Why did mmo's become so anti social and friendly?

There was a time were you just finish the run, some chats stuff, and no rage quits.

There was a time were grinding stuff was nothing, but just put on the head phones or low volume tv and do it. and chat to people.

There was a time were grinding on a mmo for 48 hrs straight was nothing. With the leaders rotate who sleeps and the members do the same thing to keep the camp open.

There was a time when if people were the bleep or went elite , The server just jones them and there friend be like lol.

Unless it was worked for a month+ to get said item. Then entire serve would wave the hands ups like damn to the players.

There was a time when players would not like other players or guilds that they did not care about and spam it on every website or in game to troll. Only to look like a fool to them self. In game.

Yes, and that time was called high school.

when there real life as excuse to be dbag
when new gamers generation that prefer spoonfeed over everything
when gamers today want different between hardcore and casual
when there everything in youtube and it become a requirement for something
when try and error is not acceptable

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Originally Posted by mindful

There was a time were grinding on a mmo for 48 hrs straight was nothing. With the leaders rotate who sleeps and the members do the same thing to keep the camp open.

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http://i.imgur.com/KkQztIN.jpg

When they became "streamlined" back in 2004.

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Originally Posted by mindful

There was a time were you just finish the run, some chats stuff, and no rage quits.

There was a time were grinding stuff was nothing, but just put on the head phones or low volume tv and do it. and chat to people.

There was a time were grinding on a mmo for 48 hrs straight was nothing. With the leaders rotate who sleeps and the members do the same thing to keep the camp open.

There was a time when if people were the bleep or went elite , The server just jones them and there friend be like lol.

Unless it was worked for a month+ to get said item. Then entire serve would wave the hands ups like damn to the players.

There was a time when players would not like other players or guilds that they did not care about and spam it on every website or in game to troll. Only to look like a fool to them self. In game.

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I think some of those things are why. Because we have all been there done that & are over it.


We know what works & what doesnt e.t.c. from experiance in multipul situations. in Fact some players have more experiance than the people making the mmos which is why anti social aggro about that stuff in chats forums on even the smallest issue.
Experiance with server crashes also is why when it happens doesnt matter the game the aggro keeps building.
Also because Sword art online everyone wants to solo e.t.c. so they dont want to talk to other players.
Also because stuff if easy to some & not to others. which creates levels of respect for players/groups. which results in jealousy. which results in rage quitting like a 5 year old from the top end due to how easy it is for them.
Then rage & public abuse from the bottom end about how "elitest" wont help them, other jealous remarks e.t.c. failing to menchions they cant help themselfs & other important details. e.t.c.

So many reasons. all easily explained & obvious.......
Age & times is the similar answer. ;) Lifes much more fast paces in this day & age compared to how it was years ago, things never remain the same.

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Originally Posted by Dotsusama

http://i.imgur.com/KkQztIN.jpg

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http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/images/ff11/warning.png

My theory is:

There is still a group of people who behave that way (let's call them MMORPG-Socials). Back in the day, the majority of MMORPG people were MMORPG-Socials. There were of course MMORPG-Anti-Socials back then, but due to the nature of the way the game was played, they would not be tolerated well and could not carry on behaving that way (or at least, behaving AND playing the game).

Today, there are still both groups of people. However, the game has changed such that it now caters more to the MMORPG-Anti-Socials, allowing them to continue behaving this way without being blocked from enjoying the game. This of course has an adverse effect on the MMORPG-Socials.

The question will be, what is the long term impact? We'll find out in 10 years if MMORPG industry can work well with a mechanism that supports MMORPG-Anti-Socials (remember, it is a business, and if more money can be made from catering to MMORPG-Anti-Socials than MMORPG-Socials, so it will be done).

---- An Example (Using FFXI because so many people here are familiar with this game) ----
FFXI would require people to co-operate over a long period of time (XP parties, SEA, Dynamis, etc.). If someone was an MMORPG-Anti-Social they would not be well accepted into the community, and would not be able to progress. Therefore they would leave the game, or become an MMORPG-Social.

FFXIV 2.0 does not require people to co-operate over a long period of time. It is specifically designed to support 'single serving friends' (Duty Finder). This is the perfect environment for MMORPG-Anti-Socials as they know there will be no drawback to their behavior and will be able to progress far without having to convert to an MMORPG-Social.

I do not know whether or not it was intentional to support MMORPG-Anti-Socials (Only Yoshi may know).

Older MMOs used to be slower paced which facilitated social interaction better.

Older MMOs used to be more group-oriented which required you to play nice in order to make any progress.

Older MMOs used to have player economies heavily dependent on crafting which forced players to communicate and work together on things.

Those are essentially the key elements that created better communities back in the day.

Modern MMOs favour convenience at the expense of comunity; cross-server group finder tools being one such example as there's no accountability for your actions when you'll likely never meet someone again.

At the end of the day player impatience is the problem, either directly in-game or indirectly by driving developers to implement tools that sacrifice community building.

I am lucky I guess. I have a FC completely stocked with fun, friendly, and nice people who all clear content together, craft for each other, do treasure map events, farm atmas together, etc. etc. Every now and again we need to Duty Finder a dungeon or trial and we get a random player in our midst. LAWL it's so awkward for them when they act like a d-bag and we all simply let him die, boot em, /laugh our asses off... No drama, anti-social is what happens somewhere "out there" in some distant land we don't visit very often.

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Originally Posted by Shioban

http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/images/ff11/warning.png

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Man, I thought that looked familiar. Hah!

While playing XI I did all those things they warned against. Shhh, our little secret.

xiv isnt even worthy of that warning!

It's the WoW evolution as they call it.

WoW more or less put the model of themepark MMO into the mix and with that segmented people into "me, myself, and I".

In most pre-WoW MMO developed. There was a large amount of social peer pressure. It didn't mean less d-bags or drama, but the community actively destoried and shunned anyone that did not want to play nice in the playground.

If you die, no one will help raise you. If you're alone, the game actively punishes you. If you don't smile and say hello, people actively ignore you. You can't even get by in the economy unless you were part of the community.

WoW created what is considered a high level match-making system. Thus mechanics replaced many community aspects. Thus anything outside of mechanics can't be punished and becomes "If I'm not punished for this, I can do what I want"

You have the capability of being social to whoever, however, and whenever you want. You choosing not to is not the game's fault. Rotating sleep schedules and things of that nature are incredibly unhealthy. Just because things like that don't exist doesn't mean you can't make friends.

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Originally Posted by Shioban

http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/images/ff11/warning.png

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I miss that little Chocobo mouse icon :(

Yup I remember playing Shadows of Yserbius and Fates of Twinnion, Final Fantasy 11. Those games were all about playing with people, nothing was designed to be solo, you needed other people and since you needed other people you were more open to make friends and get to know them.


Then people started playing WoW, in which leveling wasn't about groupping and finding monsters to kill (i.e., Dragon Warrior 1-4 style days) and became leveling through questing, which meant you could play alone and not talk to people. So now the people who liked to play 1 player games started coming on, and playing solo. Then you hit a point you had to group with people and that annoyed them, so they cried, and wanted to get through those parts quicker, so then they became more about me me me, and how will you get ME through this dungeon/quest, which started a divide between players who came on to play with people, and make friends, and join a community, and the people who were all about ME because they were use to playing solo player games and were anti-social. Slowly more single player people come into WoW because they heard it's a great game and you don't need to play with anyone to get things accomplished. And that became the normal. Play alone to max level with as little interaction as possible with all the other players, and when you had to play with other players you wanted it over as quickly as possible, so elitest started showing up. But then those same single player game people complained that the game was too hard and too time consuming and started threatening to not pay unless you fix this aspect.. So WoW to keep it's people made those changes to make it easier to get things, so people saw, hey I cry and the developers will make it easier, so let me cry again.. rinse and repeat.. we are now in the age of "I only matter, ME" in MMO's instead of the old ways of make friends and sitting back and enjoying the game with the people you liked.

Old runescspe to me. Everyone talked and worked together nice. I think this was because there was no hate, healing others, just if someone messed up it was on them and everyone was friends. There was a fishing guild we all went to chatting while fishing and everything was great. They sure ruined the game though over the years

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

I miss that little Chocobo mouse icon :(

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i miss the playonline music too :P

:o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZkVv4pJqNc

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

i miss the playonline music too :P

:o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZkVv4pJqNc

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Or the original intro in 2003ish? Was still on the PS2 version for a while.

EEEYYYYYY.... WEEEEOOOOEOOOOEOOOEEEEEEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LQ-iCZ2FnE

You know what you do?
Take a screenshot and make fun of their rudeness :]

http://media.giphy.com/media/yPiTBpJ2sXwBy/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

I miss that little Chocobo mouse icon :(

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I liked it, too... so I made a cursor out of it. It's only two panels of animation, you know. Making a full cursor set, though, I haven't done.

Because game developers quit releasing single player rpgs. Especially jrpgs. People like me who grew up in the golden era of the jrpgs always had something to play back in the day. Almost every month saw multiple new releases. Nowadays we are lucky to get 2 or 3 jrpgs in a year. So the antisocial gamers have had to migrate to mmo's as the only source for their stat grinding, loot hording fix. I don't want to log in to chat and make friends. I just want to play an rpg and get my fix that isn't available to single players anymore. Ever since the "cool kids" took over my hobby all that gets released are first person shooter and sports games. I wish gaming had never become so mainstream.

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Originally Posted by Wicc

You know what you do?
Take a screenshot and make fun of their rudeness :]

http://media.giphy.com/media/yPiTBpJ2sXwBy/giphy.gif

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Thats actually a really good idea.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Or the original intro in 2003ish? Was still on the PS2 version for a while.

EEEYYYYYY.... WEEEEOOOOEOOOOEOOOEEEEEEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LQ-iCZ2FnE

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beat that !

vanadiel march medley in the distant worlds concert , awesome ! <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0liILxnZ8

Instaces and focus on solo-content.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

beat that !

vanadiel march medley in the distant worlds concert , awesome ! <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0liILxnZ8

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Holy crap! Thanks, this is awesome! Never seen it before :D.

Aghh, the nostalgia... hearing that horn come in and play the melody, gives me a tear.

the problem is games have went from catering to one type of player to trying to make middle of the road games and get many different types of players together in the same game. when you have hardcores and casuals together you will always have different views and they are miles apart. there is nothing the devs will be able to do as long as they try to cater to both crowds they will continue to have a great divide in the community. with the great divides comes hatred and and a very caustic community.

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Originally Posted by Ulathskullsplitter

Ever since the "cool kids" took over my hobby all that gets released are first person shooter and sports games. I wish gaming had never become so mainstream.

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Good point! Costs to make games have gone up so much, that they only way to recover it is to make it mass appeal. This is different than games of old where it could easily be niche due to low production costs. However, consumer expectations are now to have games with amazing graphics (which is expensive). If we were all happy with 8-bit console games again, we would have more of the jRPG type games we loved.

So what do we do? Lower our expectations or perhaps look towards Indie games?

All is not completely lost... with a few changes, things could be made better:

1) Cross-world friend/black list, so we can stay in touch (or ignore) those we meet in DF.
2) Cross-world chat (so we can talk, and arrange parties with people we've met in other worlds and play together in DF).

(DF should not be a way to be anonymous, but a way to bring together more people to overcome the 'limitation' of multiple small worlds rather than one giant shard)

The next part that needs to be adjusted is much more difficult: What causes a strong community? The need and ability to interact regularly and extensively. Unfortunately, with combat, and dungeons, and battles as they are designed now, there is no need to spend a lot of time together. And the time spent is in such a way that you do not really have time to socialize.

Therefore, and to the chagrin of many, a 'slow time sink' needs to be introduced:
-- Combat that can be done slowly (unrealistic, as would need to change the entire game)
-- Battles that take a long time to do (unrealistic again)
-- A form of hunting where you stand around and do nothing (no one will want this)

Which means a new and novel system must be created. A sort of 'social points/reputation' system. Perhaps a mechanism where you earn reputation given to you by others... Almost, if you will. A player-driven levequest system where other players grant leves to friends first, and hopeful strangers next.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Good point! Costs to make games have gone up so much, that they only way to recover it is to make it mass appeal. This is different than games of old where it could easily be niche due to low production costs. However, consumer expectations are now to have games with amazing graphics (which is expensive). If we were all happy with 8-bit console games again, we would have more of the jRPG type games we loved.

So what do we do? Lower our expectations or perhaps look towards Indie games?

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For the record, I was always happy with the 8 bit and 16 bit.. The current level of RPG that come out are more focused on flashy graphics, the better they look usually the worse the story is and the less you are allowed to actually do in the game... Look at Final Fantasy 13.. it looks great, graphics are just wow.. fighting is so fast, and yet... the game is a straight path no exploration, the battle system requires almost no skill whatsoever (you just say fight and watch it, you can interupt it if something looks bad to say change a class or use an item, but otherwise your just sitting their watching.) The more they focus on graphics, the less they give us. I'd would be happy with 8 bit and 16 bit games again if they would give us more story, character development, exploration, and actually made fights where you needed to think and not watch.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Which means a new and novel system must be created. A sort of 'social points/reputation' system. Perhaps a mechanism where you earn reputation given to you by others... Almost, if you will. A player-driven levequest system where other players grant leves to friends first, and hopeful strangers next.

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Technically they have this lol, enter a dungeon solo, at the end it's called commendation.

DF and PF is why!

Once upon a time if you were a dick people would stop playing with you...

Now it really doesn't matter if you're a douchebag... you can simply click DF or PF and be right back in the action.

there are people that simply cant be in a group, it is my case, I like to play, I like my fix as someone said, I dont have the time to socialize, I play maybe 3-4h per day enough to do what I have to do. Socializing requires skills that I dont possess, diplomacy, hypocrisie among others and those arent really my cup of tea. I dont have a problem in being alone, for that I thank DF and PF, when I MUST do something otherwise thank you very much and everyone on their way. My list of friends is empty 4 people I never speak to. A game is for everybody, no matter who or what you are. If you want to socialize there are groups outside there, if you dont want to socialize play the game with the features it offers (DF and PF), nobody should be ostracized for that. Games have evolved, people too and what they require in a game, game programers have adapted simple as that...there was a time, that time is no more, past is past...at least in my opinion

Mei

Aye, instances is why.

If I enter duty finder, I'll probably won't even meet those players again. Why be nice?

If I use party finder to enter a instance, we just join it, do our job (or not) and them left. Why talk about anything? In fact, we can't. At least I will probably die if doing a primal fight I start a friendly chat :p

In old mmos you had to build up the group, travel to the place, and probably camp some place sometime to get what you wanted, and after you finished...You had to go out of there alive. Yeah, maybe you coud teleport yourself of your group with some spells, but the thing is that oportunitys to talk were a lot more, and your reputation was much more important.

Here you just enter a party finder, go in, and if they are not good enought you can find another group and start doing the same content in no time.


Edit: And I'm not saying that those games were better. They were diferent. I woud like that they still exist, and that's why I still play in places like P1999, BUT those new generation mmos have their good things too. It's just that they lack a real mmo feeling, they are more like cooperative online games.

Why NOT be nice? It doesn't hurt and doesn't cost you anything, even just a hi would suffice. I have socializing problems like Mei but I know runs go smoother if you communicate, and you know... work as a team? Then you can go back to being anti-social outside the dungeon :) It feels like a lack of empathy and tolerance for other people, and not just in games. Also, I know it's sounds weird, but so far playing on European servers, I've yet to meet a douchebag, is it much worse at higher levels are something? :o

I'm not sure if it's public DF or just the daily grind duties that has turned people into zombies. A good majority of my DF runs are completed in silence and people leave before even saying good bye or thank you.

Where are the days when party begins with a 'Hello!' and 'Nice to meet you'?
And concludes with a 'Thank you, party! Let's play together again sometime!' /bow

Well, be nice can hurt :D

If, let's say, I enter Trial Roulette and start Titan fight HM, wich I already done a hundred of times, and most people is new with low level gear, we start the fight and most people die and die and die, I have to options: Spend more than 30-40 minutes there, waiting for them to learn a bit of the fight and the +50% echo bonus to allow us to carry those who don't learnt or just have so bad internet conections that they can't do it.

Last time that happened to me. I stayed, as SCH. We finally managed to take it down in 50+ minutes (yeah, for a 5 minutes fight). I was healing, raising and doing damage, cause only 3 DPS were on the upper side of the scenario, and 2 of them were dying all the time.
Fight ends, people goes out, I'll never see them again, they didn't even say anything after clearing it and I didn't get a single comendation.

And to them is not a problem, cause in time, by duty finder, someone will carry them other content. But next time that Titan pops up on my roulette I will probably do only 1 try. If people knows how to do it, great, if people don't know it, bye. I'll just leave or log out and go do other things.

What Elvin describes I dont do, I may be anti social but in a group I still know how to behave, like say hi and good bye and thank you, if you will basic education, which most people do lack, very different then anti social. Leaving a group because it fails that has never crossed my mind, you use roulette you enter a group you go with it good or bad, when I leave and it happens but so rarely that I could count it on the fingers of a single hand, is because theguys were total jerks I have to admit that has rarely happened. I am against leaving because of failures or lack of knowledge or mistakes, that is wrong on many accounts if you go with that in mind do your own party. I am there to get my daily roulette,dungeon whatever done. all are there for the same thing,whether I succeed or not is not important. No big deal.

Mei

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Originally Posted by Elvin

Fight ends, people goes out, I'll never see them again, they didn't even say anything after clearing it and I didn't get a single comendation.

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You’re a gratitude thief!
http://youtu.be/wQRBDzogR4k

For Italian subtitles, but better video quality;
http://youtu.be/iD43-iuNKQw?t=13m7s

Can't really blame the design of the game for people being nasty. You have the option of being a nice or hostile player, though there are certain features of the game that means hostile players can get away with stuff more easily >.>

And being nice isn't always welcomed. I play MMO's to have fun with people. I like to meet new people, I run a small close knit guild that means the world to me and outside that I try and be as helpful as possible to people who I party with. Playing as a healer usually allows for this to happen, but sometimes offering advice to people when you've wiped about three or four times, just ends up getting your head snapped off. After all your just the little old healer, it's your fault they died ect

In every community there will be those who you mix well with and those who you wish to avoid like the plague. Find those people who you can play with and you'll have a nicer time. People will be asses but that doesn't mean you have to be :3