Just a thought, maybe the MMO player base is just aging out? I started with WoW back in 2005, I just don’t have the bandwidth in life anymore for an MMO. I imagine that is a similar feeling for a lot of us millennials.
I miss that feeling a little bit.
My undiagnosed-ADHD highschool self with like 18 characters hovering around level 20, never maxing one out because the ~30-40 slog was real, just chatting up strangers for fun while hopping around various towns’ mailboxes and occasionally actually doing game content.
(Remember when Barrens chat was a meme for basically being like the /b/ of WoW? LOL)
… And it didn’t feel like impending doom or that I was somehow wasting my life away. It’s just what I did after school and that was alright.
It’s how I met my wife though, so it all worked out. :)
I could go on for days but WoW’s peak was a neat way to build social skills while being behind an avatar kept you from being too vulnerable.
I feel like online gaming now has gotten so anti-social and that the mere fear of potential toxicity just has everyone locked up and suspicious; Afraid to talk to anyone they don’t already know. Thanks to, what, basically Discord? Game chats are completely dead.
I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(
I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(
I’m sorry that was your experience, but this is very much opposite of mine. Not only is the game still going strong (new expac came out like two weeks ago btw, and it’s pretty good!), but in all my years playing (and that’s been since Day 1), I’ve had so many fun interactions in the game.
And that’s without even counting the ones with my guilds. I’ve even had some fun chats in ranked PvP, the saltiest place in the game.
I’m playing in European servers, which probably doesn’t change much versus NA, but yeah, there are often conversations going on in map chat, or locally, between total strangers. Also between teams in WvW, during events, during festivals, waiting at the Wall after the Chak Gerent…
It’s a very friendly community and I encourage you to give it another try! And yeah, if you can find a guild suited to your tastes it’s even better!
I was always behind the curve of whatever the core game was on wow, so I was always trying to catch up to the guys who introduced me to it, never really had the time to do endgame stuff with them, because of having two little kids.
By the time WOTLK dropped, I was PUGing a DK all the time because I was nowhere near the endgame where my buddies were. After that I became incredibly casual. Just questing the storyline of wherever I was. Dropped it and came back in classic. When Cata dropped on classic, with no era to play on with, and again, I was no where near cap the whole second time around I unsubbed.
I have just rolled a PS and intend to casually bum around until my server falls over and I’ve maxxed out every char and class I want to.
Just a thought, maybe the MMO player base is just aging out? I started with WoW back in 2005, I just don’t have the bandwidth in life anymore for an MMO. I imagine that is a similar feeling for a lot of us millennials.
I miss that feeling a little bit. My undiagnosed-ADHD highschool self with like 18 characters hovering around level 20, never maxing one out because the ~30-40 slog was real, just chatting up strangers for fun while hopping around various towns’ mailboxes and occasionally actually doing game content. (Remember when Barrens chat was a meme for basically being like the /b/ of WoW? LOL)
… And it didn’t feel like impending doom or that I was somehow wasting my life away. It’s just what I did after school and that was alright.
It’s how I met my wife though, so it all worked out. :)
I could go on for days but WoW’s peak was a neat way to build social skills while being behind an avatar kept you from being too vulnerable.
I feel like online gaming now has gotten so anti-social and that the mere fear of potential toxicity just has everyone locked up and suspicious; Afraid to talk to anyone they don’t already know. Thanks to, what, basically Discord? Game chats are completely dead.
I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(
I’m sorry that was your experience, but this is very much opposite of mine. Not only is the game still going strong (new expac came out like two weeks ago btw, and it’s pretty good!), but in all my years playing (and that’s been since Day 1), I’ve had so many fun interactions in the game.
And that’s without even counting the ones with my guilds. I’ve even had some fun chats in ranked PvP, the saltiest place in the game. I’m playing in European servers, which probably doesn’t change much versus NA, but yeah, there are often conversations going on in map chat, or locally, between total strangers. Also between teams in WvW, during events, during festivals, waiting at the Wall after the Chak Gerent…
It’s a very friendly community and I encourage you to give it another try! And yeah, if you can find a guild suited to your tastes it’s even better!
I was always behind the curve of whatever the core game was on wow, so I was always trying to catch up to the guys who introduced me to it, never really had the time to do endgame stuff with them, because of having two little kids. By the time WOTLK dropped, I was PUGing a DK all the time because I was nowhere near the endgame where my buddies were. After that I became incredibly casual. Just questing the storyline of wherever I was. Dropped it and came back in classic. When Cata dropped on classic, with no era to play on with, and again, I was no where near cap the whole second time around I unsubbed. I have just rolled a PS and intend to casually bum around until my server falls over and I’ve maxxed out every char and class I want to.