Why so antisocial?

[Bobinator]

You're technically always in a group with your companion out.

[Vincynt]

Until your guild kicks your for chatting in.guild chat. Have had and seen happen. People did want talk or see the green chat and kick people for it. There is an extreme anti social environment to this game

 

Then that sir is not a guild.

[Lethality]

What is it with this game that makes players so antisocial? Im not talking about getting heroic or flashpoint groups. (which is another problem)

 

I was questing in Nar Shadda last night. I play as a healer spec Sage, and noticed there were two other players pretty much doing the same quests in the same order as I was. We were all going around getting quests at around the same time, and killing mobs in the same areas. So I decided to message them to see if they wanted to group for the quests. Nothing....no replies at all. Not even a " no thanks, Id rather solo".

 

later on in the evening I found one of these other guys lying dead. I guess they had died from fighting, or had gone afk and been killed or something. Not really sure. So I revived, healed and buffed him. Not a "thanks", or a "appreciate it". The guy just stood there looking at me, and then ran off.

 

Is it because we have companions in this game that people dont want to group? I like to solo at times myself but its nice to group up for quests if we are all doing the same ones.

 

Its making me wonder why I even rolled a healer, since the only thing I heal is my companion.

 

Single player BioWare gamer heritage... it's a shame and I see it a lot.

[Lorgrin]

I avoid people in this game because from what I can tell they are absolutely vile. Arrogant, foolish, selfish, ignorant, and all seemingly with a low brow sense humor I simply cant relate to.

 

I presume most of the TOR players come from WoW and I have always heard how awful those people are. I suppose now I know.

 

Sure there was some bad apples coming from WOW, but there was a lot more who were helpful, and good players. Wow just gets a bad rap because it was so huge. With such a large player base, its a given there will be those kind of players you described. Its easy to be a jerk when you are hiding behind the internet.

 

One thing I have noticed about TOR players is that a lot of them wont tolerate that kind of rude behavior. TOR players in general have been pretty helpful when others have questions or need help.

[Blotter]

this is the result of creating a single player game with lobby online features. Communities in earlier MMO's were built out of need for survival. TOR is a singleplayer game 1600 hours of it is designed for you to play completely alone. If you were looking for a true MMO you were just sold snake oil.

 

BS. I solo leveled every single toon I played in WoW and I never join a guild until I've played long enough on the server to see what reputations different guilds have, what they're focus is (pvp or pve, for example) and how their players act who I've met. Leveling in WoW and other current games doesn't even remotely erquire grouping. It's a PERSONAL PREFERENCE and has nothing to do with the game design.

 

I've seen plenty of people buddied up running quests and leveling together in this game and plenty of people buddied up to do their dailies at level cap. Heck, I even ran across buddy groups from the other faction while soloing and had to take my lumps because I was choosing to solo at the time. We form groups for Ilum and WZs and of course as required for the instanced content. The story system is designed so that you can bring a buddy along and they can see your story and you can see theirs, which actually encourages grouping more than it encourages soloing because it offers you a chance to peak at other stories...something you can't do in any other game, what with their miniscule chat boxes with 50 words of quest narrative in them that only you can see. If you haven't taken advantage of those features or haven't made a real effort to meet people who are like-minded and want to do so...or tried to join a guild of those types of people...as opposed to just expecting them to fall in your lap via general chat, then that's on you, not on BW. This theorizing that somehow the game design encourages soloing is bogus.

[Yozbick]

What is it with this game that makes players so antisocial? Im not talking about getting heroic or flashpoint groups. (which is another problem)

 

1) You don't need other players to get to 50. It's very fast, so getting good gear (via groups) along the way is largely a waste of time because you will outlevel it very quickly.

 

2) If you are trying to level quickly, other people actually slow you down in this game. I personally spacebar through a lot of the quest dialog (not always, but often enough). Others like to relish every word. That's fine, and I don't disparage them. But I hate to sit looking at the screen while they do.

 

3) Other players have different objectives. If someone invites me, I will accept. However, too often they don't work on the quest I was working on. If they run off to a different area, I leave group.

 

4) The quests themselves make the game less social. You cannot even see guild chat while "immersed" in the dialog. That upset a lot of people in the guild, who felt that as a whole we were less social in SWTOR than we were in WAR or WOW or DAOC. Folks didn't say hello or goodbye when others were logging, which is very unusual for our guild. But most of us were wrapped up in quest dialog. It's like we played a single-player game 1-50 and woke up to a MMO at 50.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Yozbick

[Quip]

I've been complained at for trying to carry conversations in general so

 

I got that one as well, and worse yet we were talking about rotations and then:

 

DarthBonghit: "STOP SPAMMING CHAT this games community is bad enough"

Me: "We're using general chat to chat..."

Darthbonghit: "ST-ehf-U spammer"

Darthbonghit: "LF2M tank and healz Athiss den GTG!!!"

 

I'm not kidding about the being accused of ruining the community either.

 

 

 

Has anyone else noticed that the ones that scream community the loudest are usually the cancerous lesions on the community?

[FreshwaterAU]

What is it with this game that makes players so antisocial? Im not talking about getting heroic or flashpoint groups. (which is another problem)

 

I was questing in Nar Shadda last night. I play as a healer spec Sage, and noticed there were two other players pretty much doing the same quests in the same order as I was. We were all going around getting quests at around the same time, and killing mobs in the same areas. So I decided to message them to see if they wanted to group for the quests. Nothing....no replies at all. Not even a " no thanks, Id rather solo".

 

later on in the evening I found one of these other guys lying dead. I guess they had died from fighting, or had gone afk and been killed or something. Not really sure. So I revived, healed and buffed him. Not a "thanks", or a "appreciate it". The guy just stood there looking at me, and then ran off.

 

Is it because we have companions in this game that people dont want to group? I like to solo at times myself but its nice to group up for quests if we are all doing the same ones.

 

Its making me wonder why I even rolled a healer, since the only thing I heal is my companion.

 

just sounds like you ran into some duds. or they might have had chat off or something. I've gotten people to group up with me when running the same area. I also love a good drive by heal.

[Blotter]

Until your guild kicks your for chatting in.guild chat. Have had and seen happen. People did want talk or see the green chat and kick people for it. There is an extreme anti social environment to this game

 

LOL. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and guess it had a whole lot more to do with what you were saying and how you were saying it. I have NEVER seen a guild in any game just chuck someone out for simply conversing in guild chat in a nice manner...and I have absolutely no idea why you'd want to have anything to do with such a group of outlier jerks anyway if you managed to find that needle in the haystack. That's a complete and utter exception to the rule.

[Blotter]

I got that one as well, and worse yet we were talking about rotations and then:

 

DarthBonghit: "STOP SPAMMING CHAT this games community is bad enough"

Me: "We're using general chat to chat..."

Darthbonghit: "ST-ehf-U spammer"

Darthbonghit: "LF2M tank and healz Athiss den GTG!!!"

 

I'm not kidding about the being accused of ruining the community either.

 

 

 

Has anyone else noticed that the ones that scream community the loudest are usually the cancerous lesions on the community?

 

Here's the thing. I certainly would just ignore it instead of being a jerk like that guy was, but that's not what general is for. If you want to have a deep convo about rotations or builds or whatever, use /tell. No MMO general chat I've ever seen...and certainly never in WoW...tolerates people treating the entire server or location to a personal conversation between themselves like that. It's all LFG and trade spam and people telling jokes or blathering like fools briefly. THAT is what general chat is for. Truly...it's not a matter of being anti-social that people simply don't want to listen to your personal conversation with one or two other people. Form a group and talk in party or whisper each other. The guy had a point, but was admittedly a total jackhole about it.

[Jederix]

this is the result of creating a single player game with lobby online features. Communities in earlier MMO's were built out of need for survival. TOR is a singleplayer game 1600 hours of it is designed for you to play completely alone. If you were looking for a true MMO you were just sold snake oil.

 

Old school MMOs (EQ, etc) forced socialization. So this "golden age of MMO communities" didn't exist because people wanted it to exist. It existed because the games were designed back then to force it to exist.

 

I'm glad those does are over, personally.

[Lorgrin]

1) You don't need other players to get to 50. It's very fast, so getting good gear (via groups) along the way is largely a waste of time because you will outlevel it very quickly.

 

2) If you are trying to level quickly, other people actually slow you down in this game. I personally spacebar through a lot of the quest dialog (not always, but often enough). Others like to relish every word. That's fine, and I don't disparage them. But I hate to sit looking at the screen while they do.

 

3) Other players have different objectives. If someone invites me, I will accept. However, too often they don't work on the quest I was working on. If they run off to a different area, I leave group.

 

4) The quests themselves make the game less social. You cannot even see guild chat while "immersed" in the dialog. That upset a lot of people in the guild, who felt that as a whole we were less social in SWTOR than we were in WAR or WOW or DAOC. Folks didn't say hello or goodbye when others were logging, which is very unusual for our guild. But most of us were wrapped up in quest dialog. It's like we played a single-player game 1-50 and woke up to a MMO at 50.

 

Im not that in a hurry to get to max level. I enjoy playing this game to see the story. I like to see all of the cutscenes. I just figure the game will be here for a while, so why the rush to get maxed out. Im one of those guys that like to get all the cool gear for my level by doing heroics, and getting commendations. I like to see the entire dialogue when getting quests. Sure if I am doing a flashpoint for the second or third time and the group wants to space bar through it, I dont mind.

 

If you like rushing to 50, thats cool. I dont have a problem with that. Im just under the impression that Bioware designed this game to be savored. They spent a lot of time and money on the voice acted cut scenes.

[Jederix]

If you avoid peolpe in this game how can you know they're absolutely vile, arrogant, foolish, selfish, ignorant people with low brown senses of humor?

 

 

I did come from WoW, and many other MMO's, but take offience to your generalization which kinda seems ignorant now that you mention it...

 

It's not that hard to grasp. The reason the poster you quoted thinks most players are "absolutely vile, arrogant, foolish, selfish, ignorant people with low brown senses of humor" is because those tools are the most vocal people you run into mostly. You have to really look for those players who are not this way because they tend to stick to themselves and avoid the chat channels like the plague.

 

In my MMO experience, the more vocal a person is, the more they are likely to be all those things that poster claimed, and possibly more that he didn't.

[Abataamala]

It wasnt just this one time last night. There just seems to be a loner vibe in this game. I can understand people wanting to solo. I do it myself, but you will go lengths of time when there will be no chat at all. Even in the general chat it will go silent for long lengths at a time. It might just be because the game is instanced and there are limited numbers of people in certain areas.

 

Its just strange to me. Im used to seeing people having conversations in chat in other games.

 

It would be nice to have a cross world chat system. Thats just my opinion though.

 

I usually solo or duo with my friend, we're very casual players. We've only ever PUG'd once, and that was to take down a world boss. We prefer our play-style. We spend a fair amount of time and effort kitting out our companions and develop our tactics around our "pets." It feels foreign to then put them away and learn to play around an unknown quantity like the play-style of a stranger.

 

With regard to chat, I play to play, not chit-chat with folks. I'll ask a question or make a comment every rare now and then in General chat. But that's so infrequent, I put all social channels in its own tab and then keep it hidden behind the others so I'm not distracted by chat spam.

 

I'm not anti-social. I just hate interacting with jerks.

[Blotter]

Old school MMOs (EQ, etc) forced socialization. So this "golden age of MMO communities" didn't exist because people wanted it to exist. It existed because the games were designed back then to force it to exist.

 

I'm glad those does are over, personally.

 

Setting aside whether we agree on being glad those days are over, the fact remains that everything that SWTOR does that tries to force socialization gets complained about. Everything from only placing mailboxes in hub locations as opopsed to on your ship or letting you access mail anywhere you want like it's your iPhone...to trying to funnel everyone at max level to certain locations...complaints comlpaints complaints...nonstop. People want everything to be 'convenient" and alot of the "conveniences" either outright discourage having to be social or at least fail to encourage it.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Blotter

[Icebaron]

People play at a different pace and with differing priorities, some like to spacebar the cut scenes while others like to watch it all. Playing solo is preferable to the majority of players and if it wasnt for social points I probably would to.

 

As for the guy you rezzed he/she was just plain rude.

 

I agree with this guy. I always hate people randomly inviting me because I know they are just going to slow me down. I feel rude for turning them down.

 

And the no thanks on the rez, just rude as stated by quoted person. Next time you find his corpse, point and laugh and move on.

[spoonguy]

I solo a lot as I tend to watch TV, chat to the GF, stop to make a cup of tea etc. For chat we have a very social guild.

 

I group almost exclusively within guild or have one char I'm duoing through the game with my brother. If we're asked as a guild group if we want to team up with someone in the same area we usually do. With my brother most often not as we'd be likely to stop and start a lot while chatting.

 

I try to avoid PUGs unless someone needs help doing something, heroics, FPs etc or we need that same spawns and we may otherwise compete.

 

This is a solo friendly game, I've played mmos where you could solo very little it's a different beast and fun in a different way.

Edited March 8, 2012 by spoonguy

[Quip]

Here's the thing. I certainly would just ignore it instead of being a jerk like that guy was, but that's not what general is for. If you want to have a deep convo about rotations or builds or whatever, use /tell. No MMO general chat I've ever seen...and certainly never in WoW...tolerates people treating the entire server or location to a personal conversation between themselves like that. It's all LFG and trade spam and people telling jokes or blathering like fools briefly. THAT is what general chat is for. Truly...it's not a matter of being anti-social that people simply don't want to listen to your personal conversation with one or two other people. Form a group and talk in party or whisper each other. The guy had a point, but was admittedly a total jackhole about it.

 

 

There was about ten people in on the conversation. And yes, that's EXACTLY what general chat is for, that's what it was always for "chatting", topics are not restricted except by the terms of service.

 

Every single MMO developer I have ever played a game by, going back to UO, not only tolerates that kind of general discussion, but encourages it. This "clear chat I need to be listened to immediately" crap is an attitude that has always been seeping in at the edges of every single place for discussion on earth. General chat is for conversations. Sure it's also for trying to beg for attention by trying to one up each other with jokes or insults as well.

[Vydor_HC]

I rarely run across other players out in the "world". When I do, it's hit and miss whether or not they will group if asked. But it's not very often that people even ask, as hardly anything is not solo content when you're away from the fleet.

 

In older games it was just the opposite, the gaming world was full of people and most often they were in groups, rare was the solo player found out fighting mobs alone.

[Jezcentral]

My problem is when you /whisper to me, I often don't see the message, as I'm looking at something somewhere else on the screen. It's not very noticeable, when you are not expecting it.

[Blotter]

There was about ten people in on the conversation. And yes, that's EXACTLY what general chat is for, that's what it was always for "chatting", topics are not restricted except by the terms of service.

 

Every single MMO developer I have ever played a game by, going back to UO, not only tolerates that kind of general discussion, but encourages it. This "clear chat I need to be listened to immediately" crap is an attitude that has always been seeping in at the edges of every single place for discussion on earth. General chat is for conversations. Sure it's also for trying to beg for attention by trying to one up each other with jokes or insults as well.

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your view of what it could or should be like if things were great and dandy. I was stating that this is what it is. No MMO I've ever played tolerates that in general. Ever. Ever ever. Ever ever ever. And to be clear, it has nothing to do with the developer, because I'm sure SWTOR would agre with you that general can and maybe should be used for that kind of thing...but rather, it's about the community, which is what this whole thread was about: accusing the SWTOR community of somehow being different and more anti-social. It's not. It's the same anti-social as MMO communities have been for the past decade. UO somewhat predates that and I didn't lpay it so I can't speak to it, but given that it came early in the MMO era, I'm not suprised it was better about it.

[Deewe]

What is it with this game that makes players so antisocial? Im not talking about getting heroic or flashpoint groups. (which is another problem)

 

I was questing in Nar Shadda last night. I play as a healer spec Sage, and noticed there were two other players pretty much doing the same quests in the same order as I was. We were all going around getting quests at around the same time, and killing mobs in the same areas. So I decided to message them to see if they wanted to group for the quests. Nothing....no replies at all. Not even a " no thanks, Id rather solo".

 

later on in the evening I found one of these other guys lying dead. I guess they had died from fighting, or had gone afk and been killed or something. Not really sure. So I revived, healed and buffed him. Not a "thanks", or a "appreciate it". The guy just stood there looking at me, and then ran off.

 

Is it because we have companions in this game that people dont want to group? I like to solo at times myself but its nice to group up for quests if we are all doing the same ones.

 

Its making me wonder why I even rolled a healer, since the only thing I heal is my companion.

 

There are mainly 3 issues

1. The game is way too much soloable.
   
2. There's no real incentives for grouping
   
3. The chat UI gets in your way.
   

 

Now that might sound silly but the actual implementation of the chat UI hinders communication as its frame gets into your way. So too often players just close it, doing so disabling the communication tool with others.

 

Hopefully the UI enhancements in 1.2 will fix that.

[Blotter]

My problem is when you /whisper to me, I often don't see the message, as I'm looking at something somewhere else on the screen. It's not very noticeable, when you are not expecting it.

 

You can change the color if that would help

[TheSwamper]

PvE wise I feel like you should need to group up for BIS in an MMO. I don't know how you could do PvE BIS without grouping in an MMO and still call it an MMO. Hell it's hard to call SWTOR an MMO, I more think of it as a co-op game with a sub, ha.

 

Keep in mind I'm suggesting that there be a soloing path to acquire this gear, not that it be the only way, and it absolutely should NOT be the fastest way.

 

Secondly, does EVERY MMO have to switch to 'group up or give up' for character progression at endgame? Would it be so wrong if a few of them didn't make this mandatory?

[mattgyver]

I agree that there is a tendency to solo in this game, but I try to fight it by actively asking people if they need help both in tells and in general chat. I have had a lot of people join me for one or two tasks this way, and the experience has generally been positive. There have been some peeps who ignored me (or maybe didn't see my tells as there is no sound notification for receiving a tell). I think there needs to be some proactive community building in this game because it does tend to allow you to hermit-up.