This Game Lacks TRUE Social Settings

[rmzeyzein]

People seem to go back and forth about "houses" or living quarters - personally, I can take it or leave it, but I think having person space or housing does enhance the "social" aspect of things. Every planet, very location in this game (aside from boring cantinas that offer absolutely nothing in social content) is about battle, ops and missions. Even when there is a so-called social event, it involves objectives and typically battle.

 

Is there not a place in the entire galaxy that likes to listen to music, relax, sit down, dance, talk, play games, and actually be social? Maybe a chill place to talk with guild members about ops or mission they want to run, plan an event, or maybe talk out of character, if they choose. As it stands, this game offers no true social content.

 

We have chairs in our ship, rooms, nice couches, but we cant event sit or interact with them. Furnishings, equipment, buildings and other "social" items and elements are not available for use, and only give an appearance of a social setting. This game rarely has events, and when there are events, they are usually fairly short and fail to offer a variety of things to do. Is what is being offers as quasi-social the best this game can really offer? The answer to that is absolutely not. This game just fails to offer true social environments, for people to step away from the repetitive nature that it represents.

 

The best thing to suggest, bring on the houses, social halls, have regular events and spontaneous events, make Nar Shaada are place where people can go play games 24/7, maybe gamble some credits, skill or luck (who really cares, if you don't like it, don't go), have game wide contests and maybe a lottery - buy a Planetary Lotto Ticket from a kiosk and maybe win a million credits or whatever the pot is, add voice chat so people don't have to type all the time, make furniture functional, have pod races, group treasure hunts, I mean come on, there are tons of things that could be added to this game to make it truly a place to fit every mood. GIVE US SOME REAL SOCIAL EVENTS - SOME REAL SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS, SOME REAL SOCIAL ELEMENTS - actually give some prizes out that people would be excited to have, not junk, not disappointment. As it is, this game lacks a lot of what it could be, and is a whole lot of the same, over and over.

 

I personally like the game as is, but I think the game would be nicer if it had a place to step away from dailies, maybe visit with friends, or maybe run solo and go play some games at Nar. There are many things that would enhance, and adding content, never hurts. If you don't like the idea, just do as you do, and don't get involved - no problem, you don't have to be social if you don't want to. But as people have been suggesting as long as this game has been going, is things like this, and it seems they are always ignored. People have and continue to suggest it, so why not give it to them. If its not your thing, go run a daily, mission or an ops, but if it is your thing, well, I guess you get the best of both worlds - this game definitely needs something new and adding 5 levels of the same, is nothing to get that excited about. Add something new for once, give people the social they have been asking for.

Edited March 2, 2013 by rmzeyzein
typo - oops

[Darth_Halford]

The thing is that The Old Republic's setting is all about war and conflict. Having housing and all of this 'social' stuff anywhere outside the capital worlds won't make a lot of sense.

I don't quite get the need for your characters need to be next to each other. Being social, to me, just requires communication, which can be anywhere.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Darth_Halford

[Mirura]

..... Edited February 12, 2018 by Mirura

[Darth_Halford]

For the same reason that chatting with a friend on Facebook isn't quite the same as sitting in the same physical space with them, interacting with surrounding things and seeing the other person.

 

Except that even if the characters are right next to you, your actual physical proximity is still as far as away as it ever was. There also isn't alot of real interaction between characters. The important bit is conversation.

[Lent_San]

I don't quite get the need ...

 

If you don't get the 'need for social things', as you say, even after reading the OPs lenghty and eloquent explanation, I guess this is not a topic for you.

 

As for OP, 10/10. Couldn't have said it any better. This game lacks aeons in this respect.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Lent_San

[Darth_Halford]

If you don't get the 'need for social things', as you say, even after reading the OPs lenghty and eloquent explanation, I guess this is not a topic for you.

 

The OP's post, despite its length, didn't actually say why any of it was necessary or how any of it was somehow relevant.

 

As I said before, The Old Republic is a War game. Therefore, the content that is added should be things that continue in the motif that there's this great and perilous war going on.

 

Hunting for easter eggs in Hoth....not so much really.

[AsheraII]

Wrong, MMO's, by their very nature, are social games. The social aspect is what kept millions of people playing EQ, WoW, LotRO and every single MMO for ages, and made them very reluctant to leave them for other games. And while part of this social interaction between players took place in raids and pvp, it also happened outside those areas.

 

Reduce the social ties between players, and players will have less reluctance to quit or leave. Community and interaction between players, in all its forms, is crucial for keeping an MMO alive. And yes, actually SITTING in a cantina and fooling around with a bunch of friends is one of those forms. I dare say, that even laying on a bed in Goldshire with another character is one of those forms. Activision could easily rip the animations out of those and take out the problem some people perceive there, but they don't... All they do is police a little if people go too far and too public with their behaviour (open soliciting etc. is where they may step in).

 

Since WoW makes such a wellknown example, any idea when more and more people started leaving that game? It was shortly after they undermined the social bonds between players by introducing cross-server mechanics. "We" was quickly replaced with "Me" when they did that. They're still repairing the damage they did back then, by introducing cross-server friend-systems and cross-server open world areas, but the truth is, the damage is already done, and they have nothing but band-aids to patch things up.

 

Anyone trying to make an MMO has to make interaction between players the top priority throughout the game. It has to be available everywhere, and content to bring players with similar interests together has to be seeded all over the place. Just, some of the places where players would expect this social interaction don't actually have it..

[Lent_San]

Wrong, MMO's, by their very nature, are social games. The social aspect is what kept millions of people playing EQ, WoW, LotRO and every single MMO for ages, and made them very reluctant to leave them for other games. And while part of this social interaction between players took place in raids and pvp, it also happened outside those areas.

 

Reduce the social ties between players, and players will have less reluctance to quit or leave. [snip]

Anyone trying to make an MMO has to make interaction between players the top priority throughout the game. It has to be available everywhere, and content to bring players with similar interests together has to be seeded all over the place. Just, some of the places where players would expect this social interaction don't actually have it..

 

Pretty much all of this and more, really. People have criticized BW for basically creating a single-player game with some MMO features when it first came out. They pretty much overreacted in the aftermath by making virtually most of new content multi-player compatible, still forgetting implementation of social stuff which is also needed in this game. This game really lacks in this respect, which is a shame.

[anonnn]

So true. This game needs some MAJOR enhancements to the social environment. If BioWare were to make 50% of their development effort pertaining to social environment improvements for the entire next year, it would be a good direction for the long-term excellence of the game. Here are a few threads that are good related topics to this thread, having topics of Social content:

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• Chat Bubbles: We need an option to enable them for say, yell and emote chat!
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• Housing and player cities for END GAME
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• Party Jawa should party forever
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• 1.7 Quality of Life Patch
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• Pet names!
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• Carrick social center (Social Droid)
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• a vendor that sells Name Collars for pets
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• major enhancements for Pets
  

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I think there should be another ship added to the Fleet travel map, that on board are a few things, but primarily a large social hall that has a huge open area for social activity, and side rooms that are both un-instanced and instanced, for groups to hold "private" meetings. In the Social Hall would be any and all elements that are important for a social environment.

____________________________> A Fleet ship with a Social Hall <

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[Lent_San]

Here' an interesting thread on player housing with many, many great suggestions:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5946006#post5946006

 

I really like a lot of the ideas that were posted there.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Lent_San

[Amyas]

Pazaak@!

[Lent_San]

I'd dig Pazaak but some other mini-games that are all over the place would be awesome as well.

 

And really, more events with great questlines - maybe my biggest pet peeve. But I guess that's for another topic.