Games

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[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 21 points 5 days ago

Playing TWoW, I had people blind-whispering me while I was just out questing asking if I wanted to heal their dungeon runs. Making people use their words to form groups really makes the game drastically more social.

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[–] Bloobish@hexbear.net [S] 16 points 5 days ago

Honestly I'm hoping they'll keep that option away from this version but I doubt it

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[–] Lerios@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago* (2 children)

this is an opinion i see a lot that really surprises me. LFG took massive amounts of central game content from literally not possible for a lot of people to pretty easily accessible. if you're someone who can't speak in video games (socially anxious, ESL, 10 year old girl with good internet sense lol) LFG reaaally revolutionised the game and is the only thing that opened up instances/raids. i never would have seen massive sections of the game otherwise

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[–] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 1 point 3 days ago

I think accessibility features should not come at the cost of core gameplay. MMORPGs are fundamentally a social activity and should be designed around that. Support for people who have difficulty communicating should come in the form of e.g. subchannels that you can passively advertise yourself as available in, or prewritten barks for key information that are translated according to user's localisation.

A magic button that turns the other people you're playing with into objects to support your fun is bad and antisocial. Shooting the shit, chatting in a half formed group, whinging in chat and having the server clown on you; these things are just as much a part of MMOs as killing mobs for XP are.

It's fine not to enjoy socialising, and if you don't I would recommend not picking up a social activity as a hobby. I am fully supportive of things that help people connect, but believe it's deeply misguided to turn games that are the evolution of MUDs into parallel play single player + objectified others like ARPGs/shooters etc.

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[–] MrWrinkles@leminal.space 1 point 3 days ago

That's true. LFG made it casual. I was/am socially anxious and LFG was worse for me. It felt like getting teleported into a group dungeon without introductions or stupid jokes or discussion beforehand, just "Go". And after getting kicked for various reasons, not very fun. Groups went from flexible to "Get gud"