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Soloing is killing the community aspect of MMO's?
senadin
Member UncommonPosts: 247
These days when a game is in development a company has to (or do they?) look at including the solo aspect of gaming. This question will be asked by many of us; Can i solo? What class solo best etc.
Now back in my EQ days most classes to the exception of a few could really make soloing a viable option. Most folks had to group to make leveling interesting. Soloing for most classes even tho it COULD be done wasnt the way to go. So i think it would be fair to say that since you HAD to group, the social aspect was more to the forefront. Matter of fact my first guild was a direct result of a group of folks i had met.
So my question i ask is this,
1- Would the fact that you have to group make you a more social/responsible and ethical player.
For example, would you be friendlier, nicer?
After all if you have to group to play efficiently your name should have more value to you as a player. Now i know some folks simply dont care and this really doesnt apply to them. I dont think this is the average anyway.
Next question is;
Assuming a game is built on a group and solo gameplay is extremely limited, wouldnt that make the community overall better?
I am blaming the death of great community in MMO's to this desire to have solo gameplay. Eliminate solo gameplay or make it a slim portion of the game and you should have a MMO with great community.
That's my theory!
Is it flawed? i dont know, hence why i am asking. Thoughts anyone?
Comments
If the community aspect of mmo's was dead the mmo genre would be dead...
Freedom I guess. I don't like to be forced to group to keep up with others. I want to be able to choose.
If a game would force people to group the result wouldn't be more friendlyness. The people would just group to do whatever they need to get done and then evryone would go his own way. It's up to each individual howmuch he wants to socialize and interact with others.
By dead i mean not only forums but in game community. I've played many MMO's but none so far and since Everquest have captured the essence of belonging to a gaming cmmunity like Everquest did.
Sure the game and the genre was in it's infancy but i am not talking about gameplay here i am talking about the community aspect. Sure other games have guilds and clans but to me and maybe it is just me, tho i doubt it, that feels that the community aspect has taken the way of the Dodo. The cause of this or at least part of it is due to the fact that most MMO's embrace solo gameplay and make it a MUST HAVE staple of the game. I say reduce or even eliminate this and you may have stronger communities. So in essence forced grouping is what i believe made a game a more community centric one.
I don't think you even know what you are talking about, MMO's today have FAR more people than original MMO's ever did, and that is BECAUSE of solo content.
Games like everquest aren't doing so well BECAUSE they are group focused, the majority of gamers don't want to sit in a town, spam /lfg for 3 hours trying to find a group to do something. People don't have a problem with grouping, that is not the problem at hand, the PROBLEM, is that it's too hard to find a group.
I dont mind solo playing in mmo's. Sometimes I just dont want to deal with people and want to just run around on my toon and smash things.
When I first started playing MMO's was when EQ1 launched. I tried it cause I liked the idea of playing with a bunch of strangers in a strange new land. I enjoy grouping more then solo content. I kinda think that mmo's should be group strictly to make it an mmo. if solo is what everyone is concerned with go play xbox.
I dont think grouping makes people any nicer or socialable. I know when i was grouping depending on what class i played i would act accordingly to my backround. if i was an evil class i would be kind of a jerk to people who were playing good classes and vice versa.
i think most games these days just arent as fun because of all the time they spend on making the game solo friendly
NOT being able to solo is what kills many games as players simply leave them. Many times you don't have the time to seek a group or you find a group with idiots who haven't a clue and go around aggro-ing everything in site casuing senseless deaths. Players should be given an option whether to solo or group instead of being force fed grouping to accomplish missions.
This is one reason I liked CoH, CoV because the difficulty of the missions went according to how many players were doing the quest. It got harder as more players got together. I don't know why this great idea hasn't been copied by other games.
Personally, I rather solo then group for missions. This is why once I got to the mid 50's in WoW back about 3 yrs ago I left the game as there were no more solo missions, just stupid dungeons after dungeons. My quest list was full of dungeon missions. Every time I had to seek a group which wasted much time then at times players would leave in mid missions forcing the group to disband as now we couldn't complete the quest.
Each game should give players the option to group or solo.
its just all about personal preference. theres always people who will only want to solo and then theres the grouping fanatics. i fall in between, since i like both aspects of games. if a game could equally balance those things and keep it fresh it would be nice. i know most games either completely stop solo content at a certain point or its just so repetitive that you get bored.
its a never ending arguement
Agreed. The main reason I quit FF XI was the forced grouping after lvl 15 or so.
Yes you do have freedom, you can choose to solo, but what if the game devs made it painfully slow compare to grouping? Give huge advantages to groupers instead of soloer? Basically favor a grouping game to a solo game. After all it is a MMO, not MSO.
The thing regarding your second point is yes, folks may group when they need, but let's say you always had to group to effectively do stuff, wouldnt you try to seek those same folks? Wouldnt this dynamic allows a better community in the long run?
i know most games either completely stop solo content at a certain point or its just so repetitive that you get bored.
its a never ending arguement
You are right, it is a never ending argument, but the fact remains.
MMO's are created with the purpose of having many many users playing all at once. Not to play solo, (tho it is possible) so somewhere along the way devs have forgotten this aspect of MMO's. Dont get me wrong, i dont mind soloing here and there but soloing SHOULDNT be the MAIN way to level.
Anyhow this isnt the main point, My point is soloing IS NOT fostering or not condusive to community aspect of MMO's. After all what is the point of having thousands of folks online if you never group? Might as well go play Oblivion...
lol thats what i said in my first reply in other words
1- No theres a whole bunch of people some are just a holes or having a a bad day so forced grouping doesnt mean there will be nicer people, yes you do have a point in some way. By forcing it because the game is hard people who want to get anywhere in the game will have to get more patience or simply leave the game if they dont like it, so eventually they will undrstand it one way or another.
2- And removing all the solo gameplay isnt the right answer either sometimes like said in some replies people just want to some other stuff like exploring new places taking screenshot or w/e or just simply play on there own for a while without all the hassles that grouping CAN ( mind you
) bring so stop asking these questions!! What makes a good mmo in my oppinion is a bit of both and whatever mmo you will play remember......nothing is perfect.
THE END
I do believe that making soloing impractical has a positive effect on a community, because if a player can solo through most aspects of the game, they have little accountability to the rest of the community. They can act as badly as they please with no actual impact to their own gameplay. Ergo, no consequences for bad behaviour. Of course, they could be reported, but there isn't a guarantee that anything will be done. It's also possible for a player to surf the boundary of what is prohibited in a game's ToS/CoC, irritating players but never really providing grounds for customer support intervention according to the letter of the law.
Personally, however, I tend to solo for these reasons:
- Most communities are already unsavoury.
- I dislike Pick-Up Groups. Being lumped in with random people, with whom I may have nothing in common and whom I cannot trust, is not my idea of fun.
- If I screw up, it only affects me.
- I don't want to inconvenience teammates when, due to RL or whim or spontaneous social anxiety, I need/want to switch to a different activity or log out. When solo, there is no one to answer to except myself - no need to explain why I do anything, and no guilt from leaving a group in which I was playing a vital role (i.e. healer).
The only times I've really enjoyed grouping were in Ryzom. Even PUGs were tolerable or enjoyable. The first guild I was part of there had training every Sunday, and those days were great for roleplaying, getting to know each other Out-Of-Character, mastering the subtler aspects of combat, and of course skilling up. Due to the way Ryzom's skill system works, we could fit players/characters new and old into the same team(s), and everyone made progress.
Ryzom has no automatic loot distribution system aside from it being impossible for people outside the team who did the majority of the damage to loot the kill. But even in PUGs, loot was often distributed fairly by an agreed-upon looter or some other participant-generated arrangement.
Furthermore, I do have something in common with all Ryzom players: Playing a game most people have never heard of. If/when Ryzom is brought out of its coma, I look forward to joining more PUGs therein and getting to know the people who, like me, have stuck with the game through thin, thinner, and thinnest.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I like grouping with others, but if i can't solo in a game i don't think it is worth playing. EVE online for example, in my free trial i had to rely on guild members to haul my mining materials for me. Whenever i logged in, if there wasn't anyone i knew online i couldn't progress.
Most games where you solo you end up joining a group anyway. If you are grinding vs mobs, then eventually you and someone else grinding are going to talk to pass the time. I think is grouping is forced upon you, it makes it harder to find a group, but also it makes it less fun.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I gotta share the contempt of solo focus with the OP. I specifically play MMOs for content that I can't solo and for all of those geniuses who cry, "I don't want to have to group," GTFO of MMOs and go play the ten thousand single player RPGs that exist.
The very concept of the genre was based on the multiplayer aspect. Anyone who utters the above sounds as intelligent as someone who enjoys playing against bots in Counter Strike. "ZOMG, I don't want to have to wait for a server to fill up!"
Please.
IMHO MMO's should allow solo play, but the bonus of grouping should be enough so people want to group when it's an option.
There's nothing worse than having your progress halted because you can not find a group.
I also think guild should encouraged as well to foster the community spirt within MMO's.
I can take or leave both solo and group play. I think that both are important in their own ways. A smarter way to deal with this split is to have the same number of group quests as solo quests. If you have 1000 solo quests then there should also be 1000 group quests. This allows you to group when you want to and solo when you want to without missing a beat.
Also, rather than making soloing more difficult, which is an absolute guaranteed way to lose subscribers, why not make grouping easier? The LFG tool in CoH is a prime example of how to make grouping more accessible to a larger audience. I don't think anyone here actually wants to spend hours spamming LFG in the general chat just to progress in the game.
I think that all the anti-solo / anti-group threads take the track of excluding the other side rather than encouraging and opening up their own play-style to a broader audience. While it's true that humans do more to avoid pain than seek pleasure, it's also true that nothing can be sustained on tyranny for very long. Try thinking about what the negative issues are with your side and what you can do to address those issues and attract a larger number of people to your side.
Finesse not force....
Soloing isnt killing the community aspect of MMOs, irrational fear of PUG's is. People are so scared of losing a little time/exp of maring a perfect record or GOD forbid dying( the death penalty in most MMOs is so inconsequential) whatever the case. the Stigma against PUGs only leads to more and more people who dont know how to group effectively. A good Community would embrace PUGs and help or teach or lead by example. The whole trend of "working" a game to get the most advancement in the least amount of time with the least amont of resistance is whats killing grouping in MMO's
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Nice in theory, but flawed in practice.
That's just my take on some of the issues anyway. I would love to play a game where it was easy to find interesting groups that let you feel more a part of the game world, but I just can't see it happening & probably wouldn't even start playing a game where absolutely everything needed a group.
Much like everything in life, extremes should be avoided & a balanced perspective is best.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
This topic was sent to the glue factory a long time ago.
Yep, looks like this horse has been beaten to death.
I am fairly certain though that we can agree on one thing.
A game with forced anything, especially grouping, would have a community that is if nothing else, small.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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I find myself in agreement with you. I have noticed a generally better and friendlier playerbase in games that favor grouping over soloing. Just my observations from playing a few different MMO's over the years.