Guild Wars 2

I am sure I may catch some heat for this post, and that’s fine. I just wanted to start a dialogue on the topic. I have been playing mmo’s for a while now. I started with ultima online, wound up insanely addicted to Everquest, dabbled and quickly bailed on WOW, and then took a bit of a break.
I miss what mmo’s used to be. It was far more of a community. You really couldn’t get things done without a group which really forced you to engage with people and work together.
Anyone remember corpse runs? Because there is no punishment who cares if you get killed, just race back to hacking and slashing.
Don’t get me wrong , I enjoy guild wars 2. It’s fun. But it feels more like diablo than it does an mmo. Yes there are guilds, which sort of resemble the communities they once were. But really it seems like I’m playing skyrim with other players running around me playing their own private copy of the game.
Does this really change later in levels? Do quests get engaging and challenging? Do groups form or do you just show up at some event, murder the easily controlled mob with 80 people, and then all sprint to the next champion? As I said, I enjoy playing, I’m just hoping difficulty and team play ramps up a bit down the road level wise. Appreciate all replies, even the hate I might catch from some.

The good old days no longer exist, only way you will get near to it, is if you join a good guild.

I think WoW’s game design was the catalyst to the change in how people socialise in modern MMOs.

Personal Story quest are singleplayer mostly. Corpse Run brings nothing to the game except frustration. Group Events mostly require group. Dungeons should be done in group. Champion Train is EXCLUDED. It’s what it is, a train. But then again, if you don’t chat with the train, then the train doesn’t chat with you. You can still bring social element to the train if you choose to.

The game is what you mostly want it to be. If you seek social element, don’t join any speed run. They are not for social.

Finding a community in which to make friends to play and progress with is essential in this game. The open world can feel very lonely as there is really little to no motivation to coordinate.

The more engaging and challenging content are the dungeons, fractals, and spvp that require a coordinated group of 5. If you want to get larger scaled, you got world bosses, guild missions, and world vrs world.

All that being said… find a guild that you find socially welcoming it gives the game more depth no matter what your play style is.

Agree that wow really damaged things. Thanks for your quick replies. I am going to leave my current guild and look for something a bit more social. Side note, playing my first human character ever.

The game does not change, to experience true community you will have to play one of the older non LFG queue based games. The days of working to get something through fun activities is gone in the new age of MMOs. Now it’s all about hack and slash, broken lore, cash grabs, faster, quicker, now, give me.

Epic quests in EQ were fun because it was just that. An Epic Quest. There is nothing epic at any point about grinding for a legendary in this game. Especially when you can just buy one off the TP.

With the advent of F2P MMORPG’s, the industry has turned from releasing good, solid content in a timely manner, to piecemeal updates, usually for a price in the in game cash shop, as quickly as possible. Future development is hindered by how they did last month in the cash shop, with goals constantly changing based on a fluctuating cash flow.

As long as F2P and B2P remains the hip new fad in the genre, content will continue to be bland, rushed, and halfway thought out as they attempt to keep cash flow within reasonable fluctuations by introducing content that really isn’t content even though it’s advertised as such. I.E. New outfits etc.

No, I have a feeling we will be waiting for EQN or ESO for the next great adventure that is truly just that, an adventure. Not an adventure that “may or may not happen it depends on how well the cash shop did the last 6 month” type deal. You get what you pay for, and the resurgence of P2P MMO’s speaks volumes about the problem with F2P Cash Grab Grinders.

I’m not referring to GW2 specifically btw, but the genre as a whole. I love this game, but it has it’s problems, and most games out there have even more issues than GW2 does.

You have to make a conscious decision to play regularly with other people, and they have to make a conscious decision to play with you. This is usually done in a guild, with players choosing to level together, do events together, do dungeons together, etc. As in most aspects of life, if you want to include a social aspect, you have to do what’s needed to make that happen.

It was pretty social for a few months after release out in the open world. There’s still a lot of people playing, they just don’t have much of a reason to go to the PvE maps.

Guild Missions (specifically challenges and puzzles) are really fun though.

Aeonblade.8709:

As long as F2P and B2P remains the hip new fad in the genre, content will continue to be bland, rushed, and halfway thought out as they attempt to keep cash flow within reasonable fluctuations by introducing content that really isn’t content even though it’s advertised as such. I.E. New outfits etc.

This is the result, not the cause. In the beginning, the average MMO player was a high school or college student, the game formed the basis of their social lives, and they had 4-8 hours a day they could devote to the game, more on weekends/breaks. A decade later, most of these people have jobs (and overtime), families, and other interests that reduce the amount of time they can commit to the game. At the same time, they have more money (those with jobs anyway) that they can pump into the hobbies they like. So now the average player can play maybe 2 hours a day, a few more on weekends.

In addition, the genre has exploded from 3-4 popular games to dozens, many of them without a monthly sub. It’s hard for games that do charge a sub because players with less time to play feel as though they don’t get their money’s worth when they pay $1/hour every month. So with a lot of players with more money and less time, is it any wonder that a successful business model is to convert $ into saving time in game?

Sub-based games like Rift and TOR can’t maintain the income they need in this environment. Nearly every sub-based game released in the last few years went F2P or B2P, GW2 just bypassed the failing sub model to be B2P from the start, and made more money and retained more players than they would have done by charging a sub.

In this environment, I can’t see any sub-based game being a clear success and retaining the sub model a year or two after release. As for the community, the average MMO player today is a casual player with only a few hours per week to play the game. They just don’t want to spend hours putting together a group or clearing a dungeon. The casual pick up/put down nature of GW2 is more reflective of the future of the genre.

This is a theme-park MMO where punishment and consequences are considered inconvenient.

And yet what game-designers failed to realize is that in many ways, it was these inconveniences that melded communities together.

People never worked together out of the goodness of their heart, they did it because players depended on each other.

In modern MMOs this is no longer the case as the audience became more and more centered around the casual gamer, with limited time and a certain unwillingness to interact with others.

Don’t forget there are few of us old timers here to remember EC tunnels, trading gear by actually talking to people. No auction houses, no zipping around the map. I remember when it was an adventure just to get to the zone you wanted to be at.
It’s a new generation, and the market has to cater to a new kind of customer. People want things easy these days, just look at the complaints around here and this is one of the easiest games I’ve ever played.
For me, it leads to boredom.

There wasn’t anything really special, sitting with 4 other players, talking about what you had for lunch, or how depressed one’s life is..

The reason people socialized? Because poor game design forced them to literally wait 12+ hours for a mob to spawn. I’m glad those days are over with. If people want to socialize that much, there is always Second Life.

I belive the social element comes after time spent in the game and not after hitting level cap. It took me about 6 months to form a social guild with the right members. It took me about a year to get intregated with the server community.

When I look back on my previous mmo games, the time spent in game is about the same to reach the social status as I am at now.

People just don’t want to socialize anymore in the game. I am pretty sure this has something to do with the huge influx of “casualgamers”, they just want to log in and play, perfect example for that are the frostgorge and queensdale farmtrains. Just read the mapchat once in a while all you’ll find is “Boss X is up” “need help with skillchallenge Y” this is not socializing or being social. I rarely meet people who actually enjoy playing together.

There’s a number of systems inherent to the game that while designed to promote casual community, actually work against it. For example:
- No grouping required, just join in. While great for short term events tend to lead to ‘one night stand’ grouping. Do an event for 10 mins and part ways.
- Chat system. You can’t chat and fight. Without chat, there’s no socialisation, and with no socialisation there’s no community.
- Server system. Dilutes the pool of like minded players who you can play with, splits friends across a time gated paywall and generally screws everything up.
- Personal story. No need to group so just do it solo
- Dungeons. Small party size, skip and stack mentality means little time or opportunity to communicate.

So basically, stuff like no kill/node stealing and no need to wait for X class is great. It’s an anti-social game in terms of much of its mechanics

Surprised no one has mentioned the social aspects of WvW.

Admittedly most conversation is around particular topics and specific objectives and the informal grouping is zerging objectives. But if you enjoy it…

It’s there, for what it is and has it’s own community.

Dee Jay.2460:

People never worked together out of the goodness of their heart, they did it because players depended on each other.

I wouldn’t have said that was necessarily true before WoW.

Trouble with WoW it fostered anti-social behaviour through game design. Which resulted in people becoming more selfish, guilds becoming more insular. It moulded the way people behave in modern MMOs.

I wouldn’t mind betting it also had an effect in real life too.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

So basically, stuff like no kill/node stealing and no need to wait for X class is great. It’s an anti-social game in terms of much of its mechanics

For game studios it must be a tough call. If you read comments on the net it seems that most of the MMO playerbase these days hate group play with a big passion. They want to be able to do all on their own and they do not want to rely on anyone else, ever.

So if you want to address this crowd you have to come up with a game like GW2. Sure, it’s a paradise for all the solo-players. But it also results in many drawbacks as you mentioned.

I used to play MMOs to play with other players and make new friends. These days it feels as if I was playing a single player game with some decent AI.

At least there’s some communication in WvW.

I made formal complaints about the social aspects of GW2 many months ago, but received much ridicule and lash back from both players and a developer. It was a sensitive subject at the time, and I still stand by what I stated in the past.

I don’t have the broad scope of MMO’s under my belt like some of you, but playing many hours of GW1 I met many people who have best friends, girlfriends, and even couples who got married, originally meeting from GW1. The main reason I think there was a social environment in that game, is because the system of outposts and having to have a team to achieve dungeons, bosses, HM content, etc.

But they ended up hurting this aspect by allowing players to stack heroes, which furthered the decay of the social environment.

Here you can solo majority of content, only needing help in dungeons and champ/legendary bosses. This has lead to a more independent gameplay where you only team to achieve a certain goal and then part ways soon after.

Granted, I’m not an active player like I was in my GW1 days, so I’m sure there are players out there who still have a very social environment, especially role players. But generally speaking, you don’t see players striking conversation in towns like you did in GW1.

SoPP.7034:

Surprised no one has mentioned the social aspects of WvW.

Admittedly most conversation is around particular topics and specific objectives and the informal grouping is zerging objectives. But if you enjoy it…

It’s there, for what it is and has it’s own community.

Yes, you’re right. On some servers there’s even a server wide TeamSpeak. Lots of fun.
But outside of WvW GW2 feels like a single player game.

Antara.3189:

But generally speaking, you don’t see players striking conversation in towns like you did in GW1.

Oh those memories. Makes me sad

tolunart.2095:

This is the result, not the cause. In the beginning, the average MMO player was a high school or college student, the game formed the basis of their social lives, and they had 4-8 hours a day they could devote to the game, more on weekends/breaks. A decade later, most of these people have jobs (and overtime), families, and other interests that reduce the amount of time they can commit to the game. At the same time, they have more money (those with jobs anyway) that they can pump into the hobbies they like. So now the average player can play maybe 2 hours a day, a few more on weekends.

I wanted to highlight this because I think this might also be a valid point. As I was younger and spent more time in a game then I do now.

As far as a broader market of games, that’s true but honestly the “butter” has been spread so thin that most of the games only provide a portion or light coat of what the older games had. The market is stale, full of generic “rice cake” games that offer little than an hours worth of amusement.

In time this will change though, and a game will become the “bread and butter” for players

nexxe.7081:

There wasn’t anything really special, sitting with 4 other players, talking about what you had for lunch, or how depressed one’s life is..

The reason people socialized? Because poor game design forced them to literally wait 12+ hours for a mob to spawn. I’m glad those days are over with. If people want to socialize that much, there is always Second Life.

Some players might see it that way, as it appears this is how you view a gamers social life. However, there are many different players our there, and some really do enjoy social interactive in game, for whatever reasons they may have.

nexxe.7081:

There wasn’t anything really special, sitting with 4 other players, talking about what you had for lunch, or how depressed one’s life is..

That’s why I don’t like using voice software, too much crap is spoken.

Antara.3189:

…there are many different players our there, and some really do enjoy social interactive in game, for whatever reasons they may have.

I used to enjoy the social interaction, where it didn’t matter if you were in a guild or not. Sadly those days are long gone.

Malkavian.1493:

I miss what mmo’s used to be.

I’m not sure that i do. They were only a niche game type then – when they went for a really Massive Multiplayer audience, they were forced to change.

Astralporing.1957:

Malkavian.1493:

I miss what mmo’s used to be.

I’m not sure that i do. They were only a niche game type then – when they went for a really Massive Multiplayer audience, they were forced to change.

I thought it was unique. In a way you were part of a club that only fellow gamers could share. Since the genre has become more common and generic, the “club” no longer exists.

Antara.3189:

I thought it was unique. In a way you were part of a club that only fellow gamers could share. Since the genre has become more common and generic, the “club” no longer exists.

I guess that’s one way of putting it.

Instead guilds have become the clubs.

Just work together, help others, join in on what they are doing, or let them join in what yo are doing. The game-world is full of situations and small or large events that offer opportunities to work together and chat / emote / role-play if so desired.

Pyrasia.9281:

Personal Story quest are singleplayer mostly. Corpse Run brings nothing to the game except frustration. Group Events mostly require group. Dungeons should be done in group. Champion Train is EXCLUDED. It’s what it is, a train. But then again, if you don’t chat with the train, then the train doesn’t chat with you. You can still bring social element to the train if you choose to.

The game is what you mostly want it to be. If you seek social element, don’t join any speed run. They are not for social.

I agree with this. If you want to be social there is nothing stopping you. Some players enjoy running with other players in events, without having to socialize with them, and that’s totally fine. At the end of the day it’s just a game and whether you socialize or not there are things you can do in GW2 as a group (dungeons, fractals, dragon champ events, wvw) or solo (events, personal story, wvw).

Personally I would like to see the solo element expanded even further, with soloable dungeon paths and fractals. Some players want to play solo in a game that offers content that only an MMO can offer. Also, helping people out in open world events, while remaining anonymous and seperate, is another playstyle that many players enjoy (myself incuded). If this game had no social activities at all I would understand your issue with it, but there is plenty for groups to do in this game and I do not see why players who prefer the more solo experience should be punished when the social players are not.

As to the corpse run thing, I agree with Pyrasia, it brings only frustration. And although death in GW2 is only a minor inconvenience, in dungeons and fractals and sometimes in WvW, death often means reseting the encounter or losing a tower. It is not completely without punishment. I also agree very much with Anet’s original philosophy, that death itself is punishment enough. I feel I have failed if I die or my team dies, so I try my best to stay alive and support my team as best I can.

I do not feeel the social element has declined, it’s just that the MMO genre is catering more and more for the not so social players out there. And providing the social players do not lose out (which they are not in GW2), I see no problem with that at all and welcome it very much. We are all different players, social and not so social. A good game caters to one, a great game caters to both.

Modern MMOs require much more game attention and keying than the old MMOs. Old Everquest I was very simple and you could type all day long while your character attacked. In GW2 you don’t want to stop and type for 5 seconds mid fight when your movement comes from WASD. I think that’s the most basic reason for low communication. More interactive game play is actually a good thing and communication methods need to catch up.

It also doesn’t help that the GW2 social interface is too basic and lacks features seen in previous MMOs.

Most everyone communicates in Mumble, Vent or Teamspeak these days. Too hard to type while playing.

Karizee.8076:

Most everyone communicates in Mumble, Vent or Teamspeak these days. Too hard to type while playing.

A bit of this absolutely. I have not needed to search for guild in this game just to play it, it has great advantages for me but also a down side. The only guild I joined was very focused on players from another game, there was no sense at least on my part that you belonged to anything at all by being in the guild. Can’t really blame the game but at the same time I can’t really blame anyone the mechanics and desires have changed.

Games and the social landscape change all the time.
Pre-computer RPGs required a group because you had groups at tables solving something together.
It was only natural that the framework of that moved into the digital equivalent.

As game titles grew, so did technology, and so did the accessibility of the games.
With that consequence comes a flood of people who probably weren’t brought up on the older culture.

So the tastes change and developers have to adapt. Outside of Lion’s Arch there is a lack of social chat, replaced more with Boss Locations and please for Skill Point help.
I’m fine with that because the game doesn’t really allow for much chatter time outside of waiting for Boar walk to start in Queensdale.

As for the decline of the social element, we have plenty of quantity in LA but not too much quality at times. This goes back to the fact that anyone can join, but once again I’m okay with it. In order for a game to be financially successful it has to be accessible.

In order to have meaningful social chat it is best to find guilds and teams you like to join. Otherwise it is no different than going to a mall. Yes there are plenty of people there, but they aren’t always so sociable to people outside their own circle.

I think you need to join an active, social guild. The guild I’m in has lots of active players in many different areas of the game: PvE, WvW, we have our own PvP arena, dungeons, run the world boss train every night, guild missions, etc. At any time of day there is conversation happening in guild chat. I can take part or just read as I play or whatever. Always there is someone willing to help out with something if you need it. We recently helped a guildie get map completion by taking a tower in WvW just for that purpose. It was really awesome, if I do say so myself.

Also, you do need to talk to others before they talk to you. I do the Frostgorge champ train a lot, because I’m working on my first legendary weapon. I have made some cool friends in my train days. I try to spark some conversation or join in when there is already conversation.

I think this game is really what you make it. I find it repetitive and boring without the chit chat. Joining the best guild on my server was a huge boon for me, because I was feeling bored and lonely before that. I hope you find the community you seek.

ETA: I don’t use TS or other voice chat, since I find that too disruptive to my home life. Typed chat works well in this game and auto run is great!

Gamers have changed. Better to find yourself a good guild. Thats the only place you’ll find a decent community any longer.

Malkavian.1493:

I am sure I may catch some heat for this post, and that’s fine. I just wanted to start a dialogue on the topic. I have been playing mmo’s for a while now. I started with ultima online, wound up insanely addicted to Everquest, dabbled and quickly bailed on WOW, and then took a bit of a break.
I miss what mmo’s used to be. It was far more of a community. You really couldn’t get things done without a group which really forced you to engage with people and work together.
Anyone remember corpse runs? Because there is no punishment who cares if you get killed, just race back to hacking and slashing.
Don’t get me wrong , I enjoy guild wars 2. It’s fun. But it feels more like diablo than it does an mmo. Yes there are guilds, which sort of resemble the communities they once were. But really it seems like I’m playing skyrim with other players running around me playing their own private copy of the game.
Does this really change later in levels? Do quests get engaging and challenging? Do groups form or do you just show up at some event, murder the easily controlled mob with 80 people, and then all sprint to the next champion? As I said, I enjoy playing, I’m just hoping difficulty and team play ramps up a bit down the road level wise. Appreciate all replies, even the hate I might catch from some.

Hi

Unfortunately in this game on the PVE side there are really only 3 things which require coordination. TA Aether path, Teq 2.0, and 40+ Fractals. Even then they can be done without voice chat, but obviously the difference is like night and day.

Also, there are a ton of players who want to play “their way” and never group up with anyone, never be a good part of a team, participate or actually talk and get to know other people who play. It is those players that greatly contribute to the loss of community which you are experiencing.

On most servers however, not all, once you hit max level and finish all the faceroll PvE content, join a good and decent size WvW guild. That is where you will find a community, people who talk to each other all the time, get to know each other and play because they like to play together.

Also keep in mind that voice chat, usually via team speak or mumble, is now pretty much a defacto replacement from the days of original everquest, as the technology simply wasnt there when we were playing on 26k modems over our ground phone lines. On most servers, again not all, you will find a server wide VOIP system being used, just hop on it and talk to people, from there, find a guild that you like.

Rin.1046:

And providing the social players do not lose out (which they are not in GW2), I see no problem with that at all and welcome it very much. We are all different players, social and not so social. A good game caters to one, a great game caters to both.

I have to disagree with the idea that social players do not lose out. Guild Wars 2 simply does not provide much of a framework for social gaming outside of the PvP community. And this is a subset of the game that was crippled at launch and despite great improvements since then hasn’t really taken off to the level that many hoped.

World vs World guilds provide this is some respect, with several very close knit groups having formed up on the high tier servers.

In the PvE game, however, there really isn’t anything there. High level fractals are the only place that I have really seen any kind of social groups forming around anything more meaningful than sharing a global chat channel. And even then you are doing so in such small, five person groups that often do not reach beyond this insular ring unless one of their members is gone for awhile, that it is hard to really call that a community.

I have a hard time agreeing with the idea that corpse runs and excessive travel times were good for games. But the new generation of MMOs are most certainly lacking in the level of challenge that they provide players compared to older games. Without that challenge, there is no sense of teamwork or comradery that comes along with struggling to eventually overcome these challenges.

Guild Bounties and even more so Guild Puzzles were a good first step towards something that would help a chat channel of guild mates become a community. But I feel that this really needs to be pushed further, with challenges that require more than just following the commander icon to really bring players together in a meaningful way.

Edit:

Unfortunately in this game on the PVE side there are really only 3 things which require coordination. TA Aether path, Teq 2.0, and 40+ Fractals.

This was posted while I was typing. You are correct, I had forgotten about the updated Tequatl encounter when I was typing this up.

Met some rather nice people. Aside from just guilds, some people I met when pugging can be nice. I now run fractals semi-permanently with a formerly pug friend (from another world, too). Also, we meet some interesting people in the open world when forming parties with people near the same heart. One result of that is that my guild (who chats in between PvEing, sometimes PvE together, often WvW together, sometimes dung together and sometimes world boss together) is now a member of a network of guilds all based on the same world.

Overall yes, it’s a bit sad, but there is still a nice experience to be found for those willing to look. Say hi to everyone when you get to a new map, say hi to pugs you run dungeons with. Those who respond can be friends.

you are able to run through majority of the game alone, thats the problem.

Dr Ritter.1327:

you are able to run through majority of the game alone, thats the problem.

I believe that this is more a symptom than a problem. There is plenty of group content in the open world that goes completely unnoticed, skipped over, bypassed, ignored, etc. This is not unique to GW2. WoW, in fact, nerfed most of their open world group content (other then world bosses) years ago because, frankly, players just skipped over it. Even some of the group content that was part of gating got a strong pushback. I recall when everyone going into Karazhan had to have the key…which had some individual content in the chain but also three or four dungeons. Now gating such as the key to Kara is unthinkable.

I would not venture a guess as to why players avoid group content when it is available; perhaps different players have different reasons. I am also not sure how you address that since I have not really seen any truly successful models. World bosses that give good loot tend to get participation. Other group events or areas that seem to give great loot end up as massive farming. Whether that is good or bad I will not weigh in. My point is that having group-appropriate content out in the world doesn’t seem to, in and of itself, encourage participation or socialization. We seem to just find ways to avoid it.

To be fair, since this game is played in so many places, there are sometimes language barriers. Also, some people just want to play alone unless they NEED help with something. Also, there are a lot of … um… how should I put it…. not exactly “normal” (?) people in the GW2 world. Some people just enjoy antagonizing others, which probably turns some people off of the social aspect of the game.

I have to agree with the topic starter. We need better incentives to group, which I’ve mentioned on my suggestions thread as well. Of course that’s when you’re in PVE.

I see people constantly saying that now adays players are grown up so don’t have time for the investment it used to be. I think that’s wrong on multiple levels. First of all, there are of course new players in the younger age bracket. Secondly, eq could be played 12 hours a day, or 2. If you were consistent you got there. I like the long post someone made about the f2p model and how it’s effecting content. Either way, I enjoy this game. I will just have to get used to how things are. I like to think eqn wi be a return to a higher difficulty and more ingrained social structure, but I don’t see how they will resist current market trends. Especially because they caved I with past games and completely destroyed eq and eq2 to make kitten easier so players would cd back. Meh, no mad rambling. If anyone wants to kill some kitten look me up. Lol.

One more thing. Of course there is a ton of resistance to the corpse run. The reason I viewed it as a benefit is that it caused hesitation. You had to be cautious. You couldn’t just run in guns blazing, die, restart the instance with the mobs you already damaged, and finish it off. Don’t forget, there were cleric to Rez…