Ok, I was not sure what groups was all about at first but it seems fun.
(Suggestion)
As many have discovered, Opening your Menu and moving it to the side will allow a user to move their head with out moving their body when using a sitting or laying down animation.
BUT! We still have the menu open to the left or right of us. So I would like to suggest that in the Round menu, Place a {Stop body} Option. This would work just like having the menu open but with no menu.
I feel this is something many users would enjoy having.
I know you lot (devs) don’t give a s### to listening to anyone if it runs counter to what you want out of the game. (The bl###y cheek, “Since then, we’ve come up with a better idea we think you’ll like”, not “We’ve talked to the community, ran polls, and generally actually gave any s###'s about what the playerbase actually wants out of the game”),
But on this one point, this WILL ruin the game even harder than a certain other decision you should have backed off from but didn’t, even after getting absolutely a##blasted by the collective community from every side, and the sad thing is unlike that stunt, players will herald this as being a GOOD thing until it’s already ingrained and ripping friendships apart from petty power struggle based infighting and making the rampant “Everyone is perpetually in a private instance” problem EVEN MORE OF A PROBLEM, something clearly the collective dev team don’t see as a problem given they themselves clearly see this as a f###ing GOOD THING.
I already wrote down my extended thoughts in the very canny post linked in here, but the long and skinny of it is, no, this is a HORRID idea. “If it ain’t broke” my a##, this game is not Discord. Should not have any structure like discord. And no one EVER should have been equating the two in ANY capacity. These social VR games are a wholly unique beast that exist entirely unique to anything that has existed before, and CAN NOT be equated to something like bl###yDiscord. The dynamic is fundamentally different. The nature of how you are in the universe is fundamentally different than people being text on a screen. And ANYTHING like a ‘Group’ system needs to be considered with far more nuance and tact than “Lol, let’s copy/paste what Discord and Telegram and whatever use into VRChat and call it a day.”
Welp, if this ends up going through, which the devs stanch “We do what we want and ignore anything anyone else has to say, unless it’s for forced-handed damage control”, this is going to make the now infrequent visits to VRChat even more frustrating as I come into lines being drawn between former friends and it being impossible to join on anyone unless I’m forced into “Becoming a lackey of one random user who was / should be just a friend in a group of people.”
It’s already enough of a problem when a couple of friend groups do this outside of VRChat, it’s only going to exacerbate if it’s a native thing in-game.
Out of the three relevant social VR games in this context, (Renamed because of this place’s pettyness)
“The Neo one” has no such thing,
“The Chill one” has it ‘planned’ but the exact nature of how it will be implemented is yet to be seen, which if it’s anything like what’s described above, you can be assured I will be telling those guys pretty much exactly the same thing I am here, with the difference being some level of confidence they’ll at least listen to what someone has to say, even if it doesn’t come to anything and they crash and burn due to social dynamics ripping players apart as well, instead of a 99% chance of being flat out ignored and screaming into the void like I do here,
And VRC, which is laid out above.
Groups sound great, I know for a fact there will be people wanting this to happen. And that’s just, so unfortunate. I have never been in a defined named group of people ever with any sort of hierarchy that wasn’t strictly for a technical subject matter (Think modding a game, or support for some piece of hardware, and even then any hierarchy practically didn’t exist), so your ‘fandom’ groups or social circles, that hasn’t ultimately resulted in MASSIVE power tripping and people being torn apart due to said power tripping and the aforementioned infighting. Usually only taking one or two bad eggs to rip the social dynamics to shreds.
Human nature seemingly doesn’t really allow for a individual to be put into any position above other people without it being a problem. There are many scenarios where someone has to be in charge to get things to happen, and usually is a very careful balance of managing social structure to not make it fall apart. VRChat ain’t that, nor does it need it.
At the end of the day, i guess it is their game and they choose what to add to it. Like you said, we don’t control what features they add in here, they do. And if they want to add in features that people want, then so be it ;3
That’s literally the exact opposite mindset to have.
At the end of the day, from a literal standpoint, it’s a codebase that was written by its devs certainly. BUT, a social game of any sort falls flat pretty hard and fast if there’s no one playing it. Developers of a game like this, especially one where all of the actual content is user-generated, needs players. Not the other way around.
And the more players just roll over and take whatever decisions the developers of a game make that runs counter to what the users want, or in this case implement something that at a surface level seems great but will only serve to exacerbate existing problems and create wholly new ones, the the worst the everything is for everyone involved. Even for the people who aren’t necessarily playing, as their friends refuse to leave to play something better “Because all of my friends are here”, which all of those friends won’t leave because “All of my friends are here”.
Someone some time ago described this phenomena like being in a bad/“toxic” relationship, and honestly, I can see it.
Didn’t say that making updates should necessary mean a bump, heck even changing the description on the website counts as an update, but worlds shouldn’t have a limited lifetime in the algorithm, of course new worlds should be pushed aswell, but not only new worlds
What you say about the groups could very well be true BUT I think we should give it a try and if it does indeed go bad, then we can get the Devs to remove it.
I 100% see your perspective in this but I for one vote to move forward with its release and see how it plays out. I also see it as a fun thing the users would enjoy.
Personally I think my group of friends will stick to friends+ when cruising around. It’s worked out so far as long as enough people remember to go blue. Groups sound like not worth the hassle for my case
Recognizing that you’re in a group ran by the wrong guy is IMO an important life skill
Sounds like the groups you’ve been in have been run by immature or weak leaders, which is unfortunate. That can be a hellish experience.
I’m a co-founder of a relatively big and active friend group that’s a collection of people who’ve met each other through VRChat. We have a good mod team that are mature adults, the server has a well defined cultural identity/expectation, and we all have good relations with our members. When inevitable conflict arrises, we deal with it as graciously as we can, but are not against putting our foot down if needed (cause like you said, it does only take a couple of bad actors to destroy a server). Because of that, I think our group is exceptionally stable and our members are pretty healthy emotionally and mentally. There’s respect between the mods and members, to the level that everyone is comfortable enough to fiercely disagree with a mod about something without fear of repercussions (We believe strongly in freedom of speech. It’s bad behavior that gets one in trouble).
As far as VRChat groups goes; many of us often play together in public lobbies and always end up mentioning how we’re part of a friend group. We’re always inviting new people to join us, especially if they’re chill (not overly aggressive OR easily offended). So having an identifier in VRChat to show that “oh, those guys are together” would be nice. And if it allows me to make Group Instances without having to friend literally every member of our group to be able to invite them to an instance, would be awesome. People are making groups offline anyway, incorporating groups more natively in VRChat seems useful to me. Only concern I would have is people avoiding new folks or echo chambering themselves, but they already do that anyway.
100% agree.
Being able to recognize whether a group leader(s) are immature, or if they’re capable of leading (Aka, being able to identify and confront bad actors that join who could potentially poison the group if left unchecked), are both very good to learn.
I’m sure if someone steals your group name, you can submit a ticket with proof that you’ve owned it first and such and they’ll be like “Aight, cool” and transfer it to the actual group owner. Like, for example. The LPD (Loli Police Dept) can easily provide proof if someone swooped in once it’s released.