I'm a solo player on a MMORG!

[Tuor falconeye]

hello all!

my name is Tuor Falconeye and i am a casual mostly solo player!

how many arguments have you heard about the whole solo/grouping?

well i just thought maybe we could have another! well not an argument but more of....lets say no one flame anyone, just put the reason why you play the way you do.

i play roughly 10 hours a week. mostly in 2 hour intervals. i dont belong to a guild. i have a few rl friends who accasionaly play the same time as me.
so 95% of the time i find myself soloing. why play a MMORG and solo? i love the community! simple as that. i love to be able to gauge myself against real people. reach the highest level of a single player game and you have reached the end. not in an MMORG, there are always people who are better than me so i always have more challenges to face. i love to be able to achieve things that guilded people needed help with. i love to have houses that i have slowly built up and people wll look at and think i had a guild. these things i couldnt do in a single player game. there is no point! if i get invited to a group, i join. i dont say "no sorry i only solo" but at the same time, you will never hear me calling for a group.

do i have somethong against people that group or guild? no not at all. will i ever join a guild? probably. but only when i see an interesting guild and not just as a means to see 'end game'

many people play this game. many different styles play this game. all of them play correctly as they play as they want.

i play the best and most enjoyable way i can.

look forward to hearing your reasons for playing the way you do

Ranger and explorer, Tuor Falconeye.

[Soularized]

*sigh*




Ok, fine.
I'm a casual player, and tend to solo more than group when I'm adventuring. My reason is probably one of the stupidest ones out there, heh. I don't like to play tank classes so I don't lead very well, and I also dislike following other people around for half of my in-game time, so I don't do well in pick-up groups either. Frequently grouping with the same 2-3 people is something else entirely, and that's fun, but it takes a long while to find those people if you dislike pick-up groups. I know, I'm nuts.

Anyway, I play MMOs mostly to RP with other people, and also because of the market. I have a weird game economics curiosity I guess and I can't really get that in single player games.

[Ceyllynn]

i solo a lot.. but i'm a adv/diplo/crafter/harvester... thankfully my guild mates understand and some will join me to help me with something or i will join them to help on occasion. our guild is more for the social aspect and helping each other with knowledge we've gained.

[Sheazy]

I'm a core player. I play about 2-3 hours per night and as much as I can get away with on the weekends.

I enjoy playing an mmo the most when I'm in a group doing a new or difficult dungeon, area, quest, etc. I enjoy it even more if the group is on TS or vent chatting away while playing. I love the bad pulls, the wipes, the recoveries, the boss fights, the challenge, and succeeding with a group of people at difficult content.

To me, it's as much about the social experience as anything. I rarely solo anymore. I should clarify - I rarely solo adventuring content anymore. Instead, if for some reason I'm not able to get a group, I craft. Crafting has become my solo content in this game, and I do enjoy it quite a bit. But nowhere near as much as dungeoning with a fun group of people.

[SwordMage]

I tend to solo a great deal (in fact, I have yet to group in Vanguard with 5 level 10 characters). My problem is that I like to stop and smell the roses (or harvest them) and wander off to see the view from some cliff or see what that strange structure is on that hill top over there (groups don't like that, who can blame them).

To some extent, it is reflected in the types of characters I play. My ranger main is, by nature, a wanderer and much more interested in hunting the wilds than battling the forces of evil. My warrior is probably going to be my main diplomat and may only go fight when he gets frustrated by the idiot nobles.

I do enjoy groups when I have some specific goal in mind that requires grouping; however, through the early teens, VG doesn't really force grouping (although, I am starting to see quests for really nasty dungeons).

One of the things I really dislike is grouping to grind levels. The reason for that is that I have, in other games, found that after a level or two, my skills begin to lag behind my level. I also find that I miss too much content that way (I like my adventuring to be driven by the game lore and quests).

I do have the sense that the game lore will draw me to groups as I advance. I just have to hope I still have some guildies with alts at my level when the time comes.

[dirtymeat80]

bit solo oriented myself. I believe it's more having to do with being gunshy of pickup groups. I duo'd with someone the other day, and it went great....he/she was good people and was chatty.......then we found a 3rd to join us, and he/she/it was just absolutely........well, I'll keep those comments to myself, but I'll say that the group had lost its appeal to me, as well as the person I originally joined up with, so we both just kinda cut out. Come to think of it, I've duo'd a dozen times, and 90% of the time, when a 3rd is added, they're just anti-social, or even worse.....a rude & impatient person who always thinks that there's just not enough xp & loot wherever they are. Is it a 3rd times not a charm type deal? Maybe I'll start asking the person to find another before I invite so there's 4

All in all, I'd take a fun, chatty group over being solo, but I don't have any problems with running around solo, but I know I'm missing out on some coin & loot, because there are quests that you just can't do by yourself.

[Hungkung]

I tend to be a solo artist, for a fairly simple reason, if somebody's goin' get hurt I want it to be me, with nobody to blame but me. I tend to adventure in areas where I have no business, just exploring and that thrill of dodging big bads just to see if I can find something pretty.

there are moment's it's not worth it, a CR in siren's grotto comes to mind, but mostly I find it enjoyable.

the main guff between hardcore players vrs. casual players, is that casual players have bought into the turf-wars of uberness. which as someone pointed out the other day, is a matter of age. when you're 18-early 20's you are still in that proving yourself phase of life and want (demand) the attention that comes with "accomplishment" ...which is easiest to see in uberloots.

As we get older, as most casual players are...or rather most older players are casual we're supposed to (according to Jung among others) be beyond that external need for approval and be looking at our own opinions and joys.

But then uberboy12 starts talking about his new purples and viagraman144 gets envious and starts complaining "that if I had time I could get things like that"...and both sides dig in like its march 6 1917 throwing flaming 'yousuck' grenades over the top like a cat full of alka seltzer.

its a choice guys, you can feed your family, or you can get little electronic pixles and be one of the cool kids too.

or we can show the patience which is supposed to come with age and wisdom, do what we can do each time we play and accept, this maybe a 3 year long project but no where on any box lid have I read have I read 'who gets to the end first gets a free ferrari' so why race?

self estem comes from the idea of knowing I can, not that I'm better. the latter comes from madison avenue and hollywood the former comes from standing like a man when the need calls for it. If ya don't hear the glory within, you'll never hear it from without.

[Ceyllynn]

i would definately the best times i've had with my guild members (most of which are like me) just exploring... we follow roads we shouldn't, go places we shouldn't, and get spanked regularly and since i am so fortunate to have started a guild of like minded people...

"hey i'm going to go explore by the fire towers, anyone want to come?" usually someone pipes up "what's it like there?"
i say "well when i saw a glimpse of it in beta it looked cool, but i think there was high mobs... no idea really, i remember drakes atleast"
guildmate "where are you? i'll be right there!"

or

*some of us are doing a group harvest run to help another guildie*
"hey i see a road"
"let's go take a look"
"ooooh look at this place!" or "oops! okay there was BAD!(guildie started the habit of using that term for nasty mobs/falls etc) there... but damn that was a rush! hehehe we have to go back sometime"
"oh yeah! did you see that view/gryff/drake/whatever?"

we're all nutjobs in my guild, we go our own ways, and get together on occasion when we feel like it. definately works for us who like to solo a lot.

[Hungkung]

LoL, your guys sound like my wife's guild in wow...the core of them, they just like each other like a pile of puppies, which is actually kind of rare in game. Kinda sad if you think about it, but when you find that right combination of crazy & fun, ya gotta get out the slipNslide coat it with almond oil and let the cattilion begin.

my own guild in wow was a little different, it was on one of the first pvp servers and eventually a 'war' developed so bitter it was taken through 3 different server splits and finnaly onto a private server where it became....um....well it'd have made a good sam pecinpah movie. but the gang in the guild were the types to discover mages could almost do cannonballs off of unguro canyon rim from tanaris, so we had contests to see who could do it. the winner got eaten by a dino, which was its own kind of fun.

saddly on my own vanguard server the guilds I've found are pretty vanilla, but I'm hopeful. ya never find diamonds on a sandy beach and players only luv ya when you're playing

[Ysharros]

I play primarily solo, or duo with the spousal unit when he's around. Since I have *much* more spare time than he does, I'd say about 75% of my playtime is solo.

The single main reason for that is that I AFK frequently, usually with little warning, and usually with no real idea how long I'll be gone. It can be any one of a zillion things that pulls me away but having to stop and explain every time is... naaaah. Been there, tried that, and it just furstrates everyone involved. Sometimes I'll be at the keyboard for 2 hours with no interruptions, but I don't usually know ahead of time - and most times it's about 20 minutes and I'll have to run off to [do chores/get phonecalls/fill in activity].

Plus, like many others above, I really like to take my time. I might craft for an hour or so and then, because that last complication made me really irate, get out for some pixel-fresh air and slaughter whatever happens to be nearby for a while -- which, I should add, usually involves more "ooo what's over there?" than actually killing anything. Most of the time I'll get distracted by harvestables and do that for *way* longer than any sane person should....

For the most part I'm quite sociable and, up until last year, my playing solo did *not* mean that I was being quiet. I'd usually have half a dozen conversations going at once - making friends isn't that hard in MMOs, and some of the ones I've made over the years I've kept, met in real life, or even (in one case only, I hasten to add) married. Right now I'm injured, on pain meds, and thus crabby, bitchy and utterly hermitic, so for the most part I keep to myself. Nobody wants to hear a virtual stranger, no matter how friendly, bitch and moan about their health -- I know *I'm* sick to death of it myself.

Anyway, I'm a total forum ho (I know, you'd never have guessed), and when I find a place I like, like this one, I'll haunt it daily. For your sins, Spheres, here I am.