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I, on the other hand, much prefer being able to play an MMO solo and grouping with people when I decide to be social. Locking content behind grouping is just plain annoying. As with all games, I’m there to explore the world and the story and the less I have other humans involved in that, the better in most cases.
Then why play something centered around multiplayer content when there are multitudes more single player games focused around that exact play style?
Some people like having others around to talk to, but not necessarily be hand-cuffed and totally dependent on them.
Probably why I actually leave multiplayer on in No Man’s Sky. There’s people around, stuff happens, but there is no need to engage if you aren’t in the mood.
Plus, if you are feeling sociable and want to, you can go to the anomaly and team up for bonuses.
I’m there to explore the world and the story
And avoid 90% of the content and make MMOs feel even lonelier than they already do
Doesn’t sound like the original commenter has that problem!
Locking content behind grouping is just plain annoying.
Literally one of the core design elements of MMOs is group content
These days, I feel like most MMOs are just like trying to play a single player game but with other people getting in the way and/or breaking your shit while calling you an array of slurs.
Kind of like playing a regular game on extra extra difficult mode.
My biggest frustration with community building is how it’s so hard to do natively in game. (I play WoW.) Typing is slow and takes away time from DPS, especially if you are in a group with impatient veterans who want to chain pull. There needs to be quick communication, like a wheel or something. (I use Opie to create this, macro common sayings, like in Helldivers.) I need a V button like from Deep Rock Galactic. Give me fast way to communicate simple emotes and I’ll build from there.
Additionally, I’ll never see the people in PUGs again. Why bother being friendly? In Vanilla, we had the same server, a reduced population. I could literally run into a person in Ironforge a few days after a group. (Don’t group with that guy, he’ll yell at you for jumping.) I’d see the same names in trade chat. (Oh, that’s the nice blacksmith that made my sword!) When everything is cross server, the population is so large and I’ll never see them again, and 1 dungeon run is not enough to know if someone is worth making friends. Friends happen by repeated forced interaction and then realizing later that you liked them.
I also think that a 3rd place would help. Give me a space and a reason to be there. Only running dungeons thru magical teleport menus is immersion breaking and doesn’t foster any social interactions. Chat channels spamming LFG was terrible and slow, but at least you talked to people. The Theme Park nature and menu driven dungeons build zero community.
Imposed multipkayer content can be toxic.
I played Revelation Online for a while and one feature of it was that you needed to play some 5/10 man raids for desirable upgrades. These were timegated to once a week, so if you weren’t there at 00:00 server time on Sunday, everyone else had already done the run and the place was dead.Hard to stsy committed when you couldn’t progress effectively.