Predictions: 1m+ players 3 days out; how about in January 2013?

[Falconeer]

I'll take a stand right here and now. You will never, ever see a meaningful pvp game succeed. It will not happen.

Anyway while I agree about the nice part, I want to clarify that the EVE level of success would be more than OK with me. I think a "meaningful pvp sandbox" like that can happen again. Where, as a customer, what I care the most is not even the success rate, but the overall quality. Which is very high in EVE and very low in Darkfall.

[Sky]

I tend to look and see if a game has the things I *do* want and just ignore the parts I don't like.

This is important advice for just about every facet of life unless you want to be miserable.

Especially in mmo, though. I've heard rants about TOR from every angle and there are certainly some legit ones...but so many seem to be based on this concept of a perfect mmo tailored to that one critic's vision of what an mmo should be. And then lacerates with the pen those who dare not create perfection. I hope their own performance at work is not judged so harshly.

[Sky]

No, no! It's crucial that he try every single new game knowing it's not what he wants so that he can then fascinate us all telling us about why he's unhappy.  I know that I personally just never tire of hearing that kind of stuff.

Isn't that what f13 is all about?

[Nebu]

I hope their own performance at work is not judged so harshly.

You've never worked in medicine, have you?   

[Sky]

You've never worked in medicine, have you?   

To be fair, the stakes are a wee bit higher than 'dicking around in my free time' for those patrons.

[Sjofn]

Got my third 50 today. Five classes to go! Next to finish is either my manquisitor or IA. They're both trapped on Belsavis right now. 

[Soln]

Didnt renew my timecard FWIW.  No hate, just another data point.

[Bunk]

I'm the opposite data point - haven't played in two straight weeks, but can't be bothered to cancel. Know I'll get back to it eventually.

[Sky]

I should put "Waitin' for the patch" to the music of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdjllsV-g3M

Have mercy.

[Simond]

Is it too bad if for once, just once, I post something like "And I still can't understand how could some of you not see this before launch.

Some of it was people desperate for a alternative to WoW due to the canine-intercourse Blizzard performed throughout Cataclysm, some of it appears to have been "It's Bioware so of course it's going to be good".

Turns out that just because Blizzard screwed up doesn't mean that EA couldn't screw up even worse. Ah well, I'm sure we'll have the hype train rolling on to TERA/GW2/etc.

[Merusk]

I'll take a stand right here and now. You will never, ever see a meaningful pvp game succeed. It will not happen.

Anyway while I agree about the nice part, I want to clarify that the EVE level of success would be more than OK with me. I think a "meaningful pvp sandbox" like that can happen again. Where, as a customer, what I care the most is not even the success rate, but the overall quality. Which is very high in EVE and very low in Darkfall.

EVE is not a PVP game.  They want it to be, and hype it as such and you get most involved when you're in the PVP game, true.   However, unless things have changed the majority of accounts (2/3 last it was made public) are still in .5 > space and take great pains to avoid .4 < unless necessary.  I wouldn't call that a PVP game, just a game with PVP as a feature.

[Malakili]

EVE is not a PVP game.  They want it to be, and hype it as such and you get most involved when you're in the PVP game, true.   However, unless things have changed the majority of accounts (2/3 last it was made public) are still in .5 > space and take great pains to avoid .4 < unless necessary.  I wouldn't call that a PVP game, just a game with PVP as a feature.

I disagree. PvP isn't only blowing people up.  You're ALWAYS competing with other players in EVE, even if you are high sec mining or mission running.  It is a combination of the fact that the economy is so player run, and the fact that every item in the game can be lost/removed from the system.  The great part about EVE is that you are participating in the PvP part of the game whether or not you want to, or even feel like you are.

[Shatter]

April fools ftw

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20120401

[Malakili]

They shouldn't tease, there have got to be a lot of ex SWG people around who would love this.

[Arthur_Parker]

You will never, ever see a meaningful pvp game succeed. It will not happen.

I was going to disagree but it comes down to how you define "meaningful", I think you've covered yourself well with that, you could even go further with "you will never, ever see a meaningful game succeed".  I'd agree with that.

PVP is just a game mechanic like any other, if chess evolved with a decapitation penalty for the loser, I suspect it would have messed other boardgame developments up somewhat.

[Falconeer]

It doesn't really matter to me if Eve _is_ a PvP game or not.
Eve _HAS_ meaningful PvP. And it is sandboxy. And a great game. And it is sucessful.

It means it can be done.

[Margalis]

Much as I hate to agree with AP, the term "meaningful" is really pretty meaningless.

[Reg]

I've always taken "meaningful" to mean "your opponent really suffers when he loses - the more the better."  That's why some people get such cheap thrills making people cry in games like UO and EVE.

[Kageru]

Eve is a PvP game, WoW is a raiding game and in practice the bulk of the playerbase really doesn't get too far in either. Most of them are too solo or casual to invest the effort / recover from loss.

I'd say that's partly why cataclysm was a flop and Eve will always be niche.

[Falconeer]

My personal definition of "meaningful PvP" is a PvP where a fight between players has potential consequences and/or an impact in the gameworld.

We can nitpick words, and I am ok with other names too. In fact, I think "meaningful PvP" is one of the most recent definitions, after years of "full pvp", "worldly pvp", "pvp with consequences", "full loot pvp", etc. If some would feel more comfortable scrapping the "meaningful" part and changing it with "evil pvp" I wouldn't mind. All I mean when I use that word is what I wrote in the first line, and to distinguish it from a PvP that only impact your mood, but never the gameworld.

[amiable]

Eve is a great game to read about, but it is absolutely wretched to play.  Basically it consists of two populations:  1.  Poopsocker's poopsocker's who spend all their time in 0.0 (with the exception of maybe goons and the redditt corps, who are just led by poopsocker's poopsocker's that tend ot flame out spectacularly under the pressure of managing a thousand newbies and several FTE's worth of work involved) and 2.  Casuals who putz around in empire space running missions and getting bored.

At any given time the population of (2) is usually much greater thatn the population of (1).    

Gameplay in 0.0 consists of interminably long stretches of over complicated and boring PvE (or just sitting around waiting literally doing nothing) punctuated by brief fights or long boring PvE-like activities (POS shoots).   It's a frippin terrible game, the only thing that made it remotely tolerable was getting to hang out with Goons, who are a pretty amusing bunch of felllows.  

The only people willing to do this are literally the most OCD portion of the gaming population and the few folks who enjoy being "masterminds". If that is seriously your vision for "meaningful" PvP I predict you will always be dissappointed.  The segment of the market that wants to play that is vanishingly small and can proabbly only sustain a single game at a time.  When/if goons get tired of Eve that game is going down.

[Arthur_Parker]

I've always taken "meaningful" to mean "your opponent really suffers when he loses - the more the better."  That's why some people get such cheap thrills making people cry in games like UO and EVE.

That's normally the case, but if you think about it you have two sets of people.  Those that wish there to be a penalty for losing and those that don't wish to pay it.  On the surface they look incompatible, but if you can meet the underlying motive of the first group with something different that the second group either isn't impacted by, or doesn't mind, then you have solved the problem.  Could be as simple as a ranking, campaign history, severed head trophy, doesn't really matter as long as it has limited availability and shows you are Kasparov, whatever.  In Eve territory held is more important than items or the death penalty, that good and appeals to some people, the game is boring as hell though so you have to factor that in.

I think it's pretty obvious how things are going to go, if you look at EQ and what Blizzard did with WoW.  Make a list of the top 20 annoyances with EQ pre WoW and then consider what Blizzard did, all you really need to do is make a list of the top 20 faults with WoW to see the potential for profitable future games.

[Kageru]

That's not what the hard-core PvP players want. MMO PvP is about a system broad enough that balance is imperfect, and gear is important, such that they can rig the battle in their favor. These players want either weaker players penalized (eg. loss of assets) and an increase in the power differential for the winners such that they are more likely to win next time. The PL members on Kugutsumen explaining that if you can't afford to field and risk 20-30 assets each worth 3.5k USD$ (at one point) then you simply don't deserve to win being perhaps the most extreme example. If you put "victory" trophies in, which Eve has in the form of player corpses, neither side will care.

That said I don't mind that model of PvP as long as the developers and players happily accept that their game will be competing for a small subset of the total MMO population. Eve is a great game for the people who like that sort of thing.

I believe SWTOR has seen the same because once people got their PvP gear the "fun" wasn't enough to keep the majority playing. Which is different from something like TF2 were the complexity of the mechanics and adrenaline of the pace will keep people playing without meaningful progression.

[apocrypha]

all you really need to do is make a list of the top 20 faults with WoW to see the potential for profitable future games.

Except Blizzard are doing this themselves, all the time, which makes the time needed to develop a potentially competing game a major impediment because during that time the goalposts shift. Which is exactly what's happened with SWTOR.

[Arthur_Parker]

That's not what the hard-core PvP players want.

I think what people want and what they might find acceptable and enjoy aren't necessarily the same thing, pre WoW a lot of PVE players thought a PVE death exp penalty was important and camping was necessary, they'd tell you at great length how those were facts.

all you really need to do is make a list of the top 20 faults with WoW to see the potential for profitable future games.

Except Blizzard are doing this themselves, all the time, which makes the time needed to develop a potentially competing game a major impediment because during that time the goalposts shift. Which is exactly what's happened with SWTOR.

Yup, I found it interesting just how fast Blizzard responded to WAR at release.  Note I'm only talking about "potential for profitable future games", the implementation I don't think you can make predictions on, apart from the fact that overall everyone except Blizzard appears terrible at it.

[Crumbs]

Unsubbed and loving it.  Reactivated WOW to tide me over till GW2.  A single AV match was more exciting than 3 months of SWTOR.

I predict this game will last until it's turned off.  Sub numbers don't matter.  See:  SWG

[Threash]

I've always taken "meaningful" to mean "your opponent really suffers when he loses - the more the better."  That's why some people get such cheap thrills making people cry in games like UO and EVE.

Not really, meaningful to me means "winning in pvp is the main goal of the game".  It doesn't matter how much the other side "suffers", what matters is that the game is designed around a pvp endgame that is not a tacked on sidegame.

[Falconeer]

I hope Guild Wars 2 will do a good job at proving lots of people wrong about "what the hardcore PvP players want", or (before we get in a fight about what is "hardcore") what MMO players who are more into PvP than PvE want. What many here seem to ignore is that there are many shades of PvP players. The mistake is to simplify everything down to "wolf and sheep", implying that people stop p(l)aying when they stop winning, so these games would be inherently doomed by the nature of what their players seem to want.

I have no idea if I'll like Guild Wars 2 or not, but I don't mind admitting that I'm cautiously optimistic it will be able to clear many popular and easy misconceptions about what a PvP-driven MMORPG can be and what plenty of Meaningful PvP lovers have been waiting for. I understand why any "Hardcore PvP" game will always have an extra hard time succeeding, due to the limited budget reflecting the limited playerbase. But I know a "Meaningful PvP" one can easily succeed. And finally, seems like GW2 took a 10 years old SUCCESSFUL PvP model (The DAoC one) that oddly enough hasn't been attempted again, and worked on it with a serious budget. On top of that, they made sure to have another successful model (The GW1 one) work under the same hood, to include another kind of PvP players. That is enough to make many thirsty and starved hardcore PvP players feel all giddy. 

So, for once, we'll see if the problem is the nature of the evil PvP players -supposedly some sort of hive-mind that can't think of anything else than winning, automatically killing games by driving away those who can't win- or that when games and concept are poorly executed players just don't stick around.


Ultimately, and to try and stay in topic, I am not sure you all know around here that with 1.2 SWTOR turned from an equipment-driven PvP to a "skill"-driven one, since access to the top equip has been made very easy to everyone. It's impossible to tell if things will stay like this in 1.3, but with 1.2 SWTOR PvP becomes a game that centers around ranked arenas between characters with easy access to the same top equip. It's probably a desperate move having failed so bad with Ilum and the Commendation/bags system, but I am curious to see how it'll work out.

[Malakili]

I've always taken "meaningful" to mean "your opponent really suffers when he loses - the more the better."  That's why some people get such cheap thrills making people cry in games like UO and EVE.

What I mean when I say "meaning PvP" is that the fight has ramifications beyond just the people immediately involved and beyond the immediate fight.  If that Keep changes hands, it changes hands from the perspective of everyone, for example.  If the Keep is tied to some kind of resource for a guild or faction, then obviously the new guild or faction gets that bonus whereas the old owners do not.   A great example of "meaningful PvP" which also has basically no "suffering" on the level of the individual is World War 2 Online.  There is a finite amount of supply, to every death matters to a certain extent.  The towns, forward bases and supply lines you win or lose matter for the entire campaign, but individuals to do not lose gear or experience or anything like that (in fact, there isn't even gear in that game).


Edit: somewhat ironically, the "suffering" (like item loss) is far more important for a meaningful CRAFTING game than for PvP.

[tazelbain]

Where I hope GW2 will be meaningful is rivalries at the meta level like football. These rivalries can be extremely powerful.  For many down here in Alabama, the Iron Bowl is more important than the national championship or even the Superbowl.  I hope this same sense of team pride will propel people to "give a shit" unlike anything before it.

Just think about the Goons.  People love them.  People hate them. A lot people of really going to "try hard" to beat these guys regardless of their ranking. Others are going to be following out come of Goon matches just because they enjoy watching Goon antics. I think it is going be like EvE, but with much better game play.

[Fabricated]

Just think about the Goons.  People love them.  People hate them. A lot people of really going to "try hard" to beat these guys regardless of their ranking. Others are going to be following out come of Goon matches just because they enjoy watching Goon antics. I think it is going be like EvE, but with much better game play.

The Goon rep thing is kinda funny at this point. A lot of our TOR server hates us but we haven't done any real griefing as far as I know.

[Sjofn]

Team pride IS fun (obligatory, nostalgic memory of DAoC here), so I don't really doubt that part of GW2 will be fun. It will be a little harder to foster without seeing the same names all the time, but having populations reasonably balanced is more important imo.

[Ingmar]

Ultimately, and to try and stay in topic, I am not sure you all know around here that with 1.2 SWTOR turned from an equipment-driven PvP to a "skill"-driven one, since access to the top equip has been made very easy to everyone. It's impossible to tell if things will stay like this in 1.3, but with 1.2 SWTOR PvP becomes a game that centers around ranked arenas between characters with easy access to the same top equip. It's probably a desperate move having failed so bad with Ilum and the Commendation/bags system, but I am curious to see how it'll work out.

You'll have to wait for cross-server queues to see a real difference.

[Riggswolfe]

I'll take a stand right here and now. You will never, ever see a meaningful pvp game succeed. It will not happen.

Anyway while I agree about the nice part, I want to clarify that the EVE level of success would be more than OK with me. I think a "meaningful pvp sandbox" like that can happen again. Where, as a customer, what I care the most is not even the success rate, but the overall quality. Which is very high in EVE and very low in Darkfall.

The disconnect here is that your needs as a customer are not the same needs the company has. You might be happy with Eve level of success. Most companies would not be unless it is an Indie publisher and the odds of an Indie publisher having the talent to make a good game is, IMO, lower than the big names sadly. I'm not saying it can't happen just that the odds are against it.

[FieryBalrog]

Most companies would love to have an Eve-level success. Maintaining 200-300K subs for years and years is still tremendously profitable, especially with Eve's "player-driven" model, where the investment going into the game really isn't that high. Remember the majority of videogames are loss-makers. It's a hit-driven industry just like movies, though not quite as extreme.

However, the biggest publishers, while they would be happy with it, want the biggest and the hugest. They want their own World of Warcraft, they want their own Call of Duty, they want their own Wii Sports. Hence the many dozens of clones of WoW and CoD and Wii Waggle games they churn out. These games also obviously have risks associated with them, but the success potential is "stratospheric" instead of "fairly profitable".