WAR to be released...

[Dragnet]

I see no problem Brad...ärrr...Mark.....
Its not Housinghammer, AllClassesHammer, OpenRvRHammer, Cityhammer or Funhammer...its just WAR...

[Tegatana]

I see no problem Brad...ärrr...Mark.....
Its not Housinghammer, AllClassesHammer, OpenRvRHammer, Cityhammer or Funhammer...its just WAR...

I agree with everything you've said above.   

Tega   

[Talonus]

This situation seems oddly reminiscent of DAoC's release; at release much of Hibernia's art assets had yet to be finished and several classes needed major retooling or entire redesigns. It seems they've taken a different path this time with deciding to cut the content entirely, which is probably a better long term decision but is getting them a ton of flack right now. It's probably not a bad thing for them to complain now either, better now than at release.

The removal of the Choppa is definitely disappointing though.

I agree with everything you've said above.

Mark

I do hope WAR isn't panning out in the same way DAoC did though. There was a lot of unfinished and untested content a few months before DAoC's release (Was Hibernia even in this many month's before release? I remember it being added very late.), so I'd hope WAR isn't in the same shape. On the one hand being willing to cut content and, hopefully, add it in later is fine and not a bad decision... but it still is a bit worrying.

Whatever though, Mythic's already got my money for a CE copy. Ignorance of what's happening in beta is bliss I guess.

[HRose]

I agree with everything you've said above.

Since NO ONE is spending a word on what truly matters.

Could you explain how the four city removal is going to affect the zone structure? If I'm not wrong the end game zones were all linked together so there could be a "war front" that would go back and forth and eventually get pushed back till one of the two capitals.

Three full zones, plus the two capitals. So five zones in total.

Now two fronts lose their capital cities. That's a total of six zones (plus four cities) that now lead nowhere?

It seems to me that removing four cities isn't just about "less content", but it's a completely turnabout of the endgame structure.

What are you doing with this?

[Kirth]

I'm glad mythic is being upfront about what it intends to cut/push back from the release. Rather then take the funcom route of let the players discover what isn't there that was promised. On a related note... 

[slog]

Live by the license, die by the license.

[tmp]

Now two fronts lose their capital cities. That's a total of six zones (plus four cities) that now lead nowhere?

They said the access to the city would open when players are winning 2 out of 3 available campaigns, which makes it sound these 'no city' zones still hold equal importance in the whole city sacking process.

[eldaec]

I'm not completely surprised about the cuts to melee dps, it doesn't have the range of options that support, or caster can have anyway.

But the tank cuts seem odd. KotBS was a buffing tank, wheras Blackguard appears to be a debuffing tank.

Seems odd to miss buffing tanks off of one side and debuff tanks off of the other, unless they plan to roll the abilities into Dwarf-tank and Chaos-tank (I forget what they are called)

See how a lot of these classes sound identical? Witch elf/witch hunter, swordmaster/shadow warrior/warrior priest/runepriest, etc.

meh.

Blame GW.

Most of the those class names you list are obvious choices based upon the GW army lists.

Personally I think there has been too much whining about the number of classes. I find the WoW approach tiresome. The more classes I have to mess around with the better. CoH, EVE, EQ2, even daoc all benefitted enormously from having a large number of classes.

They said the access to the city would open when players are winning 2 out of 3 available campaigns, which makes it sound these 'no city' zones still hold equal importance in the whole city sacking process.

Ok, so those cities aren't coming back then.

[Draegan]

Thats were I differ, I prefer having a smaller selection of classes.  I like WOW's approach.  Have a bunch of archtypes then have your talent tree specialize into, realistically, different classes.

[tmp]

Thats were I differ, I prefer having a smaller selection of classes.  I like WOW's approach.  Have a bunch of archtypes then have your talent tree specialize into, realistically, different classes.

Don't even see the need for specialized sub-trees thing in class based game, tbh. Sure everyone wants to be the unique snowflake, but then at the end of day they are invited to group for the cookie-cutter ability their class brings to the table, not for their uniqueness.

And if they're going to allow change of abilities via specializations etc then might as well go the full way and simply allow players to pick up multiple classes and change between them.

[sam, an eggplant]

I don't necessarily prefer a smaller number of classes, but I do feel there are certain advantages to restricting the number. Beyond simply making base development easier (and class/realm balance in a PvP game is a HUGE deal) it also allows for each class to have a distinct role and feel, with unique abilities and mechanics, and allows for creation of challenges tuned for abilities that are more likely to be present in a smaller pool.

[eldaec]

Bear in mind that the WAR system is pretty close to the CoH & EQ2s archetype + class/powerset system.

You can think of WAR as having 4 classes if you want.

[sam, an eggplant]

You can think of WAR as having 4 classes if you want.

You could do that, if you knew nothing about the game or were looking to deceive people.

Here are the four melee DPS classes. All four have very different mechanics and playstyles. They do damage at melee range, and that's about all that ties them together. Now this all sounds pretty cool, but that's four classes that need to be polished and balanced. The other archetypes have five or six.

Witch hunter: mechanic is combo points(accusations)/finishing moves(executions), specialize in single-target damage / group or surprise attacks / DoT
Marauder: 3 stances: single-target damage / DoT and debuff / AE damage
White lion: Pet class, can specialize in debuffing / pet damage / AE damage
Witch elf: rage-like mechanic generating power on damage only, can specialize in single-target damage / DoT / group or stealth attacks

[eldaec]

The trick is that within those archetypes the roles are pretty much the same, much like with CoH archetypes, which makes everything much easier to balance. CoH theoretically has hundreds of classes. They cope.


Compare that to daoc, where key functions were often divided in different ways across the realms, available in different amounts, and often with specialist roles not available at all in some realms.

You end up with cc being a specialist caster role in one realm, a healer role in another, and spread around the casters in a third.

You end up with all hibbie casters having 10 second stun, while albs are left with 30 second root, and you end up with functions such as turret pets in one realm only, or gtaoe only practical for use in two realms. Daoc also had different numbers of classes per realm, leading to (depending on your opinion) dilution by spreading abilities to thinly in the realm with lots of classes, or giving the many-classed realm an unfair number of choices.


Having many classes isn't the problem - doing it without some kind of structure behind it is what causes the problem.

[sam, an eggplant]

I agree that having a ton of classes all with different mechanics is cool. All four of those classes sound kinda sweet, don't they? I question the decision to implement so many classes with the same purpose as I feel it'll be difficult to balance in PvP and deliver compelling PvE content.

If it were my game, I would use 1 hardcore melee damage class, 1 hardcore ranged, and 4 hybrids that can spec to damage/tank/heal. Six classes is plenty.

[AngryGumball]

Was I wrong in thinking/reading that all the capital cities were linked. You had to conquer A to start attacking B, then C,D.

I did not think you could attack C before attacking Capital A.


If supose you could attack any Capital in any order, dosen't that design just lead to the Zerg whomping about whereever the action is, like planetside.


Beyond that without server regulation of player numbers on each faction, each server will get their own image of thats a Order server or a Destruction server. Will there be Login queues for factions?  No clue how DAoC did it.

[eldaec]

No clue how DAoC did it.

DAoC didn't do jack about it, a few servers sucked as a result.

It wasn't quite so bad after new frontiers, where the imbalanced servers were paired up with servers imbalanced in the other direction for RvR.

I understand WAR has some kind of NPC driven auto-balancing to help the losing realm, but I guess no one can really know if it it'll do any good till launch.

It won't help that WAR has the wrong number of realms ofc.

[sam, an eggplant]

My understanding is that you could attack any capital in any order, yes. That's why I like them cutting out the extra cities; it concentrates the PvP action and may lead to good fights.

I don't believe mythic has commented on what they'll do to address faction imbalances. The scenarios are instanced and can be handled like battlegrounds in WoW, but there are world PvP areas in every zone. Actually the capital cities are instanced once under attack too but since they impact PvE I can't imagine they'd be shared cross-server.

[eldaec]

Was I wrong in thinking/reading that all the capital cities were linked. You had to conquer A to start attacking B, then C,D.

I did not think you could attack C before attacking Capital A.

Each pair of capitals had a set of zones you had to 'win' to reach it. The sets were independent, you can attack any one of the three at any time.

This just means it is the same city at the end of each set of zones, and you have to win two sets to access the city.

[NiX]

Since NO ONE is spending a word on what truly matters.

Really? Still? You haven't given up yet? You must get off to following Mark around and claiming some new crime against your own personal humanity.

[Kirth]

My understanding is that you could attack any capital in any order, yes. That's why I like them cutting out the extra cities; it concentrates the PvP action and may lead to good fights.

After it some thought, yes it makes sense to concentrate the pvp, however I'd surmise that if they do eventually put the other cap cities in after launch one thing that might be an idea is to have only one city that is vulnerable and open to attack a time, and rotate on a schedule or something. 

[Baldrake]

I suspect that Mythic were looking hard and realized that to get all this content polished, they were looking at a year, not a couple of months, and that that just wasn't going to fly.

I am skeptical about Mythic's ability to polish, though. A buddy and I pulled down the DAoC trial a few months ago. There were several quests right in the Albion newbie zone which were bugged, all these years after release.

[eldaec]

In comparison to other titles of the era, daoc was practically chromed at launch.



Also, I think people are overdoing the polish argument. It's becoming something people just say when they have no evidence either way but just don't get a good feeling about a game. Having a hunch that something is going to suck is ok, we do that a lot.

I'm not trying to suggest it isn't important to polish, but the only mmogs I can remember that were thought of as fairly polished at launch were CoH and maybe PS, and even they burnt out relatively quickly.

[Baldrake]

In comparison to other titles of the era, daoc was practically chromed at launch.

Agreed, but you're missing my point. After all these years, DAoC is still not as polished as its modern competitors.

And "polish" can mean a lot of things. One interpretation is that it's all the little things that a game can do right that add up to magical and immersive experience. Another is having taken all the necessary rounds of iterative design to balance, streamline and weed out the parts that aren't fun. You can make up for a certain degree of this if your game is different in a revolutionary way. But WAR isn't.

Anyway, this is all talk, because I'm not in the beta so don't have any idea really.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Regardless of WAR people have just set their bar higher for mmo's. AoC is a prime example of this, as by the standards of MMO's pre-wow AoC would have been a smashing success even with the bugs and lack of content. I'm not talking about success as far as subcribers since the market has also grown I'm simply talking about mass appeal for the market that exists.

But AoC wasn't a hit, it did simply, ok. People want more and expect more now, whether it's an expectation that can be met or not isn't the point. As I've said in other thread games have to move forward. Either in graphics or gameplay or design. You have to give your customers something they can't get elsewhere and unless WAR can do that it will simply flounder.

This is just my personal opinion but war doesn't seem revolutionary at all, it seems like a different flavor of diku in the warhammer universe which means it will compete directly with the wow crowds. Yes WAR might have a different name for battlegrounds or the ruleset may be different but you're still playing the same DnD game, just a different campaign set instead of say playing rifts or something.

So considering WAR is the same model as WOW the differences lay only in the IP and the little tweaks. People will comb over every little detail of WAR, they will judge every single thing against wow because they simply are too similar. The question is, will WAr stand up to all of this or will people simply try it out for a bit and then get bored. What's the hook?

Mythic: Riding coattails since 2001

[Simond]

So considering WAR is the same model as WOW the differences lay only in the IP...

(insert "Sing the song that ends the Earth" PA comic here) 

[Lakov_Sanite]

So considering WAR is the same model as WOW the differences lay only in the IP...

(insert "Sing the song that ends the Earth" PA comic here) 

Gameplay-wise wow came first. That the warcraft universe was spawned from the warhammer one doesn't really matter, but hilarious comic regardless, link plz.

[Rishathra]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/4/10/i-hope-you-like-text/

[eldaec]

So considering WAR is the same model as WOW the differences lay only in the IP...

(insert "Sing the song that ends the Earth" PA comic here) 

Gameplay-wise wow came first. That the warcraft universe was spawned from the warhammer one doesn't really matter, but hilarious comic regardless, link plz.

And daoc came before that, and eq before that, and various other junk before that. Most steps improved the formula in gameplay and/or production values.

EQ2 and CoH have taken it on since.

You expect improvement over time in any industry, that isn't new or surprising. I assume Mythic would be disappointed if WAR turns out be only as professionally produced as DAoC. (Not that the industry has moved an enormous amount since then anyway)

[Lakov_Sanite]

So considering WAR is the same model as WOW the differences lay only in the IP...

(insert "Sing the song that ends the Earth" PA comic here) 

Gameplay-wise wow came first. That the warcraft universe was spawned from the warhammer one doesn't really matter, but hilarious comic regardless, link plz.

And daoc came before that, and eq before that, and various other junk before that. Most steps improved the formula in gameplay and/or production values.

EQ2 and CoH have taken it on since.

You expect improvement over time in any industry, that isn't new or surprising. I assume Mythic would be disappointed if WAR turns out be only as professionally produced as DAoC. (Not that the industry has moved an enormous amount since then anyway)

It's an evolution I think we both agree. I should say wow came 'before' not first, which would be more accurate. If wow is homo sapien, for WAR to be big, it needs to be homo superior, which I'm not sure it can be. I think it will be good but another flavor of wow era gameplay at best, daoc/eq2 era gameplay at worst.

[Murgos]

It's an evolution I think we both agree. I should say wow came 'before' not first, which would be more accurate. If wow is homo sapien, for WAR to be big, it needs to be homo superior, which I'm not sure it can be. I think it will be good but another flavor of wow era gameplay at best, daoc/eq2 era gameplay at worst.

No, it doesn't need to be homo superior.  It just needs to be more attractive.  Homo Superior will be something else all together.

[Trouble]

It doesn't even need to be better than WoW. It just needs to NOT SUCK and have enough shit different from WoW to attract a decent number of people who want something a bit different. The problem is that apparently no one in the world besides Blizzard is capable of making an MMO that has NOT SUCK.

[Count Nerfedalot]

It doesn't even need to be better than WoW. It just needs to NOT SUCK and have enough shit different from WoW to attract a decent number of people who want something a bit different. The problem is that apparently no one in the world besides Blizzard is capable of making an MMO that has NOT SUCK.

This.

[rk47]

Hmm, a monthly subscribed buffet restaurant is what I compare MMORPGs to. Some never change their menu at all, some gives the occasional interesting spreads (Hey, new dish archetypes mmmm) or double ice cream scoops on weekends (COH). But if you serve the same food as WoW, prepare to be out-spread and out-serviced with their Cream of the Lich King special.

[schild]

You all just lost 25 posts because someone couldn't obey NDA. Don't be retarded. Stay in school.