Do you ever just hang out inside MMORPGs?

Taken from Massively, join us on weekdays as we discuss the daily topic. Remember, the thoughts of the OP are not always my own.

When the MMORPG genre was young, I spent a lot of time inside of MMORPGs not doing much besides standing or sitting around and talking to friends. You could call it banksitting or peoplewatching or socializing, but either way, we deliberately used MMO clients as chat clients.

It seems to me that there’s less and less of that as the genre rolls on, and I don’t really think it’s a result of social media or external communication because IRC and instant messenger programs existed back then and saw wide use among gamers before global channels in MMOs were popular. People just seem far less likely to log in to just hang out. We log into games, take care of our business, and log back out. Communicate outside of games and people look at you funny: I’ve been mocked for my guild’s IRC channel, for example.

How about you? Do you ever just hang out inside MMORPGs, or do you take off when the action is over?

TH