Guild Wars 2

I’m always celebrating after a big boss battle, jumping around and dancing just to get people ( outside of guilds in the pve world ) to just talk or participate in whatever. What do you think makes this less of a social mmo than others?

Does the Trading Post have a negative effect on this?

Does the lack of party requirement have an effect on this?

I must say though, that despite the lack of social participation…I almost always get revived when I need help. This definitely counts..although when I’m thanking people, they seldom respond.

I think many of the MMO vets tend to forget that the old games were essentially facebook for gamers.

For many people, Everquest was their very first experience being surrounded by like minded individuals. It was a time when being a gamer was still considered… not quite mainstream. So the idea of inhabiting a virtual world filled with people who like what you liked? Mindblowing.

What we have to keep in mind is that, today, we are innudated with outlets for social interaction. It’s no longer a REASON to play an MMO and trying to force it is only going to slash the player base.

You should come to Tarnished Coast, the RP server. People are very social and chatty there.

Sometimes I don’t respond to people thanking me because I’m too busy chatting in Guild chat, so don’t take it personally. There’s only so much typing my fingers can do.

GW2 is the most social MMO I ever played, it lets you play with others without any hassle and people help each other all the time without prompting, you don’t get excluded from content for being an assassin or smithing prayers monk, people in chat will often call out what events are happening… Only griefing happens in the WvW jumping puzzle and even there you’ll run into people who won’t attack and just let you run past on occasion. Compared to other games where you compete for loot, monsters, can’t share quests unless partied and griefing is common GW2 seems perfect.

Games can’t force people to be social, even with restrictions. People don’t want to do things if they don’t have to or don’t get rewarded for doing so.

Ultimately it’s up to ANet to provide content that’ll promote participation and teamwork through a combination of challenging/rewarding content.

If it’s too challenging people won’t do it.
If it’s too rewarding people will do it but will take the easiest way to accomplish it, which leads to avoiding social interaction.

But, I’ll have to disagree, because of the lack of party restrictions and because of the enemy tagging/resource tagging systems in this game, it’s the most social MMO I’ve played. Plenty of people on my server participate in events they pass through, or when I call out for help in map chat. In other MMO’s, having more party members during open world quests is a hassle.

I wish there were some benefit to joining a party (aside from the guild incentive bonus).

When I revive, I don’t always say “yw” because it’s a bother moving my hands to the keyboard for that, when it’s kind of unnecessary. If they weren’t welcome, I wouldn’t have rezed them. But I do watch to see who thanks me for saving their butts. Especially when they just narrowly escaped a repair/waypoint fee. It makes a big difference in how I feel about my fellow players.

It’s weird.. I bet most players are more social in person but there’s something scary about just speaking to other people in the game.

I don’t think its a problem caused by the game, I’ve noticed in a lot of mmos nowadays people really don’t talk and socialize as much anymore. I’m not really sure why.

Games have been made so easy that communication is no longer necessary. GW2 is one of the worst offenders. Everything is so easy and simple everyone is just wandering around going through the motions.

Shinzan.2908:

GW2 is the most social MMO I ever played, it lets you play with others without any social interaction

Fixed.

Strange, my experience with GW2 compared to other MMO’s is that GW2 is the least social MMO I have ever played. Guilds I gave up on and created my own due to the fact guild leaders are only interested in you creating influence to upgrade, no events created or social interaction, groups for dungeons are dire, again no verbal or chat communication, plinx groups are just a zerg on events and again lack of any social interaction with fellow group members, just follow and spank. Map chat is either full of players telling others to use google or created links to websites if its not that its flaming.

Even WoW as terrible as the chat channels were, it was more social in comparison.

Game lacks some small things that have huge meaning to gaming experiense. I wish A-net spends some time in christmas holidays playing Lucas arts games. What did Lucas do different? They created worlds that felt real! And what was most important feature? Humor… Yup old gamers might remember Grim fandango and such where the story went on with more humours events. In modern gaming story is : “Whatch me im great knight and i cut of your head etc.. skip to end…” and then fight. Also implenting somethin fun inside game to pop up randomly. Some goofy NPC’s that takes party to secret chamber or something. Modern games are too serious which kind of kills of their game mechanics. Add some spices to gw!

Because of the world servers system.

It splits up the player base in such a way you can’t even see or even talk to your other friends unless you lucked out and chose the right server when the game launched.

This game is its own worst enemy.

There’s almost nothing in-game to encourage forming of lasting relationships. You can go 1-80 and beyond without ever forming a party. You don’t need to form relationships to trade.

In GW2 you only need a party for dungeons and tournaments in spvp. And actually free tournaments you can still pug if you want.

In general, I think when you ask players, they want the ability to play solo forever.

Other games employed social engineering to encourage (or force) player interaction. The good thing is you’d form strong relationships, friendships and enemies, which is what makes humans feel a part of a community. The bad thing is the sense of encourage or force.

Even in GW2, here on the forums we see regular rants against “forced grouping” required to finish your personal story and gripes about having to form a party for going to dungeons.

Arrange an anonymous playdate for me ArenaNet!

The social environment is shallow because the game was designed to be shallow.

Shooopa.5632:

Because of the world servers system.

It splits up the player base in such a way you can’t even see or even talk to your other friends unless you lucked out and chose the right server when the game launched.

This game is its own worst enemy.

Uh, what? I have friends on like 6 different servers. They are all on my friends list. They are all in my guild. I can talk to them in guild or using whispers. I can sPvP with them. I can run dungeons with them. We can even meet up in Overflows and play together. The world servers have little meaning outside of WvW, and will mean even less when guesting is in.

I think the main problem is that there is no need for communication in most cases (unless you are running a dungeon or doing WvW). There is near constant action if you want it so people just run around killing and doing events and stuff while never bothering to even look at the little chat box in the corner. Other games force players into interactions, but the only time this game does that is if you want to do a dungeon.

I just find it a shame that my server doesn’t really interact that well ( Sorrow’s Furnace ). Yet we’re destroying the other realms in WVW (99.9% winning)

@ Mulch…..

That sense of being forced to “group” if you wanted to get certain things done is what has driven so many of certain players to this game. And also created the “clash” of philosophies as the pro-groupers and anti-groupers try to get their words and wants into the ears of ANet

GW2 seems almost targeted (market-wise) to those that never liked raiding (or grew to hate it) or grouping in general.

The only overflows in this game are when you go to Lion’s Arch.

Having people on your friends list doesn’t mean you can play with them. It’s absolutely utterly pointless to have them on the even even if you’re not on the same server with them because you’ll never see them in-game.

The old battlenet system was awesome. It was basically chatrooms followed by “oh hey, wanna play a game?” GW2 has no chat rooms, just local map chat and a friends/guild lists that doesn’t even tell you when these people come online… I’ve seriously gone through a whole play session only to realize my buddy logged on 30 minutes ago and we had no idea each other were on; I only found out cause i hit “Y” instead of “T” in a dungeon I was in.

While I think players are one part of the equation for a social MMO, the systems in place can really inhibit or grow that social experience.

I really do think awareness of people logging in would be nice, either on friends list or guild list,

Well, in the old school MMO’s like EQ, you had downtime. The game’s a lot more social when you’re sitting on the ground with your group waiting 5 minutes for your mana to regen. At that point zone chat becomes more of an attraction.

I really don’t like the zone chat “social” stuff. Barrens Chat in WoW will remain my worst MMO chat experience in nearly 15 years of online gaming.

GW2 to me seems to be a pretty helpful and friendly place. If you die someone will run along and help you back up. Even NPCs will do it sometimes.

I think what I’d like to see though is more guild stuff. I think modern MMO’s work best when they have good guild systems. There’s a lot that could be done on guild levels and the gem store even. Guilds could rent training areas, message boards, guild halls even VOIP servers.

The nice thing about guilds is they let you find players that really fit your personality.

Zoris.5870:

I really do think awareness of people logging in would be nice, either on friends list or guild list,

This is available. I get announcements when people on my friends list log in or out.

Dracones.9105:

Well, in the old school MMO’s like EQ, you had downtime. The game’s a lot more social when you’re sitting on the ground with your group waiting 5 minutes for your mana to regen. At that point zone chat becomes more of an attraction.

I really don’t like the zone chat “social” stuff. Barrens Chat in WoW will remain my worst MMO chat experience in nearly 15 years of online gaming.

GW2 to me seems to be a pretty helpful and friendly place. If you die someone will run along and help you back up. Even NPCs will do it sometimes.

I think what I’d like to see though is more guild stuff. I think modern MMO’s work best when they have good guild systems. There’s a lot that could be done on guild levels and the gem store even. Guilds could rent training areas, message boards, guild halls even VOIP servers.

The nice thing about guilds is they let you find players that really fit your personality.

Not so everyone tells me that I should solo everything alone and they don’t want to redo a map that is already done.

I’m lv 80 on an ele and can’t do anymore then 10% of a lv 60-70 map with full lv 75-80 gear in the best dual dagger build I can make. There are mobs everywhere and unfinished DEs everywhere that can’t be soloed without breaking your kitten every time. no one comes to res me and no one ever talks on map chat.

I had a better much experience in an old MMO Ragnarok Online which I was alone for most of the time and had an open world and some dynamicness to its spawns. Yet that game is over 15 years old and pretty much everything can be done alone. Yet people still work together! Everything but the MVPs (big bosses similar to our champions/world bosses) can be soloed mostly as long as your level and gear was up to par.

Gw 2 on the other hand is a more social game but it seems not to be that way when you have no one but 4 people on a lv 60-70 map all day and only about 4 or 5 on lv 70-80 maps. I don’t even have my cries for help answered when I’m dead in a surprise spawn or DE. I eventually give up and go back to Lions Arch all butthurt and bruised.

In the above example with RO, I do get help usually when a boss appears or whatnot.

I should not have to go to another and much older game to get a better experience in high level content. GW 2 is not as hunky-dory as everyone sees it to be.