Saturday, September 20, 2008

Shhhh... Chaos Might Hear Us Thinking

I'm starting to notice that there's something missing from the (non-guild) Warhammer groups I've joined. In other games, people actually TALK. This was more frequent in games like Final Fantasy XI where fights were followed by lengthy downtimes. But even in EQ2, groups chatted far more often than they do in WAR.

In WAR, people join randomly, do their own thing, and drop out when they feel like it. Of course, this varies from group to group: I've joined friendlier groups that did talk a little, but the majority of them are silent. Its worse than silence. Most of the groups were unorganized and everyone acted as individuals; even though we were "grouped" from the game mechanic's perspective, we were still playing on our own. Even if someone tried to talk the group into utilizing a strategy, maybe by helpfully suggesting that someone (not me) pull (because I'm a Bright Wizard and fall apart in one hit) and that we pull maybe at most one monster at a time and focus on it instead of everyone running around pulling all fifteen champions all at once which might be a bad idea because we have no freaking healers or if we do they haven't found the heal button yet , people went about things their own way with no reply and no acknowledgement that they had even the slightest understanding of basic English.

It goes beyond just having quiet groups; the whole world is quiet. I guess that's because there don't appear to be world chat channels? Do people think that is a good thing? I know a lot of people discuss rather stupid things in world chat sometimes; but -- especially when I'm soloing PVE -- I like the distraction. And if the groups I join aren't talking, with world chat, at least there's another channel somewhere that is. Even when I don't feel like taking part in it, I like listening in.

Maybe its just me (nope, I guess not) - but Warhammer feels really, really quiet compared to other MMOs... Anyone have an idea why? Could the lack of downtime inherent in the games 'community building' Open Grouping/Public Quest model actually has the opposite effect?

(If everyone else's game sessions have been going like mine, it may be because we're all so distraught from being constantly slaughtered by Chaos that we're cradling ourselves in a corner, crying, and telling ourselves it will all be alright..... it will all be alright...... it will all be alright.......)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're right and I think its a big problem. PUGs were horrible in World of Warcaft and they look like its going to be even worse in Warhammer, with the open group system. They why I made sure I found a good guild before the game even launched.