i hope there's assassination jobs from other vanarch encase i have to deflect from a scumbucket vanarch. everytime he/she dies from a assassination contract they loose points. hah!

assassination lynch mobs watchout!

Blue Hole studio also said that they are adding castle sieges at some point.

This is the spiritual successor of Lineage 2.

Originally posted by bestiacorpus

Just like any other mmorpg with guilds/clan/agency/organization and rank system, the people who think they are entitled to the same perks of those who dedicate themselves to the game in extremes will cry and cry and cry until the others get infected with their mediocre way of life. Thus, putting the game developers, in fear of losing possible income to continuosly support their game, in a bind.  Do they bend over and nerf their game to a lesser quality to keep earning money or do they hold their ground?  Bending over will make them no different from the other companies who sacrificed quality over quantity. 

That's the extent of it, unfortunately.

The moment a MMO developer mentions "oh, we're gearing this game to be accessible to both casual and hardcore gamers by implementing content for both", they're pretty much all but locked themselves into that path.

Because as soon as casual players find that there's some content in the game that is not "accessible enough" to them because it's designed for the more hardcore players (even though the developers said there would be), they will immediately start crying "foul!", about how unfair it is that there's content they can't do, how the hardcores are being catered to, how they're being punished for not having as much time.. They start demanding the content be made more casual or they and everyone they know will quit the game and it will fail... and it continues on.

In most cases, the developer does finally cave in (after enough complaining from enough people) and tone down the content... basically eliminating any hope of the game "catering to hardcores and casuals", and favoring the casuals almost entirely.

Developers need to choose their niche, stick to that niche, and be unapologetic about it. If you say "we're going to have content for both casual and hardcore", then mean it... and stick to it. When the more casual players invariably start crying "foul!", the developer needs to say, "We stated from the very beginning this game would cater to both playstyles. Casuals have plenty of content made for them to partake in. Likewise, the more "hardcore" players with more time to dedicate to more involved tasks and events have content made for them. We said that's what we were going to do, and that's what we are doing".

And that's it.

Because developers keep "bending over" (as it's been put) and caving in to appease the entitled whines of many (but by no means, all) in the "casual crowd", we keep ending up with the same banal, soul-less, generic and derivative tripe being released over and over.

Identify a niche, target that niche, focus on it like a laser and tune out the complaints of those who are "offended" because you're not catering specifically to them. Companies may not get "millions of players" this way... but frankly, even the ones who *are* going the "casual friendly" route aren't hitting those numbers either.

Originally posted by odinsrath

Originally posted by anastaia

I really am tired of this Hardcore Vs Casual BS. Really, If you do not have the time to rule then why the hell would anyone elect you. Casual players would have no place in the politics of a game they are not devoteing alot of time to. Would you like your state governor to be gone 4 days out of the week becuse he could not devote the time to be there? Fuck casual.

 

+1 gtfo and go play your theampark mmo ..leave the real gameplaying to the vets at heart and play that mmorpg for a sence of acomplishment...not for a couple of hours here n there

 

+1 Agreed, I'm a casual mmo player and even I know I wouldn't be able to manage a political system. Leave it to the hardcore, the ones who work hard for it, are on for hours, and it'd still be awesome and interesting for the casual's to vote!

Originally posted by anastaia

I really am tired of this Hardcore Vs Casual . Really, If you do not have the time to rule then why the hell would anyone elect you. Casual players would have no place in the politics of a game they are not devoteing alot of time to. Would you like your state governor to be gone 4 days out of the week becuse he could not devote the time to be there?

[Mod Edit]

I totaly agree. I am a pretty casual player myself, and I wouldn't want to go anywhere near a leadership role of this type. Sounds like too much work for me.

I'm sick and tired of casual players crying about not being able to do EVERYTHING in an MMO because they "don't have time" and they should be catered to 24/7 so everyone can get a trophy. The political system should be something to keep hardcore player intrested, while other features like housing 10 man pug raids, PQs and welfare epics to keep them entertainined. If they want to be part of the political system and run things then they should be active or band together to get political power like they have to in EvE. 

What I don't like from the article is the fact that you can do epic quest to get a PvP political spot. WTF? PvE for a PvP reward how does that make sense? Other than that, the system is instresting and I had thoughts of a similar functioning system, but mine would have be more PvP driven. Hopefully this will work out and not become just a token "fun" reward that has no meaning because nearly everyone can get into it. 

Originally posted by mmorpgbro

Blue Hole studio also said that they are adding castle sieges at some point.

 

This is the spiritual successor of Lineage 2.

Pretty sure ArchAge is the spirtual successor to L2 since its being developed by the lead dev of L2

It is encouraging that this is not set in stone yet, and that they are concidering dropping it if not found to be fun. Second guessing before release, and not after? I think they're breaking industry standards here. Great potential for fun with the pol. system, but could easily reak. On a side note, I am very eager to try Tera"s combat, but  hate the art style of  creatures/bams. Maybe I'll enjoy kiling them all the more, we'll see.

Originally posted by anastaia

I really am tired of this Hardcore Vs Casual . Really, If you do not have the time to rule then why the hell would anyone elect you. Casual players would have no place in the politics of a game they are not devoteing alot of time to. Would you like your state governor to be gone 4 days out of the week becuse he could not devote the time to be there?

[Mod Edit]

 

I hate to break it to you, but RL politicians aren't in their office every day either. So ya might want to rethink your point.

It doesn't matter the play-style, ALL players should have a fair chance at any feature in any game, period.

Well, that will be one game I wont play. I really dont need the top douchebag from the guild of douchebags mess with my gametime. Throwing other players in jail? That just asks for abuse. Some guildleaders are already pompous bastards who think they have more rights then the rest. And since when is politics fun? Running a campaign? Lol.

Originally posted by Czanrei

Originally posted by anastaia

I really am tired of this Hardcore Vs Casual . Really, If you do not have the time to rule then why the hell would anyone elect you. Casual players would have no place in the politics of a game they are not devoteing alot of time to. Would you like your state governor to be gone 4 days out of the week becuse he could not devote the time to be there?

[Mod Edit]

 

I hate to break it to you, but RL politicians aren't in their office every day either. So ya might want to rethink your point.

It doesn't matter the play-style, ALL players should have a fair chance at any feature in any game, period.

 

They have a chance.

But who will vote for a casual that logs in 30 minutes a day?

This game is more and more reaching my top list.

It looks like it's a real WOW killer

I honestly appreciate their wanting to "think outside the box" and perhaps even attempt to revolutionize what we consider common in mmorpgs but I have a few issues with this system all around. 

1. Such a system would be best implemented in guilds. Currently, the idea itself is self serving with many loop holes. This current system alienates most of the players and doesn't really give a sense of community or a true motivation for either personal or group aspirations. This is a big system that they plan on implementing to their game that will only benefit or even motivate a very select few. It doesn't change the game much or even motivates the majority of players to action. You are almost virtually voting for your "moderator" of choice for 3 weeks.

2. If this system was refined and made excursively for guilds, it would make a lot more sense, motivate players to "want" to vote, aspire to be leaders and would encourage a real community sense as the system could be more beneficial to all players involved. Some ideas would include:

A. Guild Property - The commander gets a plot of land where he can expand his guild territory by purchasing upgrades or buildings based upon his/her reputation/leadership points. 

B. Guild Auction House - Imagine items being auctioned excursively to guild members. You create your own economy within your guild environment. Guild auction House is a building that can be built on your guild property.

C. Guild events and quests - The commander of the guild can assign certain quests and events that earn guild achievement points to members who participate. He can also add gold rewards for completing these missions. *Gold will be extracted from guild bank and rewarded to members accordingly.

D. Guild Politics - All members vote for players who have specific roles within the guild such as:

a1. Treasury Accountant (Secretary of Treasury) - This player manages the guild's funds, makes available the gold limit for mission rewards, mods the auction house and such. He/she also raises or decreases the tax for guild members.

a2. Governor - This player decides who gets thrown in prison (temporary or permanent bans to the guild). This player is the sheriff of the guild and mods the guild chat, takes complaints from other guild members etc.

a3. Chief Officers - These can be up to 4 ranked officers based upon their tallied votes. The highest rank officer leads missions, raids, plans and organizes activities.

a4. Commander and Chief - Is the guild leader. He sets the rank names. He decides how often the guild votes for new administration. He may even select an option to vote for the next commander and chief. If your guild setting is set to  "democracy" this means that all guild members have the power to elect their leaders through voting even to their commander and chief. If the guild settings are set to "bureaucracy" then rankings are automatically distributed based upon specific qualifications and can be hand altered by the commander in chief if he/she believes that a member isn't operating to their fullest potential. "Parliament" could be an option where the commander and chief elects members of his administration but all chief officers must be voted in. Your guild settings once selected is permanent and can only be altered by applying either a high fee or tax. This way, players can decide to join your guild based upon how it is being managed (some what like a country).

a5. Collecting tax - The guild requires tax from all members and automatically collects the specified tax from it's members each week. If the amount can not be extracted from a guild member, he goes into default and it will appear in the account's records. From there, he can report this to the Governor for a ban request. The accountant can increase or decrease the tax at any time but all members are alerted automatically each time the tax is changed.

3. So far the idea of global politics sounds very, very risky and doesn't seem to encourage a sense of cooperation or even motivation to achieve anything as the global goals seem almost impossible to obtain. The only real perk you are giving the majority of players is the right to vote and with the current system I don't see why anyone would even care to want to vote. In a guild environment, this idea makes a lot more sense.

Tera is failing in its homeland and what they do they add content that will be accesible only for few top PvPers and few influential guildleaders, lol gg ... Maybe it will be interesting for china, becouse finaly they will have oportunity to see how free election works, but for me, fortunatly, i dont have to pay any subscriprion to go to election nor i see it as viable content in mmo that is worth to pay for.

Originally posted by mmorpgbro

Blue Hole studio also said that they are adding castle sieges at some point.

 

This is the spiritual successor of Lineage 2.

 

 TERA was designed off the game design code for lineage 3, there were lawsuits over it, devs got mad, took the code and sold it to Blue Hole.

As a long time Lineage 2 player I just can't seem to figure out what all the hype is about. I prefer Lineage 2's way of dealing with politics. Might is Right. It just works much better that way in games especially revolving around combat.

I would be a evil dictator to some peeps if they really did piss me off. The game is crafted around community function, so ofc the hardcore players will be on top long before the rest. As for myself, I work, I go out and have fun, but I still game for 9+h daily. I don't have plans to live inside a fantasy world, I have plans to have fun when I'm bored out of my mind on my downtime. As for buying and playing this game, nothing attracted me to it. I'm really hoping for Archage actually, and if that dooms my world, I get to fall back on the crack of mmog at GW2. And if that fails, I'll just go ahead and play some mmofps til they fix 'em.

Originally posted by maccajnr

This game is more and more reaching my top list.

It looks like it's a real WOW killer

This game is strictly another 2nd tier game atm, Blizzard is not going to worry about this game one iota.  Not to say it won't be fun to play, but if you have not been keeping current with this game, it has already lost a good portion of it's audience on the asian side of the pond.  It suffers from lack of content.

Originally posted by heerobya

Originally posted by Reianor

There's an important point about games. If a player dislikes his situation he will soon leave. This obvious thing is why all the MMOs are so "restrained" when it comes to Exclusive content. Be it a super-duper-dragon-slayer +255, a ruleing position or ability to turn people into frogs permanently. The "recieving end" of any such feature should be judged carefuly, because THAT is the most important part in any MMO element's design. And current presentation of this feature suggests that the most important part hasn't been worked out yet.



Heh, good luck with that...

 

 Or, this +1134893847163711 amazing, amazing post.

This is why this system will likely fail, and be a major drag on an otherwise "could be good" game.

Exactly, the "recipients" of this system have to be able to mitigate the negative effects of this system, such as being able to reside in a "neutral" zone that insulates them from the effects of bad leadership or what not or they'll just go play elsewhere.

EVE manages to accomplish this with the concept of High Sec space, if TERA doesn't have an equivalent mechanic in place this political system will just become a burden on the average, casual player and they'll just leave.

And what all the folks here saying "F-Casuals" don't seem to realize is that without the casual player, you'll have no game to speak of, see DF for a great example.