Soloing in WoW?Follow

I have a level 37 mage and have probably soloed him 90% of the way. I also have a 30 Warlock I soloed much of the time. From a loot standpoint, soloing is much more efficient, as you are guaranteed to get all the rare drops. From an experience point, I still think you level faster soloing. A mage killing equal level mobs has virtually no downtime. The only time a group is needed is for dungeons, and during prime time there are always people looking for groups for the dungeons simply because everyone gets the same quests. It's nothing like FFXI in that respect.

Furthermore, I like how in WoW, you see all types of groups. Two people might just team up to do a quick quest, then disband. The groups are varied and inteersting. It's not always 6 people and always a certain demographic split. I enjoy the MMO-economics more than the grouping (or sitting for an hour or two with a flag up), and that's why (once the AH gets streamlined) I like WoW more than FFXI.

THANK GOD you can solo!


About the people complaining that this is a MMORPG.. yes its a roleplay.. waht if you want to be a loner and go kill people in pvp servers.. why can't someone have that choice?

the fact is, waiting for 2-3 hours for a freaking party in FFXI is pathetic enough.. and by the time you find a party, one guy's toes is hurting, the other his mommy is calling and one has to take a ****.. and it falls appart after a few kills..

by thtat time, you would've leveled if you were able to solo.

I love to solo, and its perfect for MMORPG.. in real life, not everyone has to be around people and do stuff with people.. u can do it on your own also.. which is why its only normal that the option is there. what's next.. "you need to be in a party to craft an item..."

I still don't understand why people COMPLAIN about that option.. nobody asks u to solo.. go play parties all you want, i'll solo if i feel like it. ^^

theres a reason I like wow so mush... well severall reasons and very good chance to solo is one of them... as my name says I like to solo. Groups are useful but yeah...

You can alienate the people who want to solo or the people who want to party, but there's everyone in-between who has a limited amount of time to play, and if they are forced to group, and find the perfect party, you are alienating their ability to play within their time constraints.

This is the way I like to play:

I solo to "train" my character. Get my skills up, level, raise money, do some quests.

I party for the fun stuff, high end battles, dungeon crawls, tougher quests, high level mobs.

The thing that finally made me quit FFXI was having to spend so much time in parties grinding out levels. Get into a bad party, it was a bad experience.

What I loved about UO was the ability to go spend an hour or so working on my skills, then join up with my guildmates and put those skills to use.

I don't mind partying for experience, it can be fun if in a good group, but to me the best use of a party is in taking a group and decimating a camp/town/dungeon.

The main Reason the game devolopers made games online was to bring the gaming world ONLINE so YOU could play with and battle other people. they didnt make it so you could solo the game.
Soloing in a MMO is just like playing a Game that does not have a online capability... its 1 player. now me as a gamer enjoys the abiliy to solo and group efientienly but why would u wana play by your self.

if u wanna go solo go play final fantasy 7-10 and FFX-2.

A MMORPG is an RPG still, this means that you can play/do whatever you want.

I love FFXI and all the series (yes even FF:Mystic Quest for SNES). I had to leave FFXI because, as someone said above, it felt like work rather than a game. I don't have the time in real life since I have my first full time job now. After a couple of months, I simply had to quit. I tried many classes that were party-friendly (i.e. mages, bard) and finally BST.

The BST is THE only class that can solo successfully. Even when I was playing at my own time and did my research to level up my BST, I couldn't raise him as fast as I wanted to. I felt bad because I was hoping to invest less time and get more fun out of the game.

It seems to be for me:

If I had time ---> FFXI
No time ---------> WoW

I love Warcraft series too anyway so I guess it's not to bad.

Summary:
I'd love to play with friends and guildmates but some people have other responsibilities in real life too. "Adults" also play these games you know.

Blazerman - even if you play one of the other FF installments, you're still in a party. A party entirely under your control, but a party nonetheless, and the game has a much different feel, with everything being scripted and sequenced. The only REAL analog I can see being appropriate is a game like Morrowind. Many players have asked Bethedsa to make a multiplayer version of Morrowind.

That said, even though Morrowind was in some regards a horrible game, it was also a truly great one in others, and that sort of appeal in a game is not worth disregarding. Yes, the game may be on-line, but WoW gives you the option to be off by yourself when you choose, rather than being forever at the mercy of random pick-up groups.

M - Massive
M - Mutliplayer
O - Online

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't this what MMO means? Where do people get "must group" from these three words? The reason an online game is more fun and challenging than a single player game is the interaction with other people. It should be your choice if that interaction is by grouping.

The greatest challenge in any online game comes from pvp, not grouping. Anyone can mindlessly bash mob after mob in a group for four hours to gain exp. Computer AI will never equal the intelligence (or lack of ^^) and diverse playstyles of other people.

rgr to that
imo, anyone that will solo the entire game is a complete moron and misses the point of this game. but heh, they pay 12$ a month, so y can't they do whatever they want.

so far on this post, we're debating the issue of whether your gonna be able to solo the entire game or not, when the real issue is : will we be at the mercy of parties?

the answer to that is a clear no! you will be able to do SOME of the quests and level up in SOME of the areas by yourself. now no one said you will be able to clear all the dungeons by yourself and do all the quests on you own. like, NO ONE said that.

if your afraid people will get way much higher level way faster by soloing, well who cares. there will probly be a bunch of 14 years old that will get to level 50 in 2 weeks anyway (from playing 26 hours a day), so just do your thing and nevermind the other players.

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Naej (THF25/NIN12)
Titan Server

You guys should be careful for what you wish for. Solo is great, but if you can solo as much as you want it will cease to be a MMORPG. Large groups of people, on average tend to take the easiest path. If the easiest path is soloing it could be a major problem. I couldnt imagine soloing the amount of mobs I have killed in FFXI, I would have quit long ago, it would have driven me insane. Some jobs dont get invites, which is a major problem, chalk that up to balance issues. And if you think its gonna be easy to just level because you can solo thats simply not going to be the case, Blizzard doesnt want people to blow through the levels solo, cause people are gonna get very bored. I personally enjoy the FFXI party's, yes it does suck not to get invites, but there is a ton of stuff to do in the meantime. Currently I am level 66 and am never bored because there is simply to much to acomplish. I wouldnt have made it this far without the parties, and all the FFXI sucks because you cant solo talk is actually very shortsighted, you guys simply arent aknowledging what makes a MMORPG great.

Things to do while waiting for a exp party in FFXI:

1) Lv a subjob that you really hate to lv just because if you level your wanted subjob you are considered gimp and will not get invites.

2) Camp NMs while you try to compete with botting players. Not only that but endure a long respawn timer.

3) Lv your tradeskill but crafting the same recipe over and over again only to have the materials lost because you keep failing thus losing money in the process. Oh well, tradeskills are not moneymakers just like Square intended.

4) Attempt to solo only to be jumped by 3 easys that tear you limb from limb.

5) Buy sneak and prism power to sneak around in high lv areas because its the real only thing you can do. After walking around in the high lv areas, become surprised that bombs in Ifrit's Caldron and La Thiene look exactly alike.

6) Farm for goods only to have your items undercut because you didn't wait for prime hours to get the true amount your items are worth. I mean, its not like you have a life. Then again, NPCs are not a good source of money anyways. On the upside, 50 more real life days and you can finally afford that one sniper ring that you need otherwise you'll never get a party anyways.

7) Go questing only to get an item that's as special as prechewed gum. Then again, some quests you will need to do with a party so expect to wait with seek up anyways.

8) Do nothing and just sit around with seek up. Hey, you do know you're not playing a MMO for fun but only to stare at the screen? Look at the bright side, you can turn on the news and educate yourself with whats up with the world.

Ohhhh and the list goes on and on. Doesn't this sounds like fun, guys?

Edited, Wed Sep 1 15:47:02 2004 by Redmoonxl