Guild Wars 2

Auvic.5679:

@Capzero:
The entirety of GW2 is shaped so as to encourage people to play solo whenever they want, but not punish them in any way for playing in groups, as other games so often do. If you wanted to be able to solo dungeons, you’re playing the wrong game. As far as bosses/events/anything else goes, sure; you can do it all yourself.

“MMOs require interaction” isn’t a myth in the sense that I haven’t seen any evidence that would suggest otherwise. The above posted noted that area/map chat devolved into nothing but auction chat when henchmen were introduced, strongly suggesting that, in fact, introducing henchmen killed the community.

Aside from your personal anecdote, what evidence do you have?
You might very well be the outlier here, keep in mind.

I wouldn’t like to see a LFG tool, myself. The disadvantages to it that I’ve seen far outweigh its benefits, especially when joining a guild to find people to consistently run dungeons(Including Fractals) with is one of the simplest things in GW2.

I suggest reading this article and some of the related research

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/02/alone_together_.html

I understand that WOW is not GW so the distribution of collaborative play may differ but in general the ‘solo’ player far outweighs the group player. That being said I still firmly believe that you need content for all kinds of players as high population is good for both the solo and group oriented player.

My main point is that if you introduce options that allow players to play without grouping or getting involved in community (but you don’t block access to them) and your community falls apart then it was a false community. Player only involved themselves because they had to not because they wanted to.

Either way, tools that reduce tedium can only be good

fathamburger.8453:

Henchmen literally killed GW1 overnight for PVE. They were convenient but when they were introduced, that was pretty much the last time anyone really talked to each other or went on missions with other people anymore. City chat essentially became an auction channel only.

This is not a single player game, I understand the frustration but this is an MMO. It is for playing with other people. They already gave you a 1-80 journey with little forced grouping or social, and imo this was already worse than it should have been

I must agree that this game’s dungeon system is not a single player friendly component but the rest is. The correct answer is that a solo player who has completed GW2 and should move on once the leveling/exploring/pvp components are completed to their satisfaction. The dungeons are reserved for groups.

As for the impact of henchman killing community, if people stopped playing together because they no longer had to why where you forcing them to do something they didn’t want? The myth that MMO’s require interaction needs to be dispelled. The draw of an MMO is the stage and the feel of being in a live environment. I am happy to ride the bus with you but just don’t talk to me.

LFG tool is a nice way to speed up dungeon crawling and I would think a required MMO tool that pushes grouping on players. I am glad to see it will get rework in this game a help reduce spam.