When we have to defend grouping in MMOs it tells you how far the MMORPG genre has fallen. I suppose we will get another article soon pondering why the MMO genre is not doing so well these days. Yeah it is a real mystery...or not.
This isn't an article. It's you pointing out a movie you liked, and drawing similarities
and he made and article out of it
A magazine article is a nonfictional piece of writing that is published in a magazine and is intended to inform or entertain the reader. Magazine articles can be about a variety of topics, including current events, culture, lifestyle, health, and fashion.
I have always been a "solo" gamer for the most part. Even when I would be in a guild, I'd still only participate if a guildee needed help. Only dipped into raids a little bit, and very late on.
The reason being I like playing at my own pace.
Even if flying solo, i love the unplanned player interactions. Helping someone in a tight spot, teaming up for a quest or to push off a hostile pker, trading for goods, grouping for a dungeon.
It's true this means that some content was next to impossible for me, but that's okay.
MMOs should not make group content solo-able, they should just make separate content for Solo-ers
If a Solo player really wants a piece of group content, he can just go find a group and that's absolutely fine.
Yes, it's these solo players that have ruined the entire genre. Online games have become nothing but a single player game connected to the internet because of these type of players.
And that's why alot of the older games are just better than all these "AAA" new releases.
MMO's are a social game. Whether you like it or not.
Well hot take but....after reading this and the comments I know why I can't find anyone to play with in mmos now, your all solo and killing the mmo part.
With age I have less patience to deal with rude people. So if I cannot find a decent guild and nice people, I solo. I enjoy it and when a game allows me to do it I am fine with it. I played Everquest in April of 1999 so very early in Everquest's history. I have done it all and dealt with the good and bad. It is no longer something I enjoy.
I have had bad experiences as a healer in WoW, some of the rudest people I have met was in WoW. I don't play to be abused by some ass on the internet and guess what, games these days don't have grouping as a big requirement and I for one am happy.
I do however enjoy chatting in guild chat and I can still do that soloing. So I get the social bits without the horrible behaviour I have to put up with. I do the odd group here and there and when I want to and with people I can tolerate.
Some games just create certain classes for individuals who think they are indispensable and they can then treat others badly because we need them. Looking at you tanks. Well if I have to put up with another of these fools I'd rather not play the game.
Well hot take but....after reading this and the comments I know why I can't find anyone to play with in mmos now, your all solo and killing the mmo part.
The reason you cant find anyone, is that the genre is practically dead, and these MMO's are empty.
I stopped playing mmorpgs because they became solo grindfests. I dont even look at them anymore.
They dropped the dedicated player base to chase the solo crowd because there were so many more solo players. But those players only last two or three months in a MMO, if that. It is one of the big reasons MMORPG's are in the pickle they now are, but that does seem to be a blind spot for some. Of course that's not the only reason, but it is a big factor.
I prefer solo it's usually because I like the exploration, the class skills, the fight mechanics, or the questing. I also like to be able to just jump in so some stuff then jump right off.
Group activities are usually very time intensive.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Well hot take but....after reading this and the comments I know why I can't find anyone to play with in mmos now, your all solo and killing the mmo part.
Are there no guilds to join in your MMORPG of choice?
I either play solo or with my wife when she is available on weekends. I am not one who asks for games to cater to my solo sensibilities. If they do, cool. If not, then I will have to group up if there's something I want and that's okay.
I enjoy crafting/buying/selling, so I like the MMORPGs for that feature. I don't mind raid content/PvP elements, as long as they don't gate keep what I need to craft/buy/sell.
Just like you i enjoy the creation part of MMOs. I also like exploration. Grouping is rarely needed for these.
I could not care less for 4 hours raids 40 times in a row to get a Tier XXX set of equipment that is obsolete two weeks later when the next expansion drops. I enjoy the grouping part in MMOs for social events, like Pubcrawls in Star Wars Galaxies or Weathertop Musical Festivals in Lord of the Rings.
But usually the lack of time as an adult with a family and a job only allows short periods of log-in at odd hours. Its still fun to chat and see other players, but the time of 20 hour running battles (like in EVE Online) has passed for me.
Just like you i enjoy the creation part of MMOs. I also like exploration. Grouping is rarely needed for these.
I could not care less for 4 hours raids 40 times in a row to get a Tier XXX set of equipment that is obsolete two weeks later when the next expansion drops. I enjoy the grouping part in MMOs for social events, like Pubcrawls in Star Wars Galaxies or Weathertop Musical Festivals in Lord of the Rings.
But usually the lack of time as an adult with a family and a job only allows short periods of log-in at odd hours. Its still fun to chat and see other players, but the time of 20 hour running battles (like in EVE Online) has passed for me.
Have fun
The thing is todays MMOs are as likely to sideline the importance of raids as they are social events or anything players can turn into a social event. A crafting system which is meaningful is not a given either, in survival MMOs sure, outside of that not so sure at all.
I cannot see one element of MMORPG gameplay that is a given today, the move has been to MMO-lite for a very long time.
Raids as social events is an odd thing to say because my recollection of raids are where I am told to turn up at a certain time then be prepared with consumables and told where to stand and DPS, heal or do anything. All the while listening to some instructions through voice chat or text. If I am lucky I do not have to listen to some obnoxious person and then loot is divvied out.
This is as far from social as I can think of. If by being social is just turning up and playing a class in the presence of others as enough then I am sorry for this idea. This isn't at all what I envisioned when I think about social events. There are way better ways to socialize then raiding in games. In fact I think raiding isolates and divides people. Just my opinion though so take from it what you like.
Being
pulled in different directions my game-time has decreased significantly over the
last few years, honestly all I have time for these days is Single player / Solo
/ Mmo-lite game-play. It took me from mid-July until close to the end of October
to get in a meagre 110 hours and finish Starfield.
Between
work, running a household (no matter what the bestselling Steam game about
Power Washing tells you power washing your siding is NOT that fun),
spending time with wife / kids / family /pets / friends and the new edition to
my responsibilities over the last few years looking after and parenting my
parents.
I was
always very good at managing my time but with everyone needing me something had
to give, and scheduled gaming time was the easiest to sacrifice. With uncertain
schedules, playtime lengths etc I wouldn’t inflict myself on a group these days
(I also don’t want to game for 4-8 hours sessions anyway).
It took me from mid-July until close to the end of October
to get in a meagre 110 hours and finish Starfield.
How meagre, you should be ashamed! You do realise that Steam would probably tell you that only something like 5 or 10% of players had the achievement you got for finishing the game.
Those butterfly players are playing more, maybe three titles for your one, finishing a third of each game and moving on. They exhaust new titles coming out, which is a real feat when we have s shed load these days.
It took me from mid-July until close to the end of October
to get in a meagre 110 hours and finish Starfield.
How meagre, you should be ashamed! You do realise that Steam would probably tell you that only something like 5 or 10% of players had the achievement you got for finishing the game.
Those butterfly players are playing more, maybe three titles for your one, finishing a third of each game and moving on. They exhaust new titles coming out, which is a real feat when we have s shed load these days.
I added
some Bethesda mods from their shop to correct / enhance some of the gameplay experience
in Starfield (companion pathing being a huge one) which disables achievements, but I didn’t bother
grabbing the Steam achievement enabler mod from nexus, just seemed like too
much trouble so I am guessing little to no actual achievements recorded.
Lol the meagre was more for the low game time over the course of 3.5 months, however, I
do get your point about finishing games, with a few exceptions I tend to do
just that for games that have an ending.
Starfield
will be my least played Bethesda game by a large margin and wasn’t exactly what
I wanted as I love their games for exploration, but I would recommend it on
sale for sure, it was still certainly worth playing and completing at least for
me.
Raids as social events is an odd thing to say because my recollection of raids are where I am told to turn up at a certain time then be prepared with consumables and told where to stand and DPS, heal or do anything. All the while listening to some instructions through voice chat or text. If I am lucky I do not have to listen to some obnoxious person and then loot is divvied out.
Raids can definitely be social, it just totally depends on the design of the game.
When I was raid leading in LotRO, our raids were very social. Sure, during boss fights or difficult trash, social talk was a hinderance as we all needed to concentrate. But during the rest of the raid, or once we had the raid on farm, it would be very social as we were able to chat and fight. Also, after a wipe, we'd have 5 minutes of downtime whilst we waited for death penalty to wear off, and that downtime was also very social.
Added to that, LotRO was highly interdependent and very deep, so great communication was essential, building up trust was a big part of getting good at raids.
When I was raid leading in SWTOR, our raids were almost purely social. That game was just so damn easy that we could chat through everything and still succeed. There were very few bosses where we needed to concentrate.
I would also say that group size makes a big difference on how social a raid can be. 5 or 6 people having a conversation works fine. 12 people trying to speak doesnt. 20 people speaking is bad. Any more is a nightmare.
So, SWTORs raid size of 8 helped being social. LotRO at 12 was also fine, as there are always some people who don't like speaking or don't have a mic. But im playing WAR RoR at the moment, and there are lots of 24man warbands, and if too many people try to speak on discord it's really bad and gets in the way of group efficiency.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I agree it depends on the game as well as the community.
Lord of the Rings Online seemed social with the small amount of raids I participated in.
Lineage 2 was social as it wasn’t just the raid but dealing with attacking players at times, Sometimes just gathering and waiting for people to arrive.
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Comments
and he made and article out of it
A magazine article is a nonfictional piece of writing that is published in a magazine and is intended to inform or entertain the reader. Magazine articles can be about a variety of topics, including current events, culture, lifestyle, health, and fashion.
it fits that definition
Godz of War I call Thee
The reason being I like playing at my own pace.
Even if flying solo, i love the unplanned player interactions. Helping someone in a tight spot, teaming up for a quest or to push off a hostile pker, trading for goods, grouping for a dungeon.
It's true this means that some content was next to impossible for me, but that's okay.
MMOs should not make group content solo-able, they should just make separate content for Solo-ers
If a Solo player really wants a piece of group content, he can just go find a group and that's absolutely fine.
And that's why alot of the older games are just better than all these "AAA" new releases. MMO's are a social game. Whether you like it or not.
New World
double post
I have had bad experiences as a healer in WoW, some of the rudest people I have met was in WoW. I don't play to be abused by some ass on the internet and guess what, games these days don't have grouping as a big requirement and I for one am happy.
I do however enjoy chatting in guild chat and I can still do that soloing. So I get the social bits without the horrible behaviour I have to put up with. I do the odd group here and there and when I want to and with people I can tolerate.
Some games just create certain classes for individuals who think they are indispensable and they can then treat others badly because we need them. Looking at you tanks. Well if I have to put up with another of these fools I'd rather not play the game.
I love to have other people around, but don't care for grouping.
Group activities are usually very time intensive.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
New World
Are there no guilds to join in your MMORPG of choice?
MMORPGs are as social as you make them.
Just like you i enjoy the creation part of MMOs. I also like exploration. Grouping is rarely needed for these.
I could not care less for 4 hours raids 40 times in a row to get a Tier XXX set of equipment that is obsolete two weeks later when the next expansion drops. I enjoy the grouping part in MMOs for social events, like Pubcrawls in Star Wars Galaxies or Weathertop Musical Festivals in Lord of the Rings.
But usually the lack of time as an adult with a family and a job only allows short periods of log-in at odd hours. Its still fun to chat and see other players, but the time of 20 hour running battles (like in EVE Online) has passed for me.
Have fun
I cannot see one element of MMORPG gameplay that is a given today, the move has been to MMO-lite for a very long time.
This is as far from social as I can think of. If by being social is just turning up and playing a class in the presence of others as enough then I am sorry for this idea. This isn't at all what I envisioned when I think about social events. There are way better ways to socialize then raiding in games. In fact I think raiding isolates and divides people. Just my opinion though so take from it what you like.
Being pulled in different directions my game-time has decreased significantly over the last few years, honestly all I have time for these days is Single player / Solo / Mmo-lite game-play. It took me from mid-July until close to the end of October to get in a meagre 110 hours and finish Starfield.
Between work, running a household (no matter what the bestselling Steam game about Power Washing tells you power washing your siding is NOT that fun), spending time with wife / kids / family /pets / friends and the new edition to my responsibilities over the last few years looking after and parenting my parents.
I was always very good at managing my time but with everyone needing me something had to give, and scheduled gaming time was the easiest to sacrifice. With uncertain schedules, playtime lengths etc I wouldn’t inflict myself on a group these days (I also don’t want to game for 4-8 hours sessions anyway).
Those butterfly players are playing more, maybe three titles for your one, finishing a third of each game and moving on. They exhaust new titles coming out, which is a real feat when we have s shed load these days.
I added some Bethesda mods from their shop to correct / enhance some of the gameplay experience in Starfield (companion pathing being a huge one) which disables achievements, but I didn’t bother grabbing the Steam achievement enabler mod from nexus, just seemed like too much trouble so I am guessing little to no actual achievements recorded.
Lol the meagre was more for the low game time over the course of 3.5 months, however, I do get your point about finishing games, with a few exceptions I tend to do just that for games that have an ending.
Starfield will be my least played Bethesda game by a large margin and wasn’t exactly what I wanted as I love their games for exploration, but I would recommend it on sale for sure, it was still certainly worth playing and completing at least for me.
Lord of the Rings Online seemed social with the small amount of raids I participated in.
Lineage 2 was social as it wasn’t just the raid but dealing with attacking players at times, Sometimes just gathering and waiting for people to arrive.
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