f13.net

Yea, it's not a rumor. I already confirmed it. Discuss, or something.

Edit: I'm not posting sources or anything, but let's just say it's probably not a secret at SOE or even GDC by now.

WOW.

errr - edit - I dont mean World of Warcraft.

The end times are here, rats in the cornfield.....and their HIS!!!

I sure hope he goes somewhere with money enough to pull off some of the PVP shit he's talked about.

He never fit in there anyway.  Wonder where he's going.  Somewhere under the NCSoft umbrella?  Some kooky indie developer?  Blizzard?  (The hairdresser class in Starcraft Online builds COMMUNITY!)  Or maybe he's freaked out and is running off to climb Everest.

Finally he dumped them.  Good luck at the new place, Raph!

WOW^2

Raph off the leash   woo!

Good luck to you Raph, please keep us up to date!

[Edit] I wish I was at GDC all the more now  :-(

Back to UO!!!!

A hundred thousand bloggers just took flight....

Glad to hear it. I hope he lands somewhere less soulless. I don't always agree with his ideas, but at least he isn't afraid to discuss them with the players.

We need a 'rats leaving the sinking ship' emoticon.

Oh God.  The wheel turns again and we're going to build up a 'next saviour' off this crackpots back and when it fucks up YET AGAIN, we're gonna make another 200 page thread about it.

Call me again in Ten Years.

A Saviour?  Not for me.  I do like a lot of what Raph does, but I would like to see him tempered by someone that can nurture his good ideas and cull the impractical ones.

Interresting. Can't say I didn't see it coming though.

Just do something that has some level of pvp in mind from the ground up, and no established IP behind it and I'll at least add it to the sig...  :-D

Raph has never understood PvP. Never.

Hmm...BioWare, Austin Studio, other ex-SWG/UO people already there...

Anyway, good for Raph, now maybe he'll get another chance to put some of his newer ideas into practice. I always felt that the Chief Creative Officer position was a dead end position at SOE since it was Brad who first occupied it and he didn't do anything of note while in that position that I'm aware of. If he's not going to BioWare or somewhere like NCSoft I would love to see him and Warren Spector get together and make a game.

Edit: fixed typo

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146555.html

I like my post more.

Yes he was a bad fit.

One of the biggest problems with SWG was Raph being in charge of it, but that is not a knock of Raph. It's like getting a catcher to play shortstop.

Raph is good at certain things, an action-oriented sci-fi game based on Star Wars isn't one of them. Sims Online was the (or a) game for Raph.

Anyway best of luck to Raph in the future.

It's funny, I was about to write that SOE and Turbine are both hurting now, then I was going to write that it seems WoW is sinking it's competitors. But I don't think that's a good analysis. My analysis is simpler: neither SOE or Turbine has made a great game in a long time. (Turbine hasn't even made a good game in a long time) Too much money spent on projects that don't seem very good - not a formula for success.

NCsoft is my bet, working with Lum.

Wouldn't that be like matter and anti-matter colliding?

I would lean more towards Bioware Austin, since he's worked with both Rich Vogel and Gordon Walton.

As long as he doesn't screw up the baby Jesus they have in the oven at the new BioWare studio, sounds good.

(No, that's not really a knock against Raph.)

Good luck to Raph.

I do too.  :-)

I bet he goes to play guitar with winger.

No - not that winger.

I wonder if he has a nasty non-compete to work around. I don't know how prevelant those are in this industry at that level.

You're probably right.  Thus the cooling off period.

That level of a non-compete is certainly not enforceable in California -- California employers cannot restrict the livelihood of their current or former employees. Raph's livelihood is making games/MMOs so there's no way that can be enforced here.

As his contract was up I doubt there could be an enforcable non-compete agreement anyways, short of paying him not to work.

AHAHAHA. Ralph is a raging carebear, whatever PvP he can come up with will be drowned in a sea of PvP switches and consent-only limitations.

News Flash - Consent only PVP is the only kind that's going to get enough subscribers to justify the kind of development budget it would need to be made in the first place.

Also, I like consensual PVP.

Newsflash – consent should starts when you log in! Do you need a safety label ‘Contents of this package might result in you getting repeatedly PKed?’. Enough with cloning dead horse aka DikuMUD, if PvP is not your thing there are PLENTY of alternatives. You want safe game – design one and forget about PvP. You want to have PvP game – do it properly. Switch/consent PvP is like having sex with your sister, while it might be occasionally enjoyable you know its not how things should be done and such relationship has no future.

Haemish, lets not pull WUA here and finally let go of 99. MMOGs moved on, there is absolutely no reason to talk about consent and PvP in mmogs when it is long since realized that both cannot coexist.

World of Warcraft proves otherwise.

The PVP game you speak of is niche and always will be. The mass market does not buy it and never will. That is why WoW has as many people as it does and Shadowbane has as many people as it does.

I just don’t see anybody looking at WoW and saying, that innovative or clever. WoW had huge budget and zero ambition, just like majority of Hollywood blockbusters that ride on franchise, brand name and big budget. If anything WoW proves that as long as its not a train-wreck at release and has some content people will playa and pay.

If anything WoW demonstrates that there is much larger previously untapped PvP audience than anybody previously believed.

Yes, but that PVP audience isn't one that's going to take being azzfucked by Johnny Rottencrotch before they are even out of MOG diapers. That untapped PVP audience wants to PVP and get PVPed when they want to, instead of when Johnny wants them to be.

It lets everyone be wolves without always feeling like sheep.

You PvPed in WoW, right? The same WoW where single lvl60 rogue can shut down whole zone of lowbies, the same WoW where average players are FARMED by epic-geared “pros” for rank and reputation, the same WoW where /spit becomes equivalent of universal greeting?

Yep, and I got ganked in Hillsbrad by people twice my level too. But I chose it by being on a PVP server, or by turning on my switch. I CHOSE the time and place it could happen to me. I much prefer that to "It could happen anytime anywhere."

In other words, it's consensual, and thus not like old school UO. And not niche, because the mass market gets real tired of getting ganked when they aren't expecting it.

Who would win in a fight to the death between sinij and Televangelist?

The world.

Your whole ‘choosing’ argument doesn’t fly and to me sounds like rationalization. Here is why.

Imagine how ideal consent system should work – player get to chose exactly when and with who he gets to fight having all possible information to make informed decision. As such what player will ever chose a losing fight? If ideal situation doesn’t work, why do you think less then ideal situation would?

Consent should start moment you enter the world, if it doesn’t whole system falls apart.

Actually, the reason your viewpoint doesn't work is b/c people are not entering the world at equivalent competitive states, and Im not talking about player skill. 

So long as there is a power advancement curve in a given game, the entering player is at a significant disadvantage compared to existing players who simply have accumlated more powerful avatars before the competition even begins.  Even if you like PvP, it takes a special mindset (hence why it's a niche market) to want to enter a competition knowing you're starting off behind the curve and thus your odds of winning any given competition are low, from day 1.  Unless you can choose WHEN engage in said competition (or to put it another way, when to risk being vulnerable).

Playing SB again for the past week has really driven that home to me.  Even beyond the level curve, if you don't enter the game with a guild already, you are at a significant disadvantage.  If you enter an old sever with established heavyweights even with a guild, you're at a significant disadvantage.  Hell even SB lets you skill up to R2 before throwing you to the wolves on the mainland.  And while there is certainly alot LESS choice in SB over when to fight, it's still present with things like escapability and stealth powers.

I'd bring up the difference between PvP and PK but i think you know that.
The mass market seems to like competitive PvP but only when they want it.
Why is that a bad thing?

Xilren

Most PK's I know ever choose any fight that isn't a slam dunk win for them.

Players have shown with their wallets over and over again that allowing them to choose when they want to be vulnerable and when they DON'T want to be vulnerable is what the mass market wants. You can't MAKE someone like PVP if they don't, and trying to make gamers "PLAY2CRUSH" only means you don't have shit for a user base, especially if your game is buggy as fuck.

I disagree, just look at countless fucktards engaging in massive incestfest they call battlegrounds in WoW. FPS, chess, competetive sports and human history shows that at large humans are very competetive and prone to *2CRUSH.

Its just MMOGs as an industry is too young and underdeveloped to properly capitalize on competitive behavior of humans. Just look at sports, rare few are not directly competitive in a play2crush way and they have HUGE followings. I bet in 20-30 years the only non-PvP games out there will be educational titles aimed at pre-school kids. Just look at your typical ‘consent-only’ games, they are competitive as fuck, where is your consent switch to being outleveled, people having better raid guilds and connections, people having better loot or being more famous then you? So how about we skip beating around the bushes and evolve to direct PvP?


Most players I know never choose a fight that isn't a slam dunk win for them. Just look at PvE, generally consent only thing, it is all designed around succession of slam dunk wins. Choose is a key here. Given a choice players will not fight losing fight.

Battlegrounds in WoW are the penultimate in consent-only design, NOT Play2Crush. You keep trying to argue that Play2Crush games will somehow automagically garner mass market subscription numbers, but then you try to use WoW's battlegrounds to prove it. You are wrong.

I never knew noncompete clauses were banned in California outside business sales, that's pretty interesting.

I'm also guessing Bioware.

WoW battlegrounds show that there are people willing to PvP, despite what many of you (not you Haemish) trying to say. They also prove that you can’t mix PvP+ and PvP-, as Blizzard hoped at release, and expect any kind of fun PvP to happen. BGs also show that static and instanced PvP is as far as you can take it PvP-wise in PvE game.

This is a fucking moronic statement.  BG in WoW AT ITS BEST takes over 15 minutes to get into.  THATS ON A DOUBLE KILL COUNT WEEKEND FOR THAT BG.  On an off day a good time is 30 minutes. 

Off times are above 2 hours.  THIS IS ON A HEAVY SERVER THAT IS RELATIVELY BALANCE COMPARED TO OTHER SERVERS.

What does this mean?  Number 1: wait to enjoy an avenue of play which you are otherwise hindered to enjoy.  Number 2:  Quit job and farm BG, because you will not have the shiny unless you join a strange uber guild.

Since they're in the same place, Raph and Ashen and Sachant should get together and start their own MMO company!  Or go work for Bioware.  Or have a threesome.

It's all good.

How mean of you to leave Lum out.

Lum has a job... It's a lot less funny when explained.

I mentally lump recently employed with recently hired...

I thought Raph moved to San Diego, San Jose or one of those Sans in California when he took the last position with Sony.  Unless he came back, which is entirely possible.

Raph is living in San Diego, even though he posted a picture of his backyard that was covered in hail recently.

Do I lose fangirl points for not being sure?

This is exactly what I'd like to see. Raph has awesome ideas. Even when I wanted to curse him for all eternity for SWG, I appreciated some of the ideas in it. If he had someone to say "No, that's too much!" he'd be alot more successful IMO.

On another note, Sinj, you are a very delusional person. Your kind of game was tried a decade ago and people left it in droves. (UO). It was only "fixed" when the devs gave players the choice not to be ganked all the time. There is a reason PvE with some consentual pvp is the norm and it's not that devs are too pussy to make your kind of game. It's that your game fails. Every time. Unless you're in Korea. But they're crazy anyway.

Edit: My first thought on hearing this was "woohoo, now Raph can tell us what really happened with SWG" Followed by "fuck, they probably made him sign something saying he'll never talk about it"

Riggs, Haemish?  Trying to convince Sinij that the MMO world isn't secretly waiting for someone to bring back the Dread Lord era, so that he can azzrape carebears while the crowd goes wild?  Good fucking luck, and welcome to my world as of 12 months ago.  :-D

Tasty.

I used to get into vehement arguments with people like sinj until I realized it is like arguing with an idiot savant. Only one side understands reality.

Are you so sure that you 'understand reality' of our disagreement, all of the factors and nuances involved, and know the absolute and only answer? How can you be sure that is the answer if you never question it?

At least our feelings are mutual, only difference is that I understand where you coming from and it is obvious from your posts that you lack similar insights.

I have news for you - your ‘war’ is long since over. You can (http://www.ddo.com/) now (http://everquest2.station.sony.com/)  go (http://www.uo.com/)  home  (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/)

If the war is over, we all lost.

Was it the Predators or the Aliens that won though ?

The audience was the big looser.

(http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0100403/6537_16_8.jpg)
RIGGS...err I mean PREDATOR!!