Comments on: Social learning in MMOs: there are groups and there are GROUPS

By: kiantremayne

kiantremayne — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:33:58 +0000

Maybe I should talk about “semi-transferable” skills instead Yes, there are a lot of boss mechanics that are common, but nonetheless the point is that evey boss fight these days puts a lot more premium on knowing the mechanics of this specific fight rather than generalised “being good at playing a paladin” skills that you can apply in EVERY fight. Experience with other boss fights is a big help, but you still need to pick up the specifics of each particular one… which means your first run through either needs an experienced (with this fight) person to explain what to do, or else you’ll probably cause at least one wipe while you learn the hard way. Which is only a problem if you’re in a run with someone who doesn’t want to take the time to explain but doesn’t want any wipes delaying him getting his badges or what have you.

By: TheGrumpyElf

TheGrumpyElf — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:01:33 +0000

You nailed it with how people learn. I also think that is the reason for the declining community in warcraft personally. People act the way they see other people act and even if, as a person, they know better they begin to emulate what they see around them.

I remember when I started raiding. I joined a raiding guild and they were kind enough to let me tag along that first week running some older content so I could gear up and even if I did read about the fights beforehand how I learned was by watching what others did and emulated it.

I am now the raid leader of my guild and a rather old guild mate that no longer plays often had popped on and heard me leading one of the raids. He said to me, you sound exactly like dave. Dave was the raid leader I learned from. Even something like that, which I did not realize, I learned to be a raid leader from him. So you learn even without knowing you are learning sometimes.

People will usually change and adapt to their surroundings and how you play games and handle yourself in trade or randoms, is no different.

But more on topic then my rambling above is this…

I think it would be almost impossible for new people to learn in most random environments because of what people have “learned” from doing them before hand. Most people do not want to wait until they get more gear, they do not want to learn how to do it on their own first (which would be awesome if they added a solo version like in diablo), they do as you said, they see the reward and queue up and expect to be able to do it. It also seems like most people have “learned” that everyone is bad and it is okay to insult anyone that does not know how to do something instead of teaching them.

Glad to say I have not learned that yet but it sure seems like most have. And people will only emulate those people that are rude and insulting because as you said, you learn from the group you are in.

You seem to be having some good luck, I hope it stays that way for you.

By: Redbeard

Redbeard — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:55:44 +0000

Considering that I still play RPGs regularly, I look at neither of them as crazy. Just so long as you don’t run up a bar tab that’s greater than you can pay off, I suppose….

By: Helistar

Helistar — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:17:22 +0000

@kiantremayne: I’m always surprised at the “not transferable skills” mantra which has been propagating in the blogosphere. As I already wrote somewhere: do you really think that the people at Blizzard are so good as to be able to crank out a new mechanics for each boss (replace Blizzard with any other MMO company)?
They aren’t. Boss fights are built around few and similar building blocks: the only skill needed is being able to recognize them and apply what you already learned on other boss fights. The typical example being the dragon, which any semi-competent tank will immediately orient away from the group. Of course you should not expect to one-shot a new boss, they are not meant to be one-shot (even if with an excellent group, they can), but it takes very short to understand how it works. Of course this is an acquired skill, the more experience you have, the easier it becomes…..

By: spinks

spinks — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:18:20 +0000

Haha, sadly this wasn’t for Red Reaper. (I figure some of those sith lords might have red rooms of pain but lets not go there…)

By: Talexei

Talexei — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:10:48 +0000

Wow, I must have been in the wrong Guild at the start of Cata. I prefered LFG Heroics over Guild Heroics because I knew that there was a chance I’d see the final boss. On my resto Shaman no less. We had a Warrior Tank join the Guild about 6 months into Cata who was shocked that the Guild achievement for running the heroics had not been done. He and I drug 1-2 of our DPS through the lot of them in order to get the achievement before he got tired of us and left.
Now that I play TOR, and am presently Guildless (and not at level cap either) I am of two minds of joining a Guild because with the LFG tool, there is nothing that I can’t eventually see in the game.

By: Everblue

Everblue — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 08:45:44 +0000

Did your Fifty Shades group make it through the Red Room of Pain, or did you wipe?

By: spinks

spinks — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:39:31 +0000

Not really sure why that’s crazier than — say — my partner scheduling one night a week for quiz night at the pub with his mates. Except when it takes up most of the weeknights ofc

By: Simon Jones who is Blogless

Simon Jones who is Blogless — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:23:55 +0000

LFR is a perhaps the greatest gift WoW has ever given me for that very reason. I am a grown man and do not want to have to schedule my free time around ‘raid night’ because that is the action of a crazy person but I still want to raid. LFR fufills this wonderfully.

Though, on subject of MoP, Blizzard is introducing an almost comically absurd amount of stuff to do at level cap. So that’s goingg to be interesting to watch play out.

By: spinks

spinks — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:53:14 +0000

I think people are still playing around with it, some in my guild still make guild groups but use LFG for the daily tokens. Others on the server are using it more to queue solo because I am starting to see some of the same names in my group (which is the nice thing about server specific LFG). It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I think you are probably right about LFR in WoW. If it means you can just queue on whichever evening is most convenient rather than keeping a guild schedule, that alone will make it appealing to a lot of players.