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The Daily Grind: What social tools do all MMOs need?
Heading into WildStar this past weekend, I was pleasantly surprised at how useful and easy the in-game social circles were. Instead of fretting about guild membership, I joined a few circles to talk with friends and made one up to keep in touch with a couple more. Somewhere Google+ is laughing haughtily, but I think that more MMOs should have a feature like this. So what social tools do you think MMOs need? I'd also nominate in-game guild finders, far more robust friends lists (that are per-account, not per-character), and handy emote buttons that eschew the need for memorizing a list of slash commands. What say you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Elder Scrolls Online: Fitting into the genre or forging its own?
It's been about nine months since I first got my hands on The Elder Scrolls Online. Since then, like many of you, I've been trapped on the sidelines, watching and waiting for my turn to jump into the game. This past weekend, I got my chance, but I've found my experience to be distressingly similar to those described by other journalists. Like Massively's Eliot before me, my early foundation was in console gaming, but my reason for avoiding The Elder Scrolls series was very different from his: The Elder Scrolls has always been a single-player series, and after having my world opened by MMOs, I found that going back to single-player games has become difficult. I need people! I need multiplayer options! I need MMOs. Enter The Elder Scrolls Online and my excitement for it. I knew a lot of the series' famed freeform gameplay would be cut back in exchange for letting me play alongside my friends, but that was something that I, as a series newbie, was willing to sacrifice. But while my overall impression of the game was positive, I still have this lurking sensation that something important was missing.
Breakfast Topic: How do you socialize in WoW?
It's never been so much fun to get out more by staying in. Games like World of Warcraft make it possible to get your recommended daily allowance of socialization without ever leaving your desk or couch. MMOs are a proven godsend to shut-ins of all stripes, people with health issues and disabilities, parents of young children, and people with awkward work schedules. MMOs let introverts throttle their social interaction to perfect comfort levels, and they provide extroverts with one more way to let loose and meet the masses. How do you get your social fix in WoW? Do you prefer to play pretty much on your own while chatting it up in general or trade chat? Is guildchat a must? Are you a regular in your guild or group's voice channel, no matter whether your friends are grouped with you or off doing their own thing?
The Daily Grind: How do you socialize in MMOs?
I had a friend once in World of Warcraft who had never taken part in a single dungeon. She knew she wasn't geared very well and hadn't built a very solid character, and she didn't feel like dragging others down. She focused instead on socializing through roleplaying and helping out lower-level players with extra money. That was fun for her, far more so than trying to force herself into the raiding endgame, and it was something she just couldn't do in a single-player environment. For some people, being social in an MMO means doing group content or nothing. For others, being social means putting on a musical performance in Lord of the Rings Online even while you prefer to solo rather than group to clear content. So what about you? How do you like to socialize in MMOs? Is it strictly through content, other activities, or a mixture of both? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Which games make you feel lost without a guild?
There are games I will play happily without a proper guild. I'll happily tool around in Star Wars: The Old Republic or Final Fantasy XIV when I'm between groups, after the old one fades away or doesn't work out for my playstyle. But I'm finding there are other games where the loss of a guild just kills my enthusiasm. There's no reason why I should suddenly stop feeling a push to move forward in Guild Wars 2 without a guild, but that's what happens. For some people, not having a group for endgame content is a dealbreaker, but sometimes it's nothing so transparent. You find that you just prefer having a guild around for roleplaying or chatting or PvP or random instance runs or whatever you like. So which games make you feel lost without a guild? A couple of games? Every game? Or do you keep playing even when your guild isn't there any longer? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Soapbox: What MMOs could learn from social gaming
I mentioned a couple of months ago that social gaming isn't going to destroy MMOs. That's good news for everyone other than Richard Garriott and Zynga stockholders. But I think taking this as a sign that we can ignore social gaming for now and forever as an aberration would be... a mistake, to put it lightly. See, there are things that social games do even better than MMOs tend to. And the hint is right there in the name. No, I'm not implying that these are better games; I'm saying that social games are generally much better about handling the social side of the equation. And the MMO industry as a whole would do well to pick up on the hints. Not everything, of course. We all have recurring nightmares about that one person on Facebook whose timeline is nothing but a series of dubious achievements in social games. But there are a lot of elements scattered throughout the games as a whole that could be oddly useful if taken as a whole.
Rise and Shiny: There
I remember years ago staying up very late, usually on the weekends, chatting about politics or religion in a wonderful social MMO called There. My wife and I would join a bunch of online friends to haunt parties and other gatherings, often getting booted out because we would bring up sensitive topics or would act too silly. There was a great world to cut my social MMO teeth on. I had already been playing Ultima Online and EverQuest starting around '99, but There was a brand-new experience. I loved it. Social MMOs are a rare thing, often ruled by half-naked people and driven by mature themes. While There did have its "private parties" (if you know what I mean), it was generally a friendly place with a better creeps-to-normal-people ratio than other social MMOs. The game shut down in 2010, and I honestly thought it was gone forever. Somehow I missed the fact that it relaunched not so long ago, and this past week I was able to not only log in to the game but resurrect my avatar from all those years ago. Unfortunately, the game seems largely empty, but I do normally visit MMOs during the day. Still, I took a few screenshots and compared them to older ones just to show how things have changed. What a week. What a nostalgic, wonderful week.
Playnomics puts gamers into eight categories
Forget the Bartle Test -- there's a whole new chart for player behavior. Playnomics, a predicative gaming analytics company, has crunched a lot of numbers to neatly segment players into eight categories depending on the player's motivation and behavior. Combining behavioral science and in-game data, the company created a neat infographic that attempts to sell you on the concept of these eight categories, which uses the axes of intuitive/diligent, social/solus, and proactive/reactive. The end result of these fundamental types is composed of scientists, politicians, collectivists, soloists, habitualists, socialites, strategists, and competitors. When applied to the population of the UK, the study showed that strategists (32%) and politicians (22%) are dominant, while soloists (5%) and habitualists (5%) are the minority.
HTC Salsa and Chacha bring the dedicated Facebook button to Android (update: eyes-on)
Yes folks, the leaks were for real, HTC really is bringing out a pair of new handsets adorned with a dedicated, delicately illustrated Facebook key front and (almost) center. HTC is very careful not to call its Salsa -- a 3.4-inch, 480 x 320 touchscreen device -- and portrait QWERTY-sporting ChaCha "Facebook phones," however Mark Z's highly successful social network is indeed the focus around which both are built. The OS is Android 2.4 underneath, however the Sense customizations have taken on an extra few tweaks and functions to accommodate a Facebook-centric lifestyle. That royal blue button is context-aware, with a pulsating light surrounding it any time there's an opportunity to share whatever you're doing with the phone through Facebook. A good example of that is you can long-press the F key to automatically check in with the social mothership. In terms of specs, you're looking at a lot of common components between these two. There's a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 -- which didn't seem to struggle unduly with basic functions during our quick play around with the Salsa -- 512MB of both RAM and ROM, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, and a VGA front-facing cam. The resolution on the ChaCha is 480 x 320 as well, which should provide decent pixel density on that 2.6-inch screen. Both are expected to launch globally before the end of Q2 2011, at pricing points above the newly announced Wildfire S, but below the similarly fresh Desire S and Incredible S handsets. Hands-on photography by Sean Cooper. %Gallery-116715% %Gallery-116718%
Breakfast Topic: To "grats" or not to "grats"
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. "Yahtzee" Croshaw's recent review of Cataclysm (hilarious, but very NSFW) pointed out two things about WoW that were of interest to me. The first was that, as a mage, I would die a lot less often in PvE if I remembered to use Mirror Image when I get into a tight spot. But second and of more general interest, he pointed out how pervasive the phenomenon of mutual congratulation for achievements has become in WoW, to the point where one could easily be forgiven for thinking that typing some variation of "grats" was a Pavlovian response to any achievement announcement. I happen to think it is more of a case of social pressure, personally. You want to be congratulated when you achieve something worthwhile, so you do likewise to your fellow guildies. But then the question becomes: just how far do you take it? Do you "grats" at every opportunity, or do you pick and choose which ones are worthy of your typewritten esteem? Does seeing other "grats"-es make you want to join in, or are you perhaps the other way, "grats"-ing just to show that somebody appreciates the achievement just announced, even if it is just Shave and a Haircut? How you decide when the time is right to type those five little letters into guild chat?
Free for All: So, what does "MMORPG" mean?
As a reader of Massively, you should have a pretty good idea what MMORPG means. Not just what it stands for, but what it feels like, looks like, and behaves like. The problem is, despite common definitions, the games keep coming in different shapes and sizes -- and from all over the world. While I receive many comments about the Western coverage that Massively features, I would only be doing half my job if I reported on only the latest half a dozen games to break the multi-million-dollar budget mark in America. The world is a smaller place, especially now. And across the world there are MMORPGs that are being played and enjoyed in many different ways. There are PvP games, games that place players into instance after instance with only a handful of other players, all while offering the potential to hang out with thousands of other people. Is an instanced combat game still an MMO? How about a game like Mabinogi, which maintains a persistent world, but is broken into several invisible channels for players to skip in to and out of? This is impossible, but I think I will try to define exactly what MMO means -- now, in this current market.
Breakfast Topic: One is the loneliest number
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. There is nothing better than sharing a common interest with friends, but what happens when you find yourself alone in Azeroth for long period of time? You and your friends used to spend hours playing together, raiding or simply sharing idle banter in private messages or even the dreaded trade chat. But lately, it seems that you are the only person playing. Your friends, for a multitude of reasons, simply can't find the time to play anymore. Now you're alone in a big world with no one to talk to and nothing to take the edge off the quest grinding. So what do you do? Guilds: a toon's best friend Whether it's on a RP, PvP, normal or mixed server, a guild can keep you entertained and chatting throughout that hard grind to 80. When you find yourself stranded in an area where there isn't another living soul in sight, it's always good to know that one /g away is a group of people who will, more often than not, love to hear how things are going, both in game and out. It's a warming feeling to see that the minute you log on, another person is there to greet you with a friendly "Hey, _____." General and trade chat If a guild is not your thing, it's always nice to take a few minutes between quests to sit in a capital city and share in some banter with your fellow players. General chat is full of other players discussing either the game itself, movies, music or a multitude of other topics. Even trade chat can be fun if you keep up with the latest internet memes, though after a period of time, it came become annoying.
Philosony: Home from the holidays
Like many of you I've spent the holidays traveling to and visiting with friends and family. Though this afforded me ample free time with which to re-connect with my PSP (and finally get into Jeanne D'Arc), it also meant bidding adieu to my very unportable PS3. For several evenings prior to leaving I milled around in Home, trying to strike up a conversation, channeling my inner Dude, and avoiding the temptation to Quincy. I was genuinely interested in trying to make Home a social platform, a place to meet other people and chat about life, the universe, and maybe - though not necessarily - games.It didn't work so well.Home, like many other things on and about the PS3, seems to invoke highly polarized reactions among critics and players. I've seen it on recent end-of-the-year lists as both one of the best applications and biggest disappointments of 2008. As the holidays are one of the few occasions I get to re-connect (and game) with a real-life social network that I've developed over the years I spent some time with them ruminating over why I don't have anything close to this kind of network of friends on the PSN and whether Home could provide it. Basically, before making any judgments about what Home lacks or where it fails to live up to expectations we need to really think about the question: what do we want out of Home?
Facebook app helps you keep tabs on Wii friends
Just about everyone on this planet has some level of experience with a social networking site. Whether you approve of them or not, they do allow us to stay connected with one another and have paved the way for this Facebook app.Developed by Sam Lu, this app allows you to keep your Wii number, as well as specific Friend Codes for the games in your library. If you're a fan of Facebook, it's a pretty good way to stay connected with your buddies who have a Wii.[Thanks, Sam!]
