All Posts by JK-Kanosi

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Originally posted by wilcoxon

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Originally posted by JK-Kanosi
I keep using DAoC and SWG as an example, but they are both really good examples for just about every argument. In DAoC you could solo to 50 if you wanted, but it would be a lot faster to group to 50. This is the way it should be. Group players shouldn't necessarily get better gear for grouping, the crafters should make the gear anyways. Solo players could play the way they like, but people who would rather group would actually group, instead of soloing. There are groupers in WoW that will not group, because the pace is much slower than if you solo. This is the type of game mechanics that piss me off. Soloers in general don;t, unless the gameplay was designed around the soloer. WoW is an example of gameplay designed around the soloer (except for endgame) while DAoC was designed to reward people for grouping. But in DAoC the best gear was crafter made, not dropped off of raid bosses.

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I guess I'll have to keep disagreeing with you. Why should it be faster to group to 50? Grouping and soloing should be equally viable playstyles - neither should be penalized.

You could solo to 50 in DAoC but it was painful at higher levels and the crafting system in DAoC required a guild (or literally years to master). I was #3 weapon crafter on my server for quite a while until I hit the levels where it literally took a small guild to fund crafting at a reasonable pace (one of the reasons I left DAoC). I was dumping nearly all my my money into crafting and could not afford to advance much at all (not to mention supply runs into PvP areas).

I will agree with you that WoW's penalizing of grouping is bad (see my first comment).

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Originally posted by wilcoxon

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Originally posted by JK-Kanosi
I've kept my mouth shut on this subject editorial after editorial, but I can't do it anymore. This website is obviously ran by a bunch of casual players and will always support the point of view of solo players.

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Face it. After the advent of WoW, any game that does not support the casual player (usually involving soloable content) will be a "niche" game (even if that niche is the size of the EQ player-base at its height). Very few developers (probably none of the large ones) will produce games that will not have the potential to achieve a WoW level of success.

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Don't get me wrong, I am a casual player to, in the sense that I don't play but 20 hours a week, but I used to play a lot more back when DAoC was still new and SWG was still good. But I have a family of my own, married w/ a son of my own in school now. But I can still afford the time to meet people and form groups.

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Sorry, 20 hours per week puts you at the top (or out) of what most people consider casual. There are lots of people that play WoW or other games for a max of 2 hours per day and skip days (putting them at 10 hours (or less) per week).

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The writer of this article is using extremes to persuade the readers to his point of view. This is utter bullshit, because in DAoC when I first started playing and even now, including SWG as well, before the NGE, 9 times out of 10 people weren't idiots that you grouped with and everyone was mature and had a good time. We all would chat and grind at the same time having fun hours upon hours. You keep using the extreme that you end up in bad groups, well how about stop playing WoW and play a more mature game. Then you won't get into bad groups like that anymore. Pick up groups generally suck in WoW and WoW is what most casual players know.

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I've played many games and abhor pick-up groups in *EVERY* one of them (including DAoC) due to many bad experiences.

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WoW is also a poor excuse for a multiplayer game, because the quest content can be completed solo and has no benefit to grouping and is also too easy to do in groups. And no it is not like that in every game. Most games I have played (13 total, not counting F2P) have the ability to choose the challenge you will face instead of being spoonfed content in the form of stupid kill and fed ex quests. You may be able to solo white mobs easily, but in a group you fight the red and purple ones, because they are challenging.

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WoW is a poorly designed MMO in some regards (getting an xp *penalty* when grouping).

The best example I can point to is City of Heroes/Villains - each mission scales depending on the group/person doing it plus players can choose to make their missions harder. If you always play with an uber group, just always do "insane" missions as a group.

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People like you are pushing me to the point to where I say the MMORPG market would have been better off for the players if casual solo players never started playing. That's right, because you keep pushing this view in our face, we are beginning to think that the MMORPG world would be a better place without you.

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Many of us have turned into casual players. I played games alot and joined a raiding guild in EQ but have had no desire to invest that amount of effort into games since. I usually end up soloing anymore because I hate pick-up groups and not enough of my friends play the same games anymore (and I haven't made many friends online in either EVE or City of (admittedly I haven't really tried in CoH/CoV)).

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Who needs some lame kill quests or fed ex quests when you can create content of your own through RPing. Yes, these are RPG's, so don't even try to argue the point. Just put out a crap ton of monsters out there, give them some good AI, and keep quests to a minimum. If you're going to do a quest, it should be epic. It should be a quest that spans several levels or the whole game and when you complete it, you are satisfied, because the quest took intelligence and patience to beat. Single player games have these sort of quests, so do DAoC.

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Where's the game in that? Do you think any casual players (or even many non-casual players) would enjoy a game like you describe ("ok - here's the world and a bunch of mobs - go have fun with no structured content").

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We need people who are dedicated to the game, who have imaginations, who have some social skills and have a good personality. We don't need people who don't have the time to form a group, who want developers to waste their time creating kill and fed ex quests, because they can't create a reason of their own to play, and people who are anti-social, or are borish. The MMORPG community was fine before WoW came along. We may have been small, but we socialized, and were dedicated to the game and we didn't need borish un-epic quests. We enjoyed being with each other and grouping and we depended on each other a lot. Those were the good ol' days and I've been pushed too far be people like you to hold my tongue any longer. The Devs may want your money, but the rest of the MMORPG community will never accept you as one of us and you will always be ostracized by people who are committed to someone other than themselves in game.

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I could see your point up until this section. I completely disagree with you. I've played many games (starting with DAoC at release) and think every single statement you just made is flat-out wrong. Many of the players I encountered prior to WoW had no imagination, no social skills, and no personality (or, at least, were people I would never want to associate with). [b]Many[/p] players would like to play at least sometimes when they don't have time to get a group (every game where I've tried to get pick-up groups going often took an hour to get the group sometimes just to have it fall apart before anything started). The MMORPG community was not fine before WoW - it had already fragmented into casual, enforced-grouping, and PvP-only camps.

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I just wanted to reply and thank you for your maturity and that I did read the reply that took some meaningful effort to put together. Usually, I do not get that angry and my posts are not that harsh. Even reading back on this one, I can't believe I actually said some of that stuff. It doesn't mean I don't believe it or don't think it, I just usually am a civil type of person.

I guess we all had different but valid experiences in the old games that lead us to where we are now. I obviously had a blast in the old games, whereas there were probably many things that got on your nerves. I guess it is time for people like me to face it and acknowledge that are days are over. I guess people like me should try our best to keep the old games running or go play DnD pnp games (not that I know how).

Anyways, thanks for not losing your cool.

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Originally posted by the420kid

I am that lone wolf / solo player that you are referring to.

That doesnt mean I dont enjoy social interaction, but I much rather fight and explore solo.  I do not like to rely on other people to progress my character.  This is especialy the case with real life friends playing the same game as me.  My frustrations comes from being held back by someone else who I am relying on while I am playing my character flawlessly my progression at that point is out of my control, I can not go further until this other person gets there job right ect.  My frustrations with this issue can stem into angry msgs to the other players which could result in losing r/l friends.  Therfore I much rather play solo while talking with my friends and keeping my irl friends as they are a great bunch of guys they just happen to be newbs lol.

Ive played and leftr games with forced grouping one of my favorites was ffxi but beyond level 60 I could spend an entire day trying to get a party and I ended up leaving the game same as world of warcraft after I was high warlord and full tier 2 I just couldnt continue to raid with my guild and be held back.

Id prefer all games have solo and team options perhaps scalable instances wheres mobs scale to number of ppl inside.

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Originally posted by ShiloFields

Personally, I think MMOs need interdepency that goes beyond grouping for combat.  SWG's original design was wonderful in this regard.  Crafters providing, weapons, weapons, houses, and tools to gather resources for different types of crafters;, entertainers healing mind wounds and battle fatigue, doctors providing buffs and healing wounds and diseases, combat players providing looted crafting components, skill enhancing loot, etc.  Bioengineers' creating pets, creature handlers training them.  The interdepency was enhanced, and to some extent made possible by, by the fact that you only were given on character per server, absent buying a second box.

I guess I don't understand why you need more than more character per server.  It really seems odd to me that games allow this, although I am sure most of you will disagree with me.

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I've kept my mouth shut on this subject editorial after editorial, but I can't do it anymore. This website is obviously ran by a bunch of casual players and will always support the point of view of solo players. Don't get me wrong, I am a casual player to, in the sense that I don't play but 20 hours a week, but I used to play a lot more back when DAoC was still new and SWG was still good. But I have a family of my own, married w/ a son of my own in school now. But I can still afford the time to meet people and form groups. The writer of this article is using extremes to persuade the readers to his point of view. This is utter bullshit, because in DAoC when I first started playing and even now, including SWG as well, before the NGE, 9 times out of 10 people weren't idiots that you grouped with and everyone was mature and had a good time. We all would chat and grind at the same time having fun hours upon hours. You keep using the extreme that you end up in bad groups, well how about stop playing WoW and play a more mature game. Then you won't get into bad groups like that anymore. Pick up groups generally suck in WoW and WoW is what most casual players know. WoW is also a poor excuse for a multiplayer game, because the quest content can be completed solo and has no benefit to grouping and is also too easy to do in groups. And no it is not like that in every game. Most games I have played (13 total, not counting F2P) have the ability to choose the challenge you will face instead of being spoonfed content in the form of stupid kill and fed ex quests. You may be able to solo white mobs easily, but in a group you fight the red and purple ones, because they are challenging.

People like you are pushing me to the point to where I say the MMORPG market would have been better off for the players if casual solo players never started playing. That's right, because you keep pushing this view in our face, we are beginning to think that the MMORPG world would be a better place without you. Who needs some lame kill quests or fed ex quests when you can create content of your own through RPing. Yes, these are RPG's, so don't even try to argue the point. Just put out a crap ton of monsters out there, give them some good AI, and keep quests to a minimum. If you're going to do a quest, it should be epic. It should be a quest that spans several levels or the whole game and when you complete it, you are satisfied, because the quest took intelligence and patience to beat. Single player games have these sort of quests, so do DAoC. Hell even SWG had a back ground quest built into the lore. Rebels and Imperials are at war with each other and Neutrals and the Criminal faction are caught in-between. Try to stay alive and become the dominant faction. That in itself is epic in nature and doesn't need a bunch of kill quests.

If a person can't keep themselves entertained in a virtual world, we really don't need that person in it. We need people who are dedicated to the game, who have imaginations, who have some social skills and have a good personality. We don't need people who don't have the time to form a group, who want developers to waste their time creating kill and fed ex quests, because they can't create a reason of their own to play, and people who are anti-social, or are borish.

The MMORPG community was fine before WoW came along. We may have been small, but we socialized, and were dedicated to the game and we didn't need borish un-epic quests. We enjoyed being with each other and grouping and we depended on each other a lot. Those were the good ol' days and I've been pushed too far be people like you to hold my tongue any longer. The Devs may want your money, but the rest of the MMORPG community will never accept you as one of us and you will always be ostracized by people who are committed to someone other than themselves in game.