By far and large, the design ideas I throw out over here at Of Course Ill Play It are iterations of existing concepts and notions within the classic MMO.  There is a reason for this.  I am a huge fan of give the players a lot of something they know, and a little of something new.  While I like as much as anyone the idea of revolution and innovation, the truth of the matter is if you throw something completely foreign and new to a playerbase that has preset expections, you are setting up a recipe for fail on an epic scale.  And the MMO landscape is littered with the corpses of those that have gone that path.  So much of my ramblings are about ways we can take things we know, and make them better.   This however, is not such a post.  This idea is so radical *I’m* not even sure it’s a good idea.  But it’s a notion that’s been kicking around in my head for some now, and hell they don’t pay us the big bucks to always sit around and play it safe (okay truthfully no one pays me at all), so let’s throw this out and think about it.

 
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One discussion that is as old as the genre itself when it comes to MMO’s is that of solo play vs. group play.  Probably no other topic stirs as much contentiousness and strikes closer to the core of people’s playstyles than that of to what extent do you support, encourage, or even require players to play in groups versus playing solo.  I personally, in true diplomatic fashion, am a fan of both.  Some of the very best experiences I’ve had in MMO’s have come out of being in a group.  Not just the social aspects of it — of accomplishing something amazing and having people there to share it with — but that incredible feeling of satisfaction that comes from being on a team where each member of the team has their role and each of you performed your role expertly, and in doing so, accomplished something really hard.  These experiences are why I’m still a huge fan of class based systems (and always will be), and why I feel strongly about having group roles.

But on the other hand, easily over ninety-percent of the time I play in MMO’s these days I play solo.  For all the reasons that just about every solo player lists, my lifestyle is completely in-conducive to most MMO’s requirements for group play.  I have neither the time nor the patience to sit and do nothing while either attempting to form a group or to wait for one to be formed.  If I’m in a group, it is entirely likely I could be called away at a moment’s notice to take care of some real life crisis of the moment.   There is absolutely no block of time in my day that I can dedicate three hours to a single session.   So I have argurably the most pathetically geared level 80 warrior in all of existence because I got to level 80, looked around, saw no real content for me as a solo player, and so promptly started working on an alt. 

So it’s a dilemma from a developer’s standpoint.  We know that people that form ties and become a part of the community in your game will want to stay in your game, and that’s something you want.  So you want to encourage group play.  But at the same time, you have to, or you should, at least, recognize that the average age of your player is maturing, and if you want really broad appeal, you simply can’t require people to group up after they’ve reached some certain level to progress their character.   One of the things that always has me shaking my head is when people talk about how “back in the day” how awesome it was when the MMO you were in simply required you to group to progress.  It wasn’t even a question, so it was just inherently understood you had to group to progress, and so everyone did it.  What those people fail to realize is that yes, the people they played with did know that.  But the vast majorify of the people that got to whatever level the content decided you had to group to progress in the game simply left the game.  Which is why those games never had more than about 200,000 subscribers.  It wasn’t until WoW came along and said no matter what class you play, you can solo the entire game, that all those thousands and then millions of people that started the game stayed in the game.  Because they didn’t have to leave their comfort zone.  They could play the game they wanted to play. 

So I have, in the past, already talked about systems that I think could encourage grouping, and teach players very early in their career that it’s okay to group, and how we as designers can go much further than we currently are in removing the barriers.  But today I’m going to talk about going in the other direction.  About doing more to support the solo player.   I’m going to talk about the privateer. 

 
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So there probably isn’t any other MMO out there right now that I’ve been following more closely and waiting with such high hope for than Aion.  Since I read the first announcements in 2007, and saw the first videos in 2008, I’ve loved everything I’ve seen about the look, the art style, and the prospects of adding something really new to the genre — flying PvP combat.  And yes, before we go any further, I know flying and combat has been around for some time in MMO’s, but in both CoH and WoW, flying is an add-on.  It’s not considered a cornerstone of the game.  The first videos I saw of Aion promised that this game was about flying combat. 

So when the first closed betas rolled around, I stayed by my guns of trying to avoid the hype and to play in the betas.  But when the FilePlanet beta opened up, and all you needed was a FilePlanet subscription to get a key, well even I could stand it no longer, and so into the beta I went.  But none of that matters to you.  All you want to know.. and anyone that’s not actually in the beta really wants to know is — if I liked WoW, am I going to like this?  Well you’ll have to read a bit more to get my answer. 

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There have been a number of interesting news tidbits to come out in the past few weeks related to the MMO industry, but two have really caught my eye.  And the reason is that, they are essentially the same announcement, but perceived by the community and industry as a whole as completely opposite.  What am I talking about about?  Well you’ll have to read on a bit.

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