A friend of mine was showing off his home this week and mentioned that the bathroom was tribute to his feelings about the game, that any time anyone used the toilet, the waste would just get sucked into the void never to be seen again – for those who are not familiar with the game the center of the toilet bowl is actually a “void” house item, that players can click and it transports you to the Moors of Ykesha. It spins around in dizzy circles which doesn’t show up very well in the screen shot.
When asked WHY he was still playing if he felt this way, he gave me an answer that I’ve heard too many times (and have in fact used it as my reason for playing as well). It’s the friends we make and the friendships we have that cause these games to be their most enjoyable. The problem is that this day in age there are so many games it’s very rare that we all meet up again some place if we do decide to move on from where we once all “met”. There is a certain fear associated with leaving ones game of choice and thus leaving behind friends. If I can not convince friends to come try a new game with me, it’s very rare that I will actually leave for it, even if the game I’m currently playing is a wrong fit for me on every level. My friends can make the darkest days seem brighter, and the stories I tell about game play happen not because of what I’m doing in game per say, but what I’m doing with friends in game.
Would you play and continue to play a game that you didn’t exactly enjoy if you had a bunch of friends playing with you? Would you over look the blatant faults because friends make it all worth while? I certainly would (and do) – I’m just curious if others feel the same way. Let me know in comments!
Also happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself and woohoo it’s FRIDAY!
With my playstyle, playing with RL friends tends to be a hindrance more than anything else. I work from home and none of my friends do, so I have tons of time to play games and it usually ends up in me leaving everyone behind pretty quickly. I try to make other chars just to play with them, but when they don’t log in for days at a time… it makes it hard to play with friends. There’s only 1 guild that I’ve kept in contact with over a series of MMOs and that’s Casualties … mostly because it’s where I met all the bloggers :D
I’m still friends and talk more or less regularly with somebody who plays an obscene amount of MMOs and who, when playing EQ2, doesn’t play on my server anymore. Hasn’t played there for about four years now, I think. Point~?
Where there’s will, there’s a way. If you can’t stay in touch with friends once you part ways on a MMO, you weren’t that close to begin with. Why most people continue to play EQ2 despite feelings of unsatisfaction? Because it’s a vice. People can use the friends’ card all the way but ultimately, while the excuse may have some merit the real reason people continue is simply because they are addicted to it. Besides, evil SOE or not, it’s not like there are better choices out there other than WoW~.
I played WoW and Warhammer long after I’d gotten completely bored with them, because I really enjoyed hanging out with my guildmates.
On the flip side, I quit EQ2 because my guild leader and her husband got into an argument one night that resulted in him just deleting the guild. All the work we’d put into leveling it to 60, and creating a guild hall, was flushed because someone got mad at his wife. That really blew my enthusiasm. Even though I loved the play experience, and still had loads of things left to do in game, I found myself not wanting to bother with it all.
So while a good social group can keep me playing a game I’m bored with, a crappy social experience can make me quit a game I otherwise enjoy.
I, too, am in Scopique’s boat. The last MMO I played with friends on any kind of regular basis was Dark Age of Camelot. My problem is that I only seem able to get along with Australians and as I get older I can’t stay up late enough to play with them due to time zones!
I’ve joined some Twitter-Servers :) but rarely ever interact with the other tweeple in them. BlamefulGecko is the one person who’s been able to draw me out of my shell.
So for me, when the gameplay stops being fun, I move on.
I have been here too…I was ready to leave EQ2 about a year ago, right after SF expansion, but my friends and guild (I was a guild leader) kept me there for a while, finally 6 months later, I had to say my goodbyes after several of the people that I was still there fianlly went their own ways themselves. Luckily, I was the type of guild leader who liked to get contact info from either facebook or phone numbers of my friends, and I got them all together to come play rift with me….now we are all enjoying rift, and I haven’t logged into EQ2 for more than about 2 hours in the last month.
You just have to become a good salesman, and you never know if your friends in the game may be feeling the same way you are…If they are, it’s not too hard to convince them to come play with you.
@Scopique – I could have written those exact same words; it very succinctly summarizes my experience. There’s only one thing that binds me to a game more effectively than friends- LT subscriptions. I have very good friends in LOTRO, and am a member of two very good guilds. But I don’t think I’d be playing if not for the LT Sub. At some point, even with friends, it becomes a matter of “I’m actually paying for this?”
This is so true. When I started gaming, friends was the key to playing in the first place. Eventually we all went our separate ways and have tried to meet up again, but with not much luck.
But, with Rift coming, one of those old friends is returning to gaming, so I sense that feeling of community will start again.
And yes, the better the friends and the more that play the same game…the longer I will play as well.
I knew you would be back! I called it. I wont ever pay a subscription to EQ2 again until Sony merges the two play styles
I’m so used to playing absolutely solo that not having friends of any sort present hasn’t really been a major negative for me, up to a point. I usually burn out solo around the mid 20’s to mid 30’s.
However, I HAVE found that having friends in the game makes me stay longer. I’ve been playing WoW this time around for WAY longer then I would have had it not been for my friends playing WITH ME.
And that’s another aspect: I’ve jumped into a few games with others (mainly the Twitterati), but I have had very little interaction WITH them. We’ve all been on the same chat channel and all, but there’s a need to actually be side-by-side with them that makes a difference to me. If we’re just in the same WORLD, on opposite sides (or divided by levels), then it’s really no better for me then playing solo.
I played WOW and EQ2 far longer than I should have because of friends in these games. In both games I reached a point, where it wasn’t fun anymore, but I continued playing nonetheless, because I didn’t want to leave my friends. I eventually quit both games when most of these friends stopped playing, too.
So, yes. I know what you mean.