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The Daily Grind: How do you handle random party invites?
I don't know why, but sometimes I get discouraged when a random person sends me a party invite while I'm in the middle of questing. I know it sounds odd, but when I'm not playing with my regular group of friends or guildies, I like to just play alone. When someone whispers me to ask if he can join me, I usually turn him down (politely!), but if I get a random party invite without so much as a hello, I simply ignore it. My own antisocial issues aside, I want to know how you feel about this topic. Do you think a random invite is a healthy way to find companions and possibly friends, or do you see it as an invasion of privacy while you're trying to quest? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Behind the scenes of the recent solo heroic Alysrazor kill
At this point in WoW's evolution, we've become somewhat accustomed to reports of gutsy solo boss kills. However tricky to pull off, most of those accomplishments involve content from a previous expansion and rely on the particular skill sets of a determined death knight or paladin. But soloing current raid content, let alone current heroic raid content? Not so much. So when shadow priest Shantál of Al'akir (EU) recently pulled off an eye-popping kill of heroic Alysrazor, the WoW community sat up and took notice. With a painstakingly developed strategy that carried him outside the flame wall and exposed him to increased damage, Shantál picked his way around each road block in the encounter to achieve a uniquely remarkable victory.
Shadow priest takes down solo heroic Alysrazor
Proving once again that anything is possible with creative use of game mechanics,Shantál on Al'akir (EU) has successfully soloed the heroic version of the Alysrazor encounter. I've done some soloing myself in the past, and I can say that this is one of the most impressive individual feats I've seen, especially from a non-tank class. To my knowledge, this is the first heroic tier 12 encounter to be soloed, period. According to Shantál, many hours were spent "figuring out the tactics, pushing DPS to the limit, and not going crazy after dozens of near kills." For a full strategy explanation, check out the thread on MMO-Champion.
The Daily Grind: How much grouping should be required in a game?
A good group arguably makes any game more fun. No matter how much fun you're having in any game, be it Star Wars: The Old Republic or Global Agenda or whatever else, there are players who believe it's better when you're running with other people, telling jokes or roleplaying or even just working in unison. Of course, others would point out that's all if you have a good group. A bad group can turn even something fun into a real misery, which sort of defeats the purpose of playing a game. And that's not getting into the time it takes to form a group or coordinate several people... or the fact that some players just prefer not to group. So how much grouping should an MMO require out of its players? Should pretty much all content require a group, forcing players to work together and build a real sense of community at the expense of any solitary play? Or should pretty much all content not require a group, letting everyone group with players as they wish without hard restrictions -- and making large chunks of the game single-player for all intents and purposes? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Pathfinder Online will let players run the kingdom
If you've played the Pathfinder tabletop game that Pathfinder Online is based upon, you know that you need to have grouping. After all, the former is all about bands of adventurers exploring the wilds. So it's fitting that the most recent developer blog is all about the game's methods of managing groups and playing in different numbers. And this isn't just a matter of parties or solo play -- at the high end, players can be running entire kingdoms as a social unit. Solo play is meant to be somewhat discouraged, as the blog notes it will be a much more difficult road for a dedicated lone wolf. Parties will be the next step up, holding an undetermined number of players (the working target has about 24 players at the high end). Above those are chartered companies, settlements, and as mentioned, entire new player-run kingdoms. It's going to produce some interesting dynamics to have player organizations in such abundance, but the developers seem to have some confidence in their initial designs.
WildStar's Troy Hewitt talks about the game's design philosophy
It's likely to be a while longer before anyone gets to lay hands on WildStar's beta, much less the finished game, but there's still a lot to look forward to. A recent interview with producer Troy Hewitt might help salve a bit of that anticipation as Hewitt discusses the game's design philosophy and content systems. As he explains, Carbine Studios embraced the idea that players should be allowed to play how they want, when they want, and with whomever they want. This extends to the game's content at multiple levels; Hewitt explains that solo and group content shouldn't be at odds, that even people who prefer to level and play solo are still enjoying the fact that they experience a persistent world with other players. There's also a lot of talk about players crafting their own stories as they explore the game world, something augmented by the game's split between different player types. Take a look at the full interview if you're following the game avidly, as there are plenty of interesting tidbits -- even if you might have preferred a release date.
Ask Massively: Not everyone wants to be your friend edition
I don't dislike Lineage II, but my experiences with it sort of cemented my feelings on non-consensual PvP. Suffice it to say that it involved someone who had set herself up a little sniping-hole from which she would murder any and all low-level characters with an arrow through the neck. As she explained in the area chat, this wasn't for rewards or anything. She was doing it because she found it funny. Lots of of people do find that fun. But I'm personally not keen on that as a motivational technique. I don't want to level up so I can be one of the bullies instead of the bullied; I'd rather just opt out. Why did I tell you that story to lead off Ask Massively? As Bill Cosby would put it, I told you that story so I could tell you this one, or at least so I could answer one of this week's questions about Lineage II. Also, thermodynamics. If you've got a question for a future installment, you can leave it in the comment field or mail it along to ask@massively.com.
Pioneer's new music players give dancers some Steez
A walk in the park may never be the same again now that Pioneer has announced its new Steez range of dance-troupe friendly portable music players. In what appears to be a tango using its DJ and audio player skills, Pioneer's Steez relieves dancers -- solo or otherwise -- of the tyranny that is static music sources. Forget about getting your groove on in the privacy of your own condo, instead get busy on the subway, the drive-in car park, or with your favorite monkey. You have a choice of three models to express yourself in front of: the STZ-D10S-L "Solo"($299), STZ-D10T-G "Duo" ($349) and STZ-D10Z-R "Crew" ($499). Each model comes with the company's own special software which keeps your beats in time, lets you set cue points, change tempo along with many more booty shaking functions. Best of all is the special Battle Mode which plays your chosen sequence of tracks and lets you know when the next dancer, or robot, is up. These ghetto-blasters for the Tecktonik generation won't hit the shelves until next month, but feel free to tap your toes and read the PR below while you wait.
Spiritual Guidance: Revisiting The Burning Crusade and Wrath, solo
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen's comes from out of the darkness to bask in your loving adoration. Fox is weak versus Bubble Lead. To be fair, it's incredibly easy to get bored with current content. Sure, things like the Molten Front and Firelands are fun and exciting for a while, but several months later when you find yourself running the same content over and over ... well. I'm always looking for new and different things to do with my shadow priest. Last year, when I started getting bored with Icecrown Citadel, I started running heroic Magisters' Terrace solo, farming it for all sorts of goodies inside that I never wound up getting when the content was relevant. It turns out that soloing that stuff was a lot of fun, and judging by the emails I got after, a lot of you agreed with me. Some of you have been pressuring me to update that article for Cataclysm. Obviously, a lot has changed. Mainly, we've gotten stronger, but we've also got a few new tools at our disposal. Soloing Magisters' Terrace is old news. This time around, we're going to solo some more intimidating content: Wrath heroics and BC raids.
EVE Evolved: A new nullsec for everyone
Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Greyscale published possibly the single most important devblog of the past two years. Titled Nullsec development: Design goals, the blog laid the ground rules for high-level discussion on EVE's upcoming nullsec revamp. For those who live in nullsec, territorial warfare and nullsec life represent the true endgame of EVE. It's in these massive lawless regions of space that players forge alliances, build their own empires, and lead massive fleets of ships into enemy territory to kick over some space sandcastles. Over the past two weeks, I've been delving into the discussion surrounding the upcoming nullsec revamp and speculating on what changes we might see. I started with a look back at the early days of nullsec industry and went on to give some ideas aimed at reclaiming those glory days. I followed that up with last week's summary of EVE Online's empire-building history, the problems faced by today's territorial warfare mechanics, and further speculation on how the system could be radically changed for the better. In this week's EVE Evolved, I conclude this series of articles on the upcoming nullsec revamp with an examination of the discussion surrounding PvE, the local channel, and the potentially revolutionary smallholding system that could give even casual and solo players a taste of nullsec.
Preview RIFT's Chronicles of Telara solo instance content on the PTS
RIFT's patch 1.5 is just on the horizon, and to prepare for the patch's release, Trion Worlds has introduced solo dungeons to the game's public test server. This instanced content, known as Chronicles of Telara, provides quick gameplay for players who are craving a little bit of dungeon-flavored action but who don't have the time to gather a group and trudge through the trials and tribulations of a five-man instance. After the cut, we have a pair of videos showing off the Chronicles of Telara: Hammerknell solo instance. The first video, from ZAM's Nepabrite, takes players on a quick tour of the Dwarven fortress, complete with running commentary. The second video, from Torrac of the guild Result on the Immerwacht server, is devoid of any such commentary and simply allows players to follow along through the entirety of the instance. To feast your eyes upon both of the above, just slip on past the cut.
The Daily Grind: Do you like having the freedom to play solo?
MMOs are social experiences at their core, but there's still something about having freedom on your character of choice. At times, everyone likes to step away from being responsible for other people, and operating solo means that you get to take full credit for your own success and failure. But the quality of that operation depends on the game -- Final Fantasy XI characters were largely helpless solo past a certain point, while there's little in Star Trek Online that a solo player can't handle with some patience. Obviously, being able to get plenty done solo means that you can indulge your time in the game more freely and not have to worry too much about other availability. But it also does detract from the grouping experience, and it can lead to a rahter one-note game where every enemy has to fall prey to the same solo tactics. So do you think solo-friendly game are a good thing? Do you want your games to feature a fair amount of self-reliance, or do you miss the old days where parties were the default for content? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Anvil of Crom: Your guide to the Refuge of the Apostate
Wow, I've completely forgotten how to play my Demo. Due to recent adventures in Bear Shaman land, my level 80 Age of Conan characters have been collecting quite a bit of dust. I haven't really missed them yet, either, as the Shaman is a heck of a lot more enjoyable than I expected. That said, he's only 35, and therefore he's out of the running when it comes to showing me through the new Refuge of the Apostate dungeon content that Funcom released a few days back. Join me after the cut as I get reacquainted with spamming shockstrike and running around with various succubi pets and a severe outbreak of particle effects. I might even be persuaded to offer up a proper guide for the new dungeon (and some review commentary) as well.
Wings Over Atreia: Endgame = end of game?
It happens. All good things must come to an end... except (hopefully) your favorite MMORPG. After all, the whole idea of the MMO is to keep going endlessly, right? To supposedly ever-evolve -- there is no final "win" that concludes the story as in single-player RPGs. However, what do you do when you hit the level cap and have "been there and done that" with everything in game? I guess that's the disadvantage of not having a sandbox; as much I love the graphics and my friends in NCsoft's Aion, there really is just a finite list of things to do. Now before anyone gets up-in-arms or sneers "I told you so," no, I am not quitting and I haven't given up on the game. I still enjoy it. It just so happens that my mind zeroed in on the topic this week as I logged in over the course a few days and just stared at my screen, wondering what I wanted to do. While I was feeling under the weather a bit (which dampened my endurance and enthusiasm to complete any major dungeons), I started wondering about what there actually is to do in Aion after you reach and sit at maximum level for a while. For me, the two things that keep me interested in my virtual worlds are the community and friends that I find in game as well as exploring and experiencing new things. One involves the company providing regular content updates; the other allows for player-created content. But once there is nothing left to explore or experience, friends can drift away... so what does that leave? Pondering this subject and watching the community around me actually brought up some expected -- and some not quite expected -- answers. Join me past the cut to look at different ways Daevas spend their time in Atreia and how they keep their interest sparked.
GDC 2011: BioWare's Damion Schubert on designing for loners
Nothing stirs up a good MMO debate like the age-old question of whether or not the genre should cater to solo players. BioWare's Damion Schubert, lead systems designer on the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, recently added a bit of fuel to that particular fire during a presentation at last week's GDC in San Francisco. Schubert's talk focused on loners in the massively multiplayer space, and while it's no surprise to anyone that TOR is being built with the solo player in mind, it may come as a bit of a revelation that BioWare isn't aiming to "dumb down" the MMORPG as some fans have suggested. On the contrary, Schubert states that MMOs feature "hardcore stuff. This is hardcore gameplay, and we have to figure out how to get the solo player in a position where they want to take part in this, where they feel comfortable with the social circles, where they feel like they can be contributors."
The Daily Grind: Do you like cross-server dungeon finders?
There's little doubt that World of Warcraft has brought a lot of change to the MMO space in a few short years. One of the more recent Blizzard innovations is the dungeon finder tool, a cross-server matchmaker that throws together ad-hoc groups for the game's 5-man instances. Released in early December of 2009, the mechanic has proven to be a boon for casual players who are pressed for time or are looking to power through content. The dungeon finder doesn't earn universal high marks, however, and players who use PUGs to recruit for their guilds (or those who simply like to make new friends) are often put off by the disposable (and largely silent) nature of many dungeon finder groups. For today's Daily Grind, we'd like to know how you feel about the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am-don't-talk-to-me-just-kill-the-boss mentality that's showing up with greater frequency in current-gen MMOs. Do you blame the dungeon finder? Do you care? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Stricken pack
It's been a while since the Incarnate system went live, and we've had a little time to get used to the ideas that the Issue 19 Strike Pack brought to the table. Not a full shakedown, mind you, but enough to make it clear what the fairly minor addition actually does for the nascent endgame. Whether or not it brings anything positive to City of Heroes is still up for debate. Depending on whom you're talking to, it either nicely handles a few weaknesses of the current Incarnate design or it's a step in a bad direction. As usual, I don't think the answer is anywhere near that simple. The Strike Pack is a good thing in many ways, and not just because of the addition of the higher tiers of Incarnate abilities. I love giving people more reason to run Task Forces, definitely, but if there's a serious problem introduced by this it goes right back to the same endgame problems that City of Heroes has always had, problems that I'm not completely sure even Issue 20 will fix.
Wings Over Atreia: Solo vs. group
OK, now get your collective minds all out of the gutter! There we go. Of course, the title speaks to gaming styles and preferences in Aion. Lately, I've had the topic of grouping crop up in different discussions, from the trend of decreasing group sizes (Star Wars Galaxies had groups of 20, then Lineage II had groups of nine, followed by other games with a maximum group size of six) to questioning the need to group at all. To group, or not to group: Is that really the question? I touched on this topic a bit a few weeks ago, but an adventure this past week brought my attention back to it; I discovered that you no longer need a full group for one of the more frustrating quests in the game (once you factor in trying to get a group when the rift is up and not have it camped on the other side by the enemy!). Instead, you can complete the quest with just two or three Daevas, a feat unheard of previously due to the difficult dungeon in enemy territory. Granted, we completed our quest, which would have been impossible otherwise given the circumstances. But on a broader scale, what's with the trend of phasing out group content in MMOs and catering to the solo crowd? This phenomenon puzzles me. When a game is an MMO (read "massively multiplayer"), why discourage grouping by making almost all content accessible to the solo crowd -- especially in Aion (where learning good group dynamics can be crucial in large scale warfare)? In a time when social skills seem to be struggling to survive, why open yet another opportunity for people to avoid interaction? Type /Invite and join me past the cut to examine this phenomenon and weigh in with your preferred gaming style in our comments.
The Anvil of Crom: Sex, violence, and the solo gamer
OK, those of you who clicked on this week's issue of The Anvil of Crom hoping to read a sordid expose filled with tawdry, titillating screenshots from Funcom's M-rated Age of Conan MMO might be disappointed. I know, I know, a headline like that is a dastardly writer trick. Blame it on the fact that I happened across an old Natalie Wood film with a catchy title while scrounging about for this week's topic. At any rate, I will be mentioning violence, as it's hard to talk about Age of Conan without it. Hopefully that will earn your forgiveness. Really though, I'm itching to spend a bit of virtual ink on the solo gamer, particularly as he or she relates to Funcom's sword and sorcery epic, so join me after the cut for a look at how the lone wolf fares in Hyboria.
Age of Conan dev update details new solo instances
Looking for more solo-centric content in Age of Conan? If so, you'll want to check out Funcom game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison's latest monthly development update for all the details on three new solo instances coming soon to a Hyborian server near you. First up is the Refuge of the Apostate, a level 80 instance found in Khitai's Kara Korum zone. The dungeon centers on the conflict between the Scarlet Circle and Last Legion factions, though non-aligned players will still be able to take part. The encounter is designed to be challenging both in terms of navigating the environment and defeating the boss and his minions, so Funcom designers have granted players significant completion rewards including faction marks of acclaim and rare trophies. There's a catch though -- the dungeon can only be done once every 20 hours. Funcom is also gifting solo players with two Auto Content Generation (ACG) dungeons. If you're familiar with the Tarantia Noble District villas, you'll have an idea of what's in store here. Like the villas, each of the new areas scales to a player's level between 40 and 80. The Breach and the Forgotten City dungeons feature three repeatable quests, also located in Khitai, and they are designed to provide players with another option for advancing to endgame. Read all about the new instances (and a bit about upcoming crowd-control tweaks) on Age of Conan's official forums.
