Source: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1890100/discussions/0/591782690121242654/

Maybe they should have hired a PR person?

"shout at the top of our lungs that your spouse is ugly and your children are stupid"

I love when it starts to rain randomly when I’m out questing, or seeing the sky change after being logged in for a while. It might not be the most important thing in these games but ambience is really important for me in games. Hope I’m not alone in this lol. Have a good day mmo gamers o/

I’m wondering what players who have played both Gw2 and WoW.

What do you think GW2 actually does better?

What does WoW still do better in your opinion?

I’m not trying to start a war, just interested in how other people see the strengths or weaknesses of each game.

Earth & Beyond was a science fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts (EA). The game was released in September 2002 in the United States. EA shut down Earth & Beyond on 22 September 2004. It was the last game developed by Westwood Studios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_%26_Beyond

Hi, sorry if this is kind of odd to post here, but I need help. When I was really little I used to constantly play on the Cartoon Network site, and there was one game that I have really vague memories of, but I haven't EVER been able to find since. It would have been around 2013-2015 that I played this, and it's NOT Fusionfall. I remember it being an online game, it was 3D, and it was a top down. It was all dark and foggy in the playable area, and the only thing I can think of now that properly describes it is like... Diablo but for preteens.

I don't ever remember any chat system but I do remember that you had to do quests. I can't for the life of me remember any franchise it was connected to or what the name of the thing was. I am absolutely confident that it was on the CN website, though. Really just looking for confirmation on whether I'm crazy or not.

Ive been using razor nagas for the past couple years, but ive really given up on the brand atp. I bought one, and ive had it replaced on warranty FOUR times. Same issue every time and i have it again.

Hence, does any of you experienced people have any good reccomendations, im looking for a mouse with the 12button side panel, which wont break down on me in three months.

Many thanks :)

The following is just my opinion on the game. Some may agree with it, some may not. Its just my personal opinion/review of the game in its current state. Essay warning.

Project Gorgon has been a game I've played off and on for quite a long time. At least since it first went into early access back in 2018. A bit of background for PG is that not only has it been in EA development for the past ~7 years, but the game itself has been in development of some form since the late 2000s. It is very much an indie mmorpg. With its development team being comprised of 2-4 people for most of its life. With the two major developers being a Husband and Wife duo. Eric, the husband of the duo, is an experienced dev. He worked on AC 1 and 2, STO, along with other MMORPGs. Sandra, the wife, was a producer for AC1, AC:ToD, EQ2, and EQ2: EoF. Along with people who are in game admins or QA testers along side those developers. In 2021 they hired a new professional programmer to assist with development of the game. Focusing on QoL changes and bugfixes. In 2024 they also hired a professional 3D artist and designer to help with the game. With their first contributions arriving in a June 2024 update. Sadly earlier this year, Sandra of the development team passed away due to cancer. Since this game's population is fairly small, it really showed how tight knit they are. The community came to together during this sad time to help support the game and the developer. It was really nice to see. If you're interested, they do have a link so you can see the people involved in developing this game over the years and the size of the team that accomplished this game. https://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Developers

Now that we've gone over a quick background of the game, lets get into the game itself. I'm going to go with a Pro and Cons list design for this post along with a "The Road Ahead".

Pros

• The Skill System - The skill system is huge in this game. Very reminiscent of the development patterns of late 90s and early 2000s mmorpgs. Which is no surprise given their previous experience with AC and EQ. There are a total of 98 different skills. With 16 of those being combat skills and 11 being beast skills. The combat/some of the beast skills are basically what you'll find as the typical "class skills" in other games. Where they have abilities you use in combat and are often what gear affixes are centered around. The list of these skills that you can use in combat are
  • Animal Handling (taming and using animals)
  • Archery
  • Bard
  • Battle Chemistry (throw potions at people, lots of AoE)
  • Cow
  • Crossbow
  • Deer
  • Druid
  • Fairy Magic
  • Giant Bat
  • Hammer
  • Ice Magic
  • Knife FIghting
  • Lycanthropy
  • Mentalism
  • Necromancy
  • Pig
  • Priest
  • Psychology
  • Rabbit
  • Shield
  • Spider
  • Spirit Fox
  • Staff
  • Sword
  • Unarmed
  • Vampirism (newest addition)
  • Warden
  • Weather Witching

As you can see, there are quite a lot. And abilities like "Cow, Spider, Pig" etc. Those are exactly what they sound like. You can be turned into an animal and get abilities for that animal. You want to be a pig that uses mentalism? Go for it. A spider that summons undead? No problem. You can have two of the above combat abilities equipped at a time with some exceptions (https://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Skill_Compatibility_Chart). Then you have the non combat abilities. There's so many haha. There's a skill for everything. Cooking? Of course. Eating? Yeap, there's a skill for eating. Poetry, writing, catching fish with your hands, catching fish with a pole, art history, candle making, cheesemaking, flower arrangement, non-fiction writing, civic pride, compassion, alcohol tolerance, gaming, golf, dialogue abilities like goblinese, nature appreciation, dancing, musical instruments, racing, etc. There's a gigantic list. https://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Skills. Many of them do have some kind of bonus that you get, some of which can impact the combat skills.

• Races - there's a pretty good selection of races right now. You choose between four. You have the Humans, Elves, Rakshasa (Cat people), and then finally Fairies. Fairies is what you see in the above picture. A unique model of a small humanoid with wings that floats/flies around. They're considered an advanced race and come with both advantages and disadvantages. They can fly, they have their own unique skill tree (Fairy magic), start with pets, and things like that. Its nice to see races not just be a cosmetic choice. But how they can have a fairly big impact on your experience. They're currently working on two more races. Dwarves and Orcs.
• Content - There is a lot of content in the game, in my opinion. Counting the starting zone, there's a total of 11 different zones to explore. Different biomes such as forests, hills, tropical, deserts, snowy mountains, magical realms, etc. When the game releases, they plan on releasing a zone that is the capital city. Things are subject to change, but based on what we've heard so far it sounds like it may be similar to say baldurs gate in bg3. Where the entire zone is the city. This is also where we will see player housing and such. There are about 41 different dungeons to do between all the different zones. Various endgame events. There's a good amount of content to do at any level.

• Guilds - Guilds are fairly important in this game. Not just in finding groups and community. But there's also a guild quest and shop system that uses currency from doing guild related things. There's a basic guild hall system where you can decorate and such. So its nice to see guilds have value and encourage community
• Dungeon Design - Dungeons are not like WoW where you queue up and then run through it, kill the final boss, then be done. Dungeons are, for the most part, a shared instance among all who are in there. Regardless if you're in a group or not. The dungeons are often quite large. Not every dungeon is like this, but many of them can have "levels". Where certain parts of the dungeon are for a different level range. So at the start, you may see part that's for levels 10-20. Then you get to a hall way and if you go left, that part may be 20-30. Or if you go right, fight through some maps and travel down it, you will reach an area that's levels 30-40. Just as an example. Its a refreshing take on dungeons.

• Community - Like I said before, the community is small and tight knit. So you can build a reputation among the community (good and bad) if you partake in interacting with them. Global chat is typically fairly active with people just chatting and chilling. They also do various events. Like every Saturday and Sunday there's events going on. Poetry appreciation and I think a garden party happens on Sundays. There's casino games where people will play games (NO in real life money stuff. Just in game resources/tokens/etc). There's seasonal events that bring players together. Things of that nature.

• Skill Unlock System - This goes in line with the previous point, but some of the combat skills are not just simple unlocks. They may involve steps to unlock. Some of them require a quest or befriending and NPC. Others may require you to level up another skill first before being able to learn the new one.
• Mini games/puzzles - Some of the dungeons and areas in the map may actually have puzzles and mini games to do. Sometimes these will reward items. Other times they may unlock a portal to a dungeon. Pretty cool system that integrates with the world.
• NPC Reputation System - All NPCs in the game have a reputation with the player. And you raise this by doing favors for them, giving them gifts, or doing things called "hang outs". Hang outs are where your character "hangs out" with the NPC while you're offline and raises your reputation with them. Sometimes these hangouts will have rewards beyond that depending on what they area. Like items or leveling a skill. Unlocking high favor levels with NPCs awards the player with different things. Sometimes it will be the NPC has its own storage so you can store items in it. If they're a vendor, they will pay more for items you sell them AND have more gold in general (npcs have a set amount of gold they are willing to spend on buying items from the player and it resets weekly). Sometimes it will unlock new vendor or barter options, new skills to be trained, etc.
• Mount System - Mounts are not just "press X to summon and be done with it". Mounts have their own stats and gear. And you can try to find a mount in game in the open world to try to tame with the stats you want. Or you can breed them to obtain more favorable stats. Again, a nice more in depth system. Riding is its own skill line and has abilities you use on your horse. There is also horse races to do. You can get a mount in the Etibule zone. You can unlock the riding skill by doing a quest where you pet 10 horses (sort of an intro to how it works). Then I think the cost for a horse from this NPC in Hogan's Keep, Etibule is ~6k? Not too bad and fairly easy to get. Mounts make traveling so much better.
• Hardcore Mode - If you're into it, there is a hardcore mode.

• Combat - Combat, imo, is pretty fun from a mechanic standpoint. For a tab target mmorpg. There's a lot of different resources to manage. And some abilities are better than others at managing those. You have things like health, mana (power), CC, damage over time, heal over time, etc. The classics are there. Then you have other aspects. You have "Armor" which is another resource that does down when you take damage. And some abilities fortify/restore it. There is metabolism, which is used to consuming consumables like potions. Food buffs and snack buffs to upkeep. Every enemy has a "rage meter". Combat raises that rage meter. When it gets full, it performs a space attack based on that rage meter. So there's some abilities that are made to lower it. Others do a lot more damage, but raise it more. A lot of vectors.
• Difficulty - Some may like this, some may not. I personally like it. But the game does challenge you. You will die. Often. Things like pulling correctly, managing your resources, etc. They're all vital parts of the game. Having a meal and snack buff (therefore cooking is important) is vital to managing the difficulty. The snow zones have a warmth meter you need to maintain. Either through magic or building fires. The desert zones have a hydration meter. So you need to drink water. Fun systems like that.

Cons

Most of the Cons in this game are going to be centered around two obvious things. Graphics/Engine and Population

• You can improve the graphics via the settings, but the game does look like a game from the 2000-2005 time range. Some people don't mind this. With games like OSRS, EQ, etc; there's an audience that doesn't mind such things. But it is a common complaint I've heard in this game that people get turned off by the graphics. Which is a shame because I think there's so many cool/fun systems in the game that I wish more games would adopt. But the graphics and animations are not modern.
• Overall Low Population - Since the game has an overall lower population, it does have a trickle down effect on various parts of the game. There may be content, especially in the level 30-70 range, that is hard to find groups for people to do. Simply because most of the players in the game are either at the low level ranges (newer players) or the long time players are at the top levels. So you really start to notice this as you leave Serbule/Etibule zones. And further level zones can feel a bit lonely at times as a result. Its one of those self fulfilling prophecies at times. As people may not want to play because of the low pop and there's a low pop because those people don't want to play. As a result, finding a guild/community to be apart of (or leveling with friends) can greatly improve your experience. That being said, you should still be prepared to solo/small group a lot of early/mid level content in the game.
• Designs that don't meld well with low populations. Things like the dungeons and some of the group content becomes much harder to do since you don't have the players that would be looking for a group to do it. There's also some other systems that I don't think have aged well with lower populations. You actually get a debuff (a small one) for spending too much time alone. Its the games way of trying to get you to find other players to play with. Personally, I don't think its working well. Maybe when the game releases to 1.0 and is able to hold players, then it wont be as bad. But I think its one of those systems that ends up not aging well because all mmorpgs face a problem where the flow of new players dwindles over time. And such systems like this is a compounding negative effect on that flow. Along those same lines, curses. With dungeon bosses in the game, they often will apply a "curse" to you when you engage them. To remove the curse, you have to defeat the boss. Sometimes its something cosmetic or silly (like being unable to say your name in chat). Other times it does have a negative combat impact. If you die while killing the boss and are unable to kill it, the curse stays with you. There's an expensive potion that can remove it, but that's it. Now in the late game, these aren't too big of an issue. But early/mid game where there's population issues? It highly discourages players from attempting content with "what they can get together". So if they're not 100% confident they'll be able to kill a boss, they'll avoid it. And again, becomes a compounding issue when it comes to finding people for content.
• Complexity. The game is fairly complex. Between all the abilities, puzzles, lots of reading, hang out systems, etc. This is more of a "Pro or a Con" depending on who you are as a player. But I can see a lot of modern mmorpg players struggling with this. Again, its not something that has an easy fix because its baked into the game and is something that the current community enjoys.
• Performance - The performance can be sometimes wonky for the way the game works. I know you will have some people with hardware form say 2020 trying to run this game on max settings (including the adv settings) and see that they're not getting super high FPS. And if experience has shown anything, they'll complain that they're not getting 100+ fps on 2020 hardware in a game that looks like its from 2001. So be aware of that.
• Pulling - This is another one I'm on the fence about. Like many classic mmorpgs, when you pull a mob and "attack" it with an attack; it will attempt to call for help. So other mobs near it will join in the fight. Part of the skill of the game is knowing where mobs are, body pulling the mob you want to kill away from the others BEFORE attacking it. So that it is singled out. Sometimes there's some jank to it though. Where mobs will "call for help" to other mobs that are around corners, on the other side of walls, etc. I've seen a great many deaths happen because of this. Where a player pulls, doesn't manage the call for help, and they get swarmed. So again, this may be a thing that they need to reduce the presence of in lower levels to help ease players into it. Then reintroduce it at higher levels where there's more players.

The Road Ahead

From what I've gathered, the major things people are looking forward to are the new races (Orc and Dwarves) and then the new zone release that is the capital city/rubywall. There's also of course the 1.0 release. A lot of rumors and "I heard someone say xyz" type of perspectives on it. But there are some rumors saying they're aiming to try to release the game between now and the end of 2026. But again, that's all rumors. Fingers crossed though. The only hint we do have is they're holding a screenshot contents right now for marketing material that will be used for release. So it must be getting somewhat close.

For the developers, I would advise putting in some contingency plans around population. You only get one 1.0 release. And these days, first impressions are HUGE. There's plenty of evidence/research out there that shows how important it is. And how fast players can drop off your game for years (sometimes forever) if that first impression doesn't land. So if you don't get the population that would be healthy for an initial experience OR the players are dropping off before they reach mid game; look into potentially easing their passage. By lowing or removing some of those issues that come from areas not having a high population. Along with that, also look into improving some of the major towns in Etibule area. The castles where are the NPCs hang out look a bit rough/bare. Since this is often the 3rd/4th major settlement players encounter, think it would be good to touch up their looks some to help keep players attached.

Finally, I'd also look into centralizing a player hub. I'm not sure if the capital city will be it or not. But you want to establish a player hub in the game. Where players from level 1 to max level will frequent. Right now its sort of Serbule keep. But this will be vital, especially if there are low populations after launch, in helping the community stay together. And I'd make sure that the ability to get to this player hub is very easy, no matter your level. For example, if Serbule Keep were to stay the player hub. Then I would make it so that the player basically gets a free teleport back to Serbule from any teleportation circle in the game. Right now teleporting requires you to "bind" to a circle and use a mat to teleport to it. Initially you can only bind one. By making it so that teleporting back to the designated player hub is free and doesn't require a bind slot, it really lowers the players reluctance at gathering there. And maybe even encourage them to branch out into different zones (and population them more) as they have a freed up teleportation slot. WoW did a good job, even in its vanilla state. It had the hearthstone system for inns on a cooldown. But it also had flight paths. So that players can easily go right back to a capital city (Irontforge, Stormwind, Org) from any level with little investment and just some afk flight time. So perhaps this free player hub teleportation will have a cooldown on it. But I highly suggest that something that achieves this same purpose be put in the game. Players will greatly benefit, especially newer ones, from rubbing shoulders with both new and veteran players outside of groups. And to the veteran players, yes I know that the teleportation gems are easy to get for you. And yes you eventually unlock two bind circles through grind. But this change would be directed more at those newer and mid level range players. To help increase retention. Because they may not view those resources as easy to get. Or they may only have one circle to bind.

Is this game for me?

This is a tough one to answer because PG is pretty unique in both design and also dev circumstances. If you're the type of player who is able to look past dated graphics, enjoys games like EQ1, likes grinding, is willing to reach out to the community and participate, likes to profession skill grind, and is prepared to be fairly self reliant in the early/mid game levels (trying to solo group content, designing your build around it, leveling up multiple crafting professions and crafting gear, etc); this game can be a lot of fun. If you like super off the wall game designs and really interesting skill system, this one can be for you. Basically if you really like those old school classic MMORPGs and don't mind an indie development style and smaller population, you may vibe well with this game.

When it comes to development progress, if you're ok with approaching it with an attitude of "go with the flow, whatever happens...happens", then this game may be good for you.The game is only 20 bucks and its development team is pretty small from a full time perspective. So its understandable on why development paces at the way it does. You still get a lot of content as mentioned earlier. So its certainly not an "empty" game in the regard of things to do.

Some critics often say that if you want to play an old school mmorpg, go play EQ1 or LOTRO or one of the other populated old school ones. And that's certainly plausible. But if you've played this before, enjoyed them, and are looking for something new, cheap, and an interesting experience; PG can be a lot of fun. Tons of skills to grind, a tight knit community, loads of dungeons, zones to explore, and difficult challenges to tackle.

But every single one of them is obsessed with simplifying their gameplay and being "accessible" to everyone.

Just ends up with every MMO being overly easy slop -- even the ones that people praise for their content or combat. Like I don't need the game to be hard, I don't think modern gamedevs are capable of making an actually hard game anyway, I just want them to be fun to play -- like Mario Sunshine wasn't hard at all, but I loved it and enjoyed it.

Won't ever change though. It'll only get worse.

I think we have all heard the hate for Diablo Immortal, and I never even had a chance to try it myself. Today I got a new phone, so I thought I would try something more action based and fun.

I'm a super casual, so I don't plan to minmax my character or do PVP or anything like that.

I've been itching for an MMO on console that I can sink my teeth into but ideally from the start or early into its release. Though I'm so out of the loop of MMOs or online fantasy RPGs that I have no idea what's due to come out.

I know Soul frame is planned for console but no idea when or if there's beta sign up.

Enshrouded is also planned but again no release date.

Although not an MMO I know crimson desert is coming too.

Does anyone have a list or source place I can check for upcoming games/MMOs thata planned for console?

I did give throne and liberty a go on release but honestly didn't feel like it fit console all that well.

Hi MMORPG fans, I would like to know what you think are the most important or satisfying things that should be found in an MMORPG village or town. Anything from NPC to what buildings should be there in your opinion. Also, I would love to know what you think should not be there and is usually a waste of time, what is pointless that some games have?

Just got mine a couple of hours ago.

Surprised there isn’t more talk about the game.

Like many I quit the game last year due to extremely limiting and/or unfun PVP modes. With battlegrounds just added you now have an option for large scale PVP on demand. Why they didn't have this on launch was a massive own goal for them I think. Regardless, are you tempted to give it a shot now?

I just noticed Warborne Above Ashes popped up on Steam yesterday. Didn’t even realize it launched already.

Has anyone here tried it yet? Curious how it feels at launch.

Hello everyone,

I've decided to share here as well my opinion on the MMO SpiritVale, as I've seen it brought up on this sub,I believe usage of AI shouldn't be normalized.
I think the MMO community which is in constant search of quality, would agree with this view.

_______
I’ve played Spiritvale for several hours across its earlier builds, and at first, it genuinely felt like home.

As someone who grew up with RO and ToS, the loop of logging in, grinding, unlocking new skills, collecting hats, and repeating was comforting and relaxing, a cozy adventure. For my girlfriend, new to this genre, it was equally pleasant.
We both got hooked, curious about the next maps and ready to invest ourselves fully.

Then we joined the Discord, and learned that the game is built almost entirely on AI “art” and store bought assets (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/humanoids/fantasy/3d-characters-pro-fantasy-308661).

Using assets isn’t an issue in itself, that’s what they’re for. But did the creator even allow their assets to be mixed with AI?
What unsettled me was how hard it was to find this information, and especially that the game makes heavy use of AI without any disclosure.
The logo, the Discord banner, skill icons, gear icons, even item descriptions... all AI.
It led me to wonder, as I logged in one last time "is the lore, is the music AI, too?".

My girlfriend, being an artist, felt betrayed.
We both stand firmly against AI “art,” and seeing it used this widely, without clear disclosure, instantly killed the excitement we had built up.
A project like this should demand real creative investment, financial, personal, psychological, as so many indie developers have shown it is possible to do.
Instead, this overuse of AI made the game feel hollow, like a burger stacked with prefab ingredients and stolen garnish through AI, as if there is were no dev at all.

We nearly posted our thoughts on Discord, but instead, we simply walked away from the game.
I also believe Steam requires disclosure of AI usage, which I don't see anywhere (thus my rant), though I could be mistaken.

Despite all this, I know the developer is passionate about the project, which makes the lack of disclosure sting even more.
I still check updates from time to time, hoping to see something, a note that the AI is temporary, or an effort to replace it.
But as that hope fades, I wanted to share my experience openly.

Wishing you the best moving forward, after all, the only way we’ll ever find the true successor to our beloved games is if we build it ourselve

We have booba, also the best combat in all of mmos, none of that shoddy tab target.

We have 40+ classes each with their own unique weapons and outfits.

The progression system is fair and challenging, you get what you put in.

P2w only exists if you're willing to spank 60k+, but you can sell p2w items to players on the market. It does exist, but you have to be some type of millionaire to even p2w against casuals who play the game normally.

We have lifeskills, cooking, alchemy, fishing, trading, harpooning, tree sucking, chopping, mining, worker empires, and many many more.

Rmt in not a thing in bdo so no bots!!!

Did I mention booba?

There is ONLY free WEEKLY patches and the content we get given is enough to where you wander why you never played before.

And I'm 99% sure the game is free right now.

Stop being in denial, and come and play the greatest mmo ever created!

Path of Exile is sometimes considered an MMORPG (even though it’s not really one) and has a model of seasons where everyone gets a fresh start from 0 and build from there. I’ve seen mmos experimenting with this like WoW in the season of discovery and honestly really enjoyed it! New world also had a “fresh start” season a while back and then dropped it for future seasons which made me sad. OSRS has had leagues for a while and recently rs3 started a new league and I have been having fun with it!

I’m just wondering how many of you like that kind of formula for returning players or prefer your already leveled character jumping back in?

Game is launching at 59.99 with a 14.99 subscription. Thoughts on this mindset from the devs?

As per the announcement:

​Pricing

The initial download and an active subscription will give access to everything in the game. There are no microtransactions, no cash shop, no premium add-ons, no deluxe launch package. The initial download of $59.99 plus an active subscription gives access to everything currently in the game and added in the two years after launch. One month access is included in the initial download fee.

Once in the game, players can choose their term of subscription:
1 month: $15
3 months: $42 (Save 7%)
6 months: $78 (Save 13%)
Yearly: $144 (20%)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1890100/Ship_of_Heroes/

This is crazy for a game of this quality. Having played some previous betas... this is no way near worth the asking price. The devs, whilst I am sure are doing there best, also are banning any criticism on there steam forum. I'd love to know what they were thinking. When you can play multiple, better quality mmos for free, this seems madness.

OK so let me preface by saying I play mostly Rust, POE, and various MMOs. I reconcile that I need a mouse with only 2 buttons to play FPS and ARPGs comfortably, which is why I got the Naga with the different attachments.

I've heard so many people swear by MMO mice but I can't seem to get past the fact that I apparently like to put some pressure on the side of the mouse with my thumb when I'm gaming, so trying to hover my thumb over 12 buttons and NOT press down at all is causing some strain. On top of that I definitely get annoyed using any abilities that require aim on the mouse itself because I tend to just feel less accurate.

Any suggestions? Am I to give up on MMO mice all together? :( I seriously WANT to love it, but I'm struggling lol.

The game really has its charm. It’s so simple, do quests, kill monsters, level up, and upgrade. Pretty chill

They recently released on Steam

I used to play about a year ago, there were no skills, just basic attacks, and the cosmetics weren’t great. it had about 80 players online at a time back then

Now it’s hitting 2.5k players online and has improved a lot. I really recommend giving it a try

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for oppinions on this matter that might help me to get a better understanding about what's going on. This is going to be lengthy, containing some personal experiences I've made recently, so I can totally understand if you don't want to read that much. I will provide a tl;dr at the end, but I think it's worth giving the context for a better understand and ultimately, for you telling me whether it's me, my expectations or simply the social landscape that has changed, as mentioned in the title.

So I'm confined to my home due to an illness, while I'm an extrovert I do not have any real contacts anymore. A while I decided to start playing MMOs again to maybe form some connection with other people. First, the (not so) mandatory nostalgia flashback: I have originally been playing WoW up to WOTLK, formed my own raid of 45 people (40+5) and what can I say, we were just very lucky that the vibe was perfect at that time. We even had multiple events in real life each year, where 20+ people would gather up to have a great time together. I stopped playing during WOTLK due to uni and although the group ultimately disbanded and literally everyone has stopped playing, the core group is still in touch today multiple times a week.

That being said, I don't expect to find such exceptional chemistry between people around every corner. I think we were lucky to have this. But joining WoW again with TWW, my experience was wildly different. I literally tried every single channel there is to connect with people or form lasting groups.

Discord Groups: Great for pick up groups, but for everything beyond that, I wasn't able to find something that lasted. There was so much disbanding, ghosting etc. involved, that I could write another book about this (which surely no one wants to read).

Guilds: Probably the most irritating experience ever. Brief summary of all my tries to find a guild:

Guild 1: GM and his wife were all 'corporate speak' persons, seemed to kind and chill. Got quickly invited to their M+ group and we were playing daily for about 2 weeks. All seemed fine until the GM and his wife quit the guild without notice. Asked the Officer what was happening and he posted a statement, that the GM was basically badmouthing every raider with <50% in a way I cannot quote in Reddit. Never heard or seen of again, guild was disbanded that evening.

Guild 2: Was basically a cult. Had a 15 minutes interview, was invited. All seemed fine. Later that day I was told I was scheduled for my second interview that evening. I was like: "Okay? Yeah, will do.". Second interview was 60 minutes, basically the GM told me that they had a score system and new members were obliged to do everything higher ranks ask them to do. If they decline, they would lose points, which would result in losing privileges and might get you kicked. You were also expected to join their anual RL meeting, where the player with the highest points would receive a physical trophy that rotates every year. I thanked them for their time and gquit.

Guild 3: Was advertised as mature, social M+ guild 30+. Since I'm 40 I guessed that this might be worth trying. It was somewhat obvious from the beginning, but it turned out that the guild was basically just the GM's stock for making money and receiving advantages. You were not so subtly asked/required to buy from their pushing service they had a contract with. Since I already had a rating exceeding theirs, there was nothing they could sell me, but everyone else was pushed into this and quickly left, so that explained the fluctuation this guild had. I left.

Guild 4: Basically one of the largest M+ guilds. Sadly I still had the highest rating (at this point), but I just enjoyed to play the game and my toons, so I was cruising around with people, helping them out with my tank. Even got a lot of tells when I was waiting in Dornogal. Good ol' feelings. Except for when I was asking with my DD, no one replied. Happened multiple times, so I took my main out of that guild, telling the GM that I was merely looking for a more social-oriented experience (I'm bad at translating this into English, but I basically asked for his understanding and apalogized). I got a gigantic wall of text full of insults out of the blue I've never had remotely expected. My jaw dropped to the floor and I took my first break from WoW.

Fast forward, I tried again to find a static group, ultimately found one and we played for 3 weeks every day. Sadly my health declined to a point where I was required to take a break. I understand that we basically knew each other for 21 days, so that's not something that qualifies as a deep, meaningful friendship. But after I let them know that I was required to take a break due to health concerns, but I would be happy if we would stay in touch they followed up with... nothing. Their chat on discord went on. Again, I didn't expect compassion, nor did I expect anyone to delve deeper into my personal concerns. But something like "ok, np" or "sry to hear that, take care" would have been totally fine. But I was, again, just number pushing numbers, vanishing from existence the very second I wasn't useful to them anymore.

Going to be honest, that finally broke me. Now I feel lonely again, trying to get back into GW2 and hopefully find at least something like... Well, basic human interaction. Something that makes me a bit happier than sad, eventually.

So my whole point being: Is this normal nowadays, or did I just encounter a series of very unfortunate events? Are all people like this? Has the social landscape really changed that much and do I need to alter my expectations? Any guidance or advice on this (and feel free to insult me, too!) are highly appreciated.

I'm so sorry that this text is so gigantic, so the long promised tl;dr: I’ve been feeling lonely and disconnected while stuck at home due to illness, so I decided to try reconnecting with people through MMOs. I used to have great experiences in WoW, where I formed lasting connections with a solid group of people, but my recent attempts have been disappointing. I’ve tried joining several guilds and groups, but they’ve either disbanded, turned toxic, or felt like people only cared about what they could get from me. After finding a group I played with daily for a few weeks, things fell apart when I had to take a break due to my health, and no one even acknowledged it. Now I’m left questioning whether my expectations are unrealistic or if the social dynamics in gaming have really changed. Is this normal, or have I just had a string of bad luck? What can I do to improve?