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WoW successful before it catered to Solo players
sludgebeard
Member RarePosts: 788
Why does no one ever talk about that? People act like WoW day 1 was completely centers around the solo player.
The Truth: you still needed a group to kill Hogger, one of the first bosses in the open world portion of the game. A tank to hold his damage, a caster or DPS to deal damage, and someone else to get the adds.
Yet people act like WoWs success came from being a 100% solo game, like it totes now. Back when I first played groups were a damn necessity to get that "extra content". Hell there was even that level 6 frost troll in the dwarf starting area, you know the one up on that mountain with the bloody bones out in front of the cave. Unless you were way higher level you absolutely could not solo that thing, and the quest reward was awesome just for getting a couple other adventurers together to kill it.
Don't get me wrong, WoWs mega-success came from the continued solo-aimed developement, but it still reached the number 1 spot with a hefty amount of group content. And again it wasnt "forced" it was always out in the deep woods or In a dark cave somewhere waiting for someone to accept the danger and challenge it. That's what it really was, it was a challenge, that felt rewarding if you accepts it.
Comments
awwww... i miss WoW!
Sz
I honestly do too. Not WoW as it is now, but as it was originally developed. At the time I had just gotten over SWG, and WoW was everything that game wasn't. Polished, focused, and fun.
I even loved the original BG's because PVP raids were still the best way to get HP. The ability to interact with other players was advantageous, yet I still could go out on my own and be a solo badass anytime I wanted.
You still need groups for dungeons, pvp, raids and even scenarios. That's a lot of group content
WoW was made day one to be the casual friendly version of Everquest.
The first MMO you loved will always be the best. You will never get that feeling back stop trying.
You sir seem ignorant of how the game was played during Vanilla WoW. Almost half of the games actual content for the first year was actually in the open world. There were instances and raids. But that wasn't the focus of the game as it is now. A large focus was on open world fights, encounters, and PvP. Where there was no structure beyond what the players set for themselves. The area surrounding Black Rock Spire was an open world extravaganza when I was playing. You could log on and never even go into an instance and enjoy the game with other people doing self-organized world PvP while trying to do quests and rep/drop grind all while just trying to make it to an instance for a single run. Because the very act of getting to an instance was an accomplishment since the game world was so much more alive. Now...you just click que for group solo and get tossed into the instance that might be on another world entirely. Never say a word to anyone because you've all done the instance a few hundred times since there's nothing stopping you from doing it as many times as you can get a group across 10+ servers of others looking to do it.
WoW catered to solo players from day one. To pretend that it didnt' is just revisionist history. Yes it caters to solo players more now than it did on launch, but it was still very very solo friendly.
Actually the "group" content is laughable at best. So far dungeons can be 3 manned. Course this is mostly due to Blizz in their infinate wisdom have people in fully upgraded SoO gear to not have replacements until about high 90s, practically the entire expansion. Even the "group" quests are easily soloable.
I remember back in vanilla and TBC where you needed actual trinity to complete come quests and there was real threat. WoD's only threat is massive respawns and your low on health. WoW has turned into more of a OMG than an MMO.
I'll likely not even make it to the raids in WoD as so far the game feels like a single player game with multiplayer features. I wanted to play an game where people would play together and not in instances nor facerolling through the content.
And I wholeheartedly agree with the OP, the challenge is long gone in WoW and I do very much miss it.
Agreed.
I never bought WoW but did trial as long as 8 years ago and it was pretty solo play friendly back then too. The trial has a level 20 cap and I was there in less than a week without even as much as talking to anyone.
It's been about 6 years since WoW had meaningful non-instanced content, what are you doing still giving them money?
In regards to the OP: In 2004 there was vastly less competition than there is now, and WoW brought with it a huge following from the popular RTS games. To pick out one individual attribute of vanilla WoW and saying that it says anything about the success of WoW is fairly nonsensical. For example vanilla WoW had 40 man raiding as the pinnacle of it's content, that doesn't mean 40 man raiding was responsible for it's success or that a game built around 40 man raiding could be successful now.
You'd be forced to group especially for the harder quests. Heck, if you used lvl 1 weapons and lvl 1 characters, you'd probably have to form a raid to kill Hogger. That's what you want, right?
Please. Anyone who claims a game is 'too easy' or 'too solo centric' is just stroking their own ego.
If you want to group then group.
If you a harder game then make it harder.
The reason games have become 'too easy' and 'too solo centric' is because nobody wants to play with live-with-mom, you should be forced to group with me, raging bad ass.
Congratulations on being able to 3-man all the new dungeons. I can't do that. You're a much better player than I am. You win, well played sir!
Now I am going to go back to being bad in my bad games designed for bads, okay? Good luck to you on your adventures.
wait doesnt GW2 also have a lot of grouping from low level to high level?
that didnt change a thing though right?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
People use their heirlooms and run through stuff and then scratch their head on why the game offers no challenge. Dumbos one and all.They overpower themselves and take away all the challenge and cannot even understand why the game has gone stale and they keep leaving after awhile. If you do not use such overpowered gear you would be forced to use tactics but absolutely no one does. Therefore the game has become solo because of the way people play it.
I remember back in vanilla how it used to be and grouping all the time to do stuff even level now I am even afraid to go back. Afraid that all of what is left of WoW the memories will get soured too. Not that I have not gone back and left a couple of times but still ,am still interested in going back in spite of it all. A drug indeed is this game the memories just have a life of its own telling me this time it will better.
in my eyes you are the raging one.....to suggest that anyone would gimp themself is stupid.....but the thing you get to say indirectly, is really that you want a I win button, which is as stupid as what you suggest.
the difficulty of content....well personally I prefered it when it were slow enough for chatting...mainly due to the less experienced gamers, usually have been those Ive enjoyed spending my time with.
and just imo....there is no adventure in grinding instances.
For most players WoW is not about the leveling anymore, its about endgame and in endgame content both Pve AND pVp You cant do swat withouth being grouped or among friends or guildies.. WoW in its final itteration is far from solo friendly..
Even when leveling a new character, people use the LFG tool and almost allways group till max level...
The only time the majorrity of people plays solo is when they are leveling in a new expansion pack, thats once every 2 years. and the first 15 levels of a new character... Most of the old world zones are pretty much abbandoned... And so very good for soloing, imagine you where playing some storie quests and for every boss you needed to find other people, that would be horriblke in a ten year old game like WoW...
if it was up to me, they could close down level 1 to 90 and let everyone start at 90..... and the refurnrish the older content to something accessible and fun for all level 100s... A huge world to explore at level 100, with some alternate advancement system and yes.... some group based content in the open world... that way the old vanilla feeling would be back, and a whole lot of current day players hasnt seen half the stories available ib the old pre WoD worlds.
The new content is great, there are several worldbosses requiring small groups... and for the rest very solo friendly
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
If you have to do that to get any challenge then the game is stupidly broken.
Anyone that thinks this is good design needs their head examined.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
I somewhat agree with, Hogger was a beast to conquer.
Blizz should add more group and guild quests.
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In my opinion, Blizzard should allow wow to be competitive again as well since the competition aspect in both pve and pvp appeals to a mass of gamers.
Thing is, as long as people can inspect your build to start, it will never be competitive again since people can steal your build. This was 1 of the things I hated most about wow after the burning crusade that made me leave.
The game was just dumbed down too much and unfortunately, this continued till the game was unplayable for me.
Oh btw, I agree that making the game soloable removed the competitve element as well.
I gotta agree with that point and have to say raids at 10 man is the very minimum that should be allowed. Perhaps 25 man is too much but it should at least go from 10 to 20.
Why? Because it actually forces you to put effort into your game play experience?
Crying about the difficulty of a game being too easy is a terrible complaint. It's the one problem that you can fix by putting in 5 seconds worth of effort. But people do not want to put in effort into affecting their own experience. They expect the game to do that for them. Which is extremely ironic given their entire complaint is that the game doesn't force them to put enough effort into it in the first place.
When a game developer says that people don't actually know what they really want, they are right. People come to the forums and complain about linear questing, hand holding, and not enough difficulty. Yet when you suggest to them they set their own goals and work towards them in their own manner, they get defensive. They call you out and tell you that you need your head examined. They attack the game and say it's not as good as it used to be or say that it's stupidly broken. When in all actuality they're just lazy gamers who don't want to put any effort in.
Remember all old school MMOs used to be MUDS and before that, tabletops. You had to make every adventure, story line, and quest for yourself back then. People seemed to enjoy that quite well. People would find that they'd actually enjoy it now too if they spent the time to do it. But again, this is the newer generation. Why do something yourself when you can complain and complain and complain until somebody else does it for you....
To add to that ..as was SWG.... all along.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Ludwik has it right. I also agree with the stroking their ego part, strikes at the source of many of these threads, not just the symptoms.
The game should not be designed so people are forced to group just to play. You should be forced into grouping to advance beyond the 'Normal' level. WoW does it with loot and Dungeon/Raid progression.
I played WoW at launch, was in the top 3 to hit max level on my server, I did it 100%solo. After I was done with that, I grouped while farming the Onyxia keys, UBRS key, and then raided Molten Core.
Well, on behalf of WoW i need to say that they try to prevent players from making their solo game challenging, you cant do any quests more then 3 levels above your own level....... For someone like me thats allways challenging himself with fighting as high as possible stufff, i need to say that WoW prevents this with stupid rules... Not only the 3 level rule, but also the gear level requirement nowerdays to enter group content..
These days you would not be allowed to raid molten core withouth having a full set of onyxia gear...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I don't. Not trying to be a dick, but if Wow was still how it was in Vanilla, I would quit. The grouping was the biggest pain in the ass on the planet. Finding a group in chat usually took at least 30 mins. Getting the entire group to the god dammed location usually took another 30 mins or so. Then... at least one bastard would leave the group for one reason or another, leaving a hole that had to be filled and then additional time to get the new bastard to the dungeon. I remember many nights where we basically ran one dungeon the entire night.
I had a bit more time back then in 2004. I created my son in 2007 and with my career now, there's no way in the living hell I would every have that kind of time again to sit around and wait to get a group. I think when a lot of people think back, they only remember the good things. Horse Shit. There was a lot that needed to be changed.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I actually miss open-world group encounters.
Many quests used to require groups to kill elites, but they are really few now.
I understand why they took them out though. As the game aged, it was a pain to find a group, because people were just leveling alts, and skipped group content because it slowed them down. This happened in other MMOs too.
One of the many things that i liked about GW2, was that you didn't need to waste time looking for more people. People naturally congregate around the group content. I'm surprised most MMOs don't do this. I know that Rift does, and i think Tera.
Barring the occasional quest that was flagged (5-man), WOW was quite solo friendly back in the day. Yes, it has gotten worse over time, but the fundamental accessibility of WOW has not changed: Anyone can play the game with relative ease.
If WOW was "difficult" like Everquest was; it wouldn't be as successful as it is today.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring