My main point is that yes, you get different communities when building around cooperation, but coerced cooperation and voluntary cooperation are very different things. It’s been my experience that the latter is excellent, and the former shows a veneer of civility, but underneath, is actually more septic than a community where people can “progress” solo if they so desire or easily play in a group without punishment (like loot rolls instead of stuff for everyone).

Of course, the obsession with progress and loot over play is a huge factor there, too. If progress isn’t the point of playing, communities change, too.

I understand why people like soloing. I’m just saying that a game built around soloing/ pvp will encourage you to see other players differently from one built around cooperation.

Also, politeness as a tool to get stuff is pretty much how real life works in many ways.

Soloability allows people to play and progress on their own terms… so when they do group up, it’s because they want to, not because they have to. There’s a world of difference there. (As well as the resentment that builds when you do have to bend your schedule to the will of others; something hardcore raiders know all too well. Yay for guild drama.)

Also, I’d note that soloability doesn’t mean you don’t need to care about others, it means you don’t need others. There’s a world of difference there, too.

I don’t mean all soloers act like sociopaths, but clearly there’s no need to care about anyone else — that’s part of the attraction of running solo.

This is not to say that older, mature gamers don’t enjoy grouped content as well (we do , but personally I think solo content was implemented to attract the more casual, relaxed, play-at-your-own-pace gamer than the hardcore, 18-30 y/old male gamer.

End-Game Raiders don’t solo to 80 because they’re enjoy the solo content; they do so because it’s one of the fastest ways to hit 80 because, ITO, that’s where the Real Game starts. That there should tell you who the solo content in MMOs is really aimed at (Hint: it’s not the hardcore gamers).

I disagree with this one and prefer McGee’s interpretation when he apologizes to Gibbs in a manner that wasn’t really an apology, but still acknowledged he had made a mistake. “It won’t happen again, Boss.”

In other words you’re better off with someone willing to admit their mistakes and prepared to learn from them, than with someone who sees apologies as a sign of weakness and by inference refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

But MMO culture isn’t the same as FPS culture. Many more women and older players play MMOs, for a start (and yes it does make a difference.) They won’t all suddenly become randomly abusive just because they can. But other people will. And especially if game companies keep chasing the hardcore male 18-30 year old player and putting out more solo friendly games, the prospects for better communities online are poor.”

I agree with a lot of what you say (it has to be said that though I enjoy playing some of them, I tend to avoid the multiplayer PvP aspects of FPS like the plague – I do enjoy the co-op aspect though). However, I don’t think stopping the solo-friendly progression is the answer.

I usually play my MMOs as a solo’er, and prefer it that way most of the time because I enjoy exploring, crafting, and doing my own thing when I have little time. But I socialise with people when I meet them, and I do group at times.

Killing off the solo-friendly side of MMOs will force me back into single-player games, and getting my social-side of gaming from Faunasphere/Facebook games and the likes. Given the fact that I’m female, and 38 on the 20th, I’d suggest that it could kill off a decent section of the people you are actually wanting to attract/keep in the MMO.