On the conceptual level I think that a heavy interest in solo content in the MMO genre is just, well, stupid.
However to cut some slack to all the soloists out there, I really cant blame them with the current crop of MMO titles out there. The heavily itemized, class and level based PvE titles really can make grouping a chore.
In reality I think the pro-solo/pro-grouping argument is just another byproduct of developers trying to cram the one title-fits-all players BS to gamers.
Don't we all look great in our XXXL T-shirts and moo-moo's.
I think the biggest problem with discussions like these, is they usually revolve around something that really doesn't cause the issue.
I started MMO's with UO in 1997... (yes there were MMO's before then but this is when I started).
There was no grouping system in UO at launch. You could hunt around other people.. basicly with them. But there was no actual group system.. no group chat etc..
Then again there wasn't XP to worry about either.
There were some mobs in some dungeons you really couldn't solo.. but overall you could solo the whole game. Heck if you were really good at pvp.. you could take on a lot of people solo.
Could say the same thing about SWG...
I mention that since someone asked what MMO first let you solo all the way.. which was probably supposed to be a reference to WoW... when perhaps the actual question should be.. what MMO first forced you to group with a bunch of *language that would be edited* and wonder how anyone could be so inept at a video game.. or that dumb and actually able be defined as a sentient being.
There are two sides of the coin and in the case of this subject.. more than two.
People say "why do you want to solo in an MMO?"
Well let's see... the real world is like a very expensive MMO.. and there is a lot of people around. Yet to be honest I really don't want to hang out (aka group) with most of them.
Much the same... in an MMO.
But I'll make this short..
I really do enjoy grouping in an MMO.
The main issue is the mass majority of people I group with in MMO's... make me wish I could teleport to their house IRL and pk them... which just leads me to want to solo...
That's the most direct and shortest answer I can give.
I mean seriously when did having to interact with other players become the work of the devil? Every game forum i go to there is usually a faction that wants EVERYTHING solo and if they actually have to form a group to get something wrong they pout and say they won't play the game. I see it tabula rasa as of late, .... "i can't do this elite mission solo ... I die too much i wont play if this change". god get out of your diaper you whiney B****. Why should a genre change fo ryou? you knew that you might have to interact with players before you got into this genre so dont give me the "well i only have an hour or so to play so i can't grou". if you have that little of time go find another genre, i did when my life became busy. Thats like me going to a FPS forum and saying "well my reflexes such and my hand eye coordination is off so can you make this game turned base so i can compete." they would tell me to go find another game. so take that advice ... find antoher game.
Well i think what has really happened in recent years is that the perception of mmo's has been 1 of the 6 hour marathon raids.Most mmo's developed recently have responded to this and put in "casual content".
Personally i will group with people of a like mindset.In other words i may only have 1 to 2 hours to play max before i need to do something else.
That being said i will never do a raid that takes 6 hours.Anything beyond 1 to 2 hours would make me hate the game i was playing.
I also think their are 2 different mmo genre's 1 for the casual player(me) that is in it for the content update and the hardcore player that treats it as a hobby.A person just needs to pick 1.
So let me get this right though:Your complaining about the idea of people not grouping?Yet you claim that "you found another genre" to play?So are you playing mmo's?If you are not then what are you complaining about?
Oh i see now your reading forum postings about people wanting to play solo.Your not actually playing an mmo.
Your ....complaining.... about.... a.... genre.... your .....not ......involved.... in...
I think that grouping became evil when the line between anything and everything became blurred. No one game is to blame for this as people were soloing The Vindicator (a raid mob) as far back as EQ 1.
Development has done as much as it can over the years to combat this kind of thing but since it is nearly impossible to stop a level 50 whatever from soloing a level 20 named epic superbad go get your mamma mob the problem can only be truly addressed at the higher levels of the game. Even at the higher levels you are still going to have that 6 boxer scripter robot superhero sitting behind a wall of PC's "soloing".
The thing is, soloing, as we see it and read it isn't really the issue anyway. Being able to trump the game is what most of these so-called soloists are complaining that they can not do and when you read what they are saying for what it truly means the request becomes absurd anyway. Thus, the answer to the question that the OP asked us is that grouping became evil when players realized that they could do anything AND everything and anywhere that is exists where they can not (which is the way it should be, the way of the world) is something to complain about.
Forget about it and play your game. Solving this problem is a financial move that no company is going to make, more or less, stick to.
I play to group, not to solo. If I truly wanted to solo I would find a decent single player game. Single Player games cater to the soloer much more then MMOs. The game needs to be flexible though and have activities to consume myself with while I wait for the group.
No single player game gets as much developer attention and updates as an MMORPG does. That is why I, someone who loves to solo, play MMORPGs. MMORPGs constantly evolve. That is what I like. I also like the fact that eventhough I may be soloing, I have the ability to interract with other human beings. Whether it's trying to find a crafter in town or buying a weapon from someone, interraction is what MMORPGs are about.
The skewed grouping model is not nessessary. Look at old-school UO. You could pretty much solo the whole game if you knew what you were doing but did it make it any less fun? Absolutely not. Grouping is an archaic mechanic used in early MMORPGs to prolong the gaming experience and to allow for limited content.
As for the OPs question: my take on it is that as soon as everyone jumped on the EQ bandwagon and made grouping nessessary to advance your character, that's when it became evil.
Well you're part right on the EQI thing accept it wasn't til POP (Plains of Power) that grouping became all but mandatory. If you're counting that's expansion number four.
At any rate given the time I'll always choose grouping because it 's just more interesting for me. However aside from the time issue and the median age of the MMO player increasing there's another factor few choose to realize or admit.
The Genre has gone down hill since it expanded from nerdsville. Logging into EQI circa 2000 was nothing like logging into the majority of MMO's today. The majority were mostly pleasent where the reverse is true today. The leet speaking, Chuck Noris, profanity ladden outburst get old fast. When companies care more about the bottom line than providing a quality game experience...well you see the outcome.
Don't get me wrong there are some great communities still around but they are few and far between. It's no wonder so many choose to keep to themselves. Too much drama..
I mean seriously when did having to interact with other players become the work of the devil? Every game forum i go to there is usually a faction that wants EVERYTHING solo and if they actually have to form a group to get something wrong they pout and say they won't play the game. I see it tabula rasa as of late, .... "i can't do this elite mission solo ... I die too much i wont play if this change". god get out of your diaper you whiney B****. Why should a genre change fo ryou? you knew that you might have to interact with players before you got into this genre so dont give me the "well i only have an hour or so to play so i can't grou". if you have that little of time go find another genre, i did when my life became busy. Thats like me going to a FPS forum and saying "well my reflexes such and my hand eye coordination is off so can you make this game turned base so i can compete." they would tell me to go find another game. so take that advice ... find antoher game.
When MMO players of 10-13 years ago grew up, and the tools for finding, and finding out what every one needed (Shards, rats , stuff), did not.
Any time you group with just one persion, subtract 30 min to your play time.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
I mean seriously when did having to interact with other players become the work of the devil? Every game forum i go to there is usually a faction that wants EVERYTHING solo and if they actually have to form a group to get something wrong they pout and say they won't play the game. I see it tabula rasa as of late, .... "i can't do this elite mission solo ... I die too much i wont play if this change". god get out of your diaper you whiney B****. Why should a genre change fo ryou? you knew that you might have to interact with players before you got into this genre so dont give me the "well i only have an hour or so to play so i can't grou". if you have that little of time go find another genre, i did when my life became busy. Thats like me going to a FPS forum and saying "well my reflexes such and my hand eye coordination is off so can you make this game turned base so i can compete." they would tell me to go find another game. so take that advice ... find antoher game.
Well i think what has really happened in recent years is that the perception of mmo's has been 1 of the 6 hour marathon raids.Most mmo's developed recently have responded to this and put in "casual content".
Personally i will group with people of a like mindset.In other words i may only have 1 to 2 hours to play max before i need to do something else.
That being said i will never do a raid that takes 6 hours.Anything beyond 1 to 2 hours would make me hate the game i was playing.
I also think their are 2 different mmo genre's 1 for the casual player(me) that is in it for the content update and the hardcore player that treats it as a hobby.A person just needs to pick 1.
So let me get this right though:Your complaining about the idea of people not grouping?Yet you claim that "you found another genre" to play?So are you playing mmo's?If you are not then what are you complaining about?
Oh i see now your reading forum postings about people wanting to play solo.Your not actually playing an mmo.
Your ....complaining.... about.... a.... genre.... your .....not ......involved.... in...
So why does this make sense?
im defnitly an HC MMO fan, i think EQ1 and FFXI did that too me, but i like it, and most are posting cause like me they cant play atm.....IM AT WORK AND IM BORED
Grouping became evil when players were no longer encouraged to work together in communities but instead were told they had to focus everything on getting the shiny loot I.E. The 'carrot on a stick' method that so many MMORPG's try to hook people with these days and over-glorify.... Honestly.... I remember in World of Warcraft that on Argent Dawn there were many fantastic roleplaying guilds that did both raiding/questing and roleplaying, afterwards it just turned into a mess the more instances and items Blizzard churned out.... Afterwards it was just a mess of l33ts and assholes and I mean it... Friends and Roleplayers ( that stayed ) that I knew just turned into quite frankly horrible people, then there was the roleplayers that were left who once before when there was an emoted fight would normally just fight it out... But instead they demanded that they were invincible and they had to use a stats system in order to figure it out instead of just carrying on with the story....
Before MMORPG's used to be about communities working together and just simply having fun really, now all they are, are just a bunch of online hack and slash games that are being advertised as MMORPG's, where the hells the fun and teamwork in chopping down a million monsters and getting only ONE item at the end of It I think personally MMORPG's should be giving out more rewards to keep people playing not increasing the grind and giving out LESS rewards like they're doing now, where the hells the fun in spending hours on a game only to get one little item, when in a singleplayer game you can play through it, enjoy the storyline and have fun gameplay and be rewarded in less than 24 hours.
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
Although I have to admit I do solo a lot in games, that is usually because there is no incentive to group. It use to be faster to get quests done and xp added up faster when you grouped. Lately in games you share xp on a kill, so it's actually faster to lvl solo. I think there should be solo content for those times when you can't find a group, but it should not be anywhere near as productive as when you group. It should just be good enough so that you can get things done when groups are hard to find. Although there is also those games where there is forced grouping and the population is simply not there to force grouping. You just have to find a nice medium.
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Currently Playing: Eve-Online On the Backburner: EQ2 Retired: EQ, DAoC, WW2Online RIP: AC2 Tried: Ryzom, Roma Victor, RoM, KH2, Forsaken World, AO, AoC, APB Quit: SWG PRE-CU(Radiant/Starsider), WoW
i get where ur comming from, and what u say is mostly true, the MMO grouping days are seemign to be diminishing, i partly blame big titles like WoW it did so wel that all the developers basicly went off there ideas, just like the more hardcore titles back then came off EQ and stuff. until ppl get bored of always going to another game where u solo easly to cap and the actual communtiy becomes nothing more then an "added feature" im guessing were stuck. i can bet this will eventually happen and someone will make an amazing group orientated game, we will see are fill of them again, like everything out there the styles change, though alot dont liek it(myself) we all might as well find somthing close to it (vanguard/FFXI/EQ/ more of the classic ones..ect.) until the genre changes. we could all argue all day about this, but lets just say fuck it, and enjoy gaming for what it is.
To play Devil's advocate do you group in fps'? I'm a grouping fan myself but just an interesting question.
This is a very intresting question....
The answer for me is yes.
Now, one of my all time best loved games is DukeNukem. Now, could I have played Duke solo and beat it. Well yes I did, but what made DN3 a great game not just a good game was that the game could be played COOP.
See this is also what makes Diablo 2 a great game not just a good game, the ability to play COOP instead of solo.
Gears of War, great FPS game but only when played COOP
IMHO, the problem is not that people do not like to group, but that the do not like pick up groups. Now, all you need to understand this is to play one instance in WOW where you have some lamer in the group that is rolling Need (not greed) on every drop. See when I group with my clan or friends, the drops do not matter as we will give them to whomever actually needs them.
My natural tendency is probably to go solo, but I almost always have more fun when grouped.
I think both types of gameplay are necessary for todays successful mmo, because the mmo audience has really grown beyond the hardcore to encompass a much broader base that tends more toward casual or casual-hardcore.
But I think some of the pain felt with grouping is related to design issues. For instance, games that penalize xp for grouping, poorly implemented looting rules, classes that don't integrate well together in a group combat situation, etc.
Grouping can be a lot of fun, even for casuals who prefer to solo, if developers give them the proper incentive. Ofcourse, there will be some who want to solo no matter what, just as there are loners in the real world who do not care to interact socially with others for whatever reason.
But characterizing people who solo as being whiny or babies or whatever is really not a constructive analysis of someone else's playstyle. Most likely it simply polarizes those on either side of the fence.
My natural tendency is probably to go solo, but I almost always have more fun when grouped. I think both types of gameplay are necessary for todays successful mmo, because the mmo audience has really grown beyond the hardcore to encompass a much broader base that tends more toward casual or casual-hardcore. But I think some of the pain felt with grouping is related to design issues. For instance, games that penalize xp for grouping, poorly implemented looting rules, classes that don't integrate well together in a group combat situation, etc. Grouping can be a lot of fun, even for casuals who prefer to solo, if developers give them the proper incentive. Ofcourse, there will be some who want to solo no matter what, just as there are loners in the real world who do not care to interact socially with others for whatever reason. But characterizing people who solo as being whiny or babies or whatever is really not a constructive analysis of someone else's playstyle. Most likely it simply polarizes those on either side of the fence.
In order for grouping to be more appealing to a much broader audience, developers need to stear away from the current "tank", healer" damages" make up of groups. It's an outdated concept that needs to be changed. Not to mention that it is one of the biggest gripes that I, as a casual gamer, have with todays MMORPGs as it adds greatly to downtime. Very often, by the time a tank and a healer is found, and possible a crowd control character, it's time for me to log off.
I see no point in this approach. It is silly and outdated. The grouping mechanic needs to be more flexible. There has to be a number of different ways of dealing with each game encounter. Stop following the outdated Everquest (or is it Dungeons and Dragons?) group set up. Otherwise the developers are just contributing to the MMORPG market stagnation.
Developers, for crying out loud, try something different for once!
If grinding in a "Camp" is so fun, then why not just reward the players for sitting around socializing instead of this grind bullcrap? It's not like the monsters are any challenge for a full, fully rested party anyway. Games are about challenges. A game with no challenge is merely a chore. Eve Online was kinda nice with character advancement, but then you gotta grind ISK.
Personally, I want to have the choice. Not everyone can dedicate 4 or more hours a day into an MMO, and even then there's people that really enjoy the games, but just want to enjoy that by themselves or with friends because there not the most social type of people. I really don't see anything wrong with someone just wanting to enjoy the game by himself. Get that WoW visor of endgame raid off your eyes.
I think future games should give you the choice, if you want to group this quest or do this instance yes or no, and make it rewarding to group, so that players who spent the time and effort into getting a group and working together, get a slightly (keyword:Slightly) bigger reward than players who would solo it.
If that were to happen I would solo a lot of quests (unless there fun and I want to share that experience with a mate) and do all dungeons in groups.
You mean, grouping and playing the game shouldn't take effort and it should all be handed to you on a silver platter and you want the uber sword of doom right at lvl 3 so you can 'compete with the veterans'.
"When did grouping become evil?" It doesn't take a village of fourced grouping, it takes an individual to personally excel and lead in a Capitalistic society. SWG use to be like that.
Some other posters here have nailed it on the head. It's the holy trinity of Tank/Healer/DPS that cannot be done without and the fact that it takes time to move around and that people have lives. All of these contribute to making groups take hours to form and allow them to be dissolved on a whim.
Interacting with people isn't difficult. It's having to herd a group of specific player types into one area, waiting and waiting, and finally making sure none of them leave.
To that end I say Guild Wars had a lot going for it, considering how, at least in the default game, there was a relatively small number of tasks and travel was instanteous. It also doesn't have tanking, at least not in the traditional sense. So at least it was mostly healer/DPS. And the missions were always about 30 minutes in length, so there wasn't much risk of the entire group falling apart in that time. It made grouping casual and easy.
I enjoyed groups in Everquest. Friendly community, a good looking for group interface, and you could usually travel fairly quickly to meet up and start adventuring.
Ability to solo was also important as I am in a timezone where I play off-peak, and it is not always possible to find a group.
Grouping in WoW and EQ2 was an unpleasant experience.
In WoW:
- takes ages to get a group together. it took so long to get a group together that people would have to log. Either the group never started or if you did get a group together some did not have time to finish the dungeon run.
- People joined groups when they did not have enough time to complete the dungeon run.
- slow travel to get to the dungeon
- no easy way of replacing group members who had to log,
- Quest log was too small. Spend over an hour running around the world to get the different quests for a particular dungeon, only to find you cannot find a group for that dungeon. You get a group for a different dungeon, delete the quests from your full quest log to make room for quests for this dungeon. You only get half the quests for the dungeon, because half of them cannot be shared.
In EQ2 when it first started:
- healing spells failed (fizzled) a lot, so healers were unfairly abused for not doing their job
- shared experience debt. No one would group with strangers. On one occasion I joined a group and they all died while I was running to meet them, and then promptly disbanded. Result was a massive shared experience debt from a group that never eventuated.
General group issues:
- Some people deliberately mispell offensive language to bypass the filters.
- Two or three swear words make up 50% of some conversations!
- Powerleveling is boring. I want an adventure; a group that is my level and do content that is appropriate level.
- Dungeons that reward only a particular class. "Yes, we do have a full group. Unfortunately they are all the same class!"
- Mmorgs are faster paced now with little or no downtime between fights. We are less tolerant of time wasters. Sitting in town for long periods, earning no experience or drops while you shout "Looking for group!" or "Group looking for more!" is so boring.
I enjoyed groups in Everquest. Friendly community, a good looking for group interface, and you could usually travel fairly quickly to meet up and start adventuring. Ability to solo was also important as I am in a timezone where I play off-peak, and it is not always possible to find a group. Grouping in WoW and EQ2 was an unpleasant experience. In WoW: - takes ages to get a group together. it took so long to get a group together that people would have to log. Either the group never started or if you did get a group together some did not have time to finish the dungeon run. - People joined groups when they did not have enough time to complete the dungeon run. - slow travel to get to the dungeon - no easy way of replacing group members who had to log, - Quest log was too small. Spend over an hour running around the world to get the different quests for a particular dungeon, only to find you cannot find a group for that dungeon. You get a group for a different dungeon, delete the quests from your full quest log to make room for quests for this dungeon. You only get half the quests for the dungeon, because half of them cannot be shared. In EQ2 when it first started: - healing spells failed (fizzled) a lot, so healers were unfairly abused for not doing their job - shared experience debt. No one would group with strangers. On one occasion I joined a group and they all died while I was running to meet them, and then promptly disbanded. Result was a massive shared experience debt from a group that never eventuated. General group issues: - Some people deliberately mispell offensive language to bypass the filters. - Two or three swear words make up 50% of some conversations! - Powerleveling is boring. I want an adventure; a group that is my level and do content that is appropriate level. - Dungeons that reward only a particular class. "Yes, we do have a full group. Unfortunately they are all the same class!" - Mmorgs are faster paced now with little or no downtime between fights. We are less tolerant of time wasters. Sitting in town for long periods, earning no experience or drops while you shout "Looking for group!" or "Group looking for more!" is so boring.
i hafta agree w/ alot of this. but ueveryone has good and bad experiences w/ groups. in FFXI sience ur basicly forced to group ul have alot of both. that game has alot more Downtime too. if u look at all the group refrencing and just general good points of MMOs did everyone notice "EQ1" seems to have been almost the perfect mix of everything, most the ppl here are comparing it w/ stuff and i hafta say that was one hell of a game. too bad noone these days hasnt just almost streight up copyed 90% of that game and put a diffrent twist on it. look at its sucess and longjevity, everyone seems to be ripping todays larger games like WoW basicly. bleh i miss EQ1....IMO the best MMO ever made..it truely was the starter of the MMO crack world.
- Dungeons that reward only a particular class. "Yes, we do have a full group. Unfortunately they are all the same class!"
Thats an interesting point.
well from what i remeber u always needed a healer and tank reguardless. but yah i can see his semi point of saying how games like WoW and FFXI have dominating classes that everyone wants to be and groups only want.
In my opinion developers should seperate MMOG's and MSOG's. Like some games are better for soloers and some for group players. Because it doesn't work when developers try to get everyone in same game with every different player types and playing styles.
Comments
On the conceptual level I think that a heavy interest in solo content in the MMO genre is just, well, stupid.
However to cut some slack to all the soloists out there, I really cant blame them with the current crop of MMO titles out there. The heavily itemized, class and level based PvE titles really can make grouping a chore.
In reality I think the pro-solo/pro-grouping argument is just another byproduct of developers trying to cram the one title-fits-all players BS to gamers.
Don't we all look great in our XXXL T-shirts and moo-moo's.
I think the biggest problem with discussions like these, is they usually revolve around something that really doesn't cause the issue.
I started MMO's with UO in 1997... (yes there were MMO's before then but this is when I started).
There was no grouping system in UO at launch. You could hunt around other people.. basicly with them. But there was no actual group system.. no group chat etc..
Then again there wasn't XP to worry about either.
There were some mobs in some dungeons you really couldn't solo.. but overall you could solo the whole game. Heck if you were really good at pvp.. you could take on a lot of people solo.
Could say the same thing about SWG...
I mention that since someone asked what MMO first let you solo all the way.. which was probably supposed to be a reference to WoW... when perhaps the actual question should be.. what MMO first forced you to group with a bunch of *language that would be edited* and wonder how anyone could be so inept at a video game.. or that dumb and actually able be defined as a sentient being.
There are two sides of the coin and in the case of this subject.. more than two.
People say "why do you want to solo in an MMO?"
Well let's see... the real world is like a very expensive MMO.. and there is a lot of people around. Yet to be honest I really don't want to hang out (aka group) with most of them.
Much the same... in an MMO.
But I'll make this short..
I really do enjoy grouping in an MMO.
The main issue is the mass majority of people I group with in MMO's... make me wish I could teleport to their house IRL and pk them... which just leads me to want to solo...
That's the most direct and shortest answer I can give.
Personally i will group with people of a like mindset.In other words i may only have 1 to 2 hours to play max before i need to do something else.
That being said i will never do a raid that takes 6 hours.Anything beyond 1 to 2 hours would make me hate the game i was playing.
I also think their are 2 different mmo genre's 1 for the casual player(me) that is in it for the content update and the hardcore player that treats it as a hobby.A person just needs to pick 1.
So let me get this right though:Your complaining about the idea of people not grouping?Yet you claim that "you found another genre" to play?So are you playing mmo's?If you are not then what are you complaining about?
Oh i see now your reading forum postings about people wanting to play solo.Your not actually playing an mmo.
Your ....complaining.... about.... a.... genre.... your .....not ......involved.... in...
So why does this make sense?
What is your physical limit?
I think that grouping became evil when the line between anything and everything became blurred. No one game is to blame for this as people were soloing The Vindicator (a raid mob) as far back as EQ 1.
Development has done as much as it can over the years to combat this kind of thing but since it is nearly impossible to stop a level 50 whatever from soloing a level 20 named epic superbad go get your mamma mob the problem can only be truly addressed at the higher levels of the game. Even at the higher levels you are still going to have that 6 boxer scripter robot superhero sitting behind a wall of PC's "soloing".
The thing is, soloing, as we see it and read it isn't really the issue anyway. Being able to trump the game is what most of these so-called soloists are complaining that they can not do and when you read what they are saying for what it truly means the request becomes absurd anyway. Thus, the answer to the question that the OP asked us is that grouping became evil when players realized that they could do anything AND everything and anywhere that is exists where they can not (which is the way it should be, the way of the world) is something to complain about.
Forget about it and play your game. Solving this problem is a financial move that no company is going to make, more or less, stick to.
The skewed grouping model is not nessessary. Look at old-school UO. You could pretty much solo the whole game if you knew what you were doing but did it make it any less fun? Absolutely not. Grouping is an archaic mechanic used in early MMORPGs to prolong the gaming experience and to allow for limited content.
As for the OPs question: my take on it is that as soon as everyone jumped on the EQ bandwagon and made grouping nessessary to advance your character, that's when it became evil.
Well you're part right on the EQI thing accept it wasn't til POP (Plains of Power) that grouping became all but mandatory. If you're counting that's expansion number four.
At any rate given the time I'll always choose grouping because it 's just more interesting for me. However aside from the time issue and the median age of the MMO player increasing there's another factor few choose to realize or admit.
The Genre has gone down hill since it expanded from nerdsville. Logging into EQI circa 2000 was nothing like logging into the majority of MMO's today. The majority were mostly pleasent where the reverse is true today. The leet speaking, Chuck Noris, profanity ladden outburst get old fast. When companies care more about the bottom line than providing a quality game experience...well you see the outcome.
Don't get me wrong there are some great communities still around but they are few and far between. It's no wonder so many choose to keep to themselves. Too much drama..
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
When MMO players of 10-13 years ago grew up, and the tools for finding, and finding out what every one needed (Shards, rats , stuff), did not.
Any time you group with just one persion, subtract 30 min to your play time.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Personally i will group with people of a like mindset.In other words i may only have 1 to 2 hours to play max before i need to do something else.
That being said i will never do a raid that takes 6 hours.Anything beyond 1 to 2 hours would make me hate the game i was playing.
I also think their are 2 different mmo genre's 1 for the casual player(me) that is in it for the content update and the hardcore player that treats it as a hobby.A person just needs to pick 1.
So let me get this right though:Your complaining about the idea of people not grouping?Yet you claim that "you found another genre" to play?So are you playing mmo's?If you are not then what are you complaining about?
Oh i see now your reading forum postings about people wanting to play solo.Your not actually playing an mmo.
Your ....complaining.... about.... a.... genre.... your .....not ......involved.... in...
So why does this make sense?
im defnitly an HC MMO fan, i think EQ1 and FFXI did that too me, but i like it, and most are posting cause like me they cant play atm.....IM AT WORK AND IM BORED
Grouping became evil when players were no longer encouraged to work together in communities but instead were told they had to focus everything on getting the shiny loot I.E. The 'carrot on a stick' method that so many MMORPG's try to hook people with these days and over-glorify.... Honestly.... I remember in World of Warcraft that on Argent Dawn there were many fantastic roleplaying guilds that did both raiding/questing and roleplaying, afterwards it just turned into a mess the more instances and items Blizzard churned out.... Afterwards it was just a mess of l33ts and assholes and I mean it... Friends and Roleplayers ( that stayed ) that I knew just turned into quite frankly horrible people, then there was the roleplayers that were left who once before when there was an emoted fight would normally just fight it out... But instead they demanded that they were invincible and they had to use a stats system in order to figure it out instead of just carrying on with the story....
Before MMORPG's used to be about communities working together and just simply having fun really, now all they are, are just a bunch of online hack and slash games that are being advertised as MMORPG's, where the hells the fun and teamwork in chopping down a million monsters and getting only ONE item at the end of It I think personally MMORPG's should be giving out more rewards to keep people playing not increasing the grind and giving out LESS rewards like they're doing now, where the hells the fun in spending hours on a game only to get one little item, when in a singleplayer game you can play through it, enjoy the storyline and have fun gameplay and be rewarded in less than 24 hours.
Quoting people doesn't make you clever, in fact, it makes you all the more stupid for not bothering to read the quotes you post in the first place.
Although I have to admit I do solo a lot in games, that is usually because there is no incentive to group. It use to be faster to get quests done and xp added up faster when you grouped. Lately in games you share xp on a kill, so it's actually faster to lvl solo. I think there should be solo content for those times when you can't find a group, but it should not be anywhere near as productive as when you group. It should just be good enough so that you can get things done when groups are hard to find. Although there is also those games where there is forced grouping and the population is simply not there to force grouping. You just have to find a nice medium.
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Currently Playing: Eve-Online
On the Backburner: EQ2
Retired: EQ, DAoC, WW2Online
RIP: AC2
Tried: Ryzom, Roma Victor, RoM, KH2, Forsaken World, AO, AoC, APB
Quit: SWG PRE-CU(Radiant/Starsider), WoW
Achiever 47% / Explorer 40% / Killer 87% / Socializer 27%
i get where ur comming from, and what u say is mostly true, the MMO grouping days are seemign to be diminishing, i partly blame big titles like WoW it did so wel that all the developers basicly went off there ideas, just like the more hardcore titles back then came off EQ and stuff. until ppl get bored of always going to another game where u solo easly to cap and the actual communtiy becomes nothing more then an "added feature" im guessing were stuck. i can bet this will eventually happen and someone will make an amazing group orientated game, we will see are fill of them again, like everything out there the styles change, though alot dont liek it(myself) we all might as well find somthing close to it (vanguard/FFXI/EQ/ more of the classic ones..ect.) until the genre changes. we could all argue all day about this, but lets just say fuck it, and enjoy gaming for what it is.
This is a very intresting question....
The answer for me is yes.
Now, one of my all time best loved games is DukeNukem. Now, could I have played Duke solo and beat it. Well yes I did, but what made DN3 a great game not just a good game was that the game could be played COOP.
See this is also what makes Diablo 2 a great game not just a good game, the ability to play COOP instead of solo.
Gears of War, great FPS game but only when played COOP
IMHO, the problem is not that people do not like to group, but that the do not like pick up groups. Now, all you need to understand this is to play one instance in WOW where you have some lamer in the group that is rolling Need (not greed) on every drop. See when I group with my clan or friends, the drops do not matter as we will give them to whomever actually needs them.
An so it begins
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.[/CENTER]
My natural tendency is probably to go solo, but I almost always have more fun when grouped.
I think both types of gameplay are necessary for todays successful mmo, because the mmo audience has really grown beyond the hardcore to encompass a much broader base that tends more toward casual or casual-hardcore.
But I think some of the pain felt with grouping is related to design issues. For instance, games that penalize xp for grouping, poorly implemented looting rules, classes that don't integrate well together in a group combat situation, etc.
Grouping can be a lot of fun, even for casuals who prefer to solo, if developers give them the proper incentive. Ofcourse, there will be some who want to solo no matter what, just as there are loners in the real world who do not care to interact socially with others for whatever reason.
But characterizing people who solo as being whiny or babies or whatever is really not a constructive analysis of someone else's playstyle. Most likely it simply polarizes those on either side of the fence.
In order for grouping to be more appealing to a much broader audience, developers need to stear away from the current "tank", healer" damages" make up of groups. It's an outdated concept that needs to be changed. Not to mention that it is one of the biggest gripes that I, as a casual gamer, have with todays MMORPGs as it adds greatly to downtime. Very often, by the time a tank and a healer is found, and possible a crowd control character, it's time for me to log off.
I see no point in this approach. It is silly and outdated. The grouping mechanic needs to be more flexible. There has to be a number of different ways of dealing with each game encounter. Stop following the outdated Everquest (or is it Dungeons and Dragons?) group set up. Otherwise the developers are just contributing to the MMORPG market stagnation.
Developers, for crying out loud, try something different for once!
If grinding in a "Camp" is so fun, then why not just reward the players for sitting around socializing instead of this grind bullcrap? It's not like the monsters are any challenge for a full, fully rested party anyway. Games are about challenges. A game with no challenge is merely a chore. Eve Online was kinda nice with character advancement, but then you gotta grind ISK.
Personally, I want to have the choice. Not everyone can dedicate 4 or more hours a day into an MMO, and even then there's people that really enjoy the games, but just want to enjoy that by themselves or with friends because there not the most social type of people. I really don't see anything wrong with someone just wanting to enjoy the game by himself. Get that WoW visor of endgame raid off your eyes.
I think future games should give you the choice, if you want to group this quest or do this instance yes or no, and make it rewarding to group, so that players who spent the time and effort into getting a group and working together, get a slightly (keyword:Slightly) bigger reward than players who would solo it.
If that were to happen I would solo a lot of quests (unless there fun and I want to share that experience with a mate) and do all dungeons in groups.
You mean, grouping and playing the game shouldn't take effort and it should all be handed to you on a silver platter and you want the uber sword of doom right at lvl 3 so you can 'compete with the veterans'.
MMO's are online for a REASON.
"When did grouping become evil?" It doesn't take a village of fourced grouping, it takes an individual to personally excel and lead in a Capitalistic society. SWG use to be like that.
Some other posters here have nailed it on the head. It's the holy trinity of Tank/Healer/DPS that cannot be done without and the fact that it takes time to move around and that people have lives. All of these contribute to making groups take hours to form and allow them to be dissolved on a whim.
Interacting with people isn't difficult. It's having to herd a group of specific player types into one area, waiting and waiting, and finally making sure none of them leave.
To that end I say Guild Wars had a lot going for it, considering how, at least in the default game, there was a relatively small number of tasks and travel was instanteous. It also doesn't have tanking, at least not in the traditional sense. So at least it was mostly healer/DPS. And the missions were always about 30 minutes in length, so there wasn't much risk of the entire group falling apart in that time. It made grouping casual and easy.
I enjoyed groups in Everquest. Friendly community, a good looking for group interface, and you could usually travel fairly quickly to meet up and start adventuring.
Ability to solo was also important as I am in a timezone where I play off-peak, and it is not always possible to find a group.
Grouping in WoW and EQ2 was an unpleasant experience.
In WoW:
- takes ages to get a group together. it took so long to get a group together that people would have to log. Either the group never started or if you did get a group together some did not have time to finish the dungeon run.
- People joined groups when they did not have enough time to complete the dungeon run.
- slow travel to get to the dungeon
- no easy way of replacing group members who had to log,
- Quest log was too small. Spend over an hour running around the world to get the different quests for a particular dungeon, only to find you cannot find a group for that dungeon. You get a group for a different dungeon, delete the quests from your full quest log to make room for quests for this dungeon. You only get half the quests for the dungeon, because half of them cannot be shared.
In EQ2 when it first started:
- healing spells failed (fizzled) a lot, so healers were unfairly abused for not doing their job
- shared experience debt. No one would group with strangers. On one occasion I joined a group and they all died while I was running to meet them, and then promptly disbanded. Result was a massive shared experience debt from a group that never eventuated.
General group issues:
- Some people deliberately mispell offensive language to bypass the filters.
- Two or three swear words make up 50% of some conversations!
- Powerleveling is boring. I want an adventure; a group that is my level and do content that is appropriate level.
- Dungeons that reward only a particular class. "Yes, we do have a full group. Unfortunately they are all the same class!"
- Mmorgs are faster paced now with little or no downtime between fights. We are less tolerant of time wasters. Sitting in town for long periods, earning no experience or drops while you shout "Looking for group!" or "Group looking for more!" is so boring.
i hafta agree w/ alot of this. but ueveryone has good and bad experiences w/ groups. in FFXI sience ur basicly forced to group ul have alot of both. that game has alot more Downtime too. if u look at all the group refrencing and just general good points of MMOs did everyone notice "EQ1" seems to have been almost the perfect mix of everything, most the ppl here are comparing it w/ stuff and i hafta say that was one hell of a game. too bad noone these days hasnt just almost streight up copyed 90% of that game and put a diffrent twist on it. look at its sucess and longjevity, everyone seems to be ripping todays larger games like WoW basicly. bleh i miss EQ1....IMO the best MMO ever made..it truely was the starter of the MMO crack world.
well from what i remeber u always needed a healer and tank reguardless. but yah i can see his semi point of saying how games like WoW and FFXI have dominating classes that everyone wants to be and groups only want.
In my opinion developers should seperate MMOG's and MSOG's. Like some games are better for soloers and some for group players. Because it doesn't work when developers try to get everyone in same game with every different player types and playing styles.
MMORPG.COM has worst forum editor ever exists
yah every MMO these days trys to fit them both in, but ppl tend to do solo stuff because its easyer and just as effective as groups..