What went wrong.

[Trippy]

They set up the ideal environment for things to work and that environment never pointed out the problems with the fucking game. >_<

Theoretically, awesome.

20/20 Hindsight: Shit shit shit.

How would you know? You didn't play Beta

Also, you are wrong. I couldn't say if *all* the issues people are bringing up now were brought up in Beta cause I didn't follow the Beta forums all that closely but many of them were. We even talked about many of them in our, you know, thingy.

[Venkman]

Well, sure they missed a lot of little things that are irritating, but to me the big picture is what is killing the game. 

They really missed something in the psychology of why people do things.

They never tested the big picture in beta. It was mostly a bunch of very specific use-cases with testers mostly being funneled to them.

And the psychology part has always been an issue with them for some reason. Either they have one type of player their games eventually depopulate to, or they don't adequately test their social engineering experiments.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe in T4 it would matter.  I've only done a handful of T3 stuff, and in T2 I was a goddess of win since I parked my Swordmaster on the flag.

When I'm knocked back I at least can tell I'm not able to do anything while flying.  I start thinking about where I'm going after I land, too, since I'm pretty good at judging my arc.  (Also Gust of Wind... I can do it back.)  When I'm disabled though, I stand right back up and can't do anything for four or five seconds.  Laying on my back wouldn't make it much better.

Maybe it's a dramatic thing.  Soaring through the air to land on my feet ready to charge back in feels heroic.  "Heh.  That all you got?  Thanks for giving me some room to build up momentum for my giant sword."  Forcing me to the ground in a vulnerable position where I take my time standing?  Doesn't feel heroic.

[Wasted]

Well, sure they missed a lot of little things that are irritating, but to me the big picture is what is killing the game. 

They really missed something in the psychology of why people do things.

They never tested the big picture in beta. It was mostly a bunch of very specific use-cases with testers mostly being funneled to them.

And the psychology part has always been an issue with them for some reason. Either they have one type of player their games eventually depopulate to, or they don't adequately test their social engineering experiments.

Its still a pretty laughable situation though, that Mythic are in that oRVR is what the game was most marketed for, the thing most people on the boards say they want to engage in, and yet they are all but being held to ransom to make oRVR more rewarding or people wont play.  They are playing catch-up with public opinion already, making apologies and trying to buy back favour.  Whether their subs numbers are bad or not they have created a public perception that the game is lacking in key features and are chasing opinion, not dictating it.

The lack of official boards and a firm grasp on public communication and its tone has created the perception in many that the game is failing, even if the figures may indicate its not doing as bad as all the doom-callers are saying.  Its certainly going to hurt retention and growth though.

The 'nice-honest guy, we know of the problems and are fixing them' approach didn't work for Funcom either, add that they called so early for player opinion in working out solutions gave away so much control that they just shot themselves in the foot really.

[Zzulo]

funcom had horrible public relations

their official forum was absolutely horrible

their patches were horrible

[Ossigor]

Was that a haiku?

[Tarami]

More like a seppuku.

[tolakram]

Here's what I see.

You have people saying they like oRVR.

You have people saying they hate getting zerged.

Decide.  :)

[Vinadil]

His point is valid
There are problems with both ways
This is not easy

[Vinadil]

Also, on the point of Beta.  Here are two key things they missed from the Guild beta phase:

1) Capped levels at 20 for the first push.  They capped us at T2 for the majority of the first push.  Then they opened T3 for a couple of days... not nearly enough time for us to see the XP decrease and play ANY of the scenarios really.  Then they wiped, gave us all level 31 characters and went to the next problem...

2) Release was coming soon... only the Captastic of the Captastic wanted to LEVEL again.  We had level 31 chars, we had almost all the ablities we wanted, we WANTED to RVR... so, that is what we did.  You had armies of level 31/32s running around RVRing the entire time.  We queued for some scenarios, they popped ALOT.  Everyone was doing PVP, because people "felt" like they were levelled enough.

What Mythic probably saw was this:

1) People levelled through T1-2 at a good rate, everyone was happy with the experience.  Assumption... "Our levelling speed is good", whoops we missed T3!

2) People love the T4 RVR and scenarios.  I think this will be true... if people GET there.  Once people start hitting 31+ in masse I think the RVR areas will get much more populated.  It is just so much easier to jump in once you get to T4.

Also - to the Magnet ability.  I am pretty sure that was thrown in after guild beta ended... because none of our level 31 Engies could spec it, and you can get it at 29 if you really want to.

[Geki]

Also, on the point of Beta.  Here are two key things they missed from the Guild beta phase:

1) Guild beta was nothing more than a stress test for the servers.  By the time you guys got in all of the mechanics and tiers were 'tested' and it was pretty much about tuning the server at that point.  The templates were because elders already had 31s that weren't wiped yet, so they gave guilds 31s for a couple days until all of the guild people got their registrations set, etc.  There was no focus testing during the guild beta.  They were there to basically see if anything blew up during "normal" gameplay.

2) Speaking for myself and those that I tested with, closed/guild beta people rvr'd constantly because we thought that's what the game was about.  But as you and others have said it was basically because we were dropped in the same tier at every test.  To duplicate this in production you'd have to have 1000+ people in every pairing and every tier.  Could the servers handle that?  I doubt it, but I'm sure orvr wouldn't be an issue at that point.


What really burns my ass is that basically Mark told us we were all retarded when we wanted more servers during the head starts and first week of retail.  Well, here we are a month later and we have low pop servers because we didn't want a queue during the first two weeks. I fully admit, I cried like a little bitch when I saw a queue the first week and begged for more servers.  Now I wish I had been patient and just waited until they increased the cap per server a week or two ago.


Edit note:  Basically, it comes down to HaemishM's "11 knob" and since nobody gave a shit about leveling in beta we weren't trying to find the 11 knob.  Once the HURHURs figured out they could level in scenarios it was all over.  Now they can't change scenarios because people will bitch, messing with the "way we like to play the game" and all that shit.

[ghost]

Here's what I see.

You have people saying they like oRVR.

You have people saying they hate getting zerged.

Decide.  :)

A game that is nothing but zerg after zerg probably won't appeal to the mainstream MMO gamer and would relegate WAR to being a "niche" game.  That is okay, I suppose, but I just don't see it being a good long term solution and I'm pretty sure that this wasn't what Mythic envisioned.

[Khaldun]

One of the things I liked about PQs is that I thought they were a stab at solving the deepest problem in MMOGs: how to get groups of relative strangers to coordinate actions together in a way that went above pure zergery.

The early game PQs cue players to do some very basic tanking-and-healing together if they want to get to the end of the PQ. And I saw a lot of that in Tier 1 PQs: without any communication, players basically enacting the tank-heal-damage triad in a fairly coordinated way.

What would make the later PQs work as progression is if they subtly upped the ante, requiring players to spontaneously coordinate slightly more ambitious or complex sequences. Instead they just go for pure grind with some tank-and-heal at the end.

The *real* trick, however, would be to make oRvR and scenarios in the same fashion. And here Mythic just didn't even begin to address the problem, because the incentive structure of all RvR in WAR encourages players to mindlessly zerg *rather* than to coordinate action. In any T2 or T3 scenario, the genuinely smart strategy for maximizing XP and RP gains is:

a) don't be a tank
b) DPS mindlessly or heal randomly, with the only objective being kill as much or put as many heals on as you can
c) if someone else can happen to hold objectives or cap flags, this is a good thing, but don't give up killing and healing to help that happen

That's a very clear communication about how to play, and it runs exactly counter to what most of the players say they want. I'm not saying it's easy to figure out how to reward players for more coordinated social play, and if you overdo it in that direction, we're right back to more or less requiring people who want to compete to be in hardcore guilds, in vent all the time, and so on. The magic recipe is a combination of intuitive structures for cooperation with incentive structures that reward coordination.

[Vinadil]

Basically you are saying, "Mythic rewards guilds and punishes solo/new players."  So, the issue then becomes training new/solo players in how to Act like guilds.

The fact is that in scenarios it is NOT the best to just randomly DPS and Heal.  Our guild groups show that in almost every scenario we run, as we top the damage,healing,xp, and renown charts.  But, for a Solo player, it definitely Seems best for them just to DPS/Heal.

Once again hindsight makes me see where WoW understood this.  They only have 3 battlegrounds.  I hated that.  As part of organized guild groups who were forced to run the same BGs over and over I constantly asked, "Why CAN'T they make more maps?!?!"  I did not get this issue, the issue that WAR has shown us.  That is, it is HARD to train solo and new players how to work together.  It takes them doing the SAME thing over, and over for a long period of time in order for strategy to develop.

Now you have people in wow who can be complete PUGs and function almost as well as pre-made groups.  The PUGs have learned the strategy.

That will be harder in WAR because there are so many maps with so many strategies.  Even the pre-mades have not all decided on the best strategy for every map... much less the PUGs.  WoW developed a game that helped people connect in new ways, and destroyed close-knit guilds.  WAR is a much better design for close-knit guilds, but is still trying to figure out how to connect new people in meaningful ways.

[Beltaine]

Once again hindsight makes me see where WoW understood this.  They only have 3 battlegrounds.  I hated that.  As part of organized guild groups who were forced to run the same BGs over and over I constantly asked, "Why CAN'T they make more maps?!?!"  I did not get this issue, the issue that WAR has shown us.  That is, it is HARD to train solo and new players how to work together.  It takes them doing the SAME thing over, and over for a long period of time in order for strategy to develop.

That is so so true.

Yesterday, 35 days into release, Khaine's Embrace popped. We ran to capture the first point and everyone stood around, so I clicked the flag and made the capture. I then ran all the way to the opposite capture point (which had still not been captured) and claimed it.

A few minutes later everyone is just slugging it out in the middle of the zone while I'm running around making captures, I'm wondering what's going on when someone says in /sc chat, "WTF is this explosion?"; "How does this scenario work?"; "I don't know what I'm doing."

Over a month into release and T1 scenarios has been Nordenwatch so much, that when one of the others pops, nobody has a damn clue.

(Been lurking here for a week and finally had something to say  )

[ghost]

Basically you are saying, "Mythic rewards guilds and punishes solo/new players."  So, the issue then becomes training new/solo players in how to Act like guilds.

The fact is that in scenarios it is NOT the best to just randomly DPS and Heal.  Our guild groups show that in almost every scenario we run, as we top the damage,healing,xp, and renown charts.  But, for a Solo player, it definitely Seems best for them just to DPS/Heal.

Once again hindsight makes me see where WoW understood this.  They only have 3 battlegrounds.  I hated that.  As part of organized guild groups who were forced to run the same BGs over and over I constantly asked, "Why CAN'T they make more maps?!?!"  I did not get this issue, the issue that WAR has shown us.  That is, it is HARD to train solo and new players how to work together.  It takes them doing the SAME thing over, and over for a long period of time in order for strategy to develop.

Now you have people in wow who can be complete PUGs and function almost as well as pre-made groups.  The PUGs have learned the strategy.

That will be harder in WAR because there are so many maps with so many strategies.  Even the pre-mades have not all decided on the best strategy for every map... much less the PUGs.  WoW developed a game that helped people connect in new ways, and destroyed close-knit guilds.  WAR is a much better design for close-knit guilds, but is still trying to figure out how to connect new people in meaningful ways.

I still think a great way to do this would be to have "soloable" objectives in tier 1 and tier 2 RvR lakes.  This would get people used to the idea of taking objectives in the RvR lakes.  You could give a little RR reward for doing them and maybe a little xp.  I guarantee you if you get two flagged people near one of these they are going to start fighting and that is a good thing. 

[tolakram]

Over a month into release and T1 scenarios has been Nordenwatch so much, that when one of the others pops, nobody has a damn clue.

New player maybe, that would be a good thing.   Not everything is wrong, jeepers and all that.

[Xuri]

funcom had horrible public relations

their official forum was absolutely horrible

their patches were horrible

To bite, or not to bite. Woe.

[UnSub]

Over a month into release and T1 scenarios has been Nordenwatch so much, that when one of the others pops, nobody has a damn clue.

This is a real pity, because IMO Khaine's Embrace is a lot more interesting than Nordenwatch. However, it does require more thought than just picking a target and firing, while in Nordenwatch you can just fire away*.

* not if you want to win, of course, but you need fewer clued in people in Nordenwatch than Khaine's.

[Righ]

You need even fewer clued people to win Gates of Ekrund. Nuke the middle.

[UnSub]

You need even fewer clued people to win Gates of Ekrund. Nuke the middle.

But it is a confusing map. With Nordenwatch, there is no thought involved about where to run to.

[ashrik]

They should have gone with a real open beta instead of an "open" beta. And made it much more lengthy.

We got time to test the game, but not any real time to play it. A beta full of regular people, instead of internet neckbeards, who are playing the game just as they would the release- that's where you'd get the best information of a near-retail product.

Edit: but DAMN what a negative thread/title. I don't think we're exactly at 'rats fleeing a sinking ship' just yet heh.

[Nebu]

I don't think we're exactly at 'rats fleeing a sinking ship' just yet heh.

Don't be so sure.  If people aren't leaving after the first month, many are just staying to see what happens this month.  The levee has a small crack at the moment...   

[raydeen]

You need even fewer clued people to win Gates of Ekrund. Nuke the middle.

I don't even know what that map looks like. I can barely get Khaine's Embrace. And this is after playing on at least 3 different servers. I think it was probably a mistake to let people choose scenarios regardless of their geographical region. It's like trying to get any other map but Deck 16 in the old UT.

[Ehle]

Listen, if I'm going to pay for a self-proclaimed PvP game I don't expect to log on and have to dick around for an hour or more begging and pleading with people to willingly spend their time participating in an activity that - though fun in theory - is actually entirely counter productive to their advancement.  I am also not going to spend days and days leveling to 40 in the vain hope that somehow things will get better.  I've played these games long enough to know that things never get better.

This.  If I want PvE I will go play WoW's refined version. 

I logged in last night during prime time and waited 15-20min just to do one scenario.  Ran all over the oRvR in my zone and saw nothing.  Last time I did that I found 2 other people and we knocked a keep door down before one enemy showed up and stymied us from the lord room (not like we could've taken it anyway).  Two other times I ran into a lone enemy player.  Won one fight, lost the other.  Oh boy.  I have a job and don't need another one cajoling folks into organizing for something that the game seems designed to funnel folks away from doing. 

Gawd, why is there any PvE in this game?  Why are there so many zones and why are they so freaking big?  Why isn't 20 max level?  Why are flight masters so, so rare?  Why is PvP loot so terribly bad?  Why aren't the servers at least aggregated into a few meta worlds (maybe about ~4 Eve universes from all of the servers)? 

This game is like owning a sportscar that you can't drive until you build the garage.   

[Nebu]

Gawd, why is there any PvE in this game?  Why are there so many zones and why are they so freaking big?  Why isn't 20 max level?  Why are flight masters so, so rare?  Why is PvP loot so terribly bad?  Why aren't the servers at least aggregated into a few meta worlds (maybe about ~4 Eve universes from all of the servers)? 

This game is like owning a sportscar that you can't drive until you build the garage.   

That's a great question.  Why is there PvE in this game?  My guess would be something to do to advance your character in times when you don't feel like PvP.  Second, as a means to attract players from "that other elephant in the room" and slowly encourage them to try the pvp game. 

I think that you're hinting at something very correct though: that WAR woudl have been better served to just dump their resources into the PvP aspects fo the game (scenarios and RvR) and really polish the hell out of that.  Crafting and PvE seem like an add on... much as PvP did to EQ.

[Seanzor]

I'd guess it's because it's a lot of fun to pour money and time into creating content more likely to cause a player to quit, rather than smile.

Or, if you prefer, it's because no one there understood what makes their game fun versus what makes WoW fun, and decided that, zomg, every MMO has PvE, we have to have it too, or else we'll end up like Fury or something (I'd of course posit that Fury's failure was attributable to elements other than the lack of PvE - like how shitty the game play was).

[Hayduke]

PvE can make zone control meaningful.  It was fun on the Zek servers pre-Kunark to cockblock the other team out of dragon kills or a certain dungeon.  Even in Shadowbane a lot of the PvP happens at the mines.

The kind of PvE that's in the game now though is pretty bad and probably should just be used as a way to level when there's no one around (in that regard should be a lot faster).

[ghost]

The game would be a little boring without PVE.  It does add a little bit of fun, when there isn't anything else to do. 

I mean, if you only had RVR it would just be take a keep.......take a keep............take a keep............and so on.  Pretty boring with no external story.

[Seanzor]

For me (and, I'd imagine, many others), this game is *very* boring because of PvE (any by extension, the amount of time one has to spend doing boring shit to gain levels).

I couldn't care less if the PvE adds to some kind of 'story'.  Lore in MMOs is complete hack bullshit.  I read novels when I want a good story (and not those 'my first reader' video game novels, which are also complete hack bullshit).

[Nonentity]

For me (and, I'd imagine, many others), this game is *very* boring because of PvE (any by extension, the amount of time one has to spend doing boring shit to gain levels).

I couldn't care less if the PvE adds to some kind of 'story'.  Lore in MMOs is complete hack bullshit.  I read novels when I want a good story (and not those 'my first reader' video game novels, which are also complete hack bullshit).

Seanzor is totally excited about the Emerald Dream. He was saying excitedly yesterday about how he wonders if Arthas masterminded the corruption of the Emerald Dream that started in Wailing Caverns (which is his favorite lore instance).

I just want to troll you all day long, is that wrong?

[Nebu]

I mean, if you only had RVR it would just be take a keep.......take a keep............take a keep............and so on.  Pretty boring with no external story.

Make more pvp options.  That's the point.  You don't need pve if you give your playerbase a variety of activities that are pvp-based.

[tommh]

I don't agree. The great advantage of PVE is it's always available. Making ALL advancement and game-play dependent on the presence of opposing players is just not a winning option.

I think its also worth differentiating between coop pve and solo pve.  Both have their place but ideally group pve can act as a gateway into pvp. I believe this is one of the purposes of PQs but its not been entirely successful.

The presence of pve isn't really the problem anyway. Its the scenarios.

[tolakram]

Ok,

I'm not pulling the flush level just yet (mainly because I'm an idot) but we're starting to expose fundamental design flaws that might take more than a few tweaks to correct.

First rule of marketing, know your audience.

Actually that's the second, the first requires you to be an asshole, but I digress....

[Nebu]

The presence of pve isn't really the problem anyway. Its the scenarios.

The PvE is terrible.  Why not just have us play a virtual slot machine instead?  That would also be something to do. 

If your pvp isn't good enough to attract one other person for me to fight, then having shitty PvE around isn't doing anything more than recruiting resources away from improving the PvP.  Does that make sense?