Mythic-EA shuts down Warhammer beta, tells players to come back later

[Typhon]

(this has been said a bunch before, but is worth repeating every so often)

This seems to be a good looking game, can the engine support hundreds of folks in the same area at the same time without becoming a slide-show for a significant portion of the userbase?  There are reasons for instanced pvp beyond taste and balanced sides.

[Venkman]

Using PvE to balance PvP is a bad idea because players don't want to engage one to enjoy the other.

I agree with this except that NPCs can be used to offset population imbalances. Without forcing players to choose sides (or providing FPS-like team balancing per session or server), there's a better chance of uneven numbers than not in world PvP. I would prefer a system where all factions have the exact same level of completeness, are balanced, are interesting theme-wise, and are equally fun. But when even companies with bottomless pits of cash and infinite development timelines can't pull it off, I'm not sure anyone can. Someday someone might, but until them you need to design for the imbalance rather than hoping it doesn't happen.

You also need to consider the various roles on the Player Pyramid (or whatever categorization method you'd like). This adds a dimension of complexity I know you've considered in the past, but the bigger challenges are not in thinking the system through, it's actually in the execution of in it surviving first contact with players :)

I agree completely, and contend that by making sport pvp the 'real' end game and primary realm war driver in WAR, Mythic are making their sport pvp into arenas or guild wars, not WoW BGs

I imagine this can be answered even from the public info. And you guys are following WAR much more closely than I am. But to me, the WAR PvP felt more like BGs because there's a series of objectives to achieve (a combo of CTF and control points, depending). WoW Arenas meanwhile are just team deathmatch battles that last until done afaik. There's nothing more to them than the separate (and third) economy they add to WoW.

[HRose]

I agree with this except that NPCs can be used to offset population imbalances.

This is coherent with my idea, just on a wider scale.

When I say you have a fixed pool of points to use on your defense and that you have to spread the more territories you control I imply even the strength of the guards. But it's a way to control world dominance, not to control faction unbalance.

The idea that you can compensate the lack of players through NPC is extremely weak and a wrong way to solve the problem. It isn't going to work.

There are instead plenty of ways to keep the factions even. For example in my idea I split PvE from PvP. You don't PvE within the PvP conquest world. You PvE somewhere else. That way the PvE content is unbound from PvP factions. So there's no bias, every player is equal for PvE and you don't lose half the game after you pick your faction. PvE world and characters aren't aware of your PvP faction. To their eyes you are a complete stranger.

Another way is to make hardcoded PvP factions permeable. Think for example EQ2 betray quests. Through a method of careful rules (I still have server travel and complex rules) you can make sure that characters bound to a PvP realm are kept even between opposite faction. Numbers will never be perfect without forbidding someone to enter and play, but through a careful binding system you can make sure that thing can balance themselves as close as possible to perfection.

That said, there's a third way and it's about designing the game for asymmetrical warfare. So that your current goals are tailored for your numbers. This is why I wanted player-driven factions. They are destined to be smaller, but it doesn't mean that the game can't be as fun, if not more.

[HRose]

By the way, you could also use shade-of-grey factions if that feature is critical.

In America's Army the opposite team is always the "terrorist". Everyone is the good US Army fighting evil, even if the evil is made of players. It doen't matter who you join, the point is just to keep the teams even.

You don't need a PvP world where the factions are strictly distinct in Evil and Good. You can have less defined factions, that you can join, betray. Like medieval kingdoms. There's no definite "good" and no matter what race/class, you could always join whatever faction (through a system that keeps numbers balanced).

You could actually easily build a game with 6-10 factions pitted against each other in a medieval world. They just need to be an envelope for the players so that they distinguish each other.

The realm identity in DAoC isn't made by the bland lore. It is made simply because you have an excuse and stick to it.

[Nebu]

NPC's to offset population imbalance isn't viable.  NPC's become a nuisance in PvP and act as little more than annoying speedbumps during the flow of RvR or PvP.  Until such a time where AI becomes even a mild challenge (beyond just jacking up damage or hps), this will remain the case.  

The way to maintain a balance in PvP or RvR games is to offer attractive incentives for playing for the underdog.   

[Kaa]

You don't need a PvP world where the factions are strictly distinct in Evil and Good. You can have less defined factions, that you can join, betray. Like medieval kingdoms. There's no definite "good" and no matter what race/class, you could always join whatever faction (through a system that keeps numbers balanced).

You STILL need a mechanism to prevent the snowballing of the winning faction. People like to win and don't like to lose. All munchkins will flock to whoever is dominating thus perpetuating the dominance. I don't see an easy way to keep things balanced.

Kaa

[HRose]

You STILL need a mechanism to prevent the snowballing of the winning faction. People like to win and don't like to lose. All munchkins will flock to whoever is dominating thus perpetuating the dominance. I don't see an easy way to keep things balanced.

1- The mechanism in my idea exists (three of them, actually) and was explained before. The fixed pool of points so that the more territories you conquer, the harder it is to maintain them. Basically: the more you expand the more you show your side to the enemy, so become more vulnerable.

2- Betraying a faction isn't a 2 minute thing. It should require work like in EQ2 it requires work. You aren't going to do it overnight. So switching factions on the fly shouldn't be a working strat.

That said I was thinking how to make betray quests fun instead of just a long grind.

I had this idea of quests that let you disguise your character and join an enemy group, giving those players the illusion (through the UI) that you are someone on their side. Then let you betray them at the worse moment. It would be cool :)

P.S.
Thought some more about betraying. Think if you could also change some letters of your name while disguising to protect your identity (people can only remember you from your name) and think if instead of a button that would suddenly switch you back you could continue sabotaging your party till you kept a warning bar under a set level (throw some heals and a few smites as well). It would fuel suspects.

Think if you were in a Albion group roaming through enemy territory, then bump into a fight. And then you discover that your breton cleric isn't a breton cleric, but a disguised vicious troll who's now smiting your ass.

You lost in one sec your healer and got one more enemy.

"Oh, noes!" ;)

[Kaa]

The fixed pool of points so that the more territories you conquer, the harder it is to maintain them. Basically: the more you expand the more you show your side to the enemy, so become more vulnerable.

That will help with territory control, but not with battles. The dominating side will just show up, stomp the defenders into the ground, and then retreat leaving the territory. Rinse and repeat.

The problem is not preventing territory capture -- that's easy. The problem is preventing one side from farming the other one.

Kaa

[HRose]

That will help with territory control, but not with battles. The dominating side will just show up, stomp the defenders into the ground, and then retreat leaving the territory. Rinse and repeat.

The problem is not preventing territory capture -- that's easy. The problem is preventing one side from farming the other one.

Part of my old complaint.

My game idea is about territorial control and conquest. You don't gain points from killcount, but by completing control objectives. In medieval world it didn't matter how many enemies you slaughtered, but who got the control of the tower.

Of course the game should offer the incentives so that the players desire more territory and don't just sit back. The reward should be where the game is.

[Venkman]

Another way is to make hardcoded PvP factions permeable

I agree with being able to switch sides. As I mentioned earlier, a good reference would be the team balancing that goes on in FPS games. People aren't there (mostly) to pick sides in an immersive theme/lore-based fight. They're there to have a good time and get better at the game with friends. Even worldy-MMOs could have this, where the system suggests you switch sides based on how you are spec'd, or quest choices you have made in the past, or how often you've personally volunteered to switch sides. All within reason of course. Instantiated momentary Arena-like PvP could let you get away with switching sides between rounds. Any sort of persistence though, there needs to be some qualifiers.

But the whole idea of completely separating PvE and PvP seems at odds with the idea of relevant world PvP in the same game. It's what WoW currently does, where once there was one game (open PvP while you tried to PvE), then two (PvE plus BGs), now three (PvE, BGs, now Arenas). I don't consider "world PvP" much more than a cool side activity for the occasional, but some could argue that as being a fourth.

To me, the idea of PvE and PvP within the same game world in some level-less type system is the most approachable. The thing that kills it now is either that the system is broken/buggy, or winners are determined first by time-invested.

Maybe that's just the way it is. Either the levels can't matter in PvP combat, or they just need to go away entirely for a new game experience with some long-term reward indicator and a different way to unlock abilities. Back to player skill driving what they hit and items or learned abilities driving the amount and type of damage. And the rewards are driven by what you've achieved, not by how many players you killed. Here I'd like some more borrowing from FPS titles, and only because it's on my mind, Team Fortress 2. You're awarded "Points" that place you on a ladder, but you're also awarded points in like 16 other categories. Some method to derive unlocked abilities/gear from those categories would be much better than an arbitrary level that forces developers to further segregate the playerbase (DAoC, WoW, etc).

[BigBlack]

There are a variety of ways to prevent the winning side from snowballing.  Make it so that the rewards gained from the greater success you'll achieve with a higher number of players don't scale as quickly as your team's population does, so letting in new players, to some degree, can mean heightened internal competition for resources.  Also, make it so that one guy's incompetence can have adverse consequences for his own side.  Then, stand back and let human nature do the rest.

AC1 PvP had good examples of all of this.

You had pressures in favor of the growth of a 'team' (guilds):

-Better PvP firepower
-Better control of leveling spots and other important areas
-Better XP production (in a roundabout way that's too complicated to explain)
-Everyone has their friend that they want to let in, and individual patrons had an XP incentive to recruit vassals

And then you had pressures against it:

-People get mad at each other, tempers flare, and demand one another be KOS'ed
-Leveling spots get overcrowded
-People want to see what it's like to run their own faction, and form break-away splinter groups with their friends; everyone imagines they'd make a great king, and eventually a lot of them tried it out, breaking away and taking over a small town somewhere with some friends
-If left unchecked, population growth got out of control, with moles, thieves, con-men, and other generally untrustworthy folks sneaking into the allegiance and weakening it from within
-General desire to maintain a sense of community with those in your guild - ties into point 1 and point 3
-Financial incentive of having people to kill - the "Why be in this guild with all these scrubs when I could be pwning them and taking their stuff?  And I already know the location of their hunting grounds, secret hideout spots, etc..." effect.

The end result was a remarkably good equilibrium, for a while.  One guild snowballed a bit with the "I want to be in a winning guild" types, to the point where they were maybe 1/3rd of the server, but the game rules were such that they had strategic disadvantages stemming from that and about 10x the internal problems anyone else did.

From what I hear, Shadowbane and Eve have similar dynamics.

[CharlieMopps]

You STILL need a mechanism to prevent the snowballing of the winning faction. People like to win and don't like to lose. All munchkins will flock to whoever is dominating thus perpetuating the dominance. I don't see an easy way to keep things balanced.

There is a very easy way to do this in a Sci-Fi based mmo... Many many books on the subject...

There was an ancient galactic war that resulted in the extinction of all sides. In their last breaths one of the dieing races created semi-self-aware robots/lizardmen/virus to patrol the galaxy and prevent such a war from ever happening again. They lie in wait for the day when a race becomes powerful enough to awaken them.

So, once a guild/corp/kinship/whatever, gets strong enough, they become targets for mobs that normally remain dormant. Suddenly the deathstar shows up and starts blowing the hell outa your ships. That sort of thing.

[Venkman]

That'd be pretty cool, and interesting to watch be balanced. What happens when the dominant group beats the robots? :)

[AcidCat]

You STILL need a mechanism to prevent the snowballing of the winning faction. People like to win and don't like to lose. All munchkins will flock to whoever is dominating thus perpetuating the dominance. I don't see an easy way to keep things balanced.

Kaa

I think you could implement some kind of damage bonuses to the underdog side ... scaling to how outnumbered they are in any given battle. Maybe even special abilities that are only usable when you are outnumbered significantly? Some kind of "desperation" meter that gives you a big glowy cool power or something - cool enough that you'd almost want to be outnumbered to be able to use those powers.

[Arthur_Parker]

I think you could implement some kind of damage bonuses to the underdog side ... scaling to how outnumbered they are in any given battle. Maybe even special abilities that are only usable when you are outnumbered significantly? Some kind of "desperation" meter that gives you a big glowy cool power or something - cool enough that you'd almost want to be outnumbered to be able to use those powers.

I prefer the idea of a few zones that are normally closed that you can retreat to for extra resources.  Sorta like, we lost our 2nd major city, yeah that sucks, but you remember the lost mine of Xrytd?  Well we just found the entrance.  Lets go find some ancient weapons and kick those arseholes out of our city.  Once the city is reclaimed, the mine has a cave in, whatever.

[HRose]

Maybe even special abilities that are only usable when you are outnumbered significantly? Some kind of "desperation" meter that gives you a big glowy cool power or something - cool enough that you'd almost want to be outnumbered to be able to use those powers.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9692.msg287909#msg287909 ;)

You could also let players awaken some kind of gods when the situation is extremely critical, like a last defense at a capital city.

I prefer the idea of a few zones that are normally closed that you can retreat to for extra resources.  Sorta like, we lost our 2nd major city, yeah that sucks, but you remember the lost mine of Xrytd?  Well we just found the entrance.  Lets go find some ancient weapons and kick those arseholes out of our city.  Once the city is reclaimed, the mine has a cave in, whatever.

I had an almost similar idea too.

Instead of hidden resources I was planning just sealed tunnels that allowed you to sneak right into enemy territory to use hit & run tactics right from within.

So similar in some ways.

[eldaec]

In a sport pvp system with a definite visible victory for one realm (before reset), and where winning means you take over more zones, you still need a mechanism to prevent everyone joining the winning realm.

I grant you it becomes more critical on open rvr, and I always had the advantage of a reasonably balanced server when I played daoc.

[malus]

I would really hate to think the only PVP i had to look forward to was the same instances over and over and over.

[malus]

(this has been said a bunch before, but is worth repeating every so often)

This seems to be a good looking game, can the engine support hundreds of folks in the same area at the same time without becoming a sideshow for a significant portion of the userbase?  There are reasons for instanced pvp beyond taste and balanced sides.

Ive seen relic raids consist of up to 500 people.  I don't remember lag being unbearable.

[CharlieMopps]

All,

   It's really simple.  We got lots and lots of data (some great, some good, some not so good) and we are going to act on what we got.  That's one reason we started beta as early as we did so we could gather that data now, not later, when we have a chance to fix/change/improve things.  As an FYI, the tools we are using now I would have killed for with DAoC, if we had then what we have now, a lot of dumb stuff would not have happened.  In terms of possible reasons (raised here) for the delay:

1) Making it more like WoW:  Nope, if anything the exact opposite is true.

2) That we are yanking out whole systems: Nope, we are adding new systems (as planned) and balancing the existing systems.  Here's a shocking bit of news, the game isn't balanced yet.  Thanks to the tools we have now, we are able to identify what is messed up and we can now fix it ahead of time, as opposed to the past.  Trying to fix these things while we have lots of beta testers running around is not conducive to getting a game out on schedule.

3) In terms of whether this move was EA-induced: Not a chance.  They have not been involved in the design of the game at all and still aren't so I can't blame them for this. 

4) That it was caused by lots of people fleeing Mythic: Umm, no.  Last I looked all the key members of the *Warhammer* team are still there and very few people have left that team to go elsewhere.  People come and go, probably at a higher rate than when we were independent but we are also a heck of a lot bigger than we were in those days.

5) That we are now on a death march: Hardly.  If you look at most of the great games that have been done by other developers, they usually are delayed or a date isn't announced as early as we did with WAR or DAoC.  If we were putting this game in "turnaround" mode, then it's time to play taps.  For now, we are simply taking a break from the beta testers so we can focus on the game with as few distractions (inaccurate or conflicting reports, build/debug/test time before a version goes to the players, etc.) as possible for the next couple of months.  This is a critical time in our development cycle and we want to make sure that we are doing it the right way.

In terms of the Elves, they are being put in but they weren't supposed to be playable at this point anyway.

The reactions have been kinda funny.  When we said we could do the game in about 2 years (we didn't even have a contract for WAR till the summer of '05), people said we should take more time, spend more money and do it right.  When other companies take extra time to do it right, lots of people jump up and down and say that shows that they really care about making a great game.  When we announced our delay last year so we could make the game even better than we originally planned (thanks to the level of competition from Blizzard and elsewhere), people said the game was doomed.  When we don't invest enough time and money into the test/iterate cycle for DAOC (since we didn't have any extra money to do so with that game), people said correctly that it caused problems and that next time we need to do it right.  Then, here we announce that we want to hold off on the next stage of beta, for among other reasons, because we want to fix what was broken before the next group of invites, some people again say it is a sign that we are doomed.  We can't win, no matter what we do it seems, when it comes to some peoples' perception.

In terms of beta serving no purpose, not in our case.  It's why I wanted it to start early even knowing that we would shut it down at some point (we've done this before, we just didn't talk about it).  It is precisely because we knew that the guilds and lots of other people were waiting for admittance that we even talked about this publicly. The beta has been going extremely well but that doesn't mean that everything is perfect.  We expected that the beta would point out both strengths and weaknesses of the design and now we are acting on what we've learned so far.  Since we have more than enough to keep us busy over the next two months, nothing would have been served by opening it up to lots of lots of new people, many of whom would say that exact same thing as the groups that have gone before them.   From a purely business perspective, that would make no sense at all.  I want people to be excited by what they see in the game and not to point out the same bugs/issues/etc. that the group before them did.  We also want our current crowd of testers to be able to come back in 2 months with fresh eyes to see all the things we've done in the interim.  One other thing to keep in mind is that the game has been pretty much up 24x7 since we began letting in people so we really do have a ridiculous amount of data and private and forum feedback to work with.  Most other games early on don't do that.

This last point may seem a little obvious or even self-serving but if we were really in trouble why wouldn't we simply say that beta is closed until further notice or until it's ready?  We chose 2 months precisely because we have a good handle now on what needs to be done and how long we need to get ready for a really major infusion of players.

Mark

Buahahahahaha...

[CharlieMopps]

That'd be pretty cool, and interesting to watch be balanced. What happens when the dominant group beats the robots? :)

In this series (I think it's about 6 books long) they do defeat them, and wish they hadn't:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Space-Gollancz-Alastair-Reynolds/dp/0752889087/ref=sr_1_2/104-5336120-4329520?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192157135&sr=1-2

It's sort of like nature, if you kill one pest, it's replaced by another.

[Soln]

You know, all in all, I still have a soft spot (former cyst from Emain) for Mythic.  I genuinely hope that the same week this decision is suddenly announced and EA buying Bioware/Pandemic is revealed aren't connected in any way at all.  That would be bad.  Capital B.

[Typhon]

(this has been said a bunch before, but is worth repeating every so often)

This seems to be a good looking game, can the engine support hundreds of folks in the same area at the same time without becoming a sideshow for a significant portion of the userbase?  There are reasons for instanced pvp beyond taste and balanced sides.

Ive seen relic raids consist of up to 500 people.  I don't remember lag being unbearable.

Maybe they updated the engine or newer machines don't have the problems we used to have.   SOP for relic raids used to be - stick on the group leader, point camera straight down, stare at chat window till the group leader said, "we're here".  People that didn't do that and lagged off got bitched out.

[eldaec]

Depended entirely on your machine.

There didn't seem to be any netcode issues (and I don't imagine looking down wouldn't have fixed them if there were), but you needed either a top end machine, or to be willing to turn down graphics settings for the really big raids.

[BigBlack]

Turning down graphics is the big one.  Many people I know who are regular PvPers set their graphics settings to absolute minimum if they think they might be fighting a large battle anytime soon.

Tangential note:  One surprisingly important feature for a PvP oriented game is the ability to adjust graphics settings quickly without having to reload the game.

[waylander]

I'm not so sure what to say about Mark's reply about not making it like WoW. There are plenty of videos and other types of information out there now to make a good guestimate about the current state of the game.  I had our long time WoW guys looking at the public info available, and their consistent comment was that it looked a lot like a reskinned WoW.

I get the feeling that long time WoW players are going to try the game, but if the early game feels like too much of a clone or there's nothing fun PVP wise then they are just going to go back to the game where they've spent 3+ years developing their characters.

I certainly can't speak for everyone, but it certainly seems that a lot of people will make their decisions about this game very early so the new player zones really need to scream "We are different!".

[sam, an eggplant]

There were a couple of videos showing the first 5 levels greenskin play, and it looked and played exactly like WoW. Get a quest to kill 5 dwarfs, hand in. Get a quest to click on 5 barrels which spawned 5 dwarfs to kill, hand in. Get a quest to collect 5 stinky mushrooms, 5 smelly mushrooms, and 5 odoriferous mushrooms, hand in. Get a quest to collect axes off 5 dead orks, hand in. Etc. Same shit.

Maybe that's what they're retooling?

[Salamok]

There were a couple of videos showing the first 5 levels greenskin play, and it looked and played exactly like WoW. Get a quest to kill 5 dwarfs, hand in. Get a quest to click on 5 barrels which spawned 5 dwarfs to kill, hand in. Get a quest to collect 5 stinky mushrooms, 5 smelly mushrooms, and 5 odoriferous mushrooms, hand in. Get a quest to collect axes off 5 dead orks, hand in. Etc. Same shit.

Maybe that's what they're retooling?

I'm more interested in an interesting spectrum of semi-balanced classes and a reaction based combat system than what the quests from level 1 to 5 look like. 

[sam, an eggplant]

The classes appear to be MMO archetypical except for the DPS/healer hybrids, and the combat system looks pretty diku standard.

[CharlieMopps]

There were a couple of videos showing the first 5 levels greenskin play, and it looked and played exactly like WoW. Get a quest to kill 5 dwarfs, hand in. Get a quest to click on 5 barrels which spawned 5 dwarfs to kill, hand in. Get a quest to collect 5 stinky mushrooms, 5 smelly mushrooms, and 5 odoriferous mushrooms, hand in. Get a quest to collect axes off 5 dead orks, hand in. Etc. Same shit.

Maybe that's what they're retooling?

Dude, that's what EVERY quest based game is about. The way you make a better MMO is by making the "Kill 5 dwarves" part more fun. This idea that they are suddenly not have objective based game content is just silly.

[Salamok]

There were a couple of videos showing the first 5 levels greenskin play, and it looked and played exactly like WoW. Get a quest to kill 5 dwarfs, hand in. Get a quest to click on 5 barrels which spawned 5 dwarfs to kill, hand in. Get a quest to collect 5 stinky mushrooms, 5 smelly mushrooms, and 5 odoriferous mushrooms, hand in. Get a quest to collect axes off 5 dead orks, hand in. Etc. Same shit.

Maybe that's what they're retooling?

Dude, that's what EVERY quest based game is about. The way you make a better MMO is by making the "Kill 5 dwarves" part more fun. This idea that they are suddenly not have objective based game content is just silly.

You are so retarded it is obvious that they are shutting down beta to rewrite all the level 1 to 5 quests.

edit: after all you do spend at least .001% of your total time played going through that experience.

[eldaec]

The classes appear to be MMO archetypical except for the DPS/healer hybrids, and the combat system looks pretty diku standard.

The 3 healer classes each side have are pure healer/buffer, smite cleric, and paladin. Not really that earth shattering.

The only newish thing I can see so far is that they appear to have moved primary crowd control to the tanks, both by turning on collision detection, and by making one of the three tanks the only class that explictly mentions cc in its key roles.

[sam, an eggplant]

This idea that they are suddenly not have objective based game content is just silly.

Thanks, but that's not what I meant. Objectives are fine, but they should have meaning and be part of some overreaching story or zone-wide plotline. Instead of "kill 5 dwarfs":

- take a message scroll to our scouts on that hill
- when you hand them the message, a little scripted event fires where a drunken dwarf runs up, sees the scouts, says "By Bruno's beard, I must tell the vanguard!" and runs away
- Then you have to chase him down, as he runs towards a signal tower. If you kill him before he gets there, you get a reward off his corpse, as well as another scroll talking about the upcoming dwarf offensive, and a second tree of quests opens up about gathering military intelligence to aid the local war effort. This tree is clandestine, so you don't get a great deal of faction, but the rewards are great.
- If you don't kill him before he gets to the tower (if you're a melee class and you can't catch him, say), a different quest tree opens up, where the dwarf vanguard sends in cannon, you have to sabotage them, poison their beer, etc. You don't get the rewards of the other tree (which are more focused on ranged classes) but you get more local faction and rewards more focused upon melee classes.
- If you know what you're doing, you can take whichever tree you want. Melee classes can still catch the dwarf, they just need to have a net ready. Etc.

That's how objective-based quests should play in a next-gen MMO. Not "kill 5 dwarfs". Quests should be immersed in the game world, they should advance a real story, and they should respond to your actions and strengths.

Oh yeah, and saying that the newbie experience isn't worth developer time and shouldn't be cool? Think about that for a moment, Salamok. Yeah, that's pretty stupid.

[eldaec]

- take a message scroll to our scouts on that hill
- when you hand them the message, a little scripted event fires where a drunken dwarf runs up, sees the scouts, says "By Bruno's beard, I must tell the vanguard!" and runs away
- Then you have to chase him down, as he runs towards a signal tower. If you kill him before he gets there, you get a reward off his corpse, as well as another scroll talking about the upcoming dwarf offensive, and a second tree of quests opens up about gathering military intelligence to aid the local war effort. This tree is clandestine, so you don't get a great deal of faction, but the rewards are great.
- If you don't kill him before he gets to the tower (if you're a melee class and you can't catch him, say), a different quest tree opens up, where the dwarf vanguard sends in cannon, you have to sabotage them, poison their beer, etc. You don't get the rewards of the other tree (which are more focused on ranged classes) but you get more local faction and rewards more focused upon melee classes.
- If you know what you're doing, you can take whichever tree you want. Melee classes can still catch the dwarf, they just need to have a net ready. Etc.

Yeah, ok, but this is what an actual MMOG player sees in your quest....

- fedex to hill
- click through text
- look up on internet where to kill dwarf for maximum xp quest chain
- kill dwarf
- demonstrate that this is your second MMOG by complaining to people who don't care that this is just like WoW

By all accounts the kill 5 dwarf quests you are complaining about already have the plot stuff like in your post.

Making it look different to a MMOG player will only work if the underlying play mechanics are different. People go nuts for shit that gives out temporary powers in CoH for exactly that reason.

[Salamok]

This idea that they are suddenly not have objective based game content is just silly.

...
...
Oh yeah, and saying that the newbie experience isn't worth developer time and shouldn't be cool? Think about that for a moment, Salamok. Yeah, that's pretty stupid.

I never said that, I said it wasn't worth shutting beta down for 2 months just to retool level 5 quests.