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Author Topic: WAR- Computer Games Magazine - May  (Read 57228 times)
Arthur_Parker
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on: March 31, 2006, 02:59:08 PM

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Quote
The king of MMO PvP has its way with Warhammer Online, a world build for just that.

by Cindy Yans

The tabletop at Mythic Entertainment was nearly invisible, owing to its load of rule books, manuals, novels, game boxes, cards, miniatures, key chains, bumper stickers, paperweights, mugs, towel racks, and all manner of memorabilia related to its darling of the moment, Warhammer.

"Have you read these?" asked directer of marketing Steve Perkins, proferring a stack of all 18 Trollslayer Novels. "Uh... no." I felt guilty.

The idea of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has always been attractive, and when the original Climax-developed version was canceled in 2004, players were disappointed. At least they were until last year, when Mythic Entertainment announced that it had picked up the rights to the game. Mythic's Realm vs. Realm experience with Dark Age of Camelot, widely heralded as the most skillfully crafted player-versus-player MMO ever, bodes well for the game, as does the overwhelming unity of vision between Games Workshop and everybody (seemingly, literally every body) at Mythic. It was as if they speak with one voice.

When you look at the game the first thing you say to yourself is "It's a rip-off of World of Warcraft." (You did, didn't you? When you saw the screenshots? Don't lie.) So it behooves you to recall that Games Workshop had them first, those Orcs, Goblins, Elves and Dwarfs. From the original Warcraft to the present, all of that imagery is based on the original Warhammer figures. The characters are more detailed here, however; Orcs grow and expand as you level... they not only scale but gain musculature as well. One might refer to the art direction as WoW +2.

Being Green In the Warhammer universe, there are 14 known armies and lots of other races that are references, but in the initial release, we'll see only six (seven if you seperate Orcs and Goblins, which most people do not.) There are two loose aliance: Agents of Order - Empire (Humans), Dwarfs (not "Dwarves"), and High Elves - and the Agents of Destruction - Greenskins (Orcs and Goblins), Chaos (Humans), and Dark Elves. This provides for three battlefronts: Greenskins vs. Dwarfs, Chaos vs. Empire, and Dark Elves vs. High Elves.

The game will have player-versus-player combat from the get-go, but people who don't care to participate in PvP can just as well carebear their way through the game entirely. Mythic has designed the content in four "tiers" of areas, each of which will have both PvE and PvP content, except on the PvP servers, where it will be everywhere, all the time. As you approach a PvP area, a mysterious voice says, "There is no stopping in the red zone," and you become PvP flagged after five seconds. You can then choose to proceed, retreat, or say, "The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only." Once you step back, you'll stay PvP flagged for five minutes, though. "What we don't want," says content director Destin Bales, "is for someone to go across the line, throw a fireball, then step back and go, 'Neener neener neener.'"

Faction Fiction One thing that you'll notice is that, right from the start, War is everywhere. The core of the RvR combat is based on four layers of increasing sophistication. The first type is Skirmish Combat, where two guys just cross paths, hate each other, and fight. The winner will collect various rewards in experience, coin, items - they haven't really ironed out the specifics yet.

The second type is called Battlefields: these are basically hotspots in a PvP area to which players will naturally be drawn. For example, there'll be a ruined Dwarf village that may have some resources that are valuable to both sides. "We have so many proposals along this front that it's scary," says Bales, as he pats literally mountains and mountains and mountains of printouts of gameplay content. The next level is the Scenerio, which is instanced, open RvR combat. The battles here are quick, repeatable, last about five or ten minutes, and will be objective-based, using many of the basic paradigms of CTF, Deathmatch, King of the Hill, et al.

We see instanced battlegrounds in things like World of Warcraft, but Mythic has taken a very important step toward improvement. If you've ever waited in a queue because the battleground population was unbalanced, cursing and complaining until you were either miraculously transported into the fight or died of boredom, this is for you. Warhammer's matchmaking utility not only sorts people into groups of appropriate level but, when there aren't enough players on one side or the other, it does what FPSs have been doing for a long time: fill in the spaces with bots (appropriately called Dogs of War). No waiting.

The overall victor of a Scenerio will gain control of the entire zone (Skirmishes and Battlefield victories will come into play). This affects the fourth style of combat, the Campaign, which is, at the macro level, the heart of the game. In the fourth tier of zones lies a capital city for each front, and the objective, as you may imagine, is to take over the opponent's capital and kill the leader and everyone else there (via Scenerio). Afterward the victors will retain control for some arbitrary time, say 24 hours, during which they may pillage and plunder to their hearts' content. After that period of time, the game rebalances, forces you out of the city, and resets ownership of all the different maps, and the battle begins anew.

Quest-a-licious To move away from cookiecutter mode, they've added several different quest types. First, there are public quests: when you enter an epicenter, you'll be taking and turning in quests, buying and selling, but you'll also see a public quest in which you and your entire faction can take part. For example, Orcs like to control Giants by bringing them beer; they rush out and give the Giants beer; the Giants go crazy; and the Orcs bash the heck out of them. So if you enter a Giant area, the quest might be to bring the Giant, say, 150 pints of beer. Everyone who helps gets credit for it, as does the whole realm. When these types of quests exist in a PvP area, they become competitive, with different (opposing) objectives for each side. Then there are branching quests, which let you choose how to complete them. Is your motivation cash? Experience? Then there are kill collector quests. Okay, here is one of the biggest peeves in MMO questing. You're riding a cock horse to Banbury Cross, you kill a fine lady upon a white horse, and another, and another, and another. You meet a banana mogul who says, "Hey! Those fine ladies really give me agita. I'll give you many Chiquitas for four of their noses." So you roll your eyes and go back and kill them yet again. Here, the guy would know that you had already done that and would reward you accordingly. "Hey! Bravo, you thwapped four fine ladies! Want some bananas?"

Finally there's something they call "Christmas quests." These are far off the beaten path, require little to no effort, and offer huge rewards. The goal is to get the players to branch out and explore all the areas, lest an artist whine, "But they'll never see that texture - it was MY texture." Here's an example of one: you come across a guy and his pet wolf sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere. The guy says, "My wolf is starving. I'd give my right arm if I could get him some food." So you take him literally, whack the guy, his arm falls off, and you feed it to the wolf for a huge reward. Sick, right? But special.

C&C The basic character system that Mythic is using is not a typical "class system." They're keeping some portions of the Warhammer universe and adopting others. "The career system operates along the concept that we want you to be able to choose an interesting start to your character's progression, sort of complete the chapter of your character's life, and then choose a new chapter," says lead designer Steve Marvin. So they're using a basic progression tree where you start out as either a Fighter or Adept (read "magic user") and then, at an arbitrary stage, you may choose your next career step either in the same path as your original choice or in a direction that moves you into a different career.

In essence, a path straight through in the same discipline makes you what, in other games, is considered "pure." Or if you like a more balanced, hybrid approach, you end up being what most think of as "multi-classed." You'd think that this sort of thing would be a real challenge to balance, but Marvin isn't worried. "It would be a real nightmare if we didn't have this kind of encapsulation that gives control," he says. "Because we split the Fighter from the Adept, we're not trying to balance all the magic with all the weapon attacks... that helps us."

The combat system operates on pretty familiar principals, but they've added a twist that will bring more versatility than is offered by most other games (that don't require a "twitch"). Most systems only allow you to do one thing at a time. You have a resource (like mana or power), and you have actions that operate on a global timer, which are constrained by things like cost, casting time, recast time and so on. Multiply by two. "We added the concept of a second layer," says Marvin. "So you'll have the ability to do two things at one time." They've added a second global timer that enables you to use other abilities in the same overlapping time pool, for the potential double whammy.

Mythic President Mark Jacobs is certainly not being cavalier about his latest project. He senses the industry climate, and he's not afraid to admit that mastering the design of this burgeoning genre is a lot of learning. "We can do better," he says. "I don't mean we as just Mythic, I mean we as designers and developers of these games. We can do better... but no game is perfect. I guarantee you Warhammer will have moments of stupidity as well, but we'll just look at it and go, 'Why the heck did we do that?' because it so happens that nothing you can create is perfect. Creative things are flawed. Hopefully, here the flaws will be so few that the players won't mind."

UK PC Gamer also has a large section on Warhammer part of it below also states they are going with a career system.

Quote
Most surprising is the absence of levels, replaced by a career system similar to that of the tabletop game.  You choose a career, then select certain elements of that career which you'll attain once you have acquired enough XP.  So improvements are gradual, rather than an enormous leap with each new level, and entirely in the hands of the player.  A character learns four careers thoughtout the game, building a unique class of choosen elements.

EDIT POSSIBLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK POPUP, it's Germany so breasts are ok in any situation.  A few extra screenshots on a German site are here.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2006, 03:10:40 AM by Arthur_Parker »
Trippy
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Reply #1 on: March 31, 2006, 06:33:56 PM

Quote
We see instanced battlegrounds in things like World of Warcraft, but Mythic has taken a very important step toward improvement. If you've ever waited in a queue because the battleground population was unbalanced, cursing and complaining until you were either miraculously transported into the fight or died of boredom, this is for you. Warhammer's matchmaking utility not only sorts people into groups of appropriate level but, when there aren't enough players on one side or the other, it does what FPSs have been doing for a long time: fill in the spaces with bots (appropriately called Dogs of War). No waiting.
That's going to be quite a challenge -- good luck with that.

Quote
The overall victor of a Scenerio will gain control of the entire zone (Skirmishes and Battlefield victories will come into play). This affects the fourth style of combat, the Campaign, which is, at the macro level, the heart of the game. In the fourth tier of zones lies a capital city for each front, and the objective, as you may imagine, is to take over the opponent's capital and kill the leader and everyone else there (via Scenerio). Afterward the victors will retain control for some arbitrary time, say 24 hours, during which they may pillage and plunder to their hearts' content. After that period of time, the game rebalances, forces you out of the city, and resets ownership of all the different maps, and the battle begins anew.
I predict that certain capitals on certain servers will effectively be "perma-captured" (i.e. it'll be captured immediately after it reverts back to original ownership) unless they introduce some sort of timer during which a capital can not be captured.

Quote
Finally there's something they call "Christmas quests." These are far off the beaten path, require little to no effort, and offer huge rewards. The goal is to get the players to branch out and explore all the areas, lest an artist whine, "But they'll never see that texture - it was MY texture."
All known Christmas quests will be posted within minutes after the NDA in Beta drops.
Trippy
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Reply #2 on: March 31, 2006, 06:40:56 PM

That's one fricking obnoxious site. Even with two layers of popup window protection it still managed to spawn a new ad infested window.
WindupAtheist
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Reply #3 on: March 31, 2006, 11:56:54 PM

Look, more PR bullshit for an MMO that will most likely suck ass anyway.


"You're just a dick who quotes himself in his sig."  --  Schild
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Telemediocrity
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Reply #4 on: April 01, 2006, 12:55:32 AM

It sounds to me like a glorified version of Lineage in some ways.  And starting out you only have a choice between "fighter" and "mage"?

Doubleyew tee eff.
eldaec
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Reply #5 on: April 01, 2006, 09:14:37 AM

They have it as Empire vs Chaos + Green.

Whatever happened to Empire vs Chaos vs Green? Three is the correct number of realms for RvR.

Looking at the screenshots it looks a damn site less ugly than WoW.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2006, 09:18:48 AM by eldaec »

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eldaec
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Reply #6 on: April 01, 2006, 09:17:01 AM

Quote
All known Christmas quests will be posted within minutes after the NDA in Beta drops.

Well maybe, but the point of the quests is to replace the daoc 'camp bonus' for hunting things that haven't been killed in a while. It sounds as if there is no reason it couldn't achieve that.

And besides, nobody forces you to check spoiler sites.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Arthur_Parker
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Reply #7 on: April 01, 2006, 09:21:57 AM

They have it as Empire vs Chaos + Green.

Whatever happened to Empire vs Chaos vs Green? Three is the correct number of realms for RvR.


This is the most recent quote from Mark Jacobs it, it's from the thread linked about.

Quote from: Mark Jacobs
Folks,

A few quickies:

1) Any PvP flagging we may use, keep in mind that I actually created the PvP flag concept (and called it that) almost 20 years ago in my first MUD. So, if we do use it, it isn't because we got it from WoW.  Also, keep in mind that they are lots of exploits that can be used by the player in a PvP system like that and only if we can close them will we use the system.

2) In terms of the whole 2/3 side thing. Keep in mind the following:

a) When you have a game with two sides, there will almost always be an imbalance between the two sides and when that happens, the results for either side isn't good.

b) When you have 3 sides, there is always an imbalance (even if there is not difference between the 3 sides as there is here) but if there is some good cross-flow between the sides (loose alliances), then the results are better.

c) The words loose and "early stage" should be paramount in your minds at this point.

Mark

So not sure what's happening yet as not set in stone. 

On a personal note I wish he wouldn't constantly mention how wonderful Mythic are, I just want the game not to stuck so I don't really care who invented whatever first.
garthilk
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Reply #8 on: April 01, 2006, 09:35:51 AM

What I find interesting is how orginally it was mentioned that WAR would be the conflict of 3 sides.  Now it's being touted as the Alliance of Order, vs the Alliance of Destruction.  While I understand things change in development, I wonder if we're being lined up for an expansion pack.

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schild
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Reply #9 on: April 01, 2006, 09:38:06 AM

They're trying to become as MUCH LIKE WoW as possible. But no matter how much they putz around with the game design it still won't say Blizzard on the box when they ship. I mean that in the nicest way.
Arthur_Parker
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Reply #10 on: April 01, 2006, 11:18:07 AM

What I find interesting is how orginally it was mentioned that WAR would be the conflict of 3 sides.  Now it's being touted as the Alliance of Order, vs the Alliance of Destruction.  While I understand things change in development, I wonder if we're being lined up for an expansion pack.

You know he's mentioned expansion packs for Skaven so extra races seems enough of a justification.   I always thought it would be easier to balance two sides over three, plus when you leveled up in DAoC at release you only saw 1/3 of the content which is a lot of wasted content. 

The only advantage I see for three sides is to keep it more like DAoC which avoids people going "lol wow2", only it's probably better marketing to have people go "lol wow2" rather than the current "lol daoc2" anyway.  They marketed DAoC at ex-EQ players so it seems logical to market WAR at ex-WoW players.
Telemediocrity
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Reply #11 on: April 01, 2006, 11:33:27 AM

I dunno - I'm not seeing enough of the info that really affects how PvP plays out in practice.

Is there twitch skill involved?  If so, to what extent?  Are projectiles physically dodge-able?  Is there sticky melee?  To what extent is the Z-Axis used?  What does character movement feel like, and does movement play a big role in the flow of combat?

These are the sort of things that will matter far more as to whether their game is fun to play than which classes/races/sides they have.
eldaec
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Reply #12 on: April 01, 2006, 03:14:33 PM

I can't see Mythic patching in another realm after launch.

Skaven are chaos aligned creatures, and although they are an obvious expansion race, it makes little sense to put them in their own realm.

If they were to patch in a third realm the only one I can think of that would be distinct from Empire+Dwarfs+Elves and from Chaos+Green+DarkElves iis Undead.

The more I think about the possible 2 realm world the less I like it, having things so simple and black & white seems inherently un-Warhammer to me, not to mention the fact it gives the content teams less room to really go to town creating the Orc and Chaos worlds which clearly should have a totally different outlook.

What utterly astounds me is that you can see significant numbers of people on forums elsewhere complaining about the original design because it *wasn't* a dull as ditchwater face-off between only 2 sides. Ho hum.

Quote
Is there twitch skill involved? Are projectiles physically dodge-able?

No. At least not unless you count the ability to communicate with team mates rapidly, convince large numbers of people you don't know to press buttons when you want them to, and generally herd cats in an effective manner as twitch skills (which you probably should, but that's a whole other thread).

Obviously none of the other questions you ask are something anyone can usefully talk about till beta. Which may be why a decent number of posts in this thread focus on the number-of-sides issue, which will have a significant effect on how the community builds up within the game.


"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
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eldaec
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Reply #13 on: April 01, 2006, 03:23:54 PM

You know he's mentioned expansion packs for Skaven so extra races seems enough of a justification.   I always thought it would be easier to balance two sides over three, plus when you leveled up in DAoC at release you only saw 1/3 of the content which is a lot of wasted content. 

The only advantage I see for three sides is to keep it more like DAoC which avoids people going "lol wow2", only it's probably better marketing to have people go "lol wow2" rather than the current "lol daoc2" anyway.  They marketed DAoC at ex-EQ players so it seems logical to market WAR at ex-WoW players.

Some advantages of 3 sides...

You have two distinct fronts to fight on, when hib is zerging in emain, you can say 'bugger this for a game of soldiers, I'm going mid'.
A kind of diplomacy/politics develops in the community where whichever realm is acting like the biggest dicks at the moment gets raided more.
It's more like the Warhammer world which has a gazillion sides.
A greater number of tactical scenarios makes it harder for one group layout to dominate against everything, people in daoc often prefered a different group setup vs different enemies.
Killing two enemy groups while they are also fighting each other is fun.
Intercepting an enemy A raid party as they escape with the phat lewt from enemy B is fricking hilarious.


The wasted content in PvE is a fair point, though I suspect with clever design and a little instancing it's surmountable.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Telemediocrity
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Reply #14 on: April 01, 2006, 03:33:15 PM

What I don't understand, with the format of the game as it's set up now, is why they have to hardcode sides at all.  If the game's really fluid in terms of alliances and treachery and whatnot in the lore, simply put race/class restrictions on guilds and let people ally as they will from there, with some sort of system in place to discourage alliances from getting too large, or making sure they fracture apart once they do.

Something more akin to Mordred's system of guild ownership (not referring to the server's pvp+ flag) than the rest of the DAoC servers.
Venkman
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Reply #15 on: April 01, 2006, 06:32:43 PM

Those screenshots look like the WoW engine with EQ2 styling and an ambient glow.

Otherwise, I care when it's in beta.
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Reply #16 on: April 01, 2006, 09:27:52 PM

I can't see Mythic patching in another realm after launch.

Skaven are chaos aligned creatures, and although they are an obvious expansion race, it makes little sense to put them in their own realm.

If they were to patch in a third realm the only one I can think of that would be distinct from Empire+Dwarfs+Elves and from Chaos+Green+DarkElves iis Undead.
The Lizardmen hate everybody else as do the Tomb Kings though I guess I could see the TKs allying with the Vampire Counts in the MMOG.
eldaec
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Reply #17 on: April 02, 2006, 01:34:26 AM

What I don't understand, with the format of the game as it's set up now, is why they have to hardcode sides at all.  If the game's really fluid in terms of alliances and treachery and whatnot in the lore, simply put race/class restrictions on guilds and let people ally as they will from there, with some sort of system in place to discourage alliances from getting too large, or making sure they fracture apart once they do.

Something more akin to Mordred's system of guild ownership (not referring to the server's pvp+ flag) than the rest of the DAoC servers.

If you don't totally isolate the realms in the newbie experience, no grouping, no talking, preferably no seeing. Then the community will not separate into realm based groups, and will demand any pretence of realm based amnosity be removed from the pve experience (see EQ2). You then don't have proper RvR, and you can't adequately dehumanise the other realms in order to encourage community within a realm.

And if pvp sides are guild based you degenerate the game into Guild vs Guild, which isn't nearly as interesting to the non-catass becuase you can't be on the overall winning side, ever.

Mordred sucked for many reasons, not just the all pvp all the time nature of the place.


"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Arthur_Parker
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Reply #18 on: April 02, 2006, 06:08:29 AM

Yeah eldaec, maybe three sides would be better.  I'm just a bit concerned about how fast WAR is being developed, it seems real quick to be able to do three sides justice.
eldaec
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Reply #19 on: April 02, 2006, 06:58:12 AM

That is a fair point, I just assumed they would announce around 18 months worth of delays when appropriate.

Final(ish) point on the 3 sides, this would actually give me a pretty big headache if I were to play this game, I'd orefer to play Orc, because they are just way cooler than everything else. But I really don't think I could bear to be on the same side as Chaos humies and therefore with the sort of people who tend to choose to play chaos. /shudder.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
Telemediocrity
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Reply #20 on: April 02, 2006, 12:46:37 PM

If you don't totally isolate the realms in the newbie experience, no grouping, no talking, preferably no seeing. Then the community will not separate into realm based groups, and will demand any pretence of realm based amnosity be removed from the pve experience (see EQ2). You then don't have proper RvR, and you can't adequately dehumanise the other realms in order to encourage community within a realm.

And if pvp sides are guild based you degenerate the game into Guild vs Guild, which isn't nearly as interesting to the non-catass becuase you can't be on the overall winning side, ever.

Uh, this makes no sense.  Why would Guild vs Guild degenerate into the catasses taking over?  AC1 Darktide was guild vs guild and the catasses almost never won - large, unwieidly guilds were geographically vulnerable to tighter, more coordinated groups of friends who didn't necessarily have the same high levels.  In order to control large amounts of territory, as guild by definition must be very large - that means a lot of squawking lowbies.  The bigger an uber-guild is, the more fronts they're vulnerable on.  You hit their PvE groups or otherwise 'softer' targets, and by the time their Elite Death Squad gets called in by their squawking lowbies (who before long just sound like one big cacophany that drives the Elites nuts - another fissure point for the Big Uber-Guild) you're already recalling out with your loot.

Factors that matter:  The size of the gameworld, the influence of levels, and guild recruitment method.

For good guild-vs-guild PvP, ANY GUILD MEMBER has to be able to recruit another player into their guild, with some sort of org chart available to guild leadership so that they can see who recruited who.  PvP-oriented games should simply lift AC's patron/vassal model wholesale. (In fact, most PvE games should, too.) This is critical, because it links territorial control, size, and guild unity/disunity together.

The world size has to be big so a guild of uber-elite-catassers simply won't have the manpower to control a big portion of it, maybe more than a city or two.  Keeping travel powers relatively restricted is also important for this.

Levelling - the curve should be slow on the whole, but a guy who's halfway to the levelling cap should be able to beat a guy who's at the level cap about 1/3rd of the time.  Player skill (i.e. twitch) should be a big defining factor.

Oh, and uber-loot shouldn't be too big of a deal.  That's also important.

The server should remain relatively fluid, with maybe two or three large guilds and 10-30 smaller 'boutique' guilds, who fight one another in a sort of Rebels/Empire arrangement, which ends up being fun for both sides.

Sorry if this is a bit detailed - I'm not saying "hey your PvP game should be like AC1 Darktide", I'm just making the point that if you automatically equate 'Guild Vs Guild server' with 'Catasses win', that's just lazy thinking.  There are a whole host of possibilities out there, and you lose so much from hardcoding the game's sides - meaningful politics, intrigue, alliances/betrayals, the ability for leaders to rise organically and for generals to decide it's their turn to be king, and take some troops with them.
Azazel
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Reply #21 on: April 02, 2006, 02:31:33 PM

I dunno - I'm not seeing enough of the info that really affects how PvP plays out in practice.

Is there twitch skill involved?  If so, to what extent?  Are projectiles physically dodge-able?  Is there sticky melee?  To what extent is the Z-Axis used?  What does character movement feel like, and does movement play a big role in the flow of combat?

These are the sort of things that will matter far more as to whether their game is fun to play than which classes/races/sides they have.

That shit just doesn't work if you want the game to be massive, with players from all over the world interacting with one another. You want twitch, play a FPS, or Planetside. Until the entire interwebs become latency free, twitch is a pipe dream.

And yeah, Warhammer isn't about "Alliance" vs "Horde". It's loose alliances of good and evil, sure, but everyone is happy to fight everyone else, and even their own "faction". Chaos might ally with Skaven, and Da Boyz might fight alongside them temporarily, but even the Orcs find Chaos to be "dirty" and hate them.


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Telemediocrity
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Reply #22 on: April 02, 2006, 03:10:29 PM

That shit just doesn't work if you want the game to be massive, with players from all over the world interacting with one another. You want twitch, play a FPS, or Planetside. Until the entire interwebs become latency free, twitch is a pipe dream.

Neocron and AC1 both have sufficiently twitch-based gameplay and it works just fine.  Also, why would Planetside be subject to different latency rules than everything else (Honest question, do they use different packets or something I'm not aware of)?

I would have an easier time believing twitch PvP in MMOs was a pipe dream if I hadn't been playing multiple twitch PvP MMOs for... oh, the past five years or so.
eldaec
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Reply #23 on: April 02, 2006, 03:17:17 PM

That shit just doesn't work if you want the game to be massive, with players from all over the world interacting with one another. You want twitch, play a FPS, or Planetside. Until the entire interwebs become latency free, twitch is a pipe dream.

Neocron and AC1 both have sufficiently twitch-based gameplay and it works just fine.  Also, why would Planetside be subject to different latency rules than everything else (Honest question, do they use different packets or something I'm not aware of)?

I would have an easier time believing twitch PvP in MMOs was a pipe dream if I hadn't been playing multiple twitch PvP MMOs for... oh, the past five years or so.

Twitch probably can work ok a la Planetside. It's not CS, but it is 'something based on twitch'.

But it's not relevant to this discussion because that's not the game Mythic are trying to build.

Also I'm personally dubious that twitch suits melee especially well anyway.

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Reply #24 on: April 02, 2006, 03:36:56 PM

Twitch probably can work ok a la Planetside. It's not CS, but it is 'something based on twitch'.

But it's not relevant to this discussion because that's not the game Mythic are trying to build.

They're not trying to build a game that includes twitch?  Okay, that's fair enough - but in that case, how is what they're doing really distinct from EQ2, DAoC, or WoW?  How is WoW to WAR any different from EQ to WoW?  That may be enough for some people (And probably enough for Mythic's bottom line), but I have a hard time getting excited about it.

If the game's not intended for me, though, I can certainly accept that.  Just figured I'd ask.

Quote
Also I'm personally dubious that twitch suits melee especially well anyway.

I'm generally a proponent of sticky melee in these games, and then giving the melees naturally superior runspeed, with twitch coming in as they break sticky to dodge projectile attacks, switch targets, lure enemy fire as a decoy, etcetera.  I've never found the "slow but heavy hitter" model of melee combat to be conducive to good twitch PvP - rather, if melee-ers are sort of like locusts, always pecking away at you bit by bit and scrambling when you try to turn around and swat them, I think that tends to work well.
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Reply #25 on: April 02, 2006, 04:48:27 PM

That shit just doesn't work if you want the game to be massive, with players from all over the world interacting with one another. You want twitch, play a FPS, or Planetside. Until the entire interwebs become latency free, twitch is a pipe dream.
Neocron and AC1 both have sufficiently twitch-based gameplay and it works just fine.  Also, why would Planetside be subject to different latency rules than everything else (Honest question, do they use different packets or something I'm not aware of)?
PlanetSide cheats and uses client side hit detection. Also latency in online shooter games is way overblown unless you are playing games with "one shot kill weapons" like CS or, say, the railgun in Quake 3. Thousands upon thousands of people played games like QuakeWorld and Quake 2 just fine on modems against HPBs and MPBs (Medium Ping Bastards). Saying an MMO twitch game would never work because of latency is just silly, especially if you are talking about a swords and sorcery game.
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Reply #26 on: April 02, 2006, 04:52:24 PM

They're not trying to build a game that includes twitch?  Okay, that's fair enough - but in that case, how is what they're doing really distinct from EQ2, DAoC, or WoW?
From what we know so far they aren't -- hence the reason why people are calling it DAoC2.
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Reply #27 on: April 03, 2006, 01:28:09 AM

The reason so many Fanbois are in favour of a 2 sided conmflict is because thats what happens in all the GW studio battle reports and all the games you ever play in the shops (which I havent done for ages because I find the smell of sweaty-unwashed-youngling offputting)

Every multi-faction battle I ever recall seeing in a white dwarf or being fought in a shop was 'good vs evil' regardless of how untenable that alliance was (hmm Necrons and Nids joining up with other 'evil' races......)

The only time I can recall seeing more than 2 sides in a GW game was Inquisitor where the 3rd (or subsequent) sides were played either by other players or the GM.

As an aside Neocron wasn't really twitch because (for example) as a Monk if you had the target under your reticle when you pressed fire you were guaranteed to hit regardless of what the target did before the shot landed (other than zone I guess) all cover did was make it harder for people to get the hit box under the reticle
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Reply #28 on: April 03, 2006, 01:39:34 AM

That shit just doesn't work if you want the game to be massive, with players from all over the world interacting with one another. You want twitch, play a FPS, or Planetside. Until the entire interwebs become latency free, twitch is a pipe dream.

Neocron and AC1 both have sufficiently twitch-based gameplay and it works just fine.  Also, why would Planetside be subject to different latency rules than everything else (Honest question, do they use different packets or something I'm not aware of)?

I would have an easier time believing twitch PvP in MMOs was a pipe dream if I hadn't been playing multiple twitch PvP MMOs for... oh, the past five years or so.

Planetside was pointed out since it's already there. It's also not worth playing if you live outside of the US

And as for your experiences working just fine, that's because of your geographical location, if you'd have read my point, you'd have seen that I specifically pointed out the issue being with players from all over the world. I live in NotAmerica, and I'm pretty experienced with lag effects in MMOGs by now including regular (EQ/WOW) and twitch. I briefly played PS and the game had severe, severe lag issues of the kind that I suppose you might be able to compare by playing on a CS server in Australia, or Germany or something. You know, shoot at some guy dead on, except you missed. Shame bout 'dat.  Heartbreak


PlanetSide cheats and uses client side hit detection. Also latency in online shooter games is way overblown unless you are playing games with "one shot kill weapons" like CS or, say, the railgun in Quake 3. Thousands upon thousands of people played games like QuakeWorld and Quake 2 just fine on modems against HPBs and MPBs (Medium Ping Bastards). Saying an MMO twitch game would never work because of latency is just silly, especially if you are talking about a swords and sorcery game.

Even with clientside hit detection, you're fine except now you're actually wounded (sometimes). Think outside of your box that has Quake/2 in it playing against HPBs playing against people in the next state, and think about playing internationally. As for Swords and Sorcery specifically, unless you think you can dodge fireballs and arrows effectively, I don't really see the need.

If you're wanting to play a peristant online Soul Calibur, (which is not a bad idea) it's still quite a different proposition and would require some fucking amazing netcode beyond whatever say, XBox DOA Ultimate Online uses since you've got (way) more than 2 fighters, interactive scenery, a huge world, etc etc...



The reason so many Fanbois are in favour of a 2 sided conmflict is because thats what happens in all the GW studio battle reports and all the games you ever play in the shops (which I havent done for ages because I find the smell of sweaty-unwashed-youngling offputting)

Every multi-faction battle I ever recall seeing in a white dwarf or being fought in a shop was 'good vs evil' regardless of how untenable that alliance was (hmm Necrons and Nids joining up with other 'evil' races......)

That's because of the limitations of the Warhammer/40k "game engine". Specifically the H2H combat component. Movement and shooting work reasonably well in 3-sided games, but it gets to be a bit of a mess when you add in melee (especially 3 or 4-sides in one mass melee).

You can get by (and quite well) in a skirmish game like Necromunda, but in the bigger games it becomes a clusterfuck.


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eldaec
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Reply #29 on: April 03, 2006, 04:02:27 AM

Quote
That's because of the limitations of the Warhammer/40k "game engine". Specifically the H2H combat component. Movement and shooting work reasonably well in 3-sided games, but it gets to be a bit of a mess when you add in melee (especially 3 or 4-sides in one mass melee).

You can get by (and quite well) in a skirmish game like Necromunda, but in the bigger games it becomes a clusterfuck.

I agree that these are good reasons while turn based tabletop games are limited to two sides, but it's worth reminding everyone that these problems vanish in a real-time MMOG.

----

On the subject of PS it plays ok in Europe (even on US servers), can't speak for anywhere else.

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Numtini
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Reply #30 on: April 03, 2006, 06:32:08 AM

When is this thing due out? It seems awfully early to be ramping up the publicity machine.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
eldaec
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Reply #31 on: April 03, 2006, 06:38:03 AM

They claim 2007.

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Reply #32 on: April 03, 2006, 07:59:05 AM

They're trying to become as MUCH LIKE WoW as possible. But no matter how much they putz around with the game design it still won't say Blizzard on the box when they ship. I mean that in the nicest way.

I see that as a VERY GOOD THING (TM).

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Reply #33 on: April 03, 2006, 09:56:08 AM

Even if the game is similar to DAoC, I'll buy it.  Other than Shadowbane (which had issues all its own), DAoC is the best implementation of a PvP MMOG to date.  It's the game I keep going back to after all other titles fail to hold my interest.

Yes, I am a DAoC fanboi.

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Reply #34 on: April 03, 2006, 10:45:29 AM

I am cautiously optimistic. If they can make PvE that doesn't make me want to kill myself like DAoC's did then I'm good. I liked the PvP in DAoC, warts and all. And while I've moved away from GW and their pricing schemes recently I lived their fucking games throughout my childhood; I'll be there to check it out at the least.
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