Originally posted by Cephus404

Why can't multiplayer games be about players working together and single player games be about playing alone?

Genres change all the time, that's life.  An industry has to go where it's paying customers are and in the modern MMO industry, that's toward more casual, soloable content.  The soloers are the ones primarily paying the bills.  Whether you like that fact or not is entirely irrelevant, it is the reality of the situation.  Therefore, considering that most games would go out of business and shut down without soloers and soloable content, the idea of trying to force soloers to do group content is absurd.  The idea that "this is what I  think the genre ought to be" and "this is what brings in the money that keeps the genre going" are going to be one and the same, while it may be a nice fantasy, simply isn't the case here.  The genre is what it is, the reality concerning the genre is what it is.  You have to deal with it and leave your dreams and wishes along the side of the road or try to find the few, small games that cater to your particular views and play those.  The industry has largely moved beyond what you want in a game, like it or not.

Absolutely agree with you. Games have become another mass market product, I really can't think of a company that develops games now because they want to play them. The last would probably be ID Software, who made games because they were gamers. Now it's all about hiring a team of programmers, gamer or not, giving them a project to get on with, and hope for the cash to roll in at the end.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect

Originally posted by Cephus404

Why can't multiplayer games be about players working together and single player games be about playing alone?

Genres change all the time, that's life.  An industry has to go where it's paying customers are and in the modern MMO industry, that's toward more casual, soloable content.  The soloers are the ones primarily paying the bills.  Whether you like that fact or not is entirely irrelevant, it is the reality of the situation.  Therefore, considering that most games would go out of business and shut down without soloers and soloable content, the idea of trying to force soloers to do group content is absurd.  The idea that "this is what I  think the genre ought to be" and "this is what brings in the money that keeps the genre going" are going to be one and the same, while it may be a nice fantasy, simply isn't the case here.  The genre is what it is, the reality concerning the genre is what it is.  You have to deal with it and leave your dreams and wishes along the side of the road or try to find the few, small games that cater to your particular views and play those.  The industry has largely moved beyond what you want in a game, like it or not.

Absolutely agree with you. Games have become another mass market product, I really can't think of a company that develops games now because they want to play them. The last would probably be ID Software, who made games because they were gamers. Now it's all about hiring a team of programmers, gamer or not, giving them a project to get on with, and hope for the cash to roll in at the end.

Games haven't really changed, they've just become more popular.  Back in the 'good old days', they still appealed to their primary market.  The market used to be geeks, that's why games were the way they were.  Now that the market is much, much larger, they're catering to their new market.  Nothing has changed.  Even ID is in business to make money.  Gaming has never been a charity, it's a business and a business exists to make a profit.

Why do so many people fail to understand this?

Originally posted by Cephus404

Games haven't really changed, they've just become more popular.  Back in the 'good old days', they still appealed to their primary market.  The market used to be geeks, that's why games were the way they were.  Now that the market is much, much larger, they're catering to their new market.  Nothing has changed.  Even ID is in business to make money.  Gaming has never been a charity, it's a business and a business exists to make a profit.

Why do so many people fail to understand this?

It's not a lack of understanding, it's just with the way games are now produced it feels as if the 'love' has gone out of them. They're being developed for the sole purpose of making money and that's never a good thing. Take movies for an example, you get really good movies that people have put a lot of thought, time and effort into, then you have the copycats which are made to cash in on its success. This is what you see happening now in gaming, World of Warcraft was successful so everyone is trying to copy it and they're all awful, but are still bringing in the money.

Games have also become smaller so that they can charge you extra. In the past you'd have a full product that took weeks to complete, now you have games which can be finished in 5-6 hours and have adverts mid-game offering Downloadable Content.

The goal of making money has risen above the idea of making a great game, and in the end that's just going to harm gaming in general.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect

It's not a lack of understanding, it's just with the way games are now produced it feels as if the 'love' has gone out of them. They're being developed for the sole purpose of making money and that's never a good thing. Take movies for an example, you get really good movies that people have put a lot of thought, time and effort into, then you have the copycats which are made to cash in on its success. This is what you see happening now in gaming, World of Warcraft was successful so everyone is trying to copy it and they're all awful, but are still bringing in the money.

Games have also become smaller so that they can charge you extra. In the past you'd have a full product that took weeks to complete, now you have games which can be finished in 5-6 hours and have adverts mid-game offering Downloadable Content.

The goal of making money has risen above the idea of making a great game, and in the end that's just going to harm gaming in general.

But you're missing the fact that they've *ALWAYS* been made for the sole purpose of making money!  There was just at time when making that money entailed making games aimed at *YOU*.  Now they don't because you're no longer the primary financial  supporter of these games.  Games, like movies, will always cater to their primary market, like it or not.  James Cameron's Avatar was a really crappy movie, it had no plot, it was nothing but eye candy, but it made BILLIONS!  Why?  Because the majority of moviegoers are shallow, mindless idiots who don't want to think, they want to look at pretty pictures.

Welcome to reality.

Originally posted by Cephus404

But you're missing the fact that they've *ALWAYS* been made for the sole purpose of making money!

I have to disagree on this point. I was there poking at a flat ZX81 Keyboard, bouncing things off the rubber of a ZX Spectrum Keyboard, and click-clacking my way across a Commodore 64 Keyboard. I've seen the way games have developed since day 1 and, not to sound like an oldie, but at the start people made these things for the pure enjoyment of doing so or to show that they could. It started like a hobby, where people would make games in their bedrooms and send them out into the world - if they had money in return then all the better.

This is where ID Software started, they started with games like Doom & Doom 2, which they made because they were gamers and programmers and they had ideas they wanted to see developed. Money was never their sole purpose for making these games. The same can be said for a lot of other companies back then, games were created by gamers and money was a reward for the time and effort put into it.

As technology has become more complex, however, it's no longer possible for a person to program a game in their room, they needed to have graphic designers, musicians, a programming team and money to pay for it all. This is where things started to drift away from the 'old school' approach. For a while gamers were still in charge - EverQuest, for example, was designed by a gamer and programmer and he had a lot of say in how things went.

Now, the programmers are just that.. programmers.. they're told what buttons to press by guys in their big black suits waving money around. I've noticed games now tend to lack a lot of 'soul', for lack of a better word. They're all quite empty or lacking something, and that something always came from the heart of a gamer.

Originally posted by Cephus404

But you're missing the fact that they've *ALWAYS* been made for the sole purpose of making money!  There was just at time when making that money entailed making games aimed at *YOU*.  Now they don't because you're no longer the primary financial  supporter of these games.  Games, like movies, will always cater to their primary market, like it or not.  James Cameron's Avatar was a really crappy movie, it had no plot, it was nothing but eye candy, but it made BILLIONS!  Why?  Because the majority of moviegoers are shallow, mindless idiots who don't want to think, they want to look at pretty pictures.

Welcome to reality.

I find it humorous that the las sentence could easily be ascribed to the current crop of videogame target demographic.

"Because the majority of <strike>moviegoers</strike> casuals are shallow, mindless idiots who don't want to think, they want to look at pretty pictures."

Pretty pictures being games current trend to be more like an interactive movie to watch than play. That and HD Bloom SPLOSHUNS are purty.

Originally posted by Spasticolon

Originally posted by Cephus404

But you're missing the fact that they've *ALWAYS* been made for the sole purpose of making money!  There was just at time when making that money entailed making games aimed at *YOU*.  Now they don't because you're no longer the primary financial  supporter of these games.  Games, like movies, will always cater to their primary market, like it or not.  James Cameron's Avatar was a really crappy movie, it had no plot, it was nothing but eye candy, but it made BILLIONS!  Why?  Because the majority of moviegoers are shallow, mindless idiots who don't want to think, they want to look at pretty pictures.

Welcome to reality.

I find it humorous that the las sentence could easily be ascribed to the current crop of videogame target demographic.

"Because the majority of moviegoers casuals are shallow, mindless idiots who don't want to think, they want to look at pretty pictures."

Pretty pictures being games current trend to be more like an interactive movie to watch than play. That and HD Bloom SPLOSHUNS are purty.

That is exactly the case.  I can't stand the majority of theatrical movies, they are shallow, mindless eye-candy.  However, I understand why they are made and that my entertainment dollar isn't valuable enough to make them change their marketing strategy.  I understand and accept that.  I don't have to like it, I just take my entertainment dollars elsewhere.

That's life.

What was the most memorable moment in any given single-player game to you? The end boss, or everything, that came before him? My money is on the latter.

It's not about groupers wanting better rewards, or anything like that, no. It's about groupers not being able to experience the game at it's fullest, until the very end of it. Unless you have some IRL friends to play MMOs with (and believe me, when I say it, most people are not that interested in them), you're going to spend those first months completely alone, because, uh-oh, everyone has soloed to max level already. But they can power-level me, so I miss out most of the content, but get to experience "awesome raid gear". Thanks, but no.

You know the sad part? Those few times, that TPA grouped up to explore dungeons in Vanguard, without ever wanting loot, were among the most memorable MMO experiences for me. I'm sorry mates, but if I really want to play solo, I'll just pop in Wizardry VIII one more time, thankyouverymuch.

Many of the posters on this thread are blending solo with casual when in reality there is no correlation between the two. A player who prefers to solo is in reality no more likely to be a casual player than a grouper is.

Casual soloers, hardcore soloers, and casual groupers have all campaigned for greater inclusivity in MMO's, but that is more a result of battling a common enemy than it is the formation of a single cohesive category.

In games like WoW, casual groupers have made strides towards gear and content accessibility on a par with hardcore groupers (aka raiders), but soloers of both stripes are still held back by the same glass ceiling.

Now, it appears GW2 may be the MMO that finally breaks the disparity and allows all players who seek to acheive to do so. If that happens, groupers will just have to grin and bear it, just like men did when women got the vote. Equality comes at a price, but in the end, it's one well worth paying.

Originally posted by Goronian

Guys, look, no offence here, but... I don't think it's really possible to combine the two in a single game, unless it's WoW-like - with a long solo crawl to the bloody raiding.

Look, here's the gist. Lots o these games offer grouping options, while levelling. There are tons of dungeons in WoW, but does anyone ever run them these days, aside from a random cross-server PUG? Of course not, because the only convenience they bring is gear and you will quickly outgrow it. Cross-server PUGs can't build the server community, which is one of our main gripes. You're nobody to them and they're nobody to you. Aside from an occasional "gratz" or "gg" you do not interact with them on even the most basic of levels. They might as well be bots. 

All we ask, is for grouping to be a viable option, whle levelling, instead of a chore. There is little to no point in joining a group in most modern games. "Do it for fun!" you say. And I would, if anyone bloody wanted to!

AAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

/rant

 

P.S. Equality, my bottocks. What about our rights, huh? No one is intersted in them anymore.

What rights do you think that you have?  You pay your $15, you get to play the game.  Don't like the game?  Stop paying them $15 for it.  The problem is, you're paying for something you don't want to play and then complaining about it.  You have absolutely no right whatsoever to a game that you want to play.  You only have the option to pick from among existing products and deciding which one, if any, you want to pay for.  There aren't any games out there that I want to play either, I understand that not enough people want the kind of game I want to play.  Therefore, I DON'T PLAY ANY!

I've explained this before, but here goes again.  The idea of a "server community" is dead in the water today.  At one point in time, these games appealed to a single type of audience.  Therefore, the majority of players came to the game with the same kind of expectations and desires.  Because everyone wanted the same thing, they shared a single type of community.  That's just not the case today and it will never go back to being that again.  Today, there are many different kinds of expectations, many different desires, instead of having one single-minded community, servers have dozens of them.  You either need to seek out the type of community you want and make your friends there, or you need to give up.  Expecting any random Tom, Dick or Harry that comes by to think like you do is absurd today.

Deal with the reality that actually exists, not the fantasy that you wish existed.

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by Goronian


Guys, look, no offence here, but... I don't think it's really possible to combine the two in a single game, unless it's WoW-like - with a long solo crawl to the bloody raiding.

Look, here's the gist. Lots o these games offer grouping options, while levelling. There are tons of dungeons in WoW, but does anyone ever run them these days, aside from a random cross-server PUG? Of course not, because the only convenience they bring is gear and you will quickly outgrow it. Cross-server PUGs can't build the server community, which is one of our main gripes. You're nobody to them and they're nobody to you. Aside from an occasional "gratz" or "gg" you do not interact with them on even the most basic of levels. They might as well be bots. 

All we ask, is for grouping to be a viable option, whle levelling, instead of a chore. There is little to no point in joining a group in most modern games. "Do it for fun!" you say. And I would, if anyone bloody wanted to!

AAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

/rant

 

P.S. Equality, my bottocks. What about our rights, huh? No one is intersted in them anymore.

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What rights do you think that you have?  You pay your $15, you get to play the game.  Don't like the game?  Stop paying them $15 for it.  The problem is, you're paying for something you don't want to play and then complaining about it.  You have absolutely no right whatsoever to a game that you want to play.  You only have the option to pick from among existing products and deciding which one, if any, you want to pay for.  There aren't any games out there that I want to play either, I understand that not enough people want the kind of game I want to play.  Therefore, I DON'T PLAY ANY!
I've explained this before, but here goes again.  The idea of a "server community" is dead in the water today.  At one point in time, these games appealed to a single type of audience.  Therefore, the majority of players came to the game with the same kind of expectations and desires.  Because everyone wanted the same thing, they shared a single type of community.  That's just not the case today and it will never go back to being that again.  Today, there are many different kinds of expectations, many different desires, instead of having one single-minded community, servers have dozens of them.  You either need to seek out the type of community you want and make your friends there, or you need to give up.  Expecting any random Tom, Dick or Harry that comes by to think like you do is absurd today.
Deal with the reality that actually exists, not the fantasy that you wish existed.

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May I quote my signature?

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Currently: Nothing
Previously: Oh so many

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Look, here's the thing. I would seek out those communities, but I don't think they exist anymore. Most groupers here are not morons, we don't want everyone to bend to our wants and needs, and why do we need to? There are multiple titles out there, that are already geared at you. What we want is at least some titles, geared at us. There's simply no room for us in your worlds and we are spread too far apart. A year ago I tried to assemble people like me, but it all fell through the cracks, because of my own inexperience and lots of confusing circumstances. I don't even know if there's hope yet.

There is hope. Things will come back around. They always do.

Originally posted by Goronian

....

You know the sad part? Those few times, that TPA grouped up to explore dungeons in Vanguard, without ever wanting loot, were among the most memorable MMO experiences for me.

...

That is what most solo players do not get. Some people just like to play the game for the sake of playing the game and find that grouping enhances that.

The endgame grind for uber gear and waiting for perfect parties are not necessarily what groupers look for so there is no reason for solo players to feel gimped if they do not want to join. Just there is so little opportunities to seamlessly group together and so many times it is the solo achievers that demand that grouping gives them extra rewards for the psychic trauma they must endure joining a party.

Solo player logs in, clicks quest giver and off he goes. Why can't group minded players get the same? Well thinking of it, we can, in battlegrounds.

Originally posted by Goronian

Look, here's the thing. I would seek out those communities, but I don't think they exist anymore. Most groupers here are not morons, we don't want everyone to bend to our wants and needs, and why do we need to? There are multiple titles out there, that are already geared at you. What we want is at least some titles, geared at us. There's simply no room for us in your worlds and we are spread too far apart. A year ago I tried to assemble people like me, but it all fell through the cracks, because of my own inexperience and lots of confusing circumstances. I don't even know if there's hope yet.

The fact is, there *ARE* people here, in this very thread, who have advocated forcing people to group, just so they could find people to group with. You may not be one of them but they certainly do exist and they are vocal.

Unfortunately for you, all games on the market exist to make money.  If there is no money in the kind of game you describe, why would anyone make it?  If there were, someone would have made it by now.  Nobody is going to designate a game to fail financially just so you can get the kind of game you want.  If you could get 500k+ people who thought the way you do and went to a developer and promised to play the game for at least 2 years, I'm sure you might find one that would agree to develop a game for you, but I think we both know that's just not going to happen.  There probably aren't enough people who want the kind of game you want on the planet to justify a game based on it.  These games take years of development and many millions of dollars, you can't expect someone is going to make a game unless they think they can make their money back and make a profit on top of it.  To expect otherwise is to have extremely unrealistic expectations.

I think the game currently under development that will appeal to the widest segment of potential MMO players will be Guild Wars 2. Their dynamic event system as described seems to be the answer for prayers on both sides of the solo vs. group dilemna.

Solo players will finally have an MMO where they can acheive at the highest level. Sure, they will have to participate in varying scales of PvE battles, including large scale ones on occasion, but they will be free to jump in or out without formally grouping up, and the rewards for their participation will be decided by the AI, not by a raid leader or guild master who may choose to exclude the solo player or non guildy from the rewards.

Groupers will have an MMO where players aren't afraid to pitch in and help each other, since everyone who does help in a meaningful way will be rewarded for doing so. Additionally, there will be 5 man dungeons that also reward players with the highest level gear, but will also give groupers exclusive access to gear that while similar in stats, is more stylish in appearance that the event gear. This would give groupers the recognition they seek for their endeavours, while at the same time allowing solo players to reach the plateau in terms of stats.

The way I see it, the only players such a system won't appeal to are those on the far edges of either spectrum, like soloers who don't want to encounter anybody in game while progressing their character, or groupers who want all players to be forced into formal grouping arrangements, and of course be in complete control of the dispersal of rewards obtained via said groups.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Goronian

Look, here's the thing. I would seek out those communities, but I don't think they exist anymore. Most groupers here are not morons, we don't want everyone to bend to our wants and needs, and why do we need to? There are multiple titles out there, that are already geared at you. What we want is at least some titles, geared at us. There's simply no room for us in your worlds and we are spread too far apart. A year ago I tried to assemble people like me, but it all fell through the cracks, because of my own inexperience and lots of confusing circumstances. I don't even know if there's hope yet.

The fact is, there *ARE* people here, in this very thread, who have advocated forcing people to group, just so they could find people to group with. You may not be one of them but they certainly do exist and they are vocal.

Unfortunately for you, all games on the market exist to make money.  If there is no money in the kind of game you describe, why would anyone make it?  If there were, someone would have made it by now.  Nobody is going to designate a game to fail financially just so you can get the kind of game you want.  If you could get 500k+ people who thought the way you do and went to a developer and promised to play the game for at least 2 years, I'm sure you might find one that would agree to develop a game for you, but I think we both know that's just not going to happen.  There probably aren't enough people who want the kind of game you want on the planet to justify a game based on it.  These games take years of development and many millions of dollars, you can't expect someone is going to make a game unless they think they can make their money back and make a profit on top of it.  To expect otherwise is to have extremely unrealistic expectations.

I do understand that. I don't have any expectations or entitlment issues. I guess, I would be happier the other way around, but hey, what can you do. I just hope that I can work something out.

About the GW2 thing... It won't please anyone, especially groupers. With no reason to group, other, than gear, people will group even less. Sad, but true.

Originally posted by Goronian

About the GW2 thing... It won't please anyone, especially groupers. With no reason to group, other, than gear, people will group even less. Sad, but true.

If the only thing that is going to please groupers is forcing everyone playing the game to group, then no, nothing is ever going to please groupers, but that kind of view is entirely unrealistic to begin with.  People who want to group will group simply for the sake of grouping.  If there are few people who want to do that, that's a consequence of holding a minority playstyle, not because of the game.

Simple solution.

Get a party system set up right.

Go to Dungeon or cavern... party up.. you can go whereever u want in that dungeon and kill mob on ur own.. still share exp that is in same dungeon.

/endthread