MMOs are just solo games now, says Funcom

Videogamer: The MMO genre has evolved into little more than extensive solo games, according to lead designer of The Secret World Martin Bruusgaard.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Bruusgaard described how the developers of their upcoming MMO plan to bypass the apparent trend of solo-questing in the genre. The game's use of ARG-like Investigation Missions, he explains, will encourage users to play together in order to solve puzzles.

[MrGunny94]

It's just hard to find a group these days actually... I'm tired of searching for groups, for years i did... Like 3 hours to fill a group to Deadmines back in Vanilla wow

I got loads of games to play and i just can't wait 3 hours for a group

[FlashXIII]

In WoW you can just use dungeon finder now and can get DM groups in less than a minute as a tank. Back in vanilla it can be troublesome to find groups as a loner but if you spent your time in a good sized guild and was actively social, you could get groups together in under 15 minutes providing you were on a good populated server.

Good article though and before reading was about to say that while solo play seems to be the norm now, it's up to the developers to give people incentives for grouping etc so it was nice for them to talk about the ARG system. Betas these days though are usually reserved for the MMO faithful.. the kind of people who probably will group up. The real challenge will come from enticing the WoW generation of mmo gamers to participate.

[Spinal]

Well make better games Funcom. I'm still having fun playing WoW, quit swtor cause end game sucked and that was a signleplayer MMO.

I cant wait for Guild Wars 2 now that is bringing the real deal back to the MMO genre.

[MilkMan]

You didn't see this coming?
and for this priviliage you pay 65 plus 15 a month? Nice.
Let me go read another article.

[MasterD919]

MMO games need to evolve instead of trying to be like other games.

[Fragger2k8]

The problem is that neither MMO devs/publishers, or the players themselves, want something different. So until one of them gets tired of it, we won't see any real change with how MMOs are made.