Why do people play MMO's solo? | Asmongold Reacts

why play MMOs solo see about this what is an MMO RPG a question asked by Scholars and philosophers alike how do we Define YouTubers and more importantly YouTube commenters and people on the forums of MMORPG games I mean this genre this question is actually so volatile and divisive in the MMO Community it really needs its own series of videos split over several specific topics so let me explain what an MMORPG is an MMORPG is a game that has all the stuff that you like now games that don't have all the stuff that you like those aren't MMORPGs okay so like for example if you like PVP and an MMO and there's an MMO that comes out and it doesn't have that and it's not a focus well then that's not a real MMORPG if you like rating and an M an MMO comes out and there's no rating well that's not a real MMO you know it's completely different so that that's that's how you define them I don't know why Josh is having so much trouble with this here but yeah it's pretty simple let's do that let's dive into this fascinating genre and really ask what is it from the acronym MMORPG itself to the games we know as MMORPGs to the games we describe as MMOs which aren't quite what are we actually talking about quick note this video is kindly sponsored by Guild Wars 2 which is definitely an MMORPG unlike Guild Wars 1 which is an online RPG what's the difference let's find out as always thank you to the supporters on patreon who allow me to keep making these videos several YouTubers far smarter than me have already made excellent videos examining what an MMORPG even is from breaking down the acronym to analyzing games that we would commonly describe as MMORPGs and what I actually think that games like uh I feel like more and more games are going to have MMORPG features I think the best two examples of that are um uh actually the best example of that or two examples is Path of Exile and Diablo Immortal I think both of these games do a very good job at utilizing amazing interactions between other players and they're outside yeah they're going to be like social hubs like social interaction points things like that oh just give me a second sorry I'm trying to get this open and uh what's this here okay yeah and I'm gonna see I I think we're gonna see more of that because people like being in a shared world and I think a game that has a shared world is fundamentally an MMORPG okay in in most ways it's getting a little bit chilly up in this [ __ ] I had the heater on but the [ __ ] broke it broke like three years ago sometimes it turns on it turns on like once every three days it's kind of annoying but it is what it is start a fire yeah oh we've made some advancements into working out what the hell this genre even is there's only two things we really as a community agree on Steam doesn't know what an MMO is because the MMO tagged games are always quite strange and two an MMO is a game in which there is a fishing Mini-Game right that's about as far as we've got sure why fishing specifically Adam Millard has a brilliant video on why so many games turn to that exact thing if you're interested in game design go and give it a watch I'll link it in the description but beyond fishing what is an MMORPG well the acronym stands for massively multiplayer online role-playing game so I wanted to break this down and examine each bit individually how massive multiplayer in what context is it always online and what level of freedom is given within the RPG aspect some games we would know as MMORPGs aren't necessarily massive some of them don't even require multiplayer some of them aren't even always online but while I was writing a brief outline of all the important points I wanted to cover in this rather long topic I saw this tweet by Mrs stixx retweeted by MMO bite the original tweet reads why do we like MMOs so much if we keep playing it like a single player and again it's because people like being in a shared world so they feel less lonely spending [ __ ] eight hours a day on a video game I think that's a big factor people just like being in a shared world that's all it is and the mobite replies it's such an unusual direction to take the genre making it solo friendly less massively multiplayer I think soon we're going to see MMORPGs simply become online role-playing games I disagree with that I think that something that is massively multiplayer does not necessarily hinge on the fundamental that you have to interact with other players in order to accomplish tasks in the game things can be multiplayer with people performing tasks simultaneously and not cooperatively uh it's like just I I don't think that's really true the interesting aspect of that reply is he left out the mm massively multiplayer so if encouraging solo play of a multiplayer game is enough to justify changing the acronym than the multiplayer element must be a core design pillar of this genre it's been seemed like a good place to start exploring I'm not saying MMO bite is right or wrong in his reply it's just a solid starting point because is it a different direction or has this aspect actually always been there before always it's hard to say always but it's like in every MMO in every game there's probably things that you can do without a group like whether it's like farming some sort of resource or uh you know selling gear buying gear like there are always going to be solo activities that exist in an MMO it's just I think the question is whether like how much of content should be gated from somebody who doesn't want to engage in the multiplayer aspect of the the game like a Cooperative multiplayer aspect of the game we look at whether older MMORPGs even allowed solo play never mind encouraged it we have to ask a simple question of why would someone want to play solo and keep in mind World of Warcraft it one of its original selling points it was huge that separated from a lot of its competitors at the time was the fact that you could play in level the 60 solo like you didn't have to rely on a bunch of other people to do stuff and that's why it was so popular morpg massively multiplayer a genre which Prides itself on giving you the ability to play with millions of other people players from all around the globe why would anyone choose to take on a multiplayer Adventure on their own well the answer is pretty simple it's because you want to yeah the gameplay is usually a fantastic true adventure broken down by slow monotonous grinding between the exciting bits leveling skills or killing the same enemy again and again and while it can be nice to have company during these long stretches of repetition it's not always wanted people enjoy doing lots of things by themselves I like real-time strategy games but I also like playing against the computer I like Unreal Tournament against bots I like painting Warhammer by myself all things which are considered boring and repetitive by some and which could likely be improved by sharing the experience with someone else but now here's the thing I do share those experiences with other people when I want to if I want to play multiplayer games with other people I will or if I want to paint models with other people I will the important thing is I have the choice I think that's what it really is is it's the choice I I have never seen a advantage or a good time created in a video game and there Never Say Never but I feel like in ninety percent of circumstances whenever you take a choice away from a player this makes the experience for that player worse where they could decide whether they want to do this in a group or Solo or they have to do it this way or that way usually whenever you take that choice away the game is worse because of it someone says they enjoy playing MMO games solo it doesn't necessarily mean they avoid all human contact at all costs it usually means they prefer to enjoy the game either alone or with a closer more specific group of friends because I have to say again what goes to show how popular these things are we'll get Sword Art Online what is the main [ __ ] thing with Kirito he he plays solo and then we have the new anime coming out guess what it's called solo leveling and then Overlord is fundamentally built on the fact that he's playing solo so every single popular rendition of an MMO that is compelling to an audience is all about playing the game solo isn't that interesting those friends enjoy the game in the same way they do either focusing on the law the mechanics or Min maxing it's important to not simply have a large player base for the sake of having a large player base if you don't actually interact with them a fun play group who enhanced the game for you is worth far more playing an MMO can often be a relaxing hobby while constant interaction with people can be a draining Hobby in both the real world and the virtual sometimes you just want to come home from a day surrounded by people and go and exist in a Fantastical virtual world by yourself yes there are other people also in this world but that's actually a calming element of it because you don't need to spend energy interacting with them it's just nice to have them there other players are acting as free thinking feeling background characters framing yeah see everybody thought that I was some kind of a [ __ ] psycho whenever I say I treat the other players like their NPCs but now whenever Josh says it oh now everybody agrees uh-huh yeah sure okay guys yeah see how it is Your Own Adventure lending the world weight and reality knowing that your actions affect a living world without the emotional effort of constantly needing to be social in that world is enjoyable playing an MMO with a group means you will have certain expectations requirements of you that's right you'll have to keep up with any chat that's going on or play your class you have a role to fulfill and you can't let your team down sometimes you want to experience the gameplay of an MMORPG the world the music the characters the law the story all the mechanics without that pressure of feeling like you need to fulfill a role in a team you can have the game on in the background while you watch a film watch Netflix read a book or even do some work to be fair a lot of the people that I read with did that during Mythic so uh yeah this is not necessarily exclusive to playing casually there's a lot of people that I knew that did this oh God it's likely what you're doing right now which is watching some YouTube videos it can be nice to experience the MMORPG without the pressure that being in a team puts on you yeah whatever your favorite MMO is it can always be played in the background and if you aren't playing an MMO right now consider downloading this video's sponsor Guild Wars 2. this is the second video of mine that Guild Wars 2 have sponsored quite recently which makes me think the management team have finally found the marketing team hiding in a long forgotten office somewhere or just playing jumping puzzles all day and are demanding they actually start doing their job and sponsoring some YouTubers or something I've played Guild Wars 2 since it launched all the way back in 2012 and it's been one of the few MMOs I've installed on every PC I've had since then and finally after like five years of coming soon it's actually released on Steam they've even released two very positive reviews the latest expansion end of dragons brings a ton of new content without invalidating the previous expansions heart of thorns and path of fire but you don't need to buy anything to try the game there is a massive free trial the base game is free with no time limit and if you do like it it is a one-time purchase with no monthly sub once you own Guild Wars 2 you own it and given the amount of hours I've got out of this game Guild Wars 2 is probably the best value money I've ever spent on a video game to celebrate the steam launch there's a link in the description you can sign up get a code and grab the game on Steam and then if you want you can redeem the code for an experienced boost pack some Karma boosting and a 10 slot bag with a mini pet this all saves you about ten dollars and it's free so there's no reason not to there's a new player guide on the website although the in-game tutorial is actually really good there's great build Variety in the classes and the mount system is so good it is now the standard by which other games are to be judged now regular viewers will know that I don't need ships unless I can personally vouch for the product and honestly Guild Wars 2 is just a really good MMORPG game with a great deal of content that every player should at least try right back to talking about solo MMO gameplay people have been trying to get me to play that game there's been a lot man play MMORPGs on stream I often have people following me around if I do consider myself a mostly solo player despite the fact I enjoy Dungeons and team-based events so how does that work well the simple fact that I'm playing with ass go on that was the name of thoradol uh [ __ ] Thor Dan's sword I wonder what that actually means it's probably something that has to do with Lion right yeah I don't know I'd have to think about that look it up brother of gargle on shut up the people doesn't mean that I'm interacting with them or connecting to them in any meaningful way and I think it's this lack of meaningful connection to other people that people often confuse with the lack of multiplayer elements there is a long-held belief that newer MMORPGs are pushing people more towards solo focused play you exist in a world with other people but you don't necessarily interact with them I've even made a video called social to solo where I look at how the design philosophy has changed over the years allowing people to experience the games solo but were older games actually more Cooperative did they demand more teamwork or do people simply remember them as more Cooperative because hanging out with people online was novel for the time so people did that aspect more it's probably a bit of both if I had to think about it like with classic wow probably a bit of both and uh with other games about the same massively multiplayer part is a major point of contention within the MMORPG Community yeah what is massive it's not Quantified it's far too vague from games designers to players we don't know what you want massive to count as a thousand players ten thousand a hundred thousand a million or ten million if you count a million players as massive can I have a million people on my friends list could I have an ignore list a million players long where you could actually have a million players all at one time could you even interact with a million if you wanted to if you have a number higher than the amount of players a single player could realistically be expected to engage with at any one time is that enhancing your player base or is that simply padding it out yeah I think it is enhancing the player base because it feels like it's a shared event that other people do it's why people like going to large events in real life they like that they like the feeling of I was there POG like that's what they do in twitch chat whenever something crazy happens I feel like that's what a lot of these things are is that people like being part of a shared space and having a shared experience and also I think there's the the element of if a game doesn't have a lot of players it probably isn't going to have a lot of content or at least not for very long it's not so that's the other reason why people are very sensitive about player count numbers is that they can also indicate a uh you know a downturn in the game or a different direction and how the game's going to be developed how big is massive and how big does massive need to be for the players to actually notice old school RuneScape has hundreds of thousands of active players so it could rightfully be called a massively successful game and it's definitely multiplayer but each individual World holds up to 2 000 people meaning even if you had every single player on a given world in the same space you'd only be interacting with a tiny fraction of the total player base at any one time and you wouldn't likely be able to form any meaningful connection with any one of them in the massive players the Elder Scrolls Online has its Mega servers shards all existing simultaneously but instead of showing you every player around you it has just amazing where you always see enough players for the world to feel full but never so many you feel overwhelmed which makes it easier to form connections but is this still massive if you're experiencing a curated version of the player base is the word massive more about the reality of who you interact with in the game or the Greater Community around the game if think it's like the uh I would say especially whenever you're going out in the world I think it's the potential for spontaneous interactions so like whenever you're out like exploring in the game like what is the chances that you're gonna run into another player what are the chances that you're going to see two or three other people playing a game I I think that's what it is is that people want to feel like they're part of a shared world doing something that's bigger than themselves they're part of something that's bigger than themselves I think this is a core human desire more than just being a core video game desire too majority of your game is Dungeons and raids with say 5 10 or 25 people in a raid are you actually interacting with 25 people or are you interested with thousands of people in groups of 25 at a time or are you interacting at all does a dungeon run with no connection to another player even counters interaction you're asking it's kind of the argument against al-afar in some cases I think it's true is that like what's really the difference between having NPCs in your group and players in your group in LFR well it's simple the NPCs would do better close to a random player in a random group as you are to a stranger you walk alongside while walking through town or someone sat two seats behind you on a roller coaster just because you're going on the same Journey doesn't mean you're taking the journey together MMOs are often broken down into the styles of theme park versus sandbox yeah would going to a theme park alone counters interacting with everyone at the park could you say you've had a multiplayer experience and should anyone be stopped having that experience if they are alone most often it's less about the potential of who you could interact with and more about who you actually do interact with a small group of five to ten friends talking and adventuring together will feel a lot more social and connected than 500 players silently running the same dungeon again and again quality really does beat quantity when it comes to meaningful human interactions and sometimes like having a lot of people in a zone is really cool even if you're not directly interacting with them so I could good example of this is you guys remember the the legion pre-expansion event where like everybody was in like West Fall or ashara I think that was another one of them and like they were going around defeating oh oh the [ __ ] the crossroads and like everybody was flying on their mounts from like different places that was so cool man and it's like I wasn't directly interacting with them but it felt really cool to be part of the wave you know you're you're you're one small Cog in the machine and sometimes that feels cool apologists have even studied how many people we can actually feel connected to it's known as gunbar's number and it's around 150 people anymore and you simply cannot connect to them on an individual personal level meaning even if your game does have a million billion players only 150 of them may be close enough to you to be meaningful to play with the massively part of the acronym can sometimes be a bit of a false selling point having a million players means nothing unless you're required to interact with all a million and if you are that's overwhelming having enough players to make your game feel fleshed out and full but not too many to overwhelm while still maintaining those personal relationships is a good amount to aim for the potential for connections is massive but until the player chooses to realize those potentials and actually interact with and connect to people it remains potential not realized many modern MMO games are designed so you don't need to interact with people but you can if you choose to the potential is there but it's not required if it's this change in Design This facilitation of solo play in a genre which Prides itself on multiplayer aspects that many people point to as the downfall of the genre they say MMORPGs used to be games which needed player interaction and so forced those connections between players resulting in long-term friendships guilds or Clans and now taking I do think that like it was good and there are points in games where I think classic wow actually does the MMORPG balance really well we're like whenever you get up to the hogger quest you don't really have to do it but if you do it you're going to get a lot of experience and it's going to give you a good reward it's going to give you I think a blue at that point and like blues or no not Blues is going to give you a green and like greens at that point are a big deal so like you are heavily incentivized to group up with other people and because like classes were designed in a way that like most classes couldn't solo hogger at like level 11 or 12 like it just probably wasn't going to happen unless maybe you were a warlock or something uh you had to find somebody else to play with you and do that so you didn't have to group up with other people but there are advantages for doing so and there are certain things that you know are convenient if you do that I think that was a really really good decision by blizzard and I think the way that classic wow incentivized interaction but didn't force it until like you get really to the late game into like raids I think that was a really good decision and that away the genre is weaker for it and this is of course subjective but I decided maybe I should go back and play an older MMORPG and see how that handles the facilitation of solo play yeah to gather some information on this strange phenomenon now I've played a lot of MMORPGs some for thousands of hours some for only a few but most of them have allowed me to have a pretty decent solo experience teaming up with people when I wanted to playing alone when I wanted to and I value this MMORPGs often advertise themselves by saying you can have your own adventure especially the sandbox games Live Your Own Way Forward your own path and if I want that path to be alone who occasionally teams up that should be something I can choose to do if you look at many of the modern MMO offerings you'll see solo play is not only viable but often encouraged old school RuneScape and RuneScape 3 both have their Iron Man mode literally cutting off a layer of interaction with other players by removing trading forcing you to survive this harsh world on your own and most of the end game bosses can soloed indeed when I spoke to mod Kieran and Elena about the latest raid coming out I asked specifically if they designed this to be solo possible and they had the Elder Scrolls Online has a solo focused story with fully voice acted cutscenes and lots of solo instances as you travel to save Tamriel and the world boss is a possible solo but incredibly tough Guild Wars 2 is the same a deep involving story with a vast majority of the game being solo friendly and when the grouping does happen if it happens impromptu it gets organized behind the scenes so just by being near someone you're automatically working toward the same goal as them meaning and they have this with Wow too it's like whenever you tag a quest mob or something you're working with somebody else now work together alone Star Wars the Old Republic is one of the better single-player Star Wars games and Star Wars stories which just happened to be online it takes place in an online world with other players even the flashpoints team-based dungeons will supply you with AI controlled NPCs to complete them if you don't have a team now I'm not saying these games don't have multiplayer concerts a mini game which needs a team the Elder Scrolls Online has its dungeons Guild Wars 2 has the PVP Battlegrounds and the fractals these games all have content which cannot be completed solar but this isn't usually early game or story focused these multiplayer experiences are usually extra in addition yeah I think usually the expectation is that like this is what I would expect from an MMO nowadays is that you can level up there are probably group opportunities while leveling up but for the most part leveling up is a solo experience and the real MMO aspect of it is going to happen at in-game to the main game indeed Star Wars supplying AI NPCs to accompany solo players through dungeons by fleshing out the team is a mechanic I've been a big fan of for a long time allowing solo players to experience what your game has poured endless hours of design into is a good idea it's the same reason I really like the henchman system in Guild Wars one a lot but we'll get on to this later so we can see that modern MMOs are mostly accessible to solo players with the choice to connect to others if you want to but let's go back and see how older MMOs handle this I decided to go back and try and play EverQuest 1 on Steam the live version not the project 99 original I even stream the whole thing on YouTube the evod is available to go back and watch if you want to and I'll likely stream more because I actually really enjoyed EverQuest 1. it's janky in places and it's far too convoluted in others it relies a lot on keyboard shortcuts and typing your interactions and Target enemies bounds to f8 and not Tab and it's hard to click through things which threw me a little but all in all it's a very well made game now EverQuest released back in 1999 and it's not only still going but it's still being actively updated 28 expansions with the 29th planned for release in 2023. is an insanely successful lifespan for an MMORPG it is Testament to the quality of the game that it still has an active player base I wonder how many I wonder how many people actually play that game yeah like what what really are the numbers even as an example of an old school hardcore mmpg it's harsh it's unforgiving you need to rely on your team to survive and that is indeed true EverQuest is a hard game both in game play and in The Meta elements of the gameplay understanding the UI and navigating all the keyboard shortcuts will take you some time to learn yeah sure the thing with EverQuest is there's a lot of downtime between the gameplay moments as a mage you need to sit down to recover your Manner and this means as a fighter you'll be waiting for the Mage there's a lot of moments always happening and so you will talk to the players in your group when EverQuest was big in 1999 and 2000 you didn't have Netflix you didn't have a second monitor to watch YouTube on you would focus entirely on the game and therefore you would find the fun within the game which for the majority of the game was talking to other people so when I played everquestion and like back then like you couldn't even really Tab out and watch porn at the same time that's another big factor that Josh isn't talking about is like back in the day like computers weren't really good enough to like have the browser open and like have a video or something like that or like look at something at the same time that you're playing the game so you actually had to be like focused in on the game itself now this got fixed in like late burning Crusade Wrath of the Lich King for a lot of people but in the early days yeah you actually had to play the game decided to read all the classes and what really stood out to me was the description of the Necromancer class in character creation the class is described as necromancers are a very self-sufficient class and often choose to Adventure alone though they can provide Great Value to a group as well the Necromancer is an excellent choice for the independent player who enjoys a wide variety of abilities on the Everquest Wiki the class is described as one of the best soloing classes throughout the game another Quest has seen many changes throughout the years I assumed maybe this was a modern update but there's a version of the game known as project 99 which emulates the original experience without any of the quality of life upgrades and the project 99 Wiki entry for The Necromancer describes it as as such The Necromancer is very independent few Support classes are able to offer anything that the Necromancer does not already have and items and gear do not carry the same importance as they do for other classes the wiki class highlights section even says necromancers are one of the most independent of all classes being designed with a number of self-only spells that certain other casters can cast on others example self only invisibility and self-only evacuation making it a Prime Choice for those that plan to solo the majority of their careers however because of the wide variety of abilities many not gained until higher levels a necromancer must constantly learn new ways to play their class so even back in 1999 before the popular argument that MMORPGs were becoming Too solo friendly in the game that many consider one of the grandfathers of the genre there was a class specifically designed to allow people to Adventure alone when I could have possibly guessed that actually this was the same as it always was and people are just being unreasonable who could have possibly guessed such a amazing development that people's Nostalgia was wrong Meridian 59 was the first ever MMORPG Meridian 59 considered the first 3D MMORPG the opening Crypt tutorial section has a door which requires two people to open you must pull two levers at the same time and while it is technically possible to do solo with almost frame perfect inputs it's not a required room it simply leads to an optional boss and some low level loot in fact nothing about Meridian 59 demands you team up to play how about Guild Wars 1 considered by many to not be an MMORPG but instead including by themselves an online role-playing game how does this differ well in Guild Wars 1 the world is broken down into Maps both safe or dangerous and the only times you will see other players in Guild Wars 1 is when you're all in a Hub City or a safe Outpost when you trip outside of the city you'll only ever see yourself or any other players you specifically teamed up with while you were in that safe yeah experience so if you leave town without talking to another player is the game going to force you to Adventure solo well no does is an NPC henchman system by the exits of any safe map you'll find a row of henchmen you can invite to your team and they'll fight by your side throughout the map acting as regular players in fact once you're a higher level you can actually turn your own characters into mercenaries meaning they will now be available as NPC supports when you play on other characters so you're that's really cool like that's that's actually [ __ ] badass wow yeah I like that a lot supported by your own old characters and it's this lack of open world player interaction which leads people to describe Guild Wars 1 as an online RPG not necessarily A massively multiplayer online RPG even Final Fantasy 14 is considered an RPG first with an MMO second yeah almost focused more on the personal journey of the player through its story with multiplayer elements added on such as the Dungeons and the raids and then the daily roulette allowing you to find a team quickly to receive your reward for playing but just look at the memes people say the end game of almost any MMO including Final Fantasy 14 and Guild Wars 2 is fashion just chatting in limsola mincer or trying to turn yourself into a light bulb extremely social things to do socializing is Alive and Well in many MMOs because the choice is there while it's also not being forced it's also it's because people can socialize in those games and socialization and player expression is much wider this is a problem that I think new world and Tower of fantasy he have is that player expression is very limited it's also a problem that lost ark has and that problem is compounded by the fact that it's an isometric game so you have much more limited player uh player expression how many things can the players do the truth is the in New World Tower of fantasy and lost ark it's way less than in wow and wow is way less than in Final Fantasy 14 you can do way more [ __ ] in Final Fantasy 14 in terms of making your character look a certain way wearing certain types of clothes looking a certain type of way having hair styles like all this kind of stuff like interacting like emotes like having your own house it just goes on and on and on and because of that you see more social interaction in those games solo connection player if they did versus nobody this means the mm part of the acronym massively multiplayer seems to relate to both the player base size and the potential to interact with them in the game World at random not the social need or demand to party up to experience the majority of the game yes you can form connections with people in online games you've always been able to that aspect hasn't gone anywhere oh I made I made probably more friends than Halo than I made in vanilla wow like I when I really think about it I had like a half a dozen people that I was friends with in vanilla wow but like in Halo 2 bro we were popping the [ __ ] off like I had a full friends list you can still do that you just don't need to do it as frequently people often say to me yes I know you can still do that but older games encouraged it so people did it more and that might be true but if people are doing something because they're pushed to do it without a choice that doesn't necessarily mean they would do it if given the choice in modern day MMOs we see that choice exist more and more players are choosing to play with smaller closer knit groups of friends or refer to themselves as solo players I think that it's good to give people advantages for playing in groups in general playing something at a high level should be rewarded if you're playing with a group minus like solo accomplishments like Mage Tower Necromancer Lone Hero Etc but besides that I I think that yeah you should want to play in a group but it's not it should not be mandatory it should not be something you have to do in in all circumstances I do think that you know for big grades against the big dragon of course you need a lot of people for that sure but in everything else I'm fine with it playstyle which has always been on some level supported but is now much much more popular so have MMORPGs become less social not really all of the elements to be social are still there there's just other stuff to do as well unlike the downtime in EverQuest when you would sit down to restore your mana and therefore you had nothing else to do but talk to someone you now have hundreds of other things to do in and out of the game why play an MMORPG solo because you want to at that exact moment you maybe don't want to interact with people you maybe don't want to be relied upon to play your role within a team it doesn't mean that you won't interact with people in the future or wait till your mates log on and join up with them it doesn't mean that you won't talk to someone as they cut a tree down or mine a rock next to you it just means that you have lots of other choices other than being social to distract you I just feel like whenever you think of almost any sort of like Fantasy game like I used the example of like Overlord Sword Art Online uh you know that kind of stuff but like with a lot of stuff in Lord of the Rings you know they're not always in a full party I mean Gandalf soloing [ __ ] on his own all the time like uh [ __ ] Aragorn just got done soloing something whenever you you hear about him in the story it's like an in like the fundamentals of these RPG stories it's usually about the solo player who comes together with a group to accomplish something that's larger than themselves and I think that in order for that to happen you have to have the solo experience for people to diverge from it because if you never have the Divergence then it doesn't it doesn't feel the same way it just means you want to exist within this multiplayer world as a single player for a short time and there's nothing to stop you from doing that and if you play an MMO yeah guts yeah there you go like yeah guts you know he was in a party for a while and then he left the party he's like this is or the band uh you know he's like I'm [ __ ] done with this like I'm gonna go and do my own thing solo you're not playing it wrong you're just enjoying your adventure your way as for that tweet I think MMORPGs have always to some players been solo focused online role-playing games that exist within a living world yeah they do not have to require constantly Tantra solves our time too well Tantra follows probably one of the most common MMO tropes which is a higher level male character literally carrying a female lower level character through different events so yeah I think that's about about right to be multiplayer bit was to several players more of the potential for social connection and not a demand to do so and just like the potential was years ago it's still there it's just not as novel as it used to be so people aren't specifically selling the games on the fact you can do that the social players exist within guilds and Clans discords and forums still connected just not chatty within the game itself modern MMOs do indeed have more systems that facilitate easier solo play than ever before but this isn't driving the games to become solo only it's simply increasing the amount of choice you need to put down wow hopefully yeah wizard needs to take that one too that's cool how he can jump up like that how you play there's nothing Stopping You teaming up just like the old days with a huge group of players and adventuring around together but unlike the old days there's now much more choice to not do that and people are choosing that much more frequently but how do you think also people are going to choose the path of least resistance like if something is going to take five minutes extra people don't want to do that they want to do it right now so it's like if you make playing in a group inconvenient or non-seamless people aren't going to want to do it because it's going to take more time it's that simple play are you a solo only player are you social with everyone or do you prefer mostly solo play until your mates log on where you'll team up with them let me know in the comments below another massive thank you to Guild Wars 2 for sponsoring this video use the link in the description to get the game and some cool free stuff and as always have a great day oh look at that what a nice guy yeah I feel like uh I I feel like this is generally true I mean like obviously with a lot of these types of games there are always the options to play solo there's always the option to go out and do your own thing and be your own person Etc I don't think that's a a bad thing and I think that you know as Josh showed in this video I think that many of these MMOs have a lot of options to play solo they've always had this this has always been a popular theme in fantasy and also a popular theme in like anime and [ __ ] like that and media about it too and I think to say to like to to water that down and say oh well you know you have to play with other people all the time or it's not an mlrpg or you have to do X or Y or it's not an MMORPG this is so silly it's just so silly and I think it's people that are just trying to you remember whenever blizzard did this in shadowlands or like is it really an RPG anymore if we don't have conduit energy that just sounded so stupid didn't it yeah well think about how the people that are saying the stuff about MMORPG sound I think they sound just about as stupid as blizzard did with that stuff yeah meaningful Choice yeah silly goose [ __ ] introverted people are not necessarily anti-social uh they can go about being on the game but not feel alone yeah I think that that's a lot of a lot of a good thing right is it gives introverted people a place that's safe where they can interact with other people without having a social consequence if the interaction is not ideal uh even in group content you do your personal role which boils down to the solo experience usually yeah you're right and uh yeah I mean that's goes to his great game but I think not for asthma well I think this is a great video I'm going to link it again obviously we've watched I I don't know probably a million Josh strifease videos and uh this will be now a million and one and uh we will continue to because I think these videos are great I think they add a lot of uh context and it's about conversations about MMOs that more people need to have because nowadays everybody has a different idea of like what an MMO is supposed to be like is it almost supposed to be like this or supposed to be like that or whatever and it's really nice to see people actually having the conversations about it uh much more honestly and trying to because I think the Developers for these games are looking at these videos like you'd be a fool to think that you know many developers whether it be people from obviously like the ones that are not native English speakers probably not as much but you know any game nowadays like people probably that work on New World people that probably work on World of Warcraft that work on RuneScape shape I'm sure many of them watch videos like this and they have their own opinions on it so I think these are very useful videos and very uh very productive have you ever looked at the game called conqueror's boy no I'm not sure what that is the player base making MMOs great again as well make a and as good devs more so the players yeah I think that it's definitely a symbiotic relationship if the developers have a bad relationship with the players these two things kind of compound on each other and make each other worse I think that absolutely happens uh let's see here different perspectives on MMO is allows developers to be more flexible with game design well I think it's also like you don't have to make it to where it's only one way like the game doesn't have to be only this way or only that way you can design it in a way that it it it works for multiple different types of players and that's something that I wish they would do more of is that they would add in more different ways for different types of players to enjoy the game and I think that's what an MMO that's really successful does an MMO that's really successful creates different ways that you can interact with other players so you can achieve different things and do different things uh that that's what I think 100 plus pen men okay yeah chill out man [Music] [Music]

Channel: Asmongold TV

Views: 812,341

Keywords: asmongold, asmongold reacts, asmongold wow, asmongold highlights, asmongold youtube, world of warcraft, asmongold funny, asmongold tv, asmongold channel, ZackRawrr

Id: hr_fGiHfGhQ

Length: 44min 55sec (2695 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022