50 dkp minus!

Originally posted by Terranah

And having to prearrange attacking a city doesn't sound right.  What about the element of surprise?!  You should be able to attack a city whenever you want. I guess I will have to schedule my life around the game unless I want my city and everything we've worked for to go poof.

Eh, let me get this straight. Attacking a city only during specific hours limited to 90 minutes leads to you having to schudule your life around the game?

I would think that scheduling attacks to specific timeframes that YOU can set allows you to do whatever you do in real life not having to worry that every minute someone could be attacking your city while you are at the beach.

Only thing i didn't like about that information was the limit on the number of player cities per server. How the hell is that going to work? Can a single player who makes a tiny guild 1st with about 10 people 'claim' a player city spot because he was first to get to it, then decide 'i'll keep this whole city to myself and my 9 friends'?! Or what happens if these guilds decide to take a few months off from the game, will they 'loose' the city place for good when they don't pay a monthly sub? Will the 'uber l337' guilds race to claim the city places on the servers in the first few minutes of the game being launched, thus leaving the casual gamer who might want to form a guild without ever being able to get a guild city? What if all the guilds who happen to claim these places have rediculous names or immature people in them or eventually become 'full' and decide not to recruit players who don't meet their criteria? Do the guilds loose their city place once its destroyed by an invading guild so the guilds waiting on the side lines who dont have a player city get a chance to make one?

That idea is seriously forcing players into either joining a guild they dont want to or not allowing them to get to do the full content of the game just because they 'didn't get there first'. Its almost as bad an idea as micro payments for MMO's!

Originally posted by theniffrig

---*snipped*---

That idea is seriously forcing players into either joining a guild they dont want to or not allowing them to get to do the full content of the game just because they 'didn't get there first'. Its almost as bad an idea as micro payments for MMO's!

*wild speculations and wrong-headed musings ahead*

With this system you do not just joining a guild anymore. You more or less pledge allegiance to a city-state, or country so you are able to build your home within the "secure" walled borders of the city. This is above the term of a normal guild as we know it from most other MMOs. It changes how you should look at guilds in AoC, at least as long as you allow yourself to be dragged into this kind of guild/gameplay. Personally I find this concept rather intriguing.

But it would also mean that the leading members of the guilds would have to rethink the concept on how their guild actually works. Perhaps it could work like the bourgeoisie worked in the middle ages rather than the close-knit brotherhood and clans we know from current MMO's.  Players that join the guild will be more burgers than guild members in a traditional sense. Whether they pay "taxes" or earn their citizenship is up to everyones creativity. The player would also guarantee that in times of trouble he would fight alongside the other citizens to defend his home and "country". In return the city will guarantee  to the citizen the safety and the right to live within the city borders. In times of trouble the ones that join the army would then be able to rise in rank and would be guaranteed a share of the loot that would come with the sacking of an enemy city/country.

One can now muse how this all should look like and it sounds like this form of a guild is more complicated to build, lead and maintain. But in my opinion those guilds that will break with the old concept of MMO guilds will be more successful in AoC's guild-organised cities. Sounds all too complicated? Just think about it again. The simple concept of citizenship in the middle ages was understood even by the simplest serf and it did prove to be a successfull concept up until today. And if you think about it all, it begs the question if this concept of a guild, like i described it above, is really that restricting and confining as you can have it in your average MMO Raid-and-PvP guild....I think it would be the contrary.

*end of insane thinking*

Ok, taking what you said about it being more open than your usual guild in other MMO's, that still does not remove the problem that i have with it, as i stated, limited player cities per server.

This still means that certain players will have 'founded' these player cities and since they are limited means that the casual player may never get to be a 'founder' of a city since the city places are limited to begin with.

You've gone into the details of how these cities will work, and i don't care if the city was made out of gold, had pink elephants and rainbows all over it, what i care about is what i've drawn from reading that article, and that is:

Since the pvp city places are limited on each server to begin with, only the 'guilds' who get to these places first and establish a city, first, will have had access to the content of making your own player city while other 'late' players will simply be forced to join these 'guilds' ideas of a player city blisstopia or simply not join a player city at all. The option for every guild to make its own city is removed in favour of a 1st come 1st served system.

So as you can see, my problem isn't about how these cities are run, but rather the way it is limited to who gets to make them. Only the 1st guilds to make them will have 'their' own cities once all the city 'places' have been filled on the server.

You are right, we are not going to see that every player is going to be able to found a city. And not every player will have the chance to build his own home within the realms of AoC. But I've been part in enough MMO's that feature guild housing and so far none of them gave everybody the chance to build his house, let alone a whole town, wherever he wanted to. Either you had realms, like in AoC, or you just did not have enough space like in Ultima Online. 

Not everyone is going to be Peter Minuit and found New York in AoC. But then, doesn't it sound natural that only those with great power and wealth can ultimately found something as complex and challenging as a city? How long do you think a city that was founded by a guild of 10 would last if the first sieges start to take place. And what happens if the guild looses 2-5 members? Then you have a city that is not a city but a hommlet. And soon it will be a ghost town (UO had some good examples).

While it might suck that not eveyone is going to be able to be a founder in the long run, and this is my personal opinion, it will turn out to the better when a strong guild with alot of members will stand behind a city. Because then there will be a certain guarantee that a city will live on for a long time.

I am not sure if maintaining a city will cost you gold or not, perhaps someone in the know will be able to tell this. But if that is the case then my argument is even stronger than before.

As a side note: Havn't there been talks about "towers" that you could inhabit in case your guild would not be  fast or strong enough to maintain a city. I think I remember reading or seeing something from that developer weekend not long ago.

Originally posted by theniffrig

Since the pvp city places are limited on each server to begin with, only the 'guilds' who get to these places first and establish a city, first, will have had access to the content of making your own player city while other 'late' players will simply be forced to join these 'guilds' ideas of a player city blisstopia or simply not join a player city at all. The option for every guild to make its own city is removed in favour of a 1st come 1st served system.

Isn't the whole point of those PVP citys to be CAPTURED by your guild, not given to you?

I still can't understand this desire for game to be the same for everyone playing it, that would be singleplayer then, where anyone playing expiriences the exact same events. If the only way to be a part of a guild city is to join a certain guild, then join it and stop crying FFS. 

I have read in the FAQ that the PvE town area will be instanced to cater for demand for new cites.

So every large or small guild will be able to found a city.

It is only the PvP keeps and towers that are limited in number, this is done to create PvP conflict.

Every guild can have a max of 1 PvE city and 1 PvP keep or tower.

I do not see any problem with this.

The article mentioned "mercenaries" helping defend the city. Does anyone know if this means NPC's, like DAoC's realm or keep (which can be upgraded by PC's) guards, or allied guilds or a combination of both? I would hope that smaller (=non-uber) guilds could hire NPC's or allow allied guilds to help defend. By extension, I would if guilds can bring in allied guilds (I'm assume no NPC's) to help attack? I would hope that there is a limit to the number of attackers and defenders too so it is more like a raid-encounter and less of a zerg/lag-fest/slideshow; DAoC relic raids anyone?

I have quite a few major issues with the so called siege pvp part of this game.  I've seen it tried before in diffrent games and it always ends up as total mess. 

Just to name you one game that tried this is Legend of Mir.  One city in there could be owned by a guild.  And every Sunday at 6 pm other guilds had chance of getting it.  And every freaking Sunday the servers were down between 6 and 8 pm cause it just couldn't take the load of so many ppl in one spot doing so much. 

Secondly the actual player had huge problem with lag cause having so many players together actually fighting is a whole other issue than standing around players that are doing nothing.  So lagfest it was.  And what will happen if about 1k ppl want to come and watch ?   Legend of mir had about 2000 OVERALL players and it was still major problem.

Thirdly - This siege battle in LOM and in few other games are very disruptive to the casual players.  Even tho these fights seem to take place in certain areas - it doesn't mean that other players should not be able to gather resouces, even if they are NOT in a guild.

And last part.  I really dont think FC actually understands the basics of online playing.  It has very little to do with fighting.  It's about power and influence based on totally diffrent aspects.  Ok we might see one or two battles happening.  But after a guild  gets the city - they will become the power of the server and use WHOLE other aspects to dominate and to destroy any possible threats.  This happens in pretty much all MMORPGs to this day - where the fights are much more on the forums than ever in the game.   This is very demoralising for other players and in the end it will make players STOP playing - Winner takes it all doesn't work if your paying for it with RL money - Sorry.  This will happen in AOC and the so called siege fights will probably end up never happening when one or two guilds that already hold the cities will rule the server.   Rest of the players will leave that server - try elsewhere or in the end quit playing. 

Siege fights and Guild Cities is nothing new in MMORPG.  But untill now that kinda games have FAILED misserably to maintain this gamestyle, both because of technical problems and because of the social structure and pecking order of MMO players in general.  This is the reason why these features are not in the most populare games at this point.   It will be intresting to see if FC can in some way make it work .  At this point Im not to impressed with what Ive seen.  And I doubt FC will even have these battles fully figured out when the release the game, cause its gonna be endgame content.   

So if you are buying this game cause of this unique feature - then be warned.  

Sieges work just fine with Lineage 2, for years now. Because one game couldn't handle the load, doesn't make it technically impossible.

I don't see a problem with siege battle, it was great fun (although was killing my day/night schedule, EU player on a US server). I sure hope that players that will join AoC know about the sieges as players from WAR know about the city battles (can't find a better name, sorry). I wasn't expecting to find somebody arguing that these features actually hinder the game experience instead of enhance it. I guess I must be weird.

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

It is heartening to see the negative reactions raiding now produces from more and more MMORPG players.

Developers now need to learn that. 

The PvP will be what people will want in AoC, I think, not tedious, time-sink raids.    They can get those in WoW. 

So after EQ there were quite a few people who had had their fill of it.  The problem was that the hardcore raiders are, on average, much more vocal than any other group.  So although they were outnumbered they still had the loudest voice.  But now that people have gone through it in WoW and are starting to get burned out on it there I'm noticing more and more people rebelling against the old raid farming design.

Hopefully more and more devs will figure this out as time goes by.  Unfortunately the AoC devs are still stuck in the old way of thinking.

What's really sad is that AoC was going to be raid free till about a year ago, then they suddenly changed their minds and now have gone the polar opposite.  What that indicates to me is that they got lazy and didn't want to have to deal with real content, they could get the game out sooner if they used redundant raid dungeons to keep the loudest mouths on the net busy.  I was already turned off by their twitch based combat, but I'll never do a raid based MMO ever again.

report 1-3 shows promising facts. i agree that raid looks pretty much the easy way to get some high-end-content into the game. it is too sad, noone comes up with something really new. i followed the market since about a year and everything thrown out has some dust of old-school with it. some smell just bad, some smell like WoW and some are just not ready. what in the world should one play, if one can think more than 2 minutes ahead?

taking raids out and assumeing the game will be ready at launch, it looks worth a try to me.

personally I prefer crafted items, coz you can have something different from others, besides, it is customised under certain situation, more suitable for yourself

Ok, i've been up and down most of the info thats out about this game, including FC's official site, faq's etc.  Apparently some people have a few things misunderstood.  First off the sieges and guild cities.  Funcom has said that their will be two types of guild city.  The Trade villages, and the battle keep/tower.  Now while there will be a limited number of battle keeps and tower (i agree not the best thing but i understand the logic behind it) the trade villages will be instanced, so every guild can have/form their own trade village.  So for those of you worrying about starting your own small guild but never being fast enough nor powerful/large enough to attain or form your own city should be screaming for joy yay our salvation etc =P.   The reason behind limiting the battle keeps per server is to keep things competitive as all true pvp should be.  The keeps are meant to be captured and assaulted. 

Also according to what i've read, Once a guild has been defeated and their keep captured the old building and fortification is torn down leaving the new occupents to refortify and rearm.  Not sure if that is still what they are planning but it was apparently in the works at one point.  One other interesting thing is that it was talked about that in the instanced trade villages would be areas (i assume only for the guild) for crafters to go out and collect recources ie ore wood stone etc again not sure if they are still planning to do that but it sounds like a cool idea.  I for one was getting sick of fighting my way through an army of npc's only to have the recource node i was after be ninja'd by some other opertunist.

As for Raids... honestly this a MMORPG one of the main aspects of it is raids, now i'm not saying they are the end all be all reason to play, and i know i'll probably get slammed for this but you gotta admit there is a large market for it and it would be an incredibly bad decision to make the game without them.  It doesn't mean they have to make the game center completely around raids and it sounds like Funcom is trying their best to create other alternatives for people who can't make raids or avoid them on principle.  They have said that there will be a lot of high lvl regulara grp content as well as puting in the very interesting crafting system that provides an alternate avenue to acquire high end items. 

It should also be remembered that the crafted items are the only ones that come with gem slots and allow for a deeper lvl of customization for the player.  For example lets say your buddy is shoving his new 2h sword complete with Fiery graphical effect in your face he just won from the last boss in X dungeon.  Viola you pull out your brand new 2h sword with dancing electricity effect with a whole list of bonus attributes etc etc.  now before anyone starts screaming that the crafting items would be stronger blah blah i'm sure they will find a way to ballance it.  After all it was probably the sake of ballance that they created the crafting items anyway.

Now before i get bit in the ass or anything for this let me do the qualifying (oh the joys of political correctness).  I'm not a game dev, i don't have any association with FC and i'm not speaking for them.  I'm just pointing out a few things that i've read of Funcom's site as well as other game news outlets such as IGN etc.  This game has the potential (again in my honest opinion) to be one of if not the best MMORPG out there.  And i for one am siting in rapt anticipation hoping that they will come through.  i really do hope this game tears wow a new one.  and if they stay true to their ideas i think it just might.  Finally a true mature MMORPG.