The Digital Continuum: Social failings of all MMOs

by Kyle Horner Nov 8th 2008 at 12:00PM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, MMO industry, Opinion, The Digital Continuum

With all the changes and additions in MMORPGs over the years, you'd think there would've been more improvements to how people interact with one another. It's strange to look at arguably the cornerstone of this genre and see the least advancements in relation to other features, but that's seemingly the case.

The visibility of other people who you want to hang out with in a game is of the utmost importance -- even more so is the ability to converse with them. Why even bother playing an MMO for more than a few weeks if you can't grasp the feeling of being around, and interacting with, at least several people on a consistent basis?

It always strikes me as surprising when any new game doesn't feature a robust, flexible and slick chat window. Something as simple as a great chat window can play a very large role in the success of an MMO, because it's the primary means of communication between all players. A chat window needs to epitomize a responsive, useful and meaningful tool of exchanging information. This seems like an obvious thing to say, but so many games get it wrong that it amazes me. Warhammer Online is the perfect example of a chat window that needs a lot of attention. So much of that game is done right, but this is one of its biggest failings and while it's not debilitating it does hurt the game's community.

Even with a good chat interface, there's much more that could be done. Besides, everyone knows a chat window is only as good as the people chatting within it. Community needs to become more prominent, it needs to become more visible earlier on. MMO developers need to take a harder, longer look at social networks. They're immensely popular for a reason: people love to find other people with the same interests as them. Create a system within a game that's somewhere between a guild and a Facebook group and I guarantee something special will happen.

Let's imagine that you log in to World of Warcraft for the first time ever. You usually begin by selecting your server, but which server do you select and why? Normally people pick by type: PvE, PvP or RP. But if you could preview each server by looking at its active groups of say, people who're hugely into heavy roleplaying, then you'd have a way for people to find each other much more easily. Link that to an online social networking website prior to a game's launch and an early community will most definitely form. And if the Silverhand server has nearly five-hundred players absolutely into immersing themselves into their character -- and you are too -- then you'll probably pick that server and never look back. This could apply to all sorts of things: family friendly groups, hardcore raiders, girl gamers or even things like republicans and democrats if you really wanted to do that. Taking the guessing game out of server selection would severely increase the chance of players finding and sticking with a guild that's perfect for them.

Of course some developers are already working on websites that are essentially Facebook for their games. That's a great start, but the smart choice would be to integrate Web 2.0 concepts directly into a game's infrastructure from the ground up. And why not? It's not as though it couldn't be done and people are absolutely waiting for a great (or even simply good) game that does the social thing extremely well. MySpace is a testament to how much people will put up with sloppy design and code for a strong sense of community, if I ever saw one. The sooner someone figures it out, the bigger their splash is going to become.

Tags: activision-blizzard, blizzard, communities, community, ea, electronic-arts, featured, joystiqfeatures, mythic, social, social-networking, the-digital-continuum, war, warhammer, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Wjowski said on 12:44PM 11-08-2008

Chat interface improvements are useless and pointless if the playerbase doesn't use them. The social environment of any MMO is primarily up to the players, no the game developers.

Ghede said on 12:48PM 11-08-2008

Pfft, what surprises me is that more games don't have built in VOIP. It's a pain in the ass to have to type when an unexpected mob barges in when you are fighting another mob.

steve said on 5:36PM 11-09-2008

do you really want to hear everones voice?

Nathan said on 1:13PM 11-08-2008

This is the best idea for MMO improvement I've heard in a long time. Make it so.

Zaniac said on 2:26PM 11-08-2008

This is absolutely an important point.

I agree. More emphasis on good, useful, and for the love of god, VERSATILE chat interfaces.

Star Wars Galaxies holds several records in the mmo-business, not least of which includes screwing your customer base over the most, but also on the most creative and deep game mechanics. And this is yet another point in which it shines.

Star Wars Galaxies had the best chat interface ever. It practically parallelled a good IRC interface! - you had tons of functions.

- Windows could be dragged out and placed where you wanted them, or organized in the usual tabs.
- There were several layers of regional channels.
- And you could even create your very own chat channels!
- And while cross-faction chat might be an issue in some worlds, it wasn't at all in SWG, as the socializing actually transcended factions. You were in fact factionless by default, until you took action.

Rhaegar said on 9:59PM 11-11-2008

It seems like in every game, you need a good guild to experience the full game. What I don't understand is why every MMO I've ever played has left this totally up to the player. They should have a looking for guild system, just like they have a looking for group system. Instead of having websites devoted to help players find guilds, put that functionality in the game!

sikk said on 2:21AM 11-09-2008

I've been looking into the social aspect of mmorpgs for awhile now, especially with the new games that have come out like WAR. Being an EQ vet I found that the community and social aspects of that game are superior to basically every mmorpg since. After playing WAR I felt the total lack of social factor in the game, that's after leveling up 2 30+ characters. This was a problem I didn't like so I decided to break down EQ and find out what made it tick.

In the end I realized it's a number of things that create an environment for a community to flourish, but it basically came down to a few major issues. Basically put, in mmorpgs, at least all of the ones that have been released so far, there are levels. This is something EVERYONE who plays the game does, they level. So right off the bat you have the focal point, leveling up your character. Now all you have to do is give reasons to gather characters together to work on a focal goal in the game. EQ did this by giving the best exp to players in groups, at the same time most of the pve in the game required groups. What this did was gather players together to communicate and socialize for a common goal, which was to level and progress through the pve content. It's as easy as that yet games these days totally overlook this vital factor.

Unfortunately where WAR failed was that they adopted WoW's solo leveling quest chain system but neglected to provide the superb dungeon content like WoW has. So players overlook most of the dungeons in WAR or completely bypass them due to their locations and puzzles and instead solo quest to max level. Whereas in WoW players are lured into these dungeons due to their great design and rewards, let alone fast leveling. In the end you have player A. in WAR who levels 1-max with very little social interaction thus not gaining many friends and you have player B. in WoW who probably found a guild from doing instances with random people while he leveled up thus gaining many friends. Friends = reasons to log into the game again, reasons to miss the game when you log off and ultimately a mmorpgs success.

I still feel EQ has the easiest process of doing this and it still had the best community around due to the grouping mechanic of the leveling system, a fully connecting world, and lack of instant action mini game battleground type pvp. Designers should look back at EQ and take notes, there's alot more reasons than I've stated that made EQ have 15 expansions and counting.

Syme said on 11:17AM 11-10-2008

Self-description for identifying game communities during server selection is unreliable. Different people use the descriptions differently For example, I would have chosen a server that had a heavy roleplaying community. Unfortunately, I would have been unaware that most people who describe themselves as "heavy roleplayers" consider the actual game to be little better than a distraction from the complicated personal story they are developing, and they play out-of-character through most of the PvE content including instance groups.

In addition, people use descriptive systems for their own purposes, which may not be accurate identification.

And finally, communities change over time. My server certainly has.

Kittrell said on 10:06AM 11-11-2008

Aside from the obvious technical aspects of the need for effective communication tools, I believe one of the reasons communities do not flourish as one might expect is because raids groups, guilds, etc. exist for primarily selfish reasons. Most players seeking access to endgame content need to be part of a guild to access the gear...not because of a deep felt adoration toward the players in that guild...though some bonds inevitably do form. A system of guild/group achievements, that are relevant and significant within the context of the game, might stimulate some different behavior. Food for thought.

Wasuremono said on 12:05PM 11-11-2008

I actually hate the guild systems in place in most mmos and think that they actually inhibit the social aspect of the game in many ways. I think mmo's need to come up with innovative and more convenient ways of bringing people with the same goals together.