Anti-Social Nerd Consensus: This Beta Was Awesome, Until People Started Showing Up.

[Alihja]

Harumph! Step aside please. I’ve no time for idle chitchat, kind sir or madam; I've got to save the village of Straddle from bandits. Oh sure, I believe you when you say that it’s nice outside in this place that you call, "real life". Yeah, yeah… I heard the rumor about how the snow is chirping, birds are melting or some crap like that… but who cares? How can any of that matter when there are neeker breekers that need killing and I'm just the elf for the job? Constable Bumblefoot told me that I was, so it must be true!

Yes I spent the majority of the weekend inside of Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, why do you ask? As with most MMORPGs on their first days, when you begin a quest in this game, the quest mob is… well, actually being mobbed. The scene is usually something like this.

For most quests, a great many newbies shall right-click, but only one gets to set off the quest. Yes, game mechanics allow people who're grouped to share quest credit on any mob that the group kills. And yes, people could run through these quests really quickly by grouping together. It all makes perfect sense. But here's the catch: some of us gamer nerds continue to demonstrate that we aren't ready to be social yet. That's why instead of five players grouping together and all getting the same credit for one quest mob, you have five players jumping on one spawn.



Hey you guys. Did I ever tell you about the time that I won a right-clicking contest in Lord of the Rings Online? Fuck yeah. It was awesome. It was one of those “Save the town from the impending attack” quests. I won the battle, but not the war. Those are the breaks, man. The bandits spawned to begin their attack, but before a single bandit arrow touched me, swarms of locusts -- I mean, players-- converged onto the spawn point for the quest mobs. None of the kills (experience or loot) went to me. But like I said, that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I decided to hang around a little bit and watch things go down with the next person to try the quest.

The next player wasn’t so happy to receive the help. He was raging mad. In fact, he told the rest of the zone that he wasn’t going to buy the full game when it went live, because there were too many people playing it and hunting the same things that he was.

“Say what?” I scoffed. I was so shocked, I forgot to take a damn screenshot.

Later on, I expressed my dismay to the man who puts up with my severe online gaming tendencies. I shuffled into the living room, flopped onto the couch, putting my feet up on the backrest and my head on the seat cushion. “How can you enjoy playing MMORPGs and hate interacting with people?” I asked my upside-down husband.

It was meant to be a rhetorical question.

“Well, I can see that guy’s point to a certain extent.” he said.

“Oh?”

“I had a quest to get an awesome bow, and all I had to do was kill eight bandits. I couldn’t get a single one… the place was crawling with people, all trying to kill them too. I'd start running towards a bandit, then someone else would be on it. I got frustrated enough to say ‘”fuck it!”’ and I logged out”.

That’s an interesting point. I’m playing a minstrel… and I've been told that because of their instant-casting, I'm playing the fastest kill-stealing class in the game. At some point today, I was the cause for some random player’s frustration because I killed the things that they were thinking of killing. In fact, I watched as people ran towards things that I'd already had targeted, and in a flash, I had the encounter locked. In some of these situations, the player continued to fight anyway... and I benefited getting both the loot, and the experience. You can’t exactly kill steal in this game. The same goes with resource nodes. You can’t steal a resource node from someone once they’re mining or gathering from it. But it’s possible to take a node that someone else was intending to take as their own. People establish ownership with their intent. It's actually kind of silly. That’s why every day, I see messages like this one.




You got it. Mining next to people who are fighting incites a lot of furious nerd rage. That guy was being polite. Whether you're playing Lord of the Rings online, World of Warcraft or EverQuest 2... the same scenario happens to every player in every game that has resource nodes. You head towards a node to mine from it, then while you’re standing there with your pickaxe ready to swing, some stupidly named thing – like oh… say, a neeker breeker comes running up from out of nowhere and starts hitting you. While engaged with that neeker breeker, someone else runs up and collects from the node.

Oh, and speaking of neeker breekers…




No worries. I'm convinced that if you just run up to an ore node, one will appear on top of you. Oh come now my little worrywarts... it's only beta. It's not really that bad, is it?

I have but one thing to say to all of this.... what the FUCK is a neeker breeker?

That is all.

[Alihja]

Well, I'm not sure, really. It's like a buglike thing -- to me it looks like an iguana with six legs and wings. Word on the out of character channel, is that someone went to work drunk on naming day.

I've found (after snooping around on the web) that they're actually part of fantasy lore before the game.

[colekutz]

We would care to ask if you have seen a Mr The Slayer Neary in such a game of rings and if he is doing well.

I was asking same. Why play a multiplayer game if you play it as a single player one?

I'm not the kind of player to LFG for quest I can solo, but if it happen someone else is there killing the same mob as I need, I always ask him to group. On otherhand, if he refuse, prepare to fight for your kill, cuz I wont let them go easily.

Some are just dumb, on a quest where I need to kill X of Y mob to complete it, most of hte time I don't care about the loot. I'm ready to give away the drop to get the kill. But they still don't want to group... But I had that smart guy, he was only farming leather. "Just go kill what you need, but loot them all so I can skin them after" He helped me with a lot of quest invilving killing beast. We were both happy. I got full credit of kill, lot xp, lot of quest done and in counter part, he got LOT of leather fast. It's just sad people are that much greedy or stupid they can't figure out a way to work togheter.

[Lesson25]

Haha; good read.

I've recently come to the discovery that I too am an anti-social MMORPG player. I generally avoid grouping with anyone I don't know--even if its a group of players from a reputable guild--and I shy away from actively bartering through trade channels. It's not that I dislike other players; I just don't NOT dislike them either. I don't know if these tendancies stem from a deeper psychological anti-social behavior or just bad previous experiences.

Then again, if I was a more sociable person, I probly wouldn't spend every night playing MMORPGs instead of going out. :-P

[Khatib]

Honestly, I used to be really good about grouping with randoms, until instances in WoW became the norm. Nothing worse than being tied to some pug who doesn't know his class from a hole in the ground, and knowing that bailing out of the group is screwing 3 other people, some of whom you might not want to screw over, and that kicking the pug is pretty much not an option, cause you were desperate to fill that class role or you'd not have really taken him in the first place...

But yeah... a few dozen bad experiences like that, and I tend to really avoid randoms these days, even in games that aren't WoW. I think part of it used to be that nerds are generally smart, and they used to band together in this odd sub-culture genre known as MMOs. But now with the WoW influx, you have all these people with a bad grasp on fantasy lore, how certain classes should work (no D&D or even Diablo backgrounds) and who just aren't your typical "smart" bookworm nerd who plays MMOs and RPGs. And then you end up grouping with them randomly, expecting them to be just another one of the crowd, and are so shocked and damaged by the experience of finding out they're some dipshit who just thinks the graphics are pretty... Yeah... ramble ramble. Whatever.

[Kanara]

I stopped doing PUGS back in EQ, after the kunark expansion, but before the velious expansion. For me, there are too many people who either just don't care about the group expectations, or their expectations are so radically different than the rest of the group (in terms of what is fun) that things fall apart before they even begin. There are also those that might have the same expectations that I do, but you find that they are a little too slow on the keyboard, a little too dense to count out 5 seconds before casting a complete heal, or are simply too busy trying to cyber that sexy wood elf, I suppose its a blood elf these days, (Hi Warlor!) to really grasp the game mechanics/know your role concept. Toss into the mix that a huge percentage of the players are 15-20 years younger than I, and some even more. They have absolutely nothing of interest to talk about (no one cares about your prom date or how much weed you smoked last weekend) while botching up the group mechanics. As a result of all the above, the whole socialization in MMO's concept breaks down.

It was a great idea and fun when the gaming community was all reasonably close to my age. I have little to nothing in common with the majority of the gaming population these days, and as such I solo...or don't play.

[dermien]

I got a full group together for Protect Lalia and we were waiting on our last guy to get to us when some lone newbie thought it'd be hilarious to try the quest on his own. He got killed and we had to wait for her to respawn for quite awhile. I watched him die later on to 3 wights, he's got to be the most fucking retarded guy on the server.

[Ripperjack]

I do agree this WoW solo until you are 70 mentality is going to hurt other games as players start to migrate to greener pastures. What pisses me off though is when I am grinding something, I will try to ask around to join a team and people keep refusing my help. I mean this is an MMORPG FFS!!! M as in Multiplayer, not M as in MORE FOR ME! People don't realise that you can do more in groups, especially when you have kill tasks to complete.

*sigh* I suppose I miss the days where I would spend hours cybering with my cat girl on CoH's Virtue server. Me-YOW!

[Khatib]

I really prefer games that had weighted xp/loot rights as well. Like you or your group does >50% of the damage, you get loot rights. You do 75% of the damage, you get 75% of the xp that it's worth, and the other guy gets 25%.

It makes world spawns something that are a lil more competitive cause of the dps race, and it makes grouping much more casual, and easier to do across level gaps.

Some guy 4 levels lower than you wants to group, only doing 1/3rd of what you can do, but he's messing up your xp per hour because of the 1/2 and 1/2 split? He's just slowing you down! Split it up based on damage, and it's no loss for anyone, but a lil camaraderie to add to the mix.

The whole first tag system and the system of splitting up xp whether someone did damage or just has you on follow, or has their head up their ass and can only click one special every 6 seconds during a fight... or has a stupid spec that leaves them oom every 2 mobs so they can't reasonable grind and they always have downtime... All that crap puts me in the mood to just solo and make time, because I don't mind random people, I just don't like them slowing me down or getting in my way when I don't have the ability to move them out of it (like open PvP ). You get a system that rewards off individual performance so people don't have to worry about what skill/attention level others are playing at and you'll get more groups in the game, swear to god.

Instead they want everything to have rigid boundaries so "no one can get hurt" and it makes the game less fun and less interactive.

[maglev]

I actually sympathise with the nerd rage a bit tbh.

In my humble opinion there are too many wankers playing mmo's that ruin it for people trying to get the whole immersive enjoyable experience thing (this is based on my experience in WoW).

By immersive im not talking about rp or anything but sometimes it seems that a lot of the people you play with just do not give a shit about playing the game well.

When your playing solo you can be selfish and focus on your own goals without some fucktard screwing it up. When soloing you find your limitations and know your strengths so you are also less likely to screw up.

Over time soloing becomes second nature and makes the game become (to quote a not addicted article) "Zelda with chat".

i suppose ive just become a bit cynical as ive played wow for a good while and have noticed the game and i think its playerbase change a fair bit.

[isobelle]

I blame syfor.

[Lesson25]

On a side note: what's with those tags? I see a bunch that are "...the Undefeated" while others are "...of <Location>". Is Undefeated like some special tag you can opt for until you die or are PKed or something?

[Khatib]

Hit a certain level without having died and it opens up those tags. They're pretty easy to get... or were earlier in beta... now if the crowding is so bad, I can't imagine how any mob could ever kill someone. If they turned and ran they'd go past 15 people probably at least one of whom would pick it off for them.

that should be a spell in the game. casting it would cause people to stay the **** away from your motherfrudgin resource nodes.

and perhaps also do an extra +10 ice damage ftw.

[Lesson25]

But, do you get to retain the tag if you die after hitting Level X?

The implications of running around showing a public display that says "I've never died before!" are fascinating.

[Khatib]

There's different levels. Like a certain tag for "I didn't die before lvl 6" then "I didn't die before lvl 10" etc, etc. So yeah, if you make it all the way to max level never dying, you'd have a tag showing that, although after that point you could die and it potentially wouldn't matter til they raised the level cap I suppose...

[Naolin]

The problem with grouping is that the EXP penalty is usually pretty bad. Sure I PuG for instances and group quests but for normal quests? nah it will screw up my exp gainz!

I'll group for named stuff. I'll generally just ninja-invite people that are waiting for it to spawn. I grouped a lot on my warlock, mostly because I was leveling her up first and, well, everything was camped. On my warrior, who just got 70 last weekend, I did very few group quests, and grouped 3 times from 60-70, and each time was to finish up group quests in a zone with in-guild help from as many level 70 raid geared-guildies as possible.

Then again, I tend to go with the "bigger hammer" approach.

[dermien]

You're gonna get your ass kicked in LOTRO at least once by 10 and definitely by 15 so having that a title after that is like a mark of cowardice, might as well carry around 4 feathers.

[Alihja]

If you're a minstrel and... if before level 10, you end up grouping with a ranger who doesn't know what "Assist the tank" means, you just might die -- especially if that tank doesn't believe in single pulls. If you end up grouped with two of those kinds of rangers at the same time, you will most definitely die.

(akward pause)

Lots!

[Lesson25]

The keeping-the-tag-if-you-earned-it-even-if-you-die-later thing is kinda lame.

I was just imagining what it would be like if you had to never die to hold the title--how out of your way you'd have to go in order to keep said tag, & how out of their way other players would go to pop your proverbial PK cherry.

[mven]

Well if there are titles every 5 levels to 50 you'd have to be pretty good or pretty patient to get the last one. If you die at any point you can't get the next level title. Everyone will know that "the wary" is up to level 5 and "the undefeated" is up to 10... So it's not like it is going to make you look cooler than you actually are : P

As for soloing the problem is that it flat out IS more efficient to solo than group with random people when levelling in WoW. Unless you have a steady group and avoid all of the loot X number of items quests, you will level much faster just soloing. So there really is no justification to group outside of being social and most people are not social.

Kanara - I think the age of the average MMO player will probably continue to go up over the years so maybe you will again find people who are at least old enough to wipe their own asses to group with : P

[Unregistard]

Originally Posted by mven

find people who are at least old enough to wipe their own asses to group with : P

at least until we're old enough that we can't wipe our own asses anyMORE.

[derkaderka]

I have found it great to aoe grind with my warlock (or my druid for that matter, easy if you go moonkin, just for the grinding purposes), and my buddy's mage. We pull about as many as we want and have tons of CC if we ever get in trouble. This has worked especially well in STV and Ungoro.

As for pairing with randoms, I'll ninja invite ppl if we are headed the same way and obviously doing the same quests, but I have no qualms about /boot if they aren't up to snuff.

I actually did have something funny happen to me yesterday on Uldum server while grinding my alt in the Shimmering Flats. I was out dual boxing a 30 lock and 32 priest for skinning/herb and XP and a 26 BE pally kept bugging me to get in a group with me. He was actually downright rude about it. I kept telling him no, that he should go back to 1k Needles and get a bit higher before heading down to the flats, so he just decided to follow me around, attacking mobs I was already engaged with and soaking up a bit of my XP. So, I logged the lock off and just ran around with the priest, waiting for him to do it again. I pulled a couple of 35 mobs, waited for him to attack one, then killed the one I needed and faded. Funny watching the guy die. Prolly woulda grouped with him if he had been a little more polite, but hey, that's how it goes.

[smarsh]

Originally Posted by derkaderka

I actually did have something funny happen to me yesterday on Uldum server while grinding my alt in the Shimmering Flats. I was out dual boxing a 30 lock and 32 priest for skinning/herb and XP and a 26 BE pally kept bugging me to get in a group with me. He was actually downright rude about it. I kept telling him no, that he should go back to 1k Needles and get a bit higher before heading down to the flats, so he just decided to follow me around, attacking mobs I was already engaged with and soaking up a bit of my XP. So, I logged the lock off and just ran around with the priest, waiting for him to do it again. I pulled a couple of 35 mobs, waited for him to attack one, then killed the one I needed and faded. Funny watching the guy die. Prolly woulda grouped with him if he had been a little more polite, but hey, that's how it goes.

[derkaderka]

Originally Posted by smarsh

LOL