Solo dungeons and raids!

[kyuven]

I am not sure if that has anything to do with how a game should be played. Guild Wars 2 you pay for the game and pay no subs, yet people still play it in a multiplayer way.

Face it, some people will want to solo content others want to do it in a party. Naturally, adjust accordingly drop rates/toughness of mobs etc.

GW2 follows the "Buy to Play" model. They charge for the initial game, but finance everything else with a semi-non-intrusive cash shop to supplement their server costs, etc.
F2P games use the same model, just without the initial cost and with (hopefully) more robust cash shops.
In other words, these are games that rely on a constant flow of money from the consumers to keep the game running. Single player games do not have that.
You could argue that a lot of triple A titles lately have been trying the cash shop route, but that's a bit different (and a lot more shady)

The monthly fee is our version of the cash shop. Yes, we already have one, but when compared to B2P and F2P games, it's pretty barebones as it only contains cosmetic items.

And here's another issue...this isn't "our" game. It's SE's game. They decided on the model of group play for story content.
If this were a fresh game, a brand new game just out of the gate that had that kind of feature, then that's fine. Vindictus had that feature. DCUO has that feature. GW2 has that feature (more or less).
But this game doesn't. And it shouldn't, because it's not THAT type of MMO. It's a game meant to be played with other players. That's why our storyline HAS required dungeons. That's why the Trials are an important part of the story.
This isn't "elitist" thinking, either. It's not "elitist" to want to be required to do group content in a game that requires you to do group content.

Now again, just to reiterate once more and to sound like a broken record: This doesn't mean I oppose challenging solo dungeons. This also doesn't mean i oppose making some form of soloable version of story dungeons for 4.0 (not 3.0, 4.0) I just do not support solo content that can be done in lieu of relevant and current group content. On the other hand, I also do not support having story content gated behind DIFFICULT encounters. A group effort is fine, but having to beat coil to see the end of the story was a little much. And they're moving away from this model anyway.

IF you want to solo story content, the games I just mentioned are great alternatives. This game is not those games.