There are different ways to take advantage of the "massively" in "massively multiplayer" than to group for combat. You are taking one aspect of "multiplayer" and asserting that it is the only reasonable rationale for participation in a massively multiplayer game. Let me ask you this: when you play MMOs, do you group with everybody on line, or with just a few people? Do you cooperate with other groups of people during your group activities, wish they were somewhere else not competing for loot, or play an instanced game with no real possibility of inter-group competition? If you answered "yes" to any of those three questions, then by your own rationale, you shouldn't be playing a massively multiplayer game, just a multiplayer game where it's easy and convenient to find an adventure group.
There are many appeals to playing a mmorpg more than just grouping, for instance, developing your character, doing quests, exploring a world. Though, I would agree with the OP in that I think the essence of mmorpgs is the multiplayer interaction and a mmorpg should therefore provide many opportunities to interact. For instance in terms of grouping or providing pvp objectives which get people working together etc.
Here are my reasons for soloing in an mmorpg over soloing in a single player game.
1. For PvP, if the game has it. 2. Trading with other people. In single player games you can only use what you find yourself, or use cheat codes. 3. To have the option of playing with friends when/if they play. 4. Chatting. Playing in a single player game is boring as hell when you have nobody to talk to while you are mindlessly killing mobs for hours.
I really don't understand why people worry so much about those of us who like to solo. I really get tired of being told to go play a single player game. I play mmorpgs because of the 4 reasons listed above. Playing a single player game gives me none of these things. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind grouping. I am not against it by any means, I just prefer to be able to play at my own pace and in my own time.
Playing - Minecraft, 7 Days To Die, Darkfall:ROA, Path of Exile
Let's say yyou take an extemely narrow view of what an MMORPG is and say the only thing it provides is {social interaction}. If you look on it as that basis, then a person trying to understand why someone else would want to play solo is confused.
Now if you can open your mind and say an MMORPG is a setof {Social interaction; other things}. Then you might start to think differently about your issue. So solo and Social Interaction still doesn't make sense to you. Ah, but solo and other things do make sense.
So as you can see, the problem, as I suspect you know is it is a matter of how you are looking at it. Expand your mind and you might be able to figure it out without having to have a group of people explain it to you. Although I suspect you knew this and are trying, in a lame way, to slam soloists.
not really not trying to slam soloists. i just have noted that it has become the trend to judge a class for its solo capabilities. and i do understand that people do not have the time to join groups and hate to leave the, others do not like the rush.
as for the red part.... WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?
and as i was stating earlier, when i want to play solo most of the time i go and play oblivion/thief/Kotor/TMNT.
i also realized that the game mechanics of the WoW/EQ2/L2 etc generations allow very little chance to socialize with others (but still exists nonetheless) and IMO encourage soloplay. or solo lvling.
so i might have a more open view on MMOGs as you might think.
and ive been playing MMOGs since... well... txt based mmos.
It's called set theory which is taught in primary school... As in a set of elements {item1, item2, ..., Item N}. Now reread it.
Imo a game that does not offer solo gameplay is not a game I want to play. I love grouping but there has to be a solo option as well.When I say solo option then I do not mean that you can go out there and grind levels finding 1 copper on every mob you kill.There hase to be good loot as well.Some people claim that uber loot should be reserved for groups only and that is sadly how it works in most games.For example in EQ2 If you manage to kill a named boss solo you have vey much less change to find an uber loot on it than if you had killed the same boss in a group of 6.This should be oposit,if you manage to kill something solo you should get mor reward than if you brought all your friends to kill this mob.In Vanguard you have a litle more soloability than in wow and eq2, you acctually get solo quest all the time if you look for it and you can kill named bosses solo and you get same loot from mobs that you would have got if you killed it in a group. Sadly Vanguard has so many bugs that it will probably not survive very long.The only fair game for people who wants to solo at least 50% of their playing time is old and allmost dead now,I just hope Turnine will make Asherons Call 3 and that game must be follow up to AC1.
I solo most of the time because i dont like to raid, its too repeative, long and boring. i will only group once in a while when a quest need it to bring down an elite mob, which only need a short time to do it.
Or just group up with 2 or 3 other players or guild mate to chit chat and do quest together, which to me is fun , but never being force upon me to group.
The main reasons I solo is that I cant stand being around a bunch of punk kids or retards. I like to play with a well coordinated efficient team. That might be 2 people or 3 people or 50 people. What I cant stand is games that force you to group with people that ruin your entire game experience. I would rather just solo, or form small teams rather then hang around people that tick me and the rest of my friends off. That might sound elitist, but its my money and I expect to be able to play a game that I can enjoy. Rather then play in some forced environment that is not fun.
I remember playing old UO where you could always find something to do regardless of your party size. If you have a good party going, and some complete retard joins with you. Then you were not forced to play with them. In fact by teaming with retards it could actually make it worse for you, because it would make the entire gameplay less effecient. Usually we would just leave or kill the idiot.
Unlike WoW where you have to raid with complete fools just to get 40 people together. Then of course its always the 1 idiot that ruins everything that you worked for 2-4 hours on. Why would anyone want to play a game for 4 hrs just to go to bed frustrated. Games are supposed to be fun?
I think many people have made some good points, and I think this is a very important topic for developers.
I prefer to solo because I dislike having to rely on others to play a game. However, I sometimes do enjoy groupings with my friends and family in the game. Grouping can be fun but it must be optional. That is, you should have the option to group or solo. I believe there should be abundant solo and group content so that gamers have the option as to what to do.
However, in regards to raiding, I particularly dislike that. It is just too burdensome to organize and coordinate effective raids, and most raids I have experienced are zerg-raids in which you simply overwhelm a target. I think raids would be more enjoyable if it required more strategy, a variety of tactics, and even a small degree of "thinking."
I spent about 80% of my time in group. But for the remaining 20%, I want to play and to advance significantly in a way or another, be it another endgame about soloing or the whole game, I must feel like I have a good reason to solo...not that I have diminushed rewards and increased downtime.
As I said, when I log in, I am solo. Most of the time, I get a group right off the bat, but not always. And I want to play NOW, not in 10 minutes.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
And OP...those forced social aspects you mentioned about SWG... when I read about them in a review of the game (CGW btw) it totally turrned me off and I stuck with DAOC.
you mean GCW (galctic civil war) that was a joke of a system... and no thats not what i talk about...
i talk about the fact that if you wanted a good weapon, you could not loot it. you had to go find a good weaponsmith and tell him what type of weapon you wanted with what specs and upgrades and whatnot...
the weaponsmith will go out and sample the ground on many planets, find the right materials needed with the right properties and the right quality (there where like 12 different types of steel) put down harvestors gather the minerals, buy from another vendor the missing items, make the weapon then sell it to you at the cost + profit. (and that weapon wont last forever since it will degrade.)
or that same weaponsmith can just make standard weapons and sell them bulk for tedius jobs.
and thats just one example
there is also the Doctors and medics
also the entertainers
and the tamers
and the fighters
etc............ No, actually i was referring to a review of SWG that I read in Computer Gaming World....
As to your weaponsmith example, exactly what I hate about crafting in games and why I'd prefer they do away with it. While that Weaponsmith is busy doing all that work to make that weapon... what the heck am I doing? I don't want to be dependent on someone else to make my gear. I'd rather all gear be sold by NPC merchants and be available to anyone who has the cash to pay for it. No special gear.... just standard off the shelf stuff.. more along the lines of the real world.
and when you brought up Doctors/Medics you went downhill ... I remember the CGW article quite clearly, where the described scores of players sitting around in hospitals waiting for some Doctor to heal them up so they could continue playing.... terrible idea...
I abhor anything in a game that will slow me down or deter me from my two primary goals.... exploring new worlds, killing more stuff.... all the rest is useless to me and I could live w/o out it....
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
i talk about the fact that if you wanted a good weapon, you could not loot it. you had to go find a good weaponsmith and tell him what type of weapon you wanted with what specs and upgrades and whatnot...
the weaponsmith will go out and sample the ground on many planets, find the right materials needed with the right properties and the right quality (there where like 12 different types of steel) put down harvestors gather the minerals, buy from another vendor the missing items, make the weapon then sell it to you at the cost + profit. (and that weapon wont last forever since it will degrade.)
or that same weaponsmith can just make standard weapons and sell them bulk for tedius jobs.
I am more of a solo player myself, mostly because of work and family. Grouping can take too much of a time commitment. And, sometimes I can only play for 30 mins to an hour. While some group quests/raids seem to drag on for over 4 hours.
Oddly enough though, what you said in regards to SWG, I greatly enjoyed. I was a weaponsmith, and had a lot of fun making items for people. Taking the order, finding the mats, creating the weapon, selling it to said person, and said person referring me to his friends. That was kind of cool. I guess that type of interaction I enjoy.
I think this is the problem. Designers tend to see grouping as the only form of socialising available. (cause its easy for them) IMO if you don't want to associate with other people, then you only cause problems for the people who do want to play an MMO for unique experiences it has to offer, as opposed to all other forms of games. If you only want to play with your friends, play a multiplayer game. If you want to chat with people while you solo, get msn and use it with your single player game. If you want to play with friends and family members, play a console game which allow multiple players. Don't whine that an MMO doesn't function like those types of games, your whining infringes on the people who want this specific experience. I am not whining that a challenging crafting system be put into your <generic streetfighter style console game>.
The thing is - socialising in design terms doesn't equal just grouping. And I think that's the problem a lot of people stumble on. IRL, socialising pretty much equal chatting. In MMOs, it refers to player interaction - people who would rather interact with other players than with the environment. And as displayed in this thread, most people who get defensive about their soloing doesn't necessarily have issues with interacting with other players and enjoying it, but they want to do it at a time when it will actually be enjoyable to do so, and not interfering with their goals at the time.
SWG was designed specifically with the idea that socialising is done best when you have downtime, not when you are goal oriented and in go-go-go mode. Think of it as that its easier to get to know other people at a BBQ in someones backgarden than it is waiting in line at McDonalds. So in SWG you could solo pretty much everything, if you wanted to group up you could do that as well, but on your own terms. Player interaction went into things like the crafting system - a crafter being quite a solitary profession as such, but still dependent on buying resources from adventurers and selling their goods to them. Yes, there was also the 20 minute shuttle wait, which I hated at the time. Funny thing though, when I think about specific moments in SWG that makes me smile, they very often involved specific people and moments when people were goofing around at the starport or in the buffqueque. Everything in moderation, I suppose.
Another thing which I think creates conflict in the grouping/soloist issue is that a lot of if not most classbased games forces roles on people. So not only do you have to find 3 people to do something with, they also have to have a certain class and be a certain level. LF PUG, but instead of joining up with the two nice polite healers, you have to pick one of them and add a tank whose many hits to the head IG seems to have been transfered to them IRL. Yes, IRL you dont get to pick your coworkers, you just have to suck it up. But sometimes with forced grouping you end up spending time with people you would never invite to your BBQ, behaving in ways which would never be tolerated IRL. And this is on your fun timeslot where you shouldn't have to endure such things.
Currently I play EQ2, a quite group-oriented (a lot would say forced) game, on a server which is nice, mature, friendly and helpful and have lots of channels to hang out in, and being guilded. And yet I have had more casual chats and enjoyable interactions with people during my time in SWG, where I was mostly unguilded and playing solo. When I miss classic SWG, I miss the community most.
I'm not saying classic SWG was ideal, cause it wasn't. But the conflict between grouping vs soloing in MMOs is a red herring imo. There is more to social interaction that could be offered in an MMO than this. Imagine if IRL the only thing you could do if you wanted to hang out with friends was to play basketball in teams of 5. No tennis or chess, no chatting on the phone, no sitting at a streetside cafe, no BBQs or informal parties, no formal dinner parties either for that matter, etc etc etc. How incredibly boring.
i talk about the fact that if you wanted a good weapon, you could not loot it. you had to go find a good weaponsmith and tell him what type of weapon you wanted with what specs and upgrades and whatnot...
the weaponsmith will go out and sample the ground on many planets, find the right materials needed with the right properties and the right quality (there where like 12 different types of steel) put down harvestors gather the minerals, buy from another vendor the missing items, make the weapon then sell it to you at the cost + profit. (and that weapon wont last forever since it will degrade.)
or that same weaponsmith can just make standard weapons and sell them bulk for tedius jobs.
I am more of a solo player myself, mostly because of work and family. Grouping can take too much of a time commitment. And, sometimes I can only play for 30 mins to an hour. While some group quests/raids seem to drag on for over 4 hours.
Oddly enough though, what you said in regards to SWG, I greatly enjoyed. I was a weaponsmith, and had a lot of fun making items for people. Taking the order, finding the mats, creating the weapon, selling it to said person, and said person referring me to his friends. That was kind of cool. I guess that type of interaction I enjoy.
I think this is the problem. Designers tend to see grouping as the only form of socialising available. (cause its easy for them) IMO if you don't want to associate with other people, then you only cause problems for the people who do want to play an MMO for unique experiences it has to offer, as opposed to all other forms of games. If you only want to play with your friends, play a multiplayer game. If you want to chat with people while you solo, get msn and use it with your single player game. If you want to play with friends and family members, play a console game which allow multiple players. Don't whine that an MMO doesn't function like those types of games, your whining infringes on the people who want this specific experience. I am not whining that a challenging crafting system be put into your <generic streetfighter style console game>.
The thing is - socialising in design terms doesn't equal just grouping. And I think that's the problem a lot of people stumble on. IRL, socialising pretty much equal chatting. In MMOs, it refers to player interaction - people who would rather interact with other players than with the environment. And as displayed in this thread, most people who get defensive about their soloing doesn't necessarily have issues with interacting with other players and enjoying it, but they want to do it at a time when it will actually be enjoyable to do so, and not interfering with their goals at the time.
SWG was designed specifically with the idea that socialising is done best when you have downtime, not when you are goal oriented and in go-go-go mode. Think of it as that its easier to get to know other people at a BBQ in someones backgarden than it is waiting in line at McDonalds. So in SWG you could solo pretty much everything, if you wanted to group up you could do that as well, but on your own terms. Player interaction went into things like the crafting system - a crafter being quite a solitary profession as such, but still dependent on buying resources from adventurers and selling their goods to them. Yes, there was also the 20 minute shuttle wait, which I hated at the time. Funny thing though, when I think about specific moments in SWG that makes me smile, they very often involved specific people and moments when people were goofing around at the starport or in the buffqueque. Everything in moderation, I suppose.
Another thing which I think creates conflict in the grouping/soloist issue is that a lot of if not most classbased games forces roles on people. So not only do you have to find 3 people to do something with, they also have to have a certain class and be a certain level. LF PUG, but instead of joining up with the two nice polite healers, you have to pick one of them and add a tank whose many hits to the head IG seems to have been transfered to them IRL. Yes, IRL you dont get to pick your coworkers, you just have to suck it up. But sometimes with forced grouping you end up spending time with people you would never invite to your BBQ, behaving in ways which would never be tolerated IRL. And this is on your fun timeslot where you shouldn't have to endure such things.
Currently I play EQ2, a quite group-oriented (a lot would say forced) game, on a server which is nice, mature, friendly and helpful and have lots of channels to hang out in, and being guilded. And yet I have had more casual chats and enjoyable interactions with people during my time in SWG, where I was mostly unguilded and playing solo. When I miss classic SWG, I miss the community most.
I'm not saying classic SWG was ideal, cause it wasn't. But the conflict between grouping vs soloing in MMOs is a red herring imo. There is more to social interaction that could be offered in an MMO than this. Imagine if IRL the only thing you could do if you wanted to hang out with friends was to play basketball in teams of 5. No tennis or chess, no chatting on the phone, no sitting at a streetside cafe, no BBQs or informal parties, no formal dinner parties either for that matter, etc etc etc. How incredibly boring.
You got me confused... are you for or against soloing? I dont think its a bad thing to want more single player type content in MMOs (especially combat). Also, I prefer MMOs over single player games even tho I choose to solo when im lvling up. It's just something about being surrounded by real people... I might not group with everyone but its fun being with them. Sometimes i will save a noob from a mob or other players, sometimes i will kill them. Sometimes I get saved or killed. It's not that I dont group ever but I can't deal with most people in MMOs. I usually make a small group of friends (a lot of my RL friends play too) and just stick with them. That's actually how I am in RL too. I rather have a small group of friends that I know are cool people instead of a million idiots. Who wants a bunch of "friends" that always need your help but cant help you? Either that or theyre just morons that ruin everything.
I log on when I want, log off when I want, do what mission I want. I don't have to worry about offending others or feeling that if they help me with my mission I should help with theirs. Most importantly, I pick the tactics. If I have a mission to get a certain object, I can stealth it. Get in, get the item, get out. Even if everyone can turn invisible, this is a one-person job. In teams (unless they are well trained) the tactics are virtually nonexistant. You wait until about everyone is ready then attack. Everyone sort of does their own thing until the fight is over. Then you move on to the next fight. That's all fun too, but I want to log when I want to and sometimes I feel like doing things my own way.
I'm not a big fan of PUG they tend to be more disorganized than guild groups so everyone focuses on their own job and not as a team. When that happens you're not so much teaming as having and providing back up for everyone else. There's always a Leroy Jenkins wannabe in each PUG because people get impatient and want to do something.
MMOs offer more variety for your money than standard games and when things get tough, you can ask for help. Grouping is an option for players who prefer to solo.
I think its a shame that grouping is seen as the only form of social interaction available in an MMO. I think that if you have a persistant world full of thousands of people there is so much more you can offer them instead of just playing in a group, or having guild chat. There are common projects (player cities, RvR, arranged events), casual meeting places with simple activities where people can stop and chat to each other for a few minutes, letting crafters have goods worth selling and some form of shop to sell it from, etc etc.
I'm not for soloing or grouping as such, I like both, but I do believe there should be a choice people have in how they spend their time, and how they achieve their goals. If I had to pick one, I would go for soloing combat... But in SWG I was also an image designer (thats like a hairdresser ) and musician, very much enjoying chatting and hanging out and joking with people, as well as providing specific game services (entertainers used to heal battle fatigue and mind (stat) wounds in swg).
It seems that a lot of people nowadays are asking to be able to play an MMO as if it was a single player game just with other people in it, and I think that is a shame, as the uniqueness of an MMO is the other people, not the game content. But I think its an even bigger shame that the only form of interaction game developers seem to be willing to provide is grouping, especially in combination with classes and levels.
Comments
There are different ways to take advantage of the "massively" in "massively multiplayer" than to group for combat. You are taking one aspect of "multiplayer" and asserting that it is the only reasonable rationale for participation in a massively multiplayer game. Let me ask you this: when you play MMOs, do you group with everybody on line, or with just a few people? Do you cooperate with other groups of people during your group activities, wish they were somewhere else not competing for loot, or play an instanced game with no real possibility of inter-group competition? If you answered "yes" to any of those three questions, then by your own rationale, you shouldn't be playing a massively multiplayer game, just a multiplayer game where it's easy and convenient to find an adventure group.
There are many appeals to playing a mmorpg more than just grouping, for instance, developing your character, doing quests, exploring a world. Though, I would agree with the OP in that I think the essence of mmorpgs is the multiplayer interaction and a mmorpg should therefore provide many opportunities to interact. For instance in terms of grouping or providing pvp objectives which get people working together etc.
Here are my reasons for soloing in an mmorpg over soloing in a single player game.
1. For PvP, if the game has it.
2. Trading with other people. In single player games you can only use what you find yourself, or use cheat codes.
3. To have the option of playing with friends when/if they play.
4. Chatting. Playing in a single player game is boring as hell when you have nobody to talk to while you are mindlessly killing mobs for hours.
I really don't understand why people worry so much about those of us who like to solo. I really get tired of being told to go play a single player game. I play mmorpgs because of the 4 reasons listed above. Playing a single player game gives me none of these things. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind grouping. I am not against it by any means, I just prefer to be able to play at my own pace and in my own time.
Playing - Minecraft, 7 Days To Die, Darkfall:ROA, Path of Exile
Waiting for -
Let's say yyou take an extemely narrow view of what an MMORPG is and say the only thing it provides is {social interaction}. If you look on it as that basis, then a person trying to understand why someone else would want to play solo is confused.
Now if you can open your mind and say an MMORPG is a setof {Social interaction; other things}. Then you might start to think differently about your issue. So solo and Social Interaction still doesn't make sense to you. Ah, but solo and other things do make sense.
So as you can see, the problem, as I suspect you know is it is a matter of how you are looking at it. Expand your mind and you might be able to figure it out without having to have a group of people explain it to you. Although I suspect you knew this and are trying, in a lame way, to slam soloists.
not really not trying to slam soloists. i just have noted that it has become the trend to judge a class for its solo capabilities. and i do understand that people do not have the time to join groups and hate to leave the, others do not like the rush.as for the red part.... WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?
and as i was stating earlier, when i want to play solo most of the time i go and play oblivion/thief/Kotor/TMNT.
i also realized that the game mechanics of the WoW/EQ2/L2 etc generations allow very little chance to socialize with others (but still exists nonetheless) and IMO encourage soloplay. or solo lvling.
so i might have a more open view on MMOGs as you might think.
and ive been playing MMOGs since... well... txt based mmos.
It's called set theory which is taught in primary school... As in a set of elements {item1, item2, ..., Item N}. Now reread it.
Imo a game that does not offer solo gameplay is not a game I want to play. I love grouping but there has to be a solo option as well.When I say solo option then I do not mean that you can go out there and grind levels finding 1 copper on every mob you kill.There hase to be good loot as well.Some people claim that uber loot should be reserved for groups only and that is sadly how it works in most games.For example in EQ2 If you manage to kill a named boss solo you have vey much less change to find an uber loot on it than if you had killed the same boss in a group of 6.This should be oposit,if you manage to kill something solo you should get mor reward than if you brought all your friends to kill this mob.In Vanguard you have a litle more soloability than in wow and eq2, you acctually get solo quest all the time if you look for it and you can kill named bosses solo and you get same loot from mobs that you would have got if you killed it in a group. Sadly Vanguard has so many bugs that it will probably not survive very long.The only fair game for people who wants to solo at least 50% of their playing time is old and allmost dead now,I just hope Turnine will make Asherons Call 3 and that game must be follow up to AC1.
Take care guys.
I solo most of the time because i dont like to raid, its too repeative, long and boring. i will only group once in a while when a quest need it to bring down an elite mob, which only need a short time to do it.
Or just group up with 2 or 3 other players or guild mate to chit chat and do quest together, which to me is fun
, but never being force upon me to group.
RIP Orc Choppa
Chessack has hit on many of the reasons I solo.
The main reasons I solo is that I cant stand being around a bunch of punk kids or retards. I like to play with a well coordinated efficient team. That might be 2 people or 3 people or 50 people. What I cant stand is games that force you to group with people that ruin your entire game experience. I would rather just solo, or form small teams rather then hang around people that tick me and the rest of my friends off. That might sound elitist, but its my money and I expect to be able to play a game that I can enjoy. Rather then play in some forced environment that is not fun.
I remember playing old UO where you could always find something to do regardless of your party size. If you have a good party going, and some complete retard joins with you. Then you were not forced to play with them. In fact by teaming with retards it could actually make it worse for you, because it would make the entire gameplay less effecient. Usually we would just leave or kill the idiot.
Unlike WoW where you have to raid with complete fools just to get 40 people together. Then of course its always the 1 idiot that ruins everything that you worked for 2-4 hours on. Why would anyone want to play a game for 4 hrs just to go to bed frustrated. Games are supposed to be fun?
I prefer to solo because I dislike having to rely on others to play a game. However, I sometimes do enjoy groupings with my friends and family in the game. Grouping can be fun but it must be optional. That is, you should have the option to group or solo. I believe there should be abundant solo and group content so that gamers have the option as to what to do.
However, in regards to raiding, I particularly dislike that. It is just too burdensome to organize and coordinate effective raids, and most raids I have experienced are zerg-raids in which you simply overwhelm a target. I think raids would be more enjoyable if it required more strategy, a variety of tactics, and even a small degree of "thinking."
Good points made by everyone.
I don't like doing nothing.
I log in, I want to start playing right now.
I spent about 80% of my time in group. But for the remaining 20%, I want to play and to advance significantly in a way or another, be it another endgame about soloing or the whole game, I must feel like I have a good reason to solo...not that I have diminushed rewards and increased downtime.
As I said, when I log in, I am solo. Most of the time, I get a group right off the bat, but not always. And I want to play NOW, not in 10 minutes.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
i talk about the fact that if you wanted a good weapon, you could not loot it. you had to go find a good weaponsmith and tell him what type of weapon you wanted with what specs and upgrades and whatnot...
the weaponsmith will go out and sample the ground on many planets, find the right materials needed with the right properties and the right quality (there where like 12 different types of steel) put down harvestors gather the minerals, buy from another vendor the missing items, make the weapon then sell it to you at the cost + profit. (and that weapon wont last forever since it will degrade.)
or that same weaponsmith can just make standard weapons and sell them bulk for tedius jobs.
and thats just one example
there is also the Doctors and medics
also the entertainers
and the tamers
and the fighters
etc............ No, actually i was referring to a review of SWG that I read in Computer Gaming World....
As to your weaponsmith example, exactly what I hate about crafting in games and why I'd prefer they do away with it. While that Weaponsmith is busy doing all that work to make that weapon... what the heck am I doing? I don't want to be dependent on someone else to make my gear. I'd rather all gear be sold by NPC merchants and be available to anyone who has the cash to pay for it. No special gear.... just standard off the shelf stuff.. more along the lines of the real world.
and when you brought up Doctors/Medics you went downhill ... I remember the CGW article quite clearly, where the described scores of players sitting around in hospitals waiting for some Doctor to heal them up so they could continue playing.... terrible idea...
I abhor anything in a game that will slow me down or deter me from my two primary goals.... exploring new worlds, killing more stuff.... all the rest is useless to me and I could live w/o out it....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Oddly enough though, what you said in regards to SWG, I greatly enjoyed. I was a weaponsmith, and had a lot of fun making items for people. Taking the order, finding the mats, creating the weapon, selling it to said person, and said person referring me to his friends. That was kind of cool. I guess that type of interaction I enjoy.
I think this is the problem. Designers tend to see grouping as the only form of socialising available. (cause its easy for them) IMO if you don't want to associate with other people, then you only cause problems for the people who do want to play an MMO for unique experiences it has to offer, as opposed to all other forms of games. If you only want to play with your friends, play a multiplayer game. If you want to chat with people while you solo, get msn and use it with your single player game. If you want to play with friends and family members, play a console game which allow multiple players. Don't whine that an MMO doesn't function like those types of games, your whining infringes on the people who want this specific experience. I am not whining that a challenging crafting system be put into your <generic streetfighter style console game>.
The thing is - socialising in design terms doesn't equal just grouping. And I think that's the problem a lot of people stumble on. IRL, socialising pretty much equal chatting. In MMOs, it refers to player interaction - people who would rather interact with other players than with the environment. And as displayed in this thread, most people who get defensive about their soloing doesn't necessarily have issues with interacting with other players and enjoying it, but they want to do it at a time when it will actually be enjoyable to do so, and not interfering with their goals at the time.
SWG was designed specifically with the idea that socialising is done best when you have downtime, not when you are goal oriented and in go-go-go mode. Think of it as that its easier to get to know other people at a BBQ in someones backgarden than it is waiting in line at McDonalds. So in SWG you could solo pretty much everything, if you wanted to group up you could do that as well, but on your own terms. Player interaction went into things like the crafting system - a crafter being quite a solitary profession as such, but still dependent on buying resources from adventurers and selling their goods to them. Yes, there was also the 20 minute shuttle wait, which I hated at the time. Funny thing though, when I think about specific moments in SWG that makes me smile, they very often involved specific people and moments when people were goofing around at the starport or in the buffqueque. Everything in moderation, I suppose.
Another thing which I think creates conflict in the grouping/soloist issue is that a lot of if not most classbased games forces roles on people. So not only do you have to find 3 people to do something with, they also have to have a certain class and be a certain level. LF PUG, but instead of joining up with the two nice polite healers, you have to pick one of them and add a tank whose many hits to the head IG seems to have been transfered to them IRL. Yes, IRL you dont get to pick your coworkers, you just have to suck it up. But sometimes with forced grouping you end up spending time with people you would never invite to your BBQ, behaving in ways which would never be tolerated IRL. And this is on your fun timeslot
where you shouldn't have to endure such things.
Currently I play EQ2, a quite group-oriented (a lot would say forced) game, on a server which is nice, mature, friendly and helpful and have lots of channels to hang out in, and being guilded. And yet I have had more casual chats and enjoyable interactions with people during my time in SWG, where I was mostly unguilded and playing solo. When I miss classic SWG, I miss the community most.
I'm not saying classic SWG was ideal, cause it wasn't. But the conflict between grouping vs soloing in MMOs is a red herring imo. There is more to social interaction that could be offered in an MMO than this. Imagine if IRL the only thing you could do if you wanted to hang out with friends was to play basketball in teams of 5. No tennis or chess, no chatting on the phone, no sitting at a streetside cafe, no BBQs or informal parties, no formal dinner parties either for that matter, etc etc etc. How incredibly boring.
Oddly enough though, what you said in regards to SWG, I greatly enjoyed. I was a weaponsmith, and had a lot of fun making items for people. Taking the order, finding the mats, creating the weapon, selling it to said person, and said person referring me to his friends. That was kind of cool. I guess that type of interaction I enjoy.
I think this is the problem. Designers tend to see grouping as the only form of socialising available. (cause its easy for them) IMO if you don't want to associate with other people, then you only cause problems for the people who do want to play an MMO for unique experiences it has to offer, as opposed to all other forms of games. If you only want to play with your friends, play a multiplayer game. If you want to chat with people while you solo, get msn and use it with your single player game. If you want to play with friends and family members, play a console game which allow multiple players. Don't whine that an MMO doesn't function like those types of games, your whining infringes on the people who want this specific experience. I am not whining that a challenging crafting system be put into your <generic streetfighter style console game>.
The thing is - socialising in design terms doesn't equal just grouping. And I think that's the problem a lot of people stumble on. IRL, socialising pretty much equal chatting. In MMOs, it refers to player interaction - people who would rather interact with other players than with the environment. And as displayed in this thread, most people who get defensive about their soloing doesn't necessarily have issues with interacting with other players and enjoying it, but they want to do it at a time when it will actually be enjoyable to do so, and not interfering with their goals at the time.
SWG was designed specifically with the idea that socialising is done best when you have downtime, not when you are goal oriented and in go-go-go mode. Think of it as that its easier to get to know other people at a BBQ in someones backgarden than it is waiting in line at McDonalds. So in SWG you could solo pretty much everything, if you wanted to group up you could do that as well, but on your own terms. Player interaction went into things like the crafting system - a crafter being quite a solitary profession as such, but still dependent on buying resources from adventurers and selling their goods to them. Yes, there was also the 20 minute shuttle wait, which I hated at the time. Funny thing though, when I think about specific moments in SWG that makes me smile, they very often involved specific people and moments when people were goofing around at the starport or in the buffqueque. Everything in moderation, I suppose.
Another thing which I think creates conflict in the grouping/soloist issue is that a lot of if not most classbased games forces roles on people. So not only do you have to find 3 people to do something with, they also have to have a certain class and be a certain level. LF PUG, but instead of joining up with the two nice polite healers, you have to pick one of them and add a tank whose many hits to the head IG seems to have been transfered to them IRL. Yes, IRL you dont get to pick your coworkers, you just have to suck it up. But sometimes with forced grouping you end up spending time with people you would never invite to your BBQ, behaving in ways which would never be tolerated IRL. And this is on your fun timeslot
where you shouldn't have to endure such things.
Currently I play EQ2, a quite group-oriented (a lot would say forced) game, on a server which is nice, mature, friendly and helpful and have lots of channels to hang out in, and being guilded. And yet I have had more casual chats and enjoyable interactions with people during my time in SWG, where I was mostly unguilded and playing solo. When I miss classic SWG, I miss the community most.
I'm not saying classic SWG was ideal, cause it wasn't. But the conflict between grouping vs soloing in MMOs is a red herring imo. There is more to social interaction that could be offered in an MMO than this. Imagine if IRL the only thing you could do if you wanted to hang out with friends was to play basketball in teams of 5. No tennis or chess, no chatting on the phone, no sitting at a streetside cafe, no BBQs or informal parties, no formal dinner parties either for that matter, etc etc etc. How incredibly boring.
You got me confused... are you for or against soloing? I dont think its a bad thing to want more single player type content in MMOs (especially combat). Also, I prefer MMOs over single player games even tho I choose to solo when im lvling up. It's just something about being surrounded by real people... I might not group with everyone but its fun being with them. Sometimes i will save a noob from a mob or other players, sometimes i will kill them. Sometimes I get saved or killed. It's not that I dont group ever but I can't deal with most people in MMOs. I usually make a small group of friends (a lot of my RL friends play too) and just stick with them. That's actually how I am in RL too. I rather have a small group of friends that I know are cool people instead of a million idiots. Who wants a bunch of "friends" that always need your help but cant help you? Either that or theyre just morons that ruin everything.
INDEPENDENCE
I log on when I want, log off when I want, do what mission I want. I don't have to worry about offending others or feeling that if they help me with my mission I should help with theirs. Most importantly, I pick the tactics. If I have a mission to get a certain object, I can stealth it. Get in, get the item, get out. Even if everyone can turn invisible, this is a one-person job. In teams (unless they are well trained) the tactics are virtually nonexistant. You wait until about everyone is ready then attack. Everyone sort of does their own thing until the fight is over. Then you move on to the next fight. That's all fun too, but I want to log when I want to and sometimes I feel like doing things my own way.
I'm not a big fan of PUG they tend to be more disorganized than guild groups so everyone focuses on their own job and not as a team. When that happens you're not so much teaming as having and providing back up for everyone else. There's always a Leroy Jenkins wannabe in each PUG because people get impatient and want to do something.
MMOs offer more variety for your money than standard games and when things get tough, you can ask for help. Grouping is an option for players who prefer to solo.
I think its a shame that grouping is seen as the only form of social interaction available in an MMO. I think that if you have a persistant world full of thousands of people there is so much more you can offer them instead of just playing in a group, or having guild chat. There are common projects (player cities, RvR, arranged events), casual meeting places with simple activities where people can stop and chat to each other for a few minutes, letting crafters have goods worth selling and some form of shop to sell it from, etc etc.
I'm not for soloing or grouping as such, I like both, but I do believe there should be a choice people have in how they spend their time, and how they achieve their goals. If I had to pick one, I would go for soloing combat... But in SWG I was also an image designer (thats like a hairdresser
) and musician, very much enjoying chatting and hanging out and joking with people, as well as providing specific game services (entertainers used to heal battle fatigue and mind (stat) wounds in swg).
It seems that a lot of people nowadays are asking to be able to play an MMO as if it was a single player game just with other people in it, and I think that is a shame, as the uniqueness of an MMO is the other people, not the game content. But I think its an even bigger shame that the only form of interaction game developers seem to be willing to provide is grouping, especially in combination with classes and levels.