Introverts, social anxiety and multiplayer games

[kaputt]

I've been wanting to try a PC multiplayer game for a while, as they seem to be among the best games for the platform, but as an introvert, specially one with a reasonable amount of social anxiety, I feel a bit timid of taking part in any online community.

The general impression I got from the communities in online games also don't make things easier. For example, I remember a Thumbs cast in which Jake or Sean tells about the time they tortured someone in DayZ just because reasons, and the interest I had to buy DayZ kinda vanished, it doesn't look like a game that I'd feel comfortable with.

So I want to know if I'm alone in this, and if I'm not, which online game do you introverts or shy people play, with a community that is a bit more amicable.

I know this is a weird feeling to have about video games, but it just happens.

[clyde]

I rarely talk in the multiplayer games I play. I don't know if that will take some of the pressure off you. Are there games that you are interested in playing that you aren't because of player interaction (like Day Z)? Or are you more concerned that you will be expected to interact with other players by conversing and such?

[Merus]

I know that the public TF2 and GW2 communities are both very friendly on the whole.

[shammack]

The only online multiplayer I enjoy is when you can't communicate with the other players and might as well be playing against bots (like Mario Kart or Hearthstone), or when there's a persistent world shared between multiple players but you're not required to actually interact with them (like Minecraft).

 

Oh, and Snoopy Flying Ace is OK.

[Roderick]

Being introvert =/= being afraid of social stuff. But if you have social anxieties, there are tons of multiplayer games (on every system), and they all have varying degrees of interactivitiness. Some games have live conversations (co-op shooters), others work fine with texting (MMO's), and then you have all sorts of communities, from the ones I wouldn't even dare set foot in because they just seem nasty (DOTA) to really lighthearted and welcoming ones (errrr Idle Thumbs! Wait that's not a game).

 

I had a great time in World of Warcraft by the way, I mostly played it as a singleplayer game and whenever I interacted with others they were kind and fun.

[osmosisch]

Hearthstone is the least anxiety-inducing multiplayer game I've played recently by quite some margin, though I'm not sure it exactly fits the bill. The lack of chat makes it easy to just treat every game like a puzzle scenario to be solved, though to get better at it you do need to start some mental modeling of the opponent.

My most positive social experience in games in general has probably been in WoW, especially after joining a guild for old farts. This was quite some years ago though, no idea how the climate is there now.

TF2 used to be fun and chill as well, but that's also a game I haven't touched in ages.

Being introvert =/= being afraid of social stuff.

This bears repeating btw.

[Griddlelol]

I hope you don't think we're picking on you but I think others have made an important distinction about what an introvert is. 

 

I have both social anxiety and I'm an introvert, however I love, love, love multi-player games. It removes a lot of the anxiety I get from interacting with people. I played Halo 2 and made a bunch of friends, played WoW and made a bunch of friends and now I'm not playing any social multi-player game, and I really miss it. I hope Destiny will fill that gap because it looks pretty fun.

I guess it depends on whether you have a thick skin or not. I'm not really able to take unwarranted criticism well (I tend to sit and think about it for days, even if it's just and off-hand stupid comment like "YOU SUCK GO UNINSTALL" so I steer clear of Lords Managements which have in my experience a rather poisonous community. 

 

If you want social gaming, ignore stuff like hearthstone it's a very different kind of multi-player. I really like it as I get an adrenaline rush knowing I'm playing against another person. Your social anxiety shouldn't be affected by it, unless some jackass starts spamming "Thank You" if you make a mistake. Most games tend to start with "Greetings" and end with "Well Played" and nothing in between though, the Thank You spammers are rare.

 

If you want to try a social multi-player game, I'd recommend joining in with either people you know in real life, or people you know on a forum. It'll be a much more gentle introduction than just dropping yourself into a community at random. 

 

Oh also, DayZ is kind of an extreme example! You can always avoid games that have any sort of torture in them.

[Roderick]

Thank you spammers -> Squelch, but I rarely encounter them.

[JonCole]

I like Guild Wars 2 as a low-pressure, decent social interaction MMO. 

[Yasawas]

I always thought this was just me! I'm not a shy person generally but I do find it difficult to talk online to people I don't already know in the real world as I have a terrible accent coupled with a speech impediment which makes me stand out our come across badly. I do love multiplayer games though but tend to gravitate toward those which don't need or even allow chat like Dark Souls, Street Fighter and big team games where I can be fairly anonymous. I am trying to work on this though as I do love the idea of playing the like of Destiny or The Last of Us with a small team working together.

There must be people on here you could play something with? The first step is playing with people you know not to be arseholes.

[SecretAsianMan]

Also going to echo the introvert/social anxiety distinction.

 

I usually only talk in games if someone else talks first, and even then I sometimes don't.  I will of course talk when playing with friends.  On the Xbox I used to not even plug in my headset unless I knew at least one person.  On PC I will sometimes even go to the length of making the excuse that I have to plug in my mic, then wait a few seconds before I start talking even though my mic has been plugged in the whole time and I just haven't been using it.

[prawks]

I like Guild Wars 2 as a low-pressure, decent social interaction MMO. 

I haven't played GW2, but I can echo the sentiment having played a ton of GW1 that it's full of great communities. I like MMOs for starting out, because you can usually find a list of guilds, and find one that resonates with your needs (casual, mature, competitive PvP, whatever you're looking for), then go about applying and playing with them.

 

Usually once you have your foot in the door in one game with people you enjoy playing with, they inevitably play other games as well and you can branch out very very easily from there.

[eot]

In my experience there aren't any specific games that are better than others, but I guess I prefer higher player counts as that puts less focus on each individual. Also, I much prefer meeting people in the game as opposed to outside of it, because then playing the game with them is already a natural thing. Arranging to play a game with say people from this forum would stress me out more than just playing with strangers. I get anxious playing new games even with people I've played other games with for years. I can't explain that, but it sucks because it makes me lose contact with people once they or I quit a particular game. I'll also admit that I get a little stressed out just by being logged into Steam friends, which is why I'm usually not.

[prettyunsmart]

I tend to feel the same way in multiplayer games. It's particularly bad in games where I feel like I can very easily screw things up for my team members, so no Lords Management games for me. Also, any game with a small but super hardcore community scares me, which is why I bought Spy Party but have only played it twice (in spite of having a good time and playing with people who were quite pleasant). Some games that seem to cause me less stress:

 

• Team Fortress 2: Generally the community is pleasant and doesn't require too much voice chat. You get the occasional annoying person, but little in the way of rage/hate speech.
• Battlefield 4: Nobody seems to use voice chat in the game, which is great for me. I tend to play with a squad of people I know in real life, so we just run a Skype/mumble chat for us and ignore everyone else. The text chat is occasionally terrible (I've seen some racism, and quite a bit of "my team is the worst" stuff, but it's much easier to ignore, and the racists seem to get banned quickly).
• Guild Wars 2: I'll just say that, like everyone else has said, this game seems to be populated with generally pretty nice people.
• Final Fantasy XIV: I was initially pretty freaked out about grouping with strangers, but they all seemed pretty alright. It might have helped that I'm halfway decent at playing tanky roles. 
• Quake Live: I'll preface this by saying that I'm terrible at the game, but even the hardest of hardcore players of this game seem to be really good-natured. You might lose terribly, but you will probably have a good time doing it.

Another thing to keep in mind with games like DayZ and Rust is that it can help to play on servers populated with or run by people from communities you like. The Thumbs DayZ server was nice because the rule was "If you're going to be an asshole, at least be an interesting asshole." I got held up by a couple of guys playing there, but they were nice about it. I also played a fair amount of Rust on a server made up of people from Giant Bomb. Instead of being a kill-on-sight murder simulator, it ended up being a fun "let's build a town" game for a while. That was cool.

 

Also, the Multiplayer Networking sub-forum is great for this kind of stuff. I still don't play a lot of games online because of social anxiety and lack of free time, but when I've played with fellow thumbs, it has always been a good time.

[Twig]

Being introvert =/= being afraid of social stuff.

It's an incredibly common overlap, though.

[Roderick]

I would say introverts have a higher chance of developing social anxieties than extraverts, simply because of the way they process information (boldly put: introverts go inwards for reflection, extraverts go outwards). But there is no causality and it's certainly not an inherent trait.

[Twig]

I can agree with it not being an inherent trait (and am, in fact, obligated to believe as such, because it is true). And certainly the distinction is worth making. Sometimes, though, it feels like people who point out the difference are doing so from the position of there being literally no relation between the two which is absurd and untrue.

[shammack]

Given that the OP explicitly stated that he both was an introvert and had social anxiety, I don't really see how making the distinction is relevant in this case.

[Twig]

Yes, and that.

[Bjorn]

I tend a bit more towards being an extrovert (with some introverted moments), but honestly joining randoms in a game can give me anxiety if I'm expected to interact with them.  Without the structure of how you communicate in person, or the time delay of a forum or email, I don't feel at all comfortable talking to strangers online. I've never particularly liked voice chat or chat rooms.  But I can strike up a conversation with a total stranger in person no problem.

 

So I tend to favor MP games that have no requirement to communicate, like Dark Souls or some co-op horde modes (like Mass Effect 3). 

 

Oddly enough though, something like DayZ doesn't intimidate me, though I haven't played it yet.  The expectation that I'm going to be abused by a psychopath is so high, that it feels like it comes with some inherent structure.  It's the unknown that gives me anxiety.

[Roderick]

Given that the OP explicitly stated that he both was an introvert and had social anxiety, I don't really see how making the distinction is relevant in this case.

 

Because one has everything to do with the question and the other next to nothing? But let's not digress any further from the actual question on hand.

[kaputt]

I see that I'm not the only one who feels like this, thanks for sharing this thought.

And yeah, I know that social anxiety isn't the same as introversion haha, it's just that I have both of them. That means that social activities, while enjoyable, are a bit "tiring" for me, because I'm an introvert, and I also feel some degree of anxiety before engaging in any social activity, which includes multiplayer gaming. So I wanted to see which suggestions of games people with the same feelings could give.

I'm really glad that you guys pointed Guild Wars 2, always wanted to play that game, I'll look more into it.

I hope you don't think we're picking on you but I think others have made an important distinction about what an introvert is.

I have both social anxiety and I'm an introvert, however I love, love, love multi-player games. It removes a lot of the anxiety I get from interacting with people. I played Halo 2 and made a bunch of friends, played WoW and made a bunch of friends and now I'm not playing any social multi-player game, and I really miss it. I hope Destiny will fill that gap because it looks pretty fun.

I guess it depends on whether you have a thick skin or not. I'm not really able to take unwarranted criticism well (I tend to sit and think about it for days, even if it's just and off-hand stupid comment like "YOU SUCK GO UNINSTALL" so I steer clear of Lords Managements which have in my experience a rather poisonous community.

If you want social gaming, ignore stuff like hearthstone it's a very different kind of multi-player. I really like it as I get an adrenaline rush knowing I'm playing against another person. Your social anxiety shouldn't be affected by it, unless some jackass starts spamming "Thank You" if you make a mistake. Most games tend to start with "Greetings" and end with "Well Played" and nothing in between though, the Thank You spammers are rare.

If you want to try a social multi-player game, I'd recommend joining in with either people you know in real life, or people you know on a forum. It'll be a much more gentle introduction than just dropping yourself into a community at random.

Oh also, DayZ is kind of an extreme example! You can always avoid games that have any sort of torture in them.

I think you pretty much nailed the point. I see a lot of people saying that they love to play multiplayer games with friends (real or virtual), and I wanted to try that. But I feel a bit anxious because I have this stupid need for approval at some degree, as much as I improved this aspect of my personality. So I feel like a bit afraid of not doing the right thing while playing a team based game, stuff like this.

About hearthstone, that's probably the multiplayer game that I played the most. But as you said, I want to try games in which you have a bit more of interaction, massive multiplayer games, for example.

I'm in a hurry right now so I can't answer everyone, later after work I'll post here again. But thanks for all the replies.

[prawks]

But I feel a bit anxious because I have this stupid need for approval at some degree, as much as I improved this aspect of my personality. So I feel like a bit afraid of not doing the right thing while playing a team based game, stuff like this.

Many of the most enjoyable, mature communities in multiplayer games are ones that are newbie friendly, and have members who are enthusiastic about teaching new players and sharing their knowledge of the game. Definitely keep an eye out for those kinds of groups if you're worried about messing up someone else's game, they're usually plentiful to boot.

 

Heck, these groups even exist in games like DotA if you do a little digging.

[Griddlelol]

I think you pretty much nailed the point.

 

But I feel a bit anxious because I have this stupid need for approval at some degree, as much as I improved this aspect of my personality. So I feel like a bit afraid of not doing the right thing while playing a team based game, stuff like this.

 

I think I got it because I used to feel exactly the same way! I get the whole approval thing, I even did it when I decided to play with people from the Idle Thumbs forum (which is ridiculous, no one here cares if you're good or bad). 

I still find talking to people first in multi-player games really difficult, but sometimes you can find a group of people who are just fun to "be around" as well as accepting of who you are - I was incredibly lucky finding that in WoW, and that's probably the main reason I consider WoW to be one of my favourite games ever.

[SecretAsianMan]

Many of the most enjoyable, mature communities in multiplayer games are ones that are newbie friendly, and have members who are enthusiastic about teaching new players and sharing their knowledge of the game. Definitely keep an eye out for those kinds of groups if you're worried about messing up someone else's game, they're usually plentiful to boot.

 

Heck, these groups even exist in games like DotA if you do a little digging.

 

I go out of my way to do that in games.  If I see someone who's clearly new and not just purposely trying to be an idiot I'll try to fill them in on some of the basics without flat out telling them what they should be doing (unless it's a very specific thing like standing in a certain spot).  I always try to remember that at some point I was a newb and in general I just enjoy helping people.  It's not a new idea by any means, but if you're nice to other people, odds are they'll be nice to you too and everyone will have a better time.