When players don’t need each other it breeds anti-social behavior and it results in the devaluation of other players. Players become nothing more than advanced NPCs.
MMOs were originally designed to be shared social experiences
Wolfshead Online
Not true at all. Guild Wars has an amazing community, despite the fact that if you have the third campaign (Nightfall) or the xpac (Eye of the North), you effectively don’t need people at all, except in PvP.
There are player organised events, supported by ArenaNet. Most recently, Pink Day in LA:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pink_Day_in_LAThey set out with a goal to raise US$1337 for the Canadian Cancer society. They ended up with US$11,000. A totally player-organised event, for something outside of the game, which ArenaNet supported by introducing a totally new dye colour.Official site here:
http://pinkday.grimforge.com/And here is my take on Pink Day in LA 2010:
http://nugget.posterous.com/pink-day-in-lions-arch-2010(Please note, I’m not affiliated with these guys in any way. I was just lucky enough to catch the event by chance, and I thought the whole thing just rocked.)There are a wealth of other player-organised events, and during ArenaNet’s festive events, especially Canthan New Year, guilds and/or alliances team up to ‘sponsor’ districts, so that everyone has a very good chance of getting prizes. Sponsorship can involve playing minigames, or collecting scavenger hunt items and handing them to NPCs, etc. Sponsorship is totally free. People do it because they want to. Because they enjoy it. I took part in helping my guild/alliance with sponsorship this Canthan New Year, and I really liked it.It’s not a unique thing. It’s not something done because people NEED each other. It’s done because people simply want other people to be happy in a game they enjoy.For a game where you can play 95% of the PvE content without ever grouping with another human, Guild Wars has a damn good community.You could, however, argue that GW is an outlier. That its gaming structure so unique within the MMOverse, very much like EVE and ATitD, so much so that the normal rules don’t apply. I’m not sure if that’s so, but I do allow that it’s possible.Cynical nugget writes stuff praising human nature, whoda thunk! =)
[Originally a spammy rebuttal comment, see the full original post over at Wolfshead Online. It's possible you'll think a nugget is being too optimistic!]