Grouping in theory is the most basic way to promote social contact in any MMO.

Grouping in current MMO reality is stressful and annoying.

Just as Sandra pointed out there are other ways to promote social activities other than the current conventional MMO grouping system. Most of her “off the top of her head” ideas are interesting and innovative. With that being said the current conventional grouping system isn’t all bad, it just needs a revamp for accessibility and fun.

Celestian pointed out that finding players for a group is a major problem, but I think Celestian is wrong in his assumption that solo gameplay is the issue. I think most players don’t group unless they have to, because in addition to being difficult to find players, the current grouping system isn’t very rewarding either. In fact most games actually penalize you for grouping.

When in a group most games will divide the experience gained from a mob not by a small percentage, but evenly by the number of players in your group. Any loot the mob drops must also be rolled on and can’t be divided. So in the current grouping system before anything else is said and done the group members know they will gain less experience and less loot just by deciding to group together.

What should be done then to improve grouping? I think Warhammer online made lots of headway on the issue of finding groups with their open party and public quest systems. I also think that adding more rewards and/or reducing the penalties for grouping will encourage more players to group more often or, god forbid, group even when they don’t have to.

Second, I’m a parent. I get interrupted. When I’m in that mode, I prefer to solo, but I can still be chatting with my guild.

My issues are mine alone, and yet demographically I am legion (yes kids, your parents play games), and this is why I think good MMOs have good solo play. If that solo play can be made to have social effects — asynch stuff like accumulating “guild reputation” or whatver — hurrah! But don’t break my solo play when you do it please. :)

I can do people, but I can’t really do groups (thinking as one). You can call it antisocial, but it’s really not.

I have to think for myself, but I wanna do it in a world with many, who do the same.

For the record: I got no problem with people who do want to group up. I do it myself sometimes.

For some players, simply playing an MMO is a step outside of their comfort-zone. Trying to force people to be “more social” tries forcing a primarly-introverted person into an extroverted-role.

Were the person mostly extroverted, passtimes other than video games likely would hold that person’s focus. Games that try to force socialization are run by people guided by a false view of their target market.

Part of the market may be overseas military personnel, who are used to working in isolated jobs. They still may want to solo, since any real-life interruption could occur at any moment, causing them to abandon their group in an instanced-section. Until games instantly reconfigure the instance based upon the group’s composition, unexpected interruptions discourage many from grouping.

I was actually being careful not to define collaboration in terms of being only inside the game world. I definitely agree that there’s big value for the typical MMORPG in finding in-game features suppporting fun collaboration, but I wouldn’t want to exclude out-of-game features. Handheld or mobile devices might become workable interfaces, for example, and the idea of allow players to have some limited access to the game world through generic Web browsers seems to be picking up steam — best not to foreclose those options if it’s not necessary to do so.

That said, I admit to being mostly interested in in-game collaborative features, since (for now) that’s where the “massively multiplayer” stuff happens. I liked your suggestions as a starting point for features developers can offer that promote the asynchronous collaboration that invites non-social players to participate actively. What I was trying to get at with my questions is some sense of what makes those suggestions good, and I think it’s the notion of asynchrony. That’s the characteristic that allows players to contribute (within some limits) when and where they like, rather than only being able to do so according to the schedules of other players. So any other feature suggestions that share this characteristic should be good for non-social players as well.

Of course, that raises the question: if non-social players like some asynchronous collaboration feature, what’s to keep it from also being popular with social players who, in their enthusiasm, might crowd out the non-social players?

But maybe questions of gameplay balance should be left until after a few more feature ideas get brainstormed! I’m going to see if I can dream up some other ways that characters can interact with other characters that don’t require locality or immediacy — if anyone else wants to play along, that would be great. :)

Bart: Of course you are welcome here! Anything that encourages interesting discussion is a good thing, and I’ve been quite impressed with some of the comments that have come in about the STO posts. But back to this post …

I really like your thoughts about asynchronous collaboration. I think that you’ve stopped right before the interesting bit, however — figuring out more in-game mechanics that support asynchronous collaboration.

A lot of my favorite methods right now aren’t properly in-game: they revolve around blogs and niche fansites and similar out-of-game communities. I’d be happier, though, if I could come up with more in-game mechanics — the list here is a brief brainstorm, but I suspect that that’s where the neat innovation of the next generation games will come in.

Then again, I seem to remember you role-playing a mute character so that you wouldn’t have to chat with people while playing in a group. ;)

I’m another one who’s been irritated by this persistent canard that people who aren’t gregarious don’t contribute usefully in massively multiplayer online games. I’ve also observed more than once that the multiplayer aspect of these products is what’s most unique about them and therefore is what most needs to be leveraged through appropriate design features, but that doing so shouldn’t equate “social” with “grouped.”

So I’m completely on board with your points, Sandra. The possible solution I’d like to offer can be summed up in one word: collaboration.

Instead of perceiving right-here-right-now to be the only possible form of social interaction (as very social people tend to do because that’s what they enjoy), “collaboration” encompasses both highly personal and reserved styles of multiperson play. By analogy with other online activities, collaboration is not only synchronous like chat boards, it’s asynchronous like discussion forums.

Which brings me to my argument that “asynchronous collaboration” is an accurate way of describing the non-local, non-immediate interactions favored by non-social players. And my point is that because asynchronous collaboration is a valid way of contributing to a MMOG, non-social players who participate in these indirect interactions absolutely do contribute to those gameworlds, just as people leaving messages on a discussion forum contribute to those discussions.

Crafting and auction house activity is probably the most visible example of this kind of interaction. How effective would the in-game economy of any major MMOG be without the non-social people who collect resources, make things with those resources, and buy and sell them on a game’s open market? The indirect interactions of non-social players with many other players directly benefit everyone in the game by efficiently creating and distributing goods.

But auction houses shouldn’t be the only way that non-social players can contribute. What about other kinds of asynchronous collaboration? More specifically, what are some other ways that players in a massively multiplayer world can collaborate that are either non-local, or non-immediate, or both?

I don’t want to wear out whatever welcome I may have here (I suspect that I may already not be Eric’s Flavor Of The Month given that I’m the guy who brought his “Advice for Cryptic’s Star Trek Team” post to the attention of STOnet readers :D), so I’ll leave that question open. I’ll be interested to see if anyone thinks it’s worth pursuing.