The Ironic Soloer

Forgiving a moment's diversion back into my World of WarCraft addiction -- and with apologies to those who wish this game would finally get around to being exposed as the hopeless timesink that it is -- I have happily realized the way a compulsive soloer like me can play well with others. Just assume that your party is populated with foul mouthed NPCs.

It took me a while to embrace the new grouping tool introduced by Blizzard in WoW's most recent content update, but in the weeks since its release it has completely changed the way I play the game. At its simplest, here's how it goes: click button; wait a short time while you do other things; get automatically included into random group; teleport to dungeon; complete dungeon; get teleported back where you started with rewards and loot.

No fuss. No muss. It's elegant, simple, functional and addictive.

What is particularly nice for someone who holds an unreasonable anathema to playing nice with strangers, is that it's all business. Because of the cross-realm nature of the grouping tool -- meaning that you really can't build relationships with these people who usually aren't even on your server -- most people are very business like about getting the job done. Sure, there are horror stories out there about nightmare groups and painfully immature players, but most of the time I get into the instance, get down to work with barely a hello and leave having had no more communication with these tools to my success than a polite "so long, and thanks for all the loot."

This probably seems pretty awful from an outsiders point of view, but it is ideal for someone like me who, as I believe I have recently pointed out, is happiest with minimal drama. That I can just pretend that these avatars on my screen are just handy NPCs helping me clear out significant swaths of the game is just the suspension of disbelief I need to be able to take full advantage.

What is interesting about this, to me at least, is that by making the game more accessible to building groups of people, it has also made it easier to avoid actually working together in anything more than the most mechanical sense. Running these dungeons for emblems and loot is as much about building relationships with strangers as getting your oil changed at a Jiffy Lube on the other side of town.

And, actually, I'm just fine with that.

Comments

On a site related note, you may see more of these smaller mini-articles coming throughout the year. These are not our features, but just a little extra something to give our writers more flexibility and to keep you guys entertained.

Are you not entertained?

Elysium wrote:

Are you not entertained?

Depends. Will we see any gruesome beheadings, lion-feeding or any other activity involving parts of the human anatomy not normally visible on the outside?

Elysium wrote:

Are you not entertained?

Now that I finished reading, not anymore.

I'm never against quickies, though. Bring them on, I say. Bring them all on. I'm ready!

I've only ever dabbled in World of Warcraft before but I happen to have just resubscribed with the intention of giving the game a fair shake this time, by which I mean attempting to reach the end game content that I have heard so much about. I enjoy interacting with friendly groups of people while playing online games such as this but, much like Elysium, I am really a solo adventurer at heart. I want to exist in a world populated by real people, but I don't want to have to rely on these people to progress my story. It's nice to know there's an option available that helps to enable my anti-social gaming habits.

Elysium wrote:

Are you not entertained?

I find everything you write about World of Warcraft to be vastly entertaining.

Really.

Nice. When I was playing WoW (for the first 9 months after launch), PUGs were something I tried to avoid like the plague.

Definately entertaining. I agree whole-heartedly with this new system. It has changed my WoW experiance so much for the better.

Sorry! I think I had a nervous twitch or something.

Did you specifically request that Certis edit this one?

Elysium wrote:

On a site related note, you may see more of these smaller mini-articles coming throughout the year. These are not our features, but just a little extra something...

I like it. One could complain, old-man style, about how the Twitter mindset seems to be slowly eroding our tolerance for any reading over a browser-window-sized chunk of text. But I'm not gonna, because I like it. And it's not "replacing" the longer articles.

Also, on the whole I believe the Dungeon Finder is a glorious thing, even if it leads to impersonal dungeon runs. Because I wouldn't even be in those dungeons if it weren't for that tool.

tl;dr

I love the new dungeon finder because it makes it all so quick, it's actually worth my time to do it now - but you put your finger on it, it makes playing with strangers easy and efficient. I dual-specced my Druid so I can heal instances then switch back to Moonkin for soloing, and getting into a group is almost instant. And like you say, most groups are all business. And for the ones that aren't, like the Druid who was tanking wearing several pieces of cloth Balance gear, another dungeon is just a few clicks away after a quick, guiltless "sorry, have to go!"

Elysium wrote:

This probably seems pretty awful from an outsiders point of view, but it is ideal for someone like me who, as I believe I have recently pointed out, is happiest with minimal drama [...]
What is interesting about this, to me at least, is that by making the game more accessible to building groups of people, it has also made it easier to avoid actually working together in anything more than the most mechanical sense.

The drama will strike back in Cataclysm.
One reason the 'PuG' experience is so smooth right now is that everyone, pretty much no matter what gear they have, are heavily outgearing the instances. As its typical for the end of a WoW expansion life-cycle.
It doesnt matter that people play really terrible (as they tend to do in random groups), because the instances are so easy with the gear people have. And of course many people know the instances in their sleep, which helps as well (except for the 3 new ones).

In early Cataclysm, when everyone are 'undergeared', I'd predict the random system will be a living hell.
Not only because of the gear, but many of the hardcore players will start to avoid pugs again, playing only with their guild etc, to avoid the frustration. Which in turn lowers the quality of the pugs even more.

That is my 2010 WoW prediction

To be clear, we'll still have the big articles too, and just as frequently. This isn't how all articles will look in the future; we're just expanding the options.

I guess my irrational fear of the whole PUG system is -- I'd have to enable WoW Voice chat. I can't see how else you do it?

rabbit wrote:

I guess my irrational fear of the whole PUG system is -- I'd have to enable WoW Voice chat. I can't see how else you do it?

Anything short of end-game content is really just not difficult enough to have to worry about voice chat. In game chat works just fine to coordinate pulls, and beyond that everyone should be able to do their job without much guidance.

Actually, Elysium, this is one of the few bits of information that could get me interested in that game again. I found it too hard to coordinate people for low level instances, and too annoying when they actually happened. Playing with goodjers, while pleasant, was pretty rare give that I was in my 20s at best. So I never saw most of the game. The ability to be able to see more without the bother of building relationships would be great.

(ultimately glad to be out of the game, as I'm enjoying LOTRO immensely more. I have the same grouping issues, but at least I'm having a blast being a tourist)

I guess my irrational fear of the whole PUG system is -- I'd have to enable WoW Voice chat. I can't see how else you do it?

Haven't used, or heard it used once. Like I said, it's a totally anonymous event most of the time. And even though I often didn't necessarily understand the encounters entirely, usually I just figured things out on my own in real time without much difficulty.

Shadout's predictions sound accurate. Unfortunately. But I am enjoying the LFG tool immensely for now.

Landshrk83 wrote:

Anything short of end-game content is really just not difficult enough to have to worry about voice chat. In game chat works just fine to coordinate pulls, and beyond that everyone should be able to do their job without much guidance.

Yeah. Most groups so far the extent of the text conversation during the run is "r?" with four other people responding "r"

Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think?

I prefer soloing as well. I tried WoW a few times and found that I lost interest when I could not find groups, or needed to spend a lot of time organizing groups in order to complete instances. I wish they had this tool when I had been playing. Too late now unfortunately.

LOTRO needs this. Although for all I know they already have it, but we've gone our separate ways...

AcidCat wrote:

Yeah. Most groups so far the extent of the text conversation during the run is "r?" with four other people responding "r"

Which battle group are you in, AcidCat? I've noticed a dramatic difference in customs and behavior in the two battle groups where I have characters. I usually play in Whirlwind which is generally chatty and remarkably polite. Bloodlust, conversely, has been terse and pretty cutthroat.

Elysium wrote:

On a site related note, you may see more of these smaller mini-articles coming throughout the year. These are not our features, but just a little extra something to give our writers more flexibility and to keep you guys entertained.

Are you not entertained?

Sir, I am entertained!

I've been looking for reasons to justify a WoW subscription. I've been soloing a WAR trial for a little bit now, and although I prefer its crafting professions and quest structure, it's not really a solo-er's (soloist's?) game. WoW, particularly after the (WotLK?) expansion is supposed to shine considerably in regards to questlines and solo experience.

This nugget of yours makes a very convincing tidbit. The new LFG function seems promising. It seems similar to the group-finding tool in WAR, but i'd like to see how they differ. Many of the new elements in the latest WoW patch seem to be similar to things that worked really well in WAR. I like the notion that mmo's borrow and learn from one another in order to better their games for the user. I seem to remember WAR's attempt at launch was to "fix" many of the things that they felt were lacking from WoW at the time. It's unfortunate that WAR itself was so broken for so long in many areas. Their strong pvp-ness was promising, but the functioning of the game as a whole kind of fell short.

Anyway, thanks for the head's up!

As an avid soloer (I leveled up an 80 NE Rogue about 99% by myself), it is great to see the endgame content and dungeons without even having to coerce/persuade/seduce/beg other gamers and guildies to lower themselves to carry me through a dungeon they barely remember clearing. In short, the cross-server dungeon group finder is a game changer not just for WoW, but for any MMO that offers group quests and instances.

Sounds like Blizzard put a "click here to grief a complete stranger" button in their game. All the nice people you've met so far are just part of the setup to get you to lower your guard.

I too like the new grouping tool

Primarily because it makes finding a group painless and quick. Which might seem like an obvious thing for a "grouping" tool to do, but it's taken WoW this long to actually get it right, from LFG channels to meeting stones to early versions of the LFG tool, we finally got one that works.

So far I have found the cross server dynamic a very good mix for grouping. I feel it works because the pool of players is so large the LFG stress is gone. You aren't sitting around for 2 hours trying to find that last healer, so when you do start the run you aren't already in a bad mood and tired of playing.

Elysium wrote:

Are you not entertained?

Not by anything related to WoW.

Pex-Corrh wrote:

Which battle group are you in, AcidCat?

Emberstorm (Wyrmrest Accord)

SexyBeast wrote:

You aren't sitting around for 2 hours trying to find that last healer, so when you do start the run you aren't already in a bad mood and tired of playing.

No doubt. I quit the FF MMO because of this issue, by the time I found a group I was done with sitting at my PC - thankfully WoW made soloing a viable playstyle, but it has taken this long to get me playing dungeons on a regular basis. The LFD tool has changed the game significantly for the better.