Ok, sorry for bringing up something philosophical, but it had bugged me for some time now, and I wanted to hear your opinions.

For the many years playing MMORPGs I sticked to PVE solely. Partially because, I admit, I am just not good in PVP since my reaction is not as nimble as apparently that of others.

Now with WAR trying to make everything easier and more accessible I thought, WTH why not give it a try. I was in the OB, and while I enjoyed the PVP or better the RVR, it always left me with the feeling "err... what the devil did we gain now"?

Let me describe it with that perspective: I am a historian, and one of my greatest interests is in the history of war, especially the Napoleonic and 19th century wars. Now in those wars, when one side gained the upper hand, they gained something. Sure, there were push backs, people falling into your back, but over time the winning army gained something. Terretory which they kept, bases which they had, lines of support, something that lasted for weeks, months or even permanently.

Now in the WARs war - as prolly in any WOW battlefield or similar war games, sure you capture the flag, the enemy captures yours, but where is the gain? Its even worse in open PVP, you hold the keep, 2 minutes later the enemy has it. There just is no lasting gain, nothing that made me feel "wow, we captured this lands and now we OWN it, at least a considerable while." In those open RVR battlefields it was just endless back and fro. There was no victory to gain in any way I could perceive. When someone died, he was back in the war 1 minute later. It was/is just impossible to really defeat the enemy in any sense, you could just hope at some point most of the other side would log out and go to bed before you did.

Now am I the only one who finds this... unsatisfactory? (unsatisfying? sorry no English guy ^^)

Either way, I understand people dont want permadeath, heh, but this endless back and forth without any lasting victory, at least holding a terrertory longer? Why could they not add stronger NPCs guardians to hold a terretory better, or some timer before a terretory or flag-area can be recaptured? I dunno, something to make my side feel a kind of "victory" and not just an endless tide of back and fro without any result besides the levels you gain. So in the long run, I enjoyed the battle, but it always left me with a feeling of emptyness, like "what for"?

Ideas? Opinions?

Think of it like a sport....there's no real point other than the competition itself.

People in real life fight wars for power, greed and survival.  Those are irrelevant in a video game, because no matter how much you dominate the game, it's not going to increase your standard of living.

At the end of the day, it's all about bragging rights.  Whether that's for 5 minutes of 5 weeks, is another story.

Generally, if a game left me with a feeling of emptiness, id be scared ...

But you are right concerning the gains of pvp, especially in WAR. I have yet to feel the "i am part of my realm and contribute with every kill and every coin"-thing. And i have yet to see a great impact to the other side (what would be mor important for me - not gaining sthg myself but see the opposite side suffer)

What's with the realm cities? Mythic said your city is growing, improving and getting richer every time your realm is winning in the war and getting smaller and poorer when you lose.

I haven't played long enough to see this. Does anyone have some more info?

Originally posted by BigMango

What's with the realm cities? Mythic said your city is growing, improving and getting richer every time your realm is winning in the war and getting smaller and poorer when you lose.

I haven't played long enough to see this. Does anyone have some more info?

If this is true Altdorf will always be a ghetto city, lol. I heard so too, yes, but not seen it.

good point - and yes its working. there are some areas of the city you can only acces above a certain city lvl

Originally posted by Yunbei

So in the long run, I enjoyed the battle, but it always left me with a feeling of emptyness, like "what for"?

Ideas? Opinions?

The game can be "won". You can capture the enemy Capital City, which means Victory for your side, and then the server will be reset back to square one, except you retain your loot and levels. You will also get access to new Dungeons by capturing the Capital City.

However, "winning" will probably required coordinated efforts between well established guilds. This is not likely to happen until after release, since right now everyone is subject to a character wipe.

So, your point is valid for now, but after you "win" and say Order or Chaos defeated the enemy on XYZ server, and has reset the game, not so much.

I agree with the OP. I haven't played WAR and have no interest in it, but if what the OP describes is true... Then I agree that winning should entail a longer duration of owning it. If the reward/loss isn't enough, then it just seems trivial (i.e. - pointless/worthless). And this applies to many other game aspects as well, such as death penalty, etc...

The only way you exhaust an enemy in a MMO is getting the enemy side to have people quit or convert.

In a way it is very unsatisfying but I trust EA mythic to add more complexity as the game evolves more and more. So far the engine itself has potential and can be further made better as we play along. Lets remember WAR is the first to introduce experience gain while PVP in battlegrounds. There is a gain already.

From what i read, i maybe wrong,  if you keep winning and advancing from senerious to senerious, you will ultimately be able to cut off the head of the king of your enemies, get your loot level etc.. than it will be reset....

Something along this line at least...

PvP should be meshed well with PvE in order to get that accomplishement feeling.

The thing is...you were at lower tiers. Things are pretty simple. There are many factors why things go back and forth so quickly.

1.) It's open beta and nothing lasts. Once you get into the live servers, things will start becoming more important as your make friends and the community forms. You can't really have realm pride when you know your character is going to be wiped in a few days.

2.) There is no organization. Once again...this goes back to community. Once the sieging guilds are established you will see how it will become much harder to just run up and take a keep.

3.) Nobody really understands their class yet. We are still learning how things work

4.) we're in the second tier. Once you get to the 4th tier you should see things become more complicated.

there are more reasons, but those are the big ones.

Developers are working up to it. Shadowbane had it but the conditions for the loser were so horrendous people would quit the game if they lost their citiy. I suspect Darkfall may fall prey to the same problems. Shadowbane was more clan vs clan that realm vs realm though.  What happens if one side wins?  Resetting the world had been tried with poor results. I mean what the hell we burned that city to the ground yesterday and now it's back just as it was? The biggest problem with making an RvR game meaningfuil is what if one side just curb stomps the other repeatedly?  Bonuses to the underpopulated side work sort of but they're really unfair and players feel cheated. It's a tough issue.

Each Tier helps the overall battle.  The side that is winning from T1-T4 will be able to attack the Altdorf/Inveitable City.  This unlocks PQs, Dungeons, and the king.  At the same time doing well unlocks more in your own city. 

If you want a true realistic warfare experience you have to play Eve.

There are two major reasons for this.

1) travel

2) attriition

Only Eve has this in any real way so that wars  are prosecuted in a way that resembles the real world with fronts and supply line attacks etc etc.

But Eve also has a lot less action, becasue well that is how Wars and the military in general work.  There is actually a lot of waiting and marching and such.  I don't think I need to quote Napolean here about endurance etc. to get the point across

However WAR does give various less "real" incentives and goals towards conflict.  They are as follows:

1) Material rewards.  Vendor based renown loot.  Taking a keep rewards you like a PQ when you kill the keep lord.

2) Keeps allow a side to have a "hard point" in the battle field.  This allows for retreats and pushes.  They are tactically valuable.  If you own a keep your enemy must worry about people coming from both the warcamp and the keep and therefore must cover more ground.

3) Zone control.  This means that you can advance the campaign towards the capital city.  It also means that the zone is now harder to re-inforce since flight paths get sealed.

In order to hold things in WAR you need an organized effort to maintain a "front" this is not currently happening in Beta and will not happen for some number of months until people realize what it takes.  This means you must do things like take and HOLD a point.  Thus patrols and guard will be necessary to advance your campaing.

War has a decent amount of goals and reward on the TACTICAL level.

If you want a true STRATEGIC level you only have Eve.  But that has its downsides.  Its not the be all end all.

War has purposely chosen to be a mostly tactical game.  Because the action is on the Tactical level.

Originally posted by gestalt11

If you want a true realistic warfare experience you have to play Eve.

 ...

EVE is absolutely other MMO genre. First its sandbox and other its sci-fi. In EVE you have a virtual world, till in WAR you have predefined objectives so look at it as electronic sport.

I understand and agree with the point the OP is making about the meaninglessness of PvP and RvR in most games, not just in WAR. This stems from the fact that in most games, the player can have no lasting impact on the gaming environment regardless of what he does.

In DAOC (which I played for over 3 years), for example, all you can do is endlessly exchange keeps. You can’t destroy keeps, or build new ones, or in any way alter the world map. Come back a year later, and the game world will be exactly the same as when you left it. You, and your guildmates, and your enemies, might as well have never played the game at all, as you have altered the world in no lasting or significant way.

To make things worse, many games try to make PvP meaningful by turning it into an artificial grind. In DAOC, you gain points in PvP which you can invest in various abilities. In WoW, you get points which allow you to equip special PvP gear. You grind people in PvP, just like you grind mobs in PvE. I find this arrangement artificial and unsatisfactory.

For PvP to have any real meaning, the game has to allow players to influence the gaming world in a significant way. Of the games I’ve played, only Shadowbane allowed this. (I’ve never tried Eve, but I assume it’s the same). In Shadowbane, you can build cites, you can destroy cities, you can dominate the globe (if your alliance is powerful enough), or you guild and alliance can be rendered homeless and impotent, and have major difficulties just training, leveling, and equipping your characters.

Now, Shadowbane is far from a perfect game - it has major flaws, the worst of which is the lag that made it very difficult to participate in large city battles. But in allowing players to create the landscape of the world by building and destroying cities, it makes PvP meaningful. And any game that doesn’t allow the palyerabse to create and shape the world will not have meaningful PvP. In other words, meaningful PvP requires a sandbox type game.