f13.net

Here is PROOF that they don't get it. Mark, I am sorry BUT THIS IS NOT THE ANSWER. Shit. Everyone told you when you did 50% that it wasn't going to really help. Making it 100% is still 100% of shit. Its still shit.

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=395

lol

Part IV is a no-scenario server.

Well I agree with you. But I'm spending time there and while it's slower than scenarios it's funner too. So any bump is good, but this better be the tip of an iceberg.

Where's the love for quest xp, huh? That's where the bump is needed. Not in RvR.

this was almost 1 year ago:

http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/2007-11_pp-GameSystemChanges.html


1 Year they have been trying to "fix" open world rvr....

fuck it I'm going back to WoW.

Well,

I'd say it's at least a step closer to what I'd like to see than not.

Of course PVE xp is still sucky while the gear is great.

But this seems like a simple math/variable change (don't yell, I don't know jack about programming), as opposed to a much larger and sweeping mechanic change.

So of course it'd come first.

first of all, they are taking steps towards what we want, even if they are babysteps. They are not fundamentally changing anything big yet which is understandable, so don't go all  :uhrr: :ye_gods: on this so fast.




Well keep warfare was not even part of the original design for WAR. Originally, the game only had some BO's and scenarios. They changed this after hard feedback from testers and fans. Also the game has only been in development for what, 3 years? No wonder the RvR is so rugged still, if they didn't even start out developing the RvR like it is today from the beginning of a 3 year development cycle

It's a shame really

you know what made me feel like i had to go to rvr and help take keeps... the fact that that was the only way to get to the renown gear merchants... but then we got into the guild hall and i didn't have to do that anymore

I liked the idea of taking keeps, but when I was doing it the slideshow was unbearable.

[/quote]

They don't have the time for these little baby steps. People are dropping like flies. Look at the server populations. They are running very short on time to get people to stick. I know a shitload of people from all the guilds are quitting also. Hell, two days ago the biggest guild on my server couldnt even fill a warband in prime time.

I want this game to do well so badly, but if they keep with the baby steps its going to be to late for the majority. There is a 1500lbs Gorilla knocking at their door, and they have around 3 weeks.

I think that's extreme. I agree that they will lose people, but I don't think the game is going to collapse because of the current flaws. I think it has too much backing, fan support, and generally disgruntled pvp players from other games that they won't leave. I don't know what their break-even point is, but I'm sure they are well above it in terms of accounts. In the meantime, they need to fix things and stay vocal. Also, they can't play panic mode. It's simply not a viable solution when you run a business.

The truth is, even the players don't know how to fix RvR combat. In the next month though, I expect to see a release about knocking down the xp grind in T3-4.

Providing a sweeping overhaul to RvR in a matter of a few days/weeks would do more harm than good. Many people have a vague notion of what tuneups the current implementation requires (global map-based RvR notification, dramatic re-itemization, influence rewards, improved client performance, class balance fixes, faction population balance mechanics), and it's totally unrealistic to believe such an implementation can be done anything remotely close to "quick".

That being said, Mythic is doing themselves a grave disservice by:

a) Calling these tiny little updates "Phase I, II or III". They're not "phases" at all, just minor tweaks at best. It's like saying you've completely remodeled your house, when all you did was paint a room.
b) Not consolidating in some place what the "new" RvR will look like in an attempt to hang on to players who are thinking of jumping ship

Mythic is turning out to be extremely unique in its presentation. On one hand, Mark hammers forums with incredibly personal and at times in-depth information. On the other hand, they reveal absolutely nothing regarding their plans on their own web site to the average player.

PvE XP still shitty, ORvR still has no tangible rewards or reason to take part. Tor Anroc, here I come!

I don't think its going to collapse, but as some one else posted, I think its the difference in 1mil subs vs 250k subs.

Also, like I said in a different thread. Make taking a keep worth a whole lot more exp, that will get people out RVRing. Make a keep capture worth like 25 or 30k exp. That will get people out there.

I wouldn't mind seeing some XP for defending a keep, too.  That's the big problem I'm running into, is that I'm playing "hunt the zerg".  I get a message that says "The Lord of Fangbreaka Keep is under attack!!!!!!" and I ask how big the attacking force is.  Nobody knows, because nobody is there, because it's pointless to hang around a keep if there's not a lot of elves to pour oil on.  So I have to hoof it all the way back there to find out that it's one guy who's gone by the time I show up.

Seems to me that providing a trickle of XP over time to anyone just for being in a keep would both be a good reward for casual players and a nice incentive to take and hold keeps.

I agree that both sides should get xp for their efforts. I think there should be a substantial 20k+ xp reward for winning a keep taking or defense. I also think that there should be an "initiator" function that makes a keep takable, and you have an X amount of time to do it. That way you get a defined time for a keep, and then a lockout period of 15 minutes until the next attack.

Assignments of this xp would be a pain.  When do people become eligible?  What tracks contributions during a keep take?  Etc.  In DAOC rps were awarded for keep takes and often you could just fly by a keep as it was changing hands to get the reward.  This had the effect of diluting the reward for those that did the work.  Perhaps incentives like in PQ's would be best... though those seem to suffer similar fates as well.

Modified by participation factors so you don't get leeches, have a simple coefficient based on amount of defense time present.  The longer you're around for the battle, the more xp you get.

People will go LD due to lag (and large numbers of players involved and seige engine graphics and...) and be pissed when they come back = CSR issues.   It's a bad situation waiting to happen.

This!


Keep defense is fun for about the first 20-30 minutes of it then you realize your just delaying the inevitable.

And fuck serpents passage, battle of praag is 1000 times better and it never pops.

Does Battle for Praag just require more players?  I have had it queued for weeks and I've never seen it pop.

This was kinda my problem too. If I was playing a healer it wouldn't be so bad for me, I suspect, but when I was there as a tank it was miserable.

Maybe? I just remember in beta it was popping all the time.

All you need to do is increase experience and make the gear sold in keeps not suck.  All done.

I believe any system can be manipulated. Still, I think basing keep taking off the PQ system is not a bad idea. There are timers. There are rewards on participants. There is a common goal. THIS IS NOT BAD.

New fish speaks the truth - there's really not much other than changing the +50% buff to 100% that can be done in a few days. We all know what we want or what is needed - hell epic threads are birthed on basic ideas - but to actually solve these issues ingame will take lots of time. Minor steps such as XP buffs are welcome in the meantime, but we need to know that there is a game coming at the end.

The initiator for a siege should be something like a "Sargeant of X" who patrols the radius of the fortress. He'd have enough power / companions that you'd need a reasonably number of people to defeat him. He's effectively a check of whether it's a serious challenge on the keep. The realm alarm is tied to his death. He doesn't drop any loot (to avoid farming). He has a long respawn and when he does everyone who participated in the battle gets rewarded based on the extent of their participation. Killing him again, which the attackers will need to do in order to protect their rear, starts a new reward period.

The door takes a while to chop down and generates waves of NPC defenders based on the number of attackers versus the number of defenders. This is the gather time for potential PC defenders. If you need a PvE challenge then the keep champion is in the courtyard and drops loot. He's not in the castle itself so you don't screw over ranged classes. Ideally he's a sufficient challenge that you must have dominance over the keep to take him down. His role is the honeypot.

The lord of the castle is not a PvE challenge but is deep in the keep itself giving the maximum advantage to the PC defenders. He drops loot and his defeat means the castle is lost (visual change, no more defenders). The essence is now it is up to the PC defenders but they have the defensive advantage and possible NPC guard assistance to limit zerging.

Does it work like this already?

Hi

This is the right direction. There are more oRvR in my server today, but another problem arises.

The diminishing of both exp and rp is too harsh. People are not worth killing after about 15min of skirmishing, and the warbands of both side would slowly dissolve.

Completely removing the diminish would be a stupid idea as exploiters will use it for sure.

I suggest a more forgiving diminish system.

-no diminish until 3rd time killing?
-the diminish restarts after 10min?
etc~

Thanks

I wouldn't mind PQs at keeps if you own them, that can reward loot. Something like for avelorn you have to throw babies into the altar there, before time runs out. Well something better but yes, PQ's at keeps.

As everybody seems to be saying, I'd like to see 50k or 75k exp for capturing a keep.  Only thing is the players will just trade keeps and avoid each other, so for defending you also need something attractive, like maybe the keep lord giving repeatable and very rewarding quests (kill player/deliver item to guard patrol etc).

PQ's at keeps are an interesting idea, it's a pity they can't spawn a third faction to take control of a keep with a third faction hero in charge, a few gold bags as a reward in addition to the increased exp for completing the PQ.  Give both realms a status message to say the Skaven or whoever have captured fort "blah" under clan leader Smeghead or something.  Maybe redesign a couple of T4 keeps to have two external and two internal doors so it becomes a race to see who gets inside first.  Later stages of the PQ after defeating the keep lord is to keep the other side out for a certain time.

Yeeeeeah, this is really, really true.  Did some keep warfare today in T2.  About two or three hours worth.  Netted me about fifteen percent of the XP I'd need to hit 16.  And this was two hours of more or less constant fighting between two warbands.  Two hours of siege weapons and pushes and flanking and counterattacking.  Couldn't possibly get much better rate of XP, I'd say (and it's by far the most productive night I've ever seen).  Fifteen percent.  Assuming that the rate of XP gain stays constant (and it doesn't, obviously, it gets worse the higher you go) it would take about seventy hours /played to get from fifteen to twenty.

We tried to take a keep last night, had a full warband on Ironfist.  We failed, but I had fun and really didn't think about the XP I was making.  /shrug

I was like this in Tier 2/ early Tier 3 and there was plenty of others doing it also , but then suddenly everyone figured out just how much more xps/rp/gold you got from doing nothing but scenarios

So then it changed to me and a few others standing around hoping to find enough people to have a keep battle , we couldn't stir up trouble for the enemy to show up in numbers nor field a decent keep taking team , because others who enjoyed the Open RvR more themselves had gone through the experience of waiting an hour or two hoping to stir up a large battle

Currently you have to be extremely lucky to find a fun and large open rvr battle , despite "WAR is everywhere" slogan

So now I realize I'm part of the problem and perpetuating it by going along with the scenario 24/7 lemmings , but it's either that or stand around for two hours trying to stir up battles ,

Age of Conan lost over half its initial subscribers within its first 90 days, and the things we are seeing here in War are looking almost exactly the same. So I sort of agree with the poster who says the next 3-4 weeks are critical. After that point, servers will be so low on population that transfers or clustering will be mandatory for those players to be able to do anything PVP related if things don't improve. As I've said before, Developers who aren't offering a revolutionary type product don't have the benefit of customer patience.  In the old days you had about a  year, but in today's market you've got 60-90 days to live up to expectations or see a massive subscriber drop.

100% exp for ORVR sounds good, but not when you spend 40 minutes looking for someone and you are sharing that exp across a party/warband. 100% of 0 is still 0, and that's where ORVR is right now in T4. Organized guilds are doing a lot of the legwork to take the keeps, and then some scrub wanders in just to take 1st place and the purple drop while contributing nothing.

We've all laid out the issues for Mythic to see. If they want to have 50-250k subscribers then they need to keep giving us half fixes like this one.  If they want to be sitting here with a growing game, they need to radically and quickly redesign the game in T3/4.  Folks aren't going to wait 6 months, and if this game doesn't keep 500k subscribers then its going to lose PR buzz and be relgated to the status of games like COH/COV, Lotro, etc.  In a month WotlK will eat their lunch because at least in WoW you can PVE/PVP without feeling like your server is a ghost town.  

Even AOC didn't feel this empty this soon after release. It took until about the 60 day mark for that game to take a permanent nosedive.

I wonder if Mythic would dare accept the egg on the face and do server merges/consolidation 2-3 months after launch ? With the remarks I've seen MJ make about judging a game by "is it still opening new servers 6 months out", and so on , it seems this would be a hard pill to swallow for them.

It would cure a lot of problems. It would also bring bad press (which is retarded). Either way, the same problems will show up in 6+months from now when newbies are logging in saying "Where is the RVR? Wheres everyone doing PQs? They are too hard solo..." when everyone is in T4 and not motivated to make alts with the (current) leveling speed and nature of renown ranks.

As stated in earlier replies, Mythic is taking small steps towards a large problem as MJ has said. This isn't the final solution. Its up in the air: will they give in and make sweeping changes before WotLK arrives? They might have to, to succeed... Time will tell.

I bet we'll see the RvR Lake influence bar in before the 2nd week in November.

That’s not a terrible idea.  My concern would be that, unless the PQ involved killing invaders, you’re splitting your defense resources.  People may stop paying attention to the invading force.

Alternatively, maybe a keep could radiate a certain buff for defenders:
1) The duration of the buff is 15 minutes. 
2) The buff is only active when the defender is in combat.
3) If the buff runs for the full duration, then they are granted X amount of experience and Y amount of renown.

I was stunned when I saw someone post that WAR has 55 servers.  What, is there like 300-400 people on each one?  That's insane.

I felt the same way.. Seems like we things would be a lot better if that number was dropped to something around 15-20

If they grew a pair, consolidated some servers, and Mark Jacobs responded to any random new guy here I would instantly sub. That would be worth at least a month of entertainment. And I'm just talking about the board hysteria.

Actually, the only thing holding me back from trying this game is I missed the initial rush - and I know it will be asstastic until I catch up. Server merges are OK, spin it correctly and that you give a shit about your customers and you can turn bad press into good press. Either way, do it now before people claim that everyone went back to WoW...causing the merges. 

Isn't that what the free transfers are for?

Nope, and Slayerik is absolutely right, merge now or merge later - one you can spin, the other you can't.

Agreed that server mergers later cannot be spun.

Please to explain how you can spin server mergers immediately after launch into a "we love you" good thing.  Server merger = we don't have enough players.

I say they won't do it - still clinging to the hope that they turn this around.

Server merger: Hey folks, in the spirit of increasing participation in both PQ's and the NEW AND IMPROVED RvR experience (tm), we've consolidated the following servers.

Enjoy!

"We've increased max server capacity, thus cutting down the need for so many different servers. Higher population density will make WAR even more epic!"
Or
"WotLK beat us up and stole our lunch money. Closing empty servers to save money for meth."

They won't do it. But the only spin necessary would be "At launch we placed the cap on servers way too low and ended up putting more servers in when we should've been increasing the cap and tech behind the servers. Our mistake, we're fixing it. Enjoy the WAR." Or something. Point being, it's their fuckup, 2 weeks into launch it certainly wasn't the lack of players calling for such a thing.

I started two weeks late on a recommended, freshly added server. It's absolutely deserted aside from tier one, which could be described as sparsely populated :ye_gods:
T2 and T3 have a scenario pop every hour or so (for order). I've seen exactly one chaos guy in a lake while we took down 3 keeps on sunday afternoon.
If they don't merge my server soon it will just die.

Due to population imbalances on server of our lower populated servers, our development team thought that best way to provide all the types of great PVP that our game has been designed around was to do some consolidation of servers.

Using data farmed from our uber data farmer program, we will first be combining servers that are low on Order population, with those that a high on Destro population.  This will reduce queue times for all involved, and really liven up the world PVP!

As always, we are listening to our customer's feedback. Server migrations in the past have been frowned upon as a sign of failure or defeat. We know that players want massive war, so that's what we wanted to provide regardless of any pre-conceived notions.

 IDK, something like that anyway.

Admit error and correct the problem?  Are you fucking insane?

Resolved: There will be no server mergers until it doesn't matter.

Leave that server. What's keeping you there? I'm currently on my 3rd server, due to just population problems.

I've really given Mythic 3x more attention than I should have.

I have a level 21 guy and a level 14 guy on Hochland. Mothballed.

I have a level 32 guy and a level 15 guy on Praag. Mothballed.

Now I've got two tier 1 guys on Dark Crag. Active.

It's fucking stupid that I have to do this but the only way this stupid fucking game works is when you have lots of people.

You're 100% wrong. If you're gonna spin it, you need to spin it as if the dev team made a mistake and that the players were right. This is all about the players. And the dev team DID make a mistake. They need to take the high road, admit fully that they didn't make the server tech awesome enough and that they are introducing ways to increase the possible amount of War in their Warhammer. Open up some totally new, better servers (surely they don't have the best shit available and surely getting shit that would support 7500-10k players at once costs less than running 2-3 empty servers with people quitting), and dump 2-3 servers onto these new ones. Sure, dump ones that would about equal out in server pops, but do it nonetheless.

This combined with massive exp gains and decreases in level requirements for 1-40 will go an incredible way toward player retention. Also, I think it IS about time someone snapped their fingers and reitemized the game. :oh_i_see:


You're right. They should just blame the players or Blizzard. That'll help.


Everyone here understands that that is the likely result - unfortunately, it's bullshit and Mark fucking knows it.

I forgot the green text.

Yeah, they should admit they fucked up, spin it, and  do some server merging while announcing all kinds of other improvements.

What's sad is that we're all cynical enough to be in agreement that they won't.

Battin' .500 baby!

For the record, I do think your spin is better.

All this talk about spinning got me in the mood to visit meatspin.

In thirty-five threads all saying the same things over and over again. We should probably start another in the hopes that they see it.

For what it's worth, Tier3 ORvR was hopping last night on Red Eye Mountain.

I still don't know why this chafes your hide so much.  We've been rehashing pretty much the same old MMO mechanics issues for years.  That hasn't really changed anything either. 

Think of it as a nice distraction from work. 

crap.. I knew I was supposed to be doing something today

Somehow, I doubt we'll be seeing server mergers within the next three months.

This is why I said they should increase the amount of EXP for taking a keep. I understand they can't do sweeping changes or even do something like adding defense bonuses with out a decent amount of work. But I think it Phase 1 of the exp enhancements they added EXP to keep captures. Remember the stupid down scaling exp bonus? The worthless one? I believe it was figured out to be 2-3k for a keep capture in t3 at level 25. Scaling down to 1.2k exp at level 31. First, the downscaling is stupid. The increased amount of EXP needed is already a downscale.

An immediate bandaid fix would be to pump this to 25-30k exp and at least that would get people out there trying to capture keeps a lot more.

Its probably only because I'm playing the game and until a few weeks ago, this was a fairly good place to see the aggregation of useful tidbits from around the net which related to it. Now there's a group of people who are saying the same thing so frequently that the incursions of blithering idiots from WHA are actually a refreshing break from the monotony. Its like watching WUA post about how wonderful UO is under 20 different pen names.

Yes and no, it would certainly introduce new and exciting exploits. To relate to what I know, as a web developer whenever I develop a web app I always think, "How could I possibly exploit this?" Think like the enemy, that kind of thing.

By simply implementing a massive XP reward for taking a Keep, defending a Keep becomes even less worthwhile. A quick exploit would be to simply work out a deal between a guild on the opposite side to switch back Keeps back and fourth.

Secondly, you enter a numbers problem. 25-30k per each person? If so, what constitutes participation? Being in the area? Perhaps getting on the threat list of the Keep Lord? What happens if you were downstairs defending against incoming players, do you not get credit? If you do get credit for just "being in the area", could you not simply stand around and do nothing and reap tremendous rewards?

If it's 25-30k spread amongst everyone, wouldn't people begin to dislike it when "other" people beyond their capable Warband decide to join the fun? Doesn't that suddenly reward smaller scale encounters as opposed to larger scale ones?

And finally, if you attempt to balance the "only offensive action begets XP rewards" situation with defenders getting XP as well, what defines when something is successfully "defended"? Does everyone have to leave the area? For how long? What happens if you defend against 5 people as opposed to 25 people? How do the rewards scale? What happens if the offensive Warband is just regrouping? How do you judge when they're really "finished" attacking?

Obviously there are solutions to these problems, I can think of many, however doing a quick fix like you suggested would introduce more problems than it would solve. This is why I wish Mythic would create a blog a la teamfortress.com to display what they are working on and what considerations they need to take into account. I think it would build respect at a critical time.

How about a bucket XP, that gets dumped on the winning side, its filled by activities relating to keep taking.

That's potentially a great solution, but of course it requires design, programming, art and testing. The problem isn't really a lack of solutions to the current problems, its a lack of communication regarding what solutions they're looking into / developing right now to keep player's from bailing.

How many players would identify this as too much timed risked without the guarantee of reward?

I think that if I'm in a keep defense or keep take I should see XP regularly given to me based on how long I've been involved and how many attackers / defenders there are.  If I'm just standing there not doing anything I get nothing, bit if I'm healing or attacking guards, or running siege equipment then every 15 minutes I get a gob of XP based on my contribution to the, um, stuff.

Let me expand on this.

The other night my son and I showed up at fangIcanneverrememberthetier2keep name, we had an open group, and we started taking out the guards that we could.  We should have received a small amount of participation XP for this.  A few minutes into it we gained a few more, fought along for 20 minutes, got a ram on the door.  We should have been receiving even more participation XP.  After an hour we had expanded to a warband and it was full.  Lots of participation XP should have been rewarded.

That sounds like fun and an easy way to gain XP while doing realm activities.

Just treat it like television.  I do.  If I don't see something worth my time, I flip the channel or just leave completely. 

Trust me Righ, I want WAR to do well.  I think that my desire for their success is what is leaving me so dejected.  It's also what has me blathering like an idiot about the game for the last few months.  I take the number of similar threads as a sign that others feel the same passion for WAR.  Sadly, the influx of new folks didn't help the fragmentation issue.   

Um, I think the problem is a lack of solutions. Yes, they need better communication, but they need to fix the critical problems first and foremost. Server populations, population balance, XP reward rate, carrots for alternate scenarios to be used, client stability and performance, ORvR participation, zone control mechanisms and their transparency. Even the people who are enjoying the game think these things need fixing ASAP. Sure, it would be nice if they made a blog, but all the nice prose and goodwill in the world won't help if the game is still in this state in a few weeks time.

I'm willing to bet that the next complaint thread won't be about the lack of a developer blog.


300 channels and nothing's on. ;)

Generally I've never felt the need to post here but I almost have to respond to this.  I can't imagine that you truly believe what you wrote.  Granted, we are all infinitely smarter than every game developer and clearly know all we need to know about their design decisions... but do you truly think the issue is a lack of solutions?  A brief canvassing of any 5 threads here will provide you with a plethora of solutions.  Not all of them are viable or even tenable, but they certainly exist.  Not to mention we already know MBJ reads them.

No, I don't think you really believe that Mark and his cohorts are sitting in a conference room staring moronically into each other's eyes as they just muttter "duuuuuuuuhhhh" over and over.  The real issue is communication.  We know that the 100% lake bonus doesn't really do much to address the issue.  One has to assume that the developers are aware of this as well.  A brief reading of Mark's recent comments indicate he is likely aware of this.  It was a brief bandaid put on because it could be.  No, what you are really bemoaning is that we aren't provided with a webcast into the developer conference room so we know what they are discussing, how long it may take and why they are going with a certain approach.

This applies as much to the scenario issue as it does to the realm population issue.  In the end not many of us would be completely satisfied unless we were privy to what leads up to the decision, but I think what most people here would like at this point is a preview into what their plans are to address each issue (other than the obvious xp bosst).  That way we have more to bitch and wrangle about while we put off the work we should be doing instead :)

Ideas are easy.  Implementation is hard. 

I think that covers it.

Dividing XP required to level by 2.5 should be pretty easy to implement.

100% experience - GREAT! Oh wait, it's only experience gained from killing other players.

Taz and I participated in some keep-taking the other night. With a warband, we took 2 keeps (3 keeps?) and tried another keep, as well as taking most of the BO's around those keeps. In all that time (about an hour), we fought maybe 5 players, most of them solo lookie-loos. It wasn't until we tried to take the keep in Talabecland that we saw any significant amount of player resistance at all. So how is that exp. boost supposed to help?

Right it isn't. It's a really token attempt. It could have been 400% and it still wouldn't be that helpful. Objective-taking has got to get a serious boost. Or there needs to be a mechanic that allows a warband to declare an open field battle - plant a banner in the middle of a warzone and have the other side get a message generated that says "Open Battle Started - Click here to go to nearest warcamp." There really needs to be a lot of "Click here to go to nearest warcamp" mechanics put in the game.

Nicely done Nebu, in six words you matched new guy's essay :)

6 sentences and 2 bullet points counts as an essay these days?

Shit, I wish I was in school today rather than a decade ago.

You're not responding to it. You're missing the point. When I talk of solutions, I don't mean ideas - I mean actual fixes.


No, its the state of the game at the point that somebody decides to leave. Communicate all you like about what you intend to do, but until the game pleases people most are not going to stay. So you need the solution, not just in the form of ideas in f13 threads or even developer blogs, but in the form of applied patches to the current game.

I don't care what they decide to do in the 'developer conference room'. You've mistaken me for somebody else. I only care about the results. If I wanted magical promises I'd go find out what David Bowman was up to.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/David_Bowman.jpg)

See the :) Anyway, your numbers are fucked.

For the record, Bit, you are one of the new essay guys that make good points. :P
Had my ten year last year.  Fuck, that means I have been playing MMOs for about 12 years now.

Don't you think that knowing what was coming down the pipeline, particularly as it applied to specific concerns about game direction would be likely to affect someone's decision to leave?

You want an essay, I'll give you an essay... but you have to promise to write me a book report on it :P

Probably not as much as the current state of the game would, and one could argue that it might cost them some subscribers. After all, if Mark Jacobs were to post on some fabulous developer blog that they intended to address all my concerns but that it wouldn't happen until February, I would probably leave and come back in February. If on the other hand the bulk of my concerns are addressed in the short term by way of actually being fixed, I wouldn't really care what they posted on their blog. I'd be too busy playing their game in my spare time.

So we've moved on from English class to Math now, eh? ;)

But thanks, I try to keep it short and sweet as possible, but sometimes next to me Joe Biden sounds brief.

I think:

1) They should have a trickle of experience to everyone in the zone-pair based upon how many POI in the warzone a side currently controls.  Gonna be in this zone awhile?  Probably a good idea to try to hold a keep and some points of interest.
1.1) They should periodically have barkers in the town make clear just how much exp the other side is gaining based upon our side not holding a majority of the POIs in the warzone.  The barkers should be insulting.

2) POI should accumlate experience and renown based upon how long they are in enemy hands.  POI should also increase their exp trickle (see 1) based upon how long they are occupied.
2.1) it should be clear from the map what a keep or other POI is currently worth.

3) POI should give a mini-renown-gasm periodically based upon being held a certain amount of time.  A renown-gasm is the zone-pair-wide burst of renown that comes from taking control of a whole zone.

4) that the stuff you craft should have an increased chance to craft better stuff if you craft in keeps, and there should be vendors in keeps to allow crafting.  Make the crafttards be our first line of defense.

5) Someone previously suggested getting intel on attacking force size from the game. I disagree in that it makes feints impossible.  Make the keeps worth keeping and players will provide their own intel.

1. Move the repeatable scenario quest givers to the inside of the keeps.  This way if people want that nice little bonus while power-scen-leveling they'll have to at least go into an rvr area to get it.

2. Increase leveling speed by at least 2x.  In closed the leveling was just about spot on (read quick) and just before the guild beta guys arrived they slowed it way down.  Needs to be reverted.

3. Get all of the forums ready for people bitching about how their machine runs at 3fps when trying to take a keep.

I like #1.

That's certainly a fair point.  At the same time, I think you have to concede that the average poster on THESE forums may not, in fact, be the average player of WAR.  Granted I don't think the average WAR player is as non MMORPG-savy as WoW (many of whom I expect have only played WoW), but still I think the point really is, much like DAoC when it came out, this is not a finished product.  I think it has become clear that whatever fixes they are planning on overall, they won't be short term roll outs.  Whether they are medium or long term (and what medium or long means in terms of months) I have no clue.  But, I'm guessing to the majority of complainants, if a dev blog rolled out and said we have XYZ fantastic fixes coming in the next 1 to 3 months, the duration of time depending on the specific fix... you'd probably see a lot more people saying "oh okay, I will be 40 right around then, thanks".

Just a guess.

Mark has been posting that sort of thing on the WAR Herald though hasn't he? They're just not necessarily all the 'hot button' issues or being addresses in the same order that the 'atypical players' here consider to be the highest priority.

In December we're getting the two tank classes that were removed during beta. In the next major version (1.1) we were promised improved performance, fewer crashes, a fabulous mail system, better drops, an RvR influence grind, a fabulous chat system, better RvR rewards, a server transfer system, more fabulous PvE quests (yay, PvE), a balance pass on character classes and other stuff.

I don't necessarily think that more frequent promises, better written promises or the ability to comment on the promises on their site will drive the barbarians from the gate. But it would certainly be nice for f13 readers and moderators if they were to implement their own forums.

Heh point taken.