Whining as I have seen on forums only started after WoW and the idea that forced grouping was the way to fix all the MMO problems. And some games have tried it and failed. If you point them out, you're told; "No, that game failed for 'X" not because it forced grouping." but that 'X' would show up in another game and people would play it regardless.
Come on get real - I know for a fact there was whining on the SWG boards pre NGE (before WoW). To blame WoW for all the whiners is just as bad as saying that EQ1 had no whiners. WoW just flat out has more posters because they have more players - and volume magnifies all the bad things about internet forums.
Me having played group oriented and themepark genre, I know I do not like themepark because it does not promote socializing, grouping, or anything I would consider a challenge. And do not come back with there you go with challenge, there is nothing challenging with a game. The time and effort is the challenge. Some will withstand the challenge, others will not. Those others are you soloers who want everything handed to you.
Come on! STop playing Pong then laplinked together with your neighbor!
Try an MMO out! Even a "themepark one that has no socializing in it"! You'll be amazed at the lengths people will go to to talk to each other.
Time and effort all by itself is drudgery. I'll take good CC work, kiting, cooldown management, and use of terrain and mob aggro control every time.
We'll agree to disagree then. But, I do seem to recall some mobs within the abilities of players to solo, and others not. Sort of like hunting for squirrels versus a Tiger. Pretty safe bet you'll be prepared differently.
Well solo play does promote grou play in ways yet it comes only when the focus as well as incentives for both are placed wisely. If a game is build only for soloers or groupers it will gather niche crowds of players that are small, but who know what they want in a game. As such the pop of this type of game will remain largely staganant on either side o the focus, but if the focus is pretty close to equal the solo content brings this type of player into the game. As the soloer plays they are exposed to the group content that should have better rewards and incentives to doing it, which can advacte that the solo will group more offen learning to love group content play as well. The same is true of groupers that after being exposed to solo content that is on demand for their enjoyment regardless of who is online at the time, they may grow to lvoe soloing as it allows them to enjoy the game at thier own pace as well as regardess of if they have requirement (such as job, family, or other duties that call for their attention or time.).
If you make group content dificult enouph that you need a set level of gear to even be viable to play the content (such as instances, areas, quests, events, or such), then solo quests allow you to learn your class, gear up (which is a form of progrression as you are increasng your characters power as well as statical information.). Solo content that is built around showing, teaching, and advocating your role /duties within group content is another way that solo content can promotte group content, since it is preparing the player to do what is expected of them or giving them the tools they need to be viable in the group over learning on the fly. Also solo content that showcases groups doing group content making the player doing the solo content watch them could also promote grouping.
The thing is that solo as well as group content is not created to augement each other or to promote teh other's use in the game. yet in the same way how leveling is implemented in games, and hwo players see mmos is to blame for the state that mmos are in. As many have said here we rush to end game using the ath of least resistance (either that is group contennt or solo content.), but this causes us to treat other layers as merely tools to get us to out next level till we hit cap or end game. ANyone sayng tht they solo only because it is the fastest way to camp/end game is not a grouper but a power leveler, i have saught out groups even in soloist games like wow on nights i determine i want to group grind or instance with a group for prolonged periods of time. and that that is a grouper someone who seeks out a method of play they enjoy regardless of penalities placed on them or it.
Also wanting to enjoy a game or enjoying even a game that is easy to play is not wanting to havve your hand held, but wanting to relax while playing a game you enjoy. The same that just because a player want harsh penalities, challenges, and such does not make them a masocist, but merely that is what they find fun as well as enjoyable on either side of it. Although solo game play and enjoyment on demand content is hwo the modern player have shown they want their games, yet are they happy with hwo the difficulty or implentation is done so far? I would say no yet it is pretty evident that players enjoy being able to play as they wish, in what content they like when they desire it.
Much of what has been listed was not made to aid merely soloing, or grouping, btu to aid players in being able to enjoy their game with as little wasted time. THigns like having to wait for a player with certain required abilities to log on or want to group for content, as well as wiping as you learn what mobs are who or have what abilities, and many other things were time sinks that made playing mmos a time consuming hobbie. By stream lining these thigns allowing the player to determine the power/diffiuclty of a mob so they knwo if they want a group, if a instance is too hard to do alone or in a gorup, and having several viable choices for characeters/classes to fulfill roles in a group all have hekped to make playing mmos less of a time sonsuming hobbie. Yet this is a hobbie that we play as well as pay for, and so should this trully have to feel liek a job or take hours of a evening to enjoy?
Whining as I have seen on forums only started after WoW and the idea that forced grouping was the way to fix all the MMO problems. And some games have tried it and failed. If you point them out, you're told; "No, that game failed for 'X" not because it forced grouping." but that 'X' would show up in another game and people would play it regardless.
Come on get real - I know for a fact there was whining on the SWG boards pre NGE (before WoW). To blame WoW for all the whiners is just as bad as saying that EQ1 had no whiners. WoW just flat out has more posters because they have more players - and volume magnifies all the bad things about internet forums.
Why did you quote the entire paragraph when you stopped reading at 'WoW'? Try reading the whole thing and you will see how badly you missed the point, SA-wing and a miss!
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Like another poster said the problem is when devs make mmo content that is so solo friendly you can't find groups or a reason to even group.
Be specific, not vague and emo. Cite the game and specific conditions that turned that game's group play dynamic into a dead duck.
I've played a bunch of MMOs and have never seen this mythical "problem", except for the following:
WoW nerfed entire swaths of mobs in the world when Burning Crusades hit. Stuff could now be solo'd that previously took a group. Reason? They did this to old, legacy zones/content to promote people scooting into the new content asap.
Every MMO should have a robust set of solo content that works hand-in-hand with group content.
Again, what game(s) and what specific scenarios are you talking about that destroyed a games group content because devs flooded it with stuff designed to alter the game to solo-play?
I have played many mmo's and in most of them i have been a soloist most of the time. mostly for 4 reasons. in many guilds or corps. expecialy in games like eve-online your expected to work for the corp / alliance and the corp and its leaders claim most of the spoils leaving little to the player. you pay membership dues taxes or rent to corp just to have them ignore you and backstab you at the first opertunity. the betrayels of goonswarm, against all authoraties, and intrepic crossings are classic examples. i was in blueprint haus for several months working to build a mothership just to have the CFO claim it for themselves and then get it blown up with a couple days of playing with it himself rather than using it as partial payment of the space station we were buying. we ended up loosing the MOM and another mom and 3 dreads that came in to save it when a group of raiders baited it out then 2 other groups jumped in and ganked it. i left because i got sick of being nothing but a wage slave giving everything to the corp and having the leaders throw our work away.
i am a 48 year old man. i dont have a bunch of school buddies to group up with. finding a reguler group of people to team up with difficul or impossible. expecialy when the summer season rolls around and many games are off doign other stuff. when you do find a corp or alliance to join up with they are spread across the planet and trying to organise a mining op or combat raid when there are only a few people on is difficult unless your part of a mega alliance and then it falls again to part 1. everything is run bye or goes to the megalomaniacs that run the alliance. " case in point. " intrepid crossings manifesto " or the leadership betrayels in BOB goonswarm and Against All Authoraties in eve online.
I am an industrialist and miner in eve. i have multiple accounts with characters that have trained for many years each. in game i am primarily a facilitator / miner / builder. my tagline is " I'm a Maker Not a Breaker, I make the toys that others use to go BOOM". i will mine on multiple accounts in wormhole space for hours on end on my 4 main accounts and runing planetary interactions on 30 characters doing nothing but planitary interaction. its common for me to pull in several Billion ISK a week just bye myself. and use that to build capital ship station components and POS parts. most players just want to get on for a few minutes at a time to a couple of hours every now and again. creat asm much chaos and death as they can then disapear for days on end untill they come back. most players are casual players not hard core gamers. finding anyone to do the tedius background tasks lime mining, hauling, manufacturing for hours on end is few and far between. and almost never on the same schedule as you run.
most eve recruiters are total liers. they recruit me saying one thing about the corp just to get me into 0.0 wildspace to find out everything they have told me is a total lie. fantacies of what they hope to have not what is actualy there. i have quit many corps after just a few days because the reality is far from the factasy stories the recruiters of ceo's tell me about thier corps / alliance / or regions of space.
Its not the solo players breaking the market its the players who sit on the forums QQing the game is to hard we should be able to solo everything and get everything we want without making an effort, and then the dev listening to them and changing the game. To those people all i can say is if the game isnt what you want it to be dont try and change it by complaining to the dev go find a new one or stay with your exsisting game there thousands of mmos out there to pick from and almost all of them have been change to the similar game due to people doing this.
When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character.
What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas. When they finally changed the game to be more solo friendly, they admitted that spawn timers on some of these group mobs (just yard trash mobs meant to only be killed by groups, not special raid mobs or special area mobs, just group only spawn camp mobs) were constantly in days. Meaning they spawned when the server came up and only despawned when the server went down again.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
lol 'groupers'? are you out of your mind? what mmos have you even played that you have such an ignorant view of grouping? Just eq and wow or what?
If you don't want to group, stay away from mmo's, they don't offer you anything. They are nothing but a very watered down timesink. If your life is so boring that a single player mmo is worth 15 bucks a month, you really can't expect everyone else to cater to YOU, simply because they have standards where the bar isn't rolling along the floor.
Terrible article that accuses the readers that see things differently of 'bitching', as a cheap way of dismissing their perspective, when the whole thing was one long 'bitch'.
MMORPG.com used to be better then this kind of official troll piece.
Proof that writer of article hit a little too close to the target.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
lol 'groupers'? are you out of your mind? what mmos have you even played that you have such an ignorant view of grouping? Just eq and wow or what?
If you don't want to group, stay away from mmo's, they don't offer you anything. They are nothing but a very watered down timesink. If your life is so boring that a single player mmo is worth 15 bucks a month, you really can't expect everyone else to cater to YOU, simply because they have standards where the bar isn't rolling along the floor.
So you some how know what is best for all mmo gamers, and players that if they do nt want to play as you or others play then they should not play. That if they gain enjoyment from playing a game solo for the purchase price plus 15 dallors a month, then they have a borning life hmmm? What a pompus wind bag you are not to mention a dictator, so how abotu this you as well as all the group based players go back to co-up games, since mmos right now are not what you want. I mean there is no way that a soloer could actually play a mmo to communicate with friends in other parts of the world, play the game with them via guilds or events, and group up with their friends at times when they do nto want to solo. Oh no never that would pop the grouper mentality that all soloers have no friends, don't socialize with other players, but merely leech off the game bringing it down. How about you grow up to being an adult so you can actually leearn that no one solely dose one type of centent or playstyle forever.
Wait so then the devs are supposed to cater to you as you have either no friends that want to group with you, or that you want to have both the ability to socialize with players while in group as well as having the best method of leveling as wel? Learn to actually make friends that like to spend time with you in game in groups willing to take a dip in exp for it, r look for games that are harder/challenging for you, instead of trying to force/ruin the fun for those that actually by the direction that devs seem to be going are the majoority that play these games. In mmos both sides of the playstyles are supported if you like grouping you can, same with soloing, and that is how it shoould be regardless of how anyone may personally think. Why because both sides of the cin have offline games they can lay for group or solo play, but soloers as well as many groupers want to feel they are apart of a larger world. Seeing players walking around about you doing what ever they are makes the world seem much more alive, and you do not need groups to make that feeling trully at all..
Originally posted by WhiteLantern Ooooooooh! /popcornThis'll get good. 1st point: Everything free. When I choose to play an MMO, I don't look forward to endgame. I don't participate in the "raid for gear to raid for better gear" mentallity. I do, however, expect to be able to earn gear that is suitable for my playstyle. BIS for me won't even come close to BIS for raiders or even regular groupers. And I'm fine with that.2nd point: Casual gamer. I consider myself casual because I don't want to be associated with those who consider themselves Hardcore. I usually try to get an hour or two a night in playing my game of choice, but there are times when I'll get the rare 6 hour gaming session. I even took a week off of work for the launch of STO. And occasionally spend my vacation days to stay home and play all day. That is not casual.3rd point: I agree with the writer. I like to group, but I don't like to be forced to group.4th and 5th points: I'm not socially inept, but I am, at times, very anti-social. I really don't like people very much and there are those who say people like me shouldn't play online games. But there are times I come out of my shell and meet people and become friends. I've flown across the country to meet my guild leader before.6th point: Honestly? I couldn't care less about those who say my playstyle interferes with theirs. If I'm going to plop down the monies to play a game, I'm going to play it on my terms. Just like everyone else. And, I'm not going to get upset when there is content that I can't do because it requires me to do something I don't enjoy.
Well i see myself in your story, are you my clone hehe.
I agree most you said and i never appoligise for my play style i dare saying im maybe solo player but im more SOCIAL then majority of group oriented players.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character.
What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas.
Grow up, soloers have.
Ok. I like this guy. He gives a tangible, real world example.
So what I've got as a list are two examples so far, the rest being a whole lot of smoke and mirrors vaguary:
1) WoW: Nerfing of Elites across the legacy zones to facilitate speedy levelling by players into the new content, Outland.
2) EQ2: Nerfing of some mobs and mob packs to be more solo friendly and alteration of spawning of group only mobs to be less frequent. Reason? Profiling of those zones/areas under playtime showed hardly anyone went there due to the difficulty.
Anyone else? Specifics, not emo whine theorycrafting in a vacuum because it sounds good. State the game, state the nerfage of group content to "solo friendly" that destroyed the rest of the game's group content and converted it all to solo play.
You'll note in the two examples given above those alterations to be more "solo friendly" look to have been motivated by population mechanics issues the devs wanted to improve, not a bias to make the game a soloer's game. In altering the things they altered it's a safe bet they didn't do it to transmorgrify group content to solo content, globally.
So I'm STILL looking for the example that illustrates a change in a game so heinous, so terrible in magnitude, it altered an entire game's profile to solo while pushing group content out the door.
For an MMO to be healthy and thriving, meaning POPULATED with people from all walks of life, with different schedules, different family profiles, and variances in available play time, it must contain a robust set of solo challenges that works with and next to group challenges.
It's not an either/or. It's an AND condition.
That being the case it's remarkably silly to argue against one or the other (either/or). We should instead discuss at what point an adjustment to that two sided dynamic might have gone too far tipping things too far in one direction or the other. That's an entirely different issue and viewpoint.
That's the better, and more constructive route to take constructive critisism and creative thinking.
I have played many mmo's and in most of them i have been a soloist most of the time. mostly for 4 reasons. in many guilds or corps. expecialy in games like eve-online your expected to work for the corp / alliance and the corp and its leaders claim most of the spoils leaving little to the player. you pay membership dues taxes or rent to corp just to have them ignore you and backstab you at the first opertunity. the betrayels of goonswarm, against all authoraties, and intrepic crossings are classic examples. i was in blueprint haus for several months working to build a mothership just to have the CFO claim it for themselves and then get it blown up with a couple days of playing with it himself rather than using it as partial payment of the space station we were buying. we ended up loosing the MOM and another mom and 3 dreads that came in to save it when a group of raiders baited it out then 2 other groups jumped in and ganked it. i left because i got sick of being nothing but a wage slave giving everything to the corp and having the leaders throw our work away.
i am a 48 year old man. i dont have a bunch of school buddies to group up with. finding a reguler group of people to team up with difficul or impossible. expecialy when the summer season rolls around and many games are off doign other stuff. when you do find a corp or alliance to join up with they are spread across the planet and trying to organise a mining op or combat raid when there are only a few people on is difficult unless your part of a mega alliance and then it falls again to part 1. everything is run bye or goes to the megalomaniacs that run the alliance. " case in point. " intrepid crossings manifesto " or the leadership betrayels in BOB goonswarm and Against All Authoraties in eve online.
I am an industrialist and miner in eve. i have multiple accounts with characters that have trained for many years each. in game i am primarily a facilitator / miner / builder. my tagline is " I'm a Maker Not a Breaker, I make the toys that others use to go BOOM". i will mine on multiple accounts in wormhole space for hours on end on my 4 main accounts and runing planetary interactions on 30 characters doing nothing but planitary interaction. its common for me to pull in several Billion ISK a week just bye myself. and use that to build capital ship station components and POS parts. most players just want to get on for a few minutes at a time to a couple of hours every now and again. creat asm much chaos and death as they can then disapear for days on end untill they come back. most players are casual players not hard core gamers. finding anyone to do the tedius background tasks lime mining, hauling, manufacturing for hours on end is few and far between. and almost never on the same schedule as you run.
most eve recruiters are total liers. they recruit me saying one thing about the corp just to get me into 0.0 wildspace to find out everything they have told me is a total lie. fantacies of what they hope to have not what is actualy there. i have quit many corps after just a few days because the reality is far from the factasy stories the recruiters of ceo's tell me about thier corps / alliance / or regions of space.
Soooooo, I assume you won't be voting for Mittens this year?
Yes, EvE is nasty that way (it's my primary MMO right now...although I just started rampaging through Hellgate for something different to do while I wait on GW2 to see if I'm going there). It's an interesting environment because you are told, upfront and often, to trust absolutely no one. And that's really excellent advice for EvE. And unless you're in High Security space, no one groups outside their own corporation/alliance unless there is a damned compelling reason to do is.
I'm sorry I don't know where you read that in any of my post.
So you are just arguing to be arguing? I do not see why you would argue with everyone who supports group content if you prefer group content. Other than the fact that you are simply just trolling.
Do yourself a huge favor and read through what I have post starting with ActionMMORPG.
I simply implied that there is still grouping in todays games without taking or favoring one side.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
lol 'groupers'? are you out of your mind? what mmos have you even played that you have such an ignorant view of grouping? Just eq and wow or what?
If you don't want to group, stay away from mmo's, they don't offer you anything. They are nothing but a very watered down timesink. If your life is so boring that a single player mmo is worth 15 bucks a month, you really can't expect everyone else to cater to YOU, simply because they have standards where the bar isn't rolling along the floor.
Now you see...this is exactly what original post was all about. If there are "soloers" there are "groupers", why are you so offended?
More to the point, he has a point. It's pretty simple; there is a reason there is more and more solo content in MMOs...it sells. Period. Full stop. It. Sells.
Having said that, there has always been viable soloing in MMOs. In EQ not so much outside very specific classes, but at the same time EQ was rolling along there was Asheron's Call...which was a very solo-friendly experience outside a few specific runs that were not needed to keep you in good gear. So, soloing to max level with any class was viable well over a decade ago in a mainstream MMO.
Solo =/= anti-social. Grouping =/= social. How many dead-silent groups does one need to be a part of...how many raids where raid leaders scream "(*&^*^!!! STFU! BE SILENT UNLESS YOU ARE ME!"...does one need to be a part of before the myth that grouping is by definition social is exploded?
Want to banish solo gameplay from your little universe? Well...aside from the obvious "it won't happen because these are businesses and that's that" truth...you just banned the vast majority of the crafters, miners, and explorers. Congratulations. Now head for the crafter's forum on your favorite MMO and make the anouncement. Let me know how that turns out.
I led a monarchy on Leafcull in AC that I rescued after Skystreak Cloudrider left AC1 for DAoC. I led runs, I led groups, I led massive guild runs. I answered /tell after /tell after /tell. I buffed, I taught, I distributed gear constantly. I was Rank 9, do the math and you'll know how big the monarchy wound up. I co-GMd Wolves of Valinor in DAoC, I was Combat Officer for Obsidian Asylum in E&B, I was an officer in Arsenal in Warhammer, I am currently a Director in a corporation in EvE. Along the way I've also been involved in SWG heavily, WoW, EQ2, AoC, Rift, and others. I typed all of that to invite you to start that "what mmos have you even played..." crap with me.
You know what? Some of my absolutely favorite times in any MMO, ever, were solo. Note that I didn't say "...were times that I shut off chat, refused to acknowledge anyone else was even alive, and played a 15/mo SPRPG.", I said solo. As in soloing mobs, as in scaling a mountain range just to sit and watch the world flow by (and sometimes spending hours just to figure out how to beat a game's terrain blocking so I could see the other side), as in exploring a game world as throroughly as it could be, just to do it.
I get groups. I get that for a lot of people they are the preferred method of gameplay. Unlike some people, I also get that soloists are not by definition anti-socialjerks with entitlement issues any more than all groupers are socially adept and welcoming individuals with the milk of human kindness running through their veins. Both characterizations are bullshit.
You want games where solo gameplay is not viable and soloists are not welcome? Fine. Go convince a game studio that it's financially viable. Best of luck with that.
Originally posted by Velocinox When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character. What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas. When they finally changed the game to be more solo friendly, they admitted that spawn timers on some of these group mobs (just yard trash mobs meant to only be killed by groups, not special raid mobs or special area mobs, just group only spawn camp mobs) were constantly in days. Meaning they spawned when the server came up and only despawned when the server went down again. Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you. Grow up, soloers have.
So the "PITY ME I CAN'T FIND A GROUP" approach is the grown up approach?
I find that more childish than just seeing that obviously there were other players in that situation as well and using basic communication could get you a group.
I was there launch of EQ2 and its first 6 months were rather excellent. You did need at least 2 people to handle anything arrow up in its various forms. Then WoW had came along and pretty much stomped that poor game and then they started adding the solo mobs, pretty much making that game boring.
It became harder to get a group, people ignored instances until they were grey, and all in all a lot poor choices were made and now it's a F2P piece of crap.
Thanks soloers, you're so mature.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character.
What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas. When they finally changed the game to be more solo friendly, they admitted that spawn timers on some of these group mobs (just yard trash mobs meant to only be killed by groups, not special raid mobs or special area mobs, just group only spawn camp mobs) were constantly in days. Meaning they spawned when the server came up and only despawned when the server went down again.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
So the "PITY ME I CAN'T FIND A GROUP" approach is the grown up approach?
I find that more childish than just seeing that obviously there were other players in that situation and just basic communication got you a group.
I was there launch of EQ2 and its first 6 months were rather excellent. Then WoW had came along and pretty much stomped that poor game and then they started adding the solo mobs, pretty much making that game boring.
It became harder to get a group, people ignored instances until they were grey, and all in all a lot poor choices were made and now it's a F2P piece of crap.
Thanks soloers, you're so mature.
EQ2 was released in 2004. 8 years later it went F2P.... you make it sound as if that is somehow a failure.
Originally posted by Superduper69 Originally posted by PukeBucket
Originally posted by Velocinox When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character. What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas. When they finally changed the game to be more solo friendly, they admitted that spawn timers on some of these group mobs (just yard trash mobs meant to only be killed by groups, not special raid mobs or special area mobs, just group only spawn camp mobs) were constantly in days. Meaning they spawned when the server came up and only despawned when the server went down again. Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you. Grow up, soloers have.
So the "PITY ME I CAN'T FIND A GROUP" approach is the grown up approach? I find that more childish than just seeing that obviously there were other players in that situation and just basic communication got you a group. I was there launch of EQ2 and its first 6 months were rather excellent. Then WoW had came along and pretty much stomped that poor game and then they started adding the solo mobs, pretty much making that game boring. It became harder to get a group, people ignored instances until they were grey, and all in all a lot poor choices were made and now it's a F2P piece of crap. Thanks soloers, you're so mature. EQ2 was released in 2004. 8 years later it went F2P.... you make it sound as if that is somehow a failure.
It tried F2P prior to that, but the fail part came in the population. It was drastically hit within the first year of the game and never really recovered.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character.
What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas. When they finally changed the game to be more solo friendly, they admitted that spawn timers on some of these group mobs (just yard trash mobs meant to only be killed by groups, not special raid mobs or special area mobs, just group only spawn camp mobs) were constantly in days. Meaning they spawned when the server came up and only despawned when the server went down again.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
So the "PITY ME I CAN'T FIND A GROUP" approach is the grown up approach?
I find that more childish than just seeing that obviously there were other players in that situation and just basic communication got you a group.
I was there launch of EQ2 and its first 6 months were rather excellent. Then WoW had came along and pretty much stomped that poor game and then they started adding the solo mobs, pretty much making that game boring.
It became harder to get a group, people ignored instances until they were grey, and all in all a lot poor choices were made and now it's a F2P piece of crap.
Thanks soloers, you're so mature.
EQ2 was released in 2004. 8 years later it went F2P.... you make it sound as if that is somehow a failure.
It tried F2P prior to that, but the fail part came in the population. It was drastically hit within the first year of the game and never really recovered.
EQ2 had lots of technical diffculties and engine which made even best computers of its time cry. However i disagree about the changes to elite and heroic mobs or group content because it isn't how you make it look. With every new expansion and higher zones the difficulty of low lvl zones were adjusted. EQ2 is still a very group oriented game just that when MMO sarts getting old it is unrealistic to expect players to find same amount of people running around in low level zones as it was when game was fairly new. With every new expansion the low lvl zones are adjusted because mostly group content act as road blocks when there are not enough players to group with. All MMOS with levels suffer from this problem.
Originally posted by VelocinoxSo many people talking about whining in this thread. I've been around in MMOs for a long time, both professionally and as a customer. I remember EQ1 soloers, and they never whined about anything. It certainly wasn't about taking the easy path! It was as much as a group focused game as has ever been written, and yet soloers adapted and overcame. At a time before groupers or soloers they did it just to test their abilities. to see if it could be dome. To hone their play skills.
Umm.. Soloers adpated an overcame levelling to 50 maybe, but they certainly didn't adapt and overcome the high end game / raid content. solo. Sure solo'ing happened all the time but in 90% of the cases Group play was the faster way to succeed.
The bottom line is that people don't want to pay for a game where 40-80% of their gaming time is spent finding, coddling, managing, enduring, emotionally supporting, placating, comforting, and admonishing a bunch of other people. That isn't the basis for multiplayer, it's the basis for relationships. There IS a difference, and it often makes me wonder if Groupers want to play MMOs or MRO's (Massive Relationships Online)
MY bottom line, and one shared by lots of other people is that... I play solo player RPG when I want to play solo and I play MMORPGs when I want to play with a group of other players. I don't want to spend 40-80% of my game time playing by myself until I reach max level and then have to deal with end game group content that is continually nerfed to make it "accessible", with systems designed to bring antisocial soloers together in an automated way where they can complete content together with actually having to learn to play as part of a team.
For someone that claims lots of MMO experience, I find it strange that we have such differing views of the history of the genre... You know... From back in the days of MUDs, Space Wars in the MIT labs, Neverwinter on AoL, Dark Sun, Meridian, UO,AC,EQ.... The genre was founded on the idea that multiple people could play the same game together at the same time. They could group together, forms Guild, Teams, etc and the majority of the MMO content was focused around group content and player interdependence.
Soloing always existed but it was a limted play experience, where as now the money hungry developers are pandering to the masses and steering the genre into a ditch, where grouping and playing together is an after thought and challenege is a bad word.
Over the last 5 years MMO game play has been homogenized to suit the pallet of gamers that would never play one of the Original MMOs because it didn't match their playstyle and the original MMO players are laughably told that their playstlyes, the ones that founded MMOs, are invalid.
It's funny... Imagine someone starting the genre of Soccer online, two teams of 11 people playing soccer together....
Over the years people complain they really want to play but...
11 people is too many, why do we need to find 11 people to make a team. Can't we just play with two teams of 3 people.
I only have 30 minutes to play a night. Can't we change the game to be on two 15 minute halves. Playing a full 1.5 hour game is too much to ask.
I don't want to have to play in the same field as everyone else, can't I just go kick the ball in a field just for me so I don't have to share the ball or wait for a pass.
I can't control the ball well, can't the game just control the ball for me and I'll just rest my face on the keyboard.
The goal is too small and hard to hit, so can you make it 3 times bigger so we can all score.
I takes too many games to win a championship, can't we just give out trophies after playing three games.
We all pay to play , the game should give everyone trophies not only the team that wins the championship.
So basically you have people that don't want to play Online Soccer for whatever reason... lack of time, lack of competitive drive, lack of gaming skill, lack of interest in soccer.
So in the end they demand that soccer be changed to meet thier play style and any true Soccer players... you know, the ones that actually wanted to play soccer are told to stop whining and that soccer is better this way... just look at the huge amount of money it makes and how little, skill, dedication, attention, patience is needed to "WIN".
I used to group 99% of the time, but since the community has gone south, I find myself soloing alot more. I only group with friends now...no PUGs for me.
Originally posted by VelocinoxSo many people talking about whining in this thread. I've been around in MMOs for a long time, both professionally and as a customer. I remember EQ1 soloers, and they never whined about anything. It certainly wasn't about taking the easy path! It was as much as a group focused game as has ever been written, and yet soloers adapted and overcame. At a time before groupers or soloers they did it just to test their abilities. to see if it could be dome. To hone their play skills.
Umm.. Soloers adpated an overcame levelling to 50 maybe, but they certainly didn't adapt and overcome the high end game / raid content. solo. Sure solo'ing happened all the time but in 90% of the cases Group play was the faster way to succeed.
The bottom line is that people don't want to pay for a game where 40-80% of their gaming time is spent finding, coddling, managing, enduring, emotionally supporting, placating, comforting, and admonishing a bunch of other people. That isn't the basis for multiplayer, it's the basis for relationships. There IS a difference, and it often makes me wonder if Groupers want to play MMOs or MRO's (Massive Relationships Online)
MY bottom line, and one shared by lots of other people is that... I play solo player RPG when I want to play solo and I play MMORPGs when I want to play with a group of other players. I don't want to spend 40-80% of my game time playing by myself until I reach max level and then have to deal with end game group content that is continually nerfed to make it "accessible", with systems designed to bring antisocial soloers together in an automated way where they can complete content together with actually having to learn to play as part of a team.
For someone that claims lots of MMO experience, I find it strange that we have such differing views of the history of the genre... You know... From back in the days of MUDs, Space Wars in the MIT labs, Neverwinter on AoL, Dark Sun, Meridian, UO,AC,EQ.... The genre was founded on the idea that multiple people could play the same game together at the same time. They could group together, forms Guild, Teams, etc and the majority of the MMO content was focused around group content and player interdependence.
Soloing always existed but it was a limted play experience, where as now the money hungry developers are pandering to the masses and steering the genre into a ditch, where grouping and playing together is an after thought and challenege is a bad word.
Over the last 5 years MMO game play has been homogenized to suit the pallet of gamers that would never play one of the Original MMOs because it didn't match their playstyle and the original MMO players are laughably told that their playstlyes, the ones that founded MMOs, are invalid.
It's funny... Imagine someone starting the genre of Soccer online, two teams of 11 people playing soccer together....
Over the years people complain they really want to play but...
11 people is too many, why do we need to find 11 people to make a team. Can't we just play with two teams of 3 people.
I only have 30 minutes to play a night. Can't we change the game to be on two 15 minute halves. Playing a full 1.5 hour game is too much to ask.
I don't want to have to play in the same field as everyone else, can't I just go kick the ball in a field just for me so I don't have to share the ball or wait for a pass.
I can't control the ball well, can't the game just control the ball for me and I'll just rest my face on the keyboard.
The goal is too small and hard to hit, so can you make it 3 times bigger so we can all score.
I takes too many games to win a championship, can't we just give out trophies after playing three games.
We all pay to play , the game should give everyone trophies not only the team that wins the championship.
So basically you have people that don't want to play Online Soccer for whatever reason... lack of time, lack of competitive drive, lack of gaming skill, lack of interest in soccer.
So in the end they demand that soccer be changed to meet thier play style and any true Soccer players... you know, the ones that actually wanted to play soccer are told to stop whining and that soccer is better this way... just look at the huge amount of money it makes and how little, skill, dedication, attention, patience is needed to "WIN".
For what little it's worth, you have my respect, good post
Originally posted by VelocinoxSo many people talking about whining in this thread. I've been around in MMOs for a long time, both professionally and as a customer. I remember EQ1 soloers, and they never whined about anything. It certainly wasn't about taking the easy path! It was as much as a group focused game as has ever been written, and yet soloers adapted and overcame. At a time before groupers or soloers they did it just to test their abilities. to see if it could be dome. To hone their play skills.
Umm.. Soloers adpated an overcame levelling to 50 maybe, but they certainly didn't adapt and overcome the high end game / raid content. solo. Sure solo'ing happened all the time but in 90% of the cases Group play was the faster way to succeed.
Exactly my point, they did both, group and solo, but they found a way to solo. They did not whine to make it happen. They did it in a game that was built not to support it. So obviously it isn't about ease of play, but the individual spirit. The drive to see if they can 'go it alone'. If you re-read my other posts they have nothing to do with solo-only MMOs, or that solo is the right way, it has to do with whining and the fact that true soloers don't whine, they figure out how to do it and do it. So how about groupers stop whining about soloers and group up and shut up. Soloers still play when it isn't the 'faster way to succeed' (your words) So now it's your turn to group up even if it isn't the 'faster way to succeed'. (even though it still is.)
The bottom line is that people don't want to pay for a game where 40-80% of their gaming time is spent finding, coddling, managing, enduring, emotionally supporting, placating, comforting, and admonishing a bunch of other people. That isn't the basis for multiplayer, it's the basis for relationships. There IS a difference, and it often makes me wonder if Groupers want to play MMOs or MRO's (Massive Relationships Online)
MY bottom line, and one shared by lots of other people is that... I play solo player RPG when I want to play solo and I play MMORPGs when I want to play with a group of other players. I don't want to spend 40-80% of my game time playing by myself until I reach max level and then have to deal with end game group content that is continually nerfed to make it "accessible", with systems designed to bring antisocial soloers together in an automated way where they can complete content together with actually having to learn to play as part of a team.
They aren't making end game content more accessible to group up soloers. They are doing that because after WoW, that is what sells. Here is your key misunderstanding. You see the games getting easier, you don't know why, so you look around for a reason to blame, and oh, look at that a guy is playing an MMO on his own. HE must be the reason this is happening. Did you ever hear the one about Smog keeps tigers away? Yea, apparently there are no tigers in LA. LA has lots of smog, so obviously smog repels tigers! You are constructing a fallacy.
I'd also like to point out, even after so many of the posters in this thread have stated they group and play solo, and are not anti-social, you continue to label them that way. So here's a new label for groupers; Poor fish scared to swim on their own that always have to have a school of other fish to keep them company. Now, I don't want to go through the implications of such a psychology, so here's a compromise: Don't assume we're antisocial and we won't assume you need an emotional support group to play a game.
For someone that claims lots of MMO experience, I find it strange that we have such differing views of the history of the genre... You know... From back in the days of MUDs, Space Wars in the MIT labs, Neverwinter on AoL, Dark Sun, Meridian, UO,AC,EQ.... The genre was founded on the idea that multiple people could play the same game together at the same time. They could group together, forms Guild, Teams, etc and the majority of the MMO content was focused around group content and player interdependence.
Soloing always existed but it was a limted play experience, where as now the money hungry developers are pandering to the masses and steering the genre into a ditch, where grouping and playing together is an after thought and challenege is a bad word.
If you had actually played AOL Neverwinter instead of looking it up in wikipedia, you would have known the two most sought after builds were the Human dual class Paladin/Wizard, and the Human dual class Ranger/Cleric, exactly because they offered soloable characters. Not to mention it was an even more solo/group balanced game than EQ1 was. Dark Sun and Meridian 59 were also more solo friendly than EQ1, because they were built from the old MUDs which had almost no support for group play. Most MUDs didn't even have a group join mechanic until almost EQ went live. This isn't wikipedias info, it's from me having played them.
Over the last 5 years MMO game play has been homogenized to suit the pallet of gamers that would never play one of the Original MMOs because it didn't match their playstyle and the original MMO players are laughably told that their playstlyes, the ones that founded MMOs, are invalid.
You're absolutely wrong on this point. EQ1's approach to strict grouping was the aberration, which wasn't as apparent in the more solo friendly proto-mmo's that came before it. I know because I played those early MMOs, and had fun, then played EQ1 and had fun, and now play the modern MMOs and have fun. If you're not having fun in your MMOs try this, stop blaming the games and find something else to have fun in because you're obviously burned out. And certainly don't try to whine the game into excluding those that are still having fun and paying the bills!
It's funny... Imagine someone starting the genre of Soccer online, two teams of 11 people playing soccer together.... Over the years people complain they really want to play but...
11 people is too many, why do we need to find 11 people to make a team. Can't we just play with two teams of 3 people.
I only have 30 minutes to play a night. Can't we change the game to be on two 15 minute halves. Playing a full 1.5 hour game is too much to ask. [*} I don't want to have to play in the same field as everyone else, can't I just go kick the ball in a field just for me so I don't have to share the ball or wait for a pass.
I can't control the ball well, can't the game just control the ball for me and I'll just rest my face on the keyboard.
The goal is too small and hard to hit, so can you make it 3 times bigger so we can all score.
I takes too many games to win a championship, can't we just give out trophies after playing three games.
We all pay to play , the game should give everyone trophies not only the team that wins the championship.
So basically you have people that don't want to play Online Soccer for whatever reason... lack of time, lack of competitive drive, lack of gaming skill, lack of interest in soccer.
So in the end they demand that soccer be changed to meet thier play style and any true Soccer players... you know, the ones that actually wanted to play soccer are told to stop whining and that soccer is better this way... just look at the huge amount of money it makes and how little, skill, dedication, attention, patience is needed to "WIN".
Soccer is a long established game with rigid rules, MMOs are a relatively new game with potentially infinite play styles and infinite rules. There is no ONE way to play it which really sums up what is wrong with your opinion, you think it's like soccer with ONE set of rules, and ONE play style; YOURS.
I'll repeat what I said in the other post, Grow up. The market is going to go where the money is. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet, don't blame the people that are enjoying the game, just because you don't enjoy it anymore.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Comments
Come on get real - I know for a fact there was whining on the SWG boards pre NGE (before WoW). To blame WoW for all the whiners is just as bad as saying that EQ1 had no whiners. WoW just flat out has more posters because they have more players - and volume magnifies all the bad things about internet forums.
Come on! STop playing Pong then laplinked together with your neighbor!
Try an MMO out! Even a "themepark one that has no socializing in it"! You'll be amazed at the lengths people will go to to talk to each other.
Time and effort all by itself is drudgery. I'll take good CC work, kiting, cooldown management, and use of terrain and mob aggro control every time.
We'll agree to disagree then. But, I do seem to recall some mobs within the abilities of players to solo, and others not. Sort of like hunting for squirrels versus a Tiger. Pretty safe bet you'll be prepared differently.
Well-a-day. Time to move on.
/waves
Wherever you go, there you are.
Like another poster said the problem is when devs make mmo content that is so solo friendly you can't find groups or a reason to even group.
Well solo play does promote grou play in ways yet it comes only when the focus as well as incentives for both are placed wisely. If a game is build only for soloers or groupers it will gather niche crowds of players that are small, but who know what they want in a game. As such the pop of this type of game will remain largely staganant on either side o the focus, but if the focus is pretty close to equal the solo content brings this type of player into the game. As the soloer plays they are exposed to the group content that should have better rewards and incentives to doing it, which can advacte that the solo will group more offen learning to love group content play as well. The same is true of groupers that after being exposed to solo content that is on demand for their enjoyment regardless of who is online at the time, they may grow to lvoe soloing as it allows them to enjoy the game at thier own pace as well as regardess of if they have requirement (such as job, family, or other duties that call for their attention or time.).
If you make group content dificult enouph that you need a set level of gear to even be viable to play the content (such as instances, areas, quests, events, or such), then solo quests allow you to learn your class, gear up (which is a form of progrression as you are increasng your characters power as well as statical information.). Solo content that is built around showing, teaching, and advocating your role /duties within group content is another way that solo content can promotte group content, since it is preparing the player to do what is expected of them or giving them the tools they need to be viable in the group over learning on the fly. Also solo content that showcases groups doing group content making the player doing the solo content watch them could also promote grouping.
The thing is that solo as well as group content is not created to augement each other or to promote teh other's use in the game. yet in the same way how leveling is implemented in games, and hwo players see mmos is to blame for the state that mmos are in. As many have said here we rush to end game using the ath of least resistance (either that is group contennt or solo content.), but this causes us to treat other layers as merely tools to get us to out next level till we hit cap or end game. ANyone sayng tht they solo only because it is the fastest way to camp/end game is not a grouper but a power leveler, i have saught out groups even in soloist games like wow on nights i determine i want to group grind or instance with a group for prolonged periods of time. and that that is a grouper someone who seeks out a method of play they enjoy regardless of penalities placed on them or it.
Also wanting to enjoy a game or enjoying even a game that is easy to play is not wanting to havve your hand held, but wanting to relax while playing a game you enjoy. The same that just because a player want harsh penalities, challenges, and such does not make them a masocist, but merely that is what they find fun as well as enjoyable on either side of it. Although solo game play and enjoyment on demand content is hwo the modern player have shown they want their games, yet are they happy with hwo the difficulty or implentation is done so far? I would say no yet it is pretty evident that players enjoy being able to play as they wish, in what content they like when they desire it.
Much of what has been listed was not made to aid merely soloing, or grouping, btu to aid players in being able to enjoy their game with as little wasted time. THigns like having to wait for a player with certain required abilities to log on or want to group for content, as well as wiping as you learn what mobs are who or have what abilities, and many other things were time sinks that made playing mmos a time consuming hobbie. By stream lining these thigns allowing the player to determine the power/diffiuclty of a mob so they knwo if they want a group, if a instance is too hard to do alone or in a gorup, and having several viable choices for characeters/classes to fulfill roles in a group all have hekped to make playing mmos less of a time sonsuming hobbie. Yet this is a hobbie that we play as well as pay for, and so should this trully have to feel liek a job or take hours of a evening to enjoy?
Why did you quote the entire paragraph when you stopped reading at 'WoW'? Try reading the whole thing and you will see how badly you missed the point, SA-wing and a miss!
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Be specific, not vague and emo. Cite the game and specific conditions that turned that game's group play dynamic into a dead duck.
I've played a bunch of MMOs and have never seen this mythical "problem", except for the following:
WoW nerfed entire swaths of mobs in the world when Burning Crusades hit. Stuff could now be solo'd that previously took a group. Reason? They did this to old, legacy zones/content to promote people scooting into the new content asap.
Every MMO should have a robust set of solo content that works hand-in-hand with group content.
Again, what game(s) and what specific scenarios are you talking about that destroyed a games group content because devs flooded it with stuff designed to alter the game to solo-play?
Wherever you go, there you are.
I have played many mmo's and in most of them i have been a soloist most of the time. mostly for 4 reasons. in many guilds or corps. expecialy in games like eve-online your expected to work for the corp / alliance and the corp and its leaders claim most of the spoils leaving little to the player. you pay membership dues taxes or rent to corp just to have them ignore you and backstab you at the first opertunity. the betrayels of goonswarm, against all authoraties, and intrepic crossings are classic examples. i was in blueprint haus for several months working to build a mothership just to have the CFO claim it for themselves and then get it blown up with a couple days of playing with it himself rather than using it as partial payment of the space station we were buying. we ended up loosing the MOM and another mom and 3 dreads that came in to save it when a group of raiders baited it out then 2 other groups jumped in and ganked it. i left because i got sick of being nothing but a wage slave giving everything to the corp and having the leaders throw our work away.
i am a 48 year old man. i dont have a bunch of school buddies to group up with. finding a reguler group of people to team up with difficul or impossible. expecialy when the summer season rolls around and many games are off doign other stuff. when you do find a corp or alliance to join up with they are spread across the planet and trying to organise a mining op or combat raid when there are only a few people on is difficult unless your part of a mega alliance and then it falls again to part 1. everything is run bye or goes to the megalomaniacs that run the alliance. " case in point. " intrepid crossings manifesto " or the leadership betrayels in BOB goonswarm and Against All Authoraties in eve online.
I am an industrialist and miner in eve. i have multiple accounts with characters that have trained for many years each. in game i am primarily a facilitator / miner / builder. my tagline is " I'm a Maker Not a Breaker, I make the toys that others use to go BOOM". i will mine on multiple accounts in wormhole space for hours on end on my 4 main accounts and runing planetary interactions on 30 characters doing nothing but planitary interaction. its common for me to pull in several Billion ISK a week just bye myself. and use that to build capital ship station components and POS parts. most players just want to get on for a few minutes at a time to a couple of hours every now and again. creat asm much chaos and death as they can then disapear for days on end untill they come back. most players are casual players not hard core gamers. finding anyone to do the tedius background tasks lime mining, hauling, manufacturing for hours on end is few and far between. and almost never on the same schedule as you run.
most eve recruiters are total liers. they recruit me saying one thing about the corp just to get me into 0.0 wildspace to find out everything they have told me is a total lie. fantacies of what they hope to have not what is actualy there. i have quit many corps after just a few days because the reality is far from the factasy stories the recruiters of ceo's tell me about thier corps / alliance / or regions of space.
Its not the solo players breaking the market its the players who sit on the forums QQing the game is to hard we should be able to solo everything and get everything we want without making an effort, and then the dev listening to them and changing the game. To those people all i can say is if the game isnt what you want it to be dont try and change it by complaining to the dev go find a new one or stay with your exsisting game there thousands of mmos out there to pick from and almost all of them have been change to the similar game due to people doing this.
When EQ2 launched, it had a number of ways mobs were keyed, Up arrows, down arrows, epic mobs, elite mobs, and all combinations in between. So you could have a 3 up arrow elite mob, a 2 down arrow epic mob, a 5 up arrow normal mob. The end result was large portions of the game would curb stomp a solo character.
What happened to these areas? Nothing! Nobody went there except the lucky few whose wife played or had children that played. Only people that had built in groups that played everytime, all the time when they played went to these areas. When they finally changed the game to be more solo friendly, they admitted that spawn timers on some of these group mobs (just yard trash mobs meant to only be killed by groups, not special raid mobs or special area mobs, just group only spawn camp mobs) were constantly in days. Meaning they spawned when the server came up and only despawned when the server went down again.
Most people do not have groups waiting with baited breath for you to log on so they can drop everything in their lives to make your game more fun for you. The arrogance of groupers astounds me sometimes that you think games should not only be made specifically for you and all others can go hang, but that there should be other players whose only happiness in life is to drop everything and come running to you character when you log on just to make your MMO a little bit more fun for you.
Grow up, soloers have.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
lol 'groupers'? are you out of your mind? what mmos have you even played that you have such an ignorant view of grouping? Just eq and wow or what?
If you don't want to group, stay away from mmo's, they don't offer you anything. They are nothing but a very watered down timesink. If your life is so boring that a single player mmo is worth 15 bucks a month, you really can't expect everyone else to cater to YOU, simply because they have standards where the bar isn't rolling along the floor.
Proof that writer of article hit a little too close to the target.
So you some how know what is best for all mmo gamers, and players that if they do nt want to play as you or others play then they should not play. That if they gain enjoyment from playing a game solo for the purchase price plus 15 dallors a month, then they have a borning life hmmm? What a pompus wind bag you are not to mention a dictator, so how abotu this you as well as all the group based players go back to co-up games, since mmos right now are not what you want. I mean there is no way that a soloer could actually play a mmo to communicate with friends in other parts of the world, play the game with them via guilds or events, and group up with their friends at times when they do nto want to solo. Oh no never that would pop the grouper mentality that all soloers have no friends, don't socialize with other players, but merely leech off the game bringing it down. How about you grow up to being an adult so you can actually leearn that no one solely dose one type of centent or playstyle forever.
Wait so then the devs are supposed to cater to you as you have either no friends that want to group with you, or that you want to have both the ability to socialize with players while in group as well as having the best method of leveling as wel? Learn to actually make friends that like to spend time with you in game in groups willing to take a dip in exp for it, r look for games that are harder/challenging for you, instead of trying to force/ruin the fun for those that actually by the direction that devs seem to be going are the majoority that play these games. In mmos both sides of the playstyles are supported if you like grouping you can, same with soloing, and that is how it shoould be regardless of how anyone may personally think. Why because both sides of the cin have offline games they can lay for group or solo play, but soloers as well as many groupers want to feel they are apart of a larger world. Seeing players walking around about you doing what ever they are makes the world seem much more alive, and you do not need groups to make that feeling trully at all..
Well i see myself in your story, are you my clone hehe.
I agree most you said and i never appoligise for my play style i dare saying im maybe solo player but im more SOCIAL then majority of group oriented players.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Ok. I like this guy. He gives a tangible, real world example.
So what I've got as a list are two examples so far, the rest being a whole lot of smoke and mirrors vaguary:
1) WoW: Nerfing of Elites across the legacy zones to facilitate speedy levelling by players into the new content, Outland.
2) EQ2: Nerfing of some mobs and mob packs to be more solo friendly and alteration of spawning of group only mobs to be less frequent. Reason? Profiling of those zones/areas under playtime showed hardly anyone went there due to the difficulty.
Anyone else? Specifics, not emo whine theorycrafting in a vacuum because it sounds good. State the game, state the nerfage of group content to "solo friendly" that destroyed the rest of the game's group content and converted it all to solo play.
You'll note in the two examples given above those alterations to be more "solo friendly" look to have been motivated by population mechanics issues the devs wanted to improve, not a bias to make the game a soloer's game. In altering the things they altered it's a safe bet they didn't do it to transmorgrify group content to solo content, globally.
So I'm STILL looking for the example that illustrates a change in a game so heinous, so terrible in magnitude, it altered an entire game's profile to solo while pushing group content out the door.
For an MMO to be healthy and thriving, meaning POPULATED with people from all walks of life, with different schedules, different family profiles, and variances in available play time, it must contain a robust set of solo challenges that works with and next to group challenges.
It's not an either/or. It's an AND condition.
That being the case it's remarkably silly to argue against one or the other (either/or). We should instead discuss at what point an adjustment to that two sided dynamic might have gone too far tipping things too far in one direction or the other. That's an entirely different issue and viewpoint.
That's the better, and more constructive route to take constructive critisism and creative thinking.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Soooooo, I assume you won't be voting for Mittens this year?
Yes, EvE is nasty that way (it's my primary MMO right now...although I just started rampaging through Hellgate for something different to do while I wait on GW2 to see if I'm going there). It's an interesting environment because you are told, upfront and often, to trust absolutely no one. And that's really excellent advice for EvE. And unless you're in High Security space, no one groups outside their own corporation/alliance unless there is a damned compelling reason to do is.
Do yourself a huge favor and read through what I have post starting with ActionMMORPG.
I simply implied that there is still grouping in todays games without taking or favoring one side.
Now you see...this is exactly what original post was all about. If there are "soloers" there are "groupers", why are you so offended?
More to the point, he has a point. It's pretty simple; there is a reason there is more and more solo content in MMOs...it sells. Period. Full stop. It. Sells.
Having said that, there has always been viable soloing in MMOs. In EQ not so much outside very specific classes, but at the same time EQ was rolling along there was Asheron's Call...which was a very solo-friendly experience outside a few specific runs that were not needed to keep you in good gear. So, soloing to max level with any class was viable well over a decade ago in a mainstream MMO.
Solo =/= anti-social. Grouping =/= social. How many dead-silent groups does one need to be a part of...how many raids where raid leaders scream "(*&^*^!!! STFU! BE SILENT UNLESS YOU ARE ME!"...does one need to be a part of before the myth that grouping is by definition social is exploded?
Want to banish solo gameplay from your little universe? Well...aside from the obvious "it won't happen because these are businesses and that's that" truth...you just banned the vast majority of the crafters, miners, and explorers. Congratulations. Now head for the crafter's forum on your favorite MMO and make the anouncement. Let me know how that turns out.
I led a monarchy on Leafcull in AC that I rescued after Skystreak Cloudrider left AC1 for DAoC. I led runs, I led groups, I led massive guild runs. I answered /tell after /tell after /tell. I buffed, I taught, I distributed gear constantly. I was Rank 9, do the math and you'll know how big the monarchy wound up. I co-GMd Wolves of Valinor in DAoC, I was Combat Officer for Obsidian Asylum in E&B, I was an officer in Arsenal in Warhammer, I am currently a Director in a corporation in EvE. Along the way I've also been involved in SWG heavily, WoW, EQ2, AoC, Rift, and others. I typed all of that to invite you to start that "what mmos have you even played..." crap with me.
You know what? Some of my absolutely favorite times in any MMO, ever, were solo. Note that I didn't say "...were times that I shut off chat, refused to acknowledge anyone else was even alive, and played a 15/mo SPRPG.", I said solo. As in soloing mobs, as in scaling a mountain range just to sit and watch the world flow by (and sometimes spending hours just to figure out how to beat a game's terrain blocking so I could see the other side), as in exploring a game world as throroughly as it could be, just to do it.
I get groups. I get that for a lot of people they are the preferred method of gameplay. Unlike some people, I also get that soloists are not by definition anti-social jerks with entitlement issues any more than all groupers are socially adept and welcoming individuals with the milk of human kindness running through their veins. Both characterizations are bullshit.
You want games where solo gameplay is not viable and soloists are not welcome? Fine. Go convince a game studio that it's financially viable. Best of luck with that.
So the "PITY ME I CAN'T FIND A GROUP" approach is the grown up approach?
I find that more childish than just seeing that obviously there were other players in that situation as well and using basic communication could get you a group.
I was there launch of EQ2 and its first 6 months were rather excellent. You did need at least 2 people to handle anything arrow up in its various forms. Then WoW had came along and pretty much stomped that poor game and then they started adding the solo mobs, pretty much making that game boring.
It became harder to get a group, people ignored instances until they were grey, and all in all a lot poor choices were made and now it's a F2P piece of crap.
Thanks soloers, you're so mature.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
EQ2 was released in 2004. 8 years later it went F2P.... you make it sound as if that is somehow a failure.
So the "PITY ME I CAN'T FIND A GROUP" approach is the grown up approach?
I find that more childish than just seeing that obviously there were other players in that situation and just basic communication got you a group.
I was there launch of EQ2 and its first 6 months were rather excellent. Then WoW had came along and pretty much stomped that poor game and then they started adding the solo mobs, pretty much making that game boring.
It became harder to get a group, people ignored instances until they were grey, and all in all a lot poor choices were made and now it's a F2P piece of crap.
Thanks soloers, you're so mature.
EQ2 was released in 2004. 8 years later it went F2P.... you make it sound as if that is somehow a failure.
It tried F2P prior to that, but the fail part came in the population. It was drastically hit within the first year of the game and never really recovered.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
EQ2 had lots of technical diffculties and engine which made even best computers of its time cry. However i disagree about the changes to elite and heroic mobs or group content because it isn't how you make it look. With every new expansion and higher zones the difficulty of low lvl zones were adjusted. EQ2 is still a very group oriented game just that when MMO sarts getting old it is unrealistic to expect players to find same amount of people running around in low level zones as it was when game was fairly new. With every new expansion the low lvl zones are adjusted because mostly group content act as road blocks when there are not enough players to group with. All MMOS with levels suffer from this problem.
MY bottom line, and one shared by lots of other people is that... I play solo player RPG when I want to play solo and I play MMORPGs when I want to play with a group of other players. I don't want to spend 40-80% of my game time playing by myself until I reach max level and then have to deal with end game group content that is continually nerfed to make it "accessible", with systems designed to bring antisocial soloers together in an automated way where they can complete content together with actually having to learn to play as part of a team.
For someone that claims lots of MMO experience, I find it strange that we have such differing views of the history of the genre... You know... From back in the days of MUDs, Space Wars in the MIT labs, Neverwinter on AoL, Dark Sun, Meridian, UO,AC,EQ.... The genre was founded on the idea that multiple people could play the same game together at the same time. They could group together, forms Guild, Teams, etc and the majority of the MMO content was focused around group content and player interdependence.
Soloing always existed but it was a limted play experience, where as now the money hungry developers are pandering to the masses and steering the genre into a ditch, where grouping and playing together is an after thought and challenege is a bad word.
Over the last 5 years MMO game play has been homogenized to suit the pallet of gamers that would never play one of the Original MMOs because it didn't match their playstyle and the original MMO players are laughably told that their playstlyes, the ones that founded MMOs, are invalid.
It's funny... Imagine someone starting the genre of Soccer online, two teams of 11 people playing soccer together....
Over the years people complain they really want to play but...
So basically you have people that don't want to play Online Soccer for whatever reason... lack of time, lack of competitive drive, lack of gaming skill, lack of interest in soccer.
So in the end they demand that soccer be changed to meet thier play style and any true Soccer players... you know, the ones that actually wanted to play soccer are told to stop whining and that soccer is better this way... just look at the huge amount of money it makes and how little, skill, dedication, attention, patience is needed to "WIN".
I used to group 99% of the time, but since the community has gone south, I find myself soloing alot more. I only group with friends now...no PUGs for me.
MY bottom line, and one shared by lots of other people is that... I play solo player RPG when I want to play solo and I play MMORPGs when I want to play with a group of other players. I don't want to spend 40-80% of my game time playing by myself until I reach max level and then have to deal with end game group content that is continually nerfed to make it "accessible", with systems designed to bring antisocial soloers together in an automated way where they can complete content together with actually having to learn to play as part of a team.
For someone that claims lots of MMO experience, I find it strange that we have such differing views of the history of the genre... You know... From back in the days of MUDs, Space Wars in the MIT labs, Neverwinter on AoL, Dark Sun, Meridian, UO,AC,EQ.... The genre was founded on the idea that multiple people could play the same game together at the same time. They could group together, forms Guild, Teams, etc and the majority of the MMO content was focused around group content and player interdependence.
Soloing always existed but it was a limted play experience, where as now the money hungry developers are pandering to the masses and steering the genre into a ditch, where grouping and playing together is an after thought and challenege is a bad word.
Over the last 5 years MMO game play has been homogenized to suit the pallet of gamers that would never play one of the Original MMOs because it didn't match their playstyle and the original MMO players are laughably told that their playstlyes, the ones that founded MMOs, are invalid.
It's funny... Imagine someone starting the genre of Soccer online, two teams of 11 people playing soccer together....
Over the years people complain they really want to play but...
So basically you have people that don't want to play Online Soccer for whatever reason... lack of time, lack of competitive drive, lack of gaming skill, lack of interest in soccer.
So in the end they demand that soccer be changed to meet thier play style and any true Soccer players... you know, the ones that actually wanted to play soccer are told to stop whining and that soccer is better this way... just look at the huge amount of money it makes and how little, skill, dedication, attention, patience is needed to "WIN".
For what little it's worth, you have my respect, good postExactly my point, they did both, group and solo, but they found a way to solo. They did not whine to make it happen. They did it in a game that was built not to support it. So obviously it isn't about ease of play, but the individual spirit. The drive to see if they can 'go it alone'. If you re-read my other posts they have nothing to do with solo-only MMOs, or that solo is the right way, it has to do with whining and the fact that true soloers don't whine, they figure out how to do it and do it. So how about groupers stop whining about soloers and group up and shut up. Soloers still play when it isn't the 'faster way to succeed' (your words) So now it's your turn to group up even if it isn't the 'faster way to succeed'. (even though it still is.)
They aren't making end game content more accessible to group up soloers. They are doing that because after WoW, that is what sells. Here is your key misunderstanding. You see the games getting easier, you don't know why, so you look around for a reason to blame, and oh, look at that a guy is playing an MMO on his own. HE must be the reason this is happening. Did you ever hear the one about Smog keeps tigers away? Yea, apparently there are no tigers in LA. LA has lots of smog, so obviously smog repels tigers! You are constructing a fallacy.
I'd also like to point out, even after so many of the posters in this thread have stated they group and play solo, and are not anti-social, you continue to label them that way. So here's a new label for groupers; Poor fish scared to swim on their own that always have to have a school of other fish to keep them company. Now, I don't want to go through the implications of such a psychology, so here's a compromise: Don't assume we're antisocial and we won't assume you need an emotional support group to play a game.
If you had actually played AOL Neverwinter instead of looking it up in wikipedia, you would have known the two most sought after builds were the Human dual class Paladin/Wizard, and the Human dual class Ranger/Cleric, exactly because they offered soloable characters. Not to mention it was an even more solo/group balanced game than EQ1 was. Dark Sun and Meridian 59 were also more solo friendly than EQ1, because they were built from the old MUDs which had almost no support for group play. Most MUDs didn't even have a group join mechanic until almost EQ went live. This isn't wikipedias info, it's from me having played them.
You're absolutely wrong on this point. EQ1's approach to strict grouping was the aberration, which wasn't as apparent in the more solo friendly proto-mmo's that came before it. I know because I played those early MMOs, and had fun, then played EQ1 and had fun, and now play the modern MMOs and have fun. If you're not having fun in your MMOs try this, stop blaming the games and find something else to have fun in because you're obviously burned out. And certainly don't try to whine the game into excluding those that are still having fun and paying the bills!
Soccer is a long established game with rigid rules, MMOs are a relatively new game with potentially infinite play styles and infinite rules. There is no ONE way to play it which really sums up what is wrong with your opinion, you think it's like soccer with ONE set of rules, and ONE play style; YOURS.
I'll repeat what I said in the other post, Grow up. The market is going to go where the money is. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet, don't blame the people that are enjoying the game, just because you don't enjoy it anymore.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.