Rift looking to be the social, outgoing type

Col

Never really looked into this game before but its starting to sound fun.

On the subject of encouraging players to enjoy a social experience without forcing them to group, one of the things Warhammer Online did right, but failed to capitalize on, is its Public Quest (PQ) system. It's nice to see Guild Wars 2 taking a leaf from Warhammer's PQ system.

Rather than explain the PQ system mechanics, an example would probably be easier to understand. Let's say there's a bandit camp with a bunch of solo-able bandits milling around. After players killed x amount of bandits, a bunch of bandit lieutenants would spawn, which require a few players to take down. Finally, once the lieutenants are dead, the bandit boss would spawn, which require lots of players working together to kill.

This encourages players to gather in an area and work together, without the hassle of yelling for a group invite or spamming endlessly for a healer/tank. Based on each player's contribution, the PQ system would award a certain amount of points upon completion, and the top few contributions would get loot rewards.

This not only prevent players from going afk and getting a free loot ride from their hard-working friends, it also encourages each player to put in his best effort to increase personal contribution. Healers get more contribution points for healing more, tanks get more contribution points if they manage to monopolize the bandit boss aggro, and dps classes get more contribution for doing more damage.

For those who didn't manage to win the highest contribution prizes, they would get bonus points for completing the PQ again. If the best players keep getting 500 contribution points and Ordinary Joe only get 300 points, Joe would get +50 points in his 2nd run, and an additional +50 points for his 3rd run, until he eventually wins something. That encourages players to stick around and keep the PQ running, as the winners move on to another PQ and new players appear to try the PQ.

While i agree with the responses thus far i have a far simpler reason for devs thinking MMO's are supposed to be social and feel they need to push players together whether they want to or not.

Its called a money model, and it is much easier and more cost effective to throttle groups of folks through one big ride multiple times than to send one person through by themselves, in both development and post work.

I know i am removing the facade of the game by forcing folks to think in terms of a business but thats the only things devs worry about not our wants or desires. They make make a good game of saying they care about what we think but they do not when it comes right down to it.

Efficency, the quickest, simplest way to have the maximum number of people pay to play a game for the maximum amount of time with the least amount of effort.

If MMO's were truly made for us they would be made like so, daily events for one or 100, rewards given for creativity not time invested, and a player base based on choice and devs not worrying about solo verse group because all content would cover every aspect and all situations.

Instead money models drive design, they drive content, and they drive the devs choices. We do have one choice, to continue to let them do this over and over or not.

I see arguments by game companies stating the need for social behaviour, just let us do what we want and stop building games based on your profit margin.

Another game who thinks the social part in mmo's comes from Guilds and instances.

Peer pressure is an awful tool to get your goals, but it seems like they are going for it anyway.
Should be obvious by now that the things that were fun in the "old days" were there by accident. Its pretty clear that most mmo developers have no idea what being social and having fun actually means.

So you see them running around trying to get those elements back into their games, not realising they never had it in the first place.

Guilds and instances ......the worst and cheapest way to think you are being social.