Why does no one talk?

[SirRocket.3516]

GW2 seems to be full of introverts, the chats pretty much always dead. Its seldom seen people just talking away. Every time I try to talk everyone just ignores you. Is there a reason GW2 has always been so socially barren?

[zaekeon.5128]

I wonder this too, I think half the time people don’t even read chat

[FrostSpectre.4198]

People do speak, but mostly to their Guild chat as far as I know.

[Randulf.7614]

I think it depends on factors. EU can def get chatty before a meta.

The main reason is prob the megaserver tech. You don't really get crowds of the same players together which is where the banter usually comes from. Instead it is a constantly changing dynamic population especially in cities.

GW2 is also not really a sit and chat game - players are genreally always busy. Other mmo's are a lot more static in gameplay and it is more common for players just to sit in one place - esp a city - and banter away whilst players here are...well...playing. Being very solo friendly is prob a factor too

I don't agree it's al;ways dead - far from it, but it's not like other MMO's in the social factor

[Cynder.2509]

I for one am too anxious and paranoid. It used to be quite different a couple of years ago. Don't really know how it turned out this way. I usually even have the mapchat hidden these days because of too many bad experiences recently where people just generally trash talk or insult eachother. Don't know how the community could change so drastically.

[Blocki.4931]

I don't care about other people. I chat to friends, I meet friends through parties/guild, rest happens on Discord or Teamspeak.

[Gundahar.2765]

Its not always chatty but when it does, 98% its positive, people congratulating others for making their first legendary, or answering questions about the game, or even getting funny sometimes, and this in LA. Also metas like someone said above. Sometimes it goes from mapchat to whispers. Found some cool people this way. Being more guildchat oriented I think fits well with the game's name and overall idea.Even if mapchat is more silent than other MMO's, the paradox here is that the community is way more mature and polite, so thats a great tradeoff imo.Like someone said above, GW2 is more of a busy/fast paced MMO than others. I think its kinda balanced this way.Atleast this how EU goes.

[trixantea.1230]

GW2 sometimes feels more like a single player game than an MMO. Maybe this is why people do not need to talk too much in it. Aside from guild chat, it's not difficult to find someone to converse with in places like lion's arch or divinity's reach if you know how to start a good conversation.

Anyway, it would be always be healthier for a person to try to talk with family and real life friends than talking to random strangers inside a video game.

[Danikat.8537]

Just curious: when you say you try to talk and everyone ignores you what do you say?

I doubt I'm the only one who sees people saying 'hi' or 'how are you doing today?' in map chat and doesn't reply because I'm never sure if they're speaking to a specific person (maybe someone who said something before I'd loaded in the map?) or to the map in general, and even if it is the second one I don't really want to get drawn into awkward small talk with a total stranger which then leaves me feeling obligated to stay on the same map until I'm sure the conversation has died out.

I don't mind talking to people and will happily answer questions or join in an actual conversation, but only if it seems likely to lead to an actual conversation. Otherwise it's just easier and (in my mind at least) less awkward for everyone if I don't reply.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

One reason is that F2P players don't even have access to map chat, and have other restrictions.

Furthermore, if you watch gameplay videos, you'll see alot of people have map chat disabled, and many of them have chat hidden entirely, especially if they regularly tackle harder content like Fractals and raids, and competitive modes. That's because the chat tends to become toxic, it can be really nice and sweet one minute with people supporting each other and the next homosexual and racial slurs are flying around.

For example yesterday when [LGBT] guild was recruiting and people started going off about how funny and rediculous it is, that anyone would be LGBT, the recruiter simply saying "we're just trying to find other people like us to play with.." and logging off.

And its not just this, it happens with everything; one minute you're getting congratulated on your new Legendary weapon, the next minute someone is going on about how you're just some whale who probably bought it off the Trading Post, or used chat codes.

It all depends on your region, the time of day, and luck of the draw of the players you end up with due to megaserver, links, etc.

People need to understand that this isn't the late 90s/early 2000s with Everquest, WoW, Ultima, etc. anymore. Times have changed, people with poor behaviors who were taught to basically dislike or even hate others as much as possible become alot less afraid to be themselves online, especially in MMOs, which were once a bastion for people trying to escape the difficulties and stress of real life.

On top of this, due the abuse of GMs in videogames (both abusing their power and being abused by players for doing their job), many companies no longer employ them, which gives the illusion that many online games are unmoderated.

tl;dr, Its just not worth it to deal with other people online anymore.

[Clyan.1593]

Got no time to talk when you are hunting achievements, skins, events and whatnot

[maddoctor.2738]

The reason you don't see as much chat in this game compared to some other games, is chat moderation. I've seen how "chatty" games look like, and it's far far from being "social", it's just people discussing things that have nothing to do with the game they play, or make remarks that would lead to easy chat bans here. Including a vast amount of swearing. One of the reasons I like Guild Wars 2 chat is that the random out-of-game chat is very rare and the chat has some level of moderation. Oh and the fact that we cannot copy/paste in chat from outside the game is a god send, because I've seen what THAT does to video game chat.

It might be "quiet" compared to other MMORPGs, but I'd take "quiet" over ultra noisy, rude and spammy.

[SexyMofo.8923]

There’s nothing to talk about. There’s no one worth talking to.

[Ashantara.8731]

Whenever I am doing populated events like the HoT metas, there is plenty of talking in chat (map chat, say chat, squad chat). You might just happen to be on maps where people AFK (e.g., in cities) or that aren't very populated.

[Dreamreaver.4908]

Don't know about ya'll, but I'm both chatting and see chatting all the time. To each their own experience.

[Kosmo.3468]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:The reason you don't see as much chat in this game compared to some other games, is chat moderation. I've seen how "chatty" games look like, and it's far far from being "social", it's just people discussing things that have nothing to do with the game they play, or make remarks that would lead to easy chat bans here.

Lion's Arch is the center of political debates in my server. I've never seen anything of what you said being applied here.

[hugeboss.5432]

Its varies from timezone to timezone in my experience. As a western euro player, I dont quite connect or understand the asian culture and how they are (and prolly they dont with me either). Often i'm met with silence when making a joke etc. But when EU and NA logs on, people respond, chat and laugh etc.

[Danikat.8537]

I just realised another reason I might not respond to chatter in map chat: when both my guilds get going at the same time chat can be really busy and it's easy to miss something that's not part of the on-going conversations. I know map chat is in a different colour but if it's off the screen before I get a chance to look between fights I'm not even going to know there was a comment to find.

I had to set up a seperate tab with just the say, party, squad, team and whisper channels for when I'm doing something with a group (all the 'group' channels are together so I only need one tab for all of them) specifically so I can see the important stuff and cut out the background chatter. Which isn't a criticism of my guilds, I specifically look for ones with busy chat channels so I have regular groups to talk with, but it can make it difficult to see anything else.

[Tsakhi.8124]

Bad anxiety and lack of anything to say is my main problem.

[Smoosh.2718]

I miss the old map chat days...The glory days of looking for a swedish gf!

Back then you'd say something in map and boom loads of people chatted! Now its like peeing into space, your text just gets stuck as the only thing said for the last 20m till an NPC starts talking.

Make Tyria great again!

[Rex.3602]

Joining large guilds will makes the chat much more active. There is no global chat across all maps like other MMOs as far as I know, which may make the chat seem inactive. On popular maps with lots of players the map and say chats are quite active. A global chat would be nice if added but maybe the devs decided not to add it because of potential spam and moderation issues.

[DauntlessNord.6120]

Yes no one talks

[Vayne.8563]

I'm talking all day every day. I'm just not talking to you. I mean I might if I'm not already in voice chat with five or six guildies, doing stuff together. But a lot of times, there's very little reason for me to participate in map chat. I'll answer questions, if I see them. I'm help people out if they need it...but my social group is my guild and always has been. There are well over 100 active members of the guild, many who I consider friends, some of whom I've visited in real life. It's hard to play, talk in voice and participate in map chat at the same time.

Of course, if you go to DR or LA there's often a conversation going on, but in the opeen world, while I'm playing? I'll call out events and stuff, but I don't have as much reason to randomly chat.

[Astyrah.4015]

@Randulf.7614 said:GW2 is also not really a sit and chat game - players are genreally always busy. Other mmo's are a lot more static in gameplay and it is more common for players just to sit in one place - esp a city - and banter away whilst players here are...well...playing. Being very solo friendly is prob a factor too

this is definitely one thing, i remember playing ragnarok online (at it's heyday) and it's definitely one of the things people did, since there was no pressure (either from the game or the community) to do things fast/immediately/rush (well, aside from hitting max level) people had time to sit down in town and chat with randoms

in GW2 it's just not that kinda game... there's always something that's pushing you to do something (like dailies... metas... etc.) of course you could stop that and do your own thing but not everyone will be like you unlike in other games

[kharmin.7683]

I often find map chat to be filled with immature chatter, so I rarely pay attention to it. More often than not, I use my Party channel which has map chat turned off.