hi folks, hope all are well today. new’ish gamer and i have a question about etiquette in MMORPGs.
are there proper ways to engage people in game? it seems strange to me to randomly ask someone to be friends. i also don’t see many ways to strike up conversations (if that’s the proper way to refer to it).
for additional context, in a game like Throne & Liberty or FFXIV, there are tons of people running around doing their thing. do you just whisper to someone and say hi? do you comment on their character or if you saw them do something interesting / cool?
or, for something like The First Descendant you may run a mission with a bunch of random people and then everyone goes their separate ways. but, if that group was cool (and good) do you quickly try to friend everyone?
personal context (if it helps / matters), console gamer (PlayStation don’t judge please, haha), really introverted / anxious around strangers IRL, older play (mid 50s) and ultimately… afraid of looking like a weirdo 😀
apologies in advance if this topic was already discussed (happy to check another post if some can point me to it). also, apologies if i don’t directly respond to every message, although i will read them all.
edit - 2024/11/16 - i just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your advice and taking the time to reply / provide your insights. this has really been helpful!! happy gaming to you all 🎮 🕹️ 😄
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Give all of those things a try. None of them are “wrong”. Experiment and see what works best with the type of people you want to spend time with. Just don’t get discouraged if your success rate is low (some people just won’t be interested) and respect people’s decisions if they choose to ignore you.
solid advice right here. thank you so much, i’ll experiment a little and see how it goes… i’m probably over thinking some of this as well 😆
I am an ultimate raider in FFXIV. If I am traveling around, ask away. One of the greatest things about our community is there a bunch of people that love to help and teach. But you have to be honest about where you are at. If you don’t know, say something. But if you pretend to be further ahead and people are expecting to beat something, it will be awkward. But that’s raiding. The rest is just finding what you like about it. There are usually tons of discord channels that helps you find what you are interested in.
understood about you don’t know, say something. for me that’s easy, i’m not one to say i know things when i don’t. appreciate the feedback.
It’s just a basic courtesy. You will get far more people willing to help by saying “I don’t know this, how do I [enter whatever you need to know]” good luck out there!
I would avoid zone-wide chats. They end up in pissing contests about who’s cooler, edgier, better, etc. Local or proxy chat let’s you talk to a party directly in front of you, like you are actually addressing the person instead of the name in a chat box.
As to what you should say, say the first thing that comes to mind, short of “want to buy GF”. Find similar minded people. Additionally, join guilds or discords. Check the game sub for guild finder stuff, join medium sized guilds that are doing content you like. Be prepared to leave if you don’t feel like you fit or it doesn’t mesh well. The beauty of MMOs is they generally have a decent sized player base, you’ll find community somewhere. They just rarely come find you.
What I’d say regarding anxiety…everyone has usually been where you are. On ESO, I help run a 1k+ person guild, where most groups are doing hard mode content or trifecta content (speed run, hard mode, no deaths). I don’t want to do the horribly sweaty stuff, but I’ve done some hard modes and such. Decent parse numbers are 110-120k just about, and I hit that. But when I started, I was at like…50k. I joined a group, talked to people, and bit the bullet and let people critique my gameplay. More often than not, if you are asking for help, people will give it and help you along, and that’s a big reason why we grew. We encouraged people to post parses, to show gameplay, so that it could be reviewed and advice given. It wasn’t public, but a fair few of us could see it and give pointers and suggestions.
Everyone starts somewhere. Just take the thoughts out of your head and put it in the chat box, and see who vibes with you!
They just rarely come find you yeah, that makes sense, the onus is on me to find people. agreed on the chat thing. again, still trying to figure it all out but some of the zone / game wide chat is… interesting, to say the least.
i think when a get a little further along, i may look into guilds. my only concern is that it becomes a second full time job. however, as one person mentioned, “leave if you’re not happy” (to paraphrase that posters comment).
will do on the take the thoughts out of your head advice!
Nah, I haven’t played ESO as part of the guild in over a month. I still get on and do some stuff, but it’s solo stuff or just with a group who linked up. Unless you’re joining an end-game guild, I’d say the function is more social than content. T&L maybe a little different, but the point of the big guilds is that you can join, and you have a group of “vetted” players you fit in with to play when you want to. It is what you make of it, y’know?
im not social but once I got my chats under control I would joke and clown around on them. Well as well as give advice or do actualy game related talk. To me its sorta like a party and I was more likely to engage socially when I was just hanging for one reason or another and more likely to talk business when the action took place. Like champions had these whole zone super enemies called cosmics that popped every four hours and if you came last minute you would likely get locked out of the full zone and they were impossible to beat below a certain threshold of players. so like you would hang out ten or twenty minutes before and screw around. talk and emotes and whatnot.
when you say got my chats under control does that mean the different types: party vs. world. vs whispers, etc.? that is an area that’s still a little confusing. plus i need to get better at using a controller to chat. thanks for the comments around not being a last minute type player for big events, i’ll keep that in mind.
when i see others doing missions (especially in TFD), i usualy get right in an start helping, even if i did the mission already. i figure worst case, it’s just more practice for me 😀
no I mean blocking the trolls
ohhhh, that makes even more sense. that would reduce the annoyances for sure. advice taken!
You should take a look at this YouTube documentary by Folding Ideas which addresses the shift in behaviours regarding MMORPGs: https://youtu.be/BKP1I7IocYU
thank you for the link! i will set aside some time tonight to check it out. i can only imagine the number of different mindsets / attitudes and such in a single game, let alone different games.
edit 2024/11/17 - watched this last night and it was great! I don’t know a lot about WoW, but it was interesting all the same. i was struck by how much research was done against the game. also, how the player influencing the game and vice versa happened over time. the comments on how players reacted to those less skilled was interesting. for me it gives a different perspective on interactions. again, thank you!!
I’ve had random people whisper me to compliment my character’s hat and ask where did I get the cosmetic in Elder Scrolls Online. To be fair, it was a pretty silly hat.
Noting inflates the ego like a random whisper asking how you got a badass mount.
also, solid advice, i think i’ll keep this one in mind as well!
If they look like there just roaming around, emoting, roll-playing, playing with random items/spells or generally fucking around; there likely feeling social and may respond but each MMO has a different vibe to it. Look for people loudly drawing attention in cites. Wow players tend to group up but not say anything, There is mechanical communication(IE: everyone is in perfect sync in a group activity) but that has a good chance of breaking down at the first sign of trouble. I can’t say much A lot of it is bar level interaction, you hang out for 30 minutes, do your dungeon and move on. If you get along with some one during an activity, send a friend request and they may accept or ignore it, sometime they may sit on it for a bit.
There is a lot of toxicity or other people you will just not , block and move on if its a problem to you, report if it’s still a problem after that. You will never win an argument on the internet. Being a weirdo is normal, and awkward interactions will be common, as that guy has a good chance of being from some country you cant find on the map(or your government may have literally bombed there family yesterday). Noting more honest than 2 randos finding out there at war with each other after spending 2 hours having fun.
a lot of toxicity or other people you I think that’s probably the biggest barrier to being social. not wanting to deal with toxic players is a huge thing from what I have read (Lemmy, Reddit, etc.)
thank you for this, simple but sounds effective. i’ll have to go find the player in T&L that was running around as turkey and asked they pulled that off 🤣
For FFXIV, specifically, if you are looking to add some friends I’d say start by hanging out one of the three starting cities (Gridania, Limsa, Ul’Dah) near the Aetherytes. Often people are just hanging and chatting some there. Limsa, on my server at least, seems to just be filled with people all the time hanging out. And you may even see some open calls for people to join Free Companies (Guilds). Those people are actively looking for new blood, so you could start up a discussion with them and see if their group is something you’d like to join. By doing so you may be able to get several friends pretty quick that way. Just remember that you owe nothing to those folks, and if the free company vibe doesn’t feel right once you get in, then bounce.
But commenting on someone’s look is fine, too! People work hard to collect or craft certain pieces of gear and dye them to make their character the way they want so if you notice something cool chances are they will be happy to talk about it.
There was one time last year during a Live Letter (this is a live streamed event the producers of the game do a few times a year) I went to Limsa and said to anyone who could hear it that I’d be “over by [a specific bench] to discuss the Live Letter” and lots of people I didn’t know gathered around and we all had a fun chat about the event as it streamed.
Or even if you have questions, say them out loud in a crowded space and chances are someone will help. FF14 is notorious for people NOT being trash, so most often you’ll find helpers before finding jerks.
And I promise that you can’t out-weirdo the weirdos that run around pretty much any game, so try to not worry about that.
appreciate the advice on getting conversations started. i think i’ll work up the nerve to give that a try in the near future. also, thank you for you can’t out-weirdo… that makes it easier to handle 😀
I’ve played WoW basically since it ever came out like 19/20 years ago, just after Guild Wars 1 and among many other MMOs for shorter times. And communication in MMORPGs has definitely been a lot better back in the days, or at least felt more engaged than it does now. Now it’s often been difficult to get people to talk, even after like a good dungeon run people will often just leave without having said an entire word the entire dungeon. It’s not as chatty as it used to be back in the days, and a lot of people are the toxic type that only respond when something goes wrong.
I think your best bet would be to join guilds in these games. I used to be in great guilds as well, where everyone could talk to each other in guild chat, but it kinda devolved into an alternative looking-for-group chat over the years since most guilds just invite anyone to get the guild bonusses and have easier access to people wanting to do raids and dungeons and stuff.
Guilds often don’t feel like the band of friends they used to be, and more like a collection of people doing the same type of content. It’s like most players just treat MMO games like a second job, they log in, do their chores, and log off again. But you can get lucky and run into a great guild that’s more casual, it heavily depends on the game and servers though.
In the past years I found that local chat is mostly used by roleplayers, WoW has a few servers where a lot of roleplayers flock to, and it really helped make the world feel alive as well. As for everyday non-RP chat, it just feels like most MMO games turned into a singleplayer game where you run around doing your own thing, with a lot of other people that are also playing their own game.
I do think that free-to-play games are worse when it comes to communication though, since anyone can hop in, and it often attracts the most toxic entitled people. The paywall with games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy Online definitely help filter out the majority of them though.
On a side note, I often play shooters as well. And I really hated voice chat in basically all of them, since most of them were just kids screaming vile things about mothers and what not, so I just ended up turning it off. Eventually I started playing Squad, which is a more serious Battlefield type of game with voice chat that attracts a more mature audience. At first I was a bit hesitant to use voice chat at all, but now I absolutely love talking with random players and couldn’t imagine the game without voice chat, most fun I’ve had with complete strangers in any game.
Sometimes it’s just a step to get over, and it gets easier. It’s worth giving it a shot in the games you play, but I would say it’s more likely to have a better experience outside of free-to-play games since there’s a lower chance of running into toxic players ruining the vibe.
MMO games turned into a singleplayer game sort of the vibe i get now but, your other advice makes sense. again, i think the guild thing is interesting but, didn’t want it to turn into a job. the free vs. played is an interesting comment. as i progress, i’ll see how that turns out.
the thing with voice chat, TBH, is i’m not sure if i’m hearing people or if it’s “in game stuff”. in TFD the other night i hear “i need help” but i had no way of knowing if it was a person saying it or some in game thing. i’ll have to pay more attention to that.
appreciate your perspective as a long time MMORGP player, this was helpful.
not as chatty as it used to be back in the days
I think that’s kinda a generational problem. When you played WoW 20 years ago, all the chatter was in the game, because where else would someone be asking where Mankrik’s wife was?
Kids these days (and old people who are paying attention, too, I guess) just join the Guild discord because it’s persistent chat outside of the game with push notifications and streaming and you can listen to shared playlists while raiding and all sorts of shit you just can’t do in the game.
So sure, MMO people don’t chat in game as much anymore, but there’s still a vibrant meme-sharing-and-yelling-at-the-hunter community in Discord now.
looks like i’m biting the bullet on Discord, haha! although i get where you are coming from, people flock to the thing everyone else uses.
It’s definitely a generational thing, aside from people being completely focused on achievements and run around with a go-go-go mentality that everything must be achieved as fast as possible.
I personally only use Discord for talking to friends in voice chat though. I absolutely hate how most communities it’s barely anything more than Twitch chats where the feeds go faster than you can read and it still feels like talking into a void. At least in most Discord channels I’ve been, you can’t really have discussions. Not unless you have smaller groups that aren’t a rotating door of people coming and going.
go-go-go mentality that everything must be achieved as fast as possible the video linked above talked about that relative to WoW. it seems like a pretty common thing… getting through the game backlog as fast as possible to say you “completed X number of games” in week / month / etc.
