Do you ever think about how people play games to escape yet...

[Simple_Barghest]

In XI he was Stanislav. Made a name for himself by doing those things and then when an LS would get cozy with him he would steal high priced and sought after items in the LS bank. You can read more about it at your local XI forums!
Think I forgot, Stan? That was pretty funny, almost as funny as the great salvage ban. It's one of those things where the lesson is "don't trust online people unless you REALLY know them." lol.

Well let's take a look he-

Quote Originally Posted by Stanislav

exactly
especially when we publically admit it haha

ghat DAMN.

[DragonFlyy]

DF and any matchmaking ruined everything in MMORPGS.

I agree to an extent. Being a year one Everquest veteran exploring was a great part of the game. However, after awhile you don't feel that threat of running through a zone to get to a camp spot. Then the game boiled down to:
Sit in a corner while the monk pulled a mob, the tank peeled it off, and the monk ran to get another.
There was no more exploration, it was just camping a spot. Plane of nightmare is the best example. Zone in, stand at spot shouting for 20 minutes until a group needs to replace X class ... you run there and sit down, waiting for the pull.
The community aspect came from sources such as guilds, friend lists, or outside websites. Yes you made friends with group members, but that didn't change with DF. I still get one or two new friends a week in DF. So, yes 2000s MMOs had no DF, and had exploration, but it became stale after the first few times going to the same camp spots. We traded camping with dungeon runs. Both can become boring. Communities are made from people gathering, not from pixels on a screen.

[Melorie]

I feel like this is more about how FFXIV truly tailors towards second-lifeesque characteristics and brings communities that are more inclined to enjoy games such as The Sims and other simulations games. The amount of fashion customization and the high quality of animations make this possible. Thus, you get more people interested in these aspects of the game instead of other MMOs.

If you're familiar with the sims community, animal crossing, poupée and that famous mobile dress-up game and other simulations-like games this is not uncommon.

We're also in a more visual era, there's a huge amount of communities that loves doing storytelling through screenshots in a lot of different games. This isn't much different from "fakes" you had in social media back in the day like myspace, orkut, etc. It's a creative thingy that it's been getting bigger and bigger given how easier it is nowadays to edit a photo and make an instagram and such.

Personally, I don't believe that the whole "escape from real life" thing. I play the game because it's my hobby, NOT my escape. A leisure isn't a escape from your life, it's just a leisure. If anything I feel like people bring very little of their real life inside the game and act like they're inside a bubble where they can only talk and discuss things that are game-related or about their own character, which makes the whole social part of the game really boring. I kinda miss when I actually made friends with people that played games and not their characters tbh.

[Amarande]

I feel like this is more about how FFXIV truly tailors towards second-lifeesque characteristics and brings communities that are more inclined to enjoy games such as The Sims and other simulations games. The amount of fashion customization and the high quality of animations make this possible. Thus, you get more people interested in these aspects of the game instead of other MMOs.

I think it also is a major influence that the "venue RP" style is arguably about the only really enjoyable social option left for the working adult, particularly one of medium gameplay skill whose RL is not amenable to a static group.

As I suggested in another thread, pickup group gaming really does seem like it only functions well when the situation is either very easy (i.e., where you don't really have to worry about skill at all, like roulette level content or unsync farms) or where you have an exclusive player pool of high skill players (in order to help overcome the natural disadvantages that come of not having a team that's well familiar with each other - also because many high echelon PUG players actually do know each other so some of the benefits of staticing are realized anyway).

In the middle (such as a working adult attempting to push higher tier content without the benefit of consistent group mates), it's usually a mess, which is why you get 40 bazillion threads hither and yon grumping about the pain in the rear that attempting to PF (or really PUG in any game) non trivial stuff so often is.

If this is true, then eventually, all that reasonably leaves most of us to do is roulettes, simple content like maps, hunts, and past xpac mount/glam farms, and ... yep, Second Life style social clubs - which in turn FFXIV does tend to unusually foster (the housing system here benefits heavily, as most other MMOs don't lend themselves nearly so well to customized meeting locations due to either not having enough housing customization, or it being too clunky to travel to a housing area as a group unless everyone is part of the same guild).

[Melorie]

I think it also is a major influence that the "venue RP" style is arguably about the only really enjoyable social option left for the working adult, particularly one of medium gameplay skill whose RL is not amenable to a static group.

That is true as well! The perhaps most social "interaction" I had with FFXIV during gameplay was while fishing and eureka (at it's peak), and even so, the style of the combat of the game doesn't always allow people to type and talk. The rest is mostly hello, gg, bye.
Then you get these venues where everyone gathers there and spam bnee knees but that doesn't actually create memories inside the game with other players, you know? I don't mean to say that FFXIV must have a old-style grind, but I remember many of the group-levelings/group-grinds I did in older MMOs and had fun exchanges there while also progressing towards something in the game. Even in game events like Guild Wars or LOTRO you actively do stuff and progress it and talk with other players in the process while FFXIV is just... do a quest. End of story.

Players also have to be quite creative in order to create their own events and are somewhat limited - little amount of mini-games in general. The IS is solo, Blue Mage Carnival is solo, you can't queue for PvP with a friend, so and so. I actually enjoyed the variant dungeons, even with all it's faults, because it gave me a much needed content for 4 players, given that getting 8 people to clear something is often a pain, but having a group of 4 friends is somewhat doable.

Anyway, you have a point. The way the "being social" is allowed in the game is quite limited too.

[Raven2014]

We live in a time where "influencer" is actually a legit "job", why would something like this even considered weird? Or among others:

- People commission art of their characters and post it on reddit.
- People try to squeeze every last bit of performance for cute little number on FFlog.

So the whole instagram mentality exist in many form rather than just modding. And it's not just MMO, it's the modern culture that promote this stuff hardcore. I got my Fire Emblem Engage last week, it's a tactical RPG franchise. Guess what it came with this time? A feature to create your own post card to share around! I looked at it and was like "eh?".

Also, people may play game to escape life, but also to fantasize about what they can't do in real life. It's why The Sims has been a successful and long running franchise.

[Vyrerus]

Honestly, the reason why FFXIV has such a heavy lean towards purely social content and interweaves so much with social media posting is because the majority of our playerbase are not gamers first and foremost.

They are writers, artists, photographers, creatives, and what have you. They aren't subscribed to XIV for its gameplay. They're subscribed to create social circles, share glams etc. There's a whole bevy of folks who want the gameplay dumbed down as much as possible, all combos consolidated into single buttons, and for Trusts to be available for all content.

Escapism for them is different than it is for others. They're not really into FFXIV because it's a fantasy world. For them it's just another place for them to get a muse from. Another place for them to find someone like minded who wants to talk about FFXIV and how it's just like their other favorite fiction, be that Buffy the Vampire Slayer, LoTR, or anything else.

Basically, some folks escape by slaying dragons. Others escape by drawing a still life of that dragon, and then showing it to all the people who know what that dragon is, and can comment on how accurate or cool their artistic interpretation of it is.

There's also the beauty angle of it. In FFXIV, even without mods, all of the player models have idealized body types. Some people want them to reflect the real world, while others take extreme comfort in the fact that everyone is presented as beautiful (less desirable face models not withstanding).

Anyway, it's only human nature to want to socialize with others like you. That's all it is, really. The game doesn't hard enforce you having to do battle content(or anything really) when you login, and so it attracts people who don't want that, or can handle doing the bare minimum to get access to what they want (glams, areas, vistas, venues etc).

[Vyrerus]

Fun fact, the guy who made HNM (rare spawn boss monsters) in XI such a pain to camp because he instaclaimed the mob with instavoke scripts and addons co-created Discord! Food for thought.

Man, every time I go to an FFXI heavy space, and remember just how many successful programmers/software guys used it as a playground to further their abilities/get better careers etc. all while being terrible people in game, I wretch a little.

There I was, being a morally upstanding dumb ass, when I could have been cheating the whole time, teaching myself stuff, and being at the top of the pecking order. Oof.

[Iscah]

Honestly, the reason why FFXIV has such a heavy lean towards purely social content and interweaves so much with social media posting is because the majority of our playerbase are not gamers first and foremost.

They are writers, artists, photographers, creatives, and what have you. They aren't subscribed to XIV for its gameplay. They're subscribed to create social circles, share glams etc. There's a whole bevy of folks who want the gameplay dumbed down as much as possible, all combos consolidated into single buttons, and for Trusts to be available for all content.

I am "a gamer" and I still think it's silly having each step of a combo on a separate button. No other game I've played has that, except maybe if the combo is all that you have, and even then it's probably because you're expected to use those buttons in varying order to perform different attacks.

Having three buttons purely so you have to hit 1-2-3 instead of 1-1-1? This game is the only one I can think of.

Also, people can be creative in FFXIV and still enjoy a challenge in the gameplay.

[Melorie]

SNIP

I feel like you've summarized it perfectly.

I am "a gamer" and I still think it's silly having each step of a combo on a separate button. No other game I've played has that, except maybe if the combo is all that you have, and even then it's probably because you're expected to use those buttons in varying order to perform different attacks.

Regardless of your personal experience, this is by far the MMO where I have meet the biggest amount of people that barely plays other games. Or other MMOS. It's actually a curious thing about it. And many of them don't really care about the gameplay aspect, at all. They sub because they have this social experience.

There are probably people that aren't like that, obviously, but that doesn't really exclude the point.

As for the combo, I don't see how pressing one button can be more fun than actually getting your dance of buttons right, but eh, it's taste.