f13.net

Well, there is some other good stuff in the announcement. Like a darkness falls type dungeon to be released in 6 months.

Wasn't the Choppa one of the classes that was cut before release when Mythic realized it couldn't possibly finish everything in time for the EA imposed release date?

Yup along with four cities which is what REALLY needs to be done to have any kind of decent endgame.

Just had a quick chance to read over it.  30 minutes to cap and defend a BO now?  Not sure how this helps, waiting 3 minutes and just sitting there drives me crazy.

How does Zone Control work exactly? MMORPG.com recently had an interview with Mythic's Senior Designer, Brian Wheeler, and Producer, Jeff Skalski to answer this popular question. Currently, Zone Control is broken into five elements: (1) Keeps and Battlefield objectives, (2) Scenarios, (3) Player Kills, (4) Quests and Public Quests completed, and (5) Previous Tier Zone Control (who controls the tier below yours). These elements are in priority order, so controlling Keeps and Battlefield objectives is more helpful than Previous Tier Zone Control. The only problem, Skalski noted, "is that there is a lot of fighting going on in the [RvR] lakes and sometimes the zone control bar will just kind of be stuck. One team will be dominating greatly in scenarios while the other is dominating in RvR lakes and the zone never flips."

In order to alleviate the confusion and difficulty with flipping a zone, developers have announced changes for patch 1.1.1. When one mouses over the exsisting Zone Control bar, a breakdown of various bars will appear representing each element that affects Zone Control. Furthermore, Skalski added, "Moving forward, what we’re looking at doing is - battlefield objectives: once you capture them, you’ll have to defend them for 30 minutes and keeps: once you capture them they will have to be claimed by a guild and then held for two hours." Lastly, according to MMORPG, "This new feature will change the look of the zone control bar as well, adding six new blocks to the top and bottom. As Zone Domination criteria are met, the block begin to light up with the appropriate color. Basically, your side has to hold all six of their blocks in order to flip the zone." This is supplemental to other ways of flipping a zone.

official boards

Have to agree with Schild here.  What WAR needs is a way to channel players to a common area for battle.  The world is already too large and too fragmented.

Sadly, I'm not sure the current engine can deal with this... making the whole thing doomed to failure.   

The 30min to cap thing kinda sorta makes sense. It's a way of holding bodies into a zone for 30min. Problem obviously is that, if there's no action, it'll be boring as fuck.

The 30min to cap thing kinda sorta makes sense. It's a way of holding bodies into a zone for 30min. Problem obviously is that, if there's no action, it'll be boring as fuck.

...and keeps: once you capture them they will have to be claimed by a guild and then held for two hours...

Doesn't claiming a keep just vacuum money out of the gold bank for no discernible reward to the guild doing the claiming?

Oh boy

Yea, for sure, when I think of what Warhammer needs, I think it needs more areas.

NO.

JUST NO. Adding one square inch of space to the goddamn game is moving in the wrong direction.

well, is this the end of MJ me wonders?

Mark crawled out from under his rock today to post on VN and is taking a fucking beating. Even the fanboys are lacing into him and the 'negative nancies' are posting in droves.

http://vnboards.ign.com/UserPages/PostHistory.aspx?usr=1285252

Let me tell you (Mark Jacobs) how I know that you are being dishonest with us.

During Beta, and on through the release of your game, an entire racial pairing did not work. It was impossible to lock Dragonwake. That's 1/3 of your games oRvR content, something you claim Jeff H. & team is "fixated" on, completely removed from the game. This bug was confirmed across ALL servers. It was reported on a daily basis by players across the world for MONTHS.

Finally, it was addressed, but only months later. Here is what common sense tells me: if there had been even one person *participating in* T4 RvR at Mythic, let alone an entire development team fixated on it as you claim, there is no way in hell that it would have taken them months to realize that a full 1/3 of their endgame, an entire racial pairing, was not working.

I wouldn't need to explain again and again that you have never properly designed your scenario queue logic, and because the queue always favors certain zones, and because those zones cannot be locked without scenarios, this effectively results in a situation (now) where ONLY the elf racial pairing is playable most of the time, on most servers.

I wouldn't need to explain why prior zone contribution is a patently failed idea - one that sounded good in theory but one which, in practice, results in a bizarre situation in which the ebb and flow of WAR's campaign is *completely* dictated by what happens in T3, and T3 alone. (Speaking of which, on Monolith T3 Empire v. Chaos has been bugged for months now, in a way which results in a UI display issue, but which also results in permanently assigning 66/100 points to Destro, and not rewarding more than 1 or 2 points when Order takes Keeps. That's fun! Not sure how many more 1,000's of bug reports the Monolith community will need to provide before that gets acknowledged.)

So, no. Don't believe you. Don't think there is a team "fixated" on RvR.

I think RvR is, strangely, a total afterthought for you, and by extension the team(s) you manage. You are "fixated" on new toys and whatever will sound appealing from the marketing standpoint, to the extent that you almost seem to have gone out of your way to avoid addressing core problems or longstanding issues.

You are fond of using the rhetorical device "I don't know of any other major mmo that..", so here's one for you:

I don't know of any other major mmo that would have a *player* character model running around WITHOUT LEGS for nearly half a year. It doesn't effect gameplay, but it's a damning indicator of how little attention you or anyone at your office is paying to the game you already have, and the numerous problems with it.

From here out I think I'll fixate myself on shooting down your hype and falsehoods, tbh. You are fond of saying that you expect your subscribers to keep you honest. But I don't think you mean that either.

Yup along with four cities which is what REALLY needs to be done to have any kind of decent endgame.

This is crap.  they need to get rid of the cap time totally.  There is no reason to sit there and "defend" for 30 minutes.  This actually encourages keep and BO swapping.  Why bother with a crappy capped BO when you can go get renown from one that isn't already defended?

Could somebody who is following the game still please explain why they have a lockout timer on PvE content. Is there some sort of uber loot that drops in there and this is just a Verant-style cockblock they put in to slow people down?

That and what happens if critical mass crashes the server?  Yay... another 30 mins to wait!  So you either get a long wait, a long wait with terrible framerate, or server crashes.  I don't see a WIN in the list.

Let's put it this way- the dungeons represent the traditional way of gearing up that everyone knows from WoW. You do them with 5 friends. The PVP sets are gotten from complete random crapshoots that you'll split with any amount of people from 15 to 150. And they're worse. We took a newly minted 40 shaman to BR/BW and he got 4 of 6 Sent pieces in an hour and a half. I've been capping keeps for the past month and I've got a crappy helmet.

I was waiting for the announcement yesterday in hopes they planned to make changes to T4/RVR and wasnt very happy.  Hard to wrap logic around adding new content and new classes when existing content needs fixing and is lacking and classes need work still.  Im not sure why he wouldnt expect to have people jump down his throat for posting info on expanding the game before they talk about game improving the existing game. I guess it tells me they would rather dump resources into "future" stuff rather then the existing issues which for some reason dont appear to be that high a priority.  Im sure many subscribers were holding out for yesterdays announcement were also disappointed. 

My guild has farmed the Invader set (the best set without killing city bosses) for almost everyone from three city sieges now. There was never a need to do anything but RVR/PVP if you didn't want to.

Simple fix is to remove the importance of gear from PvP.  Not sure why Planetside is the only one to learn this lesson.  DAoC came close allowing crafted gear and easily obtainable quest drops to do the trick, but Mythic seems to have forgotten about that bit. 

What 1v1 games are you referring to out of curiosity that have 1v1 RvR? I find WOW and WO to be very similar in regards to the pvp I see.  In WOW, PVP was mostly BG's, but most of the time was group or at least multiple players involved, rarely did I see or get into 1v1 battles.  In fact arenas in WOW were minimum 2 players.  I played a rogue in WOW and a WH in WO and if I want 1v1 I go find it.  When I wanted 1v1 in WOW I had to go find it.  I estimate in WH 80% of my game is group or at least multi-player pvp, the other 20% is solo.  I could certainly change that cause if I want 1v1 more often I have ways to make it happen :)

I find it hillarious that someone made a poll on VN a week ago asking What should be Mythic's top priority (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/110044406/p1/?104)

After a week of voting, 3% voted for new classes/content. 18 people out of 502.

Mark even had the balls to post on the thread today to say the poll wasn't created by Mythic.

I find it hillarious that someone made a poll on VN a week ago asking What should be Mythic's top priority (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/110044406/p1/?104)

After a week of voting, 3% voted for new classes/content. 18 people out of 502.

Mark even had the balls to post on the thread today to say the poll wasn't created by Mythic.

WOW has the reputation for being more 1v1 balanced.  Maybe you missed that.

It's ok. It just needs some 'shop.

(http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/8601/markymarkij9.jpg)

What planet are you from?   First, it was enhance shamans, then it was affliction warlocks, and now it's ret paladins, rogues, and death knights.  If you are saying that reliative to WAR, WoW was more 1v1 balanced, I could see that, but WoW is definitely not balanced for 1 vs 1.

Mmmmmm, Warhammer is set up so that the toons depend more on grouping than in WOW.  I'm not saying that the balance is perfect.  They just have more interest in the 1V1 mechanics than WAR does, or probably more precisely, WAR is set up to require you to work in larger groups to PVP.  That is all from the Mythic stuff I have read.  Maybe  you saw something else on your planet.

I did, in the form of the nightmare that is the 2vs2 Arena. 

MJ,

Put BOs around the keeps within long-range seige weaponry range ... like DAoC

Give them all defensible interiors (not an unprotected rock you stand around) ... like DAoC

Make them worth taking and holding to fire trebs and siege from, and even around on the grounds ... like DAoC

Make walls destructible, repairable and climbable ... like DAoC

Let seige weapons all be moveable and placed wherever players want, roll up to doors, pick up and use again, in any numbers they want ... like DAoC

Make tangible items like, oh I don't know, RELICS maybe?, that both sides covet for bonuses and access priviledges ... like DAoC

Make one of those ultimate access priviledges for owning all the relics be city seige access (ala Darkness Falls access) ... like DAoC

Make scouting and strategy worth doing ... like DAoC

(see a trend here?)


Mark, see all this stuff your had almost 8 years ago? That people keep telling you they loved and miss? You can read, right?

F13 forums gave you a goldmine of advice a few months ago which you seemed to understand but apparently you haven't done one goddamn thing the consensus of a lot of smart people here pretty much uniformly advised you to do.


Please just kill WAR and modernize the spirit and gameplay of what made DAoC RvR so great pre-ToA into a new game that we *will* play and enjoy.

I fail to see gear as a problem, its easy to get full annihilator if you are attending keep sieges.

In addition, only players with an active WAR subscription will be allowed to post on the forums. There will be a number of different account “levels” on these forums and players who show that they can contribute to the ongoing improvement of WAR, whether through suggestions, critical evaluation, user-generated content, peer-to-peer (in other words, contribution has its privileges) will be given greater access to private areas of the boards where Mythic developers (including myself and strike team leads) will be posting extensively,

There will be a number of different account “levels” on these forums and players who show that they can contribute to the ongoing improvement of WAR, whether through suggestions, critical evaluation, user-generated content, peer-to-peer (in other words, contribution has its privileges) will be given greater access to private areas of the boards where Mythic developers (including myself and strike team leads) will be posting extensively...

Unbelievable. I mean, seriously. It's like a compass pointing to magnetic wrong every single time they do something.

Yeah, it sucks with some of the imbalances in WOW and I should have worded that better, but I think that even with the imbalances the PVP is more interesting than WAR is currently.  It just feels like all the classes are exactly the same and it takes forever to kill anything.  It makes for a very slow feeling game in my opinion.

I'm not sure it's possible to have balance in a class-based game.

Unbelievable. I mean, seriously. It's like a compass pointing to magnetic wrong every single time they do something.

Maybe they'll come out with a forum only sub plan for people who just want to play the forums.

Every sentient being (fanbois excluded) knows Mythic just wants to get eyes off of forums which are not explicitly censored by them.

Even WHA doesn't cater to that level; no outside forum would (I'd hope).

This is a new low in propaganda and censorship attempts, seriously. I hope there is a fucking huge backlash in terms of cancellations and ridicule to stop others from thinking to try this crap on gamers.

Every sentient being (fanbois excluded) knows Mythic just wants to get eyes off of forums which are not explicitly censored by them.

...

This is a new low in propaganda and censorship attempts, seriously.

they're tacking on a stupid gimmick which will allow the funneling of the most rabid fanboys into a perpetual private audience with Jacobs.

In all fairness though, we tried to get more of our beta testers to post and as the beta testers here know, the number of actual posters was small. Everyone had access (though most of the beta) but getting them to post, well, that was a bit harder.

MBJ hinting on VN that the new-super-sekret forums will fix the errors from the old-super-sekret forums:


*Locked Feedback*

These official forums are going to fail.  In addition to usual problems, it's going to fail because Mythic is resentful they should even have to talk to players.

These official forums are going to fail.  In addition to usual problems, it's going to fail because Mythic is resentful they should even have to talk to players.

There will be a number of different account “levels” on these forums and players who show that they can contribute to the ongoing improvement of WAR...

Isn't that kind of the job of the devs?