Was thinking of playing this game like a lan game with a few of my buddies. How is this game if played as a group versus solo? 

Most of the things i've read is about solo gameplay.

Are there a lot of contents available outside of questing? Exploring, Dungeons, raids etc?

Theres lot of group content for most levels. Early on its solo to level 23 or so. But you get there fast, and you can group for solo quests too as most xp comes from quests, not kills.

And most of the group content is for 6 players.

Try it, its free, no harm done :)

This is one of the few games I looked forward to the group content. In an effort to accomodate the masses much of the group based content is now optional but its still there. Fields of Fornost will be one of the first areas you will find it in abundance and if you have a group ready to go you will have no trouble finding loads of stuff to do.

The game was much more group focused at launch but now is competely soloable to lvl 75.   There is still plenty of group content at all lvl ranges past 15 but because the game is much more solo friendly it may be hard to find groups quickly for some group oriented questing.

Of note all of the book quests have group quests that you will be able to do as well as:

Great Barrows lvl 20

Garth Argawen lvl 32

Fornost  lvl 39

Anuminas lvl 40 now i think

Carn Dum lvl 45ish

They made this game almost totally solable now. It used to be a great group game now it is a solo rpg. ROI has all of 4 group quests and no new instances other than a 24 man one boss raid. They turned almost all the great group quests in the lower areas into solo quests now. Angmar has great group quests lvl 44-50 but that is about it. If you can find people to do group skirmishes with they are fun and can be done at any level. I find this game lots of fun upto level 60. But 60-75 is just solo quest after solo quest and it bores me to tears. This was my all time fav game but now it is a shell of its former self. But if you never played the game before, these things might not bother you cause you don't know how great this game was.

Originally posted by vtravi

They made this game almost totally solable now. It used to be a great group game now it is a solo rpg. ROI has all of 4 group quests and no new instances other than a 24 man one boss raid. They turned almost all the great group quests in the lower areas into solo quests now. Angmar has great group quests lvl 44-50 but that is about it. If you can find people to do group skirmishes with they are fun and can be done at any level. I find this game lots of fun upto level 60. But 60-75 is just solo quest after solo quest and it bores me to tears. This was my all time fav game but now it is a shell of its former self. But if you never played the game before, these things might not bother you cause you don't know how great this game was.

When the game was still full of group content, i could find groups easilly for all and everything i wanted to do ....

But with all the group content removed, people get intoo a super duper soloing mindset and it has become extremely difficult to find groups for that little grouping content thats still left. Not being able to find a group for GB in my upper 20's really turns me down.

They should never have removed grouping content but should have created a better tool for finding groups while making it much more rewarding then doing the content solo.  There is still enough leveling going on in this game to find enough people for the grouping content

I skipped most of the group content in SoA and i leveled 5 characters to 50.

Why? Because groups were very hard to find and i outleveld group content trying to find a group.

1 thing i never skipped was GA and that took extremely long time to find group.

1 thing i always skipped was Dol Dinen because it was extremely lackluster.

And now you can play GB on any level on level from 25-max. Thats improvement.

Why some people pretend it was "different in good ol' days? Rose colored glasses maybe? Yup.

If 99% playerbase skip landscape grooup content in:

Breeland

Lone Lands

North Downs

Trollshaws

Angmar

then its redundant and i hope that they make it all solo so that people that level their characters can experience it instead beeing lef unused and abandoned.

If you want group content you have instances and skirmishes. But somehow you manage to say you cant find a group for an instance (in spite hordes of "people that want to group" and what not - how ironic) and rehashing unused conent ouside instances is guilty for it.

In SoA I would do all the group quests and instances when leveling my many toons. It took time sometimes to get a group but it would happen. I know people want to do everything now and can't wait for a group to form but if you took 10-20 minutes and quested while you form your group it always would come together. To me the group content gave me something to look forward to doing, i would get excited when the group filled and we could take on a challange. Now it is just solo quest after solo quest forever with no chance of dying and nothing to get excited about. For me that is a no go, I plan on playing Skyrim and i expect solo quests but not in a MMO.

Originally posted by vtravi

In SoA I would do all the group quests and instances when leveling my many toons. It took time sometimes to get a group but it would happen. I know people want to do everything now and can't wait for a group to form but if you took 10-20 minutes and quested while you form your group it always would come together. To me the group content gave me something to look forward to doing, i would get excited when the group filled and we could take on a challange. Now it is just solo quest after solo quest forever with no chance of dying and nothing to get excited about. For me that is a no go, I plan on playing Skyrim and i expect solo quests but not in a MMO.

Yah, 10-20 minutes. It usually took me 2-3 days to finally do GA.

And as i said, if theres hordes of group starving people out there why cant you find someone to do GB?

And you have tons of group content to look forward to - in endgame where there actually other people to group unless you have steady leveling group.

Its a shortcoming of themepark MMOs and all have same issue - old group content is obsolete and pretty much forgotten. Unless you do what Turbine is doing and scale it by level.

Originally posted by ozerinx

Was thinking of playing this game like a lan game with a few of my buddies. How is this game if played as a group versus solo? 

Most of the things i've read is about solo gameplay.

Are there a lot of contents available outside of questing? Exploring, Dungeons, raids etc?

 

 

There is lots of group content (more the higher level you go) and it's really fun to do with a few buddies.  It's harder to find groups for some low-mid level stuff if you're solo, but if you got a group ready, there is definitely lots of cool stuff to do, especially past level 20.