- a group of online friends who regularly play together
- guild chat
- the looking for group interface
As a druid in EQ I could solo while waiting for a goup.
A lot of guilds in Mmorgs these days are too small to support regular grouping. Many guilds do not have any standard of player conduct.
Nearly all the games I like to play happen to be Mmorgs. So if I want to solo and do things at my own pace, I just happen to be playing a Mmorg. Civilization is the only non-Mmorg I regularly play.
Some game are now lagging when a group of people gather. There seem to be 2 causes of the lag. Firstly, spell and battle effects in a group situation may overload your graphics card and there is no in-game option to adjust the graphics. Secondly, when a group of people approach the game freezes for a second while it downloads the many details needed to draw the individual toons. Surely the game should draw a default character while it downloads and updates individual toon details in the background? As an Australian playing on servers in the USA and Europe, longer internet latency times make this more noticeable.
MMO's need to begin to change to try different things. RvR like DAoC did brought a sense of "realm pride" where people wanted to help each other out and be more friendly to each other. Vanguard made a world too big, so grouping was a big issue. Other MMO's force you to wait for everyone to "group up" which can take 30 minutes of waiting just to play the game while the other players TRAVEL. CoX made instances where the groups were casual, get-in and play quickly with your group, afterwards say bye or continue on. UO had guild wars, PK vs Anti-PK.
LOTRO made an advancement to PvP by allowing it to be lvl 50 only, but anyone 10-50 could instantly join and become a lvl 50 monster, which solved DAoC's problem of forcing people to grind PvE just to play in PvP. BF2142 created a "squad" system so that players can spawn on their friends and always be playing with them. UO didn't have levels, so anyone could play with anyone. CoX had levels, but created a system where you could lower or raise your level to match your friend's (although it was poorly done because you could only have ONE sidekick/mentor, and you didnt get XP if you lowered your level, but it IS a step in the right direction!) Vanguard didn't force grouping (at least in the lower levels) but DDO did. Given the right population, server, time of day, and luck, you could get a great group going for the instance quests.
One of the biggest and greatest idea's was WoW's. They linked all Arena Battlegrounds for PvP across servers. At first it sucked because you could never PvP except at primetime, and even then it was incredibly hard to get in- sometimes waiting for 2 hours just for a spot, but by then everyone already quit PvPing. Now you can find an arena match any time anywhere, instantly.
EQ2 and CoX could learn a lot from this, having dead arenas that would otherwise be one of the best parts of the game.
With all of this said, it's the design of the MMO that needs to develop and improve. Sadly, these are multiple games, each making only one or two SMALL steps towards improvement.
Why was WoW a big success? One reason is because it copied everything EQ was, but fixed it. They got rid of XP loss, level loss, and all this other pointless crap that no one liked. They added PvP, then improved the PvP for it to be playable. Yet they've yet to solve the problem of twinks.
IMO, besides being fresh, new, and innovative, a company could simply COPY the success of all the current MMO's, combine it all together, and then fix the negative and improve upon the positive.
Why not have it where you can instantly "teleport" to your group so you dont have to travel or wait? Why not discourage soloing without making it impossible, emphasizing grouping AND communication in groups? Why not enhance the current game to allow for innovative- even revolutionary designs such as a player-made community with everything player-built, but with the watchful eye of a power GM and his "kingdom" or army? Why have levels when you could use skills? Why not have levels, but not make them so important, or give players a non-restrictive, non-punishing way of grouping with ANY level like CoX, but better?
MMO's need to improve on their design, not through small steps, but by learning of the success and positive ideas of every other MMO. You have over 9 years of experience to work off of- yet no one seems to be learning. Are all the developers IDIOTS? Or perhaps they are and the good devs are hindered by greedy and cowardly publishers?
Whatever the case, the problem lies with the developer- not the player. People are naturally going to follow what they are led to follow. 99% of people are sheep led to slaughter- mindless drones who do as they are influenced. The design of the game will determine how many solo, how many group, how many play, how many cancel, if casual players like it or not, etc. etc.
You CAN cater to all audiences by making an amazing game. Games are to be FUN. You make it FUN, so much more FUN than these crappy MMO's that are coming out- and you will win a very large audience. Afterall, who HASN'T played WoW? Even MMO veterans to casual non-MMO players have played WoW. Why? Because WoW's developers were smart and took what's good, kicked out what's bad, and made a very nice product.
Maybe because people like to fight alone, but in a world with other people?
I'm not Mr. Social in real life, but I by no means want every human in the world to disappear.
This would be about half my answer. I like living in a world of other people, maybe even being dependent on them in terms of crafting, trading and harvesting, in other words in areas where relationships can be built up over time.
But there is more - many people prefer to solo the combat aspects - the most intense and critical aspects - of mmorpgs because;
a/. Groups are often hard to find, put together and transport
b/. Groups are finite - and at the mercy of the weakest, stupidest, most aggressive, greediest player
c/. Groups travel at speeds other than your own accustomed pace
d/. Groups mean rewards must be shared
e/. Casual players tend to resent the time and energy that must be spent managing a group simply because developers have arbitrarily decided that that area requires a group and that area doesn't.
People don't want to be able to solo elites no mater what part of a quest your on players can join & complete that part then go back & do they parts they haven't done later .
That's not strictly speaking true.
Before the NGE, I developed a character that had excellent armour, excellent weapons, an excellent trading/money/support system and excellent combat skills - some backed on macros I had built and tested over time.
He was a Jedi knight who used to be able to solo the hardest free-roaming mobs - like Krayt dragons and top Nightsisters - and many of the instance/cave bosses - like General Nekrosis.
However, even though I could solo these boss mobs, it was always hard to do so and took a long fight. if I made a mistake, i would be killed. Additionally, it had taken me two years of long, hard grinding to get together all the money, skills, items and levels I needed to solo at that level.
Although I have to admit I do solo a lot in games, that is usually because there is no incentive to group. It use to be faster to get quests done and xp added up faster when you grouped. Lately in games you share xp on a kill, so it's actually faster to lvl solo. I think there should be solo content for those times when you can't find a group, but it should not be anywhere near as productive as when you group. It should just be good enough so that you can get things done when groups are hard to find. Although there is also those games where there is forced grouping and the population is simply not there to force grouping. You just have to find a nice medium.
I personally think you have put your finger on the issue - and we are on opposing sides of this argument.
Firslty, I don't want to be forced to play the game the way a developer wants me to. If I am forced, then it's no longer a game.
Secondly, if I put the equivalent time and effort into questing solo as I would into questing in a group then i should rightly be able to expect the same or at least equivalent rewards, not be punished for not playing the game the way a developer wants.
In other words, if developers have given me the tools, abilities and leeway to solo something then they should nor penalise me for taking that opportunity. Developers - especially non-playing developers (and there are plenty of them, would you believe - cf. SWG) - seem to think that grouping is the holy grail of an mmorpg. It is not, there are many other human interdependencies in most games - from trading to crafting to basic socialising - that contribute to the idea of a collective game.
- Dungeons that reward only a particular class. "Yes, we do have a full group. Unfortunately they are all the same class!"
Thats an interesting point.
well from what i remeber u always needed a healer and tank reguardless. but yah i can see his semi point of saying how games like WoW and FFXI have dominating classes that everyone wants to be and groups only want.
City of Heroes and City of Villains together represent one game that has done its best to get away with the usual party archetypes - tank, cleric, dps etc. Some CoH/CoV characters have ranged healing, others have close healing, some have state attacks that are important, some do straight damage... They have made some interesting choices - and, as such, this otherwise quite limited game is still very popular.
well from what i remeber u always needed a healer and tank reguardless. but yah i can see his semi point of saying how games like WoW and FFXI have dominating classes that everyone wants to be and groups only want.
I interpreted the point as the class rewards which drop in an instance, sometimes it rewards only a couple of people while the others don't get anything. Although there should be more all/all type loot, clickies were good in something like Everquest.
Haven't read the whole thread.. but for me it was WoW.. Playing pre-cu SWG I had no problems with grouping, quite the opposite, it was loads of fun...
WoW on the other hand had a LOT of... let's say... less intelligent people... who made me fear and despise grouping, not to mention that games that are heavy on the grouping usually punishes those who group with dividing exp for mobs rather than rewarding groupplay. Ultimately, I think it's WoWs community to blame for most part - but of course one must realize that other factors plays in.
Its interesting when people do think of Everquest they think forced grouping but as some of the replies in this thread showed solo was a viable play choice but was hard. Perhaps hard soloing and good grouping is a good mmorpg? Having said that soloing in Everquest could get tedious as mobs had a lot of hit points. Maybe hard soloing would be frustrating. Hard soloing and people get frustrated and resent the grouping, easy soloing and everyone solos... No win situation?
Its interesting when people do think of Everquest they think forced grouping but as some of the replies in this thread showed solo was a viable play choice but was hard. Perhaps hard soloing and good grouping is a good mmorpg? Having said that soloing in Everquest could get tedious as mobs had a lot of hit points. Maybe hard soloing would be frustrating. Hard soloing and people get frustrated and resent the grouping, easy soloing and everyone solos... No win situation?
personally i think that developers have overlooked the whole problem of grouping in the first place.
that is, each person you need to add to a group decreases your overall "quality" gametime. For instance if it takes 30 minutes to assemble a group of 6, and you only have an hour to play, your not going to group.
your not going to waste half your time getting the group and the other half hoping the group is good.
the simple answer is to decrease group sizings to three.
this accomplished many things.
1) decreases the time required to assemble a group
2) decreases the "wildcard" status of groups since there are less overall players.
3) increaes the amount of participation per person ( this increases the "quality of time" since each person will need to perform additional roles. )
4) most importantly it ensures that there is a greater spread use of content. In a tranditional game like everquest there are few things a "skilled" player can accomplish that was meant for a group of six. The span is too far to be useful. A smaller number has a much smaller span, meaning more potential content down the groupsize strata.
however, if the group size was three, then if you chose to solo "hard" there is alot of content available. Additionally if you like to duo it would be challenging again but not so much as soloing, and of course group content would be designed for three.
it just makes sense really. You want to get a group as fast as possible and be as important as possible in a group, but still have the experience of grouping up with other players.
of course developers have no clue, since all they see is $$$ nowadays.
Only some classes could solo effectively in Everquest. Solo experience was slower than group experience and usually only trash loot dropped. Soloing was not hard unless you chose to solo in a challenging area. Even slow experience is better than no experience.
In Everquest you did need a group with the right classes if you wanted good experience and good drops.
I mean seriously when did having to interact with other players become the work of the devil? Every game forum i go to there is usually a faction that wants EVERYTHING solo and if they actually have to form a group to get something wrong they pout and say they won't play the game. I see it tabula rasa as of late, .... "i can't do this elite mission solo ... I die too much i wont play if this change". god get out of your diaper you whiney B****. Why should a genre change fo ryou? you knew that you might have to interact with players before you got into this genre so dont give me the "well i only have an hour or so to play so i can't grou". if you have that little of time go find another genre, i did when my life became busy. Thats like me going to a FPS forum and saying "well my reflexes such and my hand eye coordination is off so can you make this game turned base so i can compete." they would tell me to go find another game. so take that advice ... find antoher game.
I too feel that soloing has become too trendy these days. I mean, ok, sometimes I lack the time or will to group, and its ok games have a certain percentage of solo quests and solo mobs. I think it is more a general phenomen in our days; people dont want to cooperate or work together with others, they dont want compromises with other humans, they only want the applause of others for their rare items and their LORD titles. Its those kind of ppl, who log into EQ2, place their avatars at the docks of Qeynos with shiny armor and title and just STAND THERE the fukking all day to be seen. (I guess mommy always told them what a good boy they are and now they are used to praise, who knows.)
Its the rise of egoism. Me, me, me. Gone are the days where many ppl seeked to create lasting guilds and social networks and all. Its much to complicated for most ppl apparently today. *sigh* And of course MMOs cater that demand. The joy to make a cooperated effort is more and more forgotten. Everyone who ever was in a soccer team (I am European ^^) or any sports team knows how much greater it feels to make something as team than be solo hero all the time, but we unlearned, alas.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
The OP post is rather funny and sad at the same time.
When did grouping become evil? Maybe it was when people who post stuff like this end it by telling anyone who disagrees to GTFO.
The OP's own intolerance and desire to control others is all that is needed to answer the question. This thread should be one post long because it answers its own question.
personally i think that developers have overlooked the whole problem of grouping in the first place.
that is, each person you need to add to a group decreases your overall "quality" gametime. For instance if it takes 30 minutes to assemble a group of 6, and you only have an hour to play, your not going to group.
your not going to waste half your time getting the group and the other half hoping the group is good.
the simple answer is to decrease group sizings to three.
I actually think finding a 5/6 man group shouldn't be an issue unless the game adds barriers to that which as level-based games go there are. I don't know what games like DDO are like for finding groups. But I do agree there SHOULD be 3 man content, there are many people who like playing in small friendship groups to ignore that and only see solo and 5/6 man groups is silly.
When MMO's went mainstream..i.e. with WoW. This is also the same point at which several MMOs became populated with every pre-teen, teenage, and adult asshat under the sun.
Were they there before? Sure, but not in the volume they are now. I avoid grouping since the MMO population explosion, out of necessity. There is at least a 4/5 chance of ending up grouped with an immature ass or ignorant net-punk, before it was the exception, now its the rule.
In EQ1 for years on end, I grouped and enjoyed it, but with the WoW generation, well I would rather spend the extra 15 bucks a month for a second account than deal with your neighbors spastic 14 year old who thinks chuck norris and foul language are the heigth of maturity. You couldn't pay me to group in WoW, I would sooner have a hot-sauce enema
I don't single out WoW though as the only place with that problem, or imply that that is all there is to WoW (hate the game myself, but to each their own) many MMO's suffer from this now, I think WoW just the cataclyst for the current wave of MMO popularity (as an MMO player since 1999 it does make me sad to say such a crap game is the one that brings it to the masses). The collective level of MMO maturity, and my tolerance of it, has crashed to all time lows since 2004. Thus - much time soloing to xp
It's actually not as bad in EQ2 though. So it is still a little game dependant. Your mileage may vary. I am not quite as leery of groups in that game, but they still have their fair share of vacuum heads.
The OP post is rather funny and sad at the same time. When did grouping become evil? Maybe it was when people who post stuff like this end it by telling anyone who disagrees to GTFO. The OP's own intolerance and desire to control others is all that is needed to answer the question. This thread should be one post long because it answers its own question.
Yep.
The first online rpgs I played (MUDs) didn't force grouping. AC1 didn't; you could go all the way to 126 solo in AC1 - AC1 had allegiances/guilds, and you could help others without grouping, which I think is more in line with the spirit of an MMORPG. City of Heroes didn't require grouping when I played it - there were even character builds that could solo Arch-Villains.
EQ1 changed the map (set the standards, really) solely because it was the most successful in its day and that success may or may not have anything to do with its grouping dynamics; I tend to think not. I believe EQ1 was successful because it essentially built the first of its kind, it worked well and it wasn't intimidating to new players at all. Not because of its class/grouping structure. But developers since seem to be reluctant to take chances in that area.
MMORPG = Massively multiplayer; there's nothing about "gotta group" in that name or definition (unlike Counterstrike or Baseball or Football that are all team-based games). I blame the fact that so many think forced grouping is good on EQ1. WoW (an EQ1 clone in many ways), is actually very solo friendly for most of the lower levels and I believe that is one of the reasons that it beat the crap out of competition like EQ2 as well as more recent games. Remember - most WoW players are not raiders and most of the lower level instances can be solo'd by a level 70 (with an alt or friend in tow perhaps).
I'm getting tired of groupers telling everyone else it's their way or the highway. Get off your high horses.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
because in a group you can't leave early if you need to. Thats why people want to be able to have SOMETHING to do on there own. MMOs are great for the few elite that can spare enough time to play but the additude of "why should my game suffer because other people dont want to dedicate there lives to this game" kinda locks everyone else out of MMOs. Yeah some people only have an hour or two to play a WEEK. Basicly that means that they can't play and that makes them mad. After all "why should I not get to play because I can't play all day long."
Groupings good if the game allows you to get new people without having to leave an area. Its a way to meet new people, not everyone should feel they have to join a guild just to get help or to get to know peeps.
People are becoming more anti-social in mmo's because they feel groups slow them down, or take there loot or leavers ruin the group. In some ways this can be true but if i wanted to play a single game rpg game i'd rather choose kotor I/II lol.
I hated the fact that jedi's on swg had to solo grind alone, as to not place themselves on the bounty list, because the game lost all its fun factor.
Guildwars is boring to me now, as its all hero's and henchies, sure pvp is ok, but thats like half the game. Before factions and nightfall, people werent spread soo much and people actually grouped together because people were better than the henchies. Now its the complete opposite, most people do quests with npc hero's and henchies, its just boring. The games become soo anti-social that only way to make friends is to have a guild in an alliance.
in a loot causes most the problems, for example in ryzom, you dont get rare weps are armour from bosses, just materials, therefore people generally group up alot more, because there no in competetion with each other to get the lastest rare drop.
So on one part its the game dynamics that cause grouping issues, on the other its peoples greed and anti social behaviour. And i mean that in the nicest possible way of course :P
What was the first MMO to bring solo play (soloing all the way through) on the table?
WoW.
Wrong. All the endgame and any good gear have to ben gotten in groups in WoW. You can not play that game completly solo and do everything.
On the topic, its not that people dont like grouping or that they can't find one(or at least its like this for me.) Its that once you have found a group, now you have to go on some very long quest that you can't leave from until it is done or the group decides to disband. Many of these quests (or instanced dungeons as it may be.) take a very long time and even if you have that kind of free time, which few do, no one wants to feel tied down to a game, especially not for that long. This actually wasn't a problem for me in FFXI becuase most of the time when your in a group, your not doing a quest, your just grinding mosters. Pair that with the fact that I was a tank which were rare on my server, and I can play that game with very little time. There was nothing to accomplish so you aren't tied down to that group.
Now the othe MMO I have experience with is WoW. That game i had to quit becuase I don't have the time to be in BRD for 2-5 hours. Raiding is completly out of the question.
Now you saying, that big deal, that sucks for me. Well its not just me, many people have the same problem. Because of elitests that can't understand that peple actually have a life outside of their MMO, they are expected to be in groups for severall hours. If people want a game where thats not the case, then why shouldn't they be allowed to want one? They are entitiled to have requests. If a company wants to make a succesful game and doing something like this that can be played by yourself or with other people, why can't they?
An argument to that would be: well don't single player rpgs already provide that? And there you would be wrong. Single player RPGs have a story to tell, thats the whole purpose. Your character has basicly no freedom(im speaking generally) and once the story is done, thats it. You cant keep playing to progress your characters and even if you could, there will be no new patches to keep the game going.Are there exceptions to that. Meh, kinda. Oblivion keeps going, but it caps out so quicly, your character doesn't rly progress, you just keep doing alot of quests.(also the whole all-the-enemies-level-with-you thing kinda ruins the game) Phantasy star Online(not PSU, it had a single player story) did that, and it was actually fun. The only problem is that these "middle ground" online/offline games are far and few between.Untill we can see a good casual MMORPG that still an RPG, this argument will continue.
What was the first MMO to bring solo play (soloing all the way through) on the table?
Well, for me, it was good old computer rpgs going back to the 70's that started off solo. MUDs eventually added some grouping. But Game like Shadows of Ysersious offered a graphical rpg with grouping. EQ took it further. Now, IMO, things have moved back towards more soloing for a lot of reasons, but mostly because soloing is convient.
I mean seriously when did having to interact with other players become the work of the devil? Every game forum i go to there is usually a faction that wants EVERYTHING solo and if they actually have to form a group to get something wrong they pout and say they won't play the game. I see it tabula rasa as of late, .... "i can't do this elite mission solo ... I die too much i wont play if this change". god get out of your diaper you whiney B****. Why should a genre change fo ryou? you knew that you might have to interact with players before you got into this genre so dont give me the "well i only have an hour or so to play so i can't grou". if you have that little of time go find another genre, i did when my life became busy. Thats like me going to a FPS forum and saying "well my reflexes such and my hand eye coordination is off so can you make this game turned base so i can compete." they would tell me to go find another game. so take that advice ... find antoher game.
Well, there should be parts of the contents that focus on solo play, and parts of the contents that focus on group play. But with the present system of character progression (i.e. the Class/Level system), it became harder to find a group, thus people prefer solo play (also with the different time constrain between players).
Why I say it's the Class/Level system's fault? Because with the present idea of group play, people prefer efficiency over community (ie. the "holy trinity" group setting). Everyone wants to finish contents so they can get to the end level to compete. It's the system's design making the players playing in such way. Also, with games that has level, you will have more higher level characters as time goes by, and due to the design of xp-gaining mechanics, there isn't much going for high levels to get other than making friends with others when teaming with lower levels. This creates a level gap and for those who join late, it gets harder to get into a group (hence the need for solo contents to cover such flaw in design).
Solution?
1) take away the level gap - This can be achieve by giving more incentives to those who have achieve the higher levels to help out the lower levels. This can be done by scaling xp (or not), or even like CoX's badge system, or other ways. This would encourage grouping and encourage building a community.
2.) do not design group contents based on group setting (the classes needed), rather, design it as challenging and yet can be achieve by all types of groups setting. - This would let those who do not have time to play to feel they are just as good as those who spend countless hours in a group. By providing a role (doesn't have to be a defined role) for everyone, it helps encourage grouping, and also helps build a community for the game.
When everything is not design around the class/level system, then you will see that grouping will become more acceptable and more enjoyable.
grouping becomes evil the moment you seperate the community appart too much.
first you have a few dozen shards that have 2-3 thousand people on it at peak hours, then out of that group only 1,000 people or so are competent, out of that you have 50-100 or so people that are within a 15-20 min travel, now you have 10-20 that are in communication range, finally out of those people you have 2-4 that are near your level to be in the group. after this you are forced to work with the devs foresight of making the current project you are working on require 8-15 people.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Comments
In EQ there were 3 ways I got groups:
- a group of online friends who regularly play together
- guild chat
- the looking for group interface
As a druid in EQ I could solo while waiting for a goup.
A lot of guilds in Mmorgs these days are too small to support regular grouping. Many guilds do not have any standard of player conduct.
Nearly all the games I like to play happen to be Mmorgs. So if I want to solo and do things at my own pace, I just happen to be playing a Mmorg. Civilization is the only non-Mmorg I regularly play.
Some game are now lagging when a group of people gather. There seem to be 2 causes of the lag. Firstly, spell and battle effects in a group situation may overload your graphics card and there is no in-game option to adjust the graphics. Secondly, when a group of people approach the game freezes for a second while it downloads the many details needed to draw the individual toons. Surely the game should draw a default character while it downloads and updates individual toon details in the background? As an Australian playing on servers in the USA and Europe, longer internet latency times make this more noticeable.
It's the fault of the MMO's designs.
MMO's need to begin to change to try different things. RvR like DAoC did brought a sense of "realm pride" where people wanted to help each other out and be more friendly to each other. Vanguard made a world too big, so grouping was a big issue. Other MMO's force you to wait for everyone to "group up" which can take 30 minutes of waiting just to play the game while the other players TRAVEL. CoX made instances where the groups were casual, get-in and play quickly with your group, afterwards say bye or continue on. UO had guild wars, PK vs Anti-PK.
LOTRO made an advancement to PvP by allowing it to be lvl 50 only, but anyone 10-50 could instantly join and become a lvl 50 monster, which solved DAoC's problem of forcing people to grind PvE just to play in PvP. BF2142 created a "squad" system so that players can spawn on their friends and always be playing with them. UO didn't have levels, so anyone could play with anyone. CoX had levels, but created a system where you could lower or raise your level to match your friend's (although it was poorly done because you could only have ONE sidekick/mentor, and you didnt get XP if you lowered your level, but it IS a step in the right direction!) Vanguard didn't force grouping (at least in the lower levels) but DDO did. Given the right population, server, time of day, and luck, you could get a great group going for the instance quests.
One of the biggest and greatest idea's was WoW's. They linked all Arena Battlegrounds for PvP across servers. At first it sucked because you could never PvP except at primetime, and even then it was incredibly hard to get in- sometimes waiting for 2 hours just for a spot, but by then everyone already quit PvPing. Now you can find an arena match any time anywhere, instantly.
EQ2 and CoX could learn a lot from this, having dead arenas that would otherwise be one of the best parts of the game.
With all of this said, it's the design of the MMO that needs to develop and improve. Sadly, these are multiple games, each making only one or two SMALL steps towards improvement.
Why was WoW a big success? One reason is because it copied everything EQ was, but fixed it. They got rid of XP loss, level loss, and all this other pointless crap that no one liked. They added PvP, then improved the PvP for it to be playable. Yet they've yet to solve the problem of twinks.
IMO, besides being fresh, new, and innovative, a company could simply COPY the success of all the current MMO's, combine it all together, and then fix the negative and improve upon the positive.
Why not have it where you can instantly "teleport" to your group so you dont have to travel or wait? Why not discourage soloing without making it impossible, emphasizing grouping AND communication in groups? Why not enhance the current game to allow for innovative- even revolutionary designs such as a player-made community with everything player-built, but with the watchful eye of a power GM and his "kingdom" or army? Why have levels when you could use skills? Why not have levels, but not make them so important, or give players a non-restrictive, non-punishing way of grouping with ANY level like CoX, but better?
MMO's need to improve on their design, not through small steps, but by learning of the success and positive ideas of every other MMO. You have over 9 years of experience to work off of- yet no one seems to be learning. Are all the developers IDIOTS? Or perhaps they are and the good devs are hindered by greedy and cowardly publishers?
Whatever the case, the problem lies with the developer- not the player. People are naturally going to follow what they are led to follow. 99% of people are sheep led to slaughter- mindless drones who do as they are influenced. The design of the game will determine how many solo, how many group, how many play, how many cancel, if casual players like it or not, etc. etc.
You CAN cater to all audiences by making an amazing game. Games are to be FUN. You make it FUN, so much more FUN than these crappy MMO's that are coming out- and you will win a very large audience. Afterall, who HASN'T played WoW? Even MMO veterans to casual non-MMO players have played WoW. Why? Because WoW's developers were smart and took what's good, kicked out what's bad, and made a very nice product.
But there is more - many people prefer to solo the combat aspects - the most intense and critical aspects - of mmorpgs because;
a/. Groups are often hard to find, put together and transport
b/. Groups are finite - and at the mercy of the weakest, stupidest, most aggressive, greediest player
c/. Groups travel at speeds other than your own accustomed pace
d/. Groups mean rewards must be shared
e/. Casual players tend to resent the time and energy that must be spent managing a group simply because developers have arbitrarily decided that that area requires a group and that area doesn't.
Before the NGE, I developed a character that had excellent armour, excellent weapons, an excellent trading/money/support system and excellent combat skills - some backed on macros I had built and tested over time.
He was a Jedi knight who used to be able to solo the hardest free-roaming mobs - like Krayt dragons and top Nightsisters - and many of the instance/cave bosses - like General Nekrosis.
However, even though I could solo these boss mobs, it was always hard to do so and took a long fight. if I made a mistake, i would be killed. Additionally, it had taken me two years of long, hard grinding to get together all the money, skills, items and levels I needed to solo at that level.
I personally think you have put your finger on the issue - and we are on opposing sides of this argument.
Firslty, I don't want to be forced to play the game the way a developer wants me to. If I am forced, then it's no longer a game.
Secondly, if I put the equivalent time and effort into questing solo as I would into questing in a group then i should rightly be able to expect the same or at least equivalent rewards, not be punished for not playing the game the way a developer wants.
In other words, if developers have given me the tools, abilities and leeway to solo something then they should nor penalise me for taking that opportunity. Developers - especially non-playing developers (and there are plenty of them, would you believe - cf. SWG) - seem to think that grouping is the holy grail of an mmorpg. It is not, there are many other human interdependencies in most games - from trading to crafting to basic socialising - that contribute to the idea of a collective game.
well from what i remeber u always needed a healer and tank reguardless. but yah i can see his semi point of saying how games like WoW and FFXI have dominating classes that everyone wants to be and groups only want.
City of Heroes and City of Villains together represent one game that has done its best to get away with the usual party archetypes - tank, cleric, dps etc. Some CoH/CoV characters have ranged healing, others have close healing, some have state attacks that are important, some do straight damage... They have made some interesting choices - and, as such, this otherwise quite limited game is still very popular.
Haven't read the whole thread.. but for me it was WoW.. Playing pre-cu SWG I had no problems with grouping, quite the opposite, it was loads of fun...
WoW on the other hand had a LOT of... let's say... less intelligent people... who made me fear and despise grouping, not to mention that games that are heavy on the grouping usually punishes those who group with dividing exp for mobs rather than rewarding groupplay. Ultimately, I think it's WoWs community to blame for most part - but of course one must realize that other factors plays in.
Its interesting when people do think of Everquest they think forced grouping but as some of the replies in this thread showed solo was a viable play choice but was hard. Perhaps hard soloing and good grouping is a good mmorpg? Having said that soloing in Everquest could get tedious as mobs had a lot of hit points. Maybe hard soloing would be frustrating. Hard soloing and people get frustrated and resent the grouping, easy soloing and everyone solos... No win situation?
that is, each person you need to add to a group decreases your overall "quality" gametime. For instance if it takes 30 minutes to assemble a group of 6, and you only have an hour to play, your not going to group.
your not going to waste half your time getting the group and the other half hoping the group is good.
the simple answer is to decrease group sizings to three.
this accomplished many things.
1) decreases the time required to assemble a group
2) decreases the "wildcard" status of groups since there are less overall players.
3) increaes the amount of participation per person ( this increases the "quality of time" since each person will need to perform additional roles. )
4) most importantly it ensures that there is a greater spread use of content. In a tranditional game like everquest there are few things a "skilled" player can accomplish that was meant for a group of six. The span is too far to be useful. A smaller number has a much smaller span, meaning more potential content down the groupsize strata.
however, if the group size was three, then if you chose to solo "hard" there is alot of content available. Additionally if you like to duo it would be challenging again but not so much as soloing, and of course group content would be designed for three.
it just makes sense really. You want to get a group as fast as possible and be as important as possible in a group, but still have the experience of grouping up with other players.
of course developers have no clue, since all they see is $$$ nowadays.
Only some classes could solo effectively in Everquest. Solo experience was slower than group experience and usually only trash loot dropped. Soloing was not hard unless you chose to solo in a challenging area. Even slow experience is better than no experience.
In Everquest you did need a group with the right classes if you wanted good experience and good drops.
I too feel that soloing has become too trendy these days. I mean, ok, sometimes I lack the time or will to group, and its ok games have a certain percentage of solo quests and solo mobs. I think it is more a general phenomen in our days; people dont want to cooperate or work together with others, they dont want compromises with other humans, they only want the applause of others for their rare items and their LORD titles. Its those kind of ppl, who log into EQ2, place their avatars at the docks of Qeynos with shiny armor and title and just STAND THERE the fukking all day to be seen. (I guess mommy always told them what a good boy they are and now they are used to praise, who knows.)
Its the rise of egoism. Me, me, me. Gone are the days where many ppl seeked to create lasting guilds and social networks and all. Its much to complicated for most ppl apparently today. *sigh* And of course MMOs cater that demand. The joy to make a cooperated effort is more and more forgotten. Everyone who ever was in a soccer team (I am European ^^) or any sports team knows how much greater it feels to make something as team than be solo hero all the time, but we unlearned, alas.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
The OP post is rather funny and sad at the same time.
When did grouping become evil? Maybe it was when people who post stuff like this end it by telling anyone who disagrees to GTFO.
The OP's own intolerance and desire to control others is all that is needed to answer the question. This thread should be one post long because it answers its own question.
I actually think finding a 5/6 man group shouldn't be an issue unless the game adds barriers to that which as level-based games go there are. I don't know what games like DDO are like for finding groups. But I do agree there SHOULD be 3 man content, there are many people who like playing in small friendship groups to ignore that and only see solo and 5/6 man groups is silly.
When did grouping become evil?
When MMO's went mainstream..i.e. with WoW. This is also the same point at which several MMOs became populated with every pre-teen, teenage, and adult asshat under the sun.
Were they there before? Sure, but not in the volume they are now. I avoid grouping since the MMO population explosion, out of necessity. There is at least a 4/5 chance of ending up grouped with an immature ass or ignorant net-punk, before it was the exception, now its the rule.
In EQ1 for years on end, I grouped and enjoyed it, but with the WoW generation, well I would rather spend the extra 15 bucks a month for a second account than deal with your neighbors spastic 14 year old who thinks chuck norris and foul language are the heigth of maturity. You couldn't pay me to group in WoW, I would sooner have a hot-sauce enema
I don't single out WoW though as the only place with that problem, or imply that that is all there is to WoW (hate the game myself, but to each their own) many MMO's suffer from this now, I think WoW just the cataclyst for the current wave of MMO popularity (as an MMO player since 1999 it does make me sad to say such a crap game is the one that brings it to the masses). The collective level of MMO maturity, and my tolerance of it, has crashed to all time lows since 2004. Thus - much time soloing to xp
It's actually not as bad in EQ2 though. So it is still a little game dependant. Your mileage may vary. I am not quite as leery of groups in that game, but they still have their fair share of vacuum heads.
The first online rpgs I played (MUDs) didn't force grouping. AC1 didn't; you could go all the way to 126 solo in AC1 - AC1 had allegiances/guilds, and you could help others without grouping, which I think is more in line with the spirit of an MMORPG. City of Heroes didn't require grouping when I played it - there were even character builds that could solo Arch-Villains.
EQ1 changed the map (set the standards, really) solely because it was the most successful in its day and that success may or may not have anything to do with its grouping dynamics; I tend to think not. I believe EQ1 was successful because it essentially built the first of its kind, it worked well and it wasn't intimidating to new players at all. Not because of its class/grouping structure. But developers since seem to be reluctant to take chances in that area.
MMORPG = Massively multiplayer; there's nothing about "gotta group" in that name or definition (unlike Counterstrike or Baseball or Football that are all team-based games). I blame the fact that so many think forced grouping is good on EQ1. WoW (an EQ1 clone in many ways), is actually very solo friendly for most of the lower levels and I believe that is one of the reasons that it beat the crap out of competition like EQ2 as well as more recent games. Remember - most WoW players are not raiders and most of the lower level instances can be solo'd by a level 70 (with an alt or friend in tow perhaps).
I'm getting tired of groupers telling everyone else it's their way or the highway. Get off your high horses.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
because in a group you can't leave early if you need to. Thats why people want to be able to have SOMETHING to do on there own. MMOs are great for the few elite that can spare enough time to play but the additude of "why should my game suffer because other people dont want to dedicate there lives to this game" kinda locks everyone else out of MMOs. Yeah some people only have an hour or two to play a WEEK. Basicly that means that they can't play and that makes them mad. After all "why should I not get to play because I can't play all day long."
Groupings good if the game allows you to get new people without having to leave an area. Its a way to meet new people, not everyone should feel they have to join a guild just to get help or to get to know peeps.
People are becoming more anti-social in mmo's because they feel groups slow them down, or take there loot or leavers ruin the group. In some ways this can be true but if i wanted to play a single game rpg game i'd rather choose kotor I/II lol.
I hated the fact that jedi's on swg had to solo grind alone, as to not place themselves on the bounty list, because the game lost all its fun factor.
Guildwars is boring to me now, as its all hero's and henchies, sure pvp is ok, but thats like half the game. Before factions and nightfall, people werent spread soo much and people actually grouped together because people were better than the henchies. Now its the complete opposite, most people do quests with npc hero's and henchies, its just boring. The games become soo anti-social that only way to make friends is to have a guild in an alliance.
in a loot causes most the problems, for example in ryzom, you dont get rare weps are armour from bosses, just materials, therefore people generally group up alot more, because there no in competetion with each other to get the lastest rare drop.
So on one part its the game dynamics that cause grouping issues, on the other its peoples greed and anti social behaviour. And i mean that in the nicest possible way of course :P
WoW.
Wrong. All the endgame and any good gear have to ben gotten in groups in WoW. You can not play that game completly solo and do everything.
On the topic, its not that people dont like grouping or that they can't find one(or at least its like this for me.) Its that once you have found a group, now you have to go on some very long quest that you can't leave from until it is done or the group decides to disband. Many of these quests (or instanced dungeons as it may be.) take a very long time and even if you have that kind of free time, which few do, no one wants to feel tied down to a game, especially not for that long. This actually wasn't a problem for me in FFXI becuase most of the time when your in a group, your not doing a quest, your just grinding mosters. Pair that with the fact that I was a tank which were rare on my server, and I can play that game with very little time. There was nothing to accomplish so you aren't tied down to that group.
Now the othe MMO I have experience with is WoW. That game i had to quit becuase I don't have the time to be in BRD for 2-5 hours. Raiding is completly out of the question.
Now you saying, that big deal, that sucks for me. Well its not just me, many people have the same problem. Because of elitests that can't understand that peple actually have a life outside of their MMO, they are expected to be in groups for severall hours. If people want a game where thats not the case, then why shouldn't they be allowed to want one? They are entitiled to have requests. If a company wants to make a succesful game and doing something like this that can be played by yourself or with other people, why can't they?
An argument to that would be: well don't single player rpgs already provide that? And there you would be wrong. Single player RPGs have a story to tell, thats the whole purpose. Your character has basicly no freedom(im speaking generally) and once the story is done, thats it. You cant keep playing to progress your characters and even if you could, there will be no new patches to keep the game going.Are there exceptions to that. Meh, kinda. Oblivion keeps going, but it caps out so quicly, your character doesn't rly progress, you just keep doing alot of quests.(also the whole all-the-enemies-level-with-you thing kinda ruins the game) Phantasy star Online(not PSU, it had a single player story) did that, and it was actually fun. The only problem is that these "middle ground" online/offline games are far and few between.Untill we can see a good casual MMORPG that still an RPG, this argument will continue.
Well, for me, it was good old computer rpgs going back to the 70's that started off solo. MUDs eventually added some grouping. But Game like Shadows of Ysersious offered a graphical rpg with grouping. EQ took it further. Now, IMO, things have moved back towards more soloing for a lot of reasons, but mostly because soloing is convient.
Well, there should be parts of the contents that focus on solo play, and parts of the contents that focus on group play. But with the present system of character progression (i.e. the Class/Level system), it became harder to find a group, thus people prefer solo play (also with the different time constrain between players).
Why I say it's the Class/Level system's fault? Because with the present idea of group play, people prefer efficiency over community (ie. the "holy trinity" group setting). Everyone wants to finish contents so they can get to the end level to compete. It's the system's design making the players playing in such way. Also, with games that has level, you will have more higher level characters as time goes by, and due to the design of xp-gaining mechanics, there isn't much going for high levels to get other than making friends with others when teaming with lower levels. This creates a level gap and for those who join late, it gets harder to get into a group (hence the need for solo contents to cover such flaw in design).
Solution?
1) take away the level gap - This can be achieve by giving more incentives to those who have achieve the higher levels to help out the lower levels. This can be done by scaling xp (or not), or even like CoX's badge system, or other ways. This would encourage grouping and encourage building a community.
2.) do not design group contents based on group setting (the classes needed), rather, design it as challenging and yet can be achieve by all types of groups setting. - This would let those who do not have time to play to feel they are just as good as those who spend countless hours in a group. By providing a role (doesn't have to be a defined role) for everyone, it helps encourage grouping, and also helps build a community for the game.
When everything is not design around the class/level system, then you will see that grouping will become more acceptable and more enjoyable.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
grouping becomes evil the moment you seperate the community appart too much.
first you have a few dozen shards that have 2-3 thousand people on it at peak hours, then out of that group only 1,000 people or so are competent, out of that you have 50-100 or so people that are within a 15-20 min travel, now you have 10-20 that are in communication range, finally out of those people you have 2-4 that are near your level to be in the group. after this you are forced to work with the devs foresight of making the current project you are working on require 8-15 people.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.