12. GROUPING

I want to be able to play solo and I don't want to have to group.

By grouping, I am going to guess that when you say 'play solo' you actually mean 'hunt solo'. Good. Easier to sneak up on game (deer, etc) if you are by yourself and have some 'sneak' skill. Trying to sneak anywhere with a party is harder. In this Evil Enterprises game, since combat itself doesn't award you anything (aside from maybe a bit more skill with whatever combat skills you are using to hunt and whatever your prey has on it - like a deer skin) there is no pressing urge to group up and go kill stuff in a mind numbing fashion on the leveling treadmill.

I'm counting on a large focus on adventuring in parties.

I believe that a group of six (or ten) is about right for killing most of the things in the world. If it needs more than six people (IMO) it is not worth doing. I know that there may at some point be a 'hard target' (because some people love that kind of crap) like a dragon. If a player has enough leadership skill, they can lead up to six groups of six members each. But (since there are no XP's to worry about and you automatically get skill from what ever you are doing anyway) all that a group would allow you is a glorified chat channel that only works in fairly close proximity (and looting rights). If you hang out with a bunch of people and kill stuff doubtless you will kill stuff faster. The question of 'who gets the loot' is answered by 'whoever is in the group when it is killed by the group'. Whichever group did the most damage to the creature gets to loot it. You have one minute to loot it before it becomes available to the world. I'd have the long one minute timer because if it is a skin you are getting, you would want to equip your player made skinning knife. I'd want to have weapons swapping as easy as EQ's but with a much larger inventory.

How many players can travel together in a single party?

As many as you can find. Without real leadership, six (or perhaps 10 depending on programming difficulties) is the maximum there can be in one party. Several parties (even without real leadership) can travel together. If you join up with a wagon caravan (etc) you can just get onto a wagon and leave the computer running while you wander off. Wagon caravans are limited in size by the skill of the wagon master (yet another PC job) and the wealth of the guy who bought all of the wagons. Wagons can carry resources and people. The entire wagon can consist of one PC run wagon master with a bunch of inactive PC's sitting on the wagons (who left their computer on or logged off hoping the wagons will still be at their destination when they log back in and are hoping that the wagon is not destroyed - causing their inactive PC to pop out and stand there for a minute or two waiting to die before disappearing), a bunch of NPC drivers (who are not as clever as PC drivers and may happily drive off of cliffs, get stuck in terrain, sit stupidly in their non-moving wagon if it breaks down, etc) and a bunch of NPC hired guards (who don't have the AI most PC's do). Hence, there will always be required one PC to make a wagon caravan go but it is best to have PC's guarding it, PC's driving the wagons, etc.

Will I be able to group with my friends?

As this is a skills based game and not a level based one, sure. Skill gains are independent of who you are grouped with. There are maximum gains per period of time. You may quickly gain some skills while grouped with your buddies who are more powerful but then have a long time before you are able to gain skills again. We want to have it very easy to group with your friends. Assuming, of course, that you are in the same part of the world. If not, I recommend either a lot of travel or starting a character closer to them.