I've met most of my current friends online, in one form or another (some as far back as the BBS days), so I think the cliché of the anti-social geek is a lie. In fact, the primary usage of any network is exactly that: networking. Socially, business and otherwise.

But the social value of different networks is not equal. For instance, I don't lend much credit to the so-called "social network" websites: The MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Facebook, Orkut, etc.-- perhaps because there are too many of them, making it easy to be a tourist or transient. When the temporary visitors far outnumber the core citizens, social value can get drowned in a sea of nonsense. It all depends on how well the network handles the different kinds of traffic. Regardless, it's a place to interact and that's the core.

The same is true for online games.

Games are a more specific interest that can strengthen social value. When I recommended to my girlfriend that we start playing City of Heroes rather than just chat on MSN, she was wary. Soon enough though, she developed connections with my other friends that were playing, plus now she agrees that chatting while fighting evil villains is more fun than just chatting.

On the other hand, game activity as community has limitations, similar to the way Flickr brings together Photographers but is not likely to be used for other purposes. It works if most of your friends are Photogaphers / Gamers.

Social value also may not be the prime directive for a game developer, which can lead to conflicting results. We've been playing World of Warcraft for almost 3 years now and some social implications have become evident.

The downsides with WoW.

The first, most obvious social problem with WoW is how impossible it is for players of disparate levels to spend quality time together within the game. If I'm level 40 and my friend is level 65, the only way we can quest together is if he "powerlevels" in level 40 areas with me, making my quests trivial with his ease of completing them.

Even once the "Endgame" is reached at max level, WoW's content divides like a pyramid to the top tier of players. Content is restricted based on achieving goals of faction-reputations, quality of gear, attunements, etc.. Finally, the highest tier content is WoW's raiding system, which requires almost military-like adherence to schedules that just aren't realistic for many people.

Getting the most from WoW, then migrating.

Personally, I've tried very hard to make my social circle work within WoW's limitations. I've held back to let others catch up, helping where I can. Our group of guild leaders have attempted to stick to the Endgame content which keeps most of us at an even pace, but that also has the side effect that some players may feel like they are held back. Most of us have also given up on raiding content which we could enjoy if it were more reasonable to play with friends.

In the long run though, we've had friends (some which had played with us across many other games) leave WoW because of these exact problems. The core of our group has decided it's soon time to migrate to another MMO more likely to strengthen our social bonds again. City of Heroes had a "Sidekick" feature that made leveling characters much more positive as a group and that was a very big difference, but it had a lack of great content overall. Age of Conan reportedly has a similar feature (called Master / Apprentice), but that's just one reason we're looking at that game, it seems full of community-building features.

It's important to me that I'm able to keep up with my friends. Not just the hardcore gamer ones either, but the ones I see occasionally. I like to bump into them in real life, but it's even more likely that if we have a common online "home" we'll see each there too. And when we do, let's fight a few baddies.

. . .
(PS: Our guild has launched a new forums site to assist in our little migration from WoW to Age of Conan @ path.gameslate.com.)