Chat it up if there are some people around. I am expecting a local chat, OOC, zone chat in. Guild chat, Fish is another choice
Sell to a vendor is avaiable. Auction some goods while I am waiting. Hopefully Port towns, harbors and ships will be areas where trading/selling is more prevelent.
Hail some NPCs or swim around the area is my 3rd choice.
I like to detatch from my cell phone...alot especially when I am at home. I like to ignore it.
How would I know the boat is still 15mins away? Would there be an NPC calling out "Next boat in x minutes!"?
Apart from that, I would probably not strike up a conversation. I like to buff people however, so I would do that (and if people thank me and want to talk, then sure I'd answer them). If nothing comes up there, I would probably practice some skills (fishing comes to mind lol). Or work on those neglected magic skills you never use. Maybe a bit of swim training? :)
Btw. Kilsin, I think this question deserves a much broader approach. When talking about mechanics, we often get suggestions in certain directions to "encourage us to socialize". But what exactly IS that to everyone?
Sarim said:How would I know the boat is still 15mins away? Would there be an NPC calling out "Next boat in x minutes!"?
Apart from that, I would probably not strike up a conversation. I like to buff people however, so I would do that (and if people thank me and want to talk, then sure I'd answer them). If nothing comes up there, I would probably practice some skills (fishing comes to mind lol). Or work on those neglected magic skills you never use. Maybe a bit of swim training? :)
Btw. Kilsin, I think this question deserves a much broader approach. When talking about mechanics, we often get suggestions in certain directions to "encourage us to socialize". But what exactly IS that to everyone?
Yeah, I doubt it's exactly the same thing to everyone, although most probably consider it just being nice and chatting. Even with the few replies here, you can see differences.
Back on topic, like the others, it would depend. Might grab a sandwich, bio, toss buffs out, fish, swim, have fun with emotes (assuming they're in the game) or chat.
Strike up a tune, perform for those interested, possibly make a new friend.
Kilsin said:Scenario - You need to catch a boat to another continent and it is still 15 mins away, there are several people standing around waiting with you, do you chat to them or zone out and do something on another monitor/play with your phone, why? #MMORPG #communitymatters
Most likely I'd /wave, say hello and if they respond I'd strike up a conversation otherwise I'd either do some fishing or chat with my guildmates on Discord. Just standing there would be boring and you never know what interesting people you might meet just standing there. I've met a few people who became great friends for years from just that type of situation. It never hurts to be personable.
Kilsin said:Scenario - You need to catch a boat to another continent and it is still 15 mins away, there are several people standing around waiting with you, do you chat to them or zone out and do something on another monitor/play with your phone, why? #MMORPG #communitymatters
As much as possible chat with them and good around. If learning languages is a thing, work on that with them as well. If everyone's being anti-social, make some notes on things that I want to do or see when I get to the new continent.
I’m just looking forward to docks and boats again :) That are essential to travel. And then of course: chat, chat, and chat :) What I like about longer times waiting for boat is more time to chat, interact, and socialize with other players. #communitymatters #makenightmatteragain #riskvsreward
Old school "perception" :I would ask the people where are they going? Why are they going? for a special somehting? what sort of a special something?
Kilsin said:Scenario - You need to catch a boat to another continent and it is still 15 mins away, there are several people standing around waiting with you, do you chat to them or zone out and do something on another monitor/play with your phone, why? #MMORPG #communitymatters
Will assume its an NPC yelling so there may be more NPCS; will sell junk items first, buff anyone there, med a bit, maybe harvest nearby mats or possibly fish. Besides any Global chat channels and zone channels, I am already in various other chat channels so I most likely won't desire to BS with random folks. If they are talking back and forth and I overhear something interesting, then I may chime in.
Kilsin said: You need to catch a boat to another continent and it is still 15 mins away
oneADseven said: I must admit that I find the prospect of waiting 15 minutes for a boat to be highly appealing.
Syrif said: What I like about longer times waiting for boat is more time to chat, interact, and socialize with other players.
I personally am going to respectfully disagree with these statements. You guys may like it, and that's fine for you, but I personally do not like these kinds of deliberate time sinks.
I really hope that Pantheon will not have boat rides that take this long. I am totally ok with some short downtime built into the game that allow for people to socialize while advanturing. But this was one of the terrible parts of EQ. It drove me nuts needing to sit at a docks for 15-30 minutes waiting for the boat to show up, only to then sit on said boat for the next 15 minutes waiting for it to reach it's destination.
To me this is part of where the 'realism starts to effect the fun' that Aradune mentioned. I am not calling for there to be portals of fast travel all over the world, but travel from the docks on one continent to get me to the docks on the other continent should be pretty quick. It should take the boat 5 minutes tops to do a full round trip, and that should include the pauses that might be needed for getting on and off the boat.
I am not trying to say that I am against just sitting around socializing and making new friends. But this kind of activity should be something I choose to do at times when I want to do it. If I want to stand around town chatting to people, then I can make that choice. But there shouldn't be artificially created time sinks that force me to sit around doing nothing just for the purpose of trying to 'encourage' me to start chatting.
As for the rest of Kilsin's question...
Kilsin said: there are several people standing around waiting with you, do you chat to them or zone out and do something on another monitor/play with your phone, why?
I think this is the real crux of the problem. Sometimes you may try and chat, but then there are going to be other times were you'll choose to Alt-Tab and do something else during the forced extended downtime. Any time you dileberately code a part of the game that might actually encourage the player to go do something else instead of interact with the game is bad design in my opinion, and I would hope that VR won't do something like that.
And perhaps this is exactly why this is the kind of question Kilsin is asking... if he see's people saying things like:
Spluffen said: Probably tab to youtube ... not really interested in a "nice weather"-type conversation.
Well then VR will know that it's probably not a good idea to code really long boat rides into the game.
Joppa has said before (paraphrasing): 'We are all gamers here at VR too, and we know what we don't like to have in a game.' I'm just hoping that enough of these gamers at VR also really hate being forced to sit and wait for boat rides in their MMOs.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Any time you dileberately code a part of the game that might actually encourage the player to go do something else instead of interact with the game is bad design in my opinion, and I would hope that VR won't do something like that.
EQ was a great example of emergent gameplay in action. A few other games have come halfway but most fail utterly and result in a themepark experience. Emergent gameplay is, by definition, unplanned by the developers. It is impossible to build emergent gameplay into your game. You can encourage it but you can't build it.
Encouraging emergent gameplay involves creating a lot of seemingly disparate systems, big and small, and then watching what the players do. If waiting for a boat for 30 minutes in EQ inspired conversations between strangers then great, that's emergent gameplay. Simplistic gameplay but still emergent -- a behavior that was not planned for. But purposely trying to recreate that for that same purpose is a fool's errand. In my experience in EQ people generally did not talk much at the docks. Later on there was never anyone else waiting at the docks so the wait was nothing more than a time sink. Personally, I'd rather not have the time sink be that extreme and be allowed to choose my own times for conversation, exactly as Goofy said.
I generally just sit somewhere out of the way, listen to the music and sounds of the game, read passing by comments in say (I usually turn off most zone wide chat and the like due to the baggage that comes with it). I would only interact if needed (ie someone is asking a question I might know an answer to or someone needs help in some way, or I am forming a group). Past that, I keep to myself.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Kilsin said: You need to catch a boat to another continent and it is still 15 mins away
oneADseven said: I must admit that I find the prospect of waiting 15 minutes for a boat to be highly appealing.
Syrif said: What I like about longer times waiting for boat is more time to chat, interact, and socialize with other players.
I personally am going to respectfully disagree with these statements. You guys may like it, and that's fine for you, but I personally do not like these kinds of deliberate time sinks.
I really hope that Pantheon will not have boat rides that take this long. I am totally ok with some short downtime built into the game that allow for people to socialize while advanturing. But this was one of the terrible parts of EQ. It drove me nuts needing to sit at a docks for 15-30 minutes waiting for the boat to show up, only to then sit on said boat for the next 15 minutes waiting for it to reach it's destination.
To me this is part of where the 'realism starts to effect the fun' that Aradune mentioned. I am not calling for there to be portals of fast travel all over the world, but travel from the docks on one continent to get me to the docks on the other continent should be pretty quick. It should take the boat 5 minutes tops to do a full round trip, and that should include the pauses that might be needed for getting on and off the boat.
I am not trying to say that I am against just
sitting around socializing and making new friends. But this kind of activity should be something I choose to do at times when I want to do it. If I want to stand around town chatting to people, then I can make that choice. But there shouldn't be artificially created time sinks that force me to sit around doing nothing just for the purpose of trying to 'encourage' me to start chatting.
As for the rest of Kilsin's question...
Kilsin said: there are several people standing around waiting with you, do you chat to them or zone out and do something on another monitor/play with your phone, why?
I think this is the real crux of the problem. Sometimes you may try and chat, but then there are going to be other times were you'll choose to Alt-Tab and do something else during the forced extended downtime. Any time you dileberately code a part of the game that might actually encourage the player to go do something else instead of interact with the game is bad design in my opinion, and I would hope that VR won't do something like that.
And perhaps this is exactly why this is the kind of question Kilsin is asking... if he see's people saying things like:
Spluffen said: Probably tab to youtube ... not really interested in a "nice weather"-type conversation.
Well then VR will know that it's probably not a good idea to code really long boat rides into the game.
Joppa has said before (paraphrasing): 'We are all gamers here at VR too, and we know what we don't like to have in a game.' I'm just hoping that enough of these gamers at VR also really hate being forced to sit and wait for boat rides in their MMOs.
i value my time and ppl more because of these time sinks.