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What MMORPG's did you meet your great friends in?
zeme111
Member Posts: 36
Hey everybody, after reading the thread complaining about the moaning over the genre, I'd like to focus on the positives.
In any MMO, old or new, what activity were you doing that got you to meet your groups of friends? I feel the MMO's I play where I join a Ventrilo, Teamspeak, Mumble server for are the best ones... and I just keep going on to that MMO. Maybe the problem is coming from with us, and we're not being social enough... or perhaps the games are designed wrong with mechanics that discourage being social.
My first real group of friends came from playing a game called Arcanists, I logged into a Teamspeak server with about 10 people, we all met by queuing up in ranked matches and then formed a guild of sorts. It wasn't that serious a guild, and it was very easy because you could hop in Teamspeak and find people to play with as it was a lobby game. I was around 14 and I remember having to keep my voice down from my parents and be quiet with all my laughter and good times. I made Youtube videos for that game and got around 500 subscribers which made 14 year old me have a huge ego, looking back I cringe hard thinking about this game, but don't regret a thing. I would sign all my youtube comments with ~Zeme, gah... angst man I tells ya ( youtube.com/zeme111 ).
The next time I found a friend where we voicechatted together was a crappy game called Assault Cube, it's an FPS game that's like 50MB and played a ton in foreign countries just because of how low the system requirements are. The game is absolutely god awful, and if you play it today it's even more terrible and run by out of touch elitist carebears, please please stay away... but anyways, I met WarChieftan! This is unique because it's not a group of friends in a guild, but just one guy that I was really really close with, I'm still 14 or 15 and going through puberty, so this game I raised hell. We started an edgy clan called Chosen Few and put on a clan tag even though it was just 2 people, hosted a server called The CF Masturbation Server, made a map called ASIAN_P*RN which was... an asian lady made out of cubes about 1/4 the size of the cubes in Minecraft so it was pretty detailed, it had some genitalia and fluids goin on too pretty classy. Because of that they introduced the server and map blacklists, and the worst part was that we were great! When we 2v2'd other clans we won most of our matches.
The next group of friends I found came from playing Allods online, again I joined a guild and went into a vent server with them every day. One of the girls in that vent was a turkish girl named Beryl who made youtube videos and is now quite successful! I'm proud of her ( youtube.com/berylvenus ). There was also a guy named Tiki and a girl named Sky, Tiki offered to buy her kid a bike? I don't even know lmfao... 2 brits that were brothers, 1 named Jon who I'm still really great friends with today. Me and Jon both motivated each other to create Youtube content, but sometimes Jon got discouraged and deleted all his videos or rebranded his channel, so it's hard to find his content. Me and Jon logged around 500 hours together on Garry's mod DarkRP mugging people and trolling, one day we went on top of a roof and shot around 20 people in the server before we got perma banned because we were fed up with getting punished for petty shit all the time, so we gave them a real reason to ban us. The server we went on literally had trial mod available for $20, so a bunch of angsty 14 year olds are running around ban happy, it was... horrible and amazing, every day we'd be on a roof for an "admin sit" arguing why shooting that guy who didn't read the bible of rules was justified, they hated our guts because we were always right and let off with a slap on the wrists.
Then I went to a game called Realms Online! Some of you may now know it as Champions of Regnum... a cheap game developed in Argentina that's a watered down Dark Age of Camelot. It was completely pay to win, tons of GM's that had constant events to keep people logged in... literally every hour there would be an experience boost or loot boost and tons of GM messages popping up in the middle of the screen all the time. The guild I was in was small, but the fun part was going into guild mumble servers of people *from the other 2 realms!!!* Normally in the game you can only talk to your own realm, so when I killed people I would dance on their bodies and chance costumes to make a clicky noise and generally be a troll. I had a reputation and was also buddy buddy with the GM's. I asked them if I could do any freelance videos for some premium currency and the head GM at the time Adam "Serpentius" Vener gave me really cheesy videos to do. Eventually Serp got fired because he was a jerk that started tons of drama and Christopher "Gruffinchuff" Huff stepped up as head GM! Gruff is a total bro and was like you know what? You're not trusted enough under that jerk Serp, you deserve better than this. So he gave me a Super GM account. The account had each class level 60 with 99 million gold on all of them and 99 million warmaster coins (to put that in perspective, every day you can get 1k warmaster coins for killing 10 people of each realm with these daily quests and 120k warmaster coins got you a special mount). It was absolutely nuts, I could go invisible, teleport places, set my realm to whatever I want on a whim, set other people's realm to anything I want... and they're like oh! Make sure not to set your realm to neutral and capture a fort or you'll crash the server! With this new power I was able to make this video and others ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_pT4qMSVII ). So we had a bunch of people in all 3 realms sharing accounts, at any time someone could have screwed over the pack of people, and as soon as someone new joined the clique they'd get like 10 people's passwords and they would give the group their password, just nuts I tell you.
After that it was playing League of Legends in college, I met an asian guy in my wing and he needed help with his homework. The asian guy was comic relief usually, so everybody blew him off and I was the only one to really sit down on the floor of my dorm and hash out his homework on his laptop together. He introduced me to his group of friends and we ate dinner together and played League together all on Skype for the whole year.
My gaming history is way more expansive than this but I feel like people are what truly matters. These are the main highlights that give me warm fuzzy feelings and I feel that as people get older and become nostalgic dads it's harder for them to be social. Sure there are other nostalgic dads out there, but it's just... harder you know? I guess my advice is to try to find that special group, it feels bad that the majority of the MMORPG gamers haven't REALLY experienced it. You shouldn't be looking for a certain set of mechanics to please you, put up with a mediocre game and get to know special people that play with you and value them.
If you read the whole thing I thank you, I'm considering writing full articles sometime with video supplements so please critique me. But more importantly please tell me your experiences with finding that special group or people, and what games have mechanics that foster being social?
I am sexier than Helen Keller blindfolded.
Comments
I was starting to level hunting in Runescape when the guy next to me asked "If I wanted to join the Mafia" Of course being the dark and edgy young teenager that I was I hopped on board.
I have met some of the friends I made there in real life at various conventions, I still keep in touch with many of them even if I have moved on since they destroyed the PVP in that game.
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
I am sexier than Helen Keller blindfolded.
I made my friends in PUG's in Everquest.
We made a guild.
10 years later we were still raiding with the same core group.
Then real life got too busy for me .......
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Got into MMOs watching a buddy play UO at his house, than joined he and another friend in game.
Made some friends in WoW that moved out of game and into RL. That was a while ago though, lost contact with all of them.
Besides that... played EvE with some RL friends for a while...
Non-MMO (pseudo?) started playing Diablo 3 with some of my brother's friends, then we all moved on to Destiny together, RL friends with a couple of them now too.
Great questions, OP!
I met most of my game friends in WoW, LOTRO and more recently, Rift. The friendships I made in WoW are now going on 10 years and I've met some of them in person, though most are 500-1000 miles away.
I've also brought a couple RL friends into gaming so they are part of those same circles of friends.
I am sexier than Helen Keller blindfolded.
I met quite a few good "acquaintances" in City of Heroes. Many like-minded people played that game and it was awesome.
The other MMO I made a handful of "acquaintances" in was Wizard101. There was a mother/daughter tandem and a father/son duo I ended up having years of fun with. There were a few other single players that I had great fun with, too. We all met doing the same quests in one of the spiral worlds (Grizzleheim, I think) and just hit it off.
The reason this happened in these MMOs is 2-fold:
1) In CoH, players could set up their own chat channels. Through these channels (Sisterhood Friends, The Legion Alliance, and the Liberty Server Channel), I was able to communicate with players I knew from Supergroups in the game.
2) In Wizard101, the combat was turn based so there was lots of time to chat. All of us had very similar senses of humor and all were very helpful when needed.
I miss this in MMOs today. Players are just too busy making the most of their limited time in the games to bother with the other players around them, unless they need their help.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Met -most- in WoW in my various raiding guilds over the years. Met a couple in a game called Dark Ages, Nexon made it, but sold it to Kru years ago(game went to shit after that). Met one in probably my first ever mmorpg called Astonia III.
Think those are the only mmorpgs out of the dozens that i've played over the years that i met great friends in.
the "way" you put "acquaintances" scares me
I am sexier than Helen Keller blindfolded.
I met quite a lot of my friends roughly around when Dark Age of Camelot came out. I bought the game, and one day decided to wander into an internet cafe along with another friend of mine. Noticed a few people playing DAoC as well and chatted them up a bit. Eventually I ended up frequenting the same place many times during my long stint playing DAoC and I became good friends with those people, played on the same server as them, was in a guild we all started together.
Now that we're quite a bit older we still see each other on a weekly basis. We don't game together as much anymore partly because our interests in games have waned but we made it a habit to meet up at various times during the week, time permitting, and have a drink at the pub, or go hang out in the park and toss the ball around and shoot the shit for no better reason than to just hang out. One of them even got married and I was one of his groomsmen. We've also at one time all worked together.
Since then, I have not met many people willing to invest themselves like this. Most if not all have disliked the idea of meeting people they game with, or at best have asked "why bother?". It's one of the reasons I don't try as hard anymore. I realize that the current crop of gamers just isn't really interested in this sort of thing and put my energies towards other things.
Anyways, as I mentioned before I'm off to the pub to hang out with some of the friends I made because of games.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
A real life friend got me into Asheron's Call and we joined a great allegiance. After moving to Asheron's Call 2, we wound up going to Turbine Nation '04 and met all of our in game friends. I also met my wife playing Asheron's Call 2. I've also made a ton of real life friends playing WoW over the last decade. People who I speak with on a regular basis. Finally, I made a few more friends in Guild Wars 2, again, people I speak with on a near daily basis via texting. We're planning on meeting at a PAX one of these years.
I agree with you.
My friends are people who I could give my wallet to and expect it back and vice versa.
I have made some friends from Lineage 2 who are great people.
I've met great people in Lord of the Rings Online as well but I wouldn't consider them people I would give my wallet to. Having said that, some of them, if I got to know them better, might be wallet worthy.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I am sexier than Helen Keller blindfolded.
I still have a few virtual friends I first met in UO and 2 RL Friends I met 15 years ago in Asherons Call.
In all I have quite a few RL friends that I first met in various MMO's. I live in Vegas which seems motivation enough for people to visit not to mention having a few spare bedrooms just off the strip.
By far I would have to say that UO and AC were my favorite communities where I made the most lasting friendships.
Del Cabon
A US Army ('Just Cause') Vet and MMORPG Native formerly of Trinsic, Norath and Dereth. Currently playing LOTRO.
My first wife I met selling scrolls on a vendor near a bank. It was a choice spot and got a lot of business. I sure miss being able to setup a shop in a MMO. My second wife I met because she needed a corpse summon in a tough zone where she died and couldn't find her body. We still laugh about that to this day.
Pretty much the same for me. The foundation for many of those old school mmos was community building. Modern games go out of their way to make it harder for a community to build. The games are split up into phases, instances and solo friendly environments that offer very little reason to play with more than 2-4 players at a time and for larger groups offer group finder mechanics that make throwing together a 16 man group of random players easier than a guild can with it's own members. They even often reward you for using random players over your own guildies and friends by making the group finder a daily quest mechanic. Honestly it is like penalizing players for playing with who they actually want to play.
Obviously there are tons of debates going on right now over this so called old school revival but the core concept isn't how the game is made as much as will these games allow a community to build instead of being arcade style mmos with rotating doors.
As for friends, I have never met one online ... ever. I've had people I enjoyed playing with but ended if they left the genre. I am not the type to focus so much attention on someone who only shares a singular hobby and nothing else. My attention is on those who share my actual life locally. Too little attention is given to this these days. I do however have a friend who married a woman he met in Wow. They have a child and made a home together so I consider this a real relationship as they support the community they live in in this real world we live in.
A friend is someone who is willing to drop everything and come to your side in times of crisis and need (and for those who have been truly challenged ... fight and die for you). If you met someone on line that will and has done this then great, you met a wonderful friend. If they haven't or would not then they are NOT a friend. They are an associate, acquaintance or merely someone who shares a hobby with you. The Facebook culture where everyone is a "friend" has ruined this very basic concept. The word "friend" should never be taken lightly. It is a disservice to those who are true friends.
Those trying to escape into fantasy by willingly ignoring the community they live it for people they will never actually meet is something I will never condone. It turns a hobby into something more akin to social detachment and I in my 16 years of playing mmos I have seen the heavy detriment this has on people's lives. I've seen countless divorces, university and college drop outs and rage fits causing both emotional and physical harm to others ... all over mmos.
Balance is key in life. Without it escapism is a band-aid over a gaping wound.
You stay sassy!
Quite so, if you make an effort you will always find others who are prepared to do so to.