So, all of my friends are poor and jack asses with fancy iPhone 4s who think they are too cool for Dragon Quest. 
 
They are also poor. 
 
Because they spent all their money on iPhones. 
 
Which they already had. 
 
But these were newer iPhones. 
 
The point is that I hate my friends and my life is meaningless and empty. Will Dragon Quest IX fill in the cavernous void slowly devouring my black heart with gold and experience points even though I will be playing it solo for the duration? 
 
Discuss.

I'm 26 and pretty much all of my friends are non gamers.  I got the game and researched it incredibly beforehand to make sure there was enough to keep me occupied.  The answer, yes, you can get max enjoyment out of the game without other friends to play with.
 
With DQ9, you make a character and he/she is a minstrel in the beginning of the game.  This character then levels up and eventually gets to a point where you can create new party members for your group much like you did for the main guy.  If you invite a friend to your world, they take the place as one of those guys.  No friends means you just have the AI controlled characters which you can control on your own if you chose.  You do the same things as you would with friends, just alone.  
 
The story is the same, gameplay is the same, etc.  The story and leveling system is good too so you will have a blast playing it on your own.  
 
One thing you can do though, is put your game in tag mode.  Tag mode lets your DS look for others who are also in tag mode and then invites them to stay in your inn.  They bring treasures, etc.  Go to a gamestop one day in tag mode or go to a library or to your school/work, etc.  No one needs to know you are in tag mode or even have a DS with you.  Keep it in your backpack or like I do, in my briefcase, and go about your daily activities.  When you get home, see if you found anyone.  So far, no dice with me, but maybe you'll be lucky one day.
 
Hope this helps.

My friend really want's me to play the multiplayer version of this with him. I am not sure I want to even. There is a reason why these games are not MMORPG's. It's just better when doing turn based combat that one person with one strategy plays. I really think that the game is better when not playing multiplayer. Multiplayer seems like a real bad idea to me, as I can see my character (or his) being way over powered comparatively because I am positive we will not play at the same rate.
 
With that said I will hopefully come back with something to say of the multiplayer. However if you decide to make massively strong characters and keep re-classing until all your characters are super strong warriors who can nuke and heal effectively that will take tons of time.

With stuff like this, especially a handheld, you don't need multiplayer. I like it enough without another player. I remember when me and a friend tried playing Final Fantasy IX together. It didn't work. What's the point of having 2 people doing a one man job.

Dude, your friends sound like total jack asses. If it makes you feel any better though, if this game is like other games in the Dragon Quest series (which I'm damn sure it is, since a major selling point of these games is familiarity) it will still be a lot of fun playing by yourself.

Sure, the game is very entertaining with multiplayer, but you can go without it. I don't have siblings, and very few of my friends have the same game interests I do. I spent 30 minutes in multiplayer, and 70 hours in Single player.
 
Bottom line: Single player is better, loads of content, and perfectly fine all by itself. Your friends don't know what they're missing - Why play Final Fantasy on the iPhone when you can play Dragon Quest IX? Actually, why play any game on the iPhone when you can play Dragon Quest IX? You'll enjoy it. Trust me.