Take a RL - some people do photography as a hobby, some people play baseball. Photography is done solo, baseball requires a group. The fact that both activities exist in the world, doesn't mean you're "forced" to group in order to enjoy your life. You're only forced to group if you want to play baseball, because that's how baseball is played.
Using your example, WoW is photography until you get to the level cap, then it is baseball.
Using my example, WoW gives you the choice of doing either or both.
Now, I haven't actually played WoW, but I assume that there are solo mobs and quests available for players at cap as wel as other things to do solo - crafting, pvp, etc? Or is there nothing at all that a player can do on their own at 80?
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
Of course if all you like is taking photos, you can always roll an alt and start over gain.
if all you like is baseball, you can powerlevel your character, and quickly get to the baseball game.
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
But why do you need to group after the level cap? Because you've completed every bit of solo content in the game? It only takes a small portion of the available solo content to make it to max level so there is plenty there to keep even the most avid solist busy for a long while.
Joining the baseball team is only required if you plan on going to the world series. If you are happy with photo taking there is still a ton of it out there.
Take a RL - some people do photography as a hobby, some people play baseball. Photography is done solo, baseball requires a group. The fact that both activities exist in the world, doesn't mean you're "forced" to group in order to enjoy your life. You're only forced to group if you want to play baseball, because that's how baseball is played.
Using your example, WoW is photography until you get to the level cap, then it is baseball.
Using my example, WoW gives you the choice of doing either or both.
Now, I haven't actually played WoW, but I assume that there are solo mobs and quests available for players at cap as wel as other things to do solo - crafting, pvp, etc? Or is there nothing at all that a player can do on their own at 80?
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
Of course if all you like is taking photos, you can always roll an alt and start over gain.
if all you like is baseball, you can powerlevel your character, and quickly get to the baseball game.
People solo, but must they? No.
People group for raiding, but must they? No. (clarification, must they raid?)
Like I said, I don't play WoW specifically, but i do know countless people who don't have a capped character in any of their MMOs.
If your goal in WoW is "get raid gear asap", then perhaps yes, you solo to cap, then group for raiding. But is that everyone's goal? No. People have a choice.
If you weren't an anonymous random person on the internet, I'd actually make a bet with you that I can get myself WoW trial and manage to find people to group with and stuff to do in those groups long before I get halfway to the cap.
I truly don't know about the cap, but i find it hard to believe that there are no solo quests or mobs that can be killed solo at the cap level. It's possible, but i just don't see how WoW can be so popular if it doesn't offer that option as all it's main competitors do.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
I absolutely would. This is more what I was leaning toward in my thread. I like the bit about not being time consuming as well. That is the one downside with grouping for myself as I work weekends and watch my son during the week. Since I have to watch him while I play, lengthy dungeon crawls, (while something I love) simply isn't feasable.
I believe we had some coarse words in yet another thread as well, my apologies on that end.
Originally posted by twrule If grouping is really "significantly faster" than soloing, at what point does that become "forced" grouping?
This will always be subjective. For some, if you gain 1 xp point more in a group, and it takes you one less second of play time to gain a level in a group versus solo, that will be "forced grouping".
In that case I guess you can say since solo is the fastest xp in games today, then they are all forced soloing games.
It's too bad that having fun with others just isn't enough for some people to group up.
And then they want to punish the rest of us when we sometimes prefer to go solo.
In real life (some of you may totally be lost now) there are things you cannot do alone as well as things you cannot do in groups. Both have different challenges and benefits. Why can't you just be happy with games doing the same thing?
Blizzard has already resolved any and all grouping issues. All any dev has to do now is copy and paste.
Yet everytime a new game comes out with unchallenging, uninteresting, and instanced dungeons those of us who want fun, challenging content are stuck waiting for the next new game to copy WoW. It doesnt appear to me that Blizzard has resolved anything unless by resolved you mean cater to one playstyle and exclude everyone else.
Since both solo and group playing are available in most games, what is the point of trying to restrict one form or another? Options means more choice, and more choice is always better than less, unless someone want to limit the choices available to others for some very selfish motives.
Another issue, is grouping the real sense of multi player? 6 or 5 persons in a group is massive? In some old-day group-based games, like EQ1, I spent 10 hours in a dungeon with the same old 5 persons, until one of them got a loot and leaves, then we draft in 1 replacement, and grind the coming hours. 6 + 1 replacement every 20 hours is massive?
The whole idea of grouping as a representation of massive is totally wacky. I interact with more people per day with toilet visits during underground commuting, then I interact with people in a group. So visiting public toilet is MMO.
Grouping is just a grander way of soloing. Instead of 1, we have 5 or 6. What makes 6 more holy to 1? Nothing, except that someone wants to make it the holy grail of gaming as a general principle and try to persuade us that by virtue of grabbing 5 more unknown person and making use of one and only one of the many interactive tools in the game, they deserved to be praised like saints. There are tons of other tools in an MMO to interact with people, or socialise as you call it. Guild tools, Auction House tools, Chat tools, Public Quests, tons of variants. Grouping with 5 other unknown random persons is nothing sacred, it is nothing bigger than soloing while chatting, trading, helping, dancing, whatever with 5 other people in the same zone, same chat channel, or what not.
Seriously, look at MMO as a general venue for people to interact the way they want, and retain privacy in areas otherwise. Even in the most socialise setting, people still have some form of preferred privacy, as well as the freedom not joing that social event. Most important of all, grouping is not the definition of MMO, nor the only way people can interact. After all, in many groups, people never interact until a mob drops something they all want, and they start QQing ninjaing. So much for interaction.
Since both solo and group playing are available in most games, what is the point of trying to restrict one form or another? Options means more choice, and more choice is always better than less, unless someone want to limit the choices available to others for some very selfish motives.
We already have the choice for us, in form of games for different people. You can choose whether to play an MMO with content like I described, MMO with soloing emphasized, MMO with mainly PvP, MMO with mainly PvE, MMO with a mix of the two.. that is the choice we should be able to make.
One game doesn't have to cater to everyone. It doesn't have to carry the burden of trying to do everything (which it often does nowadays, with the companies being as greedy as they are), and a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one. There is a clear reason why single player game mechanics are always better and more polishd than that of MMO's. They don't try to be RPG's, action games, RTS's, Sims and sports games at the same time.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Since both solo and group playing are available in most games, what is the point of trying to restrict one form or another? Options means more choice, and more choice is always better than less, unless someone want to limit the choices available to others for some very selfish motives.
We already have the choice for us, in form of games for different people. You can choose whether to play an MMO with content like I described, MMO with soloing emphasized, MMO with mainly PvP, MMO with mainly PvE, MMO with a mix of the two.. that is the choice we should be able to make.
One game doesn't have to cater to everyone. It doesn't have to carry the burden of trying to do everything (which it often does nowadays, with the companies being as greedy as they are), and a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one. There is a clear reason why single player game mechanics are always better and more polishd than that of MMO's. They don't try to be RPG's, action games, RTS's, Sims and sports games at the same time.
'Concentrated' does not necessarily equal 'better'. The average person, while tending toward a certain playstyle, is likely to seek a game to suit their mood. The same person may feel like hardcore pvp one night and casual pve the next night. If that person can find content to sate their mood without having to risk sacrificing the polish/mechanics/motif/friends of their favorite mmo, then I'd consider that a win/win for both the developer and the player. Then the choice becomes which game has those other things that appeal to you most besides specific playstyle.
Why do you assume that the companies must be greedy when they try to appeal to the largest audience? I call that giving the consumers what they want. How do you know a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one (begging the question)?
If single player game mechanics are "always more polished than that of MMO's" (how so and how would you prove that?), then who says it's because they are only of one genre, or that mmos are trying to be more than one genre, or that any of that would lead to the mechanics being more or less polished?
Since both solo and group playing are available in most games, what is the point of trying to restrict one form or another? Options means more choice, and more choice is always better than less, unless someone want to limit the choices available to others for some very selfish motives.
We already have the choice for us, in form of games for different people. You can choose whether to play an MMO with content like I described, MMO with soloing emphasized, MMO with mainly PvP, MMO with mainly PvE, MMO with a mix of the two.. that is the choice we should be able to make.
One game doesn't have to cater to everyone. It doesn't have to carry the burden of trying to do everything (which it often does nowadays, with the companies being as greedy as they are), and a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one. There is a clear reason why single player game mechanics are always better and more polishd than that of MMO's. They don't try to be RPG's, action games, RTS's, Sims and sports games at the same time.
That is not an answer. There are enough good games, so we do something just for the sake or what? destroying the good choices?
The key argument should be, what constitutes improvements, and not just change for the sake of changing. I have raised the question, why is grouping singled out as so important, among the many aspect of MMO, and why is it singled out on the pretentious pretext of social interaction, when it is obviously not very massive in a group of 5. A raid of 40 is much more massive, a trading centre of hundreds or the auction house with thousands is really massive.
I think you totally missed my point by burying you head diehardly on just one point, grouping. Grouping in what way constitutes additional benefits over the existing model? Be specific.
I think it's perfectly valid to ask for a new MMO to be developed that employs forced grouping. I wouldn't go near such a game but there are a few that would.
Of course, we know that such a game would be a commercial failure and that is why it hasn't been done, at least in the Western World. FFXI is the nearest, and that wasn't developed initially for America and Europe. Even EQ was far more soloable even in the early days than a lot of people give credit for, especially if you chose your class with that in mind.
So it's valid to request such a game, but naive to think it's ever going to happen, other than possibly in respect of the very small niche market where games are considered successful with just a few thousand subscribers. Developers are smart enough to know that they maximise the commercial success of their games by maximising the appeal of them which they do by catering for all playstyles. They also know that even diehard groupers resent being told they must group all the time, or even some of the time, and they know that soloers represent an increasingly large part of the market. Grouping is a lot less popular than it used to be, and that is borne out by the complaints from those who want to group but can't find enough similarly-minded people to group with.
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
Of course if all you like is taking photos, you can always roll an alt and start over gain.
if all you like is baseball, you can powerlevel your character, and quickly get to the baseball game.
For all you bash on WoW I really don't think you have ever played it, nor played it at the level cap.
You have no idea what you are talking about and it's kind of sad you are basing your entire flimsy arguments on a game you have absolutely zero understanding of.
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
Of course if all you like is taking photos, you can always roll an alt and start over gain.
if all you like is baseball, you can powerlevel your character, and quickly get to the baseball game.
For all you bash on WoW I really don't think you have ever played it, nor played it at the level cap.
You have no idea what you are talking about and it's kind of sad you are basing your entire flimsy arguments on a game you have absolutely zero understanding of.
I played Wow for a few years, and it is very much like they are describing. I had 7 maxed level characters, that I almost entirely soloed. For any of them to appreciably improve their gear, I was required to group. No longer could I solo and continue to get better and better loot. Wow does a complete bait and switch and I think it sucks.
I'm all for devs to stop trying to make games that cater to the widest common denominator. Make heavily group focused games and for f**k sakes make games that have a soloable end game as well. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Groupers (rightly) get pissed at all the solo content cause they can't find groups or meaningful group content, and soloers get pissed when they are required to group to experience content or improve their gear. There's a zillion MMOs on the market; I think there's plenty of room for more specialized ones.
'Concentrated' does not necessarily equal 'better'. The average person, while tending toward a certain playstyle, is likely to seek a game to suit their mood. The same person may feel like hardcore pvp one night and casual pve the next night. If that person can find content to sate their mood without having to risk sacrificing the polish/mechanics/motif/friends of their favorite mmo, then I'd consider that a win/win for both the developer and the player. Then the choice becomes which game has those other things that appeal to you most besides specific playstyle.
Why do you assume that the companies must be greedy when they try to appeal to the largest audience? I call that giving the consumers what they want. How do you know a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one (begging the question)?
If single player game mechanics are "always more polished than that of MMO's" (how so and how would you prove that?), then who says it's because they are only of one genre, or that mmos are trying to be more than one genre, or that any of that would lead to the mechanics being more or less polished?
So many fallacies I can't count them all...
The average person also plays different games that suit their current mood. Feeling like you want to control an army? SC2 is right around the corner. How about some balanced PvP action? TF2, CS, etc. Pick your favorite. RPG's? Oblivion for some, FFXIII for others.
There doesn't have to be and should not be a monopoly. Variety is a great thing.
Companies are greedy, because they want to appeal to as many people as possible. They don't want to settle down for a specific audience, they want everything... why? Because that makes the most cash for them. It is painfully logical.
You are asking some pretty odd questions though. Aren't some of those solvable with a bit of common sense?
Concentrated experience allows the developers to work on the specific features and polish and make them better. Developers aren't blessed with unlimited time, resources nor manpower. If you try to do more than one thing at time, all three must be divided between the features the developers want to have in the game. The end result is lots of features that are lackluster or decent at best. It is a simple concept of quantity vs. quality. Whichever floats your boat.
Single player games try not to include too many things at once, unlike most MMO's. The features of single player games thus have more polish than that of MMO's, even though MMO's definitely have a lot more in quantity.
There comes a point, too, when there are too many features and the quality starts to suffer too much because of it. It depends on the person how big of a loss of quality they can tolerate, but at some point majority won't bother with the game because the quality is horrible.
Most recent MMO's fail because of this. Whatever reasons there are on the background are most often linked to what I described above.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Take a RL - some people do photography as a hobby, some people play baseball. Photography is done solo, baseball requires a group. The fact that both activities exist in the world, doesn't mean you're "forced" to group in order to enjoy your life. You're only forced to group if you want to play baseball, because that's how baseball is played.
Using your example, WoW is photography until you get to the level cap, then it is baseball.
Using my example, WoW gives you the choice of doing either or both.
Now, I haven't actually played WoW, but I assume that there are solo mobs and quests available for players at cap as wel as other things to do solo - crafting, pvp, etc? Or is there nothing at all that a player can do on their own at 80?
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
Of course if all you like is taking photos, you can always roll an alt and start over gain.
if all you like is baseball, you can powerlevel your character, and quickly get to the baseball game.
People solo, but must they? No.
People group for raiding, but must they? No. (clarification, must they raid?)
Like I said, I don't play WoW specifically, but i do know countless people who don't have a capped character in any of their MMOs.
If your goal in WoW is "get raid gear asap", then perhaps yes, you solo to cap, then group for raiding. But is that everyone's goal? No. People have a choice.
If you weren't an anonymous random person on the internet, I'd actually make a bet with you that I can get myself WoW trial and manage to find people to group with and stuff to do in those groups long before I get halfway to the cap.
I truly don't know about the cap, but i find it hard to believe that there are no solo quests or mobs that can be killed solo at the cap level. It's possible, but i just don't see how WoW can be so popular if it doesn't offer that option as all it's main competitors do.
What are you talking about? I can very, very, very easily get in groups in WoW all day long, and group to the level cap.
The grouping is horrible, and sucks, because it's not challenging and not necessary, therefore incredibly boring and dull.
THAT my friend is the problem, that there is no grouping challenge, not that you cannot find a group.
It's EASY to find groups in WoW. Why would you bother though, when the game play for a group is entirely missing?
IM NOT ASKING TO GET IN A GROUP! IM ASKING FOR GROUPING THAT MATTERS!
What are you talking about? I can very, very, very easily get in groups in WoW all day long, and group to the level cap.
The grouping is horrible, and sucks, because it's not challenging and not necessary, therefore incredibly boring and dull.
THAT my friend is the problem, that there is no grouping challenge, not that you cannot find a group.
It's EASY to find groups in WoW. Why would you bother though, when the game play for a group is entirely missing?
IM NOT ASKING TO GET IN A GROUP! IM ASKING FOR GROUPING THAT MATTERS!
DO you understand the difference?
Why do you think I"m asking to get in a group?
WoW grouping for me was about few individuals fighting the same monsters, not a group of people fighting the same monsters.
The mechanics have been made so that You are the focus and not the group. That ain't good enough.
This is exactly right. A fight in WoW, pre- raid, is not anything like a fight in old school EQ, or DAoC grouped.
In DAoC, you needed to perform like a well oiled machine. If you did that, you could take on much, much, stronger mobs, but you could also make a mistake and get wiped. You had to watch what you were doing, and what your team mates were doing.
In WoW, it feels like I'm fighting solo, even when I'm in a group. the coordination intensity of EQ or DAoC is just not required.
that's why no one is asking to group in a solo game, they're asking for good grouping mechanics that require serious coordination to survive.
THAT is fun. Having some other players health bars in my gui just for the hell of it, is not fun.
Or perhaps another way to describe it that a solo player might understand, is that in DAoC or EQ, the entire game plays like a one group raid.
Grouping in EQ was a mix of two styles. Occasionally it involved an inspired collection of players who really stretched themselves in a particular challenge, but most of the time it was a case of occupying one spot in a zone (eg Dreadlands) and cycling through the mobs with barely a thought or tactic involved (outside of your pre-defined class role which was the same limited one all the time except for shamans who had some variety) for as many hours as you could bear the repetition. Next night, same again, and so on until it was time to move on to the next zone level-wise. As a means of entertainment it was greatly over-rated, frankly it was monotonous as hell, and it's no wonder that most people have moved on from that playstyle!
significantly faster experience for groups means significantly slower experience for solo play. If you have fixed the problems with grouping, penalising solo play should not be necessary
co-operative skills in most games is one of the barriers to getting a group started quickly. You waste too much time looking for the a mixed group with the right balance of co-operative skills. City of Heroes (CoH) is one of the best games for casual grouping. In CoH, almost any combination of classes will work for most encounters. You can have a full group of a single class. A prime example of co-operative skills holding up a group is the global shout "Group ready to go. Just need a healer to start".
Comments
People pretty much solo to the level cap, then group for raiding after the level cap.
I'ts not a choice of both.
I'ts photography, then baseball.
You don't need to group before the level cap. You can shoot your photos all day long.
You need to group after the level cap. You have to join a baseball team, and there's no photo taking.
Of course if all you like is taking photos, you can always roll an alt and start over gain.
if all you like is baseball, you can powerlevel your character, and quickly get to the baseball game.
But why do you need to group after the level cap? Because you've completed every bit of solo content in the game? It only takes a small portion of the available solo content to make it to max level so there is plenty there to keep even the most avid solist busy for a long while.
Joining the baseball team is only required if you plan on going to the world series. If you are happy with photo taking there is still a ton of it out there.
People solo, but must they? No.
People group for raiding, but must they? No. (clarification, must they raid?)
Like I said, I don't play WoW specifically, but i do know countless people who don't have a capped character in any of their MMOs.
If your goal in WoW is "get raid gear asap", then perhaps yes, you solo to cap, then group for raiding. But is that everyone's goal? No. People have a choice.
If you weren't an anonymous random person on the internet, I'd actually make a bet with you that I can get myself WoW trial and manage to find people to group with and stuff to do in those groups long before I get halfway to the cap.
I truly don't know about the cap, but i find it hard to believe that there are no solo quests or mobs that can be killed solo at the cap level. It's possible, but i just don't see how WoW can be so popular if it doesn't offer that option as all it's main competitors do.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
I absolutely would. This is more what I was leaning toward in my thread. I like the bit about not being time consuming as well. That is the one downside with grouping for myself as I work weekends and watch my son during the week. Since I have to watch him while I play, lengthy dungeon crawls, (while something I love) simply isn't feasable.
I believe we had some coarse words in yet another thread as well, my apologies on that end.
In that case I guess you can say since solo is the fastest xp in games today, then they are all forced soloing games.
It's too bad that having fun with others just isn't enough for some people to group up.
And then they want to punish the rest of us when we sometimes prefer to go solo.
In real life (some of you may totally be lost now) there are things you cannot do alone as well as things you cannot do in groups. Both have different challenges and benefits. Why can't you just be happy with games doing the same thing?
Blizzard has already resolved any and all grouping issues. All any dev has to do now is copy and paste.
You're assuming that Blizzard came up with the best solution.
What about non instanced group activities?
I'd say those are unneccessary cans of worms. If you must have them, then copy and paste from Warhammer Online.
Yet everytime a new game comes out with unchallenging, uninteresting, and instanced dungeons those of us who want fun, challenging content are stuck waiting for the next new game to copy WoW. It doesnt appear to me that Blizzard has resolved anything unless by resolved you mean cater to one playstyle and exclude everyone else.
Since both solo and group playing are available in most games, what is the point of trying to restrict one form or another? Options means more choice, and more choice is always better than less, unless someone want to limit the choices available to others for some very selfish motives.
Another issue, is grouping the real sense of multi player? 6 or 5 persons in a group is massive? In some old-day group-based games, like EQ1, I spent 10 hours in a dungeon with the same old 5 persons, until one of them got a loot and leaves, then we draft in 1 replacement, and grind the coming hours. 6 + 1 replacement every 20 hours is massive?
The whole idea of grouping as a representation of massive is totally wacky. I interact with more people per day with toilet visits during underground commuting, then I interact with people in a group. So visiting public toilet is MMO.
Grouping is just a grander way of soloing. Instead of 1, we have 5 or 6. What makes 6 more holy to 1? Nothing, except that someone wants to make it the holy grail of gaming as a general principle and try to persuade us that by virtue of grabbing 5 more unknown person and making use of one and only one of the many interactive tools in the game, they deserved to be praised like saints. There are tons of other tools in an MMO to interact with people, or socialise as you call it. Guild tools, Auction House tools, Chat tools, Public Quests, tons of variants. Grouping with 5 other unknown random persons is nothing sacred, it is nothing bigger than soloing while chatting, trading, helping, dancing, whatever with 5 other people in the same zone, same chat channel, or what not.
Seriously, look at MMO as a general venue for people to interact the way they want, and retain privacy in areas otherwise. Even in the most socialise setting, people still have some form of preferred privacy, as well as the freedom not joing that social event. Most important of all, grouping is not the definition of MMO, nor the only way people can interact. After all, in many groups, people never interact until a mob drops something they all want, and they start QQing ninjaing. So much for interaction.
We already have the choice for us, in form of games for different people. You can choose whether to play an MMO with content like I described, MMO with soloing emphasized, MMO with mainly PvP, MMO with mainly PvE, MMO with a mix of the two.. that is the choice we should be able to make.
One game doesn't have to cater to everyone. It doesn't have to carry the burden of trying to do everything (which it often does nowadays, with the companies being as greedy as they are), and a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one. There is a clear reason why single player game mechanics are always better and more polishd than that of MMO's. They don't try to be RPG's, action games, RTS's, Sims and sports games at the same time.
'Concentrated' does not necessarily equal 'better'. The average person, while tending toward a certain playstyle, is likely to seek a game to suit their mood. The same person may feel like hardcore pvp one night and casual pve the next night. If that person can find content to sate their mood without having to risk sacrificing the polish/mechanics/motif/friends of their favorite mmo, then I'd consider that a win/win for both the developer and the player. Then the choice becomes which game has those other things that appeal to you most besides specific playstyle.
Why do you assume that the companies must be greedy when they try to appeal to the largest audience? I call that giving the consumers what they want. How do you know a concentrated experience is better than a watered down one (begging the question)?
If single player game mechanics are "always more polished than that of MMO's" (how so and how would you prove that?), then who says it's because they are only of one genre, or that mmos are trying to be more than one genre, or that any of that would lead to the mechanics being more or less polished?
So many fallacies I can't count them all...
That is not an answer. There are enough good games, so we do something just for the sake or what? destroying the good choices?
The key argument should be, what constitutes improvements, and not just change for the sake of changing. I have raised the question, why is grouping singled out as so important, among the many aspect of MMO, and why is it singled out on the pretentious pretext of social interaction, when it is obviously not very massive in a group of 5. A raid of 40 is much more massive, a trading centre of hundreds or the auction house with thousands is really massive.
I think you totally missed my point by burying you head diehardly on just one point, grouping. Grouping in what way constitutes additional benefits over the existing model? Be specific.
I think it's perfectly valid to ask for a new MMO to be developed that employs forced grouping. I wouldn't go near such a game but there are a few that would.
Of course, we know that such a game would be a commercial failure and that is why it hasn't been done, at least in the Western World. FFXI is the nearest, and that wasn't developed initially for America and Europe. Even EQ was far more soloable even in the early days than a lot of people give credit for, especially if you chose your class with that in mind.
So it's valid to request such a game, but naive to think it's ever going to happen, other than possibly in respect of the very small niche market where games are considered successful with just a few thousand subscribers. Developers are smart enough to know that they maximise the commercial success of their games by maximising the appeal of them which they do by catering for all playstyles. They also know that even diehard groupers resent being told they must group all the time, or even some of the time, and they know that soloers represent an increasingly large part of the market. Grouping is a lot less popular than it used to be, and that is borne out by the complaints from those who want to group but can't find enough similarly-minded people to group with.
For all you bash on WoW I really don't think you have ever played it, nor played it at the level cap.
You have no idea what you are talking about and it's kind of sad you are basing your entire flimsy arguments on a game you have absolutely zero understanding of.
I played Wow for a few years, and it is very much like they are describing. I had 7 maxed level characters, that I almost entirely soloed. For any of them to appreciably improve their gear, I was required to group. No longer could I solo and continue to get better and better loot. Wow does a complete bait and switch and I think it sucks.
I'm all for devs to stop trying to make games that cater to the widest common denominator. Make heavily group focused games and for f**k sakes make games that have a soloable end game as well. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Groupers (rightly) get pissed at all the solo content cause they can't find groups or meaningful group content, and soloers get pissed when they are required to group to experience content or improve their gear. There's a zillion MMOs on the market; I think there's plenty of room for more specialized ones.
I would agree with you.
But it's all about the cost of investment in making and then maintaining a MMO versus how much money the game will make for you.
You need lots of subscribers to make a high budget game.
The average person also plays different games that suit their current mood. Feeling like you want to control an army? SC2 is right around the corner. How about some balanced PvP action? TF2, CS, etc. Pick your favorite. RPG's? Oblivion for some, FFXIII for others.
There doesn't have to be and should not be a monopoly. Variety is a great thing.
Companies are greedy, because they want to appeal to as many people as possible. They don't want to settle down for a specific audience, they want everything... why? Because that makes the most cash for them. It is painfully logical.
You are asking some pretty odd questions though. Aren't some of those solvable with a bit of common sense?
Concentrated experience allows the developers to work on the specific features and polish and make them better. Developers aren't blessed with unlimited time, resources nor manpower. If you try to do more than one thing at time, all three must be divided between the features the developers want to have in the game. The end result is lots of features that are lackluster or decent at best. It is a simple concept of quantity vs. quality. Whichever floats your boat.
Single player games try not to include too many things at once, unlike most MMO's. The features of single player games thus have more polish than that of MMO's, even though MMO's definitely have a lot more in quantity.
There comes a point, too, when there are too many features and the quality starts to suffer too much because of it. It depends on the person how big of a loss of quality they can tolerate, but at some point majority won't bother with the game because the quality is horrible.
Most recent MMO's fail because of this. Whatever reasons there are on the background are most often linked to what I described above.
What are you talking about? I can very, very, very easily get in groups in WoW all day long, and group to the level cap.
The grouping is horrible, and sucks, because it's not challenging and not necessary, therefore incredibly boring and dull.
THAT my friend is the problem, that there is no grouping challenge, not that you cannot find a group.
It's EASY to find groups in WoW. Why would you bother though, when the game play for a group is entirely missing?
IM NOT ASKING TO GET IN A GROUP! IM ASKING FOR GROUPING THAT MATTERS!
DO you understand the difference?
Why do you think I"m asking to get in a group?
Nobody is asking to group through a solo game.
WoW grouping for me was about few individuals fighting the same monsters, not a group of people fighting the same monsters.
The mechanics have been made so that You are the focus and not the group. That ain't good enough.
This is exactly right. A fight in WoW, pre- raid, is not anything like a fight in old school EQ, or DAoC grouped.
In DAoC, you needed to perform like a well oiled machine. If you did that, you could take on much, much, stronger mobs, but you could also make a mistake and get wiped. You had to watch what you were doing, and what your team mates were doing.
In WoW, it feels like I'm fighting solo, even when I'm in a group. the coordination intensity of EQ or DAoC is just not required.
that's why no one is asking to group in a solo game, they're asking for good grouping mechanics that require serious coordination to survive.
THAT is fun. Having some other players health bars in my gui just for the hell of it, is not fun.
Or perhaps another way to describe it that a solo player might understand, is that in DAoC or EQ, the entire game plays like a one group raid.
Grouping in EQ was a mix of two styles. Occasionally it involved an inspired collection of players who really stretched themselves in a particular challenge, but most of the time it was a case of occupying one spot in a zone (eg Dreadlands) and cycling through the mobs with barely a thought or tactic involved (outside of your pre-defined class role which was the same limited one all the time except for shamans who had some variety) for as many hours as you could bear the repetition. Next night, same again, and so on until it was time to move on to the next zone level-wise. As a means of entertainment it was greatly over-rated, frankly it was monotonous as hell, and it's no wonder that most people have moved on from that playstyle!
I agree with most of the ideas.
However, I disagree on:
significantly faster experience for groups means significantly slower experience for solo play. If you have fixed the problems with grouping, penalising solo play should not be necessary
co-operative skills in most games is one of the barriers to getting a group started quickly. You waste too much time looking for the a mixed group with the right balance of co-operative skills. City of Heroes (CoH) is one of the best games for casual grouping. In CoH, almost any combination of classes will work for most encounters. You can have a full group of a single class. A prime example of co-operative skills holding up a group is the global shout "Group ready to go. Just need a healer to start".