EverQuest Got Rid Of Group Finders Because It Was “Removing The Sense Of Community”, Says Creative Director

The MMO catalog is as healthy as it’s ever been in the gaming industry, and it’s an endeavor Amazon has become familiar with in recent years through Throne & Liberty, despite the studio looking beyond the genre for future projects. One element that’s often crucial to an MMO’s blueprint is the community spirit, which is a component the EverQuest 2 creative director holds in high regard.

Heavyweight titles such as Final Fantasy 14, The Elder Scrolls Online, and World of Warcraft have all carved their place in the Hall of Fame, but studio CipSoft is bringing a new MMO to the table in the zombie-fueled Persist Online. Despite being 20 years since CipSoft’s release of Tibia, this new expanse has the potential to create another unique online community.

EverQuest Dropped Group Finders Like Hot Potatoes

In an interview with PC Gamer during Flippy Fest – an EverQuest anniversary celebration event in San Diego – EverQuest 2 creative director Kyle Vallee shared his love for MMO games, and he’s confident he’s played most of the titles in the genre. One concern the director did raise, however, is the dying community spirit in modern MMOs, even though that component was the driving force behind earlier titles of this scale.

Vallee thought current multiplayers “have lost that [community focus] in other MMOs, the community has become not a big part of it” and the director believes this is because the devs “don’t give people the tools to build communities anymore”. Vallee noticed that the tools for crafting meaningful communities were “lacking even in the newer stuff”.

Reminiscing on older titles when MMO communities were thriving in the genre’s infancy, Vallee felt rather alone playing current MMOs, saying “The couple of other MMOs that I play I’m almost like a solo player 100%, I don’t group with anyone.”

The topic of group finders was then touched upon, which Vallee thought was another blow to building communities. “Some MMOs have group finders for everything,” he said. “You get into a group finder, you go into the zone, you literally do not talk to the other players, you clear the zone as fast as you can, and you leave. There’s no discussion.”

This conversation segued into EverQuest and Vallee talked about the group finder that was once a part of Darkpaw Games’ fantasy RPG. “In our games you have to talk to other players if you want to find a group. We had a group finder at one time, but we felt like it was removing the sense of community from the game so we got rid of it.”

By the sounds of it, the team at Darkpaw, especially Vallee, believes wholeheartedly that communities make MMOs, and prioritizing this sentiment in the EverQuest games may make this MMO one of the few that stays true to its roots.

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