Why Go It Solo In an MMO?

Saylah and Pete both had great posts recently about the importance of soloing in an MMORPG. Many people don't seem to understand why some of us like to solo in an MMORPG. After all, they say, if you are just going to play by yourself most of the time, why not just play Neverwinter Nights or Oblivion or some other single player RPG? Well, for me, there are many reasons why the single player RPG option isn't as attractive. I enjoy solo play in MMOs:

- Because there is a real economy with real players buying and selling things. You can simulate that in a single player RPG, but most don't. And knowing a real person is running around with something you made makes it far more rewarding than knowing the game deleted the item based on some random event and gave you the money, even if the end result appears the same.

- Because in games like EverQuest II with living guilds, I can contribute to the growth of my guild, even if I'm doing the work (adventure/tradeskill writs, particularly difficult quest lines, etc.) alone.

- The economy and living guilds are two ways that people can play "solo", while still playing together. Many other features in MMOs can be created that allow people to essentially "play" alone but still leverage the multiplayer nature of the genre to provide an experience single player games can't. Some examples would be: architect features in MMORPGs that allow people to design their own content, player-writable books, fluff RP features that let players play music or coordinate emotes to create customized 'dance' routines or players, and EverQuest II-style Live Events or Warhammer-style Public Quests that provide a goal for your faction, server, or region that everyone can work towards (even if they are alone).

- Because single player RPGs don't have chat rooms.

- Because trading in-game items I've earned with a computer algorithm isn't as fun.

- Because MMORPGs evolve over time; single player games get a few small expansion packs for 8000 Microsoft points a piece and then die.

- Because the game world seems more alive when there are other people running around in something other than a predetermined pattern.

- Because I do like playing WITH other people, even if I might not be "grouped" with them in combat. I might craft for them, I might help them out in chat by telling them where they need to go, I might check on something at the auction house, or grab an item that someone needs and deliver it to them since I'm on my way there anyway. All of these things are fun, and impossible in a single player RPG.

- Because in groups, everyone always skips the cut scenes. It was frustrating in Guild Wars because I was actually interested in the story. Everyone is in such a rush to get going that those of us who actually want to read the quest text or watch the cut scenes and enjoy the story are left behind. The MMO game world seems to be dominated by so-called "Achievers", so those of us in the literate minority often have to go it alone.

- Because sometimes I do want to group and I have the opportunity to do so if I choose. Most "single-player" or offline RPGs don't have cooperative modes.

- Because sometimes we don't have a choice: I love MMORPGs, and I do enjoy playing with others, but my wife recently gave me baby. I haven't had time to play anything yet, aside from a little Fable 2 while the baby napped on my belly. But when I do, I'm not going to be able to pause our EQ2 guild raid because my baby dropped some phat loot of her own. So I'll probably end up soloing. And, eventually, when I find time to game with others, I want that progress to count.

... and many, many more reasons.

What are your reasons for wanting to go it alone in a "multiplayer" game?

Solo Missions in EQ2

I'd like to see some kind of mission system created for solo and small group players. Early on, EverQuest II introduced some instances that could be done both solo or heroic, but lately the content has become split such that the overworld is largely solo and instances are all heroic.

Its good to encourage grouping by putting the best gear in the heroic dungeons, and there are certainly a lot of quests to keep soloers and small group players occupied, but it would be nice to be able to do something besides questing when we don't have the time (or desire) to group with others. I vastly prefer dungeon crawls over questing, and missions in the various dungeons would be a great alternative to keep solo and small group players occupied.

The loot should, of course, not be comparable to TSO void shard loot, but providing soloers and more time constrained players with their equivalent of "elite end game" gear would be a nice way of continuing the EQ2 tradition of supporting every kind of player. Developers wouldn't even need to make all new zones to support this; recycling existing content could be a good way to bring that about without using up as much developer bandwidth.

Why Can't We Solo With Other People?

I frequently solo. In fact, that's what I do most of the time. Recently, I've been two boxing a lot. Not too long ago, in game, someone I've known since my days in Final Fantasy XI (to whom I've often complained about not being able to find a group) asked me how I can reconcile my post stating that I feel like modern MMOs feel like a bunch of people all alone, together with the fact that I was actively soloing, avoiding a (real) group by two-boxing. In my previous post, I talk about how I believe modern MMOs lack a strong sense of community. I guess I do somewhat imply that I think the ease of soloing is part of the problem, so I suppose there is an apparent contradiction. ("Objection!," says Mr. Wright.)

But I don't think my thoughts and behavior are actually contradictory. I DO think the ease of soloing has reduced the sense of community in these games to some degree, and I do think thats a bad thing. But I don't think soloing itself is bad. I enjoy EQ2 much more now that it is much more possible to solo; I probably wouldn't still be playing it if it hadn't become more casual accessible.

Sometimes, I don't have time to sit around LFG, and sometimes I'm just lazy and don't want to bother. Sometimes, I'm only logging on for thirty minutes and don't want to trouble anyone by leaving shortly after I join. Sometimes I need to go AFK at any moment and don't want to inconvenience anyone.

And sometimes I DO want to group, but the lack of decent tools gets in the way. Maybe I'm playing my level 70 Monk but I'd really like to group with my level 45 Defiler. Sure, I can spam the level 45 channels or /ooc until I'm blue in the face (and /ignored by half the server). So I grudgingly go off on my own.

At the same time though, I do feel that modern MMOs lack a lot of the sense of community that I saw before. Forced grouping did forge a stronger sense of community. Being able to solo your way through a game means we can simply play our way to the end game without having to deal with anyone else except as passing pixels on our monitors. If someone chooses to do so, that's fine. I'm not going to tell someone how they have to play the game they are paying for. But I do think it would be nice to introduce new game elements that encourage a stronger sense of community.

I don't think that means going back to the days when forced grouping was the ONLY option or in any way reducing the viability of soloing in these games. We can have our cake and eat it too. It should be quite possible to build a sense of community while still accomodating the solo playstyle. I don't see why soloing has to be an isolated affair where you interact solely with a crafting station or randomly spawning monsters as you finish off your quests alone. There should be more ways for us to "solo" with other people.

In EQ2 there were a number of times when they introduced quests to build griffon towers in various zones. Some people fought off monsters, some people harvested and delivered them to the crafters, and others crafted. Take that idea and make it a permanent (or temporary but recurring) part of some aspect of the game (a contested battlefield with two or more sides; crafters building siege weapons perhaps, with soloable enemies from opposing forces spawning to thwart the efforts which would require adventurers need to repel, and rewards for everyone who contributes to the extent they contribute.) People won't need to group in a game setting like that; they could log in and participate in whatever fashion they prefer for 5/15/500 minutes, but the important thing is they would be interacting together as a community.

I think Warhammer is planning on doing something like that with their concept of public quests which would allow people, even alone, to make contributions (however small) to a greater effort being worked on by many people. I don't know the details, but its something I'm looking forward to seeing.

Or as another example: instead of wasting some EQ2 developers time having them come up with new writs (which are essentially crafting quests that reward you XP for making a random number of crap no one wants), put in a game mechanic that lets PLAYERS put up work orders stating they want "X number of Y" and rewards the crafter who accepts and completes the order the same XP. The crafter may still be making crap for XP, but now they know someone in the community that they might run into is wearing/eating/shooting that crap. Which means a lot more than having the items get sent to /dev/null.

There should be plenty of ways to encourage players to interact and forge a stronger sense of community aside from forcing us to find a tank, healer, and DPS, who can make it out to the zone we are in within a reasonable timeframe, find a substitute tank because the one we had suddenly had to help a guildmate, figure out what quests we have in common, find the quest giver for the starting quest because someone missed a step and we couldn't share the quest, and........., /sigh.