The problem is people focus on solo combat. In fact EQ was one of the few MMORPG back in the day that heavily pushed group combat.
Lack of interdependency, conveniences that bypass other players, over use of instances, power gaps that isolate are bigger factors. Then exclusive purpose of MMORPG being combat and questhubs which are solo centered set the tone.
Why do people use the word "problem" whenever they find others like (or focus, or whatever word you choose) something they don't like?
So what if people focus on solo combat. If they like solo combat, is there a problem that MMO devs want to get a piece of that audience too? It is their game.
The ideal game for me would be to have a non instanced world where you can do what you want, but some of the world is difficult or impossible without others help.
I suppose you could argue that is what's there, but it's more like a lot of mini games that are completely different and separated from each other.
It's hare to compare an instanced world to a game where you have a few different areas you instant teleport to for different things.
As a player who likes to solo I don't really like to do so in the environment that is provided today.
That's not to say I'm perfectly OK with the way old MMOs do it either.
I would like something with an open world, no/limited quests, but a lot of interesting different things you can do.
That's quite different to what I would consider ideal. I love quests; aside from things like player-craftable housing and pet breeding, quests are the main thing I play for. My ideal world would also be one where there is nothing that is impossible to solo. Like if you took WoW, chopped off the raids and PvP, developed the npc factions more (taking some inspiration from Skyrim), made all the dungeons scalable down to one person, and hybridized it with the housing and tech tree portion of a sandbox like A Tale in the Desert, heavy on the minigame-style crafting.
I don't see the point in making such games unless they are single player. It seems like people can't accept a game that does not allow for a complete, instanced, single player experience. Variety is the spice of life. MMOs are best as virtual worlds IMO. Single player games are best as single player games. I enjoy both, but I don't see the point of having everything scale so that a MMO becomes a single player game for those who don't want to play an MMO to begin with.
I don't see why the game I described seems particularly like a single-player game to you. To me it's not, at all. Socializing with other players would be an important aspect of the game, and the presence of other players in the game's virtual world is that brings that world to life, as opposed to the relatively lonely and lifeless virtual worlds presented in single-player games like skyrim, witcher, and the various final fantasy RPGs. Should I have specifically listed out the multiplayer PvE elements the game would have, and the non-combat player interaction opportunities?
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
I've already explained in a previous post how single player games (which I do play) and mmos are different and how mmos offer a different experience.
I want to second that 100%. Approximately half the games I play are single player games, and MMOs, no matter how solo-friendly, offer an utterly different experience from an actual single-player game. A single-player game is not an effective substitute for a solo-focused MMO.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Well I am going to disagree with those who say it's different than a single player experience.
Single player games offer better quests.
Crafting is no worse than the simplified mini game you play in today's MMOs.
Chat is irrelevant in a game that doesn't require any thinking.
Solo MMOs are instanced so you don't really play with other people most of the time and there is no need to interact with them. It's mostly pointless.
Then you have something that is really unique. A fantasy world where you can interact with others in a meaningful way. You can still solo, but not everything can be done solo and there is no need for it to be that way. That is a far more unique experience than what is described with a solo MMORPG IMO.
There's nothing wrong with doing solo activities. Why are people so against it? There's still plenty of group activities, and in fact, the major content requires groups (pvp, raids, dungeons).
I think that some of the people against it just want to avoid the problem of not having enough people to do group activities. In some games this can really be an issue.
There's nothing wrong with doing solo activities. Why are people so against it? There's still plenty of group activities, and in fact, the major content requires groups (pvp, raids, dungeons).
I think that some of the people against it just want to avoid the problem of not having enough people to do group activities. In some games this can really be an issue.
The difference here is solo with group option vs group with solo option . I (and other) want group with solo option while people like Narius want solo with group option . And the problem is "solo with group option" like a small cake that make for one person to eat . Share a small cake is bad option so most of people never did . "group with solo option" like big pie make for group but you can eat alone . Eat with group is fun while eat alone is full .
Then back to MMORPG logic , nowadays MMORPG give each player small cake to eat alone , sharing with other is bad option . That's why no one sharing , no group invite for pie , and the community grow cold .
Did no one rhyme the title of this off similar to Barbie world by aqua?
I'm a Single Player, in a MMO world I play alone, it's fantastic! No one in my way, no talking anywhere Communication? Not in this creation "Hey there Buddy, invite to party!"
I'm a Single Player, in a MMO world I play alone, it's fantastic! No one in my way, no talking anywhere Communication? Not in this creation
I'm a quiet lonely guy, in an online world Gear me up, dye it right, I'm your buddy You're my carry, shut up'n'pull, where is my glamour? Take me here, no not there, are you crazy? You can watch, you can play, but don't talk to me
A good MMORPG should have things to do when friends aren't around, or when you feel like doing your own thing (story-lines as one example work for that). NO part of MMO means you must do all things with people all of the time.
The problem is they still dont do difficulty scaling right. If they make an open world boss easily soloable, then the experience is ruined because it will die too fast. Its suppossed to be a challenging experience, not just a shopping list checkbox.
In a good single player game i can go wherever i want and face the concequences if i enter a more dangerous area. In a good mmo, i should not be able to cakewalk a more dangerous area neither alone nor with many people. The only viable way to balance an mmo both for loners and groupers is by having a good and responsive difficulty scaling system.
Your post and generally pessimistic outlook on where we are and where we're heading reminded me of an old favorite Asimov novel from the robot series, The Naked Sun, published in 1956.
lol .. you are a Asimov fan too? His foundation series inspired me for my work.
Hell yeah. Detective + science fiction? What's not to like He was my favorite SF writer by far.
Wait, there are people who aren't Asimov fans. Only author signed novel I own is from him.
Was my first introduction to Sci Fi novels, previously I had only focused on short stories.
Foundation Trilogy was the first one...set my reading pattern for life.
lol .. there is something that both me & Kyleran like. The world is full of surprises. I still remember .. i picked up Foundation and Empire FIRST .. without knowing there is a previous novel. Biggest mistake of my life. Still love the series.
LOL but you know me Nari, I only read Science Fiction, and only very long novels or better, series of long novels, never any short stories, those are for "casuals" of course.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I want to second that 100%. Approximately half the games I play are single player games, and MMOs, no matter how solo-friendly, offer an utterly different experience from an actual single-player game. A single-player game is not an effective substitute for a solo-focused MMO.
You have not played Marvel Heroes then. It is pretty much a good Diablo-ish single player game. In fact, it is the best PC game with Marvel characters.
So for me personally I like to develop my character on my own, but once I get it built to a certain level I then want to show it off and enjoy playing it in groups and stuff. I also think a lot of story get's showcased better in single player scenario's like in FFXIV where people get pissed at you if you watch the cut scenes in the dungeons because it slows the group down.
"I’m not the only person who plays MMOs as a single player. In fact, I’m willing to bet most people jump into MMOs on their own at first. A lot of developers are taking note of this and creating systems to allow players to more easily play through their game with as little player interaction as possible."
"A lot of MMOs are also including portions of their games that are primarily meant to be enjoyed as single player experiences, like Albion Online’s inclusion of single player dungeons or The Elder Scrolls Online’s single player focused main storyline."
"They can also be incredibly enjoyable when played as a single player. Gamers shouldn’t be afraid to hop in with the full intention of never interacting directly with another human being. Many MMOs offer hundreds of hours of single player fun, a lot of which is 100% free."
This isn't something "new" it's been happening in large part since WoW became a normal thing and while vanilla WoW did have more group play elements (elites where actually HARD to kill and needed a group) it largely changed the landscape of MMORPGS to be a more "casual" experience for the players and has turned many of them into a single player experience.
I find it to be a somewhat troubling trend that it tends to be the main focus up until "end game" and that many people just do the whole single player rushing to cap as quickly as possible. Most don't play the games to actually enjoy any sort of story or hundreds or hours of single player fun or actually taking in the game worlds at all. No they are solo rushing to get to that endless raid/end game dungeon grind for gear then love to sit around and circle jerk about games being grindy when they take awhile to level or if the gear grind is presented as a crafting RNG based mechanic.
I feel most MMORPGs today could be released as lobby style games with a slightly raised cap on multiplayer in the range of 8 - 12 people and none would really give a hoot otherwise. It feels more and more like people want to take no part in social interaction inside these types of games and seem to want to change that element for everyone else while doing it instead of just picking up solid single player RPGs that support mods and potentially co-op multiplayer.
Developing around the mindset of a single player experiences has in large part diluted the community feeling many mmorpgs used to have, but then again the genre has been dumbed down in almost every way shape and form possible in the mainstream MMORPG stage. Crafting has become a "meh" after thought with no real thought to it's overall design other than "gather this or buy it to make this" and seldom the "this" is worse off than dropped gear making all, but a few specific crafting professions useful at all to anyone.
The genre has started trying to appeal to the mass market instead of creating things that are truly unique in their own rights.
Personally, I think entirely too much focus and gameplay is on the leveling part to begin with, so if that were made secondary to actually playing the game and naturally enjoying the things you wanted to do, without the concern for leveling up, MMOs would be in a much better place.
Too much grind, not enough gameplay. Trying to reach endgame vs. everything is end-game.
So many so-called "sandbox" games screw this up by making there too much grind, really takes away from the sandbox nature. SWG was REALLY guilty of this.
Like, if I'm playing in a sandbox, I want to be able to pick up that shovel and dig around and enjoy myself, and yeah, progression is important - I want to get better at shoveling and such the more I do it...
But don't make me first dig with my hands for 30 hours before I have grinded enough skill to pick up the damn shovel.
Most sandbox MMORPGs are not for people like you. They are not heavily level based and are instead based around using your skills frequently to increase them as opposed to leveling in a casual game where there is this massive "end game" it's about the players making their own content to an extent and going out and doing things. Even when there is levels they are oft meaningless.
Well I am going to disagree with those who say it's different than a single player experience.
Single player games offer better quests.
Crafting is no worse than the simplified mini game you play in today's MMOs.
Chat is irrelevant in a game that doesn't require any thinking.
Solo MMOs are instanced so you don't really play with other people most of the time and there is no need to interact with them. It's mostly pointless.
Then you have something that is really unique. A fantasy world where you can interact with others in a meaningful way. You can still solo, but not everything can be done solo and there is no need for it to be that way. That is a far more unique experience than what is described with a solo MMORPG IMO.
Where is my "disagree" button? >_> But wow, that is an impressive pile of sweeping generalizations.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Well I am going to disagree with those who say it's different than a single player experience.
Single player games offer better quests.
Crafting is no worse than the simplified mini game you play in today's MMOs.
Chat is irrelevant in a game that doesn't require any thinking.
Solo MMOs are instanced so you don't really play with other people most of the time and there is no need to interact with them. It's mostly pointless.
Then you have something that is really unique. A fantasy world where you can interact with others in a meaningful way. You can still solo, but not everything can be done solo and there is no need for it to be that way. That is a far more unique experience than what is described with a solo MMORPG IMO.
Where is my "disagree" button? >_> But wow, that is an impressive pile of sweeping generalizations.
Perhaps, but that doesn't make it untrue.
For instance quests in everyone MMO I've tried are far worse than quests in single player games. Usually MMOs need to have a large quantity of quests to keep people playing for a certain amount of time. This means less quality for more quantity. You get a lot of quests with very simple mechanics that are repeated with a slightly different story over and over again.
I haven't played any MMOs since WoW came out with an in depth crafting system. WoW pretty much killed crafting. The funny thing is I've never been a big crafting person.
Most content is instanced in MMOs today (even solo). It may be a generalization and not be true for all MMOs, but it's true for the majority of them. This takes away any need to really interact in a social way. Most people see this as the point. They don't want to interact. This brings me back to why play this type of game instead of a single player game? Also why would a developer bother wasting the money if they could make a single player game cheaper.
Most content is instanced in MMOs today (even solo). It may be a generalization and not be true for all MMOs, but it's true for the majority of them. This takes away any need to really interact in a social way. Most people see this as the point. They don't want to interact. This brings me back to why play this type of game instead of a single player game? Also why would a developer bother wasting the money if they could make a single player game cheaper.
and i think i have repeated the answer again and again (from a player's perspective). IP and gameplay. There is no single player PC game like Marvel Heroes.
Now it is a good question of why devs don't just forget about MMOs, and make single player games with online modes. But i would argue that in some cases (like Marvel heroes), it is close enough, and it is just semantics that some call MH a MMO.
For instance quests in everyone MMO I've tried are far worse than quests in single player games. Usually MMOs need to have a large quantity of quests to keep people playing for a certain amount of time. This means less quality for more quantity. You get a lot of quests with very simple mechanics that are repeated with a slightly different story over and over again.
I haven't played any MMOs since WoW came out with an in depth crafting system. WoW pretty much killed crafting. The funny thing is I've never been a big crafting person.
Most content is instanced in MMOs today (even solo). It may be a generalization and not be true for all MMOs, but it's true for the majority of them. This takes away any need to really interact in a social way. Most people see this as the point. They don't want to interact. This brings me back to why play this type of game instead of a single player game? Also why would a developer bother wasting the money if they could make a single player game cheaper.
It really, really, is untrue. There are _so many_ single player games with no quests or lousy quests. WoW's crafting is utterly different from crafting in some other MMOs; single-player RPGs rarely have crafting at all. People will also choose to interact in some social ways when there is not need to do so, because many people do want to interact, whether only a little or a lot, or a different amount on different days. This forum, for example, is 100% voluntary social interaction for all of us who post here and aren't mods or staff of the site. Roleplaying in general is another form of voluntary social interaction that people do both inside and outside of MMOs.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
I don't often agree with Nariussedon, but I agree with him that playing MMORPGs solo is a valid way to play these things.
Solo playing doesn't defeat the purpose of MMORPGs.
Do you know where solo playing does defeat the purpose? Multiplayer shooters.
So as MMORPGs started to take their cues from multiplayer shooters, instead of from roleplaying games, we started to get a certain demographic in this game who truly believed that anybody not willing to join a clan, stick a headset in his or her ear, and never game without a group had no business playing MMORPGs.
But we didn't ask such questions, or make such judgments, back in the roleplaying days. We asked other questions, for sure, but seeing someone solo through combats and dungeons wasn't one of them.
Perhaps the reason why people think that playing an MMORPG solo is an invalid choice is because they never really wanted, and never really 'got', what MMORPGs were about in the first place, a synthetic world that tried to act like a world, and not a glorified multiplayer online shooter.
In fact, when I played games like SWG or CoH, I liked to do my combat and questing solo. I sort of saw it as my "day job," or the things I needed to do to earn my equipment and get some currency.
Does this mean that I wasn't social? Hell no!
I was roleplaying scenes at the pub, or participating in roleplay politics, or designing roleplay spaces, or playing cameos (characters I would roll up just to play out a scene) most of the time.
But since these things require money/credits/gold etc., and they require exclusive things you can only get by doing combat stuff, I spent a lot of time doing the necessary combat stuff as efficiently as possible, without any friction and hassle by having to coordinate between a bunch of folks with divergent expectations.
And, you see, this is how a lot of us played back in the days before marathon raids and forced grouping.
The MMORPG concept back then in the pre-WoW era really wasn't about the combat as much as it was about the roleplay. Combat wasn't "fun" just like combat isn't fun for your typical soldier in reality...combat was "work" that had to be done. It may be necessary work, and you might derive some satisfaction out of it, but it was still conceptualized as labor, metaphorically speaking.
The real fun was about what you did when you weren't doing combat: playing in character, developing the internecine plots, developing infrastructure and so on.
Of course, in an attempt to attract the Counterstrikers and the action/adventure crowd, this kind of philosophy went out the window (alongside things like chatting, crafting, emotes, housing, etc.) in favor of "team sports" in the form of "playing a position" (Tank, DPS, crowd control, healer) in a kind of "geek football" which was the modern combat encounter. That is the "game" today; everything extraneous to this has been taken out.
And since there's nothing to do but combat these days, why not just do it solo, and spend your multiplayer combat time on something like Star Wars Battlefront?
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Did no one rhyme the title of this off similar to Barbie world by aqua?
I'm a Single Player, in a MMO world I play alone, it's fantastic! No one in my way, no talking anywhere Communication? Not in this creation "Hey there Buddy, invite to party!"
I'm a Single Player, in a MMO world I play alone, it's fantastic! No one in my way, no talking anywhere Communication? Not in this creation
I'm a quiet lonely guy, in an online world Gear me up, dye it right, I'm your buddy You're my carry, shut up'n'pull, where is my glamour? Take me here, no not there, are you crazy? You can watch, you can play, but don't talk to me
"Hey there Buddy, invite to party!"
I'll see your pop culture meme-lyrics, and raise you a Christmas carol:
A cleric with scrolls waits for tankers to squeal,
"Hey YO, I aggro'd, where the fukk r my healz?"
When raiding time is here,
The most wonderful time of the year!
Loots galore, scattered on the floor,
There's no room for more,
In my inventory store.
A tank for the aggro,
DPS real savage,
The kind that will even do D-O-T damage!
When raiding time is here,
The most wonderful time of the year!
"How would you like to be a tank-fitted wizard?"
"Or an orc who dances naked in the Arathi Basin?"
"Or an archer that shoots...vivid text fighting descriptions in the chatbox?"
"We're all misfits!"
"How would you like to be an elf sorceress that doesn't cast...I ERP!"
"Or a shaman who is deaf and can't use TS/Vent?"
"Or a paladin who RPs a pacifist?"
"We're all misfits!"
If we're on the island of Looking for Group,
We'll get put on /ignore and get treated like poop.
When raiding time draws near,
The most wonderful, wonderful,
Wonderful, wonderful,
Wonderful time of the year!
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
"I’m not the only person who plays MMOs as a single player. In fact, I’m willing to bet most people jump into MMOs on their own at first. A lot of developers are taking note of this and creating systems to allow players to more easily play through their game with as little player interaction as possible."
"A lot of MMOs are also including portions of their games that are primarily meant to be enjoyed as single player experiences, like Albion Online’s inclusion of single player dungeons or The Elder Scrolls Online’s single player focused main storyline."
"They can also be incredibly enjoyable when played as a single player. Gamers shouldn’t be afraid to hop in with the full intention of never interacting directly with another human being. Many MMOs offer hundreds of hours of single player fun, a lot of which is 100% free."
The sad part is it's not a satire article.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I used to think solo play in MMO's was the wrong equation but now I'm not so sure. I mean, if you were to take Skyrim, a known single player RPG and allow 100's or even 1000's of players to play "their" Skyrim adventure together at the same time, is that a bad thing?
I think the answer is no, because content can be scaled depending on the amount of players in an area. I believe WarHammer Online did this with public quests and Defiance also did this.
On top of that, is scaled content even required? Is the difficulty of PvE what entices players to keep playing? I don't think so. I think players would rather have continuous fresh content, such as dynamic content and a reason to explore.
While SWG gets a lot of flack for what SOE did wrong. The things they did right have some how eluded being mainstream. I mean, way back in the summer of 2003, one of the best MMO resource gathering and crafting designs ever made was leashed upon us. The only other MMO to come even close to the resource gathering was Firefall and honestly, I enjoyed their creature invasions while trying to gather.
I believe Ark: Survival Evolved did better at presenting players with a fun atmosphere than most AAA MMO's. Maybe I like the idea of playing MMO's with just people I know and not having to deal with gold spam, cheaters and other asshatery found in every MMO.
Playing with other people is the best part of an MMO. It's also the worst part.
City of heroes had scaling. If you ran an instance it would scale to the group. You also got difficulty sliders for your character. Then designed their game in a way that would allow for that.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I don't often agree with Nariussedon, but I agree with him that playing MMORPGs solo is a valid way to play these things.
Solo playing doesn't defeat the purpose of MMORPGs.
Do you know where solo playing does defeat the purpose? Multiplayer shooters.
So as MMORPGs started to take their cues from multiplayer shooters, instead of from roleplaying games, we started to get a certain demographic in this game who truly believed that anybody not willing to join a clan, stick a headset in his or her ear, and never game without a group had no business playing MMORPGs.
But we didn't ask such questions, or make such judgments, back in the roleplaying days. We asked other questions, for sure, but seeing someone solo through combats and dungeons wasn't one of them.
Perhaps the reason why people think that playing an MMORPG solo is an invalid choice is because they never really wanted, and never really 'got', what MMORPGs were about in the first place, a synthetic world that tried to act like a world, and not a glorified multiplayer online shooter.
In fact, when I played games like SWG or CoH, I liked to do my combat and questing solo. I sort of saw it as my "day job," or the things I needed to do to earn my equipment and get some currency.
Does this mean that I wasn't social? Hell no!
I was roleplaying scenes at the pub, or participating in roleplay politics, or designing roleplay spaces, or playing cameos (characters I would roll up just to play out a scene) most of the time.
But since these things require money/credits/gold etc., and they require exclusive things you can only get by doing combat stuff, I spent a lot of time doing the necessary combat stuff as efficiently as possible, without any friction and hassle by having to coordinate between a bunch of folks with divergent expectations.
And, you see, this is how a lot of us played back in the days before marathon raids and forced grouping.
The MMORPG concept back then in the pre-WoW era really wasn't about the combat as much as it was about the roleplay. Combat wasn't "fun" just like combat isn't fun for your typical soldier in reality...combat was "work" that had to be done. It may be necessary work, and you might derive some satisfaction out of it, but it was still conceptualized as labor, metaphorically speaking.
The real fun was about what you did when you weren't doing combat: playing in character, developing the internecine plots, developing infrastructure and so on.
Of course, in an attempt to attract the Counterstrikers and the action/adventure crowd, this kind of philosophy went out the window (alongside things like chatting, crafting, emotes, housing, etc.) in favor of "team sports" in the form of "playing a position" (Tank, DPS, crowd control, healer) in a kind of "geek football" which was the modern combat encounter. That is the "game" today; everything extraneous to this has been taken out.
And since there's nothing to do but combat these days, why not just do it solo, and spend your multiplayer combat time on something like Star Wars Battlefront?
Agreed, many approached SWG in that manner. All good points here..
I think a big part to add to the parts you outlined is people have the idea that soloing means the game is too easy, which shows a gross misunderstanding of scaling. Hence the stigma such types associate to the play-style, which is really nothing more than meat-headed peen stroking.
A solo activity is no different outright than a group scenario behind the scenes. It's a simple matter of tuning, a group encounter is balanced for a group, while a solo encounter is designed to be approached solo. Numbers are tweaked to accommodate the approach.
In my experience going all the way back to my first MMO experiences in DAOC, no matter what type of encounter it was, as long as you had the right balance of players/gear any encounter can feel more or less trivial. Especially when all are experienced players.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
... And since there's nothing to do but combat these days, why not just do it solo, and spend your multiplayer combat time on something like Star Wars Battlefront?
Because Star Wars Battlefront is not a very good shooter.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I don't often agree with Nariussedon, but I agree with him that playing MMORPGs solo is a valid way to play these things.
Solo playing doesn't defeat the purpose of MMORPGs.
Do you know where solo playing does defeat the purpose? Multiplayer shooters.
So as MMORPGs started to take their cues from multiplayer shooters, instead of from roleplaying games, we started to get a certain demographic in this game who truly believed that anybody not willing to join a clan, stick a headset in his or her ear, and never game without a group had no business playing MMORPGs.
But we didn't ask such questions, or make such judgments, back in the roleplaying days. We asked other questions, for sure, but seeing someone solo through combats and dungeons wasn't one of them.
Perhaps the reason why people think that playing an MMORPG solo is an invalid choice is because they never really wanted, and never really 'got', what MMORPGs were about in the first place, a synthetic world that tried to act like a world, and not a glorified multiplayer online shooter.
In fact, when I played games like SWG or CoH, I liked to do my combat and questing solo. I sort of saw it as my "day job," or the things I needed to do to earn my equipment and get some currency.
Does this mean that I wasn't social? Hell no!
I was roleplaying scenes at the pub, or participating in roleplay politics, or designing roleplay spaces, or playing cameos (characters I would roll up just to play out a scene) most of the time.
But since these things require money/credits/gold etc., and they require exclusive things you can only get by doing combat stuff, I spent a lot of time doing the necessary combat stuff as efficiently as possible, without any friction and hassle by having to coordinate between a bunch of folks with divergent expectations.
And, you see, this is how a lot of us played back in the days before marathon raids and forced grouping.
The MMORPG concept back then in the pre-WoW era really wasn't about the combat as much as it was about the roleplay. Combat wasn't "fun" just like combat isn't fun for your typical soldier in reality...combat was "work" that had to be done. It may be necessary work, and you might derive some satisfaction out of it, but it was still conceptualized as labor, metaphorically speaking.
The real fun was about what you did when you weren't doing combat: playing in character, developing the internecine plots, developing infrastructure and so on.
Of course, in an attempt to attract the Counterstrikers and the action/adventure crowd, this kind of philosophy went out the window (alongside things like chatting, crafting, emotes, housing, etc.) in favor of "team sports" in the form of "playing a position" (Tank, DPS, crowd control, healer) in a kind of "geek football" which was the modern combat encounter. That is the "game" today; everything extraneous to this has been taken out.
And since there's nothing to do but combat these days, why not just do it solo, and spend your multiplayer combat time on something like Star Wars Battlefront?
Agreed, many approached SWG in that manner. All good points here..
I think a big part to add to the parts you outlined is people have the idea that soloing means the game is too easy, which shows a gross misunderstanding of scaling. Hence the stigma such types associate to the play-style, which is really nothing more than meat-headed peen stroking.
A solo activity is no different outright than a group scenario behind the scenes. It's a simple matter of tuning, a group encounter is balanced for a group, while a solo encounter is designed to be approached solo. Numbers are tweaked to accommodate the approach.
In my experience going all the way back to my first MMO experiences in DAOC, no matter what type of encounter it was, as long as you had the right balance of players/gear any encounter can feel more or less trivial. Especially when all are experienced players.
Group is usually harder than solo depending on the mechanics involved in combat.
Having to time your attacks with your teammates and coordinate with them is more difficult than figuring out a rotation that works solo. If all you have to do in a group is zerg your enemy with a specific rotation of abilities like solo then it is never that difficult.
The reason most people don't want to group is because it's difficult to get everyone on the same page. They don't want to deal with the effort that is involved. Some people might wine about being told to play their character a certain way. Many will put themselves before the group. That is fairly normal in life.
A big issue is that areas are made for solo or group and they are completely isolated from everything else. One of the challenges in older games that was interesting for a solo player was to go into group areas and figure out how to get through them. Usually only certain classes with certain abilities would be able to do this and it didn't always work out as it wasn't designed with a single person in mind. This was much more of a challenge then content that is specifically designed for the solo, group, or raid player. This is generally not possible in today's games. Part of the reason for that is instances and lack of a persistent world.
I often would solo in old MMOs and I enjoyed figuring out how to take down group mobs. I also enjoyed role playing certain characters that make sense like a Ranger wandering the woods or a necromancer / evil raced that is prejudiced against by society for the beliefs of their culture.
There is room for both genre's of games: Singe player RPG and MMORPG. To say that MMORPG's are phasing out and no one likes them is absurd. A better conclusion is that single player games masquerading as MMO's are phasing out and few people are into those. Heck, there's a 100 examples out there.
I don't think there is any dispute that AAA companies are no longer actively developing new "classical" type MMORPGs. Do you disagree with this statement?
Obviously some still like it (just look at this website). But obviously devs do not believe there are enough market for it.
Note that new online MP games (like Destiny, Divisions ...) are still being made. So clearly devs prefer some other type of online games over new MMORPGs. Even Blizz scrapped Titan and is making Overwatch. We can debate whether these new online games will be called MMOs, or not.
But they certainly are different (in gameplay) than the classical MMORPGs.
Comments
Why do people use the word "problem" whenever they find others like (or focus, or whatever word you choose) something they don't like?
So what if people focus on solo combat. If they like solo combat, is there a problem that MMO devs want to get a piece of that audience too? It is their game.
Single player games offer better quests.
Crafting is no worse than the simplified mini game you play in today's MMOs.
Chat is irrelevant in a game that doesn't require any thinking.
Solo MMOs are instanced so you don't really play with other people most of the time and there is no need to interact with them. It's mostly pointless.
Then you have something that is really unique. A fantasy world where you can interact with others in a meaningful way. You can still solo, but not everything can be done solo and there is no need for it to be that way. That is a far more unique experience than what is described with a solo MMORPG IMO.
I (and other) want group with solo option while people like Narius want solo with group option .
And the problem is
"solo with group option" like a small cake that make for one person to eat . Share a small cake is bad option so most of people never did .
"group with solo option" like big pie make for group but you can eat alone . Eat with group is fun while eat alone is full .
Then back to MMORPG logic , nowadays MMORPG give each player small cake to eat alone , sharing with other is bad option . That's why no one sharing , no group invite for pie , and the community grow cold .
I'm a Single Player, in a MMO world
I play alone, it's fantastic!
No one in my way, no talking anywhere
Communication? Not in this creation
"Hey there Buddy, invite to party!"
I'm a Single Player, in a MMO world
I play alone, it's fantastic!
No one in my way, no talking anywhere
Communication? Not in this creation
I'm a quiet lonely guy, in an online world
Gear me up, dye it right, I'm your buddy
You're my carry, shut up'n'pull, where is my glamour?
Take me here, no not there, are you crazy?
You can watch, you can play, but don't talk to me
"Hey there Buddy, invite to party!"
In a good single player game i can go wherever i want and face the concequences if i enter a more dangerous area. In a good mmo, i should not be able to cakewalk a more dangerous area neither alone nor with many people. The only viable way to balance an mmo both for loners and groupers is by having a good and responsive difficulty scaling system.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I find it to be a somewhat troubling trend that it tends to be the main focus up until "end game" and that many people just do the whole single player rushing to cap as quickly as possible. Most don't play the games to actually enjoy any sort of story or hundreds or hours of single player fun or actually taking in the game worlds at all. No they are solo rushing to get to that endless raid/end game dungeon grind for gear then love to sit around and circle jerk about games being grindy when they take awhile to level or if the gear grind is presented as a crafting RNG based mechanic.
I feel most MMORPGs today could be released as lobby style games with a slightly raised cap on multiplayer in the range of 8 - 12 people and none would really give a hoot otherwise. It feels more and more like people want to take no part in social interaction inside these types of games and seem to want to change that element for everyone else while doing it instead of just picking up solid single player RPGs that support mods and potentially co-op multiplayer.
Developing around the mindset of a single player experiences has in large part diluted the community feeling many mmorpgs used to have, but then again the genre has been dumbed down in almost every way shape and form possible in the mainstream MMORPG stage. Crafting has become a "meh" after thought with no real thought to it's overall design other than "gather this or buy it to make this" and seldom the "this" is worse off than dropped gear making all, but a few specific crafting professions useful at all to anyone.
The genre has started trying to appeal to the mass market instead of creating things that are truly unique in their own rights.
Most sandbox MMORPGs are not for people like you. They are not heavily level based and are instead based around using your skills frequently to increase them as opposed to leveling in a casual game where there is this massive "end game" it's about the players making their own content to an extent and going out and doing things. Even when there is levels they are oft meaningless.
For instance quests in everyone MMO I've tried are far worse than quests in single player games. Usually MMOs need to have a large quantity of quests to keep people playing for a certain amount of time. This means less quality for more quantity. You get a lot of quests with very simple mechanics that are repeated with a slightly different story over and over again.
I haven't played any MMOs since WoW came out with an in depth crafting system. WoW pretty much killed crafting. The funny thing is I've never been a big crafting person.
Most content is instanced in MMOs today (even solo). It may be a generalization and not be true for all MMOs, but it's true for the majority of them. This takes away any need to really interact in a social way. Most people see this as the point. They don't want to interact. This brings me back to why play this type of game instead of a single player game? Also why would a developer bother wasting the money if they could make a single player game cheaper.
Now it is a good question of why devs don't just forget about MMOs, and make single player games with online modes. But i would argue that in some cases (like Marvel heroes), it is close enough, and it is just semantics that some call MH a MMO.
Solo playing doesn't defeat the purpose of MMORPGs.
Do you know where solo playing does defeat the purpose? Multiplayer shooters.
So as MMORPGs started to take their cues from multiplayer shooters, instead of from roleplaying games, we started to get a certain demographic in this game who truly believed that anybody not willing to join a clan, stick a headset in his or her ear, and never game without a group had no business playing MMORPGs.
But we didn't ask such questions, or make such judgments, back in the roleplaying days. We asked other questions, for sure, but seeing someone solo through combats and dungeons wasn't one of them.
Perhaps the reason why people think that playing an MMORPG solo is an invalid choice is because they never really wanted, and never really 'got', what MMORPGs were about in the first place, a synthetic world that tried to act like a world, and not a glorified multiplayer online shooter.
In fact, when I played games like SWG or CoH, I liked to do my combat and questing solo. I sort of saw it as my "day job," or the things I needed to do to earn my equipment and get some currency.
Does this mean that I wasn't social? Hell no!
I was roleplaying scenes at the pub, or participating in roleplay politics, or designing roleplay spaces, or playing cameos (characters I would roll up just to play out a scene) most of the time.
But since these things require money/credits/gold etc., and they require exclusive things you can only get by doing combat stuff, I spent a lot of time doing the necessary combat stuff as efficiently as possible, without any friction and hassle by having to coordinate between a bunch of folks with divergent expectations.
And, you see, this is how a lot of us played back in the days before marathon raids and forced grouping.
The MMORPG concept back then in the pre-WoW era really wasn't about the combat as much as it was about the roleplay. Combat wasn't "fun" just like combat isn't fun for your typical soldier in reality...combat was "work" that had to be done. It may be necessary work, and you might derive some satisfaction out of it, but it was still conceptualized as labor, metaphorically speaking.
The real fun was about what you did when you weren't doing combat: playing in character, developing the internecine plots, developing infrastructure and so on.
Of course, in an attempt to attract the Counterstrikers and the action/adventure crowd, this kind of philosophy went out the window (alongside things like chatting, crafting, emotes, housing, etc.) in favor of "team sports" in the form of "playing a position" (Tank, DPS, crowd control, healer) in a kind of "geek football" which was the modern combat encounter. That is the "game" today; everything extraneous to this has been taken out.
And since there's nothing to do but combat these days, why not just do it solo, and spend your multiplayer combat time on something like Star Wars Battlefront?
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Based on the song "The Island of Misfit Toys"
We're on the Island of L-F-G,
Here, we don't want to stay.
We want to travel with raiding groups,
For content far away.
A bar full of names means a group full of gains,
From XP to loots to a boss's remains.
When raiding time is here,
The most wonderful time of the year!
A cleric with scrolls waits for tankers to squeal,
"Hey YO, I aggro'd, where the fukk r my healz?"
When raiding time is here,
The most wonderful time of the year!
Loots galore, scattered on the floor,
There's no room for more,
In my inventory store.
A tank for the aggro,
DPS real savage,
The kind that will even do D-O-T damage!
When raiding time is here,
The most wonderful time of the year!
"How would you like to be a tank-fitted wizard?"
"Or an orc who dances naked in the Arathi Basin?"
"Or an archer that shoots...vivid text fighting descriptions in the chatbox?"
"We're all misfits!"
"How would you like to be an elf sorceress that doesn't cast...I ERP!"
"Or a shaman who is deaf and can't use TS/Vent?"
"Or a paladin who RPs a pacifist?"
"We're all misfits!"
If we're on the island of Looking for Group,
We'll get put on /ignore and get treated like poop.
When raiding time draws near,
The most wonderful, wonderful,
Wonderful, wonderful,
Wonderful time of the year!
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
The sad part is it's not a satire article.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
City of heroes had scaling. If you ran an instance it would scale to the group. You also got difficulty sliders for your character. Then designed their game in a way that would allow for that.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I think a big part to add to the parts you outlined is people have the idea that soloing means the game is too easy, which shows a gross misunderstanding of scaling. Hence the stigma such types associate to the play-style, which is really nothing more than meat-headed peen stroking.
A solo activity is no different outright than a group scenario behind the scenes. It's a simple matter of tuning, a group encounter is balanced for a group, while a solo encounter is designed to be approached solo. Numbers are tweaked to accommodate the approach.
In my experience going all the way back to my first MMO experiences in DAOC, no matter what type of encounter it was, as long as you had the right balance of players/gear any encounter can feel more or less trivial. Especially when all are experienced players.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Having to time your attacks with your teammates and coordinate with them is more difficult than figuring out a rotation that works solo. If all you have to do in a group is zerg your enemy with a specific rotation of abilities like solo then it is never that difficult.
The reason most people don't want to group is because it's difficult to get everyone on the same page. They don't want to deal with the effort that is involved. Some people might wine about being told to play their character a certain way. Many will put themselves before the group. That is fairly normal in life.
A big issue is that areas are made for solo or group and they are completely isolated from everything else. One of the challenges in older games that was interesting for a solo player was to go into group areas and figure out how to get through them. Usually only certain classes with certain abilities would be able to do this and it didn't always work out as it wasn't designed with a single person in mind. This was much more of a challenge then content that is specifically designed for the solo, group, or raid player. This is generally not possible in today's games. Part of the reason for that is instances and lack of a persistent world.
I often would solo in old MMOs and I enjoyed figuring out how to take down group mobs. I also enjoyed role playing certain characters that make sense like a Ranger wandering the woods or a necromancer / evil raced that is prejudiced against by society for the beliefs of their culture.
Obviously some still like it (just look at this website). But obviously devs do not believe there are enough market for it.
Note that new online MP games (like Destiny, Divisions ...) are still being made. So clearly devs prefer some other type of online games over new MMORPGs. Even Blizz scrapped Titan and is making Overwatch. We can debate whether these new online games will be called MMOs, or not.
But they certainly are different (in gameplay) than the classical MMORPGs.