f13.net

Post Description
Producer ? WARHAMMER Console

Location:
Fairfax, Virginia (relocation assistance available)

Summary:

EAMythic is looking for a Producer to lead the production and design on an exciting EAMythic title being developed across next generation console platforms for the online MMORPG market.

EAMythic (formerly Mythic Entertainment) recently celebrated its ten year anniversary as one of the most successful independent developers and publishers of massively-multiplayer online role-playing games in the world. Credited with 15 online games, including the award winning Dark Age of Camelot, EAMythic's success is based on proprietary technology, innovative game design and exemplary customer service delivered by a talented staff of more than 190 people.


We?re a small team now, and growing rapidly. Apply today, and join us!

Responsibilities:

·          Leads producers and development directors to deliver on-time, high-quality products and features that meet the high standards set by EAMythic.

·          Supports the creative vision of the project and maintains creative alignment on the development team.

·         Helps establish and prioritize strategic goals to create a compelling game experience, including:

supervising project design and development to maintain state of the art gameplay in current and future interactive experiences;
providing leadership in the areas of videogame innovation, market trends, and customer requirements, both in the US and markets abroad.

·         Initiates, fosters and maintains positive working relationships with internal and external organizations (development team, marketing, sales, and PR) that are critical to both current and future development process.

·         Touches all parts of Game Creation; including design, gameplay balance, interfaces, focus testing, marketing, and innovation.

·         Effectively and creatively manage, schedule and track production team to achieve identified and quantifiable goals; with concentration on the day to day management of any Associate or Assistant Producer(s).

·         Be able to identify and quantify what makes quality/fun and what does not. Must be able to communicate this clearly.

Requirements:

-Minimum of 5 years experience managing internal teams within the video game or similar industry.
-Minimum of 3 years experience as a Producer.
-Demonstrated ability to direct teams through all phases of the product development process from pre-production to shipment.
-Proven developer of talent, both creative and administrative, and manager of projects and teams.
-Gamer with a passion for great gameplay.
-Understanding of issues facing various types of game play, artistic and technical considerations, and the ability to forecast the ramifications of decisions made during the concept/pre-production phase.
-Strong written, communication, and presentation skills.
-Experienced at pitching concepts and working with marketing partners to construct viable and marketable titles.
-Excellent interpersonal skills and be able to effectively communicate and work with all disciplines within a game team.
-Budget and financial management experience.

Preferred:

-Producer who has shipped multiple AAA titles and has a strong console and online background.
Previous work experience on a massively multiplayer products.
-Extensive knowledge and hands-on gameplay experience with high profile MMO?s such as WoW, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies.
-Strong technical, artistic or content creation background.

Electronic Arts (EA) is the world's #1 independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment. We offer a dynamic environment, talented co-workers, AAA titles, career growth and competitive compensation and benefits.

EAMythic is a small group of people dedicated to providing the very best in multi-player gaming. In addition to a professional team of programmers and artists, EAMythic works with experienced gamers to produce the highest quality products for the gaming public.

Q: Tell us about slayers.

A: I have been really quiet on this topic, because we have been discussing it around here for months. We’ve got several options, ranging from the purely cosmetic to the other extreme.

We have decided once and for all to reject the purely cosmetic approach. We want to integrate the slayer status as part of an advanced system, along with such systems for the other armies, as part of a future expansion.

I know this will disappoint some of you, and I understand why, but we honestly believe that a purely cosmetic slayer option would ultimately be nothing but a disappointment.

Q: Will guilds be restricted by racial lines?

A: Guilds are restricted by Order/Destruction. Anyone fighting on the side of Order can guild with anyone on the side of Order, and ditto for Destruction advocates.
 

Q: Do you know anything more about the death penalty/resurrection mechanics?

A: I was told that at this time we do not plan any experience loss at death (but don’t take that to mean there will be NO loss of any kind – just that it won’t be XP). No corpse runs, no shadow crossing, etc, either – you will respawn at the point where you are resurrected, or at a designate spawn point such as a camp or a graveyard.

There will likely be different types of resurrection spells, and different penalties to the recipients for them all. But again, XP loss appears to be off the table.

As usual, I want to remind you all, that things can and will change before launch, and after launch to boot. This answer is dated December 7, 2006. If you try to bludgeon me with it in 2011, I will... well, admittedly I won’t actually do anything but sigh and curse the eternal nature of the internet. But it will be a BIG sigh.

Q: Will you be able to make characters on the same server for both factions? Example: an empire and chaos character on the same server?

A: Nope.

Q: Will a character of Tier 1 be able to compete at all, even if poorly, against a character of Tier 4? Will multiple Tier 1 characters be able to take on and defeat a Tier 4 character?

A: This is a question with many potential implications, so don’t read any more into this than my exact words. Also, please remember that we are still a long way from launch, and that this may change.

Higher tier players who enter lower tier zones will not be able to attack or be attacked by lower tier players. However, if a lower tier player wants to enter a higher tier zone, all bets are off, and attacking/being attacked can happen.

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

On the 360 it'll be Conan and War.

Maybe for the future, but War will be the same ole' crap. They're making a WoW clone based on a license that WoW was based on itself. These guys have no imagination.

Is this one of this 'Tolkien was so cliche because he used elves and Orcs' moments?

Is this one of this 'Tolkien was so cliche because he used elves and Orcs' moments?

So far, from their descriptions of WAR RvR it seems like they are pulling in the half-assed aspects of WoWs DAoC-wannabe RvR into WAR.

"But..."

Stray, you think WAR is going to be crap, that's fine, there's a high chance you are correct.  But stating the WAR pvp doesn't carry depth compared to EVE and SB when WAR still has at least a year of development time left, is flat out stupid, unless you have come from the future to warn us.

Stray, you think WAR is going to be crap, that's fine, there's a high chance you are correct.  But stating the WAR pvp doesn't carry depth compared to EVE and SB when WAR still has at least a year of development time left, is flat out stupid, unless you have come from the future to warn us.

Also, if you make individual achievement the focus, then what you get are realm point/hk farmers, afk'ers, people too focused on completing this or that "pvp quest" for themselves, and those stupid rogues wandering around by themselves, not caring to cooperate with the rest of the team. I think a system with more beneficial (as well as detrimental) effects on a world, or at least, one that offers incentives at the guild level, encourages people to play with each each more. Alternatively, make the most efficient way of obtaining honor/realm/etc points to be through large scale objectives that can only be completed through teamwork (capture that bridge, destroy this or that keep, etc).

Why we keep talking about how good was the idea behind ShadowBane (that is the Emperor of CLusterfucks) and never ever mention L2?

Why would people play War just to experience what they already have in WoW?  

What do you all think of Lineage 2 PvP? What's wrong with it, in your opinions? (Ask if you don't know how that works...)

I think a system with more beneficial (as well as detrimental) effects on a world, or at least, one that offers incentives at the guild level, encourages people to play with each each more. Alternatively, make the most efficient way of obtaining honor/realm/etc points to be through large scale objectives that can only be completed through teamwork (capture that bridge, destroy this or that keep, etc).

As if "stupid" or "from the future" are the only choices I have in determining that...

There are other limited faction based games to give me a good idea what it will be, y'know. They aren't doing anything new here. And I say it won't have depth because I've yet to see a two faction/no conquest oriented system to have depth. Deep pvp systems are ones that can change the entire political climate of the game world. In War's case, the only people who can change the world in any significant way will be the developers. Which they won't do, since it works against a lot of their other ideas.

It'll be pvp focused on battles. Not War (ironically enough..). A fun diversion maybe, like WoW.....But not "deep" by any measure.

(by slow I don't mean character progression, but just in the general feel of moving about)

Firstly the Warhammer ip is purely based on factions so if you are looking for a non faction based pvp game like Darktide, SB or EVE, in which the players form clans and hold territory, that's just not going to happen.

In addition to that, they have hinted towards different server rulesets and although a lot of design detail has been released, the exact structure of how you obtain items in pvp, death penalty etc haven't and fine tuning those can make a hell of a difference.

You better hope it offers something new, because if WAR use PVP as an alternative to PVE advancement and flops badly, then the chances of innovation in PVP for future games decreases.

I'm not even going to bother responding in detail to the WoW clone comments anymore.   WoW is wildly successful, if someone is designing a mmorpg and is not heavily influenced by the most successful mmorpg ever, then they are either a genius who is on the verge of true innovation, or an idiot.  That goes for any mmorpg, not just WAR.

Just by knowing that I can level off of killing individual players is enough to tell me that their pvp system will be largely based on kills as well (instead of larger goals).

And knowing Mythic, it'll be a pretty slow and hefty grind. PvP based or not. Make no mistake about it. When I see pvp based leveling held up as some kind of great feature, I'm still not impressed -- Because I know Mythic will make it a long, grueling process either way. I'd much rather prefer a game almost exclusively based on PvP and warfare, with as little grinding as possible (i.e. SB, Planetside, Eve to an extent, etc).

Two factions is not the middle road though. Nor does it have anything to do with Warhammer, as you yourself admit.

Now you are guys are crazy talk land. I want to my shield as a cup to drink the blood of my foes.  You can't give everyone a pony.

In all seriousness though, what I described above is not 'Impossible'. Nor is it really 'hard'. The biggest limitation has been hardware.

A few rules from my design:

1) No time-sink quests of any kind. If the only way we can generate enough content for players to feel like they are getting good value for this game is to force them to spend hours and hours running from point a to point b to point c and then bake to a or to mindlessly kill 1000 NPCs, then we have failed to create a great next-gen MMORPG.

2) Quests, whenever possible (and the exceptions to this rule must be fore really unique and interesting quests), must tie in tightly the backstory and WH IP

3) No kill 100s creatures to get an item with a 0.01% drop rate (I think my doc also mentioned a quick trip to a very hot fire for anyone who created such quests)

We have spent a ton of time so far getting the quests off the ground in the right way as well as coming uop with a lot more types of quests (in my book killing 1PC to get an item = kill 100 NPCs to get an item, they don't count as separate quest types).

Sorry. We have not implemented collision detection between cups and fluids. Your drink is now on your pants. Have a nice day.

I have no idea if that's all changed now that EA is involved or if he's just hyping the game.  Fargull's comment on slow character movement speed isn't a good sign, as that does seem to contradict the spirit of the no time sinks comment.

3) No kill 100s creatures to get an item with a 0.01% drop rate (I think my doc also mentioned a quick trip to a very hot fire for anyone who created such quests)

Which is nice so long as stupid long spawn timers aren't used instead.

Queuing to kill something isn't heroic.

For ref, see ToA.

I'd say the biggest limitation is the fact that some players don't like it if other players can affect them, we need to get past that

You are right in that nothing you listed above is that difficult, DAoC has different spawned guards when a keep falls, the warpstone thing is just a more involved version of capture the flag.

3) So, if you think you have some good ideas but nobody is listening, here's your chance. I've always thought that there are lot of bright people here (as well as some who I would happily put in our of our catapults for a quick one-way trip just as some here would apparently love to do to me) and that's why I've read and occasionally posted here forever (and I post almost nowhere these days).

A nice gauntlet throwdown there Mark, but why does it need to be a private forum? Or, put another way: who gets invited? I only ask because since the result is ideas entered into the public domain anyway, why close the doors?

But yeah, balance needs to be the concern first and foremost. Two sides makes that easier, not harder though. Good vs Evil wise, I think populations won't be as lopsided as they have been in other games though. The the Greenskin side has s3xx0r elves and chaos to offset the normally larger segment who just want to play a normal human or good elf.

If there's going to be a WAR closed forum I'd like to contribute.

This is one of those issues that even a long beta won't necessarily point out the flaws in our design-making.

Have you any planned contingencies you could discuss to ensure faction balance isn't a huge problem for players?

Darniaq,

   In terms of PvP advancement, that was one of the things I wish I had thought more of for DAoC.  Our reasoning at the time was to build the communities through PvE advancement at lower levels so that people would have a chance to form friendships, groups, guilds and then they could go into PvP with experience with the game and lots of support.  I still believe it made sense back in 2001 and I worry that cradle-to-grave, PvP advancement systems in a hybrid game might work against the building of communities in a new game.  Obviously, time will tell.

So far I haven't been impressed with games that offered advancement through PVP, but put timers on how soon you can kill Johnny R0x again

I agree with all of that. Just one thing:

WoW uses diminsihing returns. The more often a player dies within a time-span (or maybe during an entire instanced PvP fight? which is the only kind I do...) the fewer honor points they reward, down to zero eventually.

   Agreed.  You'll be happy to know that "No Buffbots" was part of my design document for WAR and they will not be part of the game.

That was one of the mistakes/issues we could have handled a lot better and it is a lesson learned.

Focus fire...should be eliminated ............... If the most effective tactic is the most boring, they with do it and hate you "making" them.

Honor points or like DAOC realmpoints I understand diminishing returns. But if you tell someone they can level up via PVP, then there should be no difference between killing a player every 5 seconds or killing a mob that's on a 5 second respawn.  Just make it equal to leveling via PVE is all I'd ask.

One of the things GW got right was setting up some pvp for casual players: random arenas and (to a lesser extent) hero arenas. What they got wrong was that there wasn't much incentive for the achievers to do those.

Well, yes, the problem is that...

1) You can't determine the best tactic up front - as a developer you'll never be as good as your players at working out the best tactic. Trying to do so attracts unintended consequences. All you can do is try to build an environment that has enough options so that the best tactic varies over time.

2) The problem isn't focus fire, the problems resulting from focus fire mostly come from rewarding organisation (which is probably something you want to do anyway), as well as the lack of collision detection and the limited importance placed on gaining positional advantages (high ground, flanking etc), which in other games act as a natural brake on focussing of fire (total war is the best example I can think of).

It has nothing to do with achievers. You could try enticing players with all the carrots in the world, and heavily pvp minded players still wouldn't give a damn. It's instanced, small team pvp, not much better than dueling in front of Stormwind. It's made for no one but "casual players". You'll find that most PvP focused players are also "world" enthusiasts. That's why they don't care about the GW model much. They want war and politics, not just a pointless diversion. They'll play shooters for that.

It has nothing to do with achievers. You could try enticing players with all the carrots in the world, and heavily pvp minded players still wouldn't give a damn. It's instanced, small team pvp, not much better than dueling in front of Stormwind. It's made for no one but "casual players". You'll find that most PvP focused players are also "world" enthusiasts. That's why they don't care about the GW model much. They want war and politics, not just a pointless diversion. They'll play shooters for that.

Mark,

Great to see you alive and well and posting. I think you bring up a lot of good points. I know there's a few hundred EA employee's in beta, but I wonder how useful is the feedback from the brass at EA Mobile? Or EA Sports? Wouldn't more seasoned MMO veterans, whom were willing to give constructive feedback be better? Now I know some of the QA leads etc are good examples of how EA employee's make good testers. The other question remaining would be about the console. Just four months ago you said that it wasn't the right time for a Warhammer console game, what changed?

And that means running around a lot, looking for the enemy, trying to engage them at critical choke points like keeps or bridges and it means 90% running/looking and 10% fighting!

Fighting without pause, on and on and on, is simply meaningless grinding WoW style where people suicide their chars into the enemy because it's faster than sitting and regging. Thats not fun, thats not WAR, that's ridiciulous!

What exactly do you want then tazelbain? Whenever the subject of pvp comes up, it seems like all you do is criticize. Offer something yourself.

All he's saying is he wants pvp oriented objectives. Basing advancement or pvp rep in general through pk grinding will never work out well. Player "spawns" can't be depended upon like mob spawns, and thus, xp rates would be almost impossible to adjust and make equivalent to pve grinding. Secondly, it doesn't encourage teamplay. If the most efficient way to get rep is through player killing, then all you get is a bunch of individuals on the battlefield.

I think the only to handle it is to make it a big game of chess. The pieces would massive NPCs that duke it out and players struggle to tip the balance in their teams favor.  Eventually leading to one side winning.  I.E the Battleship White Bishop assaults the Black Knight Fortress.  Black players would attempt disable the battleship's systems and help destroy it at the same time defending their fortress.  This would add more strategic elements because different match-ups that would play out differently and players would have to decide which match to help with.  Add a finite resource system to craft new pieces.  After the game is over pass out special titles, certs, and armor looks to encourage them to stick around for the next game.

I trying to put my figure want I find distasteful about Eve's PvP, the best I come with is...
I don't want to be another point in the blob.
Politics and the political state are opaque to the spectators and the majority of the players.
Something about the target system felt alien to me.


Mass PvP should be more like the NFL.

I didn't mean literally :)
It should be:
A) winnable
B) transparent, everybody plays with their cards up.
C) watchable, you should able to watch it figure out what is happening.
D) broken up discrete objectives. plays -> drives -> points -> wins -> championships
E) parity
F) room for individuals to shine, and because of C people can see them.

Until there's a system where characters don't die within 15 seconds of showing up, I'll take the no-decay/quick-runback any day. I don't expect that from WAR nor any diku-like game though, because it would mess up the whole kill-to-advance formula at it's foundation.

In daoc the system in practice worked as 'die and you are out until the battle is over - or sooner if your team is battle-rezzing, unless your side loses control of the area and can't retake it quickly, then you're out for 15 minutes'.

Part of the problem with PvP of the past, why it had such niche appeal, is because it mattered too much in general, or was too punitive in mechanic.

Where rvr really shone was the cat herding aspects. Fact is, despite all the moaning about class balance, buff bots, and realm abilities, the realm that dominated and the guilds that dominated were those who were able to get organised quickly. Organisation > ToA loot. And I don't just mean the RvR guilds who had fixed teams roaming emain, I mean when people would take command of random keep sieges and so forth. Of course, organisation could also make ToA straightforward to get through, so the two were related. But DAoC was fundamentally a cat herding simulator.

Mark,

Great to see you alive and well and posting. I think you bring up a lot of good points. I know there's a few hundred EA employee's in beta, but I wonder how useful is the feedback from the brass at EA Mobile? Or EA Sports? Wouldn't more seasoned MMO veterans, whom were willing to give constructive feedback be better? Now I know some of the QA leads etc are good examples of how EA employee's make good testers. The other question remaining would be about the console. Just four months ago you said that it wasn't the right time for a Warhammer console game, what changed?

Lemme guess, Warhammer google alerts?

7) If you're going to have some bonus for "capturing the flag" (i.e. relics in DAoC), make sure that the bonus isn't unbalancing.  A 20% bonus is obscene when given to the realm that already has enough power to capture the flags.

7a) In the vain of above: Create incentives to play as the underdog... else you'll see many people jumping ship to play with the winning side.   

...

9) Battlegrounds are fun, but they can also be a distraction.  When a portion of the playerbase would rather participate in the BG's than the endgame, you may want to ask yourself "why?".

9) Battlegrounds are fun, but they can also be a distraction.  When a portion of the playerbase would rather participate in the BG's than the endgame, you may want to ask yourself "why?".

Lemme guess, Warhammer google alerts?

First!

GREAT find Garth, thanks!

That's a lot of great info, and I for one am going to register over at f13.

Later!

The horror... the horror...

I think Mark got scared off now anyway.  :cry:

I appreciate Stray's point, but the more immersive it is, the more world impacting, the more relevant, the less people will want to partake because they'll be shouldered out by the truly dedicated.

Oh, and on the subject of the private boards and the news bulletin over at that Warhammer site...Yeah, keeping any Warhammer dev forum we may form private, even if I do not get in, is probably a great idea. Read their thread over there was...painful. Also comical. Barbarians at the gates and all that.

There won't be any stealth classes in WAR.

Actually, you want to ask "why is that bad?"

PvP does not need to be relevant and world impacting.

Actually, you want to ask "why is that bad?"

PvP does not need to be relevant and world impacting. I appreciate Stray's point, but the more immersive it is, the more world impacting, the more relevant, the less people will want to partake because they'll be shouldered out by the truly dedicated. You can have some world-changing events, but do them as story arc/chapters, on a periodic basis. In between is for micro-rewards.

What you should be afraid of is bad implementation. Not entire concepts. Not the possibilities of the genre itself.

I like the idea of a backward impact.  Say a lowering of price across the board in the capital cities.  The ability to buy a squad of grunts to use in an instance run or that only last 5 minutes and such... Nothing huge, but minor things that can be interesting.  Maybe if say the dwarves push the greenskins back and capture the iron valley mine then the option of going and getting a glowing enchantment that will last 24 hours applied to a weapon of choice from the head priest of the temple of war in the main dwarven city.  The glow could include a minor buff or not...

9) Battlegrounds are fun, but they can also be a distraction.  When a portion of the playerbase would rather participate in the BG's than the endgame, you may want to ask yourself "why?".

Well it can't be bad that players are having fun.  Not only "why did some people prefer the battlegrounds?" but "why did it bother people not in the battlegrounds?"

Lemme guess, Warhammer google alerts?

Well it can't be bad that players are having fun.  Not only "why did some people prefer the battlegrounds?" but "why did it bother people not in the battlegrounds?"

Now, you could argue that you prefer group v group even when RvR is working properly, in which case the whole concept of RvR isn't your thing, and you should probably play Guild Wars more.

Folks,

As of this morning I signed off participating at SND (formerly Lum’s site). In my post I also indicated because of personal issues that I feel the man who is running the site has with some Mythic personnel (Scott, Sanya and myself) that the site would not be able to post objective (neutral) criticism or praise regarding Mythic or DAoC. I stated that I was going to ask that Mythic personnel would no longer cooperate with any SND writer nor were we going to post there any longer. Just to make one issue clear before I get to the real reason for this post, I want to see that I could care less what happens to SND. I have never asked Scott to shut it down, take away assets, whatever. Whatever fate has in store for SND it will have earned it on its own. But who knows, maybe I did do something when I was sitting atop of the grassy knoll, dressed in black after my return from Area 51. happy

So, the real reason for this post is a thank you. It’s a thank you to all the folks at the former “Lum The Mad” site who made it possible. For many months LtM was my first stop in my morning “check all the new sites” review. While they weren’t always right and while they weren’t always fair, the site was a valuable and precious resource to the MMORPG community of developers and players. It was where some cool stories would be broken first, where developers and players of multiple communities could exchange ideas, stories and occasional rotten fruit. It was a place where I felt comfortable posting and talking about things in general as long as doing so violate my rule of not slamming other developers. It was part of my daily routine and I loved it and I miss it already. It was thanks to that site that we were able to find a man who became a very important part of Mythic at a very critical time in the development of DAoC. Without that site we wouldn’t have been fortunate enough to discover that Lum (Scott) was also a talented programmer as well as a writer.

Thus, I want to thank Scott for creating the site and making it what it would become. I want to thank some of the talented writers there (Mys, Arcadian, Tick and others) who helped keep the site vibrant and fun. I also want to thank the community there, those who liked us and those who disliked us as well. I loved being a part of it and I will miss it greatly. For those there who supported us I thank you for your efforts and your support and we will not let you down. You haven’t yet seen the best of Mythic nor of DAoC, things are only going to get better. For those there who criticized us, flamed us or worse, I also extend my thanks. All of that was part of what made LtM what it was for me and for the industry.

I would have posted this there but since I said I wouldn’t be back, I could not do so. However, since I know that many people here are also readers of SND and that some of the writers get their information from these boards, I figured it wouldn’t take long before this message gets out to SND and to the community there.

Mark

P.S. Just in case anyone here at the VN feels slighted at this letter and thanking LtM and that community, don’t. I’ve thanked the VN folks and the community here a number of times and will continue to do so in the future.

I'd say that there is a large flaw in RvR if group v group isn't viable strategy.  Just as large of a flaw as the 90/10 thing.  I really doubt RvR was more fun with more people.  It's more to the fact that the zerg was the dominate strategy and if there were 20 people playing in the BG, that was 20 less people in your zerg or counter zerg.

8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten
    to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one,
    to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army
    into two.

 9. If equally matched, we can offer battle;
    if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy;
    if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.

10. Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made
    by a small force, in the end it must be captured
    by the larger force.

Mark Jacobs loves to do that. Spread the love and use the community at his pleasure till he finds it useful, and then repudiate it as the love story is over and there isn't anymore anything he can use to his advantage.

go crawl back under the rock you and your kind have come from.

we have better things to do than try to force him to prove them in a court of law. 

I'll tell you this though, any idea that someone posts there that I like and that I pass on to the design team, I'll make sure that the person gets game credit for it

what was going great is quickly derailed

I'll offer my apologies for what has happened in this thread and go back to lurking

P.S.  I'll respond to some of the questions/issues raised here before I go back to lurking mode.  It would be rude to do otherwise especially since my involvement ramped things up. 

I'd say that there is a large flaw in RvR if group v group isn't viable strategy.  Just as large of a flaw as the 90/10 thing.  I really doubt RvR was more fun with more people.  It's more to the fact that the zerg was the dominate strategy and if there were 20 people playing in the BG, that was 20 less people in your zerg or counter zerg.

Anyway, stop the tired act already, and go back into the woodwork you crawled out from. If you were "wronged" in the past, over a game, it was your own fault for buying so wholly into the hype or whatever. Also, stop trying to make up words - there's a Spell Check here for a reason.

As to WAR PvP just being WoW PvP with a new skin and that = failure.  Total agreement.

Mythic came out of NOWHERE and it absolutely needed a way to be recognized and a way to evangelize the community. And these flowering communities of cynical, passionate players started to have a very important role, because it was here that you could get the unbiased commentary. DAoC was hyped as the best thing ever. DAoC's devs posted on the forums giving the illusion that they actually cared about the community, that everything was going to change, that they would have taught SOE a lesson. It's the exact same thing that happens in politics when they want you to vote for something else. Life will change! All empty promises.

As to banning HRose or anyone else, hell no, that will simply feed his/their ego even more.

Jump into a Scenario and you'll be automatically grouped via our lobby system for a balanced fight. Scenarios are instanced battles against two groups of equal strength.

This is not only a significant advancement in the overall design of the game (all accessible and based on the player's choice), but it will be also useful to keep the game well-populated and vibrant at ALL level ranges even years after launch. This because the players aren't forcefully pushed against the level cap wall, but can also go back and decide where they prefer to play. The players will ALWAYS have the possibility to go play in the PvP zone where there's some action, no matter at which level it is. The levels aren't anymore impassable barriers separating you from the fun or your friends. Instead they become "permeable". Just a way to measure the content, but not a way to segregate and isolate.

What Parker said. I promise I can be constructive when there's not some screaming monkey flinging crap at my screen.

As to quests making sense in the evolving world, tough to do.  As to quests making sense to the current world, that is part of the design as well.  We'll never be able to create enough quests that are 100% perfectly aligned, sensible, etc. but we are trying. I have seen atempts made by games such as the MMO 'Wish' that atempted ever-evolving Quests.. This was an utter failure. Static quests are fine as long as they have an air of quality

Voice chat in these games is a huge issue.  Those who have it have a distinct advantage over those that don't.  It is something that we have been discussing with EA since Day One.  They love VC and would love to see something brilliant in WAR dealing with it.  So would I. I hope that is not a suggestion of larger bandwidth requirements from game servers as they are generally laggy as it is. 3rd party VC such as Ventrillo seems perfectly fine

As far as casual PvP goes, I think having that ability to come on and participate in PvP easily, quickly and profitably is another goal of ours.  Long queues, waits, etc., are not what we have to do if we want to take RvR/PvP to the next level. DAOC wouldnt have been a que fest if it wasnt for its low populations.. I cant recall the number of times I had sat in Emain screaming LFG, while knowing there were only a handful of people around. I think this is all a gamers responsibility to come into a game with an RvR mindframe as much as it is a developers duty to get things sorted mechanics wise

As to terrain-based advantages, it was actually in one of my designs for DAoC.  Lots of issues with it sadly.  Who knows though, maybe someday. - If that is a reference to the unclimable banks in DAOC NF's early version I would agree.. But anywhere you have to constantly tilt a camera up/down is bad voodoo

Sure, I'll jump at the chance of joining a private WAR forum, but it's not because I want to suck up to any red names, it's so I can start pointing out all the things I don't like in the game if there's early beta access included.  If a company get some decent feedback out of set of people who have been playing these games for years but who can respect an NDA, then I see it as a win win for everyone.

As to terrain-based advantages, it was actually in one of my designs for DAoC.  Lots of issues with it sadly.  Who knows though, maybe someday. - If that is a reference to the unclimable banks in DAOC NF's early version I would agree.. But anywhere you have to constantly tilt a camera up/down is bad voodoo

Honestly, beside Mark Jacobs, who around here feels the need to move the discussion to a private forum, and why? If it happens and Shild accepts to comply it's ONLY because a red name asked to change the rules as he sees fit.

Why WoW works? Because the impassable barriers are automatically determined by terrain inclination. In DAoC you can ideally run up vertical surfaces. In WoW instead you walk only at certain inclinations and while playing you develop a precise perception of where you can walk and where you cannot.

So, really. THIS is a part that you should shouldn't be ashamed to copy from WoW.

Were you not paying attention when this thread got linked on outside sites, and we started to see a bunch of leeches come in and beg for beta keys? Keys that no one actually has, and that are also not given out thoughtlessly?

No, it's still fucking stupid in WoW. There were plenty of "inclined areas" that, while my character could not walk up the area, any reasonably healthy person could. I hate playing the game of "Find the spot on the hill that the game will let you run up."

In terms of PvP you basically have "open" PvP constrained to PvP areas, you also have "instanced" PvP and "Battlegrounds". With battlegrounds being points of interest thay may benefit your particular alliance. With Victory points being the reward, how do you balance the rewards of 3 different types of PvP so that none are less worthwhile?

I wonder can victory points be variable based on certain conditions of a battle? I can already see the "you nerfed victory points in X" posts now.

Hey, Hrose. It hasn't been said in a while?

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

Mark, you seem cool and all, but suck it up.  Don't ask for a special private "no flaming" forum.  Take your beatings like a man.

Lord knows Raph does.   :-D

Thanks for replying Mark. For the record, LotD is very pleased with what we've seen and heard about WAR.  Our largest guild chapter is WoW, with 70 members, and we've got another 50 who play something part time or who will be joining us for WAR. That said, we're paying close attention to any details about how the game isn't going to be WoW  1.5 because after 2 years we're sorta burned out on that, and how the game supports full time gamers as well as the casuals (we're a mixture of both).

I don't think you should force people into a PVP development track, but I do believe it should be an optional path for advancement at the equivalent of say level 10. Just give some co-op quests and an instance to tease people about what lies ahead if they PVP.

Anyways, happy new year!

I don't think you should force people into a PVP development track, but I do believe it should be an optional path for advancement at the equivalent of say level 10. Just give some co-op quests and an instance to tease people about what lies ahead if they PVP.

text

... but there's most likely even less idiots who feels the opposite. Fucking non functioning social retards think it's fun to compete about who can tag the mob first, who out dmgs who, or whatever is relevant in order to get loot rights. However, it also means that 99% of your paying subscribers will never participate due to the complete asstardery of lowering social standards because they don't stand a chance. Instancing solves this, but can ruin immersion if not done well when it comes to PvE.

...

When it comes to traveling, well, it's cool with a large massive world but without a way to travell it fairly swiftly you easily get bored. I'd rather sacrifice some of the massiveness of the world for some convenience in this case. ...

On a last note "Flight Paths", please do not make travel overly easy.  If you build a massive world, keep it massive, if you can easily click to go to this zone and afk for 4 minutes while flying on the back of something and you are there it destroys the feeling of being in a large diverse world.  I'm not saying don't use them at all, but use them where they are needed, not as mass transit to every corner of your game.  In EQ planes of power destroyed the idea of the "world" due to the fact that you just clicked on book type things to go to a central hub of "go where ever you want" and in WoW you can fly from one tip of the continent to the other and everywhere in between while you go fetch a snack.  You might consider giving a class a transport ability for quick travel (good way to make money for those classes, if someone needs to be somewhere fast).  Otherwise quite literally by working to make travel easy and quick you are working to minimalize (yes I know its not a word) all the work you have done creating a vast and interesting landscape.

Hey, Hrose. It hasn't been said in a while?

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

26
Italy
Time waster
Awake from 8PM till 12AM

So sure, there are lots of really good reasons not to build for RvR, and to go GvG instead.

But if you aren't aiming to focus on something different, ie. proper epic feeling battles that are also fun and interesting to play, I don't know why anyone would pay the cost of entry that RvR development carries with it.

I know that there's a lot of people who feels the same way, but there's most likely even more who feels the opposite. Competitive hard core players think it's fun to compete about who can tag the mob first, who out dmgs who, or whatever is relevant in order to get loot rights. However, it also means that 99% of your paying subscribers will never participate because they don't stand a chance. Instancing solves this when it comes to PvE.

I completely disagree. Forcing the player to experience a vastness of a world by refusing to put in conveniences is a road to disaster. If I can't log on and get to the fun in 10 minutes, I won't play the game. Spending time twiddling your thumbs while taking a taxi, or even worse, being forced to interact for extended periods of time without having fun - like, for instance, simply traveling by foot to another town, traveling to get to the fun - will only foster animosity. The first time you enter an area is amazing, the fourth or fifth time it becomes tedious. Tedious gameplay = lost subscriptions. Forcing the player to travel 'overland' once is fine, because that is new content. Forcing him to experience the same 'gameplay' to get to where he wants to go over and over again isn't. That is boring rehash and serves no purpose other than to piss your players off.

Thanks again
Serek V'Sek, Co-Leader: Darkness Descending

Thanks again
Serek V'Sek, Co-Leader: Darkness Descending

Better turf-afro boy?

You don't get to be a dick.

Best Regards,
Schild
editor, f13.net

If it's not a private forum for WAR discussion I don't see the point, it would just hurt the normal forums and reeks of elitism.  I could understand if Mythic wanted to keep WAR specific information out of the public domain for competitive reasons, that's been done here before for games under a beta nda. 

Guess the lagal point is the most important point here. If i understand him correctly (stupid german here), he options for a plattform to discuss MMORPG-design in general.

From a player and reader point of view you take MMORPGs as what they are for you, a game and a hobby, but for "insert company or employee here" they are multi-million dollar business!
So if YOU have this devine intervention and come up with a revolutionary idea of gameplay or feature, you should not be able to sue Mythic in case they announce that feature or a new game using your idea.
"Intellecutal property" (is the term in englich right?) is a huge issue in any business and any company has to hold a department full of lawyers specialised in that branch :-(. It is VERY important to secure the intellectual property for anyone, but the lawsuits in result are often countless and sometimes very wierd.
Write a book and let it be successfull... 10 weeks later you have hundrets of people in court claiming you stole "their" idea and they all want a share of the money.

Please tell me that was a "You're banned!" send-off.  I know you don't usually do that, but look at his sig.  We don't need his sort here.  Otherwise, next thing you know this'll be a sewer like Stratics, with giant graphical sigs of pirated Boris Vallejo art crudely stamped with the name of some asshat's game character.

  In terms of travel times, I hate long travel times but also don't want instant travel around the world.

I don't think it's an either/or situation.  If GvG doesn't matter in RvR, why should a guild bother to put effort to build  a solid team together to help the realm army?  If anybody will do, why put in the effort, better to go to the common area spam the chat channels to get warm bodies. Anybody who attack the called target will do, maybe a healer or two, but who gives a shit as long as they show up.

I'd like to see some battlefield direction from something during a battle.  If the AI is too difficult to figure out, then do the rank/random thing (highest ranking PC is made raid leader, if multiple folks have the same rank, random it) to determine who can set waypoints.  Biggest frustration/turnoff I've had to deal with is folks new to MMO PvP not having the fainest idea what to do, and the fast pace of PvP making it a pretty steep curve to learn.  Having waypoints/text appear telling where to go/what to do would go along way toward relieving that pressure.

But people can be douchebags, so I'd actually prefer that the AI give battlefield-level directions to groups, and group leaders give squad-level directions.

Kinda like a mmog discussion forum then?

Meanwhile back on planet earth, Blizzard implemented DAoC's battlegrounds, funny I have not seen anyone taking them to court.  I think submarines are the next big thing for mmorpg's, so all you game designers out there, stay away from my submarine idea or lawyer up! 

Complete bollocks, the most recent revolutionary idea was when Blizzard made a game where it didn't suck to level up, now the world is full of game devs going, "oh why didn't I think of that?".  The next revolutionary idea will be when someone releases a game that's enjoyable during the leveling/skill gain process and continues to be fun even after that section of the game ends.

I loved your "they are multi-million dollar business!" comment though  :-D

I have seen it happen while i was working in the gaming industrie,

Grand.

Awesome is one of the words/phrases that have been banished, along with pwn, Now Showing at Theaters, truthiness and the horrible new custom of combining names of celebrity couples.  (TomKat, Bradgolina)

Just sayin....

 2007 List  (http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php)

I don't think it's an either/or situation.  If GvG doesn't matter in RvR, why should a guild bother to put effort to build  a solid team together to help the realm army?  If anybody will do, why put in the effort, better to go to the common area spam the chat channels to get warm bodies. Anybody who attack the called target will do, maybe a healer or two, but who gives a shit as long as they show up.

Well you got a valid point here, you didn t hear about it, so it doesn t happen :-D

I have seen it happen while i was working in the gaming industrie, but only the REAL big things come up in the press (like someone claiming the idea of Harry Potter is stolen or someone suing Brown over Illuminati). And wasn t the USA the country where you can win files about burning your lips on hot coffee in an MC Donalds Store? :-D

DAoC was the forthcoming of god. And ltm/SND his herald.

That's a proven truth. Then there were a few sporadic voices. They told that DAoC wasn't all good, that it also has some dark spots, that it wasn't all perfect and that Mythic's was trying to just control and pilot the community for their only interest. Those players were banned and from there started a whole lot of drama.

plz don't make the orks suck because I like things orky

:Love_Letters:

Hmm.. I don't like that line of thought.  If the RvR is built right, it will attract all players and should not be designed to fit one mold.  The current concept seems to be aimed at providing the four (really three) I mentioned earlier in the thread and has focus for group and raid level (along with open).  If the tailoring of the games PvP is structured for Guild vs Guild (as it appears AOC is going to aim at..) then it is going to force the RvR to become a raid focus (if by GvG you are aiming to the rewards).  What I think would be nice is if part of that RvR structure built in military units instead of group units..  Have a commmander spot (as eldaec mentioned) and then tiered spots down with a bottom rank and file.  You earn the ability to be put into those slots from your contribution as a character in previous RvR, but you are elected, not auto assigned...  Does that make sense?

Sniff. I WAS the viral marketing, Scott honey. I was a dirty, filthy sellout two months before you were, jerkface.

P.S. My team trolls everywhere that metaphorical Mary goes, for the lambs are sure to go as well. I was sort of hoping this place would stay... well, whatever "pure" is, for F13. Which is why you'll almost never see me post here, but I had to respond to Scott's vile calumny.


Sanya M. Thomas
Director of Community Relations
EA Mythic

Instead a battle system guarantees the equal-footing. You cannot make a group made just of team leaders with powerful skills, because you can only have 1 team leader every 10 players that are "soldiers". So only one every ten, in every case, will be a team leader and will have the team leader skills. Even if that group is made just by veteran players who capped their PvP points.

So we were excited, but to say we were unpaid/paid shills is at best a vile slander and at worse actionable slander.

Would read access for "the many" and posting privileges for the "the few" be a horrid thing? And perhaps add in a gimick account the many could PM to add to the discussion?

You're just worried this thread may challenge your UO and SW threads for 100 page uber-thread dominance.

As Eldaec mentioned though, keeping it simple would be the best idea.

Today I would probably design things in a different way.

What I think would be nice is if part of that RvR structure built in military units instead of group units.. Have a commmander spot (as eldaec mentioned) and then tiered spots down with a bottom rank and file. You earn the ability to be put into those slots from your contribution as a character in previous RvR, but you are elected, not auto assigned... Does that make sense

You are not "designing" and will never "design" anything. Stop talking like that. You can't even design a coherent post.

Perhaps a better way to assign leadership would be randomly by default with the ability to override the random selection within a group.  Allow people to accrue leadership by having success while acting as the leader. Give leadership abilities for attaining points while in the leadership roles.

It's very possible to award abilities without skewing outcomes too much.  Even in the older DAoC model it's very possible for a skilled low realm rank group to win against much higher realm rank opponents.  Leadership would just offer a specific skill tree for players to climb and offer a carrot in the form of ability diversity.   

Excuse me sir, people can write about game design?

There's a difference between good and bad game design, and I'm not saying mine is in either of the two categories.

But, oh, that doesn't make it any less than, well, game design.

I didn't know we can consider "game design" only mechanics already coded into a game.

The point being that 'design' without implementation is irrelevant. I could 'design' a flying car but if the theoretical is never tested in the practical sense then it's absolutely worthless. So no, you haven't really designed anything because your ideas exist outside of any practical context. Design is about the elegant achievement of a goal within environmental constraints. Your abstracts don't do this ergo they are not designs at all, they're theories at best.

Okay, from now on I'll use "design theory" in place of "design". Does it make you happy?

I like how everyone is much more interested to comment the drama, or trolling me, when I'm supposed to be the only one who is here for that purpose.

I like how everyone is much more interested to comment the drama, or trolling me, when I'm supposed to be the only one who is here for that purpose.

Further, the reason you get this kind of feedback is that you position yourself as if you were an established designer who knows what it takes to ship a AAA title.

Everyone pays the same monthly fee. As such, they theoretically have the same opportunity at every bit of game content as anyone else. When players are allowed to make their own rules though, and have those support by the game system itself, it has the potential (not fact) of permanently closing portions of the game off to other players. This currently happens already of course, but that's more a result of players not having the lifestyles appropriate to accessing the whole game, and not something specifically defined by the company. They probably legally couldn't without offering a tiered pricing scheme.

So for a feature like you discuss to work, the game has to offer concrete ways for players to move in and out of tiered leadership roles. Voting isn't the best way in a military application like you discuss, but there are models that could be used. It would also be important to bracket such systems so that those who always dominant don't have a complete and arbitrary lock on the higher ranks. The company would almost need to develop a system whereby the current encounter scales to whoever has become the current Battle Leader. For example:

• Uber Battle: Two teams, 20 on 20. The matchmaking service puts together the groups for the encounter appropriately. 1 player from each is automagically elected leader, with ranks decending from there as appropriate. Battle commences, goes on, ends. It's all reset.
• Newb Battle: Same thing as Uber, except the Leaders are chosen from a set of newbs. This way, even casual/newbs can access the uber abilities. Ubers wouldn't likely have a problem with that because those abilities are only used in the encounter anyway.

This would minimize the carp that happens in WoW where one side is a pickup group and the other is a premade on voice IP :)

1 player from each is automagically elected leader, with ranks decending from there as appropriate.

Why do you believe that randomly picking leaders is better than letting players decide their leaders?

While the idea is meritous, and its fairly trivial to implement, are there enough people who would want to play on a server which allowed you to play a pre-set number of hours. For one person, ten hours a week might be considered casual, for another person, that might be a lot of time. I know if there were such an experiment in a game I was playing and it was a couple of hours a week, I'd make a character there as well as on my regular server. I'd then proceed to use knowledge from playing on my regular server to be as efficient as I could in the 'casual' server... which would upset the apple cart for the true casual players. :)

Let the players self-select commanders.  Let any player declare them self to be a commander and let other players join if they feel that person is good and leave if they don't like them.  As more people join their army and the longer the army exists, the more powers the commander gets. If people leave the commanders powers decay.  Maybe give commanders in the underdog team access to more/better npcs to counter balance the zerg.

Is there a reason that game developers don't have a server or two that limits online time for a reduced fee?  This seems like the ideal solution for more casual play.  If players pay a smaller fee for a fixed amount of online time per month, then advancement will be limited and equal for all. 

Maybe this is a naive assumption on my part, but it seems like a simple way to cater to a more casual playerbase.

Because often ego > ability.  Random overrides this.  If the players wish to change the leader, a mechanism may exist to do that.  This is why random seems the best default, at least to me.

Letting the players decide seems the most reasonable thing. It's their game, their PvP. They decide their own destiny. Everyone could be a leader if he can convince people to follow him (and in my idea only after he achieved enough points to unblock the leader rank).

Let the players self-select commanders.  Let any player declare them self to be a commander and let other players join if they feel that person is good and leave if they don't like them.  As more people join their army and the longer the army exists, the more powers the commander gets. If people leave the commanders powers decay.  Maybe give commanders in the underdog team access to more/better npcs to counter balance the zerg.

Essentially you'd be changing the model from a subscription to a per/hour charge - with restricted access to hours. So instead of $14.99 a month for unlimited access you'd be charging $10.00 a month for 20 hours. Or $0.50 an hour. The issue i see on the publishers side is that there is really no incentive to do this. People who are only going to play 20 hours a month anyway are better sources of revenue at $14.99 a month than people who are going to play 160 hours - they cost less to service for the same amount of revenue.

Why do you believe that randomly picking leaders is better than letting players decide their leaders?

...

I actually thinks that picking random leaders would create even more problems and drama. There are MANY players who don't even aspire being leaders, so why force them?

The everyone pays the same plays the same is the rub, but I know I would not pay to play a game that someone else could pay more to be given options above me (though one could easily point to the "Gold / Platinum / Special Eidtion content as being part of that...).

I like where the discussion is going. If the commander roll was more of a sit on a hill top and run the strat it might be a better notion instead of them just rolling across chat and such. Perhaps have a tent or post for both sides (which of course could be infiltrated or sacked) that the commander character would use charts and other topical devices to control various aspects at the strat level. I really wish this conversation could be outside of the soap box arena the thread has devolved into though...

If the gap is tiny, then yes you may win. But 4-5 ranks of difference in DAoC give an advantage that isn't negligible.

Reduce them, and the achievement would feel bland and pointless, make it stronger and PvP would feel unbalanced. More than trying to find a magical formula I was just trying to find alternative solutions.

I position myself as everyone else on this forum

I don't know how DAoC worked, but I do know that random is BAD in cases like that.

If you put a bunch of people and tell them to fight, the leader with the loudest and most rational voice will gain the most followers. If no one can decide who to follow, your side will get it's ass kicked until it gets it's act together.

  As to the differentiation between PvE and PvP and how it is idiotic, I agree somewhat.  In a perfect world/game they would indeed be the same things.  However, I see no way of doing that and at the same time, ensure that new players would have an enjoyable newbie experience.  Subscription-based MMORPGs have to be fun for the newbies or they won't becoming subscribers and if they don't become subscribers, well, then bye-bye game.  And since newbies can be total newbies to even an MMIORPG, requiring them to do PvP will be, for many of them, a reason not to subscribe.  However, if the quest calls for 10 "Enemy Ears" and you can get the enemy ears from the PvE Greenskins or the PC Greenskins, that's how a simple, perfect PvP/PvE quest should be created.

I'll ask again: How do you keep those who have achieved these from locking out everyone else who'd like a shot? Are you proposing a competitive Rank system ala old WoW Honor except where Realm Rank also comes with unlocked abilities? I could buy that. I would never seen those top-tier unlocked abilities, but at least the game isn't designed to let players forever keep me from them.

I'll ask again: How do you keep those who have achieved these from locking out everyone else who'd like a shot? Are you proposing a competitive Rank system ala old WoW Honor except where Realm Rank also comes with unlocked abilities? I could buy that. I would never seen those top-tier unlocked abilities, but at least the game isn't designed to let players forever keep me from them.

Daoc's realm rank effect wasn't *that* big after the realm rank rework anyway. The big problem with the initial design of realm abilities is that high power abilities were often balanced by very long reuse timers; later the devs realised that once a timer was long enough to limit it to one use per battle, lengthening the timer any further becomes meaningless; because it's still just as powerful as a once per battle ability from the point of view of the person it is being used on.

Just to throw some ideas into the mix, Battlefield 2142 has an interesting model for leadership in basically PuGs. There's squad members, squad leaders, then a single commander. As you play the game and gain points, you gain ranks. At the beginning of a round, you can put yourself up for commander. If no one else wants to be commander you are automatically put up as commander. If someone higher rank than you tries during the election period, they get to be commander.

At the end of the day everyone is there to have fun, and more importantly to get points. It's similar to an MMO because you have a persistent rank which is shown on every server you go on and increases based on the points you score. Sometimes the command structure is beneficial to getting points, especially when you're in an organized group where everyone is experienced and knows how to use the command system. Sometimes you just don't give a damn and want to do your own thing.

1.) There needs to be rewards for using the system. In an organized group (pre-made) the reward is that your team will be more effective overall and win more. Random groupings need a more inherent, tangible reward because people won't listen and will just do their own thing unless they get a definite benefit from following orders. The amount of rewards you should give depends on how rigidly you want people following the command structure. BF2142 only gives a relatively small bonus and therefore people don't follow or give orders to the extent they would.
2.) The order system needs to be intuitive or people will have trouble understanding for following the orders. BF2142 suffers from a not entirely intuitive order system. As a result, in a given public match, many orders will go unheeded simply out of ignorance.

4.) Command positions need to have experience/rank requirements. You can't effectively lead without actual ground experience.

5.) There needs to be a way to democratically override command positions in case someone decides to go AFK or is simply not doing their job.

The idea is to have many different roles, all designed to be interesting and fun, so that not everyone wants to be at the top. If you want a particular role, you can ask.

Sounds similar to the original concept (I think) behind Alterac Valley. There's a number of sub-objectives within AV including assaulting/taking mines, towers, returning Armor Scraps/etc to NPCs in base, etc. Most of these seem ignored nowadays in favor of the mad rush, because there seems to be a universal belief that if a rush fails then a turtle (perpetual defense) occurs. AV's been balanced quite a bit as I understand it though, but the theory of the side-objectives seems similar to what you're outlining, except more open.

I'm not sure I'd want to see more formal meta-classes in a PvP environment. But I do like the BF2142 rank options and abilities to get into them. And as mentioned earlier, I do agree that you can't really do things democratically mid-battle.

I also agree on Planetside, but more because of the "classes" there than anything else. I prefer a system where growth is lateral rather than linear. This is one of intrinsically greater freedom both in design and in playability. You're not locked forever into a bad decision you made on day one.

you can't really do things democratically mid-battle

stuff

My wife is much nicer in MMOs than I am. It's really irritating when she gets on one of my characters and I log in later to find people being nice to me.

I'm not joking.

 However totally removing communication between the sides seems a bit extreme just to stop Fred insulting Bob's mother. 

Making a game more real is not something we should be striving for.  Especially in a PvP game.  Especially in a PvP game that has an average player age of about 16 with an average IQ that's lower.

Forums can support everything that the game won't.  It works for WoW.

 Communication is harmless.

Spin, negotiation, peacemaking, scheming, new friendships

it's also had the benefit of making both sides HATE each other

It's a different playstyle Ironwood, SB and EVE prove there is a market for it, even if it's not mainstream

Communication is harmless.

But that's sort of the point. It's not mainstream at a time when we're discussing a game that hopes to be. I appreciate the political machinations that went on in SB (and SWG too, those were good times, paid off spies, counteragents, etc). But the average gamer is not here for that level of immersion. It just takes too much damned work to keep up, and it ends up becoming the playground of the higher levels of the player pyramid at the expense of incorporating newbies and casual players. It works well for those that like it, but it won't be part of the success of a million+ subscription game without a collective sociological shift in Western players.

The more immersive, the more relevant, the more world-impacting you make it, the less people will want to be a part of it.

@Hrose: I think this we need to recognize just who's interested in this sort of immersion though. Eve and DAoC RvR were not mass hits, not played nearly to the degree WoW BGs are.

More players in DAoC and Eve engage in PvP than those in WoW. In percentage (players engaged in PvP/PVE ratio).

Even after that last patch ?  Are you sure ??

WoW-type people avoid them because they feel they cannot compete with catasses and would regularly get one shotted and have no opportunity to fight back, and they believe that to have fun in these games you have to compete with catasses because getting one shotted with no means to fight back is not fun. They also believe that in these games the world will change around them too quickly and they can get involved in non-consensual pvp without a way to avoid it. But perhaps most importantly they also believe that it is impossible to have fun in these games without a strong guild, and that it is not possible to get into a strong guild without being a catass.

I still believe that one of the reasons of DAoC decline is because of its strong bias toward gank groups/8vs8 at the expense of the good, old keep warfare and conquest.

No, that's the power of the carrot. NOT the preference of the players.

This is the same old debate about 5-man instances and raids. People don't like raids more than smaller instances, but it's the game design that determines what players do. Give the players TRULY alternate and parallel advancements between PvP, 5-man instances, normal questing and PvE raids and then we'll see what the players like more.

Give to WoW's "world PvP" more powerful rewards than those achieved through BGs and YOU CAN BE SURE that the BGs would be deserted in less than a day.

Even after that last patch ?  Are you sure ??

Darniaq, which part of me saying I was talking about open communication in reference purely to a niche WAR ruleset server did you not understand?

This is supposed to have two main effects:
- You never lose progress as your bounty points pool never shrinks.
- The system allows a game designer to balance the direct kills/objective-based PvP ratio by setting how many bounty points you can convert after each objective completed

SB and EVE don't fail to be mainstream because people are afraid of world impacting pvp.

WoW-type people avoid them because they feel they cannot compete with catasses and would regularly get one shotted and have no opportunity to fight back, and they believe that to have fun in these games you have to compete with catasses because getting one shotted with no means to fight back is not fun

More players in DAoC and Eve engage in PvP than those in WoW. In percentage (players engaged in PvP/PVE ratio). Or maybe you are saying that WoW has more players because of its shitty PvP?

I do not believe the nichiness of world PvP is because of executional issues of the past, as outlined above. I think it has to do with the kind of players this genre is attracting in its bid to grow larger.

I try to imagine SB done perfectly or Eve with a less arcane UI and still don't see the average gamer sticking around because the motivations and results of being in these experiences are based almost "too much" on other players.

The largest majority of the market doesn't want a PvP-centric game.

And taking that path (RvR with clear rules) it's perfectly possible to have 'safe' world altering events

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP. And thats a mighty appealing proposition for a lot of players who tolerate the PVE grind to access end game PVP.

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

Warhammer : Age of Reckoning

'The game with more variations on Alterac than WoW'



...doesn't feel like a sensible way to differentiate WAR.

This is a huge mistake if the game releases with this mechanic.  Even with realm ranks in DAoC it's not impossible to beat someone of higher rank in a 1v1.  It's unlikely, but there's still a chance.  I've beaten several rr7+ toons at very low rr.  It makes those wins so much sweeter.

Well that's game over.
Is lateral advancement such alien concept?

By the way, in Warhammer speech "tiers" = "levels", not PvP ranks. What she is saying is that a level 40 character won't be able to kill a level 50 one in 1vs1.

I think played one session of that, I wasn't impessed just min/max jobs just too powerful.  I thought they weren't following the RPG.

My basic point is that with that it'll be just another grind to teir 4 to RvR, you could RvR at T1 but who wants to be roadkill?

As an aside, I'm personally not a fan of varied-ruleset servers for the same reason I don't like "PvP class abilities" vs "Normal class abilities". I prefer an experience developers work towards solutions that can be applied to whoever comes because anything less segregates players more than they already are.

The current WoW Honor Points system with a quest-based engine attached. Sounds good to me.

You've always wanted relevant world PvP from the days before BGs. But ask yourself this: why did Blizzard choose to go the BG route, and continue to make shallow their more recent attempts at relevant world PvP? Do you think they're shy or dumb?

There's a huge difference between low/no-barrier BGs and the world-PvP that preceded it and PvP servers vs not? Sh*t, I can even ask that: you say "why are only 1/2 the WoW servers PvP+"? Name any game of modicum success where that's ever been the case. All that preceded maybe had a few servers with that ruleset, and yet WoW launched that way. That wasn't stab-in-the-dark thinking.

My basic point is that with that it'll be just another grind to teir 4 to RvR, you could RvR at T1 but who wants to be roadkill?

Not to split hairs, but PvP-centric and a game with PvP in it aren't the same. People want PvP sprinkled in their PvE game

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP.

Yet look at the difference between a wow fanboy and an eve fanboy. Despite the 1/20th playerbase, eve still rocked the mmorpg vote recently because the fanbase is incredibly dedicated.

Because in WoW open PvP is actually well done and designed (and we discussed this many times even on Grimwell). Graveyards, forgivable penalties, (initial) lack of incentive to gank, good communication (asking for help through the zone-chat), the contested/friendly zone organization and so on.

Also, the way you present things changes the perception. If the PvP servers are just 1 every 10 normal then people think of them as if they are minor rulesets. While WoW launched with equal number of PvP and PvE servers, giving the perception that they were evenly supported and considered.

SB or EVE done right (arguably EVE *is* EVE done right) wouldn't have mass appeal.

Seems to me that RvR engages you emotionally to a much greater degree than PvE does.  And what creates an emotional response encourages a strong connection.

in WoW there's a lot of activity at the endgame in the raiding guilds, but the way this content was developed "segmented" the community a lot. There can be from ten to twenty raiding guilds or more, each with its own little world and ecosystem. These guilds rarely communicate between each other and, in a general sense, there's no real community or identity on a server. There isn't anything that you achieve as a whole or truly communal objectives. So the perspective of "success" or the maximum achievement is always personal and within the bounds of each guild. Outside a guild people simply ignore each other. They are phantoms. There's nothing that really connect the players in a "world". And the more you move toward the endgame the more your playtime will be focused on instanced content. The more your "footprint" loses consistence. More and more vaporous.

DAoC from this perspective was really different and *felt* different. You started as a phantom and slowly became tangible. That's the reason why my memories from that game will remain stronger. The idea of the three realms at war is a very strong one and what everyone was expecting from WoW's PvP and was deluded when instead we found just gameplay modes ripped straight from first person shooters with very little involvement and motivation. DAoC felt different because it gave truly communal objectives that were shared between all players. There was a community because we shared the world and we played always together in the same zones. The "war" was a context shared by everyone and where everyone could participate. Your own story, or the few hours you had available during an evening to play, weren't just a personal experience that is relevant solely to you and your guildmates. Instead the RvR zones were a real battlefield, and every other player was playing a part in your game. Participation.

Yeah, sure.

Eve is NOT done right from the perspective of mass appeal. But NOT because of its PvP structure and depth.

Eve isn't popular because it's contort, counterintuitive, impersonal, filled with UI noise, heavily spreadsheet based, slow, point&click, the opposite of visceral and direct, hard to get into and you can continue the list.

And it surely lacks the polish of WoW.

An important point, but I thought you can do this in WoW too? I've been 60 for a year and a half though. It's been a long time since I gained any XP at all, so can't tell.

Registered just to be able to answer this question!

You used to be able to turn in Battleground tokens for experience, but they've since been removed, so you can't level up via PvP.  There are actually a group of players that appreciate being unable to level your characters while PvPing.  I have a friend who keeps a character specifically at Lv. 29 and runs battlegrounds at that level, because to him and the people he plays with, the game feels much more balanced in the area.  Hence why certain blues at that level can sell for a good amount of gold.

The other part is about the balance between direct kills and objectives. In the idea I wrote earlier on this thread I proposed a bounty system where players gain bounty points from direct kills. But before these points can be used toward whatever is the PvP progression, the players need to complete objectives. So an objective works like a trigger that convert "x" bounty points in your pool into "real" PvP progression.

Something I've been asking myself lately that I haven't been able to answer is this: are the battlegrounds (wow, in this context) fun because they have predefined objectives and win/loss criteria (which limits the amount of time required by a particular battleground), or are they fun because they focus players into one area?

Because those BG twinks didn't have to turn in tokens for exp if they didn't want to - what the hell are they going to do with faction anyways?

There is a HUGE contingent who WANT PvP to equal no XP game.  For them its the fun of playing amongst friends and whatnot against others that is fun, on an equal setting.  Its a meta game in and of itself.

I think it's the former. There's a clear win condition to bring the whole event to resolution (even if Alliance on my battlegroup seem to ignore that in Arathi and Warsong and instead go for the straight grind). That's why I consider it sport.

You used to need Faction to unlock the tiers of purchaseable goods. It's a shame they tossed the ability to gain XP from turn-ins (thanks Lorekeeper, and welcome!) along with the need to unlock tiers. But I imagine they don't think people will be wasting much time in the current BGs come 1/16. Heck, even I plan to ditch the whole thing altogether until I hit 70, hoping by then they'll have more than 3 gimped BGs and the Arena thing for the harder core set.

There is a HUGE contingent who WANT PvP to equal no XP game.  For them its the fun of playing amongst friends and whatnot against others that is fun, on an equal setting.  Its a meta game in and of itself.

Right now nobody's BGing for XP. But they ARE BGing for honor points for gear and/or Faction (not sure there's any use for Faction currently). And we'll likely see this activity take a nosedive come the expac launch, while people check out more "world" PvP and grind up to 70 and the new different system awating them there.

You used to be able to turn in Battleground tokens for experience, but they've since been removed, so you can't level up via PvP.  There are actually a group of players that appreciate being unable to level your characters while PvPing.  I have a friend who keeps a character specifically at Lv. 29 and runs battlegrounds at that level, because to him and the people he plays with, the game feels much more balanced in the area.  Hence why certain blues at that level can sell for a good amount of gold.

Something I've been asking myself lately that I haven't been able to answer is this: are the battlegrounds (wow, in this context) fun because they have predefined objectives and win/loss criteria (which limits the amount of time required by a particular battleground), or are they fun because they focus players into one area?

DAOC battlegrounds had no predefined objective or win/loss criteria, but they were a hell of a lot of fun (with enough population).  The fact that there were no predefined win/loss/re-queue didn't seem to detract from that, but giving the battles some point might have made them more entertaining.

As much as it pains me to say, most of the BG warriors in DAoC play there because they aren't competitive in the endgame.  I guess it's a self-sorting way of ensuring people get the level of competition that suits them. 

The toughest part about PvP is balance between fun a competition.  Sadly to many, the fun is in winning... not in the gaming experience itself.

Yes, but then why we don't really SUPPORT those choices and make them part of the game?

Why not players delevel characters dynamically to the max cap of the zone and PLAY WHEREVER THE HELL THEY DESIRE?

In DAoC, after a long time, they added slash commands (because DAoC is still one of those games who still relies heavily on those prehistoric slash commands) to stop gaining xp and rps, but they still don't allow to delevel your character and go play in lower level BGs.

There's another thread on this forum where people wrote than only a FEW BGs are active. This means that the BGs in DAoC are playable only in the case the level of your character matches the level of the BG that has some players in it. If instead characters could delevel and move freely between every BG you could have the possibility to move in the zone that has some activity and have some fun. Instead of being locked out.

If your character is at level 29 but the level 29 BG is empty, you could delevel to 20 and enter that BG, that maybe has lots of players playing.

The basic difference between DAoC and WoW is that in DAoC the BGs are persistent.

Not everyone has the same goals as you.

Probably because it's a lot of work both programatically and design wise to figure the best way to delevel a character, try to figure out how to get the equipment formulas to work with all the possible variations (A Lv. 20 with Tier 1!), redoing spells and combat formulas (which in WoW isn't feasible for all classes.  Sure, you could deny access to higher ranks of spells, but Rogues for instance do not have multiple ranks of their abilities), then making sure the character can come out of this temporary status change in one piece without completely fricking up the character data.

Instead of all of this talk about de-leveling, consider something like this: When you enter a battleground, you no longer are playing the character you've raised.  Everyone is the same level, has the access to the same set of abilities, and the same set of equipment.

> But the fact is an RPG is about character progression.
The sooner we can put a bullet through the head of this idea the better.

And trust me, persistance is a dirty word in instanced battlegrounds...To be fair to both sides who are competing, you need a good reset condition, and nothing serves this better than to end the battleground after a victory condition has been achieved by one side.

FYI the persistence of DAOC BGs causes some serious problems, as one side tends to take and hold all of the landmarks.  At its worst, the undermanned realms are trapped in their portal keep, farmed by the dominant "zerg" waiting for anybody to emerge.  This is why most DAOC BG lovers either roll stealthers who can avoid those situations, or have alt characters in multiple battlegrounds so that they can find one with a good fight.

As much as it pains me to say, most of the BG warriors in DAoC play there because they aren't competitive in the endgame.  I guess it's a self-sorting way of ensuring people get the level of competition that suits them. 

An RPG without the stereotypical gameplay that's come to be associated with it would be an adventure game, right?

This is true, but if all those people could skip the grind, then they would be competitive in endgame rvr, because endgame rvr would be populated by people like them. Much as it was in the early years of daoc.

I would think that they do have the same goals as I do in any game: to have fun.  Granted, everyone's idea of fun differs. 

Was this supposed to be a jab?

No. Was your statement a jab?  Sounds like you said people who prefer the BG are just settling for the BG because they couldn't hack it in RvR. 

Why not players delevel characters dynamically to the max cap of the zone and PLAY WHEREVER THE HELL THEY DESIRE?

My idea for WoW "world" PvP was to use "hotspots" working like magnets. You gain honor points from killing other players only at a radius from the hotspot. The more you fight closer to the hotspot the more points you get.

For a more persistent version, I would love to see an alternative model where dominance in RvR/battlegrounds leads to SimCity-style "disasters" which challenge the dominant team

My statement was not a jab, it was a statement based on observations over the past 4 years or so that the BG's have existed.  People that are successful in endgame PvP rarely play in the BG's.  Sure, they do it on occasion but it's certainly not the norm.

When "success" in endgame PvP equates to massive time commitments, lots of decent players look elsewhere.  I cancelled because it's hard to find solo fights in real RvR, with an infant I don't have the time to run with a regular 8v8 group (going afk mid-fight for a screaming baby gets groups pissed off), and the old-school zerg siege fights are harder to find (although I hated them anyway).  Personally I had an RR7 and a few RR5s, but I preferred BG play.  Especially the BG stealthers tended to be twinked and smart, good competition.

Something I've been asking myself lately that I haven't been able to answer is this: are the battlegrounds (wow, in this context) fun because they have predefined objectives and win/loss criteria (which limits the amount of time required by a particular battleground), or are they fun because they focus players into one area?

> But the fact is an RPG is about character progression.
The sooner we can put a bullet through the head of this idea the better.

Developers never give 2 holy shits about the low level game. 

Seems like we play for similar reasons with similar playstyles... it's interesting that we see things so differently. 

The fine folks at Kohnke Communications set up a teleconference to pass on some information about Warhammer Online. It was … an experience. On the Kohnke end, things were run by the ever-friendly Eddiemae Jukes. EA-Mythic offered up Senior Producer Jeff Hickman and Design Manager Paul Barnett to answer the questions submitted in advance by the press folks.

They’ve worked together before, and it was very obvious. Jeff referred to himself as the ‘fun’, while Paul is the ‘fact’. That was … pretty much the way of things, though I wouldn’t call Jeff’s presentation boring. Between the two of them, they talked extensively about the Realm vs. Realm combat, and got into a little bit of what makes Warhammer very much *not* World of Warcraft.


I’m not sure that the differences between the two games are a slam dunk at this point, but I walked away from the call with a distinct increase in respect for the title. Which, of course, is exactly what the purpose of the call was. I’m going to admit to ignorance on my part with some of the game’s nuances, prior to the call. Halfway through I hopped online and found that some of the details they were handing out were easly accessible on their website. So. Shame on me.

They began by talking about their ‘Public quest’ system. Instead of going to NPCs for quests, you are given quests automatically by entering an area of the world. ‘As you come into the public quest area, you are given the quest, everyone gets the quest, everyone participates at the same time’. I like this idea, insomuch as it removes some of the book-keeping involved in what is (supposed to be) an entertaining experience.

Their stress when talking about quests was on the violent, epic nature of the world. Paul Barnett put it like so: “What am I going to do in most games? ‘Get killed by an eight-year old finger ninja.’” Instead, you go and do ongoing quests that captures the spirit of the game right from the starter village. They were very high-level here, and despite their example of ‘a giant coming to smash up the town’ (which sounds entertaining) I’m not sure I buy ‘epic from the get-go’. I’ve yet to play a fantasy MMOG that didn’t have me killing rats at the start of things. Here’s hoping though, right?

“What did you learn from DAoC that you’re bringing to WAR?” Their off-the-cuff funny answer was ‘everything’. Specifically, and obviously, realm vs. realm combat in DAoC is the basis for that functionality in Warhammer. Jeff refers to DAoC in the past tense. It ‘was’ very successful. Mr. Hickmans sounds like he’s moved past Camelot. RvR in Warhammer, meanwhile, will have ‘four levels of RvR’, with many places and ways to participate. They touch on this more later, and this really does seem like it will be a defining feature for the game.

They briefly discuss Guild management. Most games they (rightly) claim, have pretty crappy guild support. Again, they’re basing everything on what they’ve learned from Dark Age. DAoC really does get this right, so I can’t see that they’re blowing smoke here.

They touch on the game’s diversity of character classes. They have ‘about 44 classes in DAoC’. This, they say, was very hard to maintain, but very rewarding. They’re bringing that to WAR, with 24 classes. Each class has a defining mechanic, and each race has its own unique classes. Mmmm… That’s a lot of classes. I never understood DAoC’s obsession with lots of classes, actually, but if they say it’s rewarding I guess that’s their bailiwick. To my mind, it seems likely to introduce confusion amongst the playerbase.

“How are you addressing the MMOG Grind?” Paul took this one, and went off on a (very British) rant about how ‘naf’ is the usual newbie experience a MMOG offers. Their goal: Make it fun from the beginning. If you have to get ten pelts, just kill ten wolves. More impressively, they claim that the war (RvR) is everywhere, even in the starting village. Players who are interested in PvP won’t have to wait to get to it; the war will come to them. Paul claims that players can experience Warhammer on many levels, and goes on to cite all four Bartle types (thought not by name) as having things to do in the game. It was a very entertaining rant, but avoiding the grind is very hard to get right.

“What’s compelling for a casual player?” The game is meant to be accessible for both PVE and RvR. Playing only once a week will still be fun, as you’ve got ‘fast action’. While I could see this being true about RvR stuff (especially after later comments), how is this game’s PvE going to be fundamentally different enough to offer the super-casual player a rewarding 2 hour experience?

Paul takes a moment to talk about the tone of the world, which he describes as very very dark. “Not spitting babies on sticks and rolling them in salt, or blowing out the torch dark.” This is a dark, grim world, with dark humor, in a perilous time. He apparently bangs his hands on the table and shouts ‘Darker Darker Darker’ to inspire the troops. It’s interesting to hear him talk like this. As far as I know, there’s no word of what rating they’re aiming for, but unless they’re going to be joining Conan in the ‘Rated M’ category I can’t imagine they’ll be able to fully follow through with some of the ‘darkness’ they describe here.

“How deep is the character system?” 6 races. Most of the races have two sexes. (Greenskins are orcs and gobbos.) As characters get more powerful, they start to look distinctly different (dwarven beards get longer). Even if a player has no equipment on, you’ll be able to tell the difference between a 1st and a max-level character. You can further customize your character during gameplay, by acquiring trophies. They’ll be discrete items you can actually place on your character somewhere. Trophies will be acquired from quests, from events, etc. There’s a screenshot on the website that seems to show a dead cat hanging from a player’s belt. This is one area I simply can’t find anything to complain about. Extra character customization is something you can never put ‘too much’ into, I think. Paul broke in and said “The goal is to be able to line up 10 different orcs, all of the same level and of the same class, and to have each and every one of them look different.”

“Character Class + Race = Different?” Every race has different classes associated with it, and even though some classes might seem similar, their hope is that they’ll be different ‘enough’. IE: Once you’ve played through the game with the Orcish tank, you can turn around and play the Dark Elf equivalent without saying ‘gaah this is exactly the same.’ Another admirable goal … but really, how many different ‘ways’ are there of soaking up damage?

At this point they went into the different ‘levels’ of RvR combat. I have to admit, I find their ideas compelling.

Skirmish RvR = Each zone has an RvR area, as well as PvE areas. You’re flagged just by entering the area. Your goal is to kill the other guys. Real basic, nothing fancy.

Battlefields = Objectives within Skirmish areas that are focal points for combat. A tower on a hill, can be claimed for the realm.

Scenarios = Story points within skirmish areas. Instanced. “Evenly matched point-based combat.” Enter the lobby, get matched up with others from your realm to fight the other side. This sounds exactly like what WoW calls battlegrounds, but they were quick to stress there is no CTF or other gameplay types: you’re killing the other side and taking their territory.

All three of these plays into the overall campaign (the ‘fourth level’ of RvR). The different nations and races face off against each other over their commonly held borders. While everyone can fight the opponents of both sides, some fights will have an extra ’something’ to them. They’re working on making racial conflicts somewhat like football rivalries. Minnesota vs. Wisconsin == Dwarves vs. Orcs, for example. By participating in Battlefields and Scenarios, you can ‘own’ zones, and ‘push the enemy back’ from their territorial lands. If your side works hard enough, you can capture the capitol city. You can even ransack the city, kill the citizens, and capture the king. The king can be taken back to your capital city, where players can buy rotten tomatoes to throw at him.

They went on to say that, if one side is good enough, this state could be kept up for quite a while. Just the same, the capitols themselves will be very hard to keep for a long time. The goal is to make the losing side suffer, but not to make their gameplay experience miserable. There are lots of ways in which capitols fight back (guerilla missions?), and holding one for an extended period of time will be quite a feat.

I never had the chance to fully get into the RvR offered by Dark Age of Camelot, but all of this sounds quite exciting. Even if half of the things they’re promising make it into the final game, it would be very different than most of the other massive titles I’ve played. I’m showing my lack of experience here; DAoC was just not that big a deal for me. I’m skeptical and all (of course), but still … sacking capital cities? It makes me want to drink the kool-aid.

“What rewards will RvR offer?” - According to Jeff, it’s not possible to split out RvR rewards from their compatriots on the PvE side. Everything you can get from fighting mobs is obtainable by killing other players. You can earn XP, level up, and even get loot. The items are looted off of dead players, but aren’t ‘from’ the dead players. Players will apparently have their own loot tables. This is completely awesome, and is something I’m eager to test out. I’ve had more than my fill of whomping rats, thanks. If I could have played Arathi Basin for quest xp, I would have been in that queue from logon to logoff.

The idea of griefing comes up, and their response is succinct: “As long as there is still skill involved in taking on another player, you can fight. If there is no challenge in killing a player, or too much, you can’t do it.” A level 40 character in a level 10 zone just wouldn’t be flagged; he doesn’t belong there.

They talk a bit about the size of the game, and state at launch they’ll have 33 zones, 6 capitol cities, 3 PvE dungeons, one big RvR dungeon (what’s that going to be like?), and ‘bazillions of scenarios’. They’ve obviously put a lot of effort into the scenario part of the game. They certainly seem popular in WoW, so no reason to think they won’t work in WAR.

Things are kind of wrapping up and Paul goes off on a tangent about “Playing the game how you want to play it.” IE: Killing members of a guild take their banners, putting the banners on your walls as trophies. Kill people, take their heads, putting them on your guild banner and wave it around. He was a big fan of the “I’m better than you” moments in gaming.

My overall impression: Impressed. I really wish I’d had the chance to play around with the game at GenCon this year. My summer was ‘naf’ to borrow a term, and I never had the chance to set up a PR appointment before hand. My bad, and now it looks like I really missed out on the chance of seeing something different. I still agree with the folks who say that WAR *looks* like WoW, but it definitely seems to have sufficiently different elements so as to set it apart from it is popular predecessor.

If nothing else, the idea of leveling up through the game via PvP (but having the option of not doing so) is the best thing since … Shadowbane.  Good game or not, here’s hoping the conflicts between the greenskins and the dwarves have a bit more staying power.

Thanks to Jeff, Paul, and Eddiemae for the interesting hour. I definitely learned a thing or two, and I’ve finally got a fantasy MMOG to add to my list of games I’m looking forward to. Good show.

They do in CoX.

With the result that it is the only game I'm aware of that maintains a healthy amount of level 1-10s playing to have fun, rather than just to power through to higher levels.

Skirmish RvR = Each zone has an RvR area, as well as PvE areas. You’re flagged just by entering the area. Your goal is to kill the other guys. Real basic, nothing fancy.

But you need to keep adding just as much new shiny to levels 1-10 as to 40-50

They began by talking about their ‘Public quest’ system. Instead of going to NPCs for quests, you are given quests automatically by entering an area of the world. ‘As you come into the public quest area, you are given the quest, everyone gets the quest, everyone participates at the same time’. I like this idea, insomuch as it removes some of the book-keeping involved in what is (supposed to be) an entertaining experience.

“What did you learn from DAoC that you’re bringing to WAR?”

Paul takes a moment to talk about the tone of the world, which he describes as very very dark. “Not spitting babies on sticks and rolling them in salt, or blowing out the torch dark.” This is a dark, grim world, with dark humor, in a perilous time. He apparently bangs his hands on the table and shouts ‘Darker Darker Darker’ to inspire the troops. It’s interesting to hear him talk like this. As far as I know, there’s no word of what rating they’re aiming for, but unless they’re going to be joining Conan in the ‘Rated M’ category I can’t imagine they’ll be able to fully follow through with some of the ‘darkness’ they describe here.

Scenarios = Story points within skirmish areas. Instanced. “Evenly matched point-based combat.” Enter the lobby, get matched up with others from your realm to fight the other side. This sounds exactly like what WoW calls battlegrounds, but they were quick to stress there is no CTF or other gameplay types: you’re killing the other side and taking their territory.

This is the first time, I think, they stated how the 4 level of PvP fit together.

They talk a bit about the size of the game, and state at launch they’ll have 33 zones, 6 capitol cities, 3 PvE dungeons, one big RvR dungeon (what’s that going to be like?), and ‘bazillions of scenarios’. They’ve obviously put a lot of effort into the scenario part of the game. They certainly seem popular in WoW, so no reason to think they won’t work in WAR.

But really, and in particular to Artur Parker, this says NOTHING new. The whole thing is just a patchwork of things that they revealed long ago mixed with a bunch of claims not backed up by actual explanations about how they intend to accomplish some of those goals.

By the way, I also think the 33 zones are not "real". I wrote about this months ago on my site but the suspect is that they count the starting zones twice. For example you start in the dwarf zone and at the other side there's the greenskin/orcs zone. They count this zone as two (one for dwarfs, one for greenskins).

Another question the whole zone and race structure asks is 'how do you do expansions?'

You do not want to add more pvp zones, because spreading the population breaks pvp. But building such a strong rvr focus and then saying 'oh it's a pve expansion' seems odd - plus the inevitable new races need a battlefront.

Adding new races is also hard, because with classes tied explictly to a single race, you need 4  new classes for each new race (maybe you can get away with 2 or 3 and copy 1 or 2 from another race?), and you'll need to add a race to both sides.

So to do the obvious first expansion 'add a new area, and a new race for each side' in the most straightforward way would require 2 races, 8 classes, a 33% increase in PvP landmass, and the equivalent of 11 new zones of PvE content, just to fit in Skaven/Bretonnia or Wood Elf/Chaos Dwarf.

The races themselves and the pve content aren't a problem, but you can't go on adding PvP landmass indefinitely, and adding 8 classes a year is...  very brave.

Maybe they'll just add new races to existing battlefronts (Wood elf joins high elf, chaos dwarf joins chaos) - then you can maybe add a one or two new classes available to both races on that front.

This is the 2nd item in the past few months you have commented on something I have quoted and linked to and said "there's nothing new!", maybe that's fine in your language but it's starting to piss me off.  If you don't find it interesting, skip it and stop saying "that's not new!" you said it before and it's annoying, I'm not trying to entertain you.

It wasn't an offense. Whether things are new or not is a fact, whether I find them interesting or not is subjective. I just said that those things weren't new.

Then you can continue posting what you want. They aren't new to me but they may be as well to other people.

It implies there are areas where a dwarf can stand next to an Orc and they can't kill each other. And if they they can stand in the same PvE zones they can probably talk/trade.

I never understood DAoC’s obsession with lots of classes, actually, but if they say it’s rewarding I guess that’s their bailiwick.

With the result that it is the only game I'm aware of that maintains a healthy amount of level 1-10s playing to have fun, rather than just to power through to higher levels.

How much of that "fun" is because the bulk of new and interesting abilities one gain from templates come before 14? Or is it more dependent upon the fact that the advancement-to-time ratio is much MUCH better in the lowbie levels? Or, is it because of the emergent experiences like costume parties, given that they could have shipped an entire SKU on the character-builder screen alone?

All this talk about City of Heroes has gotten me to give it a shot.  Last time I played was Beta.  I hope it's improved!

People in CoH really do play the 1-10 thing - it's not just costume parties.

...

So saying the bulk of new stuff comes before 14 would probably be a somewhat unfair oversimplification. The experience of adding a new power and building it into your playstyle is what makes CoH/V fun, and while you do get new powers all the way up to 50, the rate they arrive at gets slower and slower as you go on. Eventually the additional effort to add the next power outweighs how swingy and dramatic they can be at higher levels, and just starting up again with powers from another set becomes more attractive

I never did either, same with SWG, same with AoC, same with EQ2 (both in the archetype days and in the post Pub 19 world). I understand players find open templates confusing, but I can't see 24+ classes being any less confusing either. There just aren't that many abilities required in these games, and therefore they're driving a system replete with specialists. Unless they duplicate abilities across a lot of classes, people are rightly going to feel fairly focused. The cornerstone of the play experience is what your character can do. Players know their characters well. If they see ahead of them an arduous grind just so they can try some other specialty, and then see they'd need to do that at least 15+ times to get the breadth of the game, they're just not going to.

So back to CoH: are people playing through all that content from 1 to 50 and then the Hero classes? Or are they by and large focusing on the 1-10 game because that's the most fun? And, has this contributed to the reason why CoH did nothing but decline in subs from launch, sorta at odds with how the genre had worked to that point (and in some cases since)?

A large number of classes seems great from a marketing standpoint but a nightmare from a gameplay view, I'll explain. One of the biggest things a large number of classes gives is the illusion of replay value.  I say "illusion" because players will eventually come to realize that the new classes really don't add anything new to the game

That said, I'm probably even more sold on the CoH/V approach for this. Few classes, many many spec lines.

Has this contributed to the reason why CoH did nothing but decline in subs from launch? Maybe. But if so, that leads to the horrific conclusion that you really do need endless progression to keep a game sticky.

If CoX stoped at 30, I'd have stayed longer.  Soul crushingly slow advancement is worse than no advancement.

Hell GW has invent more than 24 new classes since it.

wrong GW.

If Mythic is really serious about PvP, they need cowboy up.  A PvP game needs lots of distinct classes/skills so the combat puzzle isn't solveable. 

I've always described Warhammer as having 4 classes, and six versions of each class.

There is basically 1 Melee Offense, Melee Defense, Ranged Offense, and Ranged Defense per race.

Each Melee Offense would differ from the next races Melee Offense, yet at heart they are the same class.
.....
But it's also a lot easier than DAoCs 14 classes VS 14 classes VS 14 classes, that's just insane taking something like that on.

I definitely agree with the sentiment of this.

More classes just means more classes for players to not play as much as others.

What is it about more classes that really has some convinced this is a selling point? Imagine WoW classes in the WAR type PvP environments. Would people not play because there were only 9 classes? No. Because it's not just about the classes, but how you customize them along the way. A Shadow Priest and a Holy Priest are fundamentally different experiences, for example. Calling them both "Priest" doesn't begin to tell the story. WoW arguably has at least 18 classes (if you consider deep-speccing in two of the three talents in any tree because the third is usually considered a support tree). Happy?

What is it about more classes that really has some convinced this is a selling point?

It's a lot easier to make 1,000 classes when they only do three or four things in an offline game. Realtime is different though, as you know. Either it hasn't happened yet, or I'm not aware of it. I invite insights into games that got it right across the board.

M:TG: Each new set of spells generally comes with the forced obsolescence of previous ones.

Your M:tG analogy is thought-provoking, but WotC also bans a fair number (relatively) of those cards each year, don't they?

GW is probably the best example. However, their control system is the gate on how many spells can be brought to a battle.

n EQ through WoW, you can bring everything you know everywhere you go

Yes, though the two most played formats keep spells playable for 2 years and for 5-8 years respectively (three year's worth of cards get rotated out all at once every third year). The 5-8 year format is generally considered the most varied and least solvable. And since 5-8 years is probably as long as a MMOG will last - I don't think the obsolescence mechanic is necessarily essential.

Interesting. Had no idea it was that long...

The perfect example is CC in Old School DAoC.  As soon it was discovered that CC was dominate, everybody would stocked up on anti-CC skills.  People would start droping CC, for skills that people didn't have anti's for.  Then people would swap out the CC anti for the anti for the new flavor of the month.  This dynamic would shift back and forth.  Basically, a huge flaw becomes a dynamic element in the metagame.  The key elements are a) there are no one trick ponies, b) there are effective counters to any abilty, c) people can shift skills in their class inexpensively.

I yearn for a good generalist class. Tankmages are always great fun. One thing I believe strongly is every class should have good self-healing so no one is reliant on another person for that vital ability. Or no one has healing and its made less important. I really hate playing characters without self-heals but dislike being shoe-horned into a group healer position when I do it.

No classes would mean that most chars would be alike, the skill fotm, and that ultimately tactical variance on the battlefield would be lost.

I yearn for a good generalist class. Tankmages are always great fun. One thing I believe strongly is every class should have good self-healing so no one is reliant on another person for that vital ability. Or no one has healing and its made less important. I really hate playing characters without self-heals but dislike being shoe-horned into a group healer position when I do it.

Skill-based systems for the win.  I've met exactly one character in UO over the last year who had the exact same template as me.  One.

People still have problems with flexible classes that can pull off multiple roles.  If you've got a healing button, most everyone wants you using it 95% of the time.  Forget that if one of healers goes down mid fight, the rogue/warrior/warlock/etc are never going to be able to fill that role, but the feral druid isn't in the raid currently, because.. they're useless! (Please don't take this as a raiding/raid guild gripe, I really don't care about stuff currently)

Skill-based systems for the win.  I've met exactly one character in UO over the last year who had the exact same template as me.  One.

Your M:tG analogy is thought-provoking, but WotC also bans a fair number (relatively) of those cards each year, don't they?

Why are you pink?

Yeah, I was wondering why he was pink and schild was blue.  I'm sure that if i had the detective skills of Arthur Parker i could venture outside the warm safety of MMOG Discussion and find that those, and the postcount value of "Leet"

Completely disagree for two reasons:

1) The time and energy it takes to balance more classes just doesn't add enough to the game to warrant the expenditure of effort.  I'd rather see them work on siege warfare, housing, collision detection, crafting, randomized loot, player character customization or anything else then go through year after year of balance discussion and tweaking.  I'd also rather see either no hybrids, or all hybrids.

2) No developer can balance player perception.  Your lowest common denominator player cannot accomplish the necessary level of thought to come to the "different, but balanced" conclusion when that player is losing in a given scenario to another class type.  Listening to players is important.  Deliberately adding noise to what your player base is trying to tell you makes little sense.

In my opinion this is another case where WoW has broken down accepted thought, in this case the thinking is that "more classes = better".  Better to have fewer classes, but allow a bit more customization/differentiation within the class itself.  As long as one configuration within a class is nominally powerful, the class can be considered "balanced".

However, I think WoW should act as a cautionary tale in regard to giving the same class different abilities depending upon race.

It's the players. Most seem to like a clearly defined goal and growth strategy. Classes do that. Skills do not. The best way in my miind is to use a skills based system, but make strong recommendations to players throughout. If they seem to like swining a sword, be sure to inform them CLEARLY that taking Arms Lore is going to help.

Skills based systems get a bad rap because they are confusing. But people make the mistake of thinking skills based systems are fundamentally confusing. They're not. They just need better and more clear instructions to the player.

Nobody wants to take a chance with that though because they are also considered hard to balance. And yes, what is a Class except a series of unique skills? You're still balancing skills. Classes just make sure they are only ever used by people who made choices at the start of the game.

Another question the whole zone and race structure asks is 'how do you do expansions?'

You do not want to add more pvp zones, because spreading the population breaks pvp. But building such a strong rvr focus and then saying 'oh it's a pve expansion' seems odd - plus the inevitable new races need a battlefront.

Adding new races is also hard, because with classes tied explictly to a single race, you need 4  new classes for each new race (maybe you can get away with 2 or 3 and copy 1 or 2 from another race?), and you'll need to add a race to both sides.

So to do the obvious first expansion 'add a new area, and a new race for each side' in the most straightforward way would require 2 races, 8 classes, a 33% increase in PvP landmass, and the equivalent of 11 new zones of PvE content, just to fit in Skaven/Bretonnia or Wood Elf/Chaos Dwarf.

I heard the Skaven, being rats under cities and shit, and going to (mostly) reuse existing zones, and come up out of the cities and stuff.

Oh for fuck's sake. NEWS FLASH: COMPANY SELLS SOMETHING, PEOPLE BUY IT!

It's not incumbent upon him to tell us he's bullshitting but on the consumer to figure out what's hype and what's not. I remember that whole debacle and didn't bat an eye. If he wants to come here and use these forums as a gigantic billboard with 90% bullshit and 10% facts, more power to him; I'll sort out which stuff is fact and make my own conclusions. Seriously... taking advantage of the MMOG community for his nefarious ends. Horseshit. Caveat emptor.

<nothing original>

Cynnical

Try harder before your next post.

With all these problems about fitting in new races without spreading the PvP to unplayable levels I just wonder why they didn't stick with the most basic idea: you create a no man's land divided into regions that belong to anyone and then let the players conquer them at their will.

Instead of the current "T" model they are using (with the two races one against the other) they would use another where the PvP contested zone is in the middle, and along the perimeter all the PvE "homelands". In this case all the races would converge in the same PvP space, while you can still expand the game and add new races without breaking anything.

Instead of the current "T" model they are using (with the two races one against the other) they would use another where the PvP contested zone is in the middle, and along the perimeter all the PvE "homelands". In this case all the races would converge in the same PvP space, while you can still expand the game and add new races without breaking anything.

disable his primary opponent with jarring blows and unexpected attacks, and then exploit the openings that creates to reduce the enemy’s ability to fight back

Have the standard PvE taunt, first off. Or don't. Either way.

But I think taunt in PvP could be done in one of two ways.

One way could be to have anyone within a small radius of you force to face your direction and target you (think a Rogue's Distract from WoW). Or not even the targeting element, just have it be a point-blank Distract like ability.

My other thought would be that the warrior using taunt in PvP gains a massive +to hit, or +damage, something along those lines, until they are targeted for X amount of time.

Or you could do some combination of the first one plus the second one, but tone down the massiveness and tweak it a bit.

It could be done.

I think the second one is a little more fair on a PvP scale - you're trying to get that heal off, and instead of breaking the heal on detargeting, you would have a small window in which to finish the heal before the Black Orc tears your head off with his improved damage.

It could be done.

"Orc Tank" aka Black Orc

So here is our tank class, except that tanking is a pve construct.  IT DOES NOT EXIST IN PVP, really Mythic needs to take tank and make it a banned word from the mind of all their devs.  If you are thinking in terms of tanking you are a fucking retard who has never pvp'd and your game is a pve game.

The Black Orc  sounds like he's going to use a bunch of DAOC's positional and chain skills.  Not every class mentions them so obviously although I'm guessing most will have some.  Sounds like DAOC players will be able to relate to this class it seems right off the bat.  So the question here is how will this: be accomplished?

If the Black Orc just stun/root/snare/dot's his target ala DAOC then we've gone nowhere this is just a DAOC hvy melee class.  Yawn.  If they have learned anything from the games that have come out since DAOC they will rip a big page from A.net's book and make the status effects stack in nifty interesting ways ala GW.  If they have any pvp players on their staff they will make sure that the Black Orc has ways, preferably lots of ways, to force someone to stay in combat with him or make anyone who tries to run away or run past REALLY fucking pay for it.  Of course with positionals you really worry about bunny hopping pvp.  All sorts of issues arise in terms of what kind of pacing are we looking at.  Are we at the point where a diku combat game will be using accuracy/dmg debuffs for running/jumping/moving during attacks?  I doubt they will do it, but it seems like perhaps they should since they are still convinced that positional skill chains are where it is at.  We've all pvp'd versus rogues in WoW would you want an entire game where everyone was moving like that in melee?

So Black Orc  = DAOC rip off, we'll see how smart they have gotten.  I refuse to call it a tank because if its a tank its a pve game's class in a pvp game.  Which means off the bat that either Black Orcs or Choppas will be worthless.  You can't have a tank and a light tank in a pvp game and have both be worth playing.  Because either the tank does so little damage nobody cares about it in pvp or the light tank's added damage is so small or situational that it is rendered worthless.  Basically for the black orc and choppa to both be pvp viable they are going to have to not only test the fuck out of things, but also listen to their testers.  Good luck with that.

My analysis from that small section of paragraphs is this black orc design lends itself to a huge host of problems and we have no info atm about how they are dealing with them.