27th
The trouble with other people?
So John Walker recently wrote an entry about “The Trouble with Other People” on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Basically, he’s belly-aching about having to team up with others in MMOs to play through the game.
More specifically, though, he was complaining about having the weight of responsibility pressed down upon him when he fails to meet the exacting expectations of his teammates.
Certainly we’ve all had this kind of experience, but what’s the solution?
Is it SWTOR’s intended NPC companion character system?
Or do we just need better player matching? We thought about this a bit way back (a whole year ago) last summer for GuildCafe’s original recruitment system. One of our primary hopes, in theory, for the system was that it would help people find playmates who match their expectations of pacing and attitude.
For example, if you like to play casually (as in: it’s okay to take 20 seconds to look at a new flower or enjoy a vista while running from town to a quest location) but you also have an adult, hardcore attitude or background, then you could actually find people playing in the same areas of WoW, with a similar level character, who has the same intentions.
How much better would that group experience turn out?
