f13.net

Before anyone else does, I figured I'd link to the official press release that brags about their release day success.

Press Release Peen-Waving (http://www.blizzard.com/press/042427.shtml)

The tasty bits:



So 200k accounts, an estimated but unofficial 250k boxes sold, and over 100k concurrent (and screaming in the queue) users on opening day. Of course, this is all a bit premature, considering the server, database and latency problems they've been having. Hopefully they'll release some numbers in the middle of December that will either show they retained a lot of users or lost a lot. We'll see.

My guess is a 60-70% retention on those accounts that are registered. The game is solid enough to provide more fun than just one month of play, and the promise of better things to come is alluring. Also, the playerbase I've encountered already seems very hooked on the system. After the crippling lag was sorted out, bitching is at a bare minimum.

The game, so far, seems to have the popular (masses) appeal and 'solid' gameplay systems that will theoretically allow it to succeed Everquest as the king of the MMORPG's. It plays like an evolution to the Everquest system that should have come about years and years ago.  But we didn't get that until now, thus stagnating any attempt at the new generation of MMORPG's we should have been getting now, .. ?

So far my favorite feature is the automatic rolling system on loot. That is brilliant. Way to pay attention to the playerbase. My biggest problem is UI. Chat needs work, and tabs would go a long way to helping that, ala DAOC. Those two things alone should prove how solid all-around the game really is.

This is high praise, coming from Haemish.

But all jokes aside, it's possible Blizzard finally figured out what's fun about these games and managed to limit what's not fun.  It seems simple in retrospect but in fact it is quite HARD.

As an ironic side note, WoW has arguably more a more fleshed out quest system than its closest competitor whose name includes the word "Quest" (!)

Try Cosmos or Gypsy for UI enhancement. Cosmos has a lot of cool stuff, but is a bit over the top in some places (took me an hour just to get all setup).

The chat window does have tabs, btw. They are normally hidden, but if you hover/click into the chat window they should show up. You can make more and assign different channels to them. I'm pretty sure you could do this without Cosmos, but I just started playing with them so I could be wrong.

I, too, am interested in seeing how well WoW does in the next month or so. With approx 250k sold the first day, I bet at least another 250k get sold by Christmas. Even if you use 75% retention rate, that's 375k users in 1 month. Of course, once the numbers start going down we won't be getting anymore press releases.

Replace "these games" with Everquest and I agree with you.

Hmmm....having the felt the pain of Lineage 2, they deserve to have this happen to them...(them being NCSoft, not Korea)

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200411/kt2004112918290011810.htm

I'm surprised.  I haven't heard a word about this game from my students, and they're always trying to get me to buy new computer games (even though I don't game much anymore).

(and we have another poster in Korea? oowaa, as they say)

Edit: Nevermind.  I bet they just play it in the PC bangs, no need to actually buy it themselves.

Koreans like Blizzard games. SHOCKING!

Gamespot gives WoW a rating of 9.5. (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/review.html?q=1&tag=gs_hp_flashtop_story) That's the highest rating they have given any PC game this year.

The fact that WoW is ranked higher than Rome:TW is not only shocking, it's just flat out wrong. Gamespot, you lick balls for a living. I hope sleeping on big piles of cash doesn't hurt your integrity too much.

I'm sure their integrity never entered into the equation.

I don't like Rome: TW. I like WoW a little when I'm playing with other people. Neh.

Like or hate Rome:TW, you have to recognize it for it's greatness not only within the genre it represents, but for the innovative aspects that it brings to the table to succeed. WoW is a fun game, but not a better game.

See, to me, fun = great.  There's no difference.   That's the only point of a game.

I also found R:tW not so fun early on, when I got tired of micromanaging my empire and started missing the chesslike mapstyle of Medieval.  

And WoW is fun.  I have not yet gotten tired of questing for teh win.

I agree with Sidereal. It's a great game because it's fun.

Doom 3 is not a great game, because it's not that fun. Yes, it's cool technologically, but it's not that fun.

Half-life 2 is a great game because it's fun. AND because it's technologically cool.

Pretty tech demo's are not "fun" nor "great" when speaking about games.

I wasn't impressed with the first Total War game.

We'll see how much fun people are having in WoW in a couple of months.

If you think those numbers are impressive, the quote you have there is a week old.   They've more than doubled the numbers of servers they had brought up since release.   If I look at it as them accomidating their release day players in addition to post-release day sales, I'd be surprised if they have anything less than 300k active accounts.

I was thinking the same thing (although late january might be a better date to check).  There's natural population falloff just from post-release hype dying down.   They'll probably have to condence a few servers eventually.


Ah, now the ball's in Geldonyetich's corner.   Fun is Good; Even a requirement for a game worth playing.  However, a MMORPG needs to be more than just fun.  Otherwise, why would you bother paying a subscription for the same fun you can get from a game without a subscription?    The other element a MMORPG needs is a compelling purpose to play.   Once the compelling purpose to play is exhausted, you'll cancel your subscription post haste.  

Come to think of it, I guess all I'm really saying here is a MMORPG is just a game with a long term play goal tacked on.   From the developer's end, the desire to get players to play the game for an extended period of time that makes a compelling purpose really neccessary.    From the player's end, it's this long term purpose that makes a MMORPG worth a subscription.

Personally, I'm really enjoying WoW even though I could barely bring myself to play the game in Beta.   (I think I just didn't want to ruin it for myself later.)  I've yet to exhaust a compelling purpose to play it, and considering I'm burned out from leveling mechanics alone, that's a good thing.   However, will this be true a week from now?   Is it possible I'll encounter something unforgivable that causes me to immediately unsubscribe?   I'm not elimating that possibility.

Just read the gamespot review. It is...quite rosey. Heh. I love WoW but even I might not give it a 9.5. Then again, I'm playing at least 4 hours a day since retail and more when I can get away with it so maybe I would give it that kind of rating.

God I can't wait to get off work to log back in.

You cannot review a MMOG after 1 week. I don't care how much beta you play. Every whoresite does this right after release, sometimes the day of release. I am getting very sick of it.

My only current worry about WoW is that each server has people that are in their low 40s. It blows my mind. The closest thing I Can think of is those people powerleveling COH. I just don't understand why you'd bother. My guess is they'll hit 60 by the end of the week and the grief will start.

There's no need to powerlevel in WoW. The treadmill is so short that I'll have 5 characters maxed within a year. With Epic Gear.

Though I'm hearing this third hand, from what I understand of the matter, the power levelers are mostly beta testers who took notes on which quests are relatively compatible so they can combine their efforts to finish multiple quests simultaniously with minimal travel time.    Of course, good ol' fashioned staying online 24/7 (often tag-teaming) helps achieve uber-catassterfied characters in no time as well.

I'm with Schild on this one when I say it's better to stop and smell the roses unless you want to be one of those poor punks who hit level 50 on the first week of City of Heroes and realized they exhausted all the content without enjoying it.

As for potential grief play after they've maxxed out... possibly, but from what I understand about the PVP system, ganking earns you 'dishonor points'.   If they're leveling up to 60 just so they can grief without fear of retaliation, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot because the dishonor points would rack up big time.  (Though I haven't read far enough ahead to see what, if any, penaties are associated with dishonor points.)

Hmm, it might actually be worth having more than one chaacter in this game, seeing how they've diversified the playstyles across the different classes.   I'm going to try to stick to one character a time, though.   Warlock is a pretty good choice for the hardcore looking for the complex.

There was ganking on day one with, for example, Tauren Druids having a tough time doing their bear form quest with all the Night Elf Druids camping the quest giver zone (which in the storyline has a truce going) on some servers.

As for the Honor system, they either have not implemented it yet for PvP combat or are not going to have it at all if you believe this post:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=124300&p=1&tmp=1#post124336

That reply is from a Community Manager, though, and not a developer and it contradicts the Upcoming PvP changes page so I don't know if I believe that.

Because statloss did wonders for reducing pks in UO. Oh wait.

Putting in punishment for grief killing does nothing but change the situation from "pissed off victims" to "pissed of victims and pissed off victimizers". Good for karma, shitty for victims.

I plan on staying as far away from WoW pvp as possible, until I'm max level, in uber gear, and in a strong pvp guild. You know, even playing field. So...never.

Now the word is 240,000 copies sold on Day 1. (http://www.blizzard.com/press/041201.shtml)

I think this is the part where Blizzard trolls scream "YEAH WEL BRITNEY SPEERS IS POPULAR TOO AND SHE SUX LOL" or something.

Agreed. I play a Tauren Druid on Earthen Ring (level 10) but my main character is a Human Rogue on Icecrown (level 16). If one of the servers is having problems or my group of friends for that server aren't around, I play the other character.

Eventually I'd like to try out every class to at least the mid 20's, just to see what they are like.



How were they doing this? I don't see any immediate way to prevent someone from completing the first part of the quest (talk to bear spirit).



I'm interested to see how Battlefields will turn out. If they suck, well, I'll be playing Guild Wars anyways.

Also from the press release:



I have yet to find the footnote the * is suppose to be for.

No doubt. I fail to understand the "race to the end" mentality some people bring to these games. I've got three characters going, so I'm certainly not going to be max level with any of them anytime soon. So far I couldn't be happier with the game, it is, in fact, my own personal robot jesus. Will I feel that way in six months? Who cares, I'm having great fun now, and that's all that matters.

BEHOLD YOUR GODS http://www.maxmeout.com


If I could spare a week of vacation to play hardcore at the release of a good game, it would be fun to be at the bleeding edge for a little.  There's just something compelling about being one of the first people in a new area, like the guy who gets to crunch across the fresh-fallen snow first.  I like pellets.

However, I am way too old for that shit now.

It's during the part where you have to travel to Moonglade to advance the quest. Hence these sorts of threads on the forums:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=63&p=1&tmp=1#post63
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=3153&p=1&tmp=1#post3153
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=1211&p=1&tmp=1#post1211
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-druid&t=986&p=1&tmp=1#post986
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-pvp&t=3262&p=1&tmp=1#post3262

The funny thing is that the main quest guy there (Moonstar Sunstarmoon, I believe his name was) basically says 'no funny business.  this is a peaceful land' when you first get there, which I assumed to mean the NPCs would use the Kill All Combatants rule that's up in Ratchet.  Hard to imagine Mr. Peaceful Land and his NPCs standing there dumbly and watching while noobs get slaughtered.

Night elves are all LIARS.

KOS if you ask me.

2 things:

Number one: "Gank of America" is a funny name for a guild. (They're on the Blackrock PvP server, from El Gallo's link above.)



Number two: OK, please forgive me for my pop culture ignorance, but I've seen this "second coming of robot jesus" phrase used repeatedly here, and I do not know where it comes from. Can anyone enlighten me?

Just had a friend do the lvl 10 Druid quest. He had someone TRY to gank him, but apparently nothing happened. The NE just stood there with it's weapons out.

So maybe it's fixed? /shrug

Saw this over on Thottbot (can't find the original post):

http://news.thottbot.com/?authors=-117&sidebars=Bliz&threads=493548

It's still not from a developer but it does look like they are not going to have dishonorable PvP kills. In other words they aren't even going to try and prevent ganking and corpse camping.

... until mass cancellations and whining cause them to actually think about the issue.

I'm enjoying the game. But I cannot help being absolutely certain the game was released 3 months (6 months with Blizzard development time frames) too early.

That is like saying the weather will change or that a MMORG launch will have issues.  True, but none the less will happen regardless...

How do you guys enjoy anything? Do you complain that your ice cream is too cold? Do you cry havok and brandish knives when you eat too much cake?

Err, wow.  

No penalties for killing a lower-level PC, in a game where the quest and mob distribution clearly leads characters along a pre-determined path.  So the 50-60 crowd will know just where to go if they want to harass a level 20.  

I'm getting Mordred flashbacks.  Two friends and I started there and had a blast from 1 - 20.  Then our need for level-appropriate content took us to southern Albion and straight into the maw of bored 50s.  After a single night of being completely unable to advance or retaliate, we actually headed all the way to Gaheris.

Problem here is that it seems like at least 1/3rd of the WoW servers are PvP.  Thats going to be a lot of POed walking credit cards.

I am not a PvP peen-waver. DAoC PVP bored me to tears. I played the PvE server in WoW beta. I'm an achiever/socializer, and this game feeds me what I need.

However, all my real-life friends wanted to play the PvP server. So, I decided to clear my head of all prejudices, and give it a shot.

So far I'm having a blast ... for the very reason I'm playing with my best friends. However, my shaman is now level 18, and the honeymoon will soon be very much over. Questing in contested lands is imminent, but I am determined to go into it with an open mind. Maybe (hopefully) it won't be as bad as I imagine it. Maybe with the support of my friends, we can fend off or avoid the gankers.

I am choosing not to let myself become a victim of the retards. I will find ways to get around them, or defeat them at their own game. Will it work?

We shall see.

Somehow this boy slipped through the f13 doors without a proper hazing.  

Who's responsible?  Schild?  If you're too busy with work, you should delegate this before any more agreeable people wander in by mistake.

There's no such thing as too much cake. Therefore I disagree with your examples.

People who sign on for the prison servers have no right to complain when they get bent over the radiator.  I presume they will eventually let you transfer your characters for a fee if you want to escape anyway.  They are right that any system they might devise would either have the crap abused out of it or be no more than a coveted badge for griefers to achieve.  I am just glad they have those places to keep the undesirables out of my neighborhood.

Oops sorry.

What I really meant was: 0wn3rz j00! n3wb!

WoW had the longest beta I have ever been involved with. I was in phase 2 and started in march. I mean, how much longer can a beta go? Eventually they have to ship the damn thing.

Now EQ2 and its "Beta" is another story. They spent what, a whole 2 or 3 months in beta?

Don't be stupid. They were in beta in Jan-Feb.

EQ2 was? Everything I ever read said "Beta starting this summer". I followed it sort of half heartedly.

It can and should go as long as it needs to in order to ensure features aren't dropped, left half-ass implemented or the game isn't rife with bugs. I've had more bugs come up in WoW than I did in EQ2's beta, or in CoH's release. I have PERSONALLY had those bugs; I'm not claiming any game has been less or more bug-free. In my experience, CoH was the most bug-free and problem-free, moreso than WoW. It was obvious with the number of promised features that got cut, and with the number of problems WoW had with capacity that beta did not go on long enough. EQ2's beta wasn't long enough because the gameplay had serious design flaws that had less to do with bugs and more to do with "We thought this would be fun in the design stage, but the way we implemented it needs LOTS of work."

In the end, they both said their products were "good enough" and shipped them. To the MMOG market, not exploding your computer is obviously "good enough." I am guilty in this as well, because I bought on release day with the rest of the lemmings.

But at least the game is fun, which EQ2 just wasn't.

Haemish,

I'm curious, would you post what bugs you've encountered? Personally, I could only name a couple of bugs I've run up against. I'm wondering if I'm just so use to seeing bugs in these types of games that I subconsciously ignore them.

Off the top of my head, the issues I remember seeing almost all had to do with network/server lag (loot lag, mail lag, auction house lag) - I can't really think of anything that has it's functionality is broken.

Only 2 bugs I know of - one of which I experienced firsthand:

* On Echo Isles, attempting herbalism collection on the middle island results in your toon getting stuck in the crouch position trying to loot herb. He can still fight and cast and such but default graphical position reverts to stooping down without the herb loot.

* Stables are still bugged for some folks affecting hunters and their pets.

Only bug I've encountered is probably connection related: corpses can shift across the map after death making it impossible to loot.

I'm more generally an achiever/explorer type. For my PvP buck, though, Guild Wars gets my vote. It is designed from the ground up for PvP, with some pretty cool PvE content as well.

As much as I loved DAOC in its day, the 8v8 PvP in GW is a blast, whereas in DAOC it was heartbreaking for me to reach 50 only to find I had a whole new treadmill to start before becoming 'effective' (realm points/skills -- as well as ToA). At least in GW, its my choice of skills and how to use them that affects the outcome much more than my class or gear.

Actually, if you count the AO patch that forced some people to reinstall Windows, then exploding your computer is actually on the "good enough" side.

But I've only seen a few bugs.  Once or twice I had to relog to get my corpse to show up on the mini-map and/or trigger a res when I got close enough.  And a few times the game has crashed to desktop, but that's rare.  Much better than, say, sb.exe,  even months after its launch.

The bugs I've experienced in WoW, some of which are KNOWN ISSUES and have been for while:

1) Multiple instances of the herbalism collection bug, whereby I'm stuck in the posittion of collecting an herb until I logout... at which point I lose the herb I was collecting in the first place
2) Mini-map icon for corpse disappearing
3) Numerous lockups which may or may not be related to my sound card (haven't nailed this down yet)
4) Queues and loot lag which should have been knocked out by 2 stress tests and an open beta
5) Falling through the world and dying

Again, these are just my personal experiences. #3 may not be WoW's fault. #4 cannot be ignored or excused; they knew how many copies they pressed, and they only had the bandwidth/server capacity in use to accomodate HALF of that based on their doubling the number of servers the day after launch. #1 has been a known bug for a long time. #2 is fairly minor.

My point is that I saw zero bugs in my release month of CoH. Hell, I don't remember having seen anymore than "I can't find that mission entrance in Perez Park." Ever. I'm not saying it didn't have bugs, but it had less, in my personal experience, than did WoW, and had none of the release day bullshit. I saw less bugs in EQ2 than that. However, EQ2's problems are more from the design of the game than the execution, IMO. It just wasn't fun.

Note, I'm playing the fun yet slightly buggy one. Which I guess is about as good as we can hope the entire MMOG player base does. Go for fun, excuse a few smaller bugs, and hammer the unfun or Shadowbane-buggy ones.

Interesting, I haven't experienced any of those except loot lag and queues, and that was only on the first day.

Granted, I don't die much nor have I done any herbalism. I did have one crash to desktop that involved sending items in the mail and cancelling and dancing around on one foot but it hasn't happened to me since.

But! I'm glad you are having fun, despite these. I'd leave in a heartbeat if I wasn't enjoying myself when I played.

I think CoH was an exceptional release and I hope NCSoft's newer games are as well polished and (hopefully) continue to set the bar for good releases (and good games!).

A cow collecting herbs is just asking for trouble. You bring it on yourself, sir.


That one is funny as long as it doesn't happen to me or it doesn't happen to you while I'm waiting for your help with a quest.


My opinion of WoW is that it's "good enough". It does everything well to a certain degree whereas other games do some things GREAT and other things CRAPPY. Right now I'll take overall DECENT and for me I guess that's WoW. I play the game too much and I'm afraid I will turn into HRose.

I need an intervention.

I had the corpse disappearance and inability to rez myself in the first two days and all throughout the open beta. As of last night, I've yet to see it again since last Friday.

I had the loot lag/queues problem the first day (not even the queues as I just went to a queue-less server) but haven't come across any of the other bugs during release.

I'm an EXTREMLY casual player however, as I expect some of these bugs appear the more you're online.

However, a cow collecting pr0n is serving the best interests of man.

Problem with that is that there aren't enough guards in Moonglade to keep the peace. If you're out in the lake to get the first part of your sea cow quest, you're pretty much fucked if someone decides to kill you, for example.

I get the bendy disease picking herbs all the time, now.  The only other bug has been tool tip info disappearing and I think that's cosmos related.

I don't know how I survived without Cosmos' quick loot feature and tackle box.  Life has never been so good.

I told you Cosmos was better than that Gypsy one.

You were right.   I don't know why I don't listen to you more!  You are very nearly always right!  How perfectly annoying of you! ;p

Btw, you can shift-right click on a corpse to auto-loot everything in it. Works a lot better than the silly Cosmo "quick loot".

Why should there ever be penalties for pvping someone on a pvp server? come on people, there are plenty of servers out there not marked for pvp those that don't want to be killed can play on, they will still have duels and battlegrounds if they ever want to get a little pvp fix in.  Here is a good reason why i would kill a level 1 with my level 60, because they are horde scum and its a FUCKING WAR.

Thanks, Viin!  I didn't know that.  I seem to have lost my way with mmogs, lately.  I mostly wander around confused these days.

Use that same method to mine or pick herbs, etc.

More tips:
More info: hitting the "V" key will bring up names and health bars above all NPCs and mobs.
Bag management: shift-B opens up all bags for easy access.
Taking screenshots: alt-Z toggles on/off the UI to make them look nice.
Managing stacks: shift-left click on a stack, enter the number, click on an open spot in your bag.

Taking screenshots: alt-Z switches off the UI to make them look nice.  alt-Z then also brings back your UI.

Because some fights aren't actually fights but the MMOG equivalent of kicking a crippled baby to take its candy?

Just a thought.

Hmm - well glad I found out before all four of my chars got over L11.  Time to start over again on the RP server.  I *like* PvP but I still want the option to solo quests w/o having to relive UO Miner 1998.

Shadowbane made me a bad person, I think. I just can't get worked up about these kind of things. Believe me though, enough players will be killing without impunity that Blizzard will eventually have to do something about it. Right or wrong, I don't know, but it's definitely not good business.

Its taken me awhile to realize why pvp in MMOs is caught between a rock and a hard place.  WoW and SB nicely sum up the two extremes-

1.  SB- PvP has meaningful consequences.

2.  WoW- PvP has no consequences.


If you go route #1, you make PvP "meaningful through one or a bunch of features like exp loss/gain, item loot, being able to destroy cities, etc.  But when people lose when there is meaningful PvP, they feel sad and angry.  Less and less people therefore PvP.

If you go route #2, you circumvent the problems of #1, but after a perhaps slightly longer period of time people also see the shallowness of pointless deathmatching.  I was besieging the northern Astranaar bridge with a bunch of other Horde the other day against opponents roughly our level.  Just like when I when I play BF1942 or Wolfenstein: ET, it was fun for an hour or so to fight people that were back in the fray 20 seconds later.  The thought then presented itself:  if I want a deathmatch, why shouldn't I play BF 1942 where I don't have to spend 100 hours leveling up my character to be viable and then have to spend hours searching for people to pvp?


So in essence, we need meaningful pvp that nonetheless has no consequences.  And I want a flying pony that can take me to Disneyland on a rainbow highway.

PvP needs some consequences, just not horrible ones.  I heard the idea tossed around that once you are killed x number of time in x amount of minutes in a contested zone that you get kicked out to a friendly graveyard.  I think thats a decent idea, allowing a group to get their shit together and kick people out of their area for a little while.  Not huge, but enough to make it worthwhile to actually try to PvP.

Copy pasting from my thoughts on this from corpnews:

I think they really need some sort of penalty to PvP death. I have killed people repeatedly who are trying to gank me while PvE'ing, and they just keep coming back. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. If you die to them, obviously they will still be there. If you kill them, they will be back in 3 minutes to gank you right after you pull.

I don't mind having to leave an area due to repeated deaths. It would definitely be worth it to be able to do the same to an enemy. If I really really want to PvE in an area, I should be able to scare the opposition away from coming back somehow, but there's just nothing scary about PvP whatsoever. Thats great from a competetive 5v5 situation, but bad for the PvE/PvP relationship.

...since death is entirely meaningless, its quite boring.

If someone doesn't want me to PvE in an area, I'll have to leave. There's no threat about "fighting" or death. The actual fighting itself is moot, and thats what is bothering me. For being a PvP server, the PvP means jack shit.

I love PvP, and I like having to stay on my toes. But after having one person kill me 5-6 times (and me kill him 10 times), it just gets old. Yeah I realize, I can just leave, but my whole point is I wish that forcing people out of a contested area that want to level had more to do with killing them and less to do with simply being present in that area.  That way I could actually fight back and have it matter.

Personally, I don't know why they took out the 10% durability loss from PvP deaths.  After a certain number of deaths, you have to find a friendly smith to repair your equipment, or else your useless.  And don't tell me that mages w/out equipment still rock, because I've killed my share of silly gnomes that had equipment, and they're not that bad.

The level difference seems to make a fairly large difference when it's 8+.      Red cons are still very very hard to kill solo, but that's why you announce it over /LocalDefense and get a few people to help.  If the higher levels lost durability per death and had to technically pay 8s each death, they would think twice about attacking that group of lowbies to kill their priest.

Mr. Language Nazi says: "You mean with impunity"



That's basically the terrain these days, and the problems are as you've described them, but I don't think people are thinking outside the box enough.    "Pointless deathmatching" basically describes 99% of all online gaming, so that's pretty popular.  GW is more or less going this route and it looks promising.  The problem in MMORPG is that PvE is a certain style of play with certain expected mechanics, and PvP should be a completely other style of play with different risks and rewards.  But PvP is often implemented as "PvE against other people".  That just doesn't work.  The incentives are all different.

(http://img25.exs.cx/img25/4149/p5jmeatmen1.jpg)

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

I get the feeling that you think that is somehow a bad thing? right now you don't even get the candy, you kick the crippled baby because he just happens to be there.  Remember this is consentual pvp, the moment you chose that (pvp) server you pretty much agreed to put your crippled baby ass right in the way of my boot.

You're defending the reality of the situation on a site of gamers that are pissed off at the status quo. I think you might want to reconsider the argument that we will gladly defend or incentivize the rights of @zzr@p3rs to kick babies because they can. Most of us realize that's not the intention of PvP, it's rather a horrible side effect of a ridiculously built system. We can pretty much agree that its that EXACT behavior that keeps people out of the system.

What Paelos said. People, despite what Abashi might think, DO NOT PAY TO BE VICTIMS. End of story. Whether they choose to be a victim or not, most, the majority of people who pay for a game won't pay to be a victim for long.

PVP is not supposed to be about victimization, it's supposed to be about competiton. And unfortunately, unless you de-incentivize killing the crippled baby (whether he gives juicy candy or not), or make sure no one is a crippled baby (for long), this kind of PVP won't be a mass market deal for long. The people who want competition will get tired of the catass cockmunches like those on Arhicmonde and move to another server, move to a regular server where they can choose to be a victim or not, or they will quit, taking their money out of the system.

As for SB having consequences, it does until either one group takes over the server and makes PVP into a deathmatch/capture the flag, or there are no controls and the losers quit, the winners get bored and quit and server populations are lower than Paris Hilton's knees on a Saturday night.

WoW's one big problem with item durability is that NOTHING REALLY WEARS OUT. There is no permanent durability loss, so dying and having to repair is only a gold sink. You'll never lose the item permanently that I know of. That creates the same kind of problem as in EQ where items inflate in price for a short while then deflate for good. Eventually, everyone will have more than enough money that deaths will be meaningless.

Most PvP people (in the MMORPG context) are hopelessly retarded and the main purpose of a PvP server is to keep them the hell away. Anyone who didn't see that the only difference between the servers is that one allows PvP in zones designed explicitly for PvE progression didn't think it through. Overlapping PvE and PvP challenges are *primarily* of advantage to griefers.

However the PvP challenge mentioned seems possible as long as you use instances as a mechanism. That way death can have meaning within the instance, without permanently damaging the global context. This is effectively what counter-strike did with its no respawn policy. So for example start up an instanced battlefield (if they ever get them finished). On death your character is blocked from the instance for the duration of that battle. All of a sudden watching an ally fall is bad news, which encourages teamwork, while watching an enemy attack get routed feels like victory. You'd also add some goal so that power advantage could be used to end the game.

And needless to say this form of PvP will be available on both servers, because it doesn't require polluting the entire game-world.

Funny, I always thought it took an attentive mind, careful planning, and a cool head to enjoy PvP....All signs of intelligence. Didn't know all I had to do was be retarded. Thanks! That makes it much easier for me.

Also worth mentioning is that the "PvP" population (surprisingly) outnumbers the "Normal" population in this game. I just don't think it's a possiblity that all of those people are retarded. If you're the kind of person who likes to think of that many people in that way, then I'd say you're the one people need to stay away from.

Anyways, I do understand that PvP isn't perfect in MMOG's, but the idea of instanced battles is stupid. Since these are also virtual worlds, and we're all so concerned about immersion and whatnot (or at least we should be), then that idea needs to be thrown out. Instanced dungeons are bad enough. No need to castrate the genre any further.

I kind of mentioned this in the other thread on PvP in MMORPGs, but yeah I think for people who are looking for competitve tests of skills battleground-type things will be where it's at, while open PvP servers are more for wild-west type scenarios.

To me getting together a band of like minded people, strategizing, practicing and fighting in a battleground type setting sounds fun - getting ganked by someone 20+ my level while trying to kill my 14th Ultra Wonder Harpy doesn't.

The people who say "why get penalized for PvP on a PvP server" don't get that some people look at PvP as a competitive endeavor. Killing someone who can barely fight back is not competitive - the two are really not very related and it's unfortunate they both fall under the generic PvP banner.

I agree, but for slightly different reasons. Since I've been chiming on about sticking true to the "world" etc.., I'll say that not penalizing is a mistake just in that context.

I know that if I witnessed a friend kick some little kid's ass, I'd beat the fuck out of him and never speak to him again. As well as turn everyone else against him. Why shouldn't the same thing happen with a society of Orcs?  Dishonor is never a valued trait, whether you're good or evil. The game should reflect that reality.

BTW I'm referring to Blizzard's original idea of having a "negative" reputation. So many lowbie kills and even your own faction's NPC's and Vendors will cut you off, on top of you being flagged for PvP on both sides.

The reason I think they scrapped that idea is because that's an incentive to the type of person that would be hacking up lowbies in the first place. They could attain this "Outlaw" status after griefing the population. It's basically playing right into their hands of being recognized for their bad behavior.

Words of wisdom, Lloyd. Words of wisdom.

That's the line that seperates a PVPer from a PK, in my book. Unfortunately, too few seem to understand this fundamental difference, and I'm sorry about what that says about their character.

Blizz's biggest mistake was pushing the game out without battlefields.  That way, people who want competitive PvP without the AzzR4pInG crap could play on a regular server and hit the battlefields, and leave the cesspool servers to bonedood and platedood.