WAR to be released...

[cevik]

I actually think that one of the major CTD issues is tied to winning a Scenario, because inevitably I would wait in queue for 40 minutes and finally get into a game that wasn't all bright wizards, and just before the scenario completed, I'd CTD. 

After investigation and with your help play testing we've discovered a bug in the Nordenwatch scenario causing scenarios to crash.

And it was always Nordenwatch!  So perhaps I'm more right than I thought, it seems like the code must be

Code:

if(( player == "cevik") && (destruction_points >= 490) ) 
    free(NULL);

[EWSpider]

The problem you're describing isn't so much that people aren't doing RvR.  It's that they're all congregating in the Empire vs Chaos RvR areas.  This is still an issue that might need attention, just not in the way you described.  I suspect however after release when there are more organized guild groups running around that the action will spread out.  The guild groups will get tired of zergging in E vs C all the time and go start taking objectives in the other racial pairings.  As far as Scenarios go I think there are still issues with the scenario queues themselves not working properly even though there are plenty of people in the queue.  I'm only speculating, but I think it's a technical issue and not a population issue.  Hopefully it will get worked out before open beta.

[murdoc]

I wonder how long it'll take for scenarios to go across servers ala WoW's BGs.

[Draegan]

I wonder how long it'll take for scenarios to go across servers ala WoW's BGs.

I'm going to guess never.  Scenarios go towards taking control of different tiers which helps in the overall war effort.  It contributes to that blue/red bar on the top of your minimap.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I wonder how long it'll take for scenarios to go across servers ala WoW's BGs.

I'm going to guess never.  Scenarios go towards taking control of different tiers which helps in the overall war effort.  It contributes to that blue/red bar on the top of your minimap.

It's not an issue of game balance it's an issue of population balance. I see it happening sooner than later because people are going to get fed up and fast when their que times are upwards of an hour and no they won't just re-roll. Most people like their characters, that's why they play them and re-rolling another faction or class they didn't want in the first place is counter-productive.  Sure there will be some hardcore that switch sides but those are also the people playing bright wizards right now because they are op. Those people are an extreme minority, heck even among people who like pvp(me) the thought of re-rolling just to have faster que times is ridiculous.

Populations will be imbalanced, que times will be horrible, people will cry out. Now I'm not sure mythic will implement cross-server ques specifically but they WILL have to do something to address population imbalance problems and fast.

[Draegan]

Sure the will do something about pop. imbalance.  They just won't do cross server scenarios.

[Simond]

Sure the will do something about pop. imbalance.

Such as?

[cevik]

Sure the will do something about pop. imbalance.

Such as?

Population is imbalanced->*Magic Happens*->Population is balanced.

[Draegan]

Well beyond cevik's really obvious attempt at trolling, I don't know.  They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

[schild]

It's entirely possible that servers will show population balance via a bar like the one in game, only for population. God, I hope so.

[trias_e]

I notice there was a bonuses tab on the server select screen.  Perhaps this is a bonus to xp/renown to the underpopulated side on that server?  That's not a bad way to fix the problem if it that bonus is available right at release.

[cevik]

Well beyond cevik's really obvious attempt at trolling, I don't know.  They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

So how many things need to be in the giant untested released immediately before going gold patch to fix glaringly obvious problems before it becomes a miracle patch?

And why was it a troll to point out that right now we're being told "don't worry, there is something sekrit and magical that we never tested in beta and can't tell you about right now but it's going to go in just before release and be issue free and make it all better"?  Are you really dense enough not to be at least a little concerned?

[cevik]

I notice there was a bonuses tab on the server select screen.  Perhaps this is a bonus to xp/renown to the underpopulated side on that server?  That's not a bad way to fix the problem if it that bonus is available right at release.

Dunno, I'm interested to see it work.  Right now I'm dubious about bonus xp/renown for the underpopulated side doing much to fix population balance in the long term.  I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

[Mrbloodworth]

I notice there was a bonuses tab on the server select screen.  Perhaps this is a bonus to xp/renown to the underpopulated side on that server?  That's not a bad way to fix the problem if it that bonus is available right at release.

Dunno, I'm interested to see it work.  Right now I'm dubious about bonus xp/renown for the underpopulated side doing much to fix population balance in the long term.  I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

Didn't really work in planetside, Empire (Faction) loyalty took precedence.

[Simond]

Plus people get attached to their main anyway, so they'll bitch about why don't other people reroll and get the xp bonus?

[ffc]

So, given the big NDA switcharo, and now that the CE beta servers are closed and only the Elder servers are open (I hope at least) and still under NDA, where does that put us on Mark's scale?

Should we add a new category for "pretends to lift the NDA at just under the 4 week mark"?

And why was it a troll to point out that right now we're being told "don't worry, there is something sekrit and magical that we never tested in beta and can't tell you about right now but it's going to go in just before release and be issue free and make it all better"?  Are you really dense enough not to be at least a little concerned?

I find this troublesome as well.  Maybe there is secret sauce, maybe there isn't, but the double-talk needs to end:

Given how many MMOs/games don't lift the NDA until launch (or just before or in some cases, never), our lifting it more than 4 weeks (only slightly but it's still 4+ weeks out), is more than sufficient for all the information about the game to hit the Internet. [emphasis added]

Is WAR pulling a Tortage?  I don't know. 

What I do know is I had a positive PW experience with PQ's, thematic starting areas, "open groups" and fun drop-in/drop-out RvR.  When the PW ended, I wanted to play some more.  I will likely be buying the game, depending on Mythic's timeliness in fixing issues regarding CTD's, abilities "not yet ready," GCD's, missing animations, secret sauce double-talk, etc.

[Vinadil]

One nice thing about WAR... if you like the 1-10 experience, you will like the whole game.  If you don't like the 1-10 it does not get much different, just bigger with more PvP.  We have not talked much about the dungeons, but they are basically isntanced PQ areas with their own influence meters and such.  Unlocking Influence unlocks different boss encounters and story lines.  All in all it was a rather fun experience.  Like everywhere else the loot tables were horrible (you do the quest at level 22-24 and get level 30 loot, that is not as good as the influence reward for the dungeon).  But, outside of messed up loot tables it was fun just running the storylines.  If they actually added meaningful loot, I can see myself spending a few nights in those dungeons easily.

[amiable]

I thought there were some interesting comments in this thread:  http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/108352749/p4/

It was an assortment of comments of people who were looking forward to WAR, but based on the preview weekend have decided to stay in WoW (I don't necessarily agree with their points, but I see where they are coming from):

"I played a while tonight on marauder, and it felt better than last week. It's still not as good as WoW.. like.. XXX said earlier that it feels "clunky" and that's a good way to describe it.."

"The sense I'm getting about the GCD and responsiveness issue is that they are at a loss for how to improve it.. and they 're going to call it done. It's not. There are a lot of fanboys that are convinced that it's so amazing.. better than wow.. etc.. but it's just not. There's still a lot of weird things going on.. "ability not ready yet" scrolling up the screen over and over.. and generally bad behavior in terms of fluid responses and feed back to the player."

"The over-all level of animation quality is poor. Players are getting hung up on even the most minor terrain obstacles. The Sorcerer has no spell casting sounds to speak of. It's weird how quiet it is... and I'm tired of the hugely loud foot step sounds."

"I'm very concerned about the feel of the game, and it should be issue #1 for them. People can put up with crashes.. or getting booted out of scenarios.. or whatever.. but if the game doesn't feel right, people will stop playing it because that's the most important thing in a PvP centered game."

"When I was playing WoW last night.. it dawned on me.. I was casting a fear.. and the moment I hit the key, the casting animation started, the cast bar popped up solid and started filling up, and the sound started.. all at exactly the same time. I knew I was casting a spell and everything was fine. If the target runs out of range.. or out of LoS.. target dies.. whatever, the spell casting stops immediately and I get the spell fizzle sound. In Warhammer, the casting goes until the spell is cast and then a message pops up on screen telling you why it didn't actually cast. It's just all wrong... just a total lack of feedback."

"I haven't been impressed by war at all. The play is all wrong as XXX and YYY said. I will give the beta a good try, maybe level a character pretty high, but if its about the same come release time I will probably cancel my preorder."

"It just amazes me.. they know that combat feel is probably the largest factor for players in serious PvP.. whether it's a FPS, or WoW arenas.. or RTS games.. or whatever the hell game you're playing. If players are not getting immediate responsiveness and an exceptional feel, they aren't going to like it at all. They just won't play it."

"This is pretty much exactly what I was trying to explain awhile back. In theory it's great. And that's really all you can describe.. The theory. But in practice something was and still is off. And trust me, it's alot better then what it was. Like alot better. In all honestly, I didn't think they were releasing it until next year. It still needs serious work. I'm pretty shocking at how unbalanced it is. They've gone backwards in that regard." <-- elder tester

"Having spent a decent amount of time playing a caster now (getting to rank 10/renown 9, and getting the renown gear) I can't believe how broken the combat is. I really hope they have a huge release day patch that fixes everything but for right now it is quite frustrating."

"Some of the bugs that are in the game make me wonder if they've done any internal testing at all; there's just some ridiculously obvious stuff that is broken. It's like someone wrote the code and said "Yep that feature is done" without even trying it out."

[Tarami]

Sorry, I kinda fail to see what's interesting about them. It just sounds like a whiny bunch who can't believe it doesn't "feel" like WoW. No shit, it's not WoW?

Edit;
Not a personal stab Ami. But I've seen the same argument everytime a new competetive FPS title has been released and the howls of whine about it not "feeling" the right way. It's always just unfounded crying that once the game settles in, will be forgotten. If "feel" was so important, the majority of MMOs would have approximately 0 subscribers.

[Morfiend]

They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

They said in a podcast a while back that they plan to cap the faction sides based on a % of the other factions population. Like if Order has 1000 people online, then Destruction will have a queue to log in if they have say 1200 people.

I dont know if that is still the plan or not, thats just what has been said around the warhammeralliance forum and others.

[sutekh13]

cevik, can you point to the place on the greenskin doll where Mark Jacobs touched you? Seriously, cut the game some slack. Beta is not over yet. Maybe there'll be a miracle patch, maybe there won't be. We'll have a much better idea of how the game will be at launch once the semi-open beta is over. If the game is a clusterfuck at launch you can laugh and say "I told you so" and feel good.

[MahrinSkel]

The "responsiveness" issue is a much bigger deal than I think people realize.  Big enough to drive a bad conversion rate all by itself, even if everything else is fine.  And given the way it's been described, it seems like it's a fundamental issue of design and architecture, and not something they can just fix.

--Dave

[Simond]

They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

They said in a podcast a while back that they plan to cap the faction sides based on a % of the other factions population. Like if Order has 1000 people online, then Destruction will have a queue to log in if they have say 1200 people.

I dont know if that is still the plan or not, thats just what has been said around the warhammeralliance forum and others.

The flipside of this is, of course, the zerg side will spend the next two months bitching about log-in queues. 

[Draegan]

Well beyond cevik's really obvious attempt at trolling, I don't know.  They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

So how many things need to be in the giant untested released immediately before going gold patch to fix glaringly obvious problems before it becomes a miracle patch?

And why was it a troll to point out that right now we're being told "don't worry, there is something sekrit and magical that we never tested in beta and can't tell you about right now but it's going to go in just before release and be issue free and make it all better"?  Are you really dense enough not to be at least a little concerned?

Well first it's only a problem that could happen, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the product their putting out.  And there is nothing giantly untested as well.  Of course I'm concerned about the pop unbalance.  We'll see what happens, but it's not gamebreaking on the grounds of an AOC release or anything like that.  But you're obviously trolling by tossing off stupid posts left and right.  But please continue.

[amiable]

The "responsiveness" issue is a much bigger deal than I think people realize.  Big enough to drive a bad conversion rate all by itself, even if everything else is fine.  And given the way it's been described, it seems like it's a fundamental issue of design and architecture, and not something they can just fix.

--Dave

I was kind of wondering about that myself.  Do you think it has something to do with what they decided to allow you to do client-side in order to avoid hacks?

[MahrinSkel]

I was kind of wondering about that myself.  Do you think it has something to do with what they decided to allow you to do client-side in order to avoid hacks?

That's probably how it came about, but it would have to be in the way they did it, and how the client-side prediction integrated with it.  It's hard to say exactly where they're going wrong, but at a guess I'd think they are treating all combat actions equally (both looping and non), and any disagreements on timers are resolved by not taking any action until everything agrees.  There may simply not be a fast enough process occurring on the server, it's introducing extra lag and breaking synchronization because they were assuming any delays there would be trivial.  Or in the effort to avoid one-ahead qeueing, they completely locked out the ability to delay an action and now they've got fragile timing that can't handle ordinary latency (and is vulnerable to client-side clock forcing if they open up the timing).  Anyway, lots of things that could be going wrong, the key point is that if the system feels robotic and unresponsive, a lot of people aren't going to be able to engage.

--Dave

[Abelian75]

Yeah, it's kind of weird.  Until recently the client did no prediction at ALL from what I could tell.  The pinnacle of this was the fact that spells wouldn't even cancel casting once you started to move... it would wait for the server to say that it failed.  A lot has been fixed, though, but I think the main thing missing is, like you said, the ability to delay the use of the ability on the server for a fraction of a second.  Rather, it just cancels the use of the ability if the client sent it too early, which isn't really acceptable.  But yeah, I could see it being tough for them to fix, but mark did say they were going to add a fraction-of-a-second queue, which I think is probably a way of saying exactly what we're saying it needs (just I doubt players would perceive it as being a queue at all).

It does seem really odd to me that this wasn't a priority earlier, but hey, if it ends up working solidly by release, whatever works I guess.  I don't think people are underestimating how big an issue it is, though... certainly mythic doesn't seem to be, and it's pretty much one of the biggest complaints about the game (and my biggest, as well).

It is a hell of a lot better than it was a month ago or so, though.  A HELL of a lot better.  They just need to make the server more forgiving than it is now, mostly.

And frankly, it still beats the hell out of LOTRO even as it is now. ;)

[trias_e]

Dunno, I'm interested to see it work.  Right now I'm dubious about bonus xp/renown for the underpopulated side doing much to fix population balance in the long term.  I hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

As long as it is in at release, and I mean on day one, then I would guess it should work.  If they introduce it even just one week in people will be much less inclined to switch for obvious reasons.  But if you haven't even made your character yet, and there's a big sign that says 'faster xp/renown here!'...yeah.  Sounds good to me.

[cevik]

cevik, can you point to the place on the greenskin doll where Mark Jacobs touched you?

I have nothing at all against Mark Jacobs, in fact I like the guy.

However, Warhammer touched me on the incomplete, buggy, unresponsive game bone.  It's easy to find, it's just above the asshole.

[cevik]

They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

They said in a podcast a while back that they plan to cap the faction sides based on a % of the other factions population. Like if Order has 1000 people online, then Destruction will have a queue to log in if they have say 1200 people.

I dont know if that is still the plan or not, thats just what has been said around the warhammeralliance forum and others.

Wow, so if I happen to pick the side with more players, I will artificially be denied access to the game for "balance".  Surely they've abandoned this idea by now.

It would be fun to organize guild boycott nights over the issue of the week and force the other side to have 5 hour queues, it's like a new way to play the game by not playing at all!

"That's it, we are tired of Bright Wizards being overpowered, the destruction guilds on our server will not log on on Tuesday night."

[slog]

They said they got something.  Whatever it is I have no idea. 

They said in a podcast a while back that they plan to cap the faction sides based on a % of the other factions population. Like if Order has 1000 people online, then Destruction will have a queue to log in if they have say 1200 people.

I dont know if that is still the plan or not, thats just what has been said around the warhammeralliance forum and others.

Wow, so if I happen to pick the side with more players, I will artificially be denied access to the game for "balance".  Surely they've abandoned this idea by now.

It would be fun to organize guild boycott nights over the issue of the week and force the other side to have 5 hour queues, it's like a new way to play the game by not playing at all!

"That's it, we are tired of Bright Wizards being overpowered, the destruction guilds on our server will not log on on Tuesday night."

The funny part is that this has already been done for the AV queue in WoW.  Some BGs were getting hour long queues because of organized alliance boycotts.

[Tarami]

The "responsiveness" issue is a much bigger deal than I think people realize.  Big enough to drive a bad conversion rate all by itself, even if everything else is fine.  And given the way it's been described, it seems like it's a fundamental issue of design and architecture, and not something they can just fix.

--Dave

Anything is bad enough to drive bad conversation. This is the Internet, remember?

And frankly, it still beats the hell out of LOTRO even as it is now. ;)

Blasphemy, good sir!

[Tannhauser]

At least in LOTRO you can queue up skills.

Responsiveness is their #1 problem right now to me (WAR).

[Sunbury]

"Feel' is an important issue.  Anyone ever play that first version of Pac-Man on the Atari-2600?  It looked the same, and played the same, but the 'laggy' responsiveness made it unplayable.

The odd feel of combat is the main reason I never bought DDO.  I tried really hard to like it since a friend wanted me to join him in game, but in several betas I never liked it.   It was a common complaint on the boards with a certain percentage, while the remaining players had no problem.

I had a theory that if you had a very fast machine, and a very short ping / low lag from your machine to the DDO server you liked it.  If not, you didn't like it.

I finally gave up when (as melee) trying to fight a hopping around mob.  The target indicator was a place A, I was swinging at place B and the mob was at place C (they were all supposed to be the same location), and sometimes I would get hits, and sometimes not, (not 'roll missed' but 'physical misses") and I could never tell where I should be aiming or why it was missing.

[Nija]

I think they're against skill queuing but that was one of my biggest gripes with the game too.

90% of the text that appears on my screen is the hotkey spam reminding me that a fucking skill isn't ready. I read somewhere about how war recycles skills in 1.4 seconds, and wow does it in 1.5 seconds. Well when the entire world of MMO players is accustomed to pressing 2 1500 ms after pressing 1, you should probably go with what everyone is accustomed to OR allow us to queue the next skill so we don't see that fucking message every other second.

Also, they should have a single server infrastructure so they don't have to worry about server merges and population imbalances on server ABC killing the community there, so everyone who is affected quits the game instead of moving to server XYZ, which has a good population balance.