This will be a breath of fresh air. A MMO true to the concept of Massive multiplayer online. The concept of playing online and forcing individuals to party up  at every step of the way never felt right with me. I like partying up with folks but not by force. I should only need to party if i want to accomplish something truly extraordinary not to enjoy the game on a day by day basis.

Originally posted by franksalbe

This will be a breath of fresh air. A MMO true to the concept of Massive multiplayer online. The concept of playing online and forcing individuals to party up  at every step of the way never felt right with me. I like partying up with folks but not by force. I should only need to party if i want to accomplish something truly extraordinary not to enjoy the game on a day by day basis.

Well said, bro. Well said indeed... That's the way any and all solo advocates should be, imhyvko (yet very knowledgeable). This philosophy should be accepted by both sides.

Maybe one day they'll  make an MMO where the two main factions are solo players and groupies. That... seems pretty one-sided though, now that I think about it.

Originally posted by franksalbe

This will be a breath of fresh air. A MMO true to the concept of Massive multiplayer online. The concept of playing online and forcing individuals to party up  at every step of the way never felt right with me. I like partying up with folks but not by force. I should only need to party if i want to accomplish something truly extraordinary not to enjoy the game on a day by day basis.

if you don't want to group with other players then go play one of the million boring single player rpgs on the market tor is claiming to be an mmo that means you should group up to go out and do things in game

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Originally posted by stillkillin

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Originally posted by franksalbe

This will be a breath of fresh air. A MMO true to the concept of Massive multiplayer online. The concept of playing online and forcing individuals to party up  at every step of the way never felt right with me. I like partying up with folks but not by force. I should only need to party if i want to accomplish something truly extraordinary not to enjoy the game on a day by day basis.

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if you don't want to group with other players then go play one of the million boring single player rpgs on the market tor is claiming to be an mmo that means you should group up to go out and do things in game

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1. There's very few single player RPGs left these days (JRPGs don't count, they're nothing like CRPGs).

2. The few that tend to come out are usually exceptional (The Wicther, Fallout, anything by Bioware).

3. If you don't like the rpg genre I suggest that you move onto another website, mmoRPG.com might not be for you.

4. http://www.sesamestreet.org

5. Periods aren't just for women.

Originally posted by stillkillin

 

if you don't want to group with other players then go play one of the million boring single player rpgs on the market tor is claiming to be an mmo that means you should group up to go out and do things in game

Says the "SWG Vet", I would say almost 90% of SWG was soloable now and was in pre-cu. We don't mind grouping, we just don't wanna be forced to do it. Did you actually play pre-cu? One of the most important things to have learned is forcing something on somebody is never the right idea, or did the NGE have a vote where most players voted "yes" to it? Didn't think so, now shut the hell up kid. Your ignorance is giving me nutt cancer.

Originally posted by maskedweasel

 From what I've read I think Bioware fully understand the solo player, as well as the players that love to group.  There are many different kinds of solo players,  and what interested me is that they are putting together what sounds like a very scalable game that doesn't focus on a single playstyle but moreso it has something for everyone. 

 

We have yet to actually see all the content and how the missions scale,  but they've said their design is to make the players always feel challenged nomatter the size of the group.  

Well, that was an answer that would have been better to hear from Bioware in my opinion. Also what I was expecting. But, can you see my concern with solo players uniting under the official label now? Again, Im sure they have it under control, hopefully it works out better than in the past. Im also one that believes in solo content to all rewards. Probably more pro-solo than most. Thanks for the reasonable reply. Bioware sure has some fans.

Originally posted by FikusOfAhazi

Originally posted by maskedweasel

 From what I've read I think Bioware fully understand the solo player, as well as the players that love to group.  There are many different kinds of solo players,  and what interested me is that they are putting together what sounds like a very scalable game that doesn't focus on a single playstyle but moreso it has something for everyone. 

 

We have yet to actually see all the content and how the missions scale,  but they've said their design is to make the players always feel challenged nomatter the size of the group.  

 

Well, that was an answer that would have been better to hear from Bioware in my opinion. Also what I was expecting. But, can you see my concern with solo players uniting under the official label now? Again, Im sure they have it under control, hopefully it works out better than in the past. Im also one that believes in solo content to all rewards. Probably more pro-solo than most. Thanks for the reasonable reply. Bioware sure has some fans.

I may be off my rocker but this is what I was referring to, these quotes

"if you want to do solo play that's something that you can do as well. It's a goal of ours to make sure that we cater to all those play styles. It someone is like, "I don't wanna group, I wanna play a BioWare game. I wanna go through the story and do things on my own." you can do that. You're gonna see other people running around the world, as you would in any other MMO. On the other hand, if you want to group you're gonna be able to go through the game that way as well"

http://www.massively.com/2009/09/07/pax-2009-massively-interviews-bioware-and-lucasarts-on-swtor/

and

"Q:You mentioned earlier that you don't want players to need to go out and recruit a bunch of other players to take down one monster. How do you balance an MMO so that you're still able to be a bad ass in single player but also have that sort of multiplayer experience that so many MMOs provide?

James: One of the things we've been doing is that we're making sure that when we're building content we have different representatives of the different play styles. Whenever we're doing design discussions or implementing a system, we have the different player types involved. There's the solo player type that hates other players and is very anti-social..

It's funny, because there are a bunch of players like this in WoW where they don't like to hang around with other players but love to show off all the cool stuff that they have.

Then there are the players that like to adventure with their buddies. They have their own group of friends, and they just like to adventure with those players all the time.

Then there are players that like to join guilds and are social butterflies and like to adventure with people from their guild. They like to be part of these big huge groups that go out and play in major events like raids.

We want to take all those players and make sure that each of those player types has fun in our game. I can't go into details about all the systems, but we have made sure that those player types are thought about when we're building the game. "

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/47133

Thats what gave me the notion that they understand the different solo players as well as those that like to group.. I mean I felt pretty spot on when he was talking about the different types of players...  

Edit:

A little after the fact in the same article.. regarding being outnumbered. :

"One thing that we don't want to have happen in our game is the situation where you get a bunch of players together to beat up one guy. That's just not very heroic and it's something that we don't want to have happen in our game. We're looking for much more heroic battles where you're the group that's outnumbered. If you think about the movies, the heroes are the ones that are heroic because they're fighting against the odds. "

There was also something about the way missions scale but I'm having a hard time tracking it down.. supposedly it was something on how the missions will scale depending on how many you have in your party, and that when one drops the missions will rescale themselves or something of that nature... .... I'll keep looking, if I find it I'll post it.

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by greed0104

www.gamespot.com/news/6228707.html

It seems BioWare understand Solo players, but would also like to encourage (not force) them into grouping.

 

Which is exactly how it should be. So long as I'm not forced to group to enjoy the game I'll be happy. From what I've seen, nothing will stop the groupers from enjoying the game their way. Everyone with the exception of the "everything should be my way or nothing" crowd should be happy.

This statement shows a fundamental failure to understand what many group players want in a game.

They don't want to "be able to group". This is where you are making a HUGE mistake in stating what group players want. The groupers also don't want to "force you to group". They absolutely do not want you to even play the game, much less group.

What groupers generally want is content that requires and rewards team play.

If you see a team of any kind, do you think they want to kidnap you and make you play on the team? Of course not.

Reward has to equal effort. No one does double the effort for the same reward when they don't have to, and feels satisfied.

I will give you 100 dollars to paint my kitchen. But if you WANT to, you can paint the entire house, and I'll still give you 100 dollars.

Who's going to paint the entire house? No one.

"Being able to group" does not make a good grouping game. However, being "able to solo" does make a good solo game.

So in the end, you are saying, I want a good solo game, and screw the groupers if they don't like it, and THEN saying, they should like it because they are "able to group" which is not what most group players want at all.

It's like me saying, you will get 1/10th of an experience point for each quest you do, while groups get 1,000,000 points. There, you are ABLE to solo, so you should be happy.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by greed0104

www.gamespot.com/news/6228707.html

It seems BioWare understand Solo players, but would also like to encourage (not force) them into grouping.

 

Which is exactly how it should be. So long as I'm not forced to group to enjoy the game I'll be happy. From what I've seen, nothing will stop the groupers from enjoying the game their way. Everyone with the exception of the "everything should be my way or nothing" crowd should be happy.

 

This statement shows a fundamental failure to understand what many group players want in a game.

They don't want to "be able to group". This is where you are making a HUGE mistake in stating what group players want. The groupers also don't want to "force you to group". They absolutely do not want you to even play the game, much less group.

What groupers generally want is content that requires and rewards team play.

If you see a team of any kind, do you think they want to kidnap you and make you play on the team? Of course not.

Reward has to equal effort. No one does double the effort for the same reward when they don't have to, and feels satisfied.

I will give you 100 dollars to paint my kitchen. But if you WANT to, you can paint the entire house, and I'll still give you 100 dollars.

Who's going to paint the entire house? No one.

"Being able to group" does not make a good grouping game. However, being "able to solo" does make a good solo game.

So in the end, you are saying, I want a good solo game, and screw the groupers if they don't like it, and THEN saying, they should like it because they are "able to group" which is not what most group players want at all.

It's like me saying, you will get 1/10th of an experience point for each quest you do, while groups get 1,000,000 points. There, you are ABLE to solo, so you should be happy.

You got all that from that one post? You took offense, the only reason you should be offended is if you landed in the "everything should me my way" crowd. So what exactly did he fail to understand? The game is solo friendly, he then went on to say but groupers will be happy as well, since it will cater to groupers. But there is always those few groupers that ask solo players why they even play MMOs, you know, the ones that think MMOs are all about grouping? Hence the "my way" crowd.

the reason a lot of solo players like to play in a mmo alone is usually because they cant stand the community and they like being in a living persistent world.

some people just cant stand all the morons in the more popular games. it also can be quite stressful being in a group with people you do not know or even with people you do know.

sometimes people just want to play at their own pace, relax, and enjoy the game they are playing.

some don't want to join a group where the other group members think they are bad asses and pull mobs faster than they can actually handle them (for example), especially if you are a healer type class.

personally, as long as there is a lot of solo and group content i am fine. i wouldn't mind forced group content if the community was friendly and non "elitist" but that just wont happen anymore unfortunately, unless you play a less than popular game that the kiddies and elitist's don't like.

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Originally posted by Ihmotepp I will give you 100 dollars to paint my kitchen. But if you WANT to, you can paint the entire house, and I'll still give you 100 dollars. Who's going to paint the entire house? No one.

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that isn't the greatest analogy but you do make a good point with the message. a better analogy would be to have to share that 100 dollars with the people helping you do the same job, which would get done faster with more people.
 

you don't have to do more work by grouping and taking on solo content but a lot of people will want the better xp and better loot if they are having to organize and maintain a group to tackle the more challenging content.

to me grouping is only fun when its challenging, grouping to steamroll solo content isnt fun and if the group content is more challenging than solo (as it should be) it only makes sense that the reward should be better, whether its better XP, better loot, or both.
 

To gain a more thorough understanding of what solo players desire in this genre, one must first drink in this gem from Frances Wright:

"Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it."
 

Originally posted by baphamet

 

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Originally posted by Ihmotepp I will give you 100 dollars to paint my kitchen. But if you WANT to, you can paint the entire house, and I'll still give you 100 dollars. Who's going to paint the entire house? No one.

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that isn't the greatest analogy but you do make a good point with the message. a better analogy would be to have to share that 100 dollars with the people helping you do the same job, which would get done faster with more people.
 

you don't have to do more work by grouping and taking on solo content but a lot of people will want the better xp and better loot if they are having to organize and maintain a group to tackle the more challenging content.

to me grouping is only fun when its challenging, grouping to steamroll solo content isnt fun and if the group content is more challenging than solo (as it should be) it only makes sense that the reward should be better, whether its better XP, better loot, or both.
 

That's a good way to describe it.

Group content is fun when it requires the group to cooperate and work together as a team to overcome the mobs and complete the objective.

Getting together in a group to smack down a bunch of solo content isn't fun at all, since cooperation and coordination is simply not required, just numbers.

AND this is why the two are always somewhat mutually exclusive.

If you design the content so it's challenging to a group, the solo player can't do it, and cries "forced grouping". Design the content so it's easy for the solo player, you just took away all the challenge for the group player. The group player isn't trying to "force" the solo player to join a group, he just wants some challenging content.

The solo players says, well this is no problem design TWO encounters that give the same reward. One for the group, one for the solo players.

But the challenge is again absent if the reward doesn't match the effort. It is ALWAYS more effort to form a group than to do everything solo (otherwise solo players wouldnt' complain about grouping), so same reward for group content and solo content means it's more rewarding to solo.

If you bump up the reward so the group players feel sufficiently compensated for the extra effort it takes to group, again the solo players cries "forced grouping".

Originally posted by Beartosser

To gain a more thorough understanding of what solo players desire in this genre, one must first drink in this gem from Frances Wright:

"Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it."
 

But there is no equality between a Pomegranate and a fish sandwich.

The republic will support solo'ers...i'm shocked...this came completely out of left field

/sarcasm off

All they really needed to do was say solo content was in and we can pretty much guess at how well made the content will be.

It can still be fun even if it is at heart a solo game, sort of like Diablo.

You could solo the entire game of Diablo. But it wasn't that much fun doing the dungeon by yourself, so you would do the instance with other players because it was more fun than solo, although many just did the dungeon by themselves over and over again.

That didn't make it a good grouping game, but still a fun game.

Originally posted by greed0104

www.gamespot.com/news/6228707.html

It seems BioWare understand Solo players, but would also like to encourage (not force) them into grouping.

And I think Bioware has the right idea here :)

Originally posted by Beartosser

To gain a more thorough understanding of what solo players desire in this genre, one must first drink in this gem from Frances Wright:

"Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it."

God made all men equal. Sam Colt makes sure they stay that way.

Originally posted by grandpagamer

Originally posted by Beartosser

To gain a more thorough understanding of what solo players desire in this genre, one must first drink in this gem from Frances Wright:

"Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it."

God made all men equal. Sam Colt makes sure they stay that way.

 

/thumbs up
 

Originally posted by greed0104

Originally posted by stillkillin

 

if you don't want to group with other players then go play one of the million boring single player rpgs on the market tor is claiming to be an mmo that means you should group up to go out and do things in game

 

Says the "SWG Vet", I would say almost 90% of SWG was soloable now and was in pre-cu. We don't mind grouping, we just don't wanna be forced to do it. Did you actually play pre-cu? One of the most important things to have learned is forcing something on somebody is never the right idea, or did the NGE have a vote where most players voted "yes" to it? Didn't think so, now shut the hell up kid. Your ignorance is giving me nutt cancer.

I also fail to see the fun in standing around barking out "LFG" just so I can do something in game. If he likes forced grouping then he should start his own guild of groupers with a rule that nothing is done in game without everyone playing together. Leave your playstyle to yourself, don't force me to play your style when I don't want to and we'll get along fine. Why is this concept so hard to understand?