I just wanted to toss something out there.   Why does it seem like nobody likes to group that much?  Any game I've played recently has grouping of course, but it seems very nominal to what it should for something called a massive multiplayer game.  Sure people group at certain levels, or certain parts of the game, but isn't the point of playing that you are playing with other people anyway?

I know I'm one of the very few people who wishes that the entire game was group dependent, but even the harshest grouping critic has to point out that it has steadily declined in game after game.  I remember in EQ we used to group everything and everywhere.  People would just make up spots to camp out and group, and that was the fun of it.

I just played Aion as my recent attraction, I've since canceled.  Although I did enjoy it as a game and this isn't the reason I canceled, I grouped with someone maybe once the entire time I played to level 18.  That seems a little off to me.  Sure you can chose to group or try to find someone to group with but it seems like nobody really cared too much to be active about it.

Mainly I'm just wondering what people have against games being group dependent? I know pick up groups can be scary but come on, don't take the game so seriously and just have fun is what I say.

looking at my posts, its easy to see i tend to support the solo types, but i do group sometimes, nothing against it exactly. its just that playing at the pace of the group instead of my own makes me uncomfortable. its different if your grouped with friends you know, but just grouping with random people is a bit stressful for me.

From the bajillion threads about grouping just on this board alone, I've gathered that most people prefer to have a game with an abundance of solo content because of time factors.   Family, jobs and other hobbies take precedence over computer games with most people I know.  We've all become old and boring!  I know that sometimes I'll only have an hour or so to play something and I don't want to spend time with all the bother of getting a group together.  I mostly solo and I kind of enjoy it that way.  Still, I like to chat with friends and guild mates while I'm playing.  Sometimes even strangers!   I guess the world's become too busy for groups. 

Theres several reasons for this trend, kind of depends on the specific game, but heres a few general things:

-many games have become much more solo friendly, and you tend to earn greater rewards overall while soloing your way through the game until you get around endgame and start doing things like raids/instances. theres just no real incentive to group with anyone since it usually just slows down your own progress. really they might as well have just designed the games as an offline single player game, where you unlock multiplayer when you reach level cap, sinc ethats how most people have been playing lately anyway.

-level and gear = win. many games (especially pvp focused ones) have become nothing more than higher level and better gear = autowin, with no skill involved. because of this people tend to figure out the fastest routes and just rush through all of the content solo in order to get their level up asap and begin working on end game gear

-boring games. some games have only 1 or 2 aspects of a game thata re really fun, such as pvp... while the rest of the game is severely lacking so people stay away from it a lot and dont like to go out and explore and adventure around with friends and stuff

-lack of, or crappy storyline/lore. as with some of the above reasons, a well done story that draws people into the lore and makes them actually want to group up and work through the storyline as a team is usually missing. everyone just kind of skips over the walls of texts and starts running right for wherever their minimap/tracker tells them to go without paying attention to much else, especially other people

-time restrictions. as MMOS are mainstreamed more and more and "regular" people or casual gamers (as opposed the old school hardcore gamers) become more of the population, we tend to see players who are just on maybe for 1-3 hours at a time (due to jobs, school, family, etc), or even when on for extended periods are dealing with constant interruptions and going afk. these players tend to find it easier to just stick to soloing and moving along at their own pace and being able to stop whenever they need/want to without hassling or being hassled by anyone else for interrupting something they are in the middle of.

Probably your best bet if youre looking for constant grouping and interaction is to stick to eithe rgames or servers that are made for RPing. People tend to be focused a lot more on being chatty and friendly and adventuring together rathe rthan racing through content like most on PVP games/servers do.

well i can only speak on my part on grouping.  first of all, i do love to group but dont much.  and there is one reason, its the people in the games.  too many immature a-holes to deal with.  i dont take gaming serious at all and too many people take it way overboard for me to enjoy grouping.  i cant stand people cussing each other out or yelling cause somebody messes up.  also if i am in a group and i need to leave cause of real life issues that most normal adults have then i want to be able to do it without being cussed out for it.  if the communities were more mature and realize its only a video game not a career then  i would group all the time.

Originally posted by dreamer05

I just wanted to toss something out there.   Why does it seem like nobody likes to group that much?  Any game I've played recently has grouping of course, but it seems very nominal to what it should for something called a massive multiplayer game.  Sure people group at certain levels, or certain parts of the game, but isn't the point of playing that you are playing with other people anyway?

 

I know I'm one of the very few people who wishes that the entire game was group dependent, but even the harshest grouping critic has to point out that it has steadily declined in game after game.  I remember in EQ we used to group everything and everywhere.  People would just make up spots to camp out and group, and that was the fun of it.

 

I just played Aion as my recent attraction, I've since canceled.  Although I did enjoy it as a game and this isn't the reason I canceled, I grouped with someone maybe once the entire time I played to level 18.  That seems a little off to me.  Sure you can chose to group or try to find someone to group with but it seems like nobody really cared too much to be active about it.

 

Mainly I'm just wondering what people have against games being group dependent? I know pick up groups can be scary but come on, don't take the game so seriously and just have fun is what I say.

The MMORPG has been opened up to the general public, unlike the days of EQ.

Many of the general public is completely satisfied to grind quests or mobs solo, while they chat on a guild channel, global channel, etc.

For them, I suppose it's like playing solitaire while chatting in ICQ or something.

I can't see the attraction, because the content in every MMORPG I've ever played is terrible ot the point I would never bother to solo it. But, some people just like doing mindless stuff by themselves and going up in levels, getting gear or whatever.

Oh sure, they'll jump in a group now and then to complete a  certain dungeon and get a piece of gear or something, but mainly they are content to just whack the mobs and watch their levels go up.

You'll also notice in these games lilke WoW and Aion, that the grouping isn't even that challenging, unlike an EQ where you had to really coordinate and watch what you were doing or wipe. A lot of times, you can group and still play the game like you are soloing, and get the gear or whatever it is you're after.

The answer is simple; efficiency. Takes time to organize, meet, deal with bio breaks, - and by now, everyone has realised they can progress faster on their own. Unless games force you to group, simply because it can't be taken on alone, people won't. It's simply faster.

Simple.

~If you wanna get into how it's changed the mentality of online games to being of an isolated nature, I could go on for pages. I'll just say that convenience has made bitches out of us all.

Originally posted by GTwander

The answer is simple; efficiency. Takes time to organize, meet, deal with bio breaks, - and by now, everyone has realised they can progress faster on their own. Unless games force you to group, simply because it can't be taken on alone, people won't. It's simply faster.

Simple.

 

 

~If you wanna get into how it's changed the mentality of online games to being of an isolated nature, I could go on for pages. I'll just say that convenience has made bitches out of us all.

I've also noticed in the solo friendly games the grouping is often kind of pointless. you might make a bit more xp, not enough to make up for the time lost in organization, but besides that the coordination required is very very minimal. It's almost like you are playing solo, but just in the same area.

Originally posted by dreamer05

I just wanted to toss something out there.   Why does it seem like nobody likes to group that much?  Any game I've played recently has grouping of course, but it seems very nominal to what it should for something called a massive multiplayer game.  Sure people group at certain levels, or certain parts of the game, but isn't the point of playing that you are playing with other people anyway?

 

I know I'm one of the very few people who wishes that the entire game was group dependent, but even the harshest grouping critic has to point out that it has steadily declined in game after game.  I remember in EQ we used to group everything and everywhere.  People would just make up spots to camp out and group, and that was the fun of it.

 

I just played Aion as my recent attraction, I've since canceled.  Although I did enjoy it as a game and this isn't the reason I canceled, I grouped with someone maybe once the entire time I played to level 18.  That seems a little off to me.  Sure you can chose to group or try to find someone to group with but it seems like nobody really cared too much to be active about it.

 

Mainly I'm just wondering what people have against games being group dependent? I know pick up groups can be scary but come on, don't take the game so seriously and just have fun is what I say.

   I'm tired of playing these Massive Mutliplayer Onine games that are solo fest.   I like to play MMO's to see and group with a wide variety of different people, and lately it seems that every MMO I have played after WOW have been single player games.  I have singled it down to one thing, since each of the last 4 MMO's that I have played lacked this feature and that is Group Instances.  If a MMO does not have a Group Instance or two for ever level bracket I WILL not be playing it, period!  
 

I know it will probably be like the old days where people grouped just to group, but alteast I can support games that have lots of group content unlike alot of these newer Solo fest *cough* (Champion Online)  MMO's that are out nowadays.

Originally posted by dreamer05

I just wanted to toss something out there.   Why does it seem like nobody likes to group that much?

...

Mainly I'm just wondering what people have against games being group dependent?

It's a shame that no one has ever answered this question before. Hopefully someone can finally offer a response to this unique and puzzling ponderance of yours.

I'm starting to wonder if this site is getting trolled overall.  Can there really be this many threads about the same retarded topic?

Here's an idea; maybe there are tons and tons of people still grouping up and having a grand old time, and the people complaining about soloing and lack of groups are just hard to group with?  Instead of blaming everyone else, maybe the problem is those solo-bitter people.  I know if I was in a group with some preachy, bitter douchebag blathering on about AC or UO endlessly, I'd probably kick them from the group and toss them on /ignore. 

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Originally posted by LynxJSA

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Originally posted by dreamer05

I just wanted to toss something out there.   Why does it seem like nobody likes to group that much?
...
Mainly I'm just wondering what people have against games being group dependent?

---

 
It's a shame that no one has ever answered this question before. Hopefully someone can finally offer a response to this unique and puzzling ponderance of yours.
 
 

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I can answer that...

I'll group when I friggin want to. There has been NO game which made me feel I needed to. And no "group" of players that made me think I needed to.

Now stop the anti solo threads and you'll stop looking like morons.

 There are quite a few reasons. The first one that comes to mind is just how boring and bland todays games are. You're either A) Fighting PvE or B) Fighting PVP. Crafting, gathering, exploring, and other functions that usually tend to make up solo play in an MMO World have taken a huge backseat in today's, and were replaced by "accessible" combat.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by dreamer05

I just wanted to toss something out there.   Why does it seem like nobody likes to group that much?

...

Mainly I'm just wondering what people have against games being group dependent?

 

It's a shame that no one has ever answered this question before. Hopefully someone can finally offer a response to this unique and puzzling ponderance of yours.

 

 

I figured my last post could have spelled it out; efficiency/convienience

People are used to having the option of the whole game being soloable, they bitch about that, but if that changed they would flock back to it. It's a matter of people seeing a game with the most fluid [effort to leveling] ratio (don't say it's name) and now they see that as the best expererience that made everything faster and easier. If a game takes longer to level - it's a grind. If it's faster, then they hit the wall all the same and bitch about endgame. The grouping aspect is what WAS balancing the time to get to endgame, because the efficient option of soloing all the way is the fastest it could possibly get - proven.

On to the point of convenience - I was getting flak on a game design of mine that took a lot of [expected] chat channels and enforces limitations on roles in order to make the game suited to RPers, but too many people are set on these common points that make the game easier and understandable simply because it mocks what they did last time. People seem to hate the learning curve of a game, and still bitch that everything is too samey.

Nobody is ever going to be pleased because [nobody really knows what they want] - ever. All you can do is try something new, or copy the last guy - either way someone will hate it, and people won't group unless you [make them] because they are racing to endgame. I suppose to you the idea that what keeps a player on an MMO for years is aesthetics, everybody does them same shit, it can only be because a certain flavor tastes right. I leave that to art design, a lot of it is a visual appeal. Every game has nothing to do at the end, but people stay because the world is ambiant enough to have fun being bored in it. By then, people might group out of boredom, but for what? Recycling goals?

The PROBLEM is nobody can take their dear sweet time anymore and enjoy the game pre-end. Nobody reads quests, relaxes and takes their time - and that is why nobody groups.

~Time constraints may be an issue, but if you don't have an hour+ to play, then why are you playing MMOs? I remember a time when you has to spend a lot of time to get things done, and then they applied the FPS quick mini-game approach that created a divide in content between the long and thought-out and the simple/fast. I write games to favor either side, but trying to wank off everyone at once is just making a mess.

*nod* to all the antisocials here in this thread that shouldn't be playing online games if they hate other people. I think they just like to feel safe in a crowd of players but can't stand making eye contact. Busy streets feel safe, but lets wear a trenchcoat and keep to ourselves.

Couple of things I thought of.

Time contraints, ie not enough time to group or you can only play a bit then leave, which seems rude to most people, especially when it puts the group in a spot where they are stuck looking for a healer or what have you.

Too much group dependency makes one feel weak and useless, meaning accomplishing something by yourself is more meaningful than in a group because you did not have to rely on others, knowing you are capable of accomplishing things yourself is empowering.

Too many dumb and droll people, or in the opposite chatty annoying people, it is best to stick to yourself or friends if you want to have a good experience and play with likeminded people.

Groups force compromise with the things you do and the pace you do them at, so you don't control your game time as much as you would like when in a group.

Grouping is prone to waste tons of time, LFM, AFk and so on.

These are the reasons I think people solo.  And it isn't because the game offers solo, that was a reaction to people wanting the ability in the first place.

The biggest reason why I solo quite a bit? 

I have a wife and kids, and there is no <pause> button for a group. 

Originally posted by Eben

The biggest reason why I solo quite a bit? 

I have a wife and kids, and there is no <pause> button for a group. 

Then don't play a game like FFXI that had [emphasis] on groups. Plays something that works on your timeframe, like an FPS. Just stay away from games that want to you group and tell them that you won't, they don't need to change for your lifestyle.

Truthfully, the more they please people with real time constraints - they more they cater to a crowd that is likely to unsub DUE to those constraints. Games gotta go for time investments or short runs, and when they try to do both to endgame - the fast/easy way is the chosen route. You sir need a game for your lifestyle, so EVE is out of the question - see how this works?

Find something for your situation.