Darkfall "Released"

[IainC]

I never was at Mythic. I worked for GOA in Europe on DAOC and WAR.

None of the things you mentioned as differences matter to my overall point. Yes AC1 was a different game to DAoC but game rules like CC abundance or class design aren't the issue. Player attitudes are the same regardless of the particular sandpit that they find themselves in. It's not about ganking noobs so much (although that is part of the equation) it's more about the relative wolfiness of the protagonists - I'd describe myself for example as having about 650 millilupines regardless of my level of skill or veterancy in a game which means to anyone <500 ml I'd be a wolf while to those of >800ml I'm firmly in sheep territory.

[Stabs]

being a sheep in a world full of wolves is no fun

This is a truism and I think it's wrong.

Let me tell you the role I want. I want to be the armorsmith for a mean clan of badasses. I want armorsmith to be demanding enough that I can't fight very well because I took up smithing instead of killing (SWG-style). I want a genuine economy with regional resources (eg the Dwarves in the mountains have the iron and the Elves in the Magical Forest have the silver) and slow travel. No centralised banking, no teleports.

I want to be a sheep in a clan full of wolves who know that without me they're toast. It can only work if crafted loot is critical to success and crafters are rare and stuff is slow to make.

Of course that's the opposite direction from the direction VWs have been heading since UO. But I can still hope.

I do agree with the truism where it pertains to games like WAR and DF. Who wants to be a sheep in a game that's all about pvp?

[Arthur_Parker]

I believe that AC1 was originally designed for all servers to be like Darktide, the change to make all the servers but one PVE (PVP opt in) came later, possibly during beta I don't remember.

I remember the beta being PVE only until one of the very last weeks when they opened Beta Server Red which was the precursor to Darktide.

:)

Yeah could well have been, I was talking about the original design was for it all to be pk+ or whatever the term was at that time.  Can't find the interview now, was years ago when I read it.

[AmericanMcGeesBambi]

None of the things you mentioned as differences matter to my overall point. Yes AC1 was a different game to DAoC but game rules like CC abundance or class design aren't the issue. Player attitudes are the same regardless of the particular sandpit that they find themselves in.

I'm sorry, but I think this is just a re-assertion of your original point, rather than answering the reasons why I think that point is totally wrong.

Some game mechanics make it easy for wolves to chase sheep -- other game mechanics make it easy for sheep to get away from wolves, find their own niche, and fend off the wolves when necessary.  And so on, and so forth.

I think it's fairly obvious that these things can have a major impact on a game's sheep retention rates.  You're asserting that it's not, but you're not offering any reasons other than saying "players have the same attitude all the time no matter what the context", and the two games that form your 'core' frame of reference (even if you weren't on the developer side) just so happen to be games that failed to learn any of these lessons when implementing world PvP.

[Merusk]

In your Scenario, Stabs, you'd find most would just have an alt account that crafts instead of jumping through some craftard's hoops and paying him what he demands for his items "because they're rare." 

My extra $15 a month is nothing compared to the inconvenience of relying on some puffed-up ass' inflated sense of self-importance.

[IainC]

Those two games aren't my main PvP references. My game of choice at the moment is Eve which has a markedly different approach to PvP than either of the two Mythic MMOs. Any game which is all PvP all the time will quickly demonstrate to most of it's players that they are not as hardcore as they'd like to think they are. Again, none of the differences that you mentioned matter in this context. You can argue whether they make for a better game or not or a purer vision of PvP but they don't change the underlying social dynamic.

[squirrel]

Endie alt.

[AmericanMcGeesBambi]

Any game which is all PvP all the time will quickly demonstrate to most of it's players that they are not as hardcore as they'd like to think they are. Again, none of the differences that you mentioned matter in this context.

Actually, they do.

In a large, spread-out world with many obscure bind-points, the fact that PvP is always an option doesn't mean you're always PvPing.  You can go days without seeing another player if you so desire, and the ones you run into out in the boonies are more likely to be fellow sheep rather than the 'hardcore'.

The wolves can't 'quickly demonstrate' to you that you're a sheep if they rarely come across you, and you can easily escape them in most cases when they do see you.

From what I remember of the early days of Darktide, to use someone's earlier example, the sheep ended up in obscure cities, some of them not even on the map, and to the extent they had real wars going on they tended to be against one another.

Claiming that game mechanics don't impact the social dynamic is... novel.

[Sheepherder]

Some game mechanics make it easy for wolves to chase sheep -- other game mechanics make it easy for sheep to get away from wolves, find their own niche, and fend off the wolves when necessary.  And so on, and so forth.

Anything you give to the sheep to allow them to evade the wolves will only result in the wolves carrying around a few sheepdogs to herd or corral the sheep.  Snares, run speed boosts, CC, stealth, radar tracking - it all can be used equally against the sheep and it's always available to the wolves if you have one guy willing to roll/spec/build that way.  If you give nothing special to anybody, then it's a matter of who has superior tactics, and the wolves win by ambush and encirclement.  Who dares, wins.

[AmericanMcGeesBambi]

Anything you give to the sheep to allow them to evade the wolves will only result in the wolves carrying around a few sheepdogs to herd or corral the sheep.  Snares, run speed boosts, CC, stealth, radar tracking - it all can be used equally against the sheep and it's always available to the wolves if you have one guy willing to roll/spec/build that way.  If you give nothing special to anybody, then it's a matter of who has superior tactics, and the wolves win by ambush and encirclement.  Who dares, wins.

Examples of things you can give to the sheep that don't help the wolves just kill them quicker:

1.  Powerful attacks that you can't be using as you're actively running and chasing after someone, making it much quicker to kill someone if he wants to stay and fight you.

2.  Portal abilities that allow people to easily flee combat at the outset rather than engage.

3.  A wide, vast world that makes it easy to find your own spots that others don't necessarily know or care about.  You can't ambush/encircle a person you can't find.  Some spots should, of course, be better than others to give the wolves something to fight over, but those spots don't have to be 5x better, they can simply be 20% better.

4.  Run-speed boosts that nerf your offensive capabilities, useful only for fleeing.

[Sheepherder]

1.  Powerful attacks that you can't be using as you're actively running and chasing after someone, making it much quicker to kill someone if he wants to stay and fight you.

2.  Portal abilities that allow people to easily flee combat at the outset rather than engage.

3.  A wide, vast world that makes it easy to find your own spots that others don't necessarily know or care about.  You can't ambush/encircle a person you can't find.  Some spots should, of course, be better than others to give the wolves something to fight over, but those spots don't have to be 5x better, they can simply be 20% better.

4.  Run-speed boosts that nerf your offensive capabilities, useful only for fleeing.

1. So they won't use these attacks, five of them will just run you down.  Unless you disable attacking while moving completely.

2. So they'll find your where you escaped to, and gank you there.  If you can bind more than one place, so can they.  If they need to one of them will track you through social networking tools built into the game (like WoW's /who), or by rolling alts all over the place so they can watch the portal areas.

3. This game would instantly collapse at launch due to lack of player interaction.

4. Sheepdogs.  A few wolves will roll a sheep characters with the speed boosts, and after the sheep get away from the initial beating the sheepdogs will run the wounded sheep down.

[Grimwell]

Let me tell you the role I want. I want to be the armorsmith for a mean clan of badasses. I want armorsmith to be demanding enough that I can't fight very well because I took up smithing instead of killing (SWG-style). I want a genuine economy with regional resources (eg the Dwarves in the mountains have the iron and the Elves in the Magical Forest have the silver) and slow travel. No centralised banking, no teleports.

I want to be a sheep in a clan full of wolves who know that without me they're toast. It can only work if crafted loot is critical to success and crafters are rare and stuff is slow to make.

This.

I want to make this game, but the lottery continues to stop me. PVP is combat. PVP is economy. PVP is reliance upon others if you are going to thrive. Even if that reliance is facilitated so five of you can sheep dog someone into a corner and gut them.

I also like permadeath, so don't try to convince me that I'm having a bad idea there. I'm beyond that rationale. :)

[AmericanMcGeesBambi]

1.  Powerful attacks that you can't be using as you're actively running and chasing after someone, making it much quicker to kill someone if he wants to stay and fight you.

2.  Portal abilities that allow people to easily flee combat at the outset rather than engage.

3.  A wide, vast world that makes it easy to find your own spots that others don't necessarily know or care about.  You can't ambush/encircle a person you can't find.  Some spots should, of course, be better than others to give the wolves something to fight over, but those spots don't have to be 5x better, they can simply be 20% better.

4.  Run-speed boosts that nerf your offensive capabilities, useful only for fleeing.

1. So they won't use these attacks, five of them will just run you down.  Unless you disable attacking while moving completely.

2. So they'll find your where you escaped to, and gank you there.  If you can bind more than one place, so can they.  If they need to one of them will track you through social networking tools built into the game (like WoW's /who), or by rolling alts all over the place so they can watch the portal areas.

3. This game would instantly collapse at launch due to lack of player interaction.

4. Sheepdogs.  A few wolves will roll a sheep characters with the speed boosts, and after the sheep get away from the initial beating the sheepdogs will run the wounded sheep down.

#4 is the only one of those I thought up on the spot.  The other 3 are precisely how AC1 Darktide works, and your descriptions of how they'd play out are completely, unequivocally wrong.

With #1, the attacks they can do while moving don't outpace your own personal ability to heal.  Each hit of theirs takes ~5% of my health, I can heal 50% of my health in 2 seconds if I'm standing still, 10-15% of my health if I'm running.  The attacks that really smack you down cause the guy to stand still and lose the chse.

With #2 doesn't happen in a world with a ton of options for where to go.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, actually gives a shit to track you like that.  It simply never happens.  And there isn't any way to trace/track people when they portal away, if they're portaling somewhere unpopular.

#3 is exactly how AC1 Darktide works, and it didn't collapse in the slightest.  Players interact when they want to, on their own terms.  This is the same bullshit behind the idea that if you can solo the way to the PvE cap the game will collapse because there's no forced interaction, which WoW thankfully put to bed.

[Merusk]

Hi there Hyu.

[Sheepherder]

With #1, the attacks they can do while moving don't outpace your own personal ability to heal.  Each hit of theirs takes ~5% of my health, I can heal 50% of my health in 2 seconds if I'm standing still, 10-15% of my health if I'm running.  The attacks that really smack you down cause the guy to stand still and lose the chse.

Or, they just put more guys on you.  FFA means griefing, and anyone who wants to will do what they need to to kill you.  If you could heal yourself to full every second while running you'd just have all of fucking Goonswarm chasing you.

With #2 doesn't happen in a world with a ton of options for where to go.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, actually gives a shit to track you like that.  It simply never happens.  And there isn't any way to trace/track people when they portal away, if they're portaling somewhere unpopular.

Cool, it's still there.

#3 is exactly how AC1 Darktide works, and it didn't collapse in the slightest.  Players interact when they want to, on their own terms.  This is the same bullshit behind the idea that if you can solo the way to the PvE cap the game will collapse because there's no forced interaction, which WoW thankfully put to bed.

Making the world big either means you have to separate friends from each other, force them to all roll the same race if they want to level together, or have incredibly fast transportation.  Fast transportation makes the big world small again for sheep and wolves alike.  You either kill the game by making the world too big, or you trivialize the very thing you were aiming for in the first place.

Games collapse at an exponential rate, now that other options exist and people go where their friends are.  Welcome to 2005, enjoy your stay.

EDIT: Damn you Schild!

EDIT2: Oh well, probably would have been more anyways.

[Falconeer]

Free For All PVP: There are no safe zones. There are no enforced zones. Every digital inch of your game's landscape is accessible by all other players, and they can kill you without a systemic penalty or the cyber-enforcement-drones attacking. No safety nets. No level restrictions on who you can fight and kill. Nada. Yes, this is hardcore. Yes, this is what the 100K people I feel are out there waiting for a true PVP game are looking for.  

If you excuse the three major cities being safe zones (similarly to being docked in a station in EVE), seems to me that Age of Conan PvP servers stand by your definitions, 100k users included. What Funcom doesn't seem to be able to get right is a proper PvP endgame, but everyone is kind of happy with the freedom to slaughter each other for the lulz or the pvp rewards anyway.

EDIT: Shadowbane was definitely that game too, and I am pretty sure it failed the 100k mark for sb.exe reasons, not gameplay ones. Especially after they fixed the "lose everything overnight" idiocy. Shadowbane done right could work. But I guess that's what the whole argument is about: lots of small developers got the idea of PvP right and ended up not having the tools or the skills or the money to pack it up finished and working.

[eldaec]

being a sheep in a world full of wolves is no fun

This is a truism and I think it's wrong.

Let me tell you the role I want. I want to be the armorsmith for a mean clan of badasses. I want armorsmith to be demanding enough that I can't fight very well because I took up smithing instead of killing (SWG-style). I want a genuine economy with regional resources (eg the Dwarves in the mountains have the iron and the Elves in the Magical Forest have the silver) and slow travel. No centralised banking, no teleports.

Someone has probably already mentioned it - but EVE is exactly like this.

[Sheepherder]

I was actually expecting AoC to crash and Mythic to cannibalize it's player base, rather than the other way around.  I didn't reckon with how much Mythic hates fun and money.

[WindupAtheist]

From what I can see, there are specific reasons -- related to game mechanics and polish -- that have driven people away from Darkfall.  Not simply a 'lack of sheep'.

Yes, there's always some other reason, isn't there?

*Shovels yet another "EA were fools for not wanting UO to be this!" super hardcore PVP game into it's early grave*
*Smugly waltzes back to Trammel*

 

[Stabs]

Someone has probably already mentioned it - but EVE is exactly like this.

Yes it is but it's sci fi. I'd like to be a smith in fantasy Eve.

[Mrbloodworth]

Let me tell you the role I want. I want to be the armorsmith for a mean clan of badasses. I want armorsmith to be demanding enough that I can't fight very well because I took up smithing instead of killing (SWG-style). I want a genuine economy with regional resources (eg the Dwarves in the mountains have the iron and the Elves in the Magical Forest have the silver) and slow travel. No centralised banking, no teleports.

I want to be a sheep in a clan full of wolves who know that without me they're toast. It can only work if crafted loot is critical to success and crafters are rare and stuff is slow to make.

This.

I want to make this game, but the lottery continues to stop me. PVP is combat. PVP is economy. PVP is reliance upon others if you are going to thrive. Even if that reliance is facilitated so five of you can sheep dog someone into a corner and gut them.

I also like permadeath, so don't try to convince me that I'm having a bad idea there. I'm beyond that rationale. :)

*Cough* wurm online *hack*

Do da dooo...  


*I am fully aware of all the reasons not to play it, but it does fit the above definition*

[Grimwell]

EDIT: Shadowbane was definitely that game too, and I am pretty sure it failed the 100k mark for sb.exe reasons, not gameplay ones... ...Shadowbane done right could work. But I guess that's what the whole argument is about: lots of small developers got the idea of PvP right and ended up not having the tools or the skills or the money to pack it up finished and working.

Pretty much this. Some of the advancement in SB was moved off the character (and onto the town, etc.). If the game was better at launch, and didn't have the wonky UI it would have been a winner. It wasn't.

Though some of those folks went off to make Wizard 101 proving my point - to make a good game you need folks who have done it before and learned a few lessons about what not to do.

Bloodworth -- I agree on paper from viewing your site, but I'm also reading that combat is a dogs ass. Wurm lacks the polish to go mainstream and hit the core I'm talking about for PVP. I look forward to playing it, but I don't think it's the grail.

[Nebu]

Bloodworth -- I agree on paper from viewing your site, but I'm also reading that combat is a dogs ass. Wurm lacks the polish to go mainstream and hit the core I'm talking about for PVP. I look forward to playing it, but I don't think it's the grail.

Wurm falls into the ATitD category.  I like it for what's it's trying to be far more than for what it really is. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Bloodworth -- I agree on paper from viewing your site, but I'm also reading that combat is a dogs ass. Wurm lacks the polish to go mainstream and hit the core I'm talking about for PVP. I look forward to playing it, but I don't think it's the grail.

Never claimed it was, and your preaching the choir about the polish :) Please don't take me talking about wurm as if its the second coming, its not. Heh. I'm not crazy, I just work there. But I thought it an interesting tidbit to bring up given the conversation. I knew full well you were talking about larger budget mainstream endeavors. Hence my mini-text.

We hit all the marks of the two posts I quoted, we even have alpha classes and perma-death.

[Stabs]

Thanks Mr Bloodworth I'll give it a try at some point.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Darkfall's problems are not really sheep-wolf related right now. With the population thinning out PvE'ing has gotten pretty easy. The biggest complaints really seem to be game mechanics/content related.

Darkfall has a solid PvP shell, combat is pretty difficult, the pace is closer to an older school hardcore FPS like quake/tribes than Call of Duty, player skill definitely trumps stat #s in advanced pvp, but this isn't a problem.

The problem with Darkfall is two-fold:
1) There's a pretty tough grind to get the point where you are able to compete against advanced characters, to boost your HP from starting 200 or so to 300-350, get necessary healing spells, archery/melee/magic up to respectable levels, etc. Can easily take 6 months playing maybe 25 hours a week. In a normal MMORPG 5-6 months for a newb to get an advanced character is reasonable, but in Darkfall the problem is it's frustrating getting you're ass handed to you the whole time for the most part. It's true you're weaker character CAN kill "advanced" characters, but the problem is that these vets are also usually a lot better at the game than a new guy anyways (Like I said, the action PvP itself takes a high degree of skill, which is welcome, but means it will take even a good FPS player a while to learn the styles, and ins-and-outs). If they cut this initial grind down it would be a lot less discouraging for many players and lead to more retained subs, they would take less time to acquire necessary end-game PvP skills, and then more time to learning how to fight effectively, which is a challenge in itself.

2) Endgame sandbox content is lacking. Too many advanced characters go inactive due to lack of things to do. Like I said the PvP shell is great, but the MMORPG parts are lacking. Since you are competing for action gamers, you need to give them some good reasons to be paying for a monthly sub, and be playing a game with an open worldmap instead of just arenas. When the action in DF is too sparse and lacking depth, the FPS crowd doesn't have much compelling reason to stick around and can just get their fix playing Bad Company 2. The FPS types play DF cuz they want more meat than just counterstrike style gaming, and DF at the moment is struggling to deliver on this sandbox aspect.

2010 will be the crucial year, they've been hyping up their new content for this year, including a a few free expansions (they've said 3, but 2 looks more realistic, cumilating in a very large Q4 one) and other patches (most recently regarding a reduction of the grind). The playerbase is small but hanging in there, DF can recover but they need to come up with some good content to attract back former players and then build up momentum for future growth. At it's core DF is a very good and stable game, just needs more content, and to come out with this content before it completely loses it's core playerbase, at which point it would have nothing left to build on.

[Tuncal]

PVP MMO's have all been doomed from inception to date.

Is Eve not a pvp mmo?

Just looking at the latest Quarterly Report from CCP the numbers show 85% of the population in high security space, if I'm not mistaken. Is that really a PvP MMO?

[Malakili]

PVP MMO's have all been doomed from inception to date.

Is Eve not a pvp mmo?

Just looking at the latest Quarterly Report from CCP the numbers show 85% of the population in high security space, if I'm not mistaken. Is that really a PvP MMO?

Sure, if you count PvP as more than only combat PvP.  The fact that I could play an "economic" pvp game in high sec space was nice for a while.  I guess my point is, "PvP" in the context of EVE is a lot more than ships shooting at each other.

[Grimwell]

Can you attack my economy while I sit in high security space?

[NiX]

Can you attack my economy while I sit in high security space?

He'll PK your flaxVeldspar.

[Stabs]

Player v player combat can happen in high sec through War Decs, Faction Warfare and suicide ganking. It's also possible to trick or irritate people into flagging themselves or aggroing the game's police sometimes.

I think of Eve as a pvp game because while I may spend a lot of time in high sec my goal is killing players effectively. Soldiers spend 99.9% of their working lives not shooting people but their job is still shooting people. The rest is waiting/prep.

[IainC]

Can you attack my economy while I sit in high security space?

Yes and in a number of ways. Most immediately by shooting at you or any assets you might have parked in space. The fact that you're in hi-sec doesn't prevent me from shooting at you, it just changes the hoops I need to jump through or the cost I need to be prepared to pay to do so. I can also interdict your logistics and make it much harder for you to operate.

If I have enough financial power then I can also engage in economic warfare against you. Either by using my money to buy military force or by attacking your profitability through market manipulation.

[Malakili]

Can you attack my economy while I sit in high security space?

If I have enough financial power then I can also engage in economic warfare against you. Either by using my money to buy military force or by attacking your profitability through market manipulation.

This is what I was referring to initially.

[Tuncal]

AH playing in WoW can also be considered PvP under the same criteria, no? The end result is used for PvE or useless money sinks rather than financing ships and territorial expansion, but the principle of market manipulation is the same.

[Malakili]

AH playing in WoW can also be considered PvP under the same criteria, no? The end result is used for PvE or useless money sinks rather than financing ships and territorial expansion, but the principle of market manipulation is the same.

If WoW head anywhere near as robust and diverse a crafting system, reliance on player crafted goods, item loss/deterioration, and local markets, then sure.