Breakfast Topic: Are you a solo player?
by Nathaniel Root 
Jul 31st 2011 at 8:00AM
I started playing WoW in February 2005 and haven't stopped. Sometimes I look at my /played and shudder. But for all the hours spent, I've never joined the game's community. I'm not in a guild. I don't have anyone on my friend lists. I don't know the names of my server's ninjas or trolls.
To some extent, I'm a product of my environment. With a non-gaming family, friends, and girlfriend, my social circle is not predisposed to WoW. But the truth is that even if I had the support, I still wouldn't spec "social butterfly."
I blame my hyper-social job. Beyond a meeting-heavy 9 to 7, I'm expected to spend most nights out at parties, dinners, concerts, etc. I love my job, and I love being social. I wouldn't trade it for the world. But when I come home, all I want is a chance to unwind and pew-pew. As such, my only engagement between me and my fellow players is furry or icy death. No in-game social life means no schedules, no obligations, and no drama.
But when you read a certain WoW publication as much as I do, you begin to wonder about life on the other side, a world of guild runs, in-jokes, server reputations, and social engagement. On my darker days, after a particularly bad PUG or PVP match, it sounds kind of beautiful. I've played for six years now, and I doubt I'll ever go social. But sometimes, when I stand on top of a mountain and look at the damage wrought by Deathwing's passing, I wish I could /tell my guild that "I finally died in the fire!"
Do you go solo? Could you never imagine WoW without your social network? Have you found a middle ground?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
talkaboom Jul 31st 2011 8:05AM
Yes. For the most part.
None of my RL friends are into gaming so it tends to be a solo affair for me save on raid days and for the (weekly) Heroics.
Dude Jul 31st 2011 8:06AM
I have an even balance between solo play and using the dungeon finder and the BG tool. I don't raid much, not really a fan.
lsprof4 Jul 31st 2011 8:50PM
Same here...but I miss the beginning when I had several friends that used to join me and we literally laughed our way through the dungeons making every mistake possible.
MusedMoose Jul 31st 2011 8:11AM
I'd consider myself semi-social. Some of my characters are in a guild, with good people; we get together and do things in WoW from time to time. Other characters aren't involved with anyone but themselves and the occasional PUG. Granted, I think my tendency to delete characters and start over probably helps with this, as I don't want to keep bringing new alts into the guild and deleting them, but...
Rezai Jul 31st 2011 8:13AM
Considering that the only reason I'm playing right now is to hangout with my guildies I'm going to say no.
Dril Jul 31st 2011 8:20AM
"I started playing WoW in February 2005 and haven't stopped. Sometimes I look at my /played and shudder. But for all the hours spent, I've never joined the game's community. I'm not in a guild. I don't have anyone on my friend lists. I don't know the names of my server's ninjas or trolls."
No offense, but this doesn't sound like a "soloer," it sounds more like someone who's incredibly insular online (which could be the case considering your IRL statements.)
Anyway: at heart, I'm a group player, but at the moment, I'm more of a small group/solo player. Not by choice, just by current temporal predicament.
Parrin Jul 31st 2011 9:39AM
This is exactly why I quit. Even if you're solo, Cata tried to force you to be social because Blizzard doesn't GET that we don't want to play with anyone else.
Not playing with anyone else is the definition of solo.
You don't get to change the definition of a word simply because your playing a game at the same time as thousands of other people. It's not anti-social or incredibly insular. It's something that some MMOs get, and others don't. Take D&D Online: you can run dungeons in Solo mode. It takes longer, and you have to run the instance several times for the same XP and benefits, but it offers the same play material for individual players.
I loved Wrath because I could LFD an instance, run it, and (as long as I didn't stand in the fire) I never had to touch my keyboard. I spent 15 mins looking for a group, and 20-30 mins in the dungeon. This was perfect for my attention span. I just wanted to decompress after a stressful day.
After Cata, my stress got worse after I logged on. Dungeons were a miserable experience. And I decided that it wasn't worth it.
Final note: can't wait for SWTOR. They've got an entire planet for end-game, solo players. WOOT!
WrecklessMEDIC Jul 31st 2011 11:39AM
I'm right there with you Philster. Even though I am GM of a very large 500+ member guild I always prefer to play by myself. The only person I can work with during dungeons is my wife. And even those have become few and far between. I am very casual and laid-back and the new dungeons require too much coordination and effort. I know, I know people will say the game should be hard. But I'd rather just chill and have a good time.
P.S. I'm pretty pumped about SWTOR's solo planet. Interested to see how that goes. :)
DarkWalker Jul 31st 2011 2:18PM
While I think MMOs should absolutely support group play, and offer group options for all solo content, there should also be enough solo content that is fun and challenging to keep a solo player's attention. Trying to push them into groups just make those players unwilling or unable to group leave the game. WoW, unfortunately, features no solo content that is actually a challenge.
Also, I want games that I can play in 30-minutes stretches. Any group content that requires a larger time slice will see very little, if any, use by me. For solo content, I can often manage to string together a few of these 30-minutes stretches, with roughly 10-minutes breaks in between, so I can tackle longer solo content than I can tackle group content.
SW:TOR seems poised to cater to solo players quite a bit more than WoW. Loot containers for instances (i.e., every person gets either a class-specific piece of loot or some tokens to purchase gear; there is no loot roll, no way for a raid leader to cheat on loot distribution), the solo planet, the companions, rumors that leveling content is not a cakewalk like WoW's, etc.
I'm not currently looking at SW:TOR because of the staggered launch - the fact they IP-blocked my country from the only store EA allows to sell digital downloads, and that shipping+taxes makes the Standard Edition cost $183 in my country (the Collector's Edition is almost $400), means I won't be getting it at launch, and if I'm not getting it at launch I might as well pick GW2 and only consider SW:TOR after I get bored with GW2.
Dril Jul 31st 2011 3:25PM
"I'm not in a guild. I don't have anyone on my friend lists."
/sigh
Look. I *UNDERSTAND* that simply the act of soloing is not insular. But that line I quoted does sound make him sound very insular. As in, if he's spent that much time playing, it sounds like he's gone out of his way to avoid ever making lasting contact with people.
No one's criticising soloers, no one's saying Blizzard should force you to group, so stop looking for attacks on your playstyle. I was simply commenting on the author's position.
No need to go off in a long tirade about the poor, beleaguered soloer (even though the vast majority of the game is soloable :/)
Utakata Jul 31st 2011 5:06PM
Though I agree with you Dril that vast majority of WoW is soloable...but to get the good stuff it's not. To do that you need to group do instances, including raids, dungeons, battlegrounds and arena's....which all require some co-ordination with another player outside of *boxing. So the game currently is focussed disingenuously proportional to group activity.
*Note: Even then requiring to do things with more than one character tied to different player accounts at once is not what I consider solo content.
Dril Jul 31st 2011 6:34PM
@Uta
We're going off-topic, but oh well :P
It depends what you define as "the good stuff." I mean, personally, I agree that all that stuff you listed (minus arenas ^^) is better than levelling, but it doesn't change this simple fact:
*the vast majority of WoW's actual, absolute content is entirely geared towards easy, time-constraint-free solo activities.*
If people have no intention of grouping, then the rewards of all group activities are basically pointless. Look at the people above me: they don't actually want a long, challenging, group instance, and yet they complain there's nothing for soloers, despite the fact that if they have no desire to do challenging group content, then doing any group content is largely pointless.
People complain about a lack of solo content, but if you're only desire is to constantly solo stuff, then virtually everything short of current-expac heroics and raids is juicy solo content.
There's a hissy fit when people ask for more group content ("omfg stop catering to the hardcore") yet people clamour for yet more easy solo content when the game is basically made-up of it.
bella Aug 1st 2011 3:16AM
@ Dril -
I wholeheartedly agree that 90% of WoW is solo content and Blizzard adding in dailys (Think Isle of Quel'Danas in BC, TOC in Wrath, Molten Front in Cata and more to come if they keep it up) has really expanded that content to continue past the leveling and questing available and unlocking nice rewards. Those complaining that there isn't any super great gear, pets, mounts or 'things' for solo players aren't paying attention. I could name 10 solo fun 'things' you could do with chances (or even promise of) neat rewards.
Some of the people complaining that Blizzard caters to the hardcore want to be able to log in as often or as little as possible and still be able to achieve the same thing that people who invest a large amount of time into getting those things in a group environment. While I'm not a hardcore raider (heck I haven't even cleared BWD yet), I don't think that solo content/players should offer the same rewards that raiders can have. Don't get me wrong, it's great to be able to get a few pieces from a daily or a quest line (Thrall's quest line was fun and offered a nice back piece and its completely soloable). I just think that a vast majority of the 'good gear' is needed by and therefor should go to raiders. The gear I need in my solo activities doesn't need to be nearly as good as what I need to tank bosses in a raid.
I ramble. TL;DR. I agree with Dril. Solo content is out there. Great rewards are out there. Quit QQing. (lol) You don't need raid level gear to do solo content.
Bynde Aug 1st 2011 10:15AM
God, I would love a solo mode for Dungeons! That would make my day that I don't have to PUG with a bunch of random jerkwads.
I get it that it's a mmo, but I wish sometimes the 'multiple' part didn't have to be with other actual people.
WrecklessMEDIC Aug 1st 2011 2:57PM
@Bella
I'm interested to hear what these "10 fun soloable things are in the game for rewards". I can only think of dailies or crafting. Both things that I do when I hit 85. I live for new dailies to pop up as it really is the only solo content at max level. You might say that 90% of WoW is for solo content. But that whole 90% is designed around leveling. Probably why I have 17 level 85's....lol. Game gets pretty boring for a solo player at 85. :)
Ice Jul 31st 2011 8:21AM
Well I will solo quest sure. But I cant, simply cant quest without guild chatter. Even if I dont always read green chat I just cant do stuff without it.
Example: I got into beta for cataclysm. All cool and so forth.. but after while I got really bored of it. No, not because of the game but because I had no guild with me. I was literally alone in the world. It felt like singleplayer RPG without singleplayer elements like story flow(in way that story "moves" the char not "quest to go around"), dialoques for my char and so forth.
So after while I got bored and didnt play beta for months..
Until 2 months before it shut down when my friend played it too and we did heroics. It was so much fun not only to figure out tactics with someone I know but to have chatter back and forth.
Another example is same, I tried to level char on new server but doing it alone feels just pointless. Without connections I would be stuck at 85 doing 40 minute queues alone. So I joined guild and it was so much more fun.
For me the game isnt so fun without friends to play with. The reason I keep playing is because of guilds I'm in not because I want to do something like zul'again weeks and weeks..
Deeeee Jul 31st 2011 8:35AM
Agreed. I like a little mindless chatter in the background that I can choose to, or not to participate in. Just like people at work/school/etc. You have the option to be friendly and outgoing, or you have the option of "leave me alone I've gotta go do this". Best of both worlds.
Philster043 Jul 31st 2011 8:40AM
I don't really miss the guild chatter. Most of it was nonsenscial or purely self-obligatory. Even worse when people complain, whine, and bitch about what's wrong with the game, with their current dungeon groups, and so forth. Exceedingly depressing when it's in-fighting within the guild.
I do like talking when I'm questing, though. For that reason, even though I solo, I do like to meet new people and start random conversations and see if they're cool people. If I do, I try my best to remain in touch.
It's actually proved surprisingly effective so far. I certainly still have friends on my friends list who I talk to a lot. No need for a guild for that.
Philster043 Jul 31st 2011 8:31AM
1) Started playing WoW with a buddy. Buddy leaves, I stay.
2) Focused on slowly leveling 10 characters and enjoying what pve had to offer.
3) Was randomly asked to sign a charter to found a guild, decided to stay, but still casual. Didn't talk much to the rest of the guild. Only two people were really active at first. The guild leader ended up losing his subscription and passed the leadership on to the second in command, who didn't really want the mantle. Guild was basically "just there."
4) Met somebody outside of the guild while questing in Alterac and started playing with her for the long duration - that character I was playing eventually became my main.
5) Guild started becoming active. I started doing dungeons with them (back when there was no queue).
6) Became guild leader. Organized banks, recruited new people, provided bags, started dungeon parties and raiding parties.
7) Became burnt out as a result of being asked to heal all the time (I was the only healer in the guild). Finally stepped down and decided to play on a different server for a while - again, with my partner.
8) On coming back, Guild Drama. I decided to leave the guild entirely. Had no desire left anymore to be part of that community.
9) Joined another friend's guild, with no desire to really be a huge contributor. Wanted to play on my own time. But once again, I was asked frequently to heal people, and this time, I wasn't crazy about a lot of the people. I decided to leave that guild, as well.
10) Ever since, I've started my own personal guild banks and just played with my friend for the most part.
Sometimes, just one friend is all you really need.
Chris Jul 31st 2011 2:51PM
Your WoW history reminds me of mine, only mine is the simplified version. After graduating college I got my wife to try a char on her brother's account about 6 months before WotLK. She liked it so we both started trial accounts (I had a previous trial account that I let lapse because I knew I wouldn't have done well in school with WoW). Once we had the in game currency the three of us started our own guilds, one on our Alli server and one on our Horde server. Except for a brief try at raiding one my wife and I got our first 80s it's been mostly just she and I ever since. My brother in law started playing much less frequently shortly after WotLK, but together we've leveled 5 pairs of alli 85s together and are working on our sixth. Once we have the in game gold for the guild rep obtained heirlooms were going to server transfer one pair to our Horde server and start all over. We don't need some big huge guild, and didn't like the drama that came along with trying out raiding, we just need each other.