Tell Me Something About These Here "MMORPG"s

Is there a MMORPG in which it is possible to have fun playing the game solo?

I looked up “World of Warcraft solo” on google and opinions seem to be divided.

What about it? And what about for other such games?

I’m thinking about maybe, finally, trying one out. But I don’t really want to play cooperatively al the time. Nor do I want to compete directly against other players all the time. I just want to play a game, and maybe maybe sometimes talk to somebody and maybe get a little party going occasionally.

-FrL-

I do seriously think that if you pick a non-PvP server, you can solo happily through WoW with most any class, if you be sure you pick the right “build” for solo play. I soloed or duoed most of my WoW characters until at least the mid-50s.

World of Warcraft is EXACTLY the MMORPG you want, then. I’m not a big fan of the game overall (okay, I found certain aspects of the gameplay hugely disappointing, another discussion entirely), but if there’s one thing it gets down pretty near-perfect, it’s “play the game, at my own pace, alone if I want to, with others if I feel like it”. Frankly, I thought about restarting my account once or twice just to play it as a single player game, doing a new race/class combo that I hadn’t tried and hitting up as many new quests as I could. Assuming that you can resist the addiction that can so often grip so many of us, you’ll probably be happy with your decision :wink:

WoW will be fine for you, as FH says you can solo most or all of the way to the top level (60). Some classes are more suited to soloing, such as Rogues and Druids (as they can sneak past stuff they can’t fight). And you need to pick a non-PvP server (which is about half of them) so you’ll never have to fight another player unless you choose to.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

I’ve been looking up “Guild Wars” since I posted that, and there seem to be alot of indications that it is fine for soloing as well. Do people here have anything to say about that, though?

I’ve taken a look at both games’ character build mechanics, and both look interesting and fun. I think Guild wars is a little less hard on a graphics card (right?). That may mean that would be the game I pick (first… you know I’ll be getting both eventually :slight_smile: ) if I’m right that it’s okay for solo play.

-Kris

This week The Economist had a big article on Second Life. Anyone here know about that?

I understand the software (on your computer) does most of the heavy lifting. Does that make it appropriate for those of us with slow dial-up connections?

WoW is a game that’s very soloable. Although keep in mind that there’s a lot of content that’s not for you if you’re not in a guild (there’s such a thing as Pick Up Groups made up on the fly, but they’re a gamble, at least with your guildmates you have some assurance that they aren’t total nimrods).

Dungeons, for example, are areas chock full of extra-powerful enemies. You cannot beat them on your own if you play them at their intended level. You can go back after you’ve outlevelled the place, but then the rewards won’t be nearly as impressive.

When you’ve reached your max level (currently 60, although an upcoming expansion will raise that), most people dedicate their time to raids (basically HUGE dungeons fought in groups of 40 players), or Player-Versus-Player Battlegrounds (which come in three flavors currently: Capture the Flag, capture and hold your bases until they generate enough points to win, and battle your way across the field to kill the enemy general). Those are both groups activities.

Still, at no point are you forced to go into a dungeon, and once you hit 60, you can retire the character if you’d like.

Never ended up playing Guild Wars, but WoW is extremely light on the CPU requirements as compared to a lot of modern games. If you bought your computer within the last 4 years or so, odds are very good that WoW will be playable or better.

Some games are more solo friendly than others. I’m a reasonably hardcore gamer, and play primarily solo. Had a blast in Everquest–a fairly difficult game to solo–taking my druid to max level mostly solo, along with several alternate characters to mid-upper levels. I was also a guild officer and raid leader at times. If you’re stubborn enough, you can solo most classes in that game, but it’s challenging.

Also played EQ2. It’s much more solo friendly, but to get the best rewards, you need to group and/or raid. Has (or at least had when I played) a major problem with no ability to create unique looks for your characters. When I left that game, all the high level characters were wearing the same gear, and thus looked exactly like every other high level character of that class.

At the moment, City of Heroes/City of Villians is the most solo friendly game I’ve seen. It’s a comic book hero game instead of swords & sorcery, and there is not real “loot” in the game, unlike most traditional mmorgs. When you start the game, you have access to a costume creation menu that lets you create a unique look, and as you advance, you can earn other costumes. More importantly for soloing, there is a mission system that is always available. You talk to an NPC (or use the newspaper mechanic for villians), get assigned to a mission, and then enter a private dungeon that scales appropriately for your level and party size. No worries about arguing over spawns, killstealing, ninjalooting, or any of those type issues that come up in the other games I’ve tried.

I never played WoW, but I’ve read that it is considerably more solo friendly than EQ2, and light years beyond the original EQ–but at the same time, it isn’t really challenging the way EQ was.

I’ve mentioned Vanguard in other gaming threads. It’s supposed to be closer to the original EQ–primarily a group and/or raiding game, with some solo content available. In theory it will be a hardcore game for hardcore players. Been in beta for a long time, had a problem with a Microsoft alliance, and SOE got involved, allegedly only for distribution purposes. Unsure when/if it will be released. Given the SOE involvement, not even sure I care if it gets released. Not that I’m bitter about SOE or anything…

My name’s Siobhan and I’m a soloer and a serial alt-slut. I’ve played WoW, CoH/V and GW*. In the end I keep going back to WoW.

GW is good for pure soloing, it’s a pretty game and it’s fun in its own way. But IMHO it’s a lot more repetitive than both CoH and WoW. Your character choices are more limited, and they’re all human. Regardless of what class you choose (2ndary or primary) all characters start in the same area, and even with alts you find yourself doing the same quests over and over again. The level cap is quite low, so you run out of things to strive for after a while. The biggest selling point for it is no ongoing monthly fees. You pays your money for the game and that’s it. You don’t need a CC or anything to run the account.

I agree with Oakminster’s description of CoH/V. It’s the perfect game if you’re wanting to solo, but you occasionally get the urge to group or PvP. Before CoV, I found that the game was pretty repetitive with 99% of the missions being “Go into this cave/office building and kill x amount of y character, then report back. Once you’ve done this z amount of times, go back to that cave/office building and kill yon boss creature”. There was the occasional escort mission and not much else. CoV has increased the scope of the missions immensely, adding new enemies, locales and mission objectives. But even now after a while it can still get same-y, with all classes again starting in the same areas and going through the same low level missions against the same bosses each time you try a new alt. But there’s a lot of good players in the game, and the classes are all pretty fun to try. For sci-fi/comic geeks it’s a pretty neat game.

WoW is the one that keeps dragging me back, however. I like the range of character races and classes, as well as the skills you can learn (gathering skills like herbalism and mining, production skills like tailoring and engineering, all around useful skills like first aid [yay healing!], cooking and fishing [yay food!]). There’s faction and class specific quests, so even if you’re playing a human paladin and a human warlock, or a tauren druid and a night elf druid, you’re not just going over the same quests in a different skin. There’s a player-driven economy based around the auction houses - you can play the auction house, buying cheap gear and selling at a markup in order to earn more gold and thus buy better stuff. If you want to PvP, there’s PvP dedicated servers where you’re taking your life into your hands every time you leave your faction cities, or there’s PvE servers, where you are safe no matter where you go, but you can turn on your PvP flag or go into a PvP battleground whenever you feel like pwning some n00b beyotches.

PuGs (pick up groups) can be a bit hit-and-miss, but if you find a group of people you like you can friend them, or join their guild. Even in a guild you aren’t obligated to play with others. You can just sit in guild chat razzing people up while you solo your quests, and yell for help if you need it.

All 3 are good games, they’ve got good and bad points. CoH and WoW both offer free trials, so if you’re looking to try something but not be bound into buying anything or signing up for any ongoing costs, check around and see if you can get yourself into a trial. If you don’t like 'em, then you’re not out anything more than a few hours time.

*I’ve also played EVE online and Anarchy Online, but neither of those to the extent that I’ve played the first 3.

Like everbody else said, you can solo to the highest level in wow with any class. My question would be why? IMHO the most fun by far to be had is dungeons and chatting with other people (hopefully using ventrillo or some other voip) while doing so. I’m currently (well, will be when I get my computer fixed) leveling a rogue up to 60 solo, and it’s easy, but it’s boring. I’m doing it pretty much so that I can farm materials for my main character that I raid with. Single player games give far more material to play through if you plan on going solo. However, if you know at least 2 or 3 other people that you can play with, it’ll probably be worth it.

WOW is finally in Spanish! When I go home today I get to make Hordies in Spanish (assuming one of the brand-new servers are RP, people usually spell in those)!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAY!

Most of my playing is solo, I play funky hours. So apparently you can have fun there solo. Hunters are good for solo, the pet is good company pets her white bear, white snake and white cat - the white ram wants petting too

Por El Horde!

Por la luz!

Puzzle Pirates doesn’t work very well if you go at it yourself. The fun of the game comes largely from playing the puzzles with and/or against other people. (That, and that everybody goes around saying “Yarr, mateys!” all the time.)

WoW is the only MMORPG I’ve played, and I’ve done primarily solo stuff. It’s fun to get out and play with a friend (or one of my kids) sometimes, but personally I find the chat window distracting, and I tend to ignore it. I like focusing on my environment, and getting into the game more than exchanging inane chat with people I don’t know.

From my limited experience (just a month so far), I’d say WoW works fine as a solo scene.

Just don’t do it using satellite Internet. The best lag time I’ve ever seen in WoW to date has been 1,600 (I presume that’s ms), and the average is well up in the 2,000’s. I frequently get lagged out or logged off at inopportune times and it’s gotten my character killed more than once. After talking to quite a few people I’ve come to the conclusion that dial-up is better for WoW than HughesNet.

I’ve only been playing WoW for a few months. I enjoy soloing and haven’t found any problems with it. But, as my boyfriend also plays, it’s more fun to play with him.

I disagree on CoH. For the first 20 or so levels, it’s very easy to solo. But, as you get to higher levels, it becomes more and more difficult soloing. I don’t think I would have made it to level 50 without the help of my supergroup.

CoH is also very repetitive. I still love the game and I will probably go back to it in a few months. But, I had 1 lvl 50, a bunch that got into the 20’s and many many toons that got to at least 16. No matter how I played or what archtype I chose, the gameplay was very similar. It actually got boring after a while, which is why I changed to WoW.

I never cared for CoV because I have a hard time playing the bad guys. I was very excited when it came out but I probably only played for about 1 month and stopped soon after getting a travel power with 1 toon. CoV was the same as CoH as far as soloing is concerned though.

Well, while I’ve never gotten to the 40-50 zone, I understand that almost everyone needs help there. On the other hand, the right character types can solo up into the high 30’s easily enough ( my highest is 38; I’d be higher save for severe alt syndrome ). My highest are a bots/traps mastermind, a fire/dark corruptor ( 36 both ), and a level 37 ill/rad controller. In fact, I found it much easier with most characters to solo after 20, not before it.

37. Duh.

I’d also add that the “ease of soloing” depends entirely on your objective. If you’re in it to level up as fast as possible, then having some help from a guild or a group of buddies makes a big difference. If you’re just in it for fun, then solo away. Just go to areas that aren’t challenging. If you’re level 20, go beat up on a bunch of level 14 critters and have a blast.