The one thing I believe about MMORPGs that we come here to play together...Its the one thing I believe in and I won't stray from that idea. It may be poor taste to some but its the one idea that I feel strongly about. This doesn't mean I would as far as not allow you the option to do so...Since this game is about options and choices I think I'd be contradicting myself. My problem is finding that line that pleases everyone.....
You won't be able to please everyone consistently. Because you say you believe MMOs are about teaming, it seems to me you will likely make the choice to have content that requires groups of people, whether it's a "boss raid" style encounter or sweet bases for supergroups. And that's fine; you just need to recognize that somewhere along the way a choice will have to be made about what sorts of things solo players will or will not have access to.
That being said.....
The question is, how to give people something similar to freeform yet still provide structure for teaming?
I don't think that freeform and teaming are mutually exclusive. Your experience is likely being colored by Champions Online, which by some accounts doesn't have a very good freeform system. In STO for example, there is very little in the way of "freeform" character building, but teaming only happens because Cryptic artificially puts it in. If they didn't gate content behind fleet starbases, or multiplayer queues, there would be rampant soloing - as there was before they added content that required teams and groups. This had nothing to do with the way characters were built, and everything to do with the fact that content was so easy, even on STO's hard difficulty, that people didn't
need to team, and there wasn't really any incentive to do so. What I'm getting at here is that you should treat how you build characters and how you create content somewhat separately - one does not rely on the other. Freeform is doable without limiting teaming, if you create content that encourages or even requires teaming.
In fact, it may be
better to allow characters to solo with ease. Back to STO: I'm not saying that people didn't team, or make fleets, before it was required. There certainly exists a large amount of people who play MMOs for just the reasons you stated above: to play together. Those people will make teams and supergroups no matter what. But by allowing characters the ability to solo, you also keep more of the solo players happy, until they come up against content that they can't do alone.
And that's where the real decision must be made. Because there will always be players that like to solo, regardless of what type of character they will make. Chances are, they'll also want to experience everything the game has to offer... and they might be annoyed when a mission has, for example, two glowies that need to be clicked simultaneously, or when a boss needs 10 people to take it down, or when the best starships require a fleet to acquire. So do you want to just sort of encourage teaming, or straight up require it?
Still I don't think Characters that are unable to solo are any less appealing than one that is able. (Blasters for example)...
I am honestly not sure what you're trying to say about blasters. Could you please clarify?
Note: I suspect STO also has a great many solo players because it's an existing IP; for many players, Star Trek was the draw, and it is their first MMO. Some of them will no doubt end up enjoy teaming, but others just want to experience Trek, and all the being the badass solo captain of a starship that that implies.
