The One Problem Every MMO Has Now

MMORPGs have a problem. It's a problem that was crystallized for me when Josh Strife Hayes reviewed one of if not my favorite MMO of all time: Everquest.
So yeah, basically Josh Strife Hayes ruined MMOs for me. And he did it by pointing out that in the most social MMO out there I can think of, he was lonely.
It showed me that the MMOs use as a social tool may be past its prime. That it's not just the way MMOs have changed over the years but how the internet itself has. We are far removed from the time when Everquest or World of Warcraft were where you'd go to find friends. Back then we didn't have the ease of access of discord servers or prevalent social media.
Even in these old games now their chat systems or voice systems feel archaic. They are often replaced by Discord whether raiding or grouping. Socializing happens off of the MMOs.
The loneliness in an MMO is something I have personally experienced in several that I played recently: Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, Everquest 2, Ultima Online, ESO...etc. All once very social MMOs that felt empty.
It's not just the advent of social tools, though. It's that the barriers that are in place in these MMOs to ensure players feel they are achieving something are contributing to MMOs essentially becoming Anti-social.
If you want to play Everquest with a friend, you'll run into the hard barriers of levels, being unable to get experience with each other. Even if you start at the same time because inevitably someone will have more time to play.
In ESO despite being level agnostic it might be gear or knowledge that acts as a softer barrier.
In GW2 it could be not owning an expansion or not having a certain mount.
The barriers are many and they actually contribute to pushing players away from each other.
So thanks, Josh, for ruining MMOs for me.
original Josh strife Hayes video on Everquest:
• I Played EverQuest for...
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[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@mysticbarbarism3172]

WoW classic hardcore feels like the old days. Because character death actually means something, people interact in a COMPLETELY different way. The novelty of the internet is gone, but only having one life brings people together the way it used to be.

[@Allhavengames]

I think part of the issue to one thing that WOW did well is the really hard to obtain items, gear, mounts. things that are in high end content being able to go to the city and showing them off people always started to gather around and people started talking its a small thing but was nice, or events in LOTRO with bands and people gathering to listen to concerts some of those small things really help

[@takoyaki_kasi]

The game companies have really lost their way. I remember logging back into wow for the first time in ages and making a new character to get the hang of everything again and coming up to Hogger, the first elite enemy that you come across and I instinctively asked for someone to help because he was always something that needed at least two people to take out. He was powerful but not overly so and it was usually a good way to meet people for the first time and play with them. Everyone in the LFG channel laughed when I asked and said that wasn’t necessary. I wondered what they meant and realized when I clicked on him that he was no longer elite and barely even put up a fight when I attacked. It hit me what was going to happen and what to expect from then on. The game no longer pushed for parties outside of dungeons and raids and those grew increasingly toxic over fighting about item levels even if you were just one ilvl off which I laughed at because I remember when those came about in wow. They weren’t even a useful stat yet and even the Game masters had to come in repeatedly and tell everyone to stop freaking out on others because it was visible but not an active thing yet but all the Final Fantasy and other MMO players that were playing were insisting people were trash for not having the ilvl up yet. From then on MMOs became worse and worse until now you spend six months grinding away over and over for a single item to raise your ilvl by one otherwise risk being ostracised for not having absolute max stats.

[@Alster26]

I mainly only play FFXIV. I came close to forming a group of friends in that game, but then there was a falling out between two of the founders of the FC and it disbanded and everyone went their separate ways. Honestly, I'm part of the problem with this because when I play an MMO I want to enjoy the story and get immersed in the lore of the world so I usually play it like a single player RPG that happens to have other players in it. I'm not usually trying to make friends. I want to get online and do whatever I need to get done. I have limited hours to game as an adult, so I would rather not spend those hours helping someone else progress.

[@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. :(

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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!

[@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?

[@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.

[@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!

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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...

[@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.

[@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.

[@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 ;)

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@EpicHeroSandwich]

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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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...

[@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

[@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...

[@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.

[@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.

[@mukymuk3]

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

[@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.

[@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!

[@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.

[@TalkativeTri]

Truly enjoyed this video. Subbed!

[@Redbeardflynn]

Thank you so much for the kind words and welcome!

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@marlaplunk2833]

I dunno.. I think it depends on the age of the player, that players' reasons to play whatever game they're currently playing, and how well the game is coded to encourage grouping vs soloing. I'm 53, female, and started EQ 22 years ago. I got severely immersed, and since then have only dabbled in MMOs such as Vanguard, Darkfall, and now Project Gorgon. I do get your point about loneliness, because I can feel a lil lonely in PG. I am the type of player who binges for a couple of months, and then doesn't log in for 10 months, etc., so it's hard to make friends and keep pace with them. So, I tend to solo too much. And now my level is too high for the amount of $$ I need, due to not grouping enough. Can't speak much for Discord.. I've barely used it.

[@jimbopeebles8210]

I played MMOs for the better part of 20 years, starting with EQ in 1999. The player base is the most anti-social of any game type I’ve ever played and that’s saying a lot when compared to COD lobbies. Every aspect of interaction is a hurdle you have to jump or a box you need to check before you’re allowed to play the game. The most comical example being literal applications you fill out to join a guild (I’m so embarrassed that you guys use these). Every group is a competition, every guild is a click, every interaction is laced with preening and posturing. If you haven’t researched the exact optimal gear, dungeon route, and abilities to use, you’re not welcome in my group. It’s rude to suck at WoW after all. The most egregious example are game systems advertised as single player alternatives which are dominated by groups that form outside the game system and enabled by game design that allows these groups to take advantage of actual solo, new, or uniformed players. The truth is, the games suck because the developers and the players suck. Now we’re hoping against hope that the developers of the game with one of the most toxic player bases (LoL) will somehow produce a game that doesn’t just double down on all these systems. Maybe FPC will get it right, but I’m not sure game design alone can solve this. Until it’s fine to not know the mathematically exact right choice to succeed in the games and therefore the social structures within them the feeling of loneliness probably won’t improve.

[@ez6791]

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

[@Redbeardflynn]

Glad you liked it! Thank you so much!

[@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?

[@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.

[@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.

[@WhatWillYouFind]

The problem with modern MMO is that they cannot replicate the unique social characteristics of those prior times. Any game that has an audience today has video upon video, walkthrough, guides, apps, tools, plugins, and various resources to ensure you can do everything. Even the oldest bastions of gaming by the sheer weight of the history and modern sensibilities have those problems compounded because it takes a specific type of personality to allow these GENERATIONAL differences in gaming to not completely shut the game down for you. Everquest is unique in that the core design and systems REQUIRE people and it requires you to become social to make any real mid to late game progress. WOW? You can buy a boost and then flop around like a noob at max level and grit your teeth as you dont have the skills to succeed. Everquest doesnt really allow this and the power creep is very real, but it still requires you to learn the systems because it doesnt have the same streamlined pathways that modern games were designed around. Everquest used to be the life within the game box, a place you went WITH friends to experience that life together within this self contained world. Now everquest is the escape, it is the detour and the proverbial destination. Nothing is unknown and very little has changed since its' inception besides the content additions. It is the time capsule of an era that was magical and beautiful. EQ is still relevant even today, it is most definitely worth your time if you are tired of WOW or similar run of the mill productions.

[@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.

[@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 😎

[@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.

[@ISawABear]

Come Play Foxhole, only Social MMO left if you ask me

[@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

[@investined]

I big thing whem MMO first lauch is not only are people discovering things together alot people are willing to FAIL TOGETHER. When MMO age those same people want everyone to be pro or get out.

[@jeremylallemand9201]

Well it's not just MMO's ... Just getting out of the house feels the same, most people are scared of interactions now, most of us are brainwashed by all kind of media and most of the time when you just say ''Hi'' to someone who crossed eyes with you , they just look like you did something to them and often if you get na answer it's feels like they felt like they had to... Now it's not everyone and everywhere, but it surely feels like it.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@coldcrush5921]

I don't think this is just a problem with gaming but society in general people have gotten a lot more guarded. Social anxiety has become much more prevalent. And introversion has become somewhat celebrated.

[@billy_cross]

Dude, Elder scrolls online is a highly social MMO. If you felt alone in it, you weren’t doing the right things I mean you can certainly play that entire game and never talk to another player but the most fun in it are the world events and the dungeons and you’re not doing those alone

[@Shiirow]

its not that MMOs are less social, its that they force you into social situations to progress less than before. without the porkchop around your neck of forced group content, less people want to play with you. so peoples natural proclivity of in group preferences, small social groups, and yes antisocial behaviour is allowed to express itself. people may whine and complain because they feel lonely, but is it the games fault or are you just someone people avoid? I have no issue finding people to talk to and socialize in games when the mood takes me, and I can find things where I can just dally and play in peace solo. if you go from game to game and find the same lonely experience, maybe you should look at the common denominator, You, and figure out a way to attract people to you rather than complaining at companies to tie the porkchop around your neck again. fyi, I find Josh Strife Hayes a coin flip when it comes to content, heads hes full of shit, tails he has a point, and he lands on head more often then not.

[@kizunadragon9]

The most fun i've ever had in an MMO was Everquest. camping mobs in Highpass Hold. Just sitting there in one of many groups just pulling and getting XP talking about random nonsense. no other MMO has ever replicated that ...

[@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.

[@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.

[@Uncle-LeRoy]

I only play eq when I have a buddy playing. Luckily I have had a buddy from high school.

[@predictorbibulous3327]

lol Drizzt (definitely not) Do'Urden. good name

[@Redbeardflynn]

Haha! I'm glad you liked that

[@midgetydeath]

Asmongold gave a great explanation. He said that people who play MMOs aren’t there to socialize anymore and so the games need to adapt. They need to prioritize making a good single-player game with other people in the world with you and making advantageous and easier to work with others but not strictly necessary. Harder and more time and effort to play solo, but perfectly viable and with the gameplay designed around single-player as a shared world with the other players. Because most people spend their time in MMOs playing solo and not really interacting with others much since there is no reason to outside of a instances/raids, which is both just a small part of the playerbase and only a small part of the time you spend in the game even for diehard raiders compared to the time the spent and will spend outside of dungeons.

[@mateowannacomedyremasterz6605]

Redbeard for President of MMOS!

[@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!)

[@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.

[@Faith_Risen]

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

[@donovian2538]

Holy shit this exactly described how I felt trying Runescape last year

[@pedropierre9594]

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

[@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.

[@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.

[@BearsDenOneinVain]

We need "real" tanks, dps, and support again! If you fix this it will fix itself!

[@NviGWarren]

I LOVED EverCrack!! It was definitely a social game.

[@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*

[@daviddobarganes9115]

I think the next big breakthrough in MMOs would have to be a prox chat that brings roleplay with it. Roleplay used to be the nerd kid on the block, now there are huge RP servers for even non-RPGs like GTA. I'm not talking about cringe acting, but it would be cool if voice filters say made you sound like an orc, and other systems made immersion the default.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Proximity chat could be really good. It works very well in a lot of the games that pop off like Lethal Company because it adds an immersive element. I know EQ2 tried for a while to make SOEmote work with face movements (something Star Citizen is doing, too, I believe) but the proximity voice chat could be fun, as long as of course there's an option not to use it. Also makes policing toxicity a bit more difficult.

[@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.

[@Schadowofmorning]

MMO's should have the same features as social networks or communication platforms. It baffles me how barren the communication and organization features are in those games. And you can't tell me that's hard I'm a software dev myself this shit is actually easy to the point you can just drag and drop a JS library and some assets into any website to have livechat with customer support. Calendars, group chats and all are not hard, just most developers do not think/care about these quite essential components. without them your community is forced to use seperate tools and there the splintering of communities begins.

[@JapaAppa]

Either they need to have equivalent feature to social media, or get out of the social sphere altogether. I lean towards the former, as the ladder basically removes the MMO from MMORPG. So I agree, I think it would need to essentially BE social media with a game attached right? Idk I LOVE talking about this concept and theorycrafting about the ideal MMO.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@sveintheberserk]

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

[@zacsch5364]

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

[@Michael-rk9iw]

Everyone has this nostalgia for these old games. The fact is you and all the people your age range have changed. They have kids. They have jobs and chronic meetings. These games are a job in and of themselves that people just don't have time for.

[@Redbeardflynn]

You're not wrong. It's not just this age range, though. I think in general the video game industry has exploded so much and then there are other competing factors for attention that an MMO may no longer be able to provide what it once provided. There's always been other entertainment it just seems like we are in an age of ready-access entertainment.

[@charlesmartel3995]

Good video. You identified the problem very well. I only wish you had talked about solutions. I believe that socialization needs to be incentivized.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Honestly I wish I had a solution that I thought would work without any caveats but forced socialization can backfire, too. I think we need to see some innovation in the space that tackles both the use of external socialization as well as the firm barriers that make it harder to play with friends while still validating achievement. When I tried to triangulate all of that I came up blank, so hopefully devs are much much smarter than me!

[@seanwilliams7655]

IMO, the more you incentivize socialization, the longer things will take, and the smaller the player base will be. The real bottle neck in making that social focused MMO is that most people don't want to play them, and they cost too much to make to only have a 50k player base. So, since cost is a huge factor, how many people do you think would be willing to play 30-40 dollars a month to play a heavily social game where stuff takes a while to get going?

[@alexanderdooley5833]

We aren't kids anymore. I want to feel like I did when I was grinding runescape or starting wow for the first time. We as adults our perspective is much different.

[@Redbeardflynn]

My knees and my my bills won't let me be a kid anymore. It's annoying.

[@zemlca]

Dude u fo4got back then we were 10years old....today 10yo probably feel the same in mmo as we did...we are old now dont forget

[@Redbeardflynn]

My knees don't let me forget