Can I have fun soloing?

DaddyPappy

I understand the vision of Steve over the game, having extremely sociable and interconnective, creating a co-dependency between players of all professions. I admire this, of course, It's a fresh idea and has never been done successfully before in any MMO, this is what MMO all about, The community.
With that being said, I've always been an introvert most of my life, I barely have any friends and I've always been gaming alone. I've come to be used to this for a very long time now, way to the point where I'm actually more comfortable gaming alone. Now being a community-oriented, social-driven game like AOS, can a solo, or Lonewolf(As I like to roleplay myself), have fun and create value in this game, or is it impossible for me to do anything impactful or interesting and I'm gonna have to find a group of people on my own.
To summary, is it practical to have fun in this game being all alone? Or to roleplay as a quiet loner, if you will

Asgerr

I expect you'll be able to have a modicum of fun.

You don't have to join a group or organisation, although this will likely prevent you from aiming at raid level content or be able to own a castle etc etc.

Regular dungeons only require you to temporarily party up, so you should be able to do that much.

Caravan PVP you can just join on your own, or attack on your own. Other players will join as well so you don't need to be social, just cooperative.

Crafting and gathering doesn't really require you to be social all that much either. You can gather your own resources and buy what you need from vendor, or player owned stores or auction houses/market boards.

Everything you do will help progress a node, so you will have an impact. You just won't be a relevant player on a larger scale if you don't form a guild and grow and form alliances etc.

I'm also typically a solo MMO player, and I don't think I'll join any large guild, unless I randomly end up making friends with one.

I might form my own small scale mercenary band with players I might encounter along the way. If so I would do content with them, for the sake of making us better mercs to attack or defend caravans, and assault castles etc.

daveywavey

Yes. You'll likely have fun however you play.

George_Black

Nope. You wont be able to progress past a certain point. You will have to work with others.
The others will most likely work with their guild members, so you'd wanna be a member of their guild.

Gannito

Asgerr wrote: »

I expect you'll be able to have a modicum of fun.

You don't have to join a group or organisation, although this will likely prevent you from aiming at raid level content or be able to own a castle etc etc.

Regular dungeons only require you to temporarily party up, so you should be able to do that much.

Caravan PVP you can just join on your own, or attack on your own. Other players will join as well so you don't need to be social, just cooperative.

Crafting and gathering doesn't really require you to be social all that much either. You can gather your own resources and buy what you need from vendor, or player owned stores or auction houses/market boards.

Everything you do will help progress a node, so you will have an impact. You just won't be a relevant player on a larger scale if you don't form a guild and grow and form alliances etc.

I'm also typically a solo MMO player, and I don't think I'll join any large guild, unless I randomly end up making friends with one.

I might form my own small scale mercenary band with players I might encounter along the way. If so I would do content with them, for the sake of making us better mercs to attack or defend caravans, and assault castles etc.

Totally in accordance with the way you see the game.

Of course, the dungeons is a subject that throws me back completely.

Jxshuwu

There's certainly going to be fun ways you can play alone, especially in terms of pvp.
But you do need to accept that you won't have access to specific content and even equipment (Unless you grind money and buy it from the auction house, if thats how it works, idk)


If they make the hunter/ranger class interesting enough, maybe you could set traps etc and wait people up.
You can also become a crafter on your own, and set up your own shop. Although you wont be completely alone due to customers, it is something you've done on your own.

I was also a lonewolf in most games i played before a specific mmo, such as DayZ, Arma 2/3, Rust, Warframe, yada yada; but when i started a game that was so reliant on being social, i realized that it could be just as fun if not more fun to play the game with other players. For a while i also made one friend and we'd duo every game and mmo we played, making our own guild/clan for just 2 people. Sadly life happened and he works full time now.

If you ever want an in-game friend, i'd be more than willing to mate!

Yuyukoyay

I think what he means is
Is AoC gonna be terrible like FF11 where you have to make a party to beat a bunny trash mob at like 30 and over.

I actually wouldn't have any way to know if it's going to be that extreme or not. xD I would like to assume it won't because it was a janky design choice solely in that one game. However, a lot of people played FF11 so I imagine they might be surprised when playing solo will actually be a choice. Incredibly limited in FF11, but wasn't in every MMO from WoW and up.

He might want to know more about the Node system as well, but it wouldn't explain the extremity of the question either. I'm not sure how much the node system will help you get into raids, but it will probably branch into the guild system to do raids.

Dungeons parties have always been super casual though. They are generally different every time you play until you get your own circle of friends with the in game friend system. It's a flaw I see with letting dungeons be pvp open zones. Dungeoneering is a casual activity, but raiding isn't.

So I guess it's more of a question of how are connections made outside of the game going to ruin the game for everyone else. No idea but it could be really bad. xD

Marcet

Of course you can, it's not like you will complete all the content in the game alone but you already are smart enough to know it. Yes, you can create value and have fun alone in this game, personally I will have a tavern and be heavy on artisan stuff, but having a chill guild too, to do all the other things in the game that we can is nice.
I think you could do things alone but not in terms of dungeons, lategame and pvp. Quite obviously.

Jxshuwu

Marcet wrote: »

Of course you can, it's not like you will complete all the content in the game alone but you already are smart enough to know it. Yes, you can create value and have fun alone in this game, personally I will have a tavern and be heavy on artisan stuff, but having a chill guild too, to do all the other things in the game that we can is nice.
I think you could do things alone but not in terms of dungeons, lategame and pvp. Quite obviously.

That guild sounds like a lot of fun, i'd even join that as an adventurer.

Leonerdo

My friend has similar concerns about the game, and I tried to assure him that there will be plenty of solo quests (probably with mediocre stories) and easy-to-join casual dungeon parties. And that you can contribute to your node as an individual, even if you don't have any influence in politics. And of course, PvP will be fairly open to whoever is in the area and wishes to join. (Except castle seiges, which are for guilds only, right?)

But I suppose it's not clear yet if those expectations will be met. It's possible that solo questing is extremely dull, slow, or sparse. It's possible that dungeons will be too difficult/frustrating without a carefully formed group or guild. It's possible that caravan fights start and end extremely quickly, thanks to coordinated groups.

I think Intrepid is cognizant of these possibilities though. And they care (somewhat) about solo players, because they know that a large part of the MMO market is made of introverts. At the very, very least, they are aware that a good MMO should allow people to start their adventures as a solo player, and gradually work towards more social/coordinated endeavors. So it's not gonna be as bad as like EQ or FFXI, where you need a group for absolutely everything past a certain level.

As with everything, we've got a while to wait, before we can see for certain.

Marcet

Jxshuwu wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

Of course you can, it's not like you will complete all the content in the game alone but you already are smart enough to know it. Yes, you can create value and have fun alone in this game, personally I will have a tavern and be heavy on artisan stuff, but having a chill guild too, to do all the other things in the game that we can is nice.
I think you could do things alone but not in terms of dungeons, lategame and pvp. Quite obviously.

That guild sounds like a lot of fun, i'd even join that as an adventurer.

Sure! Im from EU tho xD

bloodprophet

Define fun.
This is different for most of us. If fun is raiding then no. If fun is exploring the world and crafting then yes. But it all depends on what you consider fun .

Vhaeyne

Yes, you just can't expect to have full access to all of the games content.

My friend in AION soloed world PvP for like 6 months straight back in the day. He never had a guild, and would just run around grinding players for AP in a game with massive guilds. I know he defiantly had fun.

My first few months in Darkfall was just me and three friends grinding in a world with massive guilds. Again some of the best times in my life. There was a lot we could not do, but we had great fun.

I don't think any systems should ever be made more solo friendly, but I do think it will be possible to have fun solo. I also encourage solo players to keep a eye out for a guild. No reason to stay solo if you meet a good group of people pugging.

Jxshuwu

Marcet wrote: »

Jxshuwu wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

Of course you can, it's not like you will complete all the content in the game alone but you already are smart enough to know it. Yes, you can create value and have fun alone in this game, personally I will have a tavern and be heavy on artisan stuff, but having a chill guild too, to do all the other things in the game that we can is nice.
I think you could do things alone but not in terms of dungeons, lategame and pvp. Quite obviously.

That guild sounds like a lot of fun, i'd even join that as an adventurer.

Sure! Im from EU tho xD

I'm from EU also haha, Netherlands specifically.

Marcet

Jxshuwu wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

Jxshuwu wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

Of course you can, it's not like you will complete all the content in the game alone but you already are smart enough to know it. Yes, you can create value and have fun alone in this game, personally I will have a tavern and be heavy on artisan stuff, but having a chill guild too, to do all the other things in the game that we can is nice.
I think you could do things alone but not in terms of dungeons, lategame and pvp. Quite obviously.

That guild sounds like a lot of fun, i'd even join that as an adventurer.

Sure! Im from EU tho xD

I'm from EU also haha, Netherlands specifically.

Awesome!

zammwich

I'm sure there will be lots to do but I think the goal is that he content helps you to break out of your shell a bit and make community driven play more appealing.