Inside the mind of an MMORPG Soloist

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For many people, when they hear the words “Solo” and “MMORPG” used together in the same sentence, they tend to go bat-shit insane. They react as if someone just said their momma wore combat boots! It’s actually quite scary. However, Scary or not, Let me be clear on one thing: I am an MMORPG Soloist. Let the Bat-shittery commence!

Wait for the crazies to settle down. Wait for it.

Ok, I am assuming the lunatics had time to calm down, so I will continue.

Why do people get so worked up about someone playing an MMORPG solo? I don’t know! If they want to group, more power to them. Me playing solo has absolutely no fucking affect on them, since they will be in a group and I clearly will not be. So why get all worked up? Many people will say it pisses them off because it ruins the spirit of the MMORPG, and that if you want to play Solo, then go play a Solo RPG, like an elder scrolls game or something similar. These same people also fucking love to point out the word “Multiplayer” abbreviated in MMORPG.

These same people of course, are also douchebaggy dumbshits.

“Multiplayer” means more than one person playing the game. Last I looked, there is more than one person playing the game even if I am doing it solo. multiplayer does NOT mean Grouped. If it did, clearly it would be called “Group Required Online Role Playing Game” and while GRORPG may not be as catchy as MMORPG, it would still get the point across.

Bottom line, you can enjoy the multiplayer aspect of an MMORPG without being grouped. For instance, Even though I solo I still enjoy multiplayer activities that can’t be achieved in single player games. Examples are as follows.

PvP – I like to enter not just arenas, but also if I spot a lone adventurer adventuring that’s about my level, I like to engage them in combat. I also enjoy having to watch the area, and pay attention to my surroundings in case of a surprise player attack. This couldn’t be done in a single player RPG.

Role Playing – Yeah, the OTHER abbreviation in MMORPG that douche bags tend to have no problem ignoring, since it doesn’t fit their ideal of game play. I like to take on the role of a character, and play it, interacting with others along the way. Can this be done in a single player? No! (On a side note, this is also another reason I solo. I play games for the story, and groups tend to want to rush. I like to read the quest dialog, and appreciate it. Soak it all up, so that I can get a feel for the setting, to better evolve my character. This doesn’t tend to sit well with groups who are in a rush for their epic lewtz)

Crafting & Auctioning – I like to craft things, venture to the auction house and sell my things that I have made. Also, to sell items I have found, for more than what the vendor will buy it for. It gives me an alternate way to make money.

Occasional Grouping – I like to occasionally group up with a friend who might play on the rare occasion. However, I also want to be able to play on my own, whenever I want. I just want the OPTION to include my friends in the adventure with me, not be FORCED to run with people I hardly know, just to get some quest done.

Activities – Let’s be honest here folks! MMORPGs will always be larger than a single player RPG! It will have always increasing content, and also have special holiday events. This is something that doesn’t happen in single player games. A single player game does not evolve with or without you! It does not have new quests just suddenly appear that weren’t there before or programmed to be there.

Bottom line is this: No matter how advanced a single player RPG is, it will NEVER provide the continued growth or entertainment value that an MMORPG will.

Lastly, let me just say this — You don’t like that I play solo, even though it has no effect on you? Well, Fuck you. I don’t like that you don’t Role play which DOES affect my characters enjoyment. Do you see me bitching and whining? NO! Why? because your 15 bucks a month is worth just as much as mine, and vice versa. We each pay the same, and have the right to BOTH enjoy the game that we pay for, however we see fit.

That’s all I gotta say about that.

Related articles

• Another MMORPG going Free to Play (shaideblog.com)
• World of Warcraft goes Free to Play?! (shaideblog.com)

World of Warcraft goes Free to Play?!

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MMORPGs are going Free to Play left and right! Recently Age of Conan went free to play, and even more recently City of Heroes announced it too was going free to play. Hell, there’s even talk of sony’s newest MMORPG DC Universe Online going free to play!

For good reason too! Free to Play means bigger money! Lots more people try it and get hooked on it, and end up becoming a premium member, or at the very least spend money to upgrade their character. Me for instance, I am not a big fan of monthly fees, because I am a casual gamer. What would take most MMO gamers an afternoon to accomplish, it takes me about a week. So, it makes more sense for me to slowly buy the newer content for me, as I progress up to the point to access it.

So, it’s a given! Tons of MMORPGs are going Free to Play. In fact most of them. What about World of Warcraft you ask? YES! It already has gone Free to Play – Well, Kind of anyway.

Ok, it hasn’t gone Free to Play.

What it has done however is adopt a limited Free to Play model to take the place of a 10 day trial. Now, you can play the game, and get a good feel for the game, because instead of just 10 days, you can play your character up to level 20, for free! Then, if you want to continue past level 20, just upgrade your account.

Why would World of Warcraft do this though? I mean, WoW is the MMORPG juggernaut right? The King of the hill! Other MMORPGs have to bow down to its greatness right? I mean, I will be honest and upfront here. Even I can’t deny that WoW is the most popular MMORPG on the market, and I detest WoW! Seriously, I really can’t stand the game. I used to enjoy it, and subscribed for a good many years, but then realised that the game never changed. Even the new content was the same old crap with a different name or color.

So, with it being so popular why adopt this new limited f2p/free trial model? I couldn’t say with any certainty. In fact, the only ones who really probably know are the bigwigs in charge of WoW. I can however take a wild guess.

You see, last October World of Warcraft had a staggering 12 million users. However as of January, the amount of subscribers was 11.1 million. Do the math people. In less than a year, World of Warcraft lost 1 million subscribers. So, it’s not really all that surprising that they would introduce a similar strategy to see if they could boost their numbers back up.

Will it work? Probably! As I said, I am not a fan of the game, but it’s a good beginners MMORPG. It’s not overly technical, so it’s easy to get yourself set up and gaming, even if you know nothing about gaming. So, yeah, it will probably increase their numbers! These people will try the game, get hooked, and not want to lose their spiffy level 20 character.

The big question is, will the increased numbers last? Probably not! The game has been around a long time! It’s teetering at the moment, and all it will take is one really good MMORPG to come along and give it that little nudge to push it off its throne. The upcoming Starwars MMORPG looks like it might have the power for that final nudge, however only time will tell.

As usual, I could be wrong about all of this, but I don’t think so!

Back in my day….

I always told myself, that when I got older, I wouldn’t be one of those people. I wouldn’t go around saying, that back in my day we had things harder than todays children, because at the time, I figured that there was no way kids could get things easier. I mean, we could watch movies in our house whenever we wanted, which was pretty damn cool.Hell, We could even play video games at home without having to go to the arcade! Shit, we even had the fucking internet pop-up in my childhood!

Hell, we even had light-up shoes, cause we were bitchin' like that.

So, taking all that into consideration, the last thing I figured I would ever think, is how we had ANYTHING harder than any generation that would come after us. If anything, I figured the next generation would have it harder, because I assumed that by now, we would be living in an atomic wasteland, because that seemed to be the route the world was taking at the time.

In the end however, we didn’t end up nuking ourselves to Timbuktu, and somehow to my amazement, certain things got easier for the next generation. Not everything mind you, I mean back in my day, I remember when gas only cost like a buck fifty, and now look at how much teens are having to pay for gas! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Suckers!

*points and laughs*

Anyway, the point of this post is so I can do, what I said I would never do, and say the following phrase; Things are so easy now! You know, back in my day shit was so much harder to do!

This time I am going to focus on video games, because video games kicks much ass!

Believe it or not, video games have changed a LOT over the years, not just in terms of graphics and sound, though those are the biggest and most obvious changes, but that’s to be expected! It’s part of technology progressing, but there are also smaller more subtle changes in modern video games, that are in no way associated with the advancement of technology. Changes that were put in place purely to make your video game life that much fucking easier!

Changes like:

RPG Leveling up process

Growing up, I was a huge RPG fan! I loved Pen and Paper RPGs, so it was only obvious that I would try Computer/Console RPGs. When I did, I was hooked! I lived and breathed games like; Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Willow and Phantasy Star.

I remember popping in an RPG and spending a full day practically just walking around the first town, killing monster after monster, building up my experience points so that I could level up enough to take on some tougher monsters that were surrounding the second town.

Days were spent just killing monsters, all so you could get powerful enough to kill more monsters! basically, it was a total grindfest! People complain about how MMORPGs have a lot of grinding, but that’s pretty much how many RPGs were back in the day. Nowadays, you don’t even need to grind! Just start your RPG of choice and move from area to area. By the time you reach your next location, just from “Exploration Experience” you are practically level up enough to take on the boss, if you killed some things on your way there, then you are not only leveled up enough, but probably over-powered!

You don’t need to grind anymore in RPGs, which is a good thing in a way, because it means you don’t need to tear yourself away from the epic story being told. You can remain immersed in the saga. So, I see why it’s that way, but still, it makes RPGs so much more easier!

Passwords

When I first started gaming, many games didn’t have a battery back-up, which meant that you couldn’t save your game! So, in order to allow gamers to play huge epic sagas that took weeks of gameplay, they created a password system. When you went to “Save” your game, you were given a password! Then, when you turned your game on again, you would go to the password screen and input your password to continue your saga.

By the way, when I say password, I don’t mean something like “Heartbeat” or “Horseback” or even multiple worded passwords like “Goat Mountain thunder”. No, that would have been too easy! They were crazy passwords, that used letters, numbers, symbols, lower and upper case sensitivity. Like this password screen:

unfuckingbelievable!

Now, not ALL passwords were that long and insane, some were shorter, some even longer and crazier, but either way it was always a pain in the ass! Especially compared to todays gamers who just needs to press a button and poof! All saved! In my day, most gamers had a notebook, that had all their game passwords scribbled down! Some gamers, like yours truly, had multiple notebooks, because just one wasn’t going to be enough.

Now, that’s just a thing of the past, but….

Speaking of Saving!

…It’s not like you need to anyway! Not only do you not have to fiddle with passwords, but most of the time, you don’t even need to choose a save option! Most RPGs and even non-RPGs have a built-in “Auto-save” feature, which saves the game for you every 5 mins it seems like!

Whereas in my day, if we got too fucking lazy to grab our pen to write down a password, we could lose hours of gameplay due to our characters untimely demise.

Damn Slackers!

Too easy!

Video games nowadays are just way too easy! Sure, some have an option that allows you to choose a difficulty setting, however those same games also have an “Easy” setting in their difficulty list, which basically plays the game for you! Seriously, just set the game to easy and walk away for a half hour, and when you come back, there’s a good chance that you will have finished the damn game!

When I first started gaming, games were nearly impossible! It’s why so many old-school gamers have the konami code burned into their memory! After all, most of Konamis games were impossible to beat without the damn code! Games so difficult, that you literally had to fucking cheat to play it! Even with the cheat, the game was still a challenge!

Watchout for the lazer!

Sure, we had some games that had difficulty settings, and sure they had an “Easy” setting, but most times, unless you were playing a Disney title, even “Easy mode” would be frustrating enough to make you want to rip your hair out!

Clearly a fan of the Contra series!

Take Cover!

Most games started you off with “Three Health Bars” back in the day, which basically meant you could get shot three times, before you came face to face with the dreaded “Game over” screen, which i wouldn’t be surprised if most modern gamers have never seen in their life.

For modern Gamers

Sure, after you got hit and lost a health bar, you could come across a health pack to heal yourself up, but those were few and far between. Your best bet, was to just do everything in your power to avoid getting hit at all!

Gamers today rarely care about any of that, since a lot of modern games don’t even have a health bar! Just run out into the open and shoot shit til your screen is nearly red, then run behind a wall for a second til your case of extreme red-eye goes away, and yer perfectly ready to do it again!

Riddled with bulletholes? Nothing a few seconds rest won't cure!

I’m not saying that all of this is bad! In fact, I understand why games are made easier! Games today focus a lot on story! back when i started gaming, a story consisted of something like this:

Epic saga right?

So, back in the day, stories were more of an after thought! Most gamers didn’t even pay attention to a story, myself included! What would be the point, you see what our stories were! Most of the time, it was better to fabricate your own story in your head as the game moved along!

Nowadays, you have great stories with good voice acting and incredible cut-scenes! Games are made easier, so people can fully enjoy the story of a game, rather than be held back for weeks at a time, while the story is basically paused until you are able to advance it.

Even I play modern games the first time on “Easy”, just so I can experience the story first hand, and then play again on the harder settings.

So, as I said; I get it! That doesn’t change the fact that games in my day were ape-shit harder though. Just sayin’.

DCUO release pushed back

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As many of you know, I have been eagerly looking forward to the upcoming release of DC Universe Online, a Super-hero MMORPG from Sony Online Entertainment, that was scheduled to be released early next month. In fact, I went and subscribed to Champions Online to hold me over until that release date.

However, today my hopes, dreams and wishes were shattered! How so you ask? Well, SOE announced that the release date should be pushed back. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that releasing the game closer to Christmas would be the better choice anyway, that it would increase their sales, and in the long run benefit the gamers, since more people will have the game as christmas presents, and normally I would agree with you, but it’s not pushed back as a christmas release.

You see, the game has been pushed way back! The release date now, is March 31st, 2011! For those keeping track, that’s a long pushback, and a long wait. Long pushbacks make Shaide really unhappy. On the bright side, I suppose I still have Champions Online to keep me company for all those months that I now have to wait. Hopefully, the game will keep me interested until the end of march.

I suppose what worries me most, is when games start getting pushed back, they have a tendency to keep getting pushed back for years on end! Let’s not forget the Alan Wake and Splinter Cell: Conviction fiascos! I am really hoping however that this time the game will be released in March. Only time will tell however. Only time will tell.

Related Articles

• DC Universe Online Pushed To 2011 (multiplayerblog.mtv.com)
• DC Universe Online Delayed Into 2011, PS3 Collector’s Edition Announced (g4tv.com)
• “Sony Delays ‘DC Universe Online’” and related posts (forevergeek.com)

Here there be dragons

Image via CrunchBase

I’m sure most people interested in on-line gaming knows about Dungeons and Dragons Online, Also known as DDO. Most of you may have even played it, at least the trial. A lot of you might not have really cared for it either. Especially when there were games like World of Warcraft and Turbines other hit MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online. With games like those, perhaps you just couldn’t see yourself plunking down a wad of cash for your monthly DDO fix.

Well, things have changed a wee bit as of late. To begin with as of this month, DDO has changed its name to Dungeons and Dragons Unlimited. However, the biggest change is the fact that the game is now FREE to PLAY. That’s right, it doesn’t even require a credit card!

However, to experience the game in ALL its splendor, it might be a good idea to invest some cash. They do charge to unlock some things, or to buy more character slots. Yer basically getting the core game free, and if you want to add something..plunk down a few dollars here..want to add a little more? plunk down a few more bucks.

The idea is remarkable, and it’s a great idea if executed PROPERLY. It will give people the chance to actually PLAY the game, beyond the couple of days free trial. Allow them to meet new people, interact and build friendships and in doing so also give them a chance to get incredibly addicted to the game so that they will want to keep adding to their game and expanding their enjoyment.

See how this could work in their favor? Secondlife already employs a similar business strategy and it works incredibly well for them. This is however the first time an established commercial MMORPG has decided to take this route, and I am REALLY excited to see how this will work for Turbine. If it proves to be successful this could change the face of MMO gaming. If their sales and income increases greatly, could they then consider to use this strategy in their already wildly succesful LotRO? Will other companies decide to experiment with the idea, or similar ideas?

Either way, for the gaming public it’s a sweet as hell deal…so, go start playing Dungeons and Dragons Unlimited…Free of charge!