Why do I think online MMORPG communities have been destroyed? My guess would actually be that the influx of people who have started to play MMORPGs because MMORPG makers decided to start free to play servers, which didn’t really exist at first. These free to play servers made a lot of people look into MMORPGs, including immature people who like to think “0mgZ 1s t3h int3rn7Z i c4n b3 4n 455″. These immature people got into the community, started splitting people up into groups that hated immature people, groups that liked them, etc, eventually leading to groups similar to high school cliques, but it’s a lot harder to make cliques on the internet because it’s harder to base things on appearance, actions, etc, so people started drifting further and further apart until they’re left in a group of maybe one or two friends.

Ok… Well that probably isn’t the reason for the downfall of online communities, but I’m just so annoyed on how far MMORPGs have fallen. They used to be a lot more fun, now I’m starting to wonder “What’s the point of playing an MMORPG if I’m playing solo or with only one or two other people?”

Well, it’s time to get back to my search for a good MMORPG… I’ll probably end up playing Diablo II or some similar game again.

PS: Can’t wait for Diablo III! (I hope it decides to come sometime this year >_>)

I don’t love any of them enough.

I don’t feel a personal stake in whether or not they prosper. They’re there for me to enjoy because I paid / am paying for them.

I am very, very fond of Guild Wars. I am in no way, shape, or form fond of it enough to ever take on a newbie helping role in it.

Makes me a bit sad.

Ah I read he’s using a Mac… But then again what about EQ1 Mac edition?

Seriously though, I’ve found WoW much less social then EQ2, I think the problem is that you need to group up properly to become social, and to group up you need challenges that make you think. EQ2 definitely does it for me (WoW used to do it with TBC).

Here WoW has even made the dungeons a sort of solo grind of trivial content, last time I played it outside of my guild WoW felt like a MMOG which could have been any other FPS (I’ve chatted with people more in Planetside recently then I did in the WoW dungeon finder!). In the guild though and raiding and it was social and fun, just got burnt out though on the one raid to do or get extremely bored gameplay model

The problem here is this: there is no value to being social anymore. In the good old days, you needed to be friendly, polite and have some semblance of social skills — you know like that odd place we call the “real world” in order to succeed and get groups, apply to a guild all which gets you the gear and advances your character. (See that’s what is called cohesion).

Now you don’t have to have any social skills at all to survive in a MMO. Just click on the Dungeon Finder button and you can get a group, clear a dungeon without ever uttered a single solitary world.

Is this progress? I think not.

You think it’s bad now, what will the average MMO be like in 2 years? Wasn’t a sense of community the whole reason that *online* games were so special compared to single-player games?

I don’t like the direction that convenience driven MMOs and virtual worlds are heading. We are slouching toward a impersonal, meaningless future of slacker MMOs served up like so many billions of hamburgers.

You really gotta wonder what’s going on when everyone in your vent channel is silent… o_O

I definitely agree with you that the age of the game has a big affect on it, however I also believe that the nature of games as they are evolving tend to lend themselves towards antisocial.

Ex: In EQ you grouped ALOT, as you are leveling in WoW, you don’t group near as much. When you group with players you begin talking, conversing, making friends, and building up your friends list.

I believe this is a big part of it!