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Iam a social person i like meeting new people and playing along side people. I hate these mmos comming out where its nothing but soloing and only little bit of the content is grouping. Its soooo boring playing along and trying to form a group but no one wants to join because why? They can just solo. I mean if i wanted to solo id play a single player rpg and not even pay a monthly fee and games that are group based like FFXI are rediculously long to level.
Why cant there be a heavily grouped base mmo where exp still flows nicely but still have some solo content but still grouping needs to make a comeback.
Comments
Take for example WoW: BC many guild are now waiting for new stuff to get out. Sure they still do other instances but they become worthless since they can do bigger stuff.
Most of the game I played there was way too few options and content to make it interesting. (exception Eve Online (for me that is))
Game like UO were awesome but problem came that people now "grind" the game to death. And to be competitive you follow that pace.
That's where the game become boring.
It's not about being soloable. I don't always like to group with people and work a few mins or hour on something I previously did for myself. Where is the fun to do a thing over and over? I call that a job....
Go Square and give us another MMO soon!
Random Player in OOC: Group looking for 3 more for XYZ PST
Me: Hey, got a spot for a Druid/Warlock/Insert non-optimal, non-FOTM class here.
RPiOOC: Sorry we're full.
/pause 300
RPiOOC: Group looking for 3 more for XYZ PST
Me: Screw this grouping crap, the lot of you can get bent. /solomode on.
guildwars is the game for you
just ignore the henchs , you can play with your heros if you buy nightfall and there will be place for other people in your party. so all u need to do is ignore henchs and use humans.
im with you , i love random grouping , and i love guildwars becose of that.
Guild - http://lightness.goodforum.net/
Blog - http://www.pierrecarlier.com/
I agree with the OP. The problem is companys haven't thought of the middle ground. What I mean is there needs to be a MMO that isn't soloable but at the same time only requires 2-3 people to do most things. Getting a full group of 5-6 people and keeping them 30+ minutes is HARD. Getting 2-3 people is more managable. So there needs to be a game where group content is considered 2-3 people. And raid content would be like 10 people.
Dig it?
All mmorpgs doesn't need to be groupable but yeah I agree in mmorpgs part of the appeal for me is the 'co-op' aspect rather than the solo. Never played a MUD, but wasn't the appeal of them working together?
AFAIK they always were "soloable", just that the average gamer has changed. In the past the online gamer was usually older, and there were much fewer of us. It was like turning a small pub into a massive entertainment complex in my opinion. When we used to go to the pub we knew all the regulars and said hello to the knew faces and it was easier for new people to socalize and join the group. Now it's like going to a massive rock concert, people will say hello but no-one's got time to sit and talk, it's all about me and getting the most out of it for me as I'll probably never see that person again in my life.
That's how I see it anyway, the gamer has changed more than the games in my opinion. It's funny how I socialize more playing a FPS than most (not all) MMORPGs now! Sad but true.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
But better make sure every class is equally useful in a group... (very hard to do sometimes) or you will still have issues.
But wasn't the original DDO all group content..and they got slammed so much for it they had to add solo content later. Some folks just like to solo a lot. (I'm one of those)... Sorry, but I'm not a very social person.... (20% on the Bartle's scale)
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think MMOs have to offer solo content, because we've gotten far too picky with who we group with. For whatever reason, nobody seems to want to group with just anyone, like the old days, for fear of wasting time...as if the goal of games wasn't to waste time in the first place.
The fact is that it takes a far more "seriously minded" metagaming type of player to get by in group content in today's MMO. Its not roleplay. Its not even shoot-em-up. Its Madden 2007 for geeks, playing specialized positions, at a professional level.
These days, if you aren't willing to log on to voice, be the stacking/template class that's en vogue, or join a private gaming club, the solo game is the game you'll probably spend 95% to 100% of your time playing. Even if you are willing to do what it takes to be a good "team player," there is no guarantee you'll have a worthwhile experience.
I think the original SWG had the right formula for a successful "pick up group friendly" game. Large groups allowed space for players who liked to "tag along," and a "day job" model of combat missions served the aims far better than an "epic quest" model.
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"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I remember, when I played my first MMOG (DAoC at release). "wow, with so many people online in the same virtual world" were my thoughts. Though most of the time camping as a heal-class, it was a new experience and pure fun - upto 8 ppl playing together, trying to manage 2-4 orange/red or even purple-con-mobs.
I think, todays groups are less fun. It all feels more like "work". Perfect tanking and healing is wanted (DDs are often playing shitty, but noone cries^^), because the groupmembers want to fight far too high mobs as fast as possible. The playing-together-experience was replaced by fastest-leveling-experience.
This is maybe a general problem when playing MMOGs for a longer time, and not only for groups.
"Hardcore"
This is a big problem I have with most MMOs. Its always one extreme or another in certain areas. Group vs solo, PVP vs PVE, etc.
Kai
Ok, first off let us state the obvious that there's nothing in MMORPG that states "Thou shalt not solo" so let it go, really let it go..
The vast majority of us play MMO's for dynamic content & frankly how people choose to spend their hard earned money doesn't concern you or I. What seems to always get lost is the age demographic of who plays these games has raised considerably since 97. To be completely honest working adults aren't going to sit LFG for 30-45 minutes ala EQ1 days.
Ok....stick with me there's more.
That being said in the last seven years or so we've seen the paradigm shift from one extreme to the other and this is also bad. I logged into LORTO today and found virtually no one grouping at all. This is scary because while soloing should always remain viable grouping should remain the fastest track to the top.
So how to fix this? well the answer certainly isn't forced grouping, IMHO the answer lies in making grouping more attractive. How to do this, well for one make group rewards more favorable or at the very least raise the chance of special drops.
The way to encourage grouping is by rewarding those who do while not alienating those who don't or can't.
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
If you make the game more based around group content, people become picky about who they take and will often leave people out who don't fit the 'perfect group' which makes those people forced to solo. Sure, playing in a group can be fun and entertaining, but it's not fun waiting two hours to either find a group willing to let you in or trying to find a healer/buff/rare class to fill that last perfect spot. This isn't always the case, but it does happen often.
If the game is more based around solo content, people usually find that soloing is faster/easier and it allows them to come on and play as much/whenever they want. The problem behind this is that the content is usually dull, or at least some, and it's just one less person who could join the group to fill a spot.
Reason more games are becoming 'so soloable' is because there are more people coming into this market who either enjoy soloing, are casual and can only come on for a little a day, or they want to play a class that is fun to them but brings nothing to the group.
Actually, I have no idea what I just said really, but maybe someone else will make sense out of it.
I think there are a few reasons people like to solo more.
1. Gamers are older- We have been playing MMO's for a long time now, most of us have lives outside of the game so we cant join a group knowing in the back of our minds it will be a 2-4 hour commitment. A solo character can advance pretty well and log off immediately whenever he or she needs to.
2. As somone else stated grouping would be a much more attractive thing to do if experience and Items were increased for the group players. While some may say it already is because you kill faster, it still doesnt matter because its not enough. Experience should be noticeable increase, and loot should also be much better. While soloing would still be possible the solo player would advance more slowly which is the way it should be, right now it's backwards.
3. The outside man- Usually there is a class most people have to have in a group like a cleric/healer or a tank. I think its important for MMO's to break outside of this box. There should be a way for classes to fill multiple roles. A warrior will be the best tank because of his high armor and hitpoints for instance, but as an alternative a shadowknight or paladin could tank if needed and have an agro catching ability like the warrior. Of course developers could use their imaginations in this and quit making all groups require the same makeup. Healing is one of the abilities thats always needed in a group and as such are sometimes hard to find, so either put in several classes that can heal or make it so you can hire mercenaries to heal much like guildwars does. There are so many possibilities to make grouping more attractive and fun Its really rediculous actually devs havent caught on.
But it happens so often that you have no time for teaming up challenging the eternal caves of doom for 4 hours. Actually, it happens every weekday. So I'm there, its weekday, 3 pm, I've got 2 hours till my next college obligation, so I'm like, hey, wanna DO something for my character.
Now you take the MMO of your choice and go "LFG" für a 5-man or 6-man group at 3pm on a tuesday for a quick adventure.... Oh, no success? ... So, what will you do with your 2 hours of spare time which you actively dedicated to MMO gaming? - Either you go FPS Doug bashing stuff in Counterstrike, or you go solo something, and if soloing isnt rewarding, a game that wastes my weekday-spare time can as well go down the drain ^^
So Reason 1 - Random groups suck
Reason 2 - Core groups are not available on off times
Reason 3 - I'm glad if I dont have to put up with people
Reason 4 - LFG'ing sucks
Reason 5 - Group challenges eat up all your time, they are for Saturday evenings mostly
Reason 6 - The ultimate reason - MMO players generally suck, its SO hard to find like 5-10 people that are not totally SICK in their minds ^^
Meridion
Here's a fine example of why people prefer to solo. Most people play games to have fun. Having some stranger screaming at you about how much you suck, or are totally sick in the head, or are just human filth that doesn't deserve to live because you let their life slip below 95%, or whatever, is not what most people consider fun.
Particularly if they're new to the game.
Just because your anti-social and generally asume everyone sucks doesnt make your pre-concieved idea true. I can see valid reasons why you want to solo with a few hours to waste, but to encourage grouping and socializing a solo player should advance slower, this is my opinion on it.
The problem is the new Im Elite mentality and I Need no one because and I am better than you all selfishness that a lot of people seem to posses that discourages grouping even further. As the one guy said, this is a game we dont need some anal retentive elitess bitching because were not taking the normal path thru a dungeon or his health droped to 40% one fight. Just make sure you understand that I said a solo player should advance slower, not cant advance at all, but the combined efforts of a group should have a more rewarding experience and payoff. This is How i feel it should be. Feel free to dissagree
BTW. thats a much larger problem. The widespread social variety of people in MMOs, I'd not interact with 35 year-old Roleplaying freaks in normal life and would not interact with 14-year old kids on the street. Again, call me antisocial, but darn, I don't want those people in my life online either ^^ Thats just because I'm not belonging to the roleplaying/MMORPG-community and never have. I'm a normal college guy and pretty narrow-minded, for my own good I guess ^^
And frankly, I think most modern multiplayer gamers think so...
Meridion
@TILELAN P.S: Egomanic disorders are phallic phase, not anal, but who cares. I agree on the group quests should be more rewarding, but erm, actually, show me a game where this isnt reality? From WoW to EvE, if you don't group, it takes forever to achieve top-gear. If solo-options would be reduced even more, people would stop because they could not do anything in their free time, I truly believe that this is the price you pay for the new generation of players. Not mainly because theyre different, but because they won't spent as much time and effort for a game than the hard boiled RP elite that used to play these games 10 years ago...
I can tell, because I play like this. I'm have very different blocks of spare time and different times that I can be on. Sometimes, during vacation, from 5 pm to 11pm... sometimes, during normal days, from 9 am to 11 am or half an hour in the afternoon. Being able to actually do something whenever you want is absolutely priceless...
From unlocking Ilidans Lair with a 8 hours/day 25 man raid to going fishing for 30 minutes and possibly looting a nice blue item. Thats the concept of the future...
And MMORPGs are NOT losing popularity, this market has won - in the western segment - over 1000% paying customers during the last 24 months. And that is a trend, only certain vets are mourning over old times...
Meridion
Much as it galls me, I have to agree with the letter M here. MMO's are more popular now than ever.
And as more of the mainstream gaming market sets foot in MMO's, the desire for soloability will increase.
MMO does not mean forced grouping. It's Massively Multiplayer Online, not Massively Group Only Online, cause that'd be MGOO. I'd like to see more games take the approach that CoX, or AO did, where the difficulty scales, along with the rewards depending on the number of people attempting the mission/dungeon/whatever. With the option to scale the difficulty up or down, with the chance of rewards scaling up or down alongside it. WoW already has a very simplified version of this idea with the Normal/Heroic versions of dungeons. I don't play anymore, so I don't know how well they did on the execution.
Personally, I don't care if Joe Blow gets his leet purple epic epeen adjusters from running a solo instance of MC 1,000 times, or running MC with 39 other people 100 times. Aside from simple jealousy that Joe has something you don't, how he gets his gear has no impact on your gaming experience in a PvE environment. And if everyone has the same access to getting the gear, then there's no excuse for not having it in a gearcentric pvp game.