Yeah, yeah. (Also, MMOs aren’t social)
So I haven’t been updating as much… I know that. I know that you, my one loyal reader, probably don’t care, but I feel the pull of the site when I don’t post something in a couple few days. Problem is, nothing has really made me cranky in the past couple of weeks. Sure, there is drama on the internet still and lawsuits, but nothing is really hitting my “that sucks!” button. I’m too busy playing SupCom, Company and WoW (I know) to rant/worry that the PC game industry is dying (it is, slowly), or that games are/aren’t art (they are).
But, it being the circumstances that I am once again playing WoW (damn you woman!), I must once again whine about the lack of socialness in a MMO in general and in WoW in specific. Just a little.
Why do I keep harping on this subject? Because I’m a social butterfly and I need an outlet in my games. Bluh. No, because I’m playing in a game that expects me to group with others (not requires, in the case of WoW, but expects) to complete parts of the game. And how does it go about this? It does it by giving you a lousy (now updated) Looking For Group interface and that’s it. They want you to manually remember if you’ve grouped with people before, they want you use their now confusing (not overly, but not n00b friendly either) interface to find group members and to advertise yourself in it and they want to somehow divine if the player you’re inviting in is even worth it. Bluh.
Call me needy, but you know what I want? I want to have a list of everyone in the zone with the quest I’m currently on, same list they can see if I’m on the quest (sure, opt out is fine). I want automatic ratings for people I group with (you get a +1 because I didn’t manually say you sucked or were good, now when I go to group again, I’ll see I didn’t mind grouping with you last time). I want friends lists that talk to each other. I want LFG channels in every zone. I want it to be easy to setup groups and find other people that don’t suck,e tc, etc, etc. I’m silly that way.
So my wife and I play WoW, grouping with the occasional person, trying to steer clear of asshats, while not really knowing because we don’t even remember if we’ve grouped with someone before. WoW is a single player game with a bunch of other people competing for the same resources. It’s an odd bag.
What Would Matt Do: I won’t stop playing yet, I’m still having fun being a Warlock since I’m still in the lowbie levels.