Social Interaction - Third party communication or Ingame

LugoStreams

Greetings,

In hopes of Ashes of Creation becoming the next big MMO, I assume many of you discuss the social aspect of the game compared to other MMO's. In recent years third party platforms such as Discord, have greatly impacted the social aspect of MMO's, giving the social slackers a way to join guilds, parties, and other community based events, outside the game.

We see many MMO's thinking about this "problem", how can we focus the community to involve themselfs in social forms inside the game, and not bring it elsewhere, and tab out of the game, and give the chat/guilds/events/guides/farming tips/gold making tips etc, a loud voice inside this world that is suppose to captivate us in this new mysterious world. I've seen New World use proximity chat for voice, other games use advances in game chats and even voice calls inside the games.

So here comes my question, and you can say what you'd like.

Is it important to have the social aspect of the game INSIDE the game, or is assembling the guild / parties / world events outside the game not that bad? If not, how can a game, comapred to Discord communities and Discord Guilds, make their in game interactions so good that they'd rather socialize in game, rather than outside of it?

Best regards,

Lugo Streams

Samson1

To be honest, I don't think having to use third-party chat systems like TeamSpeak or Discord is a negative at all when it comes to organizing guild/party communication. Congregating within Ventrilo or TeamSpeak was one of the things I enjoyed the most when I played MMORPGs. And as a benefit, you don't have to be logged into the game to communicate with your guildmates or friends.

I think the only way that people will start turning away from Discord or other similar voice chat systems is if the game itself implements comparable or better features than Discord has to offer.

Vhaeyne

Outside of normal in game chat to deal with acquaintances, Discord all the way.

daveywavey

Outside is much better.

Riessene

I honestly don't think a game could support all the functions discord is providing for people in itself. Voice and text chatting, different channels, attaching files, open or closed and moderated servers.

Merek

Nothing will stop Discord. Prior to its release, Teamspeak was used but somewhat rarely, depending on the title. But now Discord has permanently damaged in-game communication. Free and easy, why would they bother with in-game talks?

Jxshuwu

Outside the game is perfectly fine imo but theres still going to be features in the game that will make it so that players will socialize with other unknown players ingame so don't worry too much.

McShave

I would like an in game proximity voice chat, but I would use discord for all grouped purposes

Volgaire

Like others have said unless Intrepid makes the in-game chat function even better than discord I highly doubt anyone would bother moving from it this goes double for servers with bots and all the other features they expanded upon.

starfighter

I think mostly discord. But proximity voice chat is cool when I have seen it in games. Just as long as it can be turned off.

JamesSunderland

Outside is just far better and more optimal for organization. Discord and good old TeamSpeak3