This is not an mmo...

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Originally Posted by EmiliM

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He has a point though. What content (when you're in the progress of lvling) actually benefits from socialising? Nothing.

Quests? You don't need a party for 3-5 mobs.
Duties? Yeah those things that force you to solo them, highly social those.
Fates? I've easily gotten gold on 99% of the fates solo. So no need here either.
Dungeons/Trials? Just DF them.

There's a very big difference between being forced into socialising (like having to join a FC to progress the story as an example) or socialising being beneficial, like when quests actually require some effort, so partying up would speed up the process. As it is now everyone is just out there doing their own thing and trying to find people to party with generally just wastes your time since everything is so damn easy you get it done in less than 60 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Freakiie

He has a point though. What content (when you're in the progress of lvling) actually benefits from socialising? Nothing.

Quests? You don't need a party for 3-5 mobs.
Duties? Yeah those things that force you to solo them, highly social those.
Fates? I've easily gotten gold on 99% of the fates solo. So no need here either.
Dungeons/Trials? Just DF them.

There's a very big difference between being forced into socialising (like having to join a FC to progress the story as an example) or socialising being beneficial, like when quests actually require some effort, so partying up would speed up the process. As it is now everyone is just out there doing their own thing and trying to find people to party with generally just wastes your time since everything is so damn easy you get it done in less than 60 seconds.

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This is exactly where I'm coming from.

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Originally Posted by Yoko_Kurama

The mechanics of the game content 1-50 are highly anti social.

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This so much.

It drives me absolutely crazy playing through the storyline in this game. I tend to be in a party pretty often when I play. We're most of the time not actually "playing" together, since the game stupidly forces you to "unlock" access to everything through ONLY the storyline (I would love to run dungeons with my friends who are father ahead of me, but can't) but just using /p to chat and hang out while I'm trying to catch up. Then I'll get to an instanced storyline battle, be FORCED to drop party (WHY?) and THEN get stuck with a retarded NPC ally. This makes NO SENSE. I don't see how anyone couldn't realize that this kind of ass-backwards design is COMPLETELY missing the mark of what playing an MMO should be like. WHY NOT let me do this fight with an actual friend or another player if you designed it around having an NPC ANYWAY? You SUPPOSEDLY have scaling algorithm in place for FATEs, why not have the bright idea to implement this into instanced fights too? I am honestly TRYING to play this "MMO" with my friends and the game is literally not letting me. It's incredible how clueless and / or incompetent you'd have to be to design an MMO this way.

it's just they don't really have many ways to socialize to begin with.
The atmosphere in this game is quite tense/serious most of the time and many don't talk at all ( might be because they are PS3 players, i can tolerate that)
But god should have mercy with your little soul if you make a small joke and try to keep the mood up at difficult dungeon runs with some wipes... or even make a mistake

There are Linkshells which is a good start but we should have social spots with a lounge or something where you can hang out/party and interact with people (maybe specific emotes or mini games a la Rock-Paper-Scissors for little fun). The Vanity System would help with event gear.
Maybe it will get better if they introduce a card game or the golden saucer... I have hope

Pallas, make a linkshell. That way you can actually stay in contact with your friends, even during dungeons.

...Okay. Well I like this single player game :D

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Originally Posted by Freakiie

He has a point though. What content (when you're in the progress of lvling) actually benefits from socialising? Nothing.

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Yes, that is a valid point. But I'm looking at this from the other direction. Why must people feel that they deserve some kind of payment (as in benefits) before they are willing to talk to each other? In my experience, socializing only works when all parties involved actually want to do it, rather than because they have to so they can get some random reward/benefit/progression (again, see CM for example). The game provides plenty of opportunities to socialize, it just doesn't force people to do it. If people don't choose to talk because it's faster/more efficient, that's their choice. The most the devs can do is prod people a long a bit through the planned MVP system, but they can't force people to become friends.

IMO, socializing and making friends in games like these is in itself a reward, and to expect the game to somehow reward or punish you for having or not having friends is silly.

And Pallas complaint is already addressed by the devs. They are looking into allowing people to keep their parties when engaged in story instances.

Just because you have the choice to do things by yourself in the game does not mean it is not an MMO. You also have the choice to do things with other people so that completly counters your argument. You can run solo or with friends. The fact that it is not forced upon you is great. FFXI you had to party to level and spend hours doing it. FFXIV you can do it by yourself (which means no more spending hours in town with your flag up) or you can do it with friends. Choice is a wonderful thing. Sounds like you need to make some friends. You CAN'T play with friends in a single player game.

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Originally Posted by Selyndria

Just because you have the choice to do things by yourself in the game does not mean it is not an MMO. You also have the choice to do things with other people so that completly counters your argument. You can run solo or with friends. The fact that it is not forced upon you is great. FFXI you had to party to level and spend hours doing it. FFXIV you can do it by yourself (which means no more spending hours in town with your flag up) or you can do it with friends.e.

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Let me go ahead and do those party quest with people.........., fates? Let me go ahead and strategize and work with people to beat em. Oh wait let me just get a group to aoe mindlessly spam. Dungeons? Dont even need any sort of thinking or group effort, that's why you hear people all and trying to come up with a solution to the fight ahead.... You don't, might as well be running the dungeons with npcs. Yeah great choices.

Who here can honestly say they have added many new people to their friends list? I know mine is completely made up of people I was friends with before the game was even released. When I played xi, I made a ton of friends. When I played wow pre-dungeon finder, I made tons of friends. Yes I am sure some of you have huge fc's and social linkshells that you might do a few things with a few of the members from time to time. Maybe even a few of you do stuff with them exclusively. But nothing in the game (maybe coil, but I haven't done that yet) really forces you to spend much time with other players.

Personally I think DF is largely to blame. Remember when people used to have to actually shout, search friends lists and guilds/linkshells ect.. to make parties, and then you had to actually walk to the camp/dungeon, and you had to know where it was at (its funny how many people have no clue where a dungeon is, no reason when you can insta-que).

Just because nobody wants to play with/you don't want to play with anyone else, doesn't mean that this isn't an MMO.

And to be frank, it's not that i dislike a game where you go through the story solo or whatever, but then call it what it is, in the future there will be plenty of awesome games which you can tell will have many people playing it but will probably largely be a solo experience as far as you progressing your character, like the upcoming game Star Citizen (which looks epic), but don't bs the bser trying to categorize this game as an mmorpg and i get into it and it lacks many of the social aspects that is expected from an mmorpg...

But why would I party up with a friend to quest? If either of us is even 5 seconds late the other person already finished the quest and is on his way to hand it in. The problem with there being absolutely no benefit from partying is that it heavily cuts down on the social aspect. If you already got a bunch of friends you started the game with or found a good FC you might not notice it, but imo it's not very good design when there's very little reason to party up with others you don't know yet.

In other games you party up when possible because it sped quests up, made friends with people around your level and played the game together with them. That's how you met new people. In this game? You solo the content, then DF through the dungeon where the social aspect is close to 0 since most people you meet are from other servers. The whole "make some friends" part makes no sense since you don't interact with anyone. You can't just spam friend requests to random people you see and expect to have suddenly made a whole bunch of awesome friends.

You might consider it "payment", but giving parties benefits by actually getting things done faster heavily increases the social aspect of an MMO because people actively party up and interact with each other, which is what an MMO is about. In FF you either join a fate party, but a lot of people don't like endlessly zerging fate, nor do I know how social those people are or you join a FC and well, finding a good social FC isn't all that easy either.

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Originally Posted by Dragonskin

My Free Company of over 200 members begs to differ.

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That is a terrible example....

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Originally Posted by Freakiie

why would I party up with a friend to quest?

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because you enjoy playing the game with them, of course...

why else play a game with someone?

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Originally Posted by Freakiie

giving parties benefits by actually getting things done faster heavily increases the social aspect

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me partying with you in order to get stuff done faster doesnt make me social - i joined the party to get stuff done faster and if i socialize with you then that will slow me down

me partying with you because i enjoy partying with you regardless of how fast i get stuff done makes me social - i joined the party to have fun socializing with you while we play the game, time is not an issue so we can socialize and have fun

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Originally Posted by Crica

me partying with you in order to get stuff done faster doesnt make me social - i joined the party to get stuff done faster and if i socialize with you then that will slow me down

me partying with you because i enjoy partying with you regardless of how fast i get stuff done makes me social - i joined the party to have fun socializing with you while we play the game, time is not an issue so we can socialize and have fun

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The point is there need to be constant mechanics allowing or "promoting" situations which cause you to need to group and meet people, if this were truly a social oriented mmorpg, the mechanics would be in the effect where the option to party with people from level 1 all the way to level 50 would be possible, doing all quests and missions and dungeons together. People are saying they want a game with the option to solo, i agree solo should be an option, but it should be an inconvenient option and/or an option that is MORE difficult to pull off than partying with people through the game.

damn you guys fed the troll ....

this thread is a joke.
I see people putting together groups to run things all the time, if its fates, level 50 hard modes, mob grinding parties and so on.
it really seems people are just grasping at straws trying to complain about the next thing.
even if its not for groups you need to find crafters for things with a whole market and auction house.
if you really are complaining about something being anti social, maybe you should find some friends

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Originally Posted by Yoko_Kurama

The point is there need to be constant mechanics allowing or "promoting" situations which cause you to need to group and meet people, if this were truly a social oriented mmorpg, the mechanics would be in the effect where the option to party with people from level 1 all the way to level 50 would be possible, doing all quests and missions and dungeons together. People are saying they want a game with the option to solo, i agree solo should be an option, but it should be an inconvenient option and/or an option that is MORE difficult to pull off than partying with people through the game.

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just because i need to party in order to play the game doesnt mean i am going to be social while doing so

lfm AK speed run 1 tank then gtg

/inv tank

/p all r?

/p ty bye

thats not being social...

sorry, but being social is something you do because you ENJOY it not because you have to be around people to do stuff

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Originally Posted by Crica

just because i need to party in order to play the game doesnt mean i am going to be social while doing so

lfm AK speed run 1 tank then gtg

/inv tank

/p all r?

/p ty bye

thats not being social...

sorry, but being social is something you do because you ENJOY it not because you have to be around people to do stuff

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so you want this to be a glorified chat room?

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Originally Posted by ErBear

so you want this to be a glorified chat room?

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does it matter what i want?

if i dont want to socailize with you and i prefer to just play the game when we group, i should be able to do so

if you want to be able to talk to others that want to talk to you as well when you group with them, you should be able to do so

last time i checked, BOTH options are already included in the game

The reason it does not feel socialized is not because of the nature of the game itself, but IMO because everyone knows trinity MMOs so well and probably 70% of them are from WoW, they don't need to communicate much and just do their job. If a Garuda-like-boss was released in WoW vanilla 8 years ago, I can assure you it would take weeks for people to know whats going on. You think they are npcs because in single player games, npcs do everything for you and feed you the loot. That's exactly the situation in modern MMOs now. Without a revolutionary change, it wil forever be tanks tank, healz heal, dpses dps, loot.

Lineage 2 made a revolution 10 years ago, dedicated healers, dedicated buffers, dedicated mitigation tanks, dedicated evasion tanks. (Before this game, we used to bring 500 red potions to fight in previous MMOs, lol). Even WoW oldies have 8 years of trinity MMO experience. As long as the new MMO is trinity-based, I can assure you communication will be minimal, and everyone will seem like npcs, doing their jobs automatically.

Although, I must say, the game currently is not hard enough to be worth communicating by Skype / vent.

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Originally Posted by Ghammer

this thread is a joke.
I see people putting together groups to run things all the time, if its fates, level 50 hard modes, mob grinding parties and so on.
it really seems people are just grasping at straws trying to complain about the next thing.
even if its not for groups you need to find crafters for things with a whole market and auction house.
if you really are complaining about something being anti social, maybe you should find some friends

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The General Discussion forums is a joke period. lol

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Originally Posted by ErBear

There is 0 comradery in this game.

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You must have a terrible FC, and I feel sorry for you.

It's true that the level of "group play" is not the same as it was, for example, in FFXI.
That's the tradeoff for being more casual and offer ways to advance without requiring a group all the time.

Something I'd like to see is the return of EXP parties. Not FATE grinding parties.
If SE would make killing roaming mobs with EXP-chain as a group the most effective way of gaining EXP again, I'm fairly sure we would see more communication between players.
Being a member of a FC doesn't mean you can't play with people outside that FC too.

No, pretty sure on the box it says MMO. Did you buy a faulty box?

Try not wasting other peoples times and they may like you

So the OP is not a bear? Surely it says er bear so how can this game not be a mmorpg?

Most of you missed the OP's point or chose to ignore it.

OP I get what you're saying and agree to some level. This game had no feeling of 'world' or community. The feeling of 'game' is stronger. Like a theme park ride, you get on, wave to the other riders, zoom past the content, get off then off to the next ride.

Fun but there's not much substance to it.

agreed with the OP. true MMO shouldn't have Titan.

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Originally Posted by Datu

Most of you missed the OP's point or chose to ignore it.

OP I get what you're saying and agree to some level. This game had no feeling of 'world' or community. The feeling of 'game' is stronger. Like a theme park ride, you get on, wave to the other riders, zoom past the content, get off then off to the next ride.

Fun but there's not much substance to it.

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Thank you, I thought more people would have got it, but they have to tell me i'm an idiot and don't know what mmorpg means. Proof this community is one of the worst.

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Originally Posted by ErBear

I can play a game of COD and play WITH more people than this game. Keyword with, not alongside.

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How? Oh, I guess you never did fates. You know in order to do a fate like Behemoth you need more players in this game then you have in COD on PC, and unless somethings changed in COD since I last played, the console version limits party size to 8. For Behemoth you may not all be in the same group but you all have to communicate and work together. You cant down him just playing "alongside" as you say. You have to coordinate tank, off tank, healers, strategy etc. Plus we are getting 24 man raids here in the future.

And there's nothing stopping you from joining a FC with several hundred members and coordinating events out in the open world whether it's fates, farming, roleplaying(if you're into that sort of stuff) There is no comparison to the amount of people you can play "with" in this game if you want to.

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Originally Posted by AllOutWar

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Ok, tell me how you play WITH people and not just alongside them with strategy.... you do not PLAY WITH people on fates. it's just an aoe mind-numbing spam. I've played behemoth... it's just like EVERY OTHER FATE, spam spam spam. Look he died, on to the next none thinking spam fate.

I just soloed HM titan. Only baddies need to group.

Try leveling using nothing but leves and grinding mobs. Fates may not be perfect, but they're a HUGE improvement over the old way of leveling.

Crystal Tower is coming 24 man raid not mmo?

http://memecrunch.com/meme/H0V2/cool...nsel/image.png

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Originally Posted by ErBear

Ok, tell me how you play WITH people and not just alongside them with strategy.... you do not PLAY WITH people on fates. it's just an aoe mind-numbing spam. I've played behemoth... it's just like EVERY OTHER FATE, spam spam spam. Look he died, on to the next none thinking spam fate.

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Yeah, but you can't beat him with out getting a large number of people there with you to help you(If you just waited at behemoth without shouting for help you would be there a long time, unless others are shouting, so the people who come are playing with you because YOU ask them to come). You need to tell everyone there the boss' patterns, what to watch out for, who interrupts etc.(this is where the strategy and social part comes in) You can join a public ventrilo room if you want to make it even more social. Also in dungeons you can all hop on Skype or ventrilo and chat while you play.

So how is explaining boss fights, figuring out who heals, who tanks what, any less then you saying "hey go shoot that guy over there in the sack" in call of duty?

But you can also choose to not say a single word and shoot whoever you see in CoD......