I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
You sound as-if anyone here has a say in how to change MMOs.
Well, the industry evolves, just like any other ones. It *will* respond to the market. Despite whether you like it or not, or i like it or not, soloability is now a MMO issue. How many MMO do you see advertise "ability to solo play"?
And you are also under the wrong impression that MMO has to be either multiplayer or solo. It can and is for both. I can solo in WOW. I can *also* play MP in WOW. Ditto in a long long list of MMOs.
You can't because then it loses the MM part in Mmorpg
There has to be some group content in it otherwise it is a single player game that just requires an internet connection..
If the MMO is supposed to be forced grouping...it should be the WHOLE game. Not being able to solo everything, then suddenly hit a brick wall. The MMO (MMORPG or otherwise) should be quick and easy to play.
Plus, the MMO genre is changing. No longer are you forced to spend 15 dollars a month...and it also encompasses many genres and games. Things change and evolve.
People should WANT to group with someone. Not be forced to group up with them.
Another reason may be because they'd have to publish more content then. When people have to coordinate together things are bound to go wrong at some point. This forces people to have to retry the same content on top of having to grind it as well. If it was set up for one person, someone would just come up with a guide for that class and everyone would blast through it
Good point, but also exposes the flaw of basing the longevity / core of a game on content. Its unsustainable.
Good point, but also exposes the flaw of basing the longevity / core of a game on content. Its unsustainable.
Only for 1 game. But people don't only play one game. I have a long list of games i don't have time to finish. It is certainly sustainable from my point of view. I will never run out of video game entertainment.
Majority of people think mmorpgs are about quests and story now. Thats the problem lol. There is a lot more to a mmorpg, just over time game companies have neglected those things and obmitted them from game to save time so they can rush their product. Probably why those games rush to f2p or the garbage can.
Grouping use to be fun, it had meaning. Todays games its just a chore. Meeting new people, making friends in game, forming or joining guilds, helping your guild out, helping noobs out, it was fun and had meaning. Now you have people that rush to max level and dont know their class properly or how to act in a group. In SWTOR, once the group was done people just left the group, didnt bother to say thanks, or have a good day. Kind of opposite of social interaction
The main caveat missing here is that games in the past were (effectively) new and had a smaller but dedicated audience. EQ wasn't catering to a mass market because it didnt exist. Therefore it only drew the dedicated which while small by todays standards, shared (more than likely) the same principles about gaming. You help me and I help you.
Fast forward 10 years. Gaming isnt some 'geek' activity that 'nerds' play like it was when I started. Today, EVERYBODY plays games in some form or fashion. Be it social games on facebook, web-based games, cell phone games, etc. That massive increase in population also splinters the genre. Where we had 3-4 MMOs today we have hundreds.
Its like playing with friends growing up in a small rural town where everyone knows everyone else, versus growing in a major city where your friends are spread out. The collective of a small town will always be closer (in terms of perspective) than that of a major city... due to the sheer number of people.
I think WoW is handling the soloability aspect the best. Provide a LFG / LFR mechanic (where balance is the key to quality vs crap). This way everyone gets to experience the game. Make an actual RAID harder than LFR for the hard core raiding crowd. I know they complain about people "not good enough" being able to get the same loot, but honestly in this time and age they may have to get over it (or find a niche game created specifically for them).
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
If "multiplayer" the way you envision it is so popular and fun, why are you afraid of soloability (which is quite different from single-player-only) ?
Why do you care that someone can kill a boss in 100 minutes you and your group take down in 10?
Flame on!
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
You sound as-if anyone here has a say in how to change MMOs.
Well, the industry evolves, just like any other ones. It *will* respond to the market. Despite whether you like it or not, or i like it or not, soloability is now a MMO issue. How many MMO do you see advertise "ability to solo play"?
And you are also under the wrong impression that MMO has to be either multiplayer or solo. It can and is for both. I can solo in WOW. I can *also* play MP in WOW. Ditto in a long long list of MMOs.
The industry is evolving into something that isnt working. look at all the f2p games, games shutting down, or games just surving,
Again I'm not saying that there cant be anything to solo in games, or that you can't get to max level on your own, but to say that everything should be solo, i dont think is right.
My favorite mmo is still FFXI and even i think that its on the extreme side of grouping. I think what the OP is after is the other extreme. and i believe that the best format lies in the middle of that
Good point, but also exposes the flaw of basing the longevity / core of a game on content. Its unsustainable.
Only for 1 game. But people don't only play one game. I have a long list of games i don't have time to finish. It is certainly sustainable from my point of view. I will never run out of video game entertainment.
I agree. From a single player point of view you can switch games. My point was basing a game by creating content (alone) can not survive well in the long run. The ones who DONT switch games and want to stay around will get bored. The selling point of a MMO is the fact that it is online and understood that it doesnt have an end. Now the industry may very well be trying to change this definition but this is how it started.
I used to play consoles (20+ years) and can tell you the draw of an MMO for me *IS* the fact that the game never ends. I dont WANT to leave to a different game if I didnt have to. The online aspect says I dont have the constraint of a medium (can only put so much game on a physical format). MMOs were supposed to be worlds or a persistent space that you could share (solo if your prefer) with others. It was a concept of systems driven by the population itself.
We have since (unfortunately) moved away from that model and developers have adopted a more 'console' approach. Finite content with promises to add expac (read: DLC) on top of it. It may succeed but they will alienate (I believe) a large portion of the audience who expected something else based on what we played in the past.
And honestly thats ok. Things do change. But call it something else like Video Game Online. But its NOT an MMO. What I think needs to happen is the market needs to go niche. Instead of trying to create that one AAA game for EVERYBODY. Create a smaller game for each subset. Wouldnt it be great is a developer focused 100% of a FULLY Soloability type game with limited to no grouping. I would suspect players who like that gamestyle would support and play that game. Make a hardcore raiding game where each raid is harder than the other. You get the idea. If you give what each set of gamers want I believe we would have greater success than trying to (still) put everything in the same game... which I have only seen each side complaining about how weak/unecessary the other side is.
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
You sound as-if anyone here has a say in how to change MMOs.
Well, the industry evolves, just like any other ones. It *will* respond to the market. Despite whether you like it or not, or i like it or not, soloability is now a MMO issue. How many MMO do you see advertise "ability to solo play"?
And you are also under the wrong impression that MMO has to be either multiplayer or solo. It can and is for both. I can solo in WOW. I can *also* play MP in WOW. Ditto in a long long list of MMOs.
The industry is evolving into something that isnt working. look at all the f2p games, games shutting down, or games just surving,
Again I'm not saying that there cant be anything to solo in games, or that you can't get to max level on your own, but to say that everything should be solo, i dont think is right.
My favorite mmo is still FFXI and even i think that its on the extreme side of grouping. I think what the OP is after is the other extreme. and i believe that the best format lies in the middle of that
Thats the million dollar question. What should a MMO be? Today? Take into consideration you have two main camps (perhaps a bunch of smaller ones)... one wants to solo everything. The other wants strong grouping. I cant see one game catering to both. I say create smaller niche games.
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
If "multiplayer" the way you envision it is so popular and fun, why are you afraid of soloability (which is quite different from single-player-only) ?
Why do you care that someone can kill a boss in 100 minutes you and your group take down in 10?
Flame on!
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
So you feel that content that is soloable can't be tough? or you can't fail at?
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I'm not talking about having companions (npc or player)...but one character being able to solo 100% of everything. Now...hear me out...
Many MMOs, especially themeparks...they in a way...very much mislead you. You can spen levels 1 to 85 (as an example) being able to do EVERYTHING solo. Suddenly you hit max level...and the game had the bait...then it switched...suddenly there is very little content you can solo. You can only do raids if you are in a group, or if the raids become out of date (and that takes a while)...only very few (if any) classes are able to solo (when, while leveling, every class can solo everything).
MMOs are already on the path of becoming quick to play, cheap and more solo oriented. Log on, do raid/dungeon finder...play for 15-30 min and accomplish a lot. Not relying on spamming chat "lfg" "lfg"...15 minutes later... "lfg". And many MMOs are very quickly relying on the player WANTING to group, and not feeling FORCED to group. WoW went far down this path, but to do new raids...still need a group and (last I saw), new raids aren't part of the raid finder. SWTOR was on the way to this path, but found voice acting and adding to the story was much more expensive than adding raids that forced you to group.
But you can still group up while leveling in WoW and themeparks, doing dungeons and what not (that are still solable with certain classes)...if you want to...not if you are forced to.
So, EA invests $300 million into BioWare with the lion's share going to SWTOR. It ran out of gas less than a year after launch and to survive they changed the business model to that of F2P. It is a MASSIVELY MULTI-Player Online RPG with 90% of it soloable. What makes you think investors would want to invest even $30 million to make a pure Single-player Online RPG?
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
If "multiplayer" the way you envision it is so popular and fun, why are you afraid of soloability (which is quite different from single-player-only) ?
Why do you care that someone can kill a boss in 100 minutes you and your group take down in 10?
Flame on!
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
So you feel that content that is soloable can't be tough? or you can't fail at?
It can fail, but it will always be the easiest out. you only have yourself to worry about, i have yet to find content ment for solo'ing that was as tough as things i needed groups to do.. maybe it isnt that the content is tougher in itself and the fact that 5 (or whatever makes a group in game) other people have to work together and leaves room for more human error.
You don't say teh whole industry "isn't working" jsut becuase there are a few flops, do you? Just like do you think the FPS industry "isn't working" when Daikatana (horribly horribly game) is released.
Again I'm not saying that there cant be anything to solo in games, or that you can't get to max level on your own, but to say that everything should be solo, i dont think is right.
"I dont' think is right" .. is not a good design principle. Someone else may disagree. What makes your opinion superior than his?
My favorite mmo is still FFXI and even i think that its on the extreme side of grouping. I think what the OP is after is the other extreme. and i believe that the best format lies in the middle of that
Why? May be there is no best format? May be it works better that you have FFXI and he has whatever game to play on the other extreme.
I highly doubt it is efficient trying to capture all the different player segments into one game.
I'm not talking about having companions (npc or player)...but one character being able to solo 100% of everything. Now...hear me out...
Many MMOs, especially themeparks...they in a way...very much mislead you. You can spen levels 1 to 85 (as an example) being able to do EVERYTHING solo. Suddenly you hit max level...and the game had the bait...then it switched...suddenly there is very little content you can solo. You can only do raids if you are in a group, or if the raids become out of date (and that takes a while)...only very few (if any) classes are able to solo (when, while leveling, every class can solo everything).
MMOs are already on the path of becoming quick to play, cheap and more solo oriented. Log on, do raid/dungeon finder...play for 15-30 min and accomplish a lot. Not relying on spamming chat "lfg" "lfg"...15 minutes later... "lfg". And many MMOs are very quickly relying on the player WANTING to group, and not feeling FORCED to group. WoW went far down this path, but to do new raids...still need a group and (last I saw), new raids aren't part of the raid finder. SWTOR was on the way to this path, but found voice acting and adding to the story was much more expensive than adding raids that forced you to group.
But you can still group up while leveling in WoW and themeparks, doing dungeons and what not (that are still solable with certain classes)...if you want to...not if you are forced to.
So, EA invests $300 million into BioWare with the lion's share going to SWTOR. It ran out of gas less than a year after launch and to survive they changed the business model to that of F2P. It is a MASSIVELY MULTI-Player Online RPG with 90% of it soloable. What makes you think investors would want to invest even $30 million to make a pure Single-player Online RPG?
Because if they do something really awesome for 1 group of players, instead of everything mediocore for a bunch of different groups i believe people would stay and play that game for a long time. the money might not come up front like a swotor with millions bought at release, i believe it will last longer and make more money
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
If "multiplayer" the way you envision it is so popular and fun, why are you afraid of soloability (which is quite different from single-player-only) ?
Why do you care that someone can kill a boss in 100 minutes you and your group take down in 10?
Flame on!
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
So you feel that content that is soloable can't be tough? or you can't fail at?
It can fail, but it will always be the easiest out. you only have yourself to worry about, i have yet to find content ment for solo'ing that was as tough as things i needed groups to do.. maybe it isnt that the content is tougher in itself and the fact that 5 (or whatever makes a group in game) other people have to work together and leaves room for more human error.
Why will it always be the easiest way out. If it takes 100 x as long, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out. If it takes research or real strategy to solve, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out.
By and large (there are a few exceptions) I haven't found any group content that was any tougher than pushing 2 or 3 buttons every few seconds, you could train a bird to do that.
It's very very very conceivable that a more challenging content could be solo becaus they cant' produce the dps or have the healing/hp that a group can. So another strategy is needed.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
You don't say teh whole industry "isn't working" jsut becuase there are a few flops, do you? Just like do you think the FPS industry "isn't working" when Daikatana (horribly horribly game) is released.
Again I'm not saying that there cant be anything to solo in games, or that you can't get to max level on your own, but to say that everything should be solo, i dont think is right.
"I dont' think is right" .. is not a good design principle. Someone else may disagree. What makes your opinion superior than his?
My favorite mmo is still FFXI and even i think that its on the extreme side of grouping. I think what the OP is after is the other extreme. and i believe that the best format lies in the middle of that
Why? May be there is no best format? May be it works better that you have FFXI and he has whatever game to play on the other extreme.
I highly doubt it is efficient trying to capture all the different player segments into one game.
Thats what i said in my first post. leave mmorpg alone and advocate for the other extreme which is msorpg
Give it a year or so, themeparks are already heading in that direction.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I'm not talking about having companions (npc or player)...but one character being able to solo 100% of everything. Now...hear me out...
Many MMOs, especially themeparks...they in a way...very much mislead you. You can spen levels 1 to 85 (as an example) being able to do EVERYTHING solo. Suddenly you hit max level...and the game had the bait...then it switched...suddenly there is very little content you can solo. You can only do raids if you are in a group, or if the raids become out of date (and that takes a while)...only very few (if any) classes are able to solo (when, while leveling, every class can solo everything).
MMOs are already on the path of becoming quick to play, cheap and more solo oriented. Log on, do raid/dungeon finder...play for 15-30 min and accomplish a lot. Not relying on spamming chat "lfg" "lfg"...15 minutes later... "lfg". And many MMOs are very quickly relying on the player WANTING to group, and not feeling FORCED to group. WoW went far down this path, but to do new raids...still need a group and (last I saw), new raids aren't part of the raid finder. SWTOR was on the way to this path, but found voice acting and adding to the story was much more expensive than adding raids that forced you to group.
But you can still group up while leveling in WoW and themeparks, doing dungeons and what not (that are still solable with certain classes)...if you want to...not if you are forced to.
So, EA invests $300 million into BioWare with the lion's share going to SWTOR. It ran out of gas less than a year after launch and to survive they changed the business model to that of F2P. It is a MASSIVELY MULTI-Player Online RPG with 90% of it soloable. What makes you think investors would want to invest even $30 million to make a pure Single-player Online RPG?
Because if they do something really awesome for 1 group of players, instead of everything mediocore for a bunch of different groups i believe people would stay and play that game for a long time. the money might not come up front like a swotor with millions bought at release, i believe it will last longer and make more money
And that is why you can go play Skyrim (and the like) on your PS3 or PC and the company makes a ton of cash on it.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
It can fail, but it will always be the easiest out. you only have yourself to worry about, i have yet to find content ment for solo'ing that was as tough as things i needed groups to do.. maybe it isnt that the content is tougher in itself and the fact that 5 (or whatever makes a group in game) other people have to work together and leaves room for more human error.
That is obviously wrong and depends on the game. In Diablo 3 (though not a MMO, but the small group dungeon is similar to LFD play-style in MMO, and same principles apply), soloing uber at the same MP level is much harder for many class solo, than grouped.
It all boils down to teh specific mechanics and the syneries between classes. For example, in a group .. if one person dies, another can rez him while a third can distract the uber boss. That is obviously not possible in a solo fight, and it is much harder for the fight to ensure you don't even die once.
In many MMO, solo-ing is easier .. because of design choice .. it does NOT have to be that way.
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
If "multiplayer" the way you envision it is so popular and fun, why are you afraid of soloability (which is quite different from single-player-only) ?
Why do you care that someone can kill a boss in 100 minutes you and your group take down in 10?
Flame on!
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
So you feel that content that is soloable can't be tough? or you can't fail at?
It can fail, but it will always be the easiest out. you only have yourself to worry about, i have yet to find content ment for solo'ing that was as tough as things i needed groups to do.. maybe it isnt that the content is tougher in itself and the fact that 5 (or whatever makes a group in game) other people have to work together and leaves room for more human error.
Why will it always be the easiest way out. If it takes 100 x as long, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out. If it takes research or real strategy to solve, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out.
By and large (there are a few exceptions) I haven't found any group content that was any tougher than pushing 2 or 3 buttons every few seconds, you could train a bird to do that.
It's very very very conceivable that a more challenging content could be solo becaus they cant' produce the dps or have the healing/hp that a group can. So another strategy is needed.
buy you have found solo content in an mmo that was meant to be solo'ed tougher?
Thats what i said in my first post. leave mmorpg alone and advocate for the other extreme which is msorpg
What you call them is not my concern, and i am in general agree with this idea. I think there are three style of interactivity:
- solos .. don't play with anyone at all
- small fixed group .. like all the lobby games.
- large unstructured grouping .. like in virtual worlds.
There is no need to put all 3 in the same game, although many games do have favors of each .. no doubt trying to catch all three segment of players.
I dont mind all three segments of players in the game, its just when the solo'ers expect to be able to do all the content the groups can do alone. if you want to solo in an mmo i'm all for that, just know your limitaions as a solo'er
Trying to apease all 3 in the same game is why we have all these water down titles on the market
I could understand if you guys were trying to advocate for your own genre of game MSORPG massively single player rpg. but what your doing is trying to take something already established and change it into what you like.
gather data make graphs and do whatever you please to convince a company or some dev's that your idea would make them money and go from there. but please allow MMORPG to be multiplayer
If "multiplayer" the way you envision it is so popular and fun, why are you afraid of soloability (which is quite different from single-player-only) ?
Why do you care that someone can kill a boss in 100 minutes you and your group take down in 10?
Flame on!
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
So you feel that content that is soloable can't be tough? or you can't fail at?
It can fail, but it will always be the easiest out. you only have yourself to worry about, i have yet to find content ment for solo'ing that was as tough as things i needed groups to do.. maybe it isnt that the content is tougher in itself and the fact that 5 (or whatever makes a group in game) other people have to work together and leaves room for more human error.
Why will it always be the easiest way out. If it takes 100 x as long, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out. If it takes research or real strategy to solve, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out.
By and large (there are a few exceptions) I haven't found any group content that was any tougher than pushing 2 or 3 buttons every few seconds, you could train a bird to do that.
It's very very very conceivable that a more challenging content could be solo becaus they cant' produce the dps or have the healing/hp that a group can. So another strategy is needed.
buy you have found solo content in an mmo that was meant to be solo'ed tougher?
Not yet. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it cant' exist.
I never had trouble with quests in MMO's (other than time) till TSW.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
You sound as-if anyone here has a say in how to change MMOs.
Well, the industry evolves, just like any other ones. It *will* respond to the market. Despite whether you like it or not, or i like it or not, soloability is now a MMO issue. How many MMO do you see advertise "ability to solo play"?
And you are also under the wrong impression that MMO has to be either multiplayer or solo. It can and is for both. I can solo in WOW. I can *also* play MP in WOW. Ditto in a long long list of MMOs.
Good point, but also exposes the flaw of basing the longevity / core of a game on content. Its unsustainable.
Only for 1 game. But people don't only play one game. I have a long list of games i don't have time to finish. It is certainly sustainable from my point of view. I will never run out of video game entertainment.
The main caveat missing here is that games in the past were (effectively) new and had a smaller but dedicated audience. EQ wasn't catering to a mass market because it didnt exist. Therefore it only drew the dedicated which while small by todays standards, shared (more than likely) the same principles about gaming. You help me and I help you.
Fast forward 10 years. Gaming isnt some 'geek' activity that 'nerds' play like it was when I started. Today, EVERYBODY plays games in some form or fashion. Be it social games on facebook, web-based games, cell phone games, etc. That massive increase in population also splinters the genre. Where we had 3-4 MMOs today we have hundreds.
Its like playing with friends growing up in a small rural town where everyone knows everyone else, versus growing in a major city where your friends are spread out. The collective of a small town will always be closer (in terms of perspective) than that of a major city... due to the sheer number of people.
I think WoW is handling the soloability aspect the best. Provide a LFG / LFR mechanic (where balance is the key to quality vs crap). This way everyone gets to experience the game. Make an actual RAID harder than LFR for the hard core raiding crowd. I know they complain about people "not good enough" being able to get the same loot, but honestly in this time and age they may have to get over it (or find a niche game created specifically for them).
because if everything is solo'able then all the tough content that people fail on, or takes a long time to complete most people will just go and do it themselves. and that changes the game for everyone else. and fine with being able to solo. just not the toughest of content. doesnt make sense at all that you can do the same thing me and 5 others just struggled to do and were the same level
The industry is evolving into something that isnt working. look at all the f2p games, games shutting down, or games just surving,
Again I'm not saying that there cant be anything to solo in games, or that you can't get to max level on your own, but to say that everything should be solo, i dont think is right.
My favorite mmo is still FFXI and even i think that its on the extreme side of grouping. I think what the OP is after is the other extreme. and i believe that the best format lies in the middle of that
I agree. From a single player point of view you can switch games. My point was basing a game by creating content (alone) can not survive well in the long run. The ones who DONT switch games and want to stay around will get bored. The selling point of a MMO is the fact that it is online and understood that it doesnt have an end. Now the industry may very well be trying to change this definition but this is how it started.
I used to play consoles (20+ years) and can tell you the draw of an MMO for me *IS* the fact that the game never ends. I dont WANT to leave to a different game if I didnt have to. The online aspect says I dont have the constraint of a medium (can only put so much game on a physical format). MMOs were supposed to be worlds or a persistent space that you could share (solo if your prefer) with others. It was a concept of systems driven by the population itself.
We have since (unfortunately) moved away from that model and developers have adopted a more 'console' approach. Finite content with promises to add expac (read: DLC) on top of it. It may succeed but they will alienate (I believe) a large portion of the audience who expected something else based on what we played in the past.
And honestly thats ok. Things do change. But call it something else like Video Game Online. But its NOT an MMO. What I think needs to happen is the market needs to go niche. Instead of trying to create that one AAA game for EVERYBODY. Create a smaller game for each subset. Wouldnt it be great is a developer focused 100% of a FULLY Soloability type game with limited to no grouping. I would suspect players who like that gamestyle would support and play that game. Make a hardcore raiding game where each raid is harder than the other. You get the idea. If you give what each set of gamers want I believe we would have greater success than trying to (still) put everything in the same game... which I have only seen each side complaining about how weak/unecessary the other side is.
Thats the million dollar question. What should a MMO be? Today? Take into consideration you have two main camps (perhaps a bunch of smaller ones)... one wants to solo everything. The other wants strong grouping. I cant see one game catering to both. I say create smaller niche games.
So you feel that content that is soloable can't be tough? or you can't fail at?
So, EA invests $300 million into BioWare with the lion's share going to SWTOR. It ran out of gas less than a year after launch and to survive they changed the business model to that of F2P. It is a MASSIVELY MULTI-Player Online RPG with 90% of it soloable. What makes you think investors would want to invest even $30 million to make a pure Single-player Online RPG?
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
It can fail, but it will always be the easiest out. you only have yourself to worry about, i have yet to find content ment for solo'ing that was as tough as things i needed groups to do.. maybe it isnt that the content is tougher in itself and the fact that 5 (or whatever makes a group in game) other people have to work together and leaves room for more human error.
Why? May be there is no best format? May be it works better that you have FFXI and he has whatever game to play on the other extreme.
I highly doubt it is efficient trying to capture all the different player segments into one game.
Because if they do something really awesome for 1 group of players, instead of everything mediocore for a bunch of different groups i believe people would stay and play that game for a long time. the money might not come up front like a swotor with millions bought at release, i believe it will last longer and make more money
Why will it always be the easiest way out. If it takes 100 x as long, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out. If it takes research or real strategy to solve, that doesn't sound like the easiest way out.
By and large (there are a few exceptions) I haven't found any group content that was any tougher than pushing 2 or 3 buttons every few seconds, you could train a bird to do that.
It's very very very conceivable that a more challenging content could be solo becaus they cant' produce the dps or have the healing/hp that a group can. So another strategy is needed.
Thats what i said in my first post. leave mmorpg alone and advocate for the other extreme which is msorpg
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
And that is why you can go play Skyrim (and the like) on your PS3 or PC and the company makes a ton of cash on it.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
That is obviously wrong and depends on the game. In Diablo 3 (though not a MMO, but the small group dungeon is similar to LFD play-style in MMO, and same principles apply), soloing uber at the same MP level is much harder for many class solo, than grouped.
It all boils down to teh specific mechanics and the syneries between classes. For example, in a group .. if one person dies, another can rez him while a third can distract the uber boss. That is obviously not possible in a solo fight, and it is much harder for the fight to ensure you don't even die once.
In many MMO, solo-ing is easier .. because of design choice .. it does NOT have to be that way.
The secret world is almost what you ask .
90% solo 10% group
maybe you should try ddo too. for every dungeon, you can choose the difficulty lvl one of those is for soloing
buy you have found solo content in an mmo that was meant to be solo'ed tougher?
What you call them is not my concern, and i am in general agree with this idea. I think there are three style of interactivity:
- solos .. don't play with anyone at all
- small fixed group .. like all the lobby games.
- large unstructured grouping .. like in virtual worlds.
There is no need to put all 3 in the same game, although many games do have favors of each .. no doubt trying to catch all three segment of players.
I dont mind all three segments of players in the game, its just when the solo'ers expect to be able to do all the content the groups can do alone. if you want to solo in an mmo i'm all for that, just know your limitaions as a solo'er
Trying to apease all 3 in the same game is why we have all these water down titles on the market
Not yet. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it cant' exist.
I never had trouble with quests in MMO's (other than time) till TSW.