I don't subscribe to the theory that gamers are anti-social nerds who hide in their basements and have no real friends. Too many MMORPGs seem designed around that cliché, that we're loners who need new introductions in order to play a social game.

Leveling systems are used as motivation for players to push through content. But players of disparate levels don't mesh well together, so grouping with your existing friends is usually tossed aside in favour of constantly finding new ones. Grouping and guild tools operate as a social introduction system, trying to integrate you with others at the same level.

It was understandable a decade ago. Back when Everquest was released, it was unlikely that your real-life friends would be playing an online subscription game, so you needed mechanics that helped you group with strangers. But now this genre is mainstream and even if players aren't together with their local buddies, they're bound to have strong bonds from other games as they migrate to the newer MMOs. Cross-game guilds are becoming commonplace.

Some games even require a large diverse population for the content to work correctly. WAR is the biggest example so far: if players aren't active and working together in any given area, the content just doesn't work. Players are sorted into level tiers, realms and racial pairings, so new bonds are needed between players even more, if only temporarily for the task at hand. This is supposed to be 'epic'.

But I already have friends.

I'm okay with adding a few new friends now and then, but I don't need a pool of hundreds of them. I'd rather concentrate my time with a few close friends that I can relate to. The 'epic' crowds are more of a sideline interest, I like them there, but not at the expense of my primary enjoyment of simply playing together with my friends. Most of the group and guild tools aren't helping that.

The number one reason I enjoy Endgame is because eventually I end up on even strength as my friends and only then can we enjoy challenging game content together. Unfortunately, most Endgame content then shifts to even larger groups (raiding, warband sieges, etc.), presumably to reinforce the need for yet more new friends.

When Cryptic created their Sidekick / Mentoring system to allow players to pair up and balance their level differences, I thought it would be a paradigm shift for all MMORPGs. I was shocked that Blizzard didn't implement the feature for World of Warcraft's release. I was also disappointed that Age of Conan gave barely more than lip-service to mentoring, it was poorly implemented and quickly nerfed because it didn't match their content. WAR has similar features automated within tiers for Scenarios and RvR, but again it's a limited and half-assed implementation that doesn't come anywhere close to resolving the essential problem while leveling.

I have friends. I'd like to play with my friends, not just chat with my friends while I play.

No wonder Left 4 Dead has had phenomenal pre-order sales, it's a game focused on small groups of players cooperating together. Friends. It's a a shame the MMORPG genre hasn't learned from the popularity of small-team coop games.

MMORPGs should focus on content that allows players to get together in small groups of their own choosing.

Please give me more tools and content to play with my existing small group of friends.

One of our guild members deleted his characters after some frustration with Scenarios. I don't blame him, he was new to PvP and the imbalance of premades while you're queue'ing solo doesn't leave room for a lot of satisfying wins. Hell, those Scenarios are filled with players trash-talking their own teammates (lacking options to trash-talk the enemy), so that's bound to raise some blood pressure.

And let's face it for most of us, WAR at this point is all about the Scenarios.

I'm fairly happy with the Scenarios myself. My frustration factor is low, but I've been hammering away at PvP stuff since Pong. It's hard to get too upset after a billion quad-damage gibs in Quake and headshots in Counterstrike. I find the teamplay a blast, although certainly more fun when I queue together with Nelg, Sakkara, Taek, etc. than just by myself.

Still, it would be nice if WAR had more to offer, because I can't see myself paying a monthly fee forever for something I could get from Team Fortress 2.

I'm critical of Mythic on this one, I don't see how they could have missed this coming. There's the convenience factor, the population imbalance, the zerg-is-no-fun state of RvR and just the fact that they've bet so much of their "Open world" content on Warbands or just plain large crowds. It's not one factor, but all of those elements that leave the Scenarios as the most entertaining element of the game.

So here we are in Queuehammer. Scenarios are good enough for now.

But-- I'm holding out hope. I'm waiting to see if Tier 4 has some small team content that will be an escape from the Warband-or-Scenario situation.

I haven't really looked at the state of Dungeons and Public Quests at Tier 4, it's going to be a see what's there when I get there. I've been slowing down my leveling on Skereye these past few weeks while I let friends catch up and that'll continue since most of them are still in Tier 2.

Mythic's got some time to re-balance their game and tweak their content. I hope they aren't too much in love of their "epic" "massive" sieges like Funcom was with Age of Conan, because what's most disappointing to me is the insistence on gathering crowds of players before fun happens. I also hope they add some half-decent mob AI: WAR's aggro and threat systems are bare-bones, below par from other games. The PvE could use a lot of love.

I'm praying for some real honest to goodness old-fashioned group / party content. WAR needs more meat and potatoes, good hearty basic meals.

I'm going to be patient, WAR is what I'm playing for awhile. At least until Left4Dead comes out.

VideogamesBlogger and others are comparing WoW to countries today, indicating that its population has surpassed that of Haiti, at least according to Blizzard's latest press release.

It's a slowing of growth for a number designed to only go upwards, considering they hit the 8.5 million mark in January. Were they expected to peak now that the game is nearly three years old? Honestly-- No. Everquest didn't max their population for 4 years and it had a small fraction of WoW's footprint. Personally, I thought with Blizzard blowing the rest of the MMO market out of the water it would have longer legs.

I think that they could keep on top of things with significant and timely expansions, leapfrogging as it were. TBC was significant, but not timely. No doubt the second xpack will be announced at Blizzcon. I'm certain we'll see Blizzard set a similar schedule as the last, setting a 2008 date and then realistically it will actually come in 2009.

It's hardly time to ring any death knells for WoW, it's still the King Kong of MMOs. But I do think Blizzard needs to step up their game. The initial product had a much bigger "geez whiz" factor than what they've added since.

Found this post via AFK Gamer: "Tortheldrin is a dying server".

My first thought was that this sounded like an opportunity to me. If raiding isn't your thing, Tortheldrin could be the place to transfer to.

Imagine a server that doesn't have every outdoor area overcrowded, where you and your buddies can wander the landscape and actually immerse yourself in the story with YOU as the heroes, not just another joe in the crowd. You could farm for Scryer's rep without Paladin-Mage combos AoEing across your path. You could get as many motes as you wish from the Elemental Plateau and even leave it to go elsewhere without fear of giving up your hard-fought spot.

Perfect for a small to medium sized guild that wants to take their time with heroics and venture into Karazhan without feeling dwarfed by the swarms of players covered in nether vortex or PvP epics. Be the champions of the world but able to take your time about it and actually enjoy the content thoroughly instead of rush, rush, rush to keep up with the rest.

There are downsides of course. There isn't likely much on Tortheldrin's auction house and good luck finding people to craft gear for you, or cut any rare gems. Raiding of course, would be the most difficult, unless you brought your own raiding guild. Of course, that could happen: A few large-ish guilds might take notice of the attention Tortheldrin is getting for 'dying' and jump aboard.

... but... Wait ...

PvP?

Oh, it's a PvP server. If you look at the in-game server list, Tortheldrin is 'recommended' (Blizzard's codeword for 'please play here, please') along with a few other PvP servers. PvE and RP servers don't stay vacant very long, players will migrate to them for the very reasons I posted above.

Low-population PvP servers should just get merged.

The WoW Battlegroups Catacylsm and Frenzy are getting merged this week.

A full post is available on the Blizzard forums, a quote of the announcement is here:

We've previously announced our intent to merge the Cataclysm and Frenzy battlegroups in order to lower their arena and battleground queue times, and increase the amount of players available for the cross-realm PvP features. Due to the extensive maintenance this merge will require, we're currently anticipating a maximum of 24 hours of downtime for the realms in these battlegroups, which are listed below. We're currently scheduling this downtime to begin on June 19 at 3:00 AM PDT, and conclude at approximately 3:00 AM PDT on June 20.

This does lend tangible credence to the speculation that WoW's population is shrinking, or at least has plateaued.

The WoW census site WarcraftRealms has posted a player activity graph to demonstrate the wane of player interest shortly after the release of The Burning Crusade. The chart peaks at the release of the expansion and then reaches a decline, probably the first since the release of the game in 2004.

These numbers actually represent character activity, each player may have multiple characters. Only 2.3 million of the current 8 million shown are characters in the 61-70 level ranges.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment: It is possible that the decline on these graphs can be accounted for by the reduction of bank alts. The TBC expansion added more and cheaper bank space for characters, so many players may have retired their secondary banking characters since then.

My personal opinion however, does match with this graph. Like many other longtime players, my friend's list is peppered with players who have left the game recently.

Morbidwrath on the Silvermoon forums pointed out a flaw in my educated guess for WoW Retention Rates. I missed an important factor relating The Burning Crusade sales directly to active subscribers: China does not yet have access to the TBC expansion.

The9 claims 3.5 million subscribers for their import of WoW in China and they've only recently reached an agreement with Blizzard to publish the TBC expansion.

Recalculating retention rates without China in the mix could mean Blizzard has lost 30% of the subscribers from their claimed base. Of course, this is still just observational theory. Only Blizzard knows their exact numbers and I doubt very much that they would publish them in full.