Kotaku's AJ Glasser sat down for a hands-on preview of Champions Online recently, and aside from the typical preview fare one particular bit stood out: Champions Online may not be solo friendly.

A bullet point at the end of the preview reads:

The biggest criticism Emmert fears hearing is from superhero players who want a purely solo masked avenger experience. That's just not what Cryptic is out to do with Champions Online – so if any potential reviewers are reading this, think Justice League instead of Dark Knight going into it.

Another problem City of Heroes players will surely recognize (and this tends to be a problem in many MMOGs), and that is the Ranged vs. Melee issue:

Ranged Combat Is Cheap: This is actually a plus for a jerk like me – but I think it's cause for complaint. Emmert says that the tradeoff between a ranged superhero who can just spam a single fireball attack while flying around in a circle is that a melee superhero's attacks are more powerful. He says that this makes it more rewarding for the melee character if he or she can just get to that fireball-spamming jerk and execute an attack. But if the jerk is me, I'm telling you right now, you'll never catch me. You'll die cursing me for the cheap jerk I am.

Read the full preview over at Kotaku.

Are you a solo player in MMOGs? If so, is this a deal breaker for you on Champions Online? Let us know in the comments!

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

Well, the idea that it is more group oriented actually made my interest level go up a notch, but it was quickly squashed by the comments that its uses an action oriented combat style well suited to console games.

Originally posted by demonic87

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

Exactly.  I can understand when you have a limited time to play, maybe this game is not for you.  But any MMO shines when you play with others.  Soloing is entrenched because so many started on their console games and then moved to MMO's expecting the same type of gameplay.  Personally, soloers don't stay in gamelong, they make no lasting friendships to keep them around so they are bad audience to attempt to appease.

As to the ranged verses melee debate, a melee teamed with a ranged guy makes a formidible opponent.  Trying to pvp solo as a melee is just dumb.

Yeah, it's a deal breaker. I'm almost tempted to buy it just to play with the character generator - almost.  Until some developer gets it through their head that many soloers (and casual players) want a game where they have access to all the content and rewards, I'll pass. 

I don't agree that an MMO "shines" when in a team. If you happen to play with a group of friends or a guild not filled with twits, then yes. However, PUGs are far more typical and they rarely work out well. In fact, they usually just make me question the intelligence of many players.

I think a game needs a balance of Team and Solo oriented play. The bulk of the game should be fun for one, great for two, with some very epic and in-depth quest/mission series for entire groups to campaign together in.

Originally posted by demonic87

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

Playing an MMO, DOES NOT = grouping. At least not for me, especially with the amount of people on that dont know what the heck they are doing.

Now if you have a great group of friends, then yes, I am all about grouping, but if you dont know many people playing, then for me grouping is all a crap shoot, with many times you ending up dealing with poor players, or the one person in the group that screws it up for everyone and now you are spending the majority of time helping people get back to the group/corpse running, etc.

I have soloed my way through UO, EQ, EQ2, WoW, Horizons, CoH, Vanguard, and LoTRO, and have loved every aspect of community that goes into MMOs. People to interact, trade, and chat with, which you cannot duplicate in a standalone RPG.

So this info on CO is frustrating, but by no means a deal breaker. Just more of a challenge. Heck most say Vanguard is not a solo friendly game and I went from 20 to 50 solo in a pretty short time, you just have to know where to look.

As for the future, the solo base is large enough where I am sure some changes/additions will be made to accomodate the soloist.

nothing agains grouping, but in a super hero universe is kinda weird.

all heroes have their solo HQ first, then their justice league, avengers...

It may low the super hero status =/

Originally posted by demonic87

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

Many people seem to be confused as to why a solo player would want to play a MMOG, after all, as you and many others assert, its a massively MULTIPLAYER online game, why would a soloer be interested, and why should a developer cater to them?

Well, there are other aspects to MMOGs other than the social grouping aspect that  many people are interested in. One in particular is  the type of persistence and long term character development that MMOG's provide that draws them. Soloing in MMOG's is a perfectly viable playstyle, as is anything else.

So with that said, I would ask that you and other user's respect that, and let's not derail this discussion into an attack on other gamers' playstyles. Thanks!

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by demonic87

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

 

Exactly.  I can understand when you have a limited time to play, maybe this game is not for you.  But any MMO shines when you play with others.  Soloing is entrenched because so many started on their console games and then moved to MMO's expecting the same type of gameplay.  Personally, soloers don't stay in gamelong, they make no lasting friendships to keep them around so they are bad audience to attempt to appease.

As to the ranged verses melee debate, a melee teamed with a ranged guy makes a formidible opponent.  Trying to pvp solo as a melee is just dumb.

 

I think you are wrong about solo players bailing out soon. If a player truly wants to solo they wont make it unless they make friends, i.e. get into a good guild. I believe that is what most solo players do, you almost have to in order to make the most of the experience. You then have someone to shoot the shit with, get advice from, and on occasion get some assistance with group content. I am still playing Vanguard and have been since beta, solo.

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by demonic87

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

Many people seem to be confused as to why a solo player would want to play a MMOG, after all, as you and many others assert, its a massively MULTIPLAYER online game, why would a soloer be interested, and why should a developer cater to them?

Well, there are other aspects to MMOGs other than the social grouping aspect that  many people are interested in, one in particular is  the type of persistence and long term character development that MMOG's provide that draws them. Soloing in MMOG's is a perfectly viable playstyle, as is anything else.

So with that said, I would ask that you and other user's respect that, and let's not derail this discussion into an attack on other gamers' playstyles. Thanks!

Well said! I agree completely. Community, having people to chat with, while you explore and roam unknown lands....alone.

Originally posted by demonic87

Why the hell do people bother soloing in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. Go play an RPG if you want to make grouping pointless because you want to "solo". Sure you may not have time, but you could still just team up with someone in the same area and knock a couple quests off.

As i have said before i love to group play, but sometimes you do not have time to do such a thing. I work and have a kid so my time is very limited during the week. So if i can SOLO a few quest for about an hour or 2 each day then i can stay about the same lvl as all my guild mates and we could group / raid over the weekend. I see soloing as a way to keep up with the lvl as everyone eles. I do not go into a MMO and plan to solo 100 % just not what i do. But if this game will not support me in my soloing just so i can keep up then maybe i should go and change my pre order =(( .

Every MMO dev says exactly the same things--and yet they are unvaryingly wrong by the time the game launches. There are no non-solo-friendly MMOs and there won't be (most especially a predominantly PVE one). And MMO combat is mostly the way it is because of technological limitations--which results in them being mostly all the same with minor variations.

In short, the game is, for better or worse, not that much different than any other I'll warrant. After you've been through a few alphas, betas, and releases, there's no need to listen to pre-launch statements anymore--they'll say anything they think will sell the game, but they do the same as the rest.

 Of course it'll be solo friendly.  That's what Cryptic bucks and MTs are for, isn't it?

/rollseyes

For all that are saying that this review has become a deal breaker for you, I wouldnt act too hasty.

I posted a question regarding soloing in CO on the official CO forums a few weeks back, and got several responses that contradict the reviewer, so I am holding out hope.

Link to the forum post: http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=21791&highlight=Soloists+Unite

Ah, there's the Jack Emmert I remember, the swollen ego whose response to complaints about game difficuty was a smarmy "Get some friends!" Jackass. Funny, I seem to recall Roper pitching that the game would support "lone wolf" styled heroes as well as super groups. Oh well, consider the source, I guess.

For the "Why would you solo in a MMO?" crowd, I can only say: get over it. We don't want to be forced to play with you.  The reasons why have been posted over and over again. You're just not listening.

Back in the old days when the experiance and amount a mmo lasted was much longer i think the reason was less solo more group, simple concept if it takes 5-10 times longer to level solo then group,  people will group but you can still solo at a cost.

mmo's are made to group the experiance only works if your working with others. You may say pug are the bane of the game and such, but making new friends not just staying in your prearrange people is also part of it. You cant respect the best unless you play with some poor players.

This is great news! I love bringing all my friends to work with me, I even let them sit at my desk, to the bathroom, to bed with me!  Forget SOLO play, the RL world is MASSIVE! I bet the RL MASSIVE world puts champions online world to shame!  It's MASSIVE for heck's sake!

Even better, when I let my team mates wipe my butt.  Its not a solo friendly world people!

I do like soloing a lot in mmorpgs, I do solo as much as possible and group up only for instances, raids and quests that are really not soloable. Easy to say I should not play mmorpg's but single player rpg's just dont have the huge amount of added content over time and they usually do not have a social environment.

Originally posted by sairusco

I do like soloing a lot in mmorpgs, I do solo as much as possible and group up only for instances, raids and quests that are really not soloable. Easy to say I should not play mmorpg's but single player rpg's just dont have the huge amount of added content over time and they usually do not have a social environment.

While i respect your play style and how you want to play i don't feel they should cater to you and change the game to the way you like.  Its not like you don't have options there are online rpg's that don't cost monthly that have the option of playing online whith people or not dlc or player created content.

And if you want the social environment that kind of is grouping, but if you just want to talk online you got a cell phone or xfire.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Personally, soloers don't stay in gamelong, they make no lasting friendships to keep them around so they are bad audience to attempt to appease.
 

I've solo'd in every MMO, and so far, I've made some pretty good friends that I still talk to, even after I quit the game. Take that, shove it in your pipe, and smoke it.

It actually increases my interest slightly.

IMO  there is more potential for content depth when it is designed for a group to complete, compared with content that everyone can solo, and shallow gameplay does nothing for me.

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

It actually increases my interest slightly.

IMO  there is more potential for content depth when it is designed for a group to complete, compared with content that everyone can solo, and shallow gameplay does nothing for me.

Forming legions of superhero teams could be very cool, especially if people could have all out major battles of, say, a team of 6 heroes vs the 6 nemesis guys. Epic comic book-style conflicts!

Well at least someone is making a game for the grouping crowd, my take on grouping since ppl seem to want to throw insults around about the solo crowd, is this. Groupers like to group because they lack skill and want others to carry them, nuff said

It is funny how much the player base has changed since I first began playing MMOs.

When EQ1 launched most people grouped and it was not questioned and it really went a long ways to immerse yourself in the world and feel like you were a part of something bigger.

As the game progressed we saw a lot of changed to game play and community the two biggest being the raider mentality and solo players.

I remember clearly after Luclin came out I was on my beastlord and was soloing, soloing mobs that I saw groups of players fighting. At this time in chat is was something people argued over and on the forums it was alot a hot topic.

The thing is back then, the majority felt that grouping should be the main way to play and offer more xp than soloing. Some felt soloing was fine even if they did not understand it, but that soloing should offer less xp then those who group.

Here were are now, what 10 years or so later and it is reversed. We have soloers being the majority with people wanting strong grouping content being the minority. Soloing has become so dominate that no longer is the argument about making solo content or should solo players get as much or more xp then grouped players but rather should solo players get solo tuned boss and raid encounters or raid gear or how a game needs to ensure you can play it all fully solo.

As a gamer I have changed a lot and admit I solo a lot because of time and also because it is easier to just solo and not have to worry about anyone else and the xp and loot I get is more solo anyways, so the only time id bother to group would be to run a dungeon and even then that can be less xp and loot depending.

I really like a balance, and I do feel that group play should offer more xp and rewards then solo play, and soloing big reward is the ease of play.

Also soloers are not anti social. I admit that when you do a lot of grouping you form stronger bonds (EQ2 used to make you group to get anywhere really and because of that I made some great friends and the community in game was very thick it was great but of course had many downsides as well). And because of the grouping you will likely be more invested. However solo players are also very social. In WoW for example I soloed the most of the time and yet I was always in tell hell, talking in guild, on vent, and talking in other chat channels so truth is while I was not grouped playing the game with others all the time I was still very much connected to them.

As for Champions Online, it will offer both, just like most modern mmos, it caters to multiple play styles. All I can say about this game is that there are a ton of leaks, just check you tube for learkerz.com and they have a bunch of vids showing solo play even soloing boss mobs. The hardest content may be tuned for groups of heroes but that is not new and I see no problem with it.