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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
So, I think if you don't implement plenty of solo content that you can hop on, and make some progress during short bursts of game play without having to spend 20+ minutes looking for people, and setting up--you'll alienate a huge player base. Particularly, tons of paying adults with careers and kids. That is a small piece of what happened to EQ.
Edit to say: I suppose that is also why I have always done a ton of pvp in battlegrounds and such. It's something I can just jump into immediately, play for 30 minutes if that's all I have time for, and hop right back off with some progress made towards my goal. Meh
I'm aware that solo players can do dungeons and other multiplayer things, it will just be more difficult considering that there isn't going to be a Dungeon Finder, and party requirements will be more strict than with your typical Holy Trinity MMO. It may be harder to find groups etc, so you might end up spending more time actually solo. That's why I listed some of the activities are typically done solo. I suppose I should have been more specific.
Politics are also a part of this game, meaning that many of the social features are bound to be integrated into other parts of the game. Being a part of something larger, like a guild, is probably the best way to have an impact on the world around you.
I think it will be harder to work as a solo player in this MMO than it has been with others in the past. But at the same time, the community thus far is fun, and the social features are new and exciting. Also, being a new game, there are many opportunities to create new groups instead of joining preexisting ones.
- Sikuba
Can you elaborate on why you think party requirements will be more strict than in traditional Holy Trinity MMO's?
*OP might prefer this in a new thread or you can always PM me, just curious*
Maybe it won't be as much of an issue. But I think that there is a lot of benefit to being in some sort of organized group.
I just did some reading into the topic. I had assumed that dungeons would be party-based, but it appears that there will be solo dungeons as well! That's good news for everyone.
Hope that cleared things up!
- Sikuba
Instead of people constantly spreading out all over the world as they pursue their personal quest interests, we will be spending a great deal of time building and defending our home nodes that we should know where our friends and colleagues live and we should be frequently rallying together to fend of attacks on our mutual homes.
A lot of the shops and taverns we visit should be player-owned.
And we will probably be able to find the people we enjoy grouping with there as well.
If the people in my village need to eradicate the threat of the Zombie Queen plaguing our village, we're going to go to her lair to do that. That might be a couple of formal groups and a few soloers all working together.
Or it could be just a bunch of soloers working together without joining into a group.
Or it could be a bunch of soloers focused on their own objectives but working towards an overall common goal of weakening the Zombie Queen's influence.
Or it could be a duo plus a trio working together.
Shouldn't need a dungeon finder to learn that a Zombie Queen is threatening our village. The Zombie Queen should literally be sending her minions to threaten the village. And the citizens of the village will work towards the common goal of defeating the threat in whatever configs they prefer without necessarily needing to ensure that all 8 classes are in the same group.
Also, tends to be quite easy to find people to play with - and with whom you enjoy playing- if you join nodes or create guilds with followers of a twitch streamer. And/or people you follow on twitter.
That way you have an instant community. You recognize the people who are active when you are. And it's easy to know what the common goals of that community are.
Everyone will want to be on reasonably good terms with the streamer and the other followers. And, it's unlikely that you would be following a streamer who has a playstyle or personality you don't like.
I mostly solo. But social media has been the best "dungeon finder" for me.
Also, it was my assumption that solo playing would mean not joining a community like that. Following and tagging along is one thing, but if you're joining a guild or becoming a regular of a group, you're starting to become less of a solo player. I was trying to address situations in which a person wanted to avoid that.
Those are always options, and ones I would strongly recommend to any players. Being a member of a community doesn't have to come with a lot of commitment, or even player interaction, if you don't want it to.
You get to choose how you play, and that's the best part of an MMO. Hope this helped!
-Sikuba
- Sikuba
Again, solo just means you don't formally join parties and raids. Doesn't mean you don't fight alongside other players or don't join guilds or communities.
In Ashes, soloers will be living alongside other players in cities. And defending those cities alongside other players still allows us to learn how to adjust to how the individuals like to play while still give us the freedom we crave.
Soloing is about not wanting to formally join groups and raids - it's generally not about preferring to adventure alone.
Often it's about being willing to solo rather than wait on for a group to form.
As stated, instances often come with gated requirements which simply dont apply in an openworld context. The ability to group with anyone on the fly is an essential part of this process. A dynamic and temporary guild if you like. With others who happen to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.
Seems like having open world homes in cities we build and defend gives us the flexibility to play with the other citizens of the node - whoever is there when we are.
If people think you are leeching off of them, they'll likely kill you.
Although, I dunno why that needs to be brought up since there should be plenty of opportunities for soloers to solo alongside friends and allies without needing to "leech" from strangers.
Every game I've played has favored a well organised group mass killing everything they could find.
Although, even in NWO, the best experience I had might have been soloing the final PvE group dungeons once I got my endgame gearscore up to snuff.
In this thread many seems to like soloing and thinks its important aspect of MMORPGs. And that is true. Playing MMORPGs does not automatically mean, that you need to get in guild and group up all the time with other players. Because every player in game (no matter what playstyle) interacts with other players all the time. It can be active or passive, but still happens they wanted or not. Every quest and mob you kill will effect to the node and that way to other players. Every item you trade or even been a target to ganker is interacting with other players.
Hail for soloing!