one, can only actually play in-game for a few hours a week, but spend a good part of most days online...I'd love access to the  in-game chat channels through a web-interface to build in-game relationships that could carry over into the time I do actually get to play...barring that, I'd probably steer towards any sort of "social" server if one were available...

Edited by astromarmot, 03 January 2013 - 03:47 PM.

[Ritualist]

jinxPad, on 03 January 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

I'm not sure I get what you mean.  The game doesn't (at least from my pov) demand me to act any particular way so to speak at least not in any way that I personally would find out of character for the situation.  If what you mean is it requires you to group up to do things such as dungeons/fractals etc etc then I still don't see how this basic multiplayer mechanic should require someone to be "social" if it's not within their nature to be.

GW2 isn't a singleplayer game, was never designed to be but just because a game is a multiplayer game, I don't think anybody should expect people to go out of their way to be particularly social.

Sorry though if I missed your point >_<

If you don't expect folks to be particularly social, then it probably makes sense to design content with that limitation in mind. The way GW2 currently works is that the players are expected to be social because the content is just not designed to be played though solo.
And that is absolutely something you can blame the game, instead of the players, for.

Yes, A.Net created DEs to allow for easier grouping and yes, the took out mandatory group compositions - but we can see that this is not enough. You have repair/waypoint fees which limit a players desire to do certain content, the road to 80 is a massive gear check, there's no decent LFG tool, the only rewards that matter can be found in select location in the world (or better yet, in FOTM), refusing to merge servers,  ... and that certainly isn't helping nor is it the player's fault.

[Rhododendron]

Maybe this happens because almost everyone who wants to chat with someone is on ventrilo. Seriously, this is big right now. Especially in those guilds that try to pvp, and most of the big ones do. So the small guilds remain relatively silent as always, while the big ones go to vent. As for the strangers, it's all dilluted because of the separate servers.

[Daesu]

Protoss, on 03 January 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

If you don't expect folks to be particularly social, then it probably makes sense to design content with that limitation in mind. The way GW2 currently works is that the players are expected to be social because the content is just not designed to be played though solo.
And that is absolutely something you can blame the game, instead of the players, for.

This.

If players are expected to be solo, then make it so that we can solo content, just like GW1 did with heroes.  The problem with GW2 is that you need people to help out with group events, killing champions, etc. and certain professions are just not good at playing solo.  For example, I play an engineer in Orr.  Most of the time, I don't see a single player on my map.

This is a game design issue.  If the game wants to split us up into servers, make classes like engineers that are more dependent on people, have group events, kill champions, etc.  Then ArenaNet should make it easier for us to go through content solo, or make it easier for us or encourage people to group up.  As things are right now, it just makes the game experience sucks and I can relate with the OP on this.

Edited by Daesu, 03 January 2013 - 06:47 PM.

[Craywulf]

Daesu, on 03 January 2013 - 06:34 PM, said:

This.

If players are expected to be solo, then make it so that we can solo content, just like GW1 did with heroes.  The problem with GW2 is that you need people to help out with group events, killing champions, etc. and certain professions are just not good at playing solo.  For example, I play an engineer in Orr.  Most of the time, I don't see a single player on my map.

This is a game design issue.  If the game wants to split us up into servers, make classes like engineers that are more dependent on people, group events, champion, etc.  Then ArenaNet should make it easier for us to go through content solo, or make it easier for us or encourage people to group up.  As things are right now, it just makes the game experience sucks and I can relate with the OP on this.

What does the quality of the Engineer have to do with socializing? Are you trying to say Engineers are incapable of using chat?

[Daesu]

Craywulf, on 03 January 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

What does the quality of the Engineer have to do with socializing? Are you trying to say Engineers are incapable of using chat?

Chat doesn't help if nobody replies to your map chat.  Certain professions are just easier to solo than others.  Engineers are harder to solo than many other professions like warriors, guardians, or rangers.  

If they want people to be split up into different servers, then they should make all the content solo-able.  Otherwise how are the players who are on less populated servers ever going to be able to complete the group events, kill the champions, and so on?  Or they should fix it so that it is easier for people to group up across servers and encourage people to group up.  Having content that require a group, yet making it difficult for players to find a group, just makes the gaming experience horrible.

This is a real problem, otherwise such threads as this or this or this, besides the current thread wouldn't exist.

Edited by Daesu, 03 January 2013 - 08:20 PM.

[Hex65000]

I for one have a tendency to oscillate between being social and not social.

If I'm social, the first thing I do when I pop in game is greet whoever is awake in the guild chat. If I'm in map explore mode, then I'll announce that I found something fun, or if I pulled a dye (and inevitably open it) go "Whee! fun colors: [ Spitfire Dye ]" just to keep something going.

When I'm not social, I just keep the main tab open and do my thing, if something interesting scrolls by, I *may* say something random to make things silly. Typically that is in guild chat.

If someone talks to me specifically (and I'm aware of it) -- I'm notorious for my lack of battlefield awareness -- I'll respond. I had a good conversation with a guy while I was exploring Orr-land. Hopefully I'll meet up with him again and take him on a dungeon run with the guildies sometime soon...

But yeah, I've seen folks who have been short, vague, or unresponsive when I ask em' questions. For example, I have an elementalist Alt that I will occasionally break out and play. I saw an elementalist that was playing super well, and I wanted to know what they used for gear -- to get some ideas since I'd been playing dagger-focus as of late. The response was not helpful and my further attempts to talk were met with silence.

As for voice chat, our guild uses Raidcall and I Skype (audio only) with people I personally know in game.

The former I don't use too often, because I honestly don't have a ton to say in voice chat. The upshot is Raidcall is push to talk, so anything hurtful that may come to mind can be either kept to myself or toned down in text chat. Most of the time I'll actually type my thoughts into the guild chat based on a conversation going on in Raidcall. Yes, I'm weird -- I don't always feel comfortable talking to folks I don't know super well.

The other reason I may opt to ignore a call to arms for a fight is becasue I am simply out of position and I'm too cheap to teleport across the map. If it's nearby, I'm likely to respond and join in.

Anyway, OP: Just keep talking and doing your thing. You'll find folks that are cool to play with. While I agree, the group-fight events are a problem if you are running solo. Your options are, either call it out on the map or just skip that champion. There are a handful of champs you can solo if you are careful, but they are few and far between.

Hex.
[ Was rather pleased he took down a champion ogre solo... ]

[MrForz]

Daesu, on 03 January 2013 - 07:25 PM, said:

Engineers are harder to solo than many other professions like warriors, guardians, or rangers.

You should be slaughtered for saying such abominations!

Well back to the topic.

It depends of the 'social', but it might be a failure indeed. At some point, I think alot of people here played a MMO where there was an universal city/place where people, often after finishing what they were doing, hang around, talk, show themselves, idle, joke, duel, argue, chill, without getting bored. Being splitted between TONS of servers doesn't help that aspect at all. And the lack of features like duels prevents people from interacting with the one of the most basic means: Strength, competition, performance, boasting.

Edited by MrForz, 03 January 2013 - 11:51 PM.

[Daesu]

MrForz, on 03 January 2013 - 11:50 PM, said:

You should be slaughtered for saying such abominations!

You don't have to take my words for it.  Many engineers in the engineer forum also agree that an engineer does not solo as well as a warrior.

http://www.guildwars...-feeling-frail/

My engineer solos just fine in Orr, with some effort, using his FT juggernaut build but I am going to try a tanky grenadier build.  My warrior, guardian, and ranger just solo much better so far.

MrForz, on 03 January 2013 - 11:50 PM, said:

It depends of the 'social', but it might be a failure indeed. At some point, I think alot of people here played a MMO where there was an universal city/place where people, often after finishing what they were doing, hang around, talk, show themselves, idle, joke, duel, argue, chill, without getting bored. Being splitted between TONS of servers doesn't help that aspect at all. And the lack of features like duels prevents people from interacting with the one of the most basic means: Strength, competition, performance, boasting.

I agree.  There is no incentive to party up and the lack of a good LFG tool + the lack of guesting don't help either.

Edited by Daesu, 04 January 2013 - 12:37 AM.

[DuskWolf]

Rune100, on 29 September 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

It's pretty much Barrens chat V0.5.

It pretty much all is, yes. This is what they've done. It's as antisocial (if not more so) than WoW. See, in WoW you have a game which requires no skill, where addons can almost play the game for you despite the trinity. It's just a game of clicking things that requires no teamwork. Then you have a game like GW2, same thing, it's all dice rolls and clicking things. MMOs like this essentially amount to being Cow Clicker, and people wonder why there's no social aspect...

No one ever rezzes anyone in GW2 or gives a crap about downed people. That was one of my biggest hopes before the release of the game. But in two solid weeks of playing the game, the only, sole person I saw ever reazzing anyone? Me. Yes. That's right. Muggins here. It's the most depressingly antisocial game I've played since WoW. And this is because the game plays itself, it is basically a Cow Clicker, just as WoW was.

I've met some lovely people in games like Mass Effect 3, lovely people. People I've even become friends with. Why's that? It engenders teamwork, you help each other out. And if you're good at socialising then people like you. If you're good at talking and listening, then people like you, since you can keep your team tactically updated. It's a much more cohesive, social experience than any MMO I've played. And people actually help you to your feet when you fall over!

ME3 requires teamwork and tactical play, it requires communication and forethought, and it requires a certain level of skill and ability to play. GW2 requires that you press buttons. Everyone just stands around pressing buttons, just like in WoW. What is this socialising thing of which you speak? We MMO players have never heard of it!

This is why damn near every MMO I've played thus far has been a Massively Cohabitated Hermit Simulator.

Edited by DuskWolf, 04 January 2013 - 12:22 AM.

[Craywulf]

Bunch of anti-social babies who can't seem to put on their nice behavior cap and try to help out someone. I have more friends on my contact list than actual guildmates. It's truly not hard to say "hello, how you doing?" or "Mind if I join you?"

A LFG tool is an enabler for anti-social behavior. It's basically a tool to discriminate players, before you actually see them play or chat with them. It fosters elitism, It allows players to be total *s to each other. It's cold and methodical and unfriendly way of making friends. It's guilt-free for rejecting players based on their build and gear. It's just plain bad for MMOs. Yet I bet just about everyone who wants a LFG tool will disagree with my thoughts, because they are ignorant of the damage it does.

We don't NEED a LFG tool, what we need is friendlier and respectable players.

[Daesu]

What a bunch of fanboys justifying every single thing that ANet does and doesn't do.  We should all thank ANet for depriving us of the evil LFG tool, all praise the wisdom of AreaNet for not giving us all these features that would have led to the corruption of our very souls!

Edited by Daesu, 04 January 2013 - 01:11 AM.

[Dasryn]

littleXuro, on 29 September 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

I never felt so lonely in a MMORPG. If this is the next generation of MMO's, I will be done with this genre.

you know, this is the same thing that people were saying about swtor.

done with the genre?  the genre never had a chance with people like you.  run some dungeons, ive met 6 friends and we're talking about making a guild now.  hell i got two long time friends to come back, that makes 10 of us (add in my wife and i).

i mean, you can say im one of the biggest fanboys on guru but im not making this up.  so i dont see where the game is any less social than any other game in this genre.  there is nothing prohibiting me from being social other than what mood im in.

Divinity's Reach is PACKED with people.  RPers mostly but its packed and map chat is scrolling by at a steady pace.

so idk man, idk what to tell you, idk what to tell any of you.

[fatrodmc]

Craywulf, on 04 January 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

A LFG tool is an enabler for anti-social behavior.

Its also a way that friendly people from other server's can find each other, and play together.

It's actually win/win for everyone.

[Craywulf]

fatrodmc, on 04 January 2013 - 01:18 AM, said:

Its also a way that friendly people from other server's can find each other, and play together.

It's actually win/win for everyone.

Actually free weekly server transfers help. Frankly if you got to go to great lengths to use a glorified search engine to find friends to play with, then you're not actually looking for friends, you're just looking for players to fill a void.

It's so freakin' easy to find people. Just go to the major cities, especially Lion's Arch. Problem solved.

[Daesu]

Craywulf, on 04 January 2013 - 01:47 AM, said:

Actually free weekly server transfers help. Frankly if you got to go to great lengths to use a glorified search engine to find friends to play with, then you're not actually looking for friends, you're just looking for players to fill a void.

It's so freakin' easy to find people. Just go to the major cities, especially Lion's Arch. Problem solved.

Except that server transfers are quite disruptive.  I tried that to get my world completion star and I couldn't access my personal guild stash for a week when I was on the other server.  All my guild upgrades and influence disappeared on the other server.  I couldn't earn influence for my guild on the other server too, for a week until I change back.  I also couldn't play with any of my guildies or friends from my original server, in the open world, for a week.  ANet also have plans to charge for server transfers in the future.

Finding people to chit chat in Lion's Arch may not be hard, but finding someone to help you out with killing a champion there and then when you are out in the open world is a different matter.  Because we do not have guesting or a LFG tool, people in the other servers won't be able to play with you in the open world.

Edited by Daesu, 04 January 2013 - 03:12 AM.

[Khezial_Tahr]

jinxPad, on 03 January 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

I have a feeling that if that happened... it would be just the same as any other server

I would be there so fast and never look back.  My experience is very similar to the OP. I joined a Euro server and left due to timezone issues. It was one of the best groups I've played with. Went back with another group I ran with in GW (alliance split in 2, this was the other half). They do nothing but chase dragons and... well that;s it. Same 4 people on voice chat all the time. Joined another guild, joined their voice chat, 20+ people very active. If they knew you. Otherwise, you were ignored. Asked for pointers for the priory bridge mission, got nothing but scorn, and stupid comments that were no help. So I left. Been through several other guilds as well. It's been awful.Zones are empty and most people I run across barely want you to run in the same direction as they do. And it's a very high pop server. Going to LA only helps when you're looking for groups to run dungeons with.

There are several design issues that drive people apart. Fractal levels? 5 races, 5 starting areas, 30+ "personal" stories dragging you in different directions across a huge world. It just seems that for they did to increase the social aspects of the game, they did twice as much to drive people apart.