I agree with this.

I also agree with another point about not seizing a chunk of playing time by necessitating the need for a 5 to 10 minute buff session. I quit my all-time favorite MMO at the end of last year, and that was one of the major reasons. I no longer have a ton of time each night to play MMOs, and I didn't care for having to spend a chunk of it collecting buffs in order to accomplish most of the worthwhile content in game or to participate in PvP. I have found a lot of players grow to resent that forced down time.

Just out of curiousity, what was it? I'm guessing SWG

SWG. I'm a huge, huge Star Wars fan. Played from launch through the CU and the NGE. I finally left because I didn't like tracking down buffs, they were essentially recycling the content each year without much that was new, a lot of the content was steered towards the collection system, which in many ways was just another grind, and my primary playing time was after peak hours, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find players to group with for the things I wanted to do. I'll leave it at that, as I don't want to derail this thread. If anyone wants to talk about SWG with me, then please feel free to message me.

Haha, I was right!(see my black text in my last post). Yeah, I definitely feel your pain there. Just to give you an idea of my experience with the game, I have an elder Jedi and a BH with a full suit of Mando. The funny thing is, I spent just as much time getting the buffs to reach those goals as the actualy gameplay itself

I am pretty sure he means SWG. I also have an account there. While I enjoy the whole cantina scene they over did the buffing system and turned it into buff wars. I am not saying it has to be a buff. I like the idea of adding in mini games for players to play against each other for in game trinkets, Costume peices or some other incentinve to socialise.

Good guess. I figured my description would give it away. Elder Jedi here as well.

I see what the OP is getting at here. I just don't think the folks that want to socialize at the social locations would be happy with folks that are just there to get the buff. I would guess that there would be quite a bit of griefing going on. You just can't force people to be sociable or friendly.

I don't have a problem with social minigames and such as long as 1) they don't provide some "must have" mechanic for the rest of the game (i.e. provide a bonus to fighting, etc.) that can't be acquired some other way, and 2) doesn't divert a significant amount of dev time away from prime content (such as the weekly series, sorties, STFs, etc.).

I do play Dabo from time to time and chat with others. I was playing some a few nights ago while multi-tasking a few RL projects.

As stated in the other thread, start events in your fleet.

You can also check out Subspace Radio. Frequently, they have fun parties and group events. Tis a lot of fun.