Originally posted by MMO_Doubter It would be easy to make a game which greatly favours grouping. While it would result in more grouping, it would also result in fewer total players (meaning less money), as many players don't want to group - or grow tired with the hassle of grouping. The "MM" is optional for many players.
No, it's just incredibly misunderstood by grouping-advocates. It means MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, which is satisfied by having lots of players around. We are not playing MGRPGs, no one has yet come up with a MASSIVELY GROUPING game because it would be a complete failure.
Like it or not, MMOs are not grouping-specific, they never have been and they never will be. Stop trying to pretend they ought to be something that they clearly never have been.
FFXI was a failure? Oh yea, it never even existed according to you. Neither did EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, and a whole list of others.
In order to make PUGing worth while you have to filter out the idiots... but then the idiots would have no group. Its a double edged blade.
Except, at least in my experience, there are far more idiots than there are good team players. If you filter out the idiots, it'll be even harder to find a team than it is today and most people will say the hell with it and solo.
Because any idiot can succeed in a M'solo'ORPG, and soloers have no reputation, is there an ehco in here?
Assuming you mean moron by idiot, and not just someone who is unfamiliar with the content.
To be honest, I love games that give you the option to Solo. I can play at my own pace, I can be as greedy as I want with what drops. But, I do also like grouping. Most MMOs I see never seem to encourage grouping, they seem to only give it benefits or force you into it. Grouping for something that just "benefits" people, it kinda feels fake. It's rather hard to explain.
I been waiting for a game that "encourages" grouping not forces or gives benefits. Probably why I am looking forward to ToR. Grouping end game may or may not be required, that is unclear. But group leveling is encouraged without benefit or being forced. You are encouraged to group with friends and play through a story, that will change both of your characters. And to "me" that is the grouping experience I'm looking for.
Solo content doesn't cause a decline in community.
The problem is that most new MMOs are heavily weighted towards PvE combat.
Crafting is gimpy or overlooked.
Player-driven economies are shallow or broken.
Housing is absent or so limited as to be pointless.
PvP is meaningless and imbalanced.
Loot is the only way to progress your character.
In a level/class based game, the only "group content" that exists is trying to cobble together a functional group while being restricted by differences in level and trammeled by the rigidity of class roles.
Trying to build a community on such flimsy and impermanent interaction is just not gonna happen. If a game is going to have a decent community, then it needs to provide that community with more in-depth interaction that just "let's go kill mobs for epix, k?".
Yes it does.
No, it doesn't.
What is "community"? What is it made up of in a MMORPG context? Allow me.
"community" - The amount of players currently engaged in or the quality of:
Interaction
Chat
Forums
Trade
Socialization
Meeting new people
Making Friends
Helping others or getting help from others
For the original statement to be true, then "community" can be measured before and after the addition of said "solo content".
Assume that one player engages in the new "solo content" instead of his normal activity within "community"
Originally posted by MMO_Doubter It would be easy to make a game which greatly favours grouping. While it would result in more grouping, it would also result in fewer total players (meaning less money), as many players don't want to group - or grow tired with the hassle of grouping. The "MM" is optional for many players.
No, it's just incredibly misunderstood by grouping-advocates. It means MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, which is satisfied by having lots of players around. We are not playing MGRPGs, no one has yet come up with a MASSIVELY GROUPING game because it would be a complete failure.
Like it or not, MMOs are not grouping-specific, they never have been and they never will be. Stop trying to pretend they ought to be something that they clearly never have been.
The whole purpose of playing a multiplayer game is to play with other people. Everytime I click a multiplayer button on a game, I hate to break it to you, but I pretty much expect to play with multiple players. I'm curious why your so opposed to this satanic idea of people cooperating with each other inside of a video game. What do you think MMORPG-pvp/RvR games are, free for all battles? I'm pretty sure its one team vs another team, as in one group vs another group, horde vs alliance, Order vs Destruction.
I find the argument that making the game boring so folks will socialize more a recipe for MMO bankruptcy. If the game is boring, they simply won't play it. Why spend good money to be so bored that you have to chat in order to stay awake? Heck, Second Life is free and it works great for exactly that-- chatting and socializing. So why pay?
The reason games are going away from group based content is that it is a limiting way to play for many people for many reasons, and those people will simply opt to not play at all rather than be forced to play a way that is not fun for them. In short, Solo = more subscriptions and/or item mall purchases.
The reasons range from not wanting to deal with asshats to differences in the pace one plays at, and a whole host of other reasons to boot. For example, I am the type who reads the quests, picks all the plants, mines the ore, fishes, stares at the scenery, grinds every mob & etc. If I group, I can't do that because there is at least one person who wants to play "faster" than me. This does not make that player bad or a jerk, it just makes him incompatible with my playstyle, and me with his.
The successful MMO will be one that offers and equally rewards multiple play styles and be one that makes transitioning between those styles painless, and even *gasp* fun. So far, WoW is the only one who has come close, and even it falls short, for everyone feels jaded someway (Soloers complain about restricted content, raiders whine about devalued awards, etc).
To me, the trick would be to lure the folks in solo, then show them how much fun grouping can be so that they want to do it. So far, MMO's have been full of epic fail in this regards. Sure, they lure in the solo player, then force him to group in the end, and do nothing to make it fun, so the soloer feels ripped off while the groupers get their communities shredded by disenchanted players.
The true fact is that the reasons groups don't form is not from to the availability of solo content, but due to a very simple and painful truth to the pro grouping crowd: They don't want to play with you! And no amount of group forcing will change that. Only when grouping becomes a fun, flexible and a viable play option that does not destroy or devalue other modes of play will that change.
I cant remember when was my last pleasurable grouping experience.
What I do know is that at some point in my gaming experience I started to see the game as numbers and logic, a mechanicist view of the MMORPGs, alla Descartes.
The worlds didnt offered enough exploration,
the Lore and Story werent compelling enough,
the ever increasing number of games offering the same thing, ultimatelly reducing the appeal of each other,
the focus on combat, acquisition of power and vertical progression,
I started to see through the quests as we all know them to be: procedurally generated uninspired repetitive tasks.
the exagerated focus on controlling balance, progression, scaleability, established classes, end game.
the notion of grind as journey... at some point the quality level dropped so much that I couldnt care anymore and started to evaluate things by what they are... time and effort spent in the consecution of power, that was all thats left...
I dont think I will ever be able to see MMORPGs with the same eyes and be able to enjoy grouping again.
Its like the lost of innocence, can we ever get it back?
I tend to relate all the dawns of modern MMORPGs with the fact that our genre and communities evolved from the Everquest school of thought, instead of the Ultima Online school of thought. Its a concept Ive been thinking for a long time now.
I admit that I myself am very much torn between the two ideas.
On the one hand in the early EQ2 - and even in the late in some ways - I was suffering because I had no time for active guilding, and the solo quests of EQ2 were the most BORING and mind numbing quests! I only say "Beetle Herding"! Still makes me shudder. On the other hand in LOTRO soloing you can see tons and tons of cool quests, wonderful storylines and cool loot/rewards.
On the other hand when people CAN solo, most will. That is where I am different. I solo because no one wants me, so to speak. Often enough I try to find a group, and everytime some smartass answers me "you can solo that".
This not so cool gap is especially rampant in LOTRO. (Can't say about WOW, I was only a short time there, but friends told me the same about WOW.) There is a gap between the gear of soloers and e-sports-like gaming professionals. These days I finally wanted to do Radiance inis in LOTRO, just to see the places and fight the mobs, not for any real interest in uber gear. And you know what I heard the most: with THAT gear and no experience before and THAT stats you are not gonna be invited!
Thank you very much. And its what friends of mine told me about WOW as well. I mean, whoa, wth? SInce when became a hobby some kind of battle for the best? Some sort of 2nd job? Its like: you don't get into those groups without gear and experience and you dont get experience and gear without getting into those instances. Its becoming a little bit of a LOTRO rant, but similar experiences cover all my MMO days. EQ2 was basically just the same just a bit different.
Now looking at Champions, they try to enforce grouping by making chars weak, and I think WTF? Why cant anyone make grouping enjoying so people WANT to group and not penalize people and forcing them the negative way? As a casual gamer who has usually no monthly schedule for his MMO I always felt like a 2nd rate gamer. How this can be remedied is not entirely clear to me, tho.
Originally posted by Kyleran I cannot agree with you. I am simply not wired to consider that to be fun for an extended period. I don't mind doing simlar things for an extended period as long as there is enough of a variety in those tasks. As soon as those tasks become too alike, I get bored within 15-30 minutes. So camping the same spawn or type of spawn for an extended period puts me to sleep. I'll do it in spurts and then go do something else till I get 'unbored'. The thing about the 'endless quests' is that there is usually enough variety in them to keep me interested for a much longer time. A new area will present a new challenge, there is a new twist to a quest formula, the mobs have new abilities I have to learn, etc. One thing I really like about MMOs is that I can socialize with other people while still doing things on my own. AS such I do not see the logic in doing a boring task simply to socialize while I can socialize with the same people while doing something I enjoy. Now, if those people do not want to keep socializing with me once we are not doign the same task then it was just filler socializing and all they wanted to do was socialize with someone rather than me in particualar. The idea that you need to convince people to do unfun, boring activities just so they can socaialized is to me ludicrous and backwards. The solution is for the game designers to add in more ways where socializing enhances a fun game experience rather than replacing it.
But see, I find most MMO activities unfun for the most part unless there is some social interaction to it. The issue goes beyond simply the fact you do a quests. People fail to realize the "benefit" the timesinks of the old games gave players from a social perspective.
Taking 3-5 minutes to rest up between fights, or long travel times with not a lot of actual manic acitvity gave players a lot of time to chat and enjoy themselves.
Its hard to explain, but in the end it was lots more fun than I ever realized and I guess I'm just an anchronistic dinosaur since I enjoyed them.
The thing that bafles me is why do you need downtimes to chat with other people and socialize? If you want to chat and socialize, you simply pause what you are doing and be social. It's not like if you stop 'playing' the game while chatting then you stop breathing or something. If an interesting conversation comes up in chat that I want to join in, I will park my character in a safe spot and chat. I actually cannot do that while grouped since I am holding back people. So to me downtimes only promote socializing while grouped. They are needed to compensate for the fact that grouping will discourage ad-hoc socializing unless a socially acceptable 'recess' is programmed in.
I admit that I myself am very much torn between the two ideas. On the one hand in the early EQ2 - and even in the late in some ways - I was suffering because I had no time for active guilding, and the solo quests of EQ2 were the most BORING and mind numbing quests! I only say "Beetle Herding"! Still makes me shudder. On the other hand in LOTRO soloing you can see tons and tons of cool quests, wonderful storylines and cool loot/rewards. On the other hand when people CAN solo, most will. That is where I am different. I solo because no one wants me, so to speak. Often enough I try to find a group, and everytime some smartass answers me "you can solo that". That's not a smartass response, it is a matter of fact. You want to find people who are wiling to work together to achieve a common goal, in a world where those goals do not require teamwork. Some people might go along with it for a time just for fun, but eventually they will just tell you to do it yourself. If those same goals required teamwork, then people would be more willing, and would probably even want you to join them. This not so cool gap is especially rampant in LOTRO. (Can't say about WOW, I was only a short time there, but friends told me the same about WOW.) There is a gap between the gear of soloers and e-sports-like gaming professionals. These days I finally wanted to do Radiance inis in LOTRO, just to see the places and fight the mobs, not for any real interest in uber gear. And you know what I heard the most: with THAT gear and no experience before and THAT stats you are not gonna be invited! Thank you very much. And its what friends of mine told me about WOW as well. I mean, whoa, wth? SInce when became a hobby some kind of battle for the best? Some sort of 2nd job? Its like: you don't get into those groups without gear and experience and you dont get experience and gear without getting into those instances. Its becoming a little bit of a LOTRO rant, but similar experiences cover all my MMO days. EQ2 was basically just the same just a bit different. See how grouping is entirely taken out of the equation when soloing is made viable? A small group could have filled that gap. Now looking at Champions, they try to enforce grouping by making chars weak, and I think WTF? Why cant anyone make grouping enjoying so people WANT to group and not penalize people and forcing them the negative way? As a casual gamer who has usually no monthly schedule for his MMO I always felt like a 2nd rate gamer. How this can be remedied is not entirely clear to me, tho. For grouping to work vs solo, when soloing is viable, means that grouping would have to yield greater rewards, which is backwards. Loot and EXP are now split among members, the only thing you gain is speed. Who would want to group with these results? The only way grouping ever works is when it's required. As for the lack of time, well just like anything else, you get what you give.
It's not that simple, people tend to take the path of least resistance. That is what is stopping people, there is no make believe about it. People play the way they want to play. Personally, given that most groupers are assholes, in my experience, I'd play solo even if it was more difficult to do so, just to avoid playing with those morons. Sure I can group in a solo friendly game, but it would be more difficult overall. It would take longer to find players or find a group, you might have to deal with idiots (see my other post), maybe you just don't have time to commit, and maybe you just don't want to hassle with other people. And so some people who would normally rather group would wind up just soloing so they could move on and not waste any more time LFG. Eventually people just aren't going to group if they can accomplish the same goals solo. Every game I'm aware of has an LFG setting where people who want to group make their desire known. What you're complaining about is that there aren't enough people who want to group, so you'd rather FORCE people to do it rather than admit that you're using a minority playstyle. WoW doesn't discourage grouping? I'm sorry that you're so blind, but they more than discourage it, they make it difficult. So what, you have to jump through a ring of fire to get on the LFG list? They must have added it in one of the expansions because, at least when I played it for a short time when it first came out, it was just as easy to do as in any other game I've ever played.
The whole purpose of playing a multiplayer game is to play with other people. Everytime I click a multiplayer button on a game, I hate to break it to you, but I pretty much expect to play with multiple players. I'm curious why your so opposed to this satanic idea of people cooperating with each other inside of a video game. What do you think MMORPG-pvp/RvR games are, free for all battles? I'm pretty sure its one team vs another team, as in one group vs another group, horde vs alliance, Order vs Destruction.
Says who? Seriously, I see lots of people declaring the "purpose" of games to be whatever their pet playstyle is, but nobody ever manages to back it up. Exactly which organizing body has officially declared that the "whole purpose" of an MMO is to group with other people? Play with, sure. Be in the same game with, sure. Be a part of a team with and play for a common goal? Nope, sorry, don't see it.
Originally posted by Kyleran I cannot agree with you. I am simply not wired to consider that to be fun for an extended period. I don't mind doing simlar things for an extended period as long as there is enough of a variety in those tasks. As soon as those tasks become too alike, I get bored within 15-30 minutes. So camping the same spawn or type of spawn for an extended period puts me to sleep. I'll do it in spurts and then go do something else till I get 'unbored'. The thing about the 'endless quests' is that there is usually enough variety in them to keep me interested for a much longer time. A new area will present a new challenge, there is a new twist to a quest formula, the mobs have new abilities I have to learn, etc. One thing I really like about MMOs is that I can socialize with other people while still doing things on my own. AS such I do not see the logic in doing a boring task simply to socialize while I can socialize with the same people while doing something I enjoy. Now, if those people do not want to keep socializing with me once we are not doign the same task then it was just filler socializing and all they wanted to do was socialize with someone rather than me in particualar. The idea that you need to convince people to do unfun, boring activities just so they can socaialized is to me ludicrous and backwards. The solution is for the game designers to add in more ways where socializing enhances a fun game experience rather than replacing it.
But see, I find most MMO activities unfun for the most part unless there is some social interaction to it. The issue goes beyond simply the fact you do a quests. People fail to realize the "benefit" the timesinks of the old games gave players from a social perspective.
Taking 3-5 minutes to rest up between fights, or long travel times with not a lot of actual manic acitvity gave players a lot of time to chat and enjoy themselves.
Its hard to explain, but in the end it was lots more fun than I ever realized and I guess I'm just an anchronistic dinosaur since I enjoyed them.
The thing that bafles me is why do you need downtimes to chat with other people and socialize? If you want to chat and socialize, you simply pause what you are doing and be social. It's not like if you stop 'playing' the game while chatting then you stop breathing or something. If an interesting conversation comes up in chat that I want to join in, I will park my character in a safe spot and chat. I actually cannot do that while grouped since I am holding back people. So to me downtimes only promote socializing in while grouped. They are needed to compensate for the fact that grouping will discourage ad-hoc socializing unless a socially acceptable 'recess' is programmed in.
Without downtimes people in groups will not socialize with each other, in fact, in almost every modern game even when you are grouped very little conversation takes place, and once the task at hand ends the group disbands and you're likely to never hear from people again. Voice coms allow people to chat with their guild mates and keep playing, but even then you are frequently "shusshed" from speaking during an "important" raid or whatever. Grinding might have been mindless, but in many ways, it was more entertaining from a social perspective.
I guess you had to be there. In games like early DAOC people in PUGs really got to know each other, for better or worse, and it really was a pleasant experience for the most part. Waiting for everyones mana to come back to top, or heal up was a curse to a soloer of course, but to a group it added a pause that encouraged people to talk (or text) with each other.
Again, if you didn't experience it (and enjoy it) there's no way for me to really explain it to you. I'm sure many other folks here do however and that's why you see threads on the topic so often.
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
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"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
One major issue with grouping is the way loot is portioned out. In WoW, your group could run a dungeon to the end (incurring repair bills from a couple of wipes) only to have one or even no upgrades drop for the characters. That will cure a lot of people of grouping pretty fast.
Warhammer has world drops of 'repairable' gear which turn into class-appropriate items for whoever has it repaired at a vendor. Great idea. Too bad they totally ignore that system for dungeons drops. The PQs drop loot bags which give the winner a choice of items to pick one. Another good idea. That is the sort of drop that dungeon bosses should drop. Not to mention a bag for EVERY character in the group.
Yup, Warhammer really does have some good ideas hidden amongst the bugs and bad performance.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Yet WoW or any other game doesn't discourage it either. You *CAN* group the whole way to max cap if you want to, nothing is stopping you. What you're complaining about is that EVERYONE ELSE isn't forced to play YOUR way.
There's nothing whatsoever stopping you from finding a group of people who likewise want to group and playing as a group through any content in the game. Stop pretending there is.
Originally posted by heremypet
It's not that simple, people tend to take the path of least resistance. That is what is stopping people, there is no make believe about it.
People play the way they want to play. Personally, given that most groupers are assholes, in my experience, I'd play solo even if it was more difficult to do so, just to avoid playing with those morons.
I'm sorry that you don't like / get along with people, but that is your problem.
Sure I can group in a solo friendly game, but it would be more difficult overall. It would take longer to find players or find a group, you might have to deal with idiots (see my other post), maybe you just don't have time to commit, and maybe you just don't want to hassle with other people. And so some people who would normally rather group would wind up just soloing so they could move on and not waste any more time LFG. Eventually people just aren't going to group if they can accomplish the same goals solo.
Every game I'm aware of has an LFG setting where people who want to group make their desire known. What you're complaining about is that there aren't enough people who want to group, so you'd rather FORCE people to do it rather than admit that you're using a minority playstyle.
No, I'm saying that your claim of there being nothing to stop people from grouping is false.
WoW doesn't discourage grouping? I'm sorry that you're so blind, but they more than discourage it, they make it difficult.
So what, you have to jump through a ring of fire to get on the LFG list? They must have added it in one of the expansions because, at least when I played it for a short time when it first came out, it was just as easy to do as in any other game I've ever played.
Then I'll give you 3 months in which to assemble a full group of people to hunt in the barrens, and doubt that you would succeed.
No, it's just incredibly misunderstood by grouping-advocates. It means MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, which is satisfied by having lots of players around. We are not playing MGRPGs, no one has yet come up with a MASSIVELY GROUPING game because it would be a complete failure.
Like it or not, MMOs are not grouping-specific, they never have been and they never will be. Stop trying to pretend they ought to be something that they clearly never have been.
FFXI was a failure? Oh yea, it never even existed according to you. Neither did EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, and a whole list of others.
AO was never a grouping game, I rarely ever grouped with anyone there and I leveled to max cap many times.
If you really want to understand what is going wrong with mmo communities all you need to do is look a real life. When greed becomes the measuring factor of how far you can go people will act like @$$holes, cheat, promotes eliteism which creates clicks and turns off normal mmo gamers to name a few.
Also the way group content is so hard coded promotes the same kind of elitest thought. If you cant' benefit me you are a liability so not worth my time. Adding someone maybe not as strong or as skilled as you lessens your piese of the pie.
The way group content is designed is it's own worst enemy and creates the need for solo content.
You turn mmos basically into a online high school and you're shocked that a lot of people just want to be left alone. You people really need to get a clue. If you want to fix the problem fix the cause don't blame the end result.
If you really want to understand what is going wrong with mmo communities all you need to do is look a real life. When greed becomes the measuring factor of how far you can go people will act like @$$holes, cheat, promotes eliteism which creates clicks and turns off normal mmo gamers to name a few.
Also the way group content is so hard coded promotes the same kind of elitest thought. If you cant' benefit me you are a liability so not worth my time. Adding someone maybe not as strong or as skilled as you lessens your piese of the pie.
The way group content is designed is it's own worst enemy and creates the need for solo content.
You turn mmos basically into a online high school and you're shocked that a lot of people just want to be left alone. You people really need to get a clue. If you want to fix the problem fix the cause don't blame the end result.
I doubt anyone here would attempt to take on the monster known as human greed. Unfortunately there's nothing we can do about that here. But I do believe that if players were made to rely on each other in a group based MMO, then grouping would work much more smoothly. To simply include grouping as an option is what you describe, and IMO doesn't really work
Originally posted by Torik But see, I find most MMO activities unfun for the most part unless there is some social interaction to it. The issue goes beyond simply the fact you do a quests. People fail to realize the "benefit" the timesinks of the old games gave players from a social perspective. Taking 3-5 minutes to rest up between fights, or long travel times with not a lot of actual manic acitvity gave players a lot of time to chat and enjoy themselves. Its hard to explain, but in the end it was lots more fun than I ever realized and I guess I'm just an anchronistic dinosaur since I enjoyed them.
The thing that bafles me is why do you need downtimes to chat with other people and socialize? If you want to chat and socialize, you simply pause what you are doing and be social. It's not like if you stop 'playing' the game while chatting then you stop breathing or something. If an interesting conversation comes up in chat that I want to join in, I will park my character in a safe spot and chat. I actually cannot do that while grouped since I am holding back people. So to me downtimes only promote socializing in while grouped. They are needed to compensate for the fact that grouping will discourage ad-hoc socializing unless a socially acceptable 'recess' is programmed in.
Without downtimes people in groups will not socialize with each other, in fact, in almost every modern game even when you are grouped very little conversation takes place, and once the task at hand ends the group disbands and you're likely to never hear from people again. Voice coms allow people to chat with their guild mates and keep playing, but even then you are frequently "shusshed" from speaking during an "important" raid or whatever. Grinding might have been mindless, but in many ways, it was more entertaining from a social perspective.
I guess you had to be there. In games like early DAOC people in PUGs really got to know each other, for better or worse, and it really was a pleasant experience for the most part. Waiting for everyones mana to come back to top, or heal up was a curse to a soloer of course, but to a group it added a pause that encouraged people to talk (or text) with each other.
Again, if you didn't experience it (and enjoy it) there's no way for me to really explain it to you. I'm sure many other folks here do however and that's why you see threads on the topic so often.
That's exactly my point. The problem is not with soloing but because grouping is flawed. When I socialize while soloing it is because I enjoy socializing. When downtimes force people to socialize in groups it is because there is nothing better to do and they might as well socialize as a last resort. I guess I just prefer quality over quantity.
Without downtimes people in groups will not socialize with each other, in fact, in almost every modern game even when you are grouped very little conversation takes place, and once the task at hand ends the group disbands and you're likely to never hear from people again. Voice coms allow people to chat with their guild mates and keep playing, but even then you are frequently "shusshed" from speaking during an "important" raid or whatever. Grinding might have been mindless, but in many ways, it was more entertaining from a social perspective.
Even with downtime, I rarely, if ever talked to anyone in PUGs, nor did anyone else. I spent my time talking to guildmates in guild chat and since most grouped content is so boring and repetitive, I'd put myself on follow, stop chatting for long enough to target and attack the next baddie, then go back to chatting.
However, that wasn't socializing as a part of grouping, it was more socializing in spite of grouping.
I'm sorry that you don't like / get along with people, but that is your problem. I get along with people just fine, thanks, but I *PICK* my friends, I don't have them imposed on me. Maybe you ought to give that a shot.
No, I'm saying that your claim of there being nothing to stop people from grouping is false. There is nothing that will stop people who want to group from grouping. If you cannot find other people who want to group, then trying to force it on people who have no interest in it won't improve your situation any.
Then I'll give you 3 months in which to assemble a full group of people to hunt in the barrens, and doubt that you would succeed.
Since I don't play WoW, nor do I have any interest in doing so, no. I could do it easily though since I have many friends who already play and I could just go ask to group. Maybe that's the secret... making friends instead of expecting strangers to group with you. Imagine that.
WoW doesn't discourage grouping? I'm sorry that you're so blind, but they more than discourage it, they make it difficult.
Compared to every other MMO, how is it MORE difficult to find a group in WOW?
If your whole argument is something like "they discourage grouping by making soloing viable", then you have no argument. Its like people saying WOW has no downtime so I can't socialize...ignoring the fact that you can type and talk to people anytime you choose;) If you have to be told to do something or FORCED to do it, you're a zombie=) You can choose to do a dungeon any time. The rewards are better and the expereince of doing it is more challenging and more interesting than soloing. You're just not forced to do it...thank god.
I doubt anyone here would attempt to take on the monster known as human greed. Unfortunately there's nothing we can do about that here. But I do believe that if players were made to rely on each other in a group based MMO, then grouping would work much more smoothly. To simply include grouping as an option is what you describe, and IMO doesn't really work
I think you've actually hit on something, but it's a fundamenal problem with MMOs, not just human greed. In every MMO out there, each player is only out for their own advancement. Even in a group, all anyone cares about is getting their own XP, their own loot, their own gold, etc. The focus of all games is "ME! ME! ME!" Everyone is expected to bring thier own level, their own gear, their own spells, etc. to the table and therefore, improving those things is the imperative upon which all MMOs are based. The reality is, classes are built in most games to be interchangable. Any level X tank should have skills X, Y and Z, they should have armor A and weapon B and if they don't, they'll have a hard time getting a group. Conformity, so that any tank of level X is essentially identical as any other tank of level X, doesn't make anyone give a damn about the individual. Lose your tank? Get on the LFG list and find another one, they're all the same. There's no impetus to find team members that work well together and complement each other since anyone you find is going to fit into the same mold and be just as good as anyone else.
As I've written many times before, so long as everyone in the group is only in it for their own personal advancement, grouping will never "improve", nor should it. All of the plans I've seen for making grouping more attractive have only played into this mindset, give these individuals more individual reward for playing as a group, which doesn't solve the underlying problem.
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No, it's just incredibly misunderstood by grouping-advocates. It means MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, which is satisfied by having lots of players around. We are not playing MGRPGs, no one has yet come up with a MASSIVELY GROUPING game because it would be a complete failure.
Like it or not, MMOs are not grouping-specific, they never have been and they never will be. Stop trying to pretend they ought to be something that they clearly never have been.
FFXI was a failure? Oh yea, it never even existed according to you. Neither did EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, and a whole list of others.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
Except, at least in my experience, there are far more idiots than there are good team players. If you filter out the idiots, it'll be even harder to find a team than it is today and most people will say the hell with it and solo.
Because any idiot can succeed in a M'solo'ORPG, and soloers have no reputation, is there an ehco in here?
Assuming you mean moron by idiot, and not just someone who is unfamiliar with the content.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
To be honest, I love games that give you the option to Solo. I can play at my own pace, I can be as greedy as I want with what drops. But, I do also like grouping. Most MMOs I see never seem to encourage grouping, they seem to only give it benefits or force you into it. Grouping for something that just "benefits" people, it kinda feels fake. It's rather hard to explain.
I been waiting for a game that "encourages" grouping not forces or gives benefits. Probably why I am looking forward to ToR. Grouping end game may or may not be required, that is unclear. But group leveling is encouraged without benefit or being forced. You are encouraged to group with friends and play through a story, that will change both of your characters. And to "me" that is the grouping experience I'm looking for.
What is "community"? What is it made up of in a MMORPG context? Allow me.
"community" - The amount of players currently engaged in or the quality of:
Interaction
Chat
Forums
Trade
Socialization
Meeting new people
Making Friends
Helping others or getting help from others
For the original statement to be true, then "community" can be measured before and after the addition of said "solo content".
Assume that one player engages in the new "solo content" instead of his normal activity within "community"
Would the value of "community" decrease?
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
No, it's just incredibly misunderstood by grouping-advocates. It means MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, which is satisfied by having lots of players around. We are not playing MGRPGs, no one has yet come up with a MASSIVELY GROUPING game because it would be a complete failure.
Like it or not, MMOs are not grouping-specific, they never have been and they never will be. Stop trying to pretend they ought to be something that they clearly never have been.
The whole purpose of playing a multiplayer game is to play with other people. Everytime I click a multiplayer button on a game, I hate to break it to you, but I pretty much expect to play with multiple players. I'm curious why your so opposed to this satanic idea of people cooperating with each other inside of a video game. What do you think MMORPG-pvp/RvR games are, free for all battles? I'm pretty sure its one team vs another team, as in one group vs another group, horde vs alliance, Order vs Destruction.
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I find the argument that making the game boring so folks will socialize more a recipe for MMO bankruptcy. If the game is boring, they simply won't play it. Why spend good money to be so bored that you have to chat in order to stay awake? Heck, Second Life is free and it works great for exactly that-- chatting and socializing. So why pay?
The reason games are going away from group based content is that it is a limiting way to play for many people for many reasons, and those people will simply opt to not play at all rather than be forced to play a way that is not fun for them. In short, Solo = more subscriptions and/or item mall purchases.
The reasons range from not wanting to deal with asshats to differences in the pace one plays at, and a whole host of other reasons to boot. For example, I am the type who reads the quests, picks all the plants, mines the ore, fishes, stares at the scenery, grinds every mob & etc. If I group, I can't do that because there is at least one person who wants to play "faster" than me. This does not make that player bad or a jerk, it just makes him incompatible with my playstyle, and me with his.
The successful MMO will be one that offers and equally rewards multiple play styles and be one that makes transitioning between those styles painless, and even *gasp* fun. So far, WoW is the only one who has come close, and even it falls short, for everyone feels jaded someway (Soloers complain about restricted content, raiders whine about devalued awards, etc).
To me, the trick would be to lure the folks in solo, then show them how much fun grouping can be so that they want to do it. So far, MMO's have been full of epic fail in this regards. Sure, they lure in the solo player, then force him to group in the end, and do nothing to make it fun, so the soloer feels ripped off while the groupers get their communities shredded by disenchanted players.
The true fact is that the reasons groups don't form is not from to the availability of solo content, but due to a very simple and painful truth to the pro grouping crowd: They don't want to play with you! And no amount of group forcing will change that. Only when grouping becomes a fun, flexible and a viable play option that does not destroy or devalue other modes of play will that change.
I cant remember when was my last pleasurable grouping experience.
What I do know is that at some point in my gaming experience I started to see the game as numbers and logic, a mechanicist view of the MMORPGs, alla Descartes.
The worlds didnt offered enough exploration,
the Lore and Story werent compelling enough,
the ever increasing number of games offering the same thing, ultimatelly reducing the appeal of each other,
the focus on combat, acquisition of power and vertical progression,
I started to see through the quests as we all know them to be: procedurally generated uninspired repetitive tasks.
the exagerated focus on controlling balance, progression, scaleability, established classes, end game.
the notion of grind as journey... at some point the quality level dropped so much that I couldnt care anymore and started to evaluate things by what they are... time and effort spent in the consecution of power, that was all thats left...
I dont think I will ever be able to see MMORPGs with the same eyes and be able to enjoy grouping again.
Its like the lost of innocence, can we ever get it back?
I tend to relate all the dawns of modern MMORPGs with the fact that our genre and communities evolved from the Everquest school of thought, instead of the Ultima Online school of thought. Its a concept Ive been thinking for a long time now.
I admit that I myself am very much torn between the two ideas.
On the one hand in the early EQ2 - and even in the late in some ways - I was suffering because I had no time for active guilding, and the solo quests of EQ2 were the most BORING and mind numbing quests! I only say "Beetle Herding"! Still makes me shudder. On the other hand in LOTRO soloing you can see tons and tons of cool quests, wonderful storylines and cool loot/rewards.
On the other hand when people CAN solo, most will. That is where I am different. I solo because no one wants me, so to speak. Often enough I try to find a group, and everytime some smartass answers me "you can solo that".
This not so cool gap is especially rampant in LOTRO. (Can't say about WOW, I was only a short time there, but friends told me the same about WOW.) There is a gap between the gear of soloers and e-sports-like gaming professionals. These days I finally wanted to do Radiance inis in LOTRO, just to see the places and fight the mobs, not for any real interest in uber gear. And you know what I heard the most: with THAT gear and no experience before and THAT stats you are not gonna be invited!
Thank you very much. And its what friends of mine told me about WOW as well. I mean, whoa, wth? SInce when became a hobby some kind of battle for the best? Some sort of 2nd job? Its like: you don't get into those groups without gear and experience and you dont get experience and gear without getting into those instances. Its becoming a little bit of a LOTRO rant, but similar experiences cover all my MMO days. EQ2 was basically just the same just a bit different.
Now looking at Champions, they try to enforce grouping by making chars weak, and I think WTF? Why cant anyone make grouping enjoying so people WANT to group and not penalize people and forcing them the negative way? As a casual gamer who has usually no monthly schedule for his MMO I always felt like a 2nd rate gamer. How this can be remedied is not entirely clear to me, tho.
But see, I find most MMO activities unfun for the most part unless there is some social interaction to it. The issue goes beyond simply the fact you do a quests. People fail to realize the "benefit" the timesinks of the old games gave players from a social perspective.
Taking 3-5 minutes to rest up between fights, or long travel times with not a lot of actual manic acitvity gave players a lot of time to chat and enjoy themselves.
Its hard to explain, but in the end it was lots more fun than I ever realized and I guess I'm just an anchronistic dinosaur since I enjoyed them.
The thing that bafles me is why do you need downtimes to chat with other people and socialize? If you want to chat and socialize, you simply pause what you are doing and be social. It's not like if you stop 'playing' the game while chatting then you stop breathing or something. If an interesting conversation comes up in chat that I want to join in, I will park my character in a safe spot and chat. I actually cannot do that while grouped since I am holding back people. So to me downtimes only promote socializing while grouped. They are needed to compensate for the fact that grouping will discourage ad-hoc socializing unless a socially acceptable 'recess' is programmed in.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
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AO was never a grouping game, I rarely ever grouped with anyone there and I leveled to max cap many times.
Try again.
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Says who? Seriously, I see lots of people declaring the "purpose" of games to be whatever their pet playstyle is, but nobody ever manages to back it up. Exactly which organizing body has officially declared that the "whole purpose" of an MMO is to group with other people? Play with, sure. Be in the same game with, sure. Be a part of a team with and play for a common goal? Nope, sorry, don't see it.
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But see, I find most MMO activities unfun for the most part unless there is some social interaction to it. The issue goes beyond simply the fact you do a quests. People fail to realize the "benefit" the timesinks of the old games gave players from a social perspective.
Taking 3-5 minutes to rest up between fights, or long travel times with not a lot of actual manic acitvity gave players a lot of time to chat and enjoy themselves.
Its hard to explain, but in the end it was lots more fun than I ever realized and I guess I'm just an anchronistic dinosaur since I enjoyed them.
The thing that bafles me is why do you need downtimes to chat with other people and socialize? If you want to chat and socialize, you simply pause what you are doing and be social. It's not like if you stop 'playing' the game while chatting then you stop breathing or something. If an interesting conversation comes up in chat that I want to join in, I will park my character in a safe spot and chat. I actually cannot do that while grouped since I am holding back people. So to me downtimes only promote socializing in while grouped. They are needed to compensate for the fact that grouping will discourage ad-hoc socializing unless a socially acceptable 'recess' is programmed in.
Without downtimes people in groups will not socialize with each other, in fact, in almost every modern game even when you are grouped very little conversation takes place, and once the task at hand ends the group disbands and you're likely to never hear from people again. Voice coms allow people to chat with their guild mates and keep playing, but even then you are frequently "shusshed" from speaking during an "important" raid or whatever. Grinding might have been mindless, but in many ways, it was more entertaining from a social perspective.
I guess you had to be there. In games like early DAOC people in PUGs really got to know each other, for better or worse, and it really was a pleasant experience for the most part. Waiting for everyones mana to come back to top, or heal up was a curse to a soloer of course, but to a group it added a pause that encouraged people to talk (or text) with each other.
Again, if you didn't experience it (and enjoy it) there's no way for me to really explain it to you. I'm sure many other folks here do however and that's why you see threads on the topic so often.
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One major issue with grouping is the way loot is portioned out. In WoW, your group could run a dungeon to the end (incurring repair bills from a couple of wipes) only to have one or even no upgrades drop for the characters. That will cure a lot of people of grouping pretty fast.
Warhammer has world drops of 'repairable' gear which turn into class-appropriate items for whoever has it repaired at a vendor. Great idea. Too bad they totally ignore that system for dungeons drops. The PQs drop loot bags which give the winner a choice of items to pick one. Another good idea. That is the sort of drop that dungeon bosses should drop. Not to mention a bag for EVERY character in the group.
Yup, Warhammer really does have some good ideas hidden amongst the bugs and bad performance.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
Who are you trying to fool? yourself?
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
If you really want to understand what is going wrong with mmo communities all you need to do is look a real life. When greed becomes the measuring factor of how far you can go people will act like @$$holes, cheat, promotes eliteism which creates clicks and turns off normal mmo gamers to name a few.
Also the way group content is so hard coded promotes the same kind of elitest thought. If you cant' benefit me you are a liability so not worth my time. Adding someone maybe not as strong or as skilled as you lessens your piese of the pie.
The way group content is designed is it's own worst enemy and creates the need for solo content.
You turn mmos basically into a online high school and you're shocked that a lot of people just want to be left alone. You people really need to get a clue. If you want to fix the problem fix the cause don't blame the end result.
I doubt anyone here would attempt to take on the monster known as human greed. Unfortunately there's nothing we can do about that here. But I do believe that if players were made to rely on each other in a group based MMO, then grouping would work much more smoothly. To simply include grouping as an option is what you describe, and IMO doesn't really work
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
The thing that bafles me is why do you need downtimes to chat with other people and socialize? If you want to chat and socialize, you simply pause what you are doing and be social. It's not like if you stop 'playing' the game while chatting then you stop breathing or something. If an interesting conversation comes up in chat that I want to join in, I will park my character in a safe spot and chat. I actually cannot do that while grouped since I am holding back people. So to me downtimes only promote socializing in while grouped. They are needed to compensate for the fact that grouping will discourage ad-hoc socializing unless a socially acceptable 'recess' is programmed in.
Without downtimes people in groups will not socialize with each other, in fact, in almost every modern game even when you are grouped very little conversation takes place, and once the task at hand ends the group disbands and you're likely to never hear from people again. Voice coms allow people to chat with their guild mates and keep playing, but even then you are frequently "shusshed" from speaking during an "important" raid or whatever. Grinding might have been mindless, but in many ways, it was more entertaining from a social perspective.
I guess you had to be there. In games like early DAOC people in PUGs really got to know each other, for better or worse, and it really was a pleasant experience for the most part. Waiting for everyones mana to come back to top, or heal up was a curse to a soloer of course, but to a group it added a pause that encouraged people to talk (or text) with each other.
Again, if you didn't experience it (and enjoy it) there's no way for me to really explain it to you. I'm sure many other folks here do however and that's why you see threads on the topic so often.
That's exactly my point. The problem is not with soloing but because grouping is flawed. When I socialize while soloing it is because I enjoy socializing. When downtimes force people to socialize in groups it is because there is nothing better to do and they might as well socialize as a last resort. I guess I just prefer quality over quantity.
Even with downtime, I rarely, if ever talked to anyone in PUGs, nor did anyone else. I spent my time talking to guildmates in guild chat and since most grouped content is so boring and repetitive, I'd put myself on follow, stop chatting for long enough to target and attack the next baddie, then go back to chatting.
However, that wasn't socializing as a part of grouping, it was more socializing in spite of grouping.
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Nah, you're making a big enough fool of yourself already. Or do you honestly think that AO isn't a primarily-solo game?
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Compared to every other MMO, how is it MORE difficult to find a group in WOW?
If your whole argument is something like "they discourage grouping by making soloing viable", then you have no argument. Its like people saying WOW has no downtime so I can't socialize...ignoring the fact that you can type and talk to people anytime you choose;) If you have to be told to do something or FORCED to do it, you're a zombie=) You can choose to do a dungeon any time. The rewards are better and the expereince of doing it is more challenging and more interesting than soloing. You're just not forced to do it...thank god.
I think you've actually hit on something, but it's a fundamenal problem with MMOs, not just human greed. In every MMO out there, each player is only out for their own advancement. Even in a group, all anyone cares about is getting their own XP, their own loot, their own gold, etc. The focus of all games is "ME! ME! ME!" Everyone is expected to bring thier own level, their own gear, their own spells, etc. to the table and therefore, improving those things is the imperative upon which all MMOs are based. The reality is, classes are built in most games to be interchangable. Any level X tank should have skills X, Y and Z, they should have armor A and weapon B and if they don't, they'll have a hard time getting a group. Conformity, so that any tank of level X is essentially identical as any other tank of level X, doesn't make anyone give a damn about the individual. Lose your tank? Get on the LFG list and find another one, they're all the same. There's no impetus to find team members that work well together and complement each other since anyone you find is going to fit into the same mold and be just as good as anyone else.
As I've written many times before, so long as everyone in the group is only in it for their own personal advancement, grouping will never "improve", nor should it. All of the plans I've seen for making grouping more attractive have only played into this mindset, give these individuals more individual reward for playing as a group, which doesn't solve the underlying problem.
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