In WoW, for example, a dungeon group sees collective progress in defeating the monsters in the instanced dungeon. However, once all that dungeon’s monsters are defeated and the group disbands, no evidence of their group effort remains in the game world. Only the treasure, experience points and achievements collected by individual characters persists.

…it’s always pretty much been ‘the pain of being in a group of strangers whose competence you cannot rely on, and additionally, whom, if you are leading, you must then babysit and herd like hamsters’.

>.>

…this is why in GW, I need to be specifically in my ’social mood’ before I will happily look for a group. Because in my strange social-nugget mode, it seems to immunise me to some degree against frustration from PUG-hamsteritis. >.>

(And no, I don’t always lead in groups of humans. In WoW, I basically led when I was the tank, because the role seemed to default to the tank, and things would run smoother with a clued tank who could lead.)

…and in Jade Dynasty that I’m playing currently? Short of one-off kills for quest mobs (so they die faster and everyone gets credit), I avoid grouping like the plague. ^_^ I hear there are some higher ‘ROI’ quests in a few levels from where I am, so we’ll see. Incidentally, JD PvE is (so far) nothing but huge numbers of beastly fidos, so I don’t forsee those groups I do go for in PvE to be stressful. I hope. Surely killing beastly fidos can’t be hard? O.o

As others have mentioned, a big chunk of the problem is in game design. Levels. Long travel times. Holy trinity class structures. Advancement by quest. etc.

Interestingly though, no one ever complains about raids being too hard to assemble because the rewards are so great

However, I’m guessing that the success of games like WoW and Guild Wars and other games’ moves towards pandering to soloist demands reveal that the niche is of sizeable commercial impact.

As Psychochild mentions, game design that encourage and don’t punish grouping go a long way towards making grouping a pleasant experience.

Case in point, City of Heroes. A team of 8 means you can get away with having 1-3 not so effective players in a group without regular party wipes. No holy trinity reliance means less waiting around and begging for tank/heals/dps to fill that last spot. Group xp bonuses. CC that won’t break on hit, allowing for people to AoE at will, and other such group synergies like stacked buffs and debuffs, and powers that are more effective as enemy numbers go up. Instances are quick and short, not grueling 1-2 hour affairs where accidental aggro by one party member means horrific setback and face pwnage by mobs with nasty death penalties with only a -chance- of reward. It may make it too easy and boring for some folks, but this sort of game design generally encourages people to be a lot more accepting of others.

I’m actually curious as to the level of grouping in CoH now, with added loot and self-set spawn sizes. One would think the inclusion of these designs would encourage a lot more solo farming, as you’d get to keep all of the phat lewt for yourself. The established community may still group out of habit, though.