Originally posted by Vrazule

Originally posted by Zyonne

I don't think I would want to play the kind of game the OP has in mind, but I agree with some of the key points:

Multiple ways to achieve the same goals, is always a good thing. I do think MMORPGs should encourage grouping by making xp and gear easier to get in a group than solo, but if someone wants to spend a year achieving the same thing solo that another player does in groups, why not let him?

Making a full group a requirement to level fast is a no-brainer. I'm surprised so many games make soloing the fastest way to level. After all, doing a mindless levelling grind with somene is just about the best excuse to chat with strangers, and people who get sucked into the social experience tend to keep their subscription active longer. Still, let there be ways to get xp solo, even if it is slow. There's no reason to alienate people who don't have time to group up every time they get online.

As for acquiring equipment, I've always despised the no-drop/BoP flags. If all items in the game are craftable, or can be traded, the solo player can just spend an eternety gathering wealth to buy what he can't get on his own. Grouping up to get rare drops from non-soloable content is of course going to be faster, but once again multiple ways to achieve the same thing is good.

Power gamers will choose the fastest way to get something done, i.e. grouping. Let them.

Casual gamers will choose the fast way if it is convenient. Settle for soloing if not. Let them.

Everybody wins.

 

Yeah, soloing in most of the games that offer it are so efficient, aren't they?  Please.  Even if that were the case, I sure as hell wouldn't want to do it, thanks the the incredibly crappy, boring content they tend to program for soloers, let alone the craptastic rewards that are essentially insulting.

We are talking about one game here, out of how many group centric ones?  Even if it was 50 / 50 in solo vs. group games, who gives a crap,  You play yours and I'll play mine.  I'm sick to death of you people and the developers who think just like you.  As far as I'm concerned, they should just make the games where every play style's progression is equal and the rewards are equal and let people play the way they want to without feeling like second class citizens.  If you can't find enough like minded people to group with, then there's something wrong with your play style, deal with it and stop trying to force it down our throats.

Did you actually read my post? I'm all for soloers being able to achieve the same end results as everyone else. I don't want MMORPGs to force grouping, just encourage it. You want a game where doing things the easy way, and doing them the hard way (convenience, and time wise) yields the same results. Fine. I wouldn't play that game, but that's just a difference of opinion. Of course there is room for games like that if someone wants to make them. What I'm sick of is games that force you to play one way to reach a goal. I want alternatives that fit more people, but I prefer it if the more social one is faster. I'd opt for the solo path due to time restrictions most of the time, but I want it to be easy to find people to play with when I do have a few hours on my hands. 

 Well first just so you know where I stand I  despise the raidiers. I already have a jpb and don't want another one.  I will solo or do small group stuff all day but I have no desire to ever raid been there done that and still feel dirty. Let raiders have their raids but give the rest of us with jobs and families or other time contraints option to acquire on par gear but obviously it should take us longer. I have no problem working by myself or a small group of friends in a large 100 step or so quest to get awesome gear as long as the story and content is enjoyable. I think my main issue with raiders is when I hear them talking in chat they seem to give off the same attitude the inmates I used to deal with did.

If something takes more time or effort the reward needs to match.  Otherwise, the system is broken.  No one would do a dungeon more than once if there was no reward at the end or you could just waltz through on easy mode alone.  And NO, you won't get decent balance when a developer has to make 8+ different versions of the same dungeon to match every class in the game.  You'll get some classes who can blow through it, while others get hammered.  Thats NOT fun or fair.  If it could be done, that would be awesome.  Theres always loopholes and exploits to find though and the few ruin it for the many.

I'm not the raider type.  I have a hard time dedicating anything more than maybe an hour, unless the family is away on vacation;)  But I'm not stupid enough to beleive a reward system that doesn't scale is a good system.  The more effort you put in, the better reward you have to get.  Think of it this way.  Would you study for a test if you knew you were going to get an A no matter what?  Would you care about school if everyone got the same grades and everyone was rewarded equally?   Would you stay late or try harder at a job if you knew no matter how long you worked and no matter how hard you tried , you'd NEVER, EVER get ahead of the guy that left at 5pm every night?  Maybe at first, you'd try harder on that test or work harder because it makes you feel good.  But eventually, you'd realise its all pointless.  Its trivial.  Why try when you don't have to?

Thats the reward system in multiplayer games.  This is not a single player game where playing on hard mode gives you a sense of accomplishment and once you win, you win.  Its over.  Its just not human nature to be OK with someone next to you accomplishing the same thing as you with 1/2 or a 1/4 of the effort, esspecially in a competitive environment.  MMOs are competitive environments;)

I agree with alot of the OP's assessments. I find it silly and frustrating that people play multiplayer games by themselves, but I also don't like to wait around for hours to find a group. I like to farm and do tradeskills alone, because it would be silly to do those things with a group, usually. I don't enjoy instanced raids or heroic dungeons, so I do not participate in them. Most of my interaction is with my guild, which usually entails guild chat and some small groups. Actually, most of the grouping I do is in lower level dungeons helping other guildmembers. I think alot of the grouping enticements beyond end-game raiding have been largely ignored.

Stated simply, I believe that if you give players the option to solo, most of them will, especially if it's more efficient. I can't blame the players, because they are just doing what they enjoy, and I know that there is a generation gap between myself and the majority of online gamers these days that I just have to tolerate. And I can't blame the game developers, because they are just giving the majority of players what they want. But I do sometimes wonder if that is really what the players want, or if that's just what they have come to believe or accept through flawed game mechanics and lack of anything different. Sure, there are older games that did not have this problem such as AC or EQ. Many players view this new trend as evolution. And I would presume that many players who started the industry in WoW or LoTR are not going to be satisfied with the older game mechanics and graphics because there is too much that these games improved upon to be able to stomach them for the few things that they actually did better than the newer games.

Ideally it would be nice if games would cater to the casual and hardcore players equally, but in practice that seems impossible as either side would call foul unless it was done perfectly. And there does not seem to be any way to perfectly balance this aspect. There have been proposed solutions of "all or nothing" games where developers cater solely to the casual or hardcore players, but even then the lack of variety or option to do either would be detrimental in my opinion. I think a very large part of the problems have already been stated by the OP and many others in this thread in that item rewards and upgrades are simply on too high of a pedestal in games like WoW. Just as in society, the community is divided by he haves and the have nots, where the have nots feel like second class citizens often for no other reason than that of of constraints outside the gameworld. These loot treadmills are artificial constraints inside the game world that make the haves feel accomplished; like their time spent actually means something; that they got their just reward. Their favorite argument is that anyone can do it if I can, and that nothing is holding you back. Well what if you don't value loot updrades as much? What if you don't have as much time to play? What if you don't kiss ass enough to be invited to the big raids? Well then you aren't as good as me. And they will cry and cry if casual players are allowed the same item upgrades or content unlocks no matter how long it takes.

One last thing on the subject of risk vs. reward:  Many players feel that since they put in the extra effort, extra time, extra ass-kissing, that they are entitled to have better gear than most other players. They feel they have gone up against the most challenging content the game has to offer and deserve something to show for it. And I can understand that. As much as I hate bragarts, people often measure thier worth by the things they have. And for the most part this doesn't really hurt anyone. But what kind of challenges are really talking about? You got your best players with the best gear, everyones read and memorized the encounter, and you use 20 raid add-ons to assist you. Wouldn't it be more challenging trying to get 10 undergeared players to coordinate the same encounter? The argument of challenge is subjective, because players can always make things more challenging, but will rarely do so if they can get the same item rewards faster and easier.

Originally posted by heerobya  

It's the min/maxer power-gaming "must be efficient" attitude that makes people forsake grouping in favor of soloing.

That's right.  But then my question for you is this:  If 99.999% of the playbase is soloing because it's more efficient then how am I supposed to find people to group with?

Let's assume that I'm a lazy bastard who wants to be able to log in and hook up with a group in a relatively short time without having to put a lot of effort into it.  I'm a lazy arse, casual grouper.  I don't want to have the job of putting a group together be like a long friggen epic quest in itself.  I just want to log in and play the dang game.  I don't want to have to search the world over for those two or three other people who happen to fall into the .001% of people who aren't obsessed with min/max power gaming and might actually be willing to group with me even though they know it will slow them down. 

And I don't want to endure the solo grind to the end-game with the promise of grouping there because I'm a lazy arse, casual grouper and the type of grouping you get at end-game is raiding, which I hate with an undying passion because I'm a lazy arse, casual grouper.

That's right, I admit it.  I'm a stinkin' lazy bastard who doesn't want to work for my fun when I'm playing a game.  I just want to have fun.  Spending all my time soloing isn't fun for me, no offense to the people who enjoy that it just isn't my thing.  Being a bitch in a raiding guild isn't fun for me either, no offense to the people who enjoy being bitches in raiding guilds it just isn't my thing.  And spending hours and hours begging people to play with me and be my friend isn't exactly my cup of tea either.  And when finding people to group with is more of a quest than the search for the holy friggen grail, well that's no fun for me either.

So what's a lazy arse, casual grouper like me supposed to do?  No I don't want join someone's damn guild just so I can group with them.  Joining guilds comes with obligations and it means being bossed around and I'm a lazy arse bastard with commitment issues.  I'll join a guild full of other lazy arse, casual groupers if I get to know the people first and we like each other and we're guilding just because we get along but I won't join a guild just so I can play the damn game.  But how am I supposed to get to know anyone before I form a guild with them if I can never group with people in the first place? 

To everyone saying go play a single player game...

For myself the main reason I play MMOs isn't other people it's the depth of play. You can't spend months playing a single player game without finishing it over and over again. MMOs have so much content that it takes lots of time to enjoy it. Sure I enjoy playing with other players sometimes, but the draw of MMOs for me has always been endless content as the game is continually updated.

There are many single player games out there that I love, but once you reach the ending it becomes boring. You end up trying to find reasons to replay it. Eventually I'll go back and play them, but play single player games over and over again? I'd go insane.

Originally posted by Meleagar

THE BIG MMOG MISCONCEPTION, PART 1: Why They Play MMOGs

Oh, I want to play a good MMORPG. I played EQI, EQ2, AC2, WoW. I tried Age of Conan. However, I've realized why I now spend my time playing Sins of a Solar Empire and Mass Effect, rather than playing an online game: in all online games, I am a 2nd class citizen doomed to achieving 3rd rate results. What's the point in buying a game, and paying a subscription, when you are coded out of enjoying the best rewards?

Somewhere along the line, probably with the original EQ, guys that had all kinds of time, in fact were employed to play games, decided that what they found to be the compelling factor in online games - where they could form massive guilds and feed their enjoyment of power and ego - should be rewarding their kind of playstyle. In other words, people that programmed and played games for a living in big corporate groups decided that people who played like they did should be exclusively rewarded in MMOGs.

I'm reminded of when sound first came to moving pictures, and every movie for a long time was a musical, full of staged dance numbers and songs. One movie exec opined, "Why would anyone want to go to a movie that didn't have music and singing?" In other words, just because you can put something into an online game that you can't put into a non-MMOG, doesn't mean that's what everyone - or even most people - want in an online game.

Sure, what you can do in an online game, that you can't do in other games, is group up, form massive raids, and kill otherwise unkillable foes. But, does this mean that this is why most people would play an MMOG? Not necessarily. It's not even logically connected. Just because you can put music and song into a "talkie" movie, and you can't put it in a silent movie, doesn't mean that people want music and dance numbers in their movies, or that a movie with sound but without music and dance cannot be successful.

I argue that the group and raid concept for MMOGs is the same kind of misconception; just because you can do it in an MMOG setting, doesn't mean it's actually what most people want in an MMOG; furthermore, I argue that developing a game around "raid" and "group" parameters necessarily limits every other aspect of the game, limits the diversity and variety potential of such games, and generates a common relationship and political climate in MMOGs - mostly, IMO, in a negative way.

Now, that people play most MMOGs to raid, or to group, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the only movies out there are musicals, then people go to movies to watch musicals. If all of the content in a game is geared around end-game raiding and grouping, then of course most people that play MMOGs (or have any experience at all with them) play them to raid and group. That doesn't mean that's what they would prefer to do, and that doesn't mean that all those people who play Oblivion or are going to play Dragon Age wouldn't rather play a similar game online; it only means there is no MMOG that offers them the experience they are seeking.

One might argue that all the content in an MMOG is "not" geared around end-game raiding or grouping, and that the developers include solo content. Oh, you can make that argument, but you will be wrong. If all the top rewards and exclusive content is only available through grouping and raiding, then those set the standards by which all other rewards and achievements are judged. When developing content, developers make sure that the raiding, end-game content is "the best" .. then everything else is tweaked down from there. MMOGs that claim that the crafting system delivers the best rewards overlook the fact that the ingredients for those crafted items can only come from ... you guessed it ... group and raid encounters.

In other words, if you are a casual or solo player (especially soloer), you must be satisfied being a 2nd class player with 3rd rate rewards. Period. The easy question to ask here is, why should anyone buy a game and pay a subscription in order to be a 2nd class player earning 3rd rate rewards? Are we supposed to pay for the privilege of being the "commoners" and "scrubs" by which powergaming raiders can feel superior? Why would a person that doesn't enjoy musicals go to the movies, if all movies are musicals?

I have advocated "alternate but equally time-consuming" routes for soloers and casual players to achieve any reward in the game on many forums. One of the common rebuttals is that if there are solo routes to achieve the same results, then nobody would raid, because raids are difficult to organize and carry out. Really? If people would prefer solo routes to top rewards, why are game developers forcing the group/raid model on them? Is it because they can't imagine why anyone would play an MMOG if they didn't have to group and raid? The logic there is entirely faulty; if people didn't want to raid, and would rather be able to solo content, why arent' they playing solo, offline games?

The answer is simple; people like being part of online communities whether grouping and raiding is involved or not. People will form and join guilds just to be part of a larger society or group because it's what humans do. You don't have to force them to group up and socialize via a carrot and whip system. People hang out in chatrooms, join avatar communities, play the SIMS, haunt these boards because they enjoy the interaction. Will everyone abandon these boards, chatrooms, and the SIMS because we don't group up and raid? Is there any "grouping up and raiding" in online poker, chess, or other such community games?

However, MMOGs have a compelling reason for perhaps millions of people to not play, to not choose that vehicle for social interaction, community, comparison, ego, meeting people, etc., to avoid such avatar-rich, beautiful-world, deeply interesting scenarios: they are doomed to be 2nd class citizens with 3rd rate "stuff" because of the group/raid system; because professional players in professional guilds that can form raids determine every aspect of how that community is defined, organized, the politics, relationships, comparisons, evaluations, the programmed content, what is achievable, etc. The game is designed, from the bottom up, with that in mind.  Claiming there is "content" for soloers and casual players is like telling people who can't afford the prices at the restaurant that there are scraps in the garbage bin in the alley.  Gee. Thanks.

It is my opniion, one that I will be exploring in the future, that the very thing that programmers think must be included in such games - the group and the raid as primary content focus as an "end game" scenario, is what is limiting the potential of the entire genre and keeping people away in droves.
 

*blink* My poor eyes.

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk

Originally posted by Meleagar

 

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk

Ya the 11 million people playing WoW alone for it's raid model is clearly getting in their way. The only thing actually getting in their way is the loads of money piling up.

Musicals also made a lot of money.  The point I'm making isn't that the raid/group model isn't successful, but that focusing on it as the guiding principle in making MMOGs might be unnecesarily limiting the potential success of the MMOG industry.  In the days of early musicals, you were laughed out of the studio if you pitched an idea that didn't have song and dance numbers. If you were an actor or actress, you had to be able to sing and dance, or else someone would be dubbing over you.

What happened to musicals?  Where are they now?  Here's the thing; the concept that movies had to have song and dance numbers limited many things about movies.  Everything - from hiring actors to developing plots and scores - had to accomodate the musical format.  My point is that a similar assumptive structuring has gripped MMOG development since EQ first came out.  For instance, let's look at class and subclass or talent development; the developer must design such things keeping in mind the "role" the character will be able to fulfill in groups and raids.   End product of class structures, of gear lines, of abilities and stats must be "balanced" in regard to being able to fulfill an end-game role.  Every part of the game is defined in terms of stats and efficiency - dps, crowd control, armor, health, healing ability - in terms of what is most efficient for end game raiding and grouping.

What could be developed in terms of an MMOG if developers cast off these "end game" balancing constraints?

Well, that's for another part of my analysis.

 

Musicals are where they always have been, on stage making loads of cash. Because despite that you hate musicals (and I hate musicals) there are lots of people with lots of money that still to this day love musicals. So the model hasn't disappeared.

What is incorrect is your thought that all original movies were musicals, never was the case so that analogy breaks down. But still to this day they do also make musical movies, that Across the Universe that was based on beatles music, and the one that was recently out based on Abba music. Both movies did really well because once again there are lots of people that still like musicals.

 But to get some facts right, there was theatre before there was musicals. There continues to be non musical theatre. There were movies before there were musical movies, and there continues to be both non musical and musical movies.

People like different things, you don't like raids and they make MMOs that don't involve any raids of any kind (Asheron's Call is one of them). There are people who do like raids and continue to play games that have raids, and they always will.

You are trying to say the whole market should change because of your particular interests combined with your very flawed analogies. There are several newer MMOs, and older MMOs, that do not require raiding. Of the original big 3 MMOs (UO, EQ, AC) 1 required groups to get things done and 2 didn't. Of all the MMOs out now, raiding is the minority of MMOs but at the same time the most populated MMOs have raiding. So clearly there are people that like it.

Just stick to non raid MMOs and you won't have to worry about it.

A few minutes on IMDB gives an interesting result. Musicals are a) the minotiry genre for movies and b) are still being produced. As the OP has so carefully not only researched his topic, but defends it so heavily, one is lead to believe two things: That RAID-centric MMOs are a minority in the genre and that they are still being produced.

Another possibility is that the OP is secretly a fan of musicals. Why else would they forget entirely about such notables as Casablanca (1942), t's a Wonderful Life (1946), Citizen Kane (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Third Man (1949), 12 Angry Men (1957), Rear Window (1954), Sunset Blvd. (1950), North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), Paths of Glory (1957), and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)?

Yeah. Hitchcock was laughed out of Hollywood when he tried to produce non-musicals.

But hey, this is a message board on the internet. Let's not allow actual facts, historical or otherwise, to sway cherished opinions! So everyone feel free to ignore this post, as well as any others, that do favor ones obsessions!

Heck, I obsess over the fact that raiding isn't important to my style of play, so I ignore raiding. After all, all those rewards that are so highly coveted from raiding are best used when--you guessed it!--raiding!

-w

*Not a single obssessed raider was harmed in the manufacturing of this message. Though my cats tried awful hard to catch one!

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by heerobya  

It's the min/maxer power-gaming "must be efficient" attitude that makes people forsake grouping in favor of soloing.

 

That's right.  But then my question for you is this:  If 99.999% of the playbase is soloing because it's more efficient then how am I supposed to find people to group with?

Let's assume that I'm a lazy bastard who wants to be able to log in and hook up with a group in a relatively short time without having to put a lot of effort into it.  I'm a lazy arse, casual grouper.  I don't want to have the job of putting a group together be like a long friggen epic quest in itself.  I just want to log in and play the dang game.  I don't want to have to search the world over for those two or three other people who happen to fall into the .001% of people who aren't obsessed with min/max power gaming and might actually be willing to group with me even though they know it will slow them down. 

And I don't want to endure the solo grind to the end-game with the promise of grouping there because I'm a lazy arse, casual grouper and the type of grouping you get at end-game is raiding, which I hate with an undying passion because I'm a lazy arse, casual grouper.

That's right, I admit it.  I'm a stinkin' lazy bastard who doesn't want to work for my fun when I'm playing a game.  I just want to have fun.  Spending all my time soloing isn't fun for me, no offense to the people who enjoy that it just isn't my thing.  Being a bitch in a raiding guild isn't fun for me either, no offense to the people who enjoy being bitches in raiding guilds it just isn't my thing.  And spending hours and hours begging people to play with me and be my friend isn't exactly my cup of tea either.  And when finding people to group with is more of a quest than the search for the holy friggen grail, well that's no fun for me either.

So what's a lazy arse, casual grouper like me supposed to do?  No I don't want join someone's damn guild just so I can group with them.  Joining guilds comes with obligations and it means being bossed around and I'm a lazy arse bastard with commitment issues.  I'll join a guild full of other lazy arse, casual groupers if I get to know the people first and we like each other and we're guilding just because we get along but I won't join a guild just so I can play the damn game.  But how am I supposed to get to know anyone before I form a guild with them if I can never group with people in the first place? 

I agree with both of you. Very well stated.