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I find it hard to make friends in other mmos....
Calintz333
Member UncommonPosts: 1,193
I started playing FFXI in 2003 when the game first came out. I have been playing that mmo on and off usually 3 months on 9 months off every year since its release. I usually play when I am on vacation and or have enough free time to dedicate a significant amount of time to playing the game. During the 9 months off I am usually in the academic semester at my university and do not have the liberty to log in enough time to justify the subscription fee.
During these off times I frequently try out new mmos that release. The problem is I never seem to make any freinds in these games, hence I end up qutting the game usually weeks after I purchase it. I have had this experience both with free to play and very popular pay to play mmos.
In world of warcraft I made a priest, leveled the character to level 85 and never had anyone on my friends list. It was hard to make freinds in the game because in that game it seemed like no one talked to each other, and everyone just did their own thing.
This has been my experience with every mmo I try from WoW to Aion and even Rift. I can't seem to make freinds like I have made in FFXI. Even when I quit and come back to FFXI I frequently make 1-2 new freinds every time I return to the game. One interesting fact to point out is that the community in that game is mostly adults, but that can't be the only reason why I am able to make close freinds in FFXI and not in other games.
Has anyone had this problem before as well?
Do you have connections that you have made in your main mmo that you cannot seem to form in other games for some odd reason, even though you behave the same?
Comments
Ive been finding it a lot easier to make friends in MOBAs than MMORPGs.
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I am in the same boat as you, sorta, AoC i have made so many great friends. I've tried most of the more mainstream MMO's and to me it always seems as if everyone is always quiet. Fer real!"
Maybe population has something to do with it to, Who knows
Speaking purely for myself, I'm not interested in making "friends" in an online game. All people are to me, in-game, is lots of happy little crafters and resource-gatherers who sell their stuff on the in-game market and buy my stuff. It's one of the reasons I play MMOs rather than single-player games.
In short, other players are nothing more than glorified NPCs to me and I have not the slightest desire to befriend them. I socialize with/play MMOs with real-life friends, not some random person who I will never ever meet face-to-face and who could be on the other side of the planet.
i found that getting skype helped when your in a group asking if anyone has skype then chatting really helps
ive met loads of players from that and we all play together now
I try to guild up with RL friends, but most of them don't MMO anymore. That sort of leaves me in the same position.
Probably the most social game I've seen is Mega-Ten which has (had?) a fairly easy going community feel to it.
I think there are a two main factors at play here when it comes to making friends in mmo's.
First would be starting at or near a games release. People are generally more dependant on others as nobody has a clue what they are doing yet which forces people to work togeather, share infromation which also increases bonds and relationships be it in pick up groups or guilds.
The second factor which I think is the main one is "can I solo this entire game?" Sadly most mmo's these days are completely soloable save for raids and instances which a lot of people dont do until they are near or at endgame. FFXI was never really about soloing. Atleast not when I played it which was from US release and for the next 4 years. Players in that game kinda realize that they do infact need to work togeather so they already have the mindset of being social which makes it much simpler to befriend them. After all if a player gets a bad name, they soon find it hard to get groups, and not having a group = death in that game.
One other thing I think is a lot of the players who play FFXI are part of the old school of mmo's where we all worked togeather. Its just a differnt crowd that a lot of the other mmo's just dont have do to watered down, overly easy game mechanics that dont foster comrodery or encourage the use of social skills. Least thats my view on the subject.
I don't if i should laugh because it's kind off funny or cry.
Hahaha, yeah MOBA's are the most hostile game environment I have ever been in.
On topic now I find it hard these days because everyone wants me to go on skype or vent or whatever, even if we have just met.
I don't want to speak to some random dude/girl on voice chat that I don't even know, let's get a few weeks of text chat in the bank first then we can tell if we have anything in common other than this game we are playing.
I am happy to talk to my guild in voice chat and people I know already but with randoms, no thanks.
Most people nowadays don't socialize in mmorpg's cause they don't have to.
That's game design. Players:
a) buy & sell from Auction House so no need to speak to anybody,
b) find group thorugh automatic LFG / matchmaker so no need to speak
c) 99% of open world content is solo and levelling is very fast so again no need to speak to anyone
d) game shows you everything - arrows shows exaclty where to go, signs on mini-map showing you where are your objectives, objects are glowing if you need to pick them, game throw messages so player always need what to do = no need to ask or speak to anyone
e) Almost everything is rewarded from NPC's, no need to i.e. find crafter to have some item done. Just grind 'points' or 'tokens' to get item from NPC - no need to speak or socialize. Even if you need anything from others - there is personless AH.
f) Huge amount of things is avabile (sometimes exclusively) from Cash Shop - you need to put your CC or PayPal and don't need to speak
and so on
This is just game design.
FFXI is still old design game, even after all changes it underwent through years - so interdpeendability, socilaizing, grouping is important to achieve things in game - so people talk to each other.
That's why propably find it hard to socialize in newer games vs FFXI - cause game CONCEPT & DESIGN are very diffrent.
One promote & even force socialization, other disencourage it since soloing / not speaking to anyone is actually FASTER for many things.
+
In modern mmorpg's you do NOT NEED to maintain your good name. You don't need other players and when you need them you can get them though automatic cross-server LFG from pool of hundreads of thousands of people - so players know that they CAN act like total douchebags & trolls and get away with it. Since ostracism cannot really hurt them at all.
In those rare cases when ostracism can get them (they are progress raiders) they can fork 20$ bucks and change name or transfer after they troll for few months.
All those are effects of certain core design decisions.
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Social wise, interdependabilty wise and cooperation wise modern themepark mmorpg's are almost identical to lobby games like Starcraft, Call of Duty or MOBA games and have very little in common with mmorpg's from 90's and first half of 00's when mmorpg server was build to resemble separate fictional small world and players being members of this separate big 'society'.
I don't find it to be too extreme to find any new "friends". It really depends on what this "friend" is going to do. If you want a long term friend, then I really have no advice for you. I met this guy from playing Warcraft 3 about 6 years ago, and we still play every single fucking game together, you name it. We are to this day best friends even though we've never met up in real life yet. I'm guessing one day this will happen, when I'm not super in debt from college and can manage up some money for a flight.
I've also made super friends with a female from Australia, met her in WoW. Going on about 3 years now, we talk almost every day even though we don't play too many games together anymore. Just another bestie no matter the distance, they are there.
If you just want some decent temporary friends, you can find them everywhere just from being in a guild. Really depends on the game and how 'hardcore' they are. I find casual guilds much more friendly and easier to get along with. Anyways, just wanted to share my story with you all, that there are people out there wanting the same thing. You just don't know where to look or who is. All I can say is have fun, play and one day
I think you hit the nail on the head. In FFXI you have JP EU and NA players all mixed together. No one server has more than about 10,000 players total and hardly ever more than 3000 on at any single time. If you assume that less than half of those players speak English or can communicate with you, making enemies really seems counter productive.
In FFXI making enemies is literally a sentence for yourself to never accomplish anything meaningful in end game. No one will want to help you or team up with you, people will leave alliances because you are in them. There is a player in my server by the name of Kuroganashi who is absolutely hated by almost every NA and EU player there is. Frequently I see him trying to shout to get a alliance together to do some end game content and more often than not his alliances never even finish forming after 1-2 hours of attempts. This is the fate that awaits rude and disrespectful players in FFXI.
New games do not have these built in mechanics to keep players civil. They promote solo play and radical isolationism and individualism rewarding players for behaving in an uncivil manner and looking out only for themselves. There are no massive group challenges that need to be done every 10-15 levels in order to continue leveling, there are no real walls that players can come across that require a large number of people working together to get over. It is all just very much a solo RPG experience with as another person here put it "Players being nothing more than glorified NPCs" I find this state of mmos quite depressing.
I am in the same position. None of my rl friends play MMO's anymore. It is a bit harder these days for me to make new friends in games anymore. I am also not a big voice chat person, and pretty much everyone requires that now to be a part of their guild/group whatever, so I just pass. I find it especially hard to deal with people in modern MMO's as well as a lot of people just play the game like a single player and don't want to be bothered. Games like Eve it is much easier for me personally.
For me the problem is twofold.
On one side most of my mmo playing friends have also stopped playing mmos all together.
On the other side, I am a full time college student and my play schedule is usually very limited. It is not infrequently that I only log in 4-8 hours a week. Considering most mmo players play significantly more than that, it is very hard to keep up with most of them in game. This means that when I do meet some cool people in the game they usually out level me, or out progress me to the point where we can no longer play together.
You can't make friends when there is no incentive to group or guild.
Friends in SWTOR? Shoot. You will be lucky to talk to someone outside of those lame and redundant battlegrounds and the main space station. This seems to be the axiom in all modern MMOs.
It's lost innocence when you get down to it. Ten years ago we were not only discovering new online games together, we were also discovering new ways to play them like more elaborate chat boxes and then when we went to discovering plugging a mic into the PC and talking to people live. It was all fresh and it was journey we all took together. But no more. To put it brief: Ten years of Online Disinhibition Effect has left most of us much more cautious and/or jaded.
Same here - why the hell would I want to voice-chat to some random person in an online game? I sit next to strangers on buses, but that doesn't mean I have to talk to them.
It's a GAME, not a relationship.
I've had a hard time also as most MMOs I play now the players simply dont say anything...If they do its just a quick question then no more chat......Now that most MMOs are soloable to max level and most classes are self sufficient, players just dont need anyone anymore and go their own way....Really its been that way since WoW came out in late 2004 except people would group and chat there in the early days.
In any MMO I've played for any considerable length of time I've made friends no problem. Usually from grouping I start to come across people a few times and that usually does it. I've met some nice people and some a-holes in every game going back to when I started MMO's in EQ. So to answer the OP, no i don't have that problem at all. Next game I'm taking a run at will be GW2 so i'll see if my streak continues.
I suggest you join a like-minded established multi-gaming guild.
If a certain game doesn't work out after a couple weeks/months some other game they are playing aswell might interest you and you can still keep in touch with the people you played with. Go for mature guilds with a relaxed atmosphere so it isn't all about the game.
My suggestion pure and simple. Look around for the type of guild that suits you with voice comms join them and be happy
. Games like WoW are all about the guild you are in not the general community like in daoc.
I came from FFXI originally. I made as many friends as I did enemies. It was social. I guess FFXI is more of a real "world" than other mmo's. You feel like you're living there. Still, it could have had so much more. Other games that I was also able to friend people were Sims 2 (on forums, yes it is not an mmo) and Forsaken World. Forsaken World is prob the closest I could get to FFXI's social atmosphere but that game is such a cheesy throw together; handsome as it looks.
That's cause in mobas you actually play with other people and need to use teamwork, unlike current "MM"Os.