War December Newsletter + Looks like it's coming to a console

[eldaec]

I try to imagine SB done perfectly or Eve with a less arcane UI and still don't see the average gamer sticking around because the motivations and results of being in these experiences are based almost "too much" on other players.

I argue it's the combat mechanics and GvG (as opposed to RvR) intended nature of these games rather than just the UI or quality of execution.


SB or EVE done right (arguably EVE *is* EVE done right) wouldn't have mass appeal.

They are intentionally aimed at those who want to politic between warring guilds, those who aren't worried about the barrier to entry getting into those guilds, and those who are comfortable with extreme rewards and losses

In the context of this thread, they are aimed at Stray.


RvR is a different path. It's aimed at people who want the game to be basically about PvP but want rules of engagement to be clearer, want easier paths into the game, and want to know who is on their side up front. It's aimed at players new to pvp, it's aimed at people who care less about min/maxing their character build than about trying to get decent numbers of people to operate as a team, and it works for people who aren't going to be able to commit the effort necessary to stay current in a GvG game.

And taking that path it's perfectly possible to have 'safe' world altering events. A front line that pushes back and forth, but only within the frontier is such an event, daoc relics are an event, access to cross realm dungeons could be an event, occasionally sacking the opposing capital city and forcing that realm to rebuild certain resources is a workable event, taking control of resource generation points to help your crafters is a workable event. Of course you want to keep looking for ways to push beyond that, but there are plenty of options for affecting the world in limited ways that don't threaten to pull the rug from under newbies, or make the game completely unfun for the losers.

I do accept that considering what happens to the losers is much more important in RvR than in GvG, because RvR losers can't easily switch sides, and winning realms can't shut their doors to new members.



Writing this makes me think of the difference between limit poker and no-limit poker. Followers of each game will of course snipe at each other from time to time, but there is plenty of space for both models. And plenty of space for WoW-lovers to play whist in the corner.

[eldaec]

One more point on this subject.

WAR, from everything that has been posted, is aiming more niche than WoW, but less niche than EVE.

So it has to pick something to focus on that is more edgy than what WoW has.



Warhammer : Age of Reckoning

'The game with more variations on Alterac than WoW'



...doesn't feel like a sensible way to differentiate WAR.

[Venkman]

The largest majority of the market doesn't want a PvP-centric game.

Actually, I've been thinking it's more a question of how immersive that PvP is. They seem to like PvP as sport, which is really what WoW's BGs are. What I am not sure about is whether there is a large enough market for the immersive PvP stuff, the PvP-that-matters kind of experience as offered by Eve and SB (and if done right or even just well enough: TR, AoC and PotBS).

But this assumes Western markets. Eastern markets seem to enjoy immersive PvP.

And taking that path (RvR with clear rules) it's perfectly possible to have 'safe' world altering events

Yes, I agree. It's where I think WoW could take their BGs. Of course, right now they don't appear to be doing this, focusing instead on more world-PvP and that Arena system to keep those who hit 70 first busy for awhile.

This is the beauty of instantiating content. You can continue to offer both PUGs and premades ways to have some momentary fun with the same system that lets dedicated Guild vs Guild battles go at it. Nothing except tokens and honor points leave Battlegrounds in WoW, but there's no reason that always needs to be. If you had Guilds declaring war on each other, real permanent guild advantages could come out, usable for Guild-related activities. Yea, that's for hardcore players. Yea, that's not going to be a huge amount of a 2mil+ subscription base. But it does allow for more steps on the Player Pyramid to feel like they are well integrated into the larger world. The best server societies have everyone from the single-minded soloer grinding faction to guild leaders to alliance leaders. That's where you get the most vibrant economies from too.

So use the tools you're building anyway to offer a broader array of activities.

I agree with your line about WAR and WoW Alterac Valley. This is their point of difference, the way they can siphon players from current WoW. You play BGs long enough in WoW and the grind from 60-70 with that back-to-the-ubers Arena system waiting for you, a return to the casual-PvP that is PUG BGs starts to look enticing again.

[Nebu]

Not to split hairs, but PvP-centric and a game with PvP in it aren't the same.  People want PvP sprinkled in their PvE game.  They want to go in and out of PvP in small doses... which isn't PvP-centric.  To be successful as a PvP game, it should be designed with PvP in mind as the primary combat mechanism... this is very much not WoW, a PvE game with some PvP added.  Even done extremely well, a PvP-centric game will never be more than niche in the Western world. 

[DataGod]

I disagree, a PVP centric game might only be a ninche but it'll be a 1.5m+ subscriber ninche.

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP. And thats a mighty appealing proposition for a lot of players who tolerate the PVE grind to access end game PVP.

Its all about incentives really. Look at the BG activity in the time between the PVP changes and before release of TBC in WOW.

In my experiance raiding activity is almost completely DEAD. Why? Better gear to be had faster and via less enhuastive means than getting 40 players together for a 5 hour BWL run every 2 days. And people are gearing for a 60-70 grind.

[Shapechanger]

What's really odd to me is I seem to be hearing an echo of the discussions that before release DAoC had in relation to EQ.
It was pretty frequent to hear that not enough people were interested in RvR.  And it seems to be a more acceptable position now, yet still some wonder how much of the market is really interested in RvR centric?

I'm not sure, who can be sure?  But I do believe that the fans who are interested in an RvR game can be fantastically loyal over the product.  And I'm sure this is probably true of any genre.  Yet look at the difference between a wow fanboy and an eve fanboy.  Despite the 1/20th playerbase, eve still rocked the mmorpg vote recently because the fanbase is incredibly dedicated.

Seems to me that RvR engages you emotionally to a much greater degree than PvE does.  And what creates an emotional response encourages a strong connection.  I've always been a fan of somewhat slower PvP, more akin to guildwars, because these types of battles in my opinion allow the player to develop and feel vested emotions during each conflict.  There should be hope, desperation, excitement, and states of adrenaline - a whole range of emotions each present in their own turn.  How long does that take?  Battles that have you mashing buttons up against the wall to win or live do not allow the time for these emotions to come to fruition and connect as deeply to the player to the experience.

Truly, how big of a player base does a title need to be successful?  Not to be #1, but to be successful?  It needs a very loyal but modest population.  EVE is a great example, for their ~3 million cost.  For WAR, it'll have to be greater.  It seems to me that the game has enough hybridization of quests tooled into the RvR experience to permit some crossover, here.

Also, I'd like to mention - that currently there are quite a few PvE titles on the market and not much in the way of RvR.  People are tired of PvE grinds, wow really did it to death.  Good RvR is ripe and people are clamoring.

So long as the Mythic team can give people what they will enjoy with skillful enough moderation of things that need to be present that people won't particularly enjoy, and otherwise staying out of their own way in terms of management gone wrong - I see this being quite a successful title.

[Nebu]

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP. And thats a mighty appealing proposition for a lot of players who tolerate the PVE grind to access end game PVP.

But you're missing a key point here... to level through PvP only, you're depending on other players for your advancement.  This becomes obvious in DAoC. While the rate of xp gain per kill is great in PvP, it still pales in comparison to the rate that you can advance in PvE, especially as a solo player in a zergy world.  While a few players will choose to level through PvP only, I think that most will still opt to take the fastest path to the endgame possible, which is PvE.  It's easy to regulate, you don't depend on others, it's safe (making frequent afk's easy), and readily optimized.

Most people are achievers whether they wish to admit it or not... it's what attracts them to mmog's in the first place.

[eldaec]

The other thing people are missing is that Mythic aren't the first development house to claim (prior to launch) that you can level through PvP in a Dikumud.

And there is no way anyone is levelling through pvp once the servers mature.

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

[Nebu]

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

This is a huge mistake if the game releases with this mechanic.  Even with realm ranks in DAoC it's not impossible to beat someone of higher rank in a 1v1.  It's unlikely, but there's still a chance.  I've beaten several rr7+ toons at very low rr.  It makes those wins so much sweeter.

[tazelbain]

Well that's game over.
Is lateral advancement such alien concept?

[Fargull]

Warhammer : Age of Reckoning

'The game with more variations on Alterac than WoW'



...doesn't feel like a sensible way to differentiate WAR.

And Darniaq point about BG's feeling more like sport PvP (which honestly I am down with, but would like way more options), the next layer of discussion would be what changes would need to happen to change the (from DAOC to WOW) the 3-12 second battle span for most characters in the pvp arena before death.  Is it possible to have a sheild wall when a player has the option of raining death from range with spells?  The rock, scissors, paper gambit has to be thrown to the side and moved more into a realm of chess or go, but is that possible?  I would like to have RvR fights last 4-8 minutes of intense fighting before looking for a shrine or if I survived bandaging my wounds, but I don't know how that really fits into a casual space when getting to the fight that lasts 4 to 8 minutes might take 30 minutes of perparation and 15 minutes of movement to the actual feild of battle and then multiple combats of 4 - 8 minutes before finally reaching the goal.

Would limiting the most impacting damage from spell, sword, or arrow (gun) to 10% of the highest attainable health in the game.  Can a game be buiilt with wounds instead of hit points? (which might be a niche change and not something pallatable to the masses).

Thoughts?

[HRose]

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

This is a huge mistake if the game releases with this mechanic.  Even with realm ranks in DAoC it's not impossible to beat someone of higher rank in a 1v1.  It's unlikely, but there's still a chance.  I've beaten several rr7+ toons at very low rr.  It makes those wins so much sweeter.

I really do hope they listen what I proposed in that case. Instead of trying to invent a balance between the tiers they should just allow characters to "delevel" to the cap of the zone where they go and ALWAYS play on equal footing.

By the way, in Warhammer speech "tiers" = "levels", not PvP ranks. What she is saying is that a level 40 character won't be able to kill a level 50 one in 1vs1.

[Fargull]

Well that's game over.
Is lateral advancement such alien concept?

Warhammer the Roleplaying Game was all about lateral advancement, with some limited but finite core advancement.  The game was much more streamlined to allow a newb and veteran to adventure together.

[Nebu]

By the way, in Warhammer speech "tiers" = "levels", not PvP ranks. What she is saying is that a level 40 character won't be able to kill a level 50 one in 1vs1.

Thanks for the clarification.  That helps a little.  

Fargull,

I posted a concern in two areas: 1) eliminating cc that renders a character unable to respond (i.e. stuns) and 2) decreasing the rate of damage per second to make battles more strategic.  I have some hope for Mythic in that current improvements to their game have lenghtened fights considerably... but only between skilled players.  If I run into a novice player, I can usually mow them down quickly, but against more veteran players it's not uncommon for fights (even group vs group) to last 3-5 minutes.  If players are in equal numbers and of similar ability it should be less common to insta die in situations... at least based on Mythic's current PvP model.  

[tazelbain]

I think played one session of that, I wasn't impessed just min/max jobs just too powerful.  I thought they weren't following the RPG.

My basic point is that with that it'll be just another grind to teir 4 to RvR, you could RvR at T1 but who wants to be roadkill?

[Nebu]

I think played one session of that, I wasn't impessed just min/max jobs just too powerful.  I thought they weren't following the RPG.

My basic point is that with that it'll be just another grind to teir 4 to RvR, you could RvR at T1 but who wants to be roadkill?

If they have BG's for the different tiers a lot of that could be easily avoided.  I would assume that's the plan?

[Arthur_Parker]

I thought what she was saying was that they haven't decided how much damage a bunch of level 10's can do to a level 40, but whatever it is, the level 40 is going to have a major advantage.

Anyway, as we are discussing pvp in general, the number of WoW servers in each region are broken down as follows :- (PVP & RPPVP are grouped as PVP, PVE & RP are grouped as PVE)

US Servers
PVP 98
PVE 88

EU English Servers
PVP 63
PVE 34

EU German Servers
PVP 40
PVE 34

EU French Servers
PVP 18
PVE 14

EU Spanish Servers
PVP 5
PVE 3

Percentage of servers that are PVP

US 52.7%
EU English 64.9%
EU German 54.1%
EU French 56.25%
EU Spanish 62.5%

Totals for US + EU
224 PVP Servers
173 PVE Servers
Percentage of PVP Servers 56.4%

Not included Asia for obvious reasons, this is in response to the 50% PVP comments that people were making.

[HRose]

As an aside, I'm personally not a fan of varied-ruleset servers for the same reason I don't like "PvP class abilities" vs "Normal class abilities". I prefer an experience developers work towards solutions that can be applied to whoever comes because anything less segregates players more than they already are.

Yeah, agreed. I'm also against varied ruleset, But PvP class skills and normal class skills are like alternate paths of advancement that I believe aren't detrimental.

In DAoC there are levels and realm ranks. In WoW levels and gear.

This is supposed to have two main effects:
- You never lose progress as your bounty points pool never shrinks.
- The system allows a game designer to balance the direct kills/objective-based PvP ratio by setting how many bounty points you can convert after each objective completed

The current WoW Honor Points system with a quest-based engine attached. Sounds good to me.

Yeah, an interesting way to define it.

You've always wanted relevant world PvP from the days before BGs. But ask yourself this: why did Blizzard choose to go the BG route, and continue to make shallow their more recent attempts at relevant world PvP? Do you think they're shy or dumb?

Yes, I do believe they have a bad PvP designer (Kalgan).

The clusterfuck that was the old honor system (also largely anticipated to suck) is a rather undeniable demonstration. They have done many mistakes along the way about PvP. Not always corrected them later on.

There's a huge difference between low/no-barrier BGs and the world-PvP that preceded it and PvP servers vs not? Sh*t, I can even ask that: you say "why are only 1/2 the WoW servers PvP+"? Name any game of modicum success where that's ever been the case. All that preceded maybe had a few servers with that ruleset, and yet WoW launched that way. That wasn't stab-in-the-dark thinking.

Because in WoW open PvP is actually well done and designed (and we discussed this many times even on Grimwell). Graveyards, forgivable penalties, (initial) lack of incentive to gank, good communication (asking for help through the zone-chat), the contested/friendly zone organization and so on.

Also, the way you present things changes the perception. If the PvP servers are just 1 every 10 normal then people think of them as if they are minor rulesets. While WoW launched with equal number of PvP and PvE servers, giving the perception that they were evenly supported and considered.

[Venkman]

I'd love to see the servers on The9 side (China). Anyone have numbers?

My basic point is that with that it'll be just another grind to teir 4 to RvR, you could RvR at T1 but who wants to be roadkill?

I agree. I swear the quote from Sanya above is exactly something I read previously in DAoC, like back in beta. It basically introduces, yet again, level caps and soft caps and all the things that forced Mythic to rethink their combat formula back in the day to mitigate the effect level itself had on certain things. On the one hand their approach would justify the momentary de-level thing Hrose wants. On the other though, history shows that an arduous grind just puts players in a dominating position over those with less time or patience. Unless the leveling grind is short, or they really bracket players by level ranges like they do in WoW WSG or have been doing for years in DAoC, I see trouble ahead.

I gotta imagine they learned from DAoC enough to understand this though, so remain hopeful.

Not to split hairs, but PvP-centric and a game with PvP in it aren't the same. People want PvP sprinkled in their PvE game

You said it clearer than I did, but that's basically what I was trying to say :)

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP.

An important point, but I thought you can do this in WoW too? I've been 60 for a year and a half though. It's been a long time since I gained any XP at all, so can't tell.

And while I understand the concerns people had with how DAoC did it, the WoW BG model is a more appropriate example of this, particularly either Warsong Gulch (10 v 10 Capture the Flag) and Arathi Basin (15 v 15 Capture/Hold). Those matches are very quick, high turnover, lots of kill opportunities, fast advancement. In those cases, if it is true one could gain XP from players, then that would likely be as viable as mob grinding. Without quest-resolution XP bonuses, Questing/PvE would probably still be faster. But there's already repeatable quests in Alterac Valley (40 v 40 fairly-typical PvE raid), so not much stopping them from doing so in the other two.

Yet look at the difference between a wow fanboy and an eve fanboy. Despite the 1/20th playerbase, eve still rocked the mmorpg vote recently because the fanbase is incredibly dedicated.

You can ply lots of time money and attention from a dedicated base or continually try to grow that base. Eve does one and WoW has done the other. They're both viable business models as long as your infrastructure is appropriately scaled to match. Then it's a business question. CCP has huge successes with numbers that forced SOE to justify scrapping a chunk of SWG.

[eldaec]

In daoc equal player-skill/organisation battles last at least minutes.

Equal player-skill/organisation keep sieges can last hours.

I wouldn't worry about the speed of competitive play if they simply follow daoc.

The trick will be finding a way to give disorganised or low player-skill groups (who in daoc get rolled over in 20 seconds tops) a way to learn from the experience.

[Venkman]

That is exactly the problem. Mass market casual MMOGs don't come prebuilt with their own dedicated guilds and a desire to play on schedule. Either the game scales to them or segregates them into their own content (like, if there were enough premade BG groups, I'd rather see the matchmaking service of WoW ensure that premades only go against premades and PUGs only go against PUGs).

Because in WoW open PvP is actually well done and designed (and we discussed this many times even on Grimwell). Graveyards, forgivable penalties, (initial) lack of incentive to gank, good communication (asking for help through the zone-chat), the contested/friendly zone organization and so on.

Ah, but see? It's the "initial" part of the quote that is the biggest issue. No matter the early days, the game is defined by the level cap and who's where along the way. Every game is great while players are figuring it out. But when arbitrary advantage is given to players who figure it out first or fastest, bad things happen. As we've seen.

I've agreed with you in the past about the old honor point system. But I actually think the new one works pretty well, specifically because at this point most PvP is defined by BGs. For the current Western market, I feel it's as appropriate as exists right now. That's not to say a new game couldn't expose a previously un-tapped market in the West, as some say WoW did itself. But it's a harder sell to venture capitalists or publishers because they value things a lot on precedent.

Also, the way you present things changes the perception. If the PvP servers are just 1 every 10 normal then people think of them as if they are minor rulesets. While WoW launched with equal number of PvP and PvE servers, giving the perception that they were evenly supported and considered.

Absolutely. But my point was that Blizzard thought that would win them players, and they were right. Now, they didn't win those players permanently (or they wouldn't have needed to keep redesigning and tinkering as they have). But it's important to note that they thought half of their guaranteed-to-be-huge game was going to want so much PvP.

[HRose]

SB or EVE done right (arguably EVE *is* EVE done right) wouldn't have mass appeal.

Yeah, sure.

Eve is NOT done right from the perspective of mass appeal. But NOT because of its PvP structure and depth.

Eve isn't popular because it's contort, counterintuitive, impersonal, filled with UI noise, heavily spreadsheet based, slow, point&click, the opposite of visceral and direct, hard to get into and you can continue the list.

And it surely lacks the polish of WoW.

[HRose]

Seems to me that RvR engages you emotionally to a much greater degree than PvE does.  And what creates an emotional response encourages a strong connection.

This from something I wrote recently:

in WoW there's a lot of activity at the endgame in the raiding guilds, but the way this content was developed "segmented" the community a lot. There can be from ten to twenty raiding guilds or more, each with its own little world and ecosystem. These guilds rarely communicate between each other and, in a general sense, there's no real community or identity on a server. There isn't anything that you achieve as a whole or truly communal objectives. So the perspective of "success" or the maximum achievement is always personal and within the bounds of each guild. Outside a guild people simply ignore each other. They are phantoms. There's nothing that really connect the players in a "world". And the more you move toward the endgame the more your playtime will be focused on instanced content. The more your "footprint" loses consistence. More and more vaporous.

DAoC from this perspective was really different and *felt* different. You started as a phantom and slowly became tangible. That's the reason why my memories from that game will remain stronger. The idea of the three realms at war is a very strong one and what everyone was expecting from WoW's PvP and was deluded when instead we found just gameplay modes ripped straight from first person shooters with very little involvement and motivation. DAoC felt different because it gave truly communal objectives that were shared between all players. There was a community because we shared the world and we played always together in the same zones. The "war" was a context shared by everyone and where everyone could participate. Your own story, or the few hours you had available during an evening to play, weren't just a personal experience that is relevant solely to you and your guildmates. Instead the RvR zones were a real battlefield, and every other player was playing a part in your game. Participation.

[eldaec]

SB or EVE done right (arguably EVE *is* EVE done right) wouldn't have mass appeal.

Yeah, sure.

Eve is NOT done right from the perspective of mass appeal. But NOT because of its PvP structure and depth.

Eve isn't popular because it's contort, counterintuitive, impersonal, filled with UI noise, heavily spreadsheet based, slow, point&click, the opposite of visceral and direct, hard to get into and you can continue the list.

And it surely lacks the polish of WoW.

EVE is done right from the perspective of EVE.

It set out to capture a specific market, on a specific budget and did exactly that more successfully than any of it's competition.

EVE done right is not a mass market product.

And I maybe I played it later than some here, but I don't really know what is supposed to be wrong with its UI.

[Johny Cee]

On closed communication:

1.  The benefits to closed communication are more than just sanitizing the trash-talking, although that effect is plenty.  I've never understood,  as a society,  why we find some forms of trash-talking acceptable and part of everyday life and other kinds socially unacceptable/bannable. 

2.  There are huge benefits to realm cohesiveness and acceptance when you turn off the communications:  it helps to unite everyone on your side when you turn off the potential for betrayal.

In DAoC,  even the PvE nerds or massively time-starved would rush out to defend the relics (first few years, at least) if a relic raid was announced.  Even the leet groups would volunteer to go out and ninja a couple keeps to get relic guards back online.

3.  Lack of communication (and different character models) helps to depersonalize the whole conflict, as well.  This makes the PvP more acceptable to your empathic types,  who don't normally go in for competitive gameplay,  but are sold on united faction/realm goals.

[Venkman]

The UI is fine. For Eve :) But the overall user experience is something players adapt to based on their interest in the concept of Eve. It's not particularly welcoming to newbies who'd rather understand the game a bit more quickly.

And I'm not really talking just about the layout of icons and text. It's more holistic than that. Driving a ship is unintuitive. Managing the equipment and knowing what's better/worse isn't. How to get money isn't. How to grow your character isn't. That's fine, for a socioeconomic sim, but is one of the many things holding it back from wider appeal.

[LK]

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP.

An important point, but I thought you can do this in WoW too? I've been 60 for a year and a half though. It's been a long time since I gained any XP at all, so can't tell.

Registered just to be able to answer this question!

You used to be able to turn in Battleground tokens for experience, but they've since been removed, so you can't level up via PvP.  There are actually a group of players that appreciate being unable to level your characters while PvPing.  I have a friend who keeps a character specifically at Lv. 29 and runs battlegrounds at that level, because to him and the people he plays with, the game feels much more balanced in the area.  Hence why certain blues at that level can sell for a good amount of gold.

[Strazos]

That "balance" all depends on your class of choice.

[Falconeer]

You can level up on PvP in EQ2. Enemies, as in "Players from the opposing alignment" are treated almost exactly as mobs. They have a /con color to you... they drop some money and a treasure chest with one random (non rare) item from their backpack when they are killed, and most important of it all, they give XP.
Actually, you can say a lot of bad things about EQ2 PvP (zone-hopping being the worst of it all), but they really came up with a good and solid "meaningless" open ground PvP.

[Shapechanger]

I think people must realize that you can actually LEVEL a character in WHO through PVP.

An important point, but I thought you can do this in WoW too? I've been 60 for a year and a half though. It's been a long time since I gained any XP at all, so can't tell.

Registered just to be able to answer this question!

You used to be able to turn in Battleground tokens for experience, but they've since been removed, so you can't level up via PvP.  There are actually a group of players that appreciate being unable to level your characters while PvPing.  I have a friend who keeps a character specifically at Lv. 29 and runs battlegrounds at that level, because to him and the people he plays with, the game feels much more balanced in the area.  Hence why certain blues at that level can sell for a good amount of gold.

You know, that blows ass.  Because those BG twinks didn't have to turn in tokens for exp if they didn't want to - what the hell are they going to do with faction anyways?

It was nice to level up by PvP.  It took ages, but it was the only way I would level.

[Typhon]

Something I've been asking myself lately that I haven't been able to answer is this: are the battlegrounds (wow, in this context) fun because they have predefined objectives and win/loss criteria (which limits the amount of time required by a particular battleground), or are they fun because they focus players into one area?

DAOC battlegrounds had no predefined objective or win/loss criteria, but they were a hell of a lot of fun (with enough population).  The fact that there were no predefined win/loss/re-queue didn't seem to detract from that, but giving the battles some point might have made them more entertaining.

I'm thinking of a design where the success criteria for a whole zone (one of many in a server-wide land war who's ultimate goal is to sack the enemy capital) is to pour enough people into the zone to overcome the main castle(s) zone defenses (PC + NPC).  The trick is that the both the defending/attacking sides can only resupply with troops if passages to the zone remain open.  The passages are contested via keeps/urban/maze/open field battle, which spawn randomly as instances (which force GvG battles).  The attacking/defending forces must therefore split their forces into groups targeting a number of keeps, and the main force which will target the non-instanced zone castle(s).  This allows a war of attrition to occur in the non-instanced zone (if passages aren't kept open), while allowing for more balanced GvG action within the instances, hopefully providing a decent chance for a nice mix of each type of combat for everyone.

Not sure any of that made sense to anyone but myself.

[Sairon]

First of to comment on WoW PvP server ratio, I bet you that the VAST majority of their playerbase didn't even know what PvP meant when they picked a server. If it instead would've said "On this server players from the other team can gank you when you're questing" on one kind, and "On this server you decide yourself if you want to be able to get ganked", I can promise you that most people would've picked the later alternative. If there was something you saw people bitch about when I played, it was how they got killed when minding their own business.

The other part is about the balance between direct kills and objectives. In the idea I wrote earlier on this thread I proposed a bounty system where players gain bounty points from direct kills. But before these points can be used toward whatever is the PvP progression, the players need to complete objectives. So an objective works like a trigger that convert "x" bounty points in your pool into "real" PvP progression.

I think that would just be a nuisance. I'm guessing you're meaning PvP objectives, such as capturing a tower or whatever. How do you balance that vs the amount of bounty points people get? Lets say I'm really good at killing other players, that's what I like to do. So now I have a truckload of bounty points to convert, but there's not enough objectives to complete. If it's some kind of repetitive task which can be performed how many times you want, like lets say "clear out the rats from our ammo depot", then I don't think people who wants to PvP really are intrested in that. If it's a PvP task you'd have problems supplying meaningful objectives to complete.

[Venkman]

Something I've been asking myself lately that I haven't been able to answer is this: are the battlegrounds (wow, in this context) fun because they have predefined objectives and win/loss criteria (which limits the amount of time required by a particular battleground), or are they fun because they focus players into one area?

I think it's the former. There's a clear win condition to bring the whole event to resolution (even if Alliance on my battlegroup seem to ignore that in Arathi and Warsong and instead go for the straight grind). That's why I consider it sport.

Because those BG twinks didn't have to turn in tokens for exp if they didn't want to - what the hell are they going to do with faction anyways?

You used to need Faction to unlock the tiers of purchaseable goods. It's a shame they tossed the ability to gain XP from turn-ins (thanks Lorekeeper, and welcome!) along with the need to unlock tiers. But I imagine they don't think people will be wasting much time in the current BGs come 1/16. Heck, even I plan to ditch the whole thing altogether until I hit 70, hoping by then they'll have more than 3 gimped BGs and the Arena thing for the harder core set.

[Cheddar]

There is a HUGE contingent who WANT PvP to equal no XP game.  For them its the fun of playing amongst friends and whatnot against others that is fun, on an equal setting.  Its a meta game in and of itself.

[Venkman]

There's a contingent, yes. But are they that big in MMORPGs? I don't know that I'd agree.

The diku-inspired games are about advancement of some kind, some way of strengthening one's relationship with the game world. Even the sport of BGs is more than just people dinking around for a few minutes. That can attract a player. It's the longterm reward that keeps them though, both in compelling them to return to a repeatable activity, and to see them through the rough spots (like constant losses).

This is why I think BGs have more in common with PvE Raid mentality than any analagous experience to be found in an FPS or RTS game. The instantiation of a PvP match doesn't bother people. The lack of real long lasting world impact doesn't bother most gamers either. But if you took out the persistent reward they could achieve, then forget it being popular. Sure, a niche would stick with it, but probably not enough of a percentage of players to justify continuing development dollars towards. All the work Blizzard has done with BGs and PvP and honor rewards is based on their belief that this stuff matters to lots and lots of players.

Right now nobody's BGing for XP. But they ARE BGing for honor points for gear and/or Faction (not sure there's any use for Faction currently). And we'll likely see this activity take a nosedive come the expac launch, while people check out more "world" PvP and grind up to 70 and the new different system awating them there.