are there proper ways to engage people in game? it seems strange to me to randomly ask someone to be friends. i also don't see many ways to strike up conversations (if that's the proper way to refer to it).

for additional context, in a game like Throne & Liberty or FFXIV, there are tons of people running around doing their thing. do you just whisper to someone and say hi? do you comment on their character or if you saw them do something interesting / cool?

or, for something like The First Descendant you may run a mission with a bunch of random people and then everyone goes their separate ways. but, if that group was cool (and good) do you quickly try to friend everyone?

personal context (if it helps / matters), console gamer (PlayStation don't judge please, haha), really introverted / anxious around strangers IRL, older play (mid 50s) and ultimately... afraid of looking like a weirdo 😀

apologies in advance if this topic was already discussed (happy to check another post if some can point me to it). also, apologies if i don't directly respond to every message, although i will read them all.

edit - 2024/11/16 - i just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your advice and taking the time to reply / provide your insights. this has really been helpful!! happy gaming to you all 🎮 🕹️ 😄

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[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

not as chatty as it used to be back in the days

I think that's kinda a generational problem. When you played WoW 20 years ago, all the chatter was in the game, because where else would someone be asking where Mankrik's wife was?

Kids these days (and old people who are paying attention, too, I guess) just join the Guild discord because it's persistent chat outside of the game with push notifications and streaming and you can listen to shared playlists while raiding and all sorts of shit you just can't do in the game.

So sure, MMO people don't chat in game as much anymore, but there's still a vibrant meme-sharing-and-yelling-at-the-hunter community in Discord now.

[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's definitely a generational thing, aside from people being completely focused on achievements and run around with a go-go-go mentality that everything must be achieved as fast as possible.

I personally only use Discord for talking to friends in voice chat though. I absolutely hate how most communities it's barely anything more than Twitch chats where the feeds go faster than you can read and it still feels like talking into a void. At least in most Discord channels I've been, you can't really have discussions. Not unless you have smaller groups that aren't a rotating door of people coming and going.

[–] randomcruft@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 days ago

go-go-go mentality that everything must be achieved as fast as possible the video linked above talked about that relative to WoW. it seems like a pretty common thing... getting through the game backlog as fast as possible to say you "completed X number of games" in week / month / etc.

[–] randomcruft@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 week ago

looks like i'm biting the bullet on Discord, haha! although i get where you are coming from, people flock to the thing everyone else uses.