The Game Monster – Making Friends and Influencing Monsters

There comes a time in every fury orange monsters’ life when the realize they just need a little help.  Maybe that dragon is too strong and keeps eating him.  Maybe that troll is too strong and keeps clubbing him senseless.  Maybe that giant snake is…. oh, not the giant snake again.  Anyway, you get the picture.

MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online, and believe it or not, many of them are meant to be played with other people.  A shocking revelation, I know.  From Lord of The Rings Online making Moria more solo-friendly to World of Warcraft, well, being World of Warcraft, there is a trend to make MMO games more accessible to solo players and small groups, which is fine with me!  I like playing with other people, have a lot of fun with it in fact, but I don’t like to be FORCED into it.  I think that a lot of the bigger games out there right now have a nice balance that lets groups of friends have a great time while not penalizing the casual player who likes to dive in and do things on his own.

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to make the wild and unlikely assumption that you actually want to make friends in-game to adventure and even socialize with.  It’s a crazy concept I know, but hang with me and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, because making friends in an online game can be a really rewarding experience.

My character, Ditto the Mighty, is wandering through AdventureTown and gets a quest to defeat the mighty Dire Chipmunk, a named boss with a shiny purple name floating above his head.  I head into the deep, dark cave of the Dire Chipmunk and as I draw my rusty blade (I really need to upgrade that some time soon) a whirlwind of striped fur and the smell of acorns fills the room.

You have been defeated by a small rodent.  Return to bind point?

Wow – that didn’t go nearly as well as I had hoped.  And now I’m not wearing any pants.  I’m not sure I like how item wear works in this game.  I head back to town and restock on the essentials – band-aids, pants, cough drops – and make my way back to the cave to defeat my dreaded foe; this time I have a plan.  OK, I don’t have a ‘plan’ so much as a sincere hope that this time things go better.

As I again reach the cave there’s another stalwart adventurer with a gnarled wooden staff nervously clutched in both hands, wearing a purple and silver robe with a number of large tears in it, with tufts of brown and white fur sticking out, so I assume he’s on the same quest I’m on.  I offer him my assistance and we bravely march into the den of the mighty chipmunk.

It’s a short time (and numerous trips to the bind spot) later, and there are now six of us, all nervously peering into the deep dark cave that is the lair of the mighty Dire Chipmunk.  We have the numbers, we have several buffs thanks to our new friend the buffer mage guy (Someone really phoned it in the day they named that class…)  and we have a strategy that shouldn’t involve screaming or hitting each other by mistake.  We kicked that guy Leeroy out of the group after he kept running in ahead of us and getting us all killed.  We were ready to go! We march in and, after a tremendous battle including feats of heroism usually reserved only for wars and ‘Black Friday’ shopping trips, we defeat the mighty Dire Chipmunk and collect the significant and valuable rewards!

There are a number of ways to make friends in an online game, of course.  Joining the game with friends you already know is an obvious first choice, but in my experience one of the most common ways to meet people and make friends in-game is meeting like this, in what’s commonly called a pick-up group. That’s usually a group of people who don’t know each other joining up to conquer a common goal, like a difficult quest.  Sometimes people who meet in these pick up groups do one or two quests together and then part ways, but sometimes people find they have a lot in common, have similar play times or playstyle, and they become in-game friends that way.

Another way people make in-game friends isn’t even via the game itself, but through the various social media avenues that these games provide.  Game forums, fansites, and even Facebook have become great ways to connect with other players you might not ever meet otherwise.  I can say from personal experience that some of the best in-game friends I’ve ever had were all met outside the game itself, as part of game forums and websites as well as the greater fan community.

Of course there are a few good ways NOT to find friends in-game.  I’m sure we’ve all seen ‘The Beggar’ – that person in the middle of the common area, shouting for someone to give them money or equipment. That’s always so charming first thing when you log in.   There’s ‘The Shadow’, that person who follows you or your group through an area, obviously working on the same quest and focused on the same targets, even named ones, but never says hello or asks to join or even acknowledges you.  Then there is my #1 pet peeve – ‘The Phantom Requester’.  You know him – in the middle of town or in the middle of nowhere, the random request pops up on your screen; ‘Annoying Player wants to be friends, Y/N?’.  Sometimes there isn’t even anyone around, just this phantom request floating in the middle of nowhere – that always confuses me.

Added to these players there are so many other bad behaviors out there, things that will keep people away like you’re dragging a train of elite bad guys through the middle of town – I’m sure every person reading this has their own thrilling tail of ‘I’ll never add THAT player to my friends list’, and each one will have their own reason or pet peeve. Ask the same people what they look for to add a person to their friends list, though, and the list is probably pretty similar from all of them – similar playstyle, polite, doesn’t try to run the whole quest (unless that’s specifically what they’re good at and everyone agrees to it, of course), and easy to get along with.  In short – if you want to make friends in-game, it’s a lot like making friends outside of the game when you think about it – although there’s probably a bit more emphasis on swordplay or magic skills.  Then again, depending on where you live, maybe that’s not so different, either…

Finally, because online safety is really important to me, I wanted to remind everyone that making friends online is great, but you still need to play safe!  Keep your personal information and account information safe, don’t tell ANYONE your login information or password, and no matter how ‘best buddies’ you are in-game, never, ever agree to meet anyone you’ve met online without a parent or other responsible adult present!  Making in-game friends is great and I truly wouldn’t trade it for the world, but never forget to be smart and stay safe!!  See you in-game!