Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan Why is that important? Because as WoW has progressed it has become more and more solo-friendly. There is a direct correlation there. The easier and more solo friendly that games have become, the more self-important jackasses have surfaced.
Not greatest of arguments.
You could say that WoW is now a slightly more complex Diablo game. If you enjoyed gear grind in Diablo, you will enjoy it in WoW. I would suggest in particular going through the article in this forum that discuses the cyclical nature of gear improvements, it so accurately describes as a seasonal.
While you can solo in WoW when you level up you characters does not that mean that the core game in WoW is not designed small groups and raids in mind. It is actually one reason why many casuals quit the game after they have hit the level cap. PvP, namely battelegrounds, are only truly soloable content that provides eng-game gear, but as some of that gear requires an arena rating...you are still forced to group.
Sure, Blizzard is making changes in WoW to allow soloers to gain equal rewards to those who raid or PvP. Most my friends, that you would probably call hardcore, have quit the game because there is no challenge, no risk only rewards. Sure, you have challenge when a new instance opens, but considering that most decent guilds cleared Ulduar in 1-2 weeks, there really was only repetition, as you need to be ready for the next instance. The whole hard-mode achievement thing really has been a two-edged sword, some love it and some loath it. Also, Blizzard actually wants you to go through the same content repeatedly in both 10-man and 25-man versions. I just could not do it anymore. I had enough Ulduar when I cleard it in 25.man. Achievements would have to give a pretty good rewards to even budge me to the direction of 10-mans, but some still did it...
I am sure that getting your epics through the mail would be nice (as the one joke goes), but it defeats the purpose of rewards. Especially when there is no longer any risk, nor there ever was when playing WoW, but at least it used to be more challenging. I used to like when we had the seperation between 10-man and 25-man content. Or even better 20-man to 40-man content. I have to say that Blizzard has really bend over with the 10-man content. I would not be surprised if they created some new group instances with solo option, 1-man to 5-man principles.
All that is fine for some players, they prefer it, and go great lenghts at forums to justify it. The game has changed a lot over the last 4 years. It is going to change a lot more as Blizzard is eager to please the lowest common denominator. We will see whether it remains a wise business decision in a long term, but it certainly seems to be paying off in a short.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Did it ever occur to you that the greater the number of players in the game the better your chances of coming across jerks? At the height of EQ, there were a lot of jerks and guilds that would block content from other guilds. Before Planes of Power came out with all of the elite raiding, the player base was pretty nice for the most part on my server, Fennin Ro. As the game grew and became more raid oriented with each expansion, things really started to go down hill. Yes but server populations have not increased so dramatically that the averages would be skewed so much per server. Warhammer servers could not hold more population than DaoC and yet I saw many conversations in region chat from idiots trying to be offensive and insulting at every turn which I saw with much less frequency in daoc at the heights of it's population. There was a 3 way split in daoc vs a 2way in wow and war as per server population, but still the amount of bullshit spewed in region chats far exceeded in population discrepancy. The same thing with DAoC, TOA was released at the height of the game and the hardcores had been whining incessantly for raid content. As soon as that content was made available, the atmosphere of the game completely changed, it was dramatic and it's affect on PvP was even more so. The majority of the turmoil and nasty behavior seemed to stem from the top guilds and trickled down from there. People had been whining for more RVR content, not high end raid content. Maybe the Gaheris people but I've never heard the daoc population being a part of a large outpouring of raid content. WE wanted housing, player driven mounts, and frontier changes for RvR. ToA's effect on that game is precisely why I've continually said I do not like the Loot whoring aspects of today's game. I like playercrafted gear to be the best. Shrouded Isles was a perfect mix of player crafted gear and drops. WoW had a decent community in the beginning, despite all of the solo content. Then they started coming out with all of the new raid dungeons and elite PvP gear and then I saw a huge shift in the way people behaved. When I did want to group, I would often be turned down because I didn't have raid or PvP epics and that was just for instances and battlegrounds and especially arena. I call bullshit on this one. I tried wow at release and I saw more childish antics and whining than I had been exposed to in any mmo. That was just one driving force on me quitting the game after a week. Despite all my friends playing it, I could not stand to listen to all that bullshit or spend my time ignoring people. The underlying problem seems to be elite content and loot. Where do you get that loot? Not from soloing, that's for sure. I've noticed a lot of bad behavior being the result of players feeling superior to you and exclusive loot plays a large part in that. Here is where I hopeyou will finally see that we agree on something. Because I've stated it over and over in multiple threads. Elite gear/loot is the problem off of PVE. It seperates the haves and have nots. WE need player crafted gear to be the best. WE need to get rid of BoE and BoP completely so people can have access to all gear, regardless of playstyle. That doesn't mean I think that groupers don't deserve some special reward for kiling an elite mob. It could be a trophy like DoaC did with the dragon heads. It could be a title such as wow uses for the bgs or warhammer uses in the Tome. Loot whoring games suck!
Sure there have always been asshats in games, but there has become a disturbingly increasing number of them as WoW has progressed.
Why is that important? Because as WoW has progressed it has become more and more solo-friendly. There is a direct correlation there. The easier and more solo friendly that games have become, the more self-important jackasses have surfaced.
I don't buy that solo play produces asshats. There were plenty of asshats in high level play in the early days of EQ. The must have grouping mechanism meant you were forced to take them into your groups because you had to have someone in that role (like a healer) or have a certain number of players to survive the area. The grouping mechanism helped them to go on.
No it's not. What makes an MMO an MMO is having a world where lots of people can be online at the same time in the same place and interact with each other if they choose to do so. If people want to treat an MMO as a glorified chat room, who's to say they are wrong? They pay the same as those who want to grind in groups.
Yes, obviously anyone who thinks you should group in a MMO is a born again Christian or a Nazi or whatever.
We solo and like it, but we think grouping is an essential part of the game too. You don’t want to do any grouping, or don’t want to do any grouping for the top rewards. Who is the more narrow minded here?
The only reason I group on the games I play now is to show the other players how much better I am than them at the game. Be it in damage, healing, or tanking I win. If I do not group for that reason it is to help out friends.
This is precisely one type of attitude that makes me not want to group anymore. Golly, aren't you oober!
I had written a long-winded post here but it isn't really necessary to beat this dead horse any more...instead l'll just leave it at this...
What in the waffle gives the "groupers" the right to judge the "soloers" for how they choose to play the game?
Soloers are saying "Live and Let Live' and the groupers are saying "It's yourfault my game isn't fun anymore!"
Utterly ridiculous.
"Ignorance begets confidence more often than does knowledge." - Charles Darwin "It is far easier to be critical than to be correct." - Benjamin Disreali "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
I think you have hit on a philosophical point that divides us. What gives us as groupers the ‘right to judge’ if you must put it in so PC a fashion is that a MMO is a community. Soloers do not think their MMO is a community which is why they don’t group, or even chat much to anyone else.
Are soloers saying ‘live and let live’? Or are they saying ‘it’s my game and I will play however I choose’? You see if you have the soloer mentality it does not matter what anyone else wants to do, does it? You just want to do your own thing and everyone else can go to hell in a hand cart.
This goes beyond grouping, it is about those of us who want more than a solo game, not just grouping, but a sense of community, players using the game as a tool to improvise their own fun, roleplaying if you are on a RP server, mass war on a RvR server.
The Lone Wolf: I don’t role play, I don’t do team pvp, I don’t craft, do diplomacy or anything else but level, ‘I am the lone assassin’ is the antithesis of what makes a MMO great. It is the players who make a MMO great, their imagination and dedication, not the game mechanics and the quests.
Soloers do not think their MMO is a community which is why they don’t group, or even chat much to anyone else. Are soloers saying ‘live and let live’? Or are they saying ‘it’s my game and I will play however I choose’? You see if you have the soloer mentality it does not matter what anyone else wants to do, does it? You just want to do your own thing and everyone else can go to hell in a hand cart.
If you have a point, you would be better served by not creating strawmen.
i play solo mostly but after that, everything you say is completely wrong..
This is entirely based on how each individual view things. There is no right or wrong here as i stated a thousand times.
Group or solo is a choice. There is no right or wrong. Some people will pretend to know the reason why someone solo or group. They use the worst excuse possible, but only end up sounding immature.
The truth is both group and solo play are both valid and are both ways to enjoy a game. Whether it is MMORPG or not doesn't really matter. There are no such thing as a "correct" way to enjoy a MMORPG, only the ignorant will make such statement.
I think you have hit on a philosophical point that divides us. What gives us as groupers the ‘right to judge’ if you must put it in so PC a fashion is that a MMO is a community. Soloers do not think their MMO is a community which is why they don’t group, or even chat much to anyone else. Are soloers saying ‘live and let live’? Or are they saying ‘it’s my game and I will play however I choose’? You see if you have the soloer mentality it does not matter what anyone else wants to do, does it? You just want to do your own thing and everyone else can go to hell in a hand cart. This goes beyond grouping, it is about those of us who want more than a solo game, not just grouping, but a sense of community, players using the game as a tool to improvise their own fun, roleplaying if you are on a RP server, mass war on a RvR server. The Lone Wolf: I don’t role play, I don’t do team pvp, I don’t craft, do diplomacy or anything else but level, ‘I am the lone assassin’ is the antithesis of what makes a MMO great. It is the players who make a MMO great, their imagination and dedication, not the game mechanics and the quests.
On the contrary. Soloers play MMOs like community games and not like team games (TF2, CS, etc).
Grouping is not the best way to foster a community. I will say this yet again, UO never required you to group with anyone and it didn't have global chat. Yet it had one of the best communities out there. Why? Because there were other tools which helped shape the community.
Tools that are being largely ignored by MMO developers because it's so much easier to just force grouping and pretend like you're helping build a community.
This is entirely based on how each individual view things. There is no right or wrong here as i stated a thousand times. Group or solo is a choice. There is no right or wrong. Some people will pretend to know the reason why someone solo or group. They use the worst excuse possible, but only end up sounding immature. The truth is both group and solo play are both valid and are both ways to enjoy a game. Whether it is MMORPG or not doesn't really matter. There are no such thing as a "correct" way to enjoy a MMORPG, only the ignorant will make such statement.
This is one of the most reasonable responses I've personally seen here yet, largely because I feel much the same way.
I quest/grind solo. However, I like to play team-based BGs/Scenarios and would prefer to group most of the time. But, due to various limitations on my ability to give the game 100% of my attention, the times of day which I play and my lack of tolerance for people who don't respect others in their group (either by the way they choose to behave, the way the choose to play their role in the group or the way they take up others' time when they have to attend to other priorities and expect everyone else to sit on their thumbs and wait for them...the very thing that I personally do not wish to do to others), I solo. Yes, I am 100% aware that I could find people that don't act like this, but it takes alot of trial and error and the frustration of getting from solo to in-a-good-guild-with-intelligent-players-who-act-maturely-and-won't-tolerate-guild-drama-and-who-won't-just-kiss-up-to-an-obscenely-egocentric-GL is a frustration that the mechanics of most games these days doesn't force me into. I appreciate that fact...the fact that I can play solo because I still enjoy playing MMOs largely solowhether anyone else understands it or not is something that I'm thankful for because I'd have to have to walk away from this amazing genre because of my previously stated limitations.
There are indeed lots of great and valid reasons to group. There are lots of great and valid reasons to solo, whether the "groupers" see it or not. I know my reasons are valid and they need only be valid to me. These reasons have nothing to do with being anti-social or selfish or any of the myriad things that have been put upon "soloers" in this thread.
And as someone said previously, thanks to the growing cultural acceptance and broadening of the player base of the MMO genre, the mechanics of the far-largest percentage of titles (particularly AAA titles) will undoubtedly support casual, solo play for the very reasons that I stated above...it leaves the subscriptions on the table for people who don't want or can't devote the time and attention that "group-based" mechanics require. It is a business decision and it is a wise one (strictly from that perspective). That may not make the "groupers" happy, but it is a fact of life...this is a business to the devs, the publishers and their investors and they want their games to be money-printing engines...welcome to reality. Games that force the sort of mechanics model onto the players that EQ did, will likely be relegated to niche-markets. I am in no way faulting that model or the desires of the "groupers", I am simply stating what is almost undoubtedly a financial fact.
"Ignorance begets confidence more often than does knowledge." - Charles Darwin "It is far easier to be critical than to be correct." - Benjamin Disreali "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
Originally posted by heartless Grouping is not the best way to foster a community. I will say this yet again, UO never required you to group with anyone and it didn't have global chat. Yet it had one of the best communities out there. Why? Because there were other tools which helped shape the community. Tools that are being largely ignored by MMO developers because it's so much easier to just force grouping and pretend like you're helping build a community.
Originally posted by heartless Grouping is not the best way to foster a community. I will say this yet again, UO never required you to group with anyone and it didn't have global chat. Yet it had one of the best communities out there. Why? Because there were other tools which helped shape the community. Tools that are being largely ignored by MMO developers because it's so much easier to just force grouping and pretend like you're helping build a community.
To what do you refer to?
I did not play UO amd I have limited knowledge of it, but I think tools means :
A truly player made economy in which crafters could choose not to do business with assholes.
An open-pvp ruleset where anti-griefing guilds would hunt down reds specifically.
I am certainly in favour of any attempt to bring more player involvement into a MMO. And that what grouping is part of…player involvement. Not just treating the game like you were watching the TV and seeing how long it takes you to ‘beat it’
What was that ‘strawmen’ remark anyway, its hard to reply to someone when you don’t know what on earth they are going on about?
The game I enjoyed was GW. I do both solo and group. Grouping, however, is a pain in most games. You need peeps that are the right level, have the right proffesion, have enough time on their hands and wanting to do the same content. This makes it hard to even get a group going most of the time.
Grouping in Gw was enjoyable and easy. I had a group going within one minute because of the setup of that game. It was also quite clear to me it was a team based game.
Then the heroes came along in an expension. They were like henchmen but you could fill in the skills, atributes, give em weapons and pin em at any desired place. Quickly after that it became more and more of a hassle to get a group together. Most people played with the heroes. It changed the game completely and I lost interest.
Why group? I loved the coop thing in that game because it was fun and easy to get a group going.
In GW you dont group for :
Drops because max items are easy to come by.
To level, the level cap is 20 so no need to for grinding xp.
There are a lot of different players in MMO land. PVP - PVE, casual - peeps that invest more time, instanced - anti instanced, solo - group. You cant balance or please em all in one game. I will wait for the next game like GW, if there ever will be one. But until then I will play games and if I dont like em, I will move on, knowing that other peeps do like to play that game.
I am certainly in favour of any attempt to bring more player involvement into a MMO. And that what grouping is part of…player involvement. Not just treating the game like you were watching the TV and seeing how long it takes you to ‘beat it’ What was that ‘strawmen’ remark anyway, its hard to reply to someone when you don’t know what on earth they are going on about?
Scot this link will help you with the "strawman" fallacy. Also click the link to that Author Stephen.. about fallacies. I studied this in college and more often than not it will help you weed through the bullshit arguments and comments people make.
Keep in mind, this article uses wiki as an example and I do not support wiki as a completely credible reference tool, but the description I felt was easier to understand in the manner presented.
I think you have hit on a philosophical point that divides us. What gives us as groupers the ‘right to judge’ if you must put it in so PC a fashion is that a MMO is a community. Soloers do not think their MMO is a community which is why they don’t group, or even chat much to anyone else.
When you guys pitch that angle, are you trying to convince the solo players of it, or do you feel that if you repeat it enough it will eventually become true?
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Originally posted by heartless Grouping is not the best way to foster a community. I will say this yet again, UO never required you to group with anyone and it didn't have global chat. Yet it had one of the best communities out there. Why? Because there were other tools which helped shape the community. Tools that are being largely ignored by MMO developers because it's so much easier to just force grouping and pretend like you're helping build a community.
To what do you refer to?
I am glad that you asked that
To start with, the design encouraged congregating. Ease of travel combined with no global channel meant that people created 'hot spots' where players would gather. What this meant is that that players would log in and head toward where they knew likeminded players were gathering. The bold part is critical. Just as it is important to facilitate gathering, it is equally important to facilitate the ability for the various natural smaller communities to develop. To generalize:
The PvPers wouldhead to Buc Den, Brit Graveyard or the Crossroads
The Adventurers and Merchants would usuallyhead to the busiest bank to see who was gathering for a dingeon run or who was selling/buying certain iems.
The Roleplayers would gather in their particular player-made towns and villages
Now, let's expand on the tools available....
- ability to create a uniform look across a race or guild. In UO, you have dyable armor and accessories to allow guilds, militias, races, groups, towns, etc to define a look for their group. WOW adds in tabards to mask the clownsuit and provide uniformity in guild look... somewhat. LOTRO and EQ2 have apperance tabs which work towards this end as well.
- ability to have control over the environment. The ability to customize the environment to control or change atmosphere or setting. An orc guild will create huts or stone houses. A militia will create barracks, a jail, or a courthouse. A group that is building a town will probably have shops, houses, and a town hall. A tavern owner would want his building to look like a tavern or a mage tower owner would want the tower to have magely sagely stuff all around.
- ability to record and disemminate information. Parchment and books in games like UO and AC allow players to document history, record tales, post information. In UO, players can even own bulletin boards in game for posting news or allowing others to contact them regarding events, trade, etc.
- ability to choose allies and enemies. In factioned games, a guild cannot choose to make an alliance or start a war with anyone other than the predetermined enemy. In WOW, you can't even speak to the enemy, so the whole aspect of diplomacy is completely out the window.
Again, that's just touching on the surface of the tools available to encourage socializing and interaction.
The game was designed as a toolset to encourage and facilitate interaction and community. Each MMO that has been designed as a toolset instead of a guided track has proven to result in more community activity, more emergent behavior and more player interaction than any forced grouping theme park, EQ aside for reasons explained many times before.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The game doesn't need to have forced grouping to have a good community, but forced grouping will Always make the community better than if it wasn't there at all. MMO with the best community was a forced grouping themepark, too (not EQ).
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
The game doesn't need to have forced grouping to have a good community, but forced grouping will Always make the community better than if it wasn't there at all. MMO with the best community was a forced grouping themepark, too (not EQ).
You cite the exception, not the rule. That was because of where its original community came from and what they were explicitly looking for in the game, not because of the game mechanics. They were PnP gamers, LARPers and CRPG players looking specifically to do online what they were already doing with their friends and groups - gathering for team play. This is before prolific cell phones, texting and widespread broadband in an era where the RPG crowd normally actively sought out other players to play with - a LARP or ADnD campaign solo is just.... lacking. They brought their pre-exisiting interests, behavior and desires to EQ. Fastforward a decade and much of that generation has moved away from that style of play, be it due to time, other obligations, or simple different wants/interests. Now add in the newer generation of players coming from single-player games and console games where they are accustomed to being the center of the adventure.
Your example is an exception that, due to time and changes in how people communicate and play, has very little chance of being repeated in anything other than a small community MMO.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
You cite the exception, not the rule. That was because of where its original community came from and what they were explicitly looking for in the game, not because of the game mechanics. They were PnP gamers, LARPers and CRPG players looking specifically to do online what they were already doing with their friends and groups - gathering for team play. This is before prolific cell phones, texting and widespread broadband in an era where the RPG crowd normally actively sought out other players to play with - a LARP or ADnD campaign solo is just.... lacking. They brought their pre-exisiting interests, behavior and desires to EQ. Fastforward a decade and much of that generation has moved away from that style of play, be it due to time, other obligations, or simple different wants/interests. Now add in the newer generation of players coming from single-player games and console games where they are accustomed to being the center of the adventure. Your example is an exception that, due to time and changes in how people communicate and play, has very little chance of being repeated in anything other than a small community MMO.
Actually, the players came from console single-player games where they were accustomed to being the center of the adventure. They still were in the MMO, only that this time they worked together in a team (in a way similar to how they did in the single player games- only this time other characters weren't controlled by them, but other players).
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Originally posted by CactusmanX A boss for example, lets say a dragon, could have a weak spot on the underbelly, the only spot that does any real damage to the beast. The tactic would involve having to find a way with your abilities to hit the weak spot to damage the dragon and do it enough without being killed so you can defeat it. A single person could accomplish this task, but a group would make it easier, as more people means more opportunities to hit the weak spot, plus aid each other in case they are hurt.
This example is basically the "elite" vs. "normal" mob setup of most games. Except instead of a weak spot, that's abstracted: the mob has 100,000 health instead of the normal 20,000 health of mobs you normally solo. So yeah...you might be able to kill the 100,000hp dragon solo, but a group will certainly make it easier.
A group could also provide general aid. A mob incases a player in a block of ice, slowly doing damage. By yourself you are stuck and there isn't anything you can do, but in a group a teammate could smash the ice to try and free you.
This literal game mechanic is used in a few WOW boss fights.
And from an abstract perspective, healing is the exact same thing: spending your time aiding teammates rather than directly confronting a monster. (except healing damage is the "aid" mechanic without requiring the hurt player to be stunned - crowd controlling players takes them entirely out of the game and should only be used sparingly.)
Grouping would also have a downside, or an upside depending on how you look at it. If a group alerts guards more mobs are sent to look for the players, so the bigger the group the bigger the resistance. Whereas a single person would just have more guards sent after them a group could have griffon riders sent to kill them. But you get the gist, a situation where a single person could do it but a group makes it easier. I also tend to think grouping would be more common in this situation, as you do not need a specific number or makeup to do content but grouping is still beneficial.
COH missions (their version of dungeons) automatically scale to any size of group -- including solo. The number of mobs is affected, and with larger groups (and on higher difficulties) you see more boss-like mobs than normal too.
Apart from being an excellent way to create content that any player (solo or grouper) can enjoy, the additional mobs are balanced to be worth fighting. Sometimes players max out group size with 8 members, but don't have everyone walk into the mission -- as a result they get a ton of enemies to fight, and in some situations this results in superior XP/Influence gain.
So "why group?" Because combat is more interesting when you have multiple players performing different roles in a group. Doesn't matter if it's a MMORPG or FPS or whatever, it's fun.
Note that this doesn't necessarily make me a raider. 10-15 players on my team gives me the sensation of performing a role in a group. More than 16 players doesn't increase this sensation, but does start to introduce problematic gameplay elements and water down how much my personal contribution affects the outcome.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You know what's funny? Everyone is all up in arms "OH MY GOD NO ONE GROUPS!" Grouping being part of the MMO acronym is matter of opinion. However it is undeniable that ROLE PLAY is part of the ROLE PLAYING GAME. Yet, I see no posts asking people "How often do you role play in the rpg?"
Role playing does not mean what you think or want it to me. RPG does stand for Role Playing game but it does not mean you have to act and talk like your toon.. What it means is that your take on the role of your toon. Meaning You are a warrior with warrior skills to train or a mage with mage skills to train. It does not mean become that toon and act like the toon.
I hope that makes sense... hard to explain though typing.
As far as Grouping? I play MMOs to play with and againts other players. I solo but it gets so boring for me to solo all the time. I HATE quest grind games... I cannot stand them... To me they are ruining the genre. Quest are not ment to be pointless. Quest are ment to be epic and challenging.
I play EQ(1) because I love grouping, I love the community and I love the challenge... Yes it has some challenge left even though they are going the way of the other "easy" mode games.
The game doesn't need to have forced grouping to have a good community, but forced grouping will Always make the community better than if it wasn't there at all. MMO with the best community was a forced grouping themepark, too (not EQ).
You cite the exception, not the rule. That was because of where its original community came from and what they were explicitly looking for in the game, not because of the game mechanics. They were PnP gamers, LARPers and CRPG players looking specifically to do online what they were already doing with their friends and groups - gathering for team play. This is before prolific cell phones, texting and widespread broadband in an era where the RPG crowd normally actively sought out other players to play with - a LARP or ADnD campaign solo is just.... lacking. They brought their pre-exisiting interests, behavior and desires to EQ. Fastforward a decade and much of that generation has moved away from that style of play, be it due to time, other obligations, or simple different wants/interests. Now add in the newer generation of players coming from single-player games and console games where they are accustomed to being the center of the adventure.
Your example is an exception that, due to time and changes in how people communicate and play, has very little chance of being repeated in anything other than a small community MMO.
I believe he was referring to Final Fantsay not EQ as evidenced in his post where he states (not EQ)
Comments
Not greatest of arguments.
You could say that WoW is now a slightly more complex Diablo game. If you enjoyed gear grind in Diablo, you will enjoy it in WoW. I would suggest in particular going through the article in this forum that discuses the cyclical nature of gear improvements, it so accurately describes as a seasonal.
While you can solo in WoW when you level up you characters does not that mean that the core game in WoW is not designed small groups and raids in mind. It is actually one reason why many casuals quit the game after they have hit the level cap. PvP, namely battelegrounds, are only truly soloable content that provides eng-game gear, but as some of that gear requires an arena rating...you are still forced to group.
Sure, Blizzard is making changes in WoW to allow soloers to gain equal rewards to those who raid or PvP. Most my friends, that you would probably call hardcore, have quit the game because there is no challenge, no risk only rewards. Sure, you have challenge when a new instance opens, but considering that most decent guilds cleared Ulduar in 1-2 weeks, there really was only repetition, as you need to be ready for the next instance. The whole hard-mode achievement thing really has been a two-edged sword, some love it and some loath it. Also, Blizzard actually wants you to go through the same content repeatedly in both 10-man and 25-man versions. I just could not do it anymore. I had enough Ulduar when I cleard it in 25.man. Achievements would have to give a pretty good rewards to even budge me to the direction of 10-mans, but some still did it...
I am sure that getting your epics through the mail would be nice (as the one joke goes), but it defeats the purpose of rewards. Especially when there is no longer any risk, nor there ever was when playing WoW, but at least it used to be more challenging. I used to like when we had the seperation between 10-man and 25-man content. Or even better 20-man to 40-man content. I have to say that Blizzard has really bend over with the 10-man content. I would not be surprised if they created some new group instances with solo option, 1-man to 5-man principles.
All that is fine for some players, they prefer it, and go great lenghts at forums to justify it. The game has changed a lot over the last 4 years. It is going to change a lot more as Blizzard is eager to please the lowest common denominator. We will see whether it remains a wise business decision in a long term, but it certainly seems to be paying off in a short.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Sure there have always been asshats in games, but there has become a disturbingly increasing number of them as WoW has progressed.
Why is that important? Because as WoW has progressed it has become more and more solo-friendly. There is a direct correlation there. The easier and more solo friendly that games have become, the more self-important jackasses have surfaced.
I don't buy that solo play produces asshats. There were plenty of asshats in high level play in the early days of EQ. The must have grouping mechanism meant you were forced to take them into your groups because you had to have someone in that role (like a healer) or have a certain number of players to survive the area. The grouping mechanism helped them to go on.
No it's not. What makes an MMO an MMO is having a world where lots of people can be online at the same time in the same place and interact with each other if they choose to do so. If people want to treat an MMO as a glorified chat room, who's to say they are wrong? They pay the same as those who want to grind in groups.
Yes, obviously anyone who thinks you should group in a MMO is a born again Christian or a Nazi or whatever.
We solo and like it, but we think grouping is an essential part of the game too. You don’t want to do any grouping, or don’t want to do any grouping for the top rewards. Who is the more narrow minded here?
This is precisely one type of attitude that makes me not want to group anymore. Golly, aren't you oober!
I had written a long-winded post here but it isn't really necessary to beat this dead horse any more...instead l'll just leave it at this...
What in the waffle gives the "groupers" the right to judge the "soloers" for how they choose to play the game?
Soloers are saying "Live and Let Live' and the groupers are saying "It's your fault my game isn't fun anymore!"
Utterly ridiculous.
"Ignorance begets confidence more often than does knowledge." - Charles Darwin
"It is far easier to be critical than to be correct." - Benjamin Disreali
"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
I think you have hit on a philosophical point that divides us. What gives us as groupers the ‘right to judge’ if you must put it in so PC a fashion is that a MMO is a community. Soloers do not think their MMO is a community which is why they don’t group, or even chat much to anyone else.
Are soloers saying ‘live and let live’? Or are they saying ‘it’s my game and I will play however I choose’? You see if you have the soloer mentality it does not matter what anyone else wants to do, does it? You just want to do your own thing and everyone else can go to hell in a hand cart.
This goes beyond grouping, it is about those of us who want more than a solo game, not just grouping, but a sense of community, players using the game as a tool to improvise their own fun, roleplaying if you are on a RP server, mass war on a RvR server.
The Lone Wolf: I don’t role play, I don’t do team pvp, I don’t craft, do diplomacy or anything else but level, ‘I am the lone assassin’ is the antithesis of what makes a MMO great. It is the players who make a MMO great, their imagination and dedication, not the game mechanics and the quests.
If you have a point, you would be better served by not creating strawmen.
i play solo mostly but after that, everything you say is completely wrong..
This is entirely based on how each individual view things. There is no right or wrong here as i stated a thousand times.
Group or solo is a choice. There is no right or wrong. Some people will pretend to know the reason why someone solo or group. They use the worst excuse possible, but only end up sounding immature.
The truth is both group and solo play are both valid and are both ways to enjoy a game. Whether it is MMORPG or not doesn't really matter. There are no such thing as a "correct" way to enjoy a MMORPG, only the ignorant will make such statement.
On the contrary. Soloers play MMOs like community games and not like team games (TF2, CS, etc).
Grouping is not the best way to foster a community. I will say this yet again, UO never required you to group with anyone and it didn't have global chat. Yet it had one of the best communities out there. Why? Because there were other tools which helped shape the community.
Tools that are being largely ignored by MMO developers because it's so much easier to just force grouping and pretend like you're helping build a community.
This is one of the most reasonable responses I've personally seen here yet, largely because I feel much the same way.
I quest/grind solo. However, I like to play team-based BGs/Scenarios and would prefer to group most of the time. But, due to various limitations on my ability to give the game 100% of my attention, the times of day which I play and my lack of tolerance for people who don't respect others in their group (either by the way they choose to behave, the way the choose to play their role in the group or the way they take up others' time when they have to attend to other priorities and expect everyone else to sit on their thumbs and wait for them...the very thing that I personally do not wish to do to others), I solo. Yes, I am 100% aware that I could find people that don't act like this, but it takes alot of trial and error and the frustration of getting from solo to in-a-good-guild-with-intelligent-players-who-act-maturely-and-won't-tolerate-guild-drama-and-who-won't-just-kiss-up-to-an-obscenely-egocentric-GL is a frustration that the mechanics of most games these days doesn't force me into. I appreciate that fact...the fact that I can play solo because I still enjoy playing MMOs largely solo whether anyone else understands it or not is something that I'm thankful for because I'd have to have to walk away from this amazing genre because of my previously stated limitations.
There are indeed lots of great and valid reasons to group. There are lots of great and valid reasons to solo, whether the "groupers" see it or not. I know my reasons are valid and they need only be valid to me. These reasons have nothing to do with being anti-social or selfish or any of the myriad things that have been put upon "soloers" in this thread.
And as someone said previously, thanks to the growing cultural acceptance and broadening of the player base of the MMO genre, the mechanics of the far-largest percentage of titles (particularly AAA titles) will undoubtedly support casual, solo play for the very reasons that I stated above...it leaves the subscriptions on the table for people who don't want or can't devote the time and attention that "group-based" mechanics require. It is a business decision and it is a wise one (strictly from that perspective). That may not make the "groupers" happy, but it is a fact of life...this is a business to the devs, the publishers and their investors and they want their games to be money-printing engines...welcome to reality. Games that force the sort of mechanics model onto the players that EQ did, will likely be relegated to niche-markets. I am in no way faulting that model or the desires of the "groupers", I am simply stating what is almost undoubtedly a financial fact.
"Ignorance begets confidence more often than does knowledge." - Charles Darwin
"It is far easier to be critical than to be correct." - Benjamin Disreali
"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
To what do you refer to?
Your opinion is immaterial.
To what do you refer to?
I did not play UO amd I have limited knowledge of it, but I think tools means :
A truly player made economy in which crafters could choose not to do business with assholes.
An open-pvp ruleset where anti-griefing guilds would hunt down reds specifically.
I am certainly in favour of any attempt to bring more player involvement into a MMO. And that what grouping is part of…player involvement. Not just treating the game like you were watching the TV and seeing how long it takes you to ‘beat it’
What was that ‘strawmen’ remark anyway, its hard to reply to someone when you don’t know what on earth they are going on about?
The game I enjoyed was GW. I do both solo and group. Grouping, however, is a pain in most games. You need peeps that are the right level, have the right proffesion, have enough time on their hands and wanting to do the same content. This makes it hard to even get a group going most of the time.
Grouping in Gw was enjoyable and easy. I had a group going within one minute because of the setup of that game. It was also quite clear to me it was a team based game.
Then the heroes came along in an expension. They were like henchmen but you could fill in the skills, atributes, give em weapons and pin em at any desired place. Quickly after that it became more and more of a hassle to get a group together. Most people played with the heroes. It changed the game completely and I lost interest.
Why group? I loved the coop thing in that game because it was fun and easy to get a group going.
In GW you dont group for :
There are a lot of different players in MMO land. PVP - PVE, casual - peeps that invest more time, instanced - anti instanced, solo - group. You cant balance or please em all in one game. I will wait for the next game like GW, if there ever will be one. But until then I will play games and if I dont like em, I will move on, knowing that other peeps do like to play that game.
Scot this link will help you with the "strawman" fallacy. Also click the link to that Author Stephen.. about fallacies. I studied this in college and more often than not it will help you weed through the bullshit arguments and comments people make.
www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/strawman.htm
Keep in mind, this article uses wiki as an example and I do not support wiki as a completely credible reference tool, but the description I felt was easier to understand in the manner presented.
When you guys pitch that angle, are you trying to convince the solo players of it, or do you feel that if you repeat it enough it will eventually become true?
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
To what do you refer to?
I am glad that you asked that
To start with, the design encouraged congregating. Ease of travel combined with no global channel meant that people created 'hot spots' where players would gather. What this meant is that that players would log in and head toward where they knew likeminded players were gathering. The bold part is critical. Just as it is important to facilitate gathering, it is equally important to facilitate the ability for the various natural smaller communities to develop. To generalize:
Now, let's expand on the tools available....
Again, that's just touching on the surface of the tools available to encourage socializing and interaction.
The game was designed as a toolset to encourage and facilitate interaction and community. Each MMO that has been designed as a toolset instead of a guided track has proven to result in more community activity, more emergent behavior and more player interaction than any forced grouping theme park, EQ aside for reasons explained many times before.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The game doesn't need to have forced grouping to have a good community, but forced grouping will Always make the community better than if it wasn't there at all. MMO with the best community was a forced grouping themepark, too (not EQ).
You cite the exception, not the rule. That was because of where its original community came from and what they were explicitly looking for in the game, not because of the game mechanics. They were PnP gamers, LARPers and CRPG players looking specifically to do online what they were already doing with their friends and groups - gathering for team play. This is before prolific cell phones, texting and widespread broadband in an era where the RPG crowd normally actively sought out other players to play with - a LARP or ADnD campaign solo is just.... lacking.
They brought their pre-exisiting interests, behavior and desires to EQ. Fastforward a decade and much of that generation has moved away from that style of play, be it due to time, other obligations, or simple different wants/interests. Now add in the newer generation of players coming from single-player games and console games where they are accustomed to being the center of the adventure.
Your example is an exception that, due to time and changes in how people communicate and play, has very little chance of being repeated in anything other than a small community MMO.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Actually, the players came from console single-player games where they were accustomed to being the center of the adventure. They still were in the MMO, only that this time they worked together in a team (in a way similar to how they did in the single player games- only this time other characters weren't controlled by them, but other players).
This example is basically the "elite" vs. "normal" mob setup of most games. Except instead of a weak spot, that's abstracted: the mob has 100,000 health instead of the normal 20,000 health of mobs you normally solo. So yeah...you might be able to kill the 100,000hp dragon solo, but a group will certainly make it easier.
This literal game mechanic is used in a few WOW boss fights.
And from an abstract perspective, healing is the exact same thing: spending your time aiding teammates rather than directly confronting a monster. (except healing damage is the "aid" mechanic without requiring the hurt player to be stunned - crowd controlling players takes them entirely out of the game and should only be used sparingly.)
COH missions (their version of dungeons) automatically scale to any size of group -- including solo. The number of mobs is affected, and with larger groups (and on higher difficulties) you see more boss-like mobs than normal too.
Apart from being an excellent way to create content that any player (solo or grouper) can enjoy, the additional mobs are balanced to be worth fighting. Sometimes players max out group size with 8 members, but don't have everyone walk into the mission -- as a result they get a ton of enemies to fight, and in some situations this results in superior XP/Influence gain.
So "why group?"
Because combat is more interesting when you have multiple players performing different roles in a group. Doesn't matter if it's a MMORPG or FPS or whatever, it's fun.
Note that this doesn't necessarily make me a raider. 10-15 players on my team gives me the sensation of performing a role in a group. More than 16 players doesn't increase this sensation, but does start to introduce problematic gameplay elements and water down how much my personal contribution affects the outcome.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Role playing does not mean what you think or want it to me. RPG does stand for Role Playing game but it does not mean you have to act and talk like your toon.. What it means is that your take on the role of your toon. Meaning You are a warrior with warrior skills to train or a mage with mage skills to train. It does not mean become that toon and act like the toon.
I hope that makes sense... hard to explain though typing.
As far as Grouping? I play MMOs to play with and againts other players. I solo but it gets so boring for me to solo all the time. I HATE quest grind games... I cannot stand them... To me they are ruining the genre. Quest are not ment to be pointless. Quest are ment to be epic and challenging.
I play EQ(1) because I love grouping, I love the community and I love the challenge... Yes it has some challenge left even though they are going the way of the other "easy" mode games.
Sooner or Later
You cite the exception, not the rule. That was because of where its original community came from and what they were explicitly looking for in the game, not because of the game mechanics. They were PnP gamers, LARPers and CRPG players looking specifically to do online what they were already doing with their friends and groups - gathering for team play. This is before prolific cell phones, texting and widespread broadband in an era where the RPG crowd normally actively sought out other players to play with - a LARP or ADnD campaign solo is just.... lacking.
They brought their pre-exisiting interests, behavior and desires to EQ. Fastforward a decade and much of that generation has moved away from that style of play, be it due to time, other obligations, or simple different wants/interests. Now add in the newer generation of players coming from single-player games and console games where they are accustomed to being the center of the adventure.
Your example is an exception that, due to time and changes in how people communicate and play, has very little chance of being repeated in anything other than a small community MMO.
I believe he was referring to Final Fantsay not EQ as evidenced in his post where he states (not EQ)