Obviously Mythical

[HRose]

This is a copy of the post I wrote at Q23, I'd like comments on it. If you don't want the crosspost delete it.
--

The title (and part of the thread) must be taken with some sense of humor.

Nearly four months ago I wrote various posts on a long thread to discuss the new RvR expansion and a few critical aspects of the game, both inside and outside it. Most of them also pointed and analyzed the last year. After four months Mythic is smart enough to discover the same issues:

This is about the gap between new and old players:

The point is that it was a bad idea from the start and I still think it damaged the game instead of improving it. It's what happens everywhere. Instead of solving the problem they solve the consequence of the problem. Levelling is unfun? Ok, we cut that part. Not solving it (and increasing the gap between a new player and the experienced one).

Instead of pushing experienced players toward the new ones, they are pushing them apart (again). /level 20 was the same. It had just the result of producing newbies alone in their condition, instead of letting the experienced one to help them, in particular during the earlier levels. And DAoC is still one of the less newbie-friendly games around.

Mythic realizes (?):

Finally, in any MMO, eventually there comes a time when most of the players online are experienced players and are playing characters that are mid or advanced level. This makes it much harder and tedious for a new player (or an experienced player leveling a new character) to advance their character in levels, as they cannot find other players to group with or to help them.

Now that Camelot is nearly three years old, it is becoming harder and harder for low-level players to find groups, which results in long leveling times and frustration.

Alternate advancement:

Even here there's the obvious example that they need *systems* to solve the problems and not just play with the ruleset. Instead of cutting one part of the level grind they should work toward making it optional. For example by offering alternated ways to advance, like the battlegrounds.

A month later Mythic introduced battlegrounds from level 1 to 44.

And the population imbalances.
HRose:

The hard part is the population umbalance, since you cannot force the players to go where you need them. Other solutions are more complex and less trivial and it's about the tactical gameplay you offer. Mythic has done a little, little step in this direction with "New Frontier".

Mythic:

We have made some changes in the game over the last few months to try to alleviate the problem where one Realm dominates a server. So far, these additions have not made enough of a difference

HRose:

The idea here is to add "the fun" and let small groups of players to interfere without the need of a huge zerg (or many zergs). The way to allow this is to affect how the keep upgrades work. A big realm should be weaker the more it will expand. The more you go further the more you'll loose in defence because the line grows longer and weaker.

Mythic:

To alleviate the situation where one Realm can dominate in RvR by taking all or most of the keeps and Relics, we plan to create a system where the more "control" one Realm has on the RvR battlefield, the harder it is for them to hold on to keeps and Relics.

HRose:

My idea is to create a general "pool" for the keep's upgrades. Like a "cap". The *less* keeps you own the more you can enhance them. This gives the possibility to an underpopulated realm to build a tight and strong headquarter, very hard to take over even in the worst, most unbalanced solution.

Mythic:

Keep upgrade times will scale down based on the number of keeps a Realm controls. This is already in the game, but we are making it so if a Realm controls only 1 or two keeps, they get extremely fast upgrade times, and if a Realm is totally dominating (as in they control over 15 keeps), then their upgrade times will be longer.

HRose:

I really believe that the only way to address the population unbalance is to make the gameplay for them *more interesting*. Transforming a problem in a strength.

Mythic:

As all of you know, there are Realm balance problems on some servers, where one Realm simply has more active players - an advantage that leads them to dominate the RvR battlefield. There is also a situation on some servers where one Realm dominates the RvR battlefield, even though they don't physically have greater numbers. Taken to the extreme, this situation results in such demoralized opponents that the other Realms see no purpose in continuing to fight.

There's a lot more but the other posts I wrote back in February are all lost. I still think that despite Mythic "copied" (late) my ideas, the implementation is still sub-par compared to what I wrote (you can go check). In particular when they tried to solve the "zerg rush" adding more timesinks (res sickness). My solution works better and makes the game more fun. DAoC's players with the patience to read can confirm. And even the population imbalances reported above. Solved once again with a time-based gameplay (Mythic designers aren't able to think anything else, it seems: timesinks, time penalites and time bonuses).

So, not only they copy, but they do it badly. :D

Now. What should I have to learn from this terribly stimulating and fascinating genre when I'm able to analize and anticipate the results, the solutions, the reactions and the consequent mistakes? What if everything becomes so obvious?

Well, this time is Mythic to answer:

So, what do these facts have to do with this letter? Plenty! No design and testing process for a game system as complicated as New Frontiers, let alone DAoC, can be completed without errors. After all, even with the heaviest and most exhaustive testing on Pendragon to date, there is nothing like a quarter of a million subscribers actually playing the game LIVE worldwide to find its flaws.

My critique goes on, despite I'm starting to feel like there's not much left to learn and discover.

[Soukyan]

Are you trying to say that Mythic is taking all of your ideas and adding them to their game?

[eldaec]

Bah. This had got half way down the front page.

[Soukyan]

Bah. This had got half way down the front page.

Sorry. I was just curious to see if he had the notion that he was the first and/or only to ever come up with any of those ideas. ;)

[Hanzii]

Well, we know Lum reads Quarter to Three and is the de facto leader at Mythic an abviously envious of all Hroses unique mmog ideas, so...

By the way, I tried "taking the title of the thread with a sense of humor" and it didn't work.

[HRose]

No, you didn't get the sense of the thread. Its focus on myself is just an excuse. The sense comes from the last quote.

Mythic is proud of the fact that with New Frontier they have opened completely the design stage to receive and include the feedback of the players. But the problems arrived only when the whole thing went live and tested by the big pubilc.

You don't see that this is laughable? I was already predicting critical points from the last year and things went exactly how I said. It's not important if it's HRose, or someone else or the whole community. What is important is that Mythic wasn't able to understand that nor solve it.

If you have the patience to read my solutions about the "zerg rush" and the population imbalances, you'll also see that my ideas work better than what Mythic is doing. So, once again, is not important to *who* the ideas belong. What is important is that Mythic "discovered" the flaws months later. And they are still unable to address them.

Perhaps is HRose to be able to do a better work, or perhaps just everyone, it seems.

P.S.
If you want to take the challenge. Go to read those two solution about those problems. Tell me why they suck and provide better ones, it could be interesting to discuss the *merit* of the issue.

[Shockeye]

It's not important if it's HRose, or someone else or the whole community.

How Rickey Henderson of you.

[Furiously]

It's not important if it's HRose, or someone else or the whole community.

How Rickey Henderson of you.

How Madame Cleo

[HRose]

/me doesn't understand american culture references :)

[Shockeye]

/me doesn't understand american culture references :)

"Rickey Be Rickey" Henderson is a baseball player who likes to refer to himself in the third person. I think he also stole a base or two.

[Signe]

/me doesn't understand american culture references :)

It's rude to emote at people unless it's pervy.  Take it to the Yahoo chatooms.  Maybe you'll get lucky.   As for the Ricky Henderson reference, I didn't understand it either.  I think we're very much alike, HRose.  Hopefully, that will shame you into going away.

About your post... I can't be arsed to read it all.  I am missing valuable Big Brother Live Feed time.  Please, someone kill me now.

[HRose]

Hopefully, that will shame you into going away.

No. :)

[Shockeye]

I am missing valuable Big Brother Live Feed time.  Please, someone kill me now.

Any more recent transsexual breast licking?

[Signe]

Oh god, no, fuck me blind.  I can't get in.  They revealed the exciting DNA twist and a gazillion people are trying to log on.  I have the shivers.  I want to puke.  This must be what drug addicts go through when they quit cold turkey.

[SirBruce]

Why can't people just accept transsexuals for whatever their current gender is?  God people are so uptight.

Bruce

[Ironwood]

Why can't people just accept transsexuals for whatever their current gender is?  God people are so uptight.

Bruce

As the famous Klingon philospher Commander Kruge once said :

"Because you wish it."

[Signe]

Actually, my best friend is a gay, mistanthropic Dutch man and the finest programmer I've ever met.  He's not a transsexual, but he's always fancied a pair of brown, leather trousers.  

I must go scrub the Big Brother stink off of me now.

[Khaldun]

Well, er, back to the initial subject, I've puzzled about this a bit myself, because if you're a regular reader of a particular game's official or semi-official forums, you tend to see that there's the huge "noise" part of the ratio--various and sundry d00dish submorons who are struggling to figure out how to play the game and yet summon the brainpower to control their autonomic bodily functions in the meantime. But you also tend to pretty quickly identify the posters who carry the "signal" and to follow their thinking closely.

And if you stick with the signal, you find that the players usually have a better working understanding of the game's design and functioning than the developers appear to, and more importantly, can accurately predict the likely negative consequences of proposed changes, including the magnitude of the possible problems, and ways to avoid or ameliorate those problems before they ever get started.

SWG's forums, even in the early chaos or back into Beta, had a number of posters who zeroed in with a bullet on some of the problems ahead, or warned the devs not to do some of the things they've done. The correspondents have done the same from the moment that system was created.

One of the things that led me to drop out of DAOC after playing for about a year from launch was the persistent inability of the devs to undestand what many of us were trying to tell them about the problem that the PvE con system posed in PvP, that a system designed to keep players from fighting way above their level in PvE was making it possible for a single player to kill a zerg horde of other players who were more than 5 levels below him. It's not just that the devs ignored this point, but worse, about six months in, they actively mocked the concern. And then what? Well, they came in another six months down the road  and said, "Well, we've gathered the data and noticed there's a problem: the con system is not working right in PvP."

I think this is a phenomenon that requires some thinking about. Is it just that it's too hard from a developer standpoint to figure out which savvy players just have the health of the game in mind, and which ones are trying to manipulate the devs into making a change that benefits their class or guild or realm? Is it that the devs are really too busy just sticking their fingers in the dike to stop and listen in a meaningful way? Is it contempt for the players? Is it a public relations problem, that the devs simply don't want to admit that the insight of players are better than their own and end up being the ones implemented?  Stupidity? Pride? Bad communication?

I tend to think the most important factor is the first one, that the devs in most games can't sort out the difference between players who are just trying to see the big picture and players who may have a nefariously selfish agenda, who are trying to nerf others or power up themselves. And I agree that can be tough, sometimes. It's also not the case that players *always* see what's coming--every proposed change attracts a Chicken Little squad that sees disaster in everything. More to the point, every change is like a change in the law out here in the real world: many aren't so much a case of all bad or all good, but about shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, or choosing a different group of players to stick it to than the ones previously getting smacked by the design. But often enough, you find there's a pretty substantial fraction of players who knew well in advance that the dumbest design mistakes were going to turn out the way that they did.

[HaemishM]

All I can manage to come up with on this thread is....

VIKLAS!

Oh and transsexuals make me cringe.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

I want to point out that 50% of HRose's article came from articles I wrote for lumthemad.net and thus, we come full circle.


Also, if God hates trans-sexuals, why can't we?


Also-also, the minute Bruce replies, this thread will probably be locked.

[schild]

I want to point out that 50% of HRose's article came from articles I wrote for lumthemad.net and thus, we come full circle.

Tons of people have said this same shit. We don't need to see anyone here taking claim to obvious shit that needs to be fixed in MMOGs.

Also, if God hates trans-sexuals, why can't we?

Political Conversation is tolerated. Religious conversation is just asking for a flame war. Hate transexuals because they are indecisive freaks who think they are a different sex and probably had unspeakable acts performed upon them in some past lifetime. Not because God hates them. In other words:

NO.

As for Bruce replying, I don't think he's dumb enough to take the obvious bait on this one. Could be wrong though.

[HaemishM]

As for Bruce replying, I don't think he's dumb enough to take the obvious bait on this one. Could be wrong though.

No, you have to put some REAL obvious bait out there, like all furries are total gibbering malfunctioning sexual deviants.

[Shockeye]

No, you have to put some REAL obvious bait out there, like all furries are total gibbering malfunctioning sexual deviants.

Speaking of furries...

Thank god Tigger was aquitted.

[HaemishM]

She was asking for it.

[Shockeye]

She was asking for it.

Isn't that Kobe's defense?

[HaemishM]

Brother was framed, y0.

And to un-derail a completely silly derail...

I've been playing DAoC, and though I am not high enough level to really get into RVR, I will give you two completely anecdotal bits of "evidence" to suggest that you think the problems are greater than they are.

1) I'm having fun in the battlegrounds RVR - this pretty much trumps all from my perspective, but I'll go further.
2) Since the New Frontiers expansion has been released, Albion has had all of the relics (they got them all shortly after I started again). But in the last few days, Albion's been taking the piss, losing one fort in its homeland to both Midgard and Hibernia. Midgard has also shown up more lately, whereas they were absent from most RVR when I first got involved in it. Now, Hib and Mid have taken forts depsite not having the relics, so they must be doing something right.

[HRose]

I want to point out that 50% of HRose's article came from articles I wrote for lumthemad.net and thus, we come full circle.

I actually didn't read them. I joined a month before it closed. And that's what I mean. It doesn't matter the source, it's just an unneeded proof of suckage.

I was just figuring out if Mythic needs my attention or not. And not if HRose needs Mythic's attention. You see the point?

It's Mythic to suck. Not HRose to be a genius.

[Righ]

These are all my ideas, and you are violating intellectual property laws by copying them.

[Soukyan]

Brother was framed, y0.

And to un-derail a completely silly derail...

I've been playing DAoC, and though I am not high enough level to really get into RVR, I will give you two completely anecdotal bits of "evidence" to suggest that you think the problems are greater than they are.

1) I'm having fun in the battlegrounds RVR - this pretty much trumps all from my perspective, but I'll go further.
2) Since the New Frontiers expansion has been released, Albion has had all of the relics (they got them all shortly after I started again). But in the last few days, Albion's been taking the piss, losing one fort in its homeland to both Midgard and Hibernia. Midgard has also shown up more lately, whereas they were absent from most RVR when I first got involved in it. Now, Hib and Mid have taken forts depsite not having the relics, so they must be doing something right.

Hmm... on 12 out of 16 servers, Albion has all 6 relics. A few days ago, that was 16 out of 16. Perhaps things will begin balancing out again, but I doubt it. Albion is hands down the most popular choice of realm for multiple reasons. Shame about that. Realm wars could be better balanced if more folks played the other two realms.

[Shockeye]

Hmm... on 12 out of 16 servers, Albion has all 6 relics. A few days ago, that was 16 out of 16. Perhaps things will begin balancing out again, but I doubt it. Albion is hands down the most popular choice of realm for multiple reasons. Shame about that. Realm wars could be better balanced if more folks played the other two realms.

Who wants to be a dress-wearing pointy-eared freak?

I would hope being a drunk belligerent Viking is appealing enough in itself, but I guess not.

Albion has always been perceived to be the "strongest" realm so I'm not suprised more people gravitate towards that. Makes no nevermind to me, just gives me more targets in RVR.

[HaemishM]

Actually, in the early days, Midgard was perceived to be the strongest realm, and for a while (until they sort of fixed crowd control), Midgard WAS the strongest realm, hands down. Hibernia had a time in the sun, as well. It's cyclical.

Albion's lore (the whole King Arthur bit) is much more approachable than the other two realms, as well as being more READABLE. I mean, look at some of the names for Midgard, and figure that most of them can't be read correctly by anyone not a Norse scholar. Albion's classes are also the most easily approachable and understandable from the typical D&D fantasy mentality (with a few exceptions), especially if you come from EQ.

And the Hibernian landscape, music and character reminds me of a goddamn Irish Spring commercial. I could never play in Hibernia.

[Shockeye]

Actually, in the early days, Midgard was perceived to be the strongest realm, and for a while (until they sort of fixed crowd control), Midgard WAS the strongest realm, hands down. Hibernia had a time in the sun, as well. It's cyclical.

I'm not so sure about that. Until Clerics were fixed Albion had a distinct advantage over the other realms when it came to healers in battle.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

It's Mythic to suck. Not HRose to be a genius.

I was only teasing you, and that not very harsly.

[HaemishM]

Actually, in the early days, Midgard was perceived to be the strongest realm, and for a while (until they sort of fixed crowd control), Midgard WAS the strongest realm, hands down. Hibernia had a time in the sun, as well. It's cyclical.

I'm not so sure about that. Until Clerics were fixed Albion had a distinct advantage over the other realms when it came to healers in battle.

I wouldn't say that at all. For the first month or two (maybe longer), the Middies won time and again because their healing classes also happened to be their crowd control classes. And their crowd control was better. Since healers can get groups at any time, while CC casters were not wanted as much, their healers out-leveled Albion's CC casters. Result: Early RVR for Albion was STUNNED, MEZZED, Watch the rest of your group get killed one at a time until they got to you. Hibernia wasn't even in the building, because their magic was weak (at the time) and their highest dungeon was unitemized.

[Soukyan]

Actually, in the early days, Midgard was perceived to be the strongest realm...

Perceived.

And they still are perceived to be, but that was never the case, although I will concede that chain stunning was a problem back at release. The other reason why this perception is because Midgard has always had less playable classes than the other realms, thus each individual class has more utility and it is easier to get together a full functional group with less people so you have extra spots for extra utility of your choosing. Yada yada yada...