No one wants to look at what happened !

delete5230 · June 2018

Old school, group play was taken away by FORCE. At what point did people say "I no longer want it". People seem to get mad as hell when I bring this up for some odd reason. It truly is fact, yet it angers people.

- Why are people not playing EverQuest 1 ?..... Simple, it's old and dated !!!
- Why are people not playing EverQuest 2 ?..... Simple, its old and dated and it changed to unplayable !!!

This is so much fact, it should be a sticky on the main page of this site. But instead people get pissed....

If you had apples (good) and Bananas (good), and you take away apples by force, then you only have bananas. Sure people are eating a lot of bananas. But no one ever seems to ask "why did apples go away ?"

Lot's of people would like apples (good)
Lot's of people would like old school (good)

Scot · June 2018

But if you make them group they call that "forced grouping". I was intrigued to see how many posters were against the idea of having a MMO that could be played in single player or multiplayer.

In the multiplayer version grouping would be needed to do nearly all quests in a group, and maybe even crafting would need more than one player to produce the finished product...some were appalled.

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

It is the elephant in the room which actually so often gets talked about but is then ignored. There are other possible solutions, have totally divergent progression paths for solo and group play. But I can imagine what they will say there: groupers will just do the solo sections and just get on with it, solo players will whinge endlessly about being "forced" to group.

delete5230 · June 2018

Scot said:

But if you make them group they call that "forced grouping". I was intrigued to see how many posters were against the idea of having a MMO that could be played in single player or multiplayer.

In the multiplayer version grouping would be needed to do nearly all quests in a group, and maybe even crafting would need more than one player to produce the finished product...some were appalled.

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

It is the elephant in the room which actually so often gets talked about but is then ignored. There are other possible solutions, have totally divergent progression paths for solo and group play. But I can imagine what they will say there: groupers will just do the solo sections and just get on with it, solo players will whinge endlessly about being "forced" to group.

The last part "other possible solutions" solo AND group play:
This would be an extremely popular solution. Proof ?...… World of Warcraft !

Developers will no longer fund a large game.
Infact they will not fun any game, it's now all Asian.

Sephiroso · June 2018

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

Ganksinatra · June 2018

The game you want exists, it's just in early Alpha. It's called Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. It is literally made by the people who made EQ (thankfully not Daybreak, but McQuaid). The game looks amazing and will have the same mechanics of EQ (aka tank/heals/CC/dps quadrinity, grouping basically required, no instancing). I honestly cannot wait for it.

I miss the old EQ. Progression servers are neat, but they still have people gaining 10 levels a day, which is NOT EQ1 at launch. I get that "forced grouping" is not everyone's cup of tea, but there are literally dozens of MMOs that allow you to be antisocial. This one will eschew the ability to EFFECTIVELY solo (my guess is you CAN solo, but it won't be anywhere NEAR as good as grouping) in favor of fostering a community. And that sounds like heaven to me.

I don't know when the MM in MMO got tossed to the side in favor of "playing a one person RPG with other people around", but it killed a lot of the community who loved this genre.

NeonShadow · June 2018

One of the real group killers is allowing degenerate ways of playing like boxing. I recently went back to EQ1 and the only groups I could find were with people who were boxing to PL their toons. It was an awful way of playing back in the early 00's and it's just as awful now since it kills the fun in group play. Of course the devs of these games that allow boxing don't care since it makes them a few extra bucks and they probably need it.

'least in newer games like the ones Sephiroso mentioned above I never have a problem finding a group to play with. Unfortunately those games have a different set of problems, mainly that the content is too easy.

delete5230 · June 2018

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

This rebuttal is invalid:
Any solo player can round up an entire zone and hit the nuke ability

Sandmanjw · June 2018

There is, and always has been, a finite number of people that game. Of those, there are also finite numbers that are willing to do the group play. Spread those out over all the possible games..and you have your answer.

The problem you always have is your narrow focus that you try to force all gamer's into. Gamer's are such a diverse crowd, it is hard to get and keep their attention for long. Same issue Pantheon has...can they take a narrow focus game, and try to attract enough of that small demo of players that they need to be profitable and continue to develop. We will see. I hope so, even though i never thought that the game would make it, or have a big enough following. Game is not for me. But EQ is still going...small in scope, but must be profitable. So may be a future for it there.

Games that shoot for the group play do not seem to connect with a large enough group to do what most dev's want, most importantly, make nice profit margins. So not as many are looking to try anymore.

The way people play games are totally different from the way they did back when UO and EQ and such were first coming out. Having an hour to play and deciding on if you want to try to find group, and maybe run one dungeon or such, or just get into a game like WOW or Black Desert and run around doing 5-6 different things in that hour..seems most people rather choose the latter any more.

Short bursts of time filled with lots to do and lots of accomplishments. That would be my prescription for success if i had to place a bet with my money.

Scot · June 2018

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

What percentage would you say is group only content, 2%?

Theocritus · June 2018

I don't remember the exact time and place, but somewhere around 2002-04 in EQ1 grouping became harder and harder to do.....The content from a couple of the expansions put alot of pressure on the players to be good....All of a sudden you had to have alot of HP/AC if you tanked, tons of mana if you healed, and insane DPS if you weren't a tank or healer....The support classes started to get left behind (my main was an enchanter).

In chat, players started complaining openly and loudly....Quite a few that I knew that had played for 3-4 years rage quit..... At this point, EQ started creating more content for solo play....Not too much later WoW came around (Nov 2004) and players could solo and group as much as they wanted...The content was much easier for groups, and you could basically handle it even with a terrible pick up group.

Scot · June 2018

Theocritus said:

I don't remember the exact time and place, but somewhere around 2002-04 in EQ1 grouping became harder and harder to do.....The content from a couple of the expansions put alot of pressure on the players to be good....All of a sudden you had to have alot of HP/AC if you tanked, tons of mana if you healed, and insane DPS if you weren't a tank or healer....The support classes started to get left behind (my main was an enchanter).

In chat, players started complaining openly and loudly....Quite a few that I knew that had played for 3-4 years rage quit..... At this point, EQ started creating more content for solo play....Not too much later WoW came around (Nov 2004) and players could solo and group as much as they wanted...The content was much easier for groups, and you could basically handle it even with a terrible pick up group.

As I have said else where, gameplay getting ever easier is not good for gaming, but gameplay getting ever harder is not either. There is a huge space between these extremes for good gameplay to sit in.

Neanderthal · June 2018

The problem with Pantheon, which I've pointed out before, is that it isn't really targeting the group play demographic. It's targeting the multi-group, no-life raiding demographic.

People who prefer solo play are most numerous but I believe there are enough people who like small group play to make a game viable if it focused on that. However, there are not enough people who like so called "hardcore" raiding to make a game successful if it centers around that. But that's what Pantheon is doing.

I mean, they might be able to keep the game running but after the first year the population will have fallen off hard and there will only be a tiny number of people left. But that's the way it is. The Pantheon devs refuse to understand this and are stubbornly committed to going down that path.

btdt · June 2018

Stop stating your opinion as being a fact.

A fact is undeniable under any circumstance. As in, you shoot your cat dead. The cat is dead. This is a fact.

The reasons why MMORPGs have changed is NOT A FACT, it is merely a supposition. The 'facts" as you call them can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, therefore they are not facts.

You go round and round trying to beat a dead horse thinking that today somehow people will see your point of view. The truth is, even if WE ALL AGREED with you, it still wouldn't change a damn thing NOR would it be a fact.

What is a fact is that it is NOT 2004 anymore... it is 2018. There are people playing these games that WEREN'T EVEN BORN when you started playing them. These people neither know nor care about what games were like before they even existed. You're not going to convince them to put down their smart phones any more than you are going to convince them to embrace a game style that's over 12 years old.

Instead of trying to make new games like those of old, how about trying to find a new game to play that you like without comparing it to what you used to play. There are plenty of private servers out there attempting to run the old games still. If you can't find a home on one of them, then perhaps that utopia you speak of doesn't really exist and the only thing you have is bitterness to perpetuate and nothing more.

k61977 · June 2018

delete5230 said:

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

This rebuttal is invalid:
Any solo player can round up an entire zone and hit the nuke ability

His rebuttal is not invalid it just doesn't fit your narrative.

Linif · June 2018

My only issue with Pantheon comes from the days of playing Final Fantasy 11. In which, when playing, you were highly (Not forced, but HIGHLY) recommended to find a group of players to grind and level efficiently. But trying to find that group would often take hours to just find anyone for that area. Hours of sitting around, doing nothing, reaching out in the hopes someone needed your class.

If I have to group up for everything, to do anything, then the dependency on others becomes so great that when you want to play may not necessarily be the best time to group up with others.

Granted, I don't know a lot about Pantheon. Most of my knowledge, if I have any substantiated information, comes from what others tell me about the game.

delete5230 · June 2018

Linif said:

My only issue with Pantheon comes from the days of playing Final Fantasy 11. In which, when playing, you were highly (Not forced, but HIGHLY) recommended to find a group of players to grind and level efficiently. But trying to find that group would often take hours to just find anyone for that area. Hours of sitting around, doing nothing, reaching out in the hopes someone needed your class.

If I have to group up for everything, to do anything, then the dependency on others becomes so great that when you want to play may not necessarily be the best time to group up with others.

Granted, I don't know a lot about Pantheon. Most of my knowledge, if I have any substantiated information, comes from what others tell me about the game.

It's now 2018, first generation mmorpg's never had a chance to grow and truly fix grouping social panels.

World of Warcraft came out with the cross server thing that had major negative effects. No one beyond ever gave alternatives a second look and LFG became the norm.

You know their are ways !.... Maybe better social panels, message boards within the game itself. Or simply make that boring under powered Tank and Healer classes more appealing to play

But no, Old school just stopped without even a vote !

Sovrath · June 2018

delete5230 said:

Old school, group play was taken away by FORCE.

First of all, this entire forum is a "look at what happened." If indeed anything "happened."

Secondly, "no" it was not "taken away by force." That has a whole set of other implications which would require a massive wall with post-it notes, yarn linking groups of papers and pictures to other paper and pictures with a large angrily red crayon drawn set of circles in the middle with a note "ground zero?"

No developer owes any player anything other than to try to give them good value for their money. If there isn't enough money in one type of game play they will develope or another. That's life.

You want another type of game? Be a part of the solution. If you aren't willing to do that then your choices are to whinge night and day or come to terms with it and move on.

Of course Pantheon is on its way (crosses fingers) though I am really wondering if you will be happy with that type of game play.

centkin · June 2018

Actually the primary reason I do not occasionally go back to everquest 1 to play is the veteran system.

It severely penalizes people who come back after several years of not playing vs those who stuck around for the long haul. Hence people don't come back.

The vet rewards are just so powerful -- I mean look:

1st year -- Lesson of the Devoted: The player is surrounded by a beautiful blue/white glow as they gain double experience for half an hour once every 20 hours.

2nd year -- Infusion of the Faithful: Usable once every 20 hours, the player enjoys maximum resistances, statistics and a faster run speed for 15 minutes while he glows brightly with power.

3rd year -- Chaotic Jester: Usable once every 20 hours, this summons a Bristlebane puppet that persists for 15 minutes or until you zone. Bristlebane will randomly cast various spells that provide benefits or minor penalties. His wry sense of humor is sure to get you noticed at that next gathering!

4th year -- Expedient Recovery: Usable just under once per week, all the player’s corpses are summoned to their feet and given 100% experience resurrection if they are still eligible. This reward is very handy to use for those difficult situations where getting a resurrection is inconvenient.

5th year -- Steadfast Servant: Summons a faithful servant that casts healing spells upon the player and others nearby. Lasts for half an hour or until you zone and is usable once every 20 hours.

6th year -- Staunch Recovery: Usable once just under every 3 days, the player is fully restored with health, mana, and endurance. Great for those emergencies but it does take a few seconds to cast.

7th year -- Intensity of the Resolute: Surrounded by a glow of energy this greatly increases the power of the player’s melee abilities, spells and heals for 1 minute. This handy ability is especially useful for tough situations requiring your best and is usable once every 4 hours.

8th year -- Throne of Heroes: Usable every 72 minutes, the player is teleported to the Throne of Heroes in the Guild Lobby.

9th year -- Armor of Experience: Usable once every 20 hours this grants you several layers of protection from harm for 90 seconds or 10 strikes. This protection lessens as you take more damage. Great for when you know you’re going to take a few hits.

10th year -- Summon Resupply Agent: Usable once every 20 hours this summons a helpful mechanical merchant to your side. This is great for stocking up on supplies or selling loot when getting to a merchant is inconvenient. He will stay up for 10 minutes or unless dismissed by the player.

11th year -- Summon Clockwork Banker: Usable once every 20 hours, a helpful mechanical banker is the latest initiative from the new Norrathian Banking Consortium.

12th year -- Summon Permutation Peddler: Usable once every 20 hours, this summons an augmentation distiller vendor to your side.

13th year -- Summon Tribute Master: This summons an tribute master to your side.

14th year -- Blessing of the Devoted: Reduces the reuse time of all other Veteran's Rewards by 25 percent.

Just try taking your old time character with say 18 active months or 2 or even 3 years on it and try to join a raid guild. Watch as everyone in the guild does throne of heroes and you have to run. Big raid fail? Everyone but you uses Expedient recovery. Want to tank a raid, oh you don't have Armor of Experience... No we will use one who does. You mean you don't have infusion of the faithful? You won't even get to go on some raids. Don't have intensity of the resolute? Why would a raid group want you in it?

(the rewards were cut/pasted from fanra.info)

Sephiroso · June 2018

Scot said:

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

What percentage would you say is group only content, 2%?

It's honestly irrelevant but to give an answer i'd say it's pretty close to a 40/60 split in favor of group content.

Scot · June 2018

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

What percentage would you say is group only content, 2%?

It's honestly irrelevant but to give an answer i'd say it's pretty close to a 40/60 split in favor of group content.

Well if that was the case I would agree with you, but if so WoW must have drastically changed since I played it.

Octagon7711 · June 2018

delete5230 said:

Old school, group play was taken away by FORCE. At what point did people say "I no longer want it". People seem to get mad as hell when I bring this up for some odd reason. It truly is fact, yet it angers people.

- Why are people not playing EverQuest 1 ?..... Simple, it's old and dated !!!
- Why are people not playing EverQuest 2 ?..... Simple, its old and dated and it changed to unplayable !!!

This is so much fact, it should be a sticky on the main page of this site. But instead people get pissed....

If you had apples (good) and Bananas (good), and you take away apples by force, then you only have bananas. Sure people are eating a lot of bananas. But no one ever seems to ask "why did apples go away ?"

Lot's of people would like apples (good)
Lot's of people would like old school (good)

Developers follow the money. The money moved to games that had a mix of everything. That way people didn't have to spend a lot of time putting a group together and hoping one of their group members wasn't Leroy Jenkins. Now if you want to group you can. If you feel like playing solo because you only have 20 mins. to play, you can. If you want to PvP, you can, in a group or solo. MMO's have grown and expanded just like everything does in life. Very few things are frozen in time.

Sephiroso · June 2018

Scot said:

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

Sephiroso said:

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

lol no, having an mmo appeal to groupers and solos is not a problem at all. WoW, FFXIV, GW2, just about any modern mmorpg has solo content and group content and it works out just fine for them.

What percentage would you say is group only content, 2%?

It's honestly irrelevant but to give an answer i'd say it's pretty close to a 40/60 split in favor of group content.

Well if that was the case I would agree with you, but if so WoW must have drastically changed since I played it.

WoW has drastically change in some ways i'll agree with you. But the core values of WoW remain. It was always a lot more casual than the first generation of mmo's. People complained how easy it was to level compared to EQ and FFXI. That's always been a staple of WoW right from the beginning.

It's main success generator was also it's PvE and owpvp. They've since gutted the owpvp(though i think the changes they are making with BfA will bring some of this back) but the PvE portion has remained strong and even stronger than ever with the advent of flex raiding and mythic+ dungeons.

Most of the time you're playing wow, whether it was in vanilla or the latest expansion, you're gonna be inside of an instance which is always group play. The only thing you'd be doing outside is socializing, participating in a world event, achievement/collectible hunting, crafting/gathering, or owpvp(speaking from a max lvl perspective). Literally everything else would have you doing group play in an instance(including pvp) and that hasn't changed from the beginning to now.

ChicagoCub · June 2018

So? The market has shown time and time again that it has no teeth. People cried and whined and threatened to quit over microtransactions yet here they are, in more games than ever and those same people can't throw their money at them fast enough.

rojoArcueid · June 2018

They never took grouping away by force. People are getting older and have less free time to belong to dedicated gaming groups without having to bail out due to life reasons.

I never join dedicated guild setups (group content) because i don't like bailing out on people and looking irresponsible when something more important happens in real life. So i decide to play solo and join casual guilds for casual/non-dedicated group content. I still have a lot of fun that way.

Its a natural evolution of the game when older players naturally lean towards more casual content consumption. And when new younger players join, that is what they find in game, more casual behavior.

My thoughts.

Eldurian · June 2018

Scot said:

The reason why I saw this as a possible solution is that if you try to make a MMO that appeals to groupers and solos there is going to be an obvious problem, they don't like each others gameplay.

Has anyone seen the trailers on the new EVE expansion? @Kyleran would probably know for sure, but what I'm gathering is it's an entire expansion centered around content for solo PVEers.

Of course EVE is the game infamous for a heavy central focus on massively multiplayer PVP, having been the setting of all of the biggest MMO battles of all time.

The move to make solo PVE content though doesn't seem at all out of place. EVE has always provided many styles of content for many playstyles, and they can do that because 100% of their content is optional (other than the threat of scammers and suicide gankers).

So who cares if they don't like eachother's gameplay? I like both solo and group based gameplay. Give me options for each and I will use each depending on my mood. Allow them to opt out of the other's playstyle and both sides will be fine.

DrunkWolf · June 2018

most MMO players started in WoW. wow is a single player game until you get to raids. most people dont know any better because they wernt around for the old school games that promoted grouping.

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