I've kind of given up on the whole thing for the most part. Every few months I get the itch and play a bit, but it runs it's course pretty quickly.
The problem for me is:
1) I don't want to use mercs (or bots; how guys parse the difference I do not know).
2) I do not want to box. Period. Even with Macroquest (and if you don't use something like the the /follow command is too much of a pain to play with). I don't want to spend a lot of time setting up macros and the like.
3) The content (or characters) needs to be adjusted so a solo character (though I'd gladly group with others) can do the game solo. You just cannot count on having anyone else around and interested in doing things with you on an EMU.
4) XP and AA rates. Flat out these things do not need to be like live. No one is going to spend years running around an EMU to max out their character. Well most people.
Anyway my two cents. I've actually come to think boxing is the devil, at least as regards solo players. Either things are meant to be doable by box crews and it is too hard for soloers, or it is aimed at soloers and too easy for box crews.
Soloing and boxing cannot coexist. You might have a solo server where it is necessary to team up to do certain mobs like Quarm, but if you allow boxing it is a blue moon when you find someone who has the need to team up with you.
A lot of people like to box, so I guess things are ok.
Now there are some servers that advertise themselves as "solo" servers. Irreverent, Dungeon Crawl, Vengful Soloist. I've tried them all, some are decent at it. To my mind there is usually something unsatisfying about them. Irreverent seems to have a large box population and is populated by ghosts. I leveled up to 70 pretty easily and grouped one time when a ranger also needed to try the server challenge. Seems like you can go an hour or so there without seeing chat comments, even if /who says 30 or so people or on. Fiddling with macros I guess.
|