The Socialiser's Lot

Playing WoW Classic and my ups and downs with it have made me do a lot of soul-searching about just what it is that motivates me to play MMOs. My previous results on the Bartle test have struck me as pretty on point in that regard: I'm mostly an explorer and socialiser, with a smattering of killer and very little achiever in me, which seems to make me very different from the majority of MMO players nowadays.

But what does that mean in practice, especially in a game like Classic? The explorer portion of my interests was pretty evident at launch, and I got a lot of joy out of rediscovering the old world, re-familiarising myself with old quests and all that jazz. My interest started to falter once I had revisited most of the major milestones and my socialiser heart was starting to feel lonely... but then I found a guild and that "saved" me, because just having a fun group of people to hang out with made everything interesting again.

The 40-man raids forced a lot of people into doing at least a bit of socialising I guess... and even if it wasn't their primary reason for playing, I suspect that most of those who chose to raid were at least okay with spending some time on it. I guess it's similar to how achievement systems don't do a lot to motivate me personally, but that doesn't mean that when I see an unexpected achievement pop up I won't sometimes go "oh, that's neat".

I was shocked then by how many of those social dynamics I saw getting lost in the transition to Classic Burning Crusade, because I honestly did not expect it. But smaller raid sizes meant cutting people out because efficiency won out over community, and instead of being grateful for every warm body that you could add to your roster to increase overall raid dps, people started to pick and choose based on performance.

The removal of the world buff meta also largely eliminated the whole "getting ready for the raid together" mini game. (Seriously, I know it had its downsides and people did a lot of complaining about it, but it was also such a team building exercise.) Increased "puggability" of raid content has meant less reliance on guilds, and resulted in achievers slowly switching towards playing with whoever could get them results the fastest vs. who they might otherwise have enjoyed hanging out with.

It was such a depressing wake-up call. Basically, as long as the game had made it beneficial for all types to be social, I had been under the illusion that everyone also enjoyed it equally. Little did I know that as soon as socialising became less mandatory, literally almost everyone seemed to be ready to ditch it in favour of achievement-hunting, whether that took the form of chasing the next level or the next piece of gear (what with there being no explicit achievement system in Classic - that didn't come in until Wrath).

To be clear here, I'm not trying to paint this as some sort of black and white, us vs. them scenario. We all have a myriad of different factors influencing our in-game motivations at any point in time. For example, if someone asks me to do a dungeon in WoW, here are some of the considerations that will help me determine whether I'll say yes or no:

• Social: Who's asking? Who else is coming? How much do I like them? Would my coming along really help these people out or am I easily replaceable?
  
• Curiosity: Have I been before? Has there been some sort of change that might make it interesting to revisit? Even if it's a place I know well, do I maybe get to bring a different class/play a different role than I usually do, to mix things up?
• Progression: Is there some sort of benefit for my character in this? Potential gear drops, XP, reputation?
• Gameplay: How fun is the moment-to-moment gameplay likely to be? E.g. I enjoy healing more than tanking, so being able to heal would tip the scales in favour of yes, while having to tank might push me more towards no. Also, how difficult is the content and how much time is it going to take? Do I have to take responsibility for forming the group or other "administrative" tasks?
  

If all or most of these questions have positive answers, I'll be there in a flash, while negative answers might make me hesitant. It's about the cumulative effect though, and no single point is going to turn the tide on its own. Nonetheless it's key to note that not all questions carry the same weight. I already tried to do some ranking here by putting the more important ones on top and the less important ones at the bottom. For me it's a no-brainer that the social part of the experience is one of the most important things, and that the other motivations would all need to be really strong to outweigh negative feelings in the social area.

What I found in Classic BC though was that many people's priorities were obviously very different, with "progression" often taking the number one spot and being the most important for them, and that has been both eye-opening and hurtful in some ways.

It has also meant that - somewhat paradoxically - my enjoyment "cycle" is kind of the opposite of that of many achiever types, who are happiest and most engaged when a new patch has just dropped and there are lots of new goals to chase. Meanwhile I just end up frustrated that my friends suddenly sideline me to grind dailies on three different alts or whatever. Conversely, when they get bored and run out of drops or reputations to pursue, I finally stand a chance to get at least some of them interested in simply doing things to hang out again, because the all-important progression part of the content has already been exhausted for them.

The one thing I'm still not sure about is why this has been such an issue for me in Classic but not for example in SWTOR. I think it helps that SWTOR as a whole doesn't actually cater as strongly to achievers: sure, there's new gear to grind sometimes, and there's an achievement system, but neither of those things are really designed to be the game's primary focus. There's no reason to do group content more than a couple of times if you don't actually enjoy it, so people don't sign up to raid with a guild if the company isn't a primary motivation for them, meaning that you're more likely to end up grouped with people who actually have similar interests.

Vanilla/OG Classic was the other way round in that it funnelled almost everyone into group content for gear, but that also worked in its own way to get people on the same page. In BC though, things have changed to the point that you'll still find many people doing group content primarily for the rewards, taking up valuable raid spots, while at the same time trying to escape the commitment of socialising - which I guess many solo achiever types would rate as an improvement, being able to get their BiS gear while having to rely on fewer other people. As someone for whom the social aspect is the focus at this point though, I've found it kind of hard at times, simultaneously having to compete for spots with people who don't actually want to be social, while also struggling to get the people I want to play with the most into groups with me.

All of this is only a small part of my current WoW malaise, but mulling these things over in my head has been a reminder of just how much WoW has cultivated a player base that is heavily achievement-driven. I can't remember whether I ever fit that mould in my early WoW days - I might have - but even so I have a strong feeling that the player base used to be more diverse in terms of motivations back then.

I was watching an old Extra Credits video about Bartle types and how to balance their populations before writing this, and I found it very striking that the way they describe an MMO with an overabundance of achievers, "players are playing simply to get further in the game, each in their own, small bubble", seems to describe my early BC Classic experience to a T (and is something I've seen in other MMOs as well). They also point out that socialisers need lots of other socialisers around to have fun, and yeah, I'm definitely feeling a strong impact from the seeming lack of like-minded people at the moment.