What went wrong.

[wuzzman]

Then quit and stop bitching.  I am sure when I get to T4 it will be fine because I waited for the curve to catch up ..( just like in any release (WoW, EQ1, EQ2, L2, Vanguard... the ones that outleveled everyone are the ones bitching and moaning.. you would think people would learn after a while instead of doing the same thing in every game and then bitching like 12 year old spoiled brats) .. imagine that... waiting for the average players to catch up.. what a crazy concept.  I have no idea why you play this game as you just like to bitch and you apparently have not liked any of it up to this point...

The whole point of playing these games is to... OMG HAVE FUN .. if your not having fun... hit cancel and get on with your life lol.

Also if you would read above there is RvR in this game and that is t1 to t3... its all about server populations.. maybe wait and bitch more about how you hate the game (since you pretty much summed the entire game up in your 12 year old rant) until after the server xfers.. games been out for a whopping what... 6 weeks?  Damn you fuckers are spoiled these days... back in the day EQ was a disaster and no one bitched like you kids do.
[/quote]

a game which endgame wasn't fun 4 weeks ago won't be fun 4 months later.

[khaine]

So far in this thread , Korrowan is a database admin to prove he's smarter than anyone , married and playing sports 4 nights/days out the week to prove he's super busy and still leveling fine and at the same time more macho than anyone else

Next step , is either he's a ninja or maybe just a black belt that teaches homeless kids karate

[korrowan]

So far in this thread , Korrowan is a database admin to prove he's smarter than anyone , married and playing sports 4 nights/days out the week to prove he's super busy and still leveling fine and at the same time more macho than anyone else

Next step , is either he's a ninja or maybe just a black belt that teaches homeless kids karate

Yep that is it.. my whole point is .. leveling in this game is super easy... thats it.  Time invested in comparison to other games is NIL.

[Pringles]

So far in this thread , Korrowan is a database admin to prove he's smarter than anyone , married and playing sports 4 nights/days out the week to prove he's super busy and still leveling fine and at the same time more macho than anyone else

Next step , is either he's a ninja or maybe just a black belt that teaches homeless kids karate

Yep that is it.. my whole point is .. leveling in this game is super easy... thats it.  Time invested in comparison to other games is NIL.

The fun factor is not determined by the difficulty of leveling.

Classic EQ was hard as fuck, but it was fun.

WAR is easy as fuck, but mostly not fun.

I've never felt more like I was playing a Korean MMO in an American game than WAR.

[UnSub]

Also if you would read above there is RvR in this game and that is t1 to t3... its all about server populations.. maybe wait and bitch more about how you hate the game (since you pretty much summed the entire game up in your 12 year old rant) until after the server xfers.. games been out for a whopping what... 6 weeks?

When I started on Ulthuan, it was a high population server. It still felt empty.

But yes, under the right conditions - that you play under the right period of time in the day, on the right side, on the right server, in the right Tier, on the right class - I'm sure you can have a great experience. As for all the people who didn't do this because they bought at launch when such things aren't clearly defined, it is obviously their fault and they should be lucky that Mythic lets them start again on another server.

Also, at six weeks out, there really shouldn't be so many people going, "I had fun up to Tier 3, but then it sucked". People appear to have burned out in the free month. While Jacobs is right in that MMOs are a marathon, not a sprint, the start counts for a lot.

Finally: you said you've got 2 lvl 26 sorcs. Any particular reason you got to lvl 26 with the same class twice, then stopped?

[Ashmodai]

Yep that is it.. my whole point is .. leveling in this game is super easy... thats it.  Time invested in comparison to other games is NIL.

Just because the game doesn't require a massive time investment, doesn't mean it's not hard to level.  Currently, one has to be able to bring oneself to play the exact same mini-game 750 times to get out of a tier, or run 2500 brainless, unscripted PvE quests (not to mention there aren't even that many, but hey).  That makes the game boring, forcing oneself to play a game when it's boring is hard.  Something we play as entertainment or a hobby should not be boring, ever.

You shouldn't 'feel the grind', there should be a smooth progression which funnels you via quests, PvP and other in game mechanics towards your next level.  That's the problem - you start feeling the grind the minute you hit 21ish or so, and you're not running Tor Anroc for the 687th time because you want to play that map, you're doing it so you can level up and be done with it.

[waffel]

One of the biggest things I miss from DAoC:

Running around the world, exploring, and finding mobs that are weak to your damage type, who you're resistant to, and who are abundent, give decent faction, and drop decent items.

That shit was cool.

Or how about playing with a friend and saying "Lets go into so and so dungeon, the mobs in there give real good dungeon-bonus experience and drop some pretty sweet items, plus, there is a lot of them and I have a quest to go in there for a kick-ass weapon!  And if we get some loot nobody can use I can just salvage it to help get my weaponskill up so I can make myself a badass new weapon! Also, the mobs are werewolf monsters so they're weak to fire and they give a nice faction bonus for so and so mobs, who give pretty good quests once they're neutral"

I mean shit, yeah, you're grinding mobs more than WAR, but fuck, that shit was fun and exciting. You did that for awhile with your bro, then your realm gets darkness falls and you and your friend go into there and hang out on the steps with all the 50s and shit, and you all (lowbies and high-levels) make a push down and wipe the defending force, getting some nice RPs and having fun. Then, you're rewarded with the DF so you and your bro kill some mobs getting seals for pretty good leveling armor.

Thinking about that now makes me smile and also pisses me off. It was so fun, exciting, and unique. It worked so well and I just get so pisses off that Mythic didn't do something similar with Warhammer. Fuck.

[ashrik]

On the other hand, you could look at it as a change mandated by PQ failure and diminishing server populations - in order to funnel enough players into the event to make it viable, they need to make it happen less frequently.

What's wrong with just letting them repeat the encounter while they have a critical mass present?  I mean, why is letting the players have fun such a bad thing to these people?

I don't think it's as simple as that. If the PQ were to play out like other PQs, then it would do exactly that- play out like other PQs.

You go it, you repeat it, get your elite reward, leave. Chances are, you never come back unless a friend really really wants you to. Recipe for failure. We know because this is what we're already seeing.

IF they set the restart times to something like every 30-60 minutes, I think they'll be on to something here. With Keep and BO warfare in between respawn times, something that I would have finished in 25 minutes (and left) is now something that I'm enjoying possibly for several hours.

WoW figured it out that leaving these things open on a 24 hour basis makes it less fun for everyone. The current design supports me flying by, grabbing my nodes/grinding my influence, and leaving. It's a funnel in and and funnel out. What they're proposing is a funnel in and something to make me want to stay in.

Edit:

Expect a few hours to pass after a Witching Night Public Quest is completed before you'll be able to try it again.

DAMN YOU MYTHIC

[DraconianOne]

Ahh! Too many parentheticals! Help!

Too many nested and unclosed parentheticals.

Hope he's not a coder.

[SuperPopTart]

By the gods this is like watching a soap opera - with new people!

[Sophismata]

Just wanted to chime in with some information on levels in (MMO)RPG's...

Not many people know this, but ArenaNet (specifically Mike O'B, as I remember) really wanted to ditch levels altogether for Guild Wars. The premise was that leveling was just a block for actually playing the game, and early-mid alpha a few of the builds tried had levels and xp completely removed.

It didn't work - without such a basic metric for character progression, a lot of players got freaked out. Perhaps that's a bit strong - there was a vibe of something missing from the game, but you couldn't put your finger on it. I think it had to do with certain RPG expectations as much as anything else - but then I look at games like Call of Duty and BF2, where there is also a level progression alongside the standard game - instead of just allowing people to unlock whatever they want, they need to work towards it.

As you guys know, GW ended up allowing people to create max-level characters for play as a solution, while still giving people the option of levelling up normally. It does make me wonder though whether it's players as much as developers who 'refuse' to embrace new ideas...

[UnSub]

As you guys know, GW ended up allowing people to create max-level characters for play as a solution, while still giving people the option of levelling up normally. It does make me wonder though whether it's players as much as developers who 'refuse' to embrace new ideas...

This is a really good point - players often say they want innovation and new things, then run away screaming back to the safety of sequel-land and known IPs when they appear.

[Venkman]

Play experiences become genres because there's always a business opportunity to offer an improvement on success.

Even closer to home is how you get WoW sucking in even so many veteran MMO players. It's EQ1 on easymode and is a success because it's an improvement on the familiar.

[waylander]

As you guys know, GW ended up allowing people to create max-level characters for play as a solution, while still giving people the option of levelling up normally. It does make me wonder though whether it's players as much as developers who 'refuse' to embrace new ideas...

I took a lot of heat rounds from certain Arenanet devs and the PVE community for trying to push that issue hard in GW alpha/beta and early retail. When GW launched even the veterans needed 650 hours of solid PVE to get to the end game to have access to all the skills and gear to create 1 solid PVP character. Prior to release we were all thinking we'd have to invest about 40 hours in character development, and IMHO that's still acceptable.

By the time GW released PVP characters and unlocks though, most of the quality PVP community had moved on to other games. What was left was a Diablo II type player and type of guild. I have no doubt those who still play and win their championships know how to play the game, but unfortunately there's virtually no worthwhile PVP community to attract or retain quality players. GW is just a prettier version of the Diablo/battlenet community, and maybe their next game will show some improvements.

[Sophismata]

I took a lot of heat rounds from certain Arenanet devs and the PVE community for trying to push that issue hard in GW alpha/beta and early retail. When GW launched even the veterans needed 650 hours of solid PVE to get to the end game to have access to all the skills and gear to create 1 solid PVP character. Prior to release we were all thinking we'd have to invest about 40 hours in character development, and IMHO that's still acceptable.

Ah. Sadly, I had to duck out before the game launched - I enjoy alpha tests for a few reasons, but you'd need to pay me well to get me to beta test a game. I had assumed that most of the template mechanic had carried to retail, though, from what I saw of GW post-launch. Shame that it didn't.

[tolakram]

For me the concept of Guild Wars worked, but the loot lost me.  I guess that shows I'm more of a DiabloII fan than anything else.  I was hoping for D2 with quality PvP ... I don't want to craft my stuff!   

[Gurney]

For me the concept of Guild Wars worked, but the loot lost me.  I guess that shows I'm more of a DiabloII fan than anything else.  I was hoping for D2 with quality PvP ... I don't want to craft my stuff!   

Quality PvP with Diablo like loot is probably not possible.  Almost certainly not to the quality that Guild Wars has.

[Nebu]

I think that a line has to be drawn during the development process with games.  Either you decide that the game is about loot and progression (a la WoW) or that the game is about skill and player versus player interaction.  Mixing the two into some sort of bastard hybrid seems to be where games run into trouble.  Trying to find the magic combination that appeals to many usually results in a combination that appeals to few.  It's like pickles and strawberries.  I love them both, just not together. 

[Arthur_Parker]

I don't think it's that simple, it's all about not minding twinking and fotm classes. 

AC1 had a near perfect loot system, the WAR system is a bad copy of WoW, the WoW system has never appealed to me.  If I'm level 9 in WAR and I get a purple sword, that's nice but useless to me at level 40. 

In AC1 it was possible to get good, even excellent, items from low level mobs thanks to the random nature of abilities and damage range.  The bell curve nature of character/skill and level advancement tied to a random loot system, meant that sometimes you would discover an item that actually made you consider rerolling just to use it.  Supporting alt characters maintains the health of your game, AC1 did it with the loot system and fotm classes, WoW does it with all sorts of exp speed ups.  WAR actively discourages alt play because of the grind and the importance of other players being in your level range.

[Nebu]

I don't think it's that simple, it's all about not minding twinking and fotm classes. 

I agree that I grossly oversimplified things.  I just think there comes a fundamental point in game design where you decide what the target audience is for your game.  It's similar to the movie industry.  You don't make an action flick to appeal to people that enjoy dialogue-rich coming of age films.  If you want to target the achiever mentality, then build a core game with that in mind as the primary focus.  If you wish to appeal to the pvp crowd, appeal to that audience.  Trying to be everything to everyone is where many games fall flat.  They will inevitably piss off all factions in the process.

[khaine]

One thing I have noticed is MJ has decided to not post any more at all anywhere , since about the armor grind announcement

No more MTV blog interviews of "look at us in six weeks" stuff , no VN lovefests of we love you MJ , nadda

He decide he had done enough damage and toned himself down , or someone higher up at EA decided to tell him to keep quiet ?

[ghost]

One thing I have noticed is MJ has decided to not post any more at all anywhere , since about the armor grind announcement

No more MTV blog interviews of "look at us in six weeks" stuff , no VN lovefests of we love you MJ , nadda

He decide he had done enough damage and toned himself down , or someone higher up at EA decided to tell him to keep quiet ?

Actually, didn't he say he was going on vacation? 

[Nebu]

He decide he had done enough damage and toned himself down , or someone higher up at EA decided to tell him to keep quiet ?

Maybe he reread his comments on why AoC failed and decided that he should just shut up and produce a good game before becoming an expert on the failure of others.  

Just a guess.

[schild]

No one is a fan of being told they're wrong, but it counts 900x so when it's a lead designer. Now imagine if thousands of people are telling you you're wrong.

No doubt he's angrier than hell and pissed off that his baby isn't doing that well. He may keep getting some new players just because the box is on the shelf, but it's an ignorance is bliss case. At this point, he needs to figure out how to snap his fingers and MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. /shrug, doesn't really matter though, MMOGs don't really get second chances.

[Mrbloodworth]

doesn't really matter though, MMOGs don't really get second chances.

http://www.eve-online.com/


 

[Nebu]

MMOGs don't really get second chances.

EQ2 and EvE did recover... but you're generally correct.  

I'd really like to see Mark turn the ship around.  I want this game to succeed... but am losing hope.

[schild]

EQ2 and Eve are the ONLY examples. To be fair, Eve didn't really "recover" so much as it had the slowest ramp up in the history of MMORPGs - but it seems they're hellbent on destroying that due to Iceland shitting the bed. Also, Eve appeals to a subset NO other RPG appeals to. And it would seem that the population for such an RPG is apparently 200-300k worldwide.

EQ2 had people that cared, but more than that, they didn't really "turn it around," they just made it successful. It's still not any sort of goto game for new players or anything like that. Hartsman and Co did a great job getting rid of all the problems that came with the original launch, and good for them, unfortunately, even in terms of Massive Success, it was an inevitable failure. Like I said, no second chances. Eve and EQ2 realized they never got a first chance.

But that's mostly spin. I know exactly what you're saying and I've used the argument before. It just seems that Mark just doesn't give a fuck, which is strange, because he has a company at steak. That ship just ain't sailing.

[insouciant]

That ship just ain't sailing.

If I remember my Micheal Ray Richardson correctly, I think the quote is "The ship be sinking."

[trias_e]

And it would seem that the population for such an RPG is apparently 200-300k worldwide.

That's not really fair.  Eve has all sorts of issues that limit it's population besides it's world pvp model.  Eve done better would certainly get more subs.  Not sure how many, and probably a very small % compared to the diku portion of the pie, but bigger than 300k at least.

But that's mostly spin. I know exactly what you're saying and I've used the argument before. It just seems that Mark just doesn't give a fuck, which is strange, because he has a company at steak. That ship just ain't sailing.

It could just be fatigue.  If Mark is on vacation, perhaps when he gets back he will be willing to make some necessary changes instead of 'baby steps'.  Or the company is just sitting in 2002 'you have time, people will grind for 6 months' mode.  However, this is really strange considering AoC's massive population drop was staring them right in the face, proving, hey, guess what, it's not 2002 anymore.

In the end though, what's even more likely is that ego is getting in the way of things.  I don't mean this as an insult, I believe it's just human nature.  As a poker player, you constantly see people applying failing strategies over and over again because they are so personally invested in the correctness of their strategy.  They believe they are winning players.  Sometimes it takes going broke 3 or 4 times before they hit 'rock bottom' and admit things are going wrong.  I think this applies best to the situation at hand.  The 'baby step' argument is something that assumes their current model is great and just needs tweaks.  This is the sign of a long commitment to their game...working on it for years, the designers hashing out these various systems and believing, truly, that what they have will work.

The biggest problem in this case is that finding an unbiased source of information about what is going wrong is really tough.  And finding the correct type of gameplay to focus on is going to have to be a biased decision.

[schild]

That's not really fair.  Eve has all sorts of issues that limit it's population besides it's world pvp model.  Eve done better would certainly get more subs.  Not sure how many, and probably a very small % compared to the diku portion of the pie, but bigger than 300k at least.

Eve done better would probably not have the inaccessible appeal that keeps morons out or have the certain strangeness required to appeal to mathspergers/armchair economist types. In other words, it wouldn't be Eve done better, it would be Eve done stupid. Eve is a singular thing and will set it's own glass ceiling, or at least they're hoping it's made of glass. At this point it doesn't matter if they keep trying to appeal to tiny subsets of their playerbase.

[Ard]

EQ2 and Eve are the ONLY examples.

Technically, AO also recovered, but I'm not sure if their max players around Shadowlands compared to launch is significant enough to count because I can't remember what their peak was before they shot themselves in the foot repeatedly.  But they did manage to bounce back for a while at least.

[trias_e]

Eve done better would probably not have the inaccessible appeal that keeps morons out or have the certain strangeness required to appeal to mathspergers/armchair economist types. In other words, it wouldn't be Eve done better, it would be Eve done stupid. Eve is a singular thing and will set it's own glass ceiling, or at least they're hoping it's made of glass. At this point it doesn't matter if they keep trying to appeal to tiny subsets of their playerbase.

Perhaps you're right about that.  Perhaps not.  Honestly, the more I think about it, working in the Eve model is probably kind of like a fractal...change a small bit of your base design and you could have massive repercussions in the end.  Very hard to guess what will happen when players are your content, your systems of gameplay enabling them.  Point is, who knows?  

Maybe I'm wrong about that.  Maybe player-based content and player-system interaction are easy to predict.  Right now I'm think otherwise though, and I would at least argue that we don't have enough data points to make a conclusion.

That's a big derail, so I'm going to be crazy and try to relate it to the discussion at hand.  Eve was not very predictable at first, but at this point has balanced out.  It still relies on player zeitgeist, metagame forum warrioring, etc, and I think none of us would be shocked to see Eve all of the sudden lose half of their population due simply to their model.  WoW is extremely predictable, probably more predictable in what exactly the players will do than any MMORPG out there before it, and this sort of predictability allowed the designer to make the perfect skinner box.  WoW is never going to lose tons of players quickly unless they really fuck up.

WAR has a problem because WoW has the whole predictable MMO gameplay thing thoroughly owned.  Ex-WoW players probably aren't looking for the same amount of predictability.  So WAR went with a hybrid between player-based content, (although ala DAOC not EVE) and WoW solo-ease (scenarios and WoW PvE questing).  But the player-as-content model can then crumble in horrific fashion if the systems are off.  Especially in WAR when you are trying to balance between half-assed WoW rip off game play and this player-based model.  In WAR, there is clearly a problem of incentive and player conditioning.  If your content is based on player interaction, you simply don't have the time to wait and see if you are a developer, If your system fails it can fail catastrophically.  When the players have the option between solo gameplay and a terrible inter-player experience, which will they pick?  And when your solo gameplay isn't nearly as good as WoW's, your players are grinding instead of having fun, and grinding to what exactly?

WAR incentivization failures seem mind-bogglingly obvious, but at the same time, it would have been extremely difficult to hybridize and balance the predictable WoW model and the unpredictable player-interaction based model in the first place.  

[eldaec]

I'm pretty sure the EVE newbie experience is keeping enough mathspergers out to at least double the playerbase.

I know for a fact we'd have more people in the f13 EVE non-retard gang if it weren't for the large numbers of people here who are still mentally scarred after trying it at a point when Bat Country wasn't able to lavish isk, advice, and pew pew on new players.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15037.0

[waylander]

If Warhammer can stay above 200k subscribers, fix the core issues we've all beat to death here, keep getting some positive press, and get an xpack out the door it can still get a good second wind. Yes its one chance to get a million subs quickly and be the next WoW money hat machine didn't happen, but it can still pull itself out of a ditch.

Now if Mark doesn't improve RVR by making it more rewarding with gear and exp, reduce the number of RVR lakes, fix itemization, use the transfer service to fix population imbalances, etc then yeah this game will be pushing Ultima Online numbers within a year.

To me its the baby steps that show they see a problem but give us a half ass solution that piss me off worse than anything. Since 1.04 went in we have captured our zones, queued like the newsletter said, Destruction won't defend/que, and we still can't flip the fucking zone. Its beyond insane.

[Nebu]

I'm starting to wonder if WAR can recover with the current engine.  It's one thing to do a gameplay alteration, but they're stuck with the engine.  An engine that can't seem to cope with largescale warfare.