State of The Game - Mark Jacobs

[Trippy]

So here, they can allow players to chase population themselves, watch some servers clear out, eventually not allow new players to make characters on those servers, and then slowly and silently phase them out.

There will still be a merge at some point, though, even if only a small one cause some people will *never* leave a low pop server.

[Omiko]

Whoops!

[Nebu]

I could probably go on and on with ideas but I don't want to make a huge wall of endless text ...

Too late.   

[Zupa]

If my first post is absolutely nothing like the one above from Omniko, can I stay?

[rk47]

i think we pretty much have similar ideas, it's just quite tiring to read it over and over again. If you feel you have to make a point here, go read the whole thread first, pick some short quotes and add a little in. Pasting a huge wall of text that sounds repeated over 20 pages is just brutal.

[ghost]

There should be a sticky at the top entitled:  "Essays on Warhammer".
 

[Venkman]

So here, they can allow players to chase population themselves, watch some servers clear out, eventually not allow new players to make characters on those servers, and then slowly and silently phase them out.

There will still be a merge at some point, though, even if only a small one cause some people will *never* leave a low pop server.

Yea, I agree. However, by that point the servers might be light enough that their closure is like a tree falling in the woods. Nobody whose vocal is around to hear it

[Slyfeind]

Sorry there just wasnt a way to put all those ideas out in a super short form :P

I'll bet Schild could figure out a way.

[Crushyou]

lol, where's my shift key

[Sleep]

/end plug

/pulling plug on brown-nosing.

It's people like you that are doing it wrong. Don't let your low standards get in the way of progress, thx.

[UnSub]

The most exciting aspect of this game, and the whole industry, is the fact that it is a work in progress. I am excited to see where this game goes over the next few years. Hopefully a merger will be sooner then later, but anyone who lets post launch hickups blind their view on the game so much that they are actually willing to attempt the mess called WoW once more...well so be it. It certainly is not the majority who feel this way.

Sleep, you really need to wake the fuck up.

[Wasted]

The most exciting aspect of this game, and the whole industry, is the fact that it is a work in progress. I am excited to see where this game goes over the next few years. Hopefully a merger will be sooner then later, but anyone who lets post launch hickups blind their view on the game so much that they are actually willing to attempt the mess called WoW once more...well so be it. It certainly is not the majority who feel this way.

Sleep, you really need to wake the fuck up.

But its exciting, paying to beta.  Especially with wow being such a mess an all.

[Vinadil]

The biggest danger is that WoW will figure out an enjoyable Real World PvP system.  They have gone a long way to making Raiding guild friendly... if they can figure out how to do some decent guild-based PvP, well that would probably be a big pull to some of the WAR guilds.  The biggest thing keeping us with WAR is it is the only guild-friendly game out that has PvP and is not Spreadsheets in Space.

[ghost]

The biggest danger is that WoW will figure out an enjoyable Real World PvP system.  They have gone a long way to making Raiding guild friendly... if they can figure out how to do some decent guild-based PvP, well that would probably be a big pull to some of the WAR guilds.  The biggest thing keeping us with WAR is it is the only guild-friendly game out that has PvP and is not Spreadsheets in Space.

Is this really a "danger"?  I am going to play whichever of the games is most fun for me.  It's not about taking some sort of political stand against Blizzard.  If they can make a better product, great.

[Kamen]

But its exciting, paying to beta.  Especially with wow being such a mess an all.

*Snort

You're mean.

[tommh]

I wonder how much server pop will improve game-play. Certainly having a lot of players interacting (especially opposing players) is the key to making WAR a success, but as the game stands I still think that many of these people will just go into rotating through scenarios.

It will potentially reduce wait times for scenarios.

[Ashmodai]

I wonder how much server pop will improve game-play.

I'm not on a low-pop server, thankfully, but I can't think of any advantages of being on one, ever, in any game, that don't get smothered under the weight of the disadvantages.  It's an MMO, meant to play with other people, if there's not many other people around, whoops.

Being able to transfer off of low pop servers for free is actually a very sensible idea.  Not sure why you'd ever want to not play on the highest population server bearable, though, unless queues to login were too high.  At this point in the game I don't think we have any consistently Full servers anymore, so I don't see why people would transfer off the High pop servers.

[Vinadil]

Wait until everyone is T4 and you will see how it could be nice to play on a Low Pop server, as long as that Pop plays in the same timezone.  Somewhere between the end of Guild Beta and Release the game lost the ability to handle 100 v 100 keep sieges.  Sure we had way more CTD back then, but at least the game did not turn to molasses when you had hundreds of people running around a zone.  Think of a "high" pop server where every T4 zone has hundreds of people in it... and honestly I could see myself wishing for a medium or low-pop server.  Now, if they can fix the lag issues... well then the more the merrier.

[Venkman]

That would be a good goal to anticipate except:

- Getting to T4 is a pita for a good chunk of people trained by the pace of WoW
- The people at T4 are currently biyotching about it, thus not compelling people with dreams of glory

I'm constantly reminded of AC2 and some of the stuff they were theoretically trying. At one point they finally had to come out and say that a good chunk of the big-world/economic/resource stuff only works with appropriately dense player population that never showed up. To that I always added "...because we flubbed some very critical components like functioning chat, an actual currency, and combat that made sense".

Here the causes may be different, but the end could line up the same way: not enough people enjoying the way the game should be played providing the compulsion for everyone else to get there.

This wasn't so bad in WoW because of two factors WAR doesn't have currently:

1) The joy of leveling as fast as we did even at launch sorta glossed over the lack of anything to do at the cap at that point.
2) A whole slew of genre newbs who, because WoW was their first game, weren't leveling up at a pace the veterans were but whom kept hearing praise from the veterans about how wonderful it was to not be playing the d1ckpunching grind EQ1 and DAoC used to be.

[Vinadil]

I agree that you have an issue if T4 play is not Fun.  The point was more to the population needs than the fun of the gameplay.  Right now I am not sure that the game can HANDLE a high population in T4, especially if everyone enjoys the design and wants to RVR all day.  That is a big problem too.  What happens if people DO want to play the game the way you designed it and then the technical issues drain all the fun out of it?  Well, Shadowbane happens (yes I know they had other issues... but technical has to be near the top).  High pop just makes the techinical problems more visible.

I suppose time will tell... because I am living on an Outlier server where the news is mostly good and people ARE singing the praises of Tier 4, constantly encouraging the lower levels to keep pressing just to "get here and have fun".  I just hope Mythic can keep our server running when the hundreds of T2/3 people finally get to T4.

[Ashmodai]

I suppose time will tell... because I am living on an Outlier server where the news is mostly good and people ARE singing the praises of Tier 4, constantly encouraging the lower levels to keep pressing just to "get here and have fun".  I just hope Mythic can keep our server running when the hundreds of T2/3 people finally get to T4.

T4 is terrible atm, it's a spam cc fest, and especially ruined by electromagnet/magnetic rift, which are possibly the two most ill-thought out abilities to ever be given to any classes in any MMO, ever.  I'd like to hear about contenders for that dubious honor if anyone disagrees with that statement, they might provide me with a few laughs.

http://files.filefront.com/Beam+Burn+Vol+3avi/;12044451;/fileinfo.html

This is T4 RvR.  If it doesn't make you laugh, at least a bit, you need a better sense of humor.  Destro's can do the same, of course, so RvR is a simple matter of who can do it first/better.  Or if one side lacks the ability, lol you are probably getting farmed (unless the other team sucks).  Any thoughts of strategic positioning, holding a line, any other tactics etc can immediately be abandoned when you start playing 32+.

[Maladee]

The biggest danger is that WoW will figure out an enjoyable Real World PvP system.  They have gone a long way to making Raiding guild friendly... if they can figure out how to do some decent guild-based PvP, well that would probably be a big pull to some of the WAR guilds.  The biggest thing keeping us with WAR is it is the only guild-friendly game out that has PvP and is not Spreadsheets in Space.

Is this really a "danger"?  I am going to play whichever of the games is most fun for me.  It's not about taking some sort of political stand against Blizzard.  If they can make a better product, great.

Have you guys seen this?

Original source:  http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/mythic-flattered-by-warcraft-s-imitation-combat
Blizzad's latest move to introduce open world PVP combat to World of Warcraft is "absolutely a reaction to Warhammer," according to Mark Jacobs, CEO of Mythic.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Jacobs talked about the latest PVP features to be included in the World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, many of which, he claims, are based on Warhammer Online.
"Oh absolutely," responded Jacobs, when asked if this was a move by Blizzard to position World of Warcraft against Warhammer Online. "I think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."   

It's got to be mind-boggling to continue to "improve" a game without being making things cookie-cutter-esque and to use player feedback to "fix" things when the average player wants things fast-food style (exactly how you ordered it-- hot and immediately!).   

I'm not a fangurl by any means, but you have to give kudos to MJ (well, any frontman, really) for being willing to admit things are fucked up knowing that no matter what he does, people are going to bitch about it.    I'm a rather impatient and judgmental bitch at the best of times, but I'd rather see a change that doesn't work and know that it'll change again soon over seeing the ostrich method (read:"working as intended"), because at least you know they're paying attention.

If nothing else, I can always PvE in WoW and use WAR's PvP (flawed though it may be) to burn off the frustration of asstard carebears.

[Vinadil]

I suppose time will tell... because I am living on an Outlier server where the news is mostly good and people ARE singing the praises of Tier 4, constantly encouraging the lower levels to keep pressing just to "get here and have fun".  I just hope Mythic can keep our server running when the hundreds of T2/3 people finally get to T4.

T4 is terrible atm, it's a spam cc fest, and especially ruined by electromagnet/magnetic rift, which are possibly the two most ill-thought out abilities to ever be given to any classes in any MMO, ever.  I'd like to hear about contenders for that dubious honor if anyone disagrees with that statement, they might provide me with a few laughs.

http://files.filefront.com/Beam+Burn+Vol+3avi/;12044451;/fileinfo.html

This is T4 RvR.  If it doesn't make you laugh, at least a bit, you need a better sense of humor.  Destro's can do the same, of course, so RvR is a simple matter of who can do it first/better.  Or if one side lacks the ability, lol you are probably getting farmed (unless the other team sucks).

Eh, we don't have any problem with Magus pull... and our T4 engies have mostly specced OUT of Magnet because it is not the best line.  It is more a matter of having the right pieces in the right places.  Sure, if you have no tanks or healers then Magus + sorc will kill you.  Add in a couple tanks and healers who know what they are doing and Magus pull = dead magus, or Magus pull = "whoops we resisted and now all your sorcs are dead".  I have no problem with ANY of the current ability sets... just the lag associated with large amounts of people in the same space.  Lag ruins Strategy.  Strategy is what makes these games fun in the long-term.

[Ashmodai]

Watch the movie, those 3 guys are actually doing it properly.  At the end, you get to watch 3 guys singlehandedly run in and take out about 50 people at a T4 keep siege, it's funny as hell.  If you don't think that's the "best line" for engineers, I have no idea what to tell you really, except that you're wrong, and your engineers are dumb.  I play an Engineer as my alt and there's nothing I have that can even remotely provide as much effect on the outcome of any battle as Electromagnet, heh what are you going to use instead, napalm grenade?  By 40 you can get both anyways I guess.

[Vinadil]

Well, quickly then, here is the thing.  My healing and damage spells outrange your Magnet.  So, if properly positioned I can heal the people you suck in, or stun/kill you before you get the chance.

Magnet looks powerful when you play against clueless people who are not working together.  It looks "handy" when you have a few groups fighting who know that it is there and what it can do.  On servers where people learn each others names, they also learn each others specs.  Then you see Magus' with Rift getting killed at range and people staying 65+ feet away from them.

Not saying it can't be powerful in certain situations... but game-breaking it is not.

[Ashmodai]

Not saying it can't be powerful in certain situations... but game-breaking it is not.

The people getting sucked in are being mass killed in less than 8 seconds, the non-tanks caught in it vaporizing in less than 5.  I play a 40 archmage, I know what's healable, this is not.  I disagree that it's not game breaking, you play a ranged class (healer?), so do I, this is great, but this ability completely nullifies the idea of having a front line, tanks, medium-armor mdps (WL/mara), melee healers, etc.  It has effectively just clobbered any strategic positioning people might use and turned it into more of a RDPS fest than it already was, this game is already way, way too RDPS centric, this ability just completes the checkmate of melee oriented classes.

[Righ]

T4 is terrible atm, it's a spam cc fest, and especially ruined by electromagnet/magnetic rift, which are possibly the two most ill-thought out abilities to ever be given to any classes in any MMO, ever.  I'd like to hear about contenders for that dubious honor if anyone disagrees with that statement, they might provide me with a few laughs.

Shadowbane had a class (Fury) that could fly and nuke from above without being in range of other classes. The range thing was allegedly a bug, but it lasted for a long time. It also had a class (Crusader) that could be trivially min-maxed to be practically unhittable and which could do a type of melee attack that ignored armor all the while self-healing the rare lucky critical hits. You could literally have a dozen people wail on you for 15 minutes while you killed them all. They did patch both to make them less overwhelmingly powerful - at a round the same time as they buffed another class (Channeler - a healer/mage hybrid that could both fly and stealth) into supremacy. If you enjoyed playing characters with ridiculous and broken abilities, Shadowbane was a great game.

[UnSub]

I'm not a fangurl by any means, but you have to give kudos to MJ (well, any frontman, really) for being willing to admit things are fucked up knowing that no matter what he does, people are going to bitch about it.    I'm a rather impatient and judgmental bitch at the best of times, but I'd rather see a change that doesn't work and know that it'll change again soon over seeing the ostrich method (read:"working as intended"), because at least you know they're paying attention.

See, if MJ (who, as Mythic's frontman / PR expert supremo gets the blame for everything) had been paying attention, WAR wouldn't have launched with a stack of obvious problems. A lot of good questions appear to have been asked in beta - what happens when the zones empty to the PQs and RvR? what is going to encourage RvR over scenarios? why is PvE so important in a PvP-oriented game? - to which the answer appeared to be "We'll wait and see what happens at launch".

The first month of WAR shouldn't have been a litany of "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!". The fact that the phrase "working as intended" hasn't appeared is because it sets everyone off in a bad mood - instead, we get "Wait for the next patch when stuff will change!". It sounds proactive, but when the thing you want to see doesn't change, you have to wonder if it is indeed working as intended...

Also, if MJ was paying attention, no-scenario servers wouldn't have made it off the whiteboard of wild ideas and into a poll that made it look like a serious option.

Finally: you won't be happy with a change that comes in and alters your game for the worse and then takes a while to get back to. If there is anything to know about MMO players, it is that they might dislike the current system, but they hate change even more (especially if it is made based on rushed design docs and a limited understanding of what is going on). Wait for the first set of changes to WAR's classes. The lambs, they will scream.

[Nebu]

Finally: you won't be happy with a change that comes in and alters your game for the worse and then takes a while to get back to. If there is anything to know about MMO players, it is that they might dislike the current system, but they hate change even more (especially if it is made based on rushed design docs and a limited understanding of what is going on). Wait for the first set of changes to WAR's classes. The lambs, they will scream.

No matter what you do, someone will scream.  That's the nature of MMO's.  I think that MJ needs to stop talking and just DO.  Implement changes as rapidly as it is feasible and employ a number of reliable testers to ensure that these releases pass muster before being shipped to the masses. 

The game was shipped too early and it's suffering for it.  Not much to do but look forward.

[Ashmodai]

No matter what you do, someone will scream.  That's the nature of MMO's.  I think that MJ needs to stop talking and just DO.  Implement changes as rapidly as it is feasible and employ a number of reliable testers to ensure that these releases pass muster before being shipped to the masses. 

The game was shipped too early and it's suffering for it.  Not much to do but look forward.

This I agree with.  Especially the bolded part.  I know it's a live game, but there are a ton, really, a ton of game breaking problems with overall balance and playability.  Cherrypicking them off slowly a small patch at a time isn't the solution here, they need to be bold and implement fixes as fast as they possibly can, large patches that yes, might have the possibility of breaking things, but will have a far less detrimental effect on the player base who will realize they are actually trying to fix the game than doing nothing or more carefully implementing changes more slowly. 

There's just way too much to fix to do what most developers do, which is slowly hack away at the problems with weekly patches that address 1-2 major issues each, when the game has a laundry list of 20, 30+ or how many ever major problems that need addressing.  Doing that leads to subscribers trickling away, which leads to lower populations, which introduces a whole new set of issues, and the loss of players just snowballs into more loss of players.

[UnSub]

Finally: you won't be happy with a change that comes in and alters your game for the worse and then takes a while to get back to. If there is anything to know about MMO players, it is that they might dislike the current system, but they hate change even more (especially if it is made based on rushed design docs and a limited understanding of what is going on). Wait for the first set of changes to WAR's classes. The lambs, they will scream.

No matter what you do, someone will scream.  That's the nature of MMO's.  I think that MJ needs to stop talking and just DO.  Implement changes as rapidly as it is feasible and employ a number of reliable testers to ensure that these releases pass muster before being shipped to the masses. 

The game was shipped too early and it's suffering for it.  Not much to do but look forward.

I know. But I was talking about the "change it even if it is wrong, because then you can change it again" line of thinking of Maladee. Talk of paying for beta will come up a lot if that is Mythic's patching and class design strategy.

But what are the options?

 - Nerf Bright Wizards. Ouch. Order takes a big hit.

 - Nerf some of the more overpowered abilities out there (Witch Elves' moving damage one, the rifts, etc). More unhappy players.

 - Buff the ranged DPS (Shadow Warrior / Squig Herder) which are seen as underperformers.

I'm sure there are others. But the patch notes that list these changes are going to see the unofficial forums go into absolute meltdown (here included). If RvR / PvP doesn't come along as a big saviour at the same time as the classes get changed, players will wonder why they should keep the sub going.

I've got no idea who would be testing the changes, either. Or how to get them properly tested at each tier before they go live, given that was Mythic's big failing before when they had a lot more people and a lot more resources to devote just to testing.

EDIT for Ashmodai: Sorry, but I disagree. A large, rapidly tested patch launched onto live has the possibility of putting in game breaking bugs into WAR that will drive players off much quicker. It would be better for Mythic to target some problems with precision than throwing everything against the wall and hoping everything lands on target. Players trickling away is better than mass cancellations.

[Nebu]

EDIT for Ashmodai: Sorry, but I disagree. A large, rapidly tested patch launched onto live has the possibility of putting in game breaking bugs into WAR that will drive players off much quicker. It would be better for Mythic to target some problems with precision than throwing everything against the wall and hoping everything lands on target. Players trickling away is better than mass cancellations.

Excellent point here.  Strongest case would be class balance.  Rushing out some changes seems logical (xp/reknown incentives, new items, etc).  Rushing aspects requiring much deeper evaluation (i.e. class balance) would be foolish. 

[khaine]

Oh come on , surely we'd all like to see two patches a week a'la Funcom style ,

(dear god , did no one at that company think that might not be such a good idea )

Anyway , I'm all for testing and not putting in broken patches , but put LARGER bandaids in the meantime , make all open RvR xps x5 or x10 even , make all PVE kills x3 or x4 - maybe extra PVE xps for kills inside RvR areas

[Ashmodai]

I know. But I was talking about the "change it even if it is wrong, because then you can change it again" line of thinking of Maladee. Talk of paying for beta will come up a lot if that is Mythic's patching and class design strategy.

But what are the options?

 - Nerf Bright Wizards. Ouch. Order takes a big hit.

 - Nerf some of the more overpowered abilities out there (Witch Elves' moving damage one, the rifts, etc). More unhappy players.

 - Buff the ranged DPS (Shadow Warrior / Squig Herder) which are seen as underperformers.

I'm sure there are others. But the patch notes that list these changes are going to see the unofficial forums go into absolute meltdown (here included). If RvR / PvP doesn't come along as a big saviour at the same time as the classes get changed, players will wonder why they should keep the sub going.

EDIT for Ashmodai: Sorry, but I disagree. A large, rapidly tested patch launched onto live has the possibility of putting in game breaking bugs into WAR that will drive players off much quicker. It would be better for Mythic to target some problems with precision than throwing everything against the wall and hoping everything lands on target. Players trickling away is better than mass cancellations.

It's not just the BWs.  All damage in T4 is too high, overall, from the primary DPS classes (sorc, bw, wh, we).  Buffing the other classes to match this output would just mean more instagibbing than we already have, when the TTK is already absurdly low given the fact that Mythic clearly stated that they were aiming at a medium to high (I consider 10 seconds reasonable, 2 is not) TTK, this is pretty much what the game has until T4, where it takes a sudden turn towards instagibbing.  Everything in T4 is exaggerated, from CC (rift/magnet, embrace, fetch, every single ranged class getting the same 5sec silence at 35..) to damage.

Large scale RvR will never come so long as there are abilities like electromagnet.  Go watch that video, 3 people are able to wipe out 2 full warbands, granted the defenders could have acted more quickly to prevent it but it should never even be considered that 3 players approaching could mean the death of the entire invading force because of 2 abilities.  It makes no sense - the fun 'wars' that we seek to reenact are battles of attrition where the other side overpowers the other through superior military might and tactics, one could compare it to going to war with a nuclear capable country, noone is going to want to go to war with someone who can drop nukes, EM/Rift+AOE are the equivalent of nukes.  You can try to deflect them with ICBMs (stuns/silence/kb) but if one manages to land, lol gg.

Finally, I think that there are enough game breaking problems in the game that the possibility of introducing more for a brief period of time is a negligable concern compared to leaving the game broken too long.  Players trickling away is devastating, none of the games I've played that have failed recently have had mass cancellations (that I could see), it was a slow decline in population until one day you turn around and go wow.. where did everyone go?  And cancel yourself.  Adding incentives to open RvR is great, but when the endgame is nigh unplayable people aren't going to RvR no matter how many carrots you dangle in front of them (okay, so that's not true, a 1000% bonus would probably get everyone out there, but the point stands).

[Nebu]

Lowering dps isn't the solution.  You nerf dps by raising resistances and increasing hps.

Same effect with one being more acceptible than the other to the unwashed masses.