Guild Wars 2

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Muketsu.1572:

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

Muketsu.1572:

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

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Muketsu.1572:

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Muketsu.1572:

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

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Muketsu.1572:

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

And yet when other MMO’s have done just this they have thrived. I have gotten over alot of my introvert issues but I just cannot handle groups on some days, and I know of afew people far worse off than myself, so if anyone it benefits them completely.

What MMOs are thriving at the moment?

thriving wasn’t necessarily the right word, well it was just not in that context, thriving as in not closed for good

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

PopeUrban.2578:

Muketsu.1572:

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

Your attitude toward content is what cost us the battle for Barradin’s Crypt. The "Make the open world soloable’ has eroded the sense of being in a living world as dynamic events simply get knocked down the moment someone takes a glance at them.

Every map should have content that provides challenges for people to rally together to overcome, and not have that content be restricted to world bosses (See – Barradin’s army holding the crypt in Ashford, which has been lost)

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

But it’s still doable with heroes as you just said.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

Like I said in the post, name a well known MMO that doesn’t require group play. I’m not saying that there isn’t an MMO out there that doesn’t require group play, but if it’s not well known, then I wouldn’t expect more than a handful to know about it.

And the younger doctors would. The ones just getting out of school and starting in the field. The ones who grew up with WoW having already been released and well known.

Plus, with google being pretty a commonly used resource, I’m sure a reputable doctor would do some research on MMO’s before telling a patient to play it. Just like they would read studies and/or listen to reps discuss a drug before writing prescriptions for them to their patients.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

Like I said in the post, name a well known MMO that doesn’t require group play. I’m not saying that there isn’t an MMO out there that doesn’t require group play, but if it’s not well known, then I wouldn’t expect more than a handful to know about it.

And the younger doctors would. The ones just getting out of school and starting in the field. The ones who grew up with WoW having already been released and well known.

Plus, with google being pretty a commonly used resource, I’m sure a reputable doctor would do some research on MMO’s before telling a patient to play it. Just like they would read studies and/or listen to reps discuss a drug before writing prescriptions for them to their patients.

My goodness. Like I said, the lack of an example doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it means it hasn’t been effectively implemented.

All young doctors know about the intricacies of MMOs? Really? And with a few Google searches you can understand their exact inner workings, the nuances of the community, the exact content requirements? Really?

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

Like I said in the post, name a well known MMO that doesn’t require group play. I’m not saying that there isn’t an MMO out there that doesn’t require group play, but if it’s not well known, then I wouldn’t expect more than a handful to know about it.

And the younger doctors would. The ones just getting out of school and starting in the field. The ones who grew up with WoW having already been released and well known.

Plus, with google being pretty a commonly used resource, I’m sure a reputable doctor would do some research on MMO’s before telling a patient to play it. Just like they would read studies and/or listen to reps discuss a drug before writing prescriptions for them to their patients.

name one soloable Everquest heralded as the first MMO, and yeah they looked some up I chose guild wars out of the list.

amp.7926:

Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

Sartharina.3542:

amp.7926:

Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

There’s tremendous incentive. There’s cosmetic gear, mounts, pets titles, not to mention lore. I play WoW, and I almost exclusively do old content.

Sartharina.3542:

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Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

we saw a similar issue with dungeons when raids came out, instead the bumped the rewards, same for WvW which they made simi soloable and give rewards from dungeons.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

But it’s still doable with heroes as you just said.

By that logic, dungeons are already soloable, fractals are already soloable, and the group events people complain aren’t soloable are, by and large, already soloable.

It’s just harder, requires specific characters, specific play patterns, and more effort and time for the same reward.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

But it’s still doable with heroes as you just said.

By that logic, dungeons are already soloable, fractals are already soloable, and the group events people complain aren’t soloable are, by and large, already soloable.

It’s just harder, requires specific characters, specific play patterns, and more effort and time for the same reward.

That’s actually false, because certain paths and fractals have mechanics that would require you to be in more than one place at once, and are therefore impossible to solo, no matter your skill level.

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Sartharina.3542:

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Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

There’s tremendous incentive. There’s cosmetic gear, mounts, pets titles, not to mention lore. I play WoW, and I almost exclusively do old content.

Solo, on a level-capped or near-level capped character, right?

WoW discourages grouping up for open-world content – You can outlevel everything, so there’s no challenge to going back and farming anything you want as an unstoppable juggernaut. Other players are competition for mob tags, resource nodes, and loot drops. WoW’s Cross-Realm Zones – it’s answer to low player population in low-level maps, is wildly hated by the community because of the increased competition from other players. So please… find an example of a game that ISN’T hostile to casual group content.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

Like I said in the post, name a well known MMO that doesn’t require group play. I’m not saying that there isn’t an MMO out there that doesn’t require group play, but if it’s not well known, then I wouldn’t expect more than a handful to know about it.

And the younger doctors would. The ones just getting out of school and starting in the field. The ones who grew up with WoW having already been released and well known.

Plus, with google being pretty a commonly used resource, I’m sure a reputable doctor would do some research on MMO’s before telling a patient to play it. Just like they would read studies and/or listen to reps discuss a drug before writing prescriptions for them to their patients.

name one soloable Everquest heralded as the first MMO, and yeah they looked some up I chose guild wars out of the list.

If by guild wars, you mean GW1, that’s not an MMO, that’s a CORPG.

Fair enough on their being MMO’s that don’t require grouping.

But since GW2 has required grouping since day continuously for some content, I would not consider the doctor to be a good one if they recommended GW2 to a patient who was not ready for all possible types of interactions with players.

That would be like a doctor prescribing Drug A to their patient without looking into it at all and it having a known bad reaction of Drug B, which that doctor had prescribed to the patient at the same visit.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

But it’s still doable with heroes as you just said.

By that logic, dungeons are already soloable, fractals are already soloable, and the group events people complain aren’t soloable are, by and large, already soloable.

It’s just harder, requires specific characters, specific play patterns, and more effort and time for the same reward.

No by this logic, with NPC help hard things can be done, and I find it odd that no one has brought up an issue with soloable open world HoT maps?

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

I hope people aren’t asking for Open World Group Content to be able to be completed with Hero-type NPCs. Would one then be able to have a party of, say, 9 of these ‘Heroes’? Can one imagine the population cap on the maps, then? Only 5 to 10 players per map? Or would we see ‘Heroes have been hidden due to rising population’ in the middle of a Group Event? Lol, bet that would go over well.

Also, I hated micro-managing my Heroes, but that was just me, I guess. Was bad enough just outfitting them and setting builds, etc.

If it’s only for Dungeons/Raids/Fractals, I suppose it would be ok, but it would certainly change the player-interaction dynamics, just as it did in GW1.

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Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

There’s tremendous incentive. There’s cosmetic gear, mounts, pets titles, not to mention lore. I play WoW, and I almost exclusively do old content.

Solo, on a level-capped or near-level capped character, right?

WoW discourages grouping up for open-world content – You can outlevel everything, so there’s no challenge to going back and farming anything you want as an unstoppable juggernaut. Other players are competition for mob tags, resource nodes, and loot drops. WoW’s Cross-Realm Zones – it’s answer to low player population in low-level maps, is wildly hated by the community because of the increased competition from other players. So please… find an example of a game that ISN’T hostile to casual group content.

CRZ is hated because WoW’s outdoor world is poorly implemented, but actually the new expansion is making some efforts to fix that.

Having said that, you made the false assumption that casual group content equals outdoor content when WoW has lots of casual, instanced group content.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

Like I said in the post, name a well known MMO that doesn’t require group play. I’m not saying that there isn’t an MMO out there that doesn’t require group play, but if it’s not well known, then I wouldn’t expect more than a handful to know about it.

And the younger doctors would. The ones just getting out of school and starting in the field. The ones who grew up with WoW having already been released and well known.

Plus, with google being pretty a commonly used resource, I’m sure a reputable doctor would do some research on MMO’s before telling a patient to play it. Just like they would read studies and/or listen to reps discuss a drug before writing prescriptions for them to their patients.

name one soloable Everquest heralded as the first MMO, and yeah they looked some up I chose guild wars out of the list.

If by guild wars, you mean GW1, that’s not an MMO, that’s a CORPG.

Fair enough on their being MMO’s that don’t require grouping.

But since GW2 has required grouping since day continuously for some content, I would not consider the doctor to be a good one if they recommended GW2 to a patient who was not ready for all possible types of interactions with players.

That would be like a doctor prescribing Drug A to their patient without looking into it at all and it having a known bad reaction of Drug B, which that doctor had prescribed to the patient at the same visit.

was GW1, and during development for 2 we weren’t told it wasn’t soloable, didn’t find that out until BWE’s and those lucky to Test at PAX so at the time if it hadn’t been out but in development based off info from its prequel, would have stood to wager as good as the other. And the drug a vs drug b thing, happens alot clinicians aren’t as well trained at pharmaceuticals in most countries as they should be when it comes to mental health.

And just to add, that doesn’t mean that ANet should keep acquisition of top tier gear in group-required content at all times. And by gear I mean either rarity level (exotic vs ascended vs legendary) and stats wise. Skins can be 100% exclusive to the group-required content.

So yes, at some point, legendary armor should be available by doing things other than raiding. But it should have a different skin.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I hope people aren’t asking for Open World Group Content to be able to be completed with Hero-type NPCs. Would one then be able to have a party of, say, 9 of these ‘Heroes’? Can one imagine the population cap on the maps, then? Only 5 to 10 players per map? Or would we see ‘Heroes have been hidden due to rising population’ in the middle of a Group Event? Lol, bet that would go over well.

Also, I hated micro-managing my Heroes, but that was just me, I guess. Was bad enough just outfitting them and setting builds, etc.

If it’s only for Dungeons/Raids/Fractals, I suppose it would be ok, but it would certainly change the player-interaction dynamics, just as it did in GW1.

tis only for raids dungeons and fracs, open world just needs its scaling fixed in HoT for mapping but thats been addressed recently in other threads to it wasn’t a main point here

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The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Second Line, defines a MMO, and again players should have the options and choices. 1 because of immersion and 2 because some people have issues actually doing group things due to mental disorders (social anxiety anthropohobia agoraphobia, etc.), but are recommended they play MMO’s by clinicians as a form of management and therapy, if they pay 60$ for the game they should be allowed to play all of it and the mental issues should be accommodated.

Did it ever occur to you that the fact that MMO’s have content that requires group play may be one of the reasons that clinicians recommend playing MMO’s to those types of players?

100% of content of MMO’s does not need to be able to be done solo. Which is what GW2 has. Some content that can be done solo and some content that requires a group.

when coping with something like that, it is best to have social interaction casually and by choice, but alot of people with these issues, get sucked into groups and get told they are playing wrong which makes matters worse, this can also help them learn the game, which in turn can prevent said issue from occuring. once they are confident they may even want to do group content.

Or the player could just never ever do group content at all because it’s not required for them to play and the therapeutic benefits aren’t achieved because their doctor wanted to actually group with other players intentionally.

I don’t have a degree in psychology of any level, so unless you do and can prove it, neither of us can say for sure what all the reasons clinicians have for “prescribing” MMO play to their patients. I can’t think of a single MMO that doesn’t require group play for parts of the game. GW1 is a CORPG, not an MMO.

You do realize you can have social interactions in an MMO without participating in forced group content, right?

Yes. I do it all the time. I’m one of those players who prefers to play solo.

However, their doctor may want them to actually do content together.

And at some point in their treatment, content that may actually create a disagreement to see how well the patient has progressed. To see if the patient doesn’t have as much anxiety. Or can at least control their response to the anxiety better.

When group content is required, people become a means to an end. It would not be good for a person with a mental disorder to be treated and talked to like a tool by random strangers wanting their currency in an optimal timeframe.

Of course, if group content wasn’t required, those kinds of people are less likely to be there, and the experience would be a lot more relaxed. Disagreements would be respectable instead of venomous.

Players don’t suddenly become 100% nice 100% of the time just because they aren’t required to group together.

Please find me a study that proves this and I’ll give you the point.

Name me one well known MMO that does not have any content that requires group play (well known so that one could expect enough doctors to know about it to “prescribe” to patients).

The most well known MMO is WoW. Which I believe does have content that requires groups to play. So tell me why a doctor would “prescribe” MMO play to a patient they didn’t feel was ready for what could happen when they play an MMO, when the most widely known MMO has content that requires group play?

I didn’t say it would be 100% one way or 100% another, but it would certainly make a difference.

And I highly doubt these doctors, with their up to 20 hour work days actually know the intricacies of the way MMOs work, and how the group content is structured, so just because they recommend a game with social interaction doesn’t mean they’re intending their patients to be put into nasty, cutthroat social situations.

And most MMOs requiring group content doesn’t mean they should. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way for it to be.

Like I said in the post, name a well known MMO that doesn’t require group play. I’m not saying that there isn’t an MMO out there that doesn’t require group play, but if it’s not well known, then I wouldn’t expect more than a handful to know about it.

And the younger doctors would. The ones just getting out of school and starting in the field. The ones who grew up with WoW having already been released and well known.

Plus, with google being pretty a commonly used resource, I’m sure a reputable doctor would do some research on MMO’s before telling a patient to play it. Just like they would read studies and/or listen to reps discuss a drug before writing prescriptions for them to their patients.

name one soloable Everquest heralded as the first MMO, and yeah they looked some up I chose guild wars out of the list.

If by guild wars, you mean GW1, that’s not an MMO, that’s a CORPG.

Fair enough on their being MMO’s that don’t require grouping.

But since GW2 has required grouping since day continuously for some content, I would not consider the doctor to be a good one if they recommended GW2 to a patient who was not ready for all possible types of interactions with players.

That would be like a doctor prescribing Drug A to their patient without looking into it at all and it having a known bad reaction of Drug B, which that doctor had prescribed to the patient at the same visit.

was GW1, and during development for 2 we weren’t told it wasn’t soloable, didn’t find that out until BWE’s and those lucky to Test at PAX so at the time if it hadn’t been out but in development based off info from its prequel, would have stood to wager as good as the other. And the drug a vs drug b thing, happens alot clinicians aren’t as well trained at pharmaceuticals in most countries as they should be when it comes to mental health.

Like I said, a known reaction with the drug A/B thing.

So you can’t really use GW1 as a reason for why GW2 should be able to have 100% solo able things as GW1 and GW2 are in different genres. Similar, but different.

And I did say GW2 was known to have group content since it’s release. While it was being developed wouldn’t be since it’s release.

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Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

There’s tremendous incentive. There’s cosmetic gear, mounts, pets titles, not to mention lore. I play WoW, and I almost exclusively do old content.

Solo, on a level-capped or near-level capped character, right?

WoW discourages grouping up for open-world content – You can outlevel everything, so there’s no challenge to going back and farming anything you want as an unstoppable juggernaut. Other players are competition for mob tags, resource nodes, and loot drops. WoW’s Cross-Realm Zones – it’s answer to low player population in low-level maps, is wildly hated by the community because of the increased competition from other players. So please… find an example of a game that ISN’T hostile to casual group content.

CRZ is hated because WoW’s outdoor world is poorly implemented, but actually the new expansion is making some efforts to fix that.

Having said that, you made the false assumption that casual group content equals outdoor content when WoW has lots of casual, instanced group content.

No. WoW has easily-accessible instanced group content thanks to LFD/LFR and battlegrounds, but it’s not ‘casual’ in the same sense that Guild Wars 2 is. “Instanced’ is mutually-exclusive with ’Casual”, because "instanced’ is deliberate.

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The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

You still haven’t explained to me how a player can expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it could expect to never be required to play with other people.

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amp.7926:

Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

There’s tremendous incentive. There’s cosmetic gear, mounts, pets titles, not to mention lore. I play WoW, and I almost exclusively do old content.

Solo, on a level-capped or near-level capped character, right?

WoW discourages grouping up for open-world content – You can outlevel everything, so there’s no challenge to going back and farming anything you want as an unstoppable juggernaut. Other players are competition for mob tags, resource nodes, and loot drops. WoW’s Cross-Realm Zones – it’s answer to low player population in low-level maps, is wildly hated by the community because of the increased competition from other players. So please… find an example of a game that ISN’T hostile to casual group content.

CRZ is hated because WoW’s outdoor world is poorly implemented, but actually the new expansion is making some efforts to fix that.

Having said that, you made the false assumption that casual group content equals outdoor content when WoW has lots of casual, instanced group content.

No. WoW has easily-accessible instanced group content thanks to LFD/LFR and battlegrounds, but it’s not ‘casual’ in the same sense that Guild Wars 2 is. “Instanced’ is mutually-exclusive with ’Casual”, because "instanced’ is deliberate.

Then you don’t know what casual means. I think you mean to say organic.

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The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

You still haven’t explained to me how a player can expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it could expect to never be required to play with other people.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If this change has positive results, and no negative ones, it should be done, regardless of the semantics of the word multiplayer.

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Okay so since defining an MMO is lost on people let’s look at the starting point Everquest, a completely group oriented game, that when faced with declining players added merc NPC’s to do group content, same for everquest two, in WoW old content is made soloable after a certain amount of time. In Aion and Liniage, low level and old content made soloable. These games were at one time or another forerunners, and what did they all do, they made things soloable, to keep players invested in the world, atm Anet, is down in player count, and monetarily not doing the best, so what should they probably do, well let’s look to see how many of the aforementioned games are closed… none. should probably add in something to keep us invested and playing. And soloing seems to work great in this genre as a hook, gimmick and marketing strategy.

…can you cite an example of an MMO that, like GW2, doesn’t have it’s ‘old content’ maps become a wasteland with the release of each new map?

Everquest, WoW, Aion, Lineage, etc. all have old content become soloable because there’s no incentive for veteran players to go back and play that content. The population on any map is heavily restricted to the very few players who happen to fall into that map’s level range at that time. Guild Wars 2 does not have that problem.

There’s tremendous incentive. There’s cosmetic gear, mounts, pets titles, not to mention lore. I play WoW, and I almost exclusively do old content.

Solo, on a level-capped or near-level capped character, right?

WoW discourages grouping up for open-world content – You can outlevel everything, so there’s no challenge to going back and farming anything you want as an unstoppable juggernaut. Other players are competition for mob tags, resource nodes, and loot drops. WoW’s Cross-Realm Zones – it’s answer to low player population in low-level maps, is wildly hated by the community because of the increased competition from other players. So please… find an example of a game that ISN’T hostile to casual group content.

CRZ is hated because WoW’s outdoor world is poorly implemented, but actually the new expansion is making some efforts to fix that.

Having said that, you made the false assumption that casual group content equals outdoor content when WoW has lots of casual, instanced group content.

No. WoW has easily-accessible instanced group content thanks to LFD/LFR and battlegrounds, but it’s not ‘casual’ in the same sense that Guild Wars 2 is. “Instanced’ is mutually-exclusive with ’Casual”, because "instanced’ is deliberate.

Then you don’t know what casual means. I think you mean to say organic.

Considering the multiple definitions of the word casual when it comes to MMO’s, he may be using the word casual correctly with regards to his definition.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

But it’s still doable with heroes as you just said.

By that logic, dungeons are already soloable, fractals are already soloable, and the group events people complain aren’t soloable are, by and large, already soloable.

It’s just harder, requires specific characters, specific play patterns, and more effort and time for the same reward.

That’s actually false, because certain paths and fractals have mechanics that would require you to be in more than one place at once, and are therefore impossible to solo, no matter your skill level.

Exactly, its faulty logic. The reason one can still easily get a group for Urgoz but not pretty much any of the 8 man content in the game is that the game actively requires teaming up.

Can people solo dungeons and certain fractals/ sure. Are they less likely to do so because it offers a much reduced reward versus effort? Absolutely. Are fractals an overall better experience because of the higher number of players willing to join your group? Absolutely.

Should fractals be given NPC allies it necessitates those NPC allies, like GW1 heroes, be able to do the bulk of the work while you reap the same rewards for minimal effort. In that situation it massively erodes the player base for what is primarily designed as group content in a multiplayer game.

“But its an option!”

It’s only an option if you expect every player to completely ignore the basic reward mechanisms of the game, and you are willing to make the experience of people willing to do the content as designed worse for the benefit of of people who don’t want to do it in the first place

Basically, its the act of making your multiplayer game a worse multiplayer game so that people that don’t want to play multiplayer games can play it by themselves.

That is in no way better for the game, though it may serve the quite frankly selfish desires of people who feel they should be able to tackle any content at any time without interacting with any other players in a game that is designed around interacting with other players.

There are types of games designed around exactly this. Most action RPGs are designed from the ground up to provide a quality solo experience that scales with a group so that both ways are intended, viable, and appropriately balance risk and reward.

They’re also billed as being designed for between one and X number of players for this reason.

A game which calls itself a massively multiplayer game has no obligation to provide a solo option for every piece of content.

Not multiplayer auction house
Not multiplayer chat room

The term Massively Multiplayer Game has, right there in the term, the basic design goals. That the game parts of the game require more than one player, and that then number of players is generally very large so you have potential allies or enemies to interact with.

It’s a pretty simple concept, and I can’t for the life of me understand why people that want a mostly solo experiecne with the option of occasionally playing with other players don’t in stead choose to play games actually designed to do that thing

It’s like asking for handguns in a sports game. It’s just not appropriate for the overall design goals.

amp.7926:

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

This is a really awkward conversation, been doing urgoz all week long with 11 live players. Not 100% sure but think he hasn’t realized that its a faction area so if he is expecting to player with other live players well then he would have to be part of an alive faction.

I also help and play with allaince members working on their titles or doing dungeons alot too. Yup alot of the outpost are all but abadoned which is why they allowed the hero limit to go from 3 to 7. i dont really know what he expecting of an older generation game o.0

players wanting solo content in gw2 isn’t really created by h/h in gw1 but rather as a result of 2 things. 1st being that they got tired of dealing with pugs. the 2nd being they want additional challange- unfortunately alot of stuff has been toned done not leaving stuff for the players that don’t mind dying over and over again. I really miss the upscaled champion risen wraith of shetler camp in cursed shore – it was hilarious seeing whole zergs getting instantly wiped by him LMFAO

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

You still haven’t explained to me how a player can expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it could expect to never be required to play with other people.

multiplayer just means multiple people on one integrated server or setting, so since the world’s data even instanced is live fed to the main server technically GW 1 would fit that criteria to you, and so would any flash game hosted on the internet. And the vast majority of flash games, are in fact soloable. consider it defined for ya

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

You still haven’t explained to me how a player can expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it could expect to never be required to play with other people.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If this change has positive results, and no negative ones, it should be done, regardless of the semantics of the word multiplayer.

It risks making players who do want to group not be able to find a group every time they want to because those who do want to group don’t play at the same time as they do every time. Especially those who already have a lower pool due to not playing during their region’s prime time.

Then you have players who want to group to do content who can’t because no one is available to do the content with.

Whereas now, that’s hard to run into for content that’s required to have a group (provided ANet’s not nerfed the rewards to kingdom come or made it too hard to do, even for a zerg).

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

You absolutely can viably play solo if all you ever intent to play is the solo content. The “progression” you’re after is staged as group content because it is designed for groups

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be any solo content. What we’re saying is that it’s a really bad idea to embrace a philosophy in an MMO that all content is soloable.

At that point you are designing a very different game. You are limiting design choices based on the “solo potential” of content. You are functionally unable to design certain types of content, like raids and dungeons.

The entire design of the open world is the most soloable MMO in existiance and specifically designed to organically push players together in to mutually benefical temporary alliances to complete group events

GW2 does a fantastic job for solo players already, above and beyond any other game. The places where it doesn’t are a minority of the content, instanced raids, dungeons, and fractals. Furthermore _the rewards from that content are not in any way required for progression, and only reward in a cosmetic or monetary nature based upon the heightened difficulty of coordinating humans that are not perfectly tuned AI.

The fact is that GW1 henchmen and heroes had unintended consequences for the game. They made it more difficult to find groups, and eroded the social nature of the game. In structured group content that is explicitly designed as a social experience, and that is the minority of the content in the game this is a huge problem. We already saw it in fractals with the whole “lets roll swamps” situation before the latest patch.

Do you honestly think the game as a whole, not you personally, but the game as a whole would be better served by letting each player opt to walk in to what’s intended to be the most difficult content in the game with no expectation of teamwork, group strategy, or incentive to find new people to play with?

That’s the GW1 I remember at the end. It’s the same GW1 you’ll find if you log in today. A wasteland of content that doesn’t have the option of soloing, but the requirement to solo because there’s no need to find a group. No groupmates to later become good friends, and no socialization in a game designed primarily as a social experience.

Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

Of course you’re able to find people to do Urzog. Its one of the few areas in the game that you can’t fill the entire party with heroes and still get a fast clear because if you do you’re using a party of 8 rather than 12. You’re literally shooting youerself in the foot without at least one other player. You can limp to the finish line with your shot up foot, but it’s not an ideal experience there.

If anything you’re confirming my stance. The place you found a group was the place people aren’t allowed a full hero party.

But it’s still doable with heroes as you just said.

By that logic, dungeons are already soloable, fractals are already soloable, and the group events people complain aren’t soloable are, by and large, already soloable.

It’s just harder, requires specific characters, specific play patterns, and more effort and time for the same reward.

That’s actually false, because certain paths and fractals have mechanics that would require you to be in more than one place at once, and are therefore impossible to solo, no matter your skill level.

Exactly, its faulty logic. The reason one can still easily get a group for Urgoz but not pretty much any of the 8 man content in the game is that the game actively requires teaming up.

Can people solo dungeons and certain fractals/ sure. Are they less likely to do so because it offers a much reduced reward versus effort? Absolutely. Are fractals an overall better experience because of the higher number of players willing to join your group? Absolutely.

Should fractals be given NPC allies it necessitates those NPC allies, like GW1 heroes, be able to do the bulk of the work while you reap the same rewards for minimal effort. In that situation it massively erodes the player base for what is primarily designed as group content in a multiplayer game.

“But its an option!”

It’s only an option if you expect every player to completely ignore the basic reward mechanisms of the game, and you are willing to make the experience of people willing to do the content as designed worse at the experiene of people who don’t want to do it in the first place

Basically, its the act of making your multiplayer game a worse multiplayer game so that people that don’t want to play multiplayer games can play it by themselves.

That is in no way better for the game, though it may serve the quite frankly selfish desires of people who feel they should be able to tackle any content at any time without interacting with any other players in a game that is designed around interacting with other players.

There are types of games designed around exactly this. Most action RPGs are designed from the ground up to provide a quality solo experience that scales with a group so that both ways are intended, viable, and appropriately balance risk and reward.

They’re also billed as being designed for between one and X number of players for this reason.

A game which calls itself a massively multiplayer game has no obligation to provide a solo option for every piece of content.

Not multiplayer auction house
Not multiplayer chat room

The term Massively Multiplayer Game has, right there in the term, the basic design goals. That the game parts of the game require more than one player, and that then number of players is generally very large so you have potential allies or enemies to interact with.

It’s a pretty simple concept, and I can’t for the life of me understand why people that want a mostly solo experiecne with the option of occasionally playing with other players don’t in stead choose to play games actually designed to do that thing

It’s like asking for handguns in a sports game. It’s just not appropriate for the overall design goals.

Except for the fact that you could specifically tune rewards to be a greater yield in a group, so that the incentive is still there, and soloing isn’t the most efficient path, pretty much rendering most of what you just said moot.

And as I’ve said several times now, multiplayer =/= forced multiplayer, so just because it’s an MMO doesn’t mean you can say we should have to group up.

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Was able to find a group last week to do Urzog, and for some just casual conversations, which GW1 are you playing mate?

This is a really awkward conversation, been doing urgoz all week long with 11 live players. Not 100% sure but think he hasn’t realized that its a faction area so if he is expecting to player with other live players well then he would have to be part of an alive faction.

I also help and play with allaince members working on their titles or doing dungeons alot too. Yup alot of the outpost are all but abadoned which is why they allowed the hero limit to go from 3 to 7. i dont really know what he expecting of an older generation game o.0

players wanting solo content in gw2 isn’t really created by h/h in gw1 but rather as a result of 2 things. 1st being that they got tired of dealing with pugs. the 2nd being they want additional challange- unfortunately alot of stuff has been toned done not leaving stuff for the players that don’t mind dying over and over again. I really miss the upscaled champion risen wraith of shetler camp in cursed shore – it was hilarious seeing whole zergs getting instantly wiped by him LMFAO

I use the Urzog scolls, and still have my old active alliance granted the guilds all but dead, but serves enough to go sight seeing when I want.

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I hope people aren’t asking for Open World Group Content to be able to be completed with Hero-type NPCs. Would one then be able to have a party of, say, 9 of these ‘Heroes’? Can one imagine the population cap on the maps, then? Only 5 to 10 players per map? Or would we see ‘Heroes have been hidden due to rising population’ in the middle of a Group Event? Lol, bet that would go over well.

Also, I hated micro-managing my Heroes, but that was just me, I guess. Was bad enough just outfitting them and setting builds, etc.

If it’s only for Dungeons/Raids/Fractals, I suppose it would be ok, but it would certainly change the player-interaction dynamics, just as it did in GW1.

tis only for raids dungeons and fracs, open world just needs its scaling fixed in HoT for mapping but thats been addressed recently in other threads to it wasn’t a main point here

Hmm…a bit confusing, then, because the OP talks about the ‘Group’ Content in HoT, which is all Open World, with the exception of Raids.

As long as other players are in the map, I’m pretty sure one can solo the event; solo, as in no need to party/squad/group up. I just did Dragon Stand, start to finish, earlier today, without being in any kind of ‘group’.

If the OP means there should be no content that requires multiple players on the map, or no events that require more than 1 person, I would find that rather boring….something akin to the Renown Hearts or Starter Level Map events.

I hope the Devs don’t change GW2 so drastically; I imagine it would be difficult, anyway, or we would have been presented with instanced Living Story Season One by now.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

You still haven’t explained to me how a player can expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it could expect to never be required to play with other people.

multiplayer just means multiple people on one integrated server or setting, so since the world’s data even instanced is live fed to the main server technically GW 1 would fit that criteria to you, and so would any flash game hosted on the internet. And the vast majority of flash games, are in fact soloable. consider it defined for ya

When the discussion is in regards to whether an MMO should or should not have content that requires multiple players, a CORPG is not a good example to bring up to support your claims.

And no, that does not explain how one could expect a multiplayer game to not have ANY aspects that require playing with others.

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Carpboy.7145:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.
Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless. There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

This.

However, when one plays an MMO, one should not expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. It is an MMO after all.

Some things in GW2 let you play solo and not group up. Some things are easier done in a group but can be done solo if you’ve got the skill. Some things require a group.

Yes, one should expect everything in the game to be able to be done solo. You said you agreed with the comment who was saying that MMO doesn’t mean forced group play, but then you said not everything should be soloable because it’s an MMO. Which is it?

His first point:

The argument that not wanting to play in a group means you should just play a single player game drives me so nuts.

I play solo. There’s something nice about playing with others, but not playing with others.

His second point:

Not wanting to group to perform tasks doesn’t mean that the robust interactive world and economy of a MMO is worthless.

This is true regardless of what percentage of the game is able to be done solo or not. I agree. So not sure how you would get that that means I’m being ambiguous on whether I want 100% ability to solo or not.

His third and final point:

There is a great many reasons to play in a mmo other then to group with others.

Doesn’t mean that grouping with others is no longer a valid reason to play an MMO.

So I agreed with his post.

And then I went “However”. Which typically means that I’m about to give a counter argument.

Which was that just because what he said is true, doesn’t mean that the game should not have anything that requires group play.

And went on to say that GW2 has content for all types of players. Those that never want to group with others, those that sometimes want to group with others, and those who want to always group with others.

But you of course ignored the fast that most of the end game content is group only, and the majority of items related to progression are group only, so you can’t really viably play solo.

I didn’t ignore it.

GW2 has content for players who absolutely refuse to play in the nearby vicinity of other players even if they aren’t actually playing together.

I play 99.9% solo. I don’t particularly enjoy to a huge degree group events since it’s just a press 1 and don’t have to worry about anything because if I go down, someone will get me up.

I’m the player the game going 100% able to be solo would completely benefit. Yet, I realize that that’s an absurd request for an MMO and I’m completely fine with some parts of the game, I have to get over my introvert and shy nature and group with people. I had to do it for the one of the Tier 1 collections for Storm. Had to do the snowblind fractal and I’m not good enough to solo it.

No one has explained why it’s absurd request for an MMO. I’m not proposing we remove multiplayer, so there’s no contradiction with the core of the genre. You might be fine with being left out of content, but a lot of others aren’t.

Massively MULTIPLAYER Online.

I can’t think of a single multiplayer game that I’ve played in any genre that didn’t require me to actively play with other players. Intentionally. So to me, that any part of MMO’s is able to be done solo is a gift and I treat it as such.

Once again, I’m not saying remove the, as you put it, MULTIPLAYER.

Having it present and forcing it are not the same, and there’s no set of logical steps that explains why a multiplayer game should force multiplayer. If that’s what you perceive, okay then, but it’s not an argument.

When I log in, I’m not forced to find a group to play the game. If I wish to do some aspects of the game, I am forced to find a group. And that’s pefectly acceptable for an MMO.

It’s perfectly fine for an MMO to have content that requires players to play together.

Saying that it’s fine doesn’t make it fine, and saying that it’s a multiplayer game doesn’t make it fine either.

Conversely, saying that it’s not fine, doesn’t make it not fine.

And yes, saying that a multiplayer game is just fine in requiring group play for some things does make it fine.

No, it really doesn’t make it fine, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know what else to say. Conversely saying it’s not fine doesn’t make it not fine, that’s true. Which is why we’re offering several actual arguments, something you’re not doing. The community would benefit from more choice, the players would benefit from more choice. Unforced social interaction, organic social interaction, is always going to be better than forcing it, etc.

We’ve made several points, but you’re just ignoring them with your fingers in your ears saying “but it’s an MMO, and one of the M’s means multiplayer, so it’s ok”

I literally can’t see how someone would expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it to not have any content that requires one to play with other people. And I haven’t seen a reason that explains how one would expect that.

So until someone can explain that, there’s no way you’re going to get me to agree that having content that requires group play is not fine for an MMO.

You don’t consider player choice and the organic forming of social interactions good reasons. Alright.

That doesn’t explain how someone would expect a multiplayer game to not have aspects of the game that require grouping.

It explains having aspects of the game that require group play and aspects that don’t at the same time. It doesn’t explain a multiplayer game not requiring group play at all.

All aspects should be soloable because it has no negative consequences, and only positive ones. People who like soloing can solo more, people who don’t can still play in a group. There’s no good reason not to do it, and the M in MMO is not a reason not to do it.

You still haven’t explained to me how a player can expect a game in a genre with the word multiplayer in it could expect to never be required to play with other people.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If this change has positive results, and no negative ones, it should be done, regardless of the semantics of the word multiplayer.

It risks making players who do want to group not be able to find a group every time they want to because those who do want to group don’t play at the same time as they do every time. Especially those who already have a lower pool due to not playing during their region’s prime time.

Then you have players who want to group to do content who can’t because no one is available to do the content with.

Whereas now, that’s hard to run into for content that’s required to have a group (provided ANet’s not nerfed the rewards to kingdom come or made it too hard to do, even for a zerg).

“It risks making players who do want to group not be able to find a group every time they want to because those who do want to group don’t play at the same time as they do every time. "

The alternative to that is coercion, forcing people into a game mode they don’t want to be in. If so few people are left to run group content, sorry but that just means they didn’t want to run it to begin with. But I think with group content having more efficient rewards, you’re still going to be able to find a group.