State of The Game - Mark Jacobs

[Megrim]

Ok, i did say i don't know anything about T3/T4. What colour bags were you getting in T1/T2?

[schild]

Ok, i did say i don't know anything about T3/T4. What colour bags were you getting in T1/T2?

Purple, Blue, and Gold.

(ok, the occasional green here and there. Seriously though, grinding out that level 10PQ in Altdorf (death march, or whatever) resulted in better gear than renown stuff)

[Megrim]

Righto, i give you that. Apparently my constant placing either first or in the top three doesn't drop me any of those in any PQ or keep siege i've done (i don't think i've even seen a purple, blue or gold). But, is grinding for that stuff really as easy as just picking up Renown gear? Ease of use and all that.

[Kirth]

Ok, i did say i don't know anything about T3/T4. What colour bags were you getting in T1/T2?

PQ gear is great, but no one does them. Maybe because the rewards are inconsistent or the phase one kill xx is too much (hint: AOE) . I much prefer doing PQ's then most other things when I log in but I can usually only get 2 or 3 guildies out for them and its rare anyone else ever appears.

[Evildrider]

PQ gear is good for some classes and just plain ass for others.  I rarely find a PQ I actually want to grind all they way for an item. 

[Morfiend]

PQ gear is good for some classes and just plain ass for others.  I rarely find a PQ I actually want to grind all they way for an item. 

Same here. Probably 1 in 4 chapters has a piece of gear thats good for me in t3. Same with Renown gear, I think I am using at most 2 pieces. I have to get random drops to have any hope of putting together a coherent gear setup.

Str based Warrior Priest.

[schild]

Whoa. Did I get off at the Wall of Text exit by mistake?

[schild]

Whoa. Did I get off at the Wall of Text exit by mistake?

Yes, but in my defense, I did have to suffer through 7 pages of text to get here.

I shouldn't have to say this, but you know that's not a great defense right? I mean Mark is pretty much done with this thread, if he shows up again to read it a few pages of stragglers and stalkers will have shown up and interjected their 2 cents and the reason he goes from community to community is lost in the shuffle.

There's no easy way to put this but the reason people go to different sites is to get different viewpoints, people don't come here to get the Vault/FoH/WHA/etc viewpoints, they come for the f13 viewpoint. I wouldn't blame a dev who ignored every single word of someone who showed up to make a post because he peeped his head up over the fence.

It doesn't help that your post had 1,434 words either.

[Morfiend]

Mark knows this, so give your suggestions, but then get out of his way.

This is what scares me a bit. Ether, yes he knows the game and the players, and designed it in such a way that they *knew* players would avoid RVR until rank 40, or he doesn't understand.

During the many betas, I must have submitted over 100 feedback reports saying that RVR needed more rewards. I saw this coming a mile away, and a lot of other people did too.

I spent all day today doing RVR in t3, we captured all 6 keeps in t3, and it wasn't until after we owned every keep we even saw more than one Destruction player. We finally managed to entice a large group of destruction to come fight us, and we had a fantastic time. It was great fun. Yet at the same time, there was this nagging feeling that my character was not advancing. In about 5 hours of RVR, my character (rank 30) managed to gain half a level of renown (RR 22) and 1.5 bars of exp. Thats it. If I had been doing scenarios for 5 hours I would have probably tripled that gain, easily.

About the time we where finishing up, several people made the comment "If the rewards for doing this was the same as scenarios, I would fucking do this all the time".

[Venkman]

You're a fan, we get it. We're no more a single point of view here than you're the representative of the "opposing" one. But we are also looking at the game that exists, not what it could be maybe someday. We've all, and you included, have played long enough to see promises and results.

At present, WAR is WoW as if you gained XP for PvP, with more spotty itemization and slower leveling (because access to certain portions of the game simply isn't open to some players).

I am actually curious if Mark's earlier statement about leveling speed takes that into account. He mentioned leveling here is faster to the cap than most other games. But I am wondering if that calculation is based on a certain way of playing that includes equal access to all portions of the game (PvE and quests of course, but also actual opponents in RvR for all tiers and groups always available for PQs). And I'm wondering because I don't hear of many cases where players do have that level of access.

[Lantyssa]

One also has to interpret the data one has correctly.

Their data probably shows an incredible amount of participation in scenarios.  One might draw the conclusion people only want to play scenarios.  Someone else might realize people only play scenarios because nothing else gives as high a reward/time ratio.

So it can tell you what people are or are not doing, however it cannot tell you why.  Even if you ask directly, people aren't always sure themselves.

[Slayerik]

I shouldn't have to say this, but you know that's not a great defense right? I mean Mark is pretty much done with this thread, if he shows up again to read it a few pages of stragglers and stalkers will have shown up and interjected their 2 cents and the reason he goes from community to community is lost in the shuffle.

There's no easy way to put this but the reason people go to different sites is to get different viewpoints, people don't come here to get the Vault/FoH/WHA/etc viewpoints, they come for the f13 viewpoint. I wouldn't blame a dev who ignored every single word of someone who showed up to make a post because he peeped his head up over the fence.

It doesn't help that your post had 1,434 words either.

 I said it more jokingly than anything else (WELL NOT REALLY).  The post was more for this thread's posters' benefit than for Mark's (YOU BUYING THIS?), as I realize he hasn't posted in a few pages (OH PLZ PLZ PLZ MARK READ ME).  Most of what I said is more or less "MMO design 101," so I'm sure he's quite equipped without my advice. (FLATTERY NEVER HURTS)

  However, you should consider that from a developer's perspective, it's really the people who peep their head over the fence whose posts warrant the most attention (CAUSE I DID).  I'm not speaking about myself here because I post slightly more often on other forums, but you can tell what the real issues are with your game by the number of first-time posters they bring out of the woodwork (CAUSE I'M ONE).  There is always going to be a passionate segment of the population that will post their thoughts at the drop of a hat, but they won't always -- or even frequently -- represent the views of the population as a whole (BUT I DO).  I'm not claiming to (I LIED I AM), but when someone who has yet to post about your game makes a lengthy one about any topic, it's probably a topic worth considering on some level.(CAUSE MINE ARE)

This is what scares me a bit. Ether, yes he knows the game and the players, and designed it in such a way that they *knew* players would avoid RVR until rank 40, or he doesn't understand.

 Or he simply made a mistake.  At this point it's really hard to say.  I know that when I make a mistake, I have the luxury of it not affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

 I think some of the larger concepts inherent in War's design bear witness to Mark and his team's knowledge of the genre and its caveats, which is why I have faith that they'll correct their mistakes in due time.  But as I alluded to in my last post, it will take time.  They have all of these data mining tools these days precisely because -- contrary to popular opinion -- one of the worst things you can do in MMO development is listen to the players. (UNLESS ITS ME)
 

My own form of hazing.

[Khaldun]

Nobody's trying to speak for "the majority". Opinions here are whatever they are, and worth as much as they are accurate or useful. As far as getting out of Mark's way, I think if you like Warhammer, you may not really want that to be the choice that people make, because the easiest way to get out of the way is to unsub the game and pay it no more mind. If players still care enough to break down what's not working about a MMOG and they can see ways that it could work, that's a good thing from a developer's standpoint.

If this is "most players think the game is just great, or are content to let it get fixed whenever it gets fixed, you guys are just a vocal minority", please. If I had a dime for every forum thread in a flawed or failing MMOG where I've read an enthusiast say something like that, I could bail out Wall Street all by myself. The five people still playing Pirates of the Burning Sea are mostly typing that to themselves right now on the forums, I'm sure.

[UnSub]

Edit: People came here, obviously, hoping to get their voice heard. Instead it just seems like dev stalking. Oh well, whatever.

I find it hard to tell the difference too.

So it can tell you what people are or are not doing, however it cannot tell you why.  Even if you ask directly, people aren't always sure themselves.

Agreed.

The complexity of WAR is that there are several different competing areas that all require attention. PvE (general and PQ) vs PvP (RvR and scenario). The most insightful thing Mark said was when he said that the beta test delivered the wrong player insight because people played it the way that suited beta participation. It explains a lot about why so many fundamental flaws exist in WAR.

Also agree with whoever said that dev stalking Jacobs is pretty much required because of WAR's lack of official forums. Want to see him make an important point? Google constantly, just in case.

[Azazel]

Damn, you suffered through 7 pages of replies after following a link to MJ's night of posting here before posting that wall of text?

Seriously though, this is more of why a lack of official forums is fucked. Schildy my friend, I really place the blame for the MJ stalkers on MJ and Mythic themselves and their lack of official boards. Mr Wall-of-text here clearly cares enough about the game to follow the links here to f13 and type out a 1500 word essay in the blind hope that someone from Mythic will read his feedback about the game.

Still too much Smedley.

 

[Nija]

One overreaction from the beta test was the insane amount of guards around every warcamp. In beta there wasn't anything to do other than RVR, back when you were limited to T1 (T2 had no quests, just a grind - which some people DID do) so you'd just flock to the ekrund area and RVR it up. Whoever had more people would eventually push the others to their gates so you were sniping at them in town.

Well, that wasn't as planned so they added no less than 40 guards to that RVR area. I never saw any meaningful combat there since, but then again I didn't play a whole lot more after that was put in.


Ditch all those guards and free up those CPU cycles so you can have more players per zone. I am just now really exploring the T4 areas and holy shit, T4 alone can support 20-30k players at once. It's fucking huge, what on earth are you thinking with 2-5k concurrent users as a "full" server?!

[Slayerik]

Lack of faith in their net code handling truly massive battles?

[Morfiend]

The WAR servers can handle pretty massive battles. The client? Not so well, but not horrible. In beta I was in a huge keep battle, it was probably 120-150 Order vs around 200 destro, it was amazing and really fun.

[Slayerik]

wow, i only signed up to let you know most of you are a bunch of assholes. Why Mark bothers with you guys is a mystery.

Thanks for the insight.

[Nija]

A player ties up far, far more server resources than a NPC guard, so their impact is fairly negligible.  Slayerik's explanation probably has a lot more to do with it.  We all saw how AoC handled "truly massive battles," though that's not the best example.

Obviously you do not remember UO beta, when the guards actually roamed around and used pathfinding to get to targets. Before they were teleporting, instant kills.

You could cause a lot of crimes in a town and it would spawn more guards to deal with the crimes, kind of like Concord in Eve, and the server would grind to a halt. Anyways, just sayin'.

[schild]

First, I would like to say, THANK YOU Mark for the desire to make World RvR the "place to be". I've had faith that you guys were working on that since you did boosts to it already, but it's good to hear it directly sometimes.

I also apoligize because many of these ppl are acting like idiots in responses to you. Since I started playing this game I have always appreciated the fact that you personally respond to people on the forums, because I have never seen a developer reguarly do that on any other forums. I just wish it was a little bit more of a productive debate, but I guess people acting like idiots is what you typically get online.

With that said, I would just like to give you some constructive feedback on the "no scenario" server idea. I am completely against the idea.

If many players leave the server to go to a "no scenario" server, this would effectively kill a large part of world RvR on the existing servers. While I would prefer not to do scenarios all the time, I enjoy them as a minigame occasionally, typically if I have a small group of just a couple people going and not quite enough to make much of an impact in RvR.

We are at a point where many people have the desire for more world RvR, and if you opened up a server like this, it would help the world RvR on that server, but it would wreck havok and make world RvR nearly non existant on the existing ones.

Fragmenting the population is not a good idea. The existing servers would basically be the servers that the majority of the scenario players stay at, and the world RvR'ers go to the other. Players like me would be stuck in the middle. While I love world RvR, I would not want to go to a "no scenario" server because as I said, I enjoy them occasionally.

I fear the idea being implemented. I fear I would be stuck with a bunch of scenario players, like how the game is now. Once we get the game to a point that world RvR is more prominent, it would suck so badly to revert to the current state. I fear many of my friends leaving for a world RvR server, and being torn about which one I should go to.

This has been the first time I actually have gotten worried by something the developers of the game said. Most MMO's end up becoming great 6 months to a year after release, but then a couple years in, a bad decision effectively ruins the game. I feel very strongly that if you go thru with this idea, one of those "Game ruining implementations" will happen much earlier then with the usual game. And to be honest, I hope that nothing like that is ever implemented in to this game.

I honestly think this game is the most successful adaptation of a game for PvP players that has came out in a long. long time. Please dont ruin it!

Tee-hee, you said "ppl."

[Lantyssa]

A player ties up far, far more server resources than a NPC guard, so their impact is fairly negligible.  Slayerik's explanation probably has a lot more to do with it.  We all saw how AoC handled "truly massive battles," though that's not the best example.

Obviously you do not remember UO beta, when the guards actually roamed around and used pathfinding to get to targets. Before they were teleporting, instant kills.

You could cause a lot of crimes in a town and it would spawn more guards to deal with the crimes, kind of like Concord in Eve, and the server would grind to a halt. Anyways, just sayin'.

It would depend upon the AI and other coding for which takes up more resources.  Probably players, unless the mob of mobs in question have very CPU-intensive scripts.

A large number of players may choke the servers, but more than likely graphics lag on the user's end will be a bigger factor faster until the client is significantly more optimized.  Network latency could play a role, but unless the code is really bad, the user's network card is flaky, or the player is on dial-up, it's a secondary concern.

[UnSub]

It would depend upon the AI and other coding for which takes up more resources.  Probably players, unless the mob of mobs in question have very CPU-intensive scripts.

90% of WAR's AI appears to be "run directly at the target who attacked you; do not stop to go around terrain - running over a tree is perfectly acceptable if that is the shortest path".

However, it could be resource intensive for the AI to figure this out.

[Paelos]

One also has to interpret the data one has correctly.

Their data probably shows an incredible amount of participation in scenarios.  One might draw the conclusion people only want to play scenarios.  Someone else might realize people only play scenarios because nothing else gives as high a reward/time ratio.

So it can tell you what people are or are not doing, however it cannot tell you why.  Even if you ask directly, people aren't always sure themselves.

This point sort of got lost in between the walls, so I thought I'd bring it back up because I think it's a very cogent observation. Data never speaks for itself. If it did, we would always make the right investments, we would make all the right moves, and we'd know exactly what was going on in every organization.

I think we all realize that popular activities in MMOGs are going to be those with the heaviest results. Ironically, players have enough time on their hands to figure out how to maximize their time. As a result, if any activity is unbalanced, it will be summarily exploited/ignored in the system. That's where we are currently with the T3-T4 scenarios and the xp dilemmas.

[Morfiend]

I think Mythic gambled that you could both get the Orvr crowd and the wow BG grind crowd pleased,

I am going to have to give you a gold star for this. Thats my personal feeling also. Why they did it in such a blatently unbalanced way? Well, I think Mark was telling the truth when he said the beta testers didn't give the "right" feedback, because they tested the game like beta testers and not players. While that is something that I feel should have been accounted for, they can't do everything.

Honestly why it happened is a moot point, to an extent. The real question is how fast and what exactly is going to be done about it. There are tons of good ideas here and on other sites, and I am sure the dev team is looking at all angles (I hope they are).

I really like the game, but the empty world feeling, and the horrible rewards for RVR is making me want to rush to 40, so I can RVR with out feeling like I am wasting my time.

wow, i only signed up to let you know most of you are a bunch of assholes. Why Mark bothers with you guys is a mystery.

Probably because we don't brown nose him, and we tell him how we feel with out *much* flaming. And how can you call us assholes? You haven't even met Ironwood yet.

[Arthur_Parker]

Thread on Warhammer Alliance

Hmm,
 
Well, WHA easily dwarfs every other WAR forum in existance in terms of size and actual readers/posters. So I'm not sure why Mark wants to post stuff where a large potion of the community isn't reading (We've got a fix for this comming soon). As to why Mark doesn't post here, well here is Marks own words why Mark isn't coming back here.

Thanks but I ain't going back to WHA for a long time. It's becoming more and more like the old Vault every day as I told Garth a long time ago it would as we got closer to launch. Par for the course for an MMO but I'm tired of being called names, insulted and having my name dragged through the mud there.

Mark

So there you go. Personally, I think his remark needs a few cycles in the no spin zone, with a liberal amount of truthiness added to it. Anyway, I'm going to take the high road and say this.
 
Before Mark started posting, before Mythic even announced the title, the foundation of the Warhammer Alliance community existed and was kindled. For more than three years this site has been about the Warhammer Online community. Today, we have dozens of people volunteering their time and hundreds of thousands of WAR customers visiting our forums. The staff and I are completely commited to providing a comprehensive community resource.
 
To that end we are working on some tools that will end the "where's the dev post" game that exists. I belive the community, and the customer shouldn't have to look in 3, or 4, or even two different places to find out the latest developer musing.
 
In the future, hopefully late this fall, we'll begin syndicating all developer posts, regardless of where they post. What this means, is that if a developer posts at Bobs Sellout Palace, we're going to have that post added to our forums, easily found in our devtracker. Over time we'll search out and begin to syndicate developer posts from wherever they are posting on a regular basis. Those developer posts will then in turn be resyndicated via our developer post RSS feed generator, so other fansites can take those developer posts and post them at their fansites.
 
This ensures that no matter where a developer posts, you'll be able to find the information either here at Warhammer Alliance, or any side that chooses to reproduce the developer posts from our DevRSS feed.
 
That said folks, hang in there we've got even more really cool things in store here at Warhammer Alliance.

Taking the high road while making plans to implement dev stalking tracking via RSS.  Inter forum drama is da best, greetings to all Warhammer Alliance readers, please make sure to fully read this f13 thread, before posting.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'm going to like you. 
1. Humour, 2. The above quote shows one possible outcome from not having official forums, the sense of justified entitlement that comes from someone doing a lot of hard work for no pay. 3. Grief title.

[Tannhauser]

If this is an RvR-centric game why is the PVE so grindy?  They need to increase xp or decrease mobs HP across the board.  In T1/2 I can cycle thru my abilities once to kill a mob.  In T3 I need to cycle thru twice.  I'm a DoK btw.  So you are pressing double the keys for the same effect.  Maybe that's strange to you but it 'feels' wrong. 

They have to keep scenarios.  But make lake RVR the best way for renown and xp and gear.  Scenarios need to stay because sometime folks just want to pop in and get in a quick fight.  Variety is good.

[Modern Angel]

This thread sucks now.

[Nerf]

Regarding a SCENARIO-FREE Server:

Yes, this is a GOOD idea

At least it's still producing a few lulz before it poops itself and falls over dead.

[amiable]

Regarding a SCENARIO-FREE Server:

Yes, this is a GOOD idea

So...  I see this thread has boarded the bus to crazytown.

[Goreschach]

At least it's still producing a few lulz before it poops itself and falls over dead.

I'm not normally a religious man, but that kind of synchronicity makes me want to believe in a higher power.

[JWIV]

Regarding a SCENARIO-FREE Server:

Yes, this is a GOOD idea

So...  I see this thread has boarded the bus to crazytown.

Only Grunk could save it now.

[Venkman]

If this is an RvR-centric game why is the PVE so grindy? 
...
They have to keep scenarios.  But make lake RVR the best way for renown and xp and gear.  Scenarios need to stay because sometime folks just want to pop in and get in a quick fight.  Variety is good.

This. Go. Do.

WAR can be the best of both worlds when all three (PvE, Scenarios, RvR) work in concert. Queuing from anywhere for Scenarios is a great complement to PvEing along the way. Add that for RvR. Just give us another scroll for the local Warcamp even, easy peasy.

[Khaldun]

Yes, someone message Grunk. He is needed.