Earthrise Forum » General Discussion » guild conflict is cool and all.....but what about solos?

Ive read over Earthrise with great anticipation, and they talk a lot about guilds and factions, but what about solo players? Its a disheartening trend these days in MMOs that solo play is often neglected and overlooked. The games today bascially force players to join guilds which isnt fair.

With that in mind, what does Earthrise offer solo players, if anything at all?

Whoa. Youve got it all wrong buddy. Nowadays every single MMO is solo friendly, if not solo geared. WoW, EQ2, AoC,  VG, WAR, CoX, the list goes on. All of these are easily soloable to level cap. FFXI forces group play, and some of the other older games do as well, just not as much as FFXI. You are in the era of solo friendly MMOs my friend.

Anyways, I would imagine ER will hvae many things to do solo. Grinding, Crafting, Questing, farming, etc.

Originally posted by Ozreth

Whoa. Youve got it all wrong buddy. Nowadays every single MMO is solo friendly, if not solo geared. WoW, EQ2, AoC,  VG, WAR, CoX, the list goes on. All of these are easily soloable to level cap. FFXI forces group play, and some of the other older games do as well, just not as much as FFXI. You are in the era of solo friendly MMOs my friend.

Anyways, I would imagine ER will hvae many things to do solo. Grinding, Crafting, Questing, farming, etc.

AoC was so not solo friendly. Neither is WoW. You cant even enter a dungeon without having to spam the LFG channels for hours. I know those games [b]claimed[/b] to be soloable, but they were so totally not.

Now, ER claims soloability, but I am wary about that claim as it has usually been a false promise by so many other mmos. I haven had a good game to solo in since UO. I am hoping ER can fix that, but I am doubtful.

Actually a solo player will likely have as many options as any guilded member.  Will a solo player have a role in territory control, I would say yes.  It will be harder for a solo player, but I foresee a lot of contract/mercenary jobs emerging on the server(s).  Build some credentials (for stuff you do well) and some guild will be looking for what you can offer on a per job basis.

One of the things that draws me to this game is that they aren't trying to make you a "beautiful and unique snowflake".  I'm pretty sick of this "choosen one" BS, and if you remove that, all the epic stuff has to be done by large groups/guilds. 

Originally posted by ghstwolf

Actually a solo player will likely have as many options as any guilded member.  Will a solo player have a role in territory control, I would say yes.  It will be harder for a solo player, but I foresee a lot of contract/mercenary jobs emerging on the server(s).  Build some credentials (for stuff you do well) and some guild will be looking for what you can offer on a per job basis.

One of the things that draws me to this game is that they aren't trying to make you a "beautiful and unique snowflake".  I'm pretty sick of this "choosen one" BS, and if you remove that, all the epic stuff has to be done by large groups/guilds. 

Well, that sounds pretty good. I could get into the whole mercenary thing.

 why do all these anti social "i dont wanna group/guild" people keep playing mmorpgs anyway?  theres plenty of single player offline rpgs that are great, fallout 3/the witcher/assassins creed 1 and 2 coming out soon/mass effect, the list goes on and on.

Originally posted by vaultbrain

AoC was so not solo friendly. Neither is WoW.

Mate if you don't think WoW is solo friendly i don't think mmo's are for you. Its sounds like you want to be able to solo the entire game so i'd stick to single player games or you are going to be just too frustrated.

Whilst ER will have the ability to solo you will get a much better experience playing with friends. Since its a full-loot pvp based game it will be less soloable than WoW imo.

Originally posted by vaultbrain

Ive read over Earthrise with great anticipation, and they talk a lot about guilds and factions, but what about solo players? Its a disheartening trend these days in MMOs that solo play is often neglected and overlooked. The games today bascially force players to join guilds which isnt fair.

With that in mind, what does Earthrise offer solo players, if anything at all?

Uhhh, if by 'force' you mean: If you want to experience the absolute end-game content : then sure, yeah, you're "forced".

If you look at any mmo and expect to be able to do everything completely solo (meaning no other players), then I really have to wonder why you want to play this genre. I don't mean any offense, I'm just being honest.

If you want to play through something completely solo and never really have to interact with other people then just go back to single-player games. Most MMO's that are made these days are made so you can level completely solo, a trend that -I- find disheartening to an extent. Solo-only minded players are all about, 'mememememememMEMEMEMEMEMEEEEEEEEEE' and make people like me have to make tight-knit guilds so we stop having to group with morons.

Here's how your general MMO should work out:

Leveling - Should be mostly solo. Grouping should still be involved in the form of group quests that give wortwhile rewards, but only required if you want those rewards.

End game - Should be -group- oriented to one extent or the other, especially guilds. Happy guilds means happier communities, happy communities means happy gamers, happy gamers means they tell their friends. And the cycle repeats.

Solo players need to gtfo of the mmo community. Fully soloable gameplay is what single-player games are for, I don't get why solo-minded players come to mmo's and then gripe about not being able to do absolutely everything on their own.

PS: Not saying this is what you're saying, but I just needed to get that out. It needs to be said and repeatedly said until these types of people go back to their single-player games. Guild-oriented content does NOT mean 'hardcore', it just means it takes a community of people working together for a goal. I don't get how the two have gotten confused.

How difficult something is /=/ how many people it takes to achieve that thing.

Go play some Ninja Gaiden Black. Now -that- is HARDCORE, only takes one person.

A guild siege with 50+ people on both sides = insanely fun.

Earthrise is going to have a bounty hunting system, you could try to do that solo. Beyond that I wouldn't expect it to be easy, I wouldn't expect to find a bounty head with a high price running around all alone. You won't ever get to experience all of the high-end, low-security combat, everyone will have friends.

Originally posted by neorandom

 why do all these anti social "i dont wanna group/guild" people keep playing mmorpgs anyway?  theres plenty of single player offline rpgs that are great, fallout 3/the witcher/assassins creed 1 and 2 coming out soon/mass effect, the list goes on and on.

Completely agreed.

I'll even add to your list: Kotor, Kotor II (you can leave the group members behind quite easily most of the time), Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, NWN 2, Bioshock and the entire Thief series (an RPG in my book, more or less).

You want to be a 'chosen one' a 'special snowflake', a 'demigod', a 'Dynasty warriors hero' then go play games that have titles along those lines. You won't run into content you can't just faceroll through and if it gets too hard you can just turn the difficulty down.

MMO's have no diffculty settings, you can't pause, you aren't the chosen demigod snowflake that will pwn everything in your path. People need to stop asking for crap like this. I won't be nice to them, I won't give them anymore gentle handed words to guide them on the right path. Being nice to these folks doesn't work, they don't get it, so I'm going to be an ass and at least not have any regrets.

Look at EvE Online as comparison. It's totally soloable basically, and eve PvP is very good possible as a solo-player.

Territorial warfare is not ment for solo-players, as there's player-politics involved etc.

Alos you've to notice, that Earthrise won't have any instances, so there'll be no instanced dungeons either, where you've to group up for.

In EvE Online there's some complexes which you can't solo aswell and in Earthrise there'll probably be some quests, which you can't solo either, but thats not the main-content of these game anyways.

Earthrise is a sandbox, where you run around doing either some missions for the NPC-factions or you run around killing other players. You can also be a crafter and trader, if you choose to.

Many possibilities for playing solo, but some content won't be available, as territorial warfare f.e. is designed for groups.

» Is Earthrise solo-friendly or does it force grouping?
The main storyline and all associated quests will be completely solo-friendly and allow each player to explore the island of Enterra at their leisure without requiring additional help – but there will be additional challenges where a player may need friendly support. Also, many of the player-versus-player (PvP) mechanics will be party and guild oriented for those who seek to become involved in the grand struggle for domination over controllable zones and their resources.

from the website faq

and i agree most solo friendly mmorpg's ultimately end up as soloable as free 2 play games are free 

they are also full of those that think every player is there to help them get that shiny piece of loot but are suddenly unavailable when anyone else is looking for help to get it along with the small numbers that have permanent groups to achieve theri 'demigod' status

although I don't get how you can be a 'snowflake' in games where every char is almost identical to every other char

if you're so selfish, arrogant and unlikable that you need a game to force others to interact with you maybe you're the ones that aren't wanted in the mmo community

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan

Originally posted by neorandom

 why do all these anti social "i dont wanna group/guild" people keep playing mmorpgs anyway?  theres plenty of single player offline rpgs that are great, fallout 3/the witcher/assassins creed 1 and 2 coming out soon/mass effect, the list goes on and on.

 

Completely agreed.

I'll even add to your list: Kotor, Kotor II (you can leave the group members behind quite easily most of the time), Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, NWN 2, Bioshock and the entire Thief series (an RPG in my book, more or less).

You want to be a 'chosen one' a 'special snowflake', a 'demigod', a 'Dynasty warriors hero' then go play games that have titles along those lines. You won't run into content you can't just faceroll through and if it gets too hard you can just turn the difficulty down.

MMO's have no diffculty settings, you can't pause, you aren't the chosen demigod snowflake that will pwn everything in your path. People need to stop asking for crap like this. I won't be nice to them, I won't give them anymore gentle handed words to guide them on the right path. Being nice to these folks doesn't work, they don't get it, so I'm going to be an ass and at least not have any regrets.

Read

then maybe you will understand.

There needs allways to be content available, which you can do solo.

There's not allways someone online from your guild, who you can group up with. So doing some crafting or killing some mobs and doing quests will be there, just to make sure, that you can do something, when you log into the game.

However, as Earthrise is FFA PvP, you might want to doublecheck, if you really want to play solo very much :p

Originally posted by Lord_Ixigan 

Solo players need to gtfo of the mmo community. Fully soloable gameplay is what single-player games are for, I don't get why solo-minded players come to mmo's and then gripe about not being able to do absolutely everything on their own.

PS: Not saying this is what you're saying, but I just needed to get that out. It needs to be said and repeatedly said until these types of people go back to their single-player games. Guild-oriented content does NOT mean 'hardcore', it just means it takes a community of people working together for a goal. I don't get how the two have gotten confused.

Amen to that.

God knows what state MMO's will be in a few years...

I hate the fact that most games penalize you for grouping... lower your xp per kill, kill your share of the money looted, etc.,..

How does Earthrise handle those issues?

Originally posted by BlackWatch

I hate the fact that most games penalize you for grouping... lower your xp per kill, kill your share of the money looted, etc.,..

How does Earthrise handle those issues?

First of all, Earthrise will most likely force you to group up, because we're looking at open world FFA PvP and territorial warfare to be the main-aspects of the game.

Sure, if you group up and kill an NPC or a player, then you share the loot, with your buddies, but you can also go on and shoot your buddies in the head and take all the loot for yourself.

The NPC-content in Earthrise has the primary purpose gain XP, as there won't be XP awarded for killing other players. Additionally NPC-content offers the ability to something on your own, without needing to group up, when your buddies are not online. However, you wan't to make sure not to go into areas on your own, where there's no NPC-guards covering your back, which is basically everywhere outside the NPC-cities.

Earthrise is not designed to be played alone, but it gives you some options to do so, as there's not allways someone around to group up with. And you don't group up with everyone that crosses your way, as you can never be sue about, if he's going to kill you or not.

So as you see, Earhrise pretty much forces you to group up, if you wan't to explore the whole game-world and all of the content it offers, but it gives you some breathing-room to do some stuff on your own.

Soloers can participate in PvE and become very powerful crafters. They can hop between factions if they wish, or remain neutral, and complete tons of quests. They can do many things. But yes, if you want to be effective in PvP, the best option is to group up, particularly with a Guild for "end-game" territorial control.

If you want to do quest, you may have to travel though unsecured areas, where you can get shot down by other players. So even if you can do most of the PvE-content on your own basically, you'll not really want to actually.

I like open world FFA PvP and full loot. Did I mention this? :p

I occasionally enjoy single player RPGs, but I absolutely loved Fallout 3!! That game actually got me back into MMOs. While I was playing the game, i kept thinking to myself, the only thing that would make this game any better would be travelling the same wasteland with other players. Not necessarily in a group, but just for the interaction of PCs instead of NPCs at the very least!!

I am primarily a solo MMO player, but I do interact with the other players, even though I am not "grouping" with them. And I enjoy that very much. And noone should ever expect to be able to do EVERYTHING in an MMO solo, that's just silly. Grouping should definitely have better rewards than soloing in any MMO. I haven't personally heard of anyone complaining that they cant solo 100% of the time (need to read more forums i guess :P). I can understand why some people would be upset at that notion, but I dont see solo player's as having a negative affect within the game itself.

"Cant we all just get along!"...hehe...=)

My own $0.02: As long as the game is called Massive Multiplayer, you should realize that you're gonna need to group up at some point in your gaming career. If not, maybe you want to go to FPS games where you can deathmatch all day.

Best, hardest content will be for guilds and big groups. It's for people who put time in the game and get things organized. Solo players will lose out on things like that, but look on the bright side - you don't have to talk to anyone! You can just kill steal and farm all day.

Originally posted by neorandom

 why do all these anti social "i dont wanna group/guild" people keep playing mmorpgs anyway?  theres plenty of single player offline rpgs that are great, fallout 3/the witcher/assassins creed 1 and 2 coming out soon/mass effect, the list goes on and on.

No idea, but there are more of them each year in any mmo I play. :(

Most all games out there have solo content. I always play solo for a few days b4 i even consider joining a guild or group questing.

There's allways some content to play solo, but this shouldn't be the premisse of an MMO.

Honestly, as one of the most rabid followers and devoted community members of Earthrise I'll be frank with you; this game will not be very solo friendly. 

Expect it to be similar, but not identical, to EVE in this respect.

Someone asks for Single Player content in a Massively Multiplayer game?

Seriously?