Quote Originally Posted by MercurialZero View Post
For all of you masters of the English language who are trying to spell out what Massively Multiplayer Online means, I've got a revelation for you. No where in those words is there an indication of cooperation. Multiplayer does not equate to teaming up with other players. That's just the direction the MMORPG genre has taken over the past 15 or so years. Think back to original Ultima Online, sure there were benefits to teaming up with others to fight harder content or gank some poor noob. However, you could also go it alone, completely rogue.

I'll give one more example: Imagine someone made a Running Man style MMO game where a thousand players are trying to get to the end of a gauntlet dungeon, gladiator-style, every man for himself. This would certainly fit the criteria of Massively Multiplayer and Online, but there would be no need for a party system for it to fit that criterion.
The thing is in any Multiplayer game out there the term multiplayer is always connected to some form of interactivity with the other players, may that be cooperative or by fighting the other player (e.g. Multiplayer Shooters). What's the point of playing a multiplayer game if you don't want to interact with the other players? They could as well just be NPCs then. Why do people who don't want to interact with other players buy a multiplayer game in the first place? I don't get it. I knew beforehand that the term "multiplayer" includes interaction with other players. If you don't like to interact with other player just play a single player game, as an MMO is clearly not suited for you. Please stop demanding that MMOs need more solo content, if at all, they need more group content.