Regarding the negative connotation some are giving to forced grouping, which is unjustified.
Many places in real life force you to group. Trains, subways, schools, restaurants, movie theathers, theme parks, work...all of these places force you to get along with people and to behave in a certain way.
There is nothing wrong with this, there is nothing wrong with an environment forcing people to interact and get along, in fact it is in all of those places that socialising happens.
So when I'm in town using the swift travel/auction house/food vendors I'm actually doing group content as there is other players around?
I don't class what you state as group activities. I like group activities with organization and team work.
No, since no interaction happens with other players, however, when you would trade from player to player and direct interaction does happen, as was the case in Everquest which didn't have an auction house, you are part of a community.
Regarding the negative connotation some are giving to forced grouping, which is unjustified.
Many places in real life force you to group. Trains, subways, schools, restaurants, movie theathers, theme parks, work...all of these places force you to get along with people and to behave in a certain way.
There is nothing wrong with this, there is nothing wrong with an environment forcing people to interact and get along, in fact it is in all of those places that socialising happens.
So when I'm in town using the swift travel/auction house/food vendors I'm actually doing group content as there is other players around?
I don't class what you state as group activities. I like group activities with organization and team work.
No, since no interaction happens with other players, however, when you would trade from player to player and direct interaction does happen, as was the case in Everquest which didn't have an auction house, you are part of a community.
However all those activities you listed that happen in the real world, the human I'm interacting with could easily be replaced by a machine. I don't have to interact at all with another human when I go shopping or go to the cinema. I can use machines.
However all those activities you listed that happen in the real world, the human I'm interacting with could easily be replaced by a machine. I don't have to interact at all with another human when I go shopping or go to the cinema. I can use machines.
That's your choice, you can join a social MMO with a strong community and never talk to anyone.
However, the environment a train creates is far more condicive for social interacton than sitting on your car alone.
That doesn't mean it will happen, but there is nothing wrong with games that create environments that bring about socialising, and forced grouping is one of those tools an MMO can use to promote socialising, it doesn't deserve a negative connotation.
1) Much LARGER Zones that cover a wider range of levels.
When you first enter a zone, you should be able to take ALL the quest. That way when you see someone doing something you can play with them ( no two quest hubs ).
Agreed. However, instead of quests that you grab from quest givers they should just naturally pop up as soon as you enter the area for them. Keep the zones big and give reasons to explore everywhere.
2) Slow leveling.
More people in your level range to make friends with. Gaining levels every hour causes friends to out level each other. This would greatly help Guilds to play together too.
Disagreed. Leveling pace is going to be different regardless of how fast or slow the leveling is. One of the things GW2 did very well was automatic downleveling in lower level zones. If the game must have levels, then the downleveling system in GW2 is best. It keeps content relevant since you can't really out level and/or overpower it.
3) Do away with dynamic events.
This is like poison to mmos....No one talks !
Again Disagree. People who choose to be social will be social, those who want to hide behind their toon and play the game will do that. Having a spirit of cooperation instead of competition within PvE zones will do more to create social opportunities.
4) Make the game harder with some easy content for when you feel like soloing.
Challenging content is present in almost all mmos. Challenging content is a mostly guild activity and is locked away in instances for the most part. Again, those who wish to participate in that content do so. You're not going to promote community by challenge gating most things. Wildstar is an excellent example of how NOT to make "normal" content too challenging. You'll wind up with a dead game.
5) No Looking for Dungeon or cross realm finders.
Yes, encourage players to use social panels, give a good tutorial about this subject. and developer focuse on making it work.
I'm fairly indifferent on this issue. I am a social gamer, I find guilds of like minded people. I have no real use for LFG tools.
6) No story lines and videos.
Were talking about mmos not single player games, if you like 10 min videos then play off line games.
Sorry, this is completely off base. Warlords of Draenor is rife with storylines and various cutscenes for all zones. It's completely refreshing and has made the leveling experience wonderful. The inclusion of story and cutscenes does not make a game less social. It makes a game feel shallow and empty...and not worth playing.
7) Seamless worlds.
This helps.
Most mmos I've played have seamless worlds and have instanced content. Both can exist together. Additionally, it's easier for a developer to create challenging content for instances since certain parameters can be controlled. Lack of controlled parameters can mean that a large enough mob will overpower challenging content by sheer numbers and can avoid most mechanics.
As it stands, every mmo for the past 5 years are made for no community....yet they tell you to play togeather. well that's nice when developers are all sitting next to each other in the SAME ROOM !....THEY HAVE THERE HEAD UP THERE BUTT
It's the community that makes the community. Again, most mmos I have played (I started in 1999 with Asheron's Call and I played MUDs before that) have had reasons for social activities, whether it was challenging content or trading, grouping for dungeons or grouping for xp bonuses. Developers by and large have little effect on community within the game. They can only deliver tools, it's up to the end user to utilize those tools.
At the heart of the debate there is a simple question to ask.. Imagine you are designing an MMO, do you provide more weight to incentivising activities that promote community grouping or do you focus more on solo play?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
However all those activities you listed that happen in the real world, the human I'm interacting with could easily be replaced by a machine. I don't have to interact at all with another human when I go shopping or go to the cinema. I can use machines.
That's your choice, you can join a social MMO with a strong community and never talk to anyone.
However, the environment a train creates is far more condicive for social interacton than sitting on your car alone.
That doesn't mean it will happen, but there is nothing wrong with games that create environments that bring about socialising, and forced grouping is one of those tools an MMO can use to promote socialising, it doesn't deserve a negative connotation.
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done with by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
In EQ you simply couldn't progress with certain classes unless you made a group.
If you took the warrior class, beyond lvl 20 or so, you would die on every mob you tried to solo, unless you grouped you would not progress. And dying solo on mobs had a heavy penalty in EQ. It meant a dangerous corpse run to retrieve your gear.
However, EQ did have some classes that could solo.
But the mere fact that many important classes couldn't solo at all, meant they were forced to engage with other people, it required leaders and people willing to follow.
Helping classes that couldn't solo at all, meant you could take down bigger mobs and have better groups.
I'm a big fan of having essential classes in MMO that can't solo at all. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some classes that can solo.
In EQ you basically had half the classes that could solo, some better than others, and then classes that had a hard time soloing. I'm a fan of this unbalance, I'm a fan of some classes being completely helpless without other classes, when those same classes are essential for raids, you either group and socialise, or don't progress.
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done with by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
In EQ you simply couldn't progress with certain classes unless you made a group.
If you took the warrior class, beyond lvl 20 or so, you would die on every mob you tried to solo, unless you grouped you would not progress.
However, EQ did have some classes that could solo.
But the mere fact that many important classes couldn't solo at all, meant they were forced to engage with other people, it required leaders and people willing to follow.
Helping classes that couldn't solo at all, meant you could take down bigger mobs and have better groups.
I'm a big fan of having essential classes in MMO that can't solo at all. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some classes that can solo.
In EQ you basically had half the classes that could solo, some better than others, and then classes that had a hard time soloing. I'm a fan of this unbalance, I'm a fan of some classes being completely helpless without other classes, when those same classes are essential for raids, you either group and socialise, or don't progress.
I just don't see how that's any different to the group only content we see today. People who want to group/socialize will do group stuff or pick the class that requires a group like in EQ case.
People who want to solo will by pass the group stuff, pick the soloable class.
It's not addressing anything really. It's the same problem. People will complain that no one is playing the group based class and no one is helping and the game is anti social.
I just don't see how that's any different to the group only content we see today. People who want to group/socialize will do group stuff or pick the class that requires a group.
People who want to solo will by pass the group stuff, pick the soloable class.
It's not addressing anything really.
There's a big difference, MMO nowadays split content based on solo or group.
EQ literally split the classes based on solo or group and many of those classes were essential. You either helped lvl up those classes for your raids, or you got nowhere.
Compare that to WoW where pretty much every class has some way to solo.
The warrior class in WoW can solo, in EQ you would die on every single mob past lvl 20 and get a heavy XP and corpse penalty for it if you tried it.
Current MMO don't really force grouping, they at best, encourage it, and many of the classes have become non-essential, in EQ some raids can't even be unlocked without certain classes. You can't start your 54 man GoD raids without a rogue present, since you can't get past the front door, EQ made classes essential, and many of those essential classes could not solo, so you were forced to socialise.
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done with by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
In EQ you simply couldn't progress with certain classes unless you made a group.
If you took the warrior class, beyond lvl 20 or so, you would die on every mob you tried to solo, unless you grouped you would not progress.
However, EQ did have some classes that could solo.
But the mere fact that many important classes couldn't solo at all, meant they were forced to engage with other people, it required leaders and people willing to follow.
Helping classes that couldn't solo at all, meant you could take down bigger mobs and have better groups.
I'm a big fan of having essential classes in MMO that can't solo at all. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some classes that can solo.
That is straight up penalizing and not they way to encourage group play to be honest. Aside from the things in current games that already are promoting group play, here is a few things I'd consider adding.
- Remove level barriers. If I as a lvl 40. teams up with a lvl 5 friend. Both should get equal and fair amount of XP in regards to their respective level.
- Add a significant amount of bonus XP when in a group for killing stuff and for doing quests.
- Increase drop rate for rare loot when in a group.
- Increase item quality for items that are dropped and looted whilst in a group.
- Add more guildspanning achievements and rewards (great items, titles & other vanity stuff)
- Add a rewarding Partner system
Bottom line. Don't force anyone. Guide them, entice them to play with others, and in doing so you create value. The choice should ultimately come down to all individuals and how they want to play.
That is straight up penalizing and not they way to encourage group play to be honest. Aside from the things in current games that already are promoting group play, here is a few things I'd consider adding.
- Remove level barriers. If I as a lvl 40. teams up with a lvl 5 friend. Both should get equal and fair amount of XP in regards to their respective level.
- Add a significant amount of bonus XP when in a group for killing stuff and for doing quests.
- Increase drop rate for rare loot when in a group.
- Increase item quality for items that are dropped and looted whilst in a group.
- Add more guildspanning achievements and rewards (great items, titles & other vanity stuff)
- Add a rewarding Partner system
Bottom line. Don't force anyone. Guide them, entice them to play with others, and in doing so you create value. The choice should ultimately come down to all individuals and how they want to play.
All of those things have been tried and in my eyes, failed.
EQ had group XP bonus, and much better items that dropped, and all of those things current MMO had.
It's not like any of those things on your list haven't been tried before.
-
But yet, current MMO are extremely anti-social, a real community will build when the game is far more aggressive about grouping like EQ was, and that does mean penalizing people who solo more than people who group.
Soloing in EQ was possible, but the price for mistakes was large, int today's MMO, people solo without risk, in fact one of the Archeage complain threads on this general forum was a complaint that bots were soloing Archeage on release. There is no penalty in those games for soloing, there's not enough incentive to group.
That is straight up penalizing and not they way to encourage group play to be honest. Aside from the things in current games that already are promoting group play, here is a few things I'd consider adding.
- Remove level barriers. If I as a lvl 40. teams up with a lvl 5 friend. Both should get equal and fair amount of XP in regards to their respective level.
- Add a significant amount of bonus XP when in a group for killing stuff and for doing quests.
- Increase drop rate for rare loot when in a group.
- Increase item quality for items that are dropped and looted whilst in a group.
- Add more guildspanning achievements and rewards (great items, titles & other vanity stuff)
- Add a rewarding Partner system
Bottom line. Don't force anyone. Guide them, entice them to play with others, and in doing so you create value. The choice should ultimately come down to all individuals and how they want to play.
All of those things have been tried and in my eyes, failed.
EQ had group XP bonus, and all of those things current MMO had.
But yet, current MMO are extremely anti-social, a real community will build when the game is far more aggressive about grouping like EQ was, and that does mean penalizing people who solo more than people who group.
Soloing in EQ was possible, but the price for mistakes was large, int today's MMO, people solo without risk, in fact one of the Archeage complain threads on this general forum was a complaint that bots were soloing Archeage on release. There is no penalty in those games for soloing, there's not enouch incentive to group.
It comes down to what game you want to design. An issue like this is definitely about preference. A common mistake though is believing that people will tolerate a penalizing game structure. Most people don't like being penalized or brutally forced to do stuff.
In times like these, gamers just want to be entertained and have fun. Which I totally respect and I agree with that sentiment. Punishments are not fun. I believe there are lots of already proven things that promotes group play that can be improved. But there is probably even more unknown ways of enticing players to participate in group play.
Originally posted by Bladestrom At the heart of the debate there is a simple question to ask.. Imagine you are designing an MMO, do you provide more weight to incentivising activities that promote community grouping or do you focus more on solo play?
I'll take this one,
I hate to use Vanilla WoW as and example but that and other mmos around this time such as EQ2 then Vanguard nailed it.
Games around this time frame had a good balance of both. Often you never really knew until you tried the quest or mob. It had a lot of trial and error that added to the mystery, this was important for your gamming experience.
1) You had very easy content.
2) Some, were impossible.
3) Some, you had to think out strategy and then possibly it could be done solo.
4) Some, you put your tail between your legs and either got help or waited until you were a little higher.
5) A good mmo would have enough content where you can solo all the way to cap OR run with friends talking only hard stuff. REMEMBER when you only got blues if you ran dungeons or purple if you ran raids ?....But greens you got soloing was ok too. This was made by geniuses.
You just did not know until you tried !
I actually have a much older friend and his wife that played Vanilla WoW and hated fighting or PvP. The husband spent all his time on the auction, fishing and crafting, where his wife played only to chat with here Guild and sometimes do some quest together.....They later made it to 70, 80 and so on, as far as I know they still play to this day...Try to do this in more recent mmos........The content is simply not there, there cheap games !!!!!!
Many places in real life force you to group. Trains, subways, schools, restaurants, movie theathers, theme parks, work...all of these places force you to get along with people and to behave in a certain way.
Video games are not real life. In fact, they are entertainment products to get away from real life. I don't see a problem to take forced grouping away if players don't want it.
Some real life activities are boring too (like waiting in line at a DMV without a smart phone). Do video games have to mimic that too?
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done with by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
In EQ you simply couldn't progress with certain classes unless you made a group.
If you took the warrior class, beyond lvl 20 or so, you would die on every mob you tried to solo, unless you grouped you would not progress. And dying solo on mobs had a heavy penalty in EQ. It meant a dangerous corpse run to retrieve your gear.
However, EQ did have some classes that could solo.
But the mere fact that many important classes couldn't solo at all, meant they were forced to engage with other people, it required leaders and people willing to follow.
Helping classes that couldn't solo at all, meant you could take down bigger mobs and have better groups.
I'm a big fan of having essential classes in MMO that can't solo at all. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some classes that can solo.
In EQ you basically had half the classes that could solo, some better than others, and then classes that had a hard time soloing. I'm a fan of this unbalance, I'm a fan of some classes being completely helpless without other classes, when those same classes are essential for raids, you either group and socialise, or don't progress.
This
Also, even the classes who were decent at soloing had a harder time doing it the closer to max level you got.
A necro could solo very well say in the mid 30's and 40's, once you got into the mid and late 50's, especially in kunark, it was still possible, but not spectacularly efficient.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
What about a game where it was necessary for the entire community to work towards some large server-wide goal? Most people are out for themselves in mmo's. I'm not sure how this could be done, but just doing the same instances over and over is not conducive to a good community, in my opinion.
But yet, current MMO are extremely anti-social, a real community will build when the game is far more aggressive about grouping like EQ was, and that does mean penalizing people who solo more than people who group.
Due to popular demand? If players want to be anti-social in an entertainment product .. what is the problem?
And why should dev force anyone to do anything in a game? Give them the option to group. If no one wants to group ... well ... that is too bad. But the game still serves its purpose if players are having fun solo.
Many places in real life force you to group. Trains, subways, schools, restaurants, movie theathers, theme parks, work...all of these places force you to get along with people and to behave in a certain way.
Video games are not real life. In fact, they are entertainment products to get away from real life. I don't see a problem to take forced grouping away if players don't want it.
Some real life activities are boring too (like waiting in line at a DMV without a smart phone). Do video games have to mimic that too?
I swear man, one day i'm going to carve up a piece of wood or clay or something into a trophy for the Person best able to utilize straw man fallacies on a message board and send it to you. You are definitely the clear winner.
That being said. Since we're taking this to extreme's, Why not just make games where you press a button once and get rewarded. I mean, why have you actually have to walk up to the mob and swing your sword at it half a dozen times. Why not just see it, press a button, and poof it dies, and then you get a big shiny new item for your efforts.
See how the argument is absurd?
Also, entertainment is not = escapism, While they often coincide wth each other, they are not a package deal.
Game of Thrones is a great example. Its brutal, your favorite characters can be killed at any moment. It deals with a lot of adult, depressing themes, yet its the most popular show ever made. Why, because people like to see alternate possibilities of reality. What you describe is boring. When everything always happy go lucky, never hard, never any strife, its boring. Thus why modern "MMO's" are all doing at best mediocre.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
But yet, current MMO are extremely anti-social, a real community will build when the game is far more aggressive about grouping like EQ was, and that does mean penalizing people who solo more than people who group.
Due to popular demand? If players want to be anti-social in an entertainment product .. what is the problem?
And why should dev force anyone to do anything in a game? Give them the option to group. If no one wants to group ... well ... that is too bad. But the game still serves its purpose if players are having fun solo.
If people want to be antisocial in a MULTIPLAYER game... what is the problem.
/facepalm
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done with by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
In EQ you simply couldn't progress with certain classes unless you made a group.
If you took the warrior class, beyond lvl 20 or so, you would die on every mob you tried to solo, unless you grouped you would not progress. And dying solo on mobs had a heavy penalty in EQ. It meant a dangerous corpse run to retrieve your gear.
However, EQ did have some classes that could solo.
But the mere fact that many important classes couldn't solo at all, meant they were forced to engage with other people, it required leaders and people willing to follow.
Helping classes that couldn't solo at all, meant you could take down bigger mobs and have better groups.
I'm a big fan of having essential classes in MMO that can't solo at all. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some classes that can solo.
In EQ you basically had half the classes that could solo, some better than others, and then classes that had a hard time soloing. I'm a fan of this unbalance, I'm a fan of some classes being completely helpless without other classes, when those same classes are essential for raids, you either group and socialise, or don't progress.
This
Also, even the classes who were decent at soloing had a harder time doing it the closer to max level you got.
A necro could solo very well say in the mid 30's and 40's, once you got into the mid and late 50's, especially in kunark, it was still possible, but not spectacularly efficient.
This, but......
The distribution wasn't equitable.
If you were an enchanter you almost always could find a group. Not only that, but as an enchanter, you could be choosy about your groups. It was common in dungeons for chanters to 'trade up' to groups with better camps and often leave your group without crowd control and thus the group fell apart. 1/6 of players were not enchanters and yet 1/6 needed to be for the content the way it was designed. More often than not you needed one for many many camps and there were none to be found. /who all enchanter = a list of too few chanters already deep in dungeons. This left a huge number of groups shouting 'lf chanter, have tank and healer' for sometimes hours.
This was a huge discrepancy.
If you were a cleric, it was relatively easy to group, but not like a chanter, in that you could bot a cleric successfully with 'sit, stand, ch, sit'. Therefore a huge number of clerics were tied to someone's main, often a tank. Again, clerics were not 1/6 of the player base.Second tier healers often didn't get slots. As a Druid, although I could heal successfully in 99% of camps, I would regularly hear, as I sat shouting, 'lfg', sometimes, I shit you not, for hours - 'sorry we are waiting on a healer'.
if you were a tank you could get groups relatively easier than most, but you were in completion with 2 other viable classes. Tanks made up more than 1/6 of the player so often would be left groupless. And if you were not your guilds MT, than don't expect a chance at the good loot in a raid. You were relegated to the reject pile at best.
Dps had it the worst. Sure they had 50% of the slots in theory, but if the choice was between a monk, wizard and rogue or a bst, ranger and Mage - you know who you gave the slots to. Having more desirable Dps classes left the 'undesirables' sitting in /ooc LFG. Remember the bot Mage leveled solely for the summons? Heaven forbid we include a Mage if we don't have to. Necrosis were rejected often as the idea was to kill with max speed to max leveling and good god that necro isn't doing any Dps because the mob is dead before the third tick of his hot. How many groups were specifically looking for a puller? How many Dps lost a slot to a monk, followed by a bard, and I even remember groups taking an sk rather than a pure Dps just for pulling purposes.
This is the tip of the iceberg for the problems the unbalanced class system created. Don't get me wrong, when it worked, it was better than any game out there. For a few, it worked all the time. For some it worked on occasion, and for the rest it was more common to spend most of your time looking for a group, being rejected by a group or watching your group disentigrate after hours spent obtaining the camp as your chanter said, 'later' for a better camp.
I think most here either have forgotten these down sides, or were not part of the reject class crowd.
Yes, EQ encouraged grouping, but by design, a design flaw, the distribution of fun went to the few and the lucky and not the many.
Comments
No, since no interaction happens with other players, however, when you would trade from player to player and direct interaction does happen, as was the case in Everquest which didn't have an auction house, you are part of a community.
However all those activities you listed that happen in the real world, the human I'm interacting with could easily be replaced by a machine. I don't have to interact at all with another human when I go shopping or go to the cinema. I can use machines.
whats that got to do with a game designed to be a mmo?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
That's your choice, you can join a social MMO with a strong community and never talk to anyone.
However, the environment a train creates is far more condicive for social interacton than sitting on your car alone.
That doesn't mean it will happen, but there is nothing wrong with games that create environments that bring about socialising, and forced grouping is one of those tools an MMO can use to promote socialising, it doesn't deserve a negative connotation.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
What do you mean by forced grouping? Even Swtor, ESO and a number of AAA MMO's have content that can only be done by a group. Not everything can be soloed.
In EQ you simply couldn't progress with certain classes unless you made a group.
If you took the warrior class, beyond lvl 20 or so, you would die on every mob you tried to solo, unless you grouped you would not progress. And dying solo on mobs had a heavy penalty in EQ. It meant a dangerous corpse run to retrieve your gear.
However, EQ did have some classes that could solo.
But the mere fact that many important classes couldn't solo at all, meant they were forced to engage with other people, it required leaders and people willing to follow.
Helping classes that couldn't solo at all, meant you could take down bigger mobs and have better groups.
I'm a big fan of having essential classes in MMO that can't solo at all. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some classes that can solo.
In EQ you basically had half the classes that could solo, some better than others, and then classes that had a hard time soloing. I'm a fan of this unbalance, I'm a fan of some classes being completely helpless without other classes, when those same classes are essential for raids, you either group and socialise, or don't progress.
I just don't see how that's any different to the group only content we see today. People who want to group/socialize will do group stuff or pick the class that requires a group like in EQ case.
People who want to solo will by pass the group stuff, pick the soloable class.
It's not addressing anything really. It's the same problem. People will complain that no one is playing the group based class and no one is helping and the game is anti social.
There's a big difference, MMO nowadays split content based on solo or group.
EQ literally split the classes based on solo or group and many of those classes were essential. You either helped lvl up those classes for your raids, or you got nowhere.
Compare that to WoW where pretty much every class has some way to solo.
The warrior class in WoW can solo, in EQ you would die on every single mob past lvl 20 and get a heavy XP and corpse penalty for it if you tried it.
Current MMO don't really force grouping, they at best, encourage it, and many of the classes have become non-essential, in EQ some raids can't even be unlocked without certain classes. You can't start your 54 man GoD raids without a rogue present, since you can't get past the front door, EQ made classes essential, and many of those essential classes could not solo, so you were forced to socialise.
That is straight up penalizing and not they way to encourage group play to be honest. Aside from the things in current games that already are promoting group play, here is a few things I'd consider adding.
- Remove level barriers. If I as a lvl 40. teams up with a lvl 5 friend. Both should get equal and fair amount of XP in regards to their respective level.
- Add a significant amount of bonus XP when in a group for killing stuff and for doing quests.
- Increase drop rate for rare loot when in a group.
- Increase item quality for items that are dropped and looted whilst in a group.
- Add more guildspanning achievements and rewards (great items, titles & other vanity stuff)
- Add a rewarding Partner system
Bottom line. Don't force anyone. Guide them, entice them to play with others, and in doing so you create value. The choice should ultimately come down to all individuals and how they want to play.
All of those things have been tried and in my eyes, failed.
EQ had group XP bonus, and much better items that dropped, and all of those things current MMO had.
It's not like any of those things on your list haven't been tried before.
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But yet, current MMO are extremely anti-social, a real community will build when the game is far more aggressive about grouping like EQ was, and that does mean penalizing people who solo more than people who group.
Soloing in EQ was possible, but the price for mistakes was large, int today's MMO, people solo without risk, in fact one of the Archeage complain threads on this general forum was a complaint that bots were soloing Archeage on release. There is no penalty in those games for soloing, there's not enough incentive to group.
It comes down to what game you want to design. An issue like this is definitely about preference. A common mistake though is believing that people will tolerate a penalizing game structure. Most people don't like being penalized or brutally forced to do stuff.
In times like these, gamers just want to be entertained and have fun. Which I totally respect and I agree with that sentiment. Punishments are not fun. I believe there are lots of already proven things that promotes group play that can be improved. But there is probably even more unknown ways of enticing players to participate in group play.
I'll take this one,
I hate to use Vanilla WoW as and example but that and other mmos around this time such as EQ2 then Vanguard nailed it.
Games around this time frame had a good balance of both. Often you never really knew until you tried the quest or mob. It had a lot of trial and error that added to the mystery, this was important for your gamming experience.
1) You had very easy content.
2) Some, were impossible.
3) Some, you had to think out strategy and then possibly it could be done solo.
4) Some, you put your tail between your legs and either got help or waited until you were a little higher.
5) A good mmo would have enough content where you can solo all the way to cap OR run with friends talking only hard stuff. REMEMBER when you only got blues if you ran dungeons or purple if you ran raids ?....But greens you got soloing was ok too. This was made by geniuses.
You just did not know until you tried !
I actually have a much older friend and his wife that played Vanilla WoW and hated fighting or PvP. The husband spent all his time on the auction, fishing and crafting, where his wife played only to chat with here Guild and sometimes do some quest together.....They later made it to 70, 80 and so on, as far as I know they still play to this day...Try to do this in more recent mmos........The content is simply not there, there cheap games !!!!!!
Video games are not real life. In fact, they are entertainment products to get away from real life. I don't see a problem to take forced grouping away if players don't want it.
Some real life activities are boring too (like waiting in line at a DMV without a smart phone). Do video games have to mimic that too?
You are mixing up 2 different things, solo content and dependancy do not relate to each other.
This
Also, even the classes who were decent at soloing had a harder time doing it the closer to max level you got.
A necro could solo very well say in the mid 30's and 40's, once you got into the mid and late 50's, especially in kunark, it was still possible, but not spectacularly efficient.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Due to popular demand? If players want to be anti-social in an entertainment product .. what is the problem?
And why should dev force anyone to do anything in a game? Give them the option to group. If no one wants to group ... well ... that is too bad. But the game still serves its purpose if players are having fun solo.
I swear man, one day i'm going to carve up a piece of wood or clay or something into a trophy for the Person best able to utilize straw man fallacies on a message board and send it to you. You are definitely the clear winner.
That being said. Since we're taking this to extreme's, Why not just make games where you press a button once and get rewarded. I mean, why have you actually have to walk up to the mob and swing your sword at it half a dozen times. Why not just see it, press a button, and poof it dies, and then you get a big shiny new item for your efforts.
See how the argument is absurd?
Also, entertainment is not = escapism, While they often coincide wth each other, they are not a package deal.
Game of Thrones is a great example. Its brutal, your favorite characters can be killed at any moment. It deals with a lot of adult, depressing themes, yet its the most popular show ever made. Why, because people like to see alternate possibilities of reality. What you describe is boring. When everything always happy go lucky, never hard, never any strife, its boring. Thus why modern "MMO's" are all doing at best mediocre.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
If people want to be antisocial in a MULTIPLAYER game... what is the problem.
/facepalm
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I do!
This, but......
The distribution wasn't equitable.
If you were an enchanter you almost always could find a group. Not only that, but as an enchanter, you could be choosy about your groups. It was common in dungeons for chanters to 'trade up' to groups with better camps and often leave your group without crowd control and thus the group fell apart. 1/6 of players were not enchanters and yet 1/6 needed to be for the content the way it was designed. More often than not you needed one for many many camps and there were none to be found. /who all enchanter = a list of too few chanters already deep in dungeons. This left a huge number of groups shouting 'lf chanter, have tank and healer' for sometimes hours.
This was a huge discrepancy.
If you were a cleric, it was relatively easy to group, but not like a chanter, in that you could bot a cleric successfully with 'sit, stand, ch, sit'. Therefore a huge number of clerics were tied to someone's main, often a tank. Again, clerics were not 1/6 of the player base.Second tier healers often didn't get slots. As a Druid, although I could heal successfully in 99% of camps, I would regularly hear, as I sat shouting, 'lfg', sometimes, I shit you not, for hours - 'sorry we are waiting on a healer'.
if you were a tank you could get groups relatively easier than most, but you were in completion with 2 other viable classes. Tanks made up more than 1/6 of the player so often would be left groupless. And if you were not your guilds MT, than don't expect a chance at the good loot in a raid. You were relegated to the reject pile at best.
Dps had it the worst. Sure they had 50% of the slots in theory, but if the choice was between a monk, wizard and rogue or a bst, ranger and Mage - you know who you gave the slots to. Having more desirable Dps classes left the 'undesirables' sitting in /ooc LFG. Remember the bot Mage leveled solely for the summons? Heaven forbid we include a Mage if we don't have to. Necrosis were rejected often as the idea was to kill with max speed to max leveling and good god that necro isn't doing any Dps because the mob is dead before the third tick of his hot. How many groups were specifically looking for a puller? How many Dps lost a slot to a monk, followed by a bard, and I even remember groups taking an sk rather than a pure Dps just for pulling purposes.
This is the tip of the iceberg for the problems the unbalanced class system created. Don't get me wrong, when it worked, it was better than any game out there. For a few, it worked all the time. For some it worked on occasion, and for the rest it was more common to spend most of your time looking for a group, being rejected by a group or watching your group disentigrate after hours spent obtaining the camp as your chanter said, 'later' for a better camp.
I think most here either have forgotten these down sides, or were not part of the reject class crowd.
Yes, EQ encouraged grouping, but by design, a design flaw, the distribution of fun went to the few and the lucky and not the many.
There was grouping in EQ because if was fu**ing 1999 and everything was new.
Another thread with nothing but "EQ, SWG, blah, blah, blah"
Move on ffs