Just wanted to say that I genuinely hate all of you solo players that have ruined everything I loved about MMOs.
Well, I think that's a bit extreme. "Solo" players as you call them aren't usually solo-only, but casual. They're usually just not willing to dedicate the type of time required to succeed in content that isn't casual friendly. But on the flip side, the devs catering to the casuals has added some nice features to games (though this is debatable as well). We wouldn't really have a need for things such as a group finder in a group-oriented MMO because EVERYONE has to group to get anywhere, so it forces the game's community to talk to each other and try to find a decent group makeup.
This is really one of the main reasons I was always drawn to group-oriented MMO games. I don't doubt the obvious need for MMOs that cater to the casual player, but we need some on the other end of the spectrum as well, like games used to be made.
Don't you find that comment a bit ironic? Self-centered care about themselves more than the other people - that's the domain of a soloer. Egotistical think they're better than everyone else, and you just called the majority of people worse than you. "Me! Me! Me!" is also the domain of the soloer. So you solo because you hate the people that group when they'd rather be soloing.
Not at all. Most of these people are just grouping so they can use other people to get extras for themselves. Soloers don't affect anyone but themselves. Groupers who are out to equip themselves, fast-level and reach end-game as fast as they can, affect the others in the group. My personal problem with a lot of these groupers is they want to race through the content as fast as they can, mostly so they can go back to the beginning and do it over again immediately. I want to go through the dungeon slowly, make sure I kill everything, make sure I loot everything, they're screaming down the most efficient path, stopping no longer than it takes to unleash hell on the mobs, then running on, leaving them unlooted. If you're not racing along with them, you get left behind. Kill everything, get your drop, lather, rinse, repeat.
Well, that may be the case with modern MMOs, but in EQ and FFXI you didn't have that same feeling of "every man for himself". There was a real community in these games, and a big part of the reason they existed was the fact that they had to do things together to get anything done. People getting something accomplished that took months would be met with (sincere) congratulations and understandable, warranted jealousy. What's to be jealous of other players in modern MMO games? It doesn't take long to get there anymore.
Group-based games didn't really have people "rushing through content". The content was HARD. If you got there at all, it was something to be proud of. Dungeons weren't instanced and you had the very real risk of having to camp the same mobs as another group, which honestly wasn't all that bad of a thing. Many times it was two guilds that had to come to some sort of agreement, and guilds were a lot more important in these types of games.
Which is my point. The group orientated people are less like this, they're more about their team than the individual. The number of times in my EQ guild that people did things for a single person can't be counted on one hand. I'm sure I've recounted the time an entire guild, which I had no acquaintance with, came to save me from losing my corpse inside the Plane of Fear - that's just one example of how less self-centered and egotistical people can be in a group focused game.
We're not talking about EQ, we're talking about modern games where that kind of thing doesn't really happen.
That's kind of the point, though. EQ, according to the group-oriented crowd in here, was the standard that games should be striving to, not WoW. Sales aside, many gamers consider EQ impossible to beat, and I for one would love to see devs try.
Soloing breeds self-centered feelings, soloing makes people think, "Me!", instead of, "Us!". It's the soloers you hate, not the groupers.
Nobody playing in a group is thinking "us", they're thinking "I want a good drop off the boss, screw the rest of you!"
That's what he's saying. The thing is, guilds DID indeed work to get all their people geared out even in the earliest MMOs when it took much longer and screwing someone over would mean a lot more. Also, it's kind of unfair to assume you know how every person in every group ever is thinking.
Not at all. Most of these people are just grouping so they can use other people to get extras for themselves. Soloers don't affect anyone but themselves. Groupers who are out to equip themselves, fast-level and reach end-game as fast as they can, affect the others in the group. My personal problem with a lot of these groupers is they want to race through the content as fast as they can, mostly so they can go back to the beginning and do it over again immediately. I want to go through the dungeon slowly, make sure I kill everything, make sure I loot everything, they're screaming down the most efficient path, stopping no longer than it takes to unleash hell on the mobs, then running on, leaving them unlooted. If you're not racing along with them, you get left behind. Kill everything, get your drop, lather, rinse, repeat.
That's the thing, the experiences you're talking about are from games that are designed with mostly solo content, with a few group instances thrown in along the way. So what you've got are all these soloers suddenly saying, "I want the shiny shiny.", and feeling forced into grouping together to get it. They want to zoom through that content, get the shiny then get back to their little solo game, so of course they rush and act like dicks.
A game where the majority of content is played out in a group is a wholly different experience.
Wanting the "shiny shiny" is determined by whether or not the player is an acheiver. Whether one is a grouper, or a soloer, they are just as likely to be an acheiver. The difference of course is groupers aren't forced to invalidate their playstyle at endgame in order to satisfy their need to acheive.
As for being "dicks", that's just as likely either way too, the difference being when a soloer is one it isn't as noticeable, seeing as they're off by themselves doing their thing, unless of course a grouper wants to come and bother them.
"Soloing breeds self-centered feelings, soloing makes people think, "Me!", instead of, "Us!"
Soloing breeds nothing of the sort. Soloers for the most part are introverts, and as such draw their energy from solitary activities.
Are people who read books thinking of "Me", instead of "Us".
Maybe we should ban all book reading to satisfy the needs of the collective .
Even worse, if they read a book, they might want to acheive something afterwards.
Wanting the "shiny shiny" is determined by whether or not the player is an acheiver. Whether one is a grouper, or a soloer, they are just as likely to be an acheiver. The difference of course is groupers aren't forced to invalidate their playstyle at endgame in order to satisfy their need to acheive.
As for being "dicks", that's just as likely either way too, the difference being when a soloer is one it isn't as noticeable, seeing as they're off by themselves doing their thing, unless of course a grouper wants to come and bother them.
"Soloing breeds self-centered feelings, soloing makes people think, "Me!", instead of, "Us!"
Soloing breeds nothing of the sort. Soloers for the most part are introverts, and as such draw their energy from solitary activities.
Are people who read books thinking of "Me", instead of "Us". After all, such a solitary activity must be antisocial.
Maybe we should ban all book reading to satisfy the needs of the collective .
Even worse, if they read a book, the might want to acheive something afterwards.
Can't have that now can we.
Great theory, but there are plenty of single player games that a solo player can have a lot of fun playing without having to make everything in multiplayer games solo-friendly. Why do solo players need to have access to the same content that groups are going for? Attempting to cater to both demographics spreads a game too thin most of the time. Why should group-oriented players, the ones that have been around since the genre's inception, have to change their play style because the game wants to cater to the solo crowd?
And I've never seen an instance where a group player was going after a solo player for the purposes of bothering them. Maybe to throw them an invite, but most people take "no" for an answer.
Also, books aren't multiplayer. MMORPGs are, and they're designed as such. If you go to a good classroom you'll see people interacting with each other using their text as reference, not simply sitting reading quietly to themselves.
Great theory, but there are plenty of single player games that a solo player can have a lot of fun playing without having to make everything in multiplayer games solo-friendly.
Multiplayer means lots of players playing the game at the same time, it doesn't mean they should all be joined at the hip.
Why do solo players need to have access to the same content that groups are going for?
Why do groupers need gear that exclusively enables them to solo mobs more effectively than solo players themselves.
Attempting to cater to both demographics spreads a game too thin most of the time.
Allowing women to vote dilluted mens votes, should men not have catered to them?
Why should group-oriented players, the ones that have been around since the genre's inception, have to change their play style because the game wants to cater to the solo crowd?
Why should solo-oriented players, who pay the same as groupers, yet come in greater numbers, have to change their playstyle because the game wants to cater to the grouping crowd at end game?
And I've never seen an instance where a group player was going after a solo player for the purposes of bothering them. Maybe to throw them an invite, but most people take "no" for an answer.
Some don't take no for an answer. On several occasions I've had players follow me around trying to grief me, just because I politely refused a grouping request. Unfortunately, they seem to be of the belief that solo players are selfish, antisocial losers, therefore they can treat them however they want.
Also, books aren't multiplayer. MMORPGs are, and they're designed as such. If you go to a good classroom you'll see people interacting with each other using their text as reference, not simply sitting reading quietly to themselves.
Unless someone is sitting at the computer beside you, all games are single player.
Are people who read books thinking of "Me", instead of "Us".
Maybe we should ban all book reading to satisfy the needs of the collective .
Even worse, if they read a book, they might want to acheive something afterwards.
Can't have that now can we.
Reading a book is a solitary activity, you're not going to have six people all reading the book at the same time - unless it's got really big pages. A better example would be going to a basketball court and not bothering to join up with the people who are inviting you to play with them, but instead staying on your own throwing the ball at the hoop for an hour.
Great theory, but there are plenty of single player games that a solo player can have a lot of fun playing without having to make everything in multiplayer games solo-friendly.
Multiplayer means lots of players playing the game at the same time, it doesn't mean they should all be joined at the hip.
This comment I've heard so many times and it's something that REALLY bugs the hell out of me. A multiplayer game is created so people can game together, that you can solo in these games is NOT standard practice. You can't play solo in a multiplayer Battlefield or Call of Duty game, you can't play solo in 99% of multiplayer games, that solo options have been added to MMO's apparently changes the entire genre to, "Players playing at the same time..".
Screw that. That's not the case and anyone who thinks so really has no clue what a multiplayer game actually is.
Great theory, but there are plenty of single player games that a solo player can have a lot of fun playing without having to make everything in multiplayer games solo-friendly.
Multiplayer means lots of players playing the game at the same time, it doesn't mean they should all be joined at the hip.
This comment I've heard so many times and it's something that REALLY bugs the hell out of me. A multiplayer game is created so people can game together, that you can solo in these games is NOT standard practice. You can't play solo in a multiplayer Battlefield or Call of Duty game, you can't play solo in 99% of multiplayer games, that solo options have been added to MMO's apparently changes the entire genre to, "Players playing at the same time..".
Screw that. That's not the case and anyone who thinks so really has no clue what a multiplayer game actually is.
I agree with this. Multiplayer has always meant people playing together either with or against eachother. Compared to pretty much every other game genre out there, playing solo in a MMORPG is similair to chosing to play the single player campaign instead of using the multiplayer option. The only difference is that you can chose to go multiplayer on the fly without having to relog/restart etc.
With that said however, I do think there should be some solo activities in a MMORPG, but the main focus should always be multiplayer. Designing a multiplayer game to act as a single player game would make no logical sense what so ever. It defeats the purpose of making a multiplayer game in the first place.
You can choose to solo and you can choose to play a a team. Funny enough, just like an MMO.
So I agree with the definition of muliplayer, it just means you can, you have the opportunity for group play.
Not in a multiplayer game you can't. What are you going to do? Stand there and whine when someone starts shooting you? "Hey, I want to play on my own here!". The single player campaign is solo, when you play with or against other people, that's multiplayer.
I can and have pointed to any number of games that are focused on group/cooperative based play and have been commercialy successfull enough to support themselves. Heck, I can even point to commercialy operated text based MUD's (eg SIMUTRONICS) that still have larger subscriber bases and more monthly income then some of the smaller MMO's. You're response tends to be " well, I don't consider them MMO's, so they don't count." Honestly, at this point I think you are purposefully dismissing valid examples simply for the sake of dismissing them, perhaps because you feel your prefered play style will be threatened?
Not only are there existing examples of sustainable games which are focused on group/cooperative based play...there are new ones being bankrolled right now.
SOE is about to release Planetside2
Paizo, through Goblinworks is building Pathfinder Online
CCP is working on World of Darkness...which given CCP's model is likely to be heavly focused on player interaction.
I could go on. I'm not saying group/cooperative play is going to be the "wave of the future." or anything like that...but if you are saying that such games lack sufficient audience to support themselves... you've already been proving wrong, repeatedly....and some pretty significant gaming exec's seem to be betting on you being wrong in future as well.
VengeSunsoar,
You can't really play the Battlefield games, etc online "solo" because they have absolutely no PVE content. You are playing with or against other players DIRECTLY. You may not be "joining a squad." or communicating with said players...but your play is DIRECTLY affecting and affected by thier play. Also, you and your sides chances of success are SIGNIFICANTLY reduced if you aren't coordinating your activties. Some of those titles are so team focused that they have an auto-join squad feature built in and have set it as the default for players preferences.
Note: That I don't believe many of us who have advocated group/cooperative based play have held the position that you MUST literaly join a group the moment you login to a game before you can proceed. We've simply advocated that not interacting with other players will SIGNIFICANTLY hinder your ability for success and the practical options available to you. Which is PRECISELY what happens with "lone wolfs" in FPS games like Battlefield.
You can't really play the Battlefield games, etc online "solo" because they have absolutely no PVE content. You are playing with or against other players DIRECTLY. You may not be "joining a squad." or communicating with said players...but your play is DIRECTLY affecting and affected by thier play. Also, you and your sides chances of success are SIGNIFICANTLY reduced if you aren't coordinating your activties. Some of those titles are so team focused that they have an auto-join squad feature built in and have set it as the default for players preferences.
Note: That I don't believe many of us who have advocated group/cooperative based play have held the position that you MUST literaly join a group the moment you login to a game before you can proceed. We've simply advocated that not interacting with other players will SIGNIFICANTLY hinder your ability for success and the practical options available to you. Which is PRECISELY what happens with "lone wolfs" in FPS games like Battlefield.
Oh I didn't say that it wouldn't be hard, or that it wouldn't suck. But it can be done, might be a terrible game play experience but it can still be one.
I agree that it will significantly hinder your ability for success. And in that type of game it should.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Oh I didn't say that it wouldn't be hard, or that it wouldn't suck. But it can be done, might be a terrible game play experience but it can still be one.
I agree that it will significantly hinder your ability for success. And in that type of game it should.
How can you have a match in an online shooter (team based) in which you have zero interaction or impact on/from another player?
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Oh I didn't say that it wouldn't be hard, or that it wouldn't suck. But it can be done, might be a terrible game play experience but it can still be one.
I agree that it will significantly hinder your ability for success. And in that type of game it should.
How can you have a match in an online shooter (team based) in which you have zero interaction or impact on/from another player?
The same way that you would in an PvP mmo that people are always saying you can have zero interaction. You can't.
You don't need to talk with anyone, or speak with anyone or team with anyone. But in an MMO pvp world there will be some level of interaction or impact.
So if people think that is soloing in a pvp MMO than I guess it's soloing in a pvp shooter. The definition works both ways.
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But in reality the games offer a solo mode. At least CoD does. And you can play in solo survival mode.
Thats what I am saying. The game lets you play both ways. Solo and with a team.
Also I am saying a team based game is a subgroup of mulitplayer and not the definition of multiplayer, and I'm saying it has always been this way.
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Some would argue that the free for all mode in CoD is the same as soloing in a pvp mmo. I sure would.
There are more ways of interacting than grouping. This is whay we have always and will continue to say. Grouping does not define multiplayer, and multiplayer does not mean grouping. Just interaction.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
You can choose to solo and you can choose to play a a team. Funny enough, just like an MMO.
So I agree with the definition of muliplayer, it just means you can, you have the opportunity for group play.
No the difference is that you CAN play the singple player campaign but it will always be nothing more than single player. If you chose to play multiplayer in CoD it can never be anything else but multiplayer. It is the same as if I was to chose a private game on battle net in Diablo 2 while playing alone. Yes battle net enables multiplayer but if I am playing in my own game I am still playing single player even if it is online.
Multiplayer has and always will mean that another player(s) is directly involved in your gameplay experience. In the same way you cant PvP solo you cant group or raid PvE solo and thats just the way it is. You cant have multiplayer without it dictating that other players are directly involved.
You can play single player in CoD campaign but it will always be single player, it wont be multiplayer untill you go online and join matches. The same waya MMORPG is and always wills be a multiplayer game with groups and raids, you can solo some quests and what not but soloing in a MMORPG will never be multiplayer gameplay.
Originally posted by UsualSuspect Originally posted by Cephus404 I wish someone would make an MMO with decent people playing it. I just know that won't happen, that any MMO I play will continue to be populated by mental midgets and obnoxious assholes so I just don't play. Nobody owes me the game I want to play. I can still want it, I just know that it won't happen.
What you actually need to play then is a group orientated game, as it's actually been proven that the more solo oriented the gameplay the more of a dick the player becomes.
I've been saying this for a long time - you can probably find it in one of my many posts in this oversized thread - that the more solo orientated a game becomes, the more the community suffers. It seems a study has proven me right.
Of all the posts here, this is the one I wish to quote. Cephus' subsequent post, "casting a wider net will yield more bottom-feeders" flits with brilliance as well.
/agree!!
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
You can choose to solo and you can choose to play a a team. Funny enough, just like an MMO.
So I agree with the definition of muliplayer, it just means you can, you have the opportunity for group play.
No the difference is that you CAN play the singple player campaign but it will always be nothing more than single player. If you chose to play multiplayer in CoD it can never be anything else but multiplayer. It is the same as if I was to chose a private game on battle net in Diablo 2 while playing alone. Yes battle net enables multiplayer but if I am playing in my own game I am still playing single player even if it is online.
Multiplayer has and always will mean that another player(s) is directly involved in your gameplay experience. In the same way you cant PvP solo you cant group or raid PvE solo and thats just the way it is. You cant have multiplayer without it dictating that other players are directly involved.
You can play single player in CoD campaign but it will always be single player, it wont be multiplayer untill you go online and join matches. The same waya MMORPG is and always wills be a multiplayer game with groups and raids, you can solo some quests and what not but soloing in a MMORPG will never be multiplayer gameplay.
I disagree. Soloing has almost always been considered not grouping, not just not having any impact or no interaction. People talk about grouping.
Therefore if I play a MMO pvp and do not group I'm still playing solo. Just like joining a free for all CoD. I'm not grouped, therefore it's solo. That is the same definition people apply to MMO's.
They say not grouping, only when it's pointed out that there are other ways to interact do they change the definition to no interacton or at all which is just silly.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
It is my understanding that all these threads of the format This vs That tend to quickly degenerate into an endless exchange of "things should be like this" or "they are intrinsecally meant to be that way" responses, instead of the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages that come with each of the options (and optionally how to avoid the latters). Truth is there are (and always will be) players who like soloing, players who like grouping and players who like both; there are people who enjoy the challenge of an unforgiving world where grouping is almost mandatory (and the sense of community that tends to bring with it), while other people dislike that approach in favor of going through the world solo (while still enjoying being surrounded with other players, or interacting with them in other ways).
There's absolutely nothing wrong or selfish with any approach. There's room, and market, for every kind of MMO: be it solo-friendly, group-only, or a mix of the two in whatever manner you want to imagine. MMO is a game mode allowing multiple people to play it at the same time with the grade of interaction they choose; the rest of the meaning implied by that acronym we give it ourselves, and is different for everyone.
This said, I can understand how the people partial to purely group-oriented gameplay feel frustrated in view of the current gaming panorama (which admittedly lacks any strong titles in that direction), and the players who prefer solo react to that discontent defensively because it seems as if the others were pressing for an undesired change in the existing games they enjoy.
However, I think there's room for optimism here. The enormous success of World of Warcraft (very solo-friendly in many ways) in the last decade started a proportional wave of titles that tried to follow its success by adopting its gameplay style. The failure of this trend (and I use failure very loosely: those games still made huge money, just not as much as intended) only became apparent about 4-5 years ago (which conicidently is the typical development time of most MMORPGs). It is my belief that soon we will start to see a wider variety in the MMO selection, better suiting the different audiences willing to buy them.
Originally posted by Cephus404 I wish someone would make an MMO with decent people playing it. I just know that won't happen, that any MMO I play will continue to be populated by mental midgets and obnoxious assholes so I just don't play. Nobody owes me the game I want to play. I can still want it, I just know that it won't happen.
What you actually need to play then is a group orientated game, as it's actually been proven that the more solo oriented the gameplay the more of a dick the player becomes.
I've been saying this for a long time - you can probably find it in one of my many posts in this oversized thread - that the more solo orientated a game becomes, the more the community suffers. It seems a study has proven me right.
Of all the posts here, this is the one I wish to quote. Cephus' subsequent post, "casting a wider net will yield more bottom-feeders" flits with brilliance as well.
It is my understanding that all these threads of the format This vs That tend to quickly degenerate into an endless exchange of "things should be like this" or "they are intrinsecally meant to be that way" responses, instead of the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages that come with each of the options (and optionally how to avoid the latters). Truth is there are (and always will be) players who like soloing, players who like grouping and players who like both; there are people who enjoy the challenge of an unforgiving world where grouping is almost mandatory (and the sense of community that tends to bring with it), while other people dislike that approach in favor of going through the world solo (while still enjoying being surrounded with other players, or interacting with them in other ways).
There's absolutely nothing wrong or selfish with any approach. There's room, and market, for every kind of MMO: be it solo-friendly, group-only, or a mix of the two in whatever manner you want to imagine. MMO is a game mode allowing multiple people to play it at the same time with the grade of interaction they choose; the rest of the meaning implied by that acronym we give it ourselves, and is different for everyone.
This said, I can understand how the people partial to purely group-oriented gameplay feel frustrated in view of the current gaming panorama (which admittedly lacks any strong titles in that direction), and the players who prefer solo react to that discontent defensively because it seems as if the others were pressing for an undesired change in the existing games they enjoy.
However, I think there's room for optimism here. The enormous success of World of Warcraft (very solo-friendly in many ways) in the last decade started a proportional wave of titles that tried to follow its success by adopting its gameplay style. The failure of this trend (and I use failure very loosely: those games still made huge money, just not as much as intended) only became apparent about 4-5 years ago (which conicidently is the typical development time of most MMORPGs). It is my belief that soon we will start to see a wider variety in the MMO selection, better suiting the different audiences willing to buy them.
Well, this is pretty much what I've been saying. We need to stop trying to be WoW with every subsequent MMO in the genre, and start focusing on niche gameplay. Instead of having every game focused on catering to the solo players, we need to have MMOs that do that, but also have MMOs that cater primarily to group play. The first games in the genre were group-only really (with the notable exception of UO but that's a different beast altogether), and they were obviously successful enough to spawn an entire genre worth of successors.
I disagree. Soloing has almost always been considered not grouping, not just not having any impact or no interaction. People talk about grouping.
Therefore if I play a MMO pvp and do not group I'm still playing solo. Just like joining a free for all CoD. I'm not grouped, therefore it's solo. That is the same definition people apply to MMO's.
They say not grouping, only when it's pointed out that there are other ways to interact do they change the definition to no interacton or at all which is just silly.
Soloing is doing everything yourself, hence the word solo. There are posts on here about how soloers want to be able to do raids or group content alone. It's about not involving the other players or them interfering with your actions. Where we come to MMO pvp and not grouping, you're thinking you're playing solo, but you're really not. You look at the other players, consider their locations and actions, work out the best plan of attack based on what they're doing, you are therefore directly influenced by the actions of the other players. Just because a technical invention called 'grouping' exists and you're not in said group doesn't mean you're not playing multiplayer. You attack another player, that's multiplayer. You can't play solo and still affect or be affected by other players.
Basically, the solo player in an MMO wants to be able to play the equivalent of a single player campaign. Why they join an MMO is beyond me, why play a multiplayer game at all if you have no interest in involving the rest of the playerbase? The only argument I've seen for this is that MMO's are so very large and are constantly updated. So, much like the solo personality, it's all about self, Cephus' description of, "Me! Me! Me!".
Comments
Well, I think that's a bit extreme. "Solo" players as you call them aren't usually solo-only, but casual. They're usually just not willing to dedicate the type of time required to succeed in content that isn't casual friendly. But on the flip side, the devs catering to the casuals has added some nice features to games (though this is debatable as well). We wouldn't really have a need for things such as a group finder in a group-oriented MMO because EVERYONE has to group to get anywhere, so it forces the game's community to talk to each other and try to find a decent group makeup.
This is really one of the main reasons I was always drawn to group-oriented MMO games. I don't doubt the obvious need for MMOs that cater to the casual player, but we need some on the other end of the spectrum as well, like games used to be made.
Well, that may be the case with modern MMOs, but in EQ and FFXI you didn't have that same feeling of "every man for himself". There was a real community in these games, and a big part of the reason they existed was the fact that they had to do things together to get anything done. People getting something accomplished that took months would be met with (sincere) congratulations and understandable, warranted jealousy. What's to be jealous of other players in modern MMO games? It doesn't take long to get there anymore.
Group-based games didn't really have people "rushing through content". The content was HARD. If you got there at all, it was something to be proud of. Dungeons weren't instanced and you had the very real risk of having to camp the same mobs as another group, which honestly wasn't all that bad of a thing. Many times it was two guilds that had to come to some sort of agreement, and guilds were a lot more important in these types of games.
That's kind of the point, though. EQ, according to the group-oriented crowd in here, was the standard that games should be striving to, not WoW. Sales aside, many gamers consider EQ impossible to beat, and I for one would love to see devs try.
That's what he's saying. The thing is, guilds DID indeed work to get all their people geared out even in the earliest MMOs when it took much longer and screwing someone over would mean a lot more. Also, it's kind of unfair to assume you know how every person in every group ever is thinking.
That's the thing, the experiences you're talking about are from games that are designed with mostly solo content, with a few group instances thrown in along the way. So what you've got are all these soloers suddenly saying, "I want the shiny shiny.", and feeling forced into grouping together to get it. They want to zoom through that content, get the shiny then get back to their little solo game, so of course they rush and act like dicks.
A game where the majority of content is played out in a group is a wholly different experience.
Wanting the "shiny shiny" is determined by whether or not the player is an acheiver. Whether one is a grouper, or a soloer, they are just as likely to be an acheiver. The difference of course is groupers aren't forced to invalidate their playstyle at endgame in order to satisfy their need to acheive.
As for being "dicks", that's just as likely either way too, the difference being when a soloer is one it isn't as noticeable, seeing as they're off by themselves doing their thing, unless of course a grouper wants to come and bother them.
"Soloing breeds self-centered feelings, soloing makes people think, "Me!", instead of, "Us!"
Soloing breeds nothing of the sort. Soloers for the most part are introverts, and as such draw their energy from solitary activities.
Are people who read books thinking of "Me", instead of "Us".
Maybe we should ban all book reading to satisfy the needs of the collective .
Even worse, if they read a book, they might want to acheive something afterwards.
Can't have that now can we.
Great theory, but there are plenty of single player games that a solo player can have a lot of fun playing without having to make everything in multiplayer games solo-friendly. Why do solo players need to have access to the same content that groups are going for? Attempting to cater to both demographics spreads a game too thin most of the time. Why should group-oriented players, the ones that have been around since the genre's inception, have to change their play style because the game wants to cater to the solo crowd?
And I've never seen an instance where a group player was going after a solo player for the purposes of bothering them. Maybe to throw them an invite, but most people take "no" for an answer.
Also, books aren't multiplayer. MMORPGs are, and they're designed as such. If you go to a good classroom you'll see people interacting with each other using their text as reference, not simply sitting reading quietly to themselves.
Reading a book is a solitary activity, you're not going to have six people all reading the book at the same time - unless it's got really big pages. A better example would be going to a basketball court and not bothering to join up with the people who are inviting you to play with them, but instead staying on your own throwing the ball at the hoop for an hour.
This comment I've heard so many times and it's something that REALLY bugs the hell out of me. A multiplayer game is created so people can game together, that you can solo in these games is NOT standard practice. You can't play solo in a multiplayer Battlefield or Call of Duty game, you can't play solo in 99% of multiplayer games, that solo options have been added to MMO's apparently changes the entire genre to, "Players playing at the same time..".
Screw that. That's not the case and anyone who thinks so really has no clue what a multiplayer game actually is.
I agree with this. Multiplayer has always meant people playing together either with or against eachother. Compared to pretty much every other game genre out there, playing solo in a MMORPG is similair to chosing to play the single player campaign instead of using the multiplayer option. The only difference is that you can chose to go multiplayer on the fly without having to relog/restart etc.
With that said however, I do think there should be some solo activities in a MMORPG, but the main focus should always be multiplayer. Designing a multiplayer game to act as a single player game would make no logical sense what so ever. It defeats the purpose of making a multiplayer game in the first place.
But you can solo in Call of Duty and Battlefied.
You can choose to solo and you can choose to play a a team. Funny enough, just like an MMO.
So I agree with the definition of muliplayer, it just means you can, you have the opportunity for group play.
Not in a multiplayer game you can't. What are you going to do? Stand there and whine when someone starts shooting you? "Hey, I want to play on my own here!". The single player campaign is solo, when you play with or against other people, that's multiplayer.
But the game themselves still let you do it solo.
The point is the game lets you do it. You can do it solo or you can do it with a team. That is a team based game.
I don't think multiplayer has ever meant MUST interact, it has always meant CAN and maybe SHOULD interact.
@Cephus,
I can and have pointed to any number of games that are focused on group/cooperative based play and have been commercialy successfull enough to support themselves. Heck, I can even point to commercialy operated text based MUD's (eg SIMUTRONICS) that still have larger subscriber bases and more monthly income then some of the smaller MMO's. You're response tends to be " well, I don't consider them MMO's, so they don't count." Honestly, at this point I think you are purposefully dismissing valid examples simply for the sake of dismissing them, perhaps because you feel your prefered play style will be threatened?
Not only are there existing examples of sustainable games which are focused on group/cooperative based play...there are new ones being bankrolled right now.
SOE is about to release Planetside2
Paizo, through Goblinworks is building Pathfinder Online
CCP is working on World of Darkness...which given CCP's model is likely to be heavly focused on player interaction.
I could go on. I'm not saying group/cooperative play is going to be the "wave of the future." or anything like that...but if you are saying that such games lack sufficient audience to support themselves... you've already been proving wrong, repeatedly....and some pretty significant gaming exec's seem to be betting on you being wrong in future as well.
VengeSunsoar,
You can't really play the Battlefield games, etc online "solo" because they have absolutely no PVE content. You are playing with or against other players DIRECTLY. You may not be "joining a squad." or communicating with said players...but your play is DIRECTLY affecting and affected by thier play. Also, you and your sides chances of success are SIGNIFICANTLY reduced if you aren't coordinating your activties. Some of those titles are so team focused that they have an auto-join squad feature built in and have set it as the default for players preferences.
Note: That I don't believe many of us who have advocated group/cooperative based play have held the position that you MUST literaly join a group the moment you login to a game before you can proceed. We've simply advocated that not interacting with other players will SIGNIFICANTLY hinder your ability for success and the practical options available to you. Which is PRECISELY what happens with "lone wolfs" in FPS games like Battlefield.
Oh I didn't say that it wouldn't be hard, or that it wouldn't suck. But it can be done, might be a terrible game play experience but it can still be one.
I agree that it will significantly hinder your ability for success. And in that type of game it should.
How can you have a match in an online shooter (team based) in which you have zero interaction or impact on/from another player?
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
The same way that you would in an PvP mmo that people are always saying you can have zero interaction. You can't.
You don't need to talk with anyone, or speak with anyone or team with anyone. But in an MMO pvp world there will be some level of interaction or impact.
So if people think that is soloing in a pvp MMO than I guess it's soloing in a pvp shooter. The definition works both ways.
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But in reality the games offer a solo mode. At least CoD does. And you can play in solo survival mode.
Thats what I am saying. The game lets you play both ways. Solo and with a team.
Also I am saying a team based game is a subgroup of mulitplayer and not the definition of multiplayer, and I'm saying it has always been this way.
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Some would argue that the free for all mode in CoD is the same as soloing in a pvp mmo. I sure would.
There are more ways of interacting than grouping. This is whay we have always and will continue to say. Grouping does not define multiplayer, and multiplayer does not mean grouping. Just interaction.
It really depends on what I'm doing. PvE I solo, PvP I don't mind grouping up.
In PvE I find the only reason why I need to group up is because the enemy has more HP or better gear than me. Not that the AI is more skillfull.
If AI becomes human like then I may group up for PvE, as I may feel like I have accomplished something.
No the difference is that you CAN play the singple player campaign but it will always be nothing more than single player. If you chose to play multiplayer in CoD it can never be anything else but multiplayer. It is the same as if I was to chose a private game on battle net in Diablo 2 while playing alone. Yes battle net enables multiplayer but if I am playing in my own game I am still playing single player even if it is online.
Multiplayer has and always will mean that another player(s) is directly involved in your gameplay experience. In the same way you cant PvP solo you cant group or raid PvE solo and thats just the way it is. You cant have multiplayer without it dictating that other players are directly involved.
You can play single player in CoD campaign but it will always be single player, it wont be multiplayer untill you go online and join matches. The same waya MMORPG is and always wills be a multiplayer game with groups and raids, you can solo some quests and what not but soloing in a MMORPG will never be multiplayer gameplay.
http://www.gamefront.com/study-team-gamers-less-likely-to-be-jerks/
I've been saying this for a long time - you can probably find it in one of my many posts in this oversized thread - that the more solo orientated a game becomes, the more the community suffers. It seems a study has proven me right.
Of all the posts here, this is the one I wish to quote. Cephus' subsequent post, "casting a wider net will yield more bottom-feeders" flits with brilliance as well.
/agree!!
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
I disagree. Soloing has almost always been considered not grouping, not just not having any impact or no interaction. People talk about grouping.
Therefore if I play a MMO pvp and do not group I'm still playing solo. Just like joining a free for all CoD. I'm not grouped, therefore it's solo. That is the same definition people apply to MMO's.
They say not grouping, only when it's pointed out that there are other ways to interact do they change the definition to no interacton or at all which is just silly.
It is my understanding that all these threads of the format This vs That tend to quickly degenerate into an endless exchange of "things should be like this" or "they are intrinsecally meant to be that way" responses, instead of the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages that come with each of the options (and optionally how to avoid the latters). Truth is there are (and always will be) players who like soloing, players who like grouping and players who like both; there are people who enjoy the challenge of an unforgiving world where grouping is almost mandatory (and the sense of community that tends to bring with it), while other people dislike that approach in favor of going through the world solo (while still enjoying being surrounded with other players, or interacting with them in other ways).
There's absolutely nothing wrong or selfish with any approach. There's room, and market, for every kind of MMO: be it solo-friendly, group-only, or a mix of the two in whatever manner you want to imagine. MMO is a game mode allowing multiple people to play it at the same time with the grade of interaction they choose; the rest of the meaning implied by that acronym we give it ourselves, and is different for everyone.
This said, I can understand how the people partial to purely group-oriented gameplay feel frustrated in view of the current gaming panorama (which admittedly lacks any strong titles in that direction), and the players who prefer solo react to that discontent defensively because it seems as if the others were pressing for an undesired change in the existing games they enjoy.
However, I think there's room for optimism here. The enormous success of World of Warcraft (very solo-friendly in many ways) in the last decade started a proportional wave of titles that tried to follow its success by adopting its gameplay style. The failure of this trend (and I use failure very loosely: those games still made huge money, just not as much as intended) only became apparent about 4-5 years ago (which conicidently is the typical development time of most MMORPGs). It is my belief that soon we will start to see a wider variety in the MMO selection, better suiting the different audiences willing to buy them.
That was me, not Cephus, but thanks.
Well, this is pretty much what I've been saying. We need to stop trying to be WoW with every subsequent MMO in the genre, and start focusing on niche gameplay. Instead of having every game focused on catering to the solo players, we need to have MMOs that do that, but also have MMOs that cater primarily to group play. The first games in the genre were group-only really (with the notable exception of UO but that's a different beast altogether), and they were obviously successful enough to spawn an entire genre worth of successors.
Soloing is doing everything yourself, hence the word solo. There are posts on here about how soloers want to be able to do raids or group content alone. It's about not involving the other players or them interfering with your actions. Where we come to MMO pvp and not grouping, you're thinking you're playing solo, but you're really not. You look at the other players, consider their locations and actions, work out the best plan of attack based on what they're doing, you are therefore directly influenced by the actions of the other players. Just because a technical invention called 'grouping' exists and you're not in said group doesn't mean you're not playing multiplayer. You attack another player, that's multiplayer. You can't play solo and still affect or be affected by other players.
Basically, the solo player in an MMO wants to be able to play the equivalent of a single player campaign. Why they join an MMO is beyond me, why play a multiplayer game at all if you have no interest in involving the rest of the playerbase? The only argument I've seen for this is that MMO's are so very large and are constantly updated. So, much like the solo personality, it's all about self, Cephus' description of, "Me! Me! Me!".