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Originally posted by strangepower
No point in explaing what MMOG means is there?
It's like complaining that your car using gasoline is unfair becacue your bicycle does not.
Apples and oranges dude.

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nope, which is why when I bought a sailboat and found out it couldn't go as fast as my friends motor boat, i went to the DOT and made it illegal to go more than 10mph on the lake I sail on.

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news. 

Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion. 

 you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that.  the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.

How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.

These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?

No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now".  and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.

They can't make raid story lines or even flashpoints that important to your personal story since, you don't get to actually decide the outcomes, yes you get the points for the decisions you make, but the outcome is based on a dice roll, too many people will be pissed off if those stories have a huge impact on your character. 

Of course everyone is posting about the way they want it. This isn't like someone making a decision like, should I fired X employees or try to cut costs in my business another way. A post on an MMO forum is not about other people it will always be about you. Hence the reason Raiders refuse to see the fairness in letting solo players get the same gear in different ways or why solo players see no point in raiding. All posts about an MMO are about the individuals wants, there is no real "greater good" in an MMO and never has or will be since it is a product that people individually pay for. 

 Nothing you said changes what I'm speaking in regards to,  which is you giving the excuse that somehow BW is at fault for focusing on story and that is the reason people thought that the entire game would be able to be played solo.  I also pointed out that it doesn't seem a correct assumption to make when a vast majority of the comments focus on gear not story.

the issue that had me reply to your post was  not whether people had a right to voice an opinion about something they like/dislike and contrary to what you may believe I see lot's of posters on here who may let it be known they prefer something one way many don't try to make it a rallying point to destroy one feature or another.

Not every poster here makes five posts a month trying to tell people that rmt's are wrong or that raiders shouldn't be catered to or that people shouldn't play mmorpgs solo and just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should excuse it or create reasoning out of thin air as to why they do it.

You are telling me that BW doesn't want all their single player RPG fanbois thinking this will be just like a huge, giant single player RPG with other people in it? Come, on up until recently their PR whole focus has been about story. I'm not saying the signs were not there earlier, but I am saying that BW want people to believe this game is something it is not - different. I'll give them story, but I'm not fooled into thinking they've revolutionized the MMO world with story, instead they've added it to the MMO world, there is a huge difference between designing a game with story as a foundation, which is the impression they've given and adding story to a game with an old foundation, which is what these solo-players are seeing right now. 

Originally posted by azmundai

 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by Creslin321
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level.  This is by and large a solo experience.  Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding.  This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game.  On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this.  Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?

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There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers. 
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game. 
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard. 

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You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.

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Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW. 

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Then which game exactly are you getting the "fact" that raiders will leave if not catered to? And while on the subject .. why wouldn't you leave a game when you preferred playstyle is ignored? It worked out well enough for EQ and EQ2. War, Aion? These didn't have raiding. So again where does your assumption come from and what does any of that have to do with the fact that its 1 game till endgame and another afterwards? Which again is a new development. MMOs used to actually be much more biased towards group mechanics.

imo the solution is even easier than all of this. swtor should me an ORPG not an MMORPG. Its really too bad someone didnt make a really good rpg with a chat box 4 or 5 years ago. instead the industry has diluted down to a game full of lowest common denominator (thats speaking for both casuals and hardcore .. and all of the other icky stereo types).

I've seen huge guild throw fits in the forums of EQ, EQ2, SWG, and even WoW. If you actually read what I read, I'm not saying people should play games that don't cater to their preferences, I'm saying game companies should make games that cater mostly to one preference and not both, as the two can't live harmoniously together.

No game will ever get WoW numbers again, but games that do one thing, and do that one thing well would probably make more money than most games do these days. How many players does Rift have left? I doubt it's more than 300K of the 1.5 million they sold to. That's not bad, but suppose they had been able to keep 500-750K by making a mostly raid game or a mostly solo game. There are now larger niches out there because WoW opened up the MMO world to more peaople, but these people are not all a monolithic block, those who want WoW keep playing WoW, but those who want something else are looking for it and still haven't found it. 

One of the staples of themepark MMOs is having group based endgame progression. Why do people have a hard time accepting that this is just how it is? MMOs are multiplayer games, get used to having to play with other people.

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by Creslin321
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level.  This is by and large a solo experience.  Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding.  This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game.  On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this.  Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?

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There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers. 
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game. 
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard. 

---

 
You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.

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Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW. 

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Then which game exactly are you getting the "fact" that raiders will leave if not catered to? And while on the subject .. why wouldn't you leave a game when you preferred playstyle is ignored? It worked out well enough for EQ and EQ2. War, Aion? These didn't have raiding. So again where does your assumption come from and what does any of that have to do with the fact that its 1 game till endgame and another afterwards? Which again is a new development. MMOs used to actually be much more biased towards group mechanics.
imo the solution is even easier than all of this. swtor should me an ORPG not an MMORPG. Its really too bad someone didnt make a really good rpg with a chat box 4 or 5 years ago. instead the industry has diluted down to a game full of lowest common denominator (thats speaking for both casuals and hardcore .. and all of the other icky stereo types).

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I've seen huge guild throw fits in the forums of EQ, EQ2, SWG, and even WoW. If you actually read what I read, I'm not saying people should play games that don't cater to their preferences, I'm saying game companies should make games that cater mostly to one preference and not both, as the two can't live harmoniously together.
No game will ever get WoW numbers again, but games that do one thing, and do that one thing well would probably make more money than most games do these days. How many players does Rift have left? I doubt it's more than 300K of the 1.5 million they sold to. That's not bad, but suppose they had been able to keep 500-750K by making a mostly raid game or a mostly solo game. There are now larger niches out there because WoW opened up the MMO world to more peaople, but these people are not all a monolithic block, those who want WoW keep playing WoW, but those who want something else are looking for it and still haven't found it. 

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I still think you are overestimating that raiders are somehow more fickle, but anyway, even when games were more "forced groups" oriented, there was still solo content which is part of my point from a previous post a page back. Todays entitlement gaming evolved slowly from games that were all raid/group content games like you speak of except any game needs to have some solo content. The problem is as soon as you let the solo player in and give him a sense of accomplishment, he turns that into a sense of entitlement and before you know it you have the difference between vanilla and cata.\

a game cant be devoid of solo content. sometimes even those of use that would prefer to group most of the time .. want to just bang around in our game in a meaningful, but relaxed way.

but then im of the opinion that an mmo, a true mmo, should be a huge persistent world where there are very few limitations. limiting content just doesn't apply to me. I am the kind of player that plays all aspects of the game, even pvp which I don't particularly love, but can have fun doing .. that being said I don't go into pvp expecting to win, or to get the same gear as the real pvpers get. which brings us a little closer to the topic at hand .. but still pretty far out in left field at this point.

anyway, I dont see separation as a good thing .. but assuming it was going to happen, SWTOR is pretty much already that. You can solo what appears to be 95% of this game. They have stated I believe that they will have a lot of solo endgame content. It just won't be for the best gear .. which shouldn't matter if you aren't doing the hardest content.

if its a problem of pvp .. they will probably just do the resilience thing down the road or something.

If this is the model they're going to have I will be fine with it. I'm more of a solo and pvp player and I think it's ok that raiders get the best "pve" gear. However, I hope that as new patches get released the gear gap between players who raid and those that don't remains the same and doesn't widen.

In other words I hope the devs upgrade gear and recipes across the board and not just predominantly raid and pvp gear.  

Originally posted by Leoghan

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news. 

Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion. 

 you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that.  the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.

How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.

These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?

No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now".  and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.

They can't make raid story lines or even flashpoints that important to your personal story since, you don't get to actually decide the outcomes, yes you get the points for the decisions you make, but the outcome is based on a dice roll, too many people will be pissed off if those stories have a huge impact on your character. 

Of course everyone is posting about the way they want it. This isn't like someone making a decision like, should I fired X employees or try to cut costs in my business another way. A post on an MMO forum is not about other people it will always be about you. Hence the reason Raiders refuse to see the fairness in letting solo players get the same gear in different ways or why solo players see no point in raiding. All posts about an MMO are about the individuals wants, there is no real "greater good" in an MMO and never has or will be since it is a product that people individually pay for. 

 Nothing you said changes what I'm speaking in regards to,  which is you giving the excuse that somehow BW is at fault for focusing on story and that is the reason people thought that the entire game would be able to be played solo.  I also pointed out that it doesn't seem a correct assumption to make when a vast majority of the comments focus on gear not story.

the issue that had me reply to your post was  not whether people had a right to voice an opinion about something they like/dislike and contrary to what you may believe I see lot's of posters on here who may let it be known they prefer something one way many don't try to make it a rallying point to destroy one feature or another.

Not every poster here makes five posts a month trying to tell people that rmt's are wrong or that raiders shouldn't be catered to or that people shouldn't play mmorpgs solo and just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should excuse it or create reasoning out of thin air as to why they do it.

You are telling me that BW doesn't want all their single player RPG fanbois thinking this will be just like a huge, giant single player RPG with other people in it? Come, on up until recently their PR whole focus has been about story. I'm not saying the signs were not there earlier, but I am saying that BW want people to believe this game is something it is not - different. I'll give them story, but I'm not fooled into thinking they've revolutionized the MMO world with story, instead they've added it to the MMO world, there is a huge difference between designing a game with story as a foundation, which is the impression they've given and adding story to a game with an old foundation, which is what these solo-players are seeing right now. 

I'm sorry but I don't hang on every word a dev says but it has been known for months that TOR would have raids (isn't that what the flashpoints are) as a matter of fact I recall hearing months ago that there would be an entire planet dedicated to end game soloing which would indicate that there is some type of content at end game dedicated to grouping.

as stated earlier you are simply trying to add one plus one and say it's eleven.  we get it you don't agree with BW focusing on story but please don't try to connect dots that aren't on the same page.

I'm going to go again back to what started my response to your post BW is not to blame because people wanted to believe that there would not be raiding simply because it's what they wanted the game to be like and making excuses using some feature you aren't happy with doesn't make that true.

These people in the post aren't complaining about story they are complaining because they want equal access to gear how you dragged story into this is beyond me.

Originally posted by azmundai

 

 

because it's been a ridiculously lackluster progression from the times of "forced grouping" to "instant gratification / entitlement gaming"

sure you could level to 60 in vanilla wow, solo, but that was the inefficient path back then. At least 40-50% of the leveling content was group content back then. Also there were tons of quests to do at level 60 so endgame wasn't all about solo content. not to mention the games before that were actually "forced grouping" games and had very little real solo content. In fact at release there was probably more to do solo and way more to do in small group / solo at lvl 60.

Since then the tsunami of casual gamers has buried all but raiding and dungeons. the reason these have survived likely has to do with development time vs the time it takes the average gamer to chew through it.

The real crime imo is that there is virtually nothing left for those of use that prefer the group dynamic except raiding.

I hear what you're saying but like many others it sounds as if you feel as though we solo/small group players are demanding that raiding and group content are abolished, but we're not.  We just want it possible to play through the end-game stories, and earn the gear that raiders have access too.  All-the-while the apparently holy-grail of 8-16man raiding is still available for those that desire that type of gameplay.

This is no different than when in PvP and everyone complains that its not balanced and fair, and demand it be fixed.  And like I posted a few pages back, it wouldn't be difficult for the devs to add an alternate solo/small group version of the raids so we too can experience that content.  It can be just as similar as raiding with a weekly lockout and couldn't be completed in a single run, thus having to come back several days thereafter or not finishing it at all until you figure out the boss strategies to move on.

And lastly all they have to do is put a weekly lock on it as they've been doing for 10/25/40 man raids already.  Once a week you can run the solo/small group version, the 8-man or the 16-man based on your preferences.  Nobody is left out, and the content is there for everyone to play as they choose.  One week I may run into a larger group of players and want to do the 8-man version instead, and who know maybe that 16-man raider can't participate in their run that week or it gets cancelled, but now they would still have the option to go and play the solo version, and still earn some progress that week.

Its not entirely about the gear, but I sure would like to earn some of the better looking flashy gear without being forced into a type of gameplay I don't desire anymore.  There is no reason that only raiders{the lowest % of players} should be allowed access to the best gear and content when the entire game was designed to be solo'd and cater to all types of players.   And its just outright silly for the raider to keep saying that we play/worked the hardest thus we get better rewards ~ you all are just fooling yourselves because raiding is quite simple as you just follow a pattern with on-screen hints and tips.  Its just everyone has to be paying attention to win!

Originally posted by jackbelt20

If this is the model they're going to have I will be fine with it. I'm more of a solo and pvp player and I think it's ok that raiders get the best "pve" gear. However, I hope that as new patches get released the gear gap between players who raid and those that don't remains the same and doesn't widen.

In other words I hope the devs upgrade gear and recipes across the board and not just predominantly raid and pvp gear.  

Same here, from what they've said the PvP gear will be more specialised than that gotten through raiding which in my eyes is fine. Raid gear sounds like it will have more stats in general and PvP gear less but higher value stats. There is also mention that it's the upgrades that affect you more than the actual stats anyway.

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Leoghan

And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news. 

Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion. 

 you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that.  the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.

How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.

These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?

No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now".  and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.

They can't make raid story lines or even flashpoints that important to your personal story since, you don't get to actually decide the outcomes, yes you get the points for the decisions you make, but the outcome is based on a dice roll, too many people will be pissed off if those stories have a huge impact on your character. 

Of course everyone is posting about the way they want it. This isn't like someone making a decision like, should I fired X employees or try to cut costs in my business another way. A post on an MMO forum is not about other people it will always be about you. Hence the reason Raiders refuse to see the fairness in letting solo players get the same gear in different ways or why solo players see no point in raiding. All posts about an MMO are about the individuals wants, there is no real "greater good" in an MMO and never has or will be since it is a product that people individually pay for. 

 Nothing you said changes what I'm speaking in regards to,  which is you giving the excuse that somehow BW is at fault for focusing on story and that is the reason people thought that the entire game would be able to be played solo.  I also pointed out that it doesn't seem a correct assumption to make when a vast majority of the comments focus on gear not story.

the issue that had me reply to your post was  not whether people had a right to voice an opinion about something they like/dislike and contrary to what you may believe I see lot's of posters on here who may let it be known they prefer something one way many don't try to make it a rallying point to destroy one feature or another.

Not every poster here makes five posts a month trying to tell people that rmt's are wrong or that raiders shouldn't be catered to or that people shouldn't play mmorpgs solo and just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should excuse it or create reasoning out of thin air as to why they do it.

You are telling me that BW doesn't want all their single player RPG fanbois thinking this will be just like a huge, giant single player RPG with other people in it? Come, on up until recently their PR whole focus has been about story. I'm not saying the signs were not there earlier, but I am saying that BW want people to believe this game is something it is not - different. I'll give them story, but I'm not fooled into thinking they've revolutionized the MMO world with story, instead they've added it to the MMO world, there is a huge difference between designing a game with story as a foundation, which is the impression they've given and adding story to a game with an old foundation, which is what these solo-players are seeing right now. 

I'm sorry but I don't hang on every word a dev says but it has been known for months that TOR would have raids (isn't that what the flashpoints are) as a matter of fact I recall hearing months ago that there would be an entire planet dedicated to end game soloing which would indicate that there is some type of content at end game dedicated to grouping.

as stated earlier you are simply trying to add one plus one and say it's eleven.  we get it you don't agree with BW focusing on story but please don't try to connect dots that aren't on the same page.

I'm going to go again back to what started my response to your post BW is not to blame because people wanted to believe that there would not be raiding simply because it's what they wanted the game to be like and making excuses using some feature you aren't happy with doesn't make that true.

These people in the post aren't complaining about story they are complaining because they want equal access to gear how you dragged story into this is beyond me.

Of course they've talked about raids, but at the same time they talked about raids they announced a solo planet for end game. They want people to believe that this game is KoTOR 3, 4, 5 and 6 all in one big game, in fact Devs have even used that analogy. Now these people who saw what they wanted are finding out things that they don't want to see and complaining, big surprise. 

How you cannot equate BW with single player story driven games is beyond me, have you not played a BW product before? Read half of the "Yay SWTOR" threads and all people talk about is how awesome the story is going to be, I haven't seen anyone say - "f*** yeah Raids!", and since we know that group stories can't have a huge impact on your characters personal story then it is not stretch to see where people have been hoping this wouldn't be a game that turned into huge group content at the end. Was it a realisitic hope, clearly not, but there is plenty of reason for them to have had those hopes and plenty of those reasons come from BW's own PR. 

Originally posted by azmundai

 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by Creslin321
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level.  This is by and large a solo experience.  Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding.  This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game.  On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this.  Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?

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There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers. 
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game. 
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard. 

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You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.

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Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW. 

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Then which game exactly are you getting the "fact" that raiders will leave if not catered to? And while on the subject .. why wouldn't you leave a game when you preferred playstyle is ignored? It worked out well enough for EQ and EQ2. War, Aion? These didn't have raiding. So again where does your assumption come from and what does any of that have to do with the fact that its 1 game till endgame and another afterwards? Which again is a new development. MMOs used to actually be much more biased towards group mechanics.
imo the solution is even easier than all of this. swtor should me an ORPG not an MMORPG. Its really too bad someone didnt make a really good rpg with a chat box 4 or 5 years ago. instead the industry has diluted down to a game full of lowest common denominator (thats speaking for both casuals and hardcore .. and all of the other icky stereo types).

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I've seen huge guild throw fits in the forums of EQ, EQ2, SWG, and even WoW. If you actually read what I read, I'm not saying people should play games that don't cater to their preferences, I'm saying game companies should make games that cater mostly to one preference and not both, as the two can't live harmoniously together.
No game will ever get WoW numbers again, but games that do one thing, and do that one thing well would probably make more money than most games do these days. How many players does Rift have left? I doubt it's more than 300K of the 1.5 million they sold to. That's not bad, but suppose they had been able to keep 500-750K by making a mostly raid game or a mostly solo game. There are now larger niches out there because WoW opened up the MMO world to more peaople, but these people are not all a monolithic block, those who want WoW keep playing WoW, but those who want something else are looking for it and still haven't found it. 

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I still think you are overestimating that raiders are somehow more fickle, but anyway, even when games were more "forced groups" oriented, there was still solo content which is part of my point from a previous post a page back. Todays entitlement gaming evolved slowly from games that were all raid/group content games like you speak of except any game needs to have some solo content. The problem is as soon as you let the solo player in and give him a sense of accomplishment, he turns that into a sense of entitlement and before you know it you have the difference between vanilla and cata.\

a game cant be devoid of solo content. sometimes even those of use that would prefer to group most of the time .. want to just bang around in our game in a meaningful, but relaxed way.

but then im of the opinion that an mmo, a true mmo, should be a huge persistent world where there are very few limitations. limiting content just doesn't apply to me. I am the kind of player that plays all aspects of the game, even pvp which I don't particularly love, but can have fun doing .. that being said I don't go into pvp expecting to win, or to get the same gear as the real pvpers get. which brings us a little closer to the topic at hand .. but still pretty far out in left field at this point.

anyway, I dont see separation as a good thing .. but assuming it was going to happen, SWTOR is pretty much already that. You can solo what appears to be 95% of this game. They have stated I believe that they will have a lot of solo endgame content. It just won't be for the best gear .. which shouldn't matter if you aren't doing the hardest content.

if its a problem of pvp .. they will probably just do the resilience thing down the road or something.

You are still missing my point. Solo player complain and rage quit too, but because they do it as individuals they don't appear to have as big an impact, I doubt that there is much difference in a games retention numbers between players who tend toward solo and players who tend towards group/raid content in games that divide the content from start game to end game, it is just that on the forums, where guilds tend to be more active any way, it appears that raiders have more pull. I would imagine in game polls have proven otherwise, but few companies do them. 

You point out that SWTOR is already divided and I don't disagree, what I disagree with is that what's pissing some people off in this specific thread is not that it is divided, but in fact that it divided the content from start game to end game. Had they made a game where 95% of the content through out the entire game is solo-story friendly, I doubt these posters would be complaining. Now if end game was still solo friendly would raiders be complaining? Probably. 

You see the problem is not so much the divide itself, but taking a game that has X as a focus and then shifting that focus at end game to the opposite side of the specturm. If a game had 95% of it's lower level content as raiding and then the last 5% (end game) was soloing we'd see the same kinds of problems. 

Originally posted by Leoghan

Originally posted by azmundai

 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by azmundai
 

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Originally posted by Leoghan

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Originally posted by Creslin321
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level.  This is by and large a solo experience.  Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding.  This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game.  On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this.  Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?

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There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers. 
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game. 
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard. 

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You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.

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Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW. 

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Then which game exactly are you getting the "fact" that raiders will leave if not catered to? And while on the subject .. why wouldn't you leave a game when you preferred playstyle is ignored? It worked out well enough for EQ and EQ2. War, Aion? These didn't have raiding. So again where does your assumption come from and what does any of that have to do with the fact that its 1 game till endgame and another afterwards? Which again is a new development. MMOs used to actually be much more biased towards group mechanics.
imo the solution is even easier than all of this. swtor should me an ORPG not an MMORPG. Its really too bad someone didnt make a really good rpg with a chat box 4 or 5 years ago. instead the industry has diluted down to a game full of lowest common denominator (thats speaking for both casuals and hardcore .. and all of the other icky stereo types).

---

I've seen huge guild throw fits in the forums of EQ, EQ2, SWG, and even WoW. If you actually read what I read, I'm not saying people should play games that don't cater to their preferences, I'm saying game companies should make games that cater mostly to one preference and not both, as the two can't live harmoniously together.
No game will ever get WoW numbers again, but games that do one thing, and do that one thing well would probably make more money than most games do these days. How many players does Rift have left? I doubt it's more than 300K of the 1.5 million they sold to. That's not bad, but suppose they had been able to keep 500-750K by making a mostly raid game or a mostly solo game. There are now larger niches out there because WoW opened up the MMO world to more peaople, but these people are not all a monolithic block, those who want WoW keep playing WoW, but those who want something else are looking for it and still haven't found it. 

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I still think you are overestimating that raiders are somehow more fickle, but anyway, even when games were more "forced groups" oriented, there was still solo content which is part of my point from a previous post a page back. Todays entitlement gaming evolved slowly from games that were all raid/group content games like you speak of except any game needs to have some solo content. The problem is as soon as you let the solo player in and give him a sense of accomplishment, he turns that into a sense of entitlement and before you know it you have the difference between vanilla and cata.\

a game cant be devoid of solo content. sometimes even those of use that would prefer to group most of the time .. want to just bang around in our game in a meaningful, but relaxed way.

but then im of the opinion that an mmo, a true mmo, should be a huge persistent world where there are very few limitations. limiting content just doesn't apply to me. I am the kind of player that plays all aspects of the game, even pvp which I don't particularly love, but can have fun doing .. that being said I don't go into pvp expecting to win, or to get the same gear as the real pvpers get. which brings us a little closer to the topic at hand .. but still pretty far out in left field at this point.

anyway, I dont see separation as a good thing .. but assuming it was going to happen, SWTOR is pretty much already that. You can solo what appears to be 95% of this game. They have stated I believe that they will have a lot of solo endgame content. It just won't be for the best gear .. which shouldn't matter if you aren't doing the hardest content.

if its a problem of pvp .. they will probably just do the resilience thing down the road or something.

You are still missing my point. Solo player complain and rage quit too, but because they do it as individuals they don't appear to have as big an impact, I doubt that there is much difference in a games retention numbers between players who tend toward solo and players who tend towards group/raid content in games that divide the content from start game to end game, it is just that on the forums, where guilds tend to be more active any way, it appears that raiders have more pull. I would imagine in game polls have proven otherwise, but few companies do them. 

You point out that SWTOR is already divided and I don't disagree, what I disagree with is that what's pissing some people off in this specific thread is not that it is divided, but in fact that it divided the content from start game to end game. Had they made a game where 95% of the content through out the entire game is solo-story friendly, I doubt these posters would be complaining. Now if end game was still solo friendly would raiders be complaining? Probably. 

You see the problem is not so much the divide itself, but taking a game that has X as a focus and then shifting that focus at end game to the opposite side of the specturm. If a game had 95% of it's lower level content as raiding and then the last 5% (end game) was soloing we'd see the same kinds of problems. 

if the game isnt entirely solo friendly thats not a bad thing.. to make up for it.. you can do the group content with just 2 people, if you are using companions.. so even the billy no mates of this world .. won't have to struggle too hard..

It's been said umpteen million times... if you want an equal single player experience, go play an RPG.  

Welcome to MMORPGs where you have to play with other players, god forbid.

Stop qq'ing about raids getting the best gear.

Such a sad, sad argument that never seems to die...

Originally posted by Leoghan

Of course they've talked about raids, but at the same time they talked about raids they announced a solo planet for end game. They want people to believe that this game is KoTOR 3, 4, 5 and 6 all in one big game, in fact Devs have even used that analogy. Now these people who saw what they wanted are finding out things that they don't want to see and complaining, big surprise. 

How you cannot equate BW with single player story driven games is beyond me, have you not played a BW product before? Read half of the "Yay SWTOR" threads and all people talk about is how awesome the story is going to be, I haven't seen anyone say - "f*** yeah Raids!", and since we know that group stories can't have a huge impact on your characters personal story then it is not stretch to see where people have been hoping this wouldn't be a game that turned into huge group content at the end. Was it a realisitic hope, clearly not, but there is plenty of reason for them to have had those hopes and plenty of those reasons come from BW's own PR. 

I'm kind of surprised how many people are so off with their estimations of how a game will be, people should know better after years of playing MMO's, the base mechanics of an MMO should be evident.

Regarding SWTOR, of course they added story immersion, mostly witnessed via questing features, and to a lesser degree in things like flashpoints, warzones and operations. But of course there's also a limit to it, like everyone who knows how quests work should know.

Also, of course the addition of more immersive story questing won't change the core mechanics of an MMO from what they are: raiding, pvp arenas, open world pvp, dungeons, at their core they're what people have experienced them to be in other MMO's, only with its own distinctions and variations and maybe packaged differently. But still (themepark) MMO gameplay.

All this should be no surprise.

As for how the different aspects, when witnessing other forums, it's also obvious that the Operations/raiding part is more liked by raiders, the PvP elements by PvP'ers and the story questing by those who're fond of questing in an MMO. Depending upon how individual persons regard those other MMO features they'll be less thrilled about them, or equally when they like PvP next to story questing or raiding next to pvp.

Originally posted by Dianic

It's been said umpteen million times... if you want an equal single player experience, go play an RPG.  

Welcome to MMORPGs where you have to play with other players, god forbid.

Stop qq'ing about raids getting the best gear.

Such a sad, sad argument that never seems to die...

i can think of many reasons not to play this game, but .. group content focus definitely isnt one of them.. encouraging players to form groups, and making it easier for them to do so.. is commendable.. its not like there are heavy requirements for groups... perhaps by playing, some of these 'solo' players will discover that playing with other people actually makes a game much more fun.. radical i know

Originally posted by Rednecksith

Only reason I'd ever want raid gear anyway is because it usually looks better than the cobbled-together hodgepodge of dungeon/quest rewards most players end up with at endgame.

Amen.

As in real life, it is astounding what you can get a human to do for a bit of colored ribbon.

If we didn't care about these things, we would still be playing text-adventure MUD's and Barbie would not be a multi-billion dollar business.

Thirty years ago I hand painted and sculpted our D&D figures because we do care what our character looks like.

Ive had an account for years and have never felt the need to log in and post anything except on the subject of solo play in MMO. MMORPG's is a genre desigined to require you play with mulitple people. Pre WoW mmo players and might I add true MMO players didnt play MMOs for instant gratification. They new before even starting any MMO that anything i want will take time. I will have to spend qaulity game time trying to obtain it and it will take me hours with a group to do it ands maybe in a year if im fortunate enough to have a great guild. I will have the best armor, the most awsome sword. the most powerful magics and everyone will know just by checking on me what i went through to get and others will respect me for having put in the time an effort to obtain it. I will suffur long hours and late nights and maybe even a few fights with my wife or girlfriend but I will apreciate it everytime i log in and see what i have.

  Let me ask and spell this out. Why would you insist on playing an Massive Multiplayer Oline Role Playing Game and then complain about not being able to solo more? I would never spend my money on a console RPG game and complain about theres noone to party with. ITS STUPID and would show my complete ignorance as to what i was paying for and why im paying for it.

I beg you Solo players to return to your console RPG games where you can do everything you want without the restrictuions of needing other people and stop ruining my reason for Playing MMOs.

I will get flamed, most of you that comment on this in that way wont understand what im even saying but i ask the community of True MMO players to start standing together and lets take back our Genre and get it back to the way it was.  I want a game developer to make me work hard for my rewards. Make me spend hours accomplishing a single goal and create unique individual classes that i must depend on and them me so that i may make great friends and help build and be part of an amazing community

OP: you like PVP and you like raiding, so don't see what your problem is as both are non-solo play so you'll be just fine.

I only wonder are high end gear/weapons bind on equip or bind on pickup or are they tradeble??

Me as a solo player don't mind that the best gear to pvp or do raids come from actually doing pvp or raids, so for my pve pleasure I seem good enough without from what I read. Why should I have the best gear or weapons if I merly pve in the first place.

Overall this is a MMORPG and not some singleplayer game, so it's obvious to me that people who do raids or pvp will get better gear/weapons then I get from mainly pve'ing and perhaps doing it solo.

I just don't get topics like this even though I have become a more solo player I still understand I am playing and enjoying a MMORPG that has options and some options I like and play and some I can do without or simply ignore.

But then again it's populair to just complain as we use to see news from this game where many felt it was more like a solo-singleplayer game and now that they annouched allot of group content we get people that begin to complain about the lack of solo options.

There will never be a game where 100% of it's community likes 100% of the game, there will always be things people might like and things people might dislike.

 I personally would like to see a game one day that completely alienates "solo" players..  I have been in games in the past, that offer exp bonuses for teaming, and I would see someone obviously doing the same quest or  whatever, and they refuse to group because they are "solo" players.. It just kills the experience for me, I would prefer to group and start making regular teammates from level 1 if I could.  Solo players are like terrorists infiltrating multiplayer games and forcing me to solo until everyone is forced to group..  I hope oneday theres a game that its impossible to kill a single monster the same level as you solo.. of course I realize once the population dwindled it would fail because there would need to be a healthy population..

But surely there is some balance.. I mean if I have to play alone all the time, there is NOTHING IN ANY MMO THAT COMPARES / BEATS TO THE AVAILABLE SINGLE PLAYER EXPERIENCE IN AAA TITLES..  so WHY pay monthy or play a really bare bones solo experience, to never group?

Its like a religion, some people ive met are so fanatical about soloing, even if there are huge bonuses for teaming.. Its like go play a BETTER game thats single player and stop wasting my time because I am looking for a teammate...

Originally posted by Desias

Ive had an account for years and have never felt the need to log in and post anything except on the subject of solo play in MMO. MMORPG's is a genre desigined to require you play with mulitple people. Pre WoW mmo players and might I add true MMO players didnt play MMOs for instant gratification. They new before even starting any MMO that anything i want will take time. I will have to spend qaulity game time trying to obtain it and it will take me hours with a group to do it ands maybe in a year if im fortunate enough to have a great guild. I will have the best armor, the most awsome sword. the most powerful magics and everyone will know just by checking on me what i went through to get and others will respect me for having put in the time an effort to obtain it. I will suffur long hours and late nights and maybe even a few fights with my wife or girlfriend but I will apreciate it everytime i log in and see what i have.

*snip*

And next patch, when they release new and better gear, you get to do it all over again, because all those shinnies just became next to worthless. Getting in fights with the girlfriend or the wife over a game? Looks like you need to take a break, step back and take a really hard look at WTF it is that you're doing. It's a virtual game with virtual respect, it means nothing in real life.