Originally posted by phantomghost

Originally posted by StoneRoses

Originally posted by phantomghost

So everyone should experiance Kiss, The Rolling Stones, or The Beatles before they start listening to any other band or artist? I bet you anything the feeling would be the same. Same feeling different generation.

You are simply using a slippery slope argument.  And terribly at that.  What my statement would be using your argument would be, everyone should experience Kiss, The Rolling Stones, or the Beatles before they start complaining about how terrible it is.

"But the fact is, players who have only been through the themepark genre of games would not know what it was like prior. "

 

You were refering to the Classics were you not?

I played those same games and still don't feel the need to complain about them.

If you read my post I did state you experienced them, I am not doubting you did.  You also said you are a soloer.  You also said you enjoyed soloing on group based games.  Games out now are suited to soloing.  So no you would not be complaining, you had it good in all scenarios.

However, the people who do enjoy grouping are complaining because we are not receiving the content we want.  As I stated you can get your solo fix from a group game because there is always the ability to solo.  But when soloing is the easiest and best path, it makes grouping pointless, and we want grouping to not be pointless, we want it to be more efficient.

 

 

I never claim to be anything!

Neither a soloer or a grouper.

I'm sorry I don't know where you read that in any of my post.

It's worth adding to discussion: The best mmorpg experiences or even some of the best gaming has been in groups in mmorpgs during "open pvp" ambushing other groups. 

Groups when the conditions and the players all stack up are the best of mmorpgs imo. But that's a lot of ifs and specific conditions also and does not preclude some fun solo gameplay.

Eg even scenario pvp can be v good for groups. So some of the requirements are met:

1. Group gameplay > individual for the context

2. Agreement/coordination on roles/delegation or chain of command

3. Requirements for group > solo (eg risk/loss win/gains)

etc. Soaking up the victory or hurtin' after a big wipe... 

I never claim to be anything!

Neither a soloer or a grouper.

I'm sorry I don't know where you read that in any of my post.

So you are just arguing to be arguing?  I do not see why you would argue with everyone who supports group content if you prefer group content.  Other than the fact that you are simply just trolling.

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by Vesavius

 Terrible article that accuses the readers that see things differently of 'bitching', as a cheap way of dismissing their perspective, when the whole thing was one long 'bitch'.

MMORPG.com used to be better then this kind of official troll piece.

 

The 'hatred' you dsecribe may well have been due to the fact that soloers have whined these games into a super casual anti-social soulless selfish shells of what they once were.

Well now you've gone and proved the OP is about something that does indeed happen, and deserves a counter which is of the same vitriol.

 

The point I am making Distopia, which you ofc have missed, is that it isn't a good thing for MMORPG.com articles to feed the vitriol.

If you think that it's the place of the staff writers to flame the user base to encourage response then I doi not know what to say to you.

I pretty much agree. It's nothing but a massive troll post and any normal user would most likely have been banned for it.

But then again all these articles I view as massive troll posts. They write up some opinion piece, but never come back to defend their viewpoint, which is troll posting 101.

There is room for solo play as well as group play in MMOs.  Not really a strange concept actually.

What I find interesting is some in this thread make strong statements regarding how "developers goof things up by catering to solo play", yet don't provide any tangible examples of that.  They just state the complaint.

Someone give a real, tangible example of an implementation in the MMO genre that went TOO FAR, turning an entire game world's progression path into solo play, destroying group play.

Anyone?  What game?  Specifically.

Not an emo driven whine that says "I like group play so I don't want solo play in a game at all!", or conversely "I like solo play so screw group play!".

For me the examples would be:  WoW, after BC released.  World mobs nerfed into solo-ability to promote fast levelling into outland.  LOTRO for some period of time in a class imbalance issue with Hunters (IMO).  Runes of Magic with a broken and unfettered enhancement paradigm allowing any toon, particularly lowbies, to become godlike.

In none of those cases did I see a design intent to pit solo play against group play in those games however. 

In the end ANY MMO must support both modes of play.   

As to the "But, but, no WAY should soloer's get as good gear as groupers!" argument:  This is debateable, even though I only generally agree with the principle.

Group Play: 

It is not a given that just because someone made it through an instance in a group they arbitrarily earned the right to "the best gear/rewards" over a solo player IMO.

Group encounters allow people to be carried by others.  To allow people to "milk" (even if unintentionally) their way to "best gear" by virtue of that dynamic.  It does not guarantee good play by every member of the Raid/Party.  It demands a different set of skill sets as a human player, a different mode of thinking.  If you can't make that adjustment you WILL suck, and suck badly, at being a Raider / group play person, constantly being carried by the group and the back filling / protecting by your team mates.

Solo Play:

Demands a different set of skill sets as a human player, a different mode of thinking. 

Your worst Raid members are the ass-hats who insist on running around playing as if still solo (e.g. wiping the raid, not managing aggro, breaking cc, running ahead into mobs, etc.),

The worst solo players you'll ever observe are those who simply cannot function on their own (e.g. don't know what peeling is, how cc can be creatively used, what kiting is, just can't do anything but stand there flat-footing windmilling their arms hoping a healer will walk by).

Typically provides restricted reward opportunities due to the (general) bias against solo play for "best" gear.  Personally, I feel this is a mistaken situation.  There is opportunity to provide for more rewards for solo play.

Historical Example (out of WoW):

Hunter Epic Quest.  Chain started from a chance-drop out of Major Domo's chest in Molten Core, just before Ragnaros the final boss.

The quest chain was quite difficult.  Solo only.  My recollection is, I think, you couldn't even use your pet.  You had to kill five demon bosses spawned up in the world, and those freakers were TOUGH, I'd say along the lines of instance bosses.

Now, you think about that, because I'm not exaggerating here.  The Hunter class epic quest was THE most difficult of the class epic quests in WoW. Each boss had a very specific profile, specific weaknesses, timings, etc., and some of the fights to take one down took a good number of minutes to take down.  Huge HP pools.  Bar none, the single most difficult challenge I've ever conquered in any game.  And I didn't cheat to beat it, like so many others did.  I did the deed myself after significant preparations, expense in-game, and a ton of kiting practise.

And I'm not talking stand at a target dummy mash my macros practise.  Kiting with tight distance control, strafe shooting or jump shooting.  Shot timings to ensure when shot (X) needed to go I didn't putz it up.

Some of those bosses were easier than others. Some were brutal however.  Those combat scenarios PUSHED Hunters to the max.  You either had to be "a natural" or you had to bust your BUTT practicing over and over to perfect attack timings.

And the rewards for besting a Solo encouter?  At the time THE BEST Bow and Staff in the game for Hunters, bar none. Rok'Delar and Lok'Delar.

Earned.  Solo. 

The downfall of that dynamic?

I feel it was probably a progressive thing with more than one factor.  IMO those factors were:

The scenarios were HARD.  Many players weren't capable and/or gave up.  But, of course, those that gave up still lusted after the top-end gear that was the reward for superb Hunter play.

Because of the difficulty some worked at finding cheats, and got other Hunters (geared out and experienced with the scenarios) to do the kills for them. 

Because of the difficulty people wanted the quests to be changed, to include HELP FROM OTHERS, because of course things are easier with others.

I'd like to see more solo play in MMOs.  Some with great gear rewards. But if the rewards are going to be "great", meaning they might be competative or near competative with Raid Gear, then the challenges would have to be as hard as what we saw in WoW's Hunter Epic quest, otherwise it's sort of a slap in the face to Raid teams working in Instances.

I love gaming and have the belief there IS room for real challenges at a solo level. Instead of dumbing everything down to a homogenized state.  Creativity can be had in solo scenario design just as much as in group play designs.

The problem?  "Homogenization" of the genre is most elegantly seen in restricting "real" challenges to group play.  In instances.  And that's Ok, it's not that it's bad all by itself.  If a Raid does in fact take down the Evil Bill Murphy Boss (heh-heh, /waves at the towering horned figure), well, rewards are due.

But that shouldn't be an automatic declaration the exclusion of top-tier techique challenge scenarios on a solo basis is right.  Because it's not.

One of the reasons "group play" instances have become the norm for homogenizing "end game" challenges is that mechanism is most forgiving of dumb-play and the stupids, while still getting a chance at great gear.  By being carried by the Raid.  That's not a cut at anyone, that's just a simple game play dynamics statement I've observed first hand countless times.

The trick to solo challenges like the legacy WoW Hunter Epic quest is to construct them in a way where they can't be ez-moded through with cheats. 

Solo Play and Group Play aren't dynamics that should be in contention.  To me they go hand-in-hand, both should exist, and both should have reprersentative rewards based on their respective difficulty levels.

Originally posted by Silverbranch

There is room for solo play as well as group play in MMOs.  Not really a strange concept actually.

What I find interesting is some in this thread make strong statements regarding how "developers goof things up by catering to solo play", yet don't provide any tangible examples of that.  They just state the complaint.

Someone give a real, tangible example of an implementation in the MMO genre that went TOO FAR, turning an entire game world's progression path into solo play, destroying group play.

Originally posted by phantomghost

Originally posted by Silverbranch

There is room for solo play as well as group play in MMOs.  Not really a strange concept actually.

What I find interesting is some in this thread make strong statements regarding how "developers goof things up by catering to solo play", yet don't provide any tangible examples of that.  They just state the complaint.

Someone give a real, tangible example of an implementation in the MMO genre that went TOO FAR, turning an entire game world's progression path into solo play, destroying group play.

Sorry for double post but I could not type outside of the Quoted part after deleting the majority of it.

Any themepark game is my example.

As I stated earlier, mob profiling caters to solo play.  By this I mean normal, elite, champion, strong... whatever they choose to use.  This allows a solo player to know whether this mob is meant for them or not.  There is no need to try things.  The concept of overkill does not apply any more because people already know the challenge before they start.  They do not see a unmarked named and gather a whole group to attempt it, to find out it drops nothing.  They see a named and it is a normal mob so they solo it and get gear for it.

Now, one thing did not specifically destroy the group play.  It is more the implementation of making solo play more viable than group play that did this.  And that is many things such as, low risk high reward quests, mob profiling, dungeons where mobs are mostly set in place ( rare roamers make it so everything is forseeable no possibility of adds)  every class has some form of Crowd control. The lack of punishment for death.  I do not consider paying a little gold probably the amount you make in 5 minutes on dying 10-25x as a penalty.  But having to run back with out your gear, run through mobs, run through 10 zones... is challenging. 

So my examples:

Mob Profiling: Designates the difficulties of mobs, allows players to not experiment.  There is no unknown.  Mobs level is displayed, no more knowing it is just higher level, you now know exactly how high.

Crowd Control: Who does not have crown control these days.  Crowd control use to be a viable and necessary group requirement.  Whether it was cc through pulling (prior to combat) or cc during combat by stopping mobs movement or their ability to attack)  This also gave the tank a greater role as they had to watch agro of all members (cc now does not even cause great threat)

Questing: Rewards are too easy for the effort put in.  You are continuosly geared to move on to the next level by the time you hit that level.  There is no more farming to be able to move on required. (No progression)

PvP gear: Nearly as good as its counterpart pve gear that requires grouping or raiding to get.

Death Penalty: Nearly non existent, no more worrying about dying because you are exploring or trying something.  Hell people will die because it saves them time of running.

Skills, spells and abilities:  There is really no need to go and farm for these at all.  You just simply go to a trainer and pay a fee to learn all the abilities.  Limits the amount of grouping in a camp to farm for something to turn in for a spell or a discipline.

Group Roles:  No more need to have different group types such as a standard group tank dps healer cc etc.  No more kiting groups.  No more anything... all groups that are formed are simple one form: Tank ,Healer, dps.

Rest Ability/Potions: After each fight it can take upwards of 15 seconds to be max health, stamina, endurance, mana or whatever.  There is no downtime involved because you solo.  The group play that  allows you to continuously kill is no longer necessary as you can continuosly kill while soloing

Buffs: Everybody has them now, there is no need to want a person in your group specifically because they have a buff that will make your job easier.  Sure you could always get buffed before going to the camp... but what if it is such a great group that you are there for hours and hours because the xp is just rolling in.  Well, you either had to leave to go get it, slowing the xp down, risking losing your camp, or you went without it.

Simple: Hard to explain so I will give an example.  By the time I reach the level I can use a mount, I have the money for it.  This is true in almost all cases, the only one it was not was WoW epic flying mount.  It took me about 1 day after reaching max level to obtain that 5.2k.  There is no need to farm for money, items, spells, anything that could be used to make a profit.

I could probably think of many more reasons. But can you do the same?  Can you tell me how solo content promotes grouping?

I cant see how soloers could destroy mmo's.Well in a way they do since they leav the games when reaching level cap and everything after that is boring group/raid based gear grinding.

So this is why the game servers go from hevy load with que's to light a month after game release and server merge as a resault.

Anyway you cant realy blame the soloers for leaving a game when it has nothing more to offer can you?

Stupid title.  Soloers are well known destroyers of MMO's.  

Why do you think all the latest games are boing to tears, everything is soloable.

If you can't figure that out, I feel sorry for you.

I am not surprised by all the people agreeing with the OP.

If you had a time machine and went back to Nazi Germany, and asked who the bad guys were, the answer wouldnt have been the Nazi's

but in a way I guess they are right soloers dont destroy MMO's, They have Destroyed MMO's. All they are now are Single player RPG's with a chat box.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Stupid title.  Soloers are well known destroyers of MMO's.  

Why do you think all the latest games are boing to tears, everything is soloable.

If you can't figure that out, I feel sorry for you.

 I have never seen a mmo where everything is soloable.Sure leveling is soloable but it wont reward you with anything but levels.And that is why game servers are empty from population after 1-2 months since the people who like to solo cancel their account.

You will see games in the near future with loads of soloable endgame content since dev's are finally starting to understand why 80% of the population leavs after the first month.

Originally posted by Vidir

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Stupid title.  Soloers are well known destroyers of MMO's.  

Why do you think all the latest games are boing to tears, everything is soloable.

If you can't figure that out, I feel sorry for you.

 I have never seen a mmo where everything is soloable.Sure leveling is soloable but it wont reward you with anything but levels.And that is why game servers are empty from population after 1-2 months since the people who like to solo cancel their account.

You will see games in the near future with loads of soloable endgame content since dev's are finally starting to understand why 80% of the population leavs after the first month.

 

I actually always quit because of the lack of necessity to group and raid.  I can get past the soloing to level even though I hate it, but I cannot get past the fact that soloing for gear is much more efficient than raiding for gear.  And then finally when raiders do become full geared, the difference in stats is minimal... maybe 30hp or mana more per item if that.

So my fully raid geared char may have 22.4k hp and my fully geared same character in his pvp gear that I soloed for has 22.1k hp  The only difference is the pvp gear is very usable in PVE and it also is much more usable in PvP than the PvE gear is.

I could probably think of many more reasons. But can you do the same?  Can you tell me how solo content promotes grouping?

 

The point is Solo Content isn't necessarily in contention with grouping.  That's the point.

People get on these slogan based bandwagons stating "solo play impedes group play", when the point to my post was it can peacefully co-exist.

Your other examples were ambiguous.  How does "a game made progression and gear acquisition too easy" relate to a differentiator to group or solo play?  Same with mob profiling and questing?  Mob profiling can either support solo or grop play, this is seen continuously.

Again, my point was that "solo play" as a design, isn't what's killed any games.  None that I ever played.  AC2, WoW, War, EvE, LOTRO, RoM, Rift.  I feel those games eventually suffered from a basic case of age/old-hat for me. AC2 was shut down, Rift simply clarified into a thinly veiled binary grind-mobile, RoM was riddled with terrible cheating and twinking breakages. 

Otherwise, WoWs progression path simply got too long for me, if you will, with Ghostcrawlers direction for the game when he took over unpalatable to me.  Not that it was solo play versus group.  Warhammer just didn't have the population.  EvE is great, but a bit "cold" in atmosphere.

Originally posted by Silverbranch

I could probably think of many more reasons. But can you do the same?  Can you tell me how solo content promotes grouping?

 

The point is Solo Content isn't necessarily in contention with grouping.  That's the point.

People get on these slogan based bandwagons stating "solo play impedes group play", when the point to my post was it can peacefully co-exist.

Your other examples were ambiguous.  How does "a game made progression and gear acquisition too easy" relate to a differentiator to group or solo play?  Same with mob profiling and questing?  Mob profiling can either support solo or grop play, this is seen continuously.

Again, my point was that "solo play" as a design, isn't what's killed any games.  None that I ever played.  AC2, WoW, War, EvE, LOTRO, RoM, Rift.  I feel those games eventually suffered from a basic case of age/old-hat for me. AC2 was shut down, Rift simply clarified into a thinly veiled binary grind-mobile, RoM was riddled with terrible cheating and twinking breakages. 

Otherwise, WoWs progression path simply got too long for me, if you will, with Ghostcrawlers direction for the game when he took over unpalatable to me.  Not that it was solo play versus group.  Warhammer just didn't have the population.  EvE is great, but a bit "cold" in atmosphere.

Mob profiling does help solo and group... but that is the problem... it is not necessary.  A mob should not be stated to tell us it is solo, group or raid mob.  You should have to figure this out on your own.  My point was everything tied together made it less group oriented.  The fact that mobs are indentifiable as to what they are, and the fact that there is no penalty to dying, and the fact that groups are all made from the same tank, healer dps forumla all play a role in making grouping pointless. 

If I can level up much faster by soloing, why would I want to group?   Most of us that want the grouping are looking to do high end raiding.  So, in order to get there most will go to whatever means is fastest.  If you intend on soloing you you probably are not looking into high end raiding.  So, there is no rush to get there, but the problem is you do not need to raid to be just as good as somebody who is raiding. 

Also, you are not even playing the games that we consider group oriented, you have done nothing but played games that we consider solo oriented.  So, you will never really know what we mean... until somebody makes a game that suits us... then you will understand and you will become one of us.

All your argument are not valid unless you have tried both scenarios.  It would be like saying you do not like a food before you have ever even tasted it.  You are just making an assumption, based on nothing.  We are making assumptions based on our experiences in both games.

If you never played a group oriented game how do you know you would not like the solo play in it?

Me having played group oriented and themepark genre, I know I do not like themepark because it does not promote socializing, grouping, or anything I would consider a challenge.  And do not come back with there you go with challenge, there is nothing challenging with a game.   The time and effort is the challenge.  Some will withstand the challenge, others will not.  Those others are you soloers who want everything handed to you.

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Amana

Please respond to the actual content of the article and not flame the writer. We will always have content that someone doesn't agree with and that is fine if it's presented in a civil manner.

 

The thing is that the article actually flames those that don't agree with the writer's PoV by accusing them of simply 'bitching' etc.

Having content that I don't agree with is fine, but the writer needs to watch her tone and how she refers to others IMO.

It shouldn't be acceptable for her to be able to criticise us and dismiss our views with cheap digs and us not be able to return the favour.

 so, the writers have to watch how they talk to others, but you don't?

go re-read your post history....

Originally posted by Zairu

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Amana

Please respond to the actual content of the article and not flame the writer. We will always have content that someone doesn't agree with and that is fine if it's presented in a civil manner.

 

The thing is that the article actually flames those that don't agree with the writer's PoV by accusing them of simply 'bitching' etc.

Having content that I don't agree with is fine, but the writer needs to watch her tone and how she refers to others IMO.

It shouldn't be acceptable for her to be able to criticise us and dismiss our views with cheap digs and us not be able to return the favour.

 so, the writers have to watch how they talk to others, but you don't?

go re-read your post history....

 

 

   Good point Zairu. +1   

Originally posted by phantomghost

Originally posted by Vidir

Originally posted by Ozmodan

 

my fully geared same character in his pvp gear that I soloed for has 22.1k hp 

how do you 'solo' a 'Player vs Player' gear set?

maybe i'm just confused as to how pvp works in whatever game you are referencing.

Originally posted by Zairu

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Amana

Please respond to the actual content of the article and not flame the writer. We will always have content that someone doesn't agree with and that is fine if it's presented in a civil manner.

 

The thing is that the article actually flames those that don't agree with the writer's PoV by accusing them of simply 'bitching' etc.

Having content that I don't agree with is fine, but the writer needs to watch her tone and how she refers to others IMO.

It shouldn't be acceptable for her to be able to criticise us and dismiss our views with cheap digs and us not be able to return the favour.

 so, the writers have to watch how they talk to others, but you don't?

go re-read your post history....

Yes, thats right.

I get warnings for baiting and flaming, even when I clearly didn't do so (hence so many of them being overturned), and yet staff writers do it... The staff writers should lead the culture they want to create by example.

have we ever spoken though here, because I am completely unfamilier with your name, yet you seem to know my post history very well (supposedly). Was it on your other account?

Or did you just respond to me now the first time to flame me?

Originally posted by AcmeGamer

Originally posted by Zairu

Originally posted by Vesavius
 

   Good point Zairu. +1   

Point answered, so I guess -1?

prior to getting married (i should add IRL for those who might not believe such a thing happens to nerds), i consider myself to have been a bit of a solo player, but that's only because i disliked the guild situation most games encourage.

show me a guild without power struggles, group politics, infighting, melodramatic soap opera, mindless drivel scrolling through chat for hours on end, demands to be "walked through" dungeons by lower levels, screaming matches, tantrums and arguments over what goes in and out of the guild bank.

all that on a tuesday night.

saturday nights are worse.

my wife and i have joined a few pvp guilds over the years, and mostly they couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag. and those that could take it to the other extreme where they seem to want to tell me which buttons i should press and in what order, despite mistaking my tree for another and then demanding i re-spec.

i love to play my way.

having said that, for me the concept of rift and the obvious gw2, where you get credit for being there, will encourage us to group up more than we do, simply because we don't have to make the massive social commitment. we can just hop in and hop out.

destroy mmos? i don't see how. but if we are, then maybe it's because, ironically, there's more of us than you?