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Why play a themepark, singleplayer MMORPG?
Trolldefender99
Member UncommonPosts: 416
Themepark MMORPGs are quickly becoming more and more solo friendly.
But they will ALWAYS be inferior to a solo RPG that is built around singleplayer. Mass Effect 1+2 and Dragon Age 1 (DA 2 and ME 3 suck), have WAY better voice acting and story (but story is subjective)...than anything SWTOR has. I thought SWTOR had horrid voice acting, though at times it was pretty good.
But ME 1 and 2, and DA 1 are a one time fee. You don't pay anything for them. On top of that, even if SWTOR was free...there would be a cash shop. Singleplayer RPGs have no cash shops...granted, they can have a stupid amount of DLCs, but you don't buy them and it really has no effect on your gameplay. But if a free MMORPG has a bunch of cash shop items, or require you to unlock classes/zones/quests etc, that has a huge effect on your gameplay. And it is even worse when it becomes pay to win.
Or take Skyrim. It is far superior to singleplayer MMORPGs (...lol...singleplayer MMORPG...that sounds contradicting), and way cheaper. And if you get it on PC, you get tons of awesome mods that add a variety of things.
The only advantage singleplayer MMORPGs have is that they'll keep building up content. However, SWTOR is prime example that at endgame...it becomes like any other singleplayer MMORPG. Grinding the same raids over and over and over. Bioware is doing away with the story, that it built its game on. One can not keep coming up with quest/story content, faster than players consume it. So even if a singleplayer, themepark MMORPG brings new content...does it actually really matter?
So going back to the thread title...why play a themepark, singleplayer MMORPG? When even a themepark singleplayer RPG is WAY better, in terms of quality of content and how much it costs.
Comments
SWTOR is not a singleplayer MMORPG. If it was there would not be dungeons, and operations and warzones and other things you do with your friends. You can say BW did not do a good job on the multi player parts and some people choose to ignore them and run it all solo. That does not make the game single player though and that sure wasn't what BW was aiming for. Honestly your post sounds pretty Trollish.
MMO's need single player aspects cause everyone isn't going to have the time or desire to do things in groups all the time. The trick is finding the right mix of solo material and group material, which is not nearly as easy as lots of people think it is. You can't just go up to a writer and say hey why don't you right a masterpiece, or a muscian why don't you write a hit song. Most never do it and those that do rarely can do it again. Kind of getting sick of people saying "Hey its easy to make the perfect game why don't you just do it!" Sorry if it was that easy you would go make the game yourself and be a millionaire.
I *think* people like the idea of having others around, regardless if they play with them or not. I go watch reruns in theater of movies somtimes, even though I could just buy the Blu Ray edition or something, but having people around you is fun sometimes, don't ask me why, it's just a feeling that is hard to explain.
I agree, but, i like themeparks simply because i can play with other people. Running dungeons, quests, pvp, economy, etc. I still prefer a sondboxy type mmo and yes, SP are always better quality, but since i never buy games at launch and wait for price drops, not a big deal to me.
this is why a new genre should have been invented, instead of twisting a perfectly good one into something completely different. Just call these games RPGWCB so those of us that actually enjoy what MMOs were originally designed for can retain our sanity. Too late I guess
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
This is where we differ in opinoni. I found DA and MA to be boring. Skyrim wasn't bad however I get bored of that game far quicker than I do say WoW or EQ2 and far more than I did CoH or Istaria. I found the content in those games to be too predictable, stale and just dull.
With MMO's there is a randomness provided by the community and there is a tonne more content. Even if you dont' group a lot, or at all, the community still affects you, it creates an atmosphere that has IMO far more energy than in a spg. I hardly play spg's anymore, to me they just pale in comparison to MMO's.
To me the themepark MMO even if you play it solo, is far superior in almost every aspect to the spg.
To answer OP, because not all of us treat MMO's as a single player game? do you like forced grouping because new MMOS give you a choice. I chose to play with friends and guildies so i never felt i am playing a single player MMO.
Before finding faults in game design maybe you all need to change your attitude first?
applies to me too - i get bored w single player rpgs much faster than mmos where im soloing often
EQ2 fan sites
Regarding the first paragraph.
Themepark MMOs are more predictible than singleplayer RPGs. Especially Skyrim, mostly because of the random events + dragons. I'll take GW2 has being a HUGE improvement to themepark MMOs.
But take WoW or SWTOR. You do the same raid, over and over and over...the raids are entirely scripted...they become mindless and they are so predictible, there becomes guides that give step by step directions on how to do that particular raid.
However, leveling in WoW and SWTOR was a lot of fun SWTOR less so, because grouping is worse than in WoW. I found a lot more group content in WoW than I did SWTOR. And I found a lot better community and grouping during leveling in both games. Then endgame hit, in WoW and it became an incredibly boring grind doing the same raid. I did lich king 26 times (I kept track) in WoW, before I had a full suit of armor+weapon. Partly unlucky and was "fighting" other players for gear, which was more fun than the raid itself. After that, that just killed it for me.
PvP on the other hand, while that is really unpredicitble...doing the same instanced PvP that has no affect on anything, got boring as well. Again, GW2 is way better at this. With a DAOC style PvP area.
In fact, after playing GW2...and I honestly don't mean to bring GW2 to a main discussion in this, since this isn't what the topic is about. But GW2 really expands on the group content, for both leveling, endgame and PvP. Even though it is a themepark (highly hidden themepark mechanics), it does improve the themepark genre a lot more. Whether it becomes predicitible and random later on, I don't know.
Other than that though...most themepark MMOs are way more predicitable than singleplayer games. BUT, this is mostly at endgame for themepark MMOs...not the leveling process.
Then there are sandbox MMOs...EVE being the best example. Even PvE, the game is totally unpredicitable. And while you can solo, sure, it rewards grouping A LOT more. And no grinding the same raid for over 9000 times, before the next raid comes out.
The content is predictable yes. IMO not more than spg, but about the same. However as I stated the randomness is provided by the player. Even in themepark games, the drive by heal, the strange littel rpg play someone is putting on, the random tells, the zerg... all this is done by the player.
It's like watching the stanley cup. Yes I can watch it at home with my friends, but it is way way more fun to go downtown and watch it with 100,000 other people. The game is the same, the energy is soo much different. Even if you don't talk to a single person, you can't help but feel that energy.
edit - even in the totally scripted raid. There will often be the person tellign some off joke, doesn't happen in an spg, or someone does something a different way good or bad. You don't get any of that in an spg.
It's the community, good or bad, that impacts the game. Even if you never talk with them, you are still impacted in some ways, that IMO just make it better. Even with all the crap pugs, it just outweighs the spg.
Just because they aren't playing with you doesn't mean they aren't playing with others.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Why not?
I hate depending on other people when I'm questing. I play at strange hours, when very few people are online, so I like to be able to solo questing, or the majority of it (I do like some harder group quests or quest chains.)
I love to PvP and group up for instances/bosses with other people though.
You could say what I want is a single player game with some Co-Op options, but apparently that's what the MMO genre is made up of anyway, so yayy for me
Because I like single player game and I like MMORPG. So I enjoy playing singleplayer mmorpg.
It's like the argument of mmorpg battle arena. I like mmorpg, and I like battle arena games. So I play mmorpg battle arena.
Because ultimately those singleplayer mmorpg you claim actually have alot of multiplayer content too. I like to do both.
Guild Wars Nightfall is a brilliant SP MMO, with a great story and challenging combat. Frankly I think it offers a better SP experience than Dragon Age II did. Certainly the combat blows DA2 away, and the story is engaging enough to give you that "one more mission" vibe.
There was a great thread a week or two ago pointing out the myriad reasons players enjoy "singleplayer" MMORPGs.
It alone is a fantastic answer to "why".
But beyond that, MMORPGs labelled "singleplayer" are in fact very much MMOs. They may have issues (like ToR launching w/o Dungeon Finder) but they're still the type of experiences players want.
Their real problem is typically completely unrelated from whether they allow players to enjoy solo content. Their real problem is typically that they're not unique enough to convince players they're playing a completely new game. You have to shake up enough of the core gameplay concepts that players feel they need to spend a lot of time playing to fully master the new system -- whereas many recent MMORPGs have felt too similar to existing titles so they're 90% mastered on release.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Being able to play solo and basing an entire (or good portion) of the MMORPG around it ...is very different than being able to solo, but there being plenty of reasons to group.
Take Asheron's Call. That was my first MMO and a very very solo-friendly MMORPG. The first soloable MMORPG to have been released. Even though one could entirely solo, people grouped ALL the time...even for "solo content". Random groups would start up in dungeons and everything. Even if it was solo, the game greatly rewarded grouping. I think one perk was that you got bonus exp for doing so.
In singleplayer MMORPGs, there is an anti-reason to group...that being...you get A LOT less exp.
I don't know of any game like that. In every single game on the market right now grouping gives more xp, more coin and better loot. People say but solo can quest. Well groups have quests too, even in Wow, dungeons have have quests that are done in groups.
So one again in every MMO on the market groups get more xp, more coin and better rewards.
Social.
MMOs are, as games, pretty crappy. As PvP games, they're pretty crappy. As CRPG games they're pretty crappy. As sims they're pretty crappy. Really, they're pretty much crappy all the way around.
But MMOs have real live people with whom we can team with, interact with and otherwise share our common experiences both in-game and in real-world. Otherwise, why bother with any kind of MMO? Not just themepark. But any MMO. If there were no people with whom to interact with, I'd just play Mount & Blade Warband, Civ V or one of the other single player games I love so much.
Log in to Everquest on a Monday afternoon with a wizard in his mid 40s and try to play the game.
Then you will know why some people want to be able to solo.
______________________
You have to be able to max your toon alone in an older game if you want to catch up with the population at end game - so you can group.
It isn't that people want to be able to solo the whole game and never group - they just want to be able to adventure and have combat when groups aren't available.
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Group centered mmo's are unplayable after the initial population crests. If you don't join in the first month of release, consider yourself alone forever with all content unreachable.
That's your answer.
Single player games don't have auction houses.
/thread
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
^ proven
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I liked the way ffxi did it. Throw the soloer a bone by giving them a solo friendly class, and make the other classes group dependent.
Also wouldnt mind if SOE explored their hardcore ruleset server idea for EQ Next where the hardcore server was forced grouping and the casual servers were for soloing.
Theres certainly room for both styles in a game, I just dont believe they mix very well in the same virtual world.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well if you look at the sub numbers for a lot of these games the majority of people tend to agree.
They play for a bit and see no value in continuing.
That's why so many non-subscription based modes of revenue have became so popular.
There isn't a reason to play them. That's why we need to go back to our UO roots and start making devs TRY again.
Rather than taking the lazy / easy way out with their game design.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.