But the soloist, oh dear Lord, the soloist is helping turn MMORPGS into SRPGs with an online component. Now as far as I am concerened, that is far worse.
What is wrong with that? As long as the game is fun, i don't really care how big is the online component.
The problem is I want a game that I cannot solo. This takes the challenge and fun out of the game for me. For the soloist to be happy, the game has to let me solo, unless you know some sort of design around this problem?
The answer "just don't solo" doesn't work. If I CAN solo easily I will find the game no fun anymore.
It seems to me like many of you are letting the gameplay of others have too much of an impact on your own. If you want to group up, there are plenty of games out there that will let you do it, and plenty of people willing to join you. If you want to go solo, enjoy yourself. If you can't come to terms with all of this, perhaps you shouldn't be playing.
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
I dunno, I honestly can see both sides of this argument but someone said somewhere in this thread ''soon we'll all have our own perfect mmo'' or something similar...
Well, the problem is, I DID have my perfect mmorpg but the dev's changed it Time to move on, I find my 'next best' mmorpg which I totally enjoyed, the dev's changed that one too So then onto the next, which is so removed from the 1st in terms of gameplay it's almost a different genre.
So a lot of the problems are caused by devs changing the fundamental game mechanics of a game that people enjoy already, forcing them to move onto the next best, that gets changed...so on and so on.
If devs left the core of a game alone, those people that enjoyed it would still be there enjoying it. Thos that didn't would be in the next game enjoying that.
What we have now, is people from changed game A moving to game B and forcing changes on that, then players from B move to C forcing their game changes onto that......
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. ~Navajo Proverb
It seems to me like many of you are letting the gameplay of others have too much of an impact on your own. If you want to group up, there are plenty of games out there that will let you do it, and plenty of people willing to join you. If you want to go solo, enjoy yourself. If you can't come to terms with all of this, perhaps you shouldn't be playing.
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
For some reason I feel like I've always been in disagreement with you in the past, however, it seems we're both on the same side. I completely agree with what you're saying. Nothing really to add to it, you summed it up pretty well.
I will say, for all you nay-sayers, I believe there is still a market for people who prefer group based MMOs. I mean, FFXI has had a steady 500k+ subscription rate since its been out and that is a very group dependent game (which is more than can be said for the recent additions to the genre that have targeted the mainstream "WoW" audience).
It seems to me like many of you are letting the gameplay of others have too much of an impact on your own. If you want to group up, there are plenty of games out there that will let you do it, and plenty of people willing to join you. If you want to go solo, enjoy yourself. If you can't come to terms with all of this, perhaps you shouldn't be playing.
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
I fail to see where I'm "advocating" forced solo. I hate forced solo-ing just as much as I hate forced group-ing. I want the choice to do play the game however I'm in the mood to play it.
You're reading way too much into the little that I've said and making far too many assumptions about what I will, or will not, bitch about.
I could be wrong, but I think to understand why there is are so many WOW clones as we call them now and coming soon like aion. You have to try and think in terms of a business. There is probably, at most maybe 500,000 of us who go from MMO to MMO not being able to get our fix we are veterans looking for the next big thing that will make us feel like our first MMO made us feel usually.
Thing is when you look at WOW there likes 8million+ subscribers? Im sure the numbers off its late but most of WOW's players are new to the MMO world. And as a game company you want to get those guys not the 500,000 or so MMO veterans game jumping. So they make a game like WOW hoping to appeal to the WOW crowd and hope to either scrape away some of there customer base by offering something similiar but new. I mean it makes sense. With some MMO's taking anywhere from 50-100 million to make its no wonder why fewer of these companies are willing to take chances. To much to loose. They are hoping by taking the safe bet they can make money and stay in business. We often forget thats why they make these games in the first place to make buck.
Extreme soloist? That's funny. People who have limited game playing time want to be able to solo because they don't want to waste half their time spamming "LFG". People with real life obligations that may have to take extended AFKs at a moment's notice may prefer to solo as to not inconvenience potential group members. I'm sure you "group or gtfo" types are perfectly understanding if a member of your group has to log before your objectives are completed. Good luck to noobs just joining an established MMO getting groups, too. I'll group if there are other people that want to do the same things as I do, but I'm not going to sit around not able to advance because I need to group. You can encourage grouping and even make soloing harder or less rewarding, but any MMO that makes grouping required to advance doesn't get my money. Nothing is preventing people that insist on grouping from doing so. You can always group for soloable encounters, but the reverse is rarely true unless you are much higher than the intended level. It's easy to say "if you want to solo, don't play MMOs" when it's not you that's losing out on those customers, especially with the growing casual MMO player market.
People with real life obligations should play single player games and stop ruining MMOs for us no lifers.
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
I will say, for all you nay-sayers, I believe there is still a market for people who prefer group based MMOs. I mean, FFXI has had a steady 500k+ subscription rate since its been out and that is a very group dependent game (which is more than can be said for the recent additions to the genre that have targeted the mainstream "WoW" audience).
That is true. There is definitely concrete evidence that there is more then enough people on this earth that will support group based games. FFXI has for sure done quite well if it is still going after all these years and is still having expansions and getting a lot of attention from Square-Enix even to this day.
FFXI is more hardcore group-wise then EQ or pretty much any other game on the market I would say. Also, besides the fact that it is group dependent the game is always extremely time-consuming regardless of it being group based. It appears there is indeed a large audience for that style of game, I dare say even more so than WoW types.
It seems to me like many of you are letting the gameplay of others have too much of an impact on your own. If you want to group up, there are plenty of games out there that will let you do it, and plenty of people willing to join you. If you want to go solo, enjoy yourself. If you can't come to terms with all of this, perhaps you shouldn't be playing.
There's a small portion of people that play like myself though.
Ironically while I'm somewhat social out in the real world, I tend to be introverted when I get into the MMORPGs (I know it's bad because it's massively multiplayer) and one thing is that I actually enjoy grouping usually but I'm too afraid to bother the person with a /whisper or a tell to see if they'll invite me or something.
That's why I like games like Project Powder / Tales Runner, and a few of the F2P games that somewhat force you into a game with other players (if you choose so). It allows me to somewhat 'group' with those players and chat with them while waiting for the game to start and give off a positive "Good luck" to all. :P
But the soloist, oh dear Lord, the soloist is helping turn MMORPGS into SRPGs with an online component. Now as far as I am concerened, that is far worse.
What is wrong with that? As long as the game is fun, i don't really care how big is the online component.
The problem is I want a game that I cannot solo. This takes the challenge and fun out of the game for me. For the soloist to be happy, the game has to let me solo, unless you know some sort of design around this problem?
The answer "just don't solo" doesn't work. If I CAN solo easily I will find the game no fun anymore.
So you're saying you just cannot control yourself, you have to not only run your own life, but the lives of everyone around you?
But the soloist, oh dear Lord, the soloist is helping turn MMORPGS into SRPGs with an online component. Now as far as I am concerened, that is far worse.
What is wrong with that? As long as the game is fun, i don't really care how big is the online component.
The problem is I want a game that I cannot solo. This takes the challenge and fun out of the game for me. For the soloist to be happy, the game has to let me solo, unless you know some sort of design around this problem?
The answer "just don't solo" doesn't work. If I CAN solo easily I will find the game no fun anymore.
In that case, you are out of luck. I highly doubt any developer will cater to YOU by taking choice AWAY from others.
I think that the key thing for a game that requires grouping is to make finding a group easy and painless. DDO managed this. Guild Wars as well, to a lesser extent.
The other problem with forced grouping games is that some classes are much more in demand than others. Which means that if you're not a healer or a tank prepare for a long evening. I don't think any game has come up with a solution to this.
In my opinion Neverland7's original opinion is entirely correct and can truly only lead to one thing, the death of MMOg's or rather the stagnation of this type of game play. I personally only really want to play games that have good social interaction, either option is going to drive out new players or players who are looking for a little fun after a long day because the sheer amount of work that comes to stand on par with the elitists, or be put off by the soloists. Without new players, the games will wither on the vine, without a broader player base MMO's designers will only make clones. One thing about cloning in rl, the more you clone something, the more the DNA narrows until there is no longer any variation. Neither player mindset will ever encourage innovation.
In my opinion Neverland7's original opinion is entirely correct and can truly only lead to one thing, the death of MMOg's or rather the stagnation of this type of game play. I personally only really want to play games that have good social interaction, either option is going to drive out new players or players who are looking for a little fun after a long day because the sheer amount of work that comes to stand on par with the elitists, or be put off by the soloists. Without new players, the games will wither on the vine, without a broader player base MMO's designers will only make clones. One thing about cloning in rl, the more you clone something, the more the DNA narrows until there is no longer any variation. Neither player mindset will ever encourage innovation.
While I entirely support teaming, requiring it is ludicrous. I was just over on Anarchy Online. There were 4 people on from my org. Not enough to team. There were 3 people on the LFT list. Not enough to team. There were TONS of people hanging around talking, the OOC channels were going full bore, but nobody was looking for a team. That means if there's no way to solo, the majority of players are completely out of luck.
In my opinion Neverland7's original opinion is entirely correct and can truly only lead to one thing, the death of MMOg's or rather the stagnation of this type of game play. I personally only really want to play games that have good social interaction, either option is going to drive out new players or players who are looking for a little fun after a long day because the sheer amount of work that comes to stand on par with the elitists, or be put off by the soloists. Without new players, the games will wither on the vine, without a broader player base MMO's designers will only make clones. One thing about cloning in rl, the more you clone something, the more the DNA narrows until there is no longer any variation. Neither player mindset will ever encourage innovation.
While I entirely support teaming, requiring it is ludicrous. I was just over on Anarchy Online. There were 4 people on from my org. Not enough to team. There were 3 people on the LFT list. Not enough to team. There were TONS of people hanging around talking, the OOC channels were going full bore, but nobody was looking for a team. That means if there's no way to solo, the majority of players are completely out of luck.
I think the key will be finding a new innovative way to make it easier for players to get together, have an immersive fantasy experience , actually play together and most of all have a fun, good time. I don't think the answer is to make games that entirely eliminate solo play but more give the design that UO and EQ had which was about people interacting and playing together ( which included grouping ) but not the extreme player dependency of a game such as FFXI ( While I still think It's okay and would still without a question choose that style over strong solo games like WoW ) nor the suger coated candy walk of doing most everything on your own like WoW. I would rather have a UO design then sugar candy WoW designs, but that's just me and while 11 million WoW players might not agree, I think there is enough players ( As proven by FFXI's sub numbers ) that would support a richer player interactive experience.
But it would be nice to see some more FFXI's and a little less WoW clones that are like an SRPG with an online component.
Honestly, I just want to see an MMORPG where both soloing and grouping are effective methods of advancement. Why this is so difficult for developers to do is beyond me.
Honestly, I just want to see an MMORPG where both soloing and grouping are effective methods of advancement. Why this is so difficult for developers to do is beyond me.
When you give the option to solo and make soloing a powerful way of advancement, usually it is hell most of the time to get a good group going. Because when you have those two options most people ( Non MMORPG Vets ) prefer to solo and when a group does get formed, people usually don't give 2 craps about it since there reputation is quite meaningless because they can just solo anyway. So you end up seeing very little quality effort going into making the grouping environment from most players when you offer soloing as a powerful or on-par means to grouping.
Also I'm sure it is much easier for developers to cut and paste this tried and true game design and make millions off it ( As seen in WoW ) because people are willing to support it.
What the OP wants is more grouping in games, as was forced on players in some of the early MMORPG's like DAOC, EQ and others. Soloists were strongly penalized in those days and because of player complaints, DAOC, EQ and many games that came after them changed their design to add characters who could solo effectively. Developers merely responded to the wants of the consumer, and it increased participation in MMO's tremendously. What I'd like to see is a game designed that strongly rewarded grouping behavior, while not totally penalizing the solo player. So far I really haven't seen many games get this right (if any) and even questing can be made more social if players are allowed to "mentor" their friends or other lower level players and let them join in the upper level content. (some games have this, but not enough). A scalable AI would be nice, where npc mobs would increase in power (and provide better rewards) based on the level/number of the playes that are attacking them. I realize this adds a lot of complexity in coding, but one can always dream for a better future.
The stuff in red, that will never happen, ever. No one would play that, that's why Ryzom is not more poplular (and it's frightening lack of quests ).
The stuff in pink, yeah I agree as a soloer I actually don't enjoy being able to solo everything, I just like to be able to log in MOST days and do a few levels whithout the headache of finding a party and having to log off 20 minutes later. But I also like to be able to join my guild for dungeons or missions and ect.. For people clamoring for a return to the old days you have to think of what you'd be letting go. Not everyone has the same anount of time on their hands they had 10 years ago.
The stuff in green, oh I'd love that I think most people would, but then again I'm sure someone is bound to complain why bother have scalable mobs, most people are going to pick the easiest anyway... Scalable dungeons would be great too, I think DnD has something like this already.
The reason I don't play WoW is because the pre-raid levels are foced solo. I don't like solo games. I LOVE good grouping games.
I think part of the attraction towards grouping/playing with others is that it makes the game world a lot more alive and interesting. It also one of the unique and strong points of MMORPGS that single palyer games cannot offer.
Honestly, I just want to see an MMORPG where both soloing and grouping are effective methods of advancement. Why this is so difficult for developers to do is beyond me.
When you give the option to solo and make soloing a powerful way of advancement, usually it is hell most of the time to get a good group going. Because when you have those two options most people ( Non MMORPG Vets ) prefer to solo and when a group does get formed, people usually don't give 2 craps about it since there reputation is quite meaningless because they can just solo anyway. So you end up seeing very little quality effort going into making the grouping environment from most players when you offer soloing as a powerful or on-par means to grouping.
Grouping should be faster, simply because with more characters, you can go after harder mobs and get more XP and more loot, but to say that grouping should be the ONLY thing one can do is ludicrous. There are a lot of people and a lot of games where there are slow periods and if the only time you can play is a slow period, there may not be groups available whether you want to play in one or not. You can only group if there's someone there to group with, the game devs would be insane to tell potential paying customers that they can't play because they can't get on when lots of people are around to group with.
Honestly, I just want to see an MMORPG where both soloing and grouping are effective methods of advancement. Why this is so difficult for developers to do is beyond me.
When you give the option to solo and make soloing a powerful way of advancement, usually it is hell most of the time to get a good group going. Because when you have those two options most people ( Non MMORPG Vets ) prefer to solo and when a group does get formed, people usually don't give 2 craps about it since there reputation is quite meaningless because they can just solo anyway. So you end up seeing very little quality effort going into making the grouping environment from most players when you offer soloing as a powerful or on-par means to grouping.
Grouping should be faster, simply because with more characters, you can go after harder mobs and get more XP and more loot, but to say that grouping should be the ONLY thing one can do is ludicrous. There are a lot of people and a lot of games where there are slow periods and if the only time you can play is a slow period, there may not be groups available whether you want to play in one or not. You can only group if there's someone there to group with, the game devs would be insane to tell potential paying customers that they can't play because they can't get on when lots of people are around to group with.
I don't disagree. I don't think everything in an MMORPG should be player to player dependent, that would be agitating, but I think the core of the game should be about player interactivity ( In whatever form. ) UO had a pretty good system in where there was many things you could do by yourself that weren't player dependent but yet you had a large amount of player interactivity and communciation going on between everyone.
I don't disagree. I don't think everything in an MMORPG should be player to player dependent, that would be agitating, but I think the core of the game should be about player interactivity ( In whatever form. ) UO had a pretty good system in where there was many things you could do by yourself that weren't player dependent but yet you had a large amount of player interactivity and communciation going on between everyone.
But even for people who play solo, they invariably interact with others. They have to go somewhere to get their buffs, they have to go somewhere to sell their loot, there are always places where a solo player cannot go and needs to be in a team. I think people ought to be rewarded for teaming, but since virtually everyone in most games is a self-centered jerk who is only out for personal glory even in teams, it's really hard to figure out how to do so.
There's one guy in my org that is a complete solo-hound. He has 15 characters so he can self-buff, he refuses to team with anyone at all and frankly, everyone is sick of him, but I'll be the first one to say that if that's the way he wants to play, more power to him. He's paying the monthly fee, he can do whatever he wants.
Comments
What is wrong with that? As long as the game is fun, i don't really care how big is the online component.
The problem is I want a game that I cannot solo. This takes the challenge and fun out of the game for me. For the soloist to be happy, the game has to let me solo, unless you know some sort of design around this problem?
The answer "just don't solo" doesn't work. If I CAN solo easily I will find the game no fun anymore.
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
I dunno, I honestly can see both sides of this argument but someone said somewhere in this thread ''soon we'll all have our own perfect mmo'' or something similar...
Well, the problem is, I DID have my perfect mmorpg but the dev's changed it
Time to move on, I find my 'next best' mmorpg which I totally enjoyed, the dev's changed that one too 
So then onto the next, which is so removed from the 1st in terms of gameplay it's almost a different genre.
So a lot of the problems are caused by devs changing the fundamental game mechanics of a game that people enjoy already, forcing them to move onto the next best, that gets changed...so on and so on.
If devs left the core of a game alone, those people that enjoyed it would still be there enjoying it. Thos that didn't would be in the next game enjoying that.
What we have now, is people from changed game A moving to game B and forcing changes on that, then players from B move to C forcing their game changes onto that......
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. ~Navajo Proverb
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
For some reason I feel like I've always been in disagreement with you in the past, however, it seems we're both on the same side. I completely agree with what you're saying. Nothing really to add to it, you summed it up pretty well.
I will say, for all you nay-sayers, I believe there is still a market for people who prefer group based MMOs. I mean, FFXI has had a steady 500k+ subscription rate since its been out and that is a very group dependent game (which is more than can be said for the recent additions to the genre that have targeted the mainstream "WoW" audience).
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
I fail to see where I'm "advocating" forced solo. I hate forced solo-ing just as much as I hate forced group-ing. I want the choice to do play the game however I'm in the mood to play it.
You're reading way too much into the little that I've said and making far too many assumptions about what I will, or will not, bitch about.
I could be wrong, but I think to understand why there is are so many WOW clones as we call them now and coming soon like aion. You have to try and think in terms of a business. There is probably, at most maybe 500,000 of us who go from MMO to MMO not being able to get our fix we are veterans looking for the next big thing that will make us feel like our first MMO made us feel usually.
Thing is when you look at WOW there likes 8million+ subscribers? Im sure the numbers off its late but most of WOW's players are new to the MMO world. And as a game company you want to get those guys not the 500,000 or so MMO veterans game jumping. So they make a game like WOW hoping to appeal to the WOW crowd and hope to either scrape away some of there customer base by offering something similiar but new. I mean it makes sense. With some MMO's taking anywhere from 50-100 million to make its no wonder why fewer of these companies are willing to take chances. To much to loose. They are hoping by taking the safe bet they can make money and stay in business. We often forget thats why they make these games in the first place to make buck.
People with real life obligations should play single player games and stop ruining MMOs for us no lifers.
Groupers are not asking for games that LET them group. Groupers are asking for games that REQUIRE grouping to get ahead at a decent rate.
This makes the game fun and challenging for some people.
If your statement is true, and you CAN solo in such a game, but you make half the progress as grouping, then my gaming would not impact you, and you would be happy to solo in that game. But you will not be, you will bitch that it's "forced grouping".
But at the same time, you're advocating fora forced solo game.
WE both know that there are no games that don't allow solo play, or that don't allow group play. It's all about the progress rate for both play styles.
You're trying to have it both ways. If I have a solo game, it doesnt' affect you, but if you have a group game it affects me. That makes no sense.
I will say, for all you nay-sayers, I believe there is still a market for people who prefer group based MMOs. I mean, FFXI has had a steady 500k+ subscription rate since its been out and that is a very group dependent game (which is more than can be said for the recent additions to the genre that have targeted the mainstream "WoW" audience).
That is true. There is definitely concrete evidence that there is more then enough people on this earth that will support group based games. FFXI has for sure done quite well if it is still going after all these years and is still having expansions and getting a lot of attention from Square-Enix even to this day.
FFXI is more hardcore group-wise then EQ or pretty much any other game on the market I would say. Also, besides the fact that it is group dependent the game is always extremely time-consuming regardless of it being group based. It appears there is indeed a large audience for that style of game, I dare say even more so than WoW types.
There's a small portion of people that play like myself though.
Ironically while I'm somewhat social out in the real world, I tend to be introverted when I get into the MMORPGs (I know it's bad because it's massively multiplayer) and one thing is that I actually enjoy grouping usually but I'm too afraid to bother the person with a /whisper or a tell to see if they'll invite me or something.
That's why I like games like Project Powder / Tales Runner, and a few of the F2P games that somewhat force you into a game with other players (if you choose so). It allows me to somewhat 'group' with those players and chat with them while waiting for the game to start and give off a positive "Good luck" to all. :P
MMO Addict
What is wrong with that? As long as the game is fun, i don't really care how big is the online component.
The problem is I want a game that I cannot solo. This takes the challenge and fun out of the game for me. For the soloist to be happy, the game has to let me solo, unless you know some sort of design around this problem?
The answer "just don't solo" doesn't work. If I CAN solo easily I will find the game no fun anymore.
So you're saying you just cannot control yourself, you have to not only run your own life, but the lives of everyone around you?
Glad I don't play anywhere near you.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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What is wrong with that? As long as the game is fun, i don't really care how big is the online component.
The problem is I want a game that I cannot solo. This takes the challenge and fun out of the game for me. For the soloist to be happy, the game has to let me solo, unless you know some sort of design around this problem?
The answer "just don't solo" doesn't work. If I CAN solo easily I will find the game no fun anymore.
In that case, you are out of luck. I highly doubt any developer will cater to YOU by taking choice AWAY from others.
I think that the key thing for a game that requires grouping is to make finding a group easy and painless. DDO managed this. Guild Wars as well, to a lesser extent.
The other problem with forced grouping games is that some classes are much more in demand than others. Which means that if you're not a healer or a tank prepare for a long evening. I don't think any game has come up with a solution to this.
In my opinion Neverland7's original opinion is entirely correct and can truly only lead to one thing, the death of MMOg's or rather the stagnation of this type of game play. I personally only really want to play games that have good social interaction, either option is going to drive out new players or players who are looking for a little fun after a long day because the sheer amount of work that comes to stand on par with the elitists, or be put off by the soloists. Without new players, the games will wither on the vine, without a broader player base MMO's designers will only make clones. One thing about cloning in rl, the more you clone something, the more the DNA narrows until there is no longer any variation. Neither player mindset will ever encourage innovation.
While I entirely support teaming, requiring it is ludicrous. I was just over on Anarchy Online. There were 4 people on from my org. Not enough to team. There were 3 people on the LFT list. Not enough to team. There were TONS of people hanging around talking, the OOC channels were going full bore, but nobody was looking for a team. That means if there's no way to solo, the majority of players are completely out of luck.
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While I entirely support teaming, requiring it is ludicrous. I was just over on Anarchy Online. There were 4 people on from my org. Not enough to team. There were 3 people on the LFT list. Not enough to team. There were TONS of people hanging around talking, the OOC channels were going full bore, but nobody was looking for a team. That means if there's no way to solo, the majority of players are completely out of luck.
I think the key will be finding a new innovative way to make it easier for players to get together, have an immersive fantasy experience , actually play together and most of all have a fun, good time. I don't think the answer is to make games that entirely eliminate solo play but more give the design that UO and EQ had which was about people interacting and playing together ( which included grouping ) but not the extreme player dependency of a game such as FFXI ( While I still think It's okay and would still without a question choose that style over strong solo games like WoW ) nor the suger coated candy walk of doing most everything on your own like WoW. I would rather have a UO design then sugar candy WoW designs, but that's just me and while 11 million WoW players might not agree, I think there is enough players ( As proven by FFXI's sub numbers ) that would support a richer player interactive experience.
But it would be nice to see some more FFXI's and a little less WoW clones that are like an SRPG with an online component.
Honestly, I just want to see an MMORPG where both soloing and grouping are effective methods of advancement. Why this is so difficult for developers to do is beyond me.
When you give the option to solo and make soloing a powerful way of advancement, usually it is hell most of the time to get a good group going. Because when you have those two options most people ( Non MMORPG Vets ) prefer to solo and when a group does get formed, people usually don't give 2 craps about it since there reputation is quite meaningless because they can just solo anyway. So you end up seeing very little quality effort going into making the grouping environment from most players when you offer soloing as a powerful or on-par means to grouping.
Also I'm sure it is much easier for developers to cut and paste this tried and true game design and make millions off it ( As seen in WoW ) because people are willing to support it.
The stuff in red, that will never happen, ever. No one would play that, that's why Ryzom is not more poplular (and it's frightening lack of quests
).
The stuff in pink, yeah I agree as a soloer I actually don't enjoy being able to solo everything, I just like to be able to log in MOST days and do a few levels whithout the headache of finding a party and having to log off 20 minutes later. But I also like to be able to join my guild for dungeons or missions and ect.. For people clamoring for a return to the old days you have to think of what you'd be letting go. Not everyone has the same anount of time on their hands they had 10 years ago.
The stuff in green, oh I'd love that I think most people would, but then again I'm sure someone is bound to complain why bother have scalable mobs, most people are going to pick the easiest anyway... Scalable dungeons would be great too, I think DnD has something like this already.
The reason I don't play WoW is because the pre-raid levels are foced solo. I don't like solo games. I LOVE good grouping games.
I think part of the attraction towards grouping/playing with others is that it makes the game world a lot more alive and interesting. It also one of the unique and strong points of MMORPGS that single palyer games cannot offer.
When you give the option to solo and make soloing a powerful way of advancement, usually it is hell most of the time to get a good group going. Because when you have those two options most people ( Non MMORPG Vets ) prefer to solo and when a group does get formed, people usually don't give 2 craps about it since there reputation is quite meaningless because they can just solo anyway. So you end up seeing very little quality effort going into making the grouping environment from most players when you offer soloing as a powerful or on-par means to grouping.
Grouping should be faster, simply because with more characters, you can go after harder mobs and get more XP and more loot, but to say that grouping should be the ONLY thing one can do is ludicrous. There are a lot of people and a lot of games where there are slow periods and if the only time you can play is a slow period, there may not be groups available whether you want to play in one or not. You can only group if there's someone there to group with, the game devs would be insane to tell potential paying customers that they can't play because they can't get on when lots of people are around to group with.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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When you give the option to solo and make soloing a powerful way of advancement, usually it is hell most of the time to get a good group going. Because when you have those two options most people ( Non MMORPG Vets ) prefer to solo and when a group does get formed, people usually don't give 2 craps about it since there reputation is quite meaningless because they can just solo anyway. So you end up seeing very little quality effort going into making the grouping environment from most players when you offer soloing as a powerful or on-par means to grouping.
Grouping should be faster, simply because with more characters, you can go after harder mobs and get more XP and more loot, but to say that grouping should be the ONLY thing one can do is ludicrous. There are a lot of people and a lot of games where there are slow periods and if the only time you can play is a slow period, there may not be groups available whether you want to play in one or not. You can only group if there's someone there to group with, the game devs would be insane to tell potential paying customers that they can't play because they can't get on when lots of people are around to group with.
I don't disagree. I don't think everything in an MMORPG should be player to player dependent, that would be agitating, but I think the core of the game should be about player interactivity ( In whatever form. ) UO had a pretty good system in where there was many things you could do by yourself that weren't player dependent but yet you had a large amount of player interactivity and communciation going on between everyone.
But even for people who play solo, they invariably interact with others. They have to go somewhere to get their buffs, they have to go somewhere to sell their loot, there are always places where a solo player cannot go and needs to be in a team. I think people ought to be rewarded for teaming, but since virtually everyone in most games is a self-centered jerk who is only out for personal glory even in teams, it's really hard to figure out how to do so.
There's one guy in my org that is a complete solo-hound. He has 15 characters so he can self-buff, he refuses to team with anyone at all and frankly, everyone is sick of him, but I'll be the first one to say that if that's the way he wants to play, more power to him. He's paying the monthly fee, he can do whatever he wants.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
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