What if you could be a party, with yourself?!?
Okay, hang with me, I’m not making this into Final Fantasy, but I have always thought it would be cool to see my alts working together, like they actually knew each other and met face to face rather than being pen pals who exchange goods through the mail without even saying so much as “hello”.
I think it would be pretty neat if you could create a 5-man group with your own characters and tackle 5-man dungeons. You’d choose one character to actively play, and the others would react based on how you played–if you stand in the bad, your alts will stand in the bad! There would have to be some controls but I think it could pretty simple. You set a kill order, and the DPS and tanks attack in that order, you can even set targets for CC. Hit the go button and your tank runs in. Maybe you set cooldowns for your characters too…if the mage is below 40% use iceblock, set your healer to try to keep the tank at 100% but don’t heal the DPS if they have at least 80% health. If your healer drops below 50% mana, use your mana regen cooldown. Set trinkets to be used every cooldown. Set tanks to use cooldowns at certain health percentages or whatever.
You could set spell casting/ability priority for your DPS or the computer would choose default rotations for your class and spec. Sure there might be some set-up before you get going, but if it saved your settings for your alts, all you’d have to do is select them the next time and they’d be ready to go. This would allow you to play many of your own characters at the same time when you just want to try something or go run a dungeon but no one else is online. Perhaps the gear that dropped from solo 5-mans would not be as good as those from 5 person 5-mans. It would still be a way to get some better than quest gear for your toons, but still less than that of the 5-mans.
So the question is, if this was available would you do it?
For me, yes. And for a couple of reasons:
1) I get nervous sometimes in groups, so I like to see things before hand without being lame.
2) I love the idea of a party of my own toons! Seriously, I can already think of the party make-ups for my characters. He he!
3) It would be an alternative to the norm, and you only have yourself to blame if something goes wrong.
4) OMG ALL MY TOONS AT ONCE!
5) Waiting in LFG? No thanks, I made my own!
Of course I realize this is just all fantasy, but I do think it would be pretty great to help gear up alts when no one wants to run you through normal dungeons to gear your 8th level 85. 😛
Now I just can’t stop thinking how I could make some awesome 5-mans with all the toons I have!
Crits and Giggles 
February 16, 2011 at 11:14 am
Talk about multi-boxing. 😛
But I probably would if I could. It would almost be like Rainbow Six with the squad assignments and such.
Although, given the nature of WoW, I’m not sure it would work all that well.
But it would be damn convenient.
February 16, 2011 at 11:37 am
LucasArts actually did that a couple of decades back (ew, that long?! 1989!), called “Battle of Britian”, in which you leveled your crewmen, as the war progressed. True, they weren’t ‘alts’ in the strictest sense, but you were equally vested in all of them, so in that regard, they were also all ‘mains’.
Was a really neat feature, and I’ve always wondered why it didn’t get more traction in other games.
February 16, 2011 at 5:29 pm
I’m pretty much equally invested in all my alts. I love playing them just about as much as the others, I just focus on one at a time because that’s how I have to do it. So a feature like that would be pretty neat.
February 16, 2011 at 11:48 am
Yeah, but then I’d have to let myself die in the fire when I didn’t move fast enough, or get nommed when I pulled aggro off myself, or yell at myself for not taunting the adds.
February 16, 2011 at 11:57 am
Are you kidding? Tank for that insane hunter? Hah!
Actually since I have 3 and 4 manned instances using multiboxing then I have done most of what you described.
February 16, 2011 at 12:15 pm
But multi-boxing requires multiple accounts, right?
February 16, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Bah just solo the instances.
February 16, 2011 at 12:17 pm
I am gonna punch you, in 13 minutes.
February 16, 2011 at 12:22 pm
lol
I wouldn’t do it. There’s a reason I haven’t done RaF or gotten a second account. Plus, I have plenty of things I can do when I want to play solo for awhile.
February 16, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Multi-boxing = multiple accounts = $$$ multiple subs
I would love this simply for the reason that some quest chains end with “group” quests I usually can’t solo at level and good luck finding someone in the area to help (the last quest to open the Netherwing dailies comes to mind – been in my quest log forever) and your #1 point.
But I’d rather wait until I can solo group quests than spend $100+ a month for extra accounts 😛
February 16, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Multiboxing is fun once you figure it out! And there’s some really good software out there to help. But yes, you do need an account for each toon. I can point you to some awesome vids if you want
February 17, 2011 at 8:55 am
here is an alternative to multiple accounts and such … role one priest.
done.
February 18, 2011 at 7:09 am
omg, my grammar is atrocious!
roll one priest … geesh.
February 21, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Star Trek online has something similar to this already in place.
When you do ground missions, you bring along 4 of your bridge staff, and you can set their behaviors, what they attack, what powers to use, either automatically or on your command, and it works rather well.
February 21, 2011 at 8:30 pm
You can do this now – it’s not cheap, but its definitely being done every day.
Just go to youtube or google and search for “WOW Multiboxing” – setting up a second/multiple account(s) and running them all at the same time with multiple WoW clients running. It helps to have multiple core machine or more than one computer doing this.
I did a little of this to set up my alt’s bank guild – I didnt have to trust anyone to invite/promote my alt characters.
February 21, 2011 at 8:58 pm
To make it more palatable to Blizzard, no loot drops when you run a dungeon in this mode (and no justice/valor points). No material gains whatsoever. No experience, either, for dungeons run under level cap. This is the only way I could even see Blizzard begin to consider (not that I think they’d put in the time to build such a complex system, but let’s pretend they could magically institute it).
I’d still love it. The reason is because it would allow someone to practice in real instances without having to deal with social pressures. Social interaction is obviously something Blizzard wants for leveling or gear progression in instances, but it seems like it would be reasonable to practice “alone.”
That way, if I wanted to work on my tanking, I could do it without the stress of wondering if people are thinking poorly of my efforts, without the stress of feeling guilt if someone dies, without having to deal with snarky or nasty comments. Obviously, when I start tanking “for real,” I’d have to deal with all of that. But when I just want to get comfortable with the role, I could do it in privacy.
February 22, 2011 at 1:37 pm
That’s not a bad idea, I can see the no loot or gains happening for these things so that you could practice. That makes sense to me and you may be right about making it more palatable to Blizzard.
February 21, 2011 at 10:01 pm
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February 21, 2011 at 10:04 pm
The roleplay implications would be incredible! :O
February 21, 2011 at 10:32 pm
I love the idea of playing with my alts together, but it would make for a very different game; one I’m not sure I would enjoy.
For WoW 2, though, I hope that they’ll let you use one of your alts as a sidekick npc when questing solo (i.e. would disappear as soon as you grouped).
February 21, 2011 at 11:11 pm
Lol the part you mentioned about your alt’s “knowing” each other as pen pals is definitely true. I’m not big into stories and immersion but I do like to get myself caught up in it some and every which way I try to explain to myself the “mail only” relationship my characters have with each other either seems ludicrous or ridiculously sad. It would be nice to party, maybe even with just one alt at a time to accomplish certain things.
February 22, 2011 at 1:35 pm
It’s like they found each other in the classifieds.
February 22, 2011 at 4:19 am
What you’re describing is essentially the Gambit system from Final Fantasy 12, and just as an exercise in fancy, I absolutely love the idea of lifting it wholesale and putting it into WoW. The AI was sometimes fidgety and not quite right, but it worked out pretty well most of the time, and the system was very flexible. I’ve done things like this on paper for giggles while bored at work, and came to the conclusion that my alts could field an entire 10 man by themselves (I’m a bit of an altoholic).
I’d never pug another dungeon again, in all honesty. Which, of course, is why Blizzard would never implement something like this. 😉 But one thing I would love that I think would work for WoW are dungeons *designed* to be soloed, at level. Such dungeons would be useful for helping people learn their classes, because you’d have to use all your skills to get by. Stuff like the old Benediction quest for priests, but like a whole dungeon. Also, something like Guild Wars, where you can hire an NPC mercenary to help you temporarily with a quest. That would go a long way to solving those “I have this group quest in my log but my guildies are busy and this zone is empty” problems. I’d like to see more group quests like the one in Grizzly Hills to kill the elite bear, where you get the furbolg druid helping you, and you can tell him to tank, heal, etc. depending on your needs.
February 22, 2011 at 1:35 pm
The solo dungeons are a good idea too, I thought about that bear quest in Grizzly Hills as well and how you had him fill a certain role for you, it made perfect sense, if you’re a healer or a tank you could select a dungeon designed for you and maybe your dungeon is like a big escort quest where you have to keep alive or protect the people you are accompanying. It would add a new dynamic to the game and give you a chance to try out your abilities before being thrown to the criticisms of the LFG channel.
February 22, 2011 at 4:05 pm
That is an interesting idea… With the no loot thing to make it into a practice run. Have it scale, so if you are doing zero DPS the dps for the party drops to nothing. Also maybe give some sort of score at the end to tell someone how they did. Like a big PVE skirmish.
February 22, 2011 at 5:06 am
Well, maybe something like the hireling system in Dungeons and dragons online would help out.
February 22, 2011 at 6:14 am
Sounds like the mechanics in Final Fantasy 12 with its gambits, would be interesting….but with blizzards attempt to influence group gameplay, it would be hard for them to provide this.
But imagine the fun playing your memorable alts in 1 huge party!
February 22, 2011 at 8:51 am
Interesting post, never thought of this for WoW, but I’ve done it before plenty of times: Neverwinter Nigths, Dragon Age and even Guild Wars has this kind of play with their “henchmen”, which works pretty well btw.
It could be a nice addition to the game. And completely optional, since nothing can beat a human controlled group.
February 22, 2011 at 10:24 am
Dragonage kinda lets you play various characters all at once, albeit limited by plot
February 22, 2011 at 12:11 pm
OMG. We got linked on Wow Insider. o.O
February 22, 2011 at 4:03 pm
That will leave a mark.