I was reflecting recently on some of the original games that sucked me in and what it was about them that sucked me in.
1981, the technology was super basic in Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981). Where the graphics lacked the imagination stepped in, fed by some cool box artworks.
The familiar elements were there in all of them… exploring new worlds, item progression, leveling, encounter challenges.
Something I enjoyed that online RPG’s have dropped to varying degrees is that of forming a party, and configuring the characters skills and equipment. D3 picks this up in a very small degree with the Follower, but the impact is quite basic and the slots and choices are limited.
Online RPGs have gone “all in” for the social element, and that’s great for when social groups are working well and when they’re convenient to be involved in, but it’s not always so or working well for everyone.
1985, the technology improved with much more graphics in The Bard’s Tale: Tales of the Unknown but still a lot of room for the imagination.
Again the party element adding a layer of interest to the experience.
Pretty much all the early day offline RPGs I was sucked into had this element. Online has been good, but I wonder if the party layer needed to be tossed out entirely for the solo player / small group of players or can it be a viable alternative again?
The solo party could be afforded more of the layers of interest available to the main character or even be made up of normal characters that you progress as you would when playing them directly and set on follow mode with commands / default instructions for basic behaviour control to suit different goals.
If the balance isn’t right there could be a discouragement to grouping and you dont want that either
If youe mates jump online and want to play the zBarb, the Druid, the Bard, the Illusionist, the Cleric or whatever, its going to want it to be a better experience to bring them in right?
When players make the choice to play solo, be it cause their friends are offline, or they’ve only got a short time to play between house duties or whatever, this is a way to bring some more balance to the Solo / Group equation.
This brings back the utility of the different classes to the solo experience.
Should it still be viable to play the single character as D3 does quite well if players want? Certainly IMO… D3 does this well and why throw that out.
Party sizes in different games can vary from 4 to 8 that I’ve seen and raids can be formed with multiple groups. Even that could potentially be on the cards for games with that level of encounter depth.