So, I got on a bit of a roll while editing a post today (included below) and I would like to hear everyone's ideas on how to get a good social atmosphere going at launch. This could be very important for reasons outlined below but also because player/fleet structures would make this a lot easier, however that will will not be an option for some time. With that said, here's the post:
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Subject: Re: how will we travel???
- Dondead wrote:
- Personally, I’ll be traveling in groups as much as possible. Simply because it’s more fun.
I think I'll be following suit quite often, though I'm sure I'll also be spending quite a bit of time cruisin' around on my own. One of my favorite things to do in SWG and WoW (especially after they introduced flying mounts) was always just going around and looking at the environment; if the zone had relaxing music, it just made the experience even better. Before I canceled my WoW account and after I got Cold Weather Flying, The Grizzly Hills, The Storm Peaks and Wintergrasp have been my favorite spots to just cruise around.
I'm also pretty sure that we will be able to send each other waypoints or coordinates of some sort so traveling together will be a breeze.
EDIT:
On that note, I suspect the fleet will eventually find a spot in-game where our base of operations/central-hub will be. I suspect we will also have an "outpost" (I use the term loosely because it's going to be a while before player structures get implemented) or meeting area in one of the first few hubs/zones/whatever out from the starting area in the interest of actually including new/"low level" fleet members in fleet activities or just to get them on their feet. I suggest this mostly because when I was just starting out (and didn't know anyone IRL at the time who played) in WoW, I joined a guild after I had a dozen or two hours of gameplay under my belt. I had the basics down, but I still had no idea how a lot of the game's features were supposed to work, and yes, I did read the manual, but Blizz didn't put a whole lot of work into that one. Anyway, the point of that info is leading up to this: I would keep an eye on the guild chat and because of the kind of typing you would expect out of a WoW guild, so to use the old adage, it was all Greek to me. Most of the guild members were a much higher level than I was and would help with quests if you asked, but didn't really try to interact at all. Granted, I've gone off on quite a bit of a tangent here, but what I'm getting at (relating to travel) is that if we have a designated meeting point or two (almost like telling everyone where to set their hearthstone) fleet members will end up being in close proximity more often and thus improve communication, which could be a great boon to making teh newbs feel welcome and making the whole experience a little more real, more human.
EDIT#2:
I figured it might be a good idea to provide some context. I'm very vocal on the subject of including people because there was some sharp contrast between my WoW and SWG expeirences. In SWG, a buddy of mine IRL who I've been friends with since I was like nine years old at summer camp eventually convinced me to pick up a copy of the game. Right away, I had someone to show me the ropes and get me into a fairly small, close-knit guild where people would actually take the time to just hang out at cantinas to chat about anything from guild politics to recent gameplay changes to how things are going IRL and they always made time to help out the new guys. Eventually more and more guild members left the game as it became increasingly unplayable, but it really shaped what I expected of a guild in an MMO from that point on, something that I never got out of WoW. In WoW, people were always doing their own thing and bouncing around from city to city or zone to zone for whatever reason; everything was rush, rush, rush, do your quests, go raid, AH your loot and nobody ever took the time to connect on any kind of a personal level.
I'm also not saying it was because of the way the games were set up, not to say that the game structure didn't influence the players at all, but more that the players wouldn't travel together unless they were raiding in WoW because they didn't see a reason to, they all had their eyes on the prize and hardly anything else. SWG, on the other hand was a less objective-oriented game, you were just some schmuck in the Star Wars universe. The two types of games attracted different crowds and most of (but certainly not all of) them had different attitudes on how to treat newbs. I'm hoping that STO will have a good blend of the two styles where there will be objectives and reasons to group together, but also plenty of "down time" or opportunities to just chill with your fleet members in a relaxed setting with an interesting environment that isn't always a crowded as hell commerce center looping the same music every thirty seconds*. *phew* Now that I'm done with that spiel, let's hear from someone else already!
* Yet another reason why I liked SWG better than WoW: the Musician profession. It always made social settings a little more fun to have "live" music that required a player (or several players to make a band), sounded half way decent and made an impact in-game.
EDIT#3:
I also never intended this post to be straight-up WoW bashing. WoW is a fun game, I love it and if I hadn't gotten bored with the level 80 content after a couple months, I would probably still be playing. I just wanted to say that it comes up short in the social realm, partially because of the way the game is set-up and partially because most of the players that I've encountered were very goal-oriented and I guess they just didn't think a lot of chit-chat would do them any good. I bet there are tons of people, probably even a few in this fleet that have had positive social experiences with WoW. This post was just intended to be a reminder that without in-game interaction that goes beyond "WTB ITEM X, PST", the social element of STO could quickly become very stale.
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) from the beginning.
