What went wrong.

[trias_e]

Making ALL advancement and game-play dependent on the presence of opposing players is just not a winning option.

Worked fine in DAOC IMO.

[Seanzor]

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

Whaaat?  I'd have quit at level 16, tops, if not for the scenarios.  Having only oRvR (shit shit shit xp/renown) or PvE (less fun than my job) to level would be horrible.

[trias_e]

Having only oRvR (shit shit shit xp/renown)

While I agree scenarios are necessary for off times/casual fun, just because oRvR has shitty incentives doesn't mean that oRvR wouldn't be a fun way to level, rather just that mythic fucked it up.

[Warskull]

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.

The scenarios are a good thing.  Everyone claims they hate scenarios, but scenarios provide an extremely important niche.  Scenarios are the only place to reliably get a reasonably fair game.  They are the only place where a smaller group of players can shine.  Tout ORvR all you want, but nothing changes the fact that in the end it is a numbers game.  Furthermore as numbers increase the game swings more and more towards RDPS and further away from melee.  If this game didn't have scenarios I wouldn't play it because it wouldn't have any PvP where individual player skill and decisions mattered.

The problem is Mythic forgot to put the rewards in for ORvR and effectively removed it from the game.  In T1/T2 I can PvE to level fairly effectively or do scenarios.  In T3/T4 I really have to do scenarios to level, but I can do small amounts of PvE to augment it (for items mainly.)  At no time can I effectively progress via ORvR.

When a game has a level system the pressure is on people to progress so they can reach the somewhat level playing field at the top.  Bolster helps alleviate the need to level so you aren't at a disadvantage, but it is still there.  Furthermore, you get more skills and options at the top.  People want to level and will push to level to get to the proper end game.  Getting next to no exp in ORvR killed it, so now people are going to stick to scenarios.

Early on the strength of this game was that it didn't feel like grind because you could pick your poison.  You could do scenarios for a bit, get sick of them and then hammer out a PQ or two, decide you were tired of PvE and do some open RvR, and then get angry about getting zerged and go back to scenarios.  The problem was the cut out the viability of the options.  ORvR was never really much of an option and PvE ceases to be a good option in T3.

T3 and T4 quests could easily stand to have exp gain double, maybe even tripled.  5k exp for a quest, great, I can kill 10 mobs and get that and need 600,000 to actually level.

ORvR is completely reliant on other people running around capping worthless objectives and keeps that don't have enough influence for anyone to care.  People already figured out you can prevent zone loss by boycotting ORvR and scenarios for that zone.  There is no downside to avoiding ORvR and no bonuses to participating.  Those guys that run out and ninja-cap all the objective should get a lot of exp.  Sure it wasn't a lot of effort, but they are the guys who are getting the ORvR ball rolling.  You really want to encourage them to get out there.  With the 100% gains from killing players if you get players from one side in ORvR as long as players from the other side exist and aren't vastly outnumbers they will go in there.  Remember while you wait for a scenario you can PvE, you can't do anything else while looking for people in ORvR.

Also, give the outnumbered side in a tier a bonus.  Give them more exp and more renown for participating.  They will feel like they shouldn't bother because destruction wins due to the fact that they have more players.  Encourage them so that even if destruction wins you will still get a lot of stuff.  That will get them out there.

Furthermore, those promised influence rewards for ORvR can't come soon enough.

In summary things killing ORvR:
-Poor rewards
-Rewards are entirely reliant on other players already being there
-The outnumbered side feels little reason to participate, it looks like a futile effort

Scenarios need to exist as an option for quick, fair fights.  ORvR needs to exist as an option for bigger, more dramatic battles with a feel of accomplishment.  PvE needs to exist as way to progress when you are down on your luck, off your game, or just want something easy and brainless (maybe you had a bad day or are sick and hopped up on Nyquil.)  This game will be at its best when players feel they have a plethora of options to progress instead of only one.

All the players I know who are getting tired of the game and leaving, or on are on the border of leaving is because progress grinds to a halt in T3, the T3 scenarios are weak, and ORvR doesn't exist.  So the game lacks options and puts up a road block of grind that is scaring people away.

[wuzzman]

Making ALL advancement and game-play dependent on the presence of opposing players is just not a winning option.

Worked fine in DAOC IMO.

where is DAOC now again?

[trias_e]

where is DAOC now again?

DAOC did just fine in it's time.  It failed because it focused more on PvE and didn't fix any of it's RvR problems.  In other words, it failed once it did what you assholes suggest must be done for a MMORPG to be successful.

But it wasn't WoW, you're right about that.  If you want 5 million subscribers, perhaps you're correct.  Let me give you and any developers out there a hint though:  No one is going to out-WoW WoW. 

[wuzzman]

where is DAOC now again?

DAOC did just fine in it's time.  It failed because it focused more on PvE and didn't fix any of it's RvR problems.  In other words, it failed once it did what you assholes suggest must be done for a MMORPG to be successful.

But it wasn't WoW, you're right about that.  If you want 5 million subscribers, perhaps you're correct.  Let me give you and any developers out there a hint though:  No one is going to out-WoW WoW. 

I don't know, DAOC may have not be considered a failure in its time...you know when games like everquest was popular...but I'm defiantly sure its a failure in our time.

[Seanzor]

While I agree scenarios are necessary for off times/casual fun, just because oRvR has shitty incentives doesn't mean that oRvR wouldn't be a fun way to level, rather just that mythic fucked it up.

It means just that.  Extending the /played grind by 400-500% is not fucking fun, at least for me.  The limited selection of abilities that one has before nearing level cap would become mind-numbingly bland, and issues of class balance would be amplified (class balance, for any game remotely decent, is much better at level cap than it is prior to it).

[trias_e]

It means just that.  Extending the /played grind by 400-500% is not fucking fun, at least for me.  The limited selection of abilities that one has before nearing level cap would become mind-numbingly bland, and issues of class balance would be amplified (class balance, for any game remotely decent, is much better at level cap than it is prior to it).

Christ, you have the reading comprehension of a spoon.

I don't know, DAOC may have not be considered a failure in its time...you know when games like everquest was popular...but I'm defiantly sure its a failure in our time.

What the hell are you talking about?  Every MMORPG that was released before and after WoW has been a failure by your standards.  No MMORPG will ever out-WoW WoW.  So maybe, perhaps, you should learn to contextualize your understanding of 'success'.

For instance, if WAR had focused more on, well, WAR!, and less on stupid shit WoW does better, it would have better retention.  Capiche?

[eldaec]

Having only oRvR (shit shit shit xp/renown)

While I agree scenarios are necessary for off times/casual fun, just because oRvR has shitty incentives doesn't mean that oRvR wouldn't be a fun way to level, rather just that mythic fucked it up.

This hits the nail on the head. Sport-pvp scenarios are an excellent mechanic for a casual fun sidebar. Not for a core mass pvp endame.

RvR on the other hand, is gimped because of Mythic's obsession with making it not-like-daoc. I could understand if they wanted to take RvR on to the next step beyond daoc (say by doing more to encourage co-ordinated action); but to avoid daoc style deisgn entirely, just for the sake of being different until the last minute where they rushed in daoc-keeps-lite, makes no sense at all.

Using chickens instead of power-scaling also seems like a bad call.

I'm pretty sure there were some threads on a message board somewhere that discussed this issue prior to launch...

[wuzzman]

I don't know, DAOC may have not be considered a failure in its time...you know when games like everquest was popular...but I'm defiantly sure its a failure in our time.

What the hell are you talking about?  Every MMORPG that was released before and after WoW has been a failure by your standards.  No MMORPG will ever out-WoW WoW.  So maybe, perhaps, you should learn to contextualize your understanding of 'success'.

For instance, if WAR had focused more on, well, WAR!, and less on stupid shit WoW does better, it would have better retention.  Capiche?

when I say "by todays standards" I'm not talking about how much cash it made, I'm talking about the laundry list of dead mechanics and bad design decisions.

[eldaec]

Where do we find these people?

[trias_e]

when I say "by todays standards" I'm not talking about how much cash it made, I'm talking about the laundry list of dead mechanics and bad design decisions.

DAOC fucked up plenty.  No doubt.  But I'm not talking about the specifics, but rather the general concept.  yeah, there was AE mez, AE stun, PBAE groups, 1 shotting rangers, all of that insanely stupid unbalanced unfun shit.  In fact, we can thank DAOC for showing future games how to avoid these obvious gaffes.  But the one thing it did real well was the post 50 game ala classic and SI.  It was fun.  RvR in and of itself was fun!  And for a long time!  It built community, it wasn't overly punitive, and it was unpredictable (to an extent).  If it weren't for a terrible PvE grind and ToA, (and buffbots IMO) the game would have done even better.

[Seanzor]

Christ, you have the reading comprehension of a spoon.

Yeah, you've got me there.  I was still frothing from the absurd claim that scenarios are the devil.

[Simond]

where is DAOC now again?

DAOC did just fine in it's time.  It failed because it focused more on PvE and didn't fix any of it's RvR problems.  In other words, it failed once it did what you assholes suggest must be done for a MMORPG to be successful.

But it wasn't WoW, you're right about that.  If you want 5 million subscribers, perhaps you're correct.  Let me give you and any developers out there a hint though:  No one is going to out-WoW WoW. 

DAoC did worse than Verant-era EQ. Not being able to do better than Blizzard? Fine.
Not being able to do better than an insane opium addict and his coterie of yes-men at the height of The Vision(tm)? Not so hot.

[trias_e]

You're missing the point again.  EQ was the money-hats generator of it's time.  Things have changed.  So what?  WoW is just a better EQ. It made 10x the numbers.  Make a better DAOC, and because the MMORPG audience has widened considerable, you'll be making some money hats too.

By the way, 700k subs is pretty damn successful even today.  That's only double what DAOC had in it's peak.  That's what WAR could hit with good RvR based gameplay.  Yeah, it ain't 5 million.  No one else is getting 5 million subs for a long, long time, so you certainly can't shoot for that.

[Goreschach]

where is DAOC now again?

DAOC did just fine in it's time.  It failed because it focused more on PvE and didn't fix any of it's RvR problems.  In other words, it failed once it did what you assholes suggest must be done for a MMORPG to be successful.

But it wasn't WoW, you're right about that.  If you want 5 million subscribers, perhaps you're correct.  Let me give you and any developers out there a hint though:  No one is going to out-WoW WoW. 

DAoC did worse than Verant-era EQ. Not being able to do better than Blizzard? Fine.
Not being able to do better than an insane opium addict and his coterie of yes-men at the height of The Vision(tm)? Not so hot.

I'm glad someone brought this up. Every time someone talks about these games having a 'significant potential playerbase' or somesuch they go on to point out how DAOC or AC or SB or whatever had a moderately large percentage of the players of Everquest. They then run with this number and expect whatever new game to have 25 or 10 or whatever percent of WoW's numbers.

WOW DID NOT EXPAND THE MMO PLAYERBASE. Not by one person. There were no magic subliminal messages that rewired peoples' brains so that those who found online videogames not fun would suddenly consider them fun. The amount of people you see playing WoW today were always available and willing to play an MMO, there just wasn't an MMO they were willing to play. With the possible exception of more widespread computers and internet connections, if everquest had been as good as WoW, it would have gathered up the kinds of numbers WoW now has. And a game released to Everquest's standards would not fare any better today just because people have played WoW. Everquest was a horrible, horrible game. Saying that your pet guilty pleasure managed to only be moderately stomped by Everquest is not something to be proud of, it's something you should be in therapy for.

[Xuri]

Wow did not expand the MMO(G) player-base? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

[Nebu]

So I have to ask...





Still too early? 

[schild]

Tee hee.

[slog]

where is DAOC now again?

DAOC did just fine in it's time.  It failed because it focused more on PvE and didn't fix any of it's RvR problems.  In other words, it failed once it did what you assholes suggest must be done for a MMORPG to be successful.

But it wasn't WoW, you're right about that.  If you want 5 million subscribers, perhaps you're correct.  Let me give you and any developers out there a hint though:  No one is going to out-WoW WoW. 

DAoC did worse than Verant-era EQ. Not being able to do better than Blizzard? Fine.
Not being able to do better than an insane opium addict and his coterie of yes-men at the height of The Vision(tm)? Not so hot.

I'm glad someone brought this up. Every time someone talks about these games having a 'significant potential playerbase' or somesuch they go on to point out how DAOC or AC or SB or whatever had a moderately large percentage of the players of Everquest. They then run with this number and expect whatever new game to have 25 or 10 or whatever percent of WoW's numbers.

WOW DID NOT EXPAND THE MMO PLAYERBASE. Not by one person. There were no magic subliminal messages that rewired peoples' brains so that those who found online videogames not fun would suddenly consider them fun. The amount of people you see playing WoW today were always available and willing to play an MMO, there just wasn't an MMO they were willing to play. With the possible exception of more widespread computers and internet connections, if everquest had been as good as WoW, it would have gathered up the kinds of numbers WoW now has. And a game released to Everquest's standards would not fare any better today just because people have played WoW. Everquest was a horrible, horrible game. Saying that your pet guilty pleasure managed to only be moderately stomped by Everquest is not something to be proud of, it's something you should be in therapy for.

I could have sworn this was posted by one of the new Warhammer refugee posters.

[trias_e]

some crazy stuff, mostly out of context by Goreschach

If WoW did EQ right and got 10x the subs, DAOC done right would do similarly well.  By your own logic, I might add.  DAOC was shitty, EQ was shitty (they both made money though.)  Make em better, make more money in proportion to the existing fanbase for the various type of MMORPG.  The fact that DAOC pulled 2/3 of the subs that EQ did back in the day shows that a DAOC style game has exactly 2/3 of the audience by your logic.  Thus, a good DAOC game would pull in 3 million subs.  Damn, you're an optimist.  I would have never guessed it could have done so well.

WOW DID NOT EXPAND THE MMO PLAYERBASE. Not by one person.

you're also just plain fucking crazy. 

[Goreschach]

Illogical drivel by Goreschach

If WoW did EQ right and got 10x the subs, DAOC done right would do similarly well.  By your own logic, I might add.  DAOC was shitty, EQ was shitty (they both made money though.)  Make em better, make more money in proportion to the existing fanbase for the various type of MMORPG.  The fact that DAOC pulled 2/3 of the subs that EQ did back in the day shows that a DAOC style game has exactly 2/3 of the audience by your logic.  Thus, a good DAOC game would pull in 3 million subs.  Damn, you're an optimist.  I would have never guessed it could have done so well.

Maybe you should try to comprehend that WoW isn't just EQ with more polish. Well, that and that you're missing the entire point of my post.

The fact that DAOC pulled 2/3 of the subs of EQ only shows that DAOC only had 2/3 of the audience of Everquest. And that's my entire point. WoW's existence didn't increase the possible pool of MMO players, and it didn't make the number of people who would have actually enjoyed playing Everquest any higher. The 10 million people aren't just a multiple of the people who played EQ, they're an entirely different set of users. You can't extrapolate any possible guess about the percentage of WoW's numbers you'd get in a 'good DAOC' because WoW isn't just 'EQ times ten'.

But apparently you and every MMO dev on the planet can't figure this out, which is why they just assume WoW is EQ 2.0, and attempt to throw out something that looks like they were competing with EQ 2.0. Then they act all butthurt and confused when the inital rush of bored players all run screaming for the hills 2-3 months after release, and their game is left with a subscription number rivaling that of games competing against EQ 1.0, such as AOC. Why? Because WoW's existence does not increase the number of players willing to play any game other than WoW.

[BitWarrior]

Maybe you should try to comprehend that WoW isn't just EQ with more polish.

Are you serious? You do know who the Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard is, right? And their Lead Designer? And you do know where half (or perhaps more) of their entire development team came from, right?

And you do see what's going on with the expansions, correct? And additional content and retention? You *are* aware of these things, correct?

If so, there's no way you could possibly make that statement.

[Slayerik]

You do realize that MMOs weren't truly mainstream until I saw William fucking Shitner proclaimed he had a tauren shaman on a commercial, right?

I'd say that at least 1/10th, and thats a very low number, of the new MMO subscribers just might be bored of WoW and looking for something different. Come on, when we were MMO noobs we were all over every next great thing....at least I was. You don't think the next gen of MMO players aren't? Why are they so different?

Maybe you are just trolling or something.

[Goreschach]

You do realize that MMOs weren't truly mainstream until I saw William fucking Shitner proclaimed he had a tauren shaman on a commercial, right?

I'd say that at least 1/10th, and thats a very low number, of the new MMO subscribers just might be bored of WoW and looking for something different. Come on, when we were MMO noobs we were all over every next great thing....at least I was. You don't think the next gen of MMO players aren't? Why are they so different?

Maybe you are just trolling or something.

Every new mmo released in the past couple years just corroborates my point. William Shatner didn't make MMO's mainstream, William Shatner made WoW mainstream. WoW's success hasn't done a goddamn thing to increase the subscription numbers of any mmo except WOW. Granted, I'm skipping over one important fact, WoW definitely has increased the box sales of recent mmos, since a lot of players are bored with WoW. But blizzard didn't increase the number of people willing to play a typical mmo, they simply made an mmo than an increased number of people were willing to play. And until other mmo's follow suite, we're just going to see the kind of population implosions we've been seeing with all recent mmo's.

[CecilDK]

I think there is definitely a segment of WoW players who will never move to another MMO---either because they're fans of the Warcraft IP, Blizzard fans in general, or are simply too invested in WoW to move on.

But for the rest of us who have been playing the game a while, still like the genre, and are looking for new content, there is definitely an opportunity.  I've played AoC, LOTRO, WAR, and Tabula Rasa, and none have managed to keep me, someone who was introduced to MMO's by WoW (though I played MUD's before).

If another MMO manages to have a friendly leveling curve, fluid combat, appealing world, and a good endgame then I think you can steal away a good segment of WoW players.

Unfortunately, I don't see anything on the horizon.

[trias_e]

Gore, I sympathize with the idea that earlier games are shitty and that's why they were smaller.  Absolutely.  But to discount the blizzard effect, and to discount what happens when a MMORPG finally hits the mainstream, is just totally ridiculous.

And, at the very least, the raiding endgame of WoW is a 100% direct lift from EQ.

[Venkman]

Err, I'm missing something here but don't you and Gore actually agree?

DAoC at its peak did not prove 2/3 of all MMOs were willing to play an ORVR game. I'd need to find a chart I'm too lazy to look for, but I don't actually think the RVR in DAoC was even at its best when DAoC had the numbers that made it 2/3 of EQ1. RVR had to continue improving through all subsequent launches from CoX through SWG and beyond while it shed numbers to those titles in the wake of EQ1 doing nothing but growing through 2003.

But that's not even important. What IS important something DAoC RVR fans seem to miss:

RVR was mostly viable when the levels were done, which only was worthwhile when the core group that remained was there to help sheperd players from 20 to 50 in grind groups that took a few days. That is the very essence of not mass market behavior.

This is a subset of a subset of a culture, successful by virtue of being unique. This very much does not prove the mass market viability of RVR any more than Eve having a few hundred thousand accounts proves the mass market appeal of a social political economic uniserver.

tl;dr version: DAoC RVR does not prove there's mass appeal in the concept itself.

[trias_e]

RVR was mostly viable when the levels were done, which only was worthwhile when the core group that remained was there to help sheperd players from 20 to 50 in grind groups that took a few days. That is the very essence of not mass market behavior.

I can't say I follow your reasoning at all.   So the fact that people were willing to grind through shitty PvE proves RvR isn't mass market?   Doesn't that just mean RvR is awesome enough that people will go through shit to get to it?  Surely no one in DAOC was happy about it.  The PvE server was a very, very strange thing that I can't say anyone I played with ever could fathom at all.

Regardless, that shit was standard behavior back then, not some subset of a subset.  Grind was customary, that thing you had to do to get to the game.  We just accepted it and dealt with it.  WoW changed everything.  No one would ever tolerate anything resembling the DAOC PvE grind today,  even those that went through it before.

Again, I don't understand your reasoning at all.  The game failed after ToA.  That's a fact.  It might have peaked in numbers during ToA (although I would guess it did right at ToA's release, not, say, 4 months after ToA), but it dropped significantly after ToA.  ToA focused on EQ-esque progression PvE and not RvR.  It seems pretty obvious to me what the appeal of DAOC was.  And to Jacobs, who has stated that ToA was a huge mistake in the past.

[slog]

But apparently you and every MMO dev on the planet can't figure this out, which is why they just assume WoW is EQ 2.0, and attempt to throw out something that looks like they were competing with EQ 2.0. Then they act all butthurt and confused when the inital rush of bored players all run screaming for the hills 2-3 months after release, and their game is left with a subscription number rivaling that of games competing against EQ 1.0, such as AOC. Why? Because WoW's existence does not increase the number of players willing to play any game other than WoW.

Ok your other stuff is meh but htis I agree with 100%.

WoW is WAY more than EQ 2.0. Blizz actually puts stuff out and tweaks it.  Then when it's out for 6 months, they tweak it again, making it easier. Then they do it again.   And that's just dungeons.  You can tell they do a ton of data mining and analysis by the quality of the new content.

[squirrel]

Err, I'm missing something here but don't you and Gore actually agree?

Hush. You're interrupting the froth.

[Goreschach]

Err, I'm missing something here but don't you and Gore actually agree?

Hush. You're interrupting the froth.

Agreeing on the internet doesn't preclude arguing on the internet.

[trias_e]

mmm, froth.   So delicious, especially when irrelevant. 

WoW is WAY more than EQ 2.0. Blizz actually puts stuff out and tweaks it.  Then when it's out for 6 months, they tweak it again, making it easier. Then they do it again.   And that's just dungeons.  You can tell they do a ton of data mining and analysis by the quality of the new content.

This is sort of arguing semantics here.  When I say EQ 2.0 I don't mean it's a small step forward.  I simply mean that the essence of EQ was distilled into a better more accessible version.  Loot-based progression, raid progression.  Turning dungeon camping into dungeon crawling through instances.  The stuff that made people play EQ for unfathomable lengths of time.

Also, lets put WoW's rise into context here.  It certainly has grown significantly since BC came out (adding battlegrounds and sport PvP seems to be the biggest difference), but clearly at release it was even more similar to EQ than it is now...and at release, it still pulled in massive amounts of subs.

Anyways, if you boil down why people played DAOC, I'd argue it comes to semi-unpredictable open world PvP (without any major repercussions for losing).  Advancement through PvP, open field and keep sieges keeping things interesting, etc.  You could do that much better than DAOC did it, if you tried, similar to how WoW took why people were playing EQ and distilled it into ultra-smack.  Adding things like scenarios to balance out the gameplay experience was a good step forward, as was seen in the many 'WAR is robot jesus!' posts at release.  But the honeymoon was over once people found that scenarios were the only way to progress, and open RvR was pointless/not as fun as it should be.  WAR is failing because they didn't focus on making open RvR as awesome as it could be, and instead tried to out-WoW WoW and be everything to every one.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Thing is, Sony couldn't make EQ 2.0 and nor can mythic make DAOC 2.0

Face it, once blizzard announces their new mmo is world pvp oriented they will be making your robot pvp jesus.