Greatness of MMOs

[SlowwHand]

Harrison is ok. It's his driving. It sucks.

[ZEE]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Harrison is ok. It's his driving. It sucks.

i learned to drive in the rural back-country of Remus, Michigan... automatic that is...

i learned to drive stick shift at the corner of a busy intersection during rush hour when i couldnt get it out of first gear. LOTS of angry people wanted to hurt me at that time, let me tell you. i was RIGHT in the middle of the intersection too. after i got that car out of first... i NEVER forgot how to do it after that... ever again

but back On Topic, 'Poly is a wonderful place that has truly helped me, and i hope others like me as well. same goes for MMO's...

[Barnabas]

Whats MMO, Mickey Mouse Ovens?

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Well, that can be an issue also. The problems of MMOs are known and many. I was coming up with an advantage, which I don't think people commonly think about.

Jon Miller

what about all the good hitler did?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Whats MMO, Mickey Mouse Ovens?

Pretty much.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by MRT144


what about all the good hitler did?

People escape into MMOs for the same reason some escape into drug abuse.

It is the symptom, not the cause.

Jon Miller

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
I agree with the OP. MMOs give a social outlet for those who don't fit in as well in general society. These games have a large population of "normal" people too, so disabled people for example aren't restricted to socialising with other disabled people as would be more likely IRL.

I'd argue that communication in MMOs is 99% retarded. At least, that's my experience in Guild Wars: it was nothing like a social contact, but rather a sum of me-isms that didn't reply to each other.

Now, maybe things are different in guilds. I barely know my guild, as I log in once in a blue moon.

[Jon Miller]

GW was the worst of all MMOs I have expeirenced as far as the social contact went. I only ever had 1 halfway decent contact (except for a couple from CG/RL).

Most games I meet a number of people who I maintain contact with, and have a large number of people who I have shorter duration interactions with.

The best MMOs in my eperience for contact were AO and EVE, and EVE has a disability of no avatar interaction. I didn't have any interaction for a long time in EVE though, so I know it is possible to play it almost entirely as a single palyer game.

I generally RP, which increases interaction, though.

Jon Miller

[FrostyBoy]

"Alone Together" in World of Warcraft?
Nicolas Ducheneaut

The "social factor" is often advanced to explain the popularity of MMOs: "it’s the people that are addictive, not the game." And indeed, social networks are essential components of the online gaming experience. Game designers build "virtual third places" to encourage interactions. Quality time in a MMO is time spent with others, be it raiding a dungeon in a group, socializing with bystanders in a cantina, or chatting with remote guildmates while exploring the wilderness on your own.

Or... is it? The data PlayOn has assembled from World of Warcraft challenges many of these assumptions. Could it be that a less, not more, social environment contributed to WoW’s success? Read on for more.

For the past 8 months, we have been collecting and analyzing data from WoW. We use "bots" on 5 different servers (covering PvP, PvE and RP realms) and take snapshots of the population every 10 minutes or so (more detail here), capturing data about each present character's level, location, grouped status, and guild affiliation (among other things). So far, we have observed about 150,000 unique characters. While this data is far from perfect (after all, we are only getting what Blizzard is willing to let transpire through their API), it can still yield a surprising amount of insight into the social dimensions of multiplayer games.

We have tried to assess the prevalence of social activities in WoW using a variety of metrics. The most obvious is the time players spend in groups. In the early stages of the game (level 40 and below), it hovers at around 30%. Even if we assume players spend a fair amount of time crafting, selling goods on the auction house, etc., it is hard to see these activities accounting for 70% of the time spent in-game. It is only at level 56 and above that players spend the majority of their time in groups (probably raiding high-end instances). Moreover, players favor "soloable" classes (warriors, hunters) that, by design, survive mob encounters better in solo play - the more social classes (e.g. priests) that require a group to work well are among the least favored. Compounding the problem, and despite features like WoW’s "group xp bonus", grouping is an inefficient way to level, which naturally steers the more "hardcore" players away from groups (at least, in the early stages of the game).

Overall, this data indicates that instrumental group play in the context of quests might not be an important source of social interactions in WoW. How about guilds? Excluding level 1 characters, 62% of WoW’s players are in guilds. Interestingly however, 17.5% of them belong to a "one-person guild" - in other words, nothing more than a custom tag below their name (which, incidentally, says volume about the trouble players are willing to go through to customize their avatars). That leaves only 44.5% of players in guilds with at least 2 members. Moreover WoW’s guilds are fairly small (median size: 9) and very few grow beyond 35 members (90th percentile) - a kind of Dunbar Number for guilds.

More importantly, guilds are also very sparse social networks. Our analyses indicate that the average guild member in WoW spends little time with a large majority of his/her guildmates. Over a month, the average guild member is online 20 minutes or less with 80% of his/her guildmates. The same average member collaborates (in quests, etc.) with only 11% of his/her guildmates for more than 10 minutes over the same month. In other words, most guilds in WoW are not highly social and/or collaborative environments.

Considering all this, it is easy to wonder why WoW’s players spend so much time (more than 10 hours per week) in this game instead of a single-player RPG! To me, WoW illustrates how a large number (the majority?) of online gamers enjoy being "alone together." The social factor at work here clearly has little to do with direct interactions and camaraderie in the context of quest groups or guilds. Instead, it looks as if other players are mostly:

An audience (to showcase your latest "elite" gear and other accomplishments).
A social presence (the constant flow of chat in the wide-reaching "general" channel, the movement of other avatars around you, make playing WoW somewhat analogous to reading a book in a densely populated café - while you may not necessarily choose to interact with the other patrons, the sense of being in a public social space can be attractive enough to conduct individual activities there).
A source of spectacle and entertainment ("people watching" is fun in WoW, in part because Blizzard encouraged it by design with many humorous objects that can be appropriated by the players - the gnomes’ various trinkets with unpredictable effects, the infamous 20-lb catfish that can be used as a weapon, etc).
Does this mean that, to reach WoW's scale and attract gamers as-yet unfamiliar with the genre, future MMOs should focus less on collaborative questing and other traditional techniques to encourage interactions, favoring instead "looser," more indirect forms of social experience? A "society of the spectacle," to use Guy Debord's terminology? Or are there alternatives?

[Jon Miller]

Umm, just because you aren't playing in a group doesn't mean you aren't socializing. I actually dont' play tons in a group (although I would prefer to), but spend a fair amount of time chatting, talking about the game, etc. Also RPing I have never done in a group in WoW.

In otherwords, social != collaborative.

Jon Miller
(also, Warriors aren't very solo freindly)

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I'd argue that communication in MMOs is 99% retarded. At least, that's my experience in Guild Wars: it was nothing like a social contact, but rather a sum of me-isms that didn't reply to each other.

You ought to play an MMO where not 99% of the people consists of retards. They exist, I assure you.

[Jon Miller]

MMOs are like work. Sometimes you work by yourself, sometimes you work with others. You can, however, talk to others about your successes, failures, etc... Also, about what shiny new thing you have gotten.

Many people make freindships at work... this is the same sort of socialization. Not necessary collaborative, but out of sharing the same experiences, and being able to show it and all.

Really, some of the same thing that started this site.

However, you have the added bonus of being about to compete, to share experiences, etc.

Jon Miller

[curtsibling]

I never have and never will play MMOs.

Not that I don't think games like WoW are great looking.
It's just I prefer immersing in a single player environment.

That is why I love games like Morrowind and Daggerfall.

[FrostyBoy]

But curtsibling, as the article I posted states, you ARE most of the time playing in single player. It's just that you are doing it amongst other people who are (most of the time) playing the game as a single player.

I too don't like to play multiplayer, when I play WoW I play by myself, do my own thing, I only encounter other players once in a while, but I never interact with them.

Never say never until you have tried it. (And yes I have tried interacting with people, ok smartarses?)

Edit: Trust me, curtsibling, as far as Single Player immerseness goes, I don't think many can beat WoW, I too am one of those kinds of people and I can tell you that WoW will suck you in like a 1cm hole in a window of a spaceship.

[Harovan]

Yea. Most of the new games in this genre are rather Massively Singleplayer Online Games (MSOGs). WoW is one of those.