Interesting Age of Conan Player Poll Results

[DarkSign]

It seems they're aiming at what the Darkfall devs promised like 9 years ago.

[geldonyetich2]

I thought the gender statistics were unusually male-weighted.  Not that I think that women are likely to be the majority in a game based off of the lamentations of the women, but less than 1 in 20?

Also, many cases those percentages exceed or fall below 100%.

[Slayerik]

God, I almost fell into schild's item loot doesn't belong anywhere trap.

Why is it that with all the PvE shit out there, people still want (or think that) games can be made only one way correctly?

Fuck. We hear all the time: 'MMOs are all crap and they are just EQ rips yada yada yada.' Why is it then when any game comes around that has the slightest chance of even hosting a FFA / PVP heavy ruleset server people doomcast. I mean, FFS, there are plenty of whack the foozle gimme teh shiny games out there. Maybe some of us want a whack the noobie, gimme some regs, and let me take their land and ravage their women kinda game.

I'm sure AoC will fail epically but my god, if they just make another fucking WoW I'm going to lose it. Funcom have a track record of some innovation though (and horrible launches). They were the first MMO I remember playing with flying mounts, heavy use of instances, and their own RvR type fighting. Hopefully in a year I can say, well that FFA / PVP / item loot server sure didn't work out, but at least Funcom has a pair.


And for the record, if they pull off most of what Darkfall was claiming they could be in for Eve-like success or maybe a little greater (with all the WoW burnouts).

[Margalis]

The fact that RP PVP got more than 5% shows you just how reliable these results are.

This is interesting only from a sociological perspective.

[WindupAtheist]

Why is it then when any game comes around that has the slightest chance of even hosting a FFA / PVP heavy ruleset server people doomcast.

I'd tell you, but they don't let us have threads like that anymore!   

[Margalis]

Wait a minute. Why was that even written? Any game that has the ability to steal off of someone after they get killed is just headed for crap city. Writing an essay on it is such....

It depends on the game. In a game that has raiding for loot, allowing people to take raided items off of bodies is full of fail. Raid for a month only to be zerged by guys in crap gear and have your loot instantly stolen? No thanks.

In a game where even high-end loot is fairly attainable it might not be so bad. Doesn't sound like AOC is that game though.

[Ratman_tf]

In a game where even high-end loot is fairly attainable it might not be so bad. Doesn't sound like AOC is that game though.

 

[Der Helm]

It depends on the game. In a game that has raiding for loot, allowing people to take raided items off of bodies is full of fail. Raid for a month only to be zerged by guys in crap gear and have your loot instantly stolen? No thanks.

In a game where even high-end loot is fairly attainable it might not be so bad. Doesn't sound like AOC is that game though.

Weird, when I read looting defeated players I thought of looting there inventory, not their equipped items. Like in, you know, Shadowbane. That was one of the mechanics that never bothered me in that game.

[Margalis]

If that is the case it means you never carry around anything in your inventory other than cheap meds and such. Which is fine I guess, but then it makes the whole looting thing sort of a cop-out.

What exactly do you need to carry around with you in most games that isn't equipped? Meds. Everything else you can throw in your safe. In some games carrying around alternate gear sets is popular so looting inventory would probably destroy that.

The devil is always in the details. Killing people and looting their healing potions I guess is perfectly fine, but that probably isn't what the hardcore have in mind.

[eldaec]

Interesting Age of Conan Player Poll Results

I disagree.

Fine.

If you want looting with huge penalties for doing so where all the new players hang out, and where you fly around fully insured  such that you can replace everything each time you die then that is all cool.

The problem isn't the victor recieving the spoils, it is the loser losing the spoils.


And as others have said, looting healing potions is cool too.

[Simond]

The devil is always in the details. Killing people and looting their healing potions I guess is perfectly fine, but that probably isn't what the hardcore have in mind.

What the hardcore have in mind kills games, so they can safely be ignored.

Item loot can only be allowed when the impact of said looting is a trivial setback (at worst), therefore item loot is essentially a non-issue. You either allow it but it's effectively meaningless; or worn items are significant and therefore cannot be allowed to be looted if you want your game to succeed.

[Falconeer]

Looting backpacks is perfectly fine in Shadowbane for example.

The big game is in looting cities and Tree of Life, not backpacks, but believe me that when you kill someone it feels right to be able to look at their backpacks and eventually taking:

a) the potions and the scrolls. it's like oh nice!
b) the money they farmed until oh noes they met you. That works well in conjunction with going to grief in known leveling-farming areas.
c) the items they looted until oh noes they met you. That works well in conjunction with going to grief in known boss/drops areas.

So it may be not what some of us old UO players dream about, but it's definitely better than nothing. Works well, it is feels rewarding and you always have that thrill while looting a fallen enemy that he/she just got something big. That still happens in SB.

(Note: it didn't work in EQ2 because you just looted a random backpack/nonequipped item from enemies and it had to be non-rare. It works in SB because you loot everything non-equipped they have including money and uber-ultra rares too).

[DarkSign]

Yeah. I dont see where the epic fail is when it comes to Shadowbane thieving. The kind of people that play hardcore pvp games (pardon the H word) love that shit. It was an intense thrill for me every time I did it...and it was fun as hell.  People dont just carry meds...they carry gold, weapons, and other items when they think they can get away with it. And because the land is so spread out...they think they can get away with it all the time. So you get to steal a lot of great stuff. If you do it right, you can sit besides someone as they pay for training and take little bits at a time and they run out of money before they know it ;)

[CharlieMopps]

Stealing other players items in game is fine... IF the items are worth less. I.E. Eve
If you have items that are ultra rare, ala EQ1 and you can steal them... it sucks.
Maybe if they made ultra rare items soulbound? Something like that.

[waylander]

Wtf is with all the loot crying. AOC will use Blood Money for PVP kill loot. Blood Money will be able to be used on merchants in PVP zones to buy PVP related shit. The player loses absolutely nothing so far as we know.

I honestly don't find the server choice results too astonishing. RP-PVP is basically a modern word for "I want to PVP the with mature crowd", so the guys who go to those servers and spam stuff about sucking dicks, etc won't be tolerated there. Either way over 60% of those polled are there for PVP action, not PVE loot whoring.

Shadowbane simply has the best seige warfare out there right now, but its poor game engine can't pull it off well. I posted some videos of AOC siege stuff here a few months back, and those keep sieges look sweet.  Imagine an SB type siege with with modern graphics, and a game engine that doesn't choke with 16 people on the screen.

Will AOC be a WAR killer? No, I don't think it will but I do think it has potential to be an EVE type success. PVP players are sick of games that treat PVP as an afterthought, and games with PVP at the core (WAR/AOC) are simply more appealing to us.

As far as the percentages, in the areas I listed some add to 100% and others I just listed the choices that got the majority votes. I linked the entire set of surveys for those who really want to examine the data.

As Schild said, AOC shouldn't alter any game design based on this poll but it is an interesting snapshot of the community that is most closely following the game.

[Slayerik]

Why is it then when any game comes around that has the slightest chance of even hosting a FFA / PVP heavy ruleset server people doomcast.

I'd tell you, but they don't let us have threads like that anymore!   

And you'd still be wrong ;)

[JoeTF]

You can loot ultra-loltastic expensive items in EVE too, it depends on the victim really.
In general, getting killed in EVE hurts a lot, but I just cannot imagine playing this game with WOW like respawn-bunny mechanics. I mean, I would be bored to death after a single day and quit for good after a week.

[Merusk]

You can loot ultra-loltastic expensive items in EVE too, it depends on the victim really.
In general, getting killed in EVE hurts a lot, but I just cannot imagine playing this game with WOW like respawn-bunny mechanics. I mean, I would be bored to death after a single day and quit for good after a week.

In your opinion.  Yet that mechanic is pretty much the mechanic of FPS games, AND most of EvE's player-base hangs out in 'safe space' because they dislike that whole mechanic.  Hell, at times EvE mechanic seem like UO without all the bitching from the PvP++ crowd.

[Slayerik]

I love how Eve basically proves so many points so easily.

1. Yes, it is possible to have item loot in a game and have it be successful.
2. Yes, it is possible to have death hurt in a game and have it be successful.
3. Yes, it is possible to have a world where you can fight anywhere (with consequences depending on where).
4. Yes, it is possible for a company to self regulate RMT (to an extent with the Time cards...what a great scam idea)
5. Yes, conquerable territory / resource control works as an endgame.
6. Yes, sandbox games rule.

I hope Funcom reiterates at least 3 of these points. My hopes are pretty low at this point, though. I'm sure they will make the same fatal flaw as all the other MMOs out there by trying to add WoW to their game. A shame....hopefully devs realize the part to take from Wow is don't release unpolished shit. Hopefully devs see from Eve how successful a 'niche' game can turn out.

To me, the item loot isn't THAT important. It just so happens that the best PVP games I have played all had it as a part of the game (UO, Eve, Shadowbane, Neocron...and even Planetside you could grab the enemy's noob hammer - lol). They also had death penalties that ranged from "Oh well, big deal" to "Fuck me that sucks!" - I liked them all. Now call me a noob and tell me how 1-6 are all wrong.

[UnSub]

1) Accepted, because it's in a lot of MMOs. Doesn't make it a popular feature though.
2) Pretty much all MMOs have a form of death hurt, but the higher the hurt, the less popular it is with casual players.
3) It's possible, sure, but it ain't popular with all those being azzrapzored.
4) More companies should RMT for their own game.
5) It works as an endgame up until the point that one group dominates and is in a position to maintain said domination. The other competitive guilds quit the server / game and then it's left with one group in control. Time will eventually fracture that control, but the evidence isn't really there that players are happy to wait around, paying their sub fees, until that happens.
6) Sandboxes are all well and good provided there is actually a direction provided by the game. And that you have the time to learn how to play in the sandbox. Casual players - who will make up the majority of your player base if you have more than 4 figures worth of subs - are unlikely to want to spend a lot of time groping about on their own dime trying to learn the rules.

Is that the model Funcom wants to follow?

[Slayerik]

5) Eve constantly balances itself, there will never be one winner. Shadowbane did not, as they had no place to recover and rebuild.

Some of the points were just general points, I'm not sure where FC is going with AoC.


All I'm saying is devs should pick a direction. If you cater to everyone, you get shit. If you cater too much to either hardcore or casual, you get shit. They should make the game they want, if it is fun...then they will come.

[Arrrgh]

5)  Eve is huge. AoC will have how many of these border keeps to fight over?

[waylander]

5)  Eve is huge. AoC will have how many of these border keeps to fight over?

I don't know the exact number, but they will also have Towers that smaller guilds can claim as well. Sort of like a DAOC RvR zone with keeps and towers people can capture and control.

[Hakeldaima]

I've got nothing much to add to what Slayerik has already said except that the figures in this post are wrong for EVE. EVE didn't peak in 2006 with 125k subscriptions, it "peaked" in November this year with 205k subs. I.e. it hasn't peaked yet, four years after release.

Player looting isn't for everyone (duh) and you can't expect WoW like success for a pvp game with player looting, but there's plenty room for niche games that cater to players who enjoy the thrill that comes with the knowledge that you can lose everything in a single fight.

[Hoax]

You can loot ultra-loltastic expensive items in EVE too, it depends on the victim really.
In general, getting killed in EVE hurts a lot, but I just cannot imagine playing this game with WOW like respawn-bunny mechanics. I mean, I would be bored to death after a single day and quit for good after a week.

In your opinion.  Yet that mechanic is pretty much the mechanic of FPS games, AND most of EvE's player-base hangs out in 'safe space' because they dislike that whole mechanic.  Hell, at times EvE mechanic seem like UO without all the bitching from the PvP++ crowd.

From where I'm sitting you proved his point, fps games have been moving away from respawn-bunny classic deathmatch since Quake2.  Or have you not heard of Counterstrike?  Killing the same fucking person within minutes in a game where you are supposed to take the "gameworld" seriously is such a fucking massive dose of epic fail that it single handedly forced me to quit WoW while I was still enjoying the game for the most part.  I will never play beyond the free month in another MMO that does that.  I only phrase that last sentence in that way because I'm going to play a month of WAR but I am 90% sure they will go that route because Mythic gets 0 credit for not being pussies in my book.

Also if Shadowbane had ever gotten a feature they mentioned several times during beta/early release working, namely cross server travel in some form, it would have worked much better on the nobody can win everything front.  But they didn't & many servers had one beta guild that dominated the early game hard, which only compounded all the other issues the game itself had.

**

@Slayer:  I'm afraid you can't have EVE's hardcore pvp+ features without a sandbox gameworld.  SB was clearly not sandbox/big enough to handle them and I have fucking no reason to think that AoC will have a bigger more sandboxy world.  I would hope therefore that AoC focuses on taking DAOC's keep system and making it less retarded (more meaningful) also having monsters attack player cities in a meaningful way would be win.  Because if they try to use EVE/SB pvp+ mechanics they are going to crash and fucking burn.  Remember though that AO had EVE style sec status zones before EVE did.  So hopefully they go with that again and the endgame takes place in open pvp warzones with lots of capturable points, resource nodes and whatever else.  Doubt it but that may be the best case scenario.

**

Final thought:  Is anyone else utterly depressed by the class descriptions they have released?  They completely lack any kind of soul and sound so fucking vanilla-boring that it hurts.  I've completely stopped reading their releases because the classes sounded so fucking shitty.  I mean Fixer, Bureaucrat, Adventurer, Martial Artist, Agent, those just sounded cool from the word go.  Scifi > fantasy but really it I've never been so un-intrigued by a new set of classes.  Could just be MMO fatigue but I got a hardon reading about Black Orcs awhile back.

[Merusk]

See, the thing is eve doesn't cater to it.  It ALLOWS it, but that is different from catering to it.  If they catered to it, and full-on pvp they'd turn-off Concord.

Eve shows you can have full-on pvp that coexsists with a pve game if you're not stupid about it.  Most devs have been pretty stupid about it, including Blizzard.

[Merusk]

You can loot ultra-loltastic expensive items in EVE too, it depends on the victim really.
In general, getting killed in EVE hurts a lot, but I just cannot imagine playing this game with WOW like respawn-bunny mechanics. I mean, I would be bored to death after a single day and quit for good after a week.

In your opinion.  Yet that mechanic is pretty much the mechanic of FPS games, AND most of EvE's player-base hangs out in 'safe space' because they dislike that whole mechanic.  Hell, at times EvE mechanic seem like UO without all the bitching from the PvP++ crowd.

From where I'm sitting you proved his point, fps games have been moving away from respawn-bunny classic deathmatch since Quake2.  Or have you not heard of Counterstrike?  Killing the same fucking person within minutes in a game where you are supposed to take the "gameworld" seriously is such a fucking massive dose of epic fail that it single handedly forced me to quit WoW while I was still enjoying the game for the most part.  I will never play beyond the free month in another MMO that does that.  I only phrase that last sentence in that way because I'm going to play a month of WAR but I am 90% sure they will go that route because Mythic gets 0 credit for not being pussies in my book.

No, I've never played CS. I didn't own Half Life and CS seemed even less interesting. TF2 is the last competitive FPS I played.  It has respawn-bunny mechanics and folks seem to enjoy it plenty over CS. Prior to that, it was America's Army.  No respawn at all, but the matches rarely lasted more than 3 minutes, so yes, you were killing the same people again on the same map in less than 5 minutes.  Again, folks seemed to enjoy that plenty.

Your problem is trying to see it as a world, rather than a game. Virtual worlds suck, let's have more games.

[Slayerik]

See, the thing is eve doesn't cater to it.  It ALLOWS it, but that is different from catering to it.  If they catered to it, and full-on pvp they'd turn-off Concord.

Eve shows you can have full-on pvp that coexsists with a pve game if you're not stupid about it.  Most devs have been pretty stupid about it, including Blizzard.

Eve caters quite well to the PVP+ crowd. They allow us to make the most isk / hour (well, at least easily). They also nerf things like Low Sec motherships to find a good balance. Why would they get rid of Concord? A very large part of the game is being able to go back to empire and rebuild, exactly what SB did wrong. I don't think anyone, even wacky ole me, would like an absolute full, unrestriced PVP game. Hell, my all time favorite had insta kill guards in town.

Hoax: You are probably right. Some of my points are just general observations that a PVP+, item looting, resource/land based endgame can work. Sandbox or no. Is everything either Diku or sandbox then?

[Draegan]

Why do people think AOC will fail?  Because of Funcom's past?  I think this game will out perform WAR.  I think WAR will defeat itself when the hype train crashes and derails.

I'm waiting for an EVE like game in a fantasy setting.

[Hoax]

No, I've never played CS. I didn't own Half Life and CS seemed even less interesting. TF2 is the last competitive FPS I played.  It has respawn-bunny mechanics and folks seem to enjoy it plenty over CS. Prior to that, it was America's Army.  No respawn at all, but the matches rarely lasted more than 3 minutes, so yes, you were killing the same people again on the same map in less than 5 minutes.  Again, folks seemed to enjoy that plenty.

Your problem is trying to see it as a world, rather than a game. Virtual worlds suck, let's have more games.

Two things, first to finish off the FPS tangent because I like having the last word   Quake 1 & 2 had Deathmatch, UT for me used to be all about Deathmatch, HL1 had Deathmatch, literally at times you would die as you spawned the action was so constant and death was everywhere.  It was mindless pure twitch killing.  To me, that is respawn-bunny fps.  A game like TF2 where I have to wait upwards of 10 seconds + run across the map to get to the action is quite a far cry from those days, hell TFC was hectic nade spam and utterly ridiculous to watch compared to TF2.  That is what I meant by they have been moving away.

Onto the more important comment though which is actually important to the topic at hand, frankly to any deep thoughts about MMO's in general.  Lets have more games you say, fine thats a valid way of looking at it.  But I say why fucking bother with MMO's if all you want is a game.  WoW is a game, everything that makes it such a shallow experience is because it is a game.  EVE is half virtual world (the sandbox elements, the players-as-content mechanics and the freedom given to the playerbase) but the world itself is still very much a gameworld (static meaningless foozle spawns of roids and npc rats) not a truly virtual gameworld as I imagine the medium moving towards.

Let me get back to the point, Haemish has envisioned the ultimate MMO-as-a-game experience.  A hub of a variety of game experiences where your avatar can move from a shoot-em-up western to a samurai sword duel to a platformer to a fps to a galactic conquest rts.  Whatever or however that would work.  Sounds cool.  Sounds like a 3d-web as a game type of thing.

I envision true virtual gameworlds, that exist purely as non-static backdrops to the stories players themselves create.  The world itself is not a gameplay experience, just a diorama for the gameplay experience the players create for eachother.  Virtual world shit.  Sandbox shit.  The type of daydreaming people seem to associate with Raph.  I imagine the next major step in MMO's will be removing the fields of static npc spawns that exist only to feed the players desire for loot and xp and replacing them with fields where the player might be ATTACKED by hostile npc's.  Dangerous npc's.  Where the world itself is attempting to kill the players.  Perhaps GM's guiding the attacks of monster/alien hordes against player built settlements whatever.  Obviously the tech might not be there yet.  Clearly the vision and competence on the part of game devs isn't there because these fucks can't seem to tie their own shoes without breaking shit half the time.

Both could be awesome, both take the whole concept in different directions.  Neither is wrong is it?  So far though instead of creating a massive hub of minigames that ties together somehow.  People keep making fantasy worlds, with lore and a variety of landscapes and npc's who are supposed to matter to the players.  But then they make them games.  Instead of worlds, games where the king of ironforge respawns if he dies, where nothing changes no matter how many people kill 10,000 scorge villians in the barrowlands.  Games where you never win, the bad guy never loses and you just sit around grinding your xp bar and your ep33n size via phat lewts.  Which always puzzles me.  For me its so clear that creating a game on rails where you can't do any of the cool things you see in a SP experience like GoW, the good FF's, <insert SP games on your top20 list here> because having so many people around breaks the single player experiences.  Instead we get the online equivalent of the worst kind of PnP campaigns.  Where every play session the DM sends the party into a series of fights with little or no explanation and after beating the "final" monster everyone gets X rolls on the loot generation table...

Fucking weaksauce.

I'm tired of it.  Call it Diku, just to give it a name, but it fucking sucks.  No matter what I feel that people who buy into the anti-sandbox logic are dooming us to more also-ran boring as paint drying shit MMO experiences.  Every one I start up gets old faster then the last one.  My tolerance for these shit fucking mechanics: going from quest npc to quest npc, from field of foozles to field of foozles is fucking running out.  That's where I'm coming from.  Not everyone comes from there, I do get that.  But I think as time passes more and more people will.  I have to believe that because if the sandbox people remain a niche of a niche we're never going to get anything shiney and cool.

Sorry, didn't mean to write a book so I'll stfu in a second.

Hoax: You are probably right. Some of my points are just general observations that a PVP+, item looting, resource/land based endgame can work. Sandbox or no. Is everything either Diku or sandbox then?

No, its not that absolute, but right now game devs seem incapable of creating a game (versus a world aka sandbox) that isn't Diku.  Because they are retarded or too distracted by money falling from the sky to notice how fundamentally meh the gameplay experience they are emulating over and over is.

P.S.  Apologies in advance if I killed this thread, usually when I write something this long nobody wants to read it because probably my writing sucks & half the time its hard to get what I'm saying.  So yeah, my bad.

[Baldrake]

I think people are forgetting that general corpse looting actually made UO more casual-friendly.

Nobody carried equipment that couldn't be easily replaced, because it was just a matter of time until you lost it.

Therefore, PvP was more about skill (and luck) than about how much hundreds of hours you'd spent farming purple items. A two-week old character had a fighting chance against a two-year old character.

I don't know how we got this crazy idea that corpse looting has to be a super hard-core mechanic.

[Wershlak]

Every one I start up gets old faster then the last one.  My tolerance for these shit fucking mechanics: going from quest npc to quest npc, from field of foozles to field of foozles is fucking running out.  

Agree.

I don't know whether designers are unable to think outside the WoW box or whether companies are too scared to take a risk on a different type of game when there are money hats to be had.

[Slayerik]

@Hoax: Well, due to your diatribe I have been sitting in my cube for the last 30 minutes brainstorming on how to make a fun PVP MMO. I'm pretty bad at writing them out though. Maybe, just maybe, a dev will be inspired the same way. Because FFS this genre needs some new ideas/gameplay.

And yes, these days I DON'T EVEN WANNA BETA SHIT. 7 years ago I'd give my left nut to try out a new MMO.

[Slayerik]

Maybe something where a guild/ alliance can hire Mercs to attack/defend certain cities.

Normal PCs sign up at a tavern or something, and when this guild leader has hired all the mercs he needs, you are prompted to teleport to his Castle. He then either defends or raids his enemy. Since said leader is making money from holding and taxing his land, making money from PCs mining (and in turn paying them), this would be a worthwhile investment. And fun to do.

I picture when the mercs are transported, they appear in an armory with a selection of weapons and armor. (this would not be available unless the guild built an armory or if it was already there). Almost like Gladiator as they are walking through and picking out what to use. Higher level armory, the better the weapons/armor.

This would be the first step for getting noobs into the GvG side of things. If you live you get to keep some nice weapons and armor. If you die, whoever holds the field gets the loot. Equipment similar to GM crafted stuff in UO would be fairly easy to come by. If you live you get a larger share for the kills and whatnot.

This could also be using in a type of faction sense. Maybe the Guildmaster wants respect from the Dilrod NPC tribe. So he gets a raiding party together to attack a small Mustafa town, Mustafa being a hated faction of the Dilrods. This creates player raids on NPC towns, on the other side players in the Mustafa faction gain rep by defending these attacks. If more people knew the strange Neocron system I would say it would resemble that kinda. Sure, there are holes in this type of setup but I could see myself having a lot of fun in a skill based (no levels). maybe just have a set of skills that can train offline (eve steal) and some you can gain through PVPing/town/keep/dungeon fights.

[DarkSign]

1 Perhaps GM's guiding the attacks of monster/alien hordes against player built settlements whatever.  Obviously the tech might not be there yet.  Clearly the vision and competence on the part of game devs isn't there because these fucks can't seem to tie their own shoes without breaking shit half the time.

Just wanted to speak to this particular point. This is something I've envisoned for years (like a lot of people). It's either a function of technology (when should the computer attack a player-run city) or a function of money (getting hired GMs to play the npc's).

To slip into game design for a sec, I always thought it would be a 3 part system:

• GMs get an RTS-=style system where they can control multiple mobs from an omniscient point of view, directing spawns, attacks, and changing npc attributes & aggression level
• GMs can jump into any single NPC and play them as they would a character
• Each server has a storyline - so that use of the above systems fit into an arc or at the very least are responsive to what's going on on the server.

Of course to have even 20 people playing 24/7/52 would take a lot of money...but a game with WoW's level of success could fund something like this. Some people might even pay more for such an experience. /flashback to EQ Legends server...hmmm...well maybe.