Originally posted by adam_nox

Originally posted by Ecoces

no where in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game does it say you have to be grouped up with those other players.

 

There's no point in an mmo where people don't group up organically and do PUGs.  Games with little/no grouping or guild/friend only grouping aren't worth a sub fee or anything past a box price, and most mmos like that aren't even worth the box price because the solo content (SWTOR GW2) isn't worth playing.

Solo play and playing in solitude are two very different things. Or do you love having a group of family members hunched over you, trying to talk to you and sitting next to you while you play a mmo? Just because you like to play alone doesn't mean you want to be alone. It also doesn't mean you are not aware of the presence of others in game. Having that awareness that you are among many greatly effects what you play just as much if not more than how you play.

My case is a bit different. I am married and I work till late. So I can't find enough time to look for x many people to do just one quest.  And even I find the time to find a group to do a quest or dungeon I may not be online long enough to finish it and I don't want to leave the group in the middle of it.

So in my humble opinion, it's very convenient that it is %100 soloable.

 

Originally posted by Fearum

Originally posted by NaughtyP
Sooooooo... am I going to be 1 of 3 million "heroes" or will the story actually make sense for a change?

I assume you get all your information from this forum so you have no idea what your talking about. If you actually knew the story line you would not need to ask this question.

On topic though to OP, its a main storyline. Who cares if it is soloable or not. There is other stuff to do in the game that will require others to work together.  

Is the main storyline not a personal storyline? Hmmm. I thought it was. Guess not.

Originally posted by kevjards
imo the story should be completely soloable..afterall its your story..not someone elses to share with.i hate it when they give you a storyline and force you to group up.plenty of otherstuff in game will be group orientated

^^I agree ^^ Well said.

Originally posted by c0exist

Originally posted by lizardbones

Because there are multiplayer aspects to the game too? Because, strange as it may seem, there is a market for games where you see other people playing, but are not necessarily directly interacting with them.

real people or npcs walking around, whats the difference?  No need to interact with them so who cares who is driving that character.  

Rofl.  Imagine if in real life everyone but you was a robot and just a programmed individual, like an NPC.  Yeah, it would be pretty boring.  But real life isn't like that, it's filled with other people doing all kinds of things that aren't always preprogrammed and you never have to interact with any of them if you don't want to.  Which one would you choose?  Robots or real people?  Yeah, now apply that same analogy to MMORPGs.  Get it now?!

When you do a story quest in a group and you want to read/listen to the NPC before moving on, there is always a go go 14 year old who write in group chat "MOVE MOVE, COME ON "&T#¤&"/#¤" and that idiot runs off and aggro half the place before I even had the chance to reading/listen to the NPC, and then he write in chat  "#%%¤&% RP NOOB NERD" or something like that and blame everyone and his mother that he died.

So yeah It's perfect that the main story is 100% solo.

Originally posted by c0exist
My question is this, if leveling and story quests are soloable why not just make another single player game?

Probably because being able to solo to the max level is the expected standard in AAA MMOs.

Group content is awsome and needed in any mmo. However being forced to group in order to progress is just a bad idea.

Look at lotro the main story quests in that game used to include quite a lot of group content, which at launch was fine however a few months later it became a major complaint because people didnt want to HAVE to find a group in order to progress so in the end turbine made the bulk of them soloable.

Forcing people to group just creates a barrier for new players, encouraging grouping helps new players find new friends. How you encourage grouping, now thats the issue

Originally posted by deakon

Look at lotro the main story quests in that game used to include quite a lot of group content, which at launch was fine however a few months later it became a major complaint because people didnt want to HAVE to find a group in order to progress so in the end turbine made the bulk of them soloable.

 

That wasen't the reason at all.

The reason was that new players after 6 months to a year had really a hard time to find groups for the group book quests, most people were at cap and the new players were not that many so Turbine made em soloable.

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by deakon

Look at lotro the main story quests in that game used to include quite a lot of group content, which at launch was fine however a few months later it became a major complaint because people didnt want to HAVE to find a group in order to progress so in the end turbine made the bulk of them soloable.

 

That wasen't the reason at all.

The reason was that new players after 6 months to a year had really a hard time to find groups for the group book quests, most people were at cap and the new players were not that many so Turbine made em soloable.

Thats pretty much what i said

was fine at launch became a problem a few months down the road

Originally posted by deakon

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by deakon

Look at lotro the main story quests in that game used to include quite a lot of group content, which at launch was fine however a few months later it became a major complaint because people didnt want to HAVE to find a group in order to progress so in the end turbine made the bulk of them soloable.

 

That wasen't the reason at all.

The reason was that new players after 6 months to a year had really a hard time to find groups for the group book quests, most people were at cap and the new players were not that many so Turbine made em soloable.

Thats pretty much what i said

was fine at launch became a problem a few months down the road

Missread your post.

Originally posted by kevjards
imo the story should be completely soloable..afterall its your story..not someone elses to share with.i hate it when they give you a storyline and force you to group up.plenty of otherstuff in game will be group orientated

I kind of disagree with you here man. We see the single player story in most every MMORPG anymore and that's a shame. I think there really is a place for actual group stories on the large and small scale where you can have your own role in events with everyone else too in the same way we have ensemble casts and stories for TV shows. I think and feel that  there really should be more of a place made for group stories in multiplayer online gaming rather than giving up because its hard to design and just going single player. When I am playing a game with other people for fun it doesn't always have to be about me.

Being able to solo is fine, that's hardly the problem with the "main story". 

They said it's a SINGLE PLAYER story line, and the only context of SINGLE PLAYER I'm aware of is, you do it alone. 

Firor said in a video some time ago, that the "personal" story was a single player story line that you'll do alone. 

That's bad. 

thank you for all your responses, i really hope this game is as epic as I hope it will be.  Nevertheless, i find that the best mmo's have the best communities.  Without the need to group consistently there is no need to interact.  I love the way ffxi did it, forced grouping to level, soloable side quests and any miscellaneous farming, camping etc.  But by grouping to level up you build helpful friends for later quests and for me, because i can only speak for myself, this os what makes these games enjoyable.  There arent a whole lot of story quests, but when you do one they should be difficult and take you on a journey with others.  But thats just my feeling, we are all different and one game sadly wont please us all.  

 

I asked on a previous thread, if they made instead of pve and pvp servers; hard and normal servers.  Where the servers are identical but on the hard the mobs hp is more so grouping is essential and your exp gain is cut by a decimal place.  So everyone can play it the way they want to.  Just a thought.  What do you guys think?

Originally posted by c0exist

thank you for all your responses, i really hope this game is as epic as I hope it will be.  Nevertheless, i find that the best mmo's have the best communities.  Without the need to group consistently there is no need to interact.  I love the way ffxi did it, forced grouping to level, soloable side quests and any miscellaneous farming, camping etc.  But by grouping to level up you build helpful friends for later quests and for me, because i can only speak for myself, this os what makes these games enjoyable.  There arent a whole lot of story quests, but when you do one they should be difficult and take you on a journey with others.  But thats just my feeling, we are all different and one game sadly wont please us all.  

 

I asked on a previous thread, if they made instead of pve and pvp servers; hard and normal servers.  Where the servers are identical but on the hard the mobs hp is more so grouping is essential and your exp gain is cut by a decimal place.  So everyone can play it the way they want to.  Just a thought.  What do you guys think?

Well, in a way Age of Conan had something similar to that with their challenge mode option for zones.  So instead of servers it was just something one could choose when entering each zone.  Not sure how many people used it, I know I never did and really never would or will.   I'm not  a challenge gamer, but I respect that there are, but that's why games like Wizardry online are coming out for people like that. 

I too enjoyed FFXI, but I found the necessity for having to group just to level a major hindrance, at least in the post 50 levels when it takes so long just to get one level.  I like to solo level and then group for other stuff in my MMOs.

My question is this, if leveling and story quests are soloable why not just make another single player game?

Becuse there are alot of mmorpg players that dont like forced elements as guilds, raids, and grp instents.

But like to play with others when they have the time and the feeling for it.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Who cares its only the story, the least important part of an mmo, so unimportant many mmos manage to get by perfectly well by not having one.

Because you either do something well or not at all.

Having no story is a lot less of a turndown than having a bad story.

Personally I think there should be a multiplyer story as well as a solostory (if you must have a solostory, I prefer playing MMOs with others) if a game should have a story. And I think GW2 is right with instancing the solostuff, people soloing can do that by themselves. Watching others solo is about as exciting as watching paint dry...

TESO should have a good story with both single and multiplayer parts (separate or together) or they should just skip the whole thing. 

If there is a big solo element of the game thats fine, but they should make the group content extra HARD and obviously have much better rewards so people are attracted to the challenge and reward and actually play it with some degree of social interaction.  I hate hate hate playing solo orientated MMO's where there is no need to communicate at all... kills the whole vibe and in my opinion purpose all together. But maybe thats just me...

One of the most co-dependent games I've ever played (SWG) had plenty of content I could solo any time I felt like it. I could fully skill a combat toon without ever running around with others. We also used what were coined as solo groups to pull harder missions that we would then complete solo (more xp).

Your point is?

Originally posted by c0exist

thank you for all your responses, i really hope this game is as epic as I hope it will be.  Nevertheless, i find that the best mmo's have the best communities.  Without the need to group consistently there is no need to interact.  I love the way ffxi did it, forced grouping to level, soloable side quests and any miscellaneous farming, camping etc.  But by grouping to level up you build helpful friends for later quests and for me, because i can only speak for myself, this os what makes these games enjoyable.  There arent a whole lot of story quests, but when you do one they should be difficult and take you on a journey with others.  But thats just my feeling, we are all different and one game sadly wont please us all.  

 

I asked on a previous thread, if they made instead of pve and pvp servers; hard and normal servers.  Where the servers are identical but on the hard the mobs hp is more so grouping is essential and your exp gain is cut by a decimal place.  So everyone can play it the way they want to.  Just a thought.  What do you guys think?

The biggest problem with forced grouping is...well forced grouping. At some point, parts of the gameworld become less populated due to people out-leveling the zone, or have spent a lot of time there previously and are now bored with that particular area. Which then creates massive gates for folks looking to get into the game at a later date, or even re-roll a new alt.

Communities can be created without having to be forced into it. Let's say a game is mostly soloable, but then has a very robust crafting system, so much so that you couldn't possibly craft everything you want/need by yourself. You then create a community which is based upon economy rather than having to always kill stuff together.

Grouping should always be rewarded, and harder content should be created so groups can have a challenge, but grouping shouldn't ever be a forced mechanic for the entirety of a mmo.

The multiplayer part of MMO doesn't state grouping only, nor does it even imply it. There's a ton of ways to interact with others. Unfortunately, many mmo companies don't exploit that to the fullest extent.