MM-Lonely: Tales of the Single Player MMO Experience

For the majority of players, MMOs are games meant to be enjoyed with other players. But for me, playing an MMO alone sometimes ends up being a much more enjoyable experience than playing in good company. Recently, I’ve taken to playing Tree of Savior by myself on stream at a leisurely pace, and while playing I thought about why I’m finding the game more enjoyable alone. A few levels of grinding repeatable quests later, I figured out several reasons why the lonely road has its perks as well as why a couple games that I play are suitable for lone wolves to enjoy.

First and foremost, the only person I need available whenever I want to play an MMO solo is myself. This banal statement is a big factor in what I play at any given moment. It’s not that I’m lonely, or have no friends to play with, but organizing a play session can be a pain. Usually me and my friends end up not playing together because our schedules are busy and our free time doesn’t overlap. There can also be inconveniences from the game itself that prevent us from playing together, such as a level requirement or system incompatibility. Even if everybody is available, on some days we all end up playing our own game while in a Discord voice channel because everyone wants to play something different. If I have to go to all the trouble of assembling a team of my friends when I could just hop in, play by myself, and still have a good time, why bother?

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Given that all of my friends are available and that everybody wants to play the same game with me, there are still problems that arise while playing. The experience gain between party members never ends up being even so people have to catch up to others or wait for the rest of the party to be ready to move on. Some of my friends are inherently slower or faster than I am with inventory and skill/stat point management, and those valuable seconds or minutes of playtime can add up to occupy a sizeable chunk of the overlapping free time we have. While this usually isn’t a problem with my friends, conflict is inevitable sometimes even in good company. An innocuous squabble can turn ugly, and avoiding it altogether can be as simple as not being there to bring it up. Unless the game in question is a MOBA like League of Legends or Dota 2, having friends around isn't always better in the long run.

Sometimes, the things that we need to experience in order to start liking and fully commit to a new MMO lies in the things we forsake for the treadmill of progress. With friends, the constant race for progress takes precedence over everything else. As a result, we might miss secrets, gloss over lore that would otherwise be interesting, or pass up loot that would have made a difficult section more forgiving. The grind doesn't have to be a straight funnel into endgame, and playing MMOs alone has allowed me to realize this and have the liberty to play slowly.

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Not all games necessarily become better once you slow down with some ‘me time’, but Tree of Savior has elements of gameplay and media that provide for a rich single player experience if they’re not overlooked. Exploration, talking to NPC’s, and fighting a wide variety of monsters, among other things, is rewarded via an NPC organization that distributes EXP and money rewards for the tales of your travels. Another organization investigates the strange effects of collecting certain items together. This so-called “Collection Box” system grants small stat bonuses for those willing to scavenge the maps. This creates a lucrative opportunity for players to make money from farming extra rare collection items on their own. If not for certain MMO qualities such as other players in town selling their class services, one could almost mistake Tree of Savior at times for a pure single player experience with the stunning audio and visuals.

Another game suitable for slow, sustained, solo play is Warframe: a sci-fi “space ninja murder simulator” (my words, not theirs) by Digital Extremes. The game’s open-ended progression system allows players to pursue whatever objective’s available to them at any given moment. A smart way of tackling a Tenno to-do list is to save harder missions for when a full team is available, while leaving less difficult or story related tasks for the hours when it's just you, Ordis, and the Lotus. It's also worth mentioning that finding easy-to-miss loot breakables or secret rooms in the Orokin Void is markedly harder when your teammates don't have time for you to scour the map with a loot radar. Spy missions are also ideal for the lone Tenno that doesn't want a clumsy teammate to rouse the ire of the Corpus or Grineer security.

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Playing MMOs alone doesn’t have to be a lonely experience, but being mindful of the advantages gained from going solo helps to make the slower grind much more fulfilling. Warframe and Tree of Savior may be good examples to start with, but most if not all MMOs can be played without friends at a casual pace to bring out a different and more engaging experience. I encourage readers to try this out themselves with their favorite MMO using an alternate character at their own leisure. Whether it ends up going back to party play afterwards, forging onwards as a dedicated single player character, or a hybrid of the two, casual solo runs of your favorite MMO could bring a whole new level of appreciation for the game you love.

If you want to see me put “theory into practice”, I’ve been streaming a casual, completionist oriented solo run of Tree of Savior over on my Twitch channel (www.twitch.tv/s0ckrates). These streams don’t have a set schedule, but lately they’ve been fairly late at night past 10 PM Pacific time at least once a week. If you catch me live, be sure to say hi in chat and mention this article. If you can’t catch me live I’ve also been exporting my broadcast recordings to my YouTube channel as well.