The Daily Grind: How important are friends to MMO gaming?

A pic of Felicia Day and Sandeep XD Copyright!

Do you decide which MMO to play based on where your friends are?
Yes, I tend to play MMOs where most of my friends are. However, I must be able to stand the MMO. For example: UI is very important to me, if it's crap: no matter how many friends are there, I just can't bear to continue playing it.

How important are other people to your continued MMO gaming?
Very important, a good community with mature gamers is what I like. Otherwise, I'll just play multiplayer games instead of MMOs.

If your friends weren't playing the game they are, would you be?
I do, mainly because I love the genre, and like to explore all the top MMOs that gets released.

How much does the directly social nature of massively multiplayer games affect your gameplay?
Quite abit.

I completely packed up and dropped everything to move servers to play with some old co-workers. When that guild fell apart, I decided to stay on that server because I had made other friends by then.

I only ever play with friends.

Do you decide which MMO to play based on where your friends are?
Not really. I will try one on a friend’s recommendation, but ultimately, if I don’t enjoy it, I’ll leave.

How important are other people to your continued MMO gaming?
I’m coming to a place where “knowing” the people I play with isn’t as important as having lots to play with. I’ve been in enough guilds, that I’ve come to realize there are very few true friends that you’ll meet in MMOs. If I’m fortunate enough to have a RL friend to play with, that’s great. If not, I’ll survive.

If your friends weren't playing the game they are, would you be?
If they weren’t playing CoH, would I be playing WAR? I think so. I played what they played for a long time, but other then the camaraderie, it doesn’t offer the “fun” factor to me it used to.

How much does the directly social nature of massively multiplayer games affect your gameplay?
I think it’s the addictive progressiveness and the false sense of accomplishment that really affect my gameplay. If being social was my main point, I could much easier join & play RL friends on XBOX360. So, I’d say very little.

My friends are a very important factor. I will try new games on my own, but I keep coming back to the place where I have a community. I play WoW with a slew of RL friends and online friends who've become important to me over the years. WoW is still interesting and exciting to me on it's own merits, though. If I were truly bored with the game, even my awesome guild couldn't keep me there.

An MMO without friends is just a single player game that is less fun than almost any REAL single player game

Granted, you can eventually meet new friends in an MMO, but only if you are masochistic enough to take the time to find a group that doesn't suck

Yes and No (don't you love those answers?).

Friends have been a factor but a secondary one. I have to like a game to play and stay. I only have one real life friend who has played across multiple games with me. He was, in part, the reason I went back to LOTRO. My online friends in WoW did not influence me when I left 2 years ago. I don't have a lot of time to play so game quality is a critical factor. To be fair, I don't run with a crowd that games. I'm no spring chick and my friend is in his late 50s. So, my life is just not set up to make too many lasting connections through games. I suspect the answers you get from people depends on age and other demographic factors.

None of my friends play MMOs but from what I have seen, friends are a huge part in peoples choice of MMO. Over 90% (not overexagerating(sp?)) of people I met that play WoW, say they dont even care for the game that much but they play because their friends play. (Which is a reason I hate the game. So many subscribers, yet most people (I've met) admit its not that good.. when there are actually MMOs out there that deserve that 'fame'! >< )

But I have no problem finding a good guild and making "online friends"

i wouldn't play wow if it weren't for my friends, war is a much better game imo, wow is a slew of repeated and reused quests, dungeons,and visuals. but my friends continue to play it so i do as well.

In a way, my HARDCORE RL friends don't let me enjoy the game as I would like to, which is why I've been trying other games lately.

Unfortunately, when it comes to MMOs my friends are vitally important, as MMOs are dull compared to single player RPGs unless you play with friends.

I say unfortunately because all my RL friends have gone back to WoW for the new xpac, which doesn't interest me much. I would prefer to play WAR or Mines of Moria, but after a couple of weeks soloing in WAR I've realized it's pointless, and I might as well go check out Wrath so I can have fun with my friends. Hopefully in the future I can bully them into trying something else.

Who needs real life friends, when you can ninja loot purples from strangers with complete anonymity!

I play almost exclusively where my friends are.

I played WoW during it's first year after launch a lot. In those days I solo'd almost exclusively. But I got tired of it because of it. So I left the game and went back to Everquest where my friends were at the time.

Fast forward a little time, and we come to EverQuest Online Adventures. I got into it from a beta disk I got at a Fanfaire. I also got one of these disks for a ex-roommate that was interested and had a PS2... another ex-roommate also got involved in the beta and when it went live, my girlfriend joined us.

Having REGULAR companions to game with made a BIG difference. And we played that game until Sony upped the price to play without really upping the content all that much (and more because it didn't seem to be going anywhere and we were getting bored).

So, I moved on to City of Heroes, and over to Everquest II as I had friends there. We had good things going on EQ2 for a while with a team of 4, but the ones that had been there the longest got to level 70 and left the game (combination of boredom and real world interfering) and just duo'ing didn't work out for the 2 of us left. So no more EQ2.

Same group resurfaced in EVE Online. Lather-rinse-repeat the process. Except this time it was interpersonal relationships that squashed this and the interest in the game wasn't enough to surmount the problems.

But meanwhile my girlfriend got interested in that other game I was playing, City of Heroes, and other friends were showing up in the game. And I have now been playing that game from before launch, my wife (as that's what said girl-friend has become) has been playing for only 1 year less than I have.

During that same time since all the other, I went back to World of Warcraft both before and after Burning Crusade went live. There were friends and a niece of mine playing, but as I couldn't hook up with them (due to different servers, level ranges, etc) my interest in the game faded and I left again.

All this experience breaks down to it being that when playing MMOs the games have been the most fun and the most engaging was when I had friends to play with. Some of those friends I made in the game and only know through the games. Others I have known outside of the game. If I am playing them solo, I am a LOT more likely to STOP playing the game. If friends are playing when I am playing and I can hook up with them, I am likely to be playing the game for years.

It all comes down to, for me, that if I am playing a subscription Massive MULTI-PLAYER game exclusively SOLO... why am I paying for and playing it? There are Plenty of play-for-free ones (these days) or stand alone console/PC games available that DON'T cost a monthly fee that I could have the same SOLO fun with.

But something like City of Heroes, where I have a dozen plus friends that also like to play and do so at the same time as I do... it's a no-brainer. It's FUN this way. And while I also play CoH solo, I still have those friends to share the experiences with later.

Doesn't hurt that my wife likes the game as much as I do... *grin*

World of Warcraft, Everquest, Everquest 2, Eve Online, Everquest Online Adventures... they were all fun for a while. Some of them are REALLY good games (WoW for the great mechanics of a MMO, EQ2 for looks, EQ1 for the history, EQOA for the unique character and Eve for the Amazing starscapes) in their own ways. And they can each be a blast when played with friends. But solo they get OLD rather fast.

City of Heroes takes longer (for -me-... you mileage will vary) to get stale solo, and it ROCKS when played with friends. Again, your mileage may vary.

What makes a MMO really, really, really good is the people you play it with. It can also make it really bad if you get in with a crowd that is... less than pleasant. (One of the things that makes me dislike WoW most is the way players often treat other players... at least on the servers I was on, at the times of days I was on, during the 'era' I was on there.)

Oops, didn't mean to write so much. Summary: Friends + MMO = Fun!

Though I see how people don't really enjoy an MMO is there friends don't play, why not join a good guild and make some (without sounding too much like a loser :P ) 'online friends'? I definitely enjoy a game more when I find a good guild and have others I am 'more familiar' with. It's usually not that hard o.0

I had been playing WoW but got bored and left my friends still playing. I got into WAR but I'm starting to lose interest because I have no RL friends playing it and all the guilds I've been in have been quiet and unactive. So I'm jumping back to WOW b/c of a RL friend who's willing to level a toon with me and got me into his guild. So I guess all that matters is either having a active fun guild or having a place where people already know you.

Yes and no. I'm such an intermittent player that I'm not a good candidate for playing with frieinds. I look for a game where it's possible to solo. I don't have any "real life" friends who play MMOs, but I do have online friends who play them.

For all that, I do look at the recommendations of online friends, and an online community. I used to play an MMO that was cancelled - Uru. After it was cancelled, groups of players went to various MMOs. A number of players went to Guild Wars, so I started playing Guild Wars (great game) - I could even be in a guild! Others went to LOTRO, other groups are very active in Second Life and There, a couple went to Everquest 2 and some started or continued to play WoW. It's always great to read recommendations from people you know. And it's fun to occasionally meet people in game.