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Socialization and MMOs
- Thread starter Yldri
- Start date
Same thing happened to WoW and everyone tried to copy WoW, and ended up providing all these mechanics that discourage socializing. I agree with thesis. Not so sure about your society theory.
The "golden age" of socializing in MMOs occurred before the internet became widely accessible to everyone.
Let's factor in two things.
1) The fact that it was new at the time - you never debated some politics bullshit before and now you're seeing a debate right now, wow - you jump in, wow, the wowness of the new experience.
Now, 15 years later: by now everyone's tired of the same old bullshit, the same old arguments, the same old retards and their dumb fucking opinions based on nothing but their own inability to see what's what. I can't stand people trash talking USSR for example, but I'm just too fucking exhausted to have a decent conversation about it ever again in my entire life, see? I notice someone doing it, I'll give some sweet and short fuck you to the guy, and he'll say that he fucks my mom or some same shit, and then we'll both report each other.
2) The fact that as soon as something becomes accessible to everybody, it becomes shit. I think the year that marked a clear decline was around 2004. Before that, it was like every poster was a writer - they'd write pretty interesting stuff on the forums and in-game. But around 2005-2006, so many new people joined and they were all retards, that interesting people just drowned in the sea of voices.
Basically, if you want to fix MMOs, I propose:
- Fix it mechanically, which isn't complicated. Don't facilitate processes that require social interaction. I played on vanilla WoW a year ago and was amazed at how alive the game felt again. I picked up a green blunderbuss that was awesome for hunters of level 21 or something, it was the best weapon before level 35. So I offered it to a lot of people through whispers and everyone answered politely and we even had a few jokes/mini-conversations because of that.
- Login only for people of 18+ years and implement some IQ checks, or I don't know. Develop some kind of system that cuts off the trash.
There you go. Big companies that fail with their huge budgets and shitty MMOs, no need to thank me. Enjoy!
The "golden age" of socializing in MMOs occurred before the internet became widely accessible to everyone.
Let's factor in two things.
1) The fact that it was new at the time - you never debated some politics bullshit before and now you're seeing a debate right now, wow - you jump in, wow, the wowness of the new experience.
Now, 15 years later: by now everyone's tired of the same old bullshit, the same old arguments, the same old retards and their dumb fucking opinions based on nothing but their own inability to see what's what. I can't stand people trash talking USSR for example, but I'm just too fucking exhausted to have a decent conversation about it ever again in my entire life, see? I notice someone doing it, I'll give some sweet and short fuck you to the guy, and he'll say that he fucks my mom or some same shit, and then we'll both report each other.
2) The fact that as soon as something becomes accessible to everybody, it becomes shit. I think the year that marked a clear decline was around 2004. Before that, it was like every poster was a writer - they'd write pretty interesting stuff on the forums and in-game. But around 2005-2006, so many new people joined and they were all retards, that interesting people just drowned in the sea of voices.
Basically, if you want to fix MMOs, I propose:
- Fix it mechanically, which isn't complicated. Don't facilitate processes that require social interaction. I played on vanilla WoW a year ago and was amazed at how alive the game felt again. I picked up a green blunderbuss that was awesome for hunters of level 21 or something, it was the best weapon before level 35. So I offered it to a lot of people through whispers and everyone answered politely and we even had a few jokes/mini-conversations because of that.
- Login only for people of 18+ years and implement some IQ checks, or I don't know. Develop some kind of system that cuts off the trash.
There you go. Big companies that fail with their huge budgets and shitty MMOs, no need to thank me. Enjoy!
MadMaxHellfire
Arcane
demographics.
when videogames were young (or relatively) they were populated mainly by us, the antisocial nerds who the jocks hate and cast aside. probably i'll never forget how i'd been mocked in middle school, in the first nineties, when i tried to speak about airbags, aerogel, fullerenes and emails.
now internet is not a safe oasis anymore, all the assholes have moved in.
you know the rest.
when videogames were young (or relatively) they were populated mainly by us, the antisocial nerds who the jocks hate and cast aside. probably i'll never forget how i'd been mocked in middle school, in the first nineties, when i tried to speak about airbags, aerogel, fullerenes and emails.
now internet is not a safe oasis anymore, all the assholes have moved in.
you know the rest.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
2004? Pssh. Try 1993. Eternal September, when the Decline began.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2015
- Messages
- 5,427
I won't comment on the RL side of changing society, I don't know much about it. What I think I know:
The less socialization in MMORPGs happen because the reason people MMORPGs has changed. In the its early phases, people played MMORPGs because hey, I can play the thing I like with many people! Before you would perhaps get to play with people on split screen or LAN with 10 or so people but now you can play with the whole world! It was very cool.
But as time moved, MMORPGs becomes more of a showcase of feat instead of playing with people. In case of WoW it is no longer about having fun but it is more and more about item ratings. As the need changes, so do the systems. Because having that high item rating/cool armor/legendary weapon becomes more important, people complained that leveling is too slow, then the dev made it faster. Then people complained that they had no time to sit and talk GOT TO GID TO LV 80 ASAP MATE!, the dev implement automatic grouping, the most notorious perhaps is RDF in WoW. And so on and so on.
The changing needs itself perhaps could be attributed to popularization of the MMORPGs genre and the over-saturation of MMORPGs markets. Before, the amount of people playing MMORPGs are limited, with not much choice of actual games to play in general (heck in my country Ragnarok Online is the dominant MMORPG for about 10 years). As MMORPGs get more popular and the advent of F2P began, the amount of people playing increase significantly. On the other hand, like most of modern games phenomena, the need of instant gratification increase by time. The developers need to comply because with so much competitions abound, being viewed as a slow need long to get to max level is bad (regardless actual content and experience along the way). In the end, unless you are part of close knit community that perhaps know each other IRL, playing MMORPGs becomes race to get to the end game, with ever increasing number along the way to keep you happy.
The less socialization in MMORPGs happen because the reason people MMORPGs has changed. In the its early phases, people played MMORPGs because hey, I can play the thing I like with many people! Before you would perhaps get to play with people on split screen or LAN with 10 or so people but now you can play with the whole world! It was very cool.
But as time moved, MMORPGs becomes more of a showcase of feat instead of playing with people. In case of WoW it is no longer about having fun but it is more and more about item ratings. As the need changes, so do the systems. Because having that high item rating/cool armor/legendary weapon becomes more important, people complained that leveling is too slow, then the dev made it faster. Then people complained that they had no time to sit and talk GOT TO GID TO LV 80 ASAP MATE!, the dev implement automatic grouping, the most notorious perhaps is RDF in WoW. And so on and so on.
The changing needs itself perhaps could be attributed to popularization of the MMORPGs genre and the over-saturation of MMORPGs markets. Before, the amount of people playing MMORPGs are limited, with not much choice of actual games to play in general (heck in my country Ragnarok Online is the dominant MMORPG for about 10 years). As MMORPGs get more popular and the advent of F2P began, the amount of people playing increase significantly. On the other hand, like most of modern games phenomena, the need of instant gratification increase by time. The developers need to comply because with so much competitions abound, being viewed as a slow need long to get to max level is bad (regardless actual content and experience along the way). In the end, unless you are part of close knit community that perhaps know each other IRL, playing MMORPGs becomes race to get to the end game, with ever increasing number along the way to keep you happy.
PorkyThePaladin
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Messages
- 5,150
What happened was, early MMOs (like UO, Everquest, Asheron's Call, etc) targeted hardcore gamers, people who wanted to spend a LOT of time in a virtual world much cooler and more interesting than the real one (at least in the sense of what they could practically do in it). So these games often emphasized social gameplay because that was the major distinguishing characteristic and selling point of such games. People had to group for most things or trade/fight with others, and it was a real virtual world.
WoW also started out like this, more or less, but much more streamlined, and it was this incessant quest for streamlining, become more mainstream and getting more subscriptions that ruined it and the whole genre for the immediate future. By moving beyond hardcore players, WoW started attracting casuals, and the thing about casuals is they don't want to spend that much time on a game. They want to get in a couple of hours after work or while waiting to do something and then move on. But there is a lot more of them, so if you are chasing money, you try to introduce features that make it easier for them to have small digestible pieces of entertainment at a time. Unfortunately, most of those ruin the social aspects of MMOs. For example, if you introduce automatic queues for dungeons for example, then that makes it easier for casuals to get together and run a group, but now nobody has to know anyone else on the server, and that whole element is lost. And on it goes, until today, where MMOs feel like more boring versions of Diablo.
WoW also started out like this, more or less, but much more streamlined, and it was this incessant quest for streamlining, become more mainstream and getting more subscriptions that ruined it and the whole genre for the immediate future. By moving beyond hardcore players, WoW started attracting casuals, and the thing about casuals is they don't want to spend that much time on a game. They want to get in a couple of hours after work or while waiting to do something and then move on. But there is a lot more of them, so if you are chasing money, you try to introduce features that make it easier for them to have small digestible pieces of entertainment at a time. Unfortunately, most of those ruin the social aspects of MMOs. For example, if you introduce automatic queues for dungeons for example, then that makes it easier for casuals to get together and run a group, but now nobody has to know anyone else on the server, and that whole element is lost. And on it goes, until today, where MMOs feel like more boring versions of Diablo.
adrix89
Cipher
Space Station 13 I think is the best testbed on how socialization fails.
Even in a game where there isn't much to do and the gameplay amounts to find the spy, people still don't socialize and instead doing their autistic jobs(poorly at that).
I think at this state the only way to make them socialize is at gunpoint, and I am not talking about shitty admin rules but mechanical enforcement.
A set of rewards given if they are forced to interact with other players.
I was thinking along the lines of an Inn, now food that gives buffs is nothing new and a restaurant giving food isn't either. But as only that they would just eat and then fuck off immediately, especially if the food has a countdown timer that ticks as you waste time. Maybe some will stick around to talk for a bit before eating and fucking off but you won't get much interactions.
However if we change the mechanics for a bit things can change. First in the Inn the countdown timer does not tick, this might be the case for even for player magic abilities buffs, so a bard could sing their songs and not have the fuckers immediately teleport out. Second every 5-10 minutes you can add another stack of buffs on top that increases its potential and timer. So a buff that give 100 health for an hour might add another extra 50 health and increase the time for two hours.
That way you have a 5-10min window where you have to stick around, now it does not make sense for this downtime if there is no people around so this stacking would only work based on the number of people around. So if you have 2 people you can have 1 stack, 4 people 2 stacks, 8 people 3 stacks.
Now you have a reason to invite your asshole friend to dinner, and have friends you can use as buff dispensers in the first place.
Wherever there is a downtime there is opportunity, another example is say you have trade like in Black Desert Online, you are hired as a mercenary to protect a caravan from nasty ambushes from bandits.
Now in a stupid MMO like BDO you would trade alone racing the fucking carriage along the road with no challenge, in a our case the fucking roads are dangerous and ever merchant worth his salt hires a group of players to protect it.
Now hear is the miracle, humping the fucking caravan with your movement input is not the point, this is a natural downtime where movement can be made automatically with only scouts looking ahead for danger, while the rest can be set up to have natural conversations.
Typing on your keyboard is not going to happen if you have to move around and fight. This is why GW2 automatic grouping means nobody has to stop and plan. There is no downtime.
Even in a game where there isn't much to do and the gameplay amounts to find the spy, people still don't socialize and instead doing their autistic jobs(poorly at that).
I think at this state the only way to make them socialize is at gunpoint, and I am not talking about shitty admin rules but mechanical enforcement.
A set of rewards given if they are forced to interact with other players.
I was thinking along the lines of an Inn, now food that gives buffs is nothing new and a restaurant giving food isn't either. But as only that they would just eat and then fuck off immediately, especially if the food has a countdown timer that ticks as you waste time. Maybe some will stick around to talk for a bit before eating and fucking off but you won't get much interactions.
However if we change the mechanics for a bit things can change. First in the Inn the countdown timer does not tick, this might be the case for even for player magic abilities buffs, so a bard could sing their songs and not have the fuckers immediately teleport out. Second every 5-10 minutes you can add another stack of buffs on top that increases its potential and timer. So a buff that give 100 health for an hour might add another extra 50 health and increase the time for two hours.
That way you have a 5-10min window where you have to stick around, now it does not make sense for this downtime if there is no people around so this stacking would only work based on the number of people around. So if you have 2 people you can have 1 stack, 4 people 2 stacks, 8 people 3 stacks.
Now you have a reason to invite your asshole friend to dinner, and have friends you can use as buff dispensers in the first place.
Wherever there is a downtime there is opportunity, another example is say you have trade like in Black Desert Online, you are hired as a mercenary to protect a caravan from nasty ambushes from bandits.
Now in a stupid MMO like BDO you would trade alone racing the fucking carriage along the road with no challenge, in a our case the fucking roads are dangerous and ever merchant worth his salt hires a group of players to protect it.
Now hear is the miracle, humping the fucking caravan with your movement input is not the point, this is a natural downtime where movement can be made automatically with only scouts looking ahead for danger, while the rest can be set up to have natural conversations.
Typing on your keyboard is not going to happen if you have to move around and fight. This is why GW2 automatic grouping means nobody has to stop and plan. There is no downtime.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
I think SWG did that. They actually had a defined, mechanical benefit for hiring prostitutes. So, your proposal would be to create an actual mechanical benefit for hanging around in a tavern blowing all your money on ale and whores. Perhaps this is how you recover HP, to blow your reward on ale and whores, except that the ale and whores must be provided by other players. While I'm sure it would be possible to simply morosely consume one's ale and whores in silence, most people will probably start talking when confronted with a requirement that that they stay in place to consume those things.
adrix89
Cipher
The problem with SWG is that the dancer would bot afk which is no different to an npc. Sure a dance emote is fun a few times but when that is all your job things get stale pretty fast. You want some downtime for preparation, planning, organizing groups and expeditions but you also want the players to ultimately play the fucking game.
I think a lot of wide idealists that think Sandbox MMOs are going to save us from the evil clutches of the WoW MMO clones.
But you can get the service jobs wrong fairly easily, players need to have something fun to do that challenges their mastery of the game.
I think social gameplay can be on par with combat gameplay and you would basically need it if you were to make the service industry work.
Ive had the most Fun with UO, started playing in 1997, i barely spoke any english.
But many people had the patience to talk with me or explain shit and i honestly think its due to most of them being adults.
I genuinly believe games atleast partially got ruined by 13 year olds, i dont think WoW Players could have ever archived
what the people that played UO done to the world.
The whole economy based on Player owned shops, people offering wares and services.... It was glorious.
But many people had the patience to talk with me or explain shit and i honestly think its due to most of them being adults.
I genuinly believe games atleast partially got ruined by 13 year olds, i dont think WoW Players could have ever archived
what the people that played UO done to the world.
The whole economy based on Player owned shops, people offering wares and services.... It was glorious.
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
WoW players did nothing wrong.
What happened was gaming became mainstream and attitudes changes, not only on gamers but developers were competition became the norm, its not arm twisting that makes people socialize but mechanics that allow then to do so, MMO design just revolves around a endless grind, players are heavily incentivized to just grind leaving no time to actually look at the game world and talk with each other, WoW did not caused that ... WoW clones did because they copied the mechanics of the game without a soul, it was the mechanized game development that lead to MMO being so samey.
Also a lot of people dont even know what they want, I know what old farts want ... going back when they could grind 40 hours a week but they cannot do that anymore, they changed ... its like a middle life crisis from old gamers that still want to be the Ultra Competitive MMO Monkey besides being in their 30's-40's.
Game developers simply blindly following design ideas set set a decade ago, there is very little creative thought put and even the one that does work its just copied until everyone is sick and tired of it, look at the wave of Survival games that are coming out, it simply saturates the market.
Thats brings me to another problem, a new trend on MMO is they are "action based" so people cannot even afford to talk because they are too busy using a UI that is as anti-chat as you can get, plus attempts to stop bots created a situation were using chat is often penalized, its just designers only look at things mechanically and not socially ... whats the incentive to team up when they are too afraid to have a Lv50 to carry a Lv10 and add so many penlities that teaming is more often then not going to slow you down and then they create Elite Mobs and Field Bosses in a attempt to force people to team up, of course people are told to Solo and then to Team up on the same breath because they simply looking at things mechanically.
What happened was gaming became mainstream and attitudes changes, not only on gamers but developers were competition became the norm, its not arm twisting that makes people socialize but mechanics that allow then to do so, MMO design just revolves around a endless grind, players are heavily incentivized to just grind leaving no time to actually look at the game world and talk with each other, WoW did not caused that ... WoW clones did because they copied the mechanics of the game without a soul, it was the mechanized game development that lead to MMO being so samey.
Also a lot of people dont even know what they want, I know what old farts want ... going back when they could grind 40 hours a week but they cannot do that anymore, they changed ... its like a middle life crisis from old gamers that still want to be the Ultra Competitive MMO Monkey besides being in their 30's-40's.
Game developers simply blindly following design ideas set set a decade ago, there is very little creative thought put and even the one that does work its just copied until everyone is sick and tired of it, look at the wave of Survival games that are coming out, it simply saturates the market.
Thats brings me to another problem, a new trend on MMO is they are "action based" so people cannot even afford to talk because they are too busy using a UI that is as anti-chat as you can get, plus attempts to stop bots created a situation were using chat is often penalized, its just designers only look at things mechanically and not socially ... whats the incentive to team up when they are too afraid to have a Lv50 to carry a Lv10 and add so many penlities that teaming is more often then not going to slow you down and then they create Elite Mobs and Field Bosses in a attempt to force people to team up, of course people are told to Solo and then to Team up on the same breath because they simply looking at things mechanically.
With WoW Players i meant the 13 year olds in this case, of course wow was played by adults, and adults can be shits too.
Just WoW was the first game where i encountered massive amounts of unbareable youngens.
In UO on Europa/Drachenfels & sometimes Siege i set up a Table and Chairs near the Bank and gambled away Millions with the Dice.
Met really interesting people, some of whom i still talk to.
On Europa we had a Guild of Orcs, they had like 20-30 Houses build in the same Style, they had their own language, they had guards
for their most important building and even a changing of the guard ceremony... Ive never encountered anything remotely like this
in any other game... Its a given that: most other Games dont give you any options to do ANYTHING interesting.
Just WoW was the first game where i encountered massive amounts of unbareable youngens.
In UO on Europa/Drachenfels & sometimes Siege i set up a Table and Chairs near the Bank and gambled away Millions with the Dice.
Met really interesting people, some of whom i still talk to.
On Europa we had a Guild of Orcs, they had like 20-30 Houses build in the same Style, they had their own language, they had guards
for their most important building and even a changing of the guard ceremony... Ive never encountered anything remotely like this
in any other game... Its a given that: most other Games dont give you any options to do ANYTHING interesting.
The worse thing, when you think about it, is that socialization business in Ultima Online and others used to happen at the time when most of us were stuck with RTC modems, slow transmission, and payed by the hour. That means the awful lot of time you spent socializing in games and forums was time spent not doing anything "useful".
And people did it, nonetheless. They loved it. I remember when I was on a RTC and downloading some warez bullshit through Kazaa. The 3 KB/S strain on my connection made me unable to do anything else, so I used to go to IRC and chat about random shit all day long. There were small communities, and I considered the people present in those channels as much as friends as anybody IRL.
Now, IRC is dead. "What's the point of chatting on the Internet with people you don't already know" seems pretty much the usage of the Internet. In the year 2000, I remember in the halls of my faculty someone mocking the Internet, saying things along the line : "Yeah, on the INternet, they say you can talk to people all over the world and that it's great... is that what anyone really does, though ? Who the hell does that ?". I shut my mouth, because, I did. I was witnessing the future of the Internet, and I didn't know it.
The problem OP pointed in games is not a game problem. It's indeed a society change. The entitled, the fragile, the weak, the people who need the instant gratification proposed by F2P games whose mechanics have pervaded into even so called hardcore games are to blame. Everything has to be easy, and accessible. And by accessible, it also means you have to be able to have the time to do it. As you grew up, you not only needed time for your work and family, but to Facebook, to Twitter, to Snapchat, to read the latest bullshit on Gawker, see the movie everyone was talking about, read the new 50 shades, play the latest Free To Play, play the latest hardcore game, etc.
As a wiseman once said :
And indeed, I find that focusing helps things. Society and the Economy are lying to you when they say you can do all the things they have to offer. There is a limit even the richest of man can't go above : available time, and the human brain. Less is more. Buy a game, play it fully until you master it. It's the only way to enjoy it. Take your time. Just because 35 "Must play 10/10 !!!!" games got released this week doesn't mean you have to play them. Limit your website consumption : I find out that the only thing I actually ever use, besides convenience stuff like email/bank/amazon is Wikipedia, two news websites, Codex, Google Newstands to read my subscriptions to magazines (stuff I could be doing offline, really)...
I have no idea, however, on how to save socialization mechanics in games because, really, there's no helping other people. It's gone.
And people did it, nonetheless. They loved it. I remember when I was on a RTC and downloading some warez bullshit through Kazaa. The 3 KB/S strain on my connection made me unable to do anything else, so I used to go to IRC and chat about random shit all day long. There were small communities, and I considered the people present in those channels as much as friends as anybody IRL.
Now, IRC is dead. "What's the point of chatting on the Internet with people you don't already know" seems pretty much the usage of the Internet. In the year 2000, I remember in the halls of my faculty someone mocking the Internet, saying things along the line : "Yeah, on the INternet, they say you can talk to people all over the world and that it's great... is that what anyone really does, though ? Who the hell does that ?". I shut my mouth, because, I did. I was witnessing the future of the Internet, and I didn't know it.
The problem OP pointed in games is not a game problem. It's indeed a society change. The entitled, the fragile, the weak, the people who need the instant gratification proposed by F2P games whose mechanics have pervaded into even so called hardcore games are to blame. Everything has to be easy, and accessible. And by accessible, it also means you have to be able to have the time to do it. As you grew up, you not only needed time for your work and family, but to Facebook, to Twitter, to Snapchat, to read the latest bullshit on Gawker, see the movie everyone was talking about, read the new 50 shades, play the latest Free To Play, play the latest hardcore game, etc.
As a wiseman once said :
And indeed, I find that focusing helps things. Society and the Economy are lying to you when they say you can do all the things they have to offer. There is a limit even the richest of man can't go above : available time, and the human brain. Less is more. Buy a game, play it fully until you master it. It's the only way to enjoy it. Take your time. Just because 35 "Must play 10/10 !!!!" games got released this week doesn't mean you have to play them. Limit your website consumption : I find out that the only thing I actually ever use, besides convenience stuff like email/bank/amazon is Wikipedia, two news websites, Codex, Google Newstands to read my subscriptions to magazines (stuff I could be doing offline, really)...
I have no idea, however, on how to save socialization mechanics in games because, really, there's no helping other people. It's gone.
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
The reasons why WildStar failed are lost to you.
Of course the reasons why WildStar failed will continue to be lost to the people that still want to go back to when they could play a MMO 40 hours per week, they will continue to fail to understand why their ideas when translated into a game will not work.
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
I tend to go over my posts halfway and dont edit then ... much, if ever. I also cut the part were I was going more detail about that so here it goes.
I mentioned this before, MMOs arent exactly "friendly" for chat, especially action based ones were you cannot even macro it since they take account position, unless its voice chat but thats a different can of worms and I dont think anyone wants that.
So how does that help socializing? it doesnt ... its just orders issues by a player on how the play a instance or a raid or whatever, its at best communication and not socialization because nobody is being social, they are being told commands and going to my WildStar comment if people just run that content they know how to do it, there is no questions asks ... no socialization, in guilds communication is socialization because people are bored and talk to each other during breaks as during group content they will only issue orders at best, they will reach a point were there is no need of that because they already know exactly how to do it.
That brings me to another MMO, that is Second Life ... it have no combat, its entirely socialization and its still around that futher points that combat, grouped or not doesnt create socialization.
This is why all the arguments about "difficulty","group finding" and all that are missing the point, its arm twisting people into behaving in a way ... and pay for the privilege of that, spamming LFG is not socialization, its barely qualifies as communication, people socialize if they have the time so balls hard non-stop dungeons will effectively end socialization simply because there is no time for that, no breaks ... only the issuing of orders.
As long MMOs are only about combat thats going to happen because in the end people will group to progress and not because they want ... in fact were the hell is grouping socialization? Its not.
People look back to older games and think they were social because they group despite that not being why they talked to each other ... again we have Second Life, people will socialize on it more that WildStar because its the entire point of Second Life, WildStar? WildStar is just for the people to strike their ePenis over beating dungeons.
I mentioned this before, MMOs arent exactly "friendly" for chat, especially action based ones were you cannot even macro it since they take account position, unless its voice chat but thats a different can of worms and I dont think anyone wants that.
So how does that help socializing? it doesnt ... its just orders issues by a player on how the play a instance or a raid or whatever, its at best communication and not socialization because nobody is being social, they are being told commands and going to my WildStar comment if people just run that content they know how to do it, there is no questions asks ... no socialization, in guilds communication is socialization because people are bored and talk to each other during breaks as during group content they will only issue orders at best, they will reach a point were there is no need of that because they already know exactly how to do it.
That brings me to another MMO, that is Second Life ... it have no combat, its entirely socialization and its still around that futher points that combat, grouped or not doesnt create socialization.
This is why all the arguments about "difficulty","group finding" and all that are missing the point, its arm twisting people into behaving in a way ... and pay for the privilege of that, spamming LFG is not socialization, its barely qualifies as communication, people socialize if they have the time so balls hard non-stop dungeons will effectively end socialization simply because there is no time for that, no breaks ... only the issuing of orders.
As long MMOs are only about combat thats going to happen because in the end people will group to progress and not because they want ... in fact were the hell is grouping socialization? Its not.
People look back to older games and think they were social because they group despite that not being why they talked to each other ... again we have Second Life, people will socialize on it more that WildStar because its the entire point of Second Life, WildStar? WildStar is just for the people to strike their ePenis over beating dungeons.
nasomi
Novice
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2014
- Messages
- 22
I think this came down to one major thing. Time.
In the 90's and 00's, we didn't care, this was all we did, and we put all sorts of time into it. Player base was maybe a hundred thousand.
Then everyone else started internetting, and the internet became "cool". But these people a) weren't very smart and b) had social lives. Gaming companies realized they could get them to play, increase their player base 50 fold, make assloads more money, if they made the games so they could fit into this new demographic.
It started with wow, and bled into everything else. What's better for them, even, is that they make more money, but don't really have increased hardware costs, because these new player shelling out $10-13/mo are not playing 16 hours a day, they're hopping on for a bit, then going out side. Again, net benefit for manufacturers. They literally don't lose at all. The people that lose are those who want to spend 12hr at a time playing a game. but modern games don't offer that much content even. Everything is instant gratification.
This is hte whole reason i made my move to recreate ffxi in it's older glory. Players are like electricity, they will always take the path of least resistance, even if it's to their own detriment. Forcing them to work together is the only way it's going to happen. When they have to work together, they have to socialize. I have had 75k lines of player chat a day on average from just 500 players. If I were to make the game soloable, I guarantee I could get many more players, but that chat count would drop considerably.
The point is, the players don't know what they want. It's up to the companies to decide what's most important, the bottom line, or the player experience. If you can sacrifice one to boost the other, the bottom line will always win.
In the 90's and 00's, we didn't care, this was all we did, and we put all sorts of time into it. Player base was maybe a hundred thousand.
Then everyone else started internetting, and the internet became "cool". But these people a) weren't very smart and b) had social lives. Gaming companies realized they could get them to play, increase their player base 50 fold, make assloads more money, if they made the games so they could fit into this new demographic.
It started with wow, and bled into everything else. What's better for them, even, is that they make more money, but don't really have increased hardware costs, because these new player shelling out $10-13/mo are not playing 16 hours a day, they're hopping on for a bit, then going out side. Again, net benefit for manufacturers. They literally don't lose at all. The people that lose are those who want to spend 12hr at a time playing a game. but modern games don't offer that much content even. Everything is instant gratification.
This is hte whole reason i made my move to recreate ffxi in it's older glory. Players are like electricity, they will always take the path of least resistance, even if it's to their own detriment. Forcing them to work together is the only way it's going to happen. When they have to work together, they have to socialize. I have had 75k lines of player chat a day on average from just 500 players. If I were to make the game soloable, I guarantee I could get many more players, but that chat count would drop considerably.
The point is, the players don't know what they want. It's up to the companies to decide what's most important, the bottom line, or the player experience. If you can sacrifice one to boost the other, the bottom line will always win.
The Dopamine Cleric
Prospernaut
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2015
- Messages
- 1,162
Expanding on some points made by Taxalot:
The biggest problem I am seeing with this generation of internet gaming has to do with the internet culture itself. There was an explosion in the early 2000's on the concept of how socialization is important, and is a broad new horizon for gaming in general. This may have been true at the time, however, you can at this moment count numerous examples on how data and content on the internet has degraded from meaningful material into schlock.
In the 90's and at the peak around 2003, information and communities on the internet were mostly populated by the intellectuals of society who have expressed interest in investing economically on an abstract and niche culture. The PC as a gaming platform was untarnished by most corporate business models and mainstream market exposure involving the social media applications that have invaded it today.
This separation of content allowed more genres and sub-cultures to be formed. This meant that the social aspects of these MMO's actually had viable substance and value, simply because the state of the internet was of a much higher quality. You would meet new and interesting people and be able to have a common interest that you can share. People had actual relationships over a fiber-optic cable. There was none of this mainstream shit ideology of how "Why talk to someone on the internet if I don't know them?" You went to the internet to find things that ONLY the internet could provide.
However, the pipelines are filled with the exact population that users of the early internet sought to separate themselves from. The internet is a mainstream product of capitalism on one end, and a complete anarchy on the other. The old net was filled with different niches, subcultures, and people who all shared and traded information with each other that came from sources outside the net itself.
Now, the idea of memes has turned the net into a mess, where every line is blurred and data itself has become subjective and meaningless. Every single online community is a "Fight for the middle" of ideological dominance which does not allow any culture to actually grow and expand.
This has effected online gaming in a few ways.
1. All games that are made by companies that require a profit to maintain the existence of said company are blurring the lines in all genres "Which prevents refinement in each genre and concept, and promotes mediocrity"
2. All social applications are politicized into populist politics "Which prevents unique sub-cultures and individuality from evolving in the space which at a time actually encouraged growth and experimentation"
3. All games requiring social/online gaming are designed to be used by the lowest common denominator "All internet based gaming that is developed by a profit based company must conform to a demographic large enough to be competitive in the market, which increases the risk of developing new ideas that are not subsidized by large corporations."
A fine example of this, is Sid Meiers horrible concept of games doing nothing more than "Pushing psychological Buttons"
In this talk, Sid expresses his new ideology on how game-play should function. I would say that in his "refinement" of game designing over the years, he has actually went down a path that has driven the industry backwards.
This is no easy concept to grasp. This is very metaphysical. What should be pointed out is that the idea being expressed here, that games are nothing more than tools to masturbate our own psychology, is at the forefront of the decline in all media.
If you examine gaming from the beginning of time to around 2010, you can see clearly that the idea of a game was that is was something outside of you as a person. It was something that is learned, and to master this game you must put yourself outside of your own psychology and evelope yourself into the rules of said game.
This is the same aspect of RPGS and other setting based games have used for over 30 years to create universes and gameplay environments. This in many regards is the same as reading a novel or watching a film. When I am a young boy watching Star Wars, I was not "Psychologically living out my own desires and fantasies in someone elses environment." I didn't have fantasies. I was learning how my own mind functions and creating connections from things that happened in my environment and how they made me feel.
Terry Gilliam, a famous avante garde director of many good films like 12 Monkeys and Brazil, sums up this disposition of "Feel Good" media by comparing Stanley Kubrick films to Steven Spielberg.
The point that has been missed in this new era of game design and media in general is that... as Slavoj Zizek said, "Media teaches you how to dream." It does not unlock some secret doorway that we may discover inside of our own psychology that lays dormaint waiting for some programmer to jizz all over his pretentious nonsense and grow into a new fantasy. What we experience first hand in a gaming environment is based on the things we bring to the game first, and the NEW things we experience inside these game and other media. It is not some, flash of esoteric code that's only purpose is to get certain glands inside of our body to secrete chemicals.. Those glands don't know what to secrete to, or rather, they are learned behaviors from our social environments.
The universe that Sid Meiers is creating basically makes gaming ill-relevant, for in it, a simple Kantian could see that all you would need to do is stare at the wall and masturbate, and you would have the same result as playing a new AAA title, or watching a new blockbuster hollywood movie.
That is exactly how I would describe modern gaming in general. Too much work for something that is effectively masturbation. This is the same thing that has been shown to be the undercurrent of the internet culture of the modern age. No real meaningful content or world building, no exchange of information and distillation of that information into useful applications. All leads back to an activity that is simply out-of-body masturbation.
I honestly do not see a good future for gaming in general if the internet culture itself does not evolve and change. There is hope, however, with the new technology and software applications available. If you want to save the state of gaming that you KNOW is in deciline, then you better start getting to work on a product that takes risks, is not afraid of failure, and does not pander to current trends and culture.
The biggest problem I am seeing with this generation of internet gaming has to do with the internet culture itself. There was an explosion in the early 2000's on the concept of how socialization is important, and is a broad new horizon for gaming in general. This may have been true at the time, however, you can at this moment count numerous examples on how data and content on the internet has degraded from meaningful material into schlock.
In the 90's and at the peak around 2003, information and communities on the internet were mostly populated by the intellectuals of society who have expressed interest in investing economically on an abstract and niche culture. The PC as a gaming platform was untarnished by most corporate business models and mainstream market exposure involving the social media applications that have invaded it today.
This separation of content allowed more genres and sub-cultures to be formed. This meant that the social aspects of these MMO's actually had viable substance and value, simply because the state of the internet was of a much higher quality. You would meet new and interesting people and be able to have a common interest that you can share. People had actual relationships over a fiber-optic cable. There was none of this mainstream shit ideology of how "Why talk to someone on the internet if I don't know them?" You went to the internet to find things that ONLY the internet could provide.
However, the pipelines are filled with the exact population that users of the early internet sought to separate themselves from. The internet is a mainstream product of capitalism on one end, and a complete anarchy on the other. The old net was filled with different niches, subcultures, and people who all shared and traded information with each other that came from sources outside the net itself.
Now, the idea of memes has turned the net into a mess, where every line is blurred and data itself has become subjective and meaningless. Every single online community is a "Fight for the middle" of ideological dominance which does not allow any culture to actually grow and expand.
This has effected online gaming in a few ways.
1. All games that are made by companies that require a profit to maintain the existence of said company are blurring the lines in all genres "Which prevents refinement in each genre and concept, and promotes mediocrity"
2. All social applications are politicized into populist politics "Which prevents unique sub-cultures and individuality from evolving in the space which at a time actually encouraged growth and experimentation"
3. All games requiring social/online gaming are designed to be used by the lowest common denominator "All internet based gaming that is developed by a profit based company must conform to a demographic large enough to be competitive in the market, which increases the risk of developing new ideas that are not subsidized by large corporations."
A fine example of this, is Sid Meiers horrible concept of games doing nothing more than "Pushing psychological Buttons"
In this talk, Sid expresses his new ideology on how game-play should function. I would say that in his "refinement" of game designing over the years, he has actually went down a path that has driven the industry backwards.
This is no easy concept to grasp. This is very metaphysical. What should be pointed out is that the idea being expressed here, that games are nothing more than tools to masturbate our own psychology, is at the forefront of the decline in all media.
If you examine gaming from the beginning of time to around 2010, you can see clearly that the idea of a game was that is was something outside of you as a person. It was something that is learned, and to master this game you must put yourself outside of your own psychology and evelope yourself into the rules of said game.
This is the same aspect of RPGS and other setting based games have used for over 30 years to create universes and gameplay environments. This in many regards is the same as reading a novel or watching a film. When I am a young boy watching Star Wars, I was not "Psychologically living out my own desires and fantasies in someone elses environment." I didn't have fantasies. I was learning how my own mind functions and creating connections from things that happened in my environment and how they made me feel.
Terry Gilliam, a famous avante garde director of many good films like 12 Monkeys and Brazil, sums up this disposition of "Feel Good" media by comparing Stanley Kubrick films to Steven Spielberg.
The point that has been missed in this new era of game design and media in general is that... as Slavoj Zizek said, "Media teaches you how to dream." It does not unlock some secret doorway that we may discover inside of our own psychology that lays dormaint waiting for some programmer to jizz all over his pretentious nonsense and grow into a new fantasy. What we experience first hand in a gaming environment is based on the things we bring to the game first, and the NEW things we experience inside these game and other media. It is not some, flash of esoteric code that's only purpose is to get certain glands inside of our body to secrete chemicals.. Those glands don't know what to secrete to, or rather, they are learned behaviors from our social environments.
The universe that Sid Meiers is creating basically makes gaming ill-relevant, for in it, a simple Kantian could see that all you would need to do is stare at the wall and masturbate, and you would have the same result as playing a new AAA title, or watching a new blockbuster hollywood movie.
That is exactly how I would describe modern gaming in general. Too much work for something that is effectively masturbation. This is the same thing that has been shown to be the undercurrent of the internet culture of the modern age. No real meaningful content or world building, no exchange of information and distillation of that information into useful applications. All leads back to an activity that is simply out-of-body masturbation.
I honestly do not see a good future for gaming in general if the internet culture itself does not evolve and change. There is hope, however, with the new technology and software applications available. If you want to save the state of gaming that you KNOW is in deciline, then you better start getting to work on a product that takes risks, is not afraid of failure, and does not pander to current trends and culture.
Last edited:
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
Hope is a lie, there is only the Decline. As a manifestation of entropy, the Decline is inevitable and inexorable. Decline, Decline never changes.
The Dopamine Cleric
Prospernaut
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2015
- Messages
- 1,162
May the wind carry all that turns to sand, to a river deep down into darkness where diamonds may flower.
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