Guild Wars 2

I think that in my total experience with GW2 I’ve chatted in game with maybe 3 other players.

Granted, I haven’t logged any incredible amount of time on the game but….really? Even the few guilds I’ve tried to join have been mostly dead, void of social interaction.

One of the things that kept me playing WoW for so long was the social community…even if you aren’t interacting with the players at all, just seeing other people chatting is a nice way to keep things from getting boring.

So far I’d say guild wars 2 is as close to a single player experience that you can get from an MMO, and it’s oh so disappointing.

Thoughts?

I think the biggest reason for this is they refused to include a P2P trade system. No one has to talk to anyone to get what they want, you just goto the menu with all the stuff in one place and click buy.

work on your own social skills please. because a few people dont talk does not make the whole community mouthless.

I think what the OP is mostly getting at is that socializing is not important for the game to function, even while being an MMO. I only have to talk to the 4 people I want to invite to a group to do a dungeon, the rest of the game can be played solo, and bringing along other people just isnt needed, nor do I need them for trading because the trading post is available anywhere. I can have a useless conversation with people if I feel like it sure, but that doesn’t do anything for me in the game, so why bother?

Social aspect (at least since Nov 15th) is spending 30min in LA trying to get a group for fractals then playing with them. Fun isn’t it?

Edit: In all fairness it used to be better before this.

I, for one, am not too keen on chatting with other people. I mean, it’s a game. I’m not gonna sit around in Ascalon and chat with random people. I’m gonna go kill me some ghosts. Don’t confuse me with some antisocial maniac because, granted, I’ll help someone if I can, but I’m not gonna end up chewing the fat with you. Sure, it’s fun when you find someone to explore the map with, but what am I supposed to talk about with a complete stranger? If you want to talk with someone, get with your friends over a cup of coffee or beer or whatever.

GW2 is simply a really, really badly designed mmo.

Gohlar.3671:

GW2 is simply a really, really badly designed mmo.

I strongly disagree here. The design is fantastic i think. Why? because it is ment to be the way it is. eventhought the new dungeon made people huddle up in LA at this moment. GW2 IS designed for casuals who are not in a guild and also for people who are into teamplay. it is the same with GW1 the whole point is that you can solo the game if YOU want it or team up if YOU want that.

Just typing screaming saying that GW2 is badly designed as a MMO is just wrong to do so, merely because GW2 is designed not be like all other MMO’s out there.

I have to agree, it’s definitely becoming a pain to find people to talk to. Though it’s not impossible.

I’m one of those people that will always be on map chat trying to spark some kind of nonsensical conversation, I stick away from the boring topics – food, what I’ve been doing, what I’m going to do – and move on to anything to get some kind of reaction in map chat. Once you get a reaction you can bounce off the reaction and start a conversation, EVEN if that conversation is a ten minute rant against you from numerous other players (I’ve had this, actually keeps me entertained).

Just a word of warning, sometimes people can be humourless kittens, so trying to crack a joke or engage a bit of banter can lead to a whole map turning on you and trying to give you a verbal bear down. But hey, risk comes with reward! ;-)

tl;dr: Just hit map chat and force a conversation, most of the time you’ll be able to start something with someone, just be prepared if you try banter!

You guys need to just keep looking for the right guild. I lead a guild that has people always online, representing, being social and putting together runs. I even have guild forums that my guild is actually utilizing. Take the time to check gw2guru or spam in trade for people to talk to you about what their guild offers.

Talk to people. Join a guild.

People who say join a guild and such, seem to forget that guilds are small communities that do certain types of activities together based on what they decided as their focus.

If you go with this mentality then you completely miss the whole point of servers with thousands of people on it and a persistent world.

This “find a guild” attitude is perfect for games like Diablo and other RPG’s with online possibilities. Heck, there was more chat in GW1. A persistent world comes to its potential when people actually run into other players regularly and that people are talking to each other about what they’re doing ingame or just in general.

Now this game doesn’t have quests as other MMOs, it doesn’t require grouping up and this has certain advantages for events, but it means there is also no reason to talk to people. You just join in and do what you do with your class.

And because there are different things going on like class quests, gathering, jump puzzles, completion, events etc. and because these things are not linked to level, it is rare to find people who are doing exactly the same thing you are.

The level scaling allows you to do whatever content but also doesn’t encourage you to help other players except jumping into ongoing events. But events are not active at set times so you can’t plan to do an event together for example.

This all together means a lot of freedom, but add to that the big events like Halloween and now this Lost Shores and next month Winter Day celebration most likely, it cause people to all group up in the same small part of the world during half the month and with FotM that’s where people will be the rest of the time.

It leaves a very big world with sparse population. All this means that people don’t really talk to each other much outside of their guild/friends (and even there many are silent guilds) and making the whole persistent world pointless.

From that point of view the game’s new direction made the social aspect of the persistent world virtually non-existent.

Piriel.5197:

Social aspect (at least since Nov 15th) is spending 30min in LA trying to get a group for fractals then playing with them. Fun isn’t it?

Edit: In all fairness it used to be better before this.

This.

As well as in our Guild prior to the whole FotM thing, we use Skype and voice chat mostly.

I find for some reason that GW2 text chat is so easy to miss. If get a priv msg the sound can barely be heard that You get a msg. There are no msg that even indicates friends or guild members have logged on.

We tell new members that if they want the most of our guild to use Skype as well as our fb group as we are very social on those. We rarely use in-game text chat though.

Some don’t want to use either Skype or fb and that is their choice but thast where we are and were we post pics and chat almost daily.

I have understood that those using Virgin Media in UK have issues with skype as well as obvioulsy virgin dont want You to use Skype or something.

We often sit and chat with voice on Skype even when we dont even play same areas together. Just socializing, joking and such even if crafting and/or playing solo.

Since FotM and Ascended was introduced however. I myself and my son and most of my friends I used to play with daily haven’t been on much at all.

However we used to be on daily and be social, just not in text chat much.

Gohlar.3671:

GW2 is simply a really, really badly designed mmo.

GW2 is an many ways designed a lot better than other mmo’s.
But i spite of that players essentially get to choose between mostly soloing openworld pve, spending a lot of time trying to find a party for a dungeon, or do www/pvp.

It’s where you find it. If you go to a club, and sit off in the corner drinking you won’t be rewarded with a whole lot of social interaction.

the social aspect is…. when you’ve killed your opponent, wave to them….

As best I can tell, right now you’re looking at the only social aspect of GW2 unless you’re really into dungeon-running. It seemed like a single-player campaign in an open world to me.