The One Problem Every MMO Has Now

[@Jiraki_the_Wingless]

"You aren't finding friends in MMOs anymore. You're bringing friends to MMOs." Yeah, this feels about right. Well said!

[@akoyisangpinoy4705]

its sad.. because mmos should be designed to make new friends and be part of a community.. it doesnt serve their purpose imo

[@Fairin0Avatar]

i left everquest, everquest 2 because of the devs making my characters useless, i left wow because the community i loved helping became anoymous with everyones alts and cross server groups. whats the point of helping others and making friends if its pointlessly hard to contact someone. and everyone would rather sit in a LFG que. i left guildwars for hate of repeating the same things everyday. this quote resonates with me as well now that i reference it... as i recruit more people to the westmarch.

[@EQ_EnchantX]

Haha joke is on you, I don't have any friends to bring!....sigh....Yep...jokes on you........

[@EQ_EnchantX]

@@Kosty19 Team up with randos pfff, I am much too fosisticated for that.

[@akoyisangpinoy4705]

@@Kosty19 discord killed the social aspect of mmos. no wonder ppl dont talk to you in-game, they rather talk in discord smh

[@VideogamesPang]

MMOs back in the day were like going to school. You're not there specifically to make friends, but since you're constantly around people in the same situation as you, doing the same stuff together, you end up forming those connections naturally. MMOs now are like going to a convention. Sure you CAN make friends if you specifically seek that out, but mostly everyone is doing their own thing already with their own friends. You can maybe have some superficial interactions with them but generally they're not really looking to get to know other people there. If you want to make friends you kind of have to go out of your way to join or set up some kind of club. Maybe there's some groups you can join in the convention where you can make friends, but you have to make that decision for yourself, it doesn't just happen naturally. I don't think there is any way back to the old days, just like how you can't go back to school. The nature of online social interaction has changed. But who knows, maybe one day someone will figure it out and there will be a game like that again.

[@dupre7416]

excellent analogy

[@sichore]

Good analogy. But there is sort of a way back, I mean, you could play EQ. I played on the new TLP this year and it was the first time I made new friends online in many years... lol...

[@akoyisangpinoy4705]

it wont change sadly because most gamers prefer solo games... in the past it worked because solo games werent so prevalent...

[@b.o.4492]

Spot on

[@tatuira93]

Grim, but true. Still enjoying LOTRO, albeit mostly by myself.

[@falendria]

I feel the loneliness more keenly year by year. I find myself leaving and coming back to MMOs al the time. Firstly because i have no one to play with, so i leave, and then nostalgia of better days bring me back. I miss my older days in everquest, i had a great group of people that was always there for each other, not just for in game stuff but also supportive of irl things as well. It was like having a chosen family, and it was nice. But as it is, everyone drifts apart over time. Through the years I've come across people i came to call friends only to have them leave me or betray me in some way. As this has happened more and more over the years I've found i started to develop social anxiety online and irl. Maybe I'm just extremely unlucky, or something is wrong with me that i can't see I've told myself many times. Even writing this is hard because i don't know how or even if anyone will respond to it or sympathize because they do or have felt the same way. But playing online i feel so disconnected from people now, I've even thought of just stopping playing MMOs all together, but part of me still wants to have hope i can find a home again like i had in my EQ days. Will i ever find it? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, while MMOs are fun i know i really play them for the people not the game. With a good group of friends to have fun with you can play the jankiest trash game and still have fun.

[@gameburn178]

The trick, I think, is for all of us to appreciate the people we seem fated to meet and love. You sound like a good person, and any of us who have played mmorpgs would love to have heard from you in the kin group or in world chat. For me, personally, I feel liberated in today's mmorpgs: increasingly, you can choose to engage with people or play solo. Learn and appreciate the fact other players may have knowledge of the game and its history. But for me, this no longer includes grouping together to complete time-limited, reward rich, high difficulty tasks that take time to organize and foreknowledge to succeed at. Comparing clothing cosmetics, talking about the game... trading stuff... excellent. Playing together in a group to kill 4 bosses on route to purple yummy gear in a Raid: never again.

[@EQ_EnchantX]

Having a group of friends to play with back in the day is what made EQ as fun as it was. Grouping up with them and improving over time and trying out new challenges only to fail and than one day beat them for them great rewards was such a blast. The struggle back in the day to just survive in EQ really made you rely on people and friends.

[@MotoCoreSteve]

ffxiv online if u want social mmo. Had more online relationships in that game then any other.

[@Kosty19]

Thats why You need irl friends for irl stuff. MMO friends cannot replace that. But every MMO has a guild recruitment section where groups advertise for new members. Just join a few and check them out if You like one to be a member of.

[@Chris-wj6pn]

I identify profoundly with this comment of yours @falendria. :(

[@zombiejesus7445]

Also a huge part of being social in MMOs back in the day was to learn from others experiences... There wasn't 200 different guides on everything. There wasn't data-mining about the next patch that is coming out in 2months. There weren't people that made it their job to play PTRs to make videos about. The biggest part of being social was also learning. If I had a secret mount I found, and someone asked me where I got it, I could show them. Now they can just look it up on KZbin and find 10videos how to get it. MMOs have no secrets anymore Another example would be raiding, there were no boss guides, so you would have to join a guide to raid. That each raid team would have a different boss strategy from what they have tried and learned from.

[@Remianen]

I agreed with you until your last point. It's wrong. Flat out. If you think Fires of Heaven, Afterlife, Legacy of Steel, et al weren't sharing information (especially in beta), you're mistaken. Back in Velious (real Velious, not 'nostalgic' Velious), when my guild (behind the top guild on the server) were doing Kael named, we had guidance from the top guild (and Eternal Wrath on Ayonae Ro and Talisman on Tunare) on what we needed to have in order to stand a chance against the likes of Statue and especially Avatar of War (6+ clerics, at least three 10k+ WARRIOR tanks, etc). As a 8.3k warrior, I was gutted. Happened again in PoP with regard to the proper order for flagging and the minimum required specs for Rallos Zek the Warlord. It wasn't out in the open (like posted on Alla) but it still happened.

[@zombiejesus7445]

@@Remianen what time period are you talking about? That plays a big factor

[@poisonated7467]

@@Remianen His point still stands, gaining insight from the literal top guild/s is a WAY different experience than hundreds of youtube videos, streamers, and online guides. Heck, retail WoW gives you raiding guides IN-GAME, iirc.

[@Carriesue1982]

I’ve talked about this a few times with my friends. I started playing WoW late 2005, it was the first online game I’d ever played.. I could not wait to play every day. On my journey to level cap I met so many people! Had this fun adventure with 3 of us Druid’s stealthing through lower Blackrock spire to this specific boss because I wanted the mini pet he dropped. One of the druids we’d met during our group run, they just agreed to do it on a whim. So many years later it’s still something I think about on occasion, there were so many fun moments like that back then. I met so many people just organically playing the game. Now playing it’s mostly a ghost land and any people you do see ignore you. Even in groups, nobody talks anymore.. in fact, it’s considered weird to be friendly. I tried to come back for WoW classic and that’s when I realized the people have changed, even if there’s a lot of players online. I was in my 20’s when I started playing WoW, so it’s not rose tinted glasses for me as far as being a kid that some people have.. It’s that online culture has just shifted and won’t ever be the same. So depressing lol

[@CrzBonKerz21]

It has definitely changed. I’m playing classic SoD right now and everybody so focused on the meta, best in slot. And they want it now. The overall vibe has definitely changed.

[@AdowTatep]

Fuck

[@MotoCoreSteve]

PLay ffxiv then lol. Most social mmo. Personally im 33 and hate getting into discord with random ppl. Did it all of my 20s and it gets old.

[@MotoCoreSteve]

Yea feels like ffxiv of wow. kekw@@CrzBonKerz21

[@Jake-im2lv]

@@MotoCoreSteve I have to say FFXIV is the only MMO that gave me a taste of how I remember it feeling in my teens playing MMO's, big groups of people socialising in Limsa, I joined a group of people watching a band play that MIDI music and everyone /clapped at the end of each song, and then someone hosted trivia and I won a pretty good amount of gil I still rely on after resubbing after a year or two away. Definitely has some of the magic, unfortunately I am on the Materia datacenter and after resubbing it definitely seems a bit quieter than when I first subbed, even as healer queue times can start dragging a bit. The only problem is I don't want to create a new character after slogging through ARR and then I would have crap ping if I did switch to the US datacenter.

[@TookyG]

The short, short version of the MMORPGs problem is: Socialization is the biggest strength of MMORPGs and it's also their biggest weakness. Or put another way: The players will screw the game up more than the developers ever could.

[@KyrosQuickfist]

The primary turning point for gaming was the prevalence of social media in the 2011+ era. It changed how we socialize, it changed how we compete, its changed first impressions of games and it drastically affects the success and community building that makes so many games important also.

[@GenJuhru]

FB was that for me, the Game's FB page or fan/group page

[@ivanaguilarfuentes]

Gatekeeping, pay to win, lonely servers, but why do i always come back? Theres something i like to call the fridge effect. When you keep opening your fridge door hoping something will be there the next time you open it

[@cameronbrewer2437]

Nostalgia

[@themissingpeace7956]

The worst feeling I've had playing MMOs was feeling utterly alone as hundreds of people run past me. Could go on days before anyone would notice or say anything to me. Kinda reminds me of real life and its depressing AF.

[@Rikitangoable]

do you reach out to others?

[@danielp.2213]

Asheron's Call is a major exception to your argument, due to its vassal & patron system. High level players with more resources had a major incentive to interact with low level and newbie players, as they could be rewarded with a steady stream of passive XP and money by becoming their patron. Some of the best social moments in any MMO I played were when a friend and I would meet up with our patron, someone we met in game, who actively want to gear us up, give us advice, tell us where to go grind for XP and materials, then offer to help us craft awesome quest items when we were done. All the while, that player gained XP and money proportional to what we earned ourselves. Really started to lose me at, "Please don't call people, it's awful. Just text them." I grew up on MMO's too, but you can connect on a completely different level by hearing someone on a call and being heard. On top of that, half the video is about feeling lonely and lack of connection, then you are opposing a really basic method of stemming loneliness - talking to other human beings. If anything text exacerbates loneliness as it is cold and distant, is difficult to convey tone and sarcasm and emotion in text, and honestly shows a lack of effort to connect to someone. Showing that you are WILLING to give a phone call in itself conveys a sense of desire to connect which text doesn't.

[@foch3]

For real I hate this texting society.

[@phil_greybush]

I've seen other games try a mentoring system, but none have done it as well as AC.

[@poisonated7467]

Im curious how AC felt to play since I don't see much of a difference between looking up all the stuff your patron would tell you or the patron telling you themselves. Either way you didn't learn it yourself. I guess one way is more organic, but ideally you'd want to learn with someone, not be taught.

[@danielp.2213]

​@@poisonated7467 The initial era of MMO's like Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot and Everquest was before KZbin. Game wiki's were very limited and mostly covered basic gameplay, maps, descriptions and the like. Farming locations, drop rates, quest steps - these were often by word-of-mouth and couldn't be looked up independently. The game itself didn't have an internal quest system either - you literally had to read items, talk to NPC's and figure it out yourself. I had a notepad by my desk and a pen to write stuff down. This made your patron's knowledge very valuable and very impactful - to answer your "how AC felt to play" question, it made it feel like you were /actually on a quest/ and you were trailblazing a new path in the game. Often enough to WERE doing something no one had done before. When you follow an online guide or wiki or youtube series, this feeling is lost because you know that you're following in someone else's footsteps. You are confident that you'll succeed, and you know what to expect at each step. I'm not certain how you get around that in modern gaming - the world would have to be constantly changing. To that point though - AC was also changing /every month/. They had dedicated writers and devs working on monthly patches which changed spawn locations, added quest lines, dungeons, all kinds of stuff. They even had "GM Events" where devs would enter the world as powerful NPC's like Bael Zharon, a massive demon, who would show up in town and start killing everyone. It was thrilling!

[@danielp.2213]

Example I will /always/ remember: my best friend, who I had met in the game, met a higher level guy who became his patron. We met up with him at an Inn in this town called Arwic which was the Northernmost city in a wintry landscape. I swore fealty to him, and then he gave us both "Mattekar Hide Shirts" which was really good newbie armor. He then told us his favorite hunting spot which he called "Mount Golem", and provided us the coordinates. He said it was a really dangerous journey, to watch out for packs of Reedsharks, and that once we got to the mountain we would have to find a path up to the top. That's where the golem's spawned and they could be sniped from a cliffside perch. So we had our coordinates, new gear, great information from our Patron, and a completely organic quest given to us by another player. We looked out at the horizon, checked the map, and picked a direction and just started running out into the massive countryside with no idea what lay in store. It was my favorite moment in gaming by far. After 2 or 3 hours of journeying and a couple of deaths and recovering our gear, we got to the mountains. It then became a kind of platform game using our jump skills trying to find a way to the top. It took another hour or so, but eventually we made it up. Then we saw it - this pristine, untouched flat area on this mountain, no other players, and a perfect cliffside perch where the golems couldn't reach us. We made a bunch of bludgeoning arrows/bolts, and started sniping. They were usually really difficult monsters but the arrows our patron gave us made much shorter work of them. Then we were making great XP and gathering consistently good loot for our level. To make it even more awesome - I got a very rare drop called a Pyreal Mote which was a world quest item. Literally not even our patron understood what it was when we showed it to him. A week later we were involved in a big world questline and tons of people were trying to farm motes from golems. But they still didn't know about our awesome farming spot so we ended up with awesome Pyreal enchanted weapons used to defeat special world mobs called shadows. I could go on and on. Maybe gives you a sense of what it felt like compared to modern MMO's though!

[@EpicHeroSandwich]

Games like Rust and Lethal Company continuously remind you that proximity voice contributes to atmospheric immersion in games.

[@DarkAkuma]

Yea, MMOs have had elements of their social backbone replaced, and have toned down on the social aspects themselves. But a big part of the problem is the modern playerbase too. Modern gamers are more anti-social than ever. And games are designed to cater to that type of player now. When I talk to people about EQ, and they give the inevitable "that game is too hard" response, in say to losing exp when you die... I have to explain that its not at bad as it sounds. 99% of the time you can get a rez for 90-97% of your lost exp. You just have to get a cleric to help you. That. That right there is what baffles and annoys modern players. "What? I have t ask for help? F that!". They can't fathom the concept of relying on others like that. To them, losing 10% of your level of exp might as well be permanent exp loss. They think getting a res is an odd exception. Sure, when you are low level it is like that. But at a lower level you lose less exp, and make back exp faster. Anyway. These are people that are so anti-social that they do not even want the chance of having to rely on someone for non-endgame raiding/grouping. They are selfish. They don't want people asking them for anything, and don't want to ask others. They want to progress 100% on their own until they have no other option. Look at popular gaming genre. FPS's specifically. Back when MMOs were first starting out, the FPS genre was just one among many genres. Since then, (disgustingly) it has become the most popular to many default gaming genre. Even when you play on a team, you are out for yourself. You want to be mr big shot. Other people help is invisible to you having your dopamine hit from a moment in the sun. And its players from these type of games that make their way over to MMOs now, and demand to be catered to. To them, teams and friends only exist to flex in front of. They are not bonds to form and rely on.

[@geekmastermind]

It's everywhere. The Michaels near me went to all self-checkout, and especially during the Christmas season it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life.

[@andresponte1320]

This video is a social case study in itself. Well done.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Thank you so much for the kind words.

[@musicbro8225]

@@Redbeardflynn It's true, this is really quite insightful IMO, I like your style!

[@alainsauve5903]

@@Redbeardflynn Do you think if Discord integrated its service into a brand new MMO this problem of escaping the game's interface would be solved? What if the MMO had no native in game chat, and was replaced by Discord, essentially as if Discord created their own game and had all the functions in game. It would be a massive new revenue stream for Discord so I'm sure they'd be game. Something like Epic making money from Unreal Engine, MMO devs would need to use Discord's service to implement community features. Discord does it better than any game studio could. Why not get the best people working on such a core pitfall in the genre? Especially if the Discord app started showing you your character model, where you last logged off and such. Not the ability to move in game, but just show you who's around where you logged, and chat with them from there. Would probably incentivize people to log off in player housing more so others could always find you, and feel like you're there even though you're on your phone chatting and organizing.

[@Kintzugi]

I feel like people used to get excited when a random person in the game engaged with them. Now, not so much. Your point regarding everyone communicating outside of the game via discord could be it. I also think it's because the intrigue of meeting new people in an online game is no longer interesting because it's no longer new and exciting. Half the fun years ago was experiencing the ability to be connected to people around the world for the first time.

[@poisonated7467]

I think the pendulum is swinging back. Everyone is so anti-social or toxic that having a chat with a rando is exciting because it's so rare.

[@mire7203]

Nothing gets me quit guild faster than reading/hearing "Get on the guild discord." I want to play the game, when i have time, with those who are online. I don't want to hear from my guildies and their issues about real life when i'm not even playing.

[@gameburn178]

MMORPGs aren't built largely for solo players for nothing. Nor are the great MMOs of our time no longer MMORPGs. The truth is: the social aspect is a mixed blessing. Toxic players exist in every game, some games don't even attempt to get rid of this kind of behavior. It is this toxicity that is probably the primary cause of this change. "Are you even trying to heal the Tank?" "Your item lvl is just a touch too low, sorry... [booted.]", "Man, you suck as a tank... let's dump him." Grouping is tricky. Forced grouping such as you find in FF14 or in other games in order to get Raid gear is unsustainable. This is why it hasn't been sustained. I had some good paired runs with a few kin/guild members along the way, and these require careful analysis to replicate. And it can be done. But, "looking for group", forced grouping, dungeon runs... these have a high failure/frustration rate and people learn to do other things, including asking for an mmorpg that is solo friendly. World chat and trade chat still work and should be maintained, promoted and celebrated. But forget dungeon runs and forced grouping -- it can be available as an OPTION for guildies, but it shouldn't be available elsewhere, and shouldn't be necessary to complete games or get the best stuff. Games are about doing BETTER and risking LESS than in real life, because, well, it's a leisure activity, a game. Do I take a vacation to work more? do I go on vacation to meet toxic individuals? Ah... no? Gaming, today, can give you the best 2 hour vacation ever invented.

[@tense99]

I always thought the instance dungeons, fast leveling killed the mmo. I found friends and groups going into the dungeons where all the good xp and loot was. The whole rare spawning 'named mob' that always dropped 1 of 2 gear items. This lead to camping which was a huge plus encouraging people to group up and be social. After EQ those mechanics were dropped and new mmorgs actually bragged and used those missing elements as marketing devices; no more "camping' you do quests for your gear, no more corpse runs, you dont needs friends to rez you, every group gets its own instance dungeon so you dont have to share drops or xp. Im curious if reintroducing these mechanics that we both hated and loved would change things for the better, then again the say, "you can never go home"

[@poisonated7467]

Yes! Everyone forgets about camping!

[@Nightstalker314]

Mike Morhaime once talked about it in an interview shortly after leaving Blizzard: Once Social Media took off people were less "dependent" on MMO chats to get social interaction. And he probably knew this not just at the time of the interview but also 10 years before.

[@weissblitz100]

I think gaming culture has a lot to do with MMO's not being fun anymore as well. Back in the day, people were more open to figuring stuff out themselves and to just live in the world. Now, everyone is looking for add ons, or the newest "meta" - feeling the need to min-max and to obsess over what's OP. It really takes the fun out of the game. Removes any RP or story enjoyment that you can have along the way. Trying things, risking your character being gimped a little bit, but charming in a way. I miss the old days of that feeling of wonder, where people just wanted to log in and have a good time. People weren't so toxic and enjoyed helping each other. When it was Okay to be a noob, and you enjoyed the journey of reaching max level... Instead of the whole game being a race to get to max level, because there was an aura of the game not being enjoyable unless you had all the best gear, the best spec and were rolling around at max level.

[@Sinistral83]

Warhammer online return of reckoning largely solves this with their large scale war-bands and City sieges. Super easy to meet people and join a guild.

[@mukymuk3]

The social disfunction of mmo's is just a reflection of the social disfunction of modern "just text me" culture.

[@Tetsu9701]

This was enlightening & sad at the same time. I recently had those social feels around this time last year when the most recent classic FFXI server launched. Ultimately, I ended up joining a Discord group, or bubble. Same thing happened with WoW Classic's launch. It is, what it is I guess.

[@ShadowwingMD]

Well there are a lot of factors in this that need to be adressed I think. 1: First of all we already had players in Vanilla WoW that did bearly, if not at all, use the ingame chat after joining a guild and talking to everyone in TeamSpeak. Once they find a social gruop they are less likly to interact with strangers in an MMORPG. Something that I have observed many times. 2: Since a lot of us have friends from the old days we are often trying to play with them again. In many cases that is more convinient after all. I noticed many palayers I play with try to get a group together before they start playing an MMO and if that group falls apart they struggel, since they do not want to play with "randoms". That in turn has to do with the alreaady established comfort zone with the perexisting group, but also the mentalety that random groups have these days. 3: Of cause there are a lot more ways to get information about something within the game these days. So a lot of the time if someone asks something, they will simply get a guide oder a "Just google it!" as an answer. That of cause also limits the social interaction. After all the best way to get information back in the day was talking to other players ;) 4: Coming back to my second point and combining it with the third, is the way MMORPG's are played today. Many only care for the loot or other progress like achivements and they want to get it with as little effort as possible. So they exclude players that do not know the content already, they expect everyone to have addons to make the game easy mode, they expect everyone to play the best build possible with BIS gear, they want everyone to have better gear than themselfs so they get all the loot and they want to rush as farst as possible skipping everything you can skip within the dungeon or raid. And it is called playing the META. What they do not realise, is that this is taking out the fun for many others. And it leads to players not wanting to team up with "randoms", since that is the norm they are expecting. 5: Many MMORPG's do not reward social behavior or group play. For example in it's early days WoW did try to balance the progress everyone makes in a group by reducing the expirience point each member got for killing an enemy and making many quests impossible to do in a bigger group/raid. 6: Also the distrebution of loot has always been a problem in MMORPG's like WoW. It has always felt more devicive that only a few members of the raid get some loot. It is often sparking conflict within the group. Locking back to point 4, if you pass on an item for someone else, it can come back to haunt you later on, if that item does not drop again and you are missing an important BIS Item. Something I personally love about TESO is that everyone gets his or her reward for participating in a given raid! You normally get an Item from each raidboss, that is not yet in your collection. That way it is garanteed that bad luck will not hold you back forever. And if you get something that you already have or do not want/need, you can give it to another member of the group! That is far more social than anything loot regared I have ever seen in WoW and many other MMORPG's! It also serves as a catchup mecanic for someone new joining a raid! I LOVE that about TESO! 7: Professions are supposed to make the game a social expirience. Many MMORPG's limit the professions you can learn to force the playerbace into interacting with one another. However many MMO's do a poor job when it comes to this. The reason is that many professions are only needed for one time item crafting, like a smith or leatherworker for example. Other professions like alchemie on the other hand provide consumabels that are needed regularly/daily. Since one party can provide less than the other, MMO's that limit the professions one can learn, tend to be a onesided economy. That is no fun for the relyent party that can not provide as much as it is dependent. And the party that is providing might also not be willing to provide without limits if they get nothing in return. That ends up in one party is selling daily consumabels on the auction house while the other grinds there ass of to afford it. I saw many players quitting over the grind that is required to get prepared for raids. And if they simply fail to come prepaird for the raid, it again sparks conflict. In TESO this problem is solved by letting everyone do every profession. Everyone has the consumabels needed and everyone can share if someone falls short on any specific consume once in a while, without causing longterm onesided dependence. However that also makes the professions less of of a social interaction. Especially since TESO does not provide special craftebel stuff that requires rare recepies that provide a big benefit in regards to gear or otherwise. 8: Many MMORPG's have forced us into groups in order to play the game and make progress. They provided an enviroment that made the abuse of dependencys a Problem. They also made strict groups of X players mandatory. So instead of forming natural social groups that did fit good together, where also someone that was unable to attend to every raid is able to find a place, it made taking in members that did not nessecarily fit mandatory to do the content. That has in some cases destroyed entire guilds. If you kicked that problematic player without a replacement, well you cannot do the content. You want player X to join the raid? Well sorry if you are working shifts that do not allow for weekly attendence! Unless you have someone to fit exactly into that attendence gap. Otherwise it can spark conflict. In my oppinion there are a lot of things that a dev can do to prevent conflict and toxic behavior! For example not forcing group play but reward it whenever it naturally occures. Rewarding everyone particepating in group activetys equally. Making the game systems ajustebel to variing group sizes, so you are not depending a somepne that does not fit your group. If dependencys exist in the crafting systems make the equel! One sided (over) dependencys are toxic and no fun! And yes writing can take to long. Why not have a local voice chat for a local area like the tavern you are visiting, that is regulated by range. Why not offering everything the RP players need to do there thing? I personally do not rp but having those players around, totally enriches the world you are visiting. Well that is my cute little textwall on that topic^^ Thanks for reading ;) TLDR as I said: In my oppinion there are a lot of things that a dev can do to prevent conflict and toxic behavior! For example not forcing group play but reward it whenever it naturally occures.

[@JapaAppa]

I read it :)

[@ShadowwingMD]

@@JapaAppa Well sorry for all the typos and it seems I skiped some words in some sentences^^ But thanks for taking the time ;)

[@lastfirst5863]

Honestly not having that experience at all in RuneScape, but I can see how someone could have that experience. I chat a lot, and often I get no response, but I don’t let that get me down or stop doing it. I think part of the problem is people giving up trying to talk to someone after getting ignored a few times in a row. I believe if you persevere, you find the people who like to talk and meet others, and it’s worth it.

[@TheAdminJ]

I agree. Osrs, if i ever feel like that, i goto forestry 444, or any Gotr/tempoross/wintertodt world and get guaranteed chats.

[@jasonjitsu86]

I really feel like the reason the social aspect of mmos died is because of toxicity. Over the past two decades people have become so angry and toxic, with any slipup or mistake leading to being ejected from a group. I don't reach out to people in mmos because half the time they are assholes, and i don't need that in my life. Early classic wow, and now SOD has a much higher population of 'nice people' but there is still that reeking elitism and toxic mindset of optimization over all.

[@fireballannie]

So very many points you make hit the mark, not only about the truncated levelling that keeps us glued to Twitter and Reddit - but your take on the many different ways we connect and socialize outside of the in-Game chatroom (even though we are setting up content to do in-Game) was absolutely on point! Great summary on the How, the What and the Why of MMOs as well. (point of irony: this video was linked in my Discord!)

[@Icipher353]

I tried to go back to WoW at the start of Dragonflight, but without a guild and friends to play with, it was impossible to get into any endgame content and really do anything. I tried for a couple of weeks, but it became clear that it was not feasible to pug, and it was impossible to make new friends because everyone is in a clique already and they are just hanging out on guild discords.

[@reynaaiken4542]

One of the biggest things I find in my 20 plus years of mmo play that attributed to the antisocial feel in mmo games were the players themselve. That toxic mentality of telling players to get good or excluding people for some reason or another.

[@Nierez]

People be chasing the rewards now, instead of just fooling around for fun. Because leveling up took so long and was such a grind, you would socialize to try and take it easy.

[@Madkingstoe]

I also thought JSH's video review of Everquest was very poignant and impacted me greatly. At first it made me angry because I was defensive, but the more I thought about it the more I realized he was correct, not just about old MMORPG's but about everything I'm nostalgic about. For example, when he used Elvis as an example to point out how something can be great in its time when you're a part of the cultural moment, but if you weren't there you can appreciate something without feeling that magic. It made me realize how we deceive ourselves in order to protect the choices and investments we've made in our lives and why we can't ever truly recapture the feeling, even if we can recreate facsimiles of what we once loved. I hope the creators of MnM watch that video and take some of his points into consideration because I absolutely love the game they're working on but I would hate for it to fail due to making the same mistakes which are causing Everquest to slowly erode into obscurity. It also made me reflect on how lonely I am these days now that I no longer have friends I play MMORPG's with, and why that may be the reason none of the games stick with me in the same way as they used to.

[@JapaAppa]

fuck...

[@JapaAppa]

My problem is, none of my irl friends would ever consider joining me in an MMO. So what the heck do I do? I HAVE to find people IN GAME because THAT is where the people like me are. Other bubbles who have no one else to play with. So the question I am asking all of you is... How do we merge these bubbles together?

[@vivimymaster]

I feel this deeply but I will say I just started playing hardcore classic wow and found it different. Since you die and start over and people invite you for even basic content just to make sure everyone doesn't die. The early zones feel alive and social. I joined a guild and died at lvl 12 and they said "go start over and we'll see you soon." The chat was filled with RIP. I had some stranger make me a wand. I spent time fishing with random people talking about how important fishing actually is. It's the first time in years I feel like an important player in a group.

[@Modenut]

I'm one of those blithering idiots who love mmo's but remain unfailingly antisocial. I spent years and years playing EQ and I even started a guild (Alternate Reality) - but most of that time was spent solo or multi-boxing lol. I just love being by myself in a giant world, slowly chipping away at levels or AA's or tradeskills. It's so relaxing.

[@shell-djffchannel560]

This is the exact way i feel when playing some of my favorite MMOs of all time - Everquest 2, Age of Conan and LOTRO. I'm always happy to dive back in and gain a couple of levels and pour some hours in them, but they're always so much empty. And this is very, very sad, because to see them in their best moments i gotta find a time machine and return to 2000-2006. So damn sad.

[@ZTriggerGaming]

When MMO’s first blew up, they were the most convenient way to be part of an online community. With social media dominating every facet of our lives these days, the social element of MMOs has lost all novelty. PS2 was the best selling console of all time… because it was the most accessible DVD player on the market. Saying MMOs need to lean back into community is like saying the PS5 should sell more because it can play Netflix. No… there are easier ways to watch Netflix these days and there are easier ways to be part of an online community than playing an MMO. For most people these days, MMOs are appealing because they have a living world and ongoing content where your time investment doesn’t feel wasted. Those are the pillars to build upon if the genre is ever to return to the heights of its popularity. Games don’t exist in a bubble. As the world changes, so too do the standards by which we judge our entertainment. I like this video. I’ve been saying this stuff for a decade.

[@Helthurian]

Just because you're surrounded by people doesn't mean you can't feel alone. I don't have that issue a lot playing MMOs because I have a buddy who always goes on the journey with me. One of those bubbles. That said, playing WoW SOD recently has been a lot more lively. A lot of MMOs game design their way to a socially isolated community. There's little friction, no reason to communicate.

[@pedropierre9594]

Its because teamwork doesnt work anymore, everyone is accustomed to be the main character

[@gaiustacitus4242]

There was a time when the quests involved encounters with NPCs which were difficult enough to require groups of 2 to 5 players to complete. These days, any competent player can solo almost any content - and some classes actually can solo all but 10+ player raids.

[@shabbbsy]

So glad someone is finally talking about Josh's video. As sad as parts of that video were (I loved the video, don't get me wrong), it was the main reason I actually bit the bullet and decided to get into Everquest - weirdly enough. Also, I'll be honest, I think since sinking about 200 hours into Project 1999 (I tried retail EQ, didn't take to it), I can confirm that the experience has been ANYTHING BUT lonely. If anything, I feel more social and connected to others than I have in any other MMO before. The lack of a dungeon finder and any real help from the game really forces you to group and interact with other players. I'm not saying Josh's video was inaccurate - I'm not always in a group - but at least when it comes to Project 1999, I am completely inundated with people wanting to group up and chat.

[@alovingrobot406]

This comment makes me happy. 🤖

[@bouncingczechs]

I wish I had this experience, p99 had several issues for me, the social experience is one I can sort of attribute to my odd playtime. For me, it was Wayfarer's Haven where I met really nice people wanting to chat and get into things. Plus, it's 3box friendly, which helps someone like me who can only play late at night. I found myself often just soloing as a monk in p99 and decided to find a box server because if I'm going to solo 90% of the time, at least let me be able to do something meaningful solo with boxed characters. Found some nice people on blue, hated green, the GM's and people there weren't very pleasant from my experience. Blue was cool, but it's hard to get back into that era of EQ (although it's by far my favorite, raiding NToV is the best gaming experience of my life) it's hard to stomach reaching 60 and then not having aa's, and content only up to Velious, I wish there was a server that was vanilla EQ through Luclin or maybe PoP, i'd like to at least be able to farm aa's! That being said, playing on emulated servers has generally been a more social experience for me compared to live games, I'd assume it has to do with server population, and every player is somewhat invested in that server, so it feels more personal/welcoming than playing a game on a live server. Just my observation though, I may be dead wrong or have very unfortunate playtimes, haha.

[@Faith_Risen]

I don't think this is just MMO's, I think this is life in general unfortunately.

[@ginacirelli1581]

I've been playing MMOs since 1995 with the first iteration of The Realm. I never played EQ, but I did play EQ2, and all the other major ones of the time period. I played WoW from beta and then quit after Wrath to sample all the other new MMOs coming out. Went back to WoW with Legion, got tired of the crap, then left again. Last year I finally got over my cat girl revulsion and tried FFXIV. And that's where I'll stay. I've had very bad experiences with other people in MMOs, and so I play them as single player games. For me, it's not about competition, it's about a never ending story. And when I say "bad experiences", I mean that I once had to contact the police because I was being stalked by a dev of one of these games. But I will say that folks in FFXIV are great, and I love that the game makes it very easy to team up with others when you absolutely have to.

[@darkwing7780]

I stopped playing EQ2 because I couldn't solo mobs past ~20ish and couldn't find groups to grind XP with. That was basically the only reason I switched to wow a few months after EQ2 came out - I wanted to be able to level. Game developers were somewhat forced to make games work better for a solo player...

[@belstar1128]

yea i think classic wow was great because you could reach max level alone. but if you did it in a group it would be faster and you got to do some unique content .in modern wow and other mmos you wont get any reward or its even slower than going solo

[@trevor.mccauley]

I've been playing the FFXI private server HorizonXI. It has been a lot fun! I think largely because it's starting from the original expansion much like a TLP on Everquest. So the starting zones are full of players and in that game you have to group up to get anywhere. New MMORPGs are great but you basically solo until end game. It's very depressing 😅

[@sola4393]

I too have to say FFXI was design with social community in mind, before level50 is the best. This game will make loners quit eventually or ending up making friends to continue their journey. Is a make or break. I do say I had a good time and few terrible time wasting moments. Was hoping FFXIV will carry on it's torch but it turns out to be a solo game within an mmo environment. 😂 I shouldn't complain though since I could enjoy the game without too much hinder from the human element but the game's social aspect had lost it's essence compare to it's previous title.

[@cybulasoup2637]

I do absolutely agree. I am bad at socializing. I am lately in the most terrible place I've ever been and I've gone to wow to find some soothing. It helped, because I joined on a huge server boom (playing private servers cuz Im broke) and the social aspect was there in the beginning, a lot of people just joined and didn't have their groups yet. As I leveled further and further, and people were going away slowly, and all those who stayed already found their groups with which they have great planning and communication on other platforms, and I am left to feeling alone mostly. You can start an alt an hope to find some of the people without a group, I found few people that way, but most of the people you add on lower levels stop playing because they have no reason to and the others find their group and have fun with them and some loner they met on level 15 in barrens just isn't who they wanna play with. MMOs were destroyed by the evolution of the online world. The discovery disappeared because now everything has guides online, you dont have to fuck around and find out or ask someone in guild or world chat. The socialization disappeared because it's easier to talk in a discord server or something similar. The downfall of MMOs is real and it's not only developers' fault. RTS games were replaced by simpler games because they are too hard and the people playing them now are only those who already know it. MMOs are the same, but they can make more money so there are new ones coming out all the time. And they're also more addictive so that is also a factor. (I am currently sick and my brain is half working so please excuse any mistakes)

[@thesongofstars]

Well, I think there is a huge difference between making friends and being social, and for me personally (and I think most people), making a friend is nice and all, but not necessarily a goal. I just like interacting with people in friendly, cooperative ways. Modern MMOs have gutted this from their core design, and they are very lonely as a result. But when I played p99, I wasn't lonely. I had moments of being alone, but then I had moments of being with people - talking, grouping, and having a great time. There's no such thing as never being lonely, in a game or in real life. Sometimes we just have to be by ourselves. The problem with modern MMOs is that we're always by ourselves, even in a crowded room. Even with "friends" who join the adventure. ESO, LOTRO, New World, etc - I played all of those games and I brought my friends with me too, and it was no more interesting with them along for the ride than without. Primarily because playing solo and with a group always feels the same in modern MMOs, but it was not at all the same in EQ. So, I don't think Discord is the reason MMOs don't feel like social places anymore. I think the problem is how we are engaging with one another in the game, AKA the game design itself. It always comes back to game design. Always. Which is why I do think developers are to blame in this situation. They are releasing the same game design over and over and over again, so there's been no change and everyone is feeling tired and lonely, claiming the genre is dead, and panicking when they go back to a game that's over 20 years old and find it's no longer the game they remember... But try to keep in mind, that's all that's happening here. If someone made a game like EQ today, I believe it would do well - and don't give me Embers Adrift, that game has missed the point in every conceivable way. And I think Josh missed the point too, because instead of contributing to the dialogue in a positive way, he took an hour to make an obvious point about a problem of the genre as a whole. I think the question we should maybe be asking going forward is, what are players' expectations when it comes to being social and making friends?

[@Seanidor]

Interacting with a player in Everquest, back in 1999, was almost always a positive thing. It's still about the same in P1999 as well. Interactions in newer mmo's usually tend to be negative in some way, to the point that you actually want to avoid players or just dread having to deal with them. The game mechanics are so drastically different. I thought it was pretty interesting how Josh Strife Hayes played the current Everquest but still ended up making a friend in that barren newbie area.

[@thesongofstars]

I've had the same experience in terms of positive interactions in old school EQ and p99, and typically negative ones in modern games. I truly think it all comes down to game design, and how players interact with the game informs how they interact with one another.

[@poisonated7467]

This. It always comes back to design. However, people will pay for the copy-pasted design and shiny new graphics. So, it's also the consumer's fault to some degree, but what would the average consumer know since they've only ever played WoW copy-pasted design.

[@sygmarvexarion7891]

It's because WoW has become a super mega casual game for busy dads who have like 2 hours to play per week. So of course it will feel very lonely for someone who is playing the game for more than those aforementioned 2 hours per week, because the dads are too buys to play WoW with them. WoW is just pandering to the mega casuals. Hence all the time gated content and very low amount of content. Someone who isn't a mega casual dad won't find WoW to be very fulfilling with their time, as they will cap pretty much everything available for the week in about 2 days max, and then have nothing to do for the rest of the week. People in guilds just come online during raid times, do the raid in about 3 hours, and then immediately vanish until next raid time. You can join a guild with 15 people online one day, and then realize it's just you and maybe someone else who is online for most of the time in the guild. Of course you can't find social interactions in a game where no one has the time to socialize because they can only play for a couple of hours before going back to their 3 jobs, 4 wives and 20 kids, all demanding their attention. Meanwhile you're probably 16-25 years old, or simply don't have much going on in your life, and are very much interested in friends online, and you can't find any because dads represent the majority of the players and they don't have time for you nor are interested in socializing with you, and no new players are actually coming in because they all play Fornite or something. WoW is dying. I have played enough MMOs to notice the signs of a dying MMO. This is one of them. A lot of people are only playing it right now because the competition is even worse for other reasons. WoW is still moving because of inertia and because there is no decent truly MMO threatening it right now.

[@dmacarthur5356]

This video definitely hits home. I have 3k hours in New World and finally called it quits because yeah, I was lonely. I had 3 separate times that I had a tight knit group of friends that we did everything together. Time after time they would all quit the game. Back to sad solo play. Make new good friends, they quit, back to sad solo. Just got tired of putting the effort into making new friends only to have them quit and bring lonely again.

[@bookmagic9641]

Eh, I chose to play ESO specifically due to its solo player ease while having all the things of all the other MMOs. Not everyone who wants to play an mmo is doing so to socialize, I wasnt, but I will chat at times...so many who claim they want to socialize never type anything in any chats...not even in their own guild chats, they then complain no one is typing/talking....its a 2 way street, other people in mmos arent in the game to entertain you with their dazzling conversation skills to the air, so many wanna read others convos but they never start one or add to one....they are playing a game that is super grindy, logging in and out of 10 toons to get some dailies done quick as possible in the hopes they get 30 min to have fun actually questing up a new toon or playing some fun pvp, etc. Most who played back at launch were used to being on the internet with chatrooms, and so were not shy about typing in the chat boxes....these days its like pulling teeth to get people to even type 1-2 sentences even about something they are excited about. ESO is a 9 year old game at this time, the majority of the player base has chatted for the last 9 years, they tired of typing at this point...or said everything they thought was interesting already...lol. So yeah you wont see the zone chats flying 90 miles a minute with players asking how to do stuff or where to go for this or that, there are websites with that info, there are hundreds of youtubes showing you that info....at the 9 year mark you can google anything you wanna know on it if you dont already know. And all the mmos you mentioned are all old mmos, ones around for over 5 years. Everything in them probably can be googled too. Only 2 reasons left to chat it up in the game at this point: 1. to do things you gotta have others to do, and 2. to waste time while waiting to do something (and few have this time with all the things the game now has in them to occupy your time, so many choices and so much old content left to do that players dont have the extra down time in the game to decide to finally chat while they wait like they did at launch without all the updates/patches/extra stuff they have added since launch). Lastly I would love to point out so many who "claim" they "want to socialize" don't even look for the "social" listed guilds in the game to join. In ESO there are Social guilds, Roleplaying guilds, and every specific play guild category to look for your niche topic (questing/pvp/trials/dungeons/crafting/fishing/card game/trading). So many will join trading guilds and try to ask how to play the game, traders can better inform you how to make gold than how to finish a trial or guess at what part of the game they even mean. So many don't even know to search for the social focused guilds if they are looking to socialize more than actually play the game.

[@zacsch5364]

the more we spend together the lonelier the days they are away get.

[@packatk7431]

I would suggest there is a caveat to what you're saying, and it's something I never considered till the Quarm server launched. If there are GM ran events in game you can pull the population of a server to a location and you will get social interaction. The mere suggestion of a GM ran event in a zone will gather flocks of players. Honestly think that's how you force people to interact. Drop a GM controlled dragon in East Commons and see what happens...

[@mgaming7]

MMOs are lonely. Back in the day ALL my friends played EQ. We played together and separately but we all talked about the game the next day via calls, or in person or at work etc. now, no one plays so even if you get the best in slot item, and you tell your friends, they don't care. they don't play anymore. so MMOs are now a single player online RPG. lonely

[@joshua-we9xr]

Yeah ... 😢 I knew something had changed in the MMORPG genre when Asherons Call got pulled offline. I started playing AC when I was 16, back in 1998/1999. Played it for close to a decade. I went through a really terrible breakup and found some semblance of peace in the world of Dereth. Made friends, made enemies, lived a whole other life online ... Then IRL caught up and I moved on. Like 10 years later, I heard they were dropping service to the game. It made me feel like someone I knew had died. Or my favorite childhood playground was now just a Starbucks. It... Hurt. But it showed me, and many other GenX, Boomer, and Millennial gamers who were involved in all the early MMO days that things could end. That those worlds would someday no longer be available. I think once this happens to WoW a bit more of the population will understand, but I don't wish the feeling upon them. Great video man! Earned a sub ❤

[@Sondi]

Spoken true facts! Thats why I've taken a hiatus from the genre unless I play with friends. Discord took away that magic of walking past someone and just typing hey. Text chat is dead. I think because everyone has social media, discord, phones, etc. that once you get on an MMO you kinda want to be anti-social because there's so much socialization at all times. Back then MMOs were the social medias for us. My best moments in MMOs were the games were I didn't even get halfway to cap.

[@trapsaltnburn]

So, my relationship to MMOs is decidedly different than most. I never played WoW (got stood up for a date because of a guild raid, kinda put me off the whole thing), so I never touched anything even resembling an MMO until ESO. I bounced off that one, too. The world was beautiful and the campaign was interesting, but some of the MMOish things kinda put me off (I'm a digital hoarder in Elder Scrolls games, and the inventory thing put me off in a big way), like the voice chat I had to turn off every screen (I don't know if it was a setting I screwed up, or if it was a bug at the time I played), unless I wanted to hear someone's child screaming in the background, or some poor person having a coughing fit in my ear. Then the roomie got me to play Fallout 76 with him. This was after they'd done a big overhaul and added in NPCs and such. We had fun, and I've played it a little bit on my own, but I can't say I find myself drawn to pop on solo very often. And neither he nor I have had a chance to play together in probably a year, due to our work schedules. So I'm not sure I'm qualified to speak on the overall state of MMOs, but I thought tossing my experience out as a data point couldn't hurt!

[@Vandakai]

This is an issue you are correct. That is why when I recruit newbs for my guild on WoW, I keep people talking and it rubs off on people and they start getting friendly and then everyone starts to bond. That being said I am 40 and have been in charge of guilds my whole life and had some fail and a lot of work just the same. But the one thing I found out that makes a guild successful is chatting and shooting the sh1t with everyone and joking around and being goofy. I will even drop by and tank w/e anyone needs cause, I love doing it. The thing is this... If you find yourself lonely and do not at least try to find a way around that then it does come back to you. The issue to me is more along the lines of even though people find themselves lonely doing w/e content they are doing if there is no fear of the world then what is the reason to join a guild in the first place if you have no real need to outside of chatting or making friends. This is the downside of FFXIV and WoW... Both games while in the leveling stage add no fear to a player to really even care about joining a guild yet whereas WoW classic and EQ def add that fear to the player to join others so they do not die all the time which forced people to chat and that would lead to friendships. That being said though I have found that getting new players in WoW to join my guild and having talks and just shooting the sh1t with them and the fun they have in the guild and the friends they make are what make people want to play more than the game itself. So as a WoW guild leader of many, many years I do think good guilds can lead to a fix for this issue of loneliness inside these massive game worlds. It just comes down to players looking for that kind of guild instead of a hardcore raid guild or a hardcore pvp guild or w/e.

[@huguesjosserand]

You're right on the money with this. Mmos have become antisocial, and most of it is down to a shifting social culture. The rest of it is shitty engagement metrics and monetisation practises. I learned how to be social on wow. I was. Finally able to meet people who would not judge me for my adhd before getting to know me, I was able to learn to take a step back and not feel like I had to always be in the centre of everything to feel like I matter or exist. I learned how not to be selfish, how to work for group goals, how politics happen in any size groups and how drama always seems to find communities. These lessons stuck with me, helped me make irl friends and build decades long online friendships. But all I feel when I log on now is like that awkward kid. Because no one wants to be social, worse, they judge you as a weirdo for wanting to make that connection.

[@Smullik]

As time goes on these older MMOs are going to become more and more like virtual museums that you can try to explore as best you can before the limitations of being solo prevent you going further A little off topic, but I would be interested to hear your opinion about Darkpaw's reaction (or lack thereof) over the most recent plat dupe that has hit basically every live EQ server and has decimated the gamewide economy.

[@b.o.4492]

I miss Fippy. Hate that new intro quest you have to do. Hate the expanded Freeport. Miss the old days.

[@wascha]

I am mostly a solo player in MMOs like New World and even in Fractured Online. Then I started playing Embers Adrift and I keep grouping with random people and even joined a guild after 2 days. Everyone is chatting and friendly. Haven’t experienced this since years and I highly recommend checking it out if you are looking for a socializing MMO experience.

[@MsBellaGames]

Okay, I'm usually not this bad with words but right now I'm having trouble finding them. Let me try this though. I love playing MMOs because there are people in the world. I've played LOTRO for 14 years because I love the world and I love seeing people running around doing their thing while I play. When I started playing it, I had a lot more time to invest in the game. As a result, playing with groups was easier and I found myself playing with others often. The older I've gotten, the less time I have to dedicate to any single game. Knowing that most kinships, guilds, whatever usually want someone that will be around more than that, I just ... well, I avoid grouping. I guess I feel it's only fair that the limited group spots go to people that have more time? Also, most kinships require discord now and I rarely ever use it. I actually went from being sad having to solo gameplay to enjoying the challenge of it, wherever I could find challenge. Because I've noticed over the years that a lot of the older games are being redesigned with solo players in mind. There are things in LOTRO that we could have never done solo, things that I can easily do on my own now. I even wrote a blog post on MMOs and being a solo player. I just feel like MMOs have been going in this direction for a while now. I don't know. I think if I were to find the right group that were fine with my limited play time, then I would join them. But I accept that that group may not exist and enjoy the journey for what it is. And as a final note, I'm finding survival games are starting to fill in that space that MMOs used to fill. Okay I'm going to stop rambling now. Great video! I may just have to write a follow-up on my MMO post, keeping this in mind.

[@00Recoil]

I'd love to read your blog post. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[@davosaurus]

My wife and I played Everquest together and met and made lifelong friends of another couple we played with. We have two other friends who met on Everquest and were married in real life and now have two kids together. It's a microcosm of real life and there's a lesson to be learned. If you're so fucused on your accomplishments that you don't bother to build relationships, you won't have what's truly important in the end. When I try playing with my sons who are in their 20's, they're so concerned with crushing content and getting their BIS items that they're no fun to play with. They compete with their friends to get to the end content first then have to join pugs when they get there. Once they have everything they grow bored and move on. If youre playing an mmo like a locust chews through farmland, youre doing it wrong. DAD OUT.

[@ChrisWhiton]

I grew up on Everquest. I even give it credit for teaching me to type, and type fast! When you are in danger and need to call for help, you learn to be quick - haha.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Same! It helped me learn how to type and expanded my vocabulary...I mean a fear spell named trepidation? Had to expand it!

[@goenmo]

This is a symptom of modern life in general. We all live in bubbles, rarely interacting with the people we share space with. I work with dozens of people, who I never interact with outside of work. MMOs used to be places for nerdy teenagers, with limited social skills, to meet like-minded people, try to make friends, and share game knowledge. Now we have Reddits, Discord servers, Twitch streams, and community pages, to answer all our questions, and make us feel like we belong. I don’t actually have to talk to anyone in game anymore. Added to this, many gamers are now adults with families, and other priorities. The gamer demographic has radically changed in recent years. I make friends, and sometimes game with them. I have a wife and kids. I don’t game to make friends. I game to decompress after work and take out my aggression on a virtual foe. I go play Dungeons and Dragons with my real friends on Sunday. I chat with my real friends in Discord, while I am questing in Azeroth, and they are playing Call of Duty. I have no need to be social in game.

[@RyochanHibuko]

I think reality is lonely, and new things momentarily break that rather hard rule of life. People use to gather around to tell stories for entertainment then we got the written word, people use to gather for musical events then we got downloads, people use to watch TVs all at the same time then we got streaming and yes people use to have to find connections solely in game then came forums and icq and aim and vent and now discord. Every advancement pushes to being able to do it in your own time and pace, and a byproduct of that is loneliness. ALL THAT BEING SAID we still have story hour at the library, we have huge musical events full of fans, we have people gathering for the big game or the new episode of some mad man in a box, and so on and so on. I'm a VERY antisocial person by and large, and dont see another person besides family for several days many times, but i have folks that do chat with me on discord or other methods most days. Sometimes its too much sometimes its not enough, we are all alone, lonely, and connected all at the same time and in some ways always have been; we just might be more acutely aware of it now.

[@s.scottstaten1852]

I've got to argue against eh "don't call, just text" comment. I may be old to say this, but texting feels colder and more impersonal. A Phone call or something with vocal communication is preferable for me.

[@Ohollow13]

The deep thinking is inspiring, love it! Maybe a lot of people don’t care enough to make the games social or not lonely. Maybe a lot also are somewhat like you claim you used to be, awkward and don’t know how to social necessarily and it’s definitely easier to avoid dealing with that. I personally miss how it used to be, not being the most social person myself.

[@BBQKana]

When WoW Classic was released I realised that we can no longer have what we had before. We just have access to too many guides. Sure, progression is fun for many people, but it's sad that things like blind runs are frowned upon because people want the optimal value out of their time. I'd rather jump in and try things out instead of reading a guide to win on the first try.

[@finfan83]

Yes, it's true story. I experienced it in New World. On top of the initial launch problems, queques to log into servers, running everywhere on foot cause the payment for teleports was too expensive - you were left alone with your problems once it came to the location that was too hard for you or had a boss, or was a dungeon where you had to have a group. I never had any friends playing this, so I was left with meeting someone online and hoping they won't stop playing a week after I meet them. Then you're stuck in a loop - you can't progress past what you get in the missions, cause next good gear is from dungeons, where nobody takes you, cause you're too weak and don't know the routes and behaviors to cross it the most optimal way. So you spend time gathering materials and trying to sell them in hope to earn money to buy gear. If you persist and don't quit, maybe you will finally earn it in the end. Meanwhile you're the same "forever alone" online as you ever were in real world. (Then there's an update and your new shiny gear is trash.)

[@mateowannacomedyremasterz6605]

Redbeard for President of MMOS!

[@Tenpaths]

My crew may be outliers; We’ve stuck together through multiple universes after EQ. I haven’t been lonely in decades, which is pretty freakin’ sweet as a reclusive extrovert 😎

[@chrismacqueen4891]

Games these days are lonely. They get lonely being too complex. too directional, too fast paced, and tons of other excuses. In EQ levels were very slow and due to recovery time for mana and such back then you had downtime and could only move so fast. This got people to chat and make friends and connections. You did message ingame and we weren't so tied down by all this side stuff ingame and outside of game. We read a quick tutorial on thotbot maybe but we didn't watch 6 hours of video's so we knew what to do on every boss. Back in EQ1 good players when logged in where often messaged up for groups by past friends they made. When I was on my enchanter soon as I logged in I'd have messages coming in for groups because I was established on my server as one of the better enchanters. When I was on my necro I got messages often because I was known in the server as one of the two group friendly necro's who were actually good at support back then. To fix things we basically need to undo much of the crap we have in mmorpg's these days. No dungeon finders, soloing being near impossible for most unless you want to grind a low green mob that barely gives you any exp yet may take 5 minutes per kill and recovery. Cut back the pace of gameplay instituting a recovery time method again. EQ1 is still the perfect model and I solidly believe if they relaunched EQ1 as it originally was without all the addons and extra crap but redid the graphics 100% to be modern it would be a hit.

[@musicbro8225]

I played a Troll shaman on live EQ and more recently project1999. Apart from the incessant buffing I just loved my class and characters, so on p1999 I was happy just to grind it out, reveling in the nostalgia, so I met people who helped me and it was so nice; it's felt like the old experience. For me it makes a huge difference to play with people who take pride in their class and character, but also it makes a bigger difference if they can be calm when mistakes are made so long as you can see that an effort is being made to play well. It is very telling when a corpse run is required, who put's in the effort especially when they don't have a corpse to retrieve and who just wanders off saying basically 'good luck with that'... On live I played on PVP servers with friends in rl and we would play for literally days and nights non stop as many did back in the day. There was a real sense of having each others back's that made the socializing next level with long standing feuds and long memories of injustices needed being put right; it was intense, but so was the socializing. In game marriages was even a thing heh. On P99 it was different but I have fond memories of a few players and times we had. I remember one time in chardok, we were in pretty deep and were pretty much just keeping it held down but struggling and for some reason I decided to get my pet doggy out (ARGH!!!), it fell through the wall and we had about a minute to discuss the disappearance until a literal army of various sarnaks came storming into the room lol (I can lol about it now). After the deserved swearing and exasperation we got down to the cr; I don't recall the details but I just remember feeling so glad about those players and full of admiration for them. Another Proud memory was when my guild killed Vulak Aerr! We had 70'ish people and needed only one tank for the whole fight (kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5erg36hlsSmpac&pp=ygUKdnVsYWsgYWVycg%3D%3D). I never raided much so this was a big deal for me and it was for the quild also. I'm not sure that pride and patience has any space to exist these days TBH.

[@ez6791]

Great video, got this recommended to me. Time to summon asmongold *begins chanting*

[@Redbeardflynn]

Glad you liked it! Thank you so much!

[@Tygaera]

I've been solo for 5 years because most if not all of my social interactions have sucked and have in one way or another hindered me rather than bolster me. It would always be me having to engage them. There would be people who were selfish and never help me after I helped them. I have yet to find a single worthwhile person that isn't in it for themselves.

[@Lordbobomb]

I feel ya, most of my social interactions have been extremely one sided for over a decade now with me putting in way more effort than i ever get back and it's beyond tiring. At some point it just does not become worth it to even try. I still keep my eyes open just in case i strike gold again but it's a very barebones and passive effort. (If you can even call it effort at all).

[@zoyita04]

Im always lonely on mmorpg, I play mmos since 2006. To me what kills my social experience is the chat. I like chat bubbles on the game and a easy chat interface. On New World I hate the chat. On New World Im a healer and sometimes i see people around questing and having a hard time I go close and heal them and help them kill their monster or boss, they dont say ty, they dont want to be my friend they are not grateful. On old mmos a person you help, a person that want to be your friend. I have even gave gold on New World to a random new player and nothing, nothing back no social interaction at all. Also on New World Im a healer and they made healers nerfed, they hate healers they say we are OP and too strong, but im always dying on OPR (PvP) and Im wearing heavy armor and a lor of resistances.

[@starblaze27]

I have slowly seen the MMOs get more and more lonely every year, though around the COVID incident and also during the "WoW exodus" to FF14 there was, for at least a year or two, a moment to where it did not feel as lonely and you could find people to talk with, play with, or RP with (if you are into that). Around the time of Dragonflight though it started going back to being lonely again. People who have had their circles went back to being only in them. A lot became less welcoming and friendly to people and it started to be lonely again, only that this time when it happened it happened very fast and was worse than before. I would say the last 6 or so months for me have been the worse I have ever had since I started a MMO 20+ years ago with a couple of friends and I do agree. It isn't playing a MMO and finding people to play with or socialize with anymore, but more like you find people and socialize with them and have them go play a MMO with you.

[@Otherwise_1]

true, I have a feeling that all games are now being created so that you can play the game with only a group of your friends while communicating on discord, and it's actually too strange

[@VikikTheGreat]

I tried to talk in mmorpgs but it don't always work then anxiety kicks in 😢 so I gave up I miss when it was basically required to communicate with people in game to do things 😂 helped me break my social anxiety barrier

[@ahabwolf7580]

Great topic! I think it is kind of what you are willing to make of it, when it comes to socializing in mmo's. Not every social interaction needs to result in a new best friend, and I think maybe that's kind of where some of us old timer's miss the plot. I can remember the days of Shadowbane where you made friends with the first person who didn't try to kill you instantly lol. Fast forward to WoW or EQ2 and the social interactions became much more fleeting (I need a temporary buddy to help me through this quest). Guilds... kind of hit or miss. They usually just end up being a room full of strangers who agree to play the game together for mutual benefit. But those interactions are still social, and I think they are worth having. Not sure I fully agree with the competition angle. That sounds a bit more like elitism on one end and fomo anxiety on the other. Competition in an mmo to me would be more like, "we were the first guild to beat this raid" etc. Bottom line, don't go into an mmo expecting it to replace your normal day to day social interactions with a close group of friends. If you want that, take your friends with you and play the game together.

[@Manc268]

No offense anyone but people have changed.. even more so in the past 5 yrs due to a crazy world but but in general they are not as patient as they were, with some very much critical, cynical or derogatory. Instead of 1 sentence info to help its a paragraph of abuse when players ask questions.. or at the very least its a simple 'just google it'. Thats a CBA attitude.. is that a games problem? im not sure but it doesnt work well in most online games. i didnt see much of that when i 1st played mmo's but see it most days now. Some loot systems dont help i know, but i just see too much of a rush for things, not many players seem to just enjoy a game anymore. Its all about how youtube tells them to play.

[@MilkshakeSkunkette]

honestly, you hit the nail on the head! i iremember being SO nostalgic for WOW, but going back to it - it felt so lonely ._. the onyl time i actuallyhad a good time ironically, wasjumping on an RP classic server, and people ACTUALLY interacted with one another! it was the most fun id had in wow since... like wow actually released

[@DanielMatulich]

This is why people should embrace RP stuff. In UO Outlands I became a part of a community of ~100 or 200 people because they're focused on RPing various things in the game (Brigands / Knights / Undead / Vampires) and we work together to create our own interesting stuff. You hop on to see what people are up to. Who's having interesting encounters. Who's creating some chaos. Who's developing a story. Stuff like that is interesting. We've already played all these games. The games are just the platforms. Now ***YOU*** need to be interesting, or find interesting people and play along. That's the hard part. That's why these games are suffering. It's a lot harder to be an interesting person as a boring developed adult than it was as a naive and inexperienced kid.

[@sveintheberserk]

I solo WoW only lol. Hardcore has validated my lone wanderings.

[@David13ushey]

I think one of the key aspects to socializing in MMO's is the often dropped other half: RPG. Roleplay. I've made real life friends on MMORPGs by meeting them IC in the game and we do stupid stuff like talk about our characters. We make relationships. And yeah, we raid occasionally. Any yeah, we solo a lot when the other person's not on, but when the other person is on we keenly want to do something with them IC. And MMO's discourage RP. Actively. The furthest you'll ever get is occasionally a server is labelled RP. They often don't want RP in their public rooms because it clutters up channels. they don't want to add an RP tab. They don't want to give room for a character bios. A lot of RP players have to link to f-list to have some detail to their game. And yes, there is the everpresent erotic RP. Moonguard Goldshire, anyone? And yet, utterly cringe as it may be, that is a lot of social interaction going on. But I know a LOT of devs don't want their expensive MMO associated with that. Games that encourage RP, like City of Heroes, encourage interaction. Because once you have your character, you want to show them off. And yeah, not all of them are original. A lot are cringe. But you cringe together. CoH made RP lounges were players could just come and hang out and RP. And yes, there was ERP happing, but so what? People were enjoying the game. When players are encouraged to BE their character... when character is made to matter... that's when you lose a lot of that loneliness factor.

[@roberthaines8951]

The forcing of community in older games doesn't translate well to modern gaming. Online gaming was new, the options for games was also small you had EverQuest, asherons call and DaoC, later on you had wow but since the options where limited and they all had the same forced grouping you kinda delt with it (bonus alot of us where younger and had more free time). Now online gaming is everywhere and if you hit a wall you can just move on to a different game. I know it's weird but I don't mind, I play when I have time, use group finders when necessary but I'm not really looking for a community per say. I get plenty of that out of game and my play schedule isn't conducive to large scale group activities like raiding anymore.

[@akoyisangpinoy4705]

but not everyone has a social life like you. I just go out to work and go home and play. sucks that mmos arent social anymore... its just a solo game labeled as multiplayer...

[@alpha-0874]

Star Wars Galaxies was the only MMO I've played that actively fostered social interaction in a way that was not only natural like EQ, but also sustainable. At least in the older version of the game.

[@dupre7416]

An aspect of this has lead to me playing much less Embers Adrift. There are a number of dedicated groups that appear to be having fun, gaining levels, and being first when new content drops. Because these groups are so efficient, they have quickly widened the level gap between them and mere mortals like myself. In a game that requires grouping to do anything significant, this a real problem. Now that I hear you say, "lonely", I realize I have also been lonely.

[@whiteglovestudio]

I will definitely be making this feedback a core principle of my game's design, I think the solution is reducing micro engagement (the current cookie cutter quest system is outdated, static and needs revamping, the rewards are trivial) and breaking people out of the loop frequently through randomized events that bring people together naturally out of curiousity as well as making sure guilds in games are a core focus... guild leaderboards, expanding guild collaborations and spaces, guild influences over the world dynamics (increasing randomized events or causing faction wars that influence NPC behavior and the world layout, etc). We got to grow up in a pretty sweet era for gaming, it was rapid innovation through the 90's-early 2000's and then things kind of plateaued. Nobody growing up these days has got to experience that "lightning in a bottle" experience we got with these old games in their heyday.

[@Gamer23-s6n]

I had some of the strangest loneliest dark nights soloing in Rappelz like 20 years ago, and i remember thinking then how bleak it all was but now my memory treasures those times when i was truly 'out there' and so high of level almost no one could even get to me. Its a strange blend in my head.

[@Sinsqnce]

Something I feel is missing is meaningfull content in the world it self. Most content is instanced based forcing people to either be putting together a static grp to run the content with all the time or join a guild. Now there are down sides to content in world becoming so mindnumbingly pointless that it just comes down to numbers to mitigate difficulty ( train runs in New World etc ) but there are ways that this could be remedied. That being said tho I my self is somewhat of a solo player when in MMO as well but I still want the world to feel alive when I run throught cities and having that one random encounter with someone struggling with a quest and assist them just creates a more organic feel and honeslty gives me personal a reason to feel like continueing playing, WoW Classic HC is a perfect example of these encounters happening on a somewhat regular basis, So I hope that more of the upcoming MMOs takes this into mind when they design their content 👌

[@extremepostyo5242]

Its interesting because I went through some tough times because of how ppl treated me because of my disability. This factor made me go into wow with a solo centric mindset. I love warcraft 3 and at the time I wanted more warcraft, the mmo part was more of a barrier to me. I was sick of ppl so I didn't interact in an mmo like other players explain that they did in youtube videos. I did play with friends years later but the pressure to overcome my issues and be good enough at the game to not drag the team down was upsetting. I didn't truly appreciate the social aspect until I played survival games where I could play solo , not be forced to conform and socalise with others.

[@vander1521]

I mean no harm and I'm not trolling you here. If you don't like to socialize. That is okay. MMORPG's are "NOT" for you. One major problem with MMO's is the dev's always pander to people like yourself and forgot what MMO stands for. Will they didn't forget. They chased the money and watered the game down. So they could appease everybody and increase profits. As you stated you ended up realizing this for yourself and went to survival games where you could play "solo". I don't agree with the statement you made about being forced to conform. Who forced you to install the game? You forced you to log into the game? Who forced you to play the game? I have disabilities too. We all have something in our life we are dealing with. Yet I have a different mindset than you. I want to play MMO's for the reason of making new friends.

[@AmandaPelland]

You make valid points. I've been playing WoW for 16 years with a couple of breaks in between. I haven't had any problem with socializing, joining guilds/online communities, and grouping up with other players to participate in end game content. The only reason I can think of after viewing your video is my history in WoW and knowing the ins and outs of the game. Often I hear from new players in an online New Player chat channel I'm a part of to provide answers to questions and on the official WoW forums how difficult it is for new players to get into the game as WoW is vast. Sometimes if not most often, new players looking to join a raiding guild is out of the question and often resort to seeking out social/leveling guilds with 200+ members to only find out 2 players are logged in at one time or another and aren't much help. Seasoned WoW players vs new players is kinda like the haves and have nots.

[@Stands-In-The-Fire]

"Nobody is social in games anymore, MMOs have been ruined by 'the youths'!" *shows grumpy classic MMO players literally dozens of ways current players engage socially both in and around their chosen MMO* "Yeah. But that's not *my* particular Social, so I'm upset still" Hit the nail on the head for many points I've kinda given up on trying to preach to the grumpy crowd Red. Can't wait for the "Yeah, but it was better when.." crowd to completely miss them :D

[@Stands-In-The-Fire]

Like, when we played FFXIV for a while, one comment I got from some of the folks was that it wasn't a Social experience. A game with multiple tools in game not just to group-find but to literally find groups of people to link up with. And thriving ingame socialization, player-driven events, a literal chat channel for new players to ask questions and find one another, active (bordering on aggressive in some towns) recruitment... and that's just the in-game stuff, not even touching on any Discords etc. "Did you engage with any of those things?" "Well no, I showed up on our game nights pretty much." *blink blink*

[@JamesTree99]

Ive run into the lonely thing recently with EverQuest. I was going on Rizlona pretty strong with some friends and family, but when their interest waned a bit, and my main buddy quit completely, there just wasnt anything to do anymore. Didnt help that it is Rizlona where are about 3000 accounts run by 72 actual people. Heh I like some boxing well enough (Ive always kept it down to one box to supplement the main), but it doesnt help player interaction at all. I use RG of course, but never cared for full group automation. At least with Warcraft I can queue to get some things done, even if the other folks might as well be a bunch of boxes themselves.

[@Remianen]

Great points! As a hypersocial person, I've never had issues making friends ingame and out, even now. But those friendships I made in EQ 20 years ago are still going strong. Heck, there's a 7 year old boy walking around with my character's name (yes, this one). Little Remi dreams of one day becoming a professional Fortnite player. We still talk about our shared experiences ingame, mostly revolving around wipes. Also how everyone called in sick to work/school so we could clear Vex Thal for the first time (it took 15 hours!). Saving up vacation days so you could burn them the week of an expansion's launch. We even had a couple meetups where we had a LAN party in a hotel conference room and raided over a weekend. Those things could probably never happen today.

[@testdep]

so glad to find more channels run by EQ\EQ2 vets here on YT 👍 I personally play only MMOs however, I feel lonely in each and every new MMO since the days I left EQ2. Last time I felt social was while playing EQ2 progression (classic) server 😅 I also h@te Discord with a passion. Each and every time I casually socialize on some guild Discord server, I find myself in the middle of some weird drama (and it's not just my experience, more and more people quitting discord for this same reason). Discord servers offer more opportunities to harass, abuse and stalk people than any game chat ever will.

[@isaachill1107]

I think it has something to do with everyone feels they have to race to endgame because "the game doesn't start until endgame" so everyone just solo grinds the content to just get it over.

[@Redbeardflynn]

I agree, absolutely.

[@SoullessAIMusic]

This is basically why I am a solo MMO player. I'm not a big fan of large Discord groups and I have been a part of one too guilds where almost no social activity happens in Game and everything is on discord. I had two options, because joining Discord was not one of them. Option a, play solo games, option b, play MMOs alone.

[@SacredShiro]

My friends used to be the dopamine hit in an MMO. Now its just meaningless bread crumbs on a pointless grind that is replaced with new content at the drop of a hat. A huge reason I played MMOs was because my friends were online in the friends list of that MMO not because the content was exactly fun. It was fun because my friends were there. Now they on discord and it feels like im bothering them by asking them to log in to do stuff.

[@Silverfirefly1]

The connectivity we have with each other is no longer novel, the avatarisation of the relevant parts of ourselves, our opinions and our priorities is no longer an exciting frontier but rather it is an ever present pressure in our daily lives through social media. We cannot go backwards without undoing the impact of dealing with each other online for the last 20 - 30 years.

[@CosmicCleric]

For me, bringing my friends into the MMO is basically may way of finding other "like minded" people to play with (non-toxic, non-tryhard, friendly/social, my generation, etc.). But that's only because there's no tools in-game for me to matchmake with other like-minded individuals. There was an older MMO called Star Wars Galaxy (SWG), and it had a 'social' window in-game, where you could put in your likes/dislikes, beliefs/politics, hobbies, liked music, etc., and then be matched up with others who liked the same things. There's a few screenshots out there to Internet search find that shows the in-game window. My point is that if MMOs let me avoid what I consider are toxic players, and find players of my generation and mindset, then I'd be very social in-game and not solo play. But they don't do so for whatever reason (does Sony hold a patent to the in-game social matchmaking window?) (another subject never covered, different MMO companies holding different game patents and how that affects other MMO designs). Your video describes external tools that supplanted in-game tools, but never discussed/mentioned MISSING in-game tools, to help social interaction. Edit: Forgot to mention, my guess as to the why of lack of in-game social matchmaking tools is because of population numbers for the MMO, and how there may be allot more non-toxic players who would socialize with each other and ignore the less toxic crowd, so that they don't have enough people to start pvp match/dungeon run, etc. Just a guess though, but I always got the feeling they don't want to divide the pop they have any further than absolutely necessary, and social matching may just do that. Good video overall, thanks for making/sharing it.

[@JapaAppa]

This would essentially be turning an MMO into a social media application... is that what we want? Maybe... I dont know, I'm asking you lol EDIT: or even beyond that, it would be like turning the MMO into a DATING application lol.

[@00Recoil]

For me, MMORPGs have always been about the journey. I have joined guilds, raided seriously in some expansions and had fun, but I've always found the deepest satisfaction in the solo experience. I'm in a guild of friends now, friends that I have brought to the game. Each of us has differing levels of involvement and commitment, but we regularly meet together on Friday and Monday nights and just take each other where we are. That said, I don't really like the feeling of being bound to other players in order to complete my journey. This journey includes time with my guildmates, or other players in Timewalking dungeons or pugs, but it isn't restricted to that. I love the fact that I can group up with another player on a world quest, or help someone find a quest objective, but then I'm free to move on and follow my own pathway. At any time, I can log on and continue my journey on my own terms. I don't feel lonely or lonesome or forlorn. I'm not particularly antisocial. And I wouldn't want forced grouping or mandatory guild membership to make any kind of resurgence in the modern MMO.

[@grimvisionz91]

My most recent experience of not feeling lonely in an mmo was on the release of classic wow. Forming groups and conversing in chat was commonplace. Being a cleric definitely helped as well.

[@belstar1128]

Yea but a lot of the players i encountered in that game were really annoying trolls .

[@loosesingularity3121]

Good times. Got to play all the raids I missed out on when I was a stupid kid.

[@Reldonator]

Been playing wow season of discovery, and its been really social so far, I'm sure it will spread out after the level gating is over. But I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts