The Daily Grind: Have you ever been a part of a regular group?

Yeah, in most games I've played I'm a part of a continuous group of friends but there's usually too many of us to share 1 group all of the time, we end up mixing it up until we get to raids where we can play together constantly.

Yes indeed. Being part of a regular group is undoubtedly some of the most fun I've had in any game.

We made it work by not taking it too seriously. I think that's the biggest thing. If one of us messed up you laugh and moved on. Sometimes you get made fun of, other times you do make fun of someone else. No hurt feelings. It's a game and we're all there to have fun.

As far as time goes, I'm not really sure how to describe it. Of course we play seperately, but when everyone got online, that meant we all had to play together. not because we felt forced, but we had to because we knew for sure it would result in something good.

As for what I take away from it, I just take away good memories I guess. When playing with random people, i find the experience can land anywhere on the scale from awesome to terribad. When playing with people you know, it's usually fun times sprinkled with even more fun when you talk about it later.

Three of my friends and I started playing as a group after reaching Coruscant in SWTOR, and it worked pretty well for about a day. Then everyone's work and school responsibilities caught up with them, so we couldn't play together all the time, and no one else was willing to play alts when the whole group couldn't be together, so we ended up being completely different levels.

I really hope I can convince these people to play Guild Wars 2, it seems like the mentor/sidekick system might solve this problem.

I tried to maintain a team, and was successful for a few months. It's more difficult that I care to repeat. Most of them were delinquents, so that certainly didn't help.

I played FFXI with a static group for almost 2 years, we comprised of 4 of the 6 spots so we would pickup 2 others. It was easy since we all swapped the major roles to file(eg. tank, healer, support, DD). Since we had all leveled our classes together every single one was close enough that it didn't matter the level difference. I guess it was easier for me since one of the static members was my wife. We had a great time and kept playing right up until she got pregnant. After that we went into retirement and still keep in touch with our friends from game.

For other multiplayer games, yes.
Unfortunately, it never worked out for MMOs.

I've done it in a few games, but aside from EQ2 it has always been regulated to alts so that we don't out level each other. While it takes some planning and you have weeks where it doesn't happen at all, it is way more fun when it does happen imo.

Its seems like such a hard thing to organize with the way games are designed. Most of the content is solo, level differences quickly creep in. What do you do when you want to play but no one else does?

I've leveled in quite a few static groups over the years. Less lately since modern MMO's tend to focus more on solo leveling and I have less free time since leaving college.

It's definitely a challenge to keep the group together whenever various people have outside responsibilities that keep them away from the game from time to time. Many of the more group based MMO's have systems that help out with that. Vanguard's fellowship system is probably the best implementation I've seen. City of Heroes did it fairly well too by making grouping with different levels fairly trivial.

I have, I fell in with a regular group of icelanders in WoW, who were nice folks from a raiding guild. We met because their regular healer (a druid) didn't want to heal right then, so picked me up as a pugger, and I didn't suck totally.

We grouped a lot, I got to like them, we grouped more often than I did with any of my guildies.

Eventually, they asked me to go and help out in Blackwing Lair, and I got sucked into regular raiding, but we continued running as a regular group well into TBC.

I did get invited to be part of a hour person regular group in SWTOR, but had to decline, as I didn't want to reroll elsewhere, preferring to spend most of my game time on the same server as my little (?) brother.

Been running with the same pack of friends since Star Wars Galaxies (2003). Unfortunately most of the time we aren't on the same page when it comes to mmorpgs. One may be coming in and the other may be going.

But all in all, they are a good bunch of online buddies!

I've been a part of two different regular groups in Guild Wars for over 5 years. One group is very casual, and consists of about 8 regular players who aren't always on at the same time, but whomever is on plays together most of the time. The other group schedules regular playing times, and we play characters from start to finish of the game together, never playing those particular characters with anyone else.

I enjoy both styles of grouping. The casual group means I don't have to do anything in particular, just whatever one of us is in the mood to do. The other group, although more structured, is smaller (only 3 of us) which means we can group for even the beginning areas.

Love the pic! Hahaha! I too have been rolling with some GW friends for about three years now. We seem to be a flavor of the month crowd when not in GW because we are currently playing Star Trek Online and probably will until the release of GW2. Unfortunately, the Europeans that we have in our group can't play with us a lot during the week because of the five hour timezone difference.

As far as making it work, we agree on a game that we all like and play it! We learn the ropes of the game, progress together, help one another out when at all possible, try not to flame each other too much over stuff that just doesn't quite click with another guildie, and so on.

As far as making it work internationally, weekends are the primary time for us to come together as a whole. We usually get some work done in whatever we do on the weekends.

Yes it was DDO as well. I also am wondering if I can resurrect the group to do the new expansion. Static groups work very well for me.

Regular groups are the best if you can pull them off.

Five years and counting with our main Saturday night group.

And I still play regularly with people I played TorilMUD with back in the mid-90s as well.

Back in the days of EQ, I used to have a few people I regularly grouped with. We'd spend afternoons in zones like Chardok just exploring and messing around. To this day, it's the best time I've ever had in an MMO, bar none. However, as MMO's have become essentially a single-player experience with grouping being the exception rather than the rule, I haven't done this anymore.

Also, as I get older, I find fewer people my age to really hang out with. While I can converse with folks in their teens and 20's, it's just not the same as hanging out with people my age for a day of gaming. The last thing I want to do is talk endlessly about loot, make sex jokes, etc., but that's what seems to happen in groups anymore.

I've been part of a guild that does consistent grouping since Jumpgate Beta back in 1997. Universal Zealots Inc. (UZI)

We've lost a few and gain a few over the years, but especially during our DAoC years we've been running consistent groups in almost all games we've played together.

We tend to have 8-person groups for almost everything and it wasn't until SWTOR that we had to start splitting things up. Being restricted to only 4-people really has thrown us for a loop as many times people are no longer grouping with those they are use to. Once we hit lvl 50 this was reduced as we run 8-person raids now but when we arn't raiding it really doesn't feel like the groups of old.

I find theres alot more comradery and enjoyment with 8-person groups over the smaller 4-person. In smaller groups each persons role is so critical that they are to busy doing there role to really enjoy the over all game. In 8-person groups you generally have multiple people fulfilling the same role reducing the intensity of situations allowing for more enjoyment by all.

I think I've been in some groups, but I tend to wander off too soon, meaning, I either get busy at work (or life), find something else that attracts me, or get a bit bored of a "schedule". It is one reason I don't like to join guilds, because after a bit, I may not return after awhile and I don't blame guilds for kicking me out.

So, by nature, I have to be a bit of a loner because I go my "own way".

Still, I do at times yearn for a group, even a schedule. And really, sometimes it is not me that gets bored, but other people drop for their own reasons and that can drag people down. I think the best is if you plan for alts and even alt-members, but then you are looking at a guild, even a small one.