(theory) The MMO community overall is driving more and more people to want a solo only experience

TheScavenger

This kinda relates to my previous thread about forced grouping/soloing. But a slightly. different subject (though the beginning of this post overlaps with my previous thread).

So I'll talk about Asheron's Call. The community in that game (on Morningthaw, on Darktide it was crap so I avoided that server) was very good except for the PvP server (which is NOT part of the discussion). Every PVE/optional PvP servers had great communities in AC. While people could solo EVERYTHING, and in some ways that was more optimal...however people often randomly joined groups, chatted with each other, helped each other and were very friendly. In fact, Asheron's Call had a more, friendlier and helpful community than Everquest 1 which pretty much forced grouping. In AC people grouped to help others, to socialize and have a lot of fun together.

So where am I going with that?...Well...

Go to todays community. Its 4chan style trolling, rude people, leeroy jenkin wannabees, loot stealers and people using each other to get ahead of the game. The main reason people group these days is for selfish reasons, and would otherwise not group if they could. Which in Asheron's Call people ALWAYS grouped even though soloing was very viable, because people wanted to actually group and were overall friendly. Even friendlier MMOs like LOTRO are nowhere near as good as MMOs of old. Then there are the more niche MMOs like Ryzom and Istaria/Horizons (the dragon MMO) which are closed off communities that with the little players they have act very elitist and rude.

But that actually goes to society of today (at least in the US). Today people is only I, I and I, and very rarely do people help others unless they get something out of it. And if they do help, they get sued. Why would people want to play with others that are so rude and selfish like that? That goes back to MMOs.

The MMO community overall has become VERY toxic, very rude, trolls and memes galore and really selfish. Most people won't even group unless they are forced to do so, making it a selfish reason. I grouped all the time in Asheron's Call even though I could do everything on my own. 

A good example of this is in EVE. There was a story on PCgamer (recently) of a guy who spent 1+ year becoming great "friends" with a corp (it was a pirate corp), but it turns out he only wanted to steal all their stuff and sabotage them from within. I'd never want to group with someone like that or even associate myself with such a sociopath. He didn't even care about the friendships he made. And that is true for a lot of MMO gamers these days, they are more than glad to move on from an MMO than stay where their long time friends are.

In Asheron's Call, friendships lasted for decades and many would stay because of those friendships and even keep in contact years later. These days, if a group of friends quit an MMO that you've had for years, people just say "find new friends". Communities of old never acted like that, but that is how things are in real life these days in society. 

I believe that is why so many people prefer to just solo these days and not group. That is a big reason I don't group, because why would I want to associate or even socialize with such rude people that don't even care about others and if I unsubbed they wouldn't care at all even if they'd been friends for years? That isn't how old MMO communities were (at least for Asheron's Call). 

To end it off...there ARE good groups and guilds out there. But they are far harder to find than how MMOs communities used to be. And one of the huge reasons people (my theory anyway) don't like grouping nearly as much as they used to and only do it if they are forced to do so. Because most people don't actually want to associate or socialize with such rude and immature people that are actually using them to get ahead or some endgame item.

SEANMCAD

I believe this is part of it,  I think addition to intentional toxicity I think there is also a factor of people wanting to get away from politics, Skype therapy, egos and all of it when they sit down to play a game. Now that might be more of an age + introvert thing but I think the more obvious one is like you suggest, just being asshats

Beyorn

I dont group anymore because of this.  If my friends are not playing I dont pug and will solo.  Mostly now thought I just play single player games.  I dont really have the time anymore to devote to a mmo.

Sovrath

There's some truth to that. I can say that I try to keep toxic people in my life to a minimum (if not try to eliminate them all together.

I don't do pickup groups/raiding because I'm here to play a game and have fun, but in a more casual "I don't care if we win/lose" sort of way.  Not to say I don't play my all but if we wipe we wipe, it's all good.

To many people too tightly wound about video games not to mention some of the horrendous chat that comes through or people who take advantage of others.

So at this point I'm more inclined to play with the few friends who play these games and if that is a small private server game like Conan Exiles or Dark and Light then so be it. Life is too short to put up with nonsense.

Iselin

PUGs are like a box of chocolates...

Forrest Trump quotes aside, I still like PUGs to this day. I'm certainly much more casual than I used to be but when I play a game a big part of the fun for me is playing with others. The key is not to go in there with a tight timeline trying to get things done quickly.

The toxic players are the minority. What you do get is a wide range of ability and knowledge and you might need to help some people along. But that's fun and spices things up. You just have to be good enough to roll with the elite if that's what you get, and friendly enough to help noobs if you get that instead.

Soloing is great for those times when I only want to half pay attention and pause often. I'm a sports fan - especially hockey. I often play MMOs when there's a game on and I'm watching by myself with one eye on the TV and the other on the MMO. Soloing is great for times like that but I never really feel like I'm truly playing an MMO unless I'm doing it with others. Friends or strangers... either works for me. 

Albatroes

The community can only get away with what developers and/or publishers allow tbh. Relegating back to my days in FFXI, I'd say the community wasn't perfect but my experienced showed me it was at least fair. World transfers had a month (or maybe it was 3 months, been a while, I know they changed it to be more frequent now that the game is kind of dead) long cool down and there were no name changes unless you did the world transfer trick. So pretty much if you were a douche, the whole server knew you were a douche and it stuck. A lot of people didn't make alts to change their names as well so transferring was kind of pointless due to forums like Blue-Gartr having threads dedicated to douche players. Without penalties like that and progression being dumbed down into the floor, its easier for people to troll and such since there's no real consequence. Ultimately, money will always be the driving force behind everything.

BruceYee

Many games allow a welfare state to exist in their games that breeds toxicity and bad behavior.

Games that encourage building lasting relationships rather than "what can get out of this quickly" is overall better for the game imo. Some games do not even provide a way to form those lasting bonds or they did at one point and scrapped them.

There is always that lowest common denominator factor that a % will always be imbeciles just like in regular society and that is unavoidable.

Beyorn

The community back in Eq1 and DAoC was very mature.  I pugged often and played with friends.  You saw very little of what we see today.  I just dont understand why it has gotten so bad.

We hardly ever kicked someone.  They had to ninja loot or but a complete ass.  I remember grouping with bad players and that never even crossed our minds.  I helped out newbies, I raised people, summoned corpses.

I think those times are sadly gone forever ;(.

Lerxst

Age.

My age group (40+) grew p with the dawn of the MMO genre. Now, we have bills to pay, families to support and careers to kill us with. We're not the twenty-somethings we used to be when we pulled all-nighters in Ultima Online or Asheron's Call and could schedule our earliest college classes after 9:00 am.

The very nature of MMOs almost demand a player has time, huge chunks of time to dedicate to their game. Even in games like EVE, that have offline progression. you still need to log in to really progress and next thing you know, you're sucked in to a 3 hour PvP battle.

Single player games can be put down, paused and come back to at a later date, regardless of where you are. Rimworld is the game I'm currently working on and a perfect example of a game you can put down and come back to later. There's little demand on my time, if I don't have any. 

The last MMO I tried was Archeage and, while it was fun for a while, time spent online became a major factor in advancement, and I just couldn't keep up since I only have so much time I can dedicate to it these days.

I'm still hopeful, but so far, nothing seems worthy of the small time I have left in my schedule to actually play a game anymore.

postlarval

BruceYee said:

Many games allow a welfare state to exist in their games that breeds toxicity and bad behavior.

Just like in real life. Huh, go figure.

SEANMCAD

postlarval said:

BruceYee said:

Many games allow a welfare state to exist in their games that breeds toxicity and bad behavior.

Just like in real life. Huh, go figure.

yeah I know, get in game and people start randomly gifting OP swords uninvited.

SavageHorizon

Personally I think it's traditional mmo with rp server that gives the more mature community experience. 

I think you can't beat some EQ2 and Lotro rp servers for this. 

Laurelin is probably the most mature non trolling server today but that's the just my experience. 

SEANMCAD

Vardahoth said:

Beyorn said:

The community back in Eq1 and DAoC was very mature.  I pugged often and played with friends.  You saw very little of what we see today.  I just dont understand why it has gotten so bad.

We hardly ever kicked someone.  They had to ninja loot or but a complete ass.  I remember grouping with bad players and that never even crossed our minds.  I helped out newbies, I raised people, summoned corpses.

I think those times are sadly gone forever ;(.

I have a few theories on why this happened.
#1 Games have been dumbed down to appease the general crowd who don't want to play an mmorpg. These crowd types are your instant gratification players, you're keyboard fps raging players, you're complain about how anything you have to press more than one button for (or everything is too hard) type of players, HDD players, ect... With the massive flood of these audiences, turning reasonable and logical players into a small niche crowd, developers have decided to cater to the retard crowd (I can't think of a better name to use) making the game no longer fun for the niche crowd, while flooding the games with retards.

#2 In general, I have noticed more and more people becoming over sensitive and soft. SJW's have pretty much made most developers listen to their cries, and developers have decided to let SJW's dictate how their game is going to be created. Which is why you have stuff like this happening...

you take the whole victimology thing to a whole new level, like getting an extra salty tear sticker.

dial it down a notch please

Sovrath

Vardahoth said:

#2 In general, I have noticed more and more people becoming over sensitive and soft. SJW's have pretty much made most developers listen to their cries, and developers have decided to let SJW's dictate how their game is going to be created. Which is why you have stuff like this happening...

Yeah, this is where your argument completely falls to pieces.

Tiller

Gone are the days where you could meet just random normal people in the wilds of an MMO and end up running missions together. It's rarer now. SWG was the last MMO I experienced that.

I think more MMOs should do open world shared events and content like GW2. It allows you to jump right into the action with no commitment of being stuck in a lousy group, yet fosters coordination to some extent.

Sovrath

Tiller said:

Gone are the days where you could meet just random normal people in the wilds of an MMO and end up running missions together. It's rarer now. SWG was the last MMO I experienced that.

I think more MMOs should do open world shared events and content like GW2. It allows you to jump right into the action with no commitment of being stuck in a lousy group, yet fosters coordination to some extent.

It still invites idiots.

I was in Guild Wars 2 doing one of these open world events and me and a few others were following the prompts on screen. After we were done, we were yelled at by some guy because he wanted to milk each section of the event for 'More something". I don't remember what it was.

I swear if the game was ffa pvp I would have attempted to pk him right there.

Octagon7711

Computer use to be pretty rare, not everyone had one.  So it was a different type of people playing computer games.  Now they are for the masses and everyone has them.  So it follows certain types of people would find them more easily available for the types of things they like to do.  Our focus determines our reality.  

Rnjypsy

Sovrath said:

There's some truth to that. I can say that I try to keep toxic people in my life to a minimum (if not try to eliminate them all together.

I don't do pickup groups/raiding because I'm here to play a game and have fun, but in a more casual "I don't care if we win/lose" sort of way.  Not to say I don't play my all but if we wipe we wipe, it's all good.

To many people too tightly wound about video games not to mention some of the horrendous chat that comes through or people who take advantage of others.

So at this point I'm more inclined to play with the few friends who play these games and if that is a small private server game like Conan Exiles or Dark and Light then so be it. Life is too short to put up with nonsense.

So much this!!!!

Hariken

For me back in 99/2000 i had at least 30 real life friends that i played games with online. After mmo's went mainstream because of wow i have non of those friends that play mmo's anymore. They all play single player games mostly or if they can solo will dip into and old school mmo or emulator of an old game once in awhile for fun. They all say they can't stand mmo players anymore.

KalebGrayson

I'd like to think as I've gotten older I've become wiser.  One thing I've figured out is that Game Forums and MMO's General Chat are, as Obi Wan best put it, "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."  I just got my hands on a Switch and am LOVING Breath of the Wild.  It's just me and my wife taking turns playing and it's great!  My last favorite game prior to that was Pillars of Eternity.  What I'm getting at is solo games are the best games now imo, primarily because I'm so tired of people in MMO's.

Tiller

Sovrath said:

Tiller said:

Gone are the days where you could meet just random normal people in the wilds of an MMO and end up running missions together. It's rarer now. SWG was the last MMO I experienced that.

I think more MMOs should do open world shared events and content like GW2. It allows you to jump right into the action with no commitment of being stuck in a lousy group, yet fosters coordination to some extent.

It still invites idiots.

I was in Guild Wars 2 doing one of these open world events and me and a few others were following the prompts on screen. After we were done, we were yelled at by some guy because he wanted to milk each section of the event for 'More something". I don't remember what it was.

I swear if the game was ffa pvp I would have attempted to pk him right there.

Yeah anytime there is a broken event or an exploit people go ape sh!t and farm the hell out of it, then get upset when someone comes along and plays the game how it is meant to be played.

This happened years ago in frostgorge sound with the broken coiled watch event were people were farming it for days. People who needed the quest were screamed at to switch maps, yet in an empty map you couldn't do the quest. Anet fixed the exploit after a week or so due to too many complaints. That and the champion train farming in lower level zones; which was patched as well. Was definitely a low point to the open world thing, but at least they try to stay on top of fixing it.

holdenfive

People havent really changed, just change the way they value each other in the online game context. The game is pretty much irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether your first game was WoW or Asherons Call or SWG,if it was your first experience in the way of persistent online gaming (in many cases in the past, your first MMO was pretty much your first meaningful experience with any kind of online gaming) then it would be a great novelty. Just the fact that you're playing with other people in a persistent world like that was enough to make you appreciate the person next to you. Of course people would be more likely to group, to have fun, when the main attraction was that other people were there in the first place.

Then you play your next MMO, you're a little wiser and craftier, and that sense of awe is definitely gone by then. Maybe you're not a total standoffish dick to people, but you've got places to be, monsters to kill, phat loots to hoard, the players, yeah okay they might be a means to an end but they're ultimately secondary and definitely not why you're still playing these kind of games. Your past all that now, you dont even consider it, the adventure is about you and your advancement.

And there are varying degrees of incremental apathy towards other players on that spectrum. You will never be able to recreate the community you once had because you simply dont value the other players as much as you did in those communities. That also applies to people like OP who thinks that AC's community was so awesome, even if they were dicks you probably would still feel the same way. The irony is it's very clear from the way you talk about players that you now dont value the people you're playing with at all, and wonder why they feel the same way about you and everyone else. Were -all- guilty of it, it's natural, it isn't just 'rude' people, it's people, full stop.

Mendel

I going to slightly disagree with the general sentiment here and say that it's not the community driving a push to solo experiences.  The fault lies with the developers, they aren't pushing new innovations that drive the need to socialize in their games.

Alts allow people to circumvent crafting restrictions, allowing everyone to be self-sufficient.  There aren't mechanisms to encourage people to group up for encounters beyond the 'increase the mobs HPs' strategy.  All this does is keep the same 6-on-1 fights from 1999 until someone figures out a way to 'beat' mobs solo  (or Mudflation occurs, making the players too strong individually).  There's no idea of beefing up AI opponents by making a 6-on-4 fight the standard, with a healer capable of keeping mobs upright unless the players work together and use their tactics to overcome the obstacle.  Where is the opportunity for 3-4 groups to work together to ambush an AI column of 20 mobs?

The developers haven't thought past the 6-on-1 encounter from EQ1, so there really hasn't been any new thinking put into the game to encourage grouping.  MUDflation pushes the balance to the players, and new expansions increase the mob HPs to try to correct the balance.  And that's all on the developer's plates.  They make the changes to itemization, they control the drop rates, and they don't challenge us with new concepts to force us to use new tactics.

Granted, we players have been a bit slack in demanding more and better from our developers.  Instead, we fork over money for new expansions doing the same things, or worse yet, different games giving us the same identical things we've seen and played before.  With the crowdfunding trends, people are paying now before there is much more than a concept, and companies are making money without having to do the work.  Close the wallets, please.

SEANMCAD

Mendel said:

I going to slightly disagree with the general sentiment here and say that it's not the community driving a push to solo experiences.  The fault lies with the developers, they aren't pushing new innovations that drive the need to socialize in their games.

....

the developers in question are perfect laboratory examples of developer who respond but do not innovate, which is exactly why I think they are monitoring players, finding out they solo more than not and then create content accordingly.

Eldurian

Vardahoth said:

@Vardahoth - I see you post a lot of really long rants by YouTube commentators. Lots of them. This is at least the third one.

Not all of them are bad. Not all of them bring up invalid points. But I'm going to make my own little observation about internet culture.

One of our friends (Much younger than you and even me) also likes to listen to a lot of long rants complaining about various games, and how gaming has been ruined in various ways. And what we discovered was when we invited him into our guild... he whined about everything constantly on Teamspeak. The rest of the guild hated him and even though this is a guy we hang out with IRL we found him to be pretty damn annoying online too. Pretty much everyone was tired of him griping about everything.

And that sort of got me noticing. Almost everyone you meet who holds much stock in people who like to get on YouTube to complain seems to develop this complex where they think it's endearing to be a complainer. To constantly find the negative in everything and pick it to pieces to everyone around you.

I would say you are no exception to the rule. If your signature wasn't enough of a give away then the fact your signature is mimicked in your every post would be. Constantly complaining is not an endearing trait and it doesn't endear you to those around you. Complaining sometimes yes, it can be a good way to bond with people who share your frustrations, but not constantly. There has to be some kind of balance. 

If I were you, I'd spend a lot less time listening to YouTubers gripe about things you hate, and a lot more time enjoying things you love. Because the path you are on right now seems to be one of a bitter man growing increasingly older while failing to make any real connections with anyone around them.

Maybe if you can hook into a group based on common likes rather than common dislikes you can  form a tight group of friends who won't kick you out of dungeons.

Hatefull

Vardahoth said:

Eldurian said:

Vardahoth said:

@Vardahoth - I see you post a lot of really long rants by YouTube commentators. Lots of them. This is at least the third one.

Not all of them are bad. Not all of them bring up invalid points. But I'm going to make my own little observation about internet culture.

One of our friends (Much younger than you and even me) also likes to listen to a lot of long rants complaining about various games, and how gaming has been ruined in various ways. And what we discovered was when we invited him into our guild... he whined about everything constantly on Teamspeak. The rest of the guild hated him and even though this is a guy we hang out with IRL we found him to be pretty damn annoying online too. Pretty much everyone was tired of him griping about everything.

And that sort of got me noticing. Almost everyone you meet who holds much stock in people who like to get on YouTube to complain seems to develop this complex where they think it's endearing to be a complainer. To constantly find the negative in everything and pick it to pieces to everyone around you.

I would say you are no exception to the rule. If your signature wasn't enough of a give away then the fact your signature is mimicked in your every post would be. Constantly complaining is not an endearing trait and it doesn't endear you to those around you. Complaining sometimes yes, it can be a good way to bond with people who share your frustrations, but not constantly. There has to be some kind of balance. 

If I were you, I'd spend a lot less time listening to YouTubers gripe about things you hate, and a lot more time enjoying things you love. Because the path you are on right now seems to be one of a bitter man growing increasingly older while failing to make any real connections with anyone around them.

Maybe if you can hook into a group based on common likes rather than common dislikes you can  form a tight group of friends who won't kick you out of dungeons.

yeah... and this is the conversation I just had with a friend (or as you would call them "connection") before checking these forums today...



So it's not just me who brings up the points on how bad video games have gotten over time. It's many people. And the reason I post "a lot" of video's, is because these video's bring up points to answer the questions of all these threads complaining about how bad things have gotten.

One of the reasons I became a programmer is because I enjoy solving problems. And the first thing you do when solving a problem.......... IS IDENTIFYING WHAT THAT PROBLEM IS.

So you can feel free to attack me when you don't even know anything about me, but as I have disagreed with you on just about everything you have ever said on these forums (including you thinking "leveling is dumb and a waste of time" on an mmoRPG game), this will be my last response to you.

It would be cool if you could just write a coherent response without trying to prove you have friends...which is just about all these idiotic screen shots prove. 

On the point of the thread, I think it is just easier and far less headache to solo. The post I quoted is a perfect example of why it is just easier to solo. Entitled arrogance based on ignorance, yet can't form a complete sentence and has to resort to petty insults to anyone that disagrees with him/her.

Yeah, there are really good people out there, but for every good person I have run across and developed a friendship with, there are about 100 others I have put on ignore. To be clear I am no snowflake, nor do I offend easy, you have to work to get on m y ignore list.