Dec 21
Why I Solo MMORPGs
In response to:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6921-Experienced-Points-Massively-Single-Player-Part-1
Disclosure: I only played one MMORPG because a friend at work convinced me.
I did play a hunter. Actually it was my second character. I shopped around for the best Solo class. Forums recommended Hunter. (in the article above, Hunter is the Solo/Newby class)
My list of reasons for playing (mostly) solo:
- Tried to recruit people to help in quests but they were all stupid 13 years olds who can barely type, let alone spell, who want to jump around in their underwear.
- Played quests with my real life friends. My friends were not online all the time, so soloed most of the time (because of reason 1 above)
- I like exploring and seeing things at my own pace. With others I always have to either speed up or slow down. I didn't have time to experiment.
- When I died (which was often because my higher level friends were taking me to areas above my ability) I had to catch up. After too much of this everyone gets annoyed. Trying to retrieve your body from a beast's den is no fun, especially when aforementioned nasty is standing on your carcass.
- In a game you want the player to feel like the hero. You want to be Strider. Not player 15623 of 23490834. I remember at one of the low level boss spawns. There was a line to kill the boss. WTF, talk about suspension of disbelief or total lack thereof. Up until that point, I loved WoW. Then it just kind of occurred to me that this is dumb. Standing in line for a boss encounter. Why am I paying to stand in line? Why not have the whole game world to myself?
- When I game, its usually to escape. To escape stress of work of relationships but most of all the stress of dealing with people. Games are a fun little puzzle box. Something I can control. I turn it on an off. I can figure it out. Not so with people or the real world. Games are a great escape and stress reliever just likes movies and books. Would you read a book with 5 people? You see a move with friends, but that's a passive experience.
I quit WoW after 3 months. IMHO it was not worth $15 a month. I was tired of flying across the world just to go skin 15 more crocodiles. Too many pointless fetch and carry quests. I had a stack of more interesting games waiting for me,.
What could you do to entice more soloists to your MMORPG?
Good question.
- Make everything accessible to single players.
- Make group play suck less (or just don't require them, see 1).
- Segment servers by age? I fear that I may be talking to some 13 year gothopotamus on the other end. I don't want that. I don't want to hear about some adolescents problems with his teacher, etc.
- Value gamers time. Teens have unlimited time. I don't. I want to get in and get some playing done. Wasting my time with travel, fetch and carry or skin 15 kittens is anathema.
I think you can have a living breathing world with multiple players. Just relax the whole group thing. Forced social shit is overdone/overrated. It's like school with the stupid group projects. Nobody really works that way in the real world.
Let me trade with my friend, go on raids, stuf
f like that, but let me have some ME time. Let me explore, be a hero. I'm paying $15/month to be player 13435 of 123453234 and stand in line to kill an Imp.
