How Solo Players (Basically) Saved MMOs From Going Extinct

Wow that video was disingenuous...

I'm not gonna bother 'arguing against it' because I'm sure Intrepid is gonna be fine.

It's definitely 'true' in specific ways, but wow does it hinge on creating the idea of binary content relationships...

In other words, solo players didn't save mmos. They made them into single player games. The mmo genre is "dead" (mostly means a few dozen thousand players in several different proper mmos). All these current big "mmos" are just single player games with interactible (barely btw) npcs running around and spamming some bs in chat.

We're at the point where this is all about 'optics' for those outside the main space of communities, honestly this is why I'm so glad Throne and Liberty didn't delay any longer and just started as soon as the base was ready, because now it gets a multi-year head start on a lot of similar games.

Halfassed content creators can still just throw out underthought takes about any game, but MMOs are particularly susceptible because they take time to get into no matter what you do, but positive coverage of most of them is just a 'yeah this game is good and a lot of people play it'.

What else could Ashes even add to make solo players more comfortable?

Farming? Solo gathering? Solo instanced boss challenges? Fishing? Sailing? Minigames? Group events? Player made music? Solo player economy niches? Faster leveling? More storyline than the entire Legacy of Kain series with all the spinoffs, combined? Beautiful vistas from the tops of mountains where you can look out over the landscape and see a rainbow? A world full of tiny cool things to find in nearly every spot you explore? Multiple Dungeons/PoIs with progressions that allow low-time players to move at their own pace?

A Dynamic content system that locks certain content behind a weekly serverwide progression point so that there's less incentive for the player who can't play as often to feel like they're in a race with the top players? Content capped to prevent the advantage of those players so that everyone can participate more evenly? Housing and decoration? More cosmetics? The ability to somehow earn cosmetics through ingame activity? A robust system that allows more invested players to support casual players within guilds?

A large variety of playstyles with a focus on slow, measured progression that is just at the point where you can feel advancement but also don't constantly feel the need to chase down every last stat point? A sense of community within a location in the game world and ties to in-universe organizations/characters to offer roleplay opportunities and bring players of similar minds/interests together?

Which of these things, in its intended design, does Ashes not already have?

And which of them is so 'solo player' friendly that we are at the point of bringing up 'solo players' as if these aren't things that are enjoyable to most MMO players, guild or solo ?

The video (and to some extent the post) just goes 'I hope games are full of cool stuff that should be in an MMO' and then somehow implies that 'the people who like this cool stuff are mostly soloers'.

I'd say this is the opposite of what Ludullu said actually. The MMO genre didn't die because it was never very strong. Why? Because tons of people just want to imagine the concepts of this type of game but then either play it occasionally but don't say much (leading to what automatically looks like low numbers) or just watch/read fantasy content that can deliver things 'faster and with minimal friction'.

I guess 'How MMO players saved MMOs from going extinct' isn't a sensible grab, right?

We have not received permission from TheDarkSorcerer to share the quoted post.

We have differing opinions of what "a real mmo" is. To me, if you can clear the game and majority of its content w/o uttering a single word in chat - that's a single player game. Afaik both ESO and GW2 are exactly that. Hell, i'm pretty sure this video itself said so about ESO.

This is why I said that mmos are just single player games with chat-spam npcs in them. There's an illusions of something going on, but you don't need to interact with that illusion to experience the game.

And my biggest example of this kinda being true is Genshin's release. A shiiiitton of people thought Genshin was an mmo, because it had a multiplayer component, even though it was a completely solo game. If that's not an indication of "people think that mmos are just soloable games with other people in them" - I dunno what is.

Even that still isn't quite useful to any dev tho, in the end.

An MMORPG is basically a world where other players affect something about the experience you have when you log in on any given day, and maybe you can extend it to 'you can talk to or negotiate with them about it'.

The 'Massively' part is related to things like persistence of game states in the world and the capacity for others to change the composition of areas, otherwise Monster Hunter World would count as an MMORPG and so would nearly any other game that has a multiplayer component, yes, but...

Even in the older days those games weren't really built for having too many players in one place affecting the same thing. Sure, some of them were, i.e. the ones Ashes 'draws its DNA from' but those ones hit the only probably 'real' issue in this thread, i.e. that a lot of players don't want other people to affect the world they are in and many of them are 'solo players' so conflation happens.

If you want that 'other people's actions influence my world' to happen, you're an MMORPG player even if you play the game itself completely alone. There's almost no separation here.

If you hate grouping with others but like the idea that someone else defeating a boss/miniboss in the open world changes your goals and gameplay, you choose to play an MMORPG because that's the genre that experience-type comes from.

The only thing Devs 'lost' over years was the ability to make players care about this possibility through something other than 'frustration that someone else got the thing they wanted before they did', and therefore the only thing that makes Ashes 'not the same as any other good MMORPG' is Freeholds (and likely the lack of good RP that will genuinely affect player motivations but nearly no Dev can do anything about that).

Azherae wrote: »

that a lot of players don't want other people to affect the world they are in and many of them are 'solo players' so conflation happens.

Yep, and to me it's this assumption by the majority that has led to "single player" mmos. We all want games to appeal to us, but, due to the solo players being the majority, devs have to balance their designs around that majority, otherwise the game runs out of money.

And when the majority's base assumption for any of their games is "no one can influence my gameplay" - the design direction choices become reaaaally limited. Hell, compared to some mmos, even Genshin is more impactful (pun intended) in this context, cause if you allow someone into your world - they can collect your gatherables and now you'd need to wait for 2-3 days to get those again.

And in this day and age of shareholders and money - the majority's opinion is the only valid one. That's the true devhell for current mmo devs.

Sorta, but they can and do just go 'screw it, we still want to build a proper MMO'. Intrepid has done it, Throne and Liberty has done it, Elite Dangerous and EVE (sorta) never stopped doing it.

And therefore obviously, all those games have less players, but there are still so many things they can bring back, do better, etc.

I'm chilin' with the former 'King' of my TL server (yes, they did lose the castle because of that idiot 'Chancellor') in the village I consider 'home' now. Maybe my minimal RP is 'cringe' (he's neither responded nor walked away yet) but that's what you get when you play an MMO. People who acknowledge your effect on their world, and affect yours, and you can decide if to engage with that or not.

But I get something out of this, watching him in summer vacation style running around. And that's a thing that right now, both that player and I are 'each experiencing solo'.

In Ashes, I'd be able to encounter and complain to the equivalent person (Mayor of node probably) about the criminal lack of cooking facilities around the village, and in Ashes, there's a chance he would do something about it .

How cool is that?

Ludullu wrote: »

And in this day and age of shareholders and money - the majority's opinion is the only valid one. That's the true devhell for current mmo devs.

One thing I take particular to heart in these dark times is just how often I've seen the 'disillusionment of shareholder based game dev and game media' lead to leaner teams with a feasible economic model that is dependent on the fans that feel their efforts are more genuine and worth paying attention to .

I think the 2010's was largely big companies buying up smaller ones because 1. getting rich or in many cases staying solvent was desirable 2. there was some level of belief that big companies valued the smaller ones culture that led to a dedicated fanbase and quality games.

Some of the earlier types of these smaller companies have lasted multiple years now and so far it mostly looks like it'll continue to be a healthy sustainable trend. Capitalism works, but not every business needs shareholder funding to work out economically.

That's why I personally am looking forward to smaller mmos like Eternal Tombs at the moment. Same vibe for the same reasons. The majority can get bent, niche content is were it's at. There will always be a game for 'the wider audience' but that doesn't need to be every game. I'm not 100% sure if a smaller mmo can work out with this model, but I sure hope the explosion I've been seeing the past few years for solo and even multiplayer games helps soak up some of the wayward people who don't REALLY want an mmo and can find fun in this new old frontier.

Azherae wrote: »

How cool is that?

Yep, that is the coolest thing about mmos for me. I've had these interactions with castle owners in L2 when those fuckers didn't set up their manor correctly

JustVine wrote: »

That's why I personally am looking forward to smaller mmos like Eternal Tombs at the moment. Same vibe for the same reasons. The majority can get bent, niche content is were it's at. There will always be a game for 'the wider audience' but that doesn't need to be every game. I'm not 100% sure if a smaller mmo can work out with this model, but I sure hope the explosion I've been seeing the past few years for solo and even multiplayer games helps soak up some of the wayward people who don't REALLY want an mmo and can find fun in this new old frontier.

It does seem to be an even bigger age of indie/smallscale games. Though I'm sure it's also waaay more stressful for everyone involved, cause it's really hard to stay afloat, considering how much content is out there.

I'm loving Sirocco (a really fun boat moba), but it's literally dying in front of my eyes, because it went from ~800 players on its EA release to, now, ~20 concurrents only at very particular few hours a day, so you MIGHT be able to get 2 matches going at the same time.

And today devs said that they'll try looking for a publisher to get them through to the release. And, usually, with publishers comes C A P I T A L I S M, so I dunno how bad things will look if devs manage to find someone.

And I'm sure they are far from the only indie company that's struggling to find its audience, even if the product itself is really nice. Ashes has been lucky enough to get insane hype for it thx to LazyPeon's video back in 2020, so its chances are definitely higher (as long as they deliver), but it'll still definitely be a struggle.

Yeah, audience retention makes multiplayer one of the hardest genres in that regard. Marketing budgets and effective cm are basically a must for those games and that requires a significant amount of capital. I think there is a middle road though. There is a difference between 'investors or larger firms agreeing to set amount of growth' and a public company request unlimited maximal growth. You can have a midsized company and almost never require they type of 'unlimited growth on investment' style funding and have the marketing budget required to get that type of exposure and retention.

I definitely think there is a lot of nuance and mileage when it comes to deciding what type of monetization is acceptable and to what extent. At the end of the day though you are kind of right to bring up that example. It's a good example of 'the niche' having too high of a demand for resources compared to it's natural population. There is definitely such a thing as too niche. But I don't think you have to go as broad as many hyper solo players tend to push things either.

We have not received permission from Noaani to share the quoted post.

But how would you get into that organized guild as a completely new player?

True, I should've been clearer in that statement. By "single word in chat" I meant "no interaction with any other player in any way, including the forums, social media, audio apps, etc". You literally only log into the game, say nothing, but still clear the game just fine.

But what is 'keep up' and why do solos/casuals care about it?

Sure, some of us know, but others don't know what you're talking about.

We have not received permission from TheDarkSorcerer to share the quoted post.

Ok but what's 'the fun stuff' for casuals/solos in a game like Ashes? That's the question. You can't just say 'the fun stuff'.

We have not received permission from TheDarkSorcerer to share the quoted post.

Again though, keep up with who exactly? And how do you expect the zergs not to utilize the same mechanics that the solos would have to push themselves even further apart?

If quests give more xp than party mob grind - parties will just grind quests. If gathering is the main moneymaking instead of caravan runs - parties will do that. If playing for only 1h a day is somehow optimal - that's what parties will do.

"Keeping up" doesn't exist when you're trying to compete with someone who has more time than you to progress. Even if we get i literal limit on gameplay of "only 2h a day of login", party members will still be ahead because they'll have 16 collective hours a day to progress themselves, instead of your own 2h.

The only way to ever "keep up" in a game is if there's literally 0 vertical progression in it, and you don't care that others are farther along the story than you, and you don't care what kind of cosmetics they got, and the game also has NPCs that help you clear all dungeons in the game solo.

This is the issue with the suggestion "to let solos keep up". The game already lets you do that, because the only content that you're truly locked out of is bosses and sieges. You can still run caravans to make money, you can still kill mobs, you can still gather, you can still play the market, you can still participate in events - all of those things are available to solo players. They're simply available at solo scale, because that is the appropriate scale for a solo player.

Also I should let you know beforehand that whenever anyone says "I want to stay relevant" my work/life experience translates that as 'I don't want to encounter people who laugh at me', so that bias may come through.