Originally posted by Ragana

Originally posted by Rocketeer

Sorry not buying it. PvE Servers are just as popular in WoW as PvP Servers, so its certainly not the open world pvp missing. Also Warhammer proved that focus on pvp != success. Furthermore they would totally have to butcher the balance between classes to be made pvp viable.

Please tell me you were not being serious with that statement.

Originally posted by Rocketeer

Originally posted by Ragana

Originally posted by Rocketeer

Sorry not buying it. PvE Servers are just as popular in WoW as PvP Servers, so its certainly not the open world pvp missing. Also Warhammer proved that focus on pvp != success. Furthermore they would totally have to butcher the balance between classes to be made pvp viable.

Please tell me you were not being serious with that statement.

 

Please tell me what your are talking about. There are several rather controversial points in my post.

You're working with a modern defenition of PvP. Originally we used it synonymously with "PK-legal," and it strictly referred to player-on-player action in a PvE game. The word "legal" was used because on many MUDs it had to be enforced by hand.

So it is really a misnomer to call Warhammer a PvP game. PK is essentially a banned activity in Warhammer, insofar as actions against players who are focused on PvE range between irrelevant and impossible. It's really no more a PvP game than Checkers or Blackjack. It is a competitive match game, with a half-interested swipe at PvE serving for a game lobby.

Turbine long ago solved the problem of non-disruptive world PvP with an opt-in system that involved a semi-permanent decision for your character. People who wanted nothing to do with it never became involved. Those who did could not enter into it lightly. Going PK in Asheron's Call was as serious a choice as we will likely ever make in an MMO.

Turbine could have done this in LotRO. They lied about its appropriateness to the source material. But why?

To have world PvP happening around you, even when - especially when - you're not involved, takes away from the main thing LotRO is selling, which is: You're not just some slob, you're the big hero. For just $9.99/mo* even you can experience the thrill of mattering to the world. Of being respected by someone - please God, anyone.

Games like LotRO are based around a carefully designed regimen of flattery, and this is utterly ruined if you allow people in the same space to contend with opponents who can think and plan, whose abilities haven't been painstakingly hamstringed by game designers so as to detract from the thrill of killing and killing and killing only enough to whet the player's appetite for more.

This is the central strategy for selling the dedicated PvE game. It is not an accident, and the people who rely on it are terrified of giving it up.

Originally posted by einexile

Turbine long ago solved the problem of non-disruptive world PvP with an opt-in system that involved a semi-permanent decision for your character. People who wanted nothing to do with it never became involved. Those who did could not enter into it lightly. Going PK in Asheron's Call was as serious a choice as we will likely ever make in an MMO.

Turbine could have done this in LotRO. They lied about its appropriateness to the source material. But why?

To have world PvP happening around you, even when - especially when - you're not involved, takes away from the main thing LotRO is selling, which is: You're not just some slob, you're the big hero. For just $9.99/mo* even you can experience the thrill of mattering to the world. Of being respected by someone - please God, anyone.

Games like LotRO are based around a carefully designed regimen of flattery, and this is utterly ruined if you allow people in the same space to contend with opponents who can think and plan, whose abilities haven't been painstakingly hamstringed by game designers so as to detract from the thrill of killing and killing and killing only enough to whet the player's appetite for more.

This is the central strategy for selling the dedicated PvE game. It is not an accident, and the people who rely on it are terrified of giving it up.

Oh please. I don't buy your explanation for a moment.

You can't have orcs invading the shire. Never happened in the time period of the story except at the end. you can't have orcs raiding lothlorien, same deal.

There's no lie here at all. The source material is out there for anyone who wants to see.

What does this have to do with orcs? I never said anything about loosing the Ettenmoors upon Eriador. I'm talking about brigands. I'm talking about just plain disagreeable people.

If you can go to the shire, the Blackwolds can manage it too. If the Blackwolds can attack me, you should be able to attack me also. Making it so players can opt out of this is standard MMO practice and need not disrupt anyone, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with lore. In fact there is nothing in Tolkien to suggest everyday adventurers are protected from one another by some artificial forcefield.

But you didn't address my premise at all, which is that flagging PK-legal is disallowed because it would make other players feel less heroic or less important.

I played WoW, EQ, EQ2, so on and so forth. LotRO just didn't bring anything new, and it kind of couldn't since everything before it was partly inspired by it's IP.

I didn't like it for a rather selfish reason, which I'll readily admit, their version of Middle-Earth was NOTHING like the one I built inside my head while reading the source material. I think that's the risk of 'huge IPs'. SWG is another game I can say had the same problem for me. TOR not so much since I don't really know much about that era so it all seems more open to interpretation.

Originally posted by einexile

What does this have to do with orcs? I never said anything about loosing the Ettenmoors upon Eriador. I'm talking about brigands. I'm talking about just plain disagreeable people.

If you can go to the shire, the Blackwolds can manage it too. If the Blackwolds can attack me, you should be able to attack me also. Making it so players can opt out of this is standard MMO practice and need not disrupt anyone, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with lore. In fact there is nothing in Tolkien to suggest everyday adventurers are protected from one another by some artificial forcefield.

But you didn't address my premise at all, which is that flagging PK-legal is disallowed because it would make other players feel less heroic or less important.

sorry, I was actually addressing this bit.

Turbine could have done this in LotRO. They lied about its appropriateness to the source material. But why?

The blackwolds are an extrapolation of what a mob would be. They don't fall into the story at all but my guess is that Turbine surmised that there must be brigands. But they can't change the game world. Neither can the orcs they sprinkle about.

Problem with lotro is that there IS an artificial force field protecting the areas. At least in the Lord of the Rings.

The shire is protected by elves and rangers, Lothlorien is protected by the magic of one of the rings. So is Elrond's establishment.

So that leaves the human areas. Gondor always deals with orcs but we aren't there yet. Rohan deals with saruman's orcs but we aren't there yet.

you essentially have small pockets where possible conflict can happen. But the mobs in lotro are passive. They don't take over the shire or lothlorien or raid Rivendell.

Players however can do that. That doesn't happen in the books. that's not the world we are playing in.

So the areas of the shire or rivendell or lothlorien are always going to be in tact. Which is what they should be. It's the threat of Saruman and Sauron that is the antagonist. Not some player named I0wnzu and his buddy Bloody.

Now granted, Turbine has done bending and I'm not one of those who is too fond of too much bending of the story. But that's my thing.

But having orcs march into the shire or lothlorien or rivendell and cause actual mayhem just didn't happen in the books. Was there turmoil? probably. It's a world even if it's a ficticious world so there must be areas that have issues. We do know that hobbits at some point in their history march to war, The Battle of Fornost. We do know that mirkwood was an elven area.

But in the time of the books everything has its equilibrium. That is what creates the drama because Sauron and Saruman threaten that equilibrium. In additon the elves are leaving and so that has possible ramifications with that delicate balance.

But minor bandits or orcs on the outskirts of certain areas, aren't going to change the course of the game world or the feeling of the game world in relation to what it is supposed to be.

Player orcs and bandits not letting people into bree or camping out the shire or killing everything in sight into Lothlorien does.

I thought the game was growing by leaps and bounds and was moving on to become really big. Then they added some really stupid shit and closed off a lot of content to people and basically really lost focus of their core players. They need to identify who they really want to appeal to and go balls to the wall on it. They keep asking a lot of community questions but I don't think they are liking the answers. Although, I think they will come around to do what the community wants.

Communitty to me always was the best thing going for this game <----------

and that sorta left after mirkwood was a flop

I kinda hope that  Warner Bros will put some money into this game to get better content then Trubine gave us.

btw: I still love this game! It has the best community ever and the world just look awesome imo!:)